Terrorists vs. freedom fighters

[Pukko 0]

There are an endless amount of terrorism definitions around, and not many seems to be able to agree on any of them. One of them is FBI's:

International Terrorism:

"the unlawful use of force or 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."

Now change the word 'unlawful' to 'lawful', and you will have the definition of war:

"the lawful use of force or 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."

And what law is that then? Its 'international law', the very same that the Bush administration now partly have made the USA an exception from through their refusal to accept 'the international crime court' - arguing that their domestic system is better suited, and threatening to liberate any Americans put to trial under the ICC by force.

Are you not a recognized state or of 'state like character' ? Tough luck, because whatever you do in these ways will then be considered unlawful in the eyes of international law and therefore terrorism, unless ofcourse someone powerful in a powerful state happens to like what you are doing....

[Baron Hurlothrumbo IIX 0]

(and does it mean Bush is a terrorist? - TV stations are not military targets)

Where did you get this?  Command, Control, and Communication are the top 3 priority targets in any nation's target list during warfare, and have been since the dawn of warfare.  Take out their ability to organize, communicate and understand the situation, and you've gone a long way towards winning the war.  Achieving air superiority and occupying key pieces of terrain are secondary to those interests if you don't want to march/fly into a slaughter.

Sometimes I wonder if you guys just go around making this stuff up just to support your opinion.  Check any manual on warfare from any nation with an organized fighting force and your going to see that TV is a very high priority target my friend.

Military command and control, yes. I will give you that there is a blurring of the line when the TV station is used as a propoganda device, or even as a way to give orders, by the enemy, but military comms targets would be military radio units or equivalent.

You get the idea, though - attacking 'civilian' targets that are not strictly nessesary.

[Schoeler 0]

Absolutely, but Iraqi TV didn't exactly qualify for targeting exemption.

[edc 0]

If they're fighting against a truely cruel, oppressive government, and don't delibrately mame or kill civilians, they're freedom fighters.  If they delibrately target civilians, or fight against a govt. that's not cruel and oppressive, then're terrorists.

Just my 1/5 of a dime.

That sounds to me like if the West disagrees it's terrorism, if the East disagrees they are freedom fighters.  

It's all seperated by how strong of a propaganda the government being fought against can generate on their people and other nations.

Uhmm, no offense (okay, maybe a little ), but I there was no reference to any contries, continents, or cardinal directions in my statement.  It has nothing to do whether the country/governemt targed is "west" or "east".  Just if the whether or not the government really oppresses and hurts its people.  And that innocent civilians are not delibrately targted.

[bn880 5]

I know I know, but who is the judge of what is truly opressive and cruel... you know because that is debateable (means totally out of freaking solution, debate=go nowhere) in Iraq.

[The Frenchman 0]

I often wonder if my country were occupied by a hostile force and our military didn't have the resources to effectively fight back, what lengths might I go to, to strike back at the invaders.

I know I would.

[Harnu 0]

To me terrorism is pretty much an informal war being fought against a higher power.  Using unconvential tactics and resourcefulness.  However, they deliberatly attack civilians.  Which is 'just damned dumb' to me.

So why are the wars cast by NATO and now the current wars in Afghanistan and Iraq not concerning you, civilians were certainly targetted for morale depravation reasons, especially in a recent conflict that Denoir visited.  

Simply put, you can consider those wars to be acts of terrorism on a grand scale.  Or you can forget about that term and call everything a war.

I basically just said that terrorism is war. But everytime they attack, they hit civilians. Not everytime USA/NATO attacks do they kill civilians. Then again, we do a lot more attacking.

Quote[/b] ]I often wonder if my country were occupied by a hostile force and our military didn't have the resources to effectively fight back, what lengths might I go to, to strike back at the invaders.

Woo! I'm not the only one! Too bad the only weapons I would have to fought back with at the start would be a combat knife, a potatoe gun, and some common sense/ingenuity

Although, the more and more I thought about this, I found places to allocate (...okay okay steal if need be)dynamite, I learned to make gunpowder, I've gotten a lot more aware of the things around me... I think I'm going paranoid

[The Frenchman 0]

I think I'm going paranoid  

Trust me, you are not parinoid until you think the goverment is after you and you run to your basement/bunker with 30 cans of tomato soup, OFP cd and an Airsoft gun.

(I've done it enough times )

[Major Fubar 0]

I have an almost guaranteed way to stop terrorist choosing civilain targets: remove all guards at from key military outposts and the Predisent's residence.

[Baron Hurlothrumbo IIX 0]

Absolutely, but Iraqi TV didn't exactly qualify for targeting exemption.

Thinking about this, it was probably a bad example. My point was : does causing civilian casualties which are strictly unnecessary but which will probably end the war quicker make the aggressor a terrorist?*

By some definitions it does.

*Personally, I think either 'no it doesn't', or 'it does, but it's worth it.'

[Major Fubar 0]

I find it odd that many consider the destruction of an Iraqi TV station with resultant civvy casualties to be OK, yet whenever a Western journo gets killed in a cossfire everyone tears up and the deceased reporter is a lost "hero"...