Norman Nescio wrote...
"Yes they are. By definition, intimidation and violence by
governments is not terrorism. The fact that the recipient is
feeling "terror" is irrelevant. Take back the language."
By what definition? State-sponsored terrorism as well as plain old
state-terrorism has been covered extensively by Chomsky and many others.
Check out the nifty little zinger,
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=11&ItemID=2064
Here's a little taste:
"There could hardly be a clearer example of international terrorism as
defined officially, or in scholarship: operations aimed at "demonstrating
through apparently indiscriminate violence that the existing regime cannot
protect the people nominally under its authority," thus causing not only
"anxiety, but withdrawal from the relationships making up the established
order of society."[10] State terror elsewhere in Central America in those
years also counts as international terrorism, in the light of the decisive
US role, and the goals, sometimes frankly articulated; for example, by the
Army's School of the Americas, which trains Latin American military officers
and takes pride in the fact that "Liberation Theology...was defeated with
the assistance of the U.S. Army."[11]
It would seem to follow, clearly enough, that only those who support bombing
of Washington in response to these international terrorist crimes -- that
is, no one -- can accept the "reciprocally absolute doctrine" on response to
terrorist atrocities or consider massive bombardment to be an appropriate
and properly "calibrated" response to them."
-TD
_________________________________________________________________
MSN 8 with e-mail virus protection service: 2 months FREE*
http://join.msn.com/?page=features/virus
