The tyranny of Words. Iraqi Terrorists or Freedom Fighters.

Great Debates
21

Faldage_________________________________
“It might help if we had definitions of “freedom fighter” and “terrorist” that we can all agree on. Since you brought the subject up, Milum, perhaps you can get us started.”

OK Faldage, I will.

As you well know the definitions of words and terms fare better when they continue the theme of their root. As in particular, a “terrorist” is one who commits terror and a “freedom fighter” is one who fights for freedom.

But then sometimes a “freedom fighter” commits acts that terrorize and sometimes a “terrorist” terrorizes in the name of freedom, so a further distinction must be made, to wit; A “terrorist” murders or maims or causes great discomfort to noncombatants while a freedom fighter only fights those who keep others from being free.

Those are my definitions, Faldage.
But this is what I really think…

A 'terrorist" is scum. A baby killer. A coward. The lowest of the low who will burn in the eternal hell of the religion of his own choosing. Forever.

And “freedom fighters” are the American, British, and Ausssie troops in Iraq.

And “freedom fighters” are the volunteers and representatives of the United Nations who are in Iraq to help. May God bless those who were killed by the ignorant actions of terrorists who are no more than walking filth.

That is what I think.

22

I dont think the Iraqis shooting Americans are Freedom Fighters. They are fighting to re-establish a downed regime.

By the same logic thou… NO ONE should call Americans as LIBERATORS either. They are just to enact a regime change and get out.

Do true Liberators protect oil wells first and foremost ?
Do true Liberators stop other countries from helping out ?
Do true Liberators use trumped up intelligence reports to invade countries ?

23

Quite confused now. So, most of the people who have been carrying out the attacks on US soldiers you would define as freedom fighters as, by their own definition they are “fighting those who keep others from being free” (ie an occupying force of soldiers imposing martial law on their country).

The problem with providing a definition of freedom fighters is that it relies on everyone having the same definition and expectation of freedom. America is called a free country, but it exerts many restrictions on it’s citizens lives. Iraqi freedom fighters may be fighting for a particular version of freedom (unlike some posters on this board I don’t know who they are or what they want - you people might want to call a Mr Bremmer in Baghdad), but it might not match your idea of freedom.

At the end of the day, why does it matter how we define these people? Call them freedom fighters, they still have to be dealt with. Call them terrorist scum if you want, but at some point someone has to figure out how we are going to let these people have their country back.

24

You gave me the link. Check there for the answer.

25

Nice sentiment, but one might be tempted to ask ‘Whose peace?’

As for the perpetrators, I did notice that the BBC and other news organisations here are much more vague in their assesment of who might have been responsible (rather than what seems to be the kneejerk Al-Qaeda assumption). There seems to be a much greater realisation that the porous borders have allowed a diverse and large number of ‘shadowy fighters’ into Iraq, and they’ve not been labelled as Al-Qaeda. I heard a bulletin yesterday suggest 3000 young men had gone ‘missing’ from Saudi Arabia…

26

Well, gee. What would you have the US do? Save the museum artifacts instead of the one single resource that can help ALL of Iraq get back on its feet? Everyone is harping about the US safeguarding the oil first. Its a damn good strategic move! Even if it was the whole of UN who came in to get rid of Saddam, some of them will be utilized to safeguard the oil. Its very high on the priority list. Why shouldnt it be? Can you name any other resource that was NOT safeguarded by the US, that is more important than Iraqi Oil?

We didnt stop other countries from helping out. Heck, no one but britain wanted to help the US out. Everyone else wanted to help themselves to a peice of Iraq. Those are the people the US are stopping.

If your family have been taken away by Republican Guards and you havent seen them in years, will you really care that the CIA couldnt get accurate intel on WMD or would you be just glad they kicked Republican Guard Ass?

If you have a family member that was in that village that was gassed by Saddam, would you not call anyone who got rid of Saddam a liberator?

27

Indeed, Whose peace?

If they remove a brutal oppressive regime that has persecuted Iraq for decades with fear, suffering and death…whose peace is that?

They act as occupiers, having checkpoints and house searches and raids and camp in former palaces but promise they will leave. If they do leave (as promised), whose peace will it be then?

If everybody benefits, not just the US and Britain but the Iraqi people as well along with the surrounding nations, is that US peace or the Iraqis?

IF the iraqis form a democratic elected govt which have representives from all tribes and religions, both secular and theocratic, If the US helped make that happen with no strings attached, is it still their peace?

What does it matter whose peace it is so long as the Iraqis get their rightful share?

Check here for the Al Qaeda debate.

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&postid=3867442#post3867442

I dont think it was Al Qaeda either.

