"Almost all terrorists are Muslim" derail split from "Rants"

[angelo]

Aiming rockets indiscriminately at any target as hamas does from Gaza is terrorism no matter how it's coloured.

How about aiming thermonuclear warheads at major populated areas, as the U.S. and Russia do?

You know that as fact do you that the USA/European Union and Russia have thermonuclear weapons aimed at their main population centres? I could understand Russia aiming to cripple the USA leadership by targeting the White House and vice versa by the West.

 

[bilby]

An act is terrorism if, at the very least, it provokes a state of terror in the target populace or individuals. Hence terror-ism.

Whether an act is morally justifiable or not has nothing to do with whether or not it is an act of terrorism. Plenty of acts of violence are not morally justifiable, but that doesn't make them terrorism.

Aiming rockets indiscriminately at any target as hamas does from Gaza is terrorism no matter how it's coloured.

Hamas doesn't aim indiscriminately; They aim at targets in Israel. Truly indiscriminate rocket fire would hit Gaza as often as it hit Israel. And it would hit empty fields far more often than it hit buildings or people.

Just because you disapprove of their choice of targets, that doesn't render their fire indiscriminate. They have their eyes open - but they have a different moral code to you. A moral code that is shaped in large part by the circumstances in which they were raised - the way they see it, the Israelis hate them and want them dead, and they are happy to return the sentiment. They might be wrong, or they might not; but their position is understandable, and largely rational - just as the Israeli position is.

Both sides are badly wrong about a lot of things. Neither side helps when they mis-characterise their opponents as mindless unpersons, by slapping labels on them such as 'evil' or 'terrorist', rather than trying to understand their motives.

Saying 'He is a terrorist', in order to identify that his strategy for getting what he wants is to strike fear into his enemy's hearts, is fair enough; But saying 'he is a terrorist', in order to absolve oneself of any further consideration of his reasons for doing what he is doing, or worse, to absolve oneself for considering one's response rationally, is counter-productive and stupid.

'The police shot him dead, but that's OK, he was a terrorist' sounds like a reason for supporting the actions of the police; but it isn't really. It MIGHT be an abbreviation for 'The police shot him dead, but that's OK, he was about to kill a group of civilians and that was the only option left to prevent him from doing so'. But all too often, it is an abbreviation for ''The police shot him dead, but that's OK, as long as I can stick this label on him, I needn't even think about the possibility that his killing wasn't actually justified'.

'We bombed a school' should be a horrifying thing to hear. 'We bombed a school because terrorists were using it as a base' should still be horrifying - and we should not let the word 'terrorist' prevent us from asking whether or not bombing a school was a legitimate thing to do. Were terrorists really using it as a base? Was it also still in use as a school? Were the people who were in the school when it was bombed all terrorists? Were any of them? Did we just kill dozens of children in order to prevent the possible death of a couple of children, and if so, is this justified? Does the 'side' the children were on matter? Does it even make sense to talk of 'sides' when dealing with minors?

The word 'Terrorist' should not mean 'Shut up and accept that what we did must be right'. It should not be a 'get out of jail free' card.

 

[angelo]

Hamas rockets often do land in Gaza, and if casualties are involved then blame the Israelis. They also often land in empty fields just as if fired indiscriminately. In the last war just under 10.000 rockets were fired at Israel, most of them landed, only a third were shot down by "Iron Dome."

 

[laughing dog]

A simple yes would have sufficed. Apparently the nationality of the dead or injured civilians matters in your universe. Your approval of the disproportionate collateral damage (in turns of property and personal damage as well as terror) by the IDF thoroughly transforms your arguments into nothing more than morally repugnant special pleadings.

Rules of war state that a rocket firing range no matter where it's located is a legitimate target. The IDF go out of their way unlike their enemies to limit civilian casualties as far as is possible.

