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One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter.

Do you agree with the statement?

  • Yes

    Votes: 23 57.5%
  • No

    Votes: 17 42.5%

  • Total voters
    40
No.
(10 characters)

why, it fits with the definition you gave: killing civilians* (140,000) to reach a political goal (end of the WWII)

* they could have sent it on a forest, the blast would have been the same. If you look at the criteria used to choose the target, they chose big cities:

# They are larger than three miles in diameter and are important targets in a large urban area.

Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"large urban area" = "city" = civilian
 
This is a lost cause...
I'm sorry that you do not like the fact that acts of sabotage are not at all necessarily acts of terrorism.
But, it is a fact.
 
why, it fits with the definition you gave: killing civilians* (140,000) to reach a political goal (end of the WWII)
Were the civilians the intended target? No. End of story.
 
Were the civilians the intended target? No. End of story.

Did you miss the definition of terrorism? Here, let me help you yet again:

the term “terrorism” means premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents;


We knew that when we dropped the bombs on Nagasaki and Hiroshima that we were going to kill many innocents. That successfully fulfills the premeditated part.
 
We knew that when we dropped the bombs on Nagasaki and Hiroshima that we were going to kill many innocents. That successfully fulfills the premeditated part.
Killing civilians in wartime while attacking a military target isn't terrorism.

If it were, then you'd not need to revert to such hyperbole to make your point, as every 500lb HE bomb that missed a Maybach factory and hit a German school would be terrorism.

Never mind that the USAF is neither a subnational group nor a clandestine agent.
 
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Killing civilians in wartime while attacking a military target isn't terrorism.

If it were, then you'd not need to revert to such hyperbole to make your point, as every 500lb HE bomb that missed a Maybach factory and hit a German school would be terrorism.
There you go, you proved my point: The definition of terrorism is stupid.
 
There you go, you proved my point: The definition of terrorism is stupid.
Seems to me your point was that the US was a terrorist state.
 
Under the definition, they are. Thanks for making my case.
Your case isn't even close to being made, given the examples you've provided.
 
Your case isn't even close to being made, given the examples you've provided.
Let me spell this out for you, so that there is no way you can fail to grasp it:

the term “terrorism” means premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents

Okay. So premeditated means that one knows what they are doing an has planned an action before hand. The US government knew that they would kill plenty of innocents. A noncombatant is someone not in combat. That would make civilians and noncombatants synonymous.

What are you having trouble with, again?
 
Nothing better demonstrates the grade school intellectual level liberals operate on than this "moral equivalence" blather that leaves them treating it as some baffling "eye of the beholder" mystery whether Osama bin Laden is any different from George Washington.

The difference obviously revolves around the deliberate targeting of civilians, which Islamic terrorists clearly do. Washington trying to drive an invading foreign military from our soil is not even in the same ballpark. This obnoxiously stupid intellectual dishonesty shouldn't even be taken seriously by thinking, adult human beings (conservatives).
 
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What a devastating comeback. :lol:

Congratulations there, Sparky. You've just managed to comprehend that, in order to address the irrelevance of an issue, one must actually mention that issue.

Way to think it through. :applaud

So you admit that you were trolling?

Outstanding.
 
Let me spell this out for you, so that there is no way you can fail to grasp it:

the term “terrorism” means premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents

Since when has it meant this? 9/11?

States are as able, and historically more likely, to use terror as any of these groups. The very term comes from the Jacobin "Terrorists" who murdered tens of thousands of innocents.
 
Since when has it meant this? 9/11?

States are as able, and historically more likely, to use terror as any of these groups. The very term comes from the Jacobin "Terrorists" who murdered tens of thousands of innocents.

I am using the United States definition of terrorism:
the term “terrorism” means premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents;

U.S. Law Definition of Terrorism
 
Let me spell this out for you, so that there is no way you can fail to grasp it:

the term “terrorism” means premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents

Okay. So premeditated means that one knows what they are doing an has planned an action before hand. The US government knew that they would kill plenty of innocents. A noncombatant is someone not in combat. That would make civilians and noncombatants synonymous.

