Terrorism

Discussion of the nature of Ultimate Reality and the path to Enlightenment.
Kevin Solway
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Terrorism

Post by Kevin Solway »

An interesting problem is presented with the outlawing of terrorism.

It might happen that our world is invaded by a malevolent species who disband all our governments and militaries, and replace them with new ones under their majority (ie, democratic) control. The only way we could fight back would be through terrorism, but since we have made terrorism illegal we would not be able to fight back!

This is of course the same problem we have with things like "murder". In fact, murder is really only killing that we do not approve of. Similarly, terrorism is only acts of violence against ourselves or our friends that we do not approve of.
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DHodges
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Re: Terrorism

Post by DHodges »

ksolway wrote:Similarly, terrorism is only acts of violence against ourselves or our friends that we do not approve of.
This is pretty obvious in the U.S. It's classic doublethink. Something done by the enemy is terrorism, but if we do something similar, it is completely justified.
Lennyrizzo
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Post by Lennyrizzo »

There's a rather huge difference, don't you think?
With terrorism, there's no clear evidence of any large group or nation whose majority agrees to assign the individual authority to act on their behalf as he sees fit. That's how we decide in this day and age whether or not someone is reasonable and worthy of our trust. Lacking this he may just be making a grave mistake!
It is not enough that he claims to represent a group. They must step forward and assert their position on the matter, commit themselves and share the responsibility.
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Diebert van Rhijn
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Re: Terrorism

Post by Diebert van Rhijn »

ksolway wrote: The only way we could fight back would be through terrorism, but since we have made terrorism illegal we would not be able to fight back!
For sure any counter measure put in place in the War on Terror, like monitoring communications, tiplines, linking databases, and circumventing civilian courts will become a terrible weapon in the hands of any victor of a future civil war or coup or whatever. It's like laying the foundation for a 1984 waiting to happen.

Why are people mixing terms like insurgents, freedomfighters, resistance and terrorists? An act of terror is to create fear to influence politics. But lots of things called terror these days are just a form of "fourth generation warfare", with clear economical or military targets. That they happen to scare the people as side-effect doesn't make them terror by definition. Each war can be called terror that way. The War of Terror reads then: The terror on terror. Which it seems to become more and more each passing day.

You could say we are witnessing the War of the Words, of shifting definitions, newspeak, information flow, intelligence and 'perception management'. The age old problem of course of the humans who can't stop lying and hiding.
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DIVINE INTERVENTION

Post by Leyla Shen »

Lennyrizzo, your grammar and spelling seems to have improved markedly overnight. Or is it just me?

I simply do not know what to make of it.
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REVOLUTION

Post by Leyla Shen »

It might happen that our world is invaded by a malevolent species who disband all our governments and militaries, and replace them with new ones under their majority (ie, democratic) control. The only way we could fight back would be through terrorism, but since we have made terrorism illegal we would not be able to fight back!
Not really, because:
This is of course the same problem we have with things like "murder". In fact, murder is really only killing that we do not approve of. Similarly, terrorism is only acts of violence against ourselves or our friends that we do not approve of.
Unless we redefine "we" to include the malevolent species.
Lennyrizzo
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Guess Who

Post by Lennyrizzo »

Amazing what can be done these days, ain't it.

American woman, stay away from me American woman, mama let me be Don't come hare hanging around my door I don't want to see your face no more I got more important things to do Than spend my time growin' old with you Now woman, I said stay away American woman, listen what I say American woman, get away from me American woman, mama let me be Don't come here knocking around my door Don't want to see your shadow no more Colored lights can hypnotize Sparkle someone else's eyes Now woman, I said get away American woman, listen what I say American woman, I said get way American woman, listen what I say Don't come here hanging around my door Don't want to see your face no more I don't need your war machines I don't need your ghetto scenes Colored lights can hypnotize Sparkle someone else's eyes Now woman, get away from me American woman, mama let me be
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Dan Rowden
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Post by Dan Rowden »

I'm afraid I'm not connecting with the gist of this thread. Terrorism has always been illegal. It has never been "outlawed" as such because it is, by definition, already illegal.

Legal prohibitions have never stopped terrorists from doing what they want. I don't get the issue here.


