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Re: Republicanism still an ...

TradeSurplus
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SubjectRe: Republicanism still an offence in England? (wasRe: Queen mother (of
FromTradeSurplus
Date2002-04-18 06:08 (2002-04-18 06:08)
Message-ID<2Frv8.13122$ey3.3856067653@newssvr10.news.prodigy.com>
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Newsgroupsalt.fan.tolkien
Followspaulh
Followups?jevind L?ng (7h & 43m) > TradeSurplus
paulh wrote ...

paulh
"TradeSurplus" <tradesurplus@hotmail.com>wrote:

TradeSurplus
In fact, you appear to have defined terrorists in this and other recent posts as: Persons engaging in combat without uniforms AND (without government

backing

OR without a popular mandate). Where AND and OR are logical operations and ( ) indicates priority.

And that's fair enough, if that's your definition. You can't necessarily expect other people to subscribe to it though.

paulh
I guess thats why I made the statement ( a number of times) that it is MY (fluid) definition of Terrorism. I've never made statements that this is

some

official definition.

You actually said it is "A common definition of terrorism I've seen around here" rather than just your definition. But that's beside the point really.

TradeSurplus
Russ's claim that the IRA were not terrorists before 1975 may well be valid according to his definition of terrorism but invalid according to yours. In effect, you are both using the same word to describe different phenomena so it is only to

be

expected that the application of that word will differ.

paulh
Quite so... in fact you could possibly even put forward the case that each organisation should be reviewed individually for their status and that Organisations can change in nature. There is no reason that the IRA could

be one

thing one year and something else the next.. altho Russ' belief that they

can

change on a weekly basis is going too far.

I think that one of the difficulties here lies in trying to label organizations as terrorist or non-terrorist. I believe that specific acts are terrorist acts or not. Any single organization can commit both terrorist acts and non-terrorist acts at the same time. Your example of Palestinians blowing up Israelis in Israel (terrorist) and in Palestine (non-terrorist) illustrates this point.

The IRA has also committed both terrorist acts (pub bombings) and non-terrorist acts (shooting paratroopers that attacked nationalist areas while wearing their combat fatigues).

So where does this leave us wrt labeling organizations as terrorist organizations? That's a whole new topic of debate, but some options could be: 1) An organization that has ever carried out any terrorist act 2) An organization that has carried out any terrorist act in the last X years 3) An organization whose activities are X% terrorist in nature

There seems to be this belief that because we have a word, Terrorist, that therefore we should also have a one sentence easy definition of what it means that, when applied, easily

seperates

all the Terrorist organisations from all the Revolutionary ones. I doubt

that

there is such a definition. And therefore you have to make a decision

yourself,

or on a communal basis as to what a Terrrorist organisation is.

Difficulty arises with this approach in deciding, as a community, whether to label an organization as terrorist. If each individual has their own private definition then it is hard to reach a communal agreement on labelling terrorist organizations. The difficulty is only exacerbated when a country's leadership declares war on terrorism and tries to build a global coalition against it. In order to effectively fight a war, it is important to know what you are fighting against. This requires a definition of the enemy, in this case a definition of terrorism. In order to build a global alliance, this definition of terrorism should be accepted by all members of the alliance so everyone knows who the enemy is. I think that GWB and friends are possibly not listening in to aft to see what definition we can come up with but I still think that this public debate is useful for ourselves to clarify our own positions on world affairs.

AFAIK Australia defines the IRA as a Terrorist organisation and so do I. I can't help it if someone else doesn't based on their definition of the word. Thats why this

is

often a futile argument.

Debating whether a particular organization is a terrorist organization without a common definition of terrorism is indeed futile but that's why the point of debate has moved back a step to trying to arrive at a common definition. That's why it would be useful if you could state your definition, in as many sentences as it takes.

But to use a statistic on deaths to prove it seems abhorrent to me.. as if there is a specific ratio of dead people that once

met

excuses a groups actions.

Surely you agree that minimizing civilian casualties in war is a good thing? All else being equal, isn't it better if a higher proportion of deaths are among military personnel than innocent civilians? Obviously it is possible to kill soldiers in an unjust and evil way too. Merely limiting your targets to the military does not automatically justify your action. But trying to avoid civilian deaths is one point in favour IMO.

Trade.

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?jevind L?ng (7h & 43m) > TradeSurplus