Bush is right when he says there are terrorist states because he heads the most vicious terrorist state in the world, the one with the most weapons of mass destruction, the USA. The best blow against terrorism that Americans could muster would be to impeach all the top Bushies.

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But the whole purpose of the "war on terror" is to provide a pretext for policies that would otherwise be unpopular -- it had/has nothing to do with protecting Americans from terrorist attacks in the first place.

If you look at American foreign policy historically, it hasn't change significantly at least since the end of WWII (Bush is slightly more overt, but not fundamentally different from his predecessors, in fact.). And since a use for oil was found control -- not access, but control -- of Middle East oil has always been of major strategic importance, and for good reason -- if this goal is achieved it will increase America’s power over world affairs enormously. For this reason politicians (of either party) are desperate to install a regime in Iraq that is subservient to Washington (In practice they are explicitly opposed democracy in Iraq), and they will use whatever PR means they have at their disposal to gain the acquiescence of the public; whether it's the war on terror, or WMD's, or “bringing democracy.”

The problem is not the definition of the word “terrorism,” the problem is that politicians (and business leaders) have interests that are different from, and in most cases contrary to, the interests of the general population -- public safely and welfare are not only not priorities, they are not even a concern. As citizens we have to take responsibility for ourselves and stop putting faith in largely self-appointed leaders.

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The Unitied Nations definitions of terrorism -- http://www.unodc.org/unodc/terrorism_definitions.html --
are vastly different form the U.S. Department of States current definition of "modern" terrorism. Go ahead and search Google - State Department - then use the search option there - "terrorism definition" - and you find convenient references to Iraq, Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah, N. Korea, Venezuela (although I can't for the life of me think of one act of terrorism committted by Venezuela) and Cuba. It seems the Curent Admin has crafted the Neocon/AIPAC propaganda word for word. (And who says the Israel Lobby doesn't control our government?)
The U.S. is certainly acting as a terrorist state if you consider that the NEOCONs are a sub-group sponosred by a national policy or a government. Israel is also a terrorist state but that's been the nature of Israel from it's inception.
Under the current definition the Democtratic Party could be called a terrorist orgnization if one interprets the definition that way.
We are living in a scary anti-democracy funhouse of smoke and mirrors with landmines on the crooked floors and snipers in dark corners. America is now the place Orwell wished it would become, and Kafkaesque as it is, it's becoming worse by the day. Good Luck to you all.
http://www.unodc.org/unodc/terrorism_definitions.html

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Choice One: join our band of low life vermin cowardly criminals reviled by every society and hunted by every criminal justice system on earth.

Choice Two: join our jihad against the great satan USA. Help us drive out their soldiers and save our land. Earn the respect of your community as an enemy combatant and their great reverence as a martyr for them and for your god.

If I wanted to foment a third world war and pit christian against muslim across the globe, I would do everything George Bush and Usama bin Laden have done.

How America Lost the War On Terror

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"The first step towards real security is for America" is to stop making enemies!

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The phrase “war on terror” is a mythic term different in meaning but similar in function to Mussolini’s and Hitler’s wars against Bolsheviks and leftists of every sort, at home and in the world abroad. These myths are grounds for hostility to national liberation and to the equality of nation-states, those of Europe and the East. They justify authoritarian rule and inequality in society. The policies they support are not consistent with civil life. They imply a new world order maintained primarily by the brutal discipline of a single nation, sometimes called the “world-cop”. American national supremacist propagandists thirst for American victory in “World War IV” (the Cold War is seen as World War III). Their policies are the same as the Nazis who thirsted for a Second World War.

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Organizations that came out of the trusts at the end of the 19th and early 20th centuries in banking, industry, militarization and religion wear the masks of being leaders but have used fear and terror to manipulate people and played both sides of wars to make money, enhance power and keep the people from any progressive (forward thinking) future.

Authoritarian regimes, left or right, are always run by a small groups of well connected people to influence the masses.
The names of people, organizations, leaders, banks and corporations are all available for those that want to do some research.

The well connected name cities, streets, airports, ships... after many of them.

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Why Terrorism?


