There is no difference between a terrorist and a freedom fighter, they both act for a cause that is being oppressed (terrorists don't do it for fun you know) and what is the difference, i believe that the following men are all in pretty much the same cattegory

Osama Bin Laden
Nelson Mandela
Gandhi

Are they the same or are they different, do you need violence to achieve what you want?

Please do not flame me, this is my opinion

start sayin ur last prayers dude , i can see people stonin you to death !!!

:m:

i am not religious and don't pray

same here , i thought u were - was juss kidding !!!

coming back to your topic , i feel most of the freedom fighter are terrorist themselves - no one , no one in this world can do something without having any gain out of it !

they potray themselves as god , they are Hypocrite !!

pi eyed:a freedom fighter, fights the people in power,(example pancho villa, Nelson Mandela{but he did not condone any violence, he was arrest for just talking.)) for his political freedom, from oppression, not the innocent children on the street.
Gandhi protests were passive.( he never blow any one up)
a terrorist is not oppressed he just uses terror to cause chaos,[example osama bin laden) there is no comparison, he's not trying to gain any power he hides in the darkness and kill iindiscriminately. if you think there is then you are a moron.

The difference is wether or not they intend to kill innocent people.

I wonder if terrorists don't do it for fun, I mean they are fighting for the right to oppress their own people, hardly as compelling a reason as freedom. I think having a fight at all gives them a feeling of being in a movement larger than themselves, like cheering for your favorite sports team. It gives their lives meaning. And it probably is fun for them when they succeed.

There are similarities, but there are also distinct differences.

My thought of a freedom fighter is one who protects the freedoms of himself and others at the cost of himself. A noble person who fights the powers that would remove and threaten freedoms of the country, family, or self. They attack the threatening power directly.

My thought of a terrorist is one who seeks to destroy the oppression of a person or group and is willing to hurt the innocent to fight the power of the group that would remove and threaten freedoms of the country, family, or self. By using terror against the populace who support the group, their hope is the group will be broken. They attack the morale of a group.

Both tatics can be used to attempt to support freedoms, but which one is easier? Which one is more moral? Which one is more valuable? Most of the time, something that is really worth something to you, is something that was difficult and sometimes costly to achieve. Are those who take the easy way out cowards, who are not willing to pay the price (time, money, and lives)?

The difference is wether or not they intend to kill innocent people.


hmm... "innocent people". I truely don't think that anyone (not even Osama bin Ladin) intends to kill people they consider to be innocent. Are 9/11 victims innocent? Are Iraqi civilians (collateral) innocent?

The difference is wether or not they intend to kill innocent people.

I wonder if terrorists don't do it for fun, I mean they are fighting for the right to oppress their own people, hardly as compelling a reason as freedom. I think having a fight at all gives them a feeling of being in a movement larger than themselves, like cheering for your favorite sports team. It gives their lives meaning. And it probably is fun for them when they succeed.

Sounds like a street gang of hoodlums.

hmm... "innocent people". I truely don't think that anyone (not even Osama bin Ladin) intends to kill people they consider to be innocent. Are 9/11 victims innocent? Are Iraqi civilians (collateral) innocent?

True, Osama believes Americans are not innocent, but that is the problem. He attacks the heart of the nation, instead of the head. In his mind, the heart and the head are of the same body of people and are both targets, but the heart is softer. It is good tactics if you want to bring down a bear. Because we Americans support our troops, we are not innocent. How can we say what he is doing is wrong or right?

Because we Americans support our troops, we are not innocent. How can we say what he is doing is wrong or right?

Hmm, thats a pretty damn good point, took me a while to figure out how to respond...


Sure we support our troops, becuase we live in this country and it is logical that a citizen would support their own side. In some cases, like the war in Iraq, I don't support the way our military is being used, but I support the troops.

But, despite what you said, it just seems wrong to kill people not directly involved in a conflict. Its the easy thing to do, to kill people that can not defend themselves.

Because we Americans support our troops, we are not innocent.
The troops are not responsible for the policy. I don't support GWB, and many people think he stole the elections.

You are fcuking retarded if you are American. It's not safe to say things like this, that's all. Even if you're not, with the recent London bombings, as long as you're one of the 'Allies' you put yourself at risk of being watched closely.

Aside from that, I agree with you. The terrorists are not retarded and they're not blowing themselves up for no reason. There will always be idiots who say they are doing this in order to be in heaven with virgins but that is not true. The virgin part is an added benefit of a political struggle against what they find to be repugnant and forced external influence.

