I’ve devised two extra credit assignments for the terrorism event announced in the post just below. One requires attending the event, the other doesn’t. Both are optional. Each is worth 10 points; I’m looking for a response of 500-750 words. Do one assignment or the other, not both (if you decide to do any).
Option 1: Attend the event. Then write a two-page response that does the following: (a) summarize the claims of all of the speakers (of the symposium as a whole), and (b) select one argument from the whole that struck you as the most plausible.
Option 2: Read my presentation in lieu of attending the event, and respond to it (no need to summarize). How convincing is my argument? What are its strongest and/or weakest features?
Modern Political Thought 
I think this argument is quite convincing in ways that are not too aggressive. It focuses on what many people fail to recognize when addressing terrorism especially in regards to the definition that Medina provides. Who are the citizens, and is it justified to act against those who look like citizens but are actually combatants?
As I started reading, it was obvious that a point that was going to come up was going to address who the “citizens” are in a territory that the prince is trying to occupy or has already occupied (whether it be successful or unsuccessful).
In Shakespeare’s “The Tempest”, Caliban’s family ruled the land that Prospero and his daughter Miranda took control of. Caliban had to be submissive to Prospero even though Prospero was the one who was exiled from his own nation and sent out to sea with nowhere to go while Caliban and his mother had dominion over the island. Although not explicitly mentioned in the paper, there are some points that can be referenced back to the play.
Now the question is, what if Caliban attempted to take the land that was rightfully his back from Prospero? A better and more controversial question is, when Caliban raped Miranda, was she a combatant (in which this would not be terrorism) or was she a civilian who simply played the role of civilian (in which this would be terrorism)?
Medina’s definition of the term terrorism omits an explanation of what a citizen is in this case.
If Caliban came up with a coherent plan to take over Prospero, this can no way be counted as terrorism. Caliban, in this case, has the right to take back the island. Locke, on the other hand, would have some other ideas, as mentioned in the paper. If Prospero was to take the land from Caliban because Caliban was not using it to its full potential, then Prospero would be in the clear.
Machiavelli also touches upon this, and the argument is strong in the sense that the “citizens” are still unspecified. With this being said, there is still that unambiguous nature of justifying terrorism.
There are many different ways to look at this, but because the term “noncombatant” is not defined, the argument can be manipulated in many ways. This argument is very convincing, and if I had to play devil’s advocate for the case of terrorism, I would use texts from Shakespeare and Machiavelli to strengthen my argument.
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