What is the reason for terrorism, and what is terrorism anyway? There must be more to it than fanatics randomly killing the civilians of another country because they dislike freedom, or behavior that does not fit their own religious convictions. There has to be a better reason than that. Why would anyone strap a bomb to their waist and blow themselves up? An elderly Palestinian when asked this question on TV responded: “ What else can we do when we are faced with planes and tanks and bombs? All that we have to resist with is our own bodies.” The modern killing machines of the Israeli's and the Americans have been used against civilians. They not only drop bombs and strafe civilian non-combatants but use land mines, cluster bombs, and even have chemical and biological weapons in their arsenals. The modern warfare against non-combatants can only be answered with “You kill our civilians and we will kill yours.”

Al Quada, Hezballah, Hamas and other resistance forces are waging a war of human desperation against the might of a mechanized colossus that in the name of “national defense” saps the money of its own taxpayers to fatten the bottom line of corporations. Islam has been in the religion business for ages and has never tried to use force to impose its ideology on anyone. This can not be said for the Christian crusaders. Why would Islam decide to wage war on us in this generation?

The corporations public relations machine that has been honed by billions of dollars spent on advertising are using their brainwashing techniques to convince us that we are in danger from religious fanatics. This is just another exercise of using war as economic policy. Scare the shit out of the American people and they will quietly accept their tax money being stolen and the loss of their liberties as the Constitution is trashed. They have over twenty think tanks like Heritage and The American Enterprise Institute that provide talking heads for TV. Their lobbyists even use congressional offices to fabricate bills that they desire. The appropriations committees have just given the Pentagon another 450 billion dollars and Israel another 4 billion. What is truly frightening is that the only available liberals running for office insist that they are for an even stronger US defense budget. This is insanity—mass insanity. We already have more modern weapons than all of the countries in the world together. Even ex-president and peace nobelist Jimmy Carter proudly helped launch a nuclear submarine called—The Jimmy Carter.

We have been convinced that the billions of dollars they have taken from us are necessary in “the war against terrorism”but in a war of the Spiritual against the Material the spiritual will always win. The war mongers know this and their greatest fear is that the peoples of the world will find this out. Every attrocity committed by them has its blowback. Mel Gibson is not the only closet anti-semite that has come out of the closet in reaction to the slaughter of children at Qamas. It is no accident that Joe Leiberman lost to Ned Lamont in the primaries in spite of support from Senators Boxer and Feinstein.. In the November mid term elections the Republicans face the loss of both houses of Congress and there is a national demand for the impeachment of the Bush administration. We might not have to wait for 1998 to impeach the idiot King George. The only way to defeat terrorism is to stop giving Boeing, Northrup, General Dynamics and Halliburton our tax money and shut off the pipe line of our tax money going to Israel. Zionism has joined with the military industrial complex and every new atrocity is steering the Jewish community towards another holocaust.



======================

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Terrorism has its roots in the foreign occupation of one's land. Read Robert Pape's, Associate Professor of Chicago, interview:
"http://www.amconmag.com/2005_07_18/article.html

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Vice President Cheney has called Connecticut voters terrorists because they exercised their Constitutional right to vote. They voiced their opposition to a war conceived in lies and maintained with the blood of innocents.
Terrorists claim altruistic motivation yet behave like common thugs. Terrorists show no regard for the lives of civilians. Terrorists do not follow international conventions for the conduct of conflict. Terrorists kidnap, torture and imprison without due process. Terrorists use fear to achieve a desired result. Terrorists kill dissent.
According to this definition, Vice President Cheney is the terrorist.

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It has been pointed out repeatedly on the pages of AlterNet that one cannot declare war on terrorism, only on nation-states, and so Bush has been slip-slidding over to the Reagan-like "axis of evil" approach.

Articles such as this one simply muck up everything more. Americans don't care what you call the enemy; we know that we have enemies; we want our enemies destroyed. Americans don't care that Bush is an "imperial" president; we know we need a commander-in-chief in time of war.

I realize that it makes it easier for journalists to crank out their crap when they can simplify and identify their own enemy: Bush. But WE gave him most of the powers he is using. OUR legislators confirmed his use of those powers. Psuedo-academic stuff about "the definition of terrorism" contributes to our confusion. It manages to avoid offending readers, however; BFD.

