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Actually, motive comes up at many points in the criminal law — if the motive is self-defence, for example. And motive, in the case of terrorism, is inseparable from the act. The terrorist does not seek only to kill for killing’s sake, or for reasons internal to him, but to intimidate others — to send a message — to alter behaviour — not only on the part of governments, but of citizens. More to the point, he might just succeed.

It is that possibility that truly separates terrorism from other crimes of violence. There is no way to lessen your chances of being killed by a random lunatic. As such, there is no reason to alter your behaviour. But there is, or at least so you might reason, so long as you, or we, do as the terrorist demands, and the more any of us do, the more likely it is that such demands will be issued. We do not want our society to be run by violence and threats. Hence the need, at the least, for a separate category of crime.

And a separate category of response? Here the scale of the threat enters into it. An organized movement, with a coherent ideology, capable of raising funds, recruiting others, planning, training and so on, is capable of much greater mayhem than a stray lunatic — especially now that the technology of mass death has escaped the control of state actors. Never has it been more easily available, and never have there been so many willing to use it. (The crossover case is the so-called “lone wolf,” acting alone but guided or inspired by an organized terrorist group. It is not the voices in his head we need to worry about so much as the voices in his ear.)

Terrorism is not a one-off, a blip of murderous frenzy that appears out of nowhere and as suddenly disappears. It is ongoing, organized, often meticulously planned, a systematic challenge to democratic society. That doesn’t justify any and all measures aimed at preventing it. It does justify some.

National Post