What right do terrorists have to attack us? and why do we not just eliminate em all cant be to hard

How to combat terrorists? Hmm? Well I think its almost impossible, and here's my argument. You will always have someone mad at some government somewhere, some group of people will scream injustice at another. It has been going around for ages. Terrorism after all is a political tactic using terror and fear. The Muslims scream we are the infidel, We scream that there there needs to be more human rights (it's an example), some other group screams we are destroying rural American, someone else is telling us that unless something else. I am not saying that every group that disagrees with another will plant a bomb or pick up a rifle but there is that segment, we have it here in the United States and it is all over the world.

Ok, lets get something straight here :

Main Entry: ter�ror�ism
Pronunciation: 'ter-&r-"i-z&m
Function: noun
1) the systematic use of terror especially as a means of coercion


There are many peoples views represented on this thread, many speaking perfect sense, some that are passionate about their beliefs but slightly blind to others arguments and those that are laughably ignorant !

Prior to 9/11, each nation kind of had their own ideas as to what terrorism was and the image that underpinned it. The UK saw terrorists as balaclava clad man melting into the background of an Irish crowd, The French / Spanish saw them as Bandana wearing guys who blew up airports in the name of of a free basque region, The russians saw them as a band of guys who lived in the hills, hard souls who fought for their independence from communist aggression.

Now, due to the all pervading influence of the western media, we all see terrorists and terrorism as a middle eastern problem. Ok, lets deal with that first.

Lets take the definition above (thanks to the concise oxford english dictionary) Nowhere in the definition does it say "Activity undertaken by swarthy little bearded bloke wearing yashmac and explosive waistcoat, brandishing AK47 and shouting some unintelligible oaths to an undetermined deity. typically found Middle East." The problem here is that due to the global events of the last five years, our perception of the word terrorist has been moulded by the worlds media, playing on our own fears and paranoia, into this cariacature.

The fight against terrorists and terrorism is as old as the hills, one which the tragic events of 9/11 simply altered our vision of. The loss of life here was on a DEPLORABLE SCALE, however it was justifiable in the eyes of those who perpetrated it! We need to be able to see with the eyes and feel the emotions of the people who do this, otherwise there will never be a solution.

We have just celebrated the anniversary of D-DAY, the operation that was the beginning of the end of the second world war. Now in England, there was a guy called Harris, who approved the fire bombing of Dresden, killing over 100,000 civilians for no military gain at all, there were no fighter factories nearby, no tank assembly plants, yet this is merely accepted as Collateral Damage !How about the poeple in the further parst of the world that were killed and subjugated to create the much lauded British Empire ? Ill bet it was a thousand times more than the combined figures of western civilians killed by middle eastern suicide bombers Lets be grown up, and subjective and call it what it is according to the definition above, Terrorism !

Cardinal Richlieu said that "Treason is merely a metter of dates" .
Well lets examine the US attitude to terrorism now and thirty years ago. Now the US has vowed to stamp out the threat to our way of life, pretty much the same thirty years ago, except that then, the threat was communism. The US funded terrorist organisations such as the Mujjahadin (ironically, spawning Al Qauida and other splinter factions) to further their own political ends. And as for the IRA, over two thirds of IRA funding was from the US, from rich, third gen irish families brought up on stories of the tyrannical British and their forebears dying with green teeth during the potato famine. How many of the British squaddies, who's mates were killed by roadside bombs, boobytraps and the like did the US have sympathy for back then ? Didnt even make the papers did it ? The US were more worried about watergate, and OJ, and whether their president had gotten himself blown.

Now I have probably annoyed a hell of a lot of people so let me say this
1) I am not anti US, I actually think its a great country of free spirited, free thinking people lead by a bit of a nightmare of a government. Many countries would do well to have half the patriotic, self sacrificing nature that the US citizens embody !
2) I'm not anti Brit, I love my country and feel privelidged to live here.

I just wish that people would have the capability to see both sides of the argument, before spouting off !

Oh, and just as a ps. Blobby, your views are laughable, embarassing and depressing. Dude, what the hell ?

It's all about perception.

Depending on what side you were on, William Wallace (of Braveheart fame) was either a terrorist or a freedom fighter.

Ditto for ALL your founding fathers who wanted to get out from under the yoke of the English.

