Editing State terrorism (section)

==History==
[[File:NantesChateauMuséeNoyades.jpg|thumb|The [[Drownings at Nantes]] were a series of mass executions by drowning during the Reign of Terror in France.]]
[[Aristotle]] wrote critically of [[Fear|terror]] employed by [[tyrant]]s against their subjects.<ref>Harvey C. Mansfield (November 28, 2001). [http://www.claremont.org/publications/crb/id.762/article_detail.asp "Those Hell-Hounds Called Terrorists"]. {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130404072423/http://www.claremont.org/publications/crb/id.762/article_detail.asp |date=2013-04-04 }}. The Claremont Institute.</ref> The earliest use of the word ''terrorism'' identified by the ''[[Oxford English Dictionary]]'' is a 1795 reference to tyrannical state behavior, the "[[Reign of Terror|reign of terrorism]]" in France.<ref>''Oxford English Dictionary'' (2nd CD-ROM ed.), 2002, Oxford University Press.</ref>{{page needed|reason=which entry?|date=January 2025}} In that same year, [[Edmund Burke]] decried the "thousands of those hell-hounds called terrorists" who he believed threatened Europe.<ref name="Laqueur 2007"/> During the [[Reign of Terror]], the [[Jacobin Club|Jacobin]] government and other factions of the [[French Revolution]] used the apparatus of the state to kill and intimidate political opponents, and the Oxford English Dictionary includes as one definition of terrorism "Government by intimidation carried out by the party in power in France between 1789–1794".<ref name="teichman">{{cite journal|title=How to define terrorism|last=Teichman |first=Jenny|journal=Philosophy|volume=64|issue=250|date=October 1989|pages=505–517|doi=10.1017/S0031819100044260|s2cid=144723359 }}</ref> The original general meaning of terrorism was of terrorism by the state, as reflected in the 1798 supplement of the Dictionnaire of the {{lang|fr|[[Académie française]]|italic=no}}, which described terrorism as {{lang|fr|systeme}}, {{lang|fr|regime de la terreur}}.<ref name="Laqueur 2007">{{cite book |title=A History of Terrorism |first=Walter |last=Laqueur |publisher=Transaction |year=2007 |isbn=978-0-7658-0799-1 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RlqQHKpLfL8C |page=6}}</ref> Myra Williamson wrote:

{{blockquote|The meaning of "terrorism" has undergone a transformation. During the Reign of Terror, a regime or system of terrorism was used as an instrument of governance, wielded by a recently established revolutionary ''state'' against the enemies of the people. Now the term "terrorism" is commonly used to describe terrorist acts committed by ''non-state or sub-national entities'' against a state. [italics in original]<ref>{{cite book|last=Williamson |first=Myra|title=Terrorism, war and international law: the legality of the use of force against Afghanistan in 2001|publisher=Ashgate |year=2009|isbn=978-0-7546-7403-0|page=43|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wH3eCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA43|access-date=2016-05-04|archive-date=2024-03-29|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240329132102/https://books.google.com/books?id=wH3eCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA43#v=onepage&q&f=false|url-status=live}}</ref>}}

Later examples of state terrorism include the [[police state]] measures employed by the Soviet Union beginning in the 1930s, and by Germany's [[Nazi Germany|Nazi regime]] in the 1930s and 1940s.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |last=Primoratz |first=Igor |year=2007 |url=http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/terrorism/ |title=Terrorism |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180611162009/https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/terrorism/ |archive-date=2018-06-11 |encyclopedia=Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy}}</ref> According to Igor Primoratz, "Both [the Nazis and the Soviets] sought to impose total political control on society. Such a radical aim could be pursued only by a similarly radical method: by terrorism directed by an extremely powerful political police at an atomized and defenseless population. Its success was due largely to its arbitrary character—to the unpredictability of its choice of victims. In both countries, the regime first suppressed all opposition; when it no longer had any opposition to speak of, political police took to persecuting 'potential' and 'objective opponents'. In the Soviet Union, it was eventually unleashed on victims chosen at random."<ref>{{harvnb|Primoratz|2007}}.</ref>

{{quote box|align=right|width=25em|quote=The terror of tsarism was directed against the [[proletariat]]. Our [[Cheka|Extraordinary Commissions]] shoot landlords, capitalists, and generals who are striving to restore the capitalist order. Do you grasp this{{nbsp}}... distinction? Yes? For us communists it is quite sufficient.|source=[[Leon Trotsky]], ''[[Terrorism and Communism]]'', 1920.<ref>{{cite book|last=Gage|first=Beverly|title=The Day Wall Street Exploded: A Story of America in its First Age of Terror|location=New York|publisher=[[Oxford University Press]]|year=2009|isbn=978-0199759286|page=[https://archive.org/details/daywallstreetexp0000gage/page/263 263]|url=https://archive.org/details/daywallstreetexp0000gage|url-access=registration}}</ref>}}

