Op IMPACT: CAF in the Iraq & Syria crisis

[Tuan]

Soft power, the best soft power, is very, very difficult, usually impossible, for governments to "deploy" because, as Prof Nye pointed out the soft power weapons are, usually, not within a government's span of control.

Completely agree with you Sir!

 

[Tuan]

Reproduced under the Fair Dealings provisions of the Copyright Act.

Soft power huh?

For the record, you won’t find everything in the open source but let me summarize the untold story of the Sri Lankan conflict that led to the total destruction of the terrorist organization.

In 2002, a Sri Lankan statesman known as Ranil Wickremesinghe elected to power and unlike previous governments he chose to negotiate with Tamil Tigers. But while talking peace, the terrorists were rearming and rebuilding themselves with a strong army, navy and a rudimentary air force. In response, Wickremesinghe led UNP government was forced to engage them in a intelligence led psychological warfare. With the help of the U.S and Norway, one of the ground breaking achievements the Sri Lankan military intelligence has gained was that they engineered a split within the Tiger organization in 2004 and made a Tiger leader who was second in command in the ranks to defect from the terrorist organization with over 6000 Tiger cadres out of the organization's total number of10, 000 cadres. Since the DMI realized the importance of HUMINT in counterterrorism they temporarily enlisted the entire cadres including the Tiger top commander Karuna as a paramilitary group in the country’s army. Then they indoctrinated the defected cadres with soft power and turned them against the rest of the Tiger organization’s main faction. This reverse tactic of turning the very same terrorists/ insurgents/guerrillas/rebels - whatever you may call them – against the main faction paid off since the tactical military intelligence collection was crucial and it was ready on the table obtained via this engineered defection. This was the “game-changer” in the Sri Lankan civil war’s history that could be extrapolated into al Qaeda, Taliban and/or ISIS.

Please refer this:
http://jcr.sagepub.com/content/56/1/16.short

I am not done yet; following the defection, the Tamil Tigers forced all the Tamil population to vote against Wickremesinghe's UNP government whereby a far right wing hardliner Mahinda Rajapaksa was elected as President in 2006. He was a dictator who only knew “whom to use for what.”  Subsequently, he took advantage of the intelligence provided by the paramilitary group that the previous government formed and busted the entire terrorist organization including its supreme leader. Now Rajapaksa regime is being prosecuted for war crimes by the new government reelected this year led by the very same statesman, Ranil Wickremesinghe!

Reproduced under the Fair Dealings provisions of the Copyright Act.

Soft power huh?

Oh yeah, soft power it is!

 

[Tuan]

I know many of you define terrorism through your eyes on the al Qaeda in Afghanistan and ISIS in Iraq, and would not be interested in other nations who are/were victims of terrorist organizations equally dangerous as ISIS, if not more. For those who are really interested in Sri Lanka here is an annotated bibliography.

Balasingham, A. (2001). The Will to Freedom: An Inside View of Tamil Resistance. Mitcham, England:Fairmax.
This book is an insider’s look at the armed conflict by the LTTE, which portrays them as freedom fighters. As a historical account, The Will to Freedom clearly examines important events, episodes, and turning points of the 30-year long conflict. This book will be an important source for this essay because it sheds the light on the unknown characteristics of the LTTE leaders, cadres and their mindset, motivation, strengths, and weaknesses.

Balasuriya, M. (2011) The Rise and Fall of the LTTE. Colombo Sri Lanka: Asian Network on Conflict Research.                               
As an Inspector General of Sri Lankan Police, the author Balasuriya examines three main areas in his book. First, he addresses the crucial element for defeating the LTTE – political leadership and well-trained armed forces, police and intelligence services. Second, the author looks into the government of Sri Lanka’s realistic approach to war and peace. Third, he explores the LTTE’s genesis, growth, decline, infighting, and finally its defeat by Sri Lankan security forces andthe international collaborators, particularly the United States, India and China. As such, this book would be a valuable account for this paper because it focuses on the LTTE’s history and reasons for its defeat. 