One can argue over the definition of "terrorist" until the cows come home and leave us just as stupid as we were the day we elected Bush.

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"Professor Stephen Zunes argues that Hezbollah is a Lebanese Shiite socio-political organization."

Uh huh. Yeah, sure.

A Lebanese Shiite socio-political organization, with thousands of missiles.

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Palestine/Israel Letter from 18 Writers, including three Nobel Prize recipients

The Nation August 18, 2006
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060828/petition

The latest chapter of the conflict between Israel and Palestine began when Israeli forces abducted two civilians, a doctor and his brother, from Gaza. An incident scarcely reported anywhere, except in the Turkish press. The following day the Palestinians took an Israeli soldier prisoner--and proposed a negotiated exchange against prisoners taken by the Israelis--there are approximately 10,000 in Israeli jails.



That this "kidnapping" was considered an outrage, whereas the illegal military occupation of the West Bank and the systematic appropriation of its natural resources--most particularly that of water--by the Israeli Defense Forces is considered a regrettable but realistic fact of life, is typical of the double standards repeatedly employed by the West in face of what has befallen the Palestinians, on the land allotted to them by international agreements, during the last seventy years.

Today outrage follows outrage; makeshift missiles cross sophisticated ones. The latter usually find their target situated where the disinherited and crowded poor live, waiting for what was once called Justice. Both categories of missile rip bodies apart horribly--who but field commanders can forget this for a moment?

Each provocation and counter-provocation is contested and preached over. But the subsequent arguments, accusations and vows, all serve as a distraction in order to divert world attention from a long-term military, economic and geographic practice whose political aim is nothing less than the liquidation of the Palestinian nation.

This has to be said loud and clear, for the practice, only half declared and often covert, is advancing fast these days, and, in our opinion, it must be unceasingly and eternally recognized for what it is and resisted.

PS: As Juliano Mer Khamis, director of the documentary film Arna's Children, asked: "Who is going to paint the 'Guernica' of Lebanon?"

John Berger

Noam Chomsky

Harold Pinter

Jose Saramago

Eduardo Galeano

Arundhati Roy

Naomi Klein

Howard Zinn

Charles Glass

Richard Falk

Gore Vidal

Russell Banks

Thomas Keneally

Chris Abani

Carolyn Forch

Martin Espada

Jessica Hagedorn

Toni Morrison



Public Service message from
.org
WeAreWideAwake

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These people know who the world's biggest terrorists are. Why, their belligerence and warmongering have even eclipsed that of the despicable Osama. The affected in the region will reveal the real terrorists as Bush, Blair, Olmert and his clan. The world will be a much safer place without these murderous jackals. Of course, the Arabs and Muslims have their bloodthirsty crackpots and despots in abundance too, but the short-sightedness of the 3 previously mentioned, has done more to recruit new "terrorists" and guerelllas than anything that they (the Arabs and the Muslims) could do by themselves.

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When a country inflicts its will on another this is a form of violence. Given this definition it is you, the American people who are the violent ones and thus you are the real terrorists and the rest of the world reacts to your violence. You guys do it to yourselves in the name of corporate greed. So the next time a terrorist attack succeeds on your soil instead of pointing fingers look in the mirror

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The Tactic:
You are being attacked from every side.
The terrorist will continue their deadly assault on America because they hate our freedoms. They hate Democracy.
Give us all your freedoms so we can protect you.
The Constitution to the United States is but a piece of paper drawn up over 200 years ago its out dated and can't help us in our fight against Terrorism.
They will attack us if we don't get them first.
They are the Axis of Evil.
Don't speak bad about United States Policy especially the War in Iraq because the terrorist will see that they are winning. Don't speak about time tables for withdrawl our soldiers will feel not supported if we question why we are still in Iraq.
Don't cut and run the terrorist will follow us here.
The great state of Conn. by not voting for Joe Lieberman in the Primaries has just helped Al Quaida get stronger.
The voter is weakening America by voting Democrate.
Listen you have no rights when we are at War we are here to keep you safe.
We are here to protect you against yourselves and terrorist.

