Terrorists or freedom fighters?

Sunstone · Apr 13, 2011

Jaiket said:
Course not. I just prefer to call it murder.

Fair enough. Of course, terrorism seems to be a subset of murder. That is, it's murder with a political goal, and not all murders have political goals. But I guess terrorism can include acts that do not involve killing people. So perhaps it's more a subset of violence, than a subset of murder. I'd have to think more about it.

horizon_mj1 · Apr 13, 2011

Chisti said:
Lately, there have been too many posts on terrorist this, terrorist that.

So here's a question: How would you distinguish between the two? One man's terrorist could be another man's freedom fighter. For a child getting shot by a soldier, the soldier could be the greatest terrorist. For the average white person, anybody who looks suspicious (read brown and with a beard!) is a terrorist. For a right-wing conservative, anybody who acts against the state is a terrorist. And so forth.

In this context, how would you determine who's a terrorist and who isn't?

A terrorist is a person who will inflict harm upon another human being to enforce their personal values upon them with complete disregard to implications and outcome. This being said, it is not easy to post one religious sect, environmentalist extremists, so on so forth. Any individual in which reacts hostility toward another due to self interpreted understandings is a terrorist, no matter what color, creed, sex or religion.

Tarheeler · Apr 13, 2011

Sunstone said:
It seems there are many definitions of terrorism, but not all are very useful. For instance, to define terrorism as simply the killing of unarmed civilians, rather than as the intentional killing of unarmed civilians seems to me, at least, to be a trivial definition of the term and largely useless.

In political science, it is typically defined as being political in nature.
Terrorism is used to illicit some sort of response or affect some sort of change in the current political environment.

It can include murder, but does not have to. Destroying an unmanned power substation can be terrorism if the intention is to panic the affected population.

Sunstone · Apr 13, 2011

Tarheeler said:
In political science, it is typically defined as being political in nature.
Terrorism is used to illicit some sort of response or affect some sort of change in the current political environment.

It can include murder, but does not have to. Destroying an unmanned power substation can be terrorism if the intention is to panic the affected population.

Agreed.

Yerda · Apr 13, 2011

Is telling people about climate change terrorism?

Sunstone · Apr 13, 2011

Jaiket said:
Is telling people about climate change terrorism?

Good point.

sandandfoam · Apr 14, 2011

Sunstone said:
When is murder for a political goal good?

It never is.
It is probably worth mentioning that I don't see a difference between 'legitimate' armies killing ordinary people and scumbags in balaclavas killing ordinary people.
Most 'legitimate' armies are terrorists as far as I can see.
Anyone seeking to achieve their political goals with machine guns etc are terrorists as far as I'm concerned - whether they're police, army or 'freedom fighter'

RitalinO.D. · Apr 14, 2011

stephenw said:
It never is.
It is probably worth mentioning that I don't see a difference between 'legitimate' armies killing ordinary people and scumbags in balaclavas killing ordinary people.
Most 'legitimate' armies are terrorists as far as I can see.
Anyone seeking to achieve their political goals with machine guns etc are terrorists as far as I'm concerned - whether they're police, army or 'freedom fighter'

While I understand your point, there is one specific point missing. Most legitimate armies (and I stress most) do not kill ordinary people, IE civilians, willfully and without regard. One can argue that currently the Lybian army is intentionally killing civilians, and I would agree, however the US army for example, does not in this day and age, specifically target innocent civilians. Do innocents die in war? Yes, that is almost unavoidable, however, it is also regrettable and never intentional.

Terrorists specifically target innocents because it works in favor of their goals, which is obviously to spread terror, for whatever (political, religious) means. Global morality will obviously condemn killing innocents much more harshly than if a suicide bomber attacks a military target, and this furthers their cause.

Bismillah · Apr 15, 2011

While I understand your point, there is one specific point missing. Most legitimate armies (and I stress most) do not kill ordinary people

Garbage, modern armies (that is the ones with enough money to be labled as advanced) pick and choose what level of civilian deaths is acceptable.

Sunstone · Apr 15, 2011

In modern warfare, it is statistically more dangerous to be a civilian than it is to be a soldier. That's to say, anytime a war breaks out, the bulk of those people killed will be civilians. This has been going on since at least World War II and perhaps earlier.

Unfortunately, the perception among people who support wars seems to be that civilian deaths are relatively infrequent.

dmgdnooc · Apr 15, 2011

Have a read of this, the guiding document for the Iraqi campaign.
http://www.dodccrp.org/files/Ullman_Shock.pdf
　
You will see that it is US Army policy to avoid combat and deliberately make targets of civilians and civilian infrastructure in order to achieve a degree of shock and awe similar to that caused by the a-bombing of Japan.
And its all OK, coz its unavoidable collateral damage in the press.

Darkness · Apr 15, 2011

Chisti said:
For the average white person, anybody who looks suspicious (read brown and with a beard!) is a terrorist.

Way to be racist, through calling caucasians and slavs racist.

Revoltingest · Apr 15, 2011

Darkness said:
Way to be racist, through calling caucasians and slavs racist.

Meta-racism.

kai · Apr 15, 2011

dmgdnooc said:
Have a read of this, the guiding document for the Iraqi campaign.
http://www.dodccrp.org/files/Ullman_Shock.pdf
　
You will see that it is US Army policy to avoid combat and deliberately make targets of civilians and civilian infrastructure in order to achieve a degree of shock and awe similar to that caused by the a-bombing of Japan.
And its all OK, coz its unavoidable collateral damage in the press.