Chandraprema, C.A. (2012) Gōta’s War: The Crushing of Tamil Tiger Terrorism in Sri Lanka. Colombo, Sri Lanka: Ranjan Wijeratne Foundation
This book presents a clear picture of the importance of the political and military leadership for wiping out terrorism in Sri Lanka. The author gives credit to the Sri Lankan president Mahinda Rajapaksa and his brother, also the Secretary of Defense, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, for political and military victories respectively. The book will be an important account for this paper because it point outs how Gota (Gotabaya Rajapaksa) planned, prepared and executed the war against the LTTE successfully in the midst of many obstacles.

De Silva, K.M. (2012) Sri Lanka and the Defeat of the LTTE. New Delhi, India: Penguin
In his book, the veteran Sri Lankan historian De Silva outlines the history of ethnic tension in Sri Lanka since its independence in 1948. Then he examines the origin, development and demise of the LTTE, the triumphant Sri Lankan government and the security forces. Finally, De Silva talks about the necessity of post war reconciliation, rehabilitation, and rebuilding of the country as well. As such, contents of De Silva’s book will support this paper’s arguments about causes of the LTTE defeat.

DeVotta, N. (2009) The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam and the Lost Quest for Separatism in Sri Lanka. Asian Survey, 49(6), 1021-1051.
This journal article analyses the root causes of the Sri Lankan conflict, such as discrimination and oppression of its own minorities by the successive Sri Lankan government. This led to the birth of the LTTE, which engaged in terrorism and fascistic rule in the areas they controlled, thereby weakening the Tamil community. DeVotta then went on to say that the Sri Lankan president Mahinda Rajapaksa’s extra constitutional counterterrorism strategies led to the eventual defeat of the LTTE.  As such, this journal article is important because it provides an opinion on the ethnic conflicts in Sri Lanka that contributed to the development and demise of the LTTE.

Gunaratna, R. (2002). Inside Al Qaeda: Global Network of Terror. New York, NY: Barkley.
As a leading scholar who wrote more than six books on LTTE and heads a counterterrorism think-tank in Asia-Pacific, Professor Gunaratna now writes about Al Qaeda comparing the organization’s ideologies, structures, tactics, and operations to other terrorist organizations, especially the trendsetter LTTE. Gunaratna writes this book based on the Al Qaeda’s documents and his own interviews with Al Qaeda associates, which led to five years of an extensive research. This book points out the obvious that Al Qaeda copies all their operational tactics from the LTTE, and therefore, this book’s findings will immensely contribute to this paper.

Gunaratna, R. (1997) International and Regional Security Implications of the Sri Lankan Tamil Insurgency. Colombo, Sri Lanka: Unie Arts.
Basing on surrendered and arrested LTTE cadres’ interviews, the author Gunaratna writes about how LTTE became a threat to regional and global security. This book analyzes the LTTE organization’s structure, strategies, tactics, and profiles. This is one of those books that led Western nations’ to label the LTTE as a terrorist organization rather than a freedom movement. Thus, this book’s contents will be useful for understanding of the reasons that led Western nations to ban and fight against the LTTE.

Hoffman, B. (2009) The first non-state use of a chemical weapon in warfare: the Tamil Tigers’ assault on East Kiran. Small Wars & Insurgencies, 20(3-4), 463-477.
This journal article explores a shocking detailed account of the LTTE as the first non-state actor using chemical weapons in East Kiran, Sri Lanka, against the Sri Lankan security forces in June 1990. The article begins with the general background of the LTTE and goes on to state how innovative and lethal they are as a terrorist organization. The article concludes with the outline of the motivations behind a terrorist group to use chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) weapons, and suggestions on how governments can prevent this from happening in the future. Therefore, this journal article provides a key to understanding the dangerous dimensions of the LTTE and possible consequences for the global security.