Ditto for EACH side in the American Civil War.

Nothing's every as simple as people here seem to suggest. It's not Good vs Evil. If it is, then the US is not necessarily 100% in the Good camp, they are also in the Evil camp (not only my opinion, but every other country in the world other than the US).


What I would worry about more than terrorism if I was an American is this:

Thanks to your idiot president, anti-American sentiment is spreading acorss the world like wildfire.

HOW can you respect this guy when he's so clearly a complete and utter moron. He can't speak well in public and he constantly butchers the English language.

Hopefully it'll take only a little while to fix America's public image in the rest of the world once Dubya is voted out.

Hopefully.

I would be SO pissed if I was American, thinking that people are judging me based on my moronic President.

Yeah - there's those of us not too happy with "Dubya"...

Out of curiosity, who in the political mix would be better to represent America in the current climate of world affairs?

Personally...I miss Ross Perot - he told us what NAFTA would do!

Originally posted by Argus

First of all, it seem like you think that YOU are the one who is 100% right, and that supposingly gives you the right to decide who is right ("many speaking perfect sense") and who is wrong ("those that are laughably ignorant"), while I do agree with some of your claims, I find this attitude somewhat improper. You did mention facts, but your main claims where only your thoughts on the subject and your interpretations, not a universal law.

Terrorism is hard to define, and there is no such definition which is agreeable by all. Many of your claims are based on a single definition. This is wrong, and there are many different definitions.

Terrorism has many forms. Religious terrorism such as 9/11 is also terrorism, and one of the most threatening. You say that we need to see with THEIR eyes. Ok then. With their eyes, killing hundreds of civilians in the name of their religion and Allah is noble and even a holy thing to do.
They truly believe that by doing so they are heroes of the Islam, and they hide behind those false interpretations of their religion. History proved, that the only way to fight with this form of terrorist is to eliminate it by force. Here in Israel the terror attacks only raised after successfull negotiations, and their reason are not their poor way of life - as you might think by watching CNN (And by the way, people live in about the same conditions in many other Arabian countries, including Jordan, Egypt, and more), their reasons change as the situation around them changes, but their goal remains the same: Murduring innocent people.

Here in Israel we don't fight terrorism they way we do just because it's fun. We do this because it's the only way we are able to defend ourselves.
Negotiations did not help, giving them land did not help (this only made things worse), and they were murdering civilians even before we had a state and an army. Partly because of their flawed religion and partly because of early brainwash induced by their leaders in order to gain power (and because of some other reasons).

US and other countries might have helped those terrorists, but they are far from believing that it is noble to murder innocent people, and their believes have nothing in common with the twisted believes of those terrorists.

And the only perceptions here that are moulded by the worlds media is the thought that terror organization like those in Israel are killing people because of their poor way of life which is caused by Israel and western civilizations - this claim was proven by history to be absoloutly wrong.
And there is also the completely wrong idea that the D-Day was "the beginning of the end of the second world war". Actually the war with germany would have ended anyway, even with no invasion. By the time the D-Day happened, russian soldiers were already advencing into german territories, and the german army was pretty much defeated already. I think their main worry of the inading countries was not to let Russia gain control of europe.

Transendent:

Here in Israel we don't fight terrorism they way we do just because it's fun. We do this because it's the only way we are able to defend ourselves.

Yeah well, Israel's case is a little different. Israel is awesome at MAKING terrorists (launching missile into crowds, bulldozing houses, snipering kids, etc).

And it's easy for them , because they have all the palestinians packed into the largest open air prison in the world. It's like shooting fish in a barrel.

Defending yourself from terrorist attacks from a nation that you have militarily occupied for over 30 years contrary to international criticism isn't exactly going to sway me.

You occupy their land for 30 years and you wonder why they are willing to kill themselves to kill IDF troops?

Take away someone's hope, take away their dreams, take away their future, and don't be surprised when they themselves perceive their lives to be useless.

Originally posted by Jakomo
Transendent:

Here in Israel we don't fight terrorism they way we do just because it's fun. We do this because it's the only way we are able to defend ourselves.

Yeah well, Israel's case is a little different. Israel is awesome at MAKING terrorists (launching missile into crowds, bulldozing houses, snipering kids, etc).