28

Are you sure you couldn’t get a few more “ifs” in there, X~Slayer(ALE) !?

29

I posted this some hours ago to another board.
This maybe asks more than answers, but the question is not easy.
Milum, I see that the most of my questions are taken up here in Your thread and my intention is not to hijack Your thread.
I am the next days away from the boards, but I will answer later. If there is any questions about my writings:
**The 7 million a day loss.

  • Everything according to international law?
  • Are all bombs illegal?
  • What is terrorism?**

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0818-04.htm

quote:

The American-led occupation is going badly wrong before our eyes. Already US soldiers are dying daily in attacks and there is anarchy on the streets. As of yesterday, the Americans appeared to be facing an all-out assault on another front - on their efforts to rebuild the infrastructure of Iraq.

This is the occupation that was supposed to pay for itself. All the Americans had to do was to get Iraq’s vast oil reserves flowing out of the country and that would finance the occupation. The sabotage of the pipeline, which will take 10 days to repair, means at least $70m (£43m) in lost revenue.

The cost of the occupation, being almost exclusively borne by US taxpayers, is out of control. The Pentagon conservatively estimates it is costing $5bn a month. Other analysts have put it at $600bn over 10 years - bigger than the current record US federal deficit.

“The irony is that Iraq is a rich country that is temporarily poor,” The American “administrator”, Paul Bremer, said yesterday. “An event such as the explosion on the Kirkuk pipeline costs the Iraqi people $7m a day and hurts the process of reconstruction.” But it is not only the Iraqi people it costs. As long as the Americans are here, the US has to foot the cost of running Iraq. (End of quote)

I wrote this text below on a discette some hours before the last bombings in Israel/Palestine and Iraq.
Can the occupying army just nationalize (or socialize) the natural sources of the attacked?
I think that it is important to know what the international laws says about how people should defend themselves against aggressors of any kind: foreign armies, terrorism, etc.
I think that we all are condemning terrorism, but what do we mean by the word ‘terrorism’?
Does not jets and missiles of the aggressors awake terror among the civilians?

The last days there has been this “7 million a day losses”-popping up in the Finnish and Swedish media. Also Deutsche Welle has had it. Unfortunately they do not explain this, just spin the news around.
As I understand from these news:

  1. The money for the oil is going for the coalition? Not Iraq?
    Can the occupying army just nationalize (or socialize) the natural sources of the attacked?

The loss each day seem to be a constant figure, 7 million US dollars.
2) There is no way to stop the oil from flowing into the fire? Or why is the figure constant for every day? Or is this a commie plot to imply that the coalition is so stupid that they do not know how to turn off a pipe? I am sure I am missing here something…

Here I assume that the money goes to the coalition, maybe assuming wrongly.
Maybe the US citicens are just happy, or the majority of them are happy, to cover everything with taxes.
How nice.
Even if it would be wrong, assuming that the coalition takes the money and the tax-payers pays the rest, I like to present these hypothetical questions;

  1. Is the Iraqi bombing of the pipeline against some international law? Or is it a patriotic act?
    Is it patriotic to make the occupiers to pay even more for the occupation?

  2. Is the shooting, bombing, killing of occupying soldiers against international law?

I just explain my crooked views:

  • I am born in Finland just after WWII.
    Very short history:
    Stalin, The Sunny Father, The Light of Caucasus, the Engineer of Humanity, the Inventor of the Wheel, wanted to have some land of our country.
    We did not agree to that. (Yeah, I know, I know, we are fucking stubborn guys.)
    In the negotiations Stalin and Molotov said that this means war. Shortly after our country was attacked by Stalin, or more correctly, by his army.
    My country had not guns enough, not even for each man and had absolutely nothing to put against the tanks of Stalin.
    So the Finns invented “the Molotov-cocktail”. Every guy was happy with his bottles. Those stopped the tanks alright even if the losses were heavy.

When I was about 10 years old, I was told how to make a Molotov-cocktail. I was also told how my step-father and his guys used those in the war against Stalin. My own father was in the anti-aircraft so he did not use them.
Anyhow, it is maybe needless to say that they are both my heros.
(And if You want to know how to build bombs, You have to Google Yourself, it is illegal if I teach You. I think so, but I am not sure. Guerilla war-fare books, from different countries, has been my hobby all my life. That is why I have tried to learn as many languages as possible).

So, let us think that my country gets attacked again. Let’s say that the Eskimos had made a coalition with Cape Verde and the Cayman Islands, and then they attack Finland.
We, the Finnish people, elected some 3 years ago, an unmarried woman to be our president. She was a socialist and the chairman of the national board of sexual minorities, so I think there is many good enough reasons to attack.
Besides, we are known for not have the usual way of thinking, (as You maybe hereby can see), so maybe we are a little bit suspect? No?

