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Responding to the Evil of Terrorism
- Hypatia
- Indiana University Press
- Volume 18, Number 1, Winter 2003
- pp. 175-182
- Article
- Additional Information
In this paper, I distinguish terrorism from other crimes and from war, noting that terrorism may be perpetrated not only by private individuals and members of nonstate organizations, but also that it may be ordered by the state. Since terrorism is illegal almost everywhere, I argue that the proper response to it is usually through law enforcement rather than military measures. In some circumstances, however, I content that even law enforcement procedures may be used by the state to terrorize civilians. Since nonstate terrorism is usually intended to draw attention to social grievances, I conclude that eliminating terrorism requires addressing those grievances.