THE RISING EAST

By Richard Halloran

At a gathering of Asian and American policy analysts at the East-West Center here the other day, an Asian raised a question that troubles many people:

"Isn't one man's terrorist another man's freedom fighter?"

The attack on the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad was the work of terrorists in that the victims were civilians who, by their own choice, had been left unguarded to establish their credentials as peacemakers. Associated Press

The terrorist is identified by his — and sometimes her — target and by motive.

The terrorist visits violence on the innocent, on unarmed civilians, on defenseless women and children, and at random. The intent is political, to paralyze people with such fear that their lives are completely disrupted.

"The terrorist," said a woman wise in the ways of the world, "wants to keep me from going grocery shopping to feed my family or to stop me from sending my children to school or to blow up the water supply so that we will turn against our neighbors and our government."

In contrast, a freedom fighter, most often a guerrilla (from the Spanish, meaning warrior), attacks soldiers or military posts with the intent of killing his adversaries or driving them away. His tactics may be unconventional but his target and intent are military.

Almost daily, Iraq presents stark examples of each. The car bomb outside a mosque in Najaf last week was unquestionably an act of terror as it killed dozens of innocent people, including the Ayatollah Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim.

Similarly, the suicide bomber of the United Nations office in Baghdad killed unarmed civilian officials who, by their own choice, had been left unguarded so as to establish their credentials as peacemakers.

In contrast, when a U.S. Army sergeant of artillery died after his armored personnel carrier hit a land mine in Tikrit, that was an act of war.

Americans mourn his death and do what they can to console his family, but he died the honorable death of a warrior at the hands of another warrior.

The recent capture in Thailand of the leader of the terrorist network known as Jemaah Islamiya, Hambali, whose given name is Riduan Isamuddin, was accomplished through coordinated work of Thai, Malaysian, Singaporean and Indonesian police. Notably, they shared intelligence that was supplemented by U.S. intelligence.

Again in contrast, the best forces to fight guerrillas are the special operations forces trained for counter-guerrilla missions. The poster for those maneuvers might be the special operations sergeant riding a horse over the arid wastes of Afghanistan to aim a laser spotter at a Taliban target for a B-1 bomber 20,000 feet overhead to drop a smart bomb down a stovepipe.

This is not to say that guerrillas or even conventional forces haven't employed terrorist tactics. The Iraqi guerrillas sniping at American soldiers one minute could have blown up an oil pipeline the next minute to set back the recovery of the Iraqi economy. In that case, the guerrillas become terrorists as they adopt targets and motives of terrorists.

On the other hand, the American rifleman standing guard over a water pumping station to prevent a terrorist assault may look like a soldier but he is doing police work.

Judge William Young of the U.S. District Court in Boston drew a neat distinction between warriors and terrorists in January when he sentenced Richard Reid, the British "shoe bomber," to more than life in prison for trying to kill 197 people aboard an airliner from Paris to Miami in 2001.

Addressing the prisoner, the judge said: "You are not an enemy combatant. You are a terrorist. You are not a soldier in any war. You are a terrorist. To call you a soldier gives you far too much stature. We do not negotiate with terrorists. We do not treat with dignity terrorists. We do not sign documents with terrorists. We hunt them down one by one and bring them to justice. So war talk is way out of line in this court. You're no warrior. I know warriors. You are a terrorist ... a criminal guilty of multiple attempted murders."

And for the last contrast, read the 19th century tribute of the English poet Rudyard Kipling to Sudanese guerrillas called Fuzzy-Wuzzies by British soldiers: "So 'ere's to you, Fuzzy-Wuzzy, at your 'ome in the Sudan; You're a poor benighted 'eathen, but a first-class fightin' man."

Richard Halloran is a former New York Times reporter in Asia.