(no subject)

[vicarz]

TERRORISTS!

If the idiots in College Park take to the streets and vandalize things because their stupid team won or lost a friggin game, does that make them terrorists?

While I kinda like socialists, I'm really worried that in Spain the socialists are being credited with a landslide win based on the terrorist attacks. Now the new government is already declaring that they're pulling their troops from Iraq. What I find scary is that a terrorist attack is going to be sucessful in changing the ruling party and getting a country to pull out of Iraq. Right or wrong, they could have pulled out any other time and it wouldn't matter, but in response to a terrorist attack sets a horrid precedent.

What's to stop the terrorists when blowing shit up becomes a viable way to get your way?

Comments

[djvampira.livejournal.com]

I think that the U.S. pressured them to send troops in the first place. We threatened countries that if they didn't send troops that various would happen...mostly economic,etc...I think that that is a form of terrorism.

[vicar.livejournal.com]

We did pressure them, and there is a fair argument that the whole action was absurd. My worry is not about whether Iraq was right/wrong, but that the message is being sent that terrorism is an effective method of persuation to get your way.

I also have a hard time comparing the US pressuring people with financial and trade issues to blowing up commuter trains.

[djvampira.livejournal.com]

...but using ecnomic threats,and carrying through with them, could harm a country as much as a terriosist attack.

Didn't American terrorists screw with the English before the start of the American revolution to get their way? They destroyed British goods and fucked with the British troops. The founding of this country is a prime example of terroism working. Ireland became it's own country because terrorist acts were performed against the English at the start of the 20th century. Terrorism isn't a bad thing sometimes.....

[vicar.livejournal.com]

Interesting points - I did once refer to the techniques the early US used against the Brittish as terrorist. So it works, and will continue by any group that wants to get it's way against a superior military force. Pro-lifers bomb health clinics that also provide abortions, and now their number is small and those that operate are under extreme security. I'm not sure where it stops.

[syn09.livejournal.com]

The difference between rebels (or freedom fighters or patriots or whatever) and terrorists is a very fine line indeed and is usually just a matter of perspective. Of course the Sons of Liberty were terrorists. Of course the IRA are terrorists. In these cases they have the benefit of popular support (ergo their supports will find the moral justification for their actions) and are therefore not terrorists. That's why the situation between the Palestinians and Isrealis seems so hazy, who are the terrorists there? Politically, its a matter of national self-interest, the US government will call a terrorist which ever one is less useful at any given moment.

[vicar.livejournal.com]

There has to be a distinction between civilian and military targets? Israel seems to try and stop bombers, and razes the houses of the suicide folk in an attempt to punish the family that raised them? They don't plow it while they're in there unless they just refuse to leave.

The US folk hit military targets with unorthodox techniques at the teim, and burned civilian / poured tea, but I don't recall hearing a lot about plowing down people while they shopped. It seems different.

IRA did bomb senselessly, and they eventually started the talks that got them a lot of what they wanted.

Terrorism must succeeed somehow, or it would die out.

[syn09.livejournal.com]

There has to be a distinction between civilian and military targets?

It seems to me that the perspective of heads of State is thus: If the press finds out its good to have an answer ready. The rest of the time? Who cares? An overwhelming show of force will get the point across.


Terrorism must succeeed somehow, or it would die out.

I don't think that assessment is wrong. Though I think that terrorism is born more out of desperation, poverty, hopelessness, frustration and ignorance than anything else.

Please understand that I don't pretend to be an expert or even very educated about the matter. A large part of me agrees with what either you or _blackjack wrote earlier in that societies that are more prosperous tend to be more free. My cynicism takes it to the next step in saying that, in modern times, terrorists are the stupid dopes who have their ideologies used against them by their leadership for their leadership's own ends.

[vicar.livejournal.com]

I'm certainly no expert - I half put out these thoughts to see how my better educated or more rational friends will argue the point. Jack usually has a plethora of data which is nice.

Hmm...I've kinda been a hippie forever, and in my utopia there isn't non-voluntary poverty. Perhaps I can argue for opportunity for middle-class for all people to be an argument to fight terrorism! Poverty = boom. Hell - the 'drug war' is more about the economics of poverty than any issues strictly related to drug use per se.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_blackjack_/]

My cynicism takes it to the next step in saying that, in modern times, terrorists are the stupid dopes who have their ideologies used against them by their leadership for their leadership's own ends.

Oh, certainly. There is a reason that terrorists tend to turn on their own who try to make peace. If there is peace, the terrorist leaders lose their power; they must maintain the environment of suffering and oppression, or people won't be motivated to follow their commands. It's a self-perpetuating cycle. Israel has fallen into it as well, I fear.

I've often wondered what would happen if the Israelis decided to kill the Palestinians with kindness. Unlike the threats Israel faced from the united Arab nations, the Palestinians really don't have enough power to threaten Israel's existance outright. They make things unstable and unpleasant, but the death toll they inflict is less than the homicide rate in most US cities. What would happen if the Israelis girded themselves, took it on the chin, and instead of retaliating, the SHOWERED the Palestinian people with aid? If they used the resources the devote to creating and defending settlements and instead devoted them to rebuilding Palestinian infrastructure, schools, hospitals, etc.? How long would the extremists be able to convince people to blow themselves up to kill the same people would be helping them renew their economy, teach their children, etc.?

Just a theory. I could be wrong, but as far as I know it has never been TRIED before.

[syn09.livejournal.com]

It's never been tried and I sincerely doubt it ever will. What are the odds a group of people will voluntarily allow someone else to kill them to test a principle of peace?

I do like the economic angle though, when the bills are paid, the people are fed and things are basically okay its tough to get anyone worked up over a principle or abstract concept. Life's just too good.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_blackjack_/]

See my other response.

[cobwellac.livejournal.com]

I agree with you completely. Now that terrorists have gotten their way in way country, will this reinforce their ways? I worry about this, especially since they seem to need so little prodding to kill innocent people anyway?