You little terrorist

Originally posted by Zenspider
Funnily enough there as this little altercation is Sydney - the news shots looked like palestine, ireland and any other place.

Poverty, lack of education, lack of a future will always breed contempt for *society* - call it what you will.

It is simply desperation.

Take away your fatass job, your dignity, your ability to feed your family, your country....I imagine many, many americans would strap on the bomb.

Now, they would be *patriots.....

God knows you love your violence enough.

To fight for your right to live is in human nature...isnt it obvious, when all this stuff occurs in hellholes?

Dont be surprised when it happens in your neighbourhood.

again, more fantasy.

during the great depression, people smuggled, people robbed and people begged, but they did not strap bombs to themselves to make a political point about opression or recession or depression and especially not about how their religion is better than someone elses. terrorism has some roots in desperation, but not all. there is another reason for it and until you people see it, this debate will be between fantasy and reality.

one last and this is it, i promise.

i finally figured it out, this place is built for all like-thinking fantasists to pat each other on the back all day and agree with every little new detail each of them brings to the fantasy.

if you aren't watched, this could develope into something similar to extremist islam, as far as the fantasy goes. terrorism could be made legitimate in the eyes of someone of this new fantastic belief system of conspiracies and evil governments and whatnot. not saying it WILL< saying it COULD. enough people isolate their discussion to amongst themselves for long enough, they tend to create a whole new world, just like radical islam has.

fledgling
If you're going to leave, leave.

(Will someone PLEASE shut the door behind that guy on his way out?)

Okay, so the point of those little nonsensical mouth-spoutings was what? Did anyone get anything from that? I got one salient point translated from the whole mess.

Sometimes conspiracy theorists defeat their own cause by veering too far in the direction of fantasy. Okay, a valid, if unoriginal point.

Anyone else?

1.) Extreme, long term hunger
2.) Unjustified, brutal maltreatment
3.) Emotional deep depression
4.) Hate
5.) Total life indifference
6.) Life threatening situation (Terrorize Vs Die)

None of these conditions would make me able to justify myself sticking a gun to an old woman's head when she was trying to feed my people, and then blowing her brains out to further my agenda.

So I'd have to completely disagree...


[edit on 21-3-2005 by Gazrok]

Originally posted by fledgling666
i finally figured it out, this place is built for all like-thinking fantasists to pat each other on the back all day and agree with every little new detail each of them brings to the fantasy.

That above description works for school and universities, any job, and any nation. Figure out that your's is a fantasy too, and you might manage to detach your ego enough to bypass the temptation to attacking the entire community with overarching generalizations.

Terrorism is about relativism at the base, if for no other reason than the fact that it is a word.

Congrats on 'figuring it out'. Unfortunately, as soon as you make this assumption, everyone else is wrong and you become a fundamentalist. Even if your fundamentalism is custom built for your ego, its still fundamentalist. Doubt is the basis of and intellect and the enemy of the self. The worst part of that fundamentalism is that there is no community.

i wonder if most people have clued in to the fact that "terroriosim" in most cases today, foucases on the killing of innocent people. not as "collateral damage? i think mabe that is where the line should be drawn at this time. yes terrorisim has been used to mean terrorizeing people and governments. i looked up terrorisim and found many differant deffinitions about it. mabe if we agreed on a spacific term some of the arguing would change.

i propose:
TERRORISM- to purpasly target non-hostile civilians for death and destruction for no other pupous than to instill fear into said civilan population; a terrorist would place a bomb where it is likely to kill more civilians rather than to destroy a spacific military or even governmental target. a terrorist would go to a mall and use a machine gun to spacificaly kill civilians for no other purpose than to instill fear.
(i apologise for my bad spelling)

1.) Extreme, long term hunger
2.) Unjustified, brutal maltreatment
3.) Emotional deep depression
4.) Hate
5.) Total life indifference
6.) Life threatening situation (Terrorize Vs Die)

None Of these reasons would be good enough to justify terrorism in my eye.

Look at the Terrorist attacks in Beslan, Russia for example. How could I use any of these points to justify blowing away helpless children.

Terrorism is wrong in ANY form.

Later,

-Reason

Terrorism is the strategy of targeting a given ethnicity's civilian population for the purpose of political gain.