You see everytime me and my Adminstration come under heavy fire when our objectives are being interfered with a huge Terror plot is uncovered just to prove to you that Ned Lamount winning the primaries is the wrong choice America.

Joe Liberman/George Bush is hard on Terrorist and knows what it takes to win the War on Terror. He knows our rights as Americans are hindering our ability to fight terrorism in this country.
Yes we should just eradicate the Bill of Rights and the Constitution so my staff and I can protect you and rule America.
The Constitution is screwing everything up and we can't get our job done with it in place.
I have sworn to up hold the constituition but General Gonzales has just told me that it not actually my job to do that and that I am entitled to do whatever I want.
Gonzales actually told me that the constitution does not apply any more.
Shit by the time every law I have enacted gets to the supreme court for review because its unconstitutional it will be years and my agenda will be full filled.
Bill of Rights hahahahahahaha.
Your a Slave America and all the protections our fore father had enacted are getting in the way of the rich controling the wealth and the power.
So go back to your TV's and the thought that America was really attacked by terrorists because Peter Pan really exists. We do what we want and you believe. We own u fools.

Your Goverment; The Banks, Corperations, and Super Wealthy.

Thank You

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I think it's past time to name this administration's mideast policy for what it is, what it represents, no matter to whom it is directed or whom it enlists as allies or instigators on it's behalf. The first pre-emptive war in our history rushed into by our administration is the result of Christian fascism, period!

The multinational corps may be manipulating the religious right to elect and sustain dumbya's cronies and or string pullers for their plundering and creates strange bedfellows. Just look at who put Hussein, Castro, Noriega, and others in power before before wasting innocent lives to depose them.

The spin words given to dumbya were "Islamic fascists." I say that the Christian fascists no more define Christianity than the Islamic ones define Islam. It's time for the rest of us to reclaim our own ideologies, both of which are peace loving. The extremists on all sides define terrorism, not the true believers. I would include the Jewish Zionist movement as well.

These extreme religious ideologies only lead us to destroy Creation. Whenever we or they attempt to exercise unilateral power over others, we, or they, are engaging in terroristic behaviors that contradict what is said, in the particular sacred text, in the name of waging war! Fascism is the enemy, not the particular ideology.

Let us each clean our own houses first then perhaps we can help each other clean up the mess left by the fascists on all sides and reconcile our differences and live together in peace and love. Let us each bury our own ideological fears and allow our peoples to thrive.

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Terrorist State #1 - USA Proof: Unprovoked war in Iraq. Exploitation of millions in coutrnies like China in sweat shops to make cheap products for US companies ("free trade"). Arms terrorist states like Israel. Government under total control of corporate elite but masquerades as democratic state. Routinely manipulates governments and companies to benefit ruling corporate elite.

Terrorist State #2 - Israel Proof: Massacres innocents in Lebanon and the territories as so-called "collateral damage." Steals land from Arabs and makes them live in squalor. Kidnaps Arabs it deems subversive and engage in torture and illegal incarceration. Government run by neocons traded with the USA via AIPAC. Country run as a military state.
Has corrupted US government with influence peddling.

Countries Allied with Terrorist Nations: All so-called "friendly" Arab nations like Egypt and Jordan. Wolves in sheeps clothing looking for maximizing profits on oil revenue to prop up there own corrupt governments under the US guise of legitimacy.

It goes on and on.

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Bob Burnett, in his article "Who Are the Real Terrorists" makes an attempt to narrow the definition of terrorism. He starts by saying it is so general "that it's meaningless," and concludes that those who attack others and are localized in nations such as Hezbollah and Hamas, and are opposed to occupations are "resistance groups." Then he says that Al Qaeda is different because it is "stateless" and because he says "its operatives" have "pledged to destroy America."

