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Politics : Moderate Forum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: The Philosopher who wrote (7880)	3/9/2004 12:39:59 PM
From: zonder	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 20773

So you don't consider gassing thousands of Kurds to be an act of terrorism That is called "state terror", I believe. That is, using the military, arms, and in general power of the state to oppress your own people. Like what Turkey used to do to its Kurdish population in the SouthEast parts of the country. Or what Russia does to Chechens. "Terrorism" is something else. It involves hit and run attacks against one's enemy. It is the fighting technique preferred by those who do NOT have armies but fight enemies who do have armies. Hence they cannot afford open confrontation (i.e. warfare) and use terrorist attacks to hurt the enemy. cfrterrorism.org Paul Pillar, a former deputy chief of the CIA's Counterterrorist Center, argues that there are four key elements of terrorism: (1) It is premeditated—planned in advance, rather than an impulsive act of rage. (2) It is political—not criminal, like the violence that groups such as the mafia use to get money, but designed to change the existing political order. (3) It is aimed at civilians—not at military targets or combat-ready troops. (4) It is carried out by subnational groups—not by the army of a country. Hence, what Saddam did to the Kurds, while horrible and obviously homicidal, was not "terrorism".

To: The Philosopher who wrote (7880)	3/10/2004 12:06:42 PM
From: Thomas M.	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 20773

So you don't consider gassing thousands of Kurds to be an act of terrorism. That depends on whether you call it "terrorism" when one slaughters 3 million Vietnamese, Laotians, and Cambodians simply because of their choice of government. Nor do you consider his mass gravesites to be evidence of terrorism. I notice that the U.S. did not bother to bury the dead Vietnamese, so we seem to be a notch below Saddam. Nor do you consider the torture he used, the disappearances, the beatings, to enforce his rule to be terrorism. You're referring to Israel as a terrorist state? I applaud you, not many people are willing to admit this. Tom