Terrorism is it legitimite - Should we use it to further the

[apathy maybe]

What with various acts of terrorism in the news, do people think that it is a legitimite tactic in the fight against capitilism? Terrorism defined here as "The use or threatened use of force or violence by a person or an organized group against people or property with the intention of intimidating or coercing societies or governments, for ideological or political reasons."

[Ian]

I don't think many people on this board support the typical type of terrorist action. But most of us would support a guerrilla war.

[SuicideisPainless]

think we would have to distance ourselves from any forms of terrorism that kill innocent people and concentrate on guerrilla tactics against military objectives. Terrorism is not legitimite

[oconner]

Che was against terrorism...the qoute is somewhere in my brain...darn, forgot it.

[apathy maybe]

Was the attack on the pentagon legitimite? And we can't really include any armed forces in 'innocent people' as they would be in them otherwise.
And isn't a guerrilla war, terrorism in your own country against an occuping power.
I don't condone violence of any sort but I am just getting peoples reactions. Get them to think.

[Ian]

The attack on the pentagon would have been acceptable if done by ground troops who were observant as to who they were shooting at to make sure they didn't kill civilians, however, the attack on the pentagon was done using a passenger plane and it had little purpose (they didn't steal any secrets, they didn't fuck up the military capabilities of the U$A).

[Umoja]

But you don't need to win millitarily to win. You need to wound your enemies spirit.... Which furthur confuses me on the attack.

[redstar2000]

"The use or threatened use of force or violence by a person or an organized group against people or property with the intention of intimidating or coercing societies or governments, for ideological or political reasons."

This is a remarkably clever use of words. It means revolution = terrorism. I assume, therefore, that this is the official U.S. Government's definition.

Most ordinary people, when they think of terrorism, think of attacks on innocent civilians. But THIS definition goes FAR beyond that: it says that any violent attempt to coerce "societies" IS terrorism.

It "logically" follows that communist ideas are "terrorist ideas", that advocating communism is "advocating terrorism", and that ANY form of popular insurrection on behalf of communism is a "terrorist uprising".

I HOPE I'm not the only person on the board who sees through this pathetic attempt to "outlaw" communist revolution by labeling it in advance as "terrorism".

But our enemies WILL try just about anything to stop us...including word play. As far as I am concerned, they can take their "terrorist" label and shove it up their ass!

:angry:

[canikickit]

This is, I believe the official definition:


“The unlawful use of force or violence committed by a group or individual, who has some connection to a foreign power or whose activities transcend national boundaries, against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives.”

There's not much difference, but anyway.

Of course, a regime change, led by the US easily conform's to this definition. Or the other one. It's all bullshit. I think a superior definition for terrorism, is:

"deliberatly targeting civilians for idealogical purposes"

Anyway, here's a good article on the topic of US terrorism:

http://www.tanbou.com/2001/fall/USForeignP...PolicyElias.htm (http://www.tanbou.com/2001/fall/USForeignPolicyElias.htm)

It's nice and long.

[Lefty]

I define terrorism as attacks on civilians to prove a point or to influence people in some way. By this definition, I refuse to be associated with any movement that uses terrorism as a means of furthering its cause.

[redstar2000]

On a cold afternoon in Berlin, January 30, 1933, Adolph Hitler took the oath of office as Chancellor (prime minister) of the Weimar Republic.

That evening, Hitler reviewed "his troops"--the S.A. men parading past the government's official residency--from a balcony overlooking the street.

If, at that point, a communist sniper had shot and killed Hitler (a civilian), would THAT be terrorism in your view?

:cool:

[canikickit]

Bit of a bullshit question isn't it?

I say absolutely not. He might technically have been a civilian, but he still had political power.

[Umoja]

Yes, it would have been terrorism. Killing is morally wrong, do you want to be killed for your beliefs?

[apathy maybe]

Edit.

[redstar2000]

"redstar, you are a fool. Not everyone has the same views you do, but that does not make them wrong."

Funny, I always THOUGHT that's what it meant. :cheesy:

A/M, you have every right to refuse to have anything to do with communist revolution because it's "terrorism" or for any other reason.

You (and Umoja) are evidently pacifists. That is a coherent position and perhaps, in some eyes, admirable.

The capitalist class is NOT pacifist. Indeed, they have shown remarkable aptitude for mass murder of civilians. I don't expect that to change. Do you?

I have made it clear in other threads that I am not one who worships at the altar of "armed struggle"...I think too many lefties get caught up in stupid macho rhetoric about "political power growing out of the barrel of a gun" and crap like that.

I would even go so far as to say that it MIGHT be possible to have a real revolution relatively peacefully...a massive general strike and a mass mutiny by the armed forces would do it. (As I recall, the uprising in Petrograd that brought the Bolsheviks to power had one person wounded and NO ONE killed...interesting.)