It needs to be a strategy of the terrorist body, it needs to target civilians and not military, ethnicity plays a role here and it needs to be perceived to provide political gain.

It noramlly occurs by cowards who place bombs in trains, on buses, by places of worship. They may coax/brainwash people into 'martyrdom' by strapping on a bomb belts. They hide out in residential areas so that targeting them is difficult. And when cornered they surrender - e.g. Saadam Hussein, Marwan Barghouti, Zarkawi's Lieutenants in Iraq and many others.

1.) Extreme, long term hunger
2.) Unjustified, brutal maltreatment
3.) Emotional deep depression
4.) Hate
5.) Total life indifference
6.) Life threatening situation (Terrorize Vs Die)

I think this would be the correct environment:
1- Religious extremeism.
2- percevied injustice
3- Mentally Instable (can be from the above and brutal maltreatment that causes total life indifference).
4- Extreme hate brought about by brainwashing.

Hunger has nothing to do with it.

Oh there is one more thing . . . off the subject but discussed here anyway - Of all the poor Palestinians who are oppressed by occupation none of the suicide bombers where Christian. Now why is that?

[edit on 21/3/05 by JudahMaccabbi]

Originally posted by chinalurker
Under the right (wrong) circumstances, there's a 100% chance that also You would conduct an act of terrorism.

I wonder how many new little terrorists we will have all over the world as we enter the age of global depression and war these coming decades.

How do you, or how do you think you would respond under the following environments:

1.) Extreme, long term hunger
2.) Unjustified, brutal maltreatment
3.) Emotional deep depression
4.) Hate
5.) Total life indifference
6.) Life threatening situation (Terrorize Vs Die)

Think before you respond

BR
Chinalurker

Very Good thread

"6.) Life threatening situation (Terrorize Vs Die)"

Most of the time thier acts of terrorsim lead to death for themselves.

As for the other enviorments, they would not be the cause of someone to go ape $hit.....it would be a combination of many things.

The numero uno cause for someone to go terrorist (that's a new phrase)
would be religion, yes I said it....Isam, Muslim whatever is the #1 cause....

It starts from chilhood, Most of the brains behind terrorism are western educated middle eastern man who do not fit into any the above listed categories.

"Under the right (wrong) circumstances, there's a 100% chance that also You would conduct an act of terrorism."

And sorry man, but I would never commit such acts, under any type of pressure. I would rather die a horrible death than to die while conducting an act of terrorism.....or even live while doing.

Nope not me!!

[edit on 21-3-2005 by dev_add]

[edit on 21-3-2005 by dev_add]

Originally posted by dev_add


The numero uno cause for someone to go terrorist (that's a new phrase)
would be religion, yes I said it....Isam, Muslim whatever is the #1 cause....

It starts from chilhood, Most of the brains behind terrorism are western educated middle eastern man who do not fit into any the above listed categories.

nope the ira has been around forever. they are religion based cathlc vs prodistant, and kick the brits out. there were terrorists out of quebec in the 70's (guess what they wanted).west germany and france also had terrorist movements. it seems that the soviet union was a big terrorist supporter in the past. (i am sure that the us supported some as well, (if nothing else they let the ira collect support for years).

while terrorism has a habit of being religes it not always is. in fact the stated gole with the mid east tends to be kick the jews out of isrial (adding religion just makes it easyer to recrute). it' lends creadancewhen you are told that this is the will of god. i am sure some join simply because they hate western culture as well.

please forgive me for being late to the party...

my 2 cents is anybody is capable of anything, so I agree with your basic premise. However, I'm curious, are you getting at a justification of terrorism, or pointing out that terrorism is in the eye of the beholder ?

I am very passive by nature (most guys my size tend to be) and it takes a lot to get me to act out in anger, but I can't say 100% I am incapable of an atrocity given the specific paramaters you laid out

don't forget the responsibility the oppressive regimes bear for the state their people live in

The whole idea of terrorism is based on the intended target of violence.

As Gaz stated, none of the reasons given could make me commit a gruesome act of violence against a helpless person whos trying to help me in the first place.

