When is a terrorist not a terrorist?

ayase said:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/8522746.stm

So let's get this straight - After leaving a threatening note, a man pissed of at the IRS commits suicide by flying a plane into an IRS building and:

"The White House said the crash did not appear to be an act of terrorism."

Er, anyone care to remind me what caused that whole "War on Terror" thing again..? :?
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ofc it's not terrorism

no oil wells are involved
 
I'm not too sure about this myself.
If I were to defend the police, I would say that act was more closer to "Attempted murder/genocide." It mentions the IRS, however, the guy was complaining to the finance office. To connect things to money rather than religion, and rather having a group of people acting on it, it's more like a revenge trip rather than a terrorist action.
A main aspect of terrorism is to scare people away from one ideal and recuit them to a different ideology/religion. This is just someone venting and trying to hurt people due to an incident (the tax). So I would say the aim wasn't to convert, but to simply imflict pain.

But that's technically speaking, and murder is still murder.
 
Chaz said:
If I were to defend the police, I would say that act was more closer to "Attempted murder/genocide." It mentions the IRS, however, the guy was complaining to the finance office. To connect things to money rather than religion, and rather having a group of people acting on it, it's more like a revenge trip rather than a terrorist action.
A main aspect of terrorism is to scare people away from one ideal and recuit them to a different ideology/religion. This is just someone venting and trying to hurt people due to an incident (the tax). So I would say the aim wasn't to convert, but to simply imflict pain.
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Apart from scale though, what's the difference between this and 9/11? I don't recall Osama Bin Laden appearing on a screen in Times Square beforehand demanding one meelion dollars 'or else'. There was no threat or coercion - they just did it. Presumably the point of both was to terrorise by making people realise they weren't immune from retaliation for (perceived or real) injustices.
 
Okay, let's define terrorism first shall we? This is how the League of Nations defined it:

"1. Any willful act causing death or grievous bodily harm or loss of liberty to:
- a) Heads of State, persons exercising the prerogatives of the head of the State, their hereditary or designated successors;
- b) The wives or husbands or the above-mentioned persons;
- c) Persons charged with public functions or holding public positions when the act is directed against them in their public capacity.

2. Willful destruction of, or damage to, public property or property devoted to a public purpose belonging to or subject to the authority of another High Contracting Party.

3. Any willful act calculated to endanger the lives of members of the public.

4. Any attempt to commit an offence falling within the foregoing provisions of the present article.

5. The manufacture, obtaining, possession, or supplying of arms, ammunition, explosives or harmful substances with the view to the commission in any country whatsoever of an offence falling within the present article."
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I'd argue that this guy did both of those things. Definition of an act as terrorism isn't dependant on motive, it's dependant on method. I could be a terrorist with no beliefs, I could just plant a bomb and blow people up with no reason whatsoever. I'd still be a terrorist.
 
I'd admit it, it would seem to indicate more to Terrorism than Genocide or mass murder. Looking at wiki, Genocide is...
...any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

– Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, Article II
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This was a public building (Tax office) being targeted, not a specific race etc. As you've stated, Ayase, it would be better to call this terrorism. I guess the papers just didn't want to spread panic as the word terrorism relates to "one thing" - War. You cant go to war on murder, just police it.
 
Chaz said:
I guess the papers just didn't want to spread panic as the word terrorism relates to "one thing" - War. You cant go to war on murder, just police it.
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Yeah. It seems that (somewhat worryingly) terrorism really has become interchangeable with 'fundamentalism' in political and media circles, and what they really meant was it wasn't those wacky guys from "Al-Qaeda".

You bring up a good point there as well Chaz. If you can't go to war on this kind of act, and this act was in fact terrorism...
 
ayase said:
Er, anyone care to remind me what caused that whole "War on Terror" thing again..? :?
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The war on terror is about fighting those who hate Western liberal democracies and all they stand for (secularism, liberty, equality, etc.) and who work together using violence to get their end.

The truth is that this man was not a terrorist for the precise reasons outlined by Maxon. Just like when two disaffected and, frankly, messed up teenagers brought guns into their school and killed some of their teachers and fellow students in Columbine wasn't terrorism.

