Im stuck

[zemtex]

Don't get me wrong, it's not my job to analyze anyone. My job is to argue my views. Hutch will have to answer for his own statements, and who knows, maybe he have a few very good points to make.

[DarkWolf]

:bg

Q. What is the difference between a "Freedom Fighter" and a "Terrorist" ?

A. Nothing, it just depends on who is saying it.

The difference is that

* Terrorists have no rules for warfare. Wars are not anarchy, legal wars follow specific rules. Terrorists does not respect any rule of engagement.

But so can "Freedom Fighters" the issue is whose freedoms ?
Plenty of *legal* armies also breaks the rules.

* Terrorists have civilians as specific targets while in a war the targets are by definition military material and personell

Civilians have been targets of war plenty of times. Vietnam ? Don't police arrest those who harbor fugittives ? Wouldn't aided and abetting the enemy make one a military target ? Even though you may not have taken any hostile action yourself.

* Terrorists work to do most damage to both military and civilians and will use weapons of mass destruction if possible, while in a war they do everything possible to AVVOID that.

We (USA) used Weapons of Mass Destruction, are we terrorists or Freedom Fighters ?

Worth noticing..

This is abuse of the term Freedom Fighters. Just because both groups wear blue t-shirt doesn't mean you can compare them. Terrorists does not only work in times of invasion or when freedom is needed, terrorists work 24 hours a day each year, even in peacetime. Many of these terrorists have declared that they accept nothing less than complete annihilation of specific countries.

The terms are lables and can be used interchangably it all depends on ones opinion and perception. My terrorist could be your freedom fighter. The problem is using such terms that bestow some sort of moral identity or divine providence; neither is the case. Simply put it is Me, You, Us and Them.

[zemtex]

But so can "Freedom Fighters" the issue is whose freedoms ?

I am not saying this to rule out your question, but honestly, truelly my opinion is that you should not go to the details about what freedom is.

Plenty of *legal* armies also breaks the rules.

Legal armies have a court which will punish those who are war criminals. Terrorists have no such court and they certainly do not have qualified personell to make good judgements if they did have a court.

Civilians have been targets of war plenty of times. Vietnam ? Don't police arrest those who harbor fugittives ? Wouldn't aided and abetting the enemy make one a military target ? Even though you may not have taken any hostile action yourself.

The vietnam war belongs to an era where war was defined differently. If you go further back and even much further you will find that the rules for warfare changes radically, it is subject to evolution.

We (USA) used Weapons of Mass Destruction, are we terrorists or Freedom Fighters ?

The bombing of hiroshima and nagazaki was pure calculation, it was calculated to save more lives. Back in those days, rules of engagement were different, half the world was in dictatorship and they had to be met with a very strict and powerful response, especially countries like Japan.

The terms are lables and can be used interchangably it all depends on ones opinion and perception. My terrorist could be your freedom fighter. The problem is using such terms that bestow some sort of moral identity or divine providence; neither is the case. Simply put it is Me, You, Us and Them.

The difference between terrorists and freedom fighters is that freedom fighters are more or less normal people during "normal" times. Terrorists are nuts all the time and they do like to associate with a terrorist group. They even admit being terrorists and take credit for terrorist acts.

Imposing fear, attacking civilians, chopping heads of woman, stuff like that are things I do not consider "tools" of freedom fighters. You can argue that it is but I will not agree under any circumstances.  :wink

[MichaelW]

The bombing of hiroshima and nagazaki was pure calculation, it was calculated to save more lives.

Saving lives was just a convenient rationalization that made sense only with the assumption that we would otherwise need to invade. I believe that there was no need to invade, because I think we could have convinced them to surrender by simply making them understand what the cost of not surrendering was going to be. Of course, this argument didn't work very well with my parent's generation -- the only justification they needed for the bombing was "they attacked us".

[Farabi]

Bad news, the Majelis Ulama Indonesia, or you can called it Indonesian Mullah is aftering anyone who believe both the quran and The Bible. Damn, why they always messed up with peoples faith.

[baltoro]

ONAN (aka, FARABI),
Look deep in your soul. Give us a fatwa.
...We are just mere assembly programmers,...
We cannot know your world,...or, the truth of it,...
And, because, we have no experience like yours,...we do not believe like you believe,...
All is darkness and chaos,...

[Farabi]

What fatwa? I dont even know what is right and what is wrong.

Remember that USA is defensless now, lets just forget about me, I can handle the situation here. You are all need to work together, or they will have their revenge. Keep strong.