Mayilvaganan, M. (2008) Is it Endgame for LTTE? Strategic Analysis, 33(1), 25-39. This journal article examines the LTTE’s struggle during the “Global War on Terrorism” following the post-9/11 scenario.  The author enlists the factors contributing to the defeat of the LTTE, such as internal conflict, international pressure, predominance of the Sri Lankan military, scarcity of arms and new recruits, which are some of the elements. Mayilvaganan further questions the regional and global implications on the anticipated defeat of the LTTE. Therefore this journal article validates this paper’s argument about the impact of the 9/11 attacks on the LTTE.

Narayanswamy, M.R. (2003) Inside an Elusive Mind: Prabhakaran. New Delhi, India: Konark.
As one of India’s leading author on terrorism, Narayanswamy writes about why the LTTE was armed, trained and funded by the Indian government in order to placate India’s geopolitical interests in late 1980s. This book is an interesting portrait of a man who was the only decision maker and the supreme leader of the world’s most ruthless terrorist organization. Narayanswamy also throws light on the hitherto unknown facts of the Indian intelligence interventions in Sri Lanka that led to the eventual assassination of India’s Prime Minister Rajiv Ghandi by the LTTE. Therefore, this book’s contents will be beneficial for this paper because they provide evidence on how a state-sponsored terrorism became a threat to the regional and global security.

P/s: I wrote this bibliography for one my college paper.

 

[Tuan]

Would you care to elaborate to what degree you were involved?  An outside observer?  A trigger-puller?

Both! Here is an author’s bio from my upcoming book.

Tuan was born in Jaffna, Sri Lanka and raised in Northern and Southern provinces in that country. Later in 1997, he moved to Canada. He is married and a father of three young children. He has worked over two decades with several international intelligence agencies as an intelligence officer, intelligence analyst and security consultant.

At the age of 17, Tuan was abducted from high school and forcibly recruited by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) under the demand that at least one member from each family must contribute to the civil war. Subsequently, he underwent six months of basic military training and was deployed as a child soldier. After more than four years of nightmares and harrowing experience with one of the world’s most ruthless terrorist organization, he was eventually assigned to infiltrate the government of Sri Lanka as a sleeper agent, where he made a U-turn and became a double agent in order to play a significant role in obliterating the terrorists in May 2009.

The security and intelligence agencies Tuan worked for include India’s foreign intelligence agency the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), Directorate of Military Intelligence (DMI) of Sri Lanka, the Canadian Security Intelligence Services (CSIS), the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) and the International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research (ICPVTR) in Singapore.

Tuan has been active in voicing his concerns relating to Tamil grievances in Sri Lanka. One of his contributions was to support the migrants from Sri Lanka that arrived in Canada by boats in 2009 and 2010. Following his testimony justice was administered in court and refugee hearings for many Tamils refugee claimants.

Tuan is currently working on his upcoming memoir that tells an important, personal part of the larger story about his experience as a child soldier in Sri Lanka, LTTE organization and operations, what makes a man a terrorist and the significance of intelligence in counterterrorism under different chapters.

 

[Good2Golf]

Much of the world’s Islamic extremists already view the Western nations as an enemy. As such, if the West continues to engage them in hostile manner, primarily by the use of hard power, while the Middle Eastern Muslim countries embrace the extremists/terrorist softly, the situation will exacerbate as the latter will perceive the Western nations as enemy intruders. 

...but not exclusively with soft power, you would agree.

G2G

 

[Tuan]

...but not exclusively with soft power, you would agree.

G2G

Yes, IMO, like the Sri Lankan model, the west should arm and train GCC nations plus the indigenous groups and may be act as an intermediary between the parties rather than fighting the war themselves because the conflict in ME is increasingly becoming complex.

