Domestic Terrorism vs War

[On Guard for Thee]

Once again, open mouth, insert foot.

[GostHacked]

There are actually rules in war. At least nation vs nation wars. That's what the Geneva conventions are all about.

Funniest thing I heard all day. Enemy Combatant, Gitmo .. call me when that is fixed.

[Shady]

Funniest thing I heard all day. Enemy Combatant, Gitmo .. call me when that is fixed.

What do you mean?

[On Guard for Thee]

There are actually rules in war. At least nation vs nation wars. That's what the Geneva conventions are all about.

Yes there are. Go check out your Geneva conventions as to what a "competent tribunal is". I'll give you a hint, it ain't what was going on at Gitmo.

[Moonlight Graham]

Governments love to use their power to define certain violent acts as "terrorism", while excluding others under their definition, in an attempt to control our discourse and thinking, while trying to produce a fear response in the populace with the goal of convincing us to support their heavy-handed foreign and domestic policies. These foreign policies also happen to be in parts of the world that strengthen western influence over oil-rich nations, while the domestic policies give them unprecedented powers of surveillance and crime/punishment.

In short, the Canadian and US criminal definitions of "terrorism" are total BS. Here's the US definition of terrorism:

"Domestic terrorism" means activities with the following three characteristics:

• Involve acts dangerous to human life that violate federal or state law;
• Appear intended (i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; (ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or (iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination. or kidnapping; and
• Occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the U.S.

Now, let's say every country in the Middle-East used this same definition. If so, every violent action by the US (or Canadian) military within an ME country would be, by definition, "terrorism", since these military acts would:

• Involve acts dangerous to human life that violate federal or state law;
• Appear intended...(ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or (iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination. or kidnapping;

edit: My point isn't that every violent action by the US (or Canadian) military is "terrorism" (they aren't), it's that the Canadian and US definitions of terrorism are BS.

Edited July 23, 2015 by Moonlight Graham

[Argus]

Yes there are. Go check out your Geneva conventions as to what a "competent tribunal is". I'll give you a hint, it ain't what was going on at Gitmo.

It's bizarre to even try to equate the Geneva convention, which was designed to deal with wars between nation states, and undeclared wars by religious fanatics who do not represent any nation or observe any sort of rules. It's notable that the left still cries about the mistreatment of terrorism suspects at Gitmo, but you don't hear them acting all aghast that ISIS executes its prisoners in more and more bizarre and barbaric ways, like putting them in a cage and setting them on fire. Instead we hear them telling us to leave those poor brown people alone, and that they're entirely justified in murdering Canadians and Americans.

[Argus]

Governments love to use their power to define certain violent acts as "terrorism", while excluding others under their definition, in an attempt to control our discourse and thinking,

I get it. So, setting fire to people in a cage and videotaping their deaths as propaganda isn't terrorism, right? Murdering the entire adult population of a town, and taking the young women as sex slaves, that's only terrorism if some horrible western type decides to unfairly call it that, I take it? Setting off a car bomb at a mosque that kills over a hundred people is not really terrorism, but just the cry of the patriot who longs to breath free?

Honestly, the kind moral depravity exhibited by the left wing relativism crowd makes me want to vomit.

I have no problem defining terrorism, and if you can't then really, you should be ashamed of your ignorance.

[On Guard for Thee]

It's bizarre to even try to equate the Geneva convention, which was designed to deal with wars between nation states, and undeclared wars by religious fanatics who do not represent any nation or observe any sort of rules. It's notable that the left still cries about the mistreatment of terrorism suspects at Gitmo, but you don't hear them acting all aghast that ISIS executes its prisoners in more and more bizarre and barbaric ways, like putting them in a cage and setting them on fire. Instead we hear them telling us to leave those poor brown people alone, and that they're entirely justified in murdering Canadians and Americans.

I must wonder who you listen to if that's what you are hearing...or is just a little conservative bias ringing in your ears.

[Argus]

I must wonder who you listen to if that's what you are hearing...or is just a little conservative bias ringing in your ears.

Just reading comments here defending terrorism and saying it's really nothing other than what we do all the time anyway.

[On Guard for Thee]

Just reading comments here defending terrorism and saying it's really nothing other than what we do all the time anyway.

Jeez, what forum are you on where people are defending terrorism?

