we say terrorists kill innocent people...

I can and do fault the isralis for the deaths of the cicilians, since they tdo not have to attack, or attack with heavy artillery.

Brandon9000 wrote:

Michael_S wrote:

Brandon9000 wrote:

Cyracuz wrote:

Quote:

Waging war without moral justification (which I by no means admit we've done) has zero to do with terrorism.

So you think there's no connection between the meddling of our countries and the terrorist bombings?

The question isn't whether there's a connection or not. The question is whether such meddling itself constitutes terrorism.

does that mean we are moving on to talk about the semantics of terrorism and what defines a terrorist (unfortunately I suspect the question was rhetorical).

Anyway. Heres a common definition of terrorisim

Quote:

terrorism

n : the calculated use of violence (or threat of violence) against civilians in order to attain goals that are political or religious or ideological in nature; this is done through intimindation or coercion or instilling fear

In the current confilict with Israel and Lebanon, are the Israel army using violence (or the threat of violence) against Lebanese civilians? Yes.

Is this in order to attain goals that are political or religious or ideological in nature? Yes

Is this done through intimindation or coercion or instilling fear ? Yes

If you have evidence that the Israeli army has attacked civilians as an intended and not accidental target, as the Palestinians do, you need only present evidence for it. It's the Palestinians who firebomb school buses, not the Israelis.

Certainly, and of course the type of terrorisim you describe is terrorisim under any definition and quite despicable.

This is from todays news from Amnesty International.

Quote:

Civilians have been targeted in Lebanon by the Israeli Defence Forces and in northern Israel by Hizbullah leaving hundreds dead.

After weeks of fighting, bombs and rockets continue to fall indiscriminately on women, children, ambulances, rescue workers and other innocent victims of this escalating conflict. These deliberate attacks violate international humanitarian law and constitute war crimes.

Michael_S wrote:

Brandon9000 wrote:

Michael_S wrote:

Brandon9000 wrote:

Cyracuz wrote:

Quote:

Waging war without moral justification (which I by no means admit we've done) has zero to do with terrorism.

So you think there's no connection between the meddling of our countries and the terrorist bombings?

The question isn't whether there's a connection or not. The question is whether such meddling itself constitutes terrorism.

does that mean we are moving on to talk about the semantics of terrorism and what defines a terrorist (unfortunately I suspect the question was rhetorical).

Anyway. Heres a common definition of terrorisim

Quote:

terrorism

n : the calculated use of violence (or threat of violence) against civilians in order to attain goals that are political or religious or ideological in nature; this is done through intimindation or coercion or instilling fear

In the current confilict with Israel and Lebanon, are the Israel army using violence (or the threat of violence) against Lebanese civilians? Yes.

Is this in order to attain goals that are political or religious or ideological in nature? Yes

Is this done through intimindation or coercion or instilling fear ? Yes

If you have evidence that the Israeli army has attacked civilians as an intended and not accidental target, as the Palestinians do, you need only present evidence for it. It's the Palestinians who firebomb school buses, not the Israelis.

Certainly, and of course the type of terrorisim you describe is terrorisim under any definition and quite despicable.

This is from todays news from Amnesty International.

Quote:

Civilians have been targeted in Lebanon by the Israeli Defence Forces and in northern Israel by Hizbullah leaving hundreds dead.

After weeks of fighting, bombs and rockets continue to fall indiscriminately on women, children, ambulances, rescue workers and other innocent victims of this escalating conflict. These deliberate attacks violate international humanitarian law and constitute war crimes.

It's my suspicion that this is nonsense, and that the Israeli bombs actually do have combatant targets. They certainly are justified in a military response to the sorts of atrocities which are the Palestinian MO.

najmelliw wrote:

I can and do fault the isralis for the deaths of the cicilians, since they tdo not have to attack, or attack with heavy artillery.

I notice you don't mention anything about the firebombing of school buses and other deliberate assassination of the weak and helpless by the Palestinians. Nice double standard.

Brandon9000 wrote:

Michael_S wrote:

Brandon9000 wrote:

Michael_S wrote:

Brandon9000 wrote:

Cyracuz wrote:

Quote:

Waging war without moral justification (which I by no means admit we've done) has zero to do with terrorism.

So you think there's no connection between the meddling of our countries and the terrorist bombings?

The question isn't whether there's a connection or not. The question is whether such meddling itself constitutes terrorism.

does that mean we are moving on to talk about the semantics of terrorism and what defines a terrorist (unfortunately I suspect the question was rhetorical).

Anyway. Heres a common definition of terrorisim

Quote:

terrorism

n : the calculated use of violence (or threat of violence) against civilians in order to attain goals that are political or religious or ideological in nature; this is done through intimindation or coercion or instilling fear

In the current confilict with Israel and Lebanon, are the Israel army using violence (or the threat of violence) against Lebanese civilians? Yes.

Is this in order to attain goals that are political or religious or ideological in nature? Yes

Is this done through intimindation or coercion or instilling fear ? Yes

If you have evidence that the Israeli army has attacked civilians as an intended and not accidental target, as the Palestinians do, you need only present evidence for it. It's the Palestinians who firebomb school buses, not the Israelis.

Certainly, and of course the type of terrorisim you describe is terrorisim under any definition and quite despicable.

This is from todays news from Amnesty International.

Quote:

Civilians have been targeted in Lebanon by the Israeli Defence Forces and in northern Israel by Hizbullah leaving hundreds dead.

After weeks of fighting, bombs and rockets continue to fall indiscriminately on women, children, ambulances, rescue workers and other innocent victims of this escalating conflict. These deliberate attacks violate international humanitarian law and constitute war crimes.

