Foofie wrote:FreeDuck wrote:Well that's exactly the point, Foofie. Regarding civilians as acceptable targets is what terrorists do. If we agree with them then either we are also terrorists or they are not terrorists. We can't have it both ways. "He hit me first" is not a valid justification.
Your above point is based on the incorrect premise that, "regarding civilians as acceptable targets is what terrorists do." Meaning ONLY terrorists do, and anyone that does that is also a terrorist. No. That's also what we did to end the war with Japan. That's what we did in bombing Dresden. That's what the Nazis did with bombing London with the V-2 rockets. That's what the Nazis did in shooting all Jews, as they advanced further into the Soviet Union in WWII. So, if nations did that also, that doesn't make nations terrorists. It just means that terrorists and nations have used civilians as targets.
Terrorists don't morph into nations, and nations don't morph into terrorists, just because they may use the same targets. It seems that this is a semantical problem in that, in my opinion, you seem to want to include, anyone that targets civilians, as "terrorists." Incorrect logic. The term terrorist is not the focus;
the correct focus is what terrorism's aim is - to spread terror to achieve a goal. Nations have done that and political movements have done that. The political movements are sometimes referred to colloquially as "terrorists."
Also, terrorists target whatever, or whoever, might further their goals. And, let's not forget some terrorists may also be called rebels, and if successful they become the new government. So, again, the term terrorist is just an exercise in semantics. Since the terrorists referred to in this thread are not "rebel" terrorists, but external terrorists, they are a subset of the general term terrorist.
And, it has nothing to do with, "he hit me first." That is a non-sequitor.
The reason, I believe, that civilians were historically not targets is perhaps because civilians, and their farm animals, crops, etc., were "the spoils of war." One doesn't damage the spoils of war.
I would like to think that civilians wouldn't be targets by anyone, nation or terrorist, but modern history seems to be showing that that is not the case.
Saddam has been criticized by this administration for having "using WMD on his own people"--referring to the gassing of the Kurds in Halabja in 1988. By some accounts, these deaths were know colloquially as collateral damage, or simply a consequence of Saddam's attempt at crushing a decades long insurgency.
By others, the Kurdish deaths were the result of chemical weapons use by
both Iraq and Iran. The Kurds happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. "Killing his own people", then, is subject to relativist arguments.
Let's fast forward for a second to the US led invasion of Iraq...where domestic body "accounting" isn't even taking place.... a place where countless documented atrocities have been and continue to be committed by the US forces against Iraqis and have been for nearly half a decade.
In what can be best described by the administration as a Shock and Awe campaign, an unaccounted for number of innocent men, women and children died as a result of the indiscriminate (indiscriminate because not every target was of military or strategic import, so not every casualty was a military or Baathist casualty) bombing campaigns by US forces. One would assume that because the American forces invaded to "liberate" the Iraqis, the innocent civilians
were on their side, but they were bombed anyway, and died all the same.
If Saddam's means were morally repugnant to the current administration, then so should the means of the current administration.
But because there are apologists like you around, the end justifies the means.
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