The aim of both of those is to cause a withdrawal of military forces (If the two hypothetical attacks were parts of different conflicts then they shouldn't be compared like that).

I guess we're getting down to definitions here. I define terrorism as an act that inflicts terror, with the goal of inflicting terror. You say it's individuals or non state (or unrecognised state) groups when they target non-combatants.

It's WWII. Let's say that there is an old Belorussian man that sends the German garrison a carton of milk every two days so that they can have healthy teeth and bones, simply because it's a nice thing to do. Let's say he has no family, friends or contacts. He is a hermit. The Germans don't know who sends the milk they just guzzle it like the filthy swine they are. The local partisans send out someone to kill him, because they want the Germans to have weak bones so that fighting on the front lines they will drop their guns and not kill so many sons of the motherland.

So the partisan kills the old man by clubbing him in the back of the head. He dies, and the Partisan buries him in his backyard. Nobody knows about the killing, nobody cares, but an operative of an unlawful group has killed a non combatant. Is that terrorism?


I say no, it's just murder.

You can't get bogged down with definitions when you are defining the actors rather than the act. Much more logical and precise to identify whether the act itself is terrorism, by looking at the aims and outcomes of the act.

True. Ok. You can be a terrorist if you are part of a group that commits terrorist acts (my definition). That is fair enough. In the examples I have put forward I never stated if said hypothetical person was part of a group though. If they are part of a terrorist group, then yes, they are a terrorist using at that point in time non-terrorist tactics. If they aren't part of a terrorist group, then they are not a terrorist, since they are not using terror tactics (my definition). My example of the partisan killing the old man, is the act an act of terror? Not in my defining of the word. Is the partisan a terrorist for that act? No. Is he a terrorist if he belongs to a group that regularly dips into the pool of terrorist tactics, knows about the use of these tactics and doesn't disagree with them? Yes.

Yes, but I was looking slightly less far into the future. Same future aim (no more soldiers in my country), same act (blowing yourself up), different .. uh, bit in the middle? The history of warfare is not always about killing the enemy soldiers until they are dead, it's usually about killing the enemy soldiers until they give up. Anyway, I think once you put on the uniform, swear the oath of allegiance and what not, then you are representing your nation, it's morals and values, and you are responsible for it. I think a soldier is a fair target for disagreement. All subjective of course to what you are disagreeing over. Am I babbling and not making sense? It's nearly 5am.

non-state actors who use violence or the threat of violence against noncombatants to coerce individuals or governments into adopting change.

Correct, they were not attempting to affect wider change. Their intent was to merely kill the dude supplying the milk, not to cause Nazi withdrawal or influence anyone.

Whether or not someone or a group is a terrorist is defined by their actions or intent. Read my definition.

An individual can use terror tactics. The underwear bomber was not sent out by Al Qaeda, he was not given that mission from them. Yes, he had ties to terrorist groups but he was acting of his own individual accord. Look at my definition for why I would count a individual such as he as a terrorist.


See my definition. ;/ And you're making sense.

Not really much disagreement going on here, I think it's just that we've both got different definitions, I think yours is probably closer to what the official line is, but I like mine better. I lean towards every action being subjective at the time, rather than trying to fit it into pre defined categories, easy enough to say, maybe not easy enough to do. Especially when you are a government, and require a stance on such actions at all times.

What's your paper about?


Oh, and you said that the partisan killing the old man was both a terrorist and not a terrorist.

The Australian dude mentioned how govts now overuse the word terrorism to describe anyone who disagrees with them or opposes them. thats what i was referring to

Hang on, I was going to ask:

What if your non-state actor causing a violent act on a non-combatant isn't trying to affect change? What if they are simply doing this act for the sake of it? Say, blowing up a hospital simply for the act of causing terror and panic in the population?

By me, it's terrorism. Causing terror. But if they aren't doing it to affect change with the government or individuals, is it terrorism to you?

What if someone has the sole aim of causing chaos? I'm not saying that is the case in the russian bombings but I am sure there have been plenty of people who live in these lawless areas and just enjoy killing and terrorizing locals. Would that be terrorism since the sole aim would be to cause chaos?