 

[Good2Golf]

Yes, IMO, like the Sri Lankan model, the west should arm and train GCC nations plus the indigenous groups and may be act as an intermediary between the parties rather than fighting the war themselves because the conflict in ME is increasingly becoming complex.

Not unreasonable.  I would think, however, that a significant issue regarding ISIS is that prominent members of the GCC do not appear as 'seized of the issue' as the Sri Lankan government of the day, was.

G2G

 

[Tuan]

Not unreasonable.  I would think, however, that a significant issue regarding ISIS is that prominent members of the GCC do not appear as 'seized of the issue' as the Sri Lankan government of the day, was.

G2G

True, that's why the westerners should be cautious about when to push and pull in the region.

 

[Jarnhamar]

Both! Here is an author’s bio from my upcoming book.

Ahhhh.

 

[Eye In The Sky]

SMALL WARS JOURNAL
smallwarsjournal.com

August 27, 2010
What Sri Lanka Can Teach Us About COIN
by Lionel Beehner

...But Sri Lanka‘s successful victory one year ago stands all this conventional wisdom on its head. It was brute military force, not political dialogue or population control, which ended its brutal decades-long war with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), or Tamil Tigers, a separatist group perhaps most notorious for popularizing the suicide bomb. The final military campaign lasted months, not years or decades. It was a gruesome finale, to be sure. The Sri Lankan government paid little heed to outside calls for preventing collateral damage. While humanitarian workers and journalists were barred from entering the war zone, as many as 20,000 civilians were killed in the crossfire and hundreds of thousands of internally displaced Tamils were corralled into camps after war ended1. It was, as one journalist I spoke to in Colombo put it,―a war without witnesses.‖ Hearts and minds took a backseat to shock and awe.

Still, the lesson from Sri Lanka‘s COIN experiment is that overwhelming force can defeat insurgents, terrorists and other irregular armed groups in relatively short order, but at a steep cost. Its model disproves the notion that counterinsurgencies must be drawn-out, Vietnamlike campaigns. With U.S. forces bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan, it also provides states fighting small wars with a different  counterinsurgency template. Not without reason did Pakistan and Thailand, which both face insurgencies on their peripheries, seek out Sri Lanka for military training and advice in recent months.

I believe I can assure you the MESF et al will not risk 'killing as many as 20,000 civilians'.  This article excerpt alone makes me discount the 'advice' that may come from this 'successful' operation. 

 

[McG]

I believe I can assure you the MESF et al will not risk 'killing as many as 20,000 civilians'. 

I am sure the Russians would not lose sleep over it, nor would many of the regional powers.

 

[McG]

Does pulling out fighters also mean pulling out refueling and surveillance capabilities? 

Could "continuing to train Iraqis" include more conventional force training capacity (as we had in Kabul)?

It seems that media speculation to my second question is "yes"

Canada's training mission in Iraq to expand as bombing mission ends
U.S. keen for Canada to remain part of the coalition in Iraq, Syria
Lee Berthiaume
Ottawa Citizen
31 Oct 2015

The new Liberal government is expected to expand Canada's training mission in Iraq, which would take away some of the string of withdrawing Canadian military aircraft from the region and help the U.S. as it starts sending troops into Syria.

Canada currently has six fighter jets, two surveillance aircraft and an air-to-air refuelling plane participating in the U.S.-led bombing campaign against ISIL. It also has 69 special forces troops training and operating alongside Kurdish forces fighting the extremist group in northern Iraq.

Prime minister-designate Justin Trudeau and the Liberals pledged during the election campaign to end Canada's bombing mission in Iraq and Syria. But while Trudeau reaffirmed the promise after the election, he declined to give specific details until after his government is sworn in on Nov. 4. Experts say there are a number of unanswered questions about Trudeau's plan for Iraq and Syria, including when the jets will return home and whether the new government will withdraw all Canadian warplanes or only the fighter jets. But most believe the special forces mission will get a boost.

