I might consider being a terrorist if soldiers shot my kids in the head.

[Philosoraptor]

Just for the sake of argument, if I were say, awakened in the middle of the night by screaming soldiers with machine guns, and they were to say, line my 6 and 9 year old daughters up against the living room wall and say, put a bullet between their eyes in front of me and then beat me senseless and leave me for dead, I might just possibly consider getting angry and emotional over it.

Could you blame me?

[htuttle]

1. If you didn't consider it after something like that..

...I'd say you were a bad parent. Especially if you had no other kids left alive.

[atreides1]

2. I'd go pass just considering it.

Theoretically of course.;)

[Swede]

3. I'd want to die.

And take a few of the bastards with me.

[Yupster]

71. I might too, but

I don't think I'd ever blow myself up on a public bus or in a marketplace.

That's just pure stupid terrorism. I think I'd at least aim at an enemy, not just try to kill as many people as possible.

[otherlander]

4. I wouldn't say that you were right, but I would understand.

And we will never agree with the terrorists, but they will always have reasons. That's the problem: we're trying to kill terrorists but only create more of them. The thing the government needs to do is address root causes, but if progressives try to bring that up, they get labeled as 'terrorist apologists'. *sigh*

[panader0]

5. What the msm calls insurgents or terrorists

are called patriots in their country. I am sure most of us would rise up to defend our country and each other if the situation was reversed, No?

[Critters2]

17. Just ordinary folks standing against the invaders

Any sane person would do the same.

[lpbk2713]

18. I'm sure Paul Revere and his friends would have been called terrorists

230 years ago if that word was in vogue at that time.


And terrorist or patriot would have been relative to one's political persuausion at that time.

[Midlodemocrat]

61. Like during the Revolutionary War.

They were called Patriots. Because that is what they are.

[kiraboo]

6. I wouldn't blame you. And it's this basic psychology

that the Bush administration just doesn't seem to grasp. We are creating terrorists where there were none before. It's crazy.

[FiveGoodMen]

26. They grasp it. The presence of terrorists suits their purposes.

[kiraboo]

41. You are probably right. n/t

[libhill]

74. And after removing

Sadam, whom we put in power and armed in the first place...go fucking figure...

[Journeyman]

7. In such a situation you would not be a terrorist. . .

but a murderer intent on revenge. A subtle distinction, perhaps, but a distinction of intent.

[Ex Lion Tamer]

21. But even more subtly . . .

what does it become when you're opposing an invading army? I think that's also an important distinction.

I posted on another thread a while back that I think I've outgrown my "nonviolent resistance is the answer" days. If an invading army motivated me to fight back because they killed my children, God forbid, I don't think I'd have any difficulty justifying a response.

[maveric]

8. Like an older Vietnamese fried of mine told me:

"Americans come to stop the communists. Then they burn our villages and kill our families. Now we are communists to stop the killing."
This man survived the French, Viet Cong and Americans, who killed many of his friends and family from 1945-75.

I ask the pro-war people how they would react if a foreign invader bombs your country and kills your people? Would you support them or fight them for your family and country?
All I get back from them is "Oh thats different if it were here in the US."

WTF is that supposed to mean?

[huskerlaw]

23. that gets me too

because the thing is, we don't have to ask "what would we do". We damn well KNOW what we would do. We turn into frothing-at-the-mouth murderous assholes.

Exhibit A: The response to 9/11.

Supposedly sane people (myself included) wanted nothing more than the deaths of anyone responsible. Remember how people reacted to anyone they even thought were Muslims? And that was after knowing that the terrorists were dead. So imagine if the people who actually did it hadn't committed suicide. You think there wouldn't have been the mother of all manhunts? You think we wouldn't have demanded they be killed in the most public and gruesome way possible?

Now imagine if those had been military planes and the country responsible invaded New York. Tell me we wouldn't have fought back with whatever we could muster. Certainly it would have involved a coordinated response by our military. But anyone who thinks it wouldn't also involve American citizens taking justice into their own hands, they're sadly mistaken.

The Iraqis are not evil people. They're human. And they're responding as any humans would to an invading force that is killing their families.