It's my suspicion that this is nonsense, and that the Israeli bombs actually do have combatant targets. They certainly are justified in a military response to the sorts of atrocities which are the Palestinian MO.

Lets examine this for a moment. I can give my reasoning for suspecting that civilians are being targeted.

By reading from many sources, it seems the Israelis are just about alone , with even their closest allies condeming the actions in Lebenaon. One must remember even the Nazis claimed to be doing no wrong, whilst all the time carrying out the worst possible attrocities. when all in the world start to suspect something , its usually a good indicator.

A comparison to when huricane Katrina went through the states, and people were looking to blame this on global warming and went to climatologists, who said "from a single incident nothing can be proved". One must take all the data from a sustained period and look at it collectively. I belive when the same is done with Isreal, each instance is not a case of a rogue soldier not following orders, or legitimate targets with collatoral damage or a missed target.

I belive that both Isreal and USA realize that to fall within the international guidlines on how to treat prisoners of war and following geneva conventions, they will not ahcieve thier goals. It's difficult to follow geneva conventions when the other side uses crowds to hide in, but nevertheless, USA and Isreal are forced to go outside of conventional acceptable practices.

By what reasoning do you suspect it is nonsense?

Brandon9000 wrote:

najmelliw wrote:

I can and do fault the isralis for the deaths of the cicilians, since they tdo not have to attack, or attack with heavy artillery.

I notice you don't mention anything about the firebombing of school buses and other deliberate assassination of the weak and helpless by the Palestinians. Nice double standard.

OH really? I allready mentioned that I fault terrorists for suicide bombings... Their tactics are despicable, and retribution is hard to inflict.
So does a government have a right to attack a nation because of the actions of a few of it's citizens?

But given your penchants, I gather you think mass extermination of the islamites, or genocide of the palestinians, or some such nice method would be a good solution? It would after all stop terrorist attacks... Just eliminate ANY person who could make such an attack.

Yes, I guess that's your best bet. Put words in my mouth that I have never said, and don't believe. You cannot win this argument sticking to the facts, not the personalities, and only the things I actually say.

Brandon9000 wrote:

Yes, I guess that's your best bet. Put words in my mouth that I have never said, and don't believe. You cannot win this argument sticking to the facts, not the personalities, and only the things I actually say.

You started it. When you claim I have no eye for the Israeli side and the terrorist attacks on them, while I have deplored those actions on a2k several times, and then accusing me of having a double standard.

At least I used the words : I GUESS. Let me outine and underline the word guess [/u] since you seemed to miss it. It means that I frame my statement as my own, personal opinion, and therefor not as a fact

Now, I have tried to play it your way. Let me ask you this.

As long as the government from any (democraticly run) country condones an action,

it is therefor a just action and as such above dispute?

Or is this just viable for the international political actions of the USA? Please, let me know.

No, another distortion by you. I never claimed any such thing. I only pointed out that you had only criticzed Israel, but failed to criticize the long string of atrocities by the Palestinians.

najmelliw wrote:

At least I used the words : I GUESS. Let me outine and underline the word guess [/u] since you seemed to miss it. It means that I frame my statement as my own, personal opinion, and therefor not as a fact

News flash, you're not entitled to criticize me for opinions I never expressed, even if you say, "I guess."

najmelliw wrote:

Now, I have tried to play it your way. Let me ask you this.

As long as the government from any (democraticly run) country condones an action,

it is therefor a just action and as such above dispute?

Or is this just viable for the international political actions of the USA? Please, let me know.

No, not at all. Israel's actions, and those of the US in the Middle East since the invasion of Kuwait, are justified based on the specific facts of the cases.

Well, partially the fact that you can't give a single example of non-combatants being targetted DELIBERATELY.

But do they?

What the **** are you talking about???

Do you really think dropping a ****' atom bomb in the middle of a city filled with men, women, children, and babies....WAS NOT INTENTIONAL???

Yes, Hiroshima and Nagasaki were the only times when we targetted civilians, and it was wrong, but it was also a long, long time ago.

Do the names Dresden and Tokyo mean anything to you??? We fire bombed both cities while they were filled with "innocent" civilians. And we targeted many, many other cities also.

Brandon, you've all but hijacked this thread with you're insistence that Israel and America are in no way to be considered terrorists.

"Terrorism is an anxiety-inspiring method of repeated violent action, employed by (semi-) clandestine individual, group or state actors, for idiosyncratic, criminal or political reasons, whereby - in contrast to assassination - the direct targets of violence are not the main targets. The immediate human victims of violence are generally chosen randomly (targets of opportunity) or selectively (representative or symbolic targets) from a target population, and serve as message generators. Threat- and violence-based communication processes between terrorist (organization), (imperilled) victims, and main targets are used to manipulate the main target (audience(s)), turning it into a target of terror, a target of demands, or a target of attention, depending on whether intimidation, coercion, or propaganda is primarily sought" (Schmid, 1988).

http://www.unodc.org/unodc/terrorism_definitions.html

Brandon9000 wrote:

Well, partially the fact that you can't give a single example of non-combatants being targetted DELIBERATELY.

I have been more than obliging with providing examples and I would think to sugest otherwise is somewhat disingenuous....

Brandon9000 wrote:

Yes, Hiroshima and Nagasaki were the only times when we targetted civilians, and it was wrong, but it was also a long, long time ago.

The target at Hiroshima was the tens of thousands of combat troops in Hiroshima's large military districts.

The target at Nagasaki was the large armament factories outside the city.

Frank Apisa wrote:

What the **** are you talking about???

Do you really think dropping a ****' atom bomb in the middle of a city filled with men, women, children, and babies....WAS NOT INTENTIONAL???

The intent of dropping the A-bombs was not to kill civilians.