Defnitions
POSTED BY: dreamtrove
UPDATED: Thursday, August 17, 2006 22:26
VIEWED: 2739
PAGE 2 of 3
I like the term Islamo-fascist, I think it helps to differentiate form Islamic radicals.
Although the term rebel or insurgent could mean terrorist, the term terrorist is important and shouldn’t be retired.
Rebel – an armed belligerent participating in a rebellion. (Note that few of the people we are currently fighting qualify as a rebel.)
Also:
Rebellion – an open, armed and organized popular belligerency internal to and against an establish government
Insurgent – an armed non-belligerent revolting against civil authority or government
Also:
Insurgency – an non-belligerent armed revolt against a civil authority or government
Terrorist – a non-belligerent employing a systematic use of terror to coerce policy or undermine authority.
Also:
Terrorism – the non-belligerent systematic use terror to coerce policy or undermine authority.
Note that both a rebel or insurgent may be a terrorist, but also note that a rebel is a belligerent, as opposed to an insurgent. A terrorist may be neither a rebel nor an insurgent and is never a belligerent.
Nihil est incertius vulgo, nihil obscurius voluntate hominum, nihil fallacius ratione tota comitiorum.
Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.
-- Cicero
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not sure how accurate those descriptions are if you want to look at the popular meaning's of those words, i mean words very obviously change meaning's gradually over time, but i'd be inclined to contest that with it's recent media/political use over the last few years the meaning of the word terrorist has expanded to cover a wealth of individuals, and really a rather broad scope of methods (all, unfortunately, inexcusably violent...)
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jailbait.
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I wasn’t aware the idea was to come up with accurate definitions, as much as define terms that have become blurred through use. But I agree that the terms are fairly misused.
One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter? Although that’s usually kind of nonsense. A “freedom fighter” that employs terrorism as a policy is likely to practice something other then freedom once in power. But people tend to define these terms, not based on objective and complete knowledge, but based on personal politics and propaganda.
Nihil est incertius vulgo, nihil obscurius voluntate hominum, nihil fallacius ratione tota comitiorum.
Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.
-- Cicero
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well, probably true, was more finding myself an excuse to move the discussion towards common usage and the changing meaning's of words. i'd be linclined to think there's a grain of truth in that chestnut so long as it's not looked at too literally, but more as a reflection on the manner in which perspective change's our view on the justification and (in)excusability for war, killing and all the many, many ways we find to generally be unpleasant to one-another.
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jailbait.
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How about this for terrorism. It’s the US military definition, according to the DoD.
Terrorism: The calculated use of violence or threat of violence to inculcate fear; intended to coerce or to intimidate governments or societies in the pursuit of goals that are generally political, religious, or ideological
Nihil est incertius vulgo, nihil obscurius voluntate hominum, nihil fallacius ratione tota comitiorum.
Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.
-- Cicero
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it's a good definition, unfortunately it can be stretched to fit the foreign policy of most countries kicking about the globe, which doesn't really float =S
anyways, heading off, sorry for taking the conversation on a tangent, hope the rest of it prove's enjoyable ^^
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jailbait.
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I think if you recall I just posted two long rants in defense of islamo-fascist as a descriptive term, but I agree that the term should be retired. It's too negative, given the sort of all encompassing clump negativity it's going to generate.
If we're to have a level debate, in the spirit of diplomacy, that level debate has to accept all viewpoints as valid. That doesn't mean correct, or supported, but valid, to be listened to, without bias, to arrive at a resolution. The purpose, diplomatically, is to reach an agreement by fostering communication rather than more pointless crossfire.
In such a spirit, islamo-fascist, however descriptive, is not a position which is diplomatic.
Terrorist doesn't have to be specifically retired, but it's being used in a divisive and malicious manner. Hezbollah terrorist, Israel killed 96 terrorists, the terrorists at guantanamo. This is not a statement of fact. Even my "the terorrists in washington" was probably out of line, even though I do mean it literally.
The 9-11 terrorists. Totally legit.
[another incident] terrorists, also legit.
Al-Qaeda terrorists, probably okay, though al qaeda technically speaking is not a terrorist organization, it's a communication underground, Mujahideen is a terrorist organization which uses the al-qaeda network. But, by this logic, I think everyone understands the term 'al qaeda terrorists' to mean the mujahideen.
terrorist suspects in guantanamo. Preferably, the detainees, unless you have a particular detainee who is suspect in a particular terrorist act.
But lately, and this is my main point, the MSM for all intents and purposes is using terrorist as a generic to mean lebanese, and sometimes iraqi, or in general, any arab killed by western forces. That's totally unacceptable, from a diplomatic standpoint.
And diplomacy is the goal, we've decided to try to negotiate our disagreements, which by definition is diplomacy.
so terrorist shouldn't be retired, I agree, but it needs to be used accurately and responsibly. I think maybe we should have a watchword list of things that if they are consistantly abused will need to be retired.
Obviously a whole bunch of things are right out, I think we all get that and we don't need to list them all the zionazi, neothugs, neocommie, envirowacko, etc. have to go. Essentially, spin terms, we all know what they are.
Again, which isn't to be word police, but in the spirit of, anyone is free to ignore opinions of the yellers. I think on a time when we actually start saying things to each other like "you have a point, and "maybe there's somewhere in between withdrawal from the ME and continued bombing" rather than "killer!" "coward!"
Then maybe we relax. But we need to chill, and start talking to one another as though we had opposing ideas with potential merit.
also to recognize that in this effort there will be those who will seek to undermine this effort, and that we should ignore those efforts, eventually hopefully everyone consider everyone else's positions as valid, and maybe still disagree.
I intend to press ahead because I see the alternative as Hillary dropping nukes on Iran.