[Derek 2.0]

Here are the "black"....err...non-white...err...Marines of "colour" killed in Chattanooga:

http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/chattanooga-shooting/chattanooga-shooting-marines-identify-victims-including-recipient-purple-heart-n393996

If the Army and the Navy ever look on Heaven's scenes; they will find the streets are guarded by United States Marines.........

The Navy said Saturday the sailor shot in Thursday's attack at a military support center in Chattanooga, Tenn. has died.

Navy Petty Officer 2^nd Class Randall Smith, 24, was one of three people injured when a gunman opened fire at the center, killing four Marines. The shooting is being investigated as an act of domestic terrorism.

[Rue]

The meaning of the definition of domestic terrorism as drafted in the US code which Graham has quoted can not be defined or understood by simply reading it verbatum. Its actual legal meaning will only come about whe a Judge refers it an actual fact situation or scenario and then applies it. The application of it to the scenario will then define what it means.

Legal meaning from statutes does not come from a superficial literal analysis of the words with no contextual reference and application to that context.

[Rue]

Terrorism is an act of violence. It is an act of violence used to impose political/religious belief.

The fact that leftists on this forum can not see the difference between an act of war and act of terror comes from the fact they

do not understand the difference, not that there is no difference.

An act of war, the definition of soldier, what a war crime (illegal act of war) is and the code of conduct stipulated in a legal war fall under the Geneva conventions.

Those conventions define a soldier as belonging to a sovereign nation's armed forces, wearing a visible military uniform, not deliberately killing civilians or engaging in torture.

An apprehended soldier is supposed to be imprisoned as a prisoner of war in a military compound and afforded treatment as per the conventions and is released at the end of the war.

War crimes under these conventions are clearly defined.

Terrorists are not members of a sovereign state's armed forces. They do not follow the domestic laws of the country they are in nor any international conventions because they are not nations that sign on as signatories.

In fact today, there is no international law definition of terrorist nor are their any conventions dealing with terrorists.

There are some conventions that deal with child soldiers, not child terrorists which have been incorrectly quoted on this forum. These child soldier conventions apply to armed forces of sovereign states who signed on to those conventions, not terrorists. They were never intended to apply to terrorists.

They were in fact originally created because of children being drafted into the armed forces of sovereign states in Africa. That was the context in which they came about-to prevent that. They did not and do not apply to terrorists or child terrorists-they can not-for them to apply the terrorists would have to be a member of the army of sovereign state signed on to the convention which they are not.

Because there are no international laws that apply to terrorists, there is a vacuum caused as to how to deal with them.

When the US went to Afghanistan it did so under the authority of the UN. By Law it was invited in as part of a UN multi-national force as a representative or agent of the Afghan state so Graham and others are dead wrong. The US was not in Afghanistan as a terrorist invader but as a legal agent of Afghanistan through the UN.

The US and other armed forces were fighting terrorists. They did not feel the Geneva convention applied to protect terrorists which it did not.

Britain and Australia felt they should bring captured terrorists back to their soil for legal trial under their criminal laws.

Technically they should have been turned over to the Afghani government as criminals as their terrorist actions also constituted domestic crimes against the state of Afghanistan.

This was not done as it was felt the Afghani government did not have the capacity to house terrorists. Canada turned them over to the US for imprisonment in G Bay.

The Bush regime attempted to create a new law to deal with the lack of international laws on how to deal with terrorists. It create a hybrid system mixing military tribunal and domestic criminal law.

It would have been able to do this but the US Supreme Court said there were two fatal defects that would first have to be fixed which it never fixed and eventually has led to Kadr being returned to Canada.Firstly, the tribunals did not allow full disclosure of information to the accused terrorist of the evidence being used against them. Without full disclosure the US Supreme Court struck down the process as unfair and violating fundamental rules of justice.

Secondly the Supreme court also said testimony obtained by torture was not admissible also violating the US constitution.

Bush tried to get around that passing new retroactive laws defining waterboarding as not being torture and that was struck out by the

US Supreme court.

The fact that the above happened does not magically mean terrorists are soldiers which is what many of you on this forum state.

The fact is there is for example proof outside the alleged evidence obtained by waterboarding that proved Kadr killed a US medic and permanently wounded another and no he was not part of a sovereign army of a sovereign state subscribed to following the Geneva war conventions so he was not a soldier, child or otherwise.

The exercise of fusing terrorist and soldier is a political exercise by those siding with the political aims of terrorists.

Why people come on this forum and equate terrorists to soldiers is simple-they are ignorant of both.

