...using every bit of breath you had and every tactic available to fight off the commies or the Martians or Islamicists or whatever aliens were the enemy du jour. Personally, I'm sure I could never go so far as to specifically target little kids, but I think that I could target marketplaces if I truly believed my cause was just and existential, if I thought the tactic could be effective, and if there was no conventional alternative.
If your targeting enemy military or leadership at the marketplace you could reasonably argue you where engaged in guerilla war and not terrorism. Where it gets a little fuzzy is how big of legitimate target has to be there to be aimed at versus how much "collateral damage". If your just trying to kill people affiliated with the enemy, whether or not they are military or operate in support of, or in command of the military (which in this context would include militias, terrorist groups, para-military units, maybe police, not just soldiers in an organized national army) than you clearly are committing terrorism, but what about when you blow up a marketplace with 100 innocent people to kill one enemy private?
We could examine the exact boundary but that isn't my main point in this post. Which is that suicide bombing that isn't terrorism is possible, and indeed has happened (for example Kamikaze attacks were a form of suicide bombing). It is easier (although not easy) to imagine myself in a situation where I would attack "the commies, or the Martians or Islamiscists" using suicide bombing tactics, than it is to imagine a situation where I would become a terrorist suicide bomber against them.
Tim |
