> non-state actors

States can, have, and do engage in terrorism.

Not if the definition of terrorism I use is one of the 11 definitions that preclude that possibility.

Yes, some definitions are crappy.

Do we have a word for "imperialist government uses violence against people to achieve political goals"?

Because "it's not terrorism because it's a state" is always gonna stink of trying to dodge the topic on a technicality.

This is either war or war crimes depending on what exactly happened.

There seems to be a trend of calling every terrifying event “terrorism.” People sometimes colloquially refer to even non-political mass shootings as terrorism.

I believe it’s important to separate different types of mass violence. For example a gang-related mass shooting might be de-escalated by a mediator engaging the belligerents, whereas a war crime should be sent to international criminal court and a terrorist should be dealt with in a manner to minimize the earned media attention.

>This is either war or war crimes depending on what exactly happened.

Huh. Do we call operation condor a war crime?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Condor

> Do we have a word for "imperialist government uses violence against people to achieve political goals"?

Yes, we call this "war".

> Because "it's not terrorism because it's a state" is always gonna stink of trying to dodge the topic on a technicality.

No, it's not. Nobody is trying to dogde the bad aspects of the word, it's just that terrorism specifically is, by definition, not from a state.

What is the appropriate word to use for Iran blowing up a Jewish cultural center in Argentina? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMIA_bombing

Note that the word "terror" appears 34 times in that Wikipedia article.

It has been conveniently memory holed by Western media but Saudi Arabia and Pakistan had deep ties with Al Qaeda.

How many Americans even know Bin Laden was hiding out in Pakistan for years after 11/9?

Rather than convenient conspiracy strawmen, how about "The military industrial surveillance complex was a main beneficiary of 9.11, and is symbiotic with the groups it purports to defend us against."

These non-state actors are usually funded by a state though. So it is a type of proxy war.

“Conspiracy theory” has such intense negative connotation that “conspiracy” alone is corrupted

One of those is a conspiracy theory. The other isn't. WMD?

I was talking in the context of 9/11, not all the yellowcake stuff. IIRC the 9/11 commission report shows some evidence that intelligence was aware of a possible attack, but the administration didn’t act. Some people took this to mean the intel was deliberately ignored, which is the part that seems conspiratorial.

Ah, that wasn't clear from your comment. Thanks.

Saudi Arabia's decades long record of cultivating extremist outfits, and "influence operations" is, thought, not a conspiracy theory, but a fact.

When I first seen 9/11 on TV as an 11 year old, I instantly thought that Ryadh will be turned into a crater within a few hours.

I dropped my jaw out of suprise, when I heard US going to declare war on Iraq — Saudis' biggest enemy. It made zero sense. I kept on watching the satellite TV at my neighbour's house, and was hoping that it was my knowledge of English failing me. It didn't.

>I dropped my jaw out of suprise, when I heard US going to declare war on Iraq — Saudis' biggest enemy.

You're being more than a little disingenuous ignoring the fact that we invaded Afghanistan specifically to go after the extremist group that was responsible for 9/11 about 2yr prior to invading Iraq, which was done for different reasons and "harboring terrorists" took a back seat to WMDs on that list of reasons.

The attack in Afghanistan was initially to attack Al Quada directly. It turned into a war against the Taliban when they refused to give him up. That went on for a year or so, but the drum beat of war against Iraq started on 9/12.

There is a memo from Rumsfeld around then. [1]

The fact that all the terrorists were Saudi, that Bin Laden was Saudi, that Iraq was an enemy of the Saud regime, that Iraq was a "buffer" between the rest of the Middle East and Iran, all of that was ignored.

The war in Iraq was the US worst foreign affairs decision in the last 50 years.

All of the "WMD" and then "bringing democracy" was retconning the original desire to finish the first Iraq war, which had nothing to do with 9/11.

[1] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/plans-for-iraq-attack-began-on-...

That doesn't change his main point. Saudi Arabia was one of the primary financiers of the taliban and Al Qaida, but instead of going after the Saudis some of the only non military flights to be allowed to fly just after 9/11 were private jets that flew Saudi Royal family members out of the country.