Terrorists or Freedom Fighters

[Pax]

The U.S. intentionally killed innocent indians. The Spanish intentionally killed innocent indians.

[Kuciwalker]

And that was genocide, distinguished from "terrorism" only in that it was done by the state, rather than an independent organization. So?

[Pax]

killing innocents intentional or otherwise does not make a good measure for who is terrorist and who is not. If an innocent village of american pioneers called in the U.S. Calvary to deal with the local indians are they still innocent even though no one in the village fired a shot? What about the taxpaying New yorker of the time. His taxes go to support that same Calvary on there way out west. If the indians were to attack that village before they could call the calvary would that be wrong? When the calvary comes the indians will have to fight and possibly lose their lands to these peaceful settlers. What if the indians got together and decided to attack NYC. Would'nt that make sense. To remove the capability of the government to finance the war.

Skywalker,
I don't know where you live or what you do but I am sure that you have benefitted from the death of innocents. But U.S. history is not called terrorist history.

[Dr Strangelove]

Originally posted by molly bloom



Which will come as news to those of us familiar with the history of the Quakers and the Children's Crusade. Or the Suffragettes- they were willing to sacrifice their own lives, or damage property, but didn't succeed in killing anyone else.

Or indeed, the American Civil Rights' movement.

How many people did Martin Luther King kill, or order killed?

As Gandhi discovered, shame and publicity can be more use than bombs and bullets.

The Quakers initally endorsed slavery as a means of brining Christianity to black people. William Penn delivered such a stirring defense of slavery that the king of England gave him his own colony. Though the Quakers were initailly successful at peaceful negotiation with the Native Americans in their colony they eventually encountered more obstinant tribes. The Quakers met the challenge by opening their colony to immigration by persecuted German religious groups, who then did the dirty work of dealing with Indian resistance for the Quakers.

It should be pointed out that while Ghandi eschewed violence there were many in the independence movment who did not and there were numerous instances of violence done in the name of his movement. While it's true that Ghandi strongly condemned their activities he in a way acted as a shield for them by taking a position of the moral high ground for the sake of the cause. In the past several years I've seen articles belittling his role in the struggle for India's independence coming from peole who claim that more militant factions were the real force behind Britain's decision to quit India. There has even been a motion to remove his birthday as a national holiday in favor of Chandra Bose.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Pax Africanus
killing innocents intentional or otherwise does not make a good measure for who is terrorist and who is not.

WHY NOT?!

If an innocent village of maerican pioneers called in the U.S. Calvary to deal with the local indians are they still innocent even though no oune in the village fired a shot? What about the taxpaying New yorker of the time. His taxes go to support that same Calvary on his there way out west. If the indians were to attack that village before they could call the calvary would that be wrong? When the calvary comes the indians will have to fight and possibly lose their lands to these peaceful settlers. What if the indians got together and decided to attack NYC. Would'nt that make sense. To remove the capability of the government to finance the war.

You're asking where the blame lies, not if they're terrorists. Someone who funds Al Quaeda isn't a terrorist, he just funds them.

Skywalker,
I don't know where you live or what you do but I am sure that you have benefitted from the death of innocents. But U.S. history is not called terrorist history.

Two reasons for that. 1) No country likes to say bad stuff about itself. 2) The US is a state, so various other terms with equal moral implications (such as genocide) apply.

[Pax]

Originally posted by skywalker

Originally posted by Pax Africanus
killing innocents intentional or otherwise does not make a good measure for who is terrorist and who is not.

WHY NOT?

I answered your question in the following sentence. I also pointed out that saome people owe more allegiance to an ORG than a state. In effect, the organization becomes there state.

[Sava]

WHY NOT?!

because the United States in Afghanistan and Iraq has killed many times more civilians than Al Qaeda did... so by your definition (killing civies = terrorism) the US government is the single largest terrorist organization in the world today. Sorry, but I won't stand for your anti-American commie propaganda.

[debeest]

There's a lot of argumentation here about what the word means. Why not look it up? Here are a number of dictionary definitions, and the Wikipedia.com entry:


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 (American Heritage)

the systematic use of violence (as bombing) committed by groups especially as a means of coercion, in order to intimidate a population or government into granting their demands (Merriam Webster)

somebody using violence for political purposes: somebody who uses violence or the threat of violence, especially bombing, kidnapping, and assassination, to intimidate, often for political purposes (Encarta)

(threats of) violent action for political purposes (Cambridge International)

violent action for political purposes (Cambridge Dictionary of American English)

One who governs by terrorism or intimidation; specifically, an agent or partisan of the revolutionary tribunal during the Reign of Terror in France (Webster's 1913 edition -- fascinating to note the historical change from "governs by terror"¨ to "seeks to alter government by terror"!)

1. the use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, esp. for political purposes.
2. the state of fear and submission produced by terrorism or terrorization.
3. a terroristic method of governing or of resisting a government. (Infoplease)

one who uses violence, torture, or physical intimidation to achieve one's ends, esp. one's political ends (Wordsmyth)

and the Wikipedia entry -- as usual, by far the most useful:

There is no universally accepted definition of terrorism. One 2003 study by the U.S. Army [1] stated that over 100 definitions have been counted. Some examples:
-- In the U.S. Code of Federal Regulations: "...the unlawful use of force and violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives" (28 C.F.R. Section 0.85).
-- In the current U.S. national security strategy: "premeditated, politically motivated violence against innocents."
-- According to the United States Department of Defense: the "calculated use of unlawful violence to inculcate fear; intended to coerce or intimidate governments or societies in pursuit of goals that are generally political, religious, or ideological."
-- The British Terrorism Act 2000, defines terrorism so as to include not only attacks on military personnel, but also acts not usually considered violent, such as shutting down a website whose views one dislikes.
Although the exact meaning of the term is disputed, it is commonly held that the distinctive nature of terrorism lies in its deliberate and specific selection of civilians as targets, a choice designed to attract wide publicity and cause extreme levels of public shock, outrage and fear. Terrorists believe that such conditions will help bring about the political or religious changes they seek. Often their strategies are based on provoking disproportionate reactions from states.
Acts of revolutionary or guerrilla warfare usually are not considered terrorism, unless the revolutionaries or guerrillas deliberately select civilians as targets of violence. Asymmetric warfare and low-intensity warfare are military terms for tactics that can include terrorism or guerilla warfare.
The question of motive is important in distinguishing terrorism. For example, a gang of bank robbers who kill the bank manager, blow up the vault and escape with the contents would normally not be classed as terrorists, because their motive was profit. However, if the gang were to execute the same assault with the intent of causing a crisis in public confidence in the banking system, followed by a run on the banks and a subsequent destabilization of the economy, then the gang would certainly be classed as terrorists.
Some hold that terrorism can be committed by governments, although others consider governments incapable of terrorism by definition (see State Terrorism).
Terrorists are not protected by the laws of war because they cannot claim lawful combatant status.


Okay, now that everyone has had a chance to learn the dictionary definitions, please return to your regularly scheduled rhetoric.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by Pax Africanus
it's funny you say that. I don't justify any killing as right.

I didn't mean to imply you did. Only that you seem to be against labeling a spade a spade for what I consider specious reasons.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Sava
because the United States in Afghanistan and Iraq has killed many times more civilians than Al Qaeda did... so by your definition (killing civies = terrorism) the US government is the single largest terrorist organization in the world today. Sorry, but I won't stand for your anti-American commie propaganda.

Stop being an idiot. I said, multiple times, INTENTIONALLY killing civilians was the problem.

[DinoDoc]

You're thinking about this thread too hard.

[Pax]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
I didn't mean to imply you did. Only that you seem to be against labeling a spade a spade for what I consider specious reasons.

I'm just questioning the legitimacy of a label that excludes a certain group guilty of the same infractions and the same guilty group is also the labeler. You see I'm all for calling a spade a spade and for people who live in glass houses to stop throwing stones.

[Q Classic]

well, it's the same problem with everything. it depends on which side you're on.

the unfortunate thing is that some people are just wrong.

[BeBMan]

Originally posted by Pax Africanus
I'm just questioning the legitimacy of a label that excludes a certain group guilty of the same infractions and the same guilty group is also the labeler. You see I'm all for calling a spade a spade and for people who live in glass houses to stop throwing stones.

You shoot yourself in the foot with the "they are all the same" rhetorics. If you say that both sides are actually the same there would be no reason for the US to pay any attention to any limitations in a war. If you say terrorists have a reason, and they feel it is worth killing innocent people for that reason, why should one then criticise a state which actually does - according to you - just the same? In your logic, a terrorist state would be expected to value human life even less, not more. If a state like the US is terrorist, why should it be interested in minimizing civil casualties?

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Dr Strangelove


The Quakers initally endorsed slavery as a means of brining Christianity to black people. William Penn delivered such a stirring defense of slavery that the king of England gave him his own colony. Though the Quakers were initailly successful at peaceful negotiation with the Native Americans in their colony they eventually encountered more obstinant tribes. The Quakers met the challenge by opening their colony to immigration by persecuted German religious groups, who then did the dirty work of dealing with Indian resistance for the Quakers.

It should be pointed out that while Ghandi eschewed violence there were many in the independence movment who did not and there were numerous instances of violence done in the name of his movement. While it's true that Ghandi strongly condemned their activities he in a way acted as a shield for them by taking a position of the moral high ground for the sake of the cause. In the past several years I've seen articles belittling his role in the struggle for India's independence coming from peole who claim that more militant factions were the real force behind Britain's decision to quit India. There has even been a motion to remove his birthday as a national holiday in favor of Chandra Bose.

The recent rise in Hindu nationalism and chauvinism in India has meant a reassessment of Subhas Chandra Bose as a patriot- hardly surprising, given the destruction ofthe Babri Masjid Mosque at Ayodhya, the conflict at the Sikh's Golden Temple, Indira Gandhi's assassination, et cetera.

I don't believe that Gandhi either deliberately or inadvertently shielded any people from moral responsibility for their own actions- he cannot be held to blame for the actions of unassociated individuals. It would be like blaming Martin Luther King for casualties from riots in black neighbourhoods, or interracial violence.

Whilst Subhas Chandra Bose offered an alliance with the Nazis and Imperial Japan, uniforms and weapons and futile bloodshed, Gandhi offered his own life, and warned:

"Those who are in my company must be ready to sleep upon the bare floor, wear coarse clothes, get up at unearthly hours, subsist on uninviting,simple food, even clean their own toilets."

He offered a vision of a united sub-continent of toleration and respect- for that reason, the ideological successors of Bose, the R.S.S.S., saw Gandhi as a dangerous enemy to their ideal of a greater Hinduized India, stretching from Burma to Tibet, to Afghanistan and the souternmost coast of India. They saw ahimsa and nonviolence as a coward's philosophy that undermined Hindu martial vigour and they saw themselves as the Aryan conquerors reborn.

The Quakers being a Christian sect wedded to the Scriptures, can hardly be condemned at that time, for evangelizing to African slaves, nor for slaveowning- a practice explicitly condoned by Scripture.

The mid to late 17th Century, riven as it was by religious conflict, was not a propitious time for theories of universal rights. That they may have equivocated by manoeuvring others into dangerous situations still does not mean that the Quakers are guilty of violence.