Terrorism is a legitimate form of warfare

[BeBro]

Originally posted by paiktis22
That's what made them terrorists then.

Yes, but it is the logical consequence when so many people seem to believe that terrorism is legitimate.....

I absolutely agree with Strangelove here, when people say something like that (or even better "no rules in war") then everything is justified, and for all sides, so why complain about it? Then we could all agree that there are no limits in warfare, that all sides have the right to do everything to win.

Sure, the entire concept of humanity would go downhill, but....

[Dr Strangelove]

If there are NO rules to warfare, then perhaps even genocide becomes a legitimate policy of state.

[Master Zen]

Terrorism is a form of warfare, period. It is legit since these people for the most part don't have the resources to fight against a standing army. Why should they? No intelligent person goes into a fight they know they will lose, if anything you try and dictate the conditions of that battle which is what terrorists do.

The main argument is that terrorist target civilians. True. But warfare targets industry does it not? F-15 bombs a factory or an electrical station and kills workers, is that any different? If the intent is to disable the capacity of the enemy to fight, terrorism strikes at the will. Will and capacity are what make nations fight.

Not so far ago, the enlightened democratic west used terror bombing of urban centers in Germany and Japan for the same reasons. The British in fact did it under the objective to reduce the will of the German people to fight and directly targeted civilians. In what way is this different from terrorism?

[BeBro]

Originally posted by Master Zen
Terrorism is a form of warfare, period.

I think noone has said it isn´t.

It is legit since these people for the most part don't have the resources to fight against a standing army.

Not my fault. How does that legitimate something? Germany has no oil, so we can do everything to get it? Our experience with desert warfare is a bit outdated, but I´m sure we would quickly make progress....

The main argument is that terrorist target civilians. True. But warfare targets industry does it not? F-15 bombs a factory or an electrical station and kills workers, is that any different? If the intent is to disable the capacity of the enemy to fight, terrorism strikes at the will.

So everything would be ok to reach military victory? And any limitations (geneva conventions for example) are useless? Why then doesn´t every war end in genocide - it would be an effective way to victory, wouldn´t it? Maybe those who don´t use every possible method are just wimps?

Not so far ago, the enlightened democratic west used terror bombing of urban centers in Germany and Japan for the same reasons. The British in fact did it under the objective to reduce the will of the German people to fight and directly targeted civilians. In what way is this different from terrorism?

It would make more sense IMO to label eg. Guernica, Warsaw, Rotterdam, Conventry or Dresden as warcrimes, because done by regular forces, but even that is debatable.

[Dis]

I don't think genocide is effective for victory. depending on what your objectives are of course. Genocide may be the most effective means of ending terrorism if you kill every muslim in the world.

But for conquering a nation and then using its resources to rebuild itself, you have to spare the civilian population. They have to keep the hosipitals, schools, and esp. the oil well operations going. Importing americans to do that job isn't practical, and would take a long time to get going.

[Master Zen]

Do you need genocide to win wars? Nope. Look at the holocaust. It was a terrible waste of industry and manpower. It served no military purpose whatsoever to devote such resources to the systematic destruction of an ethnic group.

Winning wars is not necessarily defeating the enemy, but making the enemy feel defeated. As I said, this is by destroying its will to fight or its capacity to do so. Terrorism strikes at the will.

[BeBro]

Originally posted by Dissident
I don't think genocide is effective for victory. depending on what your objectives are of course. Genocide may be the most effective means of ending terrorism if you kill every muslim in the world.

Exactly. And since it seems legitimate in a war, because terrorism is a legitimate form of warfare, and doesn´t seem to have any rules or limitations, so genocide would be fine too I wonder why the US wasn´t more consequent in Iraq. The post-war situation would be much easier without all those Iraqis, eh?

Edit:

Do you need genocide to win wars? Nope. Look at the holocaust. It was a terrible waste of industry and manpower. It served no military purpose whatsoever to devote such resources to the systematic destruction of an ethnic group.

Yes, but Germany wouldn´t have lost if we succeed in killing all our enemies....And if it is about success, then terror doesn´t seem to be successful either.

[Dis]

BeBro you have to look at the other part of my post. We need the Iraqis to run the oil wells. As we all know the war was about oil

[BeBro]

Ok, you could keep some of them as slaves, but wouldn´t it be legitimate to kill the vast majority? There is already high unemployment in Iraq......

[Spiffor]

I'm sure Shrub would have explained how good genocide was for the Iraqis.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by Master Zen
The British in fact did it under the objective to reduce the will of the German people to fight and directly targeted civilians

Dresden and the like point to the flaw in your idea because they weren't responsible for breaking the back of the German army. In fact serious bombing campaigns of the Axis Powers didn't begin until well after it was clear that each was going down in defeat.

