[thaumaturgy]

I intend no offense, but can we for once not be pedants? The January 11th incident happened in a public, civilian area (http://wikimapia.org/#lat=35.75663&lon=51.450485&z=1...), it was the fourth such incident (that I know of), and witnesses described a man on a motorbike that attached the bomb to the car.

I'm pretty sure that if you happened to be a block away when a Livermore Lab nuclear scientist was killed by a focused car bomb delivered by a motorcyclist, you'd get a little jumpy and U.S. news reports would call it terrorism.

And, U.S. officials are claiming that the bombings are being carried out by the People’s Mujahedin of Iran, a terrorist organization, and Iran's own vice-president called it an act of terrorism.

For us to call this anything other than terrorism would be hypocrisy.

[ars]

Actually if I knew the target was specifically targeted and killed by a careful operation I would be more relaxed knowing that my country's enemy was so careful about killing.

It's the same reason why people get in an uproar over a random murder, but barely care when the killing was targeting a specific person.

Terrorism is random. Killing a person because of how they help the military is not terrorism even if done in public. You can call it assassination if you wish (which plenty of people condemn), but it's not terrorism.

Remember Alexander Litvinenko? (The Russian spy who was killed with plutonium.) I don't remember any exclamations of terrorism.

[thaumaturgy]

When Nidal Malik Hasan shot and killed 13 soldiers and one civilian at Fort Hood in 2009, 60% of Americans wanted the crime prosecuted as a terrorist act [1], the Bipartisan Policy Center referred to it as a terrorist act in a report [2], and Wikipedia currently refers to it as a "non-state terrorist attack" [3].

While there is not an internationally-agreed-upon definition of "terrorism", according to U.S. law, terrorism is defined as "premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents" [4]. Premeditated, politically-motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by clandestine agents ... the Iranian car bombings would legally qualify as terrorism under U.S. law.

This is a very silly argument to be having here. I'd really rather be reading about some interesting technical aspect of the technological warfare against Iran, and I really don't want to keep on cluttering up the comments here with silliness.

[1]: http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/gene...

[2]: http://www.scribd.com/doc/95190520/Assessing-the-Terrorist-T..., search for "Fort Hood"

[3]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Hood_shooting

[4]: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/22/2656f, subsection (d), paragraph (2).

[ars]

Nidal Malik Hasan killed people randomly. That makes a huge difference. Another difference is motivation: He killed from hate, not for a military purpose.

The whole point of picking a specific target is that you consider them a combatant. (You don't have to shoot a gun to be a combatant, helping the military is enough.) A civilian contractor for the military can be a combatant. So no, the Iranian car bombings would not legally qualify as terrorism under U.S. law - the bombings targeted a combatant.

Intent matters too: Are you are killing a person because of that specific person? (To prevent that person from contributing to the military.) Or are you killing so that other people see the killing and get scared?

You are right that it's a silly argument because your eyes appear to be closed on the matter (although to your credit you argue constructively). So lets turn this around, in your eyes in what scenario would it be assassination and not terrorism?

I don't think there are too many other technological details to be found, so this thread is likely to end up as a huge discussion of the morals of this action.

[rdtsc]

> Intent matters too:

I can assure you all killings are done with noble intent. It just matters who you ask and or listen to.

[chii]

nobody said anything about nobility of the intent. Just that intent exists for the killing of a particular individual.

[einhverfr]

If the Tamil Tigers do it (Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project), then it is soliciting assistance for terrorist acts, but if the KKK does the same thing (Brandenburg v. Ohio) it is protected speech. I really don't know that there is more to say about it then that.

As Justice Potter Stewart said in his concurrence in Jacobellis v. Ohio, "I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description; and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it, and the motion picture involved in this case is not that." (that's his complete concurrence)

The same could be true for terrorism. We know it when we see it. No objective definition necessary, so we will make do with it as a political label.

[royalpineapple]

Not to be pedantic, but it was Polonium not Plutonium that was used in Alexander Litvinenko's assassination.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polonium#Famous_poisoning_cases

[ars]

Ah my mistake. I saw Po and confused it with Pu.

[mseebach]

It's really not pedantic, it's about using the right word. Terror means fear. Assassination means killing a specific person.

Assassinating Iranian nuclear scientists has the concrete and (for the presumed perpetrators) desired effect of denying Iran the service of those persons. Instilling terror in other nuclear scientists is a much lower order side effect.

[rdtsc]

So assassinating any government officials by Iran in order to try to defend from future such assassinations of its scientists would also not be considered terrorism, as long as they claim it is a targeted response and if it happens to induce fear in the large number of government officials and others it is just a secondary effect?

[mseebach]

Certainly not any.

But if a clear causation between removing a certain actor from the game and crippling the scientist assassination program is present, I don't see why not.