Is 'One man's terrorist really another man's freedom fighter"? (poll, military)
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The Islamist terrorist wants to rule over people, as a tyrant who forces his will upon others thru the use of physical force, in this case, murderous acts of terror. It's not fighting for freedom, it's fighting to dominate, control, coerce and enslave people, to force them to follow their religious ideology. It takes the mind of a useful liberal idiot to refer to these people as freedom fighters.
It's not freedom fighting if the person's terrorist act kills innocent women and children. How in the hell can terrorist acts against the common person, murdering them, be referred to as an act of fighting for ones freedom? What freedom can the child take from the terrorist?
The US spots someone who could be a militant. The "militant" ducks into a building next door to a school. The US sends a drone to bomb that one militant. 20 children in that school are collateral damage.
Is 'One man's terrorist really another man's freedom fighter"?
For America, when politicians perceive a takeover of another country by a neighboring country, yes.
Afghanistan/Russian war was is a perfect example of this, and it ended up biting us in the rump.
At one time, American politicians embraced Bin Laden and the Mujahideen and we all now know how that turned out.
And, we're at it again too, meddling in Middle Eastern affairs, Syria, by supporting rebels. Since this stuff never worked out too good for us {America} we just keep repeating the same mistakes.
Quote:
Operation Cyclone was the code name for the United States Central Intelligence Agency program to arm and finance the Afghan mujahideen during the Soviet war in Afghanistan, 1979 to 1989. The program leaned heavily towards supporting militant Islamic groups that were favored by neighboring Pakistan, rather than other, less ideological Afghan resistance groups that had also been fighting the Marxist-oriented Democratic Republic of Afghanistan regime since before the Soviet intervention. Operation Cyclone was one of the longest and most expensive covert CIA operations ever undertaken, funding began with $20–30 million per year in 1980 and rose to $630 million per year in 1987. Funding continued after 1989 as the Mujahideen battled the forces of Mohammad Najibullah's PDPA during the Civil war in Afghanistan (1989–1992).
Terrorism requires acts of violence against unarmed/defenseless/civilian targets. The goal is to instill "terror" in the hopes of change. Terrorism is always wrong/unethical.
A freedom fighter /gorilla / etc would just be a solider who is fighting other soldiers and hard targets for a specific cause. Innocent people can be hurt (and often are) but the intention was not to hurt innocents, but attack targets that could disrupt the enemy force.
The US government defines terrorism as any group that engages in any action that conflicts with US interests (paraphrasing).
Not only is that US history, that is reality. You just have to open your eyes. As I said, the underlying cause is irrelevant: two groups, in two different countries, both brutally oppressed by a dictator with no rights of any kind ---- in other words identical in every way --- the US will declare the group that acts in US interests as freedom fighters and give them weapons and money, while declaring the other group to be terrorists, even though the other group in the worst case scenario is neutral to US interests and has always acted so.
Again, just study history.
Years ago, I was a moderator on a credit/debt forum. We were planning a to organize a day when no one would use their credit/debit cards -- pay cash for everything. The site's legal counsel said that even construing the Patriot Act literally in the most conservative sense, we could be labeled and branded as "economic terrorists" and face the wrath of the US government....so we put that on hold indefinitely.
Politically...
It depends on where you stand. I don't stand with America on everything. I thought the Irish Republican Army were freedom fighters. I thought the PLO were freedom fighters. Sitting Bull was a freedom fighter, Custard was a terrorist. Huey Newton and Fred Hampton were freedom fighters. But lots of the Muslims are not freedom fighters. They are religious fanatics who just want to kill people who refuse to practice Islam the way they think it should be practiced. Cannot accept that.
It's not freedom fighting if the person's terrorist act kills innocent women and children. How in the hell can terrorist acts against the common person, murdering them, be referred to as an act of fighting for ones freedom? What freedom can the child take from the terrorist?
In any war there is always collateral damage. You just have to accept that. Were we only "targeting the enemy" when we dropped nukes on cities in Japan? No. We wanted to inflict as much pain as possible on the enemy by murdering thousands of civilians. If we really wanted to target the government and military we would have dropped them on Tokyo where they were. Killing the children of your enemy hurts them more than killing them. Seeing the bodies of women and children stacked like cord wood demoralizes your enemy. And half of warfare is psychological. America has long known this. That is why we nuked the cities in Japan and why we exterminated the Indians.
It all depends on whether the US is supplying money/arms to them or not.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mircea
Arafat said it.
He was right.
Any group who supports US interests is a freedom fighter, any group who opposes US interests are terrorists. From the US point of view, the underlying issues are totally irrelevant.
A great example is the MEK.
The MEK is a group in Iran. When the MEK tried to overthrow the Shah, and murdered American military, government and civilian persons....they were declared Terrorists™.
The MEK still exists, and the fact that the MEK wants to overthrow the current Iranian government, the MEK are Freedom Fighters™ and endowed with lots of money, including no-bid contracts to interrogate Iraqi POWs that the US captured during the Iraq War.
Never mind the fact that since their existence, the MEK has sought to overthrow every government in Iran that has existed, whether it was backed/supported by the US or not.
If you study US Foreign Policy, you will see that the US truly speaks with a forked tongue...out of both sides of its neck.
I've heard this statment repeated many times. History does seem to confirm that, even for Americans. Radical Muslims who attacked Soviet soldiers were freedom fighters, radical Muslims who attack American soldiers are terrorists. McVeigh is considered a hero to some and Luis Posada was trained by the CIA. The protaganist in the film "V" blows up buildings
It's just a fancy saying to excuse partisanship. If you're doing something wrong then it is wrong. You can't hijack a plane for a good cause. There is no such thing as a good reason to hijack a plane.
The true answer to the poll question is "no". A Freedom Fighter is very different from a Terrorist. A freedom fighter fights against a government entity with the goal of overthrowing or at least hurting them. In "V" the protagonist was attacking government forces. While innocents did get killed, they were never the targets. Many of the civilians were killed by overzealous government forces trying to take down the "terrorist".
A "terrorist" is one who operates by directly terrorizing the civilian population. A vest bomb in a crowded restaurant, a car bomb at a hotel, and a hijacked jet liner slammed into a civilian building are all acts of terrorism. They have ZERO military effect.
That being said, it's become so commonplace for governments to slap the label of "terrorist" on anyone who opposes them that the word is all but worthless now. So I voted "yes" in the poll.
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