By Neil Stormer

In 1964, US Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart famously said that while he could not define pornography, he knew it when he saw it. This same logic has unfortunately been applied to acts labelled as terrorism.

The inability to objectively and adequately define terrorism has created ambiguities that both allow for ideological exploitation and make the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT) unable to be won. As a result, those conducting the GWOT have conflated nationalists, separatists, insurgents, militants and others, and put them all under the rubric "terrorists", thus ensuring that they will fail at their chosen task.

The first definition of "terrorism", according to the 1798 Academie Fran'aise, was "a system or rule of terror". Thus terrorism was first held to be the act of a dictatorial government - in that case, the dictatorial government toppled by the French Revolution.

History shows that the application of the term "terrorist" is largely subjective, politically motivated and conditioned by ideology. Those in power decide who are terrorists based on the benefit to their political objectives and contemporary conventions on usage of the term. Indeed, one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter.

There are many examples of the chimerical nature of the word "terrorist". The first president of the United States, George Washington, was labelled a terrorist by the British imperial forces. Nelson Mandela, a leader of the anti-Apartheid movement, was imprisoned as a terrorist for nearly 30 years by the South African government.

The state of Israel was founded on a series of acts of terrorism against the British authorities in Palestine and against the Palestinians who resided there. Today, it is Palestinian militants who are considered terrorists for their actions against Israel.

This irony makes sense when using the US State Department definition of terrorism, which holds that it is "premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetuated against non-combatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents, usually intended to influence an audience". Accordingly, the actions of Palestinian militants would qualify as terrorism, whereas the actions of Israel's military would not because it is not a sub-national group.

To some, the most important aspect in identifying terrorism is not the nature of the perpetrators of an attack, but the nature of the victims. From this perspective, if suffering is inflicted on non-combatants, then it is a terrorist act. But defining who is a non-combatant is difficult in modern warfare, most notably in civil wars.

Still others contend that what is most important is that the word "terrorism" describes actions immoral or evil. But even if all can agree that this is the key to defining terrorism, labelling an incident a terrorist act is still in the eye of the beholder.

Compounding the problem, the media tend to relay reports from government officials, the authoritative and often only source on security issues, without caveats regarding the inherent biases and motivations likely to shape those reports. For example, former New York Times reporter Judith Miller published numerous articles suggesting that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, all of which turned out to be inaccurate or wholly false. Her sources for these articles, many of which were used as justification for the invasion, were all Bush administration officials inclined towards invading Iraq.

Because of the secrecy involved in such concerns, journalists have to rely on authorities within the government for stories and, therefore, cannot risk running afoul of those sources by questioning the veracity of the reports or the hidden motivations behind them. Those who do find themselves cut off or discredited as having a personal agenda. It is therefore in their best interest to adhere to the government's official line.

In order to avoid the politicisation of the words "terrorist" and "terrorism", the BBC has opted not to use the words at all, instead preferring less emotionally charged terms. Indeed, the lack of disambiguation may render the terms confusing and misleading. A study by the US army found that more than 100 different definitions of "terrorism" have been used. The lack of a universally accepted definition might not seem a problem to some, but if the US and others are engaged in a war on terrorism, how do we gauge success? And how do we know when the war is over?

Five years into the GWOT, the difficulty in defining the term terrorism is mirrored by confusion over how to defeat it. There is no doubt that terrorism must be combated, but there is debate concerning how counterterrorism efforts should be conducted. And many question whether the scattergun approach is the most effective means of defeating terrorism, however it is defined.

The rise of "terrorist" activity in Iraq following the invasion by US-led forces has led many to assert that force only begets force. In their eyes, diplomacy is the key to success. But those who are actively pursuing the extremist path are in many cases unlikely to respond to peaceful gestures, leaving many to question if terrorists can be defeated without the use of force.

Considering how much effort has gone into the GWOT with only minor gains, it is easy to be pessimistic about the chances of winning such a war. Time will tell if such pessimism is unfounded, but in order to make progress it is important to establish the parameters of this effort. If the GWOT is to be more than a cover for asserting strength in pursuit of global hegemony, the targets must be clearly delineated - defining terrorism is the first step in defeating it.

Without the establishment of such parameters, the war on terror runs the risk of becoming a global war, period.

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This article was published in the Wednesday, January 4, 2006 edition of the Jordan Times. It is used here with permission.