Pure propaganda. The IDF chooses to fire on targets with the knowledge they will cause civilian collateral damage. Regardless of the putative actions to limit civilian casualties, the IDF causes magnitudes more civilian casualties and damage to civilian infrastructure than terrorists' rockets. That is a fact. Whether you like it or not, the facts indicate the IDF causes more damage and injuries to civilians than the Palestinian terrorists. And that excludes the damage in the West Bank done to civilians by the IDF.

[
In fact they often risk their own soldiers lives when in fact a missile could have done the job of disarming a weapons storage site for example.

Pure propaganda. The IDF does its utmost to shield its soldiers' lives.

 

[DrZoidberg]

Wrong. The Conventions didn't define terrorism. They defined the so-called rules of war.

Ok. Let's agree to disagree. But I think your line of reasoning is silly. It's bending over backward to insert a weasel word because you don't like USA. That's what it looks like to me.

When a nation invades another nation, for no valid reason, this is not war. It is terrorism, a crime.

You don't need any reason to start a war. That isn't regulated anywhere. It's the "international communities" job to evaluate whether or not each instance of war is justified or not. And war is war. Not terrorism. When sovereign nations terrorise a civilian population it's customarily not referred to as terrorism. Because it would be silly, and dilute the power of the word.

Morality has EVERYTHING to do with it. All human actions can be examined morally. There will be grey areas, but deliberately invading a nation that poses no real threat is not one of them.

That wasn't what I said. I said that what counts as terrorism or not has nothing to do with morality. Because it then just ends up being the old terrorism vs freedom fighter debate. Either side throws poop at one another and nobody is any wiser. Better just to use other better words.

The South Vietnamese government was a brutal government that remained in power only because it was propped up by the US.

Still not terrorism.

The people of South Vietnam were attempting to overthrow this brutal illegitimate government.

None of this posed any threat to the US and the US was not attacked.

But the US invaded South Vietnam beginning in 1962 and by about 1967 it had destroyed the place killing who knows how many. It was a war crime. It was the same crime we hung Nazi's for after WWII.

Erm... But the communist government that followed the corrupt South Vietnamese government was many magnitudes worse, and more corrupt. Also... not elected by the South Vietnamese people. So I'm not sure what you're getting at? Nobody knows what the Vietnamese people ever thought about anything. But I'm willing to bet that being a citizen a totalitarian communist regime is pretty low on that list.

The Vietnamese people have never really gotten a break. They've been continually raped by imperial powers since they were first conquered in 257 BC. Since then the same bullshit has been going on continuously. Still is. Not many people know this, but South and North Vietnam have extremely different cultures. They are not really the same country. The north is mostly Chinese and the South is Khmer. It's more complicated than that. But roughly this holds. What happened in the Vietnam war was that one country conquered another. Ho Chi Minh managed to sell his revolution to the Viet Kong (South Vietnamese supporters) with sheer racism. "Sure, we're North Vietnamese, but at least we're not European". It's valid to see South Vietnam today as occupied territory. If you look at government buildings, it's all in the north. Virtually all state finances go north.

So I think you're looking at it way too simplistically. But either way, the goal of the American invasion wasn't to spread terror among the Vietnamese generally. It wasn't even to spread terror at all. It was simply to protect the South Vietnam against foreign invaders. It baffles me how you manage to twist this into being terrorism?

Panama and Granada was declared war between sovereign states.

Neither of those nations declared war on the US. Neither posed any threat to the US.

Even if you declare a war before you launch a war of aggression it is still a war of aggression.

I personally think you're correct. But they both had a flimsy pretext/excuse. And nobody else called them on it. I'd say it puts USA in the clear. But still not terrorism.

I personally supported (and support) the war in Iraq. I don't care that the WMDs was the official pretext. Saddam had already done enough bullshit to warrant that war IMHO. The gassing of the Kurds in Kerbala I'd say gave anybody a carte blanche to roll in their tanks whenever. I'm usually a lefty on most issues. But not this. I was all go go USA on this one.