Then many of the comments that followed challenged this operational definition that labels only Al Qaeda as worthy of the term "terrorist" because of their statelessness and that they have "pledged to destroy America." These challenges took the form of observations that the USA is "the most vicious terrorist state in the world" (rsaxto); that America's goal is "power over world affairs" (BobbyGreyFriar) so the "war on terror" is a pretext for policies of power, not about "protecting American's from terrorist attacks;" that the U.S. is "acting as a terrorist state" and that (with the UN definition of terrorism) ". . . the Democratic Party could be called a terrorist organization (marklar);" that the "war on terror" is a "myth" that supports policies that pursue "American victory in 'World War IV' (citizenjoe); and that "Al Qaeda, Hezbollah, Hamas and other resistance forces are waging a war of human desperation against the might of a mechanized colossus that in the name of 'national defense' saps the money of its own taxpayers to fatten the bottom line of corporations." (gramps)

I agree with them. I think these are good challenges to Burnett's defining of "terrorist" as those organizations that are stateless and attack the U.S.--essentially Al Qaeda.

They each debunk the idea that Burnett puts forth that Al Qaeda's motives are only to "destroy America" but instead, suggest that many resistance groups, including Al Qaeda, have motives that are defensive. That is, fighting back against the "colossus" Gramps mentioned.

However, I think it best to go beyond these good challenges of Burnett's proposed more narrow definition.

We need to reexamine our most basic assumptions about the words we use. I think it is best to conclude that the words "terrorism" and "terrorist" are, at best, in practice, propaganda terms, and that they are nearly always divisive.

We need a language about violence; and about criminality; and about legitimate resistance; and about aggression that is not propaganda. We need a language that is applicable to the U.S *and* to Al Qaeda and its imitators; *and* to Hamas, Hezbollah and others. We need a language that is seen by all sides as neutral.

I think "terrorist" and "terrorism" are as neutral as "Great Satan," "evildoers," "Axis of Evil," "Crusaders," (and the new one from Bush) "suiciders" and "Islamic fascists."

What is a solution?

I'd substitute the very simple phrase "illegal violence" for "terrorism." That way we can condemn the illegal violence of any side that contributes to this horrific, emerging world war. The standards for such definitions already exist in the categories of Nuremberg. Crimes against Peace, War Crimes, Crimes against Humanity, and Genocide are fine categories to use.

The so-called "Global War on Terror" requires the words "terrorism" and "terrorist" for its continuation as a conceptual ploy for domination, perpetual violence, and unending military spending. On the other hand, the "Global Rule of Law," the opposite of the "Global War on Terror," if implemented (revised from the current biased UN system), would rely on clear, impartial prohibitions of "illegal violence" in a way that penalizes any and all sides that resort to criminal violence, as determined by a court of law, be it a domestic court, the UNSC, the GA, the ICJ or the ICC.

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well now before 1492 world historythere was hold bunch of waring an stealing going on down south an guess were all the lotty when went to now it is back now we can not do anything for ourselfs for corp. world is out for a profit for them selfsit has destoryed our steel,framing, oil,magfactoring so what is usa going to do it time to get the appoint"es out then go for the elected ones it time to clean house all the way through our country what ever it takes but when this will take place its unknowned

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First, the eternal truth: One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter.

Second, it seems to me that the best thing the US can do in order to NOT succeed at eradicating something is to declare war on it! As evidence I remind everyone of the war on poverty and the war on drugs!

By the way, I think anyone that shoots their mouths off about how this country or that country is a "terrorist state" is just about as simple minded as the current administration. You all know who you are.

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By freezing their assets and calling them terrorists where in fact they hadn't done a thing to us is both illogical and stupid. Now that Bush created more "terrorists" out of those groups by labeling them, they might as well start attacking the US. This is how the idiotic labeling can be validated. It serves no real interest to us. What a dumb ass!

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This man is blindly advocating a futile cause. Like England in Nazi days he wants to appease the enemy, run away and "declare a victory" just as the enemy gets stronger and prepares to pounce on thousands more innocent civilians.

Indeed he advises that we further loose credibility by declaring a victory, when we know, the whole world knows, we're nowhere near finished doing the job.

But it's not enough to declare an empty victory. In his mind, deranged as he is, the president of the US needs to change his views on the subject, actually implying that the US is the terrorist, and basically apologize and make reparations to those wonderful people who brought you the World Trade Center destruction. After all, they are actually nice people who only want to defend their innocent and harmless way of life in the face of a vicious Western assault on their freedom.

He needs to look at amilimani.com and read Islam's Useful Idiots to get a real perspective from someone who grew up and lived in the area.