And it's easy for them , because they have all the palestinians packed into the largest open air prison in the world. It's like shooting fish in a barrel.

Defending yourself from terrorist attacks from a nation that you have militarily occupied for over 30 years contrary to international criticism isn't exactly going to sway me.

You occupy their land for 30 years and you wonder why they are willing to kill themselves to kill IDF troops?

Take away someone's hope, take away their dreams, take away their future, and don't be surprised when they themselves perceive their lives to be useless.

Actually we had terrorists BEFORE we boldozed houses, BEFORE we started to shoot gunman, and actually even BEFORE we had an army.

You might not believe it, but from an historical point of view, our actions actually decrease terrorism, and before we started killing Hammas leaders and other terrorists we had much more dead people, and much more succesfull terror attacks on Israelis. The only reason we have less casualties than them is because this way of defense WORKS (and because we - unlike them - don't form huge groups of civilians and go to throw stones and molotov cocktails at them), and the only reason we are continueing to use it is because it works MUCH better that making peace treaties with them, treaties that for some reason (probably because they won't peace so badly... yeah right) caused only more murdered israeli families.

We don't snipe kids unless they are armed and threatening IDF forces (or unless IDF soldiers decide to do it with no apparent reason. In this case those soldiers are sent to prison). And they ARE armed, and they DO shoot at our soldiers. Not to mention that they have no reason to be in hostile areas in the first place. but for some mysterious reason - they are alsways there. (or maybe you think that IDF soldiers just hunt them down whereever they are...). We NEVER fired missile into a crowd on purpose, and mistakes always happen (By the way, eventually it turned out that the missiles fired didn't even hit the crowd, and there where casualties because of a tank shell. And 8 people died, not 22 as the claimed).

So today the Palestinians shoot and kill a pregnant woman and all of her children from zero range just because of their "poor" lives, ten years ago it was because of some other reason, and 70 years ago (when they murdered dozens of jews on the streets when we couldn't even protect ourselves) it was just because they didn't liked us.

You know, we didn't "invade" Israel as you might think. It was a british territory, and the UK agreed to help us and form a jewish state for us. But the Palestinians didn't like it, so they murdered some jews. UK investigated and published a document with restrictions on the JEWS. We obeyed, and they continued slaughtering us. So UK investigated some more, and published another document (2nd white book), with more restrictions. We obeyed, and the Palestinians murdered some Jews again.

How can we make peace with them when they teach their children that we are all monsters and murdurers, and that it is noble thing to kill Jews? how can we make peace when they show their children maps of "Palestine" with no Israel on them?

You see a kid who got shot because he fired at an IDF soldier, and you pitty him. Did you know that his parents probably think that the most noble thing on earth is to send their son to suicide in Israel and to kill as many Jews as possible while doing so?

You read some articles about their poor way of life, and their half ruined houses, and you think we are too cruel to them. Did you know that I can write almost the same article by looking at the lives of many civilians in Egypt, for example? only little of what an ordinary palestinian boy does in a regular day has anything to do with our military presence there.


And as I said before, treating them better only leads to the purchase of more illegal wepons and more blown up Israeli buses, it just becomes much more easier for them to do.

I have no way to prove it, but as a citizen of Israel I can assure you that if they trully wanted peace, they would have had their own state years ago, they even would have recieved large economical support from Israel. For most of the Israelis - There is nothing we want more than peace, and than't what we tach our children in schools. But we will NOT risk our lifes and give them land and money when we see that all they want - from the beginning of our history with them - is our death.

[edit on 8/6/04 by Transc3ndent]

The only "politically correct" way to call our actions is, the War on Terror, prior posts correctly stated that terrorism itself will never be defeated as it is an effect of certain ideals planted in the terrorists.

In my opinion it is a War against radical Islamists, it is very plain to see that they have no qualms in calling this a religious war. I find it hard to believe that even the Muslim leaders in our country "USA", are not shouting at the top of their lungs that these actions are not representative of the teachings of Islam. I think I have seen a total of 3 in the last 3 years say anything about it and all of them in one way or another basicly put the blame squarely on Israel. Is their silence condoning the actions?

