Terrorism less deceptively defined

“But ‘terrorism’ no longer means terrorism,” to quote Robert Fisk, the longest-serving western journalist in the Middle East. “It is not a definition. It is a political contrivance. ‘Terrorists’ are those who use violence against the side that is using the word.” Until we get past the contrivance, using the word “terrorism” is itself an act of belligerence. Its false distinctions conceal our own terrorism. It absolves its perpetrators. And it makes us complicit in the duplicity, if not the terrorism, for standing united behind the contrivance.