Also... the point of the Iraq invasion wasn't to spread terror among the people of Iraq. It was to spread terror among Al Qaeda. Which I think is a morally valid goal, and still not terrorism. Because the terror isn't general and Al Qaeda operatives aren't civilians. Yes, I'm aware there is no logic connecting the Iraq invasion to Al Qaeda. But that was how Bush sold the war to the American people.

If people would learn to understand more about legal terminology and use the words correctly I think the world would be a better place.

I think being able to recognize rank aggression is far more important.

Just aggression alone isn't terrorism.

 

[untermensche]

Just aggression alone isn't terrorism.

It isn't terrorism if nobody is terrorized.

 

[DrZoidberg]

Just aggression alone isn't terrorism.

It isn't terrorism if nobody is terrorized.

It's more. The civilian population of a given country need to be threatened indiscriminately. The end goal of that terror is to achieve some well defined and well known political goal. If the end goal of the alleged terror is just to make people behave decently toward each other (which was the end goal of the Iraq invasion) I'd say that isn't terrorism. The fact that your government threatens you with jail time if you commit crimes doesn't make your government a terrorist organisation. I think that's a preposterous way to use it, and I think you're making that mistake.

I'd say a common denominator for anything we call "terrorism" is that it's the last desperate means available to any disenfranchised group to enact political pressure. Using it in any other context I think is hyperbole. Just applying political pressure or even threatening other countries with violence isn't necessarily terrorism. It's very rarely terrorism when governments do it.

edit: We don't even call it terrorism when sovereign states use terror tactics against their own population. Which is standard in any fascist/totalitarian regime.

 

[untermensche]

If the end goal of the alleged terror is just to make people behave decently toward each other (which was the end goal of the Iraq invasion) I'd say that isn't terrorism.

That's a funny joke.

We use so much force we KNOW we will kill many innocent civilians.

We capture and torture countless innocent civilians.

We care so little for the Iraqi culture we don't protect things like museums.

We subject huge parts of the nation to daily bombing, helicopter attacks, and attacks from ground troops, killing who knows how many innocent civilians.

All because people aren't treating each other decently.

I'll teach my kid to not respect other people. I'll beat the hell out of him.

We don't even call it terrorism when sovereign states use terror tactics against their own population. Which is standard in any fascist/totalitarian regime.

Who doesn't?

 

[Loren Pechtel]

The Nazi's were hung for their unprovoked attacks, not for the concentration camps.

An unprovoked purposeful attack of another nation is an act of terrorism.

At least that is what the US said after WWII.

Our politicians aren't immune from misusing the term.

- - - Updated - - -

Apparently you don't understand the word "aim".

In times past we haven't had the ability to single out the targets of interest from the civilians around them. That doesn't mean we were aiming at civilians, it means we hit a lot of civilians in addition to the targets we were after.

I will not fault a low-tech army for the use of inaccurate weapons. I will fault them when the aim point is not a valid target.

During WWII, the RAF and later the USAAF had a clear and well understood policy of targeting German civilians. This policy was claimed by its proponents to be necessary due to the difficulty of targeting stuff as small as individual factories or military facilities from high altitude (particularly at night), given the technology available.

We couldn't hit the factories so we hit the workers. Ugly but not terrorism.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I don't know what kind of school YOU went to, but mine have never been weapons storage locations.

I was talking about the ones in Gaza--those are the only ones being shot at.

- - - Updated - - -

Aiming rockets indiscriminately at any target as hamas does from Gaza is terrorism no matter how it's coloured.

How about aiming thermonuclear warheads at major populated areas, as the U.S. and Russia do?

The nuclear birds don't fly. It's not terrorism until they do.

- - - Updated - - -

How about aiming thermonuclear warheads at major populated areas, as the U.S. and Russia do?

You know that as fact do you that the USA/European Union and Russia have thermonuclear weapons aimed at their main population centres? I could understand Russia aiming to cripple the USA leadership by targeting the White House and vice versa by the West.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Countervalue

 

[untermensche]

Our politicians aren't immune from misusing the term.