I just don't see how these people' tactics are not terrorism just because they might have a legitmate grievance. AND YES OUR GOVERNMENT HAS DONE WORSE LIKE DROP NUKES AND BLANKET BOMB GERMANY AND DONT FORGET THE NATIVE AMERICANS! but our past wrongs do not make current tactics being used to purposfully kill civlians right and its a pretty weak arguement that just because we have done worse that its an acceptable means of resistance to purposfully target civilians on public transportation. The "freedom fighters" in pakistan and iraq kidnap kids routinely or buy them from their parents and then brainwash them to become suicide bombers. Most suicide bombers have been heavily brainwashed into believing that what they are doing serves god or whatever. They have no clue about the legitmate grievances. maybe this doesnt apply to the women suicide bombers because they are probaly widows who had their husbands killed by the russians but id say the majority of suicide bombers are brainwashed pawns(alot of the time the detonator isnt even with the person wearing the vest because of the very likly chance of the person chickening out). they even believe that some of the 911 hijackers werent even aware they were going on a suicide mission because most people would rather not die. although some of the 911 hijackers were very educated and obviously not brainwashed pawns but I'd say most committing these types of acts are.
The fact that you even say suicide bombing is rational doesn't make sense to me. suicide is committed by irrational people(maybe not when done by old people or people with terminal diesease). its irrantional to not want to survive in my opinion.

interesting discussion none the less!

The Australian and I think alike apparently.

equivocation. the word terrorism doesn't necessarily mean any act which creates chaos/terror.

Then he's just a jerk? and not a terrorist.

Not any act, no, because most violent acts do cause terror. But an act with the explicit aim of causing terror? Why not?

Right, so he plants a bomb/blows himself up, destroys a hospital, kills innocent children and sick people, all in the name of causing terror.... and you don't think that counts as terrorism?


Again, I think you guys are being too tight with your definition. It has to be a non-state actor, acting against non-combatants with the express aim of coercing change... but if you do it for sheer terror sake, rather than change, well I guess you suddenly fall out of the category.

I think you're all missing the point here. Terrorism is anything that's used to strike fear into a specified population. Meaning it isn't just bombs going off and random acts of aggression, it can also be fake radio broadcast such as the War of the Worlds incident or fake news story designed to pull on people’s emotions to created a expected response. Fear, anger, hostility, its all very psychological.

Bottom line,

Terrorism is the new communism and to go even further back, it's the new Nazism. This is the reality in which we and others are being baptized in to. The new enemy figure is no longer humorous caricatures of Mao or Stalin it's now an unnamed force called "terrorism". It seems to me that old standing armies with uniforms and expensive machinery are outdated and not cost effective. What works better for the powers that be is funding small groups of upset disenfranchised people and unleashing them on your nearest enemy. This is how warfare is fought in the present.

Remember what I said in my last post. The USA has been funding the Chechen terrorist envoy Ilyas Akhmadov for years now. That would be the same as Russia funding "Osama Bin laden".

Can anyone here make the connection?

State sponsored terrorism.

Very similar to calling someone a Conspiracy theorists for not adhering to the established paradigm.

No way! :eek

Most.....terrorist activities are either state sponsored or are caused when a group of people are being treated unfairly without any means of recourse, mediation, or justice.

It's easy to point a finger at someone and yell "terrorist" after they commit any illegal act but it's difficult for the vast majority of people to understand how they became "terrorists" in the first place. I'm not saying they are justified in their actions. They aren't, but they are easily manipulated and give authoritarians reason to clamped down on civil liberties while getting rich off the security industry.

That's a load of baloney. I don't believe that at all.

They're just ... I don't know, evil or something lol. Probably born that way. The terrorists can't be reasoned with you just have to kill them unfortunately. If that means bombing the terrorist countries before they send someone around to blow themselves up in my country then so be it.

Ha,

I know how you feel Zhukov. Don't let them get you down.

Just get out of this thread.

Fine.....:(

When? :O
It’s not terrorism, it’s just random violence. I don’t think that you’d find any groups doing that though. Maybe just some nut opening up on a bunch of people in a shopping mall kind of thing.
I stopped reading your post after this part because you obviously don’t understand anything that I’ve written. They are terrorists. Terrorists do not have to be bad guys or good guys. I do not personally support terrorism. Re-read my posts.
You’re missing the point because we weren’t discussing state sponsorship of terrorism.
No, you still don't know how I stand on global warming and all of that. You're a conspiracy theorist because you support a conspiracy theory. You can be completely correct. You are incapable of understanding other people's posts because you have no concept of objectivity. People are either good or bad from your perspective and no one can discuss something from the middle ground.

