Saddam Hussein's Dead: Iraqi Justice brought to you by Bush

Tom Kalbfus · 2007-01-05 10:23:18

Rather then get into a tit for tat argument here, i would like to bring up an actual bit of conversation.
No one here will argue that Saddam was a just and fair ruler. He did commit awful crimes that i think he should be accountable for.
BUT!
It looks to me that it did a good job of running the country. (minus his lust for war) Before you explode, hear me out.
Currently, we have civilians being killed in the thousands per month. There is rampant crime by militia groups, outsiders (Iran and the like) and even US solders. There are power outages, people don't have running water and have the risk of being blown up while buying food.
Now, Saddam's methods were no doubt harsh and I am no way saying it's right, but it may be the only way to pacify the region.
Just like on the play ground, it could be said that the "kids" or "factions" won't get along unless you threaten to slap them.
Discuss.

Saddam was more ruthless than he needed to be, and we are not ruthless enough. In order to win the War, our soldiers must be allowed to fight, and not be so hamstringed by rules of engagement that we cannot initiate attacks against suspected insurgents. I don't want another Saddam-like dictator, and I don't wan't a religious dictator either, but our rules of engagement must be realistic enough to allow us to win. We mustn't be so concerned about civilian casualities that we cannot defeat the enemy. A prolonged and endless war is a worse evil than a war with some civilian casualities, even ones that were killed inadvertantly by US soldiers. I think we are focused too much on winning the "Hearts and Minds" and not enough on defeating the enemy. I think some human judgement needs to be employed here, and we mustn't be "logic robots" blindly following enumerated rules of engagement written by liberals. One of the tactics employed by the enemy is the use of human shields and to hide among the civilian populations. There are factions of the population that support the terrorists, if we judge that to be the case, we should raise their homes to the ground just like General Sherman did during the Civil War, it worked after all. Sherman tried not to kill too many civilians, his objective was to destroy property and not people, and he didn't enjoy this task, but winning the war was his overriding priority, and he figured not winning the war was the greater evil than burning these civilians homes. The problem with the troops in Iraq is that the rules of engagement put too much stress on the not doing wrong in the here and now and not enough emphasis in winning the War. The American people have shown their impatience with this by voting out members of congress, unfortunately they did so by voting in more "here and now" people and fewer "lets win the war and get this over with" people. I think we have at least a year to win this War before the Democrats defund it. The emphasis should be on training Iraqi troops so they can carry on the conflict in 2008, when the Democrats have their say. I think after January 1, 2008, the Democrats should be encouraged to provide funding assistance directly to the Iraqi government, and they should be allowed to buy military equipment from our defense contractors, but the Iraqi people should be prepared to continue this fight and do what is necessary to win it, and we should allow them to do what is needed.

clark · 2007-01-05 11:40:15

I agree with Tom!

America needs to get serious and start burning down peoples homes. Sure, we blow them up occassionaly, but we need a serious policy of total destruction of any and all areas where insurgents operate- strike that, we need to just raze all areas where we think insurgents are operating, or might be operating, or could one day be operating, or possibly even where they may decide to take a vacation one weekend.

We are not going to win any hearts and minds by playing nice and worrying about killing innocent civilians and helping to rebuild a shattered economy wracked with unemployment and full of government corruption. Just forget that fantasy. No, we obviously need to just bulldoze whatever and whomever into the same pit in the name of democracy, freedom, and the glourious hope of making Iraq a beacon of liberty where all good little arabs gather to vote in government administrators that reflect good ol fashioned american values.

I mean come on people, isn't it obvious?

Brought to you by the people who should know better but are obviously under-medicated and completely over stimulated.

Tom Kalbfus · 2007-01-05 13:31:11

I agree with Tom!
America needs to get serious and start burning down peoples homes. Sure, we blow them up occassionaly, but we need a serious policy of total destruction of any and all areas where insurgents operate- strike that, we need to just raze all areas where we think insurgents are operating, or might be operating, or could one day be operating, or possibly even where they may decide to take a vacation one weekend.
We are not going to win any hearts and minds by playing nice and worrying about killing innocent civilians and helping to rebuild a shattered economy wracked with unemployment and full of government corruption. Just forget that fantasy. No, we obviously need to just bulldoze whatever and whomever into the same pit in the name of democracy, freedom, and the glourious hope of making Iraq a beacon of liberty where all good little arabs gather to vote in government administrators that reflect good ol fashioned american values.
I mean come on people, isn't it obvious?
Brought to you by the people who should know better but are obviously under-medicated and completely over stimulated.

