Terrorism; the topic that keeps on giving

Said this in response to a comment from a friend on Facebook:

To me, terrorism is a tactic. It has a clear definition, both in language and political science. The problem today is that political critters both in governments and outside are more often than not not honourable/honest enough to take the word and phenomenon for what it means. The communists of the early 20th Century, or Nelson Mandela in our day, were very clear about the tactic they used. [More on my position here.]

The poor common Muslim who gets caught up in "One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter" (a red herring if I ever saw one) and thus feeling that they must defend their co-religionists or compatriots are buying into a canard that only empowers neo-imperialists on the one hand and neo-purist fanatics on the other. [And more on that here.]