HOW TO TACKLE TERRORISM
Debating it is all. After all, if he is a terrorist, what keeps us from being labeled that? Because we love and believe in the US Constitution?
Labels are so easy to put on someone, and when done publicly nearly impossible to remove no matter how innocent.
That would be nice but, one person's terrorist is another person's freedom fighter! When you try to come up with a generic definition for a terrorist, I guess it can be briefly stated or summed up that.... "a terrorist is anyone who fights you in a manor of which you have difficulty dealing with."
So, we consider a terrorist as someone who carries a bomb into a crowd and destroys civilians of who we can identify with. Another form of terrorism is a powerful nation with high tech aircraft that can drop bombs from eight thousand feet or ships with heavy artillery that can stand miles off the shore and use its sixteen inch guns to fire shells tens of miles inland hitting anything they choose to target. A combatant with just an AK-47 or something as elaborate as an 12.5mm (.50 Cal.) gun is no match against a modern jet that pulls out of a dive at eight thousand feet. So a suicide bomber is a poor organization's answer to the high tech country's massive military power. Either way civilians not involved in combat will die in large numbers compared to the losses of the combatants!
Calling someone who flies a plane into a building, one who is not affiliated with any group, who has a personal hatred for the organization they are attacking, I would call a criminal. If many people feel that particular criminal action is a cause that is worth dying for and are willing to follow that path then, that criminal or crazy in time will be elevated to the status of a hero or martyr in the uprising. If the person is part of a group or organization that has expressed a hatred for another group from the start then, to me this group is a terrorist group.
As to the question of how to tackle the problem, give the poor and under-represented people a chance, a forum to express their point of view or grievance. For it is the people who have no hope, that are the ones who are most likely the ones to become what most people in developed countries would refer to as a terrorist. This won't happen because it would ask those in power to give up their advantage.
A freedom fighter will go after his enemy. Not innocent & unarmed women & children.
If you can identify with people that can kills many innocent & unarmed people in the name of a belief, then buddy, you got some serious problems.
A suicide bomber can be a poor man's way to fight a war. Until they have the money for a cell phone, they have the money for fancy clothes, and they have money for cars even we have difficulty in paying for, yet they don't have enough money to buy shoes.....?
I don't think he's a criminal. I think he's dead.
A big country with all the modern military weapons is NOT commiting an act of terrorism IF they are responding to airplanes ramming into their buildings, and one of their ships attacked and almost sunk. that's called retaliation. It doesn't matter how underdeveloped the other country is. If you attack the big guys expect to get stepped on. Especially if you have killed the big guys people that did nothing to you, so basically a terrorist is anybody who uses violence to make another person scared, teh returning violence should be expected, that's called human nature.
A Can of Man
Je suis aware
Here in lies the problem.
The purpose of many legitimate military operations is to in fact use violence to scare other people into submission or any other state that would limit or destroy their ability to conduct violence against the attacking force.
"Shock and Awe" attacks in the opening of OIF was probably done in this spirit as well.
One of the many reasons why I think the word "Terrorist" is a loaded word.
Did it ever occur to you that things the USA does to support big business brings more than its share of hatred? Incidents like Bopal, India are more common than we tend to hear about. The CIA testified before Congress in the summer of 1968 in hearings on the Viet Nam conflict that over 1,000 South Viet Namese people were being killed per week from US aerial bombs, killing non-VC people!
The USA supporting corrupt governments, governments which don't allow the people to display their dissatisfaction against their country/government but will allow the people to protest against America! Anti-American hatred will blossom there.
The terrorist don't believe in what we call innocent women and children. Incidents such as Preditors launching missiles, kill some bad guys but also might kill some good people. To the terrorist, the big country is seen as killing innocent women and children. We called the situation as collateral damage, such as in Pakistan or, parts of Iraq. They would to refer to such incidents as killing their women and children plus the first blow of the conflict, they simply retaliated!
It is a matter of priorities, if you daughter is not allowed to go to school, simply because she is female, something like this 'might' not out of the ordinary -perspectives.
