CDZ The US is a terrorist state. Discuss

[Tumblin Tumbleweed]

Defending our citizens and our interests around the world doesn't make us terrorists. And there's nothing wrong with taking out a REAL terrorist.

One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. The wars of ideology have been going on since the Dawn of Man, plain and simple.

 

[S.J.]

Name them.

Explain about legitimate countries.

Can't answer my question?

 

[S.J.]

Defending our citizens and our interests around the world doesn't make us terrorists. And there's nothing wrong with taking out a REAL terrorist.

One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. The wars of ideology have been going on since the Dawn of Man, plain and simple.

Do you consider the U.S. a terrorist country? How about Iran?

 

[Tumblin Tumbleweed]

Defending our citizens and our interests around the world doesn't make us terrorists. And there's nothing wrong with taking out a REAL terrorist.

One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. The wars of ideology have been going on since the Dawn of Man, plain and simple.

Do you consider the U.S. a terrorist country? How about Iran?

I do not consider either a terrorist country, but then again, it's not about me personally. Did you even understand my comment?

 

[Dr Grump]

What kind of Arab or Persian? Like any kind will do?

Is that what you mean?

not that long ago (three years maybe) on this very board neocon whackadoodles were cheering the death of an arabic cameraman who was killed by a machine gunner on a US gun ship (in Afghanistan or Iraq). The shooter mistook the camera for a weapon. I get mistakes happen. However, I expect a normal, moral, humane person with an ounce of humanity about them to be at least sorry about it. Talking about how it was terrible etc. The chickenhawk righties and neocons on this board? "Too bad".."tough luck"..."his fault for walking around like he had a gun in his hand'. That sort of rhetoric were some of the more paraphrased milder comments going around at the time.

What have personal sentiments got to do with the OP?

Has the US been designated as a terrorist state?

you asked the question. I gave an illustration of what I meant.
Who gets to decide what a terrorist state is?

 

[Andylusion]

terrorism
the systematic and organized use of violence and intimidation to force a government or community, etc to act in a certain way or accept certain demands.​

Shock and awe was used to violently force Iraq to embrace regime change. Suleimani was systematically assassinated in order to intimidate Iran into modes of behaviour. The entire US military has been designated a terrorist organisation by Iran.

The Meaning of Shock and Awe

David Bromwich, Contributor Professor of Literature, Yale University

The Meaning of Shock and Awe

The phrase “Shock and Awe” derives from the nineteenth-century German military theorist Clausewitz. It was brought to the United States by Dr. Harlan Ullman, a senior associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and a man of deep influence in the Bush administration, whose acumen as a strategic thinker has been lauded by Colin Powell. The doctrine of “rapid dominance” expounded by Dr. Ullman is the key to the strategy that General Myers and others now find themselves preparing to execute.

Extreme clarity marks the doctrines and maxims of Dr. Ullman. For him, a major precedent to guide American military policy in the twenty-first century, and a clue to the effect on enemy morale intended by Shock and Awe, was the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Japanese were shocked into immediate surrender. The greatness of such an overwhelming attack, according to Ullman, lies in its capacity to inflict on the enemy an instant paralysis of the will to fight. It assures that an entire people will be “intimidated, made to feel so impotent, so helpless, that they have no choice but to do what we want them to do.” It might be objected that this amounts to an endorsement of the use of weapons of mass terror, since concussive paralysis and the injury of non-combatants are among the intended effects of such an attack. The implicit answer offered by Ullman and his admirers is that the end justifies the means, and in a case involving the United States, the end is always benign.

“Super tools and weapons — information age equivalents of the atomic bomb — have to be invented,” Dr. Ullman wrote in an opinion piece for the Economic Times. “As the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki finally convinced the Japanese Emperor and High Command that even suicidal resistance was futile, these tools must be directed towards a similar outcome” against the smaller and less threatening countries that now stand in the way of American power. But terrorism has many hiding places in a city. In order to eradicate it, you must destroy every common resource for survival. “You have this simultaneous effect,” says Ullman, “rather like the nuclear weapons at Hiroshima, not taking days or weeks but in minutes.”

​

It's not a Terrorist state. Conversation is over. Thanks.

 

[Bruce_T_Laney]

So a man you voted for

Your assumption is ridiculous.

and supported is now a terrorist, so what does that make you and all those that voted for him?

Terrorism enablers.

At least you are being honest about your support of a terroristic regime...

Now may I ask if you vote for Biden, Warren or even Sanders do you actually believe they will end the fake war on terror?

I do not, so I refuse to waste my vote on someone that will just keep on feeding the Military Complex ...

 

[cnm]

Can't answer my question?

You haven't answered mine.

Legitimate countries are not labelled as terrorist by other countries?

 

[cnm]

It's not a Terrorist state. Conversation is over. Thanks.

Good argument.

 

[cnm]

At least you are being honest about your support of a terroristic regime...

Now may I ask if you vote for Biden, Warren or even Sanders do you actually believe they will end the fake war on terror?

I do not, so I refuse to waste my vote on someone that will just keep on feeding the Military Complex ...

You are building on ridiculous assumptions. Does my location not show?

 

[cnm]

Do you consider the U.S. a terrorist country? How about Iran?

Define your terms. If my dictionary definitions are accepted, both are terrorist countries.

 

[cnm]

Who gets to decide what a terrorist state is?

Hoho, legitimate countries?

 

[Olde Europe]

If my dictionary definitions are accepted, both are terrorist countries.

No, they aren't, since your definitions are insufficient. You've defined "terrorist", not "terrorist state". There is a difference, since terrorist groups are defined by their terrorism, violence for political aims. States are far more complex than that, and the vast, overwhelming majority of their activities are non-terrorist. At the very least, you would have to introduce a threshold, the crossing of which would take a state from one engaged in occasional violent criminality to a "terrorist state".

 

[cnm]

At the very least, you would have to introduce a threshold, the crossing of which would take a state from one engaged in occasional violent criminality to a "terrorist state".

I think a state engaging in terrorism is a terrorist state. What is your definition?

 

[Olde Europe]

At the very least, you would have to introduce a threshold, the crossing of which would take a state from one engaged in occasional violent criminality to a "terrorist state".

I think a state engaging in terrorism is a terrorist state. What is your definition?

Name ten states that have never, in their history, engaged in activity that might be labeled "terrorism". If you can't, we are living in a world populated by "terrorist states" - which would render your "definition" meaningless.

You look to find meaning in the term "terrorist state". I don't. I find it is a senseless generalization - a failed attempt at moral clarity that gets you nowhere. States' criminality in foreign lands is usually called "war crimes", which is the clearer and far more damning allegation, not least because war crimes are usually orders of magnitude more damaging and lethal.

 

[cnm]

Name ten states that have never, in their history, engaged in activity that might be labeled "terrorism". If you can't, we are living in a world populated by "terrorist states" - which would render your "definition" meaningless.

I'm quite happy to have categories of past and present. Everyone can change.

 

[cnm]

States' criminality in foreign lands is usually called "war crimes"

'Crimes against peace' is the technical term I believe. 'War crimes' is reserved for crimes committed in war.

 

[Scamp]

Obama ordered over 500 drone strikes in the Middle East. Does this make him a Terrorist?

 

[cnm]

In my opinion.

 

[Scamp]

Was Abraham Lincoln a Terrorist? You know, allowing his generals to wage war upon civilians.