Terrorism? Or legitimate act of war?

GB-GIL Trans-global · Aug 29, 2002

</body></html><html><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8"></head><body>

It is hard for us to understand in our rage and shock, but many people see the attacks on the United States as justifiable acts of war. That view stands in sharp contrast to the way in which America and her allies perceive the events of September 11. Politicians and the media in the west usually describe the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon as treacherous acts of terrorism aimed at innocent civilians, the implication being that these were not the actions of "civilized" people or respectable soldiers. Yet on the streets of Jakarta, Tehran, Cairo, Islamabad, and a host of other cities, the men who carried out the attacks are hailed as foot soldiers in a divinely sanctioned war. Why are these views so divergent? Is it simply a case of taking sides, or can one actually make the case that these attacks were acts of war rather than acts of terrorism?
This is not merely an exercise in playing the devil's advocate: understanding the mindset of these people and their supporters is the first step towards defeating them, and to reach that understanding we must put ourselves in their shoes. As Sun Tzu noted in the "Art of War":

he who knows both himself and his enemy will be victorious in a hundred battles

so howls of outrage notwithstanding, let us attempt to see things through the eyes of America's enemies.

Let us look first at the accusation that by attacking civilians, those who sponsored and carried out the attacks crossed the line between war and terrorism. Foreign critics and the odd intellectually honest American have all pointed out that this is a rather hypocritical accusation coming from the United States and other western countries. Most wars in the 20th century have been characterized by the toll inflicted on non-combatants in blatant violation of the generally accepted rules of war. The First World War ushered in the era of total war requiring participants to mobilize all their human and material resources, and since success in war depended on the efforts of both soldiers and civilians, the latter became legitimate targets. In the inter-war period, military theorists like Douhet actually advocated terrorizing the enemy's population with indiscriminate aerial attacks using explosives, incendiaries, and poison gas. The Germans tested his theories during the Spanish Civil War and later applied them in the attacks on Warsaw, Rotterdam, and London. Despite earlier vows not to sink to that level, the British eventually responded in kind by mounting aerial raids on Germany's urban centers. In Asia, the Japanese used similar tactics in their attacks on Chinese cities, and after they raided the military targets around Pearl Harbor, the Americans retaliated by bombing civilian areas in Tokyo. Subsequently, the Allies wholeheartedly embraced the concept of strategic bombing, and cities like Hamburg, Dresden, and Tokyo were destroyed in terrible aerial assaults designed solely to break the will of the enemy's civilian population. The thousand-bomber raids and the man-made firestorms that killed hundreds of thousands of civilians were of course merely the prelude to the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Does this in any way sound familiar to what happened on September 11? By their own admission, those who attacked New York and Washington were trying to strike terror into the hearts of the American people. Is it possible that these "terrorists" were simply emulating the indiscriminate terror tactics used against civilians by Britain's Bomber Command and the U.S. Eighth Air Force in Europe over fifty years ago? The standard indignant response to comments of this sort is to point out that those were tactics adopted during a war, as if that somehow makes the indiscriminate targeting of civilians acceptable. Let us put the ethical question aside, and look at the issue from a legal standpoint. If American and British mass bombing of unarmed Japanese and German civilians is acceptable because it occurred during a state of war, then presumably the recent attacks on American civilians are labeled as "terrorism" simply because they were not preceded by a formal declaration of war.

Many Americans have described the attacks as a provocation, a casus belli, all the more treacherous for having occurred without "fair" warning, but unbiased observers see the events in a very different light. Osama bin Laden and others who share his apocalyptic views put the United States on notice almost a decade ago. He and his supporters believe that the Islamic world is at war with the United States, and has been for some time. Moreover, they believe that the United States fired the first shot by attacking Iraq and supporting Israel. As early as 1996, Osama bin Laden and company declared a Jihad or Holy War against the United States, and they acted on that declaration by bombing American embassies in Africa and attacking the USS Cole in Yemen. To their supporters, the recent attacks on civilian targets in the United States differ from those America herself has launched in the past only in scale, and not in terms of justification or legitimacy. Is it Osama bin Laden's fault the American public was caught off-guard because its government failed to take his declaration of war seriously? If you publicly declare war on your enemies and they choose to ignore you, does this render the declaration null and void, thus denying you legal and moral sanction for your use of force? Those who died on September 11 perished at the hands of bin Laden's followers, but we should never forget that their deaths were facilitated by the indifference of their own government to a war openly declared against the American people several years ago.

