On Monday, a student at Ohio State – who was also a permanent United States resident from Somalia – injured 11 people on the University’s campus. He did so using both a car and a knife. Because he is Muslim, posted his displeasure at perceived treatment of fellow Muslims on Facebook, and included a vague threat there, the first response of many has been to assume terrorism. This is entirely the wrong response.
There have been a number of different definitions of terrorism used both by government agencies and in scholarly discourse. These definitions focus on many aspects of terrorism, but one stands out: terrorism is a tactic that necessarily employs an intermediary in order to have an effect.
