There is a pretty bright line between normal military operations and terrorist organizations. In normal military operations, there is a serious effort made to confine the brunt of assaults on legitimate strategic targets. Because territory must be captured and held, ordinarily, it is inevitable that cities are subject to attack, too, and sometimes civilians are harmed, but the intent is to hold it to a minimum. In World War Two, it was determined that the ruthlessness of the Axis, which had no scruples about attacking population centers, must be matched by a tit- for- tat strategy. Thus, the Allies did engage in terror bombing, in retaliation for the Blitz and similar occurrences in Asia. However, even that has been controversial.
On the other hand, terrorist organizations primarily target civilians. In the case of the various Palestinian organizations, they not only bomb for maximum shock value, they frequently attack children, for example, in school buses. If you cannot see that difference between what Bush did in Panama or Iraq, or even, for that matter, what Clinton did in Belgrade (in Bosnia our troops have acted as peace- keepers, so your inclusion of them is bizarre), and the kind of what terrorists do, I can only say I have over- estimated you....... |