What are you having trouble with, again?

The United States is not a subnational group.

Civilians are not necessarily noncombatants. You know, like all of the insurgents in Iraq. (Unless, of course, you argue that they belong to someone's military, and in that case, whose?)
 
Terrorism is a set of actions that meet a given critera.

That criteria usually involves deliberately attacking non-combatants in order to use fear as a means to a political end.

Unless someones' action meet that criteria, it doesnt matter who -calls- them a terrorist -- they are not.

What military targets made the firebombing of Dresden legitimate?

Personally I believe the old adage that war begets all sorts of horrors but your own definition means that suddenly many actions during war can be questioned.

Nothing better demonstrates the grade school intellectual level liberals operate on than this "moral equivalence" blather that leaves them treating it as some baffling "eye of the beholder" mystery whether Osama bin Laden is any different from George Washington.

Why is this a partisan issue? Do you only read the American version of history? Do you really not know how the British regarded the actions of some of the "founding fathers?"

Would you call the lynching and tarring and feathering of civilian "stamp agents" legitimate actions of war? (hint - I've given you a phrase to google and research)

Just because you either don't understand the argument or can only see it from one side does not mean those who disagree with you are "grade school intellectual level liberals."

If you're going to use phrases like "obnoxiously stupid intellectual dishonesty" against your debating opponents then first raise your own research out of primary school level and come back when you know both sides of your own history.
 
--snip-- the lynching --snip--

Very probably got that bit wrong, according to some of the American books I've looked at since that post, the Sons of Liberty are not acknowledged to have deliberately killed any of the Stamp Agents - though the use of terror to force them out of their job is widely acknowledged.

PHILOSOPHY AND TACTICS

The Sons of Liberty were responsible for many acts of mob violence. They typically tarred and feathered tax collectors. Contrary to popular conceptions and British propaganda, being tarred and feathered did not kill anyone. A tax collector would be roused out of his home, painted with warm tar, and then covered with chicken feathers. The stamp agent was not stripped of his clothing and the tar was never hot enough to burn his skin. However, he was covered with chicken feathers, which, unlike duck or goose down, are scratchy and uncomfortable. The tax collector was then placed on a wooden rail and carried out of town. As he was carried, the Sons of Liberty and other townspeople would shout abuse at him. The process was frightening and humiliating. The taxman would be left with bruises, scratches, ruined clothes, as well as emotional trauma.

The Sons of Liberty never deliberately killed anyone. They sought to scare tax collectors into quitting their job.

Book Sources:

Hoerder, Dirk. Crowd Action in Revolutionary Massachusetts, 1765–1780. New York: Academic Press, 1977.

Maier, Pauline. From Resistance to Revolution: Colonial Radicals and the Development of American Opposition to Britain, 1765–1776. New York: Knopf, 1972.

Alexander, John K. Samuel Adams: America's Revolutionary Politician. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2002.

Dawson, Henry B. The Sons of Liberty in New York. New York: Arno Press and the New York Times, 1969.
 
Not yet brother not yet, Bush made things in Iraq so difficult, there is not a clear way out of the quagmire.

sure there is. pack it in and come home......


if its such a horrible thing why do you want to keep troops there?
 
Not yet brother not yet, Bush made things in Iraq so difficult, there is not a clear way out of the quagmire.
I wondered how long it would be before someone argued that 'Bush screwed up Iraq so bad that Obama can't bring the troops home like he promised'.

3 weeks. Wow.

Sure there is -- you order everyone home, just like The Obama promised.
 
Let me spell this out for you, so that there is no way you can fail to grasp it:

the term “terrorism” means premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents

Okay. So premeditated means that one knows what they are doing an has planned an action before hand. The US government knew that they would kill plenty of innocents. A noncombatant is someone not in combat. That would make civilians and noncombatants synonymous.

What are you having trouble with, again?
Again:
Attacking a military target and killing civilians in the process isn't terrorism.
That and the USAAF is neither a sunbational group nor a clandestine agent.

Seems ptretty clear to me -- not sure why YOU have trouble with it.
 
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