Comment by anigbrowl

Comment by anigbrowl 2 days ago

But by definition the founders of the USA were terrorists. And they knew it too, viz. Benjamin Franklin's famous line 'Gentlemen, we must all hang together or we shall most assuredly hang separately.'

Preemptively invalidating all non-state actors is just a way for people with power to avoid challenges to it. Every single oppressive regime describes rebels as terrorists and employs circular arguments to assert its own legitimacy. Using this to dismiss military attacks on military targets is, frankly, bullshit.

PepperdineG 2 days ago

What Franklin said was true though. If the US revolutionaries had failed, they would have been rightfully hung for treason by the British. If you're some private actor attacking military targets in some country, you'd be a terrorist. I'm no fan of Iran for example but if somebody was caught launching rockets at an IRGC base the Iranian government could legitimately treat them as terrorists/traitors no problem.

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lazide 21 hours ago

Eh - that depends on how you do it, right?
If everyone in your ‘private actor’ group wears uniforms, acts in the open (ie marches in formation, operates tanks instead of setting boobie traps, etc), and then attacks military operations directly it’s going to require an extreme amount of squinting to call that group terrorists.
Whoever is running it would probably get a pretty fair title of warlord. But they’re different.
At the same time, it a gov’t organization runs around bombing civilian targets in a campaign to scare everyone in their opponents country out of their mind, pretty hard to not call them terrorists.

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mr_toad a day ago

> But by definition the founders of the USA were terrorists

I don’t remember reading any attacks on civilians in the revolutionary war. The civilians would have all been Americans, so it wouldn’t make sense.

The British regarded them as traitors, and would have hung them for treason and sedition.

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bamboozled 2 days ago

[flagged]

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anigbrowl a day ago

Since 2009 Hezbollah's charter has been far more nationalist than religious (even endorsing democracy as the desirable form of polity). This isn't to say they're not influenced by their religious views, but nor do I think Islam has any monopoly on bad ideas. I am not a fan of monotheistic religions in general, as they all rest on the conceit that there is only One True Way to think about spiritual matters and such certitude is often used to excuse atrocities. More often, religious rhetoric is used as a common framework to organize participants in what is often a much more prosaic struggle over resources and geographic advantage.

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klingoff 2 days ago

Why do you assume they had your sense of ethics? 10 was often considered the age of adulthood. Little men had no specific exception from work or war, or expectation of education outside specific classes. Being a regular troop was more often from 16, but plenty fought from 10 up or had other roles in battle.

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- bamboozled a day ago
  
  1) You need to start somewhere, 2) people don't realize how good we have it today and it's because of people like the founding fathers we can enjoy this reality, going back as far as plato and socrates.
  There is a reason why you choose to live in a democratic society, because it's the absolute best system we've ever had, and probably will for some time.
  
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  tharkun__ a day ago
  
  Not to detract from any of what you said but the "founders of democracy" i.e. the ancient Greeks had some (nowadays) pretty controversial ideas vis a vis what was considered OK and normal about things like child exploitation, slavery, sexual exploitation etc.
  
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za3faran a day ago

Who says "kill the infidels"?

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- bamboozled a day ago
  
  https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1726739588457156922.html
  I think you're either trolling, really out of touch with reality, but here is an excerpt from the above:
  2. We hate you because your secular, liberal societies permit the very things that Allah has prohibited while banning many of the things He has permitted, a matter that doesn’t concern you because you separate between religion and state, thereby granting supreme authority to your whims and desires via the legislators you vote into power. In doing so, you desire to rob Allah of His right to be obeyed and you wish to usurp that right for yourselves. “Legislation is not but for Allah” (Yusuf 40). Your secular liberalism has led you to tolerate and even support “gay rights,” to allow alcohol, drugs, fornication, gambling, and usury to become widespread, and to encourage the people to mock those who denounce these filthy sins and vices. As such, we wage war against you to stop you from spreading your disbelief and debauchery – your secularism and nationalism, your perverted liberal values, your Christianity and atheism – and all the depravity and corruption they entail. You’ve made it your mission to “liberate” Muslim societies; we’ve made it our mission to fight off your influence and protect mankind from your misguided concepts and your deviant way of life.
  Is that enough for you? The part about "waging war against non believers caught my eye", how about you?
  
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  anigbrowl a day ago
  
  That's from the Islamic State. Hezbollah (and their backers, Iran) were no fans of theirs not least because IS was Sunni whereas H/I are Shia. Over 14 centuries the two groups have developed some very different ideas; conflating them is likely to result in misunderstandings.
  If you want an in-depth understanding of Middle Eastern politics, including but not limited to the impact of religion, I recommend the late Robert Fisk's The Great War for Civilization.
  Incidentally, I can't help but observe that this hyper-conservative rhetoric is not a million miles away from current histrionics about the 'woke mind virus'. Relatively mainstream US think tanks like the Heritage Foundation advocate for the criminalization of pornography and I get the impression they're not too hot on 'sin' in general.
  
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  za3faran a day ago
  
  I'm neither trolling, not out of touch.
  You're citing ISIS. I suggest you some research to see who funded (and founded) ISIS and their ilk, and their predecessors for the matter, and for whose interests it is that they remain. Plus, even they don't use the word "infidel" in your link. They mix truth (e.g. western colonialism and rules that Islam dictates) with falsehood, to push their agenda. ISIS and their ilk have always attacked other Muslims. Plus, I don't see the word "infidel" there.
  
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