Thread: What is a Terrorist?

this is a sensitive subject

I think, a people have the right to be a people. Whether that means they are a tribe, a city, or a country. And a group of people have the right to be sovereign, and govern themselves. Its a very natural biological thing for a group of humans to come together and govern themselves

A terrorist is someone who wants to usurp the sovereignty of others, for what ever reason. This means that sovereign nations do not have the right to invade or attack other sovereign nations if the purpose is to destroy their sovereignty. Doing so would make that nation a terrorist nation.

The terrorist usually resorts to fear and violence to spread chaos and panic. Because that is a most effective way to create disorder, which destroys the established sovereignty

Now there are some subtle differences between the terrorist and the freedom fighter

A real freedom fighter is fighting for his own people. That is subjective in itself, but usually this implies he is not 'invading' another country. The soldier is not a freedom fighter in this sense, because he is just following orders. All good soldiers are just following orders, and they hope their leaders are making the right decisions. Leaders don't always make the right decisions, and innocent people suffer at the hands of soldiers. The good soldier is neither a terrorist or a freedom fighter. He is simply doing his/her job. And will be remembered as one or the other depending on the outcome of the war.

The freedom fighter looks like a terrorist because hes not necessarily playing by the rules given to him by a commander. If too many freedom fighters organize, they become a guerilla. And the freedom fighter loses sight of freedom, when hes fighting for his commanders right to rule others. Usurping sovereignty, becoming terrorists.

It may seem like the line is thin, but its not. Who are you fighting for? For your leader and his right to rule others? Or for the sovereign people and the right to rule themselves? The latter is usually remembered as brave freedom fighters who brought democracy.

If a civilized nation wants to remain a civilized nation, there needs to be certain boundaries before we 'invade'. One, it should be first and foremost a defensive act. Two, we leave. We leave so the nation can be sovereign again. Remaining for too long, and people will start to think you want to take over. And in their eyes, you are the ones terrorizing.

I for one how ever believe in the saying you can't get a different result by doing the same old thing. And the same old thing we have been doing is using an act of violence to enforce peace. That is the history of mankinds war. But its not going to work anymore. Or efforts to bring peace using violence will only fuel more hatred. We need a better way.

Originally Posted by juroara

I for one how ever believe in the saying you can't get a different result by doing the same old thing. And the same old thing we have been doing is using an act of violence to enforce peace. That is the history of mankinds war. But its not going to work anymore. Or efforts to bring peace using violence will only fuel more hatred. We need a better way.

We just liberated a third world nation from the dark depths of genocidal dictatorship and put up something as advanced as a democracy. It is going to take a while for the transition to be complete. The violence has died down a lot, and the new government is advancing and training so that they can end up swimming on their own. The day is coming. But the "freedom fighters" are causing the big ass delay because they despise freedom.

Originally Posted by Universal Mind

We just liberated a third world nation from the dark depths of genocidal dictatorship and put up something as advanced as a democracy. It is going to take a while for the transition to be complete. The violence has died down a lot, and the new government is advancing and training so that they can end up swimming on their own. The day is coming. But the "freedom fighters" are causing the big ass delay because they despise freedom.

we did not put up a democracy in Iraq. and we can not. not now, not ever

only Iraq can put up a democracy in Iraq. That is something we are learning in this war, is we can not force democracy. You can not enforce peace through violence, because peace implies free will and violence negates it. Only the sovereign nation itself can choose it. And if the country is weak, we can choose to aid the young democracy. That is something we can do.

but this is a very...thin line we walk

Iraq has to choose its own future. We can't choose it for them.

Like democracy is such a good thing. It's actually fundamentally opposed to individual liberty.

Example 1: Someone goes into a neighbourhood and goes door to door asking if people want a new motorcycle. Anyone who says 'yes' gives the person $10,000 and they go out and buy a motorcycle. They get it the next day. Wow, what a nice person, right? Nothing wrong here.