Trying to construct a logic trap are you?
I'm not saying we should be all this or all that, what I'm saying is that we should use human judgement and set priorities rather than blindly adhere to a set of rules that the Insurgents can take advantage of. Our priorities in descending order should be the following:

1) Win the War!
2) Protect Lives
3) Protect Property

The higher numbers take precidence over the lower numbers, but the lower numbers are still important and should be followed as much as possible, out of moral considerations, so long as they don't interfere with the higher priorities.

What you seem to be saying is just forget 2 and 3 just concentrating on number 1. I think that's a mistake, because that is not the people we are.

We don't live in a logical true/false world, but I do think we should be trying to win the war as our number one priority. If you don't agree with winning the war, you may want to emphasise 2 and 3 over 1, and you might say things like: above all we should not send our soldiers into that mosque to root out those terrorists, we should not level that mosque and instead we should send our soldiers into that mosque so they can spring every trap the insurgents have set up, so they can ambush us in corridors and so forth, and our over all strategy should be simply to overwhelm them with numbers all the while trying to minimize damage to the mosque and all artifacts within, our soldiers should take off their boots when they enter show proper respect for their religion and then go after the insurgents very carefully, and then if the casualities are too high, then its an unwinnable war and we should pull out in disgrace anyway.

You see if you set conditions that are hard for our soldiers to fight under, then what you get is an unwinnable war so long as you try to meet those condition. I'm sorry, but my priority is winning the war, and that we should do what we have to in order to win. If we have to blow up that building the insurgents are in then fine, it better than taking an unacceptable level of casualities trying to root them out in corridor to corridor fighting.

clark · 2007-01-05 15:10:56

I agree with Tom again!

We should make priority number one "Win the War". Frankly, all other considerations must play second fiddle to that goal.

We can't protect everyone and win the war, so lets just protect no one and focus on winning the war.

We can't protect all property and win the war, so lets just forget about protecting property and focus on winning the war.

Think about it, if we don't worry about saving lives and saving property, we only have one thing to do- Win the War!

So a few hundred thousand innocent people die, let's do it if it means we win the war!

So large swaths of city and farmland are rendered unlivable, let's do it if it means we win the war!

The Iraqi population, I mean, those Iraqi that are left who are still surviving in the last bombed out crater that was their city or home will rejoice when America producly announces, "We Won the War" and marches honorably home!

I personally love how this glorious campaign to protect America from foreign terroists has now devolved to the point where we debate the merits of wholesale destruction of another people and place so we can chant, "U.S.A". I mean come on, whats to debate? Just kill the S.O.B's, burn their homes, loot their towns, and trade their women among the troops.

Number04 · 2007-01-05 21:57:33

And then become the very thing the US is fighting against.

But that's another point.

What are the conditions of a "win" in Iraq? Because it's now a civil war.

Is it a democracy? Because i theory it's already there.

Peace? The only way it seems to archive that is at the point of the sword, the same way Saddam did it. (In theory)

I'm only bringing this up because we had "Mission Accomplished" a few years ago. The reason this whole situation got where it is is due to the fact that there is no clear "win" outcome.

Tom Kalbfus · 2007-01-06 00:43:03

I agree with Tom again!
We should make priority number one "Win the War". Frankly, all other considerations must play second fiddle to that goal.
We can't protect everyone and win the war, so lets just protect no one and focus on winning the war.
We can't protect all property and win the war, so lets just forget about protecting property and focus on winning the war.
Think about it, if we don't worry about saving lives and saving property, we only have one thing to do- Win the War!
So a few hundred thousand innocent people die, let's do it if it means we win the war!
So large swaths of city and farmland are rendered unlivable, let's do it if it means we win the war!
The Iraqi population, I mean, those Iraqi that are left who are still surviving in the last bombed out crater that was their city or home will rejoice when America producly announces, "We Won the War" and marches honorably home!
I personally love how this glorious campaign to protect America from foreign terroists has now devolved to the point where we debate the merits of wholesale destruction of another people and place so we can chant, "U.S.A". I mean come on, whats to debate? Just kill the S.O.B's, burn their homes, loot their towns, and trade their women among the troops.

