Originally Posted by
polonius
Indeed. I remember when Colin Powell was asked why the U.S. was bombing civilians in Belgrade, as these civilians had committed no offence against the USA. His candid response was that the U.S. would continue to kill Serb civilians until they changed their government. If that's not a clear example of someone trying "to use violence to bring about political change," then I don't know what is. The real, unwritten definition of "terrorism" in the U.S. lexicon is "violence by people we don't agree with".
Am I correct in remembering that Colin Powell was not in the employ of the US government at the time of making that comment?
It sounds like a comment that people in or out of government may make about how the use of such (scale and/or type of) violent power is going to involve the killing of civilians and such killing of civilians is a consequence they will tolerate in order to try to see their political objective realized.