America about to shamed before the world on Italian Satellite TV

Hayes,

You obviously believe that some acts of war are justified (as do I).

The questions your definitions bring to mind are-

Do you consider all violent acts to achieve a political goal by non-state actors terrorism? And do you consider any acts of terrorism justified?

 

NewYorker, ever read Kurt Vonnegut? He was there.



Keep D&D Civil.

 

Oh I understand the problems with the viewpoint. At what point you move from moral to immoral is not at all clear. And I understand that AQ makes similar justifications - in fact, in several discussions post 9/11 this point was skirted around but IMO avoided because of the implications nobody wants to deal with. I also anticipated this comparison but feel its certainly a point for debate and discussion (that's the reason I previously stated it was a point worth examining and a viewpoint worth possibly changing).

Double standards/context based justification: war inherently kills civilians. It is inevitable and true of every war ever fought. Yet war is still considered justifiable and moral in some instances. Is this not a double standard - a 'context' based argument - you can kill civilians accidentally but not deliberately (but is it an accident when you know for certain you will kill civilians)? If we reduce everything down to principle then any justification of war will encounter double standards/relativism.

Now, I'm not disagreeing there are mucho problems with what I said. MY problem runs along these lines: do I consider WWII an immoral war? No. Was the bombing of German and Japanese cities immoral? No. Was the firebombing of Dresden immoral? Probably so. Not because it inflicted certain civilian casualties but because it was done irrespective of military/political objective and ordered mainly by one guy who wanted revenge. Many historians claim that the war needed to be brought to the everyday German's doorstep to serve as a deterrent in the future (since they'd be major players in two World Wars in a short span of time). I'm not sure why that's immoral. Was the intervention to stop Serbian genocide in Bosnia and Kosovo immoral? I don't think so. But that bombing was seen, right so IMO, as the quickest least catastrophic means to end Serbian action. Does all that leave me wide open to critique? Absolutely. Do I think we should wipeout the civilian population of any opposition? No. But I think stopping at 'this is repugnant' is both self serving and shallowly delusional.

Al Queda: I have struggled with this a lot since 9/11. The closest I can come to delineating a difference is that a supranational terrorist organization neither has the legitimacy of a nation state to act, nor the base for retribution/accountability that a nation state has. Hence while the action can be paralleled the action cannot be justified.

Hmmm, not sure. I guess according to the way I've defined terrorism, yes? There might be some consideration of the entity and its legitimacy. For instance when the Founding Fathers declared independence where they representatives of a nation-state? I don't know where that line is to be honest. I would say so, but that's surely open to challenge.

I'm not sure that there is - if we could resolve the debate over the difference between a rebel and a terrorist maybe.

 

Webster Defines terrorism as:

The systematic use of terror especially as a means of coercion.



Everything else is determined by your point of view.

The word terrorism today has so many connotations today that it is being used to evoke feelings of contempt for anyone that the user doesn't like. It's like "Nazi", used as a symbol for evil even if the definition doesn't fit.

The colonist would have been considered terrorists by the British if today’s use of the word would have been around. The defenders of the Alamo would have been called terrorists in today’s environment by the Mexicans.

Both the settlers and the Indians would have been called terrorists depending on which side you were listening to.

 

I think that's too generic of a definition. A bully at school could be defined as a terrorist using that.

From dictionary.com (and this one is pretty generic as well but a little more useful I think):

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.

 

Well, for what they're worth here are my thoughts on the subject. I define terrorism as violent acts to obtain political goals that deliberately target civilians by either state or non-state actors.

I believe non-state actors can justifiably use violence to attain political goals and these actions should be judged in context- who is being targeted, why, what are the ultimate goals. There are many cases where the state is committing violence against citizens and in these cases (though not only these cases)violence is a justifiable reaction.

Some examples of justifiable violence by non-state actors-

American resistance to British Rule.

Haitian slave rebellion.

Sandanista overthrow of Somoza.

 

here is the official government response:

US Army Admits Use of White Phosphorus as Weapon
by Steven D
Wed Nov 09, 2005 at 02:48:58 PM PDT

That's right. Not from Al Jazheera, or Al Arabiya, but the US Army, in their very own publication, from the (WARNING: pdf file) March edition of Field Artillery Magazine in an article entitled "The Fight for Fallujah":

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/11/9/164137/436

 

Just for clarification on Dresden, I believe it was the supply depot for the German resistance to the southern thrust of the Russian pinscher strategy for taking Berlin. Stalin insisted that that it be destroyed but he did not have the heavy bombers nescessary to do the job.

Carry On.

 

Yeah, I guess I could say that WWII, for instance, was a moral war generally - but the firebombing etc wasn't. Similarly the strikes in Serbia were mainly infrastructure (although they were designed to distress the civilians) and so weren't targeting civilians. Of course I guess someone could accuse me of using semantics or technicalities if I did that . Or maybe its true that war between nation states has different rules than violence coming from non-state actors.

