The famous example of the General De Gaulle can corroborate this claim. After his radio address in June 1940 exhorting the French people to resist Nazi occupation, he organized the Free French Forces with exiled French officers in England and led the interior resistance which used terrorism including bombings and Nazi officers' assassination. After the Third Reich's defeat, he led the provisory government until his resignation and later founded the Fifth Republic. From the Nazi point of view, the Free French Forces were considered as a terrorist organization whereas from the French point of view, they were assimilated to the Resistance. Consequently, both points of view perfectly show that it's not so easy to define what terrorism is. It implies to question your values. Which kind of so-called terrorist action can be considered as legitimate? Is fighting for freedom legitimate enough?
[...] This conflict shook the French Fourth Republic's foundations and led to its collapse. The independentists started talks with the new government and managed to reach freedom with the Evian Agreement. The NLF was dissolved in the new Algerian regular forces and the former leader of this terrorist organisation, Ahmed Ben Bella, became the first President of Algeria. Against a powerful army like in the Algerian scenario, terrorism “makes everyone equal and therefore free” according to the anarchist activist Albert Parsons. Nonetheless, is it the better way? [...]
[...] Generally speaking, the preservation of the national language is crucial. It's the example of the ETA or the Irish Republican Brotherhood created by James Stephans in Ireland. The most famous terrorist attack against the British authorities was the bomb attack of the British headquarters in the King David Hotel in Jerusalem in July 1946. Even if Hezbollah or Hamas are ideologically close since they want to impose the Charia and reconstitute the Oumma. Assassination by an Italian anarchist of the President Sadi Carnot at Lyon in 1894, assassination by a Polish anarchist of the President McKinley in 1901 or assassination by the Red Brigades of the former Christian- Democrat Prime Minster Aldo Moro. [...]
[...] The word freedom has polysemic definitions and everyone can argue that he is fighting for his freedom, even at the expense of the others. Of course, freedom is by definition limited but how to know where are the bounds and what comes under freedom. In Townshend's typology, all of the types of terrorism fight for freedom. All of them brandish the flag of liberty in order to justify their acts. Consequently, it's important to understand what exactly means freedom. The djihadist terrorism posits in stark terms an irreducible opposition between Islam and the West. [...]
[...] This terrorism does not really have political framework[5] and, contrary to other terrorist movements, has nothing to negotiate because this terrorism is led by a binary logic opposing good and evil. It's impossible to negotiate with those kinds of terrorists because they only want to impose their demands such as “withdraw your troops”. “Those terrorists does not look for sitting around a table but looks for exploding the table and people sitting around” said with humor the former director of the CIA, James Woolsey. [...]
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