Not that the war helps to ameliorate any of that..

The troops are not responsible for the policy. I don't support GWB, and many people think he stole the elections.

As bad as I want to respond to this, this is not the place...

But, despite what you said, it just seems wrong to kill people not directly involved in a conflict. Its the easy thing to do, to kill people that can not defend themselves.

It doesn't feel right to me either. Osama doesn't have the courage or faith that his god will protect his soldiers on the battlefield. If his god was mighty, his men would surely win against a superpower like us. So, out of fear of losing the war on the battlefield, he takes the war to the streets where he stands little chance of losing a lot of men, and we stand the chance of losing many civilians. I don't agree with terror tactics either, but these are either desperate men, sick men, or a little of both.

The terrorists are not retarded and they're not blowing themselves up for no reason.

The terrorists families are being killed if they don't do as they are told. If your family was going to be killed if you didn't do what you were told would you not want to save your families life by sacrificing yours? This is what is actually going on over there to get them to become suicide bombers and nothing can be done to prevent it from continuing. :mad:

over where cosmic
gandhi manage to free india passively.
India is probably the only country, which has never invaded any other country, india welcomed the british in the 16th century only to be enslaved by them for 3 centurys in won it's independance in 1947 after years of peaceful struggle the only one of it's kind in the history of the world, why cant others take a leaf out of there book, now that the world is a small place(IT) things get noticed quicker, and deal with quicker.

"over where cosmic"

In Islamic countries for the most part.

The terrorists families are being killed if they don't do as they are told. In Islamic countries for the most part.by whom cosmic, by other muslims for the most part.
so why are they killing non muslims.

The terrorists families are being killed if they don't do as they are told. If your family was going to be killed if you didn't do what you were told would you not want to save your families life by sacrificing yours? This is what is actually going on over there to get them to become suicide bombers and nothing can be done to prevent it from continuing. :mad:

Do you have any sources for this?

Do you have any sources for this?

I can't give you any real reliable sources but I have spoken to a couple of Iranian people that have conveyed this to me.

True, Osama believes Americans are not innocent, but that is the problem. He attacks the heart of the nation, instead of the head. In his mind, the heart and the head are of the same body of people and are both targets, but the heart is softer. It is good tactics if you want to bring down a bear. Because we Americans support our troops, we are not innocent. How can we say what he is doing is wrong or right?

Are morals involved here? Is this not a simple matter of survival? The fact is that while minor attacks are a nusiance, Americas survival is in no way jeopardized by a moron with a C4 evening jacket. However, a 9/11 style attack, if repeated and escalating, would be cause for a survival response. IMO. If you think attacking Afghanastan and Iraq was a survival response, then you are naive.

A true survival response will result in the eradication of the entire way of thinking of the enemy. Get what I mean? Ultimately, common morals are not involved. If America were damaged sufficiently, I would support the eradication of the enemy. Vast collateral loss of "innocents" would occurr, yes. But when a gang of maniacs is bearing down on you, can you, as the defender of your family, stop to consider that some of them are just children? Or innocent bystanders swept up in the fervor?

No.

The way of life of the attackers may be sacred to them, just as ours is to us. But will I just lay down and turn my country over to islamic fundies? Or live under constant terror?

No.

Should we try to get along with the world and live as reasonable partners?

Yes.

Are we doing this with respect to the middle east?

Maybe, maybe not. I don't know.

Whether we are or not, if attacks worsen, then we will mount a survival response. They will lose utterly and completely. They will cease to exist as a coherent entity(s). And the world as a whole will be a much, much nastier place for a while. Terrorists are authoring their own doom. Fools.

Remember. A few ants here and there are nothing. If you discover a nest of carpenter ants eating away at the foundation of your house however, you will eradicate them.

But when a gang of maniacs is bearing down on you, can you, as the defender of your family, stop to consider that some of them are just children? Or innocent bystanders swept up in the fervor?

No.

Heh. And we wonder why they do the things they do..

Logic is so convenient.

Hold it, you people. "Terrorism" has a specific meaning. It is the use of violence of military or paramilitary proportions, primarily against non-combatant civilian targets, as an attempt to intimidate that civilian population into supporting a cause so unpopular that there is no other way to gain support.

