My contention is that "terrorism" is just a regular part of how wars are won. I believe that any state or people who have "won" a war have needed to engage in terrorizing the population of the opposing entity.
As an example regarding the US, I'll reference a war most of us are glad the US and Allies won, just to clarify my point.
WW2- use of Atomic Bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki
Violent? certainly. Intimidating? certainly. Designed to affect Imperial Japan's political choices through terrorizing the population? definintely.
Basically, The Allied forces wanted to avoid a ground assault on the Japanese mainland. So they used an extremely violent and visible super weapon against one small city (not really much of a military target) then waited for the news to sink in. A few days later, again in Nagasaki. This had the effect of Terrorizing every level of Japanese society. After the second bomb, the Japanese saw that they could surrender or be incinerated, and chose to bend to the political will of the Allies. Ironically, they faced the same choice prior to the use of the atom bomb... Incendiary raids were killing more Japanese civillians than either bomb did... But it took the highly visible elements of the atomic bomb to really strike terror into the hearts of the Japanese... and consequently end the war.
So, even when we agree with the goals, terrorism is a part of war. Always has been, always will be. Am I glad that WW2 ended without the massive death toll a land invasion would have cost on both sides? of course. Am I sad that I'm glad that a massive terrorist effort was successful, yeah. But the world is a complicated place.
