Do you lose your right to be listened to when you commit barbaric acts?

offeror

I say some people lose their right to have their views taken seriously when they are willing to use any barbaric means to gain the limelight. Just as we refused to listen to any Arab who tried to tie 9/11 to the idea that America should reconsider any of our policies, there are many terrorists in othe parts of the world claiming that their ends justify the means they are using. I say they lose the right to be heard when they slaughter innocents. We have a legal concept here in the U.S. that says a criminal should never profit from his crime. I think the same moral principle should apply globally when we start sorting out the terrorists from the good guys. I think if you're blowing the arms and legs off mommies and babies you lose the right to gain any benefit from that -- not to mention should be imprisoned for the crime. For myself, this is how I react. I don't want to hear what they have to say when they're strapping on explosives and taking out shopping malls, night clubs, or commercial airliners. In a way, it's the same concept as "never negotiating with terrorists," but instead of a state doctrine I've made it a universal moral principle for my own life and in the way I judge situations. I'm no longer buying into the notion that terror without limits is explainable in terms of a cause, any cause.

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"The 2nd Amendment is about defense, not hunting. Long live the gun shows, and reasonable access to FFLs. Join the NRA -- I'm a Life Member."[This message has been edited by offeror (edited 03-15-2002).][This message has been edited by offeror (edited 03-15-2002).]

He Dog

While I don not disagree with you offerer, I think sometimes it is difficult to determine when a freedom fighter becomes a terrorist. Perhaps it is even more difficult for them, I don't know. Clearly, when this country started, it started with terrorism. The Boston tea party was exactly that. I don't remember ever reading about innocents being killed, but I am not sure what really happened. It seems to me, if we are really going to have a war on terrorism, we have to think about the PLO and the Israelies, The IRA and the Prods. They all think of themselves as freedom fighters, even if they look like terrorists from the outside.

badboybob

Anyone who murders innocent men, women and children is a terrorist. Freedom fighters target their military enemy, not innocents.To call a terrorist a freedom fighter is a contradiction in terms for freedom and terrorism are mutually excludable.

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PC=BS

offeror

I'll side with badboybob on this one. The tea party, as history relates it, was largely about dumping tea, and if there was any fighting it was collateral. I'm glad we're starting to debate this finally, around the world, because it will soon swing public opinion to the logic that terrorism and freedom fighting are NOT the same thing from two points of view. Thoughtful consideration will find a number of differences, and that is going to be the greatest advance for humanity since the Geneva Convention in terms of defining acceptable behavior when waging war. There will always be violators of course, but they will no longer have a convenient rationalization on their side. I am hopeful that soon, One man's terrorist will be another man's terrorist.

He Dog

As I said I do not disagree. It seems to me that there are pretty clear lines. But equally clearly not all see it that way. In that the tea party was an attack on a commercial, not a military vessel, it was an act of terrorism. Or maybe terrorism is too strong a word, but certainly it was not an act of war or even civil disobedience in the usual sense. The IRA has for years been bombing prods and Harrod's and other sites in England and the Irish prods have been returning the favor. That is clearly terrorism. I think the point is that these people judge what they do to be rightous acts of civil war and they consider that there are no non-combatants: You are either for me or agin' me. Remember just after 9/11 when several angry and outraged voices on the board were calling to Nuke the entire middle east! Whether justified or not, others get angry and outraged and that is a very slippery slope.Good thread Offerer! Let me be clear here: I do not disagree, but if we all agree what will we debate? I offer a different perspective as a debating point and because I think others do not share our values and point of view.[This message has been edited by He Dog (edited 03-15-2002).]

offeror

He --I don't disagree with you either, but you are right that the tea party may not be the best example, since the target was still British tea and not civilians. As for the IRA, they have engaged in naked terrorism, and it's interesing that they seem to be learning from current events. However, since President Bush is always careful in formal statements to talk about "global terrorism," I think they are intentionally trying to keep out of regional affairs. So long as the IRA does not "go international," the U.S. will probably carefully stay out of England's business. Luckily, that brou-ha-ha finally appears to be settling down. Their timing for peace couldn't be better.

