Soldiers, insurgents and terrorists

[Lux]

From this page.

If you asked a 'terrorist' whether or not they were one, they'd likely tell you that they were a soldier fighting for their country/deity/etc. which isn't all too far from the response you'd get asking a 'soldier'.

[...] You may believe that you're liberating Iraq, but so do they. Who's right? Which are terrorists?

I think there should be a distinction between terrorists and U.S. soldiers. Equating the two is going a bit too far.

But, as East of Eden mentioned about those so called 16000 terror attacks -- that's different.

There is a difference between a terrorist attack against civilians and local militants & international insurgents. They may kill civilians and they may be terrorists, but when they attack - it's an insurgent attack.

I would like that we all note the difference between insurgent and terrorist, because there is a difference.

Insurgents are those who organize a resistance against an established power, be it an elected government, a de facto government, a foreign army, etc. A lot of times non-military Iraqi fighters are called terrorists when in fact they are insurgents.
If a country invaded the USA and installed a de facto government and an army, non-military americans rising against that power would be insurgents.

A terrorist or terrorist organization is a person or group with the ultimate intent of forcing another group of people into acting a certain way involuntarily, by use of terror, and usually for religious or political reasons. Some of the non-military fighters in Iraq are in fact terrorists rather than insurgents, but there is no indication as to how many fall into each category.


Questions for debate:

1) Is there a difference in outcome and intent between terrorist acts and careless soldiers' acts?

2) Is there a reason to consider insurgency as any worse than military actions taken in Iraq?

[LiamOS]

I shall post my response to WinePusher's post here:

No, and the geneva convention treaties state no such thing. The whole point of these international agreements was to insure human rights are upheld in times of warfare, not the complete opposite.

'Human rights' as we know them are not those that should be to some.

And does their code respect humanitarian rights? Does their code respect the religious convictions of Non-Muslims? Does their code respect women's rights?

According to their code, yes it does. That's my point.

Unless your code is objective, you've to give a good reason for yours being the standard. That Western society adopted it means nothing.

This doesn't address my point. The U.S Army in Iraq does not blow up buildings hoping to kill as many civilians as possible, the U.S Army does not have the intent to murder Iraqi Innocents.

As an entity, probably not. Individuals... Well...

The terrorists do blow up buildings hoping to kill as many civilians as possible, so your assertion that there exist similiarities between the American Army and Terrorists is, as I said, dubious.

You make a good point, but try to look at it from their perspective.

Imagine for a minute that the Taliban are fighting for freedom and that the U.S. is a world evil. Given the gross difference in military capability, it's somewhat difficult to expect much more than civilian attacks.

I'm not trying to justify it or anything, I'm just saying that considering what they believe, what they do isn't bad from their perspective.
And to quote Richard Feynman: "What do you care what other people think?"

According to this train of logic, America should not be intervening in places such as Darfur and Uganda because we are trying to impose on them a system that is different from their current system of government.

Technically this is correct.

However, such a situation of imposition was already in place, so the intervening on the part of other nations is somewhat justified if it is to bring peace and negotiation. For example, if the EU had gone in to kill all the Tootsies, that wouldn't be too nice.

I'm sure you have no problem with us intervening in desolate parts of Africa but you take issue with us intervening in desolate parts of the Middle East. Are we supposed to ignore oppression in the World?

If there's a genocide going on, interference is almost mandatory.

As a general rule, your statement of my preferred areas of interference holds, as the Middle-East seems largely more capable of self-government at the moment than Central and Sub-Saharan Africa.

Are we supposed to ignore oppression in the World?

I don't think so, but neither do those who view oppression in a different light.

I suggest you take another look at history because this is factually incorrect. Peace talks have been tried and tried and tried again with the North. Peace talks with the North have been tried since the late 1900s, and in light of these peace talks we get the North attacking the South. So, it is not easily arguable that America knows little in the way of casual negotiation.

Peace talks usually asking North Korea to do what?
Take free money? Get free nuclear power?

I don't think that they're being offered anything they want. Being honest though, I have a hard time believing that they'd take it even if they were.