Unfortunately, the price is the lives of innocent (and some not-so-innocent, we do need to face that too) American service people.

[rurallib]

9. Just for the sake of argument if the US were invaded

I would probably be right in the mix of the so-called insurgency. As it is i spend a fair share of time trying to help oust corrupt republicanskis

[thereismore]

13. the day may yet come. mt

[CoffeeCat]

10. The fact is...

the insurgency is home grown. It's not bands of frothing marauders from Syria and Iran--pouring into the border.

It's pissed off Iraqis. They've been pissed since we dropped 10,000 bombs during "shock and awe" in the name of peace and liberations. We destroyed a great deal of their infrastructure and killed thousands of innocent civilians.

As time has marched on--we've drastically increased unemployment in Iraq because we've blown up so much. As a result, we have a lot of pissed off people with a lot of time on their hands. Fewer Iraqis have electricity and running water. Many are refugees. The majority of those from Fallujah do not have homes. Many Iraqis have lost friends and family members to this war. To top it off, Abu Graib didn't help much, and now Haditha will further increase the anger.

We are fighting Iraqis who want us the hell out of their country. There will never be peace, as long as there is a US presence in Iraq.

Our government knows this though...don't they? They need to stay in Iraq to keep a foothold. Iraq was just the first move. They've got additional plans for the Middle East, so they need to stay. They love that they've pissed off the Iraqis, because it gives them an excuse to remain in the region.

[Philosoraptor]

11. Chaos is the whole point of being there.

Not peace.

[The Stranger]

12. Not at all. In those circumstances, everyone is a terrorist.

Everyone. Americans. Iraqis. Everyone.

[Hubert Flottz]

14. No I'd consider the people who shot my kid in the head as the

terrorists, in that case. Just as I ALWAYS considered the 9/11 murderers terrorists.

Edit... Terrorist, n, One that engages in acts or an act of terrorism.

[Jim Warren]

15. One man's terrorist

is another man's freedom fighter.

Anyone remember st. ronnie calling negroponte's contras freedom fighters?

[XOKCowboy]

16. Why is that so hard to understand?

If my country was attacked and occupied by a foreign nation I'd already be leaning towards terrorism.

[Guaranteed]

19. That would make you want to kill innocent people/civilians?

Or, did you mean that you might want to kill soldiers?

[Name removed]

20. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[donco6]

22. This is how it always happens.

We'll never learn.

[Brundle_Fly]

24. if they were doing it to my neighbours kids even...

I cant imagine anyone coming into my city, and killing the children, and I wouldn't be a terrorist, I'd be an insurgent.

there is a huge difference.

[ecoalex]

25. How to lose hearts and minds

Call in the Marines

[Chalco]

27. I definitely would. nt

[KyuzoGator]

28. I find it rather ironic that Republicans love "Red Dawn"....

...yet think the insurgents in Iraq are al-Qaeda terrorists.

[1620rock]

29. Children? Hell if they did that to my eight cats I'd be in the fray.

[Canuckistanian]

30. Easy to understand when you put it like that

The next time a freeper type tries to deny that more terrorists are being created, ask how he would feel in such a situation.

[butterfly77]

31. For all here who try to pretend that they don't understand why..

some Iraqis have become the so called insurgents, stop denying it. Remember your killing machines will be back in your neighborhoods soon will you be afraid? Your commander and thief has cut the funding to help them to get the help they need. We have already seen examples of some coming back killing their families and other examples

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

32. How about this scenario:

We don't like the Bush administration much, right? We wish they would go away. So one fine day the army of another country that's bigger, stronger and richer, a country with a very different language, culture, religion and political structure -- let's say China, for the sake of this example -- invades the United States, bombs Washington, D.C., overthrows the Bush administration, captures W., and afterwards claims to have "liberated" the American people.

So we're glad Bush is no longer in power, but then the Chinese set up a puppet government and install a few cooperative American officials they approve of and who they know will be their allies. But many Americans decide they don't want the U.S. to be controlled by China, and they organize rebel groups. Different factions of American "insurgents" engage in increasingly violent guerilla warfare against the Chinese soldiers, who retaliate by breaking into homes and kidnapping, imprisoning and killing civilians.