Sure there are grey areas. If one nation annexes, via military conquest, the territory of another nation, and then says to its population, "Look, your religion and your entire culture violates the laws of the vast majority of the people of this nation (who just happen to be your conquerors) so you have to assimilate or emigrate," then clearly there's something wrong. That can get us into trouble in a surprising number of important places like Palestine, Ulster, and Chechnya. The Basque territory and Tibet become real quandaries if you take a broader view of history than we Americans with our three-generation memories tend to.

But still, the acts which are labeled "terrorism" in today's news are not borderline. The civilian population of Spain, the USA, and the UK have not annexed any Muslim territories lately. Sure our government has aided other governments which have done so, but a huge segment of our population stands in opposition to that and a probably even larger segment doesn't even understand the issue. The government of Spain was clearly trying to sit on the fence by sending a tiny force to Iraq, and its citizens have always sided with the Arabs in the Mideast conflict. England may have once been a colonial power that did some heavy damage to the remnants of the Ottoman Empire, but today it is a model of tolerance that provided a staging ground for the very people who attacked it. Besides, anybody who thinks they can break the nearly sacramental bond between the U.S. and its erstwhile mother country by attacking one could use a history lesson, American style. Throughout our three-generation memory, we have always stood by each other and we always will, right or wrong. Yanks love Brits, period. God save the Queen.

If, on the other hand, Islamic paramilitary groups attack American military sites--which they have done--I personally do not call that terrorism. That doesn't mean I support the people who did it instead of my own soldiers, it just means that I believe that precision in language is important to understanding any complicated issue. I mean, if you can't attack the soldiers of your enemy's active ally and call it "war," then everything we call war is terrorism unless it's performed by the winning side--the people who get to write the history books.

9/11 was terrorism. The Madrid bombing was terrorism. The bombing of abortion clinics and of university labs using test animals is terrorism. There's no semantic dilemma here.

SouthStar:

Heh. And we wonder why they do the things they do..

Logic is so convenient.

I'm not sure what you're implication is.

I'm not sure what you're implication is.

If you consider that to be justification for unbridled retaliation then we should not be baffled, or mock their reasoning.

True, Osama believes Americans are not innocent, but that is the problem. He attacks the heart of the nation, instead of the head. In his mind, the heart and the head are of the same body of people and are both targets, but the heart is softer. It is good tactics if you want to bring down a bear. Because we Americans support our troops, we are not innocent. How can we say what he is doing is wrong or right?

He attacks the heart of the nation, not the head? Are you referring to him killing civilians as opposed to people that run the country? If it's between the WTC falling and Capitol Hill or some other important head of government place falling, I'm all for the WTC. Do you realize how much damage would be caused by the chaos and anarchy of not having any leadership in this country? Now THAT would be scary.


It doesn't feel right to me either. Osama doesn't have the courage or faith that his god will protect his soldiers on the battlefield. If his god was mighty, his men would surely win against a superpower like us. So, out of fear of losing the war on the battlefield, he takes the war to the streets where he stands little chance of losing a lot of men, and we stand the chance of losing many civilians. I don't agree with terror tactics either, but these are either desperate men, sick men, or a little of both.

What do you expect people like them to do against a superpower like us? This is no different than the British calling us terrorists when we faught for our independence. We didn't use traditional tactics much like the "terrorists" aren't. We ambushed them just as what's happening to us. It would have been stupid to stand toe to toe, literally, against the British in how the rifle battles used to take place in the Colonial period. To say they don't have balls for not doing so is the same as saying the people that founded this country had no balls. Gimme a break. When it comes to survival and tactics, balls is what you need least. You need brains and using unconventional means of warfare does exactly that.

- N

SouthStar:

If you consider that to be justification for unbridled retaliation then we should not be baffled, or mock their reasoning.

I completely agree. I'm not baffeled by their actions or reasoning at all. Just as I'm not baffled by a nest of carpenter ants chewing away on my rafters. Of course, terrorists aren't ants. And their survival is as righteous to them as is ours to us.

I think the point is that no matter what you call them (terrorists, freedom fighters, etc.) if they become enough of a threat (to their own detriment), we will eradicate them. And it will be a morally neutral action in fact because the moral positions on each side consist of equal and conflicting goals. Like positive and negative charges - they cancel leaving neutrality.

When two human groups come into irreconcilable violent conflict (America vs MidEast Entity X) then what authority decides who is morally correct? Who deserves to continue to exist? Read Darwin.

I think a terrorist is much different from a freedom fighter. A terrorist wants to harm people and change them. He kill becuase he don't like em'. A freedom fighter is different in a sense.