He Dog

I suspect that the timing of the IRA is in no way coincidence. I kind harbor the thought that if we are going to war to end terrorism, we should do just that, and not limit ourselves to just the International terrorists. If we seriously cleaned house, the world could be a fairly decent (kinder and gentler?) place for a while.

offeror

I agree in principle but maybe not in practicality. That phrase "new world order" bothers me a little bit because at one time, it was always a phrase the villains used in Hollywood scripts. Then suddenly the senior President Bush started using it quite often in the early 90s, though he never really proved it existed. Now that we see that we have the capability to create at least some elements of a new world order, maybe we still shouldn't be world-hopping to every regional terrorist conflict. Even if we succeeded in being the world's policemen, which is doubtful from a cost point of view, would we then become the Imperialists we are sometimes accused of being? They do say the road to hell is paved with good intentions. And of course if we spread too thin while erasing all these smaller terrorist cells (a likely prospect) we stand a good chance of weakening our own defenses and becoming vulnerable, not to mention making many more enemies. The huge budget deficits of the past prove that even the U.S. does not have unlimited resources, surely not enough to fix everything that's wrong with the world. And there are those in our own country who would inevitably accuse us of meddling in the affairs of other sovereign countries, unless of course we were distributing food to their hungry, which they would find perfectly acceptable super-expenditures. I'm just rambling.

Submariner .

ITS CONFUSING AT TIMES.TIMOTHY MCVEIGH FOR EXAMPLE THOUGHT HE WAS A PATRIOT.HE DID WHAT HE DID TO RETALIATE AGAINST THE GOVERNMENT FOR WACO AND RUBY RIDGE.BOTH WERE TERRIBLE ABUSES OF POWER BY THE GOV.SO ID TIMMY HAD BOMBED F.B.I. HEADQUARTERS INSTEAD OF THE FED BLDG IN OKEE CITY WOULD HISTORY AS WELL AS THE REST OF US HAD A DIFFERENT OPINION OF HIM?OUR FOUNDING FATHERS WERE REBELLING AGAINST A TYRANNICAL GOVERNMENT WERENT THEY?SO WHO DECIDES WHAT IS TERRORISM AND WHAT IS PATRIONTISM?WHO DECIDES WHEN ITS TO BE CALLED TERRORISM AND WHEN ITS CALLED REVOLUTION?HISTORY IS WRITTEN BY THE CONQUERORS

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Truck Driver,Submarine Veteran,Rusty Wallace fan,and piss poor typist

offeror

It wouldn't have made any difference what or whom Tim McVeigh had bombed. The result would have been exactly the same, in this day and age. It is foolish to believe on the one hand that we can kick the butts of entire foreign countries, but that somehow our military might would be less than equal to the task of flattening any sort of "revolution" of radicals here at home. That's classic double-think. As for what is terrorism and what is revolution, one doesn't revolt against mothers and babies in shopping malls or kids in night clubs. It's not a matter of who decides, it's a matter of common sense. In my humble opinion.

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"The 2nd Amendment is about defense, not hunting. Long live the gun shows, and reasonable access to FFLs. Join the NRA -- I'm a Life Member."

Submariner .

WELL OUR FOUNDING FATHERS DIDNT HAVE A CHANCE TO BEAT THE ENGLISH ARMY EITHER!WHAT ARE THERE SOME 80 MILLION PRIVATELY OWNED GUNS IN AMERICA?WE HAVE MORE PEOPLE AND MORE ARMS THAN ANY STANDING ARMY IN THE WORLD.IF AND I SAY A BIG IF THE PEOPLE OF AMERICA FINALY GOT FED UP ENOUGH THE ARMY NAVY AIRFORCE AND MARINES DONT HAVE A CHANCE.IM NOT TRYING TO SPOUT SOME KIND OF REVOLUTION OR NOTHIN BUT ITS IN THE FORUM OF WHAT IF THAT WERE SPEAKING

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Truck Driver,Submarine Veteran,Rusty Wallace fan,and piss poor typist E-MAIL WNUNLEY@USIT.NET