If this happens to your family or friends, do you fight back? If so, are you an insurgent, a rebel, a terrorist, a patriot, or what?

[Miss Chybil]

33. You're human

caught in a horrible tragedy, most likely the making of people much richer and more powerful than you. History never changes, even when it's present.

[glitch]

52. And if you don't fight back, what are you? nt

[Bonobo]

34. Why do you call them terrorists? Seriously.

[Cha]

35. Not to mention those kids

who were killed in the bombings viewed as collateral damage.

Snips~
May 30, 2006

Bush's My Lai
From Abu Ghraib to Gitmo...now Haditha - Bush Trail of Tears
by Robert Parry

Not surprisingly, there were violations of the rules of war from the outset, such as the aerial bombing of a civilian Baghdad restaurant where faulty U.S. intelligence suggested that Hussein might be having dinner.
As it turned out, Hussein was not there, but the attack killed 14 civilians, including seven children. One mother collapsed when rescue workers pulled the severed head of her daughter out of the rubble.

Other U.S. bombings inflicted horrendous death and destruction on civilians. In one attack, Saad Abbas, 34, was wounded, but his family sought to shield him from the greater horror. The bombing had killed his three daughters – Marwa, 11; Tabarek, 8; and Safia, 5 – who had been the center of his life.
“It wasn’t just ordinary love,” his wife said. “He was crazy about them. It wasn’t like other fathers.”

The horror of the war was captured, too, in the fate of 12-year-old Ali Ismaeel Abbas, who lost his two arms when a U.S. missile struck his Baghdad home. Ali’s father, Ali’s pregnant mother and his siblings were all killed.
As he was evacuated to a Kuwaiti hospital, becoming a symbol of U.S. compassion for injured Iraqi civilians, Ali said he would rather die than live without his hands.

The slaughter extended to the battlefield where the outmatched Iraqi army sometimes fought heroically though hopelessly against the technologically superior U.S. forces. Christian Science Monitor reporter Ann Scott Tyson interviewed U.S. troops with the 3rd Infantry Division who were deeply troubled by their task of mowing down Iraqi soldiers who kept fighting even in suicidal situations.
“For lack of a better word, I felt almost guilty about the massacre,” one soldier said privately. “We wasted a lot of people. It makes you wonder how many were innocent. It takes away some of the pride. We won, but at what cost?”


A lot more history by Robert Parry..
http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_robert_p_060530_bush_s_my_lai.htm

[Swamp Rat]

36. Please define "terrorist" n/t

[Philosoraptor]

37. According to the neocons: "Anyone Bush says is the enemy"

Apparently, every single living person in Iraq is a terrorist insurgent.

[Swamp Rat]

39. I guess we're all terrorists then... what will Bushler do?

[omega minimo]

47. And you can turn the truly despicable

into terrible beauty.

:hug:

[B Calm]

49. Terrorist = Someone who been talking shit about you for many years. Then

he throws a bottle of beer through your window and climbs in after it.

He tells you that he is going to clean it up, but instead he goes to your fridge and takes a sandwich. He then goes and locks your little sister in a closet, shoot your dad, and gets to work cleaning out your wallet.

You tell him you to get the fuck out, and he say's I can't leave yet, I haven't cleaned up the beer yet, while he proceeds to punch you in the face.

[shadowknows69]

38. I'd make it my life's work

even if it meant my death. I'd be dead inside already anyway. there is extreme danger in taking everything away from another human being and leaving him alive.

[Terran1212]

40. A lot of Iraqis already made that choice

Unfortunately.

A nation occupied -- a people turned into militants at younger and younger ages.

What dumb fucks think Iraqis actually want to be occupied by foreign soldiers. What arrogant assholes those RW Americans are who thinks this is going to screw up the childhood of millions of Iraqis, turning them into footsoldiers.

[BuyingThyme]

42. The only terrorists in Iraq are American troops and mercenaries.

[Jeffersons Ghost]

43. K&R!

[ulysses]

44. you may be assured

that I would care nothing for myself in my desire for vengeance.