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Diebert van Rhijn
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Post by Diebert van Rhijn »

Dan, I don't think it's by definition illegal, for example when we're talking about 'state terrorism'. But I get your drift that it makes no sense to talk about legal prohibitions only. The problem lies more in the practical 'war' on terror, or the attempts to make it technicaly impossible to commit acts of terror in a society. That's how I was reading it. Such blanket of security would prevent a (moraly valid?) resistance movement to arise in a future changed society.
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Post by Leyla Shen »

The problem lies more in the practical 'war' on terror, or the attempts to make it technicaly impossible to commit acts of terror in a society.
I didn't read it that way at all.

And I disagree that there is such a thing as a "technical impossibility for terror" if history and the present day are anything to go by.

I think Kevin most definitely posits a moral conflict, here.
Cathy Preston
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Post by Cathy Preston »

I am not sure terrorism is by definition illegal, but it is most certainly used to describe the violence of an enemy as immoral.

The problem I see is the steps taken by society to protect itself from terrorism, which inevitably will hinder people's ability to revolt even though it may be moral.

When society commit acts of murder it's under the guise of war, or the protection of itself. Murder by definition is unlawful killing, not simply killing, so there are laws which define unlawful killing vs. lawful killing. There is no such distinction when it comes to terrorism.
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MORAL LAW

Post by Leyla Shen »

There appears to be no definition of terrorism because terrorism and war are essentially the same. One is a dysphemism and the other a euphemism, that’s all.

http://www.unodc.org/unodc/terrorism_definitions.html
Proposed Definitions of Terrorism

1. League of Nations Convention (1937):
"All criminal acts directed against a State and intended or calculated to create a state of terror in the minds of particular persons or a group of persons or the general public".

2. UN Resolution language (1999):
"1. Strongly condemns all acts, methods and practices of terrorism as criminal and unjustifiable, wherever and by whomsoever committed;
2. Reiterates that criminal acts intended or calculated to provoke a state of terror in the general public, a group of persons or particular persons for political purposes are in any circumstance unjustifiable, whatever the considerations of a political, philosophical, ideological, racial, ethnic, religious or other nature that may be invoked to justify them". (GA Res. 51/210 Measures to eliminate international terrorism)

3. Short legal definition proposed by A. P. Schmid to United Nations Crime Branch (1992):
Act of Terrorism = Peacetime Equivalent of War Crime

4. Academic Consensus Definition:
"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).

“If you are not with us, you are against us.” G Dubbya Bush.

Whose side are you on?
Lennyrizzo
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terrorist def

Post by Lennyrizzo »

It may be useful for the UN to consider this one - Terrrorist -
"An idealistic person pressured to the point of suicide and violence for refusing to submit to a deluded feminine society threatening his most cherished values."
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Dan Rowden
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If we call it "terrorism"......

Post by Dan Rowden »

As I see it, terrorism is illegal by definition. If we call an act "terrorism" this automatically follows. Naturally it's always relative - one man's (or State's) terror is another man's justifiable action. I also don't see any moral issue. Terrorism is immoral to those who are subject to it and moral to those who do it. This also follows automatically. If we didn't regard a particular action as both illegal and immoral we would call it something else (e.g. humanitarianism - ha ha). The term "terrorism" naturally connotes both illegality and immorality.

Is there an objective standard by which we can judge the nature of any such act? I guess any act of violence perpetrated by the ignorant is always immoral and ought be illegal, but then, legal prohibitions don't and never will stop terrorism. Anyway, legal and moral prohibitions enacted by the ignorant are seldom if ever legitimate. Ignorant people have a sad tendency to want to kill each other. Such is the world.


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MKFaizi

Post by MKFaizi »

The idea expressed by David Hodges is accurate.

The attacks on the World Trade Centers is terrorist but the strafing with bombs over Iraq during the years following the first Gulf War are not terrorist. Bombing the home of Qadaffi and killing his son is not terrorist.

The US and a few other countries can have nuclear power and arms but other countries should not.

Of course, I deplore the 9/11 attacks and the attacks in London. I loathe carnage. But I loathe it from all sides.

Unfortunately, the bombing and killing recently by Islamist "extremists" are turning the world against the plight of Iraqis and the Palestinians and other Muslim people who have suffered. It was only a few years ago that the tide of sympathy began turning somewhat toward Palestine. That was short lived. Now anyone Muslim is suspicious. If you are Muslim, you must be terrorist or sympathetic to terrorism.

As for terrorism being illegal, that depends on perspective. It is illegal if it is done to us. It is not illegal if we do it to them.