But it's YOUR call: if you have to choose between pacifism and working class revolution, which one will YOU choose?

:cool:

[SuicideisPainless]

redstar, if someone had a shot at HItler before he came to power and took it then yes it would be terrorism as noone had any idea of what he ws going to do, most politicians including Britain and US ones believed in Hitler.

HOWEVER

If the speech was made when he invaded Czechoslovakia then no it would not be terrorism it would be an act of war to prevent a greater war

[redstar2000]

SiP, GERMANS knew what Hitler was up to as early as 1923!

In possible confirmation of my earlier posts on this subject, the BBC reports that 6 people have been arrested in England under the Anti-Terrorist Law for being MEMBERS of a "terrorist organization"--namely a Turkish "left-wing" group; 5 of the victims are Turks and one is English.

Did someone on this thread actually call ME a "fool"?

:angry:

[Pete]

Hezbollah is banned in Canada because of the Conservatives and Canadian Alliance and Liberal Dissenters (we have a lovely mess at the moment) say that just because the political wing is leftist that it must be banned, as the militant wing has already been. A sad day indeed.

[Man of the Cause]

I personally think that REAL terrorism (Strikes against politically or enomically important persons or buildings, not that civilian killing shit) is the early form of guerilla war. I too, have been (And I guess I still am) a pasifist. But I do think that a revolution is acceptable, I just think that violence done by one state two another state is wrong.

And Redstar, How dare you criticise our great Chairman's wise words?! I guess me and the other Mao fans in this forum should do little cultural revolution against your kruyschevists, revischionist ideas! :wink:
No, seriously that quote has been misused and misunderstood by many. It gives you the image that Mao is a some kind of military madman who want's to kill everybody who doesn't agree with him. If you read a little bit of Mao you realize that it means that the working class should get to power by revolution. Here's another Mao quote which should lighten things up a little: "The guns shouldn't control the people, the people should control the guns"

[Non-Sectarian Bastard!]

Don't believe in the word terrorism.

The word terrorist is just a word wich the strongest government uses to pin point enemy's.

Example:
Washington was a traitor and terrorist for the Brittish government. Now the Brittish have lost worldpower they don't say that Washington was a traitor and a terrorist.

The Russians are the strongest party wich is involved in the Chechnyan war. So now the Chechnyan are the terrorists.

The Soviet Union was a bigger threat to the USA than Iraq or North Korea ever can be, but of all the words the US government used, they didn't say terrorist.

The men of Osama Bin Laden were before 1993 freedom fighters and even rebels, after it they are terrorists. While there ideas and work hasn't changed a bit.

See my point??

[Pete]

Washington was a traitor and terrorist for the Brittish government. Now the Brittish have lost worldpower they don't say that Washington was a traitor and a terrorist.

My OAC Canadian history class calls Washington a tratiorous murdering terrorist or a damn rebel. :biggrin: Basically, Welcome to Canada, the Land that Care More About the Empire Then the Empire Cares About It's Self.

Wasn't Marx against the use of force outside of the Revolution because it would help the Plutocrats play against us? I think we should all remain peaceful until the Global Proletariant rises up against the Global Bourgoisie. All we should do is educate as many people as we can to our ideology. Mostly the Global Proletariant, but also if you have the Global Bourgoisie willing to make sacrafices (as I am) then the Revolution will be a lot less bloody. So it is my belief that until Revolution is spontaneously created we should educate and wait peacefully.

[Umoja]

I'm pretty much MLK in my philosophy, but regardless a person can never truly create a nation in the blood of it's enemies, and not expect that to influence the state itself. War kills people, Terrorism (generally) kills people. I don't want to be killed, you don't want to be killed, and no one else does (except disturbed people) so terrorism (and violent revolution) is never a means to furthering any peaceful goal.

[redstar2000]

Actually, MotC, I used to be something of a Maoist myself...though, as things turned out, not a very good one.

But I was not really criticizing Mao on this one...but rather that strain in the American "left" which tries to pose as "super-militant"--let's get some guns and start shooting now...everything else is just bullshit talk. It's quite possible that there are not as many of those types around any more; they used to be quite common.
----------------------------------
I have another example of "terrorism" to cite.

During the Nazi occupation of France, the French resistance conducted a particular kind of operation which worked like this: they would seek out bars and cafes that catered to German troops and, when the place was packed, ride by on a bicycle and toss in a grenade or two. Not only German soldiers were killed but also French civilians. The resistance did this a LOT.

So, was this "terrorism"? And was it "justified"?

