Terrorism: Good Strategy or Crime against humanity?
- Thread starter S.A.M.
- Start date
In natural history texts, 60 million Bison is often quoted as the population before the European conquest. The collapse of the "Buffalo" also meant the collapse of Plains Indian life. Do you seriously contest such figures, John99?
Obviously.
On what basis?
:wallbang:
The basis that no one counted them.
And he didn't have any other forms of dissent, either! Whenever someone did something he didn't like, he killed whole villages and entire families!
See? Sadman knew how to treat terrorists! The Israelis should maybe learn that lesson, huh?
Baron Max
hey Baron
i thought you said Saddam harboured and like terrorists??
Oh, c'mon, John, you should know that when the first explorers saw those vast herds of buffalo on the plains, their good eyesight and intuitive minds could easily see that there were billions of the big, brown beasts. I mean, all of the early settlers had a good grasp of "billion", so....
Baron Max
sam
how do you mean "good"
as in good strategy or morally good
and as for the thread title terrorism could be argued as a good stratgey even though acts of terrorism may be crimes against humanity
how do you mean "good"
as in good strategy or morally good
and as for the thread title terrorism could be argued as a good stratgey even though acts of terrorism may be crimes against humanity
you know as well as anyone here that there is no one universally accepted definition of terrorism.Terrorism: "The unlawful use or threatened use of force or violence by a person or an organized group against people or property with the intention of intimidating or coercing societies or governments, often for ideological or political reasons."
Yup, it fits.
The US government can't even agree on the definition of terrorism. To me, the salient points are:We're using the FBI definition. That fits.
- Intentionally target civilians
- Work in secrecy
The terrorist targets civilians and works in secret. He has no return address. Therefore, he is prone to commit unbelievable atrocities that few nations would ever commit during a war for fear of retaliation.
Benjamin Franklin said, upon signing the declaration of Independence,
We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.
Why did he say that? Because he was not a terrorist, hiding in the shadows, but a patriot, making a stand against tyrany. George Washington, rather than hiding in the mountains, faced the British on the field of battle; and ultimately defeated them. These were no terrorists. Any definition of terrorism that includes the founding fathers is so broad as to be meaningless.
Don't be silly, the US intentionally targetted civilians when they burned down the native American villages and killed the Loyalists. Secrecy? I don't suppose they were sending in notices to the native Americans. And al Qaeda always informs the west about their intentions. And since their fight is against US foreign policy, one could argue that there are no civilians, only co-conspirators.
No, you're being silly. When the US army burned down an Indian village, did they sneak in dressed as Indians? Or did they ride in wearing uniforms flying the flag? And al Qaeda may surreptitiously send us a video tape, but from where? There's no return address. When Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, they did so with their colors proudly flying. We knew just who had attacked us. We knew where to find them. They weren't off cowering in some cave, but proudly daring us to retaliate.
The Geneva convention is nothing but a piece of paper. The only thing that really restrains each side from committing atrocities is fear of retaliation. By operating in secret, terrorists are excempt from such fear. This both frees them to engage in horrific acts of savagery, and removes any element of honor from their actions.
An act of war is the equivalent to walking up to a guy, telling him to fuck off, then punching him in the nose. An act of terrorism is sneaking up behind a three year old child and stabbing her in the back.
The Indians taught us how to fight using guerilla warfare. Before that, we just marched in a line towards the enemy, firing our guns.
And is that how the founding fathers attacked the loyalists? I bet there were many instances of hidden murder, before they got enough military and arms together. Do you think, for instance, that if al Qaeda had the money, military and weaponry, they would be sending in people surreptitiously?
And there is honor in invading and occupying a helpless country and bombing the civilians from 10,000 feet? Its just better weaponry with more casualties.
And what is it when a guy sits far away in a plane and throws a nuclear bomb on 300,000 people? Or a rich country uses its military to ambush civilians in defenseless countries? Kinda like a WWF wrestler crushing a new born and proclaiming himself victor, eh?
Terrorism is just guys with not enough weapons or a military.
superstring01
Moderator
Irish independence in 1921. The UK widely credits the terrorist attacks with driving the British government to wash its hands of the island and grant independence.
Algerian independence in July 1962 from France. One of the bloodiest guerrilla and terrorist wars in this century.
Eritrean independence in 1993. While conventional fighting did happen, the vast majority of the casualties were from terrorist attacks which exhausted successive Ethiopian governments and eventually led them to end the conflict.
The March 2004 terrorist attacks on the Madrid subway effectively won the POSE it's position in power after the Partido Popular was expected to win another election. This change in government saw Spain pull out of Iraq and begin to alter its approach to Al Qaeda.
I'm sure there are more.
~String
Guerilla warfare is NOT terrorism!
And I think guerilla warfare methods were around long, long before the American revolution.
Baron Max
Was that terrorism, or guerilla warfare? Big difference!
And I think the others might be the same ...linking terrorism with guerilla warfare tactics is not correct.
The thing in Spain just might, maybe, be a "victory" for the terrorist, but I'm not going to speculate until I know a lot more about it. In particular, was that the intent of the terrrorists, or just a happy accident?
Baron Max