I do not think that if the earth was invaded by an aggressive specie, it would be considered terrorist to fight against them. Not among earthlings anyway.

Faizi
MKFaizi

Post by MKFaizi »

Also, in Kevin's scenario, all of our laws would be overridden by the malevolent invading specie. Of course, under such conditions, humanoids would use "terrorist" tactics to rid ourselves of such democratic rule.

Were the acts of the Polish underground during WWII terrorist acts against the Nazis? They may have been terrorist acts -- curious that the "bad" Iraqis are called insurgents as well as the Polish underground -- but they are not viewed in the west as "bad" terrorist acts.

I think whether or not an act is considered terrorist is one of perception. The Boston Tea Party before the American Revolution was highly illegal -- men in disguise dumping tea into the ocean -- but we glorify the act in the US. The entire American Revolution was illegal.

I do not intend to compare 09/11 to the American Revolution. But there are many people who would make such comparison. There are many people who see those attacks as perfectly justified.

One thing I know is that Pakistanis are still angry with the British for the partition of India. Never got over it.

Faizi
sasakura
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Post by sasakura »

i actually wrote something a year ago on the topic of terrorist being, if anything, more moral-full (?) than at least most americans, but until we have a fairly intelligent president nothings going to change

George dubya is actually ruling much like a motto, that would fit america's views of 'exremists'
"Let them hate, So long as they fear" Ever notice the amazingly worthless Color-coded danger...thing? fits pretty well

In any case, the American government made these 'terrorists' by funding the Bin Laden family to help build training camps for the Afgani's where people sent by the CIA taught them the art of urban warfare, including, but not limited to, car bombing

and thats it for my first post
-[Siren Asakura]-
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Blair
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Post by Blair »

sasakura wrote:In any case, the American government made these 'terrorists' by funding the Bin Laden family to help build training camps for the Afgani's where people sent by the CIA taught them the art of urban warfare, including, but not limited to, car bombing
Did he, did he really?? wow that's news. you are a sharp one.
Kevin Solway
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Terrorism

Post by Kevin Solway »

drowden wrote:I'm afraid I'm not connecting with the gist of this thread. Terrorism has always been illegal. It has never been "outlawed" as such because it is, by definition, already illegal.
Yes, it's always been illegal, in the sense that murder has always been illegal. But Australia, at least, seems to be introducing a whole raft of special anti-terrorism laws.

In London, for example, police are now allowed to shoot to kill on sight before they have even detained a person, let alone given them a fair trial and found them guilty.

They are probably doing the right thing, since individual bombers are yielding more and more power - but it's a hell of a world to live in.

And it's important to remember that at some time we will probably need to become terrorists ourselves in order to survive.
MKFaizi

Re: Terrorism

Post by MKFaizi »

See post below. I accidentally posted twice.

Faizi
Last edited by MKFaizi on Thu Aug 04, 2005 10:32 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Dan Rowden
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oops

Post by Dan Rowden »

Ma,

Did you keep the content of that post 'cause I just deleted the accidental replication?


Dan
MKFaizi

Post by MKFaizi »

Damn.

No, I did not keep it. Naturally, it was one of the most impassioned and truthful posts I have ever written.

Well, I will write it again.

Thanks.

Ma
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Dan Rowden
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Not just yet

Post by Dan Rowden »

Don't do it just yet as I'm looking over the support forums for this BB to see if I can retrieve the data.

Sorry. I suck as an admin.


Dan
MKFaizi

Post by MKFaizi »

Thanks. I appreciate that. But it was my own fault. I should have deleted the second one, not the first. As always, I realize that I should write to WORD or something and save my work.

I never do that. I never expect to lose what I am writing.

Always the optimist.

Faizi
MKFaizi

Re: Terrorism

Post by MKFaizi »

For sure any counter measure put in place in the War on Terror, like monitoring communications, tiplines, linking databases, and circumventing civilian courts will become a terrible weapon in the hands of any victor of a future civil war or coup or whatever. It's like laying the foundation for a 1984 waiting to happen.

You could say we are witnessing the War of the Words, of shifting definitions, newspeak, information flow, intelligence and 'perception management'. The age old problem of course of the humans who can't stop lying and hiding.
Die,

I just thoroughly read this post.

Good points.

"1984" happened in 1976, by the way. I remember it precisely.

Where do you live? It is still trickling down. It is only beginning to take hold in my area in the last year or so. Just imagine Orwellian hillbillies. We got 'em.

Faizi
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