I agree - those statements might as well have said “Terrorism is what the other side does”.
Which is also why harmelss militias composed of old men wanting to play GI Joe can be considered ‘terrorists’, if their website questions the government’s authority.
Of course, it’s these militias who give “Terrorist Fusion Centers” much of their raison d’etre.
Citizens were unfortunately targeted. As I noted, the Allies intentionally used certain bombs in certain ways to maximize destruction of cities…and to bring civilian populations to their knees. Our victory led to an amnesia about these actions and thus we havent had to consider their moral and ethical implications. Read the book. Its a rough read but very well researched.
When soldiers miss their targets, innocent people die.
When terrorists miss their targets, innocent people live.
I think the reason that the definition doesn’t restrict itself to civilians is to include some incidents on military targets, such as the bombings of the USS Cole and the Beirut marine barracks.
But I agree with you. I’d rather reclassify the Cole and Beirut barracks as non-terrorist attacks in order to have a definition of terrorism that didn’t include virtually every act of warfare by every country on the planet.
We don’t use drone strikes against ordinary people who have no specific military role. So it sounds nothing like drone strikes at all.
No, because drone strikes are targeted at the leadership of organizations said to be “at war” with us. They don’t aim at schools, housing developments, businesses, buses, etc.
There is lots and lots of room to argue with the “at war” idea. I have never accepted the idea that the struggle to defeat terrorism is a “war.” I favor using police powers and law enforcement techniques over weapons of war. We aren’t as far apart as you might think.
I just don’t agree with you that drone strikes are, themselves, terrorist techniques.
Tricky. When terrorists miss their targets, they usually hit another innocent target nearby. It’s hard to set off a car bomb in a crowded marketplace and “miss.”
And the latter is what we are known for. We tend to blow up people like medical personnel who are trying to help someone and relatives at funerals and pretty much any gathering of two or more people.
No, they were meant to induce terror, to “break the will” of the opposition. It didn’t work for either side, but that was much of the point.
Yes, they are. Nor are they particularly aimed at terrorists. They are terror weapons, and are being used as terror weapons. They create an atmosphere where people don’t send their children to school because we might blow up the bus, where they can’t sleep because they hear the drones all night, where accident victims go unaided because we’ll kill you for trying to help, where people fear to marry or hold funerals because we like bombing those.
Cite of a U.S. drone strike targeting a school or school bus?
I don’t even know of a case where such a strike missed its actual target and hit a school or a school bus, but, for what you said to be true, you’d have to demonstrate that this was the actual intended target. I don’t think you can do that.
Specifically targeting civilians for the purpose of causing “terror” is a pretty significant difference in views. If you don’t get that I would need a pit thread to properly respond to you.
If you have a long beard and live in the desert…and you’re not a member of ZZ Top…you just might be a terrorist.