The events of 9/11/2001 could not be brushed aside so we had to react in a BIG way, in a war against a radical sect of a religion without calling it that.
(hence, War on Terror)

It is a very big experiment to see if we as a nation (with our partners), can try to eliminate the Threat with our conventional forces. So far, as I see it, we can easily wrestle the governmental powers away from nations who choose to "fan the flames" and turn a blind eye to the terrorists, so long as their hatred and actions are directed against the West & Israel.

It is after the "overthrow" where the problems start, case in point Afghanistan & Iraq.

Our Armed forces in general are not trained to ferret out individuals and small groups of extremists and I don't think it would actually be possible, but I believe that we have to try.

Our Armed forces definitely could manhandle, imprison, interrogate, on a MASSIVE scale but this type of an effort would only be compared to prior encampments of civilians such as the Americans did with the Japanese in WW2 along with Hitler's atrocities with the Jews to name two.

The solution? Ahhh...that is the Big question, which a wide array of responses have already been posted.....but to be honest, the answer is with the Muslims themselves, if this is a religion as depicted by the terrorists then they will continue to stand by and train, encourage, shelter, fund, and unleash them wave after wave for as long as Islam is practiced, or it is not representative of Islam and the majority of the religion should be willing to weed these bad apples from their tree and worship their deity in peace and harmony w/other religions of the world.

But in the event that this is the NWO engine cranking up just read my signature.



[edit on 8-6-2004 by JacKatMtn]

I agree with Transc3ndent, even if Israel didnt exist, the palestinians would still live in poverty, it just seems to be the way the arab culture works, the leaders really dont care about the people, even the richest (Saudi Arabia) arab countries have an overwhelming poverty level, but the leaders build many palaces for themselves. And if they did succeed in wiping Israel out, they would have to find someone to hate, so the leaders can direct attention from their lack of regard for the citizens, to whatever jihad they choose. I really dont see a peaceful end to this whole mess.

I know of a sick and twisted way... that would probably work. Every insurgent/terrorist/partisan that is caught... ruthlessly execute them, then bury their bodies with pigs. Islam is a very superstitious religion, they believe pigs are unclean, and if you are buried with something "unclean" you will not go to heaven. So them being a martyr is void. Islamic terrorist are happy to die by the gun, they believe they are going to heaven, eliminate that idea... and you eliminate a large portion of terrorism. Make the consequences so to ruthless, and repulsive, that people will think twice before detonating a bomb in a bus full of children.

This will never happen, because the United States is so worried about world opinion, and making everyone happy. God forbid we put panties on a Iraqi prisoner's head! Nick Berg's grusome execution is justified, thats what we get for abusing prisoners! That's BULLSH|T! Anger should be directed at the TERRORIST and not the Bush administration! They hang bodies from bridges, and set them on fire... oh it's okay, they are Iraqi, they are allowed to do it! Im so sick of this one sided battle.

They are animals, sub humans... let's treat them like it.

Here we go again... Lemme guess, Godflesh. You're how old? 5?

Im 5?

Keep your comments to yourself, and stick to the subject.

Well said Godflesh, the only way to deal with Islamic Fundentalists are to destroy them. They do not believe in modernization and will do everything possible to destory countries who choose to follow society more than the religion.

Originally posted by marg6043
I love America too and will die defending America myself, if we were attack in our own soil, but people die around this world everyday from deaseses, famine and other acts done to each other and that to me is terrorism because we don't do anything to help.

I guess with Reagan passing I am kind of sad about this world today, even when I was not even in his favor.

I wish we humans will learn to just be happy with each other. I think I am going to stay away from this type of threads today

Say what? Are you saying we are terrorists because we don't gove all our money and property, food and medicine to others? When you say we don't do anything to help, speak for yourself as I donate to charities. People dying of disease, starvation, etc., is not aggression. Attacking our nation, hijacking planes loaded with people and slamming them into highrise buildings for maximum loss of civilian life and property for the purpose of striking terror in the hearts of the public, that is just cause for using the military and destroying the enemy.

You didn't like Reagan's vision? The eternal optimist who had a deep and abiding faith in God, and faith in the goodness of his fellow man, who wanted liberty for all and the opportunity to strive for greatness for all - what is wrong with that?