Clark, you are a logic robot, the notion of fuzzy logic and human judgement and common sense seem beyond you. All you can do is run your code, exercise certian rules using your on/off circuits. Has it ever occured to you that the World is analog, not binary? You know why robots have such a hard time dealing with the real world and moving about in it? Because robots have computers for brains and computers see the world in binary as a bunch of ones and zeros. To get robots to function in the real world, programmers have to write code that interprets what the robots see into ones and zeros, and the computer has to be programmed to perform logic operations on those ones and zeros in such a way that it can move about and function in the real world by correctly interpreting those ones and zeros.

Humans don't see the World in binary, at least most humans don't, they realize that the world comes in shades, degrees, and colors, they don't worry about the exact number of hairs a bear needs for them to consider it fuzzy. Likewise if they see an enemy shooting at them, they know what to do, they don't try to deduce that its an enemy by using a series of If ... Then statements, they just use their gut insticts that have evolved over a million years to realize that they must kill them before they are killed by this threat. On the battlefield, you don't have time for rigourus logical analysis of every situation or to codify a rulebook on what to do given every possible situation that may be face, instead you have to go with your gut survival instinct. Your problem is you don't seem to have a survival instinct, you spend too much time worrying about what is right and what is wrong rather than how to win and how not to lose. If the enemy wins, that is a bad thing, it doesn't matter whether the evil is attributed to you, but if you refuse to fight the enemy for fear of doing evil, and evil triumphs due to your inaction what good is that?

Terrorism is evil! What your trying to do is formulate a logical argument for not fighting evil, and pretending that is a moral decision.

Example: Evil was done by Union troops to win the civil war and abolish slavery. People who reasoned like you would say, while they abhor slavery, they don't want to burn peoples houses down or destroy the supplies of the Confederate army, and the war seems to drag on and on if you don't do these things, so they would conclude that the Civil War must be "unwinnable" and that the best thing to do is let the Confederate States go and recognize them as a seperate country and thus end hostilities, and they can pat themselves in the back for eliminating slavery in the United States by making the United States smaller and avoiding bloodshed in the process.

We don't live in a perfect world Clark, the ideal solution doesn't always work to solve all problems, and sometimes we have to take less than idea actions to achieve the best outcome, apparently you don't recognize that possibility, so you prefer to do nothing and settle for the worse outcome whenever such a dilemma arises. War is bloody and evil, many innocent people died in World War II at allied hands, that is simply the nature of modern warfare, but inagine if we didn't fight at all? The evil would triumph and Hitler would conquer the World without resistance.
I am not willing to surrender my country to terrorists, maybe you are, but I'm not. I believe a compromise can be worked out between "Do no harm" and "Stop others from doing harm" Sometimes doing the second unavoidably means harming someone, and their is no perfect solution in an imperfect world.

Tom Kalbfus · 2007-01-06 01:01:29

And then become the very thing the US is fighting against.

That is not inevitable. We were required to do a number of evil things to destroy the Nazis during World War II, we bombed cities and killed millions of Germans, and Japanese, but I cannot say the outcome of the War is worse than if we refused to fight and the Axis powers won.

But that's another point.
What are the conditions of a "win" in Iraq? Because it's now a civil war.

So? When we had our Civil War in America, we did not just give up and let the South Seperate because it was a Civil War. That sort of reasoning is that of the Copperhead Democrats in the 1860s who reasoned that we should not fight to keep the South within the Union because the bloody toll was too high and the things we had to do to win were immoral.

Is it a democracy? Because i theory it's already there.
Peace? The only way it seems to archive that is at the point of the sword, the same way Saddam did it. (In theory)

No, there are a number of ways to achieve peace through the "point of a Sword" not just Saddam's way. The obvious thing that nations must often fight to survive seems to elude you. You seem to be trying to reason that nations don't need armed forces if they just had the right attitude, that there is suicidal thinking. Nations that don't defend themselves soon cease to exist.

I'm only bringing this up because we had "Mission Accomplished" a few years ago. The reason this whole situation got where it is is due to the fact that there is no clear "win" outcome.

Oh yes there is, when the enemy is destroyed, we win. Who better is it to win, us or the terrorists? Seems the Liberals can't decide on that, they really can't decide who is worse, us or the terrorists. I don't want any strategy where the terrorists enjoy victory and we suffer defeat, and I don't see how we can win by not fighting. The Democrats say they know a way, but they don't say how, they are objecting to sending more troops to Iraq, but they refuse to reveal their own plan for victory, if one didn't know better, you'd think they'd prefer the US to lose and the terrorists to win.