Some of the arabic man from pakistan got my skype id and they are now on my skype friend list, they call me to search my IP. Not just that, a teroris suspect named farouk is on my facebook friend list. Even some of them disguised as my friend pretend to be believed the bible, but they did not know anything about it. THey are interviewing and tried to get my address.

Dont fight between each other. They are going to get you late or soon. Theyre still here. The police said the same thing too.

[baltoro]

I see what you mean, now. It is clear.
It sounds as if your world is betraying you. Strangers are your enemies. There is no reason.
It's hard to imagine this happening in a Western society.
I think if it was happening to me, I would be taken off guard,...in other words, it would surprise me that people could be so deceptive,...
...And, initially, my instincts would tell me to avoid those people,...surely, this has occurred to you,...
You should force them to change their tactics,...do the unpredictable,...
You are Innocent,...and, they are warriors,...
And, it sounds as if you understand their thinking.
War is always with us.

[oex]

"they attacked us".

Ah yes....

Rules of War
#1 They Attacked Us.... We will hit back harder....

The rule of war any party can declare, it's like pleading the 5th ammendment until you run out of breath

[hutch--]

zemtex,

What scares me with your assumptions is that you fail to address the facts on the ground and the long and unhappy history of warfare. The difference between a good guys bullet and a bad guys bullet is SPIN and who is saying it. take one of the classic 20th century bad guys, Adolph Hitler who undertook to "LIBERATE" Poland, Austria, the Ukraine and Russia among others, does this sound unfamiliar ? Depends where you were listening. Do you want to hear about terrorrists ? Can you imagine what the effects or Greek, Albanian, Chetnik, French, Dutch, Check, Slovak, Pole and all of the other "TERRORISTS" had on the "LIBERATION" conducted by the third Reich ? Now the funny part is we call them freedom fighters.

Come a bit closer to our time, at the tail end of the old Soviet the terrorists of Chechnya saw themselves as freedom fighters defending their country against the communist hoards. This dichotomy exists over recorded history, Stalin, Napoleon, Barbarossa, Charlemaine, the Roman Empire, Alexander the great, the Greek city states, the Babylonian civilisation, the Chaldean era, the Persian empire and lets not forget the unification of China before the Christian era.

Winners are grinners and this has historically shaped which SPIN makes history.

* Terrorists have no rules for warfare. Wars are not anarchy, legal wars follow specific rules. Terrorists does not respect any rule of engagement.
* Terrorists have civilians as specific targets while in a war the targets are by definition military material and personell
* Terrorists work to do most damage to both military and civilians and will use weapons of mass destruction if possible, while in a war they do everything possible to AVVOID that.

Terrorists DO have rules of warfare, its called WINNING, just like everybody else, its just that they tend to be good at it and by applying the rules of ASYMETRICAL warfare they tend to level the playing field. The simple example here is the Mujahadeen that ousted the Russian invasion of Afghanistan.

> * Terrorists have civilians as specific targets while in a war the targets are by definition military material and personell

So do everyone else, the Blitz in England in ww2, the allied bombings of germany near the end of ww2, the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki etc etc etc .... all targetted civilians, you are confusing SPIN against fact.

> * Terrorists work to do most damage to both military and civilians and will use weapons of mass destruction if possible, while in a war they do everything possible to AVVOID that.

Only developed countries have the capacity to use weapons of mass destruction and they HAVE used them.

Your mistake is to confuse the SPIN of one side with the facts, wars are about killing people and all parties do it well.

[zemtex]

zemtex,

What scares me with your assumptions is that you fail to address the facts on the ground and the long and unhappy history of warfare. The difference between a good guys bullet and a bad guys bullet is SPIN and who is saying it. take one of the classic 20th century bad guys, Adolph Hitler who undertook to "LIBERATE" Poland, Austria, the Ukraine and Russia among others, does this sound unfamiliar ? Depends where you were listening. Do you want to hear about terrorrists ? Can you imagine what the effects or Greek, Albanian, Chetnik, French, Dutch, Check, Slovak, Pole and all of the other "TERRORISTS" had on the "LIBERATION" conducted by the third Reich ? Now the funny part is we call them freedom fighters.

I do not disagree that both sides intentions is subject to scrutiny. What I DON'T understand is that you are not able to see the difference between terrorists and any other group of people who commits violence. Btw. "Tyrant" is a much better description of Hitler. You are also confusing tragedies in the midst of a freedom fight. Tragedies will always occur, also in the midst of a fight for freedom. A tragedy will not cover up the good intentions of the good horde of freedom fighters.