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"Bush referred to them all as "terrorists who are trying to stop the advance of democracy."

So Bush is a terrorist because he and his mates want to kill democracy in the US (religion is So much _Naicer_ than democracy and science and Human Rights)

"Anyone who opposes the occupation is a "terrorist.""

Wow! That makes ME a terrorist! Whoda thought?!

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You guys have vastly outclassed the author on this topic. Nicely done!

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It is very obvious by the statements,actions and policies of the BUSH FASCIST regime that absolutely anyone that opposes their forced reality is a terrorist. So anyone that doesn't go along with the lies, mass-murder,torture,treason and rape of human rights and freedoms should be imprisoned,tortured, killed and all their possessions liberated by the authorities.....
That means at least half of americans and most of the rest of the entire world is in danger and under personal threat,and IS the target of the BUSHCO war on terror.....
HOLY CRAP you cannot even oppose the F*CKING MANIACS and not risk being put on their hit list,so as we know they are looking for most of us to make strong statements or take action to use against us and put us in gulags just like NAZI HITLER maniacs. BUSHCO must be prosecuted asap or they will go through with their plan. MARSHALL LAW will take care of ANY opposition and that will be declared with the next false flag attack,before the next election..Oh wait it doesn't matter they control the vote count and courts anyway... The ILLEGAL/CRIMINAL GOVERNMENT wont be voted out,too bad for the whole of mankind not just the u.s.a.

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I agree that Pres.Bush's arrogant language and swaggering style, not to mention the Iraq war, have done us ant the world a lot of harm. But it doesn't folllow that the wrong method makes the putpose equally wrong.
As a matter of fact, Hezbollay has a very violent past, having killed American and French, among others. Saying that they are not a threat to us is just plain wrong. Hamas hold parades with babies wearing mock suicide belts. These are not cuddly people. With these and the new groups springing up daily, you say we should just concentrate on Al-Queda? With 6 gunmen in the room, why pay attention to only one gun? These are very bad people. It's a question of how, not if, we should oppose them.

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ATTENTION..CREDIT..GUILT..BLAME..FAULT..TERRORIST?perhaps attention to what is good and better..easy and easier would serve to free-up people so they can see that we are all in the earth for a purpose and is that purpose to defend a figure head ???then what does each one have a head for...stop..look..listen..can u hear the beat of a different drummer?

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Who's the terrorist is truly debateable. Long gone are the days when terrorists were easily labeled, like Brigade Rosso, Rote Armée Fraktion and the likes. Today, "terrorists" are more and more in the grey area, where they use amoral (to most) methods to fight what they see as a just fight.

Even the IRA could be debated as not entirely pure terrorists, though their methods were those of terror. Some would even put Al Qaeda in the not-so-clear group, if one accepts the notion that their basic idea is to expel Western forces from Saudi Arabia (Bin Laden's home country once upon a time) and some other locations.

And that is the problem with the label. What makes one earn it? The methods chosen, and if so which part of the methods? Is there a limit to how big a home made bomb can be, or how many civilians one can accept killed in a statement? Could it be the end which the actions are aiming at? What about those who use word and politics to reach those ends? Are they terrorists? Are weapons manufactured from "our" side a certificate for Good, just as weapons from the former Soviet Union, Iran or Syria often is presented as a sertificate for Bad? Is it OK if it's local, but not OK if it's regional or global? Are the targets the confirmation? Only civilians? Some? Or just that it happens live on tv?

This leads to what TERRORISM is. Just as vague, actually. Can it be labeled "guerilla"? Hardly, though some think so. The most lame label, yet amazingly popular nowadays is "asymmetric". Heck, most conflicts are asymmetric. The West does it best to be asymmetric, through outnumbering, outgunning, out-techonologizeing.

The icing is, however, using the term "war". If someone of both sense and authority had refrained from that sorry label, things could have been a bit different. A war calls for parties, for swift action, for victory or defeat - though most in real life are defeats or variations thereof, while victories are scarce and then mostly just in the eyes of one party.

