It is depressing to watch the disaster unfolding in Afghanistan, both as an American and an expert on violence against women. The mismanaged US withdrawal leaves us with serious, legitimate fears over what will happen to the many Afghan civilians who struggled for the rights of the country’s girls and women. Violent reprisals against activists are morally repugnant. So, why not call them terrorists? The Oxford dictionary defines terrorism as “unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims”. Because states can create laws, this generally means non-state actors who are using violence and threats against civilians. This definition clarifies why terrorism should be deplored: civilians are non-combatants and should never be targeted in war by anyone. The problem is we don’t talk about it like this any more. Whenever a bomb goes off anywhere in the world, this is called “terrorism” in the media as long as the perpetrator is a non-state actor. Distinctions are not made between military and civilian targets. The loss of the civilian target distinction is costly in the long run. The meaning of “terrorist” simply becomes “small enemy” – small because they are a non-state actor, enemy because the attack is against whichever side I favour. That makes it easy for states to encourage groups that are truly terrorists under the dubious principle of “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”. Misuse of the word terrorist muddies the water around heinous acts of war committed against children, civilian women and other non-combatants. Moreover, the definition of terrorism does not capture heinous violence against women, children and men by states in pursuit of control of their domestic populations. Once they became an insurgent group that consistently controlled territory, the Taliban became a de facto state. They no longer meet the definition of terrorists. They can create laws to mandate the kinds of violence they want to inflict on their population. I hope they keep their promise to be different than before, but I doubt it. If they impose another reign of terror on women and girls to obtain total domination of Afghanistan, we need to refer to this as religious totalitarianism, not terrorism. The distinction makes all the difference between support of a rules-based world order in which innocents have security and the support of a permissive world in which might makes right. Clifton R. Emery, associate professor of social work, University of Hong Kong