[Master Zen]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
Dresden and the like point to the flaw in your idea because they weren't responsible for breaking the back of the German army. In fact serious bombing campaigns of the Axis Powers didn't begin until well after it was clear that each was going down in defeat.

The idea was to avoid defeating the Army and simply causing the Germans to lose the will to fight after suffering huge urban and civilzan damage. Read some WW2 and that was Bomber Harris' intent all along. Whether it succeeded or not is moot, no one is ever 100% sure if their plan is going to work. The Brits apparently thought it would.

The strategic bombing campaign began early in 1943. Victory, though obvious in retrospect, was not assured at the time, if it was then why the need for the bombings at all? In fact the first massive raid made by the RAF, the 1,000 bomber raid was in 1942, when it was still uncertain if Germany was to be defeated.

[EdwardTKing]

There are to my mind several
separate comparative topics:


Conscripts v Professionals

Regulars v Irregulars

Conventional Warfare v Guerrilla Warfare

Guerrilla Warfare v Terrorism

Terrorism v Covert Warfare

Im very surprised that Guerrilla warfare
hasn't been mentioned; it is a Civ Unit.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by Master Zen
Whether it succeeded or not is moot, no one is ever 100% sure if their plan is going to work.

The fact is that these campaigns were only feasible late in the war and headed for defeat. Otherwise they wouldn't have been vulnerable to sustained bombing campaigns. The US, for example, was only able to conduct a serious bombing campaign after it had destroyed most of Japan's navy & air force and fought its way close to thier home islands.

[Master Zen]

Yet the US still bombed Germany since 42, in strength after 43 when its bombers were extremely vulnerable and suffered horrendous casaulties. Some RAF raids as far as 1944 suferred tremendous losses too.

Btw, what are you getting at? I gave the example as proof that destroying the will of nations to fight is military policy and so is terrorism.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by Master Zen
Yet the US still bombed Germany

... which was only feasible due to the fact that the Red Army was diverting huge amounts of German resources.

Btw, what are you getting at?

That you are bringing up a failed strategy that had little to no effect on the outcome of WWII to support an idiotic point about the legitimacy of terrorism.

[Master Zen]

The Red Army had nothing to do whether the Allies would have tried to bomb Germany or not. The British had been doing it since 1940, the US developed long range bombers since the 1930...bla bla bla. That it was more successful thanks to the diversion of resources yes, that it wouldn't have been launched no.

Again, I am not arguin whether it was a failure or not. IMO it was a failure. But it was DONE with the explicit intent of causing civilian casualties. In fact, your supposed point proves YOU wrong as it is much more inhumane to do such damage when you have already won the war as you claim.

Anyway, who's to say if terrorism is legit or not? Invading iraq wasn't legit from the International Law point of view yet the US did it in defense of its interests. Same with the terrorists, they have the same right to do it.

[Kuciwalker]

So we need Iraqis to man the oil well? Well, they probably already are there, so why don't we nuke the rest of the country? We don't need a bunch of frigging desert. Is that what you want?

[Imran Siddiqui]

Again, I am not arguin whether it was a failure or not. IMO it was a failure. But it was DONE with the explicit intent of causing civilian casualties.

Exactly. Dresden was solely intended to target civilians. The fact that it didn't work may make it more of a tragedy (to us), but it still doesn't mean it wasn't intended to have a political cause.

Just because the intended political cause didn't work, doesn't mean it wasn't the targetting of civilians for political change. Or else, you'd have to say Palestinian bombings aren't terrorism because they are failing to effect political change the way they desire.

[Kuciwalker]

We aren't arguing whether or not that was terrorism - we're arguing over whether terrorism was wrong.

[Bereta_Eder]

Originally posted by BeBro


Yes, but it is the logical consequence when so many people seem to believe that terrorism is legitimate.....

I absolutely agree with Strangelove here, when people say something like that (or even better "no rules in war") then everything is justified, and for all sides, so why complain about it? Then we could all agree that there are no limits in warfare, that all sides have the right to do everything to win.

Sure, the entire concept of humanity would go downhill, but....

What rules? terrorists aren't the only one who are lawless or even the most damaging.

As said both state and indivindual/"independent" terrorism are to be condemned.

[Master Zen]

Terrorism is the same whether you use a homemade bomb or an F-16 to do it. Ultimitely it is an attempt to change the policies of an enemy nation, weaken its will, or right a supposed wrongdoing. Under this definition it's not just the arabs who are doing the terror...

EDIT: forgot to mention that it is done not in accordance with international law

[Spiffor]

MasterZen :

To be more precise, terrorism is the use of force in order to instill terror in a population, so that it changes its behaviour, or its government changes its policies.

As such, an army that wantonly and systematically kills civilians is waging terrorism. An individual blowing himself on enemy soldiers is not.