Folks, trying to project "the underdog" or "freedom fighter" image onto one these bloody murderers is off the mark by more than a little bit. Now, running into an army base and blowing it up is legit warfare because it is a military action against and military target. A factory that manufactures military hardware is a legit target.

A daycare is not a legit target. A senior citizens center is not a legit target. A civilian hospital is not a legit target ( and really neither should a military hospital be).

However, intentionally hiding military operations in these types of facilities is an act of terrorism in its own right. In my opinion, placing a missle installation near a populated area also qualifies.

To effectively be legitimate warfare of any kind, the primary target must be military. This would exclude shopping malls and nightclubs. I think thats a pretty disctinct difference. Any other arguments are just splitting hairs to justify a horrid act.

My .02

AC

Hold on

Terrorism is the word that means getting what you want by instilling fear, a terrorist, is one who terrorizes. I'm sorry, but ya'll don't get to re-write the english language every time you feel like criminalizing someone.

We all know how the dictionary defines terrorism, because somebody has to repeat the damn definition on every page to keep people from making these claims.

Semanticaly there is no difference between politicians, marketting executives, and the IRA. All three use fear to increase their power, profit, and prestige.

Now if you want to talk about levels of necessity..there are many cases throughout history where an occupied nation, a nation under attack, or a brutalized minority have had to engage in terrorism to get their point across. There have been many times when the power of instilling fear was simply chosen for its effectiveness, and not out of any great, pressing, humanitarian need, and there are times when terrorism is an accepted form of warfare; for example 'shock and awe', that was intended to inspire fear in the enemy.

Just let's be honest about what the Iraqis became after we invaded their country. Some are religious fanatics, some are revolutionaries who seek independence from foreign rule, and some are just businessmen seeking opportunity. They're just like our soldiers people. Some of our soldiers are in Iraq to 'protect America', some of our soldiers are there so they can go to college and support a family, some are there because they assimilate prejudice well and are good at killin their fellow human beings without emotion.

This is the honesty we need to remember if America is ever going to be whole. It hasn't been good guys and bad guys since we got out of middle school and stopped playing with toys. It's real now people, and those people are just like us, they're all trying to surivive just like us, and like us, they're using varying degrees of wanton cruelty, greed, and altruism to accomplish that.

Now as far as suicide bombings... They could just be planting bombs yaknow, and regaining numerical superiority, but they choose to die for the cause. It's not very bright on the surface, but it does prove a point; they're willing to do anything including murdering innocents in some cases.

The CIA and our Army know what the message means, and they stepped it up a notch, trying to prove they too were willing to do anything. But here's where we come up on our first difference... Our regulars aren't nearly psychotic enough on average to adapt to that sort of war, so that's where highly paid contractors come in. Those guys are willing to do a lot more for their substantially bigger paycheck. It doesn't mean they're all ruthless, but on average more of them are.

The American soldiers wouldn't even dream of strapping a bomb to their chest and wounding civilians, and no contractor worth his minerals would be that dumb, there's no profit in dying for your country. So if I'm a military planner, I'm looking at the situation like this - They just proved they're willing to take this thing farther than us, so now what do we do.

Abu Ghraib happens...they were trying to learn about their enemy, find out their weakspots, humiliate them, abuse them, torture them, turn them - understand them. First of all they need operatives on the ground, second of all they needed information about these guys' susceptibility to various interogation methods, and various taboos that might be exploited, and most importantly they need to find out what makes them tick, in order to better predict their thinking and organize the counter-insurgency more effectively.

Well, that backfired because some American soldiers, especially Special Forces, didn't like the way things were going (and the patriots were a dying breed since most of their money-minded comrades left for private contractor jobs while they still could), because we were starting to look an awful lot like the Shah of Iran, when he was trying to figure out how to beat those who resisted his rule, in the same way...

We all do what we think we must, and if you're not willing to go as far as the other guy, you better be clever in your offense and even more clever in your D. So, that being said, we're still all terrorists at some point in our lives, the degree to which we are willing to engage in that act, and the level to which we're individually prepared to take the concept, is entirely dependant on individual thresholds.