It is self-defeating to say that by fighting terrorists we simply create more terrorists, that is simply an argument for not fighting terrorists and will result in the terrorists achieving victory over us. If you don't run the race, you don't cross the finish line; if you don't compete, you don't win the gold medal. These things should be obvious, just like if you don't fight the War, you don't win, but the Democrats and Liberals think otherwise. Next time there is an election, why don't the Democrats try that strategy and not run? That way we can have peace and no conflict in Washington, don't they want that? I thought they wanted peace.

Tom Kalbfus · 2007-01-06 08:48:05

Did you read the New York Times article on the "Arab Reaction" to Saddam Hussein's Death? Sick isn't it? The call us asking us for help when Saddam's invading their region, when we help, they call us invaders. We help stand the Iraqi government on its feet, and they try Saddam Hussein with their justice system and they execute him and we don't interfere and they blame us for their own Justice. I guess Saddam's all the sudden a saint because he murdered and tortured so many Shiites. Like we're supposed to be chummy with the Iranians now, the ones who took Americans hostage. These people who execute people for the crime of insulting Muhammad, find that executing one man for the murder of millions, is too harsh a crime, and plus the fact that we didn't do it, but the Iraqis did, yet these people prefer to blame us.

Number04 · 2007-01-06 13:34:01

I guess Saddam's all the sudden a saint

People cried at Stalin's funeral. It's all point of view.

Oh yes there is, when the enemy is destroyed, we win.

Who is your enemy?

Your Enemy has no territory, no race, no leader, no specific nationality. Hell, you even have home grown terrorists.

While i agree with you Tom that the world is not binary and it requires and changing and shifting plan, fight until everyone is dead is not a sound strategy. Because of a lack of identity of your adversary, there is no way to call him defeated, because he could be anybody.

The harder you try and crack down on these people the harder you have to crack down on your own. All these new laws the US has passed only hamper the liberties of it's citizens. In this respect, i submit that the terrorists are winning.

This problem will not be solved by getting a huge pile of guns together and saying "shoot that way". More then anything else it requires understanding of the enemy so you can persuade him to lay down his arms without bloodshed.

So far, the opposite has been archived. To believe otherwise is naïve.

Tom Kalbfus · 2007-01-07 09:26:54

I guess Saddam's all the sudden a saint
People cried at Stalin's funeral. It's all point of view.
Oh yes there is, when the enemy is destroyed, we win.
Who is your enemy?

The terrorists.

Your Enemy has no territory, no race, no leader, no specific nationality. Hell, you even have home grown terrorists.

Thus there is no excuse for a professional army, the US Army, for being defeated by a band of stateless criminals with no national resources to call upon. If we can defeat the Nazis then there is no excuse for not defeating a band of criminals, and it would be extremely demoralizing to be defeated by such a band, because it would mean we could not govern and that our civilization is falling apart. Unfortunately the terrorists have allies in the US government that want to see US forces defeated by a band of criminals.

While i agree with you Tom that the world is not binary and it requires and changing and shifting plan, fight until everyone is dead is not a sound strategy. Because of a lack of identity of your adversary, there is no way to call him defeated, because he could be anybody.

It doesn't have to come to that, we have a fairly good idea, not a perfect idea of who we are fighting due to our intelligence resources, a good idea is enough to win a War, if not to prosecute a criminal. In a civilizational challenge it is more important to win the War, and let our enemy know that we are determined to defeat him no matter what. Perhaps this will give those people supporting the terrorists some pause, because we are going after the terrorists, and they may live amongst them.

The harder you try and crack down on these people the harder you have to crack down on your own. All these new laws the US has passed only hamper the liberties of it's citizens. In this respect, i submit that the terrorists are winning.

Depends on how well you can target the terrorists, we don't have to target them perfectly, just well enough to defeat them. If people don't want to be caught in the crossfire, they should darn well make sure that terrorists don't live amongst them in great numbers. If there is obviously a terrorist base next to somebodies house, that person had better move quick, the neighborhood should never had let the terrorists get established there in the first place, and because of that, they will pay a price for their lack of vigilance. It is easier for the locals to root out the terrorists than for us to do so. if they refuse to do so, then we may have to take care of the problem ourselves, the locals have a better idea of who the bad guys and good guys are, but if they don't help us, we may make some mistakes in targeting the bad guys, so it is in their interest to take care of the problem before we are forced to.

This problem will not be solved by getting a huge pile of guns together and saying "shoot that way". More then anything else it requires understanding of the enemy so you can persuade him to lay down his arms without bloodshed.

