The word "terrorist" has origins which date back generations, but its use like most language has changed and evolved.
In the 21st century, the men who flew the airplanes into the Twin Towers were certainly "terrorists."
One the the features of their act was their anonymity. Nobody in New York knew who they were.
Another feature was the uncertainty of their motivation, but that quickly emerged as the men who financed and supported them quickly claimed credit and gave meaning to their acts, sort of.
Clearly, the targets spoke from themselves: New York City's Twin Towers, the heart of American capitalism; The Pentagon, the heart of American military might and the Capitol building, which was thwarted by passengers on that plane.
That act was an assault, a protest against American dominance, and it came from Arabs unhappy with American support for Israel.
Typically, most terrorists whether Irish Republican Army or Arab, or even Zionist (of the King David Hotel bombing) are engaged in "asymmetric" warfare, i.e., they recognize they do not have the power to simply organize an army and move the English out of Ireland or the British out of Palestine, or the Israelis out of Israel, so they aim to sow fear (terror) into an otherwise placid community, to announce that their cause is not just important, but pre-eminent: all other functions of society must stop to deal with the bomb in the marketplace, or violence to a crowd.
Of course, the quintessential American terrorists were the members of the Ku Klux Klan. Like today's ICE agents, they were careful to mask. Anonymity lowered the risk for them. They were all brave and big and strong when they could hide their identities. The Klan grew out of the resistance to the defeat of the Confederacy; it allowed Grand Wizard, Nathan Bedford Forrest, to continue the fight, to slip back into the countryside and terrorize recently freed slaves.
Klansmen, were, of course, often known in the community and the Klan was winked at in many places. The difference today is, the Klansmen in their ICE hoods are employed by the government.
But sometimes, and more often recently, the terrorism is generated from those in power, who seek to dominate a placid population more completely, to really assert in shocking ways the power wielded by those in power.
So now, in our time, the terrorists are government terrorists: ICE agents with faces covered--still anonymity is important to the effect: They are the Star Wars soldiers in white metal helmets, anonymous, carrying out the will of the Empire. They strike without warning. Their message is their cruelty: Colored people go back to your "shithole countries" or we'll slam you into vans and transport you to Alligator Alcatraz.
No law need apply.
We are the terror.