So what should we make of all this? Well, for one thing, many of America's allies would feel more comfortable if the United States stopped treating the campaign against Osama bin Laden as some kind of moral crusade. We all know that one man's hero is another's villain, but Americans gain nothing by launching vitriolic attacks on the morality of Osama bin Laden's actions. His sympathizers abroad, the very people we are trying to win over, tend to see this type of rhetoric as merely another example of American hypocrisy, and it fuels their anger and resentment towards the West.â€§

from eTaiwan News(by a foreign guestwriter)
Click to expand...

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

*stRgrL* · Aug 29, 2002

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

Thor · Aug 29, 2002

Theres apparantly going to be an Osama Bin Laden march in London soon. I don't want to clean up that mess. Think of the massacre, yikes

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

GB-GIL Trans-global · Aug 29, 2002

Thanks for the legit reply, strgrl
Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

It proves nothing to post a smilie.

Why don't you refute the theory with some hard evidence?

By the way, this isn't anti-US, it's just saying that perhaps we are using the wrong terminology when these people declared war on us years ago.

*stRgrL* · Aug 29, 2002

By the way, this isn't anti-US,
Click to expand...

Oh, well then its okay
Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
And as for the "legit reply" - I was just scared that I would be called an idiot or bitch. You know, for posting my opinion...
Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

spookz · Aug 30, 2002

as he did me, huh star?

idiot

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
lol

gb
since it is you who's bandying around incorrect definitions of terrorism,
confess your sins!

GB-GIL Trans-global · Aug 30, 2002

stRgrl: you are a self-proclaimed bitch, otherwise I wouldn't say that of you, I don't say it of anybody unless they tell me that they're a bitch.

Edit to add that I don't see what's wrong with insulting one's intelligence.

*stRgrL* · Aug 30, 2002

Me making fun of myself and someone else calling me out of my name are 2 different things, and you know it. And then you called me an idiot for not agreeing with you.:bugeye:

GB-GIL Trans-global · Aug 30, 2002

Spookz, care to provide me with concrete evidence that your terminology for 11-9 is correct and mine isn't? And no, that millions of people use it won't work. I've heard people use that to argue every religion under the sun. "christianity must be true because millions believe it is" "islam must be true because millions believe in it" "hinduism must be true because millions believe in it" while any of these religions may be true, that isn't exactly proof.

GB-GIL Trans-global · Aug 30, 2002

Me making fun of myself and someone else calling me out of my name are 2 different things, and you know it.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I know it just as much as you know that there's a difference between saying somebody was asking for something and saying that what happened to them was ok.

And then you called me an idiot for not agreeing with you.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
No, I called you an idiot because you couldn't comprehend a simple concept.

*stRgrL* · Aug 30, 2002

No, I called you an idiot because you couldn't comprehend a simple concept.
Click to expand...

Well Im glad you cleared that up. I feel much better now
Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

GB-GIL Trans-global · Aug 30, 2002

Happy I could clarify that for you, strgrl
Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

spookz · Aug 30, 2002

bah!
bread and water for you, young man!
go to your room

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

well what have i said about terrorism? do you know?
did you not call us a terrorist state? did i not respond as to why it is not?

all of this in the other thread!!!

did you take the "etaiwan news" link from my post and start a new thread?

why not finish what you started?

spookz · Aug 30, 2002

wait till adam gets here
he'll fix your little ass for insulting star!

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

Adam · Aug 30, 2002

Um... You suck. How's that?

I'm pretty sure *stRgrl* can take care of herself if she cares to.