:cool:

[Pete]

Moskitto

"History is written by the victors"

I don't want to get to much into revionism or loaded words. I say it happened.

[Anonymous]

terrorism is theaction ofinstauring chaos and fear among civilians and inocent people, therefore anti-revolutionary, a revolution is only proper and socialist when done By the people, therefore terrorist groups, attacking civilians dont help at all, now the destruction of private property isnt terrorism, yet if the aim of that destruction is also inocent lives then it is terrorism..


terrorism doesnt help, it only destroys, guerrilla isnt terrorism incase yourwonder, but it can be if notdone correctly...

[Man of the Cause]

Quote: from redstar2000 on 9:54 pm on Dec. 31, 2002
Actually, MotC, I used to be something of a Maoist myself...though, as things turned out, not a very good one.

But I was not really criticizing Mao on this one...but rather that strain in the American "left" which tries to pose as "super-militant"--let's get some guns and start shooting now...everything else is just bullshit talk. It's quite possible that there are not as many of those types around any more; they used to be quite common.
----------------------------------
I have another example of "terrorism" to cite.

During the Nazi occupation of France, the French resistance conducted a particular kind of operation which worked like this: they would seek out bars and cafes that catered to German troops and, when the place was packed, ride by on a bicycle and toss in a grenade or two. Not only German soldiers were killed but also French civilians. The resistance did this a LOT.

So, was this "terrorism"? And was it "justified"?

:cool:


It was "terrorism", absolutely. Or to quote: "A small group of people doing strike attacks against politically or militarilly important buildings or persons"
But was it justified? I don't think that it made any difference in the outcome of the war, nor did it have any effect on the German armed forces.
So the question is, how did these attacks effect the French's oppinion on the Nazi occupation? Did the dying of the innocent French destroy public sympathy for the resistance movement? Did the killing of the Germans raise the French nationalism? I think it has to be judged this way.

[redstar2000]

MotC, I'm really NOT an authority on the French Resistance. What I've read suggests that most French hated the German occupation forces primarily because of German arrogance--none of the various tactics used by the resistance hadmuch effect one way or the other.

What many French people DID hate were those who were seen to cooperate with the Germans...I am guessing here, but I imagine the deaths of the French civilians who were killed along with Germans in a cafe or nightclub would have only brought a classic Gallic shrug from most French. An American might put it this way: "hang out with rats--don't be surprised when the exterminator arrives." My guess is that the French had a similar view.

The resistance in all of the western European countries had little or no effect on the outcome of the war; partisan warfare was FAR more effective in occupied Russia and Yugoslavia. The aim of the French cafe bombs and similar efforts elsewhere was to "terrorize" the Germans...to make them live "in fear" every moment of the occupation. You could call it, if you wanted, an extreme version of psychological warfare.

The point of the two examples that I've raised in this thread (and other examples could be given as well) is that we should NOT let our class enemies "terrorize" US with the word "terrorism".

Our view should be: ANY practical, effective form of resistance to capitalist tyranny IS JUSTIFIED...and abstract considerations about what is "terrorism" and what isn't are irrelevant.

There's even a saying from Chairman Mao that applies: TO REBEL IS JUSTIFIED! On that one, he was right.

:cool:

[Anonymous]

any civilian that colaborates with thenazis isnt inocent, and therefore hiskilling isnt bad...

La resistance didnt bombed cafes, itbombedbridges, factorys, and other stuff necessary to the nazis, not civilians..

andtheyr aim was not to make the germans live in fear, their aim was to sabotage german facilitys and steal info that later would be passsed to the allies....

[Pete]

Where did Marx stand on this issue?

[redstar2000]

Crazy Pete, it's hard to say. For example, there was a wave of assassinations by "anarchists" ("terrorists"?) in the late 19th century--the targets were members of the European royal families. But Marx had already died and Engels was quite elderly.

The BIAS in Marx and Engels is definitely towards MASS ACTIONS and AGAINST individual/small group resistance. When Marx contested with Bakunin in the First Internationale, much of the dispute revolved around Bakunin's theory of small, conspiritorial groups as the road to working class revolution (though I don't believe that Bakunin himself would have been considered a "terrorist").

My guess is that Marx and Engels would have regarded "terrorism" as historically insignificant...not worth occupying one's mind over. Significant class struggle means LARGE numbers of workers involved...nothing else counts for much either way.

(Edited by redstar2000 at 12:45 am on Jan. 3, 2003)

[Umoja]

Don't worry about what Marx would think, worry about what you do think.

[Non-Sectarian Bastard!]

The word terrorist is a word used by the strongest force to pinpoint enemy's. That's all it is.

[Pete]

Umoja, I was just looking for a historical impression :) but I make my own conclusions, always.

CCCP you are correct:biggrin: