Under what circumstances, if any terrorism is justified Essay

Under what circumstances, if any terrorism is justified - Essay Example Augustine who first gave the two principles of entering into a war i.e. the war should be jus in bello (just in action) and jus ad bellum (just in cause). This definition was accepted in the English law and is considered the basis of commonly accepted laws for waging or entering into a war with other nations. Terrorism and any apologist for terrorism will only be able to provide a lukewarm cause for the act (jus ad bellum) but the second requirement of just actions can not be accepted as they often occur. For instance, targeting innocent civilians is not permissible in any way while the first targets of any act of terror are often civilians. It must be noted that there can be no distinction made between terrorism and retaliation for terrorism which can be termed as terrorism itself (Sterba, 2003). For instance, if the US launches a strike against terrorists and kills innocent civilians in the process they can not be termed â€Å"collateral damage†. A spade has to be called a spade and killing innocent civilians defies the dictum of jus in bello. This is precisely the reason why those who try to justify an attack against civilian targets are wrong. An attack on civilians is murderous; it can not be justified by being based on a cause, or by being done against a certain nationality or even against people who have wronged us. The problem of finding a just cause for terrorism has always been the idea that one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter (May, 2003). This notion has to be clarified using the legal definition of terrorism and the legal definition of war. Once that is done, it will be clear that any nation, group or person who targets civilians for political gains is a terrorist and can not justify their acts in any way. In fact, Sterba (2003) says that only two wars in recent history fulfilled both the clauses of just means and just cause, The Pakistan India war which led to the creation of Bangladesh and the Tanzanian