[Dr Strangelove]

Originally posted by Spiffor
MasterZen :

To be more precise, terrorism is the use of force in order to instill terror in a population, so that it changes its behaviour, or its government changes its policies.

As such, an army that wantonly and systematically kills civilians is waging terrorism. An individual blowing himself on enemy soldiers is not.

The suicide bomber generally disguises himself as a civilian, and travels among civilians, therefore using civilians as shields. If you allow that his enemies have a legitimate right to fight back then they are left with no choice but to fight civilians. Thus the suicide bomber is a terrorist even if he targets enemy soldiers because he is virtually mandating terrorim as a defensive reply. It is as if a group of soldiers, uniformed or not, had gathered a crowd of civilians around themselves as they approached an enemy position.

[GePap]

I think people continue to mix political violence with war. War is a form of political violence, it is not the only one. A purge is a form of political violence, but not a war.

"Terrorism" is a form of violence that like war is meant to bring about a certain desired political aim. But terrorism always coems into play when the status of the two sides differs greatly. Zionist actions against thew British in 1947 count as acts of terrorism, since one had noo-recognized bodies attacking the legitimate legal authority. Once the british left and partition was supposed to take place, we have two sides of equal standing and, by now, more equal capabilities, and thus we get WAR.

As for the question of the "validity" of "terrorism": As I said earlier, the very name is designed to de-legitimize the act. "Terrorists" lack legal standing and thus are not seen as legitimate actors. There are lots of people here talking about how "killing civilains is wrong", well, the fact that the US does not target civilains is a side-effect of tehcnology, and not just ethics. The US does not need to kill civilians to achieve its aims, and experiences from previous wars show that indescriminate levelling of civlians centers hardly ever speeds up or makes more likely the sorts of aims the US seeks. As such, it is a waste of resources and time to go kill civilians. If the US does not kill civlians then, it is a matter of expediency, and not that we care so much: our actions in vietnam and in WW2 shows that when we think killing of "innocents" will help us win, we will do it. "terrorists", as illegitmate orgs. with limited resources, don;t have the luxury of clean hands. Civilains targets are called "soft" for a reason, and if that is the only type of target they can hit, or if they think that type of violence is what will speed up the political process in thier favor, well, they will do it.

Civilains are "innocents" not because it is somehow naturally ordained, or even 'common sense'. Over the last 300 years the definitions pof valid targets have changed , and as of now, we deem people out of uniform and without a gun as non-combatants and worthy of protection. The same authority that allows us to define them as such is what gives us the ability to decry certain acts of violence as illegal. It certainly is not fair, but it is the way of the world. Killing is not, and has never been, equal. That is why we have murder, manslaughter, and why if you kill 50 people in one occasion we condemn you to prison, (or to die) while in another situation we make you a Hero and applaud you.

Terrorism is not a valid form of political violence, if simply because that is the rule. and as far as i am concerned, that is a fine rule, and one to be changed with great discretion.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by UberKruX
the difference, as you stated, is that america doesn't do it on purpose. we plan ahead and do everything in our power to minimize civilian casualities.

This is only a very new policy instituted in the last couple of years. Even during the Kosovo war we engaged in the deliberate targetting of civilians.

Furthermore, in our low-intensity wars, the ones in which we aren't the direct combants, but rather the men behind the curtians, we are murderous bastards. The blood of eleven million people since the end of WWII is on our collective hands. That doesn't sound like minimizing casualties. That sounds like a Holocaust.

[GeneralTacticus]

Furthermore, in our low-intensity wars, the ones in which we aren't the direct combants, but rather the men behind the curtians, we are murderous bastards. The blood of eleven million people since the end of WWII is on our collective hands. That doesn't sound like minimizing casualties. That sounds like a Holocaust.

I didn't think it was that high. Where did it all come from?

[Imran Siddiqui]

The blood of eleven million people since the end of WWII is on our collective hands. That doesn't sound like minimizing casualties. That sounds like a Holocaust.

Even if it is true:

Hmmm... 11 million in 40-50 years vs. 11 million in 4-5 years... yep, totally comparable .

[Edan]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
Furthermore, in our low-intensity wars, the ones in which we aren't the direct combants, but rather the men behind the curtians, we are murderous bastards. The blood of eleven million people since the end of WWII is on our collective hands. That doesn't sound like minimizing casualties. That sounds like a Holocaust.

Even if that number is correct, and I'm skeptical - which wars are these, exactly? - I have two questions:

1. Were those "eleven million people" civilian casualties?

2. Would all of these wars that the US played so devious a role from behind the curtains - would they not have occured had the US not been involved?


Imran - 58 years.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Edan, I don't know if that number is Cold War deaths or not. I'd assume a majority, if not all, were from that era.