Like we can slit our own throats so they enemy doesn't have to bother to build a bomb. How do you pursuade someone who is dedicated to our destruction and totally evil, to lay down his arms? We could commit suicide, but that would defeat the purpose of pursuading him to lay down his arms in the first place.

So far, the opposite has been archived. To believe otherwise is naïve.

If you don't fight the enemy, you might as well surrender, its what the French did, and to keep the Germans from killing them, they handed over their Jews.

Number04 · 2007-01-07 12:48:54

I'm not sure why everything about this ties into WW2, their are far better and robust examples to liken this current war to.

Thus there is no excuse for a professional army, the US Army, for being defeated by a band of stateless criminals with no national resources to call upon.

I find it very irrational that your patriotism can blind you to the facts. The fact is this is exactly how the US defeated the Brits to gain their independence. But of course, early Americans didn't call them selves terrorists. They were freedom fighters. This is currently a roll reversal.

But, in the interest to avoid this becoming an auguring match, BACK TO THE TOPIC!

Saddam was charged with the killings of 142 people. I hardly call that crimes against humanity.

humanity; all human beings collectively; the human race; humankind.

Since these blokes made an attempt to assassinate him and this was his retaliation, this is one bullshit charge. But it was the only one that the US put on him without implicating them selves. The US wanted Saddam dead more then anyone else because he was their fuck up. They sold him the gas to kill the Kurds, the means to create nuclear weapons. The US had a huge role to play and they wanted people to forget about that.

Have you seen the video? It's disgraceful. The Iraqi government is putting out a probe to look into the behaviour of it's guards during the "circus" event. By showing the world that you cannot even show honour to the face of your former ally and current enemy, that shows great weakness.

Now, lets address this "who is our enemy" issue.

Terrorist; One that engages in acts or an act of terrorism.
Terrorism;
1. the use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, esp. for political purposes.
2. the state of fear and submission produced by terrorism or terrorization.
3. a terroristic method of governing or of resisting a government.

Now, I agree with you Tom that to win any kind of engagement you need a very firm hand. You need clear rules of engagement with the flexibility to eliminate your foe. If you do so, you are in fact committing terrorism. No amount of fancy talk can ignore that. So, to declare that you are fighting a war on terrorism is akin to the war on drugs.

You can make progress, but with such vague descriptions of the battle field, you will never win.

Tom Kalbfus · 2007-01-08 00:05:12

I'm not sure why everything about this ties into WW2, their are far better and robust examples to liken this current war to.

It was the last war we've unequivocally won, that is why I use that War and use it to draw lessions. the Korean War ended in a Stalemate, and the Vietnam War effort was sabotaged at home, it is better to draw lessions from a War that was fought sucessfully and draw lessions from it on what we did right, rather than argue on the mistakes of poorly executed past wars such as Vietnam.

Thus there is no excuse for a professional army, the US Army, for being defeated by a band of stateless criminals with no national resources to call upon.
I find it very irrational that your patriotism can blind you to the facts. The fact is this is exactly how the US defeated the Brits to gain their independence. But of course, early Americans didn't call them selves terrorists. They were freedom fighters. This is currently a roll reversal.

Yes, as I recall, our Continental Soldiers were blowing themselves up, were murdering the women and children of both Loyalists and Patriots, were planting improvised explosives made from cannonball shells of solid shot! We kept the British on the run until we surrounded London and had King George the Third begging for mercy as blue-coated Continental soldiers marched down the streets toward Parliment yelling "God is Great!" and blowing themselves up!
I don't seem to recall ever reading that history book. I doubt a terrorist group would set up a democracy or a republic, they'd rule by terror instead.

But, in the interest to avoid this becoming an auguring match, BACK TO THE TOPIC!
Saddam was charged with the killings of 142 people. I hardly call that crimes against humanity.

He was charged with killing 142 people because that was all that was needed to get him executed, charging him with the other hundreds of thousands if not millions of murders would have kept him in court so long, he would die of old age before he ever saw the hangman's noose. You are using facts dishonsestly here, by implying that because he was charged with 142 murders, that was all that he killed. The courts simply did not have the time to handle the murder cases of all those whose deaths he was responsible for, you can only execute a man once, so they picked a number of cases that they felt were sufficient to get him executed, anything else would have been a waste of time and resources, they even said that themselves.

humanity; all human beings collectively; the human race; humankind.
Since these blokes made an attempt to assassinate him and this was his retaliation, this is one bullshit charge. But it was the only one that the US put on him without implicating them selves. The US wanted Saddam dead more then anyone else because he was their fuck up. They sold him the gas to kill the Kurds, the means to create nuclear weapons. The US had a huge role to play and they wanted people to forget about that.