"There will not solely be 69 people in a training capacity, and that's it," said defence analyst David Perry of the Canadian Global Affairs Institute. "They will be enhancing the training mission."

Trudeau himself has signalled an expansion of the special forces mission on numerous occasions. Earlier this year, for example, he said Canada should be "building on" the training already underway. His party's election platform says a Liberal government would "refocus" on training local Iraqi forces.

"If there's going to be any noticeable refocusing, that implies you're not just going to keep the same number of people there doing that particular function," Perry said.

Expanding the mission would serve several purposes. Canada's pending withdrawal from the bombing mission has already made headlines, and would represent a symbolic blow to the U.S.-led coalition against ISIL. Adding more trainers on the ground would dampen any negative message.

"The U.S. wants us in the coalition," said Bessma Momani, a Middle East expert at the Centre for International Governance Innovation. "They want to be able to announce: 'Yes, Canada withdrew six CF-18s. That's OK. But they increased here.'" Meanwhile, on Friday, President Barack Obama for the first time authorized sending U.S. soldiers into Syria to help train and assist rebels fighting the Islamic State (ISIL). About 50 special operations troops will be based in Kurdish territory to work with local forces, the White House said, though more could soon follow.

Canada has one of the smallest contingents of trainers of the participating countries in Iraq. According to the Royal United Services Institute, a British think tank, 11 allies had more troops in Iraq than Canada at the beginning of August. And of the 5,954 coalition soldiers in Iraq, more than 3,500 were from the U.S. While most of the experts believed Washington would try to pressure Trudeau into making some new commitment in Iraq, they were split on whether it would ask Canada to send trainers into Syria. But adding troops in Iraq, at least, would free up U.S. trainers for Syria.

There is precedent for this as documents obtained by Postmedia showed the Conservative government's decision to deploy 900 trainers to Kabul in 2011 to help train Afghan forces was based in large part on releasing some American soldiers for combat instead of training. Trudeau has also indicated he will modify the special forces mission so Canadian soldiers are no longer operating on the front lines with Kurdish forces, where they have been calling in airstrikes and engaging in defensive firefights with Islamic State fighters.

NDP MP Hélène Laverdière said she hopes Trudeau will order a halt to the bombing campaign and changes to the special forces mission as soon as the new government is sworn in. She also urged the Liberals to consult with opposition parties if it plans to add more troops on the ground.

One Canadian special forces soldier has been killed in Iraq. Sgt. Andrew Doiron was shot and killed by Kurdish forces during a so-called friendly fire incident in March.

 

[Tuan]

I believe I can assure you the MESF et al will not risk 'killing as many as 20,000 civilians'.  This article excerpt alone makes me discount the 'advice' that may come from this 'successful' operation.

I am not going to argue about the civilian casualties and that's why the current government has set up a commission to investigate war crimes and all that but if you study the war you'll learn some lessons from it.

Although I'll definitely NOT justify the final brutal force that killed actually around 40,000 civilians according to a UN report, here is another article's point of view:

Some have criticized the Sri Lankan victory as only being possible because the government disregarded civilian casualties and used military force bluntly and brutally. This view correctly emphasizes that wars are by their nature cruel and violent and should not be entered into or continued lightly. However, it unhelpfully neglects critical factors and explains little. As this article has discussed, victory came to the side with the most successful strategies – even if it took the government more than 22 years to find them.

