Who's your fav terrorist?
- Thread starter gorski
- Start date
8ball
World is a fuck
Ok, everyone who nominates can say whether they are using Spion's "agreeable, simple, almost universally applicable but possibly lacking in nuance if you want to be an obscurantist arse about it" definitinion, or the Gorski "links to clever things written by other people, can probably get away with nominating whoever the feck you like including Gorski" definition.
Then everyone can be happy
Then everyone can be happy
Good call. I especially like the C L R James quote (which I can't remember) where he talks about the slave army having an impaled white child at its head as a standard, and then says 'despite this, l'Ouverture was suprisingly moderate'
gorski
customised free radical
Yayks. Simpletons get-together, I see...
Look, terrorism, as we know it, is a Modern category. And it's not straight forward, not one dimensional, as seen above.
"Against the state" is STUPID - not "simple/elegant/agreeable/etc."!!! OK?
[Indeed, it's Jeeezuussss fucking Christ, some hard cases about...]
Besides, I didn't wanna prejudice the outcome of the debate in advance and kill the thread before it even started... [Crikey, one has to explain everything to some...]
Look, terrorism, as we know it, is a Modern category. And it's not straight forward, not one dimensional, as seen above.
"Against the state" is STUPID - not "simple/elegant/agreeable/etc."!!!
OK?[Indeed, it's Jeeezuussss fucking Christ, some hard cases about...
]Besides, I didn't wanna prejudice the outcome of the debate in advance and kill the thread before it even started... [Crikey, one has to explain everything to some...
]
gorski
customised free radical
WATCH MY LIPS, TWAT: "YOURS" IS NOT YOURS!!! YOU PLAGIARISED IT FROM THE STATE DEPARTMENT AND OTHER IMPERIALIST TWATS LIKE YOURSELF!!!!
Spion
I hear ya
WATCH MY LIPS, TWAT: "YOURS" IS NOT YOURS!!! YOU PLAGIARISED IT FROM THE STATE DEPARTMENT AND OTHER IMPERIALIST TWATS LIKE YOURSELF!!!!
*wipes flecks of spittle from face*
Err, stop shouting and just tell us what you think terrorism is
D at Gorski's tantrums)DotCommunist
So many particulars. So many questions.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
Gorki, do you have to wear a neck brace to support your massive brain?
Spion
I hear ya
And you're going to back that ludicrous claim up are you?WATCH MY LIPS, TWAT: "YOURS" IS NOT YOURS!!! YOU PLAGIARISED IT FROM THE STATE DEPARTMENT AND OTHER IMPERIALIST TWATS LIKE YOURSELF!!!!
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
What do you wear for the ego/self-importance?
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
Better that than "butcher's apron"...
It's a rather apposite nickname for the Union flag of Great Britian.
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
A good approach, VP - the Terrorism Oscars
I liked it.
I can just imagine Simon Bolivar sitting at the award ceremony smiling through gritted teeth as the Caribbeans walk away with the "strugglers against colonial oppression" award for the 5th year in a row, and the long and exceedingly boring speech from King Leopold of Belgium as he thanks everyone who helped him get an award, but neglects to mention that he threatened to have the hands chopped off of anyone who didn't vote for him.
gorski
customised free radical
Nope, that would be your job. Why would I have to back "your" [plagiarised] claims up?
As for me, I haven't claimed much so far... for the reason just given...
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
I thought he was the fictionall creation of Robert Ludlum
Unfortunately not, although I suppose you could credibly argue that he was as much a construct of the media as he was a real person.
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
I think it's quite likely gorski is a fictional creation. It's probably someone with a beef about philosophy students.
We did actually have a philosopher on the boards a couple of years ago who turned out to be a bit like that. He claimed to practice philosophy as a profession (yes, I know
), and was really quite scathing of anyone voicing an opinion that wasn't closely related to his own. He was quite...how shall I put it...rigid in his views, not really the mark of someone whose first love was "the love of wisdom", unless "wisdom" somehow equated to "dogmatic adherence to a preconceived set of beliefs".
Spion
I hear ya
Gorski was in fact created as a minion to Phil Dwyer, in an experiment involving his semen, a diseased stray dog and an internet connection. He is at least faithful to his master, but lacks a bit in the initiative deptI think it's quite likely gorski is a fictional creation. It's probably someone with a beef about philosophy students.
ymu
Niall Ferguson's deep-cover sock-puppet
The problem is, Gorski appears to have started this entire thread in order to make a rather obvious and hackneyed point about what we mean by terrorism - ie that "good guys" like Mandela and the French Resistance were terrorists. So while you think he's just pissing around quoting random definitions of terrorism (not plagiarism, BTW), that's the whole point of the thread for him. Had he dictated exactly what definition of terrorism he was using, he wouldn't have been able to make his point in the same way. Not that he's making it well now, mind ...
