PeteEU

First off this is not an anti American thread but I have no doubt the usual suspects will claim this.

The old sayings.. ones man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter.. and the victor writes the history books.. is really important here.

If you look through out history, any group of people who use force beyond societies conventions and political correctness of society of the time, are considered animals, criminals and worse. Spartacus is a great example.

In today's world we have a term for them.. terrorists. People who use violence to further a political agenda or revolution. The word is relatively new, but the action is not.

When the American revolution happened, warfare had a set of rules that were almost set in stone. There was a way of doing war.. a civilized way. The American revolutionaries brought a new unheard of aspect into the fight, guerilla warfare. This tactic was at the time, so uncivilized, so underhanded and so despicable, that the "civilized".. world were shocked. If the American revolution had failed, I would not have any doubt that the people involved would have been treated the same way or worse as terrorists are treated today. They would certainly have been viewed as such in history books, instead of heroes.

It can easily be argued that guerilla warfare in the 1770s was a tactic of terror, on not only the military but also the civilians. Before guerilla warfare (and even after), warfare was a set place and time, usually agreed between the two parties quite a bit ahead of time and usually far away from civilian areas, and if near civilians then they would have been warned ahead of time. The American revolutionary tactics totally broke away from this principle of war.

In today's world we have also a set of rules of war. We don't target civilians, we don't target cities if it can be helped and so on. Terrorists, go against this principle, and we find them as horrible and shocking.. and have invented the word terrorist to cover this underhanded tactic that they have employed.

In 1770 blowing ones self up to hurt the enemy would have been not only unheard off, but religiously, socially and mentally impossible. Today that is not exactly true. May it be Japanese doing kamikaze, muslim brainwashed extremist blowing himself up on a bus, or some solider jumping on a grenade to save his mates.. that would simply have not been even contemplated in the 1770s. Yes the weapons of war are different and so on, but even if they had the same weapons, they would not have even contemplated it. Suicide was simply impossible especially if you were religious, which most were.

The same goes for guerilla warfare. Today we see it as a classic example to beat an enemy that is larger and better equipped than you. Back then, it was not so.. it was unheard off and shocking.

Hence the American revolutionaries were the "terrorists" of their time, as they used unheard off, underhanded and uncivilized tactics of war and violence to promote a political agenda. That we don't call them terrorists is simply because we don't see their tactics as "bad" as today's terror tactics, but relatively speaking, they were.

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PeteEU