In this regard, a comparison with the two other Western-led counterinsurgency wars of the period comparing soldiers and civilians killed is instructive:

Breakdown of Overall Deaths in the Conflict

Category of those Killed Sri Lanka War (1983-2009) Iraq War
(2004-09) Afghanistan War (2001-14)
Friendly Force Personnel 29% 17% 29%
Enemy Force Personnel 37% 22% 46%
Civilians 34% 61% 25%


These were three different civil wars that each featured counterinsurgency strategies that progressively evolved. All involved significant civilian casualties with Iraq markedly the worse with 61 percent of those killed being civilians and Afghanistan the best at 25 percent. The Sri Lankan war with 34 percent of those killed overall being civilians, and thus broadly comparable to Afghanistan, then seems somewhat unremarkable except that the Sri Lankan war was decisively won. In Iraq and Afghanistan there was no victory, there remains no peace and people continue to die.

http://thediplomat.com/2015/04/how-sri-lanka-won-the-war/

 

[opcougar]

Spot on....as someone who survived a couple of IRA bombings in London UK, way before the Taliban, ISIS and ETA (Spain) malarky, my "terrorism" experience goes that far back. Oh, they are still in operation by the way, but most people don't see that or think of Northern Ireland like that.

I know many of you define terrorism through your eyes on the al Qaeda in Afghanistan and ISIS in Iraq, and would not be interested in other nations who are/were victims of terrorist organizations equally dangerous as ISIS, if not more.

 

[Humphrey Bogart]

There is a key difference between ISIS and some of the other groups mentioned in this thread though.  LTTE, IRA, ETA, Abu Sayyaf, FARC, pick your freedom fighter movement are merely organizations fighting for some form of national liberation.  They may use terrorist attacks to further their agenda but ultimately they are fighting a war of national liberation.

ISIS, on the other hand, is a doomsday cult.  Yes they are Muslim fundamentalists but what differentiates them from other groups is they believe that the world needs to end and that all non-believers needs to be killed in order to be reborn as believers in Allah and Islam.  They are closer to a group like Aum Shinrikyo or the Branch Davidians. 

So while all groups mentioned, LTTE, IRA, ETA, etc... use violence as a means to advance their cause, these groups ultimately have limited strategic objectives.  They are rational organizations and are run by rational people.  ISIS is not a rational organization, it wants to destroy the world.  They are, for all intents and purposes, a bunch of mindless zombies.  The only thing that will stop these people is "two to the chest, one to the head".

The Islamic State awaits the army of “Rome,” whose defeat at Dabiq, Syria, will initiate the countdown to the apocalypse.

I say we meet them at Dabiq, so we can begin the countdown.  The countdown until their entire doomsday organization is destroyed, one by one. 

 

 

[PuckChaser]

Absolutely, that's why "soft" power is more effective for those groups with political goals. ISIS could care less about politics, so using political negotiations is never going to work. They'll keep you talking so you're focused on that instead of taking the fight to them.

 

[Humphrey Bogart]

Absolutely, that's why "soft" power is more effective for those groups with political goals. ISIS could care less about politics, so using political negotiations is never going to work. They'll keep you talking so you're focused on that instead of taking the fight to them.

This is my point.  I agree partially with Tuan that soft power can be used on the periphery i.e. keeping others from joining ISIS but that ultimately, ISIS needs to be confronted with hard power. 

 

[Colin Parkinson]

Spot on....as someone who survived a couple of IRA bombings in London UK, way before the Taliban, ISIS and ETA (Spain) malarky, my "terrorism" experience goes that far back. Oh, they are still in operation by the way, but most people don't see that or think of Northern Ireland like that.

That is part of the success of the combined military and political approach. The IRA was forced to the table by military action and then made irrelevant to most through political action.

However never mistake there is no line separating politics and fundamental Islam, the two are tightly intertwined. 

 

[Tuan]

There is a key difference between ISIS and some of the other groups mentioned in this thread though.  LTTE, IRA, ETA, Abu Sayyaf, FARC, pick your freedom fighter movement are merely organizations fighting for some form of national liberation.  They may use terrorist attacks to further their agenda but ultimately they are fighting a war of national liberation.

ISIS, on the other hand, is a doomsday cult.  Yes they are Muslim fundamentalists but what differentiates them from other groups is they believe that the world needs to end and that all non-believers needs to be killed in order to be reborn as believers in Allah and Islam.  They are closer to a group like Aum Shinrikyo or the Branch Davidians. 