Democracy and Freedom is always right because it allows the people to be the rulers of their own lives. In a democracy, nothing is forceably imposed on the citizen, if they want a socialist or conservative government, or if they want an Islamic Theocracy, they can have it by exercising their individual power.

I can't go to America and take LSD. Is that freedom?
Remember when your democracy forced people to join the military?
Democracy does forcibly impose restrictions on everybody as it is the will of the people to do so.
If 90% of people in a country are Radical Muslims and oppose female equality, is that not democratic?

Yes, freedom and democracy is considered "disgusting" in the views of militant muslims because it limits their oppressive power over civilians. Really, do you support Militant Islamic Governments and would you have us do nothing for the women who are stoned over there and have their noses cut off?

And your views are disgusting to 'them', because 'they' fundamentally don't believe that everybody is equal. Are you just right?

[LiamOS]

Here is my response to ChaosBorders' post.

Though by and large I agree with you, this particular statement is somewhat flawed. Firstly, diplomacy with distant countries is increasingly necessary because of economic globalization. It would not be at all practical for a nation to cut itself off from the world.

This is true.

Secondly, though it might work for a smaller country with minimal borders to guard, the sad fact is that as much as our nation might try to, it is almost completely impossible to totally guard our borders without astronomical costs. Which is why I can understand them invading Afghanistan to take out the Taliban and bulk of Al-Qaeda. As expensive as even an effective response would have been, leaving an organization that can sneak less than twenty people into your country with a plan that lets them kill thousands and do billions upon billions of dollars in damage totally alone so they can do it again might not be the best idea.

Arguably this is true. I'd also posit that it might be even more effective to give them no reason to want to do this.

I'm unsure of the general motives of those committing violent acts against America, but I'm sure there exist motives.

However, our particular brand of diplomacy clearly needs work given that it's what the Taliban and Al-Qaeda can ultimately trace their existences back to in the first place.... And that mentality leading us to fight in Iraq was just an atrociously bad thing.

Agreed.

[LiamOS]

Here is my response to Darias' post.

I watched this particular video several months ago, when Stephen Colbert had Julian Assange on his show as a guest. Colbert talked with him about the video and he did a good job of asking questions.

{Exclusive - Julian Assange Extended Interview}

First, the "Collateral Murder" video was edited -- the parts edited out include video of men with AK47s and a rocket propelled grenade. There was also a firefight in the area before this footage. The film was also given a title, "Collateral Murder." The full video was featured on another page of the former WikiLeaks site.

. . . I admire that. I admire someone who is willing to put "Collateral Murder" on the first thing people see, knowing that they probably won't look at the rest of it.

That way, you properly manipulated the audience into the emotional state you want before something goes on the air. 'Cause that is an emotional manipulation: What you are about to see is "Collateral Murder," now look at this completely 'objective' bit of footage . . . . That's journalism I can get behind.
_____
SOURCE

Another thing left out was that the van that stopped to pick the wounded guy up had been circling the area for hours; it was not simply a van that was just passing by. The disturbing part was that children were indeed inside -- which was only obvious after the fact. This who video gives the impression that Americans were just killing a bunch of civilians. This video alone paints U.S. forces, all of them, in a negative light -- much in the same way videos of insurgent attacks paint Muslims in a negative light.

Now I don't defend the video in its entirety; the comments, the unarmed people being shot -- seems pretty indefensible. One thing we forget is that these soldiers who are sleep-depraved and under enormous stress -- their lives threatened each day -- might be a little too gung-ho -- might be a little too edgy. Why? Because most have served repeated tours and their lives could end at any moment.

This naturally changes the light of the incident. Thank you for bringing this to my attention.

Does that excuse their behavior? No. But it explains what happened. In their minds they were killing "bad guys" -- not civilians. If you notice they even convince themselves that some of them are armed or reaching for weapons... are they lying just to kill or are their minds playing tricks on them?

This is a good point, and a point I'd further like to extend to those whom the U.S. is supposedly fighting at large.

I think there should be a distinction between terrorists and U.S. soldiers. Equating the two is going a bit too far.

But, as East of Eden mentioned about those so called 16000 terror attacks -- that's different.

There is a difference between a terrorist attack against civilians and local militants & international insurgents. They may kill civilians and they may be terrorists, but when they attack - it's an insurgent attack.