Also, the standard of discussion in this thread is shocking. Chaz says this act resembles genocide .... wtf? And the comment that the war on terror is about "oil wells" is unacceptably ill-informed, even if it it the stock opinion of most Europeans.
 
CitizenGeek said:
the comment that the war on terror is about "oil wells" is unacceptably ill-informed, even if it it the stock opinion of most Europeans.
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You're right there. It was about far more than that. Contracts for rebuilding infrastructure for Dick Cheney's pals at Haliburton, lucrative arms sales to the new Iraqi and Afghan armies, final revenge on Saddam Hussain for turning against the west when we put him in power in the first place, creating a perceived threat from an external enemy at all times which could then be used as justification for depriving people of their civil liberties, etc...
 
The West put Sadam in power? That's some funky basic history you've got there, ayase. Yes, the U.S. did back Sadam when he attacked Iran. But that's entirely different to putting him there in the first place and instigating the war. The U.S. simply reacted to a situation, which is what is to be expected of the world's biggest superpower. Sadam had comitted genocide on his own people, ignored every aspect of the non-proliferation treaty, harboured international criminals and had annexed it's neighbour Kuwait, a soverign state that is a member of the U.N. and the Arab League. Iraq is in a much better position today than it was before Coalition troops invaded.

Just think about this irrefutable fact for a second: Conditions in Abu Ghraib have improved immensely since the arrival of Coalition troops in Baghdad. Before the invasion, that place was an abbatoir. Now it is a proper prison where the misconduct of it's officers is punished.

There is no argument that I find compelling against the Iraq war.
 
CitizenGeek said:
Saddam had comitted genocide on his own people, ignored every aspect of the non-proliferation treaty, harboured international criminals and had annexed it's neighbour Kuwait
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The worst of which he did what, well over a decade before we invaded? Never did find those WMDs which were meant to be the reason for war... And now Tony gives us the same (frankly, condescending) line you do: "Well, it's still better that he's gone." Ignoring the fact that the only casus belli ever presented proved entirely false. There's no argument I find particularly compelling for invading another sovereign nation which instigated no act of aggression against this country.

Britain and America don't have a mandate to protect the people of Iraq, just like we don't have one to protect the people of Zimbabwe, Burma, or anywhere else. We aren't the world police. Things happening in other countries might be terrible, but it is up to the people of those countries to change them, no-one else.
 
ayase said:
The worst of which he did what, well over a decade before we invaded? Never did find those WMDs which were meant to be the reason for war... And now Tony gives us the same (frankly, condescending) line you do: "Well, it's still better that he's gone." Ignoring the fact that the only casus belli ever presented proved entirely false. There's no argument I find particularly compelling for invading another sovereign nation which instigated no act of aggression against this country.
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The argument about the WMDs is so childish ... "you said there'd be WMDs, they weren't any WMDs, nah nah nah". The issue is more serious than that. And that certainly wasn't the only argument presented for invading Iraq. In 1999 in Chicago, Tony Blair basically said that another conflict with Sadam Hussein was unavoidable. The need for regime change was emphasised by the governments of the Coalition countries. I'll accept they didn't do a very good job of explaining it to the public, but this debate is about bigger things than that.

How can you still call Hussein's country sovereign? Any country should be assumed to have sacrificed it's sovereignty when it harbours international criminals and thugs, attacks and invades it's neighbours, commits genocide on it's own people (as Hussein did with the Kurds - the Al Anfal campaign resulting in 200,000 innocent Kurds filling mass graves in northern Iraq) and ignores the non-proliferation treaty (Sadam may not have been developing WMDs in 2003, but he definitely has a history of working on weapons that would cause mass destructions). Hussein's Iraq was guilty of all of these things and what is more, it was a tortured and collapsed state. It is in a better place now and will be as time goes on and it develops into a stable, pluralistic democracy underpinned by strong republican protections.

