this post was submitted on 05 Mar 2026
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To create terror. It was a false flag operation meant to get the Romulans to see the Dominion as a threat to their safety. The fact that the senator happened to be one of the biggest opponents to fighting the Dominion was icing on the cake, removing him was a bonus but not the main reason for doing it.
So, he created terror among the Romulans? They sure didn't seem terrified to me.
People don't have to be terrified for it to be terrorism
I don't think we see how they reacted, except that they suddenly decided to enter the war and treat the Dominion as an existential threat, as Garak intended.
So, his assassination was successful, but it wasn't terrorism.
If you completely ignore both of the valid points I just made, yes. Otherwise no.
The ones where you tried to pretend that it was terrorism when it obviously wasn't?
Lmao blowing up a diplomat "obviously" wasn't terrorism. Sure, buddy. I can't tell who's being more ridiculous between you and the person claiming he wasn't gay-coded.
You know you can still like the character even though he's very obviously and objectively a terrorist? I do.
Yes, exactly. It was assassination.
Look at the target. Was it a member of the general public? No, it was a diplomat, or at least a politician on a diplomatic mission. So, the public is unlikely to think that they're in danger.
Look at where it happened. Was it in a public area on Romulus or something? No, it was far outside Romulan territory. So, the general public is unlikely to think that they're in danger.
Was there any collateral damage? No, just the one person was killed. So, the general public doesn't even think they could take damage as bystanders to another assassination.
There's no way a reasonable person could look at that and think it was terrorism, unless you broaden the definition of terrorism to include every possible violent death.
Literally the whole point was to make the Romulans think that they're in danger from the Dominion. You know, point 2 that I made earlier that you completely and arbitrarily ignored?
This is completely irrelevant. Imagine someone planted a bomb on a plane and it detonated while it was in the middle of the ocean. Would the distance make people not feel in danger and therefore make the act "obviously not terrorism" somehow??? What a completely absurd position.
The target was a civilian (plus the crew, of course), and the general public does not have to be targeted for it to be terrorism.
That's not terrorism. That's just fear of a war or betrayal.
Was the Romulan senator on a space liner with lots of other passengers, or was he in his own private shuttle?
Again, terrorism is about a fear that someone who is merely a member of the general public might get killed or injured. Blowing up an airliner can be terrorism because you could think "that might have been me on that plane, they killed a lot of innocent people". Blowing up someone's private yacht is not terrorism because no ordinary member of the public thinks "that could have been my yacht!" In particular, blowing up the yacht, in "international waters" of someone who is going to make a deal with a dangerous potential enemy is not even close to terrorism. The target isn't the public, there's no collateral damage to members of the public, the location is somewhere they'd never be. There's no fear that they could be next.
The target was a Romulan senator on a mission as a diplomat, not a member of the general public. The general public has to be convinced they're in danger for it to be terrorism. Otherwise what? War is terrorism? A mob hit on another mobster is terrorism? The shootout at the OK Corral was terrorism? A 18th century duel is terrorism? A bullfighter getting killed by a bull is terrorism?
Your whole argument was "it's not terrorism because they weren't terrified." Now you're admitting that it did, in fact, cause them to be afraid.
He was in his private shuttle, with his crew and escort.
Which was the explicit goal of Garak's actions. To make the general public afraid the Dominion was going to kill them.
Got it, so 9/11 wasn't terrorism because I don't work in a skyscraper.
This is complete nonsense. If they can target a high profile figure, they can target anyone. Furthermore, a major defining factor of terrorism is trying to advance a political agenda, and targeting a senator to draw the Romulans into a war could not possibly be more in line with that.
Is that seeking to evoke fear in the public to advance a political agenda, like Garak was?
Is that seeking to evoke fear in the public to advance a political agenda, like Garak was?
Is that seeking to evoke fear in the public to advance a political agenda, like Garak was?
Is that seeking to evoke fear in the public to advance a political agenda, like Garak was?
Whack that straw man, go for it. You'll defeat it soon!
Exactly, so no members of the public were harmed, nobody is going to be thinking "that could have been me". It's not terrorism.
In a war. Not through terrorism. If the members of the public were afraid that they would be caught up in a terrorist act, then it would have been terrorism. It wasn't.
Go on, whack that strawman, you'll beat it!
Garak wasn't trying to evoke fear of terrorism in the public. He was trying to convince the Romulan rulers that the dominion was a threat.
Absolute clown.
Both he and his crew were members of the public.
Ah, so now it has to be specifically "fear of terrorism in the public" to qualify. This is ridiculous, I'm not going to engage with these shifted goalposts.
