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| quote: | Originally posted by George Smiley
If the goal of any 'war on terror' is to stop it (ie thinking of the safety of your citizens), then whether or not terrorists "have a point" is very much important. If you acknowledge this fact in a certain case, then that gives you a base for stopping terrorism (as if the terrorists do have a point then it would be you who were at fault for said terrorism. It is you who has created that situation by pursuing a certain course of action. Stop that action and you have a great chance of stopping terrorism and therefore winning your war on terror - that, is if the terrorists do have a point. Al-Qaida for example, IMO, do not have a point)
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The statement “as if the terrorists do have a point then it would be you who were at fault for said terrorism” is patently false.
Each and every individual (and we are all individuals) is responsible for his or her own choices. We are not responsible for the choices of others – at all. The only situation in which we could be responsible for the choices of others would be if those individuals possessed a lesser degree of free will than ourselves. That is, their behavior was not the product of their own choices, but rather followed as a result of your actions in a demonstrable and formally logical way. This is not the case with terrorists. They can choose to organize and carry out acts of terrorism, and they could just as easily choose not to. It is entirely within their power to do so or to refrain from doing so. Therefore, we have no responsibility for their actions, and we cannot be considered “at fault” for the consequences of those actions.
You keep repeating this mantra that if we appease terrorists who have a point, it will reduce terrorism. It may reduce terrorism from that particular group of people. But it is also likely to encourage every other group which has either legitimate or illegitimate grievances to use terrorism to advance their agenda as well. Currently, most politically dissatisfied people in the world aren’t trying to solve their problems by blowing the other side up. Liberal citizens of the United States aren’t killing random Conservative citizens because they don’t like Bush’s policy. Chinese nationalists aren’t strapping explosives to themselves and detonating them in the middle of a crowded restaurant in Shanghai in order to advance their distaste for the Chinese communist regime. Appeasement of one terrorist group, regardless of the validity of their complaints, encourages every single other dissatisfied group on the planet to consider terrorism by demonstrating it to be an effective means of obtaining redress.
The reality is that appeasing terrorism will cause more terrorism. Therefore, it does not have a great chance of stopping terrorism, and only hinders any “war on terror.”
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These conflicts can be worked out diplomatically! Just not while the governments of those regions are pursing the course of action they are (have) doing. Whilest ever a government oppresses, then the oppressed have no choice but to fight by whatever means available to them (with whatever strategy they can use to have a chance of succeeding - ie not conventional force as they would be annihalated), otherwise, they wouldn't be 'oppressed' would they?!
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Well, the Palestinians were somehow managing to negotiate at Camp David in 2000 even though they were – if we are to believe your position – unable use diplomatic recourse due to their oppressed condition. Your argument continues to fall back on generalizations which are easily refuted with simple counterexamples. It is an indisputable fact that the Palestinians could use diplomatic means to attempt to obtain redress for their grievances. They did use diplomatic means!
They do have a choice but to fight by “whatever means available to them.”
This logically follows. It is an indisputable logical fact – in fact almost a Boolean one.
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What possitive affects?! Israel takes an extremely hard line against terrorism - if what you are suggesting is true, that form of terrorism would have dissappeared all together. However, it hasn't, which suggests what I said about always being terrorism no matter what is true. And history also shows this (there has been terrorism since the dawn of mankind)
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Publicity.
Their brutal and blatantly immoral tactics have given them more publicity than they could have ever hoped for. Publicity exposes their cause to the world audience, and by doing so nets them sympathizers around the world. There are tons of other groups with just as serious a complaint against some other group as the Palestinians have. But they don’t carry out suicide attacks. They don’t kill innocent civilians in the streets. And so they don’t make headlines, and there aren’t protests around the world calling for better conditions for them.
Furthermore, terrorist attacks have repeatedly brought Israel to the negotiation table both by a desire of Israel to halt the attack and due to international pressure on Israel to negotiate which wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for the publicity garnered by the attacks.
http://www.aynrand.org/medialink/columns/rt022502.shtml
Clearly, terrorism is yielding positive results at relatively little cost. This needs to stop. If it does stop, so will terrorism.
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Wow. Impressive. You gave me about 4 examples of where there was no resistance to a state. And you claim this is representative of the entire history of man?! I dont need to say any more do I?
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You made a general claim here:
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If there is a cause, just or not, that certain groups of people feel the need to figh tfor then they will, no matter what the consequences are for them or their people.
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I provided four counterexamples. One counterexample is sufficient to demonstrate that the statement possesses a Boolean logical value of false. You, on the other hand, have failed to provide any example of people fighting for a cause with complete disregard for the consequences to them or their people, much less provided any evidence to suggest that current terrorist organizations meet those criteria.
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Not true at all. To me, it seems you are only saying that because you actually agree with some of these "blatently immoral acts" and try to justify them. None of them can be justified under my definition, which is, I suspect, why it has been rejected by so many on this thread...
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You’re absolutely right. I do agree with some acts and feel they are justified which, according to your definition of terrorism, are terrorist acts. However, my argument about the appeasement of terrorists uses my definition of terrorism. You can’t apply any of my claims or arguments to any situation which doesn’t fit my definition of terrorism, because if you do then you are guilty of a logical fallacy (equivocation).
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Again, not true at all! If the actions during this war on terror necessitates attacks against terrorist leaders then I would not call that terrorism at all. I dont think (and if I have I shouldn't have) that I have labelled this killing of Yassin as a 'terrorist act' have I? Because I do not consider it to be so. However, if during military operations there was an unnecessary killing of civilians that could have been avoided, then yes, I would call that terrorism...
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I’m glad you don’t consider the killing of Yassin to be a terrorist act. But you seem to be demanding impossible perfection from counterterrorist activity. The nature of terrorism as a policy carried out by cowardly, reclusive, and secretive organizations makes it impossible to avoid killing some civilians in the process of rooting them out. Is that good? No, it’s terrible. But people are going to make mistakes, poor judgments, and other errors in the process of trying to find and destroy terrorists, and it’s going to result in the “killing of civilians that could have been avoided.”
Any counterterrorist strategy which was completely unwilling to risk the killing of an innocent civilian which could have been avoided is going to be so completely impotent that it will accomplish nothing. Situations like these – where Yassin was able to be killed without significant collateral damage – are the rare exception, not the rule.
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If they do have a point (if they are oppressed) what you and Smoke are implying would give a free hand to all dictators and the like to carry on oppressing peoples and never give up... |
Simply not true. At any point in time they could choose to stop committing acts of terrorism. If they did so, we could then provide them with assistance against their oppressive dictator. I’ll be first in line to call for the creation of an independent Palestinian state, but only when they bring about a complete and sustained cessation of all terrorist activity.
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