The Nuremberg Principles stated that deliberate wars of aggression were illegal and high level planners were put to death.

What you want to change is the idea of aggressive war.

You want the US planners to be immune from any blame in their wars of clear aggression.

 

[bilby]

Our politicians aren't immune from misusing the term.

- - - Updated - - -

Apparently you don't understand the word "aim".

In times past we haven't had the ability to single out the targets of interest from the civilians around them. That doesn't mean we were aiming at civilians, it means we hit a lot of civilians in addition to the targets we were after.

I will not fault a low-tech army for the use of inaccurate weapons. I will fault them when the aim point is not a valid target.

During WWII, the RAF and later the USAAF had a clear and well understood policy of targeting German civilians. This policy was claimed by its proponents to be necessary due to the difficulty of targeting stuff as small as individual factories or military facilities from high altitude (particularly at night), given the technology available.

We couldn't hit the factories so we hit the workers. Ugly but not terrorism.

'Not terrorism' because it was not deliberate targeting of civilians with the purpose of affecting their morale; or 'not terrorism' because you can find a lawyerish technicality involving a precise definition of terrorism carefully crafted to exclude this case? Perhaps area bombing doesn't count as terrorism because it was on too large a scale; or because it was done by men wearing neatly pressed uniforms?

And, in case you had forgotten the point of this line of discussion, 'We couldn't hit the factories so we hit the workers', whether or not it is 'terrorism', is a clear demonstration that no nation state holds the moral high ground, or is in any position to whinge about how unreasonable it is to target civilians.

Targeting civilians is awful. But every single nation that has ever been to war has done it. There is NO SUCH THING as 'the good guys'.

You need to drop the pretence that 'they' are somehow morally inferior to 'us'; or that the 'good guys' are slugging it out with the 'bad guys'.

There is war. Some of it is morally justifiable; none of it is morally perfect; nobody at war gets to claim moral superiority for their tactics, until collateral damage is zero. The 'not very nice guys who are kind to their mothers but who can remain sanguine about killing a stranger's baby' are fighting against the 'not very nice guys who are kind to their mothers but who can remain sanguine about killing a stranger's baby'.

The US and her allies engage in precision attacks because they have the ability to do so; because it is more effective both tactically and strategically; and because of the propaganda value. Nevertheless, they kill children. That denies them the right to claim that they are morally superior beings - you don't forgive someone who kills your child because they say "I didn't try to kill her, she was just in the way".

If Hamas or ISIS had the technology to engage in precision attacks, they would do so, for the same reasons. Killing civilians is not as effective in a war as killing soldiers, and killing enlisted soldiers is less effective than killing officers. But if you can't get the officers, you shoot the enlisted men; and if you can't get the enlisted men, your options are to kneel before the invader, or kill his women and children. Don't pretend that you wouldn't do exactly the same thing if the tables were turned.

 

[DrZoidberg]

We use so much force we KNOW we will kill many innocent civilians.

Yes, war is messy. That doesn't make it terrorism.

We capture and torture countless innocent civilians.

Sure, I agree. But it's done, arguably, by support by the Geneva Convention because these guys... allegedly attacked or planned to attack US soldiers. That puts them, legally, out of the category of "civilian". So no terrorism. In legalese they are in the category of "unlawful combatant". To call it terrorism they need to be civilians. The Geneva Convention doesn't mention how long suspects are allowed to be held. As long as they were captured during war time, it's all according to international law.

The fact that USA has been stretching the rules way beyond the intended use of them is unfortunate. In legalese USA has been "violating the spirit of the Geneva Convention". But they are, technically, following the rules.

We care so little for the Iraqi culture we don't protect things like museums.

