Little debate help here please - when wingnuts say "most terrorists Islamic, Mid. East"....

[HardWorkingDem]

This is a debate point that I could use some help on.

When some wingnut makes the claim of the terrorists are primarily "Islamic Middle Eastern men" what are some good rebuttals.

One argument I just was faced with was that of being asked to show where radical Christians have committed similar acts.

Some help please.

[billybob537]

1. Answer, most uninformed wingnuts are republican

so what's your point? What about radical christians hijacking US gov.

[CBGLuthier]

2. Ireland and Oklahoma

There's a couple of examples of good christian bombers.

[teach1st]

3. Tamil Tigers

Somewhere I read that the Tamil Tigers, a Sri Lankan separatist group, have been the most prolific (in terms of incidents)terrorist group in the ast twenty (I think) years. They are not Muslim.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamil_Tigers

[ClassWarrior]

4. Radical "Christians" commit similar acts across the globe...

...whenever their economic interests are at stake.

Read "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man."

NGU.

[Warren Stupidity]

5. Ask them to define terrorism and terrorist.

And then there will be either circular logic where they require their assertion as part of the definition, or all sorts of people and nations commit terrorism.

Most simply terrorism is targeting civilians with violence for political objectives. That definition bothers lots of centrists and rightists as it swallows up much of our own military behavior over the last 50 years.

[2Design]

6. where do the present republics fit in that description and all of the WH n/t

[MadMaddie]

7. Specifically point out the the terrorist came from Saudi Arabia,

Afghanastan and Dubai....not Iraq or Iran.

[salin]

8. terrorism = trying to keep folks terrorized 1980s Central American

deathsquads (thinking El Salvador - but there were others as well) used to be refered to as terrorism - as while they were govt sanctioned they acted in ways to terrorize the public to prevent any organized opposition to the govt from forming.

Have them watch the movie Romero - and ask if that would not constitute terrorism?

[welshTerrier2]

9. look at the US history in the Middle East

we assassinated Mossadeq in Iran in 1953 and imposed the genocidal Shah of Iran who murdered hundreds of thousands of his own people ...
we propped up abusive, tyrannical governments in Saudi Arabia and in Iraq ...
show your debate friends the picture of little Donnie Rumsfeld shaking hands with Saddam ...
we ENABLED Saddam while he gassed thousands of his own people ...
we have occupied countries throughout the Middle East ...
we have stolen Middle Eastern oil just as we are about to do with the new Iraqi "OIL LAW" which has been renamed the "hydrocarbon" law to distract us from what is really being stolen ...

i wouldn't be so quick to deny that there is an extensive network of terrorists comprised of Middle Eastern men ... i would just quickly point out that it has been imperialistic American conduct that motivates them ...

of course, when we talk about terrorism, let's not forget Abu Ghraib and other worldwide prisons where the US has been torturing people in direct violation of the Geneva Conventions ... you need not condone the tactics of terrorism but you certainly should point out the role of the US in causing it ... "Middle Eastern men are not angry at the US for no reason at all" ...

you might want to take a read on this thread: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x3067057

[Donald Ian Rankin]

10. Many of the responses to this are carefully redefining the question.

What is being asked for is a rebuttal to the claim "most terrorists are Islamic middle Eastern men".

A lot of people are simply saying "other people, including X, commit terrorism too". That proves that not all terrorists are Islamic Middle Eastern men, but not that most aren't.

I don't know whether the claim is true or not - I suspect it isn't, but I'm far from confident of that. But to even begin to rebut (or support it) would take far more than most of these posts contain - you'd actually need to estimate the number of terrorists who are and aren't Islamic Middle Eastern men, not just point out that the latter number is non-zero.

[HardWorkingDem]

11. As usual.......thank you all....

a question is asked and wonderful people offer all kinds of good information in return - and very quickly too.

Thanks again