Don’t they say, one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter, or something like that?
This in the news today:
telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jh … world.html
Does the apology make it NOT a terrorist act? Terrorists never apologize, or do they? Is this just a military blunder?
I’d like to hear some definitions of terrorism, especially from the Pillars.
Happy Belated D Day.
They who? Sounds alot like Stalin’s line about one dead man is murder, one million dead men a statistic. Looks great on a protest sign but means SFA.
Just one more reason why so few people are willing to vote women into positions of political power.
Defining terrorism is like rather like defining porn (remember that US judge who had to give a ruling on the definition of porn?): you know it when you see it. Every definition you could come up with, someone will say ‘ah but aren’t Americans just the same in Afghanistan or Iraq?’
The US may have done some pretty dodgy stuff in the past which could be construed as terrorism, or even worse in some cases, but does this mean that every bullet fired by the US or every act of war is a form of terrorism?
I think in the case of the ‘war on terror’ the definition of terrorism per se is less important than the motivations of the perpetrators.
The main difference between the US and Al-Qe-ada is that the US is quite willing to kill innocent people to achieve its strategic aims, as long as the negative impact of such actions does not reduce the chances of an administration getting reelected. It’s a cold, sickening equation. The ‘murderous intent’ of the US is largely borne of a desire to look after number one. Al Qu-eda, on the other hand, are motivated by extreme religious beliefs. Freedom fighters? Gimme a break.
In that case, the US could simply nuke everything between Morocco and Irian Jaya. 99% of all Muslims would be vaporised and I seriously doubt it would affect Bush’s reelection chances at all. If anything he’d probably get more votes. Anyway, oil would be a hell of alot cheaper.
Any confusion as to what constitutes terrorism is probably attributable to the rampant moral relativism and downright nihilism that pervades the Chomskyite brigade and McLearning. To figure out the difference might require more during those university political science classes than a quick read through Chomsky’s 911 or some other such equally vapid drivel. It might require actually reading and trying to critically dissect arguments from a great many sources.
Has the US done some bad things? I am sure. Were the civilian deaths in Afghanistan “civilian?” Could be. Let’s wait and find out. Seems that as soon as terrorists get hit anywhere in the Middle East, everyone miraculously becomes a “civilian.” The Arabs and Muslims know that this is a sensitive issue in the West and so wow, every time deaths occur whether in Iraq or Afghanistan or Palestine, “civilans” and the same news media that brought you the great Jenin Massacre as “ethical” news are the ones caving to pressure from Saddam Hussein and Yassir Arafat to print the news as they want it or get out of the country or worse…
Was the US intentionally targetting civilans ?
Was Bin Laden ?
There’s your difference.
Did the UK intentionally target German civilians during WWII ? Oh bugger…
How did I end up in here again ? :?
It’s really very simple; just follow the spectrum below.
Arabs flying jets into the WTC is a blow for freedom against American imperialism.
Students trashing Niketown and looting Starbucks are engaging in legitimate political protest.
Police (also known as Pigs) trying to stop such looting are engaging in fascist repression of the masses.
Republicans cutting kindergarten sex-education budgets are engaging in terrorism.
Fluffy - Dresden was revenge, pure and simple: German bombers had killed a similar number of civilians in England. It was a brutal eye for an eye, but at least it stopped further German attacks of that kind, ones which targetted just civilians.
[quote=“Alien”]Don’t they say, one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter, or something like that?
This in the news today:
telegraph.co.UK/news/main.jh … world.html
Does the apology make it NOT a terrorist act? Terrorists never apologize, or do they? Is this just a military blunder?[/quote]
Apology or not, it was an accident. Terrorist acts are intentional, not accidental.
I’d like to hear some definitions of terrorism, especially from the Pillars.
Happy Belated D Day.
