Re: The Politics of Terrorism

I asked "Were American Minute Men terrorists?". John Heelan replies: "It depends from which viewpoint they are being regarded, that of the British of the time or that of latter-day Americans.  If they killed civilians (not armed militia)- then they would have had a"terrorist" tinge.  To broaden the historical picture of American combatants- were the Native Americans "terrorists" when they killed civilians  in the Indian Wars or "freedom fighters"?  Perhaps it would not be politically correct to term "terrorists" the ancestors of today's Native Americans. While driving the blacktops in New England I found many plaques describing individual and multiple massacres of settlers and their families; was that "terrorism" or "freedom fighting"?   Which of those terms would one use to define the "Trail of Tears"- or would one say "ethnic cleansing and/or genocide"?  The combination of slippery semantics and histories written by victors confuses the picture".

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