That is actually not true. There was a window of opportunity when Baghdad fell, where the US army didn't protect museums. But after that the problem was the Iraqi security forces. They were looting their own museums, paying off cops. I heard a really good documentary on the BBC just about this. There was, and is, heroic attempts by the museum employees to protect the museums. But if the person looting the museum is doing such on assignment by the police chief himself, (and protected by them) there's not a hell of a lot anybody can do about it. The Iraqis are in charge. What can the US forces do? They can't tell the Iraqis how to run their own country. That's not how democracy works.

We subject huge parts of the nation to daily bombing, helicopter attacks, and attacks from ground troops, killing who knows how many innocent civilians.

Like I said, wars are messy. The number one concern for the US army is protecting American soldier's lives. That does mean that they are likely to go over the top when it comes to bombings. It always happens in war. And then the army always lies about it and try to justify it afterwards. Bottom line, the generals don't have as much control over what happens on the ground like they want us civilians back home, watching TV, to think.

"The first casuality of war is the truth"
/Aeschylus

But what was the alternative? Letting Saddam stay in power? What exactly would that have solved? All these people who oppose the war seem to conveniently forget the nature of this regime. The war saved tens of thousands of people from being tortured to death. Spreading fear among his people was the method by which Saddam stayed in power. Not to mention the cost of lives simply by Iraq having a gimped economy thanks to his cleptocratic regime. With Saddam out of the picture they at least have a sporting chance to sort their shit out.

So you got to weigh causalities of war against the hypothetical casualties of peace.

We don't even call it terrorism when sovereign states use terror tactics against their own population. Which is standard in any fascist/totalitarian regime.

Who doesn't?

Ok. Challenge accepted. Find me a mainstream press-article that refers to state-sponsored terror against their own population as "terrorism"?

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Our politicians aren't immune from misusing the term.

The Nuremberg Principles stated that deliberate wars of aggression were illegal and high level planners were put to death.

What you want to change is the idea of aggressive war.

You want the US planners to be immune from any blame in their wars of clear aggression.

An aggressive war is wrong. That's not the same thing as terrorism, though.

You can't just lump all bad things under any term you might want.

 

[untermensche]

Yes, war is messy. That doesn't make it terrorism.

Calling a deliberate unprovoked unjustified attack of a weaker nation by a much stronger nation "war" is only a way some can pretend it isn't terrorism. It isn't an argument.

Calling a pig a duck doesn't make it one.

But it's done, arguably, by support by the Geneva Convention because these guys... allegedly attacked or planned to attack US soldiers.

First of all, the reason GW Bush and his henchmen justified their torture regime was because they claimed the Geneva Convention didn't apply.

And the torture report that just came out of the Senate discloses that many of the people captured and tortured did absolutely nothing.

We tortured innocent people.

It was madness. It was terrorism.

We subject huge parts of the nation to daily bombing, helicopter attacks, and attacks from ground troops, killing who knows how many innocent civilians.

Like I said, wars are messy.

So basically then no rules apply governing the conduct of nations.

If a strong nation can deliberately and for no good reason attack another and all you say is "war is messy", then you simply give stronger nations carte blanche to do whatever they want to whomever they can.

I prefer not to remove all restrictions on what strong nations can do.

I prefer to call terrorism terrorism.

But what was the alternative? Letting Saddam stay in power? What exactly would that have solved?

What?

We didn't solve anything with this brutal terrorist attack. We destroyed a nation that still is destroyed.

You can't justify terrorism by claiming it is the duty of the US to solve every problem in the world with brutal force.

At least rationally you can't.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

How about aiming thermonuclear warheads at major populated areas, as the U.S. and Russia do?

You know that as fact do you that the USA/European Union and Russia have thermonuclear weapons aimed at their main population centres?

Yes. It's called "mutually assured destruction," also known by the more politically acceptable term "nuclear deterrence." It has been the stated official nuclear policy of the United States for over 50 years. The doctrine is often described such that in the event of a nuclear attack from Russia, the United States would unleash its entire nuclear arsenal in retaliation and effectively reduce the entire Soviet Bloc to a giant sheet of molten glass (that this policy has basically survived the end of the Cold War is both embarrassing and moronic, but that's America for you). This basic policy has been expanded to include any and all nuclear-armed powers in the world, and has been openly spoken of in relation to a nuclear-armed Iran (Hillary Clinton's famous "We will annihilate them").

