[thechat] US Elections

[Martin Burns]

On Thu, 7 Nov 2002, Hugh Blair wrote:

> Terrorism or no terrorism. No middle ground.

Depends on how you define it. Killing civilians with no justification?
Well step right up, a number of US administrations. Off the top of my
head, Nicaragua, East Timor, Afghanistan, Vietnam.

Whether someone's a terrorist or a freedom fighter largely depends on
who's writing the history.

Paul Revere? Terrorist sympathiser from certain points of view. Any of the
founding fathers of Israel? Terrorists until they started writing the
histories. Michael Collins? Clear terrorist until after the foundation of
the Irish Free State. Mandela? Served decades on Robbin Island for
terrorist acts.

> Security of a country and it's citizens. Or not. 1 or 0.

Nope. It's always between 0 and 1.

> Or neutral. Of course it's a choice. But don't harbor, condone
> or support terrorism and then want to be neutral or left alone,

Gives the UK perfect right to assassinate a high proportion of Irish
Americans for support of Noraid, I would think.

Can I also add that an attack on Iraq is nothing to do with terrorism (all
the analysts are clear that Iraq is unrelated to Al-Qu'aida) and nothing
to do with Islamic fundamentalism (it's a secular state and deposing
Saddam would probably cause the country to split into warring factions,
with the likely result of a fundamentalist state).

And of course, invading another country to depose the legitimate (if
distasteful) head of state is somewhat against international law...

Cheers
Martin

---------------------------
"Names, once they are in common use, quickly
 become mere sounds, their etymology being
 buried, like so many of the earth's marvels,
 beneath the dust of habit." - Salman Rushdie