WTF is Terrorism?

Claudia Ciobanu asks on her blog the question "What the hell is terrorism?".

She

prefers to use the word violence, which allows for notions of different types of violence

in stead of terrorism, which I disagree completely because terrorism is an aim not a means. I wrote:

The biggest difference between terrorism and other forms of violence is that terrorism targets civilians. The groups using terrorism know, that they are too weak to win a fight with the enemy in the open and therefore they target civilians though trying to build enough pressure to achieve their aim or at least gain more support from their own community.

Are the Palestinians terrorists? As a whole not. But of course there are a lot of terrorist groups in Palestine. Is Hamas a terrorist organisation. Yes and no. Yes, they have used terrorist attacks but not exclusively. Life is seldom black and white.

You write, that ‘our’ politicians create fear. Which is also simplistic. Of course there are some politicians who use the threat from Islam to get more votes. But on the other hand, it can not be denied, that there are Islamic groups who are willing to attack us (the European public) and some already have.

To which two replies I wrote:

apostolisfotiadi writes, that “it is not useful or easy to define terrorism”. Still this was the question of Claudia Ciobano and even the title of her article.
I do believe, it is not only useful, it is necessary to distinguish between terrorism and other acts of violence. It might not be very easy in every case, but in law, facts are often disputed (sorry, here my not being native English speaking hampers me).
For some acts of violence, it can disputed, if the label terror is correct or not, but others and I believe most, can be labelled easily.
According to wikipedia the key criterias are violence, fear, political goal, targeting of non-combatants and therefore illegitimacy.
I agree, that terror and terrorism has been used a lot; sometimes just simplifying sometimes like anti-Semitism it is used as a label to quiet opposition.
apostolisfotiadi simplifies a lot. He writes that according to Clausewitz civilians are the centre of warfare as if Clausewitz suggested mass slaughter to win a war.
He also suggested, the Food for Oil program was a tool of the UN to kill as many Iraqis as possible. The idea behind the Food for Oil program was to allow Iraq to sell Oil and with the revenue buy food and medicine. Not weapons as Saddam Hussein probably would have. That it failed does not mean, that the intentions were bad or that the aim was unrealistic. It was just bad government on the UN and Iraqi side.
I am not saying, that I agree with GWB nor think the situation in Iraq has changed for the better. But a lot of critics of the US seem to forget, that Saddam Hussein was a brutal dictator and has used WMD against his own people. And that Osama Bin Laden has attacked the West more than once and will continue to do so till he dies. And that there are Muslim terrorists attacking civilians in New York, Madrid, London and in many other places.
I can understand, that there are a lot of people, who say, the US never should have invaded Iraq. Or who say, they have invaded Iraq, but should leave a.s.a.p. But what I don’t understand is when these same people who protest when Iraqi civilians die, rejoice in terrorist attacks in Europe or US.
In Iraq, a civil war is happening or at least is at the very verge of happening. If the US leave, there will be further attacks between Shiites, Sunni and Kurds. The Shiites as the largest group will win with the support of Iran whilst Saudi Arabia will try to support the Sunnis and Turkey will try to take control of the north of Iraq.
Any talk of all problems going away, just because the US go, is nonsense.
apostolisfotiadi misses further points. On the one hand, we know that there are also non Muslim terrorist organisations such as IRA, RAF and ETA in Europe, Aum Shinrikyo in Japan and Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in Sri Lanka. At least the first four are no real threat anymore. So the only real danger comes from Muslim terrorist groups.
Once again, terrorism is not just a word for Muslim freedom fighters. Only a minority of the acts of violence from Iraqi/Muslim fighters in Iraq is directed against the US invasion force and its allies. And the situation before the US led invasion was not as in paradise. Nor were the differences between Shiites and Sunnis caused by the US invasion.
Democracy and freedom of Speech as well as other Human rights are worth fighting for. Even killing for.

I'll sure get punished for using the last sentence.