[survivor999]

45. Well, what

If they died of a terrible disease just because you don't have enough money to pay for proper health care?... Is that more acceptable?...

[omega minimo]

46. Your autofire meme delivery system seems set on

the truly despicable

[Philosoraptor]

48. Yeah, despicable acts deserve despicable rhetoric

We're becoming a despicable nation.

[omega minimo]

50. Dispicable acts (and DU) don't deserve phlippant phraming

and inphlammatory rhetoric

[Philosoraptor]

56. I'm really phanning the phlames of unrest aren't I?

Is it my fault all this is happening? How was i being phlippant? I'm deadly serious.

[omega minimo]

65. Phunny

[Javaman]

51. You speak the sentiments..

of many of the colonists during the British occupation...you know, during that crazy little war called The American Revolution.

[Minstrel Boy]

53. There's a David Rovics song,

featuring the Dope Poets Society, you ought to hear.

Available for free download on this page.

Falluja

Maybe you'll hear about me
When you watch the evening news
So I write this letter for you, my friends
The truth then you may choose
I had a good time at Oxford
And the world I did roam
When my studies were finished
Then I went back home

All I wanted were good things
Land and liberty
And all the sorts of things we learned
At the university
I'm not a fan of dictatorships
I'd rather say live and let live
But for those who would threaten my family
There's nothing I won't give

(Chorus)
I will fight for my country
I'll defend this land
I will stare at the whites of your soldiers' eyes
With this Kalishnikov in my hand

When you break down the doors of my neighbors
When you say that might makes right
When you say you're looking for terrorists
In their bedroom late at night
When you torture my brother at gunpoint
On his head a canvass sack
All I can say to you, soldier
Is you'd best watch your back
(chorus)

(Dope Poets: )
See I'ma fight for my country though I hate the war
But I deplore even more what they take me for
Think about where you live, how'd you typically be
When the bombs start falling in the middle of the street
It ain't difficult to see what side to choose
With all the lies they use they can't hide the truth
White lies from these white guys in the white house
Might as well wear white sheets while they wipe out
I mean white out all opposition
And bomb colored people into submission
He's got a Bible, ya think he's down with Jesus Christ?
He likes blacks just ask Condoleezza Rice
It's all evil lies in a weak disguise
See the signs and read in between the lines
If ya wanna save America I'll bring ya support
Arrest the president and bring him to court
Charge him and his puppeteers with war crimes
And start paying reparations of all kinds
You think what I'm telling you to do is extreme
But if you lived in Fallujah it'd be a beautiful dream
So I hold my tears and my hopes and fears,
When you bomb our country and attack our town
Don't be surprised when the whole world cheers
to see another Black Hawk down (motherfucker!)

When you come with your tanks on our city streets
And you say these streets are yours
When you say you'll rebuild us with bombers
And oil tankers on our shores
When you have gunned down my child in Fallujah
You needn't wonder why
I look at you through the blades of your 'copter and say
It's a good day to die

[Spinoza]

54. There is no excuse.

If anyone had bonafide reasons to become a terrorist it would have been the Jews (or others) who survived the German death campls of the Nazis (such as my parents.) While there were undoubtedly some revenge killings following the war these were (so far as we know) almost exclusively conducted against the actual perpetrators of atrocities or at least former members of the SS, concentration camp guards, etc. and not German civilians or women and children. (Mass rapes by Russian soldiers against German women and children at the end of the war is justifiably condemned despite the enormous atrocities committed by German soldiers in Russia.) Even survivors who had their entire families tortured and killed in front of their eyes, (such as my father) did not feel they had the moral right to retaliate against German civilians. Both my parents were (unfairly even if understandably) biased against Germans for the rest of their lives. Nevertheless, they would never have dreamt that they had any rights of revenge against anyone who was not directly and personally involved in their own torture and persecution or the murder of their families.

[Philosoraptor]

55. From, "We were just following orders", to, "We were stressed out"

There really is no excuse for killing children, yet republicans are right now floating that very notionn. That there must have been a good reason, and war is heck, etc.

[Solon]

63. That actually would be a wrong analogy...

Under the Bush administrations meaning of the word Terrorism, the Warsaw uprising was terrorism, so was the French Resistance as well.