As far as this report I think its pretty clear the WP was used to engage hostile forces. That civilians were hurt is an unfortunate byproduct of war in general - but this 'made for TV movie' is far from accurate or without prejudice. While I agree that people won't take the time to examine what actually happened, and their impression will be bad - I don't know that it justifies using their misperception as a guideline for battle.

On the tangential topic of defining terrorism, I found this which seems pretty good. I'll put the link to the page below it which has a fairly coherent explanation re: war vs not; guerilla vs terrorist etc:

The question is whether it is at all possible to arrive at an exhaustive and objective definition of terrorism, which could constitute an accepted and agreed-upon foundation for academic research, as well as facilitating operations on an international scale against the perpetrators of terrorist activities.

The definition proposed here states that terrorism is the intentional use of, or threat to use violence against civilians or against civilian targets, in order to attain political aims. This definition is based on three important elements:

The essence of the activity—the use of, or threat to use, violence. According to this definition, an activity that does not involve violence or a threat of violence will not be defined as terrorism (including non-violent protest—strikes, peaceful demonstrations, tax revolts, etc.).
The aim of the activity is always political—namely, the goal is to attain political objectives; changing the regime, changing the people in power, changing social or economic policies, etc. In the absence of a political aim, the activity in questwill not be defined as terrorism. A violent activity against civilians that has no political aim is, at most, an act of criminal delinquency, a felony, or simply an act of insanity unrelated to terrorism. Some scholars tend to add ideological or religious aims to the list of political aims. The advantage of this definition, however, is that it is as short and exhaustive as possible. The concept of “political aim” is sufficiently broad to include these goals as well. The motivation—whether ideological, religious, or something else—behind the political objective is irrelevant for the purpose of defining terrorism.

The targets of terrorism are civilians. Terrorism is thus distinguished from other types of political violence (guerrilla warfare, civil insurrection, etc.). Terrorism exploits the relative vulnerability of the civilian “underbelly”—the tremendous anxiety, and the intense media reaction evoked by attacks against civilian targets. The proposed definition emphasizes that terrorism is not the result of an accidental injury inflicted on a civilian or a group of civilians who stumbled into an area of violent political activity, but stresses that this is an act purposely directed against civilians. Hence, the term “terrorism” should not be ascribed to collateral damage to civilians used as human shields or to cover military activity or installations, if such damage is incurred in an attack originally aimed against a military target. In this case, the responsibility for civilian casualties is incumbent upon whoever used them as shields.

The proposed definition of terrorism also addresses a lacuna in present international legislation and international conventions, in order to develop a fundamental tool for international cooperation against terrorism. In order to achieve as wide an accord as possible, this definition must be founded on a system of principles and laws of war, legislated and ratified in many countries. In other words, in order to reach an accepted definition of terrorism, we must extrapolate from the existing principles of conventional warfare (between countries) to arrive at similar principles for non-conventional warfare (for our purposes, a violent struggle between an organization and a state). Many countries in the world support the view—and have enshrined this in international conventions—that we must differentiate between two types of military personnel who make use of force to attain their aims. On the one hand there are “soldiers”—members of the military who intentionally target members of rival armies, and on the other, there are “war criminals”—members of the military who intentionally harm civilians (see Diagram 1). This normative and accepted attitude toward military personnel operating in a situation of conventional warfare enables us to extrapolate to situations of non-conventional warfare (between an organization and a state), thus allowing us to distinguish terrorism from guerrilla warfare. As noted, terrorism is “a violent struggle intentionally using, or threatening to use, violence against civilians, in order to attain political aims,” whereas guerrilla warfare is “a violent struggle using (or threatening to use) violence against military targets, security forces, and the political leadership, in order to attain political aims.” Terrorism is thus different from guerrilla warfare in its mode of activity and in the targets chosen by the perpetrators.

http://www.ict.org.il/articles/define.htm

 

....excuse me....previously jubilant liberals - where's this shaming again? Oh yeah, that's right, you made it up. Nice work. *snicker*

keep trying

 

and just an addendum, why, precisely, would the ahaming of america, make you so jubilant, mc lynch?

 

At what point was either Glynch or mcmark jubilent?

 

is not their jubilation, and yours, implicit in the glee with which you posit this nonsensical story as an example of how far george bush's america has fallen in old europe's eyes?

american humiliation=dnc juvenation.

 

Nope. There is no jubilation in any of it. I haven't made any comments about this story. I didn't say anything supporting this story. From what I have read I haven't seen any jubilation from Glynch nor mcmark, and you still haven't been able to show me any.

Your forgot the part about you just making that up, and showing zero evidence behind the charge. There is nothing that backs this claim up.

 

Because Americans actually protest against the war and are horrified by the civilian deaths. Because our Media reports the torture and any kind of intential targeting of civilians. When bombs go awry, questions are raised - and the American public debates and even protests. The American military is the most monitored military in the world and you bet they take actions to minimize civilian casualities whenever they can.