Anyone who has served as a soldier, relied on one to save them or has come from the world of terrorists and witnessed what they have done knows the difference.

It is the comfort of privilege, the distance from actual reality, that causes so many of you geniuses on terrorism the audacity to put them on the legal let alone moral level of a soldier.

Edited July 18, 2015 by Rue

[Big Guy]

Before you can defeat your enemy you must first understand him. The Americans still have no clue of why people who see the American military, dropping bombs from thousands of feet, killing targets and some good guys then writing them off as "acceptable collateral damage" might get upset with them getting involved in their civil war.

Killing soldiers on American soil is an outrage as is killing innocent Middle East civilians on their soil.

There is a reason that so far ISIL has been winning this war. These are Iraqis, Libyans, Syrians, Afghans et al . They live there. They were born there. They are fighting a civil war of Sunni against Shia because the West stuck its nose into the region, created a vacuum of power now everybody is fighting again to get control.

Those looking for simplistic excuses will continue with their "76 virgin, crazy Muslims, anti freedom, brainwashed weirdo", excuses trying to avoid the obvious.

Meanwhile, more stable, very intelligent, self-disciplined, committed young Americans, blinded and raged by events in the Middle East, will turn their frustration into action and we will have more "stealth terrorists" - and the Americans and war mongers will keep looking everywhere except into a mirror.

Anybody wonder why this small group of "terrorists" is now in control of the largest new nation (ISIL) in the Middle East while the powerful military of the West looks like a bunch of Keystone Kops?

Understand your enemy if you ever hope to defeat him.

Edited July 18, 2015 by Big Guy

[Argus]

There is a reason that so far ISIL has been winning this war. These are Iraqis, Libyans, Syrians, Afghans et al .

They live there. They were born there. They are fighting a civil war of Sunni against Shia because the West stuck its nose into the region, created a vacuum of power now everybody is fighting again to get control.

The Frontline program takes a diversion, dealing for a time with the young men and women who have flocked to IS from other countries. “Attracted by a life of Islamic purity,” the voiceover says. But what we see in glimpses from footage is young men giggling as they survey messages on their cellphones. Watching, we have to wonder what their actions have to do with any religious experiences; these are young thugs bent on murder and rape. There are pedophiles among them, taking advantage of the opportunity to rape nine-year-old girls.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/television/doyle-pbs-doc-explores-iss-harrowing-systematic-rapes-sexual-slavery/article25484203/

Meanwhile, more stable, very intelligent, self-disciplined, committed young Americans, blinded and raged by events in the

Middle East, will turn their frustration into action and we will have more "stealth terrorists" - and the Americans and warmongers will keep looking everywhere except into a mirror.

Stable, intelligent young people blinded by rage at... what? What kind of stable, intelligent person would feel enthusiasm for a group which engages in genocide, mass rape and sex slavery, for burying prisoners alive, for burning them alive in front of the cameras? That's your idea of stable and intelligent? Clearly we have different standards! And you continue to put terrorism in brackets, as if to show your contempt for people who label them as such. Pathetic.

[Big Guy]

To Argus - Until you learn to reply and comment with civility you will continue to get nothing from me. I am unable to take your comments seriously until/if you do so. I am surprised that you continue to comment on my posts while I generally ignore yours.

Thank you for trying really hard and this last post showed some promise but you could not help yourself with that last "Pathetic" closure.

Keep trying, eventually you may learn how to express your own views without having to bait, insult or demean other posters. I look forward to reacting to your posts at that time.

I suspect that you will probably follow this post with yet another insult so I give you the last word. I hope this will be your last word.

Please forgive me if I choose not to play your silly games of upmanship. Go find someone else to insult.

Edited July 19, 2015 by Big Guy

[Argus]

To Argus - Until you learn to reply and comment with civility you will continue to get nothing from me. I am unable to take your comments seriously until/if you do so.

To Big guy. I haven't taken you seriously since you're first whiny, sanctimonious post. I merely reply to point out to others the complete intellectual and moral bankruptcy of your positions.

Now feel free to go on telling us again how stable and intelligent terrorists are, and how outraged they are by human rights abuses.

Edited July 18, 2015 by Argus

[Derek 2.0]

About flipping time, I'm sure more State Guard units and the DoD will reverse this nonsensical policy, first started under the Bush White House, then further compounded by Clinton:

The governors of Florida, Texas and Indiana on Saturday ordered National Guard members at offices and other facilities to be armed in the wake of attacks that left five servicemen dead in Tennessee.

