For sure, Slag, terrorism causes more terrorism. It's the old "an action causes an equal and opposite reaction" thing we all learned in science class.

And it leads to further terrorism. The really ironical part is...they will all claim that the first terrorist acts were committed by "the other guy" and that they are only acting in legitimate defence. Uh-huh.

You can trace it all the way back to prehistory trying to prove who hit who first.

I am not saying, Slag, that people shouldn't defend themselves. I am simply saying that all war is, by my definition, terrorism, because all war is an attempt to terrorize the other side into surrenduring or running away...or to just kill them all...whichever happens first. All war, in modern times, DOES terrorize and kill civilians, sooner or later...usually sooner. If nothing else, it terrorizes them through threatening their sons and daughters who are in uniform and through damaging their domestic economy.

People should admit it. In wars you kill and terrorize people. That's what wars are really about. That's what happens, so call it what it is. Stop pretending that it's only other people, people not in uniforms, who are "terrorists" and that you are above that sort of thing. That's just a propagandist's technique to dehumanize the enemy in the eyes of your own people. Hitler used it too, and very effectively. They all use it.

By all means, if you are attacked, defend yourself. But if you send rockets, bombs, or artillery shells into someone else's land...and most of all, if you invade it...you are likewise committing terrorism whether or not as a response to someone else's terrorism, and you will end up terrorizing and killing civilians.

The Union did it to the South in the Civil War. Sherman committed terrorism on a gigantic basis. The South did it to the Union too, where they could, as when they attacked the town of Lawrence, Kansas, but the South's abilities to do damage in that respect were much more limited. Sherman is still remembered with hatred south of the Mason-Dixon Line. Terrorism is never popular with its targets.