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I fear that Islamo-fascist will not go away. I resisted using the term, and still do, but often find it necessary in a discussion of the relation of terrorist organizations with the Arab community at large. One can’t get away form recognizing that a very large minority of the Arab world is religious anti-West radicals. This poses a problem: how to differentiate the minority of really nasty Arab types that want to cut your head off from the very large chunk of the Arab world that just want to talk about cutting your head off and dance in the street when other people do it. You can’t call them all radicals because then some Liberal PC type will come out and attempt to undermine your argument with a strawman that deflects your point to the large chunk of mostly benign Arabs. I guess we could use “ultra radicals”, but that’s probably being used by some Seattle garage band.
Actually, I think terrorist accurately defines Hezbollah. This is the group that invented the suicide bomber; they continually raid Northern Israel to coerce Israeli policy. Both the US and Brits currently defines Hezbollah militant wing as a terrorist organization. So I’m comfortable calling them a terrorist group. It’s an accurate description. But that doesn’t apply to the Lebanese, and anyone who refers to arbitrary Lebanese as a terrorist has misused the term and probably demonstrated a bigoted position. However, that doesn’t mean that we pretend that actual Lebanese terrorist groups aren’t terrorists.
Also Al-Qaeda and mujahideen are two different things. Al Qaeda is a terrorist organization. A mujahideen is an Arab terrorist and/or guerrilla fighter.
Nihil est incertius vulgo, nihil obscurius voluntate hominum, nihil fallacius ratione tota comitiorum.
Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.
-- Cicero
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Quote:
I fear that Islamo-fascist will not go away. I resisted using the term, and still do,
Sure, I was much in the same boat here. But in the interests of functional communication between us here, it doesn't help.
Quote:
One can’t get away form recognizing that a very large minority of the Arab world is religious anti-West radicals.
an ever increasing portion. but the point is, it's a weighted word, and generated contention, rather than reaching level discussion.
I think many of these rebels are more or less openly fascist, which is a political difference I would have with them, but I recognize that it's like godwin, it's going to be a sort of 'of course they're a natural enemy' which I don't think is true. But it's not just my own feeling, that we're going about this all wrong, and if we just stop killing them, things will [very] slowly improve. I think we saw that happen around the time of the iraqi elections, and again with the hamas elections, and if the israelis hadn't aggressively dismantled the hamas govt, I think that hamas was prepared to work with the idea of the existance of israel. They were certainly starting to make noises in that direction (now we're a govt., we have to talk to other govts. instead of bombing them) But now it's all shot. Diplomacy failed, and terrorism thrives. Because diplomacy wasn't even tried. But we here, are not at war, and have nothing to lose or gain, except that if we understand one another's key concerns, we might gain a greater understanding of the situation as a whole. Instead we seem to pelt each other with rocks like a bunch of third graders, myself included.
So, it has to at least be ignore, as a word. because it's a godwin level of loaded word.
but to address the problem:
Quote:
\how to differentiate the minority of really nasty Arab types that want to cut your head off from the very large chunk of the Arab world that just want to talk about cutting your head off and dance in the street when other people do it.
It just gets applied to broadly.
See, I don't think this is accurate. It's also not equitable. They have a valid point of view. They're not just nasty. They're really angry. Some of them are fascist, sure, they probably got angry because there was a genetically different person on their land, their theocratic power structure was interrupted, whatever. But many are angry over actual events, and as time goes on, this number grows. Some were tortured, family members killed, cities destroyed, and now they hate us, and israel. whether or not it's deservedly so.
But islamofascist just gets blatantly applied. Hezbollah is not a lunatic fringe in lebanon, it's the mainstream political idea. 80% of christians support this muslim extremist group we call a terrorist organization. So we're dealing with an alien political perspective, maybe, but also we should try to see it objectively. Anyone here on the forum may work for hezbollah. Possible. Another issue, and one which I think is extremely important, is that we are being lied to by our sources. This was a serious issue in the Iraq war. And I don't mean by George W. Bush or by the MSM, I mean that Ahmed Chalabi lied to us about the situation in Iraq, and now Israel is lying to us about the situation in Lebanon. You know it's true, so let's skip the argument. Ergo, we don't know what the situation on the ground really is. The lebanese say Hezbollah is a political party with a profound charitable generosity. This may be so, probably is to some degree. Well, if that's how it's viewed, and we treat it as evil, then what do you expect the lebanese will think of us?
Here's a counter-example I noticed a while back. Hugo Chavez spouted a lot of socialist rhetoric, and he soared in popularity among the american left. Then he came out and said that halloween was an evil imperialist decadence of a degenerate society. His support among lefties here plumeted. Now he's selling discount heating oil to the poor, and his support here is recovering. Simple diplomacy.
Ideally, I think
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Important definitions I think that need to be made more public:
Lawful Combatant: A soldier, participant in a levee en masse or lawful resistance movement; entitled to protection as a prisoner of war.
Soldier: A belligerant who: is commanded by an officer responsible for the actions of his/her subordinates, bears a fixed, distinctive embelem recognizable at a distance, bears arms openly and obeys the laws of war.
Levee en masse: a spontaneous arming of the populace upon the approach of enemy forces, does not continue beyond the occupation of contested territory by enemy forces or the the repulsing of the attack by the levee en masse or the by arrival friendly reenforcements.
Lawful Resistance Movement: A resistance movement whose participants: bear arms openly during millitary engagements and during the pre-engagement deployment, and obey the laws of war
Unlawful Comatant: A belligerant not meeting the qualifications for lawful combatancy (see above). If captured is Not a prisoner of war.
All refrences taken from 1949 Geneva Convention and/or 1977 Geneva Protocol
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