Are the terroists the "BAD GUYS" or are they the "GOOD GUYS"

Now i know this must sound weird. ANd backwards because it is.
First off let me say in no way do i support killing others, because of there beliefs, and views. We are all entitled to our own. Also do i not support killing period.
But it made me think for awhile.
Now there are so many "missions" that happen in the East, that we know about, and probably countless others we DONT know about.

Let us think for a moment...how many missions have killed INNOCENT people over there? how many missions have killed for really NO REASON AT ALL. Off of bad intelligence, off of "i want to", for oil...for whateverr eason. It seems that we keep killing and killing and killing, and our "justifable reasonings" dont seem so justifable.

Our excuse is SOME...SOME of your people are terrorists...SOME...kill our people so to help save EVERYONE...we basically come over and need to "find them and take them out"
now think about it...

imagine if only say 200 american became terrorists....went to china and blew some people up...now imagine if CHINA came into the us, and totally took control, took over.
Came into our house, went threw out stuff, accused us of things we didn't do. Stole from us, did horrible things that soldiers have been CAUGHT doing...how would YOU REACT??
probably in the EXACT SAME WAY, if not worse.

It goes to think, what is real, and what is fake. Who is bad and who is wrong?
who REALLY IS bad? and who REALLY IS WRONG??
the people who have been beaten and battered...and have had ENOUGH OF IT??
or the people who CONTINUE to butt there noise into countries, where we have NO RIGHT to be.

BTW where are those weapons of mass destruction??
that was the BIGGEST EXCUSE i have ever heard and we got what out of it?
i know its all political, and there was reasons for going in to SECURE our power etc. But the question is what is RIGHT and what is WRONG.

personally i can see why there are terrorists, because when the s**t hits the fan...and we have a civil war...the SAME THING will happen, but only we will call it "GOOD" because its the US.

reply to post by kaskade
If you mean "Terrorist" as in Islamic Jihad terrorist , Taqiyyah (concealment/twisting of the truth) jihadists , who want to conquer the entire world under islam by force or by baby booming , yes , they are the Badguys. But in war , each side believes they are the goodguys fighting for a righteous cause so the question is relative and in war the innocent usually pay the price for the guilty , in all wars throughout history. At the same time we also have another enemy , one unseen but felt , far away but ever present. Some call it Illuminati , some call it The New World Order , the ones who invaded Iraq and Afghanistan using America as their proxy. So take your pick , Jihadist or New World Order , both different sides of an evil coin.

If I invade your country in a war of aggression - I want you to shoot me. You have every right, because I'd be a 'bad guy' (even if I was just 'following orders').

Just because my propaganda is more prolific and better produced than yours, does not mean that you' are a 'bad guy' or a terrorist.

That is just propaganda. Besides nowadays if you protest Obama, you are Far-Right Terrorist.

The word has lost all meaning.



[edit on 9-9-2009 by Exuberant1]

reply to post by kaskade


In reply to the question I quote the now deceased Col. Jeff Cooper, USMC ret.

He said "The killing of non combatants during peace time is murder".

These are words I live by. They pass moral muster with my conscience.

If I intend to go to war I will first make a declaration to my enemy. Once he knows to expect my best I will kill him and his every chance I get.

But, I won't enter his country as a "liberator" then kick his door in and hose his family with automatic weapons fire before he even knows that I have targeted him for destruction.

Far too many US servicemen will return with their souls irreparably damaged because they were ordered to commit atrocities and they were too young to understand why their orders were immoral.

At 19 years old I didn't understand as much, and had I gone to Vietnam I may have made the same mistakes my brother did. His mistakes came back to haunt him and ultimately contributed to his death at the age of 51.

If our government could take out an enemy country or cause it to collapse by causing or executing a few acts of terrorism, do you think they would do it? If they either weren't capable of a full-blown war, or it would mean we could avoid a war? Or if it could weaken the enemy before we went to war? I'm not going to answer that as my gut feeling is meaningless, but just throwing it out there as something to chew on.

It's all relative to perspective.

I'm sure that any Jew who didnt immediately comply with extermination was a "bad guy" to the Nazi rounding him up.

reply to post by kaskade


Good Guys? Bad Guys?

There will always be good guys & bad guys and sometimes you will even get a bad good guy or a good bad guy... If ya know what i mean... Good guys who are sent to take out a bad guy or the bad guys... maybe a sniper needs to be sent to take out someone like Mugabe and in that sense it is a good guy taking out a bad guy (just an example).

"You can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake."
- Jeannette Rankin (US pacifist & politician, 1880 - 1973)


At grass roots there are no good guys.
There are no bad guys.

Just misled guys.
Lied to guys.
Delusional guys.

At the top, its the powers that be that are the 'bad' guys, although the word bad just doesn't cut it for me.

Depends which side of the fence you happen to be standing on.

If nations attacked my country to line their own pockets with our natural resources and in doing so, killed many innocent people, treated citizens like crap and committed numerous other "crimes"....my fighting back against them, and continuous struggle to keep my country for myself and my people, in mine and my peoples eyes, would be a good thing and i would be a good guy.