Britain and America don't have a mandate to protect the people of Iraq, just like we don't have one to protect the people of Zimbabwe, Burma, or anywhere else. We aren't the world police. Things happening in other countries might be terrible, but it is up to the people of those countries to change them, no-one else.
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These are the same arguments that the anti-war crowd has been making for years. The same arguments that were made against liberating Kuwait. The same arguments made against stopping the genocide of the Bosniak Muslims in the Balkans. If we had listened to these arguments, the Kuwaiti people would be suffering right now and there would be many, many more dead Bosniak men, women and children in Serbia. That is the legacy of your movement, ayase, and you're more than welcome to it. But if I had that legacy, I would be extremely modest, I wouldn't be demanding answers from everyone else.
 
They should be worried if the general public is getting so fed up that someone is willing to do this. It means others are in a similar state of mind.
 
CitizenGeek said:
In 1999 in Chicago, Tony Blair basically said that another conflict with Sadam Hussein was unavoidable. The need for regime change was emphasised by the governments of the Coalition countries. I'll accept they didn't do a very good job of explaining it to the public, but this debate is about bigger things than that.
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Because... that... makes it all so much better. So you're willing to defend the fact that many years previous, powerful people like Blair had already decided to remove Saddam whenever an opportune time arose, despite what the citizens of their own countries (the people they as politicians are supposed to represent) thought? I'm not concerned with whether Iraq is a better or worse place today because of the British government's actions - I care about the British government doing what is in the interest of, and carrying out the wishes of British citizens, not their own personal agendas. I mean come on, how can you say it isn't a massive abuse of power to first decide to remove the government of another country, and then have to find a reason and sell it to the public as a secondary step?

I'm not sure the anti-war movement can actually have a legacy, seeing as we lost and the war went ahead, but you're right. Personally, I would be happier if we didn't use our armed forces to intervene in fights which are really none of our concern. Perhaps Saddam and Milosovic would still be free to do as they pleased (though equally perhaps not, we'll never know), but I don't see any difference between that and Tibet, Burma, Zimbabwe or any other country whose citizens are suffering and we haven't removed their oppressive governments. I'm not sure the net loss of human lives would be any greater than the wars have caused either; As a civilian with no choice in the matter if you're dead you're dead, whether you were gassed by Saddam or killed in a Coalition air-strike. Wars just get all the killing done faster.
 
ayase said:
Because... that... makes it all so much better. So you're willing to defend the fact that many years previous, powerful people like Blair had already decided to remove Saddam whenever an opportune time arose, despite what the citizens of their own countries (the people they as politicians are supposed to represent) thought?
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Tony Blair hadn't "decided" to remove Sadam Hussein, he expressed his opinion that another conflict with Hussein's Iraq was more or less unavoidable because Hussein was always a bloodthirsty, expansionist tyrant that sought to undermine and destabilise an already volatile region of the planet, the Middle East, at every opportunity. And it looks like his prediction was spot on. The fact that he predicted his years before it happened shows that Tony Blair knew exactly what was going on in Iraq and was not just bullied and misled by the Americans into joining the war as many of the simple-minded anti-war folks would like everyone to think.

I'm not concerned with whether Iraq is a better or worse place today
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So you are outraged at the alleged depleting of whale populations by 2 or 3 Japanese vessels and yet feel no compassion or sympathy, let alone even any interest in conditions in Iraq, a country of over 30 million people? This kind of anti-American sentiment is absurd. You don't want to talk about the fate of 30 million people because you'd rather try to catch out the Bush administration on some minor, petty issue. I really think the depths to which people go in order to condemn in actions of the United States are shocking and depraved.

I care about the British government doing what is in the interest of, and carrying out the wishes of British citizens, not their own personal agendas.
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Actually, I think Labor Party in the UK was re-elected to power with a fairly massive majority after it had presided over the invasion of Iraq. You know that the electorate is made up of British citizens, right?

Also, please drop this idea that the Iraq war was to drum up business. If that was the case, it failed spectacularly as the Iraq war and all the costs associated with it have caused enormous problems for big business in the US and the UK.

Personally, I would be happier if we didn't use our armed forces to intervene in fights which are really none of our concern.
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Well you clearly don't have the moral conscience that I (and I presume, the vast majority of other people) have.