:|[/quote]
This is from the United Nations’ Office of Drugs and Crime:
[quote=“UN”]In order to cut through the Gordian definitional knot, terrorism expert A. Schmid suggested in 1992 in a report for the then UN Crime Branch that it might be a good idea to take the existing consensus on what constitutes a “war crime” as a point of departure. If the core of war crimes - deliberate attacks on civilians, hostage taking and the killing of prisoners - is extended to peacetime, we could simply define acts of terrorism as “peacetime equivalents of war crimes”.
unodc.org/unodc/terrorism_definitions.html[/quote]
The UN then offered this:
[quote=“UN”]Academic Consensus Definition:
“Terrorism is an anxiety-inspiring method of repeated violent action, employed by (semi-) clandestine individual, group or state actors, for idiosyncratic, criminal or political reasons, whereby - in contrast to assassination - the direct targets of violence are not the main targets. The immediate human victims of violence are generally chosen randomly (targets of opportunity) or selectively (representative or symbolic targets) from a target population, and serve as message generators. Threat- and violence-based communication processes between terrorist (organization), (imperilled) victims, and main targets are used to manipulate the main target (audience(s)), turning it into a target of terror, a target of demands, or a target of attention, depending on whether intimidation, coercion, or propaganda is primarily sought” (Schmid, 1988).
unodc.org/unodc/terrorism_definitions.html[/quote]
The US attack did not target civilians… it was an attack that targeted the enemy. The targeting was in error. Thus, even though people are terrified by the act, the act was not one of “terrorism”.
I think the Academic Consensus Definition supplied by tigerman is the clearest one. Targetting a group of innocents to manipulate and coerce the real targets…I get that.
So, the US never engages is terrorist acts (not implying that the mass murder of Afghani children is terrorism, just wondering 
)? The US has a completely clear conscience then?
The web definition:
Flame away. Hey Fred, where’s the Japan thread you were going to start?
Did I miss something? What mass murder of Afghani children are you talking about? Something like this?
And speaking of mass murder…this is from today’s Taipei Times:
Forensics teams in Iraq dig for the truth
AP , MAHAWEEL, IRAQ
Monday, Dec 08, 2003,Page 6
The killers kept bankers’ hours.
They showed up for work at the barley field at 9am, trailed by backhoes and three buses filled with blindfolded men, women and children as young as 1.
Every day, witnesses say, the routine was the same: The backhoes dug a trench. Fifty people were led to the edge of the hole and shot, one by one, in the head. The backhoes covered them with dirt, then dug another hole for the next group.
At 5pm, the killers – officials of Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party – went home to rest up for another day of slaughter.
We had a similar discussion and I think most people would agree with you that[quote=“Alien”] the Academic Consensus Definition supplied by tigerman is the clearest one.[/quote]
And this deals easily with your original post - no, it was not terrorism because the children were not targetted.
You then asked
Well, i remember engaging Mr T. in a discussion, where I argued that the bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki were indeed terrorist acts according to the above definition.
Mr T retorted that the above definition needs to be amended by adding a clause allowing such acts where a greater number of lives were ultimately saved than were lost by the action. though I’ll let him explain his own position more clearly.
There is an extension of the argument as it applies to the middle east. There is an argument that says terrorism is simply a military tactic, that’s all. When faced with an enemy of overwhelming military superiority, you cannot face him in normal combat, across a battlefield. you have to weaken him politically and use your forces sparngly in targetted attacks. And, as your opponent insists on ‘playing by the rules’ your soldiers must be hard to identify.
Thus terrorism is simply a logical tactic of war. It is therefore a rational response… and for those that believe morals are basically a code of rational behaviour, it may be a moral response.
I think the argument fails because it refuses to distinguish between the rights of state and citizen.
Dangerously close to complete drivel. But there is an important point behind it.
What is the difference (morally-speaking) between intentionally targetting civilians and planning strikes where you know for a near certainty that civillians will be killed?
If you have trouble seeing a difference, then you will be forced to equate war with terrorism.