Calling them all terrorists is in a way accurate, but only if you accept that we're all terrorists. You can still say they're terrorists who are willing to go farther than our terrorists, but that doesn't quite have the same moral authority as right and wrong now does it? Makes you kinda question the necessity of our actions, and the nature of our response to the threat of radical islam, when you consider the fact they've proven they're willing to go as far and farther than we are if we engage them on that level.

Why is that? Because they're fighting for their everlasting souls in their minds, and we're only fighting for hollow, subjective words like freedom and values? They're fighting for freedom too, and values. Just not your freedom, and just not your values. If they were fighting for your values, or you were fighting for theirs, you wouldn't be fighting each other at all, you'd be fighting against a common enemy.

If two children cannot get along you must separate them, antagonizing them only leads to a fight, and we've all seen how dirty this kid fights. We either need to resolve to not get into a fight while being prepared to defend ourselves when attacked (that doesn't mean follow the kid to his house and level it with a Spectre - don't misinterpret me), or committ to going farther to end it than the other guy (this is going to his house and leveling it with a Spectre); the only alternative to those two choices is perpetual tug of war, and perpetual misery for the people, and perpetual profits for the men on this earth who are greedy and ruthless enough to sacrifice the lives of others for their bottom line.

You know what they call those men in Africa? Warlords.

So if we could all refrain from taking away the beauty of words by changing their meaning to suit the moment, it would sure be appreciated. See, I'm a writer, and all this word switching and adding meanings, and new connotations..well, they stand to put me out of a job, because I don't think I'm speaking the same language anymore.

Terrorists are those who use fear as a tool in the course of their own survival, in varying degress of cruelty and cunning, maybe even for the benefit of another. I'll give you some examples of non-violent terrorism to start you off. I'm sure you could think of many, many more, if you CARED to.

"Johnny, if you start smoking cigarettes your gonna have a heart attack by the time you're twenty!"
:little Johnny pisses his pants and reforms his wicked ways:

News Reporter: "If young people don't start using condoms they run the risk of dying from AIDS."

Politician: "If I don't sign this bill regarding some woman in Florida my extremist constituents will push me out of this lucrative office, I'm scared..I had better sign it! Those terrorists!"

Fear is..wait for it..A HAMMER. Use it as you will, to build or destroy.

Nice post, Wyrde One, but I'd like to try to fine tune your definition. We can't simply say that a terrorist is a person that uses fear because fear arises in the mind independant of the outside world. I would say a terrorist acts with the intention of using fear as a means of manipulation to achieve his/her goals.

This sounds like a small thing, but it changes one of your examples significantly. If a reporter reports that youth risk HIV exposure if they practice sex without condoms, his intent is to inform. If the message instills fear its coming from the listener. However I would say that this reporter becomes a terrorist, of sorts, as soon as he reports something with the intention to scare people.

In your case of the parent, by telling the child YOU WILL get cancer, the parent is a terrorist. That the kid will get cancer is not a knowable truth; it is a lie design to scare. If a parent would instead inform about risk, more like the reporter, this act would no longer be terrorist. Likewise if the parent truly believed him or herself to be a fortune teller with that knowledge, we could not rightfully label him or her terrorist.

Since only you can account for your intentions, only you can account for your terrorism. Kind of makes a War on Terrorism a difficult, and more personal, issue, eh?

By presupposing an act to be 'terrorist', the intentions are also presupposed (and underexplained) by the media. I think a valuable exercise would be to internalize this conception of terrorism, and then turn on CNN. The bias will shock you. Notice which terrorists get the label and which don't.

Originally posted by 00PS

I disagree, terrorism is a legitimate form of warfare and if you can't handle it then it only shows you truly recognize how great a power it is and you fear it.

I would attack civilians no problem. They must be guilty of something though.

So you are telling me that everyone in the WTC was guilty of something?

If Bill Gates is responsible for the deaths of millions who should we attack? The US Government? What if the US Government protects him? Well We just Attack Bill Gates then.

BUT WAIT NOOOOOOOO

He's a Civilian you cry out...

who cares what you think, obviouly you are far behind the times and don't realize it's the civilians screwing up the world, not the army!

TERRORISM WORKS

YOU FEAR IT

IT IS LEGITIMATE

USE IT IF YOU NEED TO

Hmmm. OK.