If it was me, personally, that this happened to, I would load up a moving truck with explosives and plow it through the nearest base of soldiers and detonate it, killing as many soldiers as possible in the process. But that's just me.

[BoneDaddy]

57. I have always said

the same thing... It wouldn't matter if they were in my country to depose a tyrant, wouldn't matter if they were bringing us our "freedom", it wouldn't matter whether they were considered the "good guys", if bombed my neighborhood, killed my friends and family, I would fight back, most certainly. Let them call me what they will.

I wonder how many Iraqi's have felt the same way.

Also, if some foreign nation invaded Texas, you would see everyone there become a "terrorist"

A simple matter of perspective, of which they have none, or don't care.

[warrens]

58. Freedom fighter, not terrorist

Biiiig difference.

[Ezlivin]

59. I would welcome the soldiers as liberators and eagerly accept democracy

The reason that sounds so insane is because that is exactly what the Bushbots expect the reaction to be.

[newspeak]

60. isn't that what Hitler bamboozled the German people with?

We must free Poland from their evil dictator. Now if the US becomes a banana republic, will Russia or China decide to free us from our evil dictatorship? When they see bogus elections, like those that Saddam enjoyed, could they say that the US does not have a democratic republic? And, when their troops invade our homes, bomb our cities, kill our children and set up a puppet regime, will we not fight back for our country? And then our enemy will say, why aren't you throwing flowers at our feet since we liberated you from that evil regime? Because it was up to us to clean our own house without your interference-you are as bad or worse than what we had.

[Yupster]

72. I may be wrong, but

I don't think Hitler ever said anything like that he was freeing Poland from their evil dictator.

The dispute was over Germany demanding a land corridor to connect the two parts of its country which was split by the Polish Corridor.

Then Hitler dressed up guys in Polish uniforms and shot them and said Poland was trying to invade Germany first.

[ShadesOfGrey]

62. I would do everything possible to protect my family and myself.

However, I can't imagine any, any, ANY situation that would make me snap and kill an innocent person! If I lost my own child, I might seek revenge on the person responsible. But, I would NEVER take the life of another child (or any other innocent person) in retaliation. Sorry!

[newspeak]

64. no, if the person or persons who killed your child

were soldiers or partisans for a stooge government, you would go after everyone in a uniform or were working with them. For wouldn't it be the conquerers policies that killed your child, wouldn't it be the orders given to the soldiers who killed your child? And, your neighbor down the street who's family was also killed, would it be by the same soldiers? It could be by different soldiers. So, now you say you'd be hunting the ones who killed your child, but they may no longer be in the area, and the neighbor, is he going to hunt those who killed his family or those who wear the same uniform?

[ShadesOfGrey]

66. Really? I'd go after everyone in uniform?

Not!!!

[newspeak]

68. well, you haven't lived it yet, have you?

I'm sure your going to ask around the invading force where are the soldiers that killed your child and I'm sure your going to get an answer. So, the invading force is not only murdering parts of your family, but your neightbors' families. Your just going to pick and choose? Even though the other soldiers are also following orders or steeped in policy. How about if you were in one of the invaded countries during WWII. Under Nazis policy, your whole town could be wiped out, still going to hunt only those that murdered your child?

[ShadesOfGrey]

69. Huh?

Are you supporting the killing innocent Iraqi women and children?

Sorry, I'd rather die myself than become a murderer!

[newspeak]

70. sorry if I misinterpreted your thread

I was explaining that if another country invaded our country and killed our children, we would be fighting them, we would be the so-called insurgents. I thought in your thread that you would only go after those who killed your child. So, I am suggesting that is harder to do with an occupying force and other soldiers may be following the same commands and policies. Of course, just by your action of going after those who directly committed the crime would label you an insurgent. Again, sorry I misinterpreted your response.

[Yupster]

73. Yeah, I just can't imagine myself

setting off a car bomb in a crowded marketplace or next to a Mosque. I can't see myself ever doing that regardless of what some soldier did to me or my family.

I could see myself going after soldiers though.

[AlamoDemoc]

67. K&R....Gimme Death or Gimme Liberty