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Good point. One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter as
someone else posted here earlier. Ghandi in India and Mandela in South
Africa prevailed with non-violent protests. Castro prevailed with very
focused violence against the Cuban army. All three prevailed with the
support of the majority of their nations' populations at the time. Maybe
that is the key. The Taliban prevailed in Afghanistan with massive
violence against their own population and with minimal popular support (but
ironically, with considerable logistical support from the US -- which was
not above supporting terrorists at the time as long as the terrorism was
believed to be anti-communist). Maybe the key to deciding who is a
terrorist is foreign vs domestic support. I suspect the percentage of
popular support in the US for the Taliban would be well to the right of the
decimal point, even -- perhaps especially -- among Arab-Americans, so there
is no doubt that the latest act of terror would be correctly categorized by
this criterion. Maybe the other side of your posting, ztrader, is that
there are good and bad terrorists and the understandable desire for
vengeance occasioned by this latest outrage should be specifically directed
against its authors and their supporters, in other words, radical
islam. Maybe the next time the US gives weapons to "freedom fighters" they
will be smart weapons that can be made to explode by remote control in case
the "freedom fighters" turn out to be bad terrorists.
At 9/14/2001 04:27 PM, ztrader wrote:
>On Friday, September 14, 2001, 2:42:22 PM, Ullrich Fischer wrote:
>
>UF> Actually, it isn't that difficult to draw a sharp line - not between good
>UF> and bad, but between those who are exercising free speech and those
>who are
>UF> terrorists. The line is preparing or executing violent actions. Those
>UF> groups, like America's Taliban: Falwell, Roberson and the 700 club, which
>UF> confine their activities to odious rhetoric should be protected by the
>UF> first amendment as always. Those like the various militias, who
>accumulate
>UF> arms and set up armed camps, should be eliminated by any means necessary.
>
>This might work well in the US, if not taken too far, but I doubt just
>speech will have much effect in many other parts of the world. It
>would seem we still need armed 'freedom fighters' in many places. In
>fact, if just speech would work, there would be no pressing need to
>send our army, would there?
>
>Wouldn't it be very easy for all oppressive governments to simply
>declare their opposition to be 'terrorists', and get rid of them? I
>suspect some of the support we are getting is exactly for this reason
>- a possible way for not-so-nice leaders to get the US to eliminate
>uprisings for them. We need to be a bit careful here, lest we shoot
>ourselves in the foot in our haste to start 'policing the world'.
>
>How do *you* distinguish between a 'terrorist' and a 'freedom
>fighter'? Are you saying there should be no more freedom fighters,
>since they would need to be armed and, if necessary, to kill people?
>
>ztrader
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