FWIW, I don't think you can have a definition of terrorism which precludes state actors. It's facile to declare all state violence to be "terrorism", but states do conduct more "traditional" terrorist campaigns. For example, Israel bombed US targets in Eqypt and Jewish targets in Iraq. Both of these campaigns were passed off as the work of local terrorists - they had to be in order to achieve their objectives (scare the US into staying in Egypt, scare the Iraqi Jews into leaving for Israel). I can't see how it is useful to define an act as terrorism and then change your mind when it turns out that a state did it.
The non-state definition also lends itself to abuse and in particular a redefinition of terrorism to mean "military activity carried out by non-state actors". For example, the most publicised Palestinian attacks are illegitimate but statistics on Palestinian attacks are rarely broken down into those which are legitimate (broadly, identifiable combatants taking on soldiers in the OPT) and those which are not. This, IMO, is a reasonable line to draw between "terrorists" and "freedom fighters" - but instead this distinction is just reduced to the status of an old joke and the term "terrorism" retains a considerable amount of power whilst losing a great deal of meaning.
twistedAM
Left Of The Dial
Portugal will be pissed off not to have made that list especially for the rape of Mozambique.
Spion
I hear ya
I think those points are good ones, although even in those although states may have funded and organised them, they have to do them through third party non-state actors (and using the same criteria one could argue that many of, say, Hamas's acts of terror - which appear as classic non-state acts - equally have a state somewhere in the background in terms of funding etc, or even that Hamas is the state in Gaza).
I have, NB, written a number of conditionals into my statements on the subject in this thread, such as 'terrorism . . . in its most common usage is . . . '. I think the problem is that it's always a loaded term, always dependent on who says it and who they're talking about. Hence, as I say, I rarely use it, except in a loose way.
Curious. Who decides what is legitimate or not? You speak as if it's obvious
Spion
I hear ya
Are you saying they are examples of terrorism?
ymu
Niall Ferguson's deep-cover sock-puppet
International law. People under occupation have the right to resist. They must be uniformed/identifiable and not targeting civilians. I can dig out the exact statutes that apply if you really need them.
gorski
customised free radical
Curious, Spion: *your* "definition" aimed at terrorism producing fear/terror in an intended victim [which demonstrates you don't understand the difference between terrorism and everyday fights, for instance] and that was "enough" for you to claim it's terrorism, provided it's against a state.
None of it is correct.
However, here we have state agents clearly producing terror in a population, using systematic and systemic rape as a tool in "sending a message" to all, not just the raped women and men and you're deaf, dumb and blind to it.
Are you a "loyalist politician" by any chance?
None of it is correct.
However, here we have state agents clearly producing terror in a population, using systematic and systemic rape as a tool in "sending a message" to all, not just the raped women and men and you're deaf, dumb and blind to it.
Are you a "loyalist politician" by any chance?
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
Why international law? Or do you just mean legitimate as regards your above posts?
CyberRose
أرفع الشفرات
Terrorism is a word that attaches a negative conotation to whatever it is describing, hence, people on here wishing to label, for example, Israel as a terrorist, and, for example, nobody wanting to label Nelson Mandela a terrorist. However, if you take any definition of the word terrorist, you can quite easily ascribe that status to, Israel or Nelson Mandela. However, the fact is, there is no internationally recognised definition of "terrorism" or academically recognised definition of "terrorism" and the reason is because each time somebody uses a definition to describe a group or person as a terrorist, someone will disagree, because they do not wish negative conotations to be ascribed to that person or group, and will make a new definition as to exclude that group or person (and vica versa if a definition is used that excludes a group or person they want to describe as a terrorist). So we have multiple definitions of terrorism (as we can see by this argument on this thread) and all of them pretty much describe an act of "terrorism" in the past, rather than one that might occur in the future (because they know who committed the act in the past, whereas in the future the act might be committed by a group/person they don't want to describe as terrorist)
Arguments over the definition of "terrorism" are in reality an argument over who we want to label with a preconceived negative image.
So I stand by my definition as the only one that is broad enough to describe all instances of terrorism, as it precludes and excludes depending on who is doing the describing (so there's no need for any "terrorist vs freedom fighter" arguments, or any "states can/can't commit terrorism" arguments), therefore keeping everyone happy...
Arguments over the definition of "terrorism" are in reality an argument over who we want to label with a preconceived negative image.
So I stand by my definition as the only one that is broad enough to describe all instances of terrorism, as it precludes and excludes depending on who is doing the describing (so there's no need for any "terrorist vs freedom fighter" arguments, or any "states can/can't commit terrorism" arguments), therefore keeping everyone happy...
Similar threads
