What, if anything, would justify an act of terrorism for you?

[OrmIrian]

The PETA thread suggests that for most people (on Mn anyway), regardless of the rights and wrong of PETA's arguments, their tactics and campaigns make them well beyond the pale.

Do you feel there is ever a justification for acts of terrorism? What about the ANC, the IRA, ETA etc. Were they not fighting for something that most of us could at least in part sympathise with? Or does the act of placing a bomb, or targetting a scientist involved in vivisection, instantly and irrevocably deny any validity to their cause?

If there can be no terrorism without violence against non-combatants, then no, there is no justification for terrorism. Ever.

I can have sympathy with the aims of what some terrorist organisations have tried/are trying to achieve - for example, I'd like to see a separate, independent Palestinian state - but I would never condone Hamas's methods.