There is nevertheless, I believe, an argument that so long as one tries to minimise any possible civilian casualties that are not direct targets, then you have acted morally.
This is similar, but not identical, to my understanding of Mr T’s amendment to the terrorism definition that i spoke of above. I still don’t think it gets the US ‘off the hook’ for Nag and Hiro.
Another thing that seems to be getting lost in this debate is ultimately which side you are on.
Why is there such concern about the rights and sensibilities of people that are targeting Western civilians as the enemy. You can argue about their rights till the cows come home but when someone declares war, I think the better solution is removing the threat. Afterwards, we can all engage in the luxuries of whether Hiroshima and Nagasaki are terrorism or whether the Germans deserved to have Dresden bombed to hell.
Ditto for Vietnam and supposed American atrocities there. The protesters won and the country lost. Better to let the protesters lose and the country win even if it means giving more fuel to the fire of the Marxists and nihilists who dominate academia. So fire away in Iraq and Afghanistan if it means that these countries will eventually achieve the nonperfect peace and equilibrium that Central America has finally reached. After all, who is going to argue that Cuba is better off today than Panama, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador. Even the much vaunted medical system is available only to those from outside the country who have the dollars to pay for it.
So at the end of the day, would you rather have Vietnam, Iran and North Korea or Chile, Taiwan, Turkey and South Korea? Assuming naturally that there are no perfect worlds.
“Seven boys, two girls and a 25-year-old man were killed when two A-10 American planes fired rockets and bullets into a group of villagers sitting under the shade of a tree at about 1030 local time (0600 GMT) on Saturday, he says.”
I think the concern here is for those civilians not engaged in the fighting. And that is what makes ‘us’ different to ‘them.’
Without that disinction, it is no longer a clash between civilisation and barbarism, but simply two tribes at war.
Cue Frankie…
Dangerously close to complete drivel. But there is an important point behind it.[/quote]
Why is this drivel? You don’t think the US is willing to kill innocents, or you don’t think that Al Qu-eda are motivated by extreme religiosu beliefs? Also, how can it be drivel if there’s an important point behind it? WTF are you talking about?
It’s not very helpful just to dismiss someone’s comments as drivel if you don’t say why you think so.
Fred Smith is talking a lot of sense. No amount of lawyerly head-up-your-arse semantics is going to convince anyone with an ounce of commonsense that acts of war are the same as terrorism.
The drivel part is that you explain the difference between the two merely in terms of their goals - world domination on one hand; other-worldly domination on the other.
This, for the umpteeth time in this thread, seeks to judge only by outcomes.
It only comes ‘dangerously close’ to complete drivel because:
The important point, which you failed to make but seemed to be hinting at, is that the US specifically accepts that it may cause civillian casualties. So, they go to war knowing to an almost certainty that innocents will be killed.
And how is this different to the terrorists?
Again, it comes down to intent. And if you can show that the US does indeed take care to limit inevitable civillian casualties, then surely that is morally much more acceptable than deliberately seeking to target civillians.
Of course, your inability to see the distinction does mean that I was wrong to label your comment “dangerously close to complete drivel.”
It was indeed complete drivel.
People have free will. People decide on a course of action before they take it. To judge actions simply by the outcome would be to make no distinction between death and murder.
Freddy-boy, do you really subscribe to this notion?
I think this is an interesting idea when applied to the situation in N. Ireland. The Provisiional IRA quite literally regards itself as the provisional army of a future united Irish republic and therefore it considers acts against what it calls ‘legitimate military targets’ not as terrorism but as guerrilla warfare. Unfortunately, their definition of legitimate military targets’ includes suppliers of paint to the British army, military brass bands etc.
Perhaps that’s what we might see in the future - an attempt by Al Qu-eda to legitimize its actions in non-religious terms. It could demand, for example, that all Americans leave the Middle East, or else face the consequences. Then again, I won’t be holding my breath.