America, after Viet Nam had a reputation of being a nation without the resolve to continue when the body bags start coming home in large numbers and constantly. So in conflicts since then, the opponent tries to simply survive and hope to drag out the fight therefore, they will create casualties anyway they can. Whether the conflicts in Iraq (1991 and 2003), the insurgency which followed or, the conflict in Afghanistan.... the idea is to bleed Americans. It hasn't worked so far but, the number of people who want the USA to get out of Afghanistan, is growing. Encouraging the bad guys.
True, the cycle continues and, I have no real ideas on how to stop it.
AMEN, it greatly depends on one's perspective.
And that has WHAT to do with this subject? We're talking about freedom fighters versus terrorists. NOT Vietnam.
You keep talking about Vietnam. We're not talking about Vietnam.
Terrorist IS a loaded word, If I beat the crap out of a drug dealer, and tell the rest of hem in the neighborhood that I'
coming for them too, then I could be arrested under charges of terrorism against another person. That's the problem, legit terrorists can be copied by a 10 year old. and anybody can be labeled a terrorist.
Actually Wolfen, I like the sounds of that! Good way to clean up a neighborhood.
mmarsh
Active member
There is a way to determine whether a person is actually a terrorist or just a criminal. Crashing a plane into a building for example is not necesssary the act of a terrorist.
A terrorist group operates very much like the Mafia. They focus on a fear of violence rather than violence itself in order to get its agenda done. The actual violence is done only when the message of fear needs to be reinforced, but it is not their primary objective. its much easier to simply scare someone into doing what you want rather than forcing them.
Terrorist groups primary objective is political. Take any terrorist group and there is a political agenda in it. In al-qaeda case they wish to create a Muslim caliphate and expel all western influance and unpure Muslims from it. They have never expressed a desire for mess genocide of non-believers per se, they simply believe that non-believers lifes are of no consequence and are therefore expendable.
Partisan
Active member
To start with the final paragraph, many Christian fundamnetalist groups believe the same thing - death to the unbeliever.
I firmly believe that a terrorist is a criminal, don't elevate his actions to lofty civil rights manouevres, because at the end of the day the terrorist uses the threat & action of violence to achieve his aims, regardless of the right or wrong of it. Therefore terrorists should be treated as criminals and dealt with accordingly. Doing anything else simply gives the terrorist politcial legitmicay, which is what they want.
Of course every terrorist is also a criminal, but not vice versa. Not every criminal is a terrorist, even if the means of his criminal actions are also employed by terrorist groups (the plane example...I think that's what mmarsh wanted to say), and you can't treat them as equals. It's the motivation that makes the difference; the term 'terrorist' says it all: their main objective is to spread terror, killing some 'infidels' (in the case of al quaeda) is a secondary effect. Even if not one sole person would have been killed at 9/11, they would have achieved their goal of showing the world that they can strike deep into the supposedly untouchable heart of the US.
To get back on topic, I think killing terrorists is not the way to end terrorism. Of course, this doesn't mean that you should just step aside and watch.
But it's not enough, and that's a popular fallacy nowadays in the 'War on Terror'. We're fighting the symptom, not the virus. There's a reason why so many young men all over the world fall for someone promising them heaven and earth if they blow themselves up and take some infidels with them.
It's poverty, it's a lack of education and often enough it's black despair.
To get back on topic, I think killing terrorists is not the way to end terrorism. Of course, this doesn't mean that you should just step aside and watch.
But it's not enough, and that's a popular fallacy nowadays in the 'War on Terror'. We're fighting the symptom, not the virus. There's a reason why so many young men all over the world fall for someone promising them heaven and earth if they blow themselves up and take some infidels with them.
It's poverty, it's a lack of education and often enough it's black despair.
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Examples? Sources?
I don't think "many" is the correct term when comparing the numbers of these guys to the number of suicide bombings that take place every single day somewhere around the globe...
A Can of Man
Je suis aware
captiva303
Active member
infiltrate then assassinate...
A Can of Man
Je suis aware
Another source:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/world_news_america/8444780.stm
Moloch, think beyond Israel.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/world_news_america/8444780.stm
Moloch, think beyond Israel.