Anyhow, in this example, we fight as we can, but then they somehow manage to occupy us because our army was filled with traitors. Not defending our president, nor us.
Then they begin to export our wood, ice-cubes and mobile-phones. (A Finnish company is selling 37% of all mobile phones of the world, but I do not think they want their name to be mentioned here* ).

Now, I think as follows:

  • It is totally legitimate for me to kill as many as possible of these occupants. With rifles, bombs, whatever. It is not only legitimate, it is my duty, I made an oath about this in 1970, while I served my country.
  • If they take our stuff (mobiles, ice-cubes and wood), sell it, and keep the money, I should bomb the ships or whatever means of transport they use.
  1. Can I attack their countries?
    I do not know, but I think so.
  2. Can I attack all the targets that they put inside my country, even armed civilians?
    I think so.

I know that the questions are hypothetical, but what will You do if the enemy comes inside Your boarders? Will You even think about what the international law will say about You firing as hell against the intruders? Even if they’re white as Ann Coultiers’s ass in the moonlight? Even if You do not have a tip-top uniform.
(There was not enough of Finnish uniforms in 1939. They just gave a cockade to each man at the front. The women had enough of uniforms).
Should I take my ancestors to an international court, because some of them killed without uniforms?

Personally I do not think so, I think that it is quite legitime to shoot whatever intruders, occupants, where ever Your country is. Anyhow if You are white, Christian and have FOX on Your side.

Do You think that the only way to have legitime bombs is if You can haul them down from the sky? By planes or missiles?
Is it really legal for any brownies, in their rags, to shoot at You? To throw bombs and Molotov-cocktails at You? To even think that they could come to the heaven?
NO!!!
The only guy from those guys, (Archie Bunker knows who I mean), that has a legitime right to do so, is Onkel Tom, that is, if he behaves!

Now lets pretend that Finland would make an coalition with some other white people. White Christians.
Can we then go and bomb different islands and take care of their coconuts? (I assume that they are ‘brownies’, that do not share our culture, and has no elections. Just as Saudi Arabia has non. We would do that just out of share responsibility of humanity and showing respect to the crusade).
Finland has bought a lot of US-made aircraft. We could bomb them from the sky. We could invite FOX-news with us. We would be extreemly legitime, I suppose. Many of us even speak English or anyhow Finglish. That should help us in the international eyes, no?

We could found “War, shock, awe, save, trade and wave Ltd” and rescue all the coconuts from the brownies and thus have a budget that would keep us somehow floating.
We would naturally understand that we could not be in war with any country that has oil.
No, absolutely not, that is the Big Guy’s field.
But coconuts, You do not really need coconuts, do You?

Please answer my questions 1) - 6) or whatever You like and send me a list of the coconut-countries and I will speak with my tribe about how to save the world.

*Some 15 years ago, some guys of my tribe were making advertisement for a company.
Sadly it was not appreciated:
The guys had a singing chorus and they where marketing ‘Ladyshave’.
Margaret Thatcher was coming to visit our president. She came to the harbour of Helsinki, standing at the bow of a big English warship.
The guys got on a boat and sailed alongside this warship, between the official Finns and God-blessed Margaret Thatcher.
Then they sang “God shave the Queen” from the top of their lungs.

The firm, ‘Ladyshave’ (American?), was not too happy about it. We Finns had fun, and I think they sold a lot of Ladyshaves here in Finland.
And how the fuck was we supposed to know that the queen should not be shaved, when we do not have one? No reason to shout to us about this!
Drag-queens do it, so why can’t other queens do it as well? Even J. Edgar Hoover did it before he put his nylons on.

P.S. Can I still get a visa to USA? Please?

Henry

30

Well, it is important to recognize that there is a continuum of activity that falls between terrorism and freedom fighting. It’s pretty easy to recognize the extremes, but where they meet in the middle is a matter of perspective.

31

If you had any friends or relatives who were killed or wounded by American forces would you not call anyone fighting the Americans a “freedom fighter” and a “liberator”? If your country had been invaded and ocupied by foreign forces would you not call anyone fighting those occupation forces a “freedom fighter”?

32 
What a joke... the US called people to join in a gang rape... only the UK dropped their pants... and now you accuse others of not partaking in the "fun" ? That they wanted to screw Iraq without the US joining in ? So now the US has Iraq all for itself so the rest wont get a piece ? Wow nice logic...

Stop repeating Bush Shit and read the news…

33

Yeah. It’s so much easier to point fingers and say “hey this is your mess” instead of actually doing something about it.

34

I partially agree and partially don’t. Its always going to be a matter of perspective, even at the extremes – the extremes will always find some support. Finding a group that is indisputably ‘freedom fighting’ is impossible; whomever it is that they are fighting doesn’t see them that way. The middle ground is full of groups that are terrorists or bandits to those they fight and freedom fighters to those that support them, for example the mujahideen in Afghanistan and the Viet Cong in Vietnam. ‘Guerillas’ or ‘freedom fighters’ routinely attempt to provoke violence against civilians by the government or occupying force in order to increase their support base through tactics such as sniping or ambushing from or near villages and then vanishing.

Labeling a group ‘terrorist’ or ‘freedom fighters’ is usually a political statement by the speaker.

35

I could have but it was late and the density factor in this thread limited me to certain topics that I had hoped would penetrate. Evidently I was mistaken. :frowning:
If George W Bush, started rounding up all democrats and shooting them on TV, Told all of the US military to come back to the states and start enforcing his presidential edicts, make US citizens disappear either by imprisoning them without a trial or just plain murder them, if he destroys the US constitution, arrest the supreme court justices and proclaim permanent martial law and pronounce himself as president-for-life…

and Canada stepped in to get rid of him at the cost of a hundred thousand civilian dead including friends and family of mine…

I would call the Canadians LIBERATORS.

I would also tell them to get the fuck out as soon as we get ourselves back in order.

I was going to use France as an example since I do hate the french govt but that would be so absurd, it would be laughingly unbelievable.

36

The UN bombing is most likely al-Qaeda. Sadaam negotiated with the UN better than he should have. Any chance of exile is totally gone now. Which is precisely how Osama wants it.

37

I enjoyed your post Henry B., just wanted to say so. :slight_smile:

Based on the info you provided, I think Bremer is referring to $7 million in lost revenue for each day the pipeline isn’t operational. In any case all oil revenues, per UN resolution, are to go into the Iraq Development Fund (which signifies the end of the old oil-for-food program.) This fund is administered by the Coalition, in conjunction with the Iraqi Governing Council, under transparency rules outlined by the UN. In fairness though, the Coalition holds veto power over the IGC, and the US and Britain also hold veto power in the UN Security Council. The potential for misuse is still there I suppose, but at least it wouldn’t be a secret.

I’ve no doubt that Iraq revenues will be used for Iraq though…we’re spending our own money there, so why not? Speaking as a taxpayer, I think the vast majority of the money spent is straight military spending. What’s left after the combat operations have ended…is still going to cost a lot of money. But so did the overflights of Iraq for the past 12 years, weapons inspections, CIA operations, built-up defenses in the Gulf, etc. I’d rather see it spent on schools and infrastructure than on keeping ShitHead contained, for a change.

I’d already learned about how the Finns gave the Russians a good fight during WWII, despite their smaller numbers and few resources. An appropriate lesson for today too.

38

Henry B,

You said all I could have said and strange enough in a similar way I would have formulated it.

Only your English is just a little bit extremely much better then mine. But I’m a brownie, so what do you want…
Ok, I’m a half brownie and the other half, mother’s side, is extremely white and my late mother was even Chrsitian.
Yet the Arab brownie input of my late father ruins it all which makes that I was born and still have my main residence in brownie land. Where - as yet an other sign of my absolute degeneration towards the brownie side - I do wear rags since I am desperate enough to prefer them to protect me against the uncivilized hot climate during the unchristian summers.

So you can imagine my extreme joy that you made that post and saved me from getting a headache while trying to type coherent sentences in The Supreme White Language Of The Liberating Killers who complain that the brownie ragheads even dare to shoot at them because they came with their innocent killing wartoys to kill rob and occupy them.

You must be mad and a real dumb brownie to react like that… I know that since I read it all over the news in languages The Supreme Whites don’t read since they have The One And Only Language That Counts.

By the way: anybody ever thought about it that English isn’t exactly the language of the Iraqy people, yet that the criminal invaders act as if it should be… So it has to be?

Any US’er screaming at an Iraqy expects to be immediately understood.
And immediately obeyed.

Of course. Only normal.

Question: How many US’ers and other occupyers in Iraq make the effort or even think about making an attempt of an effort to speak to the Iraqis in their own language? Do you have figures on that?

Salaam. A

39

You are a very conflicted and unhappy person, Aldebaran.

I wish you peace and joy in your future life.

40

Interesting… I meet here a clear voyant person who doesn’t know me but says he knows what or who I am and in which state I am.

Ah… But I’m so sorry that I have to tell you that your cristal ball is a bit dusty.
When you clean it, you maybe can discover that I’m a very happy and even extremely blessed person with no other significant conflict in my life then the fact that I am such a very blessed person, while so many others are not.

Thank you.
May I wish you the same.

Salaam. A