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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: epicure who wrote (24023)	7/13/2006 5:47:34 PM
From: thames_sider	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 541109

I would find it hard to distinguish other terrorists in occupied territories from the folks who fought the Nazis. This is where the definition of 'terrorist' shades into 'resistance fighter' (or even 'insurgent' <g>). I shan't rehash all those. However, offhand I'd say there are a few notable characteristics common to most if not all true resistance movements: - they have no other way (e.g., democratic vote) of removing the forces or government they're fighting - the aim of removing the occupiers (even if not any other aims) commands plurality and probably majority support in the occupied population - they operate largely or entirely on their own occupied territory, to free it, or directly on enemy territory - their actions are predominantly against enemy/occupying forces, military and paramilitary, or militarily strategic points (e.g., arms factories, key transport links, oil or water supply, etc.) - their actions are designed to minimise or avoid civilian casualties, not to disregard them, and certainly NOT to cause them I don't claim this is at all definitive but I'd say it's fair. Hence Hezbollah acting against Israeli soldiers, on Israeli soil, without current cause, are terrorists... The first one is vital. If you can theoretically vote an occupier out, in a fair vote - and it leaves - then other action is probably terrorist even if all the other checks above are met. And if a plurality of the occupied don't want to be rid of the occupiers, then again you're probably terrorists to abandon democracy and seek to remove a preferred government by force. Groups like Hamas - or indeed Hezbollah - may do OK on the support categories, but obviously miss the point about not targeting civilians. And here's where Israel really doesn't help, because if the occupier doesn't bother to distinguish it's hard to see why the occupied will in such an asymmetric combat. Parsers can have fun scoring different 'terrorist' groups on the above! Unfortunately the pre-1997 Taliban come off rather well... although of course that was when they were allies of and supported by the West.

To: epicure who wrote (24023)	7/15/2006 2:20:29 AM
From: RMF	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 541109

A "Terrorist" kills people indiscriminately or simply because they are of another race or religion. He is not trying to achieve anything in particular except chaos, fear and his own martyrdom. Today's "terrorist" is pretty much the "anarchist" of 90 years ago.

To: epicure who wrote (24023)	7/15/2006 6:02:02 AM
From: Ilaine	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 541109

I don't think we'd lose much if we decided to categorize irregulars as soldiers. Wearing a uniform and insignia are for the benefit of the soldier, not the people he is fighting against. We could include irregulars into the category of soldiers and treat them as POWs "for the duration." Lane3 suggested this a couple of days ago, and I agree with her, it seems to be the best solution out of the ones before us. I think it's asking too much to ask us to send them home on the basis that they weren't wearing uniforms or insignia. But they need a fair hearing on their status first. I think that's really the gist of the Hamdan decision. Hamdi said, "give them a status hearing," Hamdan said, "make it a fair one." It should be acceptable to the hard-liners because we get to keep the prisoners indefinitely, and it should be acceptable to the soft-liners because the prisoners must be treated fairly and cannot be interrogated. Too bad we didn't get together with the rest of the world after 9/11 and hash all this out. (I think we all know that the public images of Guantanamo were intended to frighten, and hopefully deter, terrorists and wannabes, at least in the beginning.)