I REALLY hope the US takes your advice. A few hundred neutron bombs and all the Islamic terrorists will be dead.

After all, "it's the civilians screwing up the world, not the army". Yup, all those Islamic civilians. They are screwing up the world. After all, they are the ones that support our enemies (islamic terrorists).

So I guess you would support that wouldn't you? Or wait - I guess it has to be a civillian who does it right? So I should go to a few buddies of mine in the CIA, and say "listen, I can get rid of all those damned civillians who jumped with joy in the streets after 9/11 (after all, it's the civilians screwing up the world not the army). Give me a cargo ship full of nukes, and me and a couple of my well conected buddies can get it done."

All those people who are innocent are just "collatoral damage".

You know, if I didn't have a soul, this would be a #ing grand idea.

It's no wonder you support terrorists you #ing scum bag - you have no sense of morals and can't tell evil when you stare it in the face.

Originally posted by American Mad Man
So you are telling me that everyone in the WTC was guilty of something?

I think guilty would be the wrong word... Then again so is the word inocent... I would prefer to call them socially-ignorant and/or politically-unaware. The people of America have grown accustomed to their lifestyle, and almost never question why it is possible for them to live the way they do... It is the huge corporations that are destroying the world, and its the ignorant civillians that accomodate them, without realising where the money/resources/power comes from... Do you think if the general public knew the way their imperialistic government worked the world would be in the state it is today - Of course not, because you'd have to be heartless to go about it otherwise...

Originally posted by 00PS
realize it's the civilians screwing up the world, not the army!

This is true... If the general populous actually had a say in how their government was run, I doubt that we would have three year old african children dying overseas...

Originally posted by American Mad Man
It's no wonder you support terrorists you #ing scum bag - you have no sense of morals and can't tell evil when you stare it in the face.

The same could be said about you... While I do not condome unnecercary violence, I do not support turning the other cheek... And this is precicely why the whole issue of "Terrorism" makes me angry, the fact is its people like you who dont see WHY they are fighting... The "terrorists" didn't just wake up one day and say "Hey lets bomb America..."... There was something that led to the hatred, and it was your greedy nation, and their hostile actions that led to the violence you see today...

Terrorism doesnt happen for no reason...

Originally posted by 00PS
I disagree, terrorism is a legitimate form of warfare and if you can't handle it then it only shows you truly recognize how great a power it is and you fear it.

It's my belief that real Americans don't fear terrorism at all. The terrorists shake in their sandles when we're amoung them. So tell me, who's the ones that's scared!

TERRORISM WORKS

Only in the eyes of the demented! (The terrorists that is!)

YOU FEAR IT

I don't have any idea of what fear is! Explain to me what fear is!

IT IS LEGITIMATE

Of all the postings that you've made making reference that the United States and Israel are the main source of terrorism, you'd better just learn to live with it and love it.

USE IT IF YOU NEED TO

Don't worry! We will!









Edited to add end quote

[edit on 3-22-2005 by ProudAmerican]

Originally posted by 00PS
TERRORISM WORKS

Originally posted by Intelearthling
Only in the eyes of the demented! (The terrorists that is!)

So you would agree that the US Government is just as "demented" as the so called "terrorists" ... It is fact, not fiction, that the US is a country among many "civilised" countries that have been build and maintained on terrorist activities...

Originally posted by 00PS
USE IT IF YOU NEED TO

Originally posted by Intelearthling
Don't worry! We will!

Dont you mean have always and are continuing to do...

Originally posted by 00PS
IT IS LEGITIMATE

Originally posted by Intelearthling
Of all the postings that you've made making reference that the United States and Israel are the main source of terrorism, you'd better just learn to live with it and love it.

So the fact that the US and Israel are powerful countries, that makes it legitimate?... Define legitimate for me... Because to me, what you have just said translates that it is OK if not Legitimate for a grown man to rape a little girl - on the basis that he is stronger, and the little girl must live with it - infact as you put it, love the fact she is being raped...

To me that is beyond disgusting!

[edit on 21-3-2005 by ghostsoldier]

What is terrorism to us may be a fight for liberty to others
I am not saying there is anything right about it but
it is kind of like one man's trash another man's treasure