Date: Sun, 28 Oct 2001 16:31:03 -0800 (PST) From: "Jason C. Wells" <jcwells@highperformance.net> To: chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Course of law (was: Islam (was: Religions (was Re: helping victims of terror))) Message-ID: <Pine.BSF.4.21.0110281602560.20586-100000@server.highperformance.net> In-Reply-To: <15324.32766.960618.330832@guru.mired.org>
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On Sun, 28 Oct 2001, Mike Meyer wrote: > Jason C. Wells <jcwells@highperformance.net> types: > > Moreover, when the US hit Japan with nuclear weapons, the US > > indiscriminately killed many civilians without specifically targeting > > industry. > > You think the US would use the two most expensive weapons anyone had > developed up to that time "indiscriminately"? Of course the targets > were of a military nature. The cities were perhaps chosen carefully. The civilians were killed indescriminately. At any rate, you help make my point. My point was not to comment on the rightness or wrongness of our attack. My point was that causing the death of civilians is a dubious criteria for designating who is a terrorist. I would say that a terrorist is a party who explicitly engages in a deadly attack on a party not directly material to a particular conflict. In recent events, Al Qaeda engaged in an attack on the WTC partly as a result of Al Qaeda's disdain for the presence of US military forces in Saudi Arabia. Al Qaeda did not attack Saudi Arabia, nor the US military stationed there. Both of these parties are more directly material to the conflict Al Qaeda perceives. Al Qaeda attempted to effect its own non-governmental policy on the US and Saudi Arabia by a proxy attack on the WTC. Therefore Al Qaeda is a terrorist organization. The US is now in direct conflict with Al Qaeda as a result of the WTC attack. The US stated objective is to destroy the Al Qaeda organization whom the US is directly in conflict with. The nation of Afghanistan is providing support to Al Qaeda. Afghanistan then becomes a directly involved party in the conflict by virtue of its political and military support of Al Qaeda. The US is not a terrorist organization because it is engaging parties that are explicitly involved in this particular conflict. The US does not desire to cause the death of civilians in Afghanistan. However, doing so does not make the US terrorists. The same goes for the Japan example. Causing the death of so called innocent civilians should not be the prime criteria for designating who is a terrorist. If it is, then by that definition the US is also guilty of terrorism. Jason C. Wells To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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