Thats not US Army policy though is it?

dmgdnooc · Apr 15, 2011

This is the document that provided the overall design for the campaign.
In so far as the campaign reflected the Pentagon's policy, then yes it is.

RitalinO.D. · Apr 15, 2011

Bismillah said:
Garbage, modern armies (that is the ones with enough money to be labled as advanced) pick and choose what level of civilian deaths is acceptable.

There you go again dammit. Misconstruing what I said and twisting it into something else. Next time, provide the entire sentence when you quote it. The rest of that sentance (That you conveniently didnt quote) was

, IE civilians, willfully and without regard

There is no doctrine giving an acceptable level of civilian death. Does it happen? Of course. Is it ever intentional or unregrettable? No

War doctrine in the US has come along way in the 65 years since WW2. No longer is it acceptable to indiscriminantly bomb anything without regards for civilian casualties. If you believe otherwise, you are ill informed to say the least.

dmgdnooc · Apr 15, 2011

Ritalin please read the document.
http://www.dodccrp.org/files/Ullman_Shock.pdf
It is the paper entitled 'Shock and Awe - Achieving Rapid Dominance' prepared at the National Defense University's Institute for National Strategic Studies.
And as the title implies it defines the concepts for strategy in the Iraqi campaign.
　
The strategy is a move away from the traditional concepts of overwhelming or decisive force, of dominant battlefield awareness, and dominant maneuver.
That is, it is different to traditional 'battle' strategies that pit an armed force against another armed force.
And aims to destroy the enemy's 'will to resist' by achieving a level of 'shock and awe' the magnitude of which is the non-nuclear equivalent of the impact that the use of atomic weapons had on the Japanese people.
Communications, transportation, food production, water supply, electricity generation and other aspects of infrastructure are targets for physical destruction with the strategic aim being the shutting down of the entire State, not just its military capability, through the cessation of the flow of all information and commerce.
　
In short the paper describes the deliberate application of overwhelming military force against both the civilian population centres and the civilian infrastructure.
And that is exactly what we witnessed in the campaign.

RitalinO.D. · Apr 15, 2011

dmgdnooc said:
Ritalin please read the document.
http://www.dodccrp.org/files/Ullman_Shock.pdf
It is the paper entitled 'Shock and Awe - Achieving Rapid Dominance' prepared at the National Defense University's Institute for National Strategic Studies.
And as the title implies it defines the concepts for strategy in the Iraqi campaign.
　
The strategy is a move away from the traditional concepts of overwhelming or decisive force, of dominant battlefield awareness, and dominant maneuver.
That is, it is different to traditional 'battle' strategies that pit an armed force against another armed force.
And aims to destroy the enemy's 'will to resist' by achieving a level of 'shock and awe' the magnitude of which is the non-nuclear equivalent of the impact that the use of atomic weapons had on the Japanese people.
Communications, transportation, food production, water supply, electricity generation and other aspects of infrastructure are targets for physical destruction with the strategic aim being the shutting down of the entire State, not just its military capability, through the cessation of the flow of all information and commerce.
　
In short the paper describes the deliberate application of overwhelming military force against both the civilian population centres and the civilian infrastructure.
And that is exactly what we witnessed in the campaign.

Firstly, I don't have the time, nor the motivation to read all 175 pages. I'm far too restless for that. However, I did read about 30 or so pages in the first few chapters, and not once did I see anything specified about intentionally targetting civilians.

If you have read it all, can you provide specific paragraphs where it difinitively
states that food and water centers are to be intentionally targeted.

I'm not saying they dont exist within that document, they just didn't appear in the parts I read. I would like to see what it says about that.

dmgdnooc · Apr 15, 2011

Ritalin.O.D.
The body of my post is, essentially, a series of quotes from the intro and the 1st 15, or so, pages.
I had read it before and knew I didn't have to go too far to find what I was looking for.
　
The document proposes the targeting of civilian infrastructure which is, quite naturally, sited in civilian population centres and staffed by civilians in order to destroy the will of the entire population to resist.
It requires that psychological warfare be undertaken with high explosive munitions directed against civilian targets.
　
Does that meet the definition of terrorism?

RitalinO.D. · Apr 15, 2011

dmgdnooc said:
Ritalin.O.D.
The body of my post is, essentially, a series of quotes from the intro and the 1st 15, or so, pages.
I had read it before and knew I didn't have to go too far to find what I was looking for.
　
The document proposes the targeting of civilian infrastructure which is, quite naturally, sited in civilian population centres and staffed by civilians in order to destroy the will of the entire population to resist.
It requires that psychological warfare be undertaken with high explosive munitions directed against civilian targets.
　
Does that meet the definition of terrorism?

Well, I'm sorry but I cannot accept your view on this document if you do not cut and paste the exact text from the document. If it literally means "target civilians" then it will say so, and considering a search for the word civilian didn't report a single instance in the entire document, I find it hard to believe.

What you may construe as targeting civilians may mean something else to a different person. This is why I asked for very specific quotes that I could look at and give my opinion. I may totally agree with you, however so far it isn't looking good.

I just want to know what wording is leading you to assume it means civilians.

And BTW, psychological warfare does not have to be meted out against the civilian population to be successful. If you break the will of the enemy combatants, and they no longer wish to fight, it's pretty much a done deal.

Terrorists or freedom fighters?

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