Posted on 01/06/2020 5:24:23 AM PST by PapaBear3625
“One’s man terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.”
When ‘freedom fighters’ attack American targets, they’re terrorists. But nice try on rewriting the language.
Not really. Not every enemy combatant is terrorist. Terrorists are people attacking civilian targets in the first place.
“Terrorists are people attacking civilian targets in the first place.”
OBL didn’t fly any of the planes into our buildings, so he wasn’t a terrorist and killing him was wrong, I guess?
Please, do not engage in scholasticism. What you are doing now is called identity politics and it is a leftist thing. The definition of terrorist is quite clear. OBL pretty much fits it. Terrorist is a person using violence and intimidation PRIMARILY AGAINST CIVILIANS to reach some political goals.
“Terrorist is a person using violence and intimidation PRIMARILY AGAINST CIVILIANS to reach some political goals.”
I consider people working in an embassy to be civilians. Perhaps you consider them fair game?
I didn’t see anyone killed in the Embassy although the attack was wrong of course. All in all the attack vaguely fits the profile of ‘popular unrest’ - a definition mulled by the department of state when not aimed against them. It is a muddy territory and to pin it on Iranian military is a dangerous precedent. People might start to ask questions regarding other ‘popular unrests’ and pin it on US officials. I believe nobody wants CIA and state officials get blown in American airports for their roles in such things.
I am not saying it picking sides on the issue. That is just a diplomatic perspective of that situation.
The popular point of view in the middle east is that US behind ISIS and Al-Qaeda and Iran is against it. They believe that US is arming and supporting terrorists who are killing ordinary people and Iranian military is their saviors who fight against terrorists.
Try to look at it from their perspective to understand the situation.
I don’t believe for a second that people there, other than Shiites, consider Iran their savior.
As to the rest, there were one or two people killed by this clown in Beirut, in 1983 (and no, I don’t believe in a statue of limitations on murder).
Anyway, Rand, best of luck to convincing people here that Jimmy Carter’s policies were better than Trump’s. I’m through!
Ordinary people want to live normal lives. They don’t care about politics much. I believe for now the majority in Iraq Shia or Sunni would like to get back to 1970s with Saddam in charge. The same is true with Assad in Syria. They just want to have what they had before the wars. The problem with foreign involvement in the regime change is the failure always pinned on the foreign power involved.
Not as sure about Saddam, but definitely the case with Assad. And I agree with thinking we can install a regime in any of these countries, and have it appear credible to the masses (since it’s immediately tainted once we are backing them) - that’s why we used to use the CIA for that type of work.
But I don’t think either case is the issue with Iran - if we do cause their overthrow, it will be in retaliation for something specific, and bad, they did to us. In other words, that’s incidental and we also won’t be involved in ‘nation building’ there...at least not under Trump.
Once US is out it will be Iranian problem. In ten years they’d hate Iranians the same way they hate US. Currently they simply view them as a lesser evil and for a good reason.
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