Come a bit closer to our time, at the tail end of the old Soviet the terrorists of Chechnya saw themselves as freedom fighters defending their country against the communist hoards. This dichotomy exists over recorded history, Stalin, Napoleon, Barbarossa, Charlemaine, the Roman Empire, Alexander the great, the Greek city states, the Babylonian civilisation, the Chaldean era, the Persian empire and lets not forget the unification of China before the Christian era.

Freedom can become the ultimate result, but they were also bloodthirsty, if there is a mixture of both things it leads to both freedom and unrest, which takes away their credibility to call themselves freedom fighters. Although ultimately, in the long term it might have led to freedom.

Terrorists DO have rules of warfare, its called WINNING, just like everybody else, its just that they tend to be good at it and by applying the rules of ASYMETRICAL warfare they tend to level the playing field. The simple example here is the Mujahadeen that ousted the Russian invasion of Afghanistan.

Criminals also have a goal of winning, if winning is the lack of respect of targets or methods you use, then they obviously won. But that is exactly one of the things that separates terrorists from other groups who exercise violence.

So do everyone else, the Blitz in England in ww2, the allied bombings of germany near the end of ww2, the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki etc etc etc .... all targetted civilians, you are confusing SPIN against fact.

You are confusing intolerant leaders (In world war 2 they were very tired, they were dealing with a much different situation, more dangerous situation) vs clear outlines and rules for warfare. Intolerant leaders will always exist but the rules for warfare that is written down still applies and the majority follow a guideline for warfare.

Only developed countries have the capacity to use weapons of mass destruction and they HAVE used them.

1. Weapons of mass destruction is not narrowed down to nuclear weapons only.
2. Only the United States have used nuclear weapons in a war, compared to how widespread nuclear weapons really are it is considered used in very limited quantities, although the results were catastrophic but if you compare the events with the amount of nuclear weapons in the world, it is almost irrelevant to mention (despite how hard it is to say that)

Your mistake is to confuse the SPIN of one side with the facts, wars are about killing people and all parties do it well.

Wars are not about killing people, that is why we narrow down casualties to non-civilians only, precicely because killing doesn't solve anything, it only creates more problems. The targets of a war is to take out the other party capabilities to strike back.

Terrorists have no such goal of disabling the enemy's abilities to strike back simply because they have well over 50% of their focus on civilians, not military, modern terrorists goal is to inflict pain on the enemy.

[hutch--]

zemtex,

The distinction you are trying to draw collapses down to whose SPIN you choose to listen to. Greek partisans were terrorists to the Germans but freedom fighters to the Greeks. TYRANT is a perfect description to your enemy, Churchill was a tyrant as was Stalin and even FDR depending on who you were listening to.

Your problem is you are trying to impose rules on conflict that are not universally supported, what makes a war is combatents, not a set of arbitrary rules set to the advantage of the formulator of the rules. try this one, Bomber Harris (the man who designed the bombing techniques against Germany late in the war) also had a history of dropping mustard gas on the Kurds in what is now Iraq in 1919. Tibetan seperatists are called terrorists by the Chinese government.

The loonie Taliban seeks freedom and is willing to fight to the death against any invaders and his justification is just as good as the succession of invaders who have tried to destroy him, his country and his people.

Q. What is the difference between a Russian helicopter gunship massacring a village in Afghanistan and a NATO helicopter gunship massacring a village in Afghanistan ?
A. NONE.

They are both invaders killing people in their own country who cannot defend themselves and they both have done it. The usual SPIN is accidental or a mishap or some other bullsh*t that tries to justify massacring innocent people who cannot defend themselves. Collateral damage perhaps.

Where you are coming unstuck is the assumption that your notion of morality, good, evil, justice and rules are correct. the problem is they are all SPIN driven and all subject to relativism, STALIN said this and CHURCHILL said that and if they don't agree then how do you decide the difference ? Unless you appeal to an arbitrary set of values you cannot choose between them.

[zemtex]

First I would like to say that, all the quotations I make can be somewhat irritating in the long run, but it is needed in order to make my views clear enough and to tell where I don't agree.

zemtex,

The distinction you are trying to draw collapses down to whose SPIN you choose to listen to.

I don't listen to leaders, I consider the facts on the table, view the results, in order to do that you need good facts which can usually be found in universities, you certainly will not find it in any documentary video from the history channel.

You simply don't listen to any leader, view the facts. Who were fighting for freedom and who were not. If there are tragic or horrific events in the middle of it, then you have to separate those criminals from people who fought a good fight for freedom.

SPIN gets down to influence, are you trying to become influenced or are you trying to educate yourself.

Greek partisans were terrorists to the Germans but freedom fighters to the Greeks. TYRANT is a perfect description to your enemy, Churchill was a tyrant as was Stalin and even FDR depending on who you were listening to.

