Yeah, pretty much. Especially if they don’t wear uniforms.
(What? The system benefits me immensely. Why shouldn’t I support it?)
Maybe I’m being whooshed, but they most certainly were and are there to wipe out the enemy’s population. That’s the whole point of Mutually Assured Destruction. The Single Integrated Operation Plan had over 16,000 targets at the height of the Cold War. As Winston Churchill put it, “If you go on with this nuclear arms race, all you are going to do is make the rubble bounce.”
Check out “counterforce” and “countervalue”. Most nuclear weapons were targeted at the other sides weapons and supporting infrastructure (“counterforce” than Population centers (“countervalue”).
Nonsense; the only part of this statement that is true is the intention to weaken German morale, but that was to be done by killing German civilians. I’d suggest you read up on Area Bombing:
, Sir Arthur “Bomber” Harris, and dehousing. The US Army Air Corps paid lip service to the idea of precision bombing and honestly believed it was possible when they started their bombing campaign, but it quickly became painfully obvious that precision bombing wasn’t possible. Any pretense of precision bombing was dropped during the strategic bombing of Japan; the targets explicitly became urban areas. From the USSBS:
That wasn’t my question, it’s not the mere fact of civilian casualties, it’s the fact that civilian casualties are going to be heavier than military casualties even if civilians aren’t the intended target.
How is it not? “The systematic use of terror as a means of political coercion” is what war is. War is the continuation of politics with the intermingling of other means and all that.
Which was done by setting off bombs in German markets and demanding the unconditional surrender of Germany, which would include demanding that Germany withdraw from Poland. Again, your definition of terrorism isn’t particularly useful.
I’m really going to have to ask for a cite that most nuclear weapons were counterforce rather than counter value targeted; you don’t need 16,000 targets for counterforce strikes. By the end the overkill was so great that multiple nuclear warheads were being assigned to cement factories. In any event, every single city in both the US and USSR was going to be hit by at least one nuclear warhead in a strategic nuclear exchange, and the target was going to be the city itself and the civilian population living there.
Correct, intent matters more than consequence in moral judgment.
Yes.
If the Palestinian were a legitimate military actor, then yes, it’d be a poor policy, and should be condemned, but it’s not terrorism if the soldier was the target, pursuant to a war effort.
The difference seems clear to me; YMMV.
Understood about the equivalence; what definition should replace it?
Untrue. Look at the Schweinfurt=Regensburg mission for one of many strategic bombing missions carried out to destroy German industry.
As to diversion of resources, here’s the European Theater report of the United States Strategic Bombing Survey., the same body you cited.
On to the third aim. Note:
Is that not precisely what I said?
Yes, see the firebombing of Tokyo. This isn’t terrorism, however, it’s a distasteful military tactic with a military aim: ending the war in the Pacific.
No, that doesn’t make it terrorism.
The key word being terror. The Charles Tilly definition of which is “asymmetrical deployment of threats and violence against enemies using means that fall outside the forms of political struggle routinely operating within some current regime.” War is not terror.
See above.
That’s a side effect of a massive build-up in warheads, not a strategy in itself.
I forgot a fourth aim of the Allied strategic bombing: disruption of German transportation networks.
“Terror” and “Terrorist” are close, but not exactly the same thing.
“Terror” isn’t something that nations shun, while “Terrorism” is (mol).
(Enough w/the quotation marks.)
Terrorists, proper, attack civilian populations for political goals. An attack on a civilian population, as in a wartime scenario, is to end a war, reminding an enemy of the terrors of keeping up their futile resistance. Menachim Begin (I think) was on some show during the 80s (the Lebanese thing) discussing terrorism, and somebody accused him of having been a terrorist in the 48 War for Independence. He said the difference between a freedom fighter and a terrorist was that the FF targeted military, and the terrorist targeted civilians.
The term Terror was used in the French Revolution quite openly by the ruling group. Robispierre wrote a monograph/speech on the necessity of terror in the context of the Revolution. He got quite a bit of praise for his acts of terror.
In short, a Terrorist is one who targets civilians as a cheap and easy policy. Governments who attack civilians during a war do it as a rare resource, to bring the war to a close.
By that definition Brevik was a freedom fighter when he bombed the government building and thereafter tried to eliminate the previous but still powerful Norwegian PM.
But whatever. It doesn’t really matter. It’s just words and I have no problem not being objective. The difference between terrorists and freedom fighters is the difference between who needs to be killed. Terrorists are the enemies that need killing. Freedom fighter are the friends that we like. Brevik obviously need to be killed so he is a terrorists.
You’ve missed the distinction. Civilian buildings’ bombings are terrorism. Military headquarters’ bombings are not.
You are splitting hairs. Whoever said that war is hell…was on point. In every war that has ever been waged, civilians have died as part of the “collateral damage.” From the discussion from above, it looks like the difference between a Freedom Fighter and a Terrorist is that a Freedom Fighter kills fewer civilians.
Is that the only difference?
Only if you ignore most of what was posted in the thread.
I’m not ignoring what people have said. I have read it all. I’m just summarizing. It’s okay to kill a few civilians, just not too many. It’s okay to kill a few civilians at Hiroshima as long as you win the war. If you kill too many civilians you will be considered a terrorist.
No, but I assumed you’d agree central government buildings (The Office of the Prime Minister, Ministry of Justice and the Police, etc.) as well as powerful people of the ruling elite are legitimate military targets. They certainly would be in a military confrontation.
I don’t agree, no. There is a clear distinction between military and civilian in most governments. In those where the line is blurred, all become military targets.
No.
A freedom fighter is part of an irregular military force, engaged in an asymmetric conflict with a regular military force, pursuant to a resistance movement. Civilians may or may not be killed, as they are in all military engagements.
A terrorist uses terror attacks against civilians to force policy changes. Civilians aren’t collateral damage, they are the target.
A freedom fighter can become a terrorist, and a terrorist can become a freedom fighter, with a change in tactics.
There is a difference between killing civilians as collateral damage in the imprecise world of open warfare, and killing civilians intentionally, or even exclusively, as a political tactic.
And I’m saying it is rationalizing and splitting hairs. Without doubt if the U.S. had lost WWII to the Japanese, they would have been considered terrorists. Let’s face it, terrorists do not consider themselves terrorists.
I’m not talking about crazy people. I’m talking about people who know the freedoms that they are fighting for, who carefully consider the number of people who die and the means that they will use to carry out their actions. Like President Harry Truman, for instance.
To you it’s rationalizing and hairsplitting, to me the distinction is obvious on its face.
Perhaps, perhaps not. If so, the Japanese would have been incorrect.
And evil people don’t consider themselves evil. That doesn’t preclude judgment of their actions.
Those decisions determine whether a given act is terrorism or not, yes.
The Japanese would have been incorrect. You mean they were wrong to have civilians in Hiroshima. All I’m doing is asking you to look at that specific situation.
When the U.S. killed Indians because we wanted their land, wasn’t that terrorism?