Are nowdays "terrorists" actually terrorists?

[Rev. Rye]

For a long time, the head has represented control, main part of something, etc., and that without it, the rest cannot function.

So, this idea made me wonder, if terrorists want to create actual chaos, why do they limit themselves to the murdering of simple civilians? Why not go for the "head", meaning people with political power such as presidents, ministers, etc? By cutting the head off, you will actually create chaos in a country.

Kill a homeless, nobody cares. Kill the president, the country trembles. 

Could it be then that terrorism is a business, and it lacks a real purpose?

The thing is, a lot of the time, terrorist groups don't really have much of a master plan. I think I remember reading that al-Qaeda apparently worked under the assumption that if they just kept doing attacks like they did, the governments of the world would eventually just let them do what they want, even letting them set up a new Caliphate. I can't find exactly where I read that now, but it seems that that's kind of par for the course when dealing with terrorist groups. Guys like Max Abrahams have looked at the psychology of terrorists and noticed that the ideologies are far less coherent than one would expect a group that really wants change and will stop at nothing to get it to be. Sometimes, leaders of terrorist groups can't even explain what it is they even want. And if they do get what they want somehow, they're very likely to change what it is they want anyway.

Have you ever seen Four Lions? Because that's kind of the way I understand how terrorist groups actually work.



Apparently, Chris Morris based this on actual research he made on terrorism after 9/11 and the whole "Muslims bombing a mosque to radicalise the moderates" plan that Barry cooks up is based on MI5 surveillance transcripts verbatim.


And besides, if you want to actually do something to legitimately create chaos on a mass scale like you suggest, I'd argue you're no longer in the category of terrorist, but revolutionary.