Interestingly, Russia's policy doesn't actually speak to nuclear "deterrence" except in the imaginations of clueless American policymakers. The Russian nuclear policy is and has basically always been a series of strategic nuclear strikes intended to cripple the U.S. long enough for Russia to achieve its near-term military goals. They were under no illusions about the U.S. limiting its nuclear attacks to purely military targets; OTOH, they assumed -- possibly correctly -- that enough of their military assets would survive the nuclear holocaust to still prevail in the aftermath.

I could understand Russia aiming to cripple the USA leadership by targeting the White House and vice versa by the West.

Russia's somewhat smaller nuclear arsenal was and is aimed at key military facilities both on the mainland and in strategic positions that could threaten Russian interests (e.g. NATO bases in western europe, the naval base in Yokohama). The U.S., on the other hand, still practices "assured destruction" nuclear deterrence against the entire rest of the world.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

I was talking about the ones in Gaza--those are the only ones being shot at.

I'm sure the many dead/missing students in Mexico, Nigeria and Camaroon will be very relieved to hear that.

The nuclear birds don't fly. It's not terrorism until they do.

So if, say, Hamas threatened to destroy Tel Aviv with a nuclear warhead unless Israel immediately and unilaterally withdrew to the 1967 borders, that isn't actually terrorism until the bomb goes off.

Got it.

 

[arkirk]

A simple yes would have sufficed. Apparently the nationality of the dead or injured civilians matters in your universe. Your approval of the disproportionate collateral damage (in turns of property and personal damage as well as terror) by the IDF thoroughly transforms your arguments into nothing more than morally repugnant special pleadings.

Rules of war state that a rocket firing range no matter where it's located is a legitimate target. The IDF go out of their way unlike their enemies to limit civilian casualties as far as is possible. In fact they often risk their own soldiers lives when in fact a missile could have done the job of disarming a weapons storage site for example.

How about some rules for being a good human being? Fuck your rules of war. They are only something carried around in the heads of people who promote and prosecute wars. For the rest of us, this shit is just plain atrocity. The IDF do not go out of their way. That is pure crap.

 

[Jayjay]

The nuclear birds don't fly. It's not terrorism until they do.

So if, say, Hamas threatened to destroy Tel Aviv with a nuclear warhead unless Israel immediately and unilaterally withdrew to the 1967 borders, that isn't actually terrorism until the bomb goes off.

Got it.

Yep. That wouldn't be terrorism. I'm not so sure if that would be terrorism even after the bomb goes off, but at that point arguing over the exact classification of the act would likely be eclipsed by other concerns.

If you think mere threat of nuclear weapons is terrorism, then Israel along with every other nuclear-armed nation is by definition terrorist because they all have protocols in place where they would use those weapons. Of course, that may have been your intent... but I think that would dilute the word of any meaning because it would mean almost 50% of people live in terrorist countries by that definiton alone (and the other half are probably conventional terrorists).

Besides Hamas wouldn't make such a reasonable demand. They'd likely blow up Tel Aviv anyway if they could and that would make them terrorists.

 

[bilby]

Recent threads on this board have shown me quite clearly that the word 'Terrorist' has already been diluted of all meaning.

Basically the vast majority of the time, if someone says 'terrorist', he conveys nothing that would not just as well have been conveyed by the word 'bastard'.

Try it - read some of the posts above, or any newspaper article about security precautions at airports or major public events; but replace the word 'terrorist' with 'bastard', and the word 'terrorism' with 'bastardry'; I bet the sense of the text is essentially unaltered in at least 80% of cases. 'Terrorist; is just an epithet today. But we can't stop the war on bastardry, or the bastards will win.