Now compare that to Al Qaeda - whose aim it is to MAXIMIZE civilian casualities and the number of Muslims posting pictures of Bin Laden on their walls. Not because he's a president - but because he killed a bunch of civilians.

How can you not see the stark difference? It's unbelievable that you try to argue otherwise.

 

Is a civilian manufacturing weapons a non-military target?

 

I don't believe that juvenation is actually a word in the English language.


HayesStreet, I fully aknowlege that I was wrong on the treaty issue. I either misread or was lead astray. Probably the first. You certanly do play the "wronged party" roll well.

As far as the other stuff goes, if you can't step back from the issue and look at it objectively, I can say no more.

Regarding the civilian bombing issue, the British and Germans had both vowed not to do it if the other side didn't do so first during the early days of the war. It turns out that the promise was broken by an accident and two leaders who felt compelled to escalate;

[rquoter]
After the fall of France, the Battle of Britain began in July 1940. From July to September, the Luftwaffe pursued a strategy of directly challenging the British Royal Air Force in an attempt to gain air superiority as a prelude to a planned seaborne and land invasion (see Operation Sealion). This involved the large-scale bombardment of British airfields in an effort to destroy the RAF's ability to combat an invasion. The RAF suffered a high rate of attrition of both aircraft and pilots, although the Germans never committed more than a third of their twin-engined bomber force.

The RAF came much closer to defeat than was publicly admitted at the time and, had the Luftwaffe persisted, it would probably have achieved air superiority in due course. However, the Germans overestimated the RAF's strength and believed that they first needed to destroy strategic installations such as aircraft factories and dockyards and thus deny the RAF the reinforcements it required. In late August 1940, before the date normally associated with the start of the Blitz, the Luftwaffe attacked industrial targets in Birmingham (on 25–26 August) and Liverpool (28–31 August and 4–6 September).

During a raid on Thames Haven, on 24th August 1940, some German aircraft strayed over London and dropped bombs in the east and north-east of the city, specifically Bethnal Green, Hackney, Islington, Tottenham and Finchley. This action prompted the British to mount a retaliatory raid on Berlin the next night with bombs falling in the Kreuzberg and Wedding areas.

Hitler was said to be furious and on 5 September issued a directive stating a requirement "…for disruptive attacks on the population and air defences of major British cities, including London, by day and night". The Luftwaffe consequently switched to day and night bombardment of British cities, concentrating on London. This had the unintended consequence of relieving pressure on the RAF's airfields.
[/rquoter]

It should be noted that in every case except the US nuclear bombings, civilian bombings were counterproductive. Hitler allowed the RAF to regroup by bombing London, enabling them to avoid Operation Sealion. Hitler thought the V-1 & V-2 attacks would 'terrify the English into surrender'. He only made them more determined. The USAAF's directed bombing campaign destroyed more infrastructure and caused less loss of life than the horrendously inefficent RAF area bombing campaign.

By the way, the Dresden raid was more of a RAF operation than a USAAF one. Almost all of the firebombs (many USAAF planes were involved, but most were armed with HE bombs and they were directed against rail stations) were dropped from RAF Lancaster bombers. It was also planned by the RAF command.

 

US Army Admits Use of White Phosphorus as Weapon
by Steven D

Wed Nov 09, 2005 at 02:48:58 PM PDT

(From the diaries. Let's see them deny this **** now -- kos)

That's right. Not from Al Jazheera, or Al Arabiya, but the US ****ing Army, in their very own publication, from the (WARNING: pdf file) March edition of Field Artillery Magazine in an article entitled "The Fight for Fallujah":

"WP [i.e., white phosphorus rounds] proved to be an effective and versatile munition. We used it for screening missions at two breeches and, later in the fight, as a potent psychological weapon against the insurgents in trench lines and spider holes when we could not get effects on them with HE. We fired 'shake and bake' missions at the insurgents, using WP to flush them out and HE to take them out."
http://sill-www.army.mil/FAMAG/Previous_Editions/05/mar-apr05/PAGE24-30.pdf

 

I've skimmed through this thread and I agree with HayeStreet in regard to whether the use of white phosphorous and napalm are illegal under the rules of warfare as the US sees it. The problem though is that this is a war of hearts and mind and while Hayes I think you're totally correct legalistically this just makes it more difficult for us to accomplish the ultimate goal of winning over a world skeptical of the US.

 

This jackazz is clearly rooting for this to be true. If there's ever a place to say it, this clown is clearly shaing common cause with terrorists. He's quick to judge without a sound knowledge of the facts of either this weapon or the situation in which it was used.

The "Us ****ing Army"??? This clown is really unbelieveable. The Army and military have provided him the comforts and freedoms that he currently enjoys, yet he calls them the "US ****ing Army". Talk about an ingrate... This clearly shows why the liberals are accused of not supporting the armed forces. Plain as day.