Different varities of terrorists are there.

1. The suicide bombers, brainwashed to die for the sake of God/heaven/religion/coreligionists. They are the foot soldiers and canon fodders for jihad.

2. Another type work for vested interests, money, political gains etc- normally they don't do the dying part personally, they use the first variety.

3. Yet another type are purely driven by hatred, justified/unjustified. They form the hardcore leadership of terror organizations. They use both varities mentioned earlier.

You can hunt down 2nd & 3rd varities, but it is difficult to stop the 1st variety. But atleast you can stop creating them in large numbers.

Comparing the champions of non-violence - Gandhi and Nelson Mandela - with terrorists is perversion.

There is no difference between a terrorist and a freedom fighter, they both act for a cause that is being oppressed (terrorists don't do it for fun you know) and what is the difference, i believe that the following men are all in pretty much the same cattegory

Osama Bin Laden
Nelson Mandela
Gandhi

Are they the same or are they different, do you need violence to achieve what you want?

Please do not flame me, this is my opinion
Pi-Sudoku, Did you google "911 pentagon attack" where there is absolutely zero shattered airplane parts from the "commercial jet liner" that supposedly crashed into the Pentagon? No tail section, no mangled jet engines, no small bits of aluminum, nothing resembling anything approaching a crashed airliner. The (Reichstag fuerer) fire should have burned for days instead of a measely few hours.

"Who would deny a man those things that take from his path but a bit of the loneliness?"

Ho Chi Minh,
Vietnamese Patriot

Geist:cool:kiesel

Are morals involved here? Is this not a simple matter of survival? The fact is that while minor attacks are a nusiance, Americas survival is in no way jeopardized by a moron with a C4 evening jacket. However, a 9/11 style attack, if repeated and escalating, would be cause for a survival response. IMO. If you think attacking Afghanastan and Iraq was a survival response, then you are naive.

A true survival response will result in the eradication of the entire way of thinking of the enemy. Get what I mean? Ultimately, common morals are not involved. If America were damaged sufficiently, I would support the eradication of the enemy. Vast collateral loss of "innocents" would occurr, yes. But when a gang of maniacs is bearing down on you, can you, as the defender of your family, stop to consider that some of them are just children? Or innocent bystanders swept up in the fervor?

No.

The way of life of the attackers may be sacred to them, just as ours is to us. But will I just lay down and turn my country over to islamic fundies? Or live under constant terror?

No.

Should we try to get along with the world and live as reasonable partners?

Yes.

Are we doing this with respect to the middle east?

Maybe, maybe not. I don't know.

Whether we are or not, if attacks worsen, then we will mount a survival response. They will lose utterly and completely. They will cease to exist as a coherent entity(s). And the world as a whole will be a much, much nastier place for a while. Terrorists are authoring their own doom. Fools.

Remember. A few ants here and there are nothing. If you discover a nest of carpenter ants eating away at the foundation of your house however, you will eradicate them.
SL,

Do one simple google, 911 pentagon attack .
Here is what you will not see. You 've seen plane crash photos. There are the tails sections, engines which are the biggest pieces. Then there are the scattered aluminum all over the place. The Pentagon 911 attack resulted when a commercial liner slammed into the building, so the story goes. Before you get on my paranoia case check it out..

SL, no evidence of any airplane parts of any size. The fire should have burned for days, not hours. 65 foot hole for 100 plus foot wing span, no sheared wings; initially the leading edge of the roof uncollapsed until later. SL what hit the building?
geistkiesel

Everybody in the thread listen up, please. Your life, your country and your sacred honors may depend on what choices you make in the very near future, part of which is right now.

I suggesdt a mutual research project. Each of us take an aspect of 911 data and determine any thing heretofore undiscussed in the media.

Prove me paranoid, even with my confession that yes I do believe some forces are out to get me, so what?

Let me suggest a starting point. The 911 Penatagon attack result with absolutely zero, no, none, of any airplane parts at any point where the penatagon was damaged. No engines, tail section, wings whatever. There always has to be some airplane parts scattered about when planes strike bildings.

I sense that everyone here knows much about the "trerrorists", but none have looked at the basics of the penatagon attack. Are you intellient, resourceful , cannot be fooled? Of course. I am pleading with all of you. Take a few minutes and report back here about the evidence that supports an airplane collision with the building.

Any evidence of an airplane striking the building.

Geistkiesel [/indent]