If there were no "war" we would deal with criminals. A criminal act is far more easily defined than "terrorism". A criminal is one who commits a crime, that being a car-jacking, a plane hi-jacking, dealing in illegal goods, conspiring against legal regimes, or mass murder. On the other hand, catching criminals calls for investigations, good policework, and a trial before a court of law. Inconvenient, some may say. But mostly, dealing effectively with a criminal makes for much more popular support, even in the societies where the criminals thrive, than killing war heroes, defenders of the people, resistance fighters.

Al Qaeda are a bunch of international criminals. We have chosen to give them higher status, the status of a worthy foe. Which explains why Al Qaeda is not dead, it has merely gone from a small group of criminals, through a criminal organisation with global reach, to finally - the ultimate level of fiefdom (to us) and respect (from those that agree with their anger) - an idea if not even an ideology that inspires frustrated youth around large parts of the world to commit new hideous and disastrous crimes. There is no longer any need for Osama Bin Laden. His twisted thoughts and ways has spread like a pandemic, fueled by whatever unfairness or other reason that frustrates individuals. He might be dead, he might be terminally ill, he might be out of touch with the world, but his ideas live on to kill another day. And they are pretty hard to hit with a guided missile.

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Gramps commented that "What is the reason for terrorism? There must be more to it than fanatics randomly killing the civilians of another country because they dislike freedom, or behavior that does not fit their own religious convictions."

Actually bad people with malicious motives have existed through out the years with lots of followers. Why disbelieve it now? The Klu Klux Klan had mega support, Fascism, and Hitler's puritication theory. People who can't believe that evil exists are doomed to be killed by it. Pay attention for hate in the messages received and then see what that makes them sound like.

This author bashes Bush for his wushy use of terrorism. He also bashes the lumping together of all the terrorist groups. Yet he never defines terrorism so we can work with it. He lumps together Iraq, Israel, and everything as through they are all one event. Again, defeating his own argument. And don't get me wrong I agree with every criticism of Bush -- he's simplistic and therefore very dangerous.

Israel isn't the same issue as Iraq. Israel was threated by Arabs for existing before 1948 (riots). And long before any of Israel's so called offenses caused the "resistance." And before Israel acquired the territories in 67, Pan-Arabs (as they called themselves at the time) did attacks into Israel proper when they were under Jordan's rule. When the Olso accords got going with a promise of a country for them, the suicide bombings increased tremendously -- and they said they didn't want a state, they wanted Israel wiped off the map (Arafat in Arabic).

Blaming Israel is a "flip of the script". It's a common technique of attackers to flip the script and good people could watch for it and then make judgement. Calling a Jewish country Nazi is an example. Any point can be made without such hateful an attack grotesque to all who lost a third of their people in anti-semitic violence. Do you really want to believe someone who's so vehement point blank? Or do you want to look further for more facts and for truth?

Another subtle flip -- occupation flighters and freedom fighters. We assume they mean from the Israeli security activities in the territories -- They don't! They mean (read their sites) freeing all of the Middle East from the Zionist shame (getting rid of Israel). By Occupation they mean Israel's existence in the land they claim because they had it 500 years ago. (Israel claims it because they purchased it plot by plot in the 1800's from Arabs and were there when Britain decided to give self rule to the natives -- which were at that time, Jews and Arabs plus a few much smaller other groups. All historic reasons are irrelevant.)

Just venting. I cringe at Israel getting maligned because Bush is beyond imbecile. Please people with good hearts and minds, look at stuff, dig for actual facts. And trust your real gut. If it looks ugly and hateful -- it is. And if it looks like it might be a lie -- it might be. If it looks like a flip of the script -- well that's one way evil gets into good people's hearts (a common abuser technique). If it feels like you are spouting anger and hate at one country but not at another who has also done wrong things -- you've been taken over by hate. And the biggest casualty of that -- are those Arabs in the Middle East who want to live a normal life -- how can they win again those who don't want peace, if we don't look past the hate messages to actually see the intent?

BTW, to the person who questioned Hezbolla terrorist status. I didn't have time to verify each of these, but the list is intriguing and similar to what I remember and have seen over the years (the site I would ignore - it was just a well written list):
http://fdd.typepad.com/fdd/2006/08/dispatches_from_1.html

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