Perhaps Saddam and Milosovic would still be free to do as they pleased (though equally perhaps not, we'll never know), but I don't see any difference between that and Tibet, Burma, Zimbabwe or any other country whose citizens are suffering and we haven't removed their oppressive governments.
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This argument is far too common. Whoever said there was a universal standard that applies to every country when it comes to the interventions of the US? "The US displaced Sadam Hussein, therefore the US must also displace the Burmese junta" ... it just doesn't follow! The situation that was in Iraq and is now in Burma and Zimbabwe and Tibet are not identical. The only people saying that the U.S. is a kind of world police are the anti-war crowd. No pro-US person makes that argument in the context of Iraq and the US government itself certainly has never made any such point.

As a civilian with no choice in the matter if you're dead you're dead, whether you were gassed by Saddam or killed in a Coalition air-strike. Wars just get all the killing done faster.
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Really, you don't see any difference between the two? Imagine someone murders your infant sister because she is a Kurd. Now imagine she is instead killed when she is accidentally hit by a Coalition truck or by stray shrapnel. Don't tell me you'd feel the exact same in both situations, because I won't believe you.
 
I'm making little headway here, so rather than us both going over very well worn arguments which will make neither of us change our position, (and since no-one else is remotely interested) I'll leave you with a couple of thoughts. Feel free to reply to or not, but I grow weary now. I've had this debate several times with several people and when their views are set in stone as yours appear to be there is really very little point.

Firstly, I am not 'Anti-American' and frankly, for it's citizens I consider the United States to be a better country than the United Kingdom. In the words of Morrissey from the song America Is Not The World: "I love you, I just wish you'd stay where you is." I don't care who instigates them, I am simply against wars of aggression; as most stable, developed liberal democracies generally are and as Britain and the United States have also been for most of their history. When is a country at it's best? In my opinion, when it's not interfering in the affairs of other nations and getting on with it's own business.

I "Feel no compassion or sympathy... for 30 million people?" Give me a break. Of course I feel sympathy for them as I do for the people of the other countries I mentioned that we haven't invaded. Feeling compassion towards them =/= believing our government should topple theirs via military action. I just think the people of any given country should be the ones to decide on it's direction. If the majority of people in a nation hate their government, they will either revolt or decide to be submissive, that's their choice, no-one else's.

CitizenGeek said:
As a civilian with no choice in the matter if you're dead you're dead, whether you were gassed by Saddam or killed in a Coalition air-strike. Wars just get all the killing done faster.
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Really, you don't see any difference between the two? Imagine someone murders your infant sister because she is a Kurd. Now imagine she is instead killed when she is accidentally hit by a Coalition truck or by stray shrapnel. Don't tell me you'd feel the exact same in both situations, because I won't believe you.
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No, I'd feel similar but with different targets for my anger. If I was an Iraqi and Saddam and his followers killed a member of my family, I'd want to depose him and his regime as, in time, the Iraqi people may well have done themselves. If troops from another country killed a member of my family, I'd want them out of my country and may well decide to take revenge on them, as many have. I imagine the first thing I'd think would be "Would they have died if it hadn't been for this war?" and in most cases, the answer there would be no.

I think the legacy of this war is that the people of Iraq did not choose the course of their own future - The governments of the US and UK chose it for them. Historically, this move has often come back to bite the governments (and their people) who thought they knew what was best for countries other than their own.
 
CitizenGeek said:
So you are outraged at the alleged depleting of whale populations by 2 or 3 Japanese vessels and yet feel no compassion or sympathy, let alone even any interest in conditions in Iraq, a country of over 30 million people? This kind of anti-American sentiment is absurd. You don't want to talk about the fate of 30 million people because you'd rather try to catch out the Bush administration on some minor, petty issue. I really think the depths to which people go in order to condemn in actions of the United States are shocking and depraved.
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I'm more outraged about the falling whale population than Iraq. Why? Because animals were here before people, their position in this world I feel is far more important then ours. We are arrogant enough to believe that just because we have more intelligence then most creatures that we have more right to build and to destroy what has been growing naturally since the beginning of time.

Why is it that the lives of 30 million people come above the countless millions of animals that are killed and driven towards extinction because of our selfish gain?
 
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