Mr. D
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- Sep 19, 2005
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Oxford American Dictionary:
Terrorism - the use of violence and intimidation in the pursuit of political aims.
Terrorism is as old as man's conflict, yet we act shocked when it is used against us! Vlad the Impaler (of Dracula legend) hung the Muslim invaders on pikes alive to terrorize Muslims and weaken their resolve to attack Transylvania! The American Indian in a desperate attempt to save his land and way of life from white invaders whose treaties could not be trusted turned to terrorism in attacking settler families without warning! Obviously it failed! Certainly it has been accepted by most historians that the fire bombings of both Liverpool by the Germans and Dresden by the Allies were much more for the purpose of terrorizing and intimidating civilians than to destroy military targets. The German V2 rockets also were more about terrorism than hitting military targets. It's difficult avoid the reality that the world's greatest use of terror was the use of the A-Bomb on Japan. Its purpose was to kill large numbers of non combatants so to create such terror and intimidation as to gain the political aim of a unconditional surrender without having to fight the Japanese on their homeland and lose more soldiers. It can be argued that it was the right call for our military, but it was still clearly terrorism. Triangular shaped “fleshettes” that were used as antipersonnel fragments in bombs dropped by our Air Force on Hanoi's civilians were brought back to the U.S. as proof. The Condor program of Latin America in which death squads trained in the United States by the CIA used extraordinary rendition exchanges. Latin American countries traded each others leftist rebels to be tortured and murdered in foreign countries was and is terrorism that still goes on today by our own government!
A bomb dropped from a F16 on a civilian area killing an entire family is simply collateral damage, not terrorism to those killed! A shell from a Israeli tank hitting your home probably kills as well as a car bomb! Only the bomb in a car or strapped to a person’s body is a terrorist act! As a Palestinian fighter said, “When the U.S. gives us F16’s like it does Israel, we’ll fight a conventional war!”
The side that wins a war always explains its own terrorism as an unfortunate, but necessary part of war caused by those that were actually terrorized. The losing side is branded as degenerate, criminal terrorists, while as always the winner writes the history to his own benefit!
Terrorism is as old and as common as warfare, so why do we act as if it is a new phenomenon! Maybe simply because it was used against our homeland this time! I hate terrorism as much as anyone does, but let's not pretend it is new, or our hands are clean!
Terrorism - the use of violence and intimidation in the pursuit of political aims.
Terrorism is as old as man's conflict, yet we act shocked when it is used against us! Vlad the Impaler (of Dracula legend) hung the Muslim invaders on pikes alive to terrorize Muslims and weaken their resolve to attack Transylvania! The American Indian in a desperate attempt to save his land and way of life from white invaders whose treaties could not be trusted turned to terrorism in attacking settler families without warning! Obviously it failed! Certainly it has been accepted by most historians that the fire bombings of both Liverpool by the Germans and Dresden by the Allies were much more for the purpose of terrorizing and intimidating civilians than to destroy military targets. The German V2 rockets also were more about terrorism than hitting military targets. It's difficult avoid the reality that the world's greatest use of terror was the use of the A-Bomb on Japan. Its purpose was to kill large numbers of non combatants so to create such terror and intimidation as to gain the political aim of a unconditional surrender without having to fight the Japanese on their homeland and lose more soldiers. It can be argued that it was the right call for our military, but it was still clearly terrorism. Triangular shaped “fleshettes” that were used as antipersonnel fragments in bombs dropped by our Air Force on Hanoi's civilians were brought back to the U.S. as proof. The Condor program of Latin America in which death squads trained in the United States by the CIA used extraordinary rendition exchanges. Latin American countries traded each others leftist rebels to be tortured and murdered in foreign countries was and is terrorism that still goes on today by our own government!
A bomb dropped from a F16 on a civilian area killing an entire family is simply collateral damage, not terrorism to those killed! A shell from a Israeli tank hitting your home probably kills as well as a car bomb! Only the bomb in a car or strapped to a person’s body is a terrorist act! As a Palestinian fighter said, “When the U.S. gives us F16’s like it does Israel, we’ll fight a conventional war!”
The side that wins a war always explains its own terrorism as an unfortunate, but necessary part of war caused by those that were actually terrorized. The losing side is branded as degenerate, criminal terrorists, while as always the winner writes the history to his own benefit!
Terrorism is as old and as common as warfare, so why do we act as if it is a new phenomenon! Maybe simply because it was used against our homeland this time! I hate terrorism as much as anyone does, but let's not pretend it is new, or our hands are clean!
