"Murdered" is probably the word you were looking for. It's really the only word you'd really need to describe what happened to the people who were killed by terrorists on 9/11, and to the American soldiers who have been killed by terrorists in Iraq, as well.
"Murder" has the connotation of illegality, and wrongness.
"War" doesn't have that same connotation, at least, not to me. Nation-states start "wars" because they feel justified in doing so for political reasons, reasons of state. Potential nation-states start revolutions for political reasons, reasons of state. I would not concede that Al Qaeda was a nation-state, or a potential nation-state, that had any right to start a "war".
Nor would I elevate a cowardly, dastardly act of terrorism, of sabotage, to the status of an act of "war." That gives it more dignity than it deserves.
"Terrorism" is not war. Anti-terrorism isn't really war, either. |