Again, you are mixing up people who fought both freedom fight and performed criminal acts. You have to separate the two. If you listen to those who define history and the aftermath, ofcourse they will make it sound good or bad, that is exactly why I ask you to look at the definition of freedom fighters, not look at what leaders are saying.

Your problem is you are trying to impose rules on conflict that are not universally supported, what makes a war is combatents, not a set of arbitrary rules set to the advantage of the formulator of the rules. try this one, Bomber Harris (the man who designed the bombing techniques against Germany late in the war) also had a history of dropping mustard gas on the Kurds in what is now Iraq in 1919. Tibetan seperatists are called terrorists by the Chinese government.

Again, this gets down to that people can be two-sided. Criminals are not bad all the time. That does NOT rule out the fact that we have good freedom fighters in the world.

The loonie Taliban seeks freedom and is willing to fight to the death against any invaders and his justification is just as good as the succession of invaders who have tried to destroy him, his country and his people.

Taliban are willing to fight to the death (True), Taliban is fighting for freedom (False, they are fighting for a specific group of people, real freedom fighters have one primary goal, that is to liberate their own country, all of it, not just parts of it, freedom MEANS exactly what it says, it means freedom, you don't get freedom for your country if you fight for a specific group only)

Q. What is the difference between a Russian helicopter gunship massacring a village in Afghanistan and a NATO helicopter gunship massacring a village in Afghanistan ?
A. NONE.

You are describing a funny situation, two helicopters, you can't see the pilots faces, both are cold and "evil" events, both situations produces death and horror. You could have come up with a much better example than that. A better example would be an american soldier entering a hidden cave, he risks his life to save a woman who is about to become headchopped.  :U

Back to your point: The difference between the two helicopters is none ofcourse, war criminals will always be the same, I don't disagree on that and I never intend to disagree on it in the future.

[hutch--]

You are still restricted by the same moral dilemma that you have assumed from the beginning, that there is some method of drawing a distinction between competing moral value systems.

One side says person X is bad, the other side says person X is good. What you are slotting in is an arbitrary value judgement that agrees with one side over another but you have no method of determining which is right or wrong and if either are right.

Try these.

A better example would be an american soldier entering a hidden cave, he risks his life to save a woman who is about to become headchopped.
A better example would be an Russian soldier entering a hidden cave, he risks his life to save a woman who is about to become headchopped.
A better example would be an Mujahadeen soldier entering a hidden cave, he risks his life to save a woman who is about to become headchopped.
A better example would be an North Korean soldier entering a hidden cave, he risks his life to save a woman who is about to become headchopped.

Plug in any "soldier" and each statement is as good as the other.

> Again, you are mixing up people who fought both freedom fight and performed criminal acts.

No, you are confusing one groups action with another on the basis of an arbitrary value judgement, one side says they are baddies, the other side says they are goodies, how do you draw the distinction without applying an arbitrary value judgement ? According to the occupying Germans the Greek partisans were performing criminal acts.

> that is exactly why I ask you to look at the definition of freedom fighters, not look at what leaders are saying.

The problem is there is no objective definition of "freedom fighter", Tibetan separatists say they are freedom fighters, China says they are terrorists.

The problem you have is moral relativism and it is a toothless terror that cannot deliver viable objective distinctions, fortunately there is a far more powerful method available that is roughly described as utilitarianism.

I choose to not live in a country like the old Soviet because of concious choice, they may have been illegal, immoral and fattening but the reason why I reject a society that works that way is one of choice, I prefer my own and that is after knowing the difference. It has nothing to do with any phony sense of morality, pseudo ethical platitudes or the like, it has to do with the utilitarian function of the society and it was in this area that the old soviet collapsed.

SPIN may have made the point that they gouged the eyes out of the women, raped the camels and used the babies as human shields but the real distinction is one of choice about the functional difference between two systems.

[zemtex]

If we are to go to the extreme in order to define what goodness is, we could argue for a very long time, but no arguments is needed in order to define what good fights are. There really is none needed, the "arbitrary" point of yours is for another discussion, a philosophical discussion. My point is quite clear and most people knows what a good fight is.

If you want to take it down to a deeper discussion about what good fights are, you can split the thread if you so desire. Your problem about what we are discussing now is that you have spent so many years narrowing down the world, you have come to a point where you have narrowed it down to "Apple" and "Orange", quite honestly it is.... funny hutch. I'm not saying that you didn't have a more complex view on this earlier, but you have narrowed the world down not far from a singularity, you have fooled yourself hutch.  :wink

(btw, i'm coding alot these days, I jump in from time to time when I have the spare time)