However, were i led to believe that another nations "government/regime" had committed the worst act of terrorism in living memory and the only way to stop it happening again was to go and attack the country who has "supposedly" masterminded the attacks, and along the way dispose of a dictator from a totally unrelated country, who was rather vile, yet who had nothing to do with said attacks, and in doing so "liberate" the citizens of said country/s..... i would be of the opinion that we were the good guys.



There are no good guys/bad guys and there are no winners.

One mans terrorist is another mans freedom fighter.

The way I see it, if you kill innocent people you're a bad guy. Even if your reason is for the greater good. There is no excuse for it in my opinion.

Well look at that. I completely have the same opinion as you do! In the end, most countrys are just doing what they think it right for there country. Im not a politics genius so I cant say I know everything about these wars and what not, but your indeed right.

Theyre is no good side or bad side. Just sides doing what they think is right for theyre country. But war never is. And years and years....nothing seems to be getting solved by war. How come we havent came to this conclusion yet?

Thanks for hitting on this for us. I appreciate it.

Many fine replies so far.

All of these terms are completely subjective. We can break them down to their actual dictionary meaning but we still don't get anwhere with that.

By some definition, if you are HERE, on ATS, questioning the validity of your government's labels of 'good', 'bad' and 'terrorist', you are a terrorist.

If you have a moment, take one to look at this excercise in semantics.

Cops and Government Goons ARE the Terrorists

The issue gets very murky and we all have our own threshold for the use of these labels.

As was stated previosuly by an astute poster,

One mans terrorist is another mans freedom fighter. -System

I take a simpler approach to the definition of terrorist and sadly, our government entities often wear those shoes, at least much as they would have US fitted for them.

If I am in Afghanistan, or Honduras, or Nicaragua, or any other place on the globe and thugs invade my country, steal and burn my resources and rape my women, THEY are the 'bad' guys and I am the 'good' guy if I resist them.

If I am the one, raping, plundering and enslaving, I MAY be the 'good' guy in my mind, if I have been deceived by propaganda, religious extremism or skewed beliefs, but I am almost certainly the 'bad' guy to someone esle.

'Bad' guys can be people that believe in capitalism, guys that want to drive the type of SUV they like, people that don't eat meat.

'Good' guys can be those that kill in the name of Islam, Catholicism or any other religion, or guys that blow up SUVs, or burn down a wal-mart.

In the end, my friend, I'm afraid that is a road that you have to walk by yourself and allow your own conscious to serve as your own judge.

Caveat: If you go in my backyard and smash my prize pumpkin or smear mud on my window, I'm going to think you're a 'bad' guy, regardless of your motivation. As you walk you own road and judge your own intentions, I will walk mine and judge YOURS as well. It's not pretty, but it's life.

If you fear nothing, there ARE NO 'terrorists.'

We all know in our heart the face of evil.

You can drape a flag around it and talk about God and Country but evil resides in all men.

Sadly, this discussion has been hashed and rehashed over so many times during the 911, Iraq and Afghanistan discussions that it's tough to keep up the energy to give my input.

I agree that there have been actions done by our government, in putting our soldiers in the back yards of other people in the name of 'freedom' and so on, that are terroristic in a way.

A terrorist is one that will put bombs in cars and kill innocent people. That is the definition (with other variations) that our government will want us to accept. That they are usually tied to the Islamic religion.

Well, I'm sorry but the fact that many innocents (or collateral damage as they try to call it in a gentler light) have died by our actions is just as bad. Now, am I calling our soldiers terrorists? No. They are following orders and feel they are at war. However, the people that sent them there under false pretense are the ones I hold responsible. They are the terrorists.

Are there terrorists trying to kill Americans? Well, if there weren't any before I can guarantee there are now. I'm not convinced one way or the other. However, when I look at how our corporations have taken advantage of many innocents through slave camps and so on in these countries, I can kind of start to see WHY they would hate "America" in general.

I could go on and on and on about this subject.

I agree and disagree with your statement. I understand what you are trying to say but as I said, it's been pounded into the ground under various other topics on this site many times over.

Being a terrorist is not always a bad thing. Usually terrorists use violence or fear to achieve their objectives. Now imagine that you live in a 1984 type world, or something like in Half Life 2. You might have to use violence against your oppressors to free yourself. Words don't always work sadly. You may use fear to make your oppressors think you are more powerful than you really are. Our founding fathers were terrorists, but they weren't what I'd call "bad terrorists". It really depends on what type of terrorist you are.

The terrorists don't care if civilians are killed; they have killed far more of their own than we, or NATO forces have. They think they are fighting for Islam, defending Islam, or doing their religious duties. Many are simply brainwashed. If they weren't trying to kill coalition forces, they would be killing each other- as they have done for 1400 years. Our military breaks its back not to kill civilians. The terrorists go out of their way to kill them. The difference isn't hard to see.

the relevant question perhaps is

"why are the so called "good guys" and "bad guys" thus far mentioned here so intent on dragging all and everyone else into this "quagmire"

The American military and the American black ops are the biggest terrorist oganization in the world. They kill far more innocent people than any Muslim jihadists have. They have created far more terror as well.