Governors Rick Scott of Florida, Greg Abbott of Texas and Mike Pence of Indiana said National Guard members need to protect themselves after four Marines and a Navy petty officer were shot and killed on Thursday in Chattanooga, Tennessee. One site was a recruiting office in a strip mall.

[Rue]

For Big Guy to come on this board as understanding terrorists let alone Mulsim ones and then pontificating he knows more than the US government does about ISIL and lecturing this forum is delusional.

His describing terrorists as stable people turning their frustrations to actions is a vivid examapleof how he sanitizes terrorism as the act or rational people simply frustrated. Yes that sure is an understanding of terrorists.

Just as I think the posts can't get any more absurd. Wow.

Justifying terrorism , posing as an expert on it,professing to know the head space of Muslim extremists. Yes Big Guy your Jewish friends

disgusted by my opinions must be relieved to know terrorists are just frustrated stable people.

Phew.

[Rue]

Depicting terrorists with brackets and referencing them as stable people simply frustrated and acting out as Big Guy has stated after posing

as a terrorist expert and lecturing the US on terrorism to me speaks loudly.

The sad thing is we have no shortage of arm chair terrorist experts trying to paint terrorists as simply frustrated stable people.

Only a sheltered person removed from the reality of actual terrorism could talk that way.

The presumption to claim to understand let alone speak for terrorists speaks for itself in its apologetic tone.

[Big Guy]

To Derek 2.0 - I would agree that any member of the military in the USA should be armed when in performance of their duties. The USA is at war and the recruiters must be considered targets.

It seems illogical that with the popularity of guns and gun ownership in the USA that those in uniform be one of those few without them. I do not understand why they were not armed in the first place.

[Big Guy]

To Rue - Thank you for your brief response(s). It appears that you and Argus have a different opinion of posters on this board than do I. I believe that they are intelligent and quite capable of making their own decisions based on what they read from my keyboard. Argus appears to question their ability and feels that they need his expertise "to point out my complete intellectual and moral bankruptcy of some of my positions". None of the posters seem to have thanked him for his help but I assume they are holding back their praise and accolades for later.

And Rue, you also appear to feel that other posters are not very bright. You have pointed out again and again and again that Big Guy is a terrorist apologist, anti-Semite, Jew hater, not very smart, Nazi fan, clueless on international politics, arm chair terrorist expert, sheltered person, pontificator, a teller of tales and has bad breath. One would assume that they would have heard you the first time.

To those other posters who still read my posts, I fear that we are not being told the truth about our involvement in the Middle East and this "expedition" will ends up the same as Vietnam, Somalia, Libya, Afghanistan, Syria and Iraq.

We are being played like a fine fiddle.

Edited July 19, 2015 by Big Guy

[Derek 2.0]

It seems illogical that with the popularity of guns and gun ownership in the USA that those in uniform be one of those few without them. I do not understand why they were not armed in the first place.

US Federal Government policy, namely the insistence that Federal Government facilities be designated "gun free zones", in this case, as noted on the front door of the recruiting office:

Outside of combat zones, very few US military personal are armed on a daily basis..........presently, only military police, Marines and USAF security personal guarding nuclear weapons, and those (namely Marines) entrusted with protecting the National Command Authority (President) are armed......

Edited July 19, 2015 by Charles Anthony
image deleted [img=http://crimepreventionresearchcenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/IMG_0343.jpg]

[Argus]

To Rue - Thank you for your brief response(s). It appears that you and Argus have a different opinion of posters on this board than do I. I believe that they are intelligent and quite capable of making their own decisions based on what they read from my keyboard. Argus appears to question their ability and feels that they need his expertise "to point out my complete intellectual and moral bankruptcy of some of my positions".

To be fair, I doubt many of them have to be educated on that. I still like to point it out, since refuting stupid ideas is part of what I like to do here.

[Rue]

Big Guy I have never called you a fan of Nazis. Either provide the accusation

or retract it. I have never said such a thing and I do not appreciate the

false accusation.

I question you and anyone else who equate terrorists as being soldiers yes.

Do not deliberately change what I stated. Its there for all to read.

Whether you are bright or dull I leave for an electrician to decide.

Don't hide behind other posters and stop portraying yourself as a victim.

If you want to equate terrorists as just being frustrated stable people acting out

take responsibility for the words.

Also knock of the thank you shtick. The passive aggression is pointless.

Edited July 21, 2015 by Rue