*stRgrL* · Aug 30, 2002

spookz,

er... I think your thinking of Asguard. He sticks up for me!!
Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Makes me feel so special.
Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

And thanks Adam
Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

Adam · Aug 30, 2002

Adam dons his silly black ninja outfit, and hides in the shadows, awaiting his opportunity...

"HAH!" Adam strikes, sword slicing cleanly through GB-GIL Trans-global!

Ninja Adam dissolves seemlessly back into the shadows, as a sissy-boy's head rolls across the sciforums floor...

*stRgrL* · Aug 30, 2002

Ninja Adam?

Whoa, youve really outdone yourself this time!
Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

Sissy-boy? HAHA!! Love it!
Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

Mr. G · Aug 30, 2002

GB-GIL Trans-global:

By the way, this isn't anti-US, it's just saying that perhaps we are using the wrong terminology when these people declared war on us years ago.
Click to expand...

Terminology? So, what do you really mean when you say "these people?

spookz · Aug 30, 2002

heh

casanova just needed a bit of nudging to step up to the plate and bat

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

Log in or Sign up

Terrorism? Or legitimate act of war?

GB-GIL Trans-global Senator Evilcheese, D-Iraq Registered Senior Member

Google AdSense Guest Advertisement

stRgrL Kicks ass Valued Senior Member

Google AdSense Guest Advertisement

Thor "Pfft, Rebel scum!" Valued Senior Member

Google AdSense Guest Advertisement

GB-GIL Trans-global Senator Evilcheese, D-Iraq Registered Senior Member

stRgrL Kicks ass Valued Senior Member

spookz Banned Banned

GB-GIL Trans-global Senator Evilcheese, D-Iraq Registered Senior Member

stRgrL Kicks ass Valued Senior Member

GB-GIL Trans-global Senator Evilcheese, D-Iraq Registered Senior Member

GB-GIL Trans-global Senator Evilcheese, D-Iraq Registered Senior Member

stRgrL Kicks ass Valued Senior Member

GB-GIL Trans-global Senator Evilcheese, D-Iraq Registered Senior Member

spookz Banned Banned

spookz Banned Banned

Adam §Þ@ç€ MØnk€¥ Registered Senior Member

stRgrL Kicks ass Valued Senior Member

Adam §Þ@ç€ MØnk€¥ Registered Senior Member

stRgrL Kicks ass Valued Senior Member

Mr. G reality.sys Valued Senior Member

spookz Banned Banned

Share This Page

Log in or Sign up

Terrorism? Or legitimate act of war?

GB-GIL Trans-global Senator Evilcheese, D-Iraq Registered Senior Member

Google AdSense Guest Advertisement

*stRgrL* Kicks ass Valued Senior Member

Google AdSense Guest Advertisement

Thor "Pfft, Rebel scum!" Valued Senior Member

Google AdSense Guest Advertisement

GB-GIL Trans-global Senator Evilcheese, D-Iraq Registered Senior Member

*stRgrL* Kicks ass Valued Senior Member

spookz Banned Banned

GB-GIL Trans-global Senator Evilcheese, D-Iraq Registered Senior Member

*stRgrL* Kicks ass Valued Senior Member

GB-GIL Trans-global Senator Evilcheese, D-Iraq Registered Senior Member

GB-GIL Trans-global Senator Evilcheese, D-Iraq Registered Senior Member

*stRgrL* Kicks ass Valued Senior Member

GB-GIL Trans-global Senator Evilcheese, D-Iraq Registered Senior Member

spookz Banned Banned

spookz Banned Banned

Adam §Þ@ç€ MØnk€¥ Registered Senior Member

*stRgrL* Kicks ass Valued Senior Member

Adam §Þ@ç€ MØnk€¥ Registered Senior Member

*stRgrL* Kicks ass Valued Senior Member

Mr. G reality.sys Valued Senior Member

spookz Banned Banned

Share This Page

Useful Searches

stRgrL Kicks ass Valued Senior Member

stRgrL Kicks ass Valued Senior Member

stRgrL Kicks ass Valued Senior Member

stRgrL Kicks ass Valued Senior Member

stRgrL Kicks ass Valued Senior Member

stRgrL Kicks ass Valued Senior Member