You are, but I'm still willing to listen if you have a better argument and aren't going to just set up a strawman argument.
No, he was a senator, his crew were the private crew of a senator.
Yes, that's what terrorism is.
Wow, we've reached "I know you are but what am I." While once again completely ignoring a valid point on no basis. You literally said, "So, he created terror among the Romulans? They sure didn’t seem terrified to me," and now you're doubling down on calling arguing against that a "strawman."
And? That in no way makes them not count as "the public."
Absolutely insane that your argument here is "it doesn't count as terrorism because he targeted a political figure." Targeting a political figure makes it more obviously terrorism!
No, that makes it assassination. That's exactly what the DS9 team says happened.
Terrorism is the use of violence against the general public to change behaviours or policies. The reason it is called terrorism is that it works via terror. The threat is that the attacks will continue until the changes are made. So, the general public are terrified that they'll be hurt in the next attack.
In the case of Garrack, the target isn't the general public, nor is the assassination in an area near the general public, nor are there meaningful casualties other than the prime target. Already this disqualifies it as being terrorism. Nobody is going to be afraid that the next attack is going to hurt them because they're not likely to be flying out of Romulan space on a diplomatic mission. There's no worry that they might be next, so there's no terror.
In addition, if Garrack is a terrorist, what are his demands as a terrorist? When does he make it clear that he's behind the attack, and that similar attacks will happen unless his aims are achieved?
What Garrack did isn't terrorism. It was a false flag assassination. His goal wasn't even to cause fear in anyone. It was to get the Romulans to believe the evidence he planted that the Dominion were planning to invade Romulus. There's nothing about what happened that even comes close to terrorism.
That's literally just a clip from the episode lmao. That's not "the DS9 team" saying it wasn't terrorism.
Here's the definition google gives me:
Every single element of that definition is met by Garak's actions. You're trying to shift definitions (both from the generally accepted meaning, and from your earlier claims where you said that it wasn't terrorism because people "didn't seem terrified") and arbitrarily claiming targeting politicians somehow makes it not count. There is absolutely no requirement that the victims of an act of terrorism must not be political figures.
Again, complete nonsense. It's not about whether people are "afraid the next attack is going to hurt them." That has absolutely nothing to do with it. In your mind, do you think rural farmers in Montana watched an attack on the financial center of New York and thought, "Oh my god, they could've just as easily decided to go after my farm!"
And again - the Romulans literally do think that the next attack is going to hurt them! That's why they go to war with the Dominion! Because the point of Garak's actions is to convince them that the Dominion is a threat to Romulus itself! Not just shuttles transporting politicians!
You are wrong on so many levels that even if your completely incorrect premises were true, you'd still be wrong!
None of those are requirements for terrorism, even by your own definition.
What Bin Laden did wasn't terrorism, it was hijacking. Or is it possible that a thing can be both terrorism and another thing at the same time?
And he wanted them to believe that evidence in order to cause fear that the Dominion would attack them.
You have to be trolling, there is no possible way for you to be this dumb. Even if you wanted to argue that it "technically" isn't terrorism by some bullshit made-up pedantry, it's obviously at least "close" to terrorism.
Did you think it was real? These are the officers of DS9 on a show called DS9 saying it isn't terrorism, saying instead it was assassination.
Wow. Ok, so when people are terrorized in terrorism, what is it they're afraid of? Spiders?
YES!
https://www.extension.purdue.edu/eden/ruralsecurity/threats.html
But, even if the farmers hadn't been scared, there's no requirement that every member of the public be scared. Do you want to claim that regular people in NYC weren't scared about another attack? Or people working in tall buildings in Los Angeles? That's a key aspect whenever it's terrorism, the general public is afraid of another terrorist attack. If you disagree, find an example of a terrorist attack in which the general public is not at all concerned that they're in danger from another attack.
No, they don't. They don't think there will be another shuttle-bombing attack. There was a specific reason that they believed that shuttle was bombed, and it was because the shuttle was carrying information that the Dominion didn't want to get into Romulan hands.
By your definition they are. A terrorist attempts to "coerce governments or societies to achieve political, religious, or ideological goals", so Garrack, the terrorist surely communicated his goals to the Romulans, and warned them that unless they did as he demanded, there would be further terrorist attacks.
If you don't think that a terrorist communicating their demands is a key part of terrorism, find an example of a terrorist attack in which the public had no idea what the demands were.
What Bin Laden did was terrorism because:
Compare that to Garrack.
What he did was a political assassination, as part of a false flag operation.