So while all groups mentioned, LTTE, IRA, ETA, etc... use violence as a means to advance their cause, these groups ultimately have limited strategic objectives.  They are rational organizations and are run by rational people.  ISIS is not a rational organization, it wants to destroy the world.  They are, for all intents and purposes, a bunch of mindless zombies.  The only thing that will stop these people is "two to the chest, one to the head".

This perception exactly emphasizes the statement, “One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter,” as it has become not only a cliché, but also one of the most difficult obstacles in coping with terrorism.

As Professor Boaz Ganor pointed out, “the matter of definition and conceptualization of ‘terrorism’ is usually a purely theoretical issue—a mechanism for scholars to work out the appropriate set of parameters for the research they intend to undertake. However, when dealing with terrorism and guerrilla warfare, implications of defining our terms tend to transcend the boundaries of theoretical discussions. In the struggle against terrorism, the problem of definition is a crucial element in the attempt to coordinate international collaboration, based on the currently accepted rules of traditional warfare.”
http://www.ict.org.il/Article.aspx?ID=1123

For instance, once upon a time al Qaeda was freedom fighters in the eyes of America but later they turned out to be terrorists. Similarly, the LTTE was freedom fighters in the eyes of India once upon a time and later turned against them as terrorists. Let’s look at the present day dilemma in Syria, a group that is “terrorists” for Russia may seem to be “freedom fighters” for America and vice versa.

Therefore, the bottom line is that the dubious "distinction of terrorism” is fundamentally flawed. In fact, there’s no clear definition of terrorism in the UN database, to date. However, according to some scholars, politicians and experts, if someone attacks you they’re ‘terrorists’ whose ideology is Islamic extremism/jihadism or as you described ‘doomsday cult’ thus they have to be dealt with hard power, whereas if someone aiding you they’re ‘freedom fighters’ who are fighting for national liberation and thus apply soft power to deal with them, eh?

 

[Humphrey Bogart]

This perception exactly emphasizes the statement, “One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter,” as it has become not only a cliché, but also one of the most difficult obstacles in coping with terrorism.

As Professor Boaz Ganor pointed out, “the matter of definition and conceptualization of ‘terrorism’ is usually a purely theoretical issue—a mechanism for scholars to work out the appropriate set of parameters for the research they intend to undertake. However, when dealing with terrorism and guerrilla warfare, implications of defining our terms tend to transcend the boundaries of theoretical discussions. In the struggle against terrorism, the problem of definition is a crucial element in the attempt to coordinate international collaboration, based on the currently accepted rules of traditional warfare.”
http://www.ict.org.il/Article.aspx?ID=1123

For instance, once upon a time al Qaeda was freedom fighters in the eyes of America but later they turned out to be terrorists. Similarly, the LTTE was freedom fighters in the eyes of India once upon a time and later turned against them as terrorists. Let’s look at the present day dilemma in Syria, a group that is “terrorists” for Russia may seem to be “freedom fighters” for America and vice versa.

Therefore, the bottom line is that the dubious "distinction of terrorism” is fundamentally flawed. In fact, there’s no clear definition of terrorism in the UN database to date. However, according to some scholars, politicians and experts, if someone attacks you they’re ‘terrorists’ whose ideology is Islamic extremism/jihadism or as you described ‘doomsday cult’ thus they have to be dealt with hard power, whereas if someone aiding you they’re ‘freedom fighters’ who are fighting for national liberation and thus apply soft power to deal with them, eh?

I never said that we had to deal with any of those groups using only soft power.  I find the IRA, ETA, LTTE to all be equally detestable organizations.

I think all of these groups need to be dealt with using a combination of hard and soft power.  The soft power is used to keep people from joining them while hardpower is used to destroy the followers.

I agree that simply labelling anyone who is against you a terrorist is a poor word choice.  It's far too simplistic.