Basically you're an idiot.

Correct, I'd just view him as a mass(?) murderer. This isn't really that important though, because there is no set definition of terrorism. The definition that I use is the one that I think fits best with the groups and individuals historically referred as terrorists.

Different departments of the US government actually have different definitions of terrorism.:x

Ummm.......Didn't your dicussion start because of the recent Chechen Terrorist bombing?

If so isn't this a valid point to back up Zhukov's point of view?

V


His name is Ilyas Akhmadov. He's being funded by the USA. His Chechen fighters were the ones who bombed the Russian subways. The USA refuses to release Ilyas Akhmadov into Russia custody. I don't really know how much simpler I could put it.



Your a terrorist because you support terrorists. :)

It'd be one thing if you turned the discussion towards that but you came in acting all high and mighty, thinking that what you're writing is something that we don't already know. You're slow.

Also most terrorism is not state sponsored. That was only the case during the cold war.

I think that what I'm writing is going over your head.

If it's not state sponsored then it's provoked, if it's not provoked then it may really be real people taking the law into their own hands. That's rarely the case though.

State sponsored terrorism didn't disappear after the Cold War. It's always been around.

Did you miss the most part? You're so stupid. Next you're going to be telling me the sky is blue and when I call you stupid for that, you'll interpret it as me disagreeing that the sky is blue.

that's exactly why I said its equivocation. "TERRORISM IS JUST THE CAUSING OF TERROR. SO LIKE WHEN YOU SNEAK UP ON A CHILD IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT, FIND HIS FAVORITE TOY AND WAKE HIM UP TO YOU DESTROYING IT YOU ARE A TERRORIST. WHY DOESN"T THE GUBERMENT DO SOMETHING ABOUT THIS."

"THE CREATORS OF ALL HORROR MOVIES ARE TERRORISTS BECAUSE THEY WANT TO CAUSE TERROR ON PEOPLE."


Horror movies cause terror, right? So are their creators terrorists in the sense of TRANSNATIONAL TERRORISTS? MAYBE CAUSE THEIR MOVIES GO TO OTHER COUNTRIES. What about, "transnational terrorists who blow shit up?" WELL THEY DID BLOW UP THE BOX OFFICE AM I RITE?
The simple fact is that "TERRORIST" can have more than one meaning, including meanings which do not refer to people who blow up other shit. I mean seriously, do you think people who make horror movies are really the same as terrorists? Coolinator apparantly does. As if Orson Welles purpose was even similar to a terrorists purpose :rolleyes

AT SOME KIND OF UN ADDRESS, "WE ARE BRINGING CHARGES OF STATE SPONSORED TERRORISM AGAINST THE UNITED STATES BECAUSE WE RECENTLY IMPORTED THIS MOVIE, 'HOLLOWEEN,' WHICH FRANKLY HAS MANY OF OUR CITIZENS, SOLDIERS AND POLITICIANS IN A STATE OF TERROR. THIS IS THE UNITED STATES WAY OF PAVING THE WAY FOR AN ATTACK."
"OH GPOD! THE AMERICAN ENGINEER CORPS IS ATTACKING AND THEY'VE BROUGHT SOLDERS."

I mean shit according to this definition IM a fucking terrorist. Do you know how many times in my lifetime I've sat around a corner waiting for a friend, only to scare the living shit out of him? Yep, that's right, I'm a terrorist. I'm sure everybody on this message board, in that sense, is a terrorist. Plus how many of you have reccommended scary movies to people? Terrorists. Is guantanamo bay in all of our destinies?
If you don't separate the meanings of these two types of terrorism, then really the word is useless. Just like with practically every other word in the world that can have more than one meaning...



Yea cause like terrorists have taken over so many countries.


I dunno this is typical stupidity. Somebody sees a word like "TERRORIST" and then goes, "WELL, LIKE, I USED TO GET NIGHT TERRORS, SO LIKE, SLEEPING THEREFORE IS A TYPE OF TERROR. OUR GOVERNMENT TERRORIZES US, SO THEY MUST LIKE WANT US TO SLEEP!"
thats the kind of thought process i see, but maybe I'm wrong. I can't tell you how many times I see this sort of lazy philosophizing, though.

I'm not so sure that being a "Terrorist" really even has anything to do with causing terror.

"I stopped reading your post after this part because you obviously don’t understand anything that I’ve written."

That is a great way to get people to re-read your posts.