Mise said:
You can't really stop terrorism, not entirely. The only two ways to shut it down completely would be: 1) Kill every current and potential terrorist on the planet 2) Remove any and all reasons for terrorism from their respective hotbeds. Only 2) is somewhat viable, and even that is borderline impossible to do globally since some people will always find excuses to take out their anger on their perceived enemies.
As for the current discussion: The primary goal of terrorism is to paralyze or otherwise influence the target(s) thru fear. While a bodycount has a potent terror effect on people, it's hardly necessary to kill people to achieve this effect. The Reichstag fire and its use by the Nazi party is a good example of this. Or for a hypothetical example - the destruction of the White House would be a powerful symbol to anyone, even if nobody dies in the attack. |
The mild things done by the colonists at the time would hardly count though.