This is, of course, my instinctive opinion too.
But how do we determine where the line lies?

Attacks against large numbers of civilians is an act of terror not an act of war.

The Kunduz Airstrike is an example of a very high civilian casualty rate.

Must there be motive involved?

The Hutaree, were an American Christianist militia who thought that President Obama was the anti-Christ. They called themselves the warriors of Christ. They were planning to kill a cop, and then later at his funeral, they were going to slaughter all the cops and their families in attendance. They were fortunately stopped and arrested earlier this year.

Yet to say that most Christians are terrorists because of abortion clinic bombings, Pat Robertson's radical fundamentalism, the Hutaree, the IRA, the Lord's Resistance Army -- that would be misleading and unfair.

The same is true to typecast most Muslims as terrorists when only a fraction of a percent of the worlds Muslims actually engage in murder of civilians. There are many sects and cells but all of them are fringe and none of them represent the views of a large majority of Muslims.

Perhaps this is better left to East of Eden.

And its not right to typecast American soldiers as murderers because of the misconduct of a few.

Rather than attempting to call American soldiers as a collective terrorists, I'm trying to show that there is a very blurry line between terrorist and insurgent/soldier.

[LiamOS]

1) Is there a difference in outcome and intent between terrorist acts and careless soldiers' acts?

This is context sensitive, but all things equal the difference is only in intent.

2) Is there a reason to consider insurgency as any worse than military actions taken in Iraq?

If you like democracy, then the will of the population would naturally decide the worse.

[Kuan]

1) Is there a difference in outcome and intent between terrorist acts and careless soldiers' acts?

Yes there could be a difference. Usually the soldiers make a mistake and when they realize it they will stop. Terrorists are not making a mistake and this was there intention the whole time.

2) Is there a reason to consider insurgency as any worse than military actions taken in Iraq?

No there is no reason to consider the insurgents any worse than the U.S. military. Although there is a difference between insurgents and terrorists.

Not meaning to hijack this thread from Winepusher and Aki though...

[LiamOS]

Not meaning to hijack this thread from Winepusher and Aki though...

If we didn't want you to, we'd be in a H2H.

Yes there could be a difference. Usually the soldiers make a mistake and when they realize it they will stop. Terrorists are not making a mistake and this was there intention the whole time.

This is true, but one should also entertain the possibilities that there are soldiers whose intention is to kill civilians and that those who would stop killing civilians wouldn't become 'terrorists' anyway.

[Kuan]

Yes there could be a difference. Usually the soldiers make a mistake and when they realize it they will stop. Terrorists are not making a mistake and this was there intention the whole time.

This is true, but one should also entertain the possibilities that there are soldiers whose intention is to kill civilians and that those who would stop killing civilians wouldn't become 'terrorists' anyway.

War isn't pretty, but you cannot label a country as a terrorist because of some of the soldiers intent on killing civillians. I dont want them to do it but its gonna happen.

[LiamOS]

I'm not calling America a terrorist nation.
My point was merely that if you were to put all those crazy trigger happy guys from the US army into one squad, you'd basically have a terrorist organisation.

Regardless of this, they still earn the title of 'soldier' while your garden variety Islamic extremist does not.

[Lux]

Yes there could be a difference. Usually the soldiers make a mistake and when they realize it they will stop. Terrorists are not making a mistake and this was there intention the whole time.

Unfortunately, I don't think we can know how soldiers think, other than perhaps knowing a few in person and knowing their personal opinion. All we can do is assume that the US soldiers are the good guys.

Being optimistic, we could say that terrorists think they're working towards a good/fair cause, know that innocents will be killed in the process but proceed anyway. The same can be said for soldiers. Even in the best case scenario for both (neither purposefully being jerks), they both know they'll either participate or be directly responsible in the killing of innocent people but consider that their cause is worth it, so they proceed.

No there is no reason to consider the insurgents any worse than the U.S. military. Although there is a difference between insurgents and terrorists.

We agree on this point.

There's definitely a difference. I noted it in the OP.

Not meaning to hijack this thread from Winepusher and Aki though...

Doubt they mind