Quote:
Originally posted by theknife
...or do we say that they're really terrorists anyway, by virtue of the fact that they're angry Arabs?
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Actually, the epithet 'terrorist' does apply, but this doesn't make it any less ironic that these people are
not the same brand, group or class of terrorists which this war was supposed to eliminate, these are terrorists this war
created. (or magnified, isolated, exacerbated, provoked... whatever you prefer.)
It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. Hate to say I told you so, but some of us certainly expected it would be, didn't we?
But anyway, it does us little good to quibble about terminology, "angry Arabs" or "terrorists" these are people engaged in the definitive acts of provocation and coercion that earn the name. Hostage taking certainly qualifies.
The coalition forces do have rules of engagement and though they may be imperfect, blurry and adrift in a vague context, they do seek to operate at a different moral level. I would agree the consideration of morality in such situations is about as productive as lighting a cigarette with a nuclear weapon, that we have forced these people's hands and given them the very freedom of anarchy they've obviously craved for some time, but just because we're opposed to the war doesn't mean we have to make any special linguistic allowances for desperadoes, thugs and assholes. The disenfranchised human animal will always resort to terror. Why we pretended not to know this is beyond me.
And it is hard to say which force is 'more sophisticated.' The indigenous people do have deep centuries of traditions of control and proven methods incitement as their arsenal along with a primitive but highly effective technology, whether it's bits of metal and rusted wire and a handful of fuel, semi-automatic weapons or television images of blindfolded Japanese civilians. The coalition has GPS tracking, night vision, unmanned surviellance and laser guidance, but is still a blunt, brute and green force, designed and conditioned for something far more coherent than it faces.
It is extremely philosophically irksome that this prophecy is so self-fulfilling that many will soon so completely forget the true identity of these people that they will become stand-ins for the terrorists that posed real threats to us on our own soil, once, long ago, as if in a fevered dream. While we pursue teenaged suicide bombers contained in a dispossessed third world with all our classic American determination and enthusiasm, whatever global terror networks may be out there with the real power to hurt us are still there, watching us expend ourselves, giggling in the shadows.
You're absolutely right that we should make a distinction theknife, a serious, clear distinction that we will not forget between the fighting Iraqi and the global terrorist, but the longer the fight goes, the more moot the distinction may become, because we are breeding the global terrorists of tomorrow.
And I'd disagree with your observation mdneer. You yourself were saying essentially
"fight harder, fight better" in another post--and this is pretty consistent with what I'm hearing from 'most' other advocates, while I myself, and I believe 'most' who were against it think that, as multi said, if we were to disappear overnight we will have "helped" the situation as much as if we stayed there 40 years, and that we wouldn't be doing much more harm than has already been done.
edit: I posted at about the same time as theknife there and his comment made me think that the truer observation is probably that those on
both sides of the issue are now simply less certain of themselves. The impact of reality is far greater than the impact of ideas...