Example 2: Someone goes into a neighbourhood and goes door to door asking if people want a new motorcycle. He tallies up all the 'yes' and 'no' votes. If more than 50% of the people in the neighbourhood said 'yes', he goes door to door and takes $10,000 by force, from everyone, including the people that said 'no'. The next day, everyone in the neighbourhood gets a new motorcycle.

Can anyone see the fundamental difference between the two scenarios?

Originally Posted by drewmandan

Like democracy is such a good thing. It's actually fundamentally opposed to individual liberty.

Example 1: Someone goes into a neighbourhood and goes door to door asking if people want a new motorcycle. Anyone who says 'yes' gives the person $10,000 and they go out and buy a motorcycle. They get it the next day. Wow, what a nice person, right? Nothing wrong here.

Example 2: Someone goes into a neighbourhood and goes door to door asking if people want a new motorcycle. He tallies up all the 'yes' and 'no' votes. If more than 50% of the people in the neighbourhood said 'yes', he goes door to door and takes $10,000 by force, from everyone, including the people that said 'no'. The next day, everyone in the neighbourhood gets a new motorcycle.

Can anyone see the fundamental difference between the two scenarios?

The first scenario requires a billionaire to go door to door when he would obviously send his butler?

uh....

well, its human nature to give up certain aspects of free will, so someone else can have the burden of telling us what to do

which is why for a large portion of our history, we had kings and queens which is illogical in light of how important liberty is to us. but makes sense when you understand how lazy people are when it comes to actually acting out something. even if that action is thinking for yourself, baaaaaa

Originally Posted by juroara

Iraq has to choose its own future.

Now they can.

Now I haven't read any of this so you're going to have to start from scratch against me but Osama bin Laden said his whole plan from the beginning was the provoke the United States in engaging in foreign wars that would bankrupt its economy. It seems like he played Bush and the dumber half of the American people pretty well in that, don't ya think?

We were occupying the Middle East since Bush Snr, even after Reagan said we didn't understand the irrationality of Middle Eastern politics. We were defending Israel which most muslims viewed as invaders of the Ottomon empire. We were doing a lot of meddling in people's sovereign business. Some of it, you can justify but most of it, such as reinstalling the Shah in Iran, was war crimes. And let's face it, Muslims don't believe in borders, the English came in and gave them borders but they were always just arbitrary lines that signified nothing except which corrupt idiot could have what. The second they move into democracy, we would shut them down.

So this is all being written out in response to Os original post, because the question is, what is a terrorist? Here was an unstoppable enemy, and George Bush and Osama Bin Laden practically worked together to take it down. It doesn't seem so much like they're islamofascists bred to hate us when I put it that way, now does it? They're more like theocratics unified against one untouchable foreign enemy.

Originally Posted by Omnis Dei

Now I haven't read any of this so you're going to have to start from scratch against me but Osama bin Laden said his whole plan from the beginning was the provoke the United States in engaging in foreign wars that would bankrupt its economy. It seems like he played Bush and the dumber half of the American people pretty well in that, don't ya think?

He did? That is the first I have heard. I know he called us a "paper tiger" because of when Clinton backed out of Somalia when things got a little rough. Backing out of Vietnam early is something Al-Zawihiri cited as a sign that we are weaklings who can be defeated. That is what gave Bin Laden and Al Qaeda the will and the courage to attack us domestically. He and other leaders in Al Qaeda thought we would back out of the Middle East if we started getting attacked here.

Originally Posted by Omnis Dei

Here was an unstoppable enemy, and George Bush and Osama Bin Laden practically worked together to take it down. It doesn't seem so much like they're islamofascists bred to hate us when I put it that way, now does it? They're more like theocratics unified against one untouchable foreign enemy.

What enemy are you talking about there?

You don't think calling us paper tigers wasn't another provocation? Be real, the terrorists won, if anyone gets a mission accomplished banner its them, they bankrupted the fucking country that was 1000 times more powerful than them. That's pretty nice handiwork.