Military actions primarily directed against non-combatant targets have also been referred to as state terrorism. For example, the [[bombing of Guernica]] has been called an act of terrorism.<ref>{{cite book |title=What's wrong with terrorism? |first=Robert E. |last=Goodin |publisher=Wiley |year=2006 |isbn=0-7456-3497-4 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pV0oUUmuNfIC |page=62}}</ref> Other examples of state terrorism may include the World War II bombings of [[attack on Pearl Harbor|Pearl Harbor]], [[The Blitz|London]], [[Bombing of Dresden|Dresden]], [[Bombing of Chongqing|Chongqing]], and [[Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima|Hiroshima]].<ref>{{harvnb|Stohl|1984}}</ref>

An act of sabotage, sometimes regarded as an act of terrorism, was the peacetime [[sinking of the Rainbow Warrior]], a ship owned by [[Greenpeace]], which occurred while in port at [[Auckland]], [[New Zealand]] on July 10, 1985. The bomb detonation killed [[Fernando Pereira]], a Dutch photographer. The organisation who committed the attack, the [[Directorate-General for External Security]] (DSGE), is a branch of [[List of intelligence agencies of France|France's intelligence services]]. The agents responsible pleaded guilty to [[manslaughter]] as part of a plea deal and were sentenced to ten years in prison, but were secretly released early to France under an agreement between the two countries' governments.<ref>{{Cite journal |date=July 9, 2020 |title=Russell-Einstein Manifesto, ICJ case and Rainbow Warrior bombing: Remembering humanity |journal=Down to Earth}}</ref>{{volume needed|date=January 2025}}

[[File:Cambodia 2011 monuments 10.jpg|thumb|Rooms of the [[Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum]] contain thousands of photos taken by the [[Khmer Rouge]] of their victims.]]

{{anchor|The Troubles}}During [[the Troubles]], an ethno-nationalist conflict in [[Northern Ireland]] from the 1960s to the 1990s, the [[Military Reaction Force]] (MRF), a [[counterinsurgency]] unit of the British [[Intelligence Corps (United Kingdom)|Intelligence Corps]], was tasked with tracking down members of the [[Provisional Irish Republican Army|Irish Republican Army]] (IRA). During the period when it was active, the MRF was involved in the killings of Catholic civilians in Northern Ireland.<ref name="BBC1">{{cite news|title=Undercover soldiers 'killed unarmed civilians in Belfast'|url=https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-24987465|access-date=28 November 2014|work=[[BBC News]]|date=21 November 2014|archive-date=3 January 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150103162930/http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-24987465|url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="Moloney2003">{{cite book |first=Ed |last=Moloney|title=A Secret History of the IRA|url=https://archive.org/details/secrethistoryofi00edmo|url-access=registration|access-date=7 February 2011 |date=November 2003 |publisher=W. W. Norton & Company|isbn=978-0-393-32502-7|pages=[https://archive.org/details/secrethistoryofi00edmo/page/119 119]–122/123}}</ref>

In November 2013, a BBC ''Panorama'' documentary was aired about the MRF. It drew on information from seven former members, as well as a number of other sources. Soldier H said: "We operated initially with them thinking that we were the [[Ulster Volunteer Force|UVF]]." Soldier F added: "We wanted to cause confusion."<ref name=ware>{{cite web |last=Ware |first=John |url=http://republican-news.org/current/news/2013/11/britains_secret_terror_force.html |title=Britain's Secret Terror Force |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150623044129/http://republican-news.org/current/news/2013/11/britains_secret_terror_force.html |archive-date=2015-06-23 |work=Irish Republican News |date=23 November 2013 |access-date=23 November 2013}}</ref> In June 1972, he{{Who|date=July 2017}} was succeeded as commander by Captain James 'Hamish' McGregor.<ref name=panorama>{{Cite episode |title=Britain's Secret Terror Force |series=[[Panorama (TV series)|Panorama]] |people=Telling, Leo (director) |network=[[BBC]] |date=21 November 2013}}</ref>

In June 2014, in the wake of the Panorama programme, the [[Police Service of Northern Ireland]] (PSNI) opened an investigation into the matter.<ref>{{cite news |author=<!--Staff writer(s); no by-line.--> |title=Police investigate Military Reaction Force allegations |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-27785433 |newspaper=[[BBC]] |date=10 June 2014 |access-date=1 March 2015 |archive-date=13 June 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140613060439/http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-27785433 |url-status=live }}</ref> In an earlier review of the programme, the position of the PSNI was that none of the statements by soldiers in the programme could be taken as an admission of criminality.<ref>{{cite news|author=<!--Staff writer(s); no by-line.-->|title=Panorama MRF programme: Soldiers 'admitted no crimes'|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-27389349|newspaper=BBC|date=13 May 2014|access-date=1 March 2015|archive-date=27 June 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140627130710/http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-27389349|url-status=live}}</ref>