“”Terrified people do not want to be free, they want to be protected. If you can keep the people in a state of terror, you won't have to take away their freedom — they'll give it to you willingly.
Terrorism, in popular meaning, is the military strategy of threatening civilian populations and property, often in guerilla warfare, in order to force some change from their government. Civilian populations can feel threatened when the personnel and property of the state is attacked.
 Terrorist vs. freedom fighter
In theory, the terms "terrorist" and "freedom fighter" are orthogonal: the latter describes an objective (achieving freedom), the former - tactics (and any freedom fighter resorting to terrorism loses the moral high ground). In practice, whether a group is labeled "terrorists" or "freedom fighters" usually depends on whether they are on the side of the label-er. These terms are now so loaded that the contemporary English language press employs a range of terms to describe such actors, but these also vary in connotation. Where "militants" is negative, "rebels" is positive. The same reporter will even switch the labels used depending on the official view of the actors. A strict definition is almost impossible, as everyone uses the term slightly differently. However, a common set of criteria used in international relations is:
 Notable terrorist groups
- The Baader-Meinhof Gang
- The Cuban revolutionaries
- Weather Underground
- The Nazi SA (Brownshirts)
- The Chinese revolutionaries.
- The Colombian revolutionaries.
- The Irish Republican Army
- Timothy McVeigh and the militia movement more generally
- The Viet Cong ("victor charlie")
- ETA (Euskadi Ta Askatasuna)
 Domestic terrorism in the USA
Liberals and humanists in the US have begun to adapt the phrase "domestic terrorism" when addressing attacks motivated by hatred of one group for a specific trait. Laws that limit acts which are generally categorized as "hate crimes" by so-called "hate groups" are more easily understood as "terrorism" than "hate".
Legal experts legitimately ask, "how can you legislate hate?" Perhaps we cannot. But advocates of the term "domestic terrorism" would say that the goal of the terrorists (be they KKK members, people who shoot ob-gyns who perform abortions, or someone killing a gay man just for being gay) is not acting out hatred, but causing the entire community who share that trait to be afraid to go on with their daily lives - the attempt to control a class of people through fear of violence.
There is an interesting discussion of domestic terrorism and its roots here.
The global jihad has also brought the phenomena of homegrown jihad to the United States. Between September 11, 2001 and December 2012 the Congressional Research Service reports 63 homegrown violent jihadist terrorist plots and attacks. They are occurring with increasing frequency, with 42 in the last two and half years of that period. In at least 36 cases, jihadist received or were intended to receive training abroad.
 How terrorist groups end
In 2008 the RAND Corporation released a study that examined terrorist activities, looking specifically at how they are ultimately destroyed or self-destruct. Their report suggested that any US policy truly grounded in the idea of ending terrorism and not just "playing politics" should focus on measures to either remove adherents' reasons for being in terrorist groups or provide better options for adherents to address their grievances. Specifically, the study found that membership in terrorist cells and organizations declined for the following reasons:
- 43% of membership loss happened when members converted to mainstream political/religious movements.
- 40% of the decline happened because of law enforcement activities and apprehension.
- 10% of membership left because the group achieved their stated or perceived goals.
- 7% by being neutralized through military action.
Under Bush, virtually all US resources were directed at the single least effective method of ending terrorism: Military action.
The study also noted that, with regard to religion, strong religious convictions make any terrorist group harder to break up. The religious convictions are actually more likely to be realized (and this, RAND states, is good for peaceful, non-military intervention), and perhaps most obvious, rich countries are less likely to have religiously-motivated terrorism.
RAND's conclusion is that police work and intelligence gathering, in conjunction with a disciplined and straightforward commitment to realizing and resolving a terrorist group's grievances, are not only far more likely to be successful, but are actually significantly less expensive than military action. 
The War on Terror unleashed after 9/11 has cost the US government almost 400 billion dollars. Within the United States, the risk of dying from a lightning strike exceeds the risk of dying as a result of terrorism about 50-fold. And that could pay for a great many lightning conductors.
 See also
- ↑ We Have Found the Enemy and He Is Us.
- ↑ No matter what China says, the President of Taiwan is not a terrorist for saying that Taiwan is an independent country.
- ↑ If a military does it, it's a war crime, not terrorism. However, this is usually considered the most debatable of the criteria.
- ↑ If it targets a military, it's guerrilla warfare, not terrorism. Yes, that includes the attack on the USS Cole.
- ↑ If it's announced, it's not terrorism. Probably a useless criterion, but it's there.
- ↑ If someone shoots up a McDonald's to send a message to the US, it's terrorism. If they do so because their dog told them to, they're a mass murderer. And insane, too, but that goes without saying.
- ↑ American Jihadist Terrorism: Congressioanal Research Service, January 23, 2013, p.5; 138-139 pdf.
- ↑ RAND report
- ↑ http://blogs.riverfronttimes.com/dailyrft/2010/01/odds_of_dying_in_terrorist_attack_on_airline_1_in_25_million_struck_by_lightning_1_in_500000.php