Why can't we all get along, you ask? Good question. The ones that are wanting to destroy us want to destroy another nation, a small nation that they surround. They use the excuse that we support that little democratic nation in the middle east to attack us. You are asking the wrong people. You should ask the ones who are the most dangerous ones to be neighbors with. Be careful when you go to ask them, and make sure to wear a really strong, knife resistant collar.

The ones that are wanting to destroy us want to destroy another nation, a small nation that they surround. They use the excuse that we support that little democratic nation in the middle east to attack us.

Who, in your eyes Thomas Crowne, is the enemy?

You know, we didn't "invade" Israel as you might think. It was a british territory, and the UK agreed to help us and form a jewish state for us.

Yes, this is true, but it happened after some Israelis to be bombed the British HQ in Jerusalem. Was that an act of terrorism (rhetorical question)? Yes, but the winner of a conflict gets to dictate how it is perceived.

This has turned into a kindergarden discussion. You hit me first so I must hit you. Lame. The only way to win this war on terrorism is to nullify the arguments that recruiters have.

Now, the US is in Iraq. That's a fact. They have to stay there for a while or else Iraq will turn in to an even worse breeding ground for fanatical muslims. Only by improving the living conditions in the country can the US prevail. This means turning the other cheek whenever someone tries to sabotage the process.

Lastly, stop all the talk about how we all would speak German if not for the US. The Germans were already broken by the time of D-Day. And if it weren't for the French the US would still be speaking....English, but with a different accent

Blooby,
1. They think we are terrorists, which we kinda are
2. We are pretty much eliminating them
3. There are alot of BOTH sides of terrorism
4. The terrorists "against" the US are desperate

If we eliminated ALL of the TERRORISTS, there wouldn't be anyone left to RUN those GOVERNMENTS!

[edit on 8-6-2004 by yeshayahu2004]

[edit on 8-6-2004 by yeshayahu2004]

Thomas Crowne, you have seized to shock me with your ultra-right propaganda, since it seems to be the only thing you know how to type.
you sound like mccarhty�s and mussulini�s love child.

this glorification of the US makes me regret eating spicy food before.
ooh, the US only goal is to liberate this poor people from the tyrrany of dictatorship and terrorism.
its not like the US spend the last 50+ years staging coup d'�tat �s and supporting dictators for political and economical gain all over the world, including in the middle east hence spawning anti amrican thoughts in the region, before it was to fights the "horrible reds" now its the muslims.
yeah muslims, its not terrorism thats being demonaized, it the religion.
being portrayed as: if sadam AND bin ladin say they are muslims, that must mean that all muslims are "evil"
thats like judjing all catholics by the acts of the spanish inquisition.
My own oppinion is that religion has no place in governing a nation, as little as the quoran and the hindo sandskrit that proclaims a cast sociaty, as little place does the bible have.
ex. Bush has no right denying gay american the rights and benefits of marrige just becouse his religion dont approve of homosexuallity. (though marrige is a religious consept, its barring on modern life has made it a state madder and not a religous one)

No terrorism cant be fought with war, terror or by demonaizing them.
you must take away the couses of desperation, poverty and injustice before terrorism will stop.

ps. yeah the states give finatial aid to the 3:thrd world, about 4% of your BNP, not exacly impressive from the biggest economy in the world....


[edit on 8-6-2004 by disturbence]

I truly cant believe anybody can say that we are like the terrorists, its so completely ignorant. These people target innocent civilians on purpose, we do all we can to avoid innocent lives being taken, but in war you cant always succeed in that and I dont care what anybody says, we feel bad when it happens. However, innocent can be subjective here, anybody remember after 9/11 when the palestinian children were dancing in the streets, passing out candy and celebrating the deaths of 3000 people who were just going about there daily business, entirely unaware for the most part of any of these suicide bombers causes. How can we reverse the way they are being taught to think? Anybody think you can sit down with them and change their way of thinking? Probably not, they are taught to die for the cause, no matter what. How many children do we see celebrating in our streets when people are killed? None because we are civil and for the most part teach our kids death is wrong, not glorious. They will not be satisfied til the entire world is islamic and we trade in our nudey magazines for the koran and throw away our bics. If we are terrorists too, maybe we should start sawing the heads of detainees in gitmo while they scream in pain, not give them food and little blankets to pray on.