Compare that to what the US did to Japanese General Yamamoto.
Unless you're going to label anything that involves violence as terrorism, what Garrack did is nothing like terrorism.
Is it terrorism when a soldier shoots an enemy soldier in a war? It makes nearby soldiers scared, so it's terrorism, that's your definition right?
That's not how the "fear" part of terrorism works. In a terrorist attack, you are made to fear another terrorist attack, and if you know that if you meet certain demands, the attacks will stop.
Says the guy who posted a definition of terrorism that clearly doesn't apply in this case, and yet still keeps arguing that this was terrorism.
I'm done engaging with your stupid bullshit. If you want to keep talking nonsense, tell it to someone else. I find it hard to believe how anyone else on the planet would agree with you.
Because you know you have no leg to stand on. You post the definition of terrorism, I show that what happens doesn't meet your own definition, and now you give up trying to defend your point of view.
I'm not "giving up trying to defend my point of view." I've already demonstrated that you're full of shit on multiple levels and you just keep throwing shit at the wall hoping something sticks and I'm tired of proving you wrong over and over again.
You haven't demonstrated anything, other than your inability to read a definition and understand it.
I already refuted like three of your positions. Every time you shift the goalposts and call it a "strawman" and if I refute your new position you'll do the same, because you're a clown.
You didn't refute anything, you simply expanded your definition of terrorism until it fit anything you wanted. When you came up with an actual definition of terrorism, it was clear it didn't support a false flag assassination of a government official.
Literally every single component of the definition I cited fits Garak's actions to a T. You kept insisting that I'm "expanding" the definition to include anything, yet completely ignored the question I asked you on every single example you brought up.
It doesn't matter. One comment you say it's not terrorism because people "didn't seem terrified." Another comment you claim it doesn't count as terrorism because of the location where it happened! I cut your arguments down again and again and you don't care. You will just shift your position over and over again, denying that you ever held the previous one even though the comments are right there. You're a completely shameless troll. You have to know how full of shit you are, I don't know who you think you're fooling.
Only if you don't know what a "T" is.
Which you then claimed was my entire definition, in one of your famous strawman attacks. People being terrified is only part of what makes something terrorism.
Yes. You see, an explosion on a private "yacht" somewhere in the middle of nowhere is very different from an explosion in a public market. The location matters, because in terrorism, you need to terrify. If you're not potentially in danger, it's not terrifying.
I love how you simultaneously claim I'm strawmanning you and defend the positions I'm criticizing.
No, people don't have to be afraid for it to be terrorism, no, the location isn't relevant to whether it's terrorism (we've been over this, a bomb that goes off on a plane over international waters is still terrorism), no, the perpetrator doesn't have to take credit for it. None of those criteria are included anywhere in either your made up definition or the actual definition.
But again, it doesn't matter because you're a fundamentally unreasonable person. You don't care about logic or evidence or consistency. You'll just respond to this with another meaningless snipe like "oNlY iF yOu DoN't KnOw WhAt A t Is," because that's the highest capacity for thought that you possess.
You said "Terrorism is the use of violence against the general public to change behaviours or policies." Location is not in that definition. Whether people are terrified (which the Romulans were) is not included in that definition. Whether the perpetrator takes credit is not included in that definition. How on earth can you not see how completely full of shit you are when you keep adding new, arbitrary stipulations to exclude this one instance of terrorism??
Are you unable to read, as well as unable to think? I said your strawmanning was when you claimed it was my entire argument:
You:
It was the only objection you raised at that point, so yes, it was your entire argument. Whether you had some super-secret argument in your head that you weren't saying isn't relevant to the argument you actually made.
You have trouble reading huh?
God, you're so smarmy when you can't think of an actual point. Do you not realize how transparent it is?
Transparent?
Yes. It's obvious that you're acting smarmy to cover the gaps whenever you have nothing, to cover all the holes in your argument. It's like you think if you just act smug, people won't notice when you're cornered and have no actual response.
It doesn't work. It's transparent. You're not actually covering up the holes in your reasoning, you're just demonstrating that you don't care about how many holes there are in your reasoning, because you're intellectually dishonest.
I have nothing? I've shown that it wasn't terrorism, including by your definition.
No, you haven't. I have shown that it was terrorism, even by your definition though. You don't care and just keep adding on extra stipulations that aren't in your definition.
Nowhere in either definition, at all. Complete non sequitor.
Nowhere in either definition, at all. Complete non sequitor.
Just like the location is irrelevant. Just like every extra stipulation you pull out of your ass is irrelevant.