You are one messed up Saddam sympathizing Lib! You give other liberals a bad name, ones that are actually concerned about the state of humanity and democracy rather than one overriding obsession to get Bush!

Have you seen the video? It's disgraceful. The Iraqi government is putting out a probe to look into the behaviour of it's guards during the "circus" event. By showing the world that you cannot even show honour to the face of your former ally and current enemy, that shows great weakness.

Oh boo hoo! Poor poor dictator! Sniff Sniff. You remind me of that character in the Movie Return of the Jedi, you know the one who was crying over his poor pet Monster/Rancor that Luke Skywalker killed when Jabba dropped him into its pit. You cry for all the monsters in the would, but not for his victims. Sorry, you not going to convince me that Saddam, Hitler, of Genghis Khan are all cute and cuddly, just give it up.

Now, lets address this "who is our enemy" issue.
Terrorist; One that engages in acts or an act of terrorism.
Terrorism;
1. the use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, esp. for political purposes.
2. the state of fear and submission produced by terrorism or terrorization.
3. a terroristic method of governing or of resisting a government.
Now, I agree with you Tom that to win any kind of engagement you need a very firm hand. You need clear rules of engagement with the flexibility to eliminate your foe. If you do so, you are in fact committing terrorism. No amount of fancy talk can ignore that. So, to declare that you are fighting a war on terrorism is akin to the war on drugs.
You can make progress, but with such vague descriptions of the battle field, you will never win.

Nothing but self-defeating rhetoric and arguments for giving up the fight.
The thing is, we don't want the terrorists submissive or subserviant, we want them dead or destroyed, and since our objective is to destroy the terrorists, we don't care whether they fear us or not. So you cannot say we are waging terrorism, rather we are waging a war to erradicate them. Your typical terrorist doesn't have the resources to destroy us, so they try to terrorize us instead, but that doesn't work, it only makes us mad. I was never afraid of terrorists, even during 9/11, instead after that attack, I wanted revenge. If they are going to kill 3000 Americans, I want my country to exact a high price for that, I don't see myself ever surrendering to those terrorists, nor forgiving them, no matter what the Democrats may do, as far as I'm concerned they are the enemy, ever last one of them and the people that support them.

Number04 · 2007-01-08 20:21:56

Well, i can see this spiralling into an ideological pissing match so i will stop here.

It takes all kinds to make the world go 'round

Tom Kalbfus · 2007-01-08 23:56:05

Well, i can see this spiralling into an ideological pissing match so i will stop here.
It takes all kinds to make the world go 'round

Well you called the founding fathers of my country terrorists, as I am American, I think you can see how I might be offended by that, and I see you are from Canada, thus maybe your ancestors were Red Coats. I for one had ancestors who were Continental soldiers, including a relation to Martha Custis Washington.

John Creighton · 2007-01-09 00:50:13

Well, i can see this spiralling into an ideological pissing match so i will stop here.
It takes all kinds to make the world go 'round
Well you called the founding fathers of my country terrorists, as I am American, I think you can see how I might be offended by that, and I see you are from Canada, thus maybe your ancestors were Red Coats. I for one had ancestors who were Continental soldiers, including a relation to Martha Custis Washington.

Well, the people that started the war of independence were certainly terrorists to the British at the time. The big difference though is they did not go bomb Brittan to win their independence. They also had wide spread support in America. In hind sight it seems that their revolution brought a better life as it was a rebirth of democracy. Later to avoid unrest in the colonies the British allowed, “responsible government” in Canada.

Tom Kalbfus · 2007-01-09 09:34:21

Well, i can see this spiralling into an ideological pissing match so i will stop here.
It takes all kinds to make the world go 'round
Well you called the founding fathers of my country terrorists, as I am American, I think you can see how I might be offended by that, and I see you are from Canada, thus maybe your ancestors were Red Coats. I for one had ancestors who were Continental soldiers, including a relation to Martha Custis Washington.
Well, the people that started the war of independence were certainly terrorists to the British at the time. The big difference though is they did not go bomb Brittan to win their independence. They also had wide spread support in America. In hind sight it seems that their revolution brought a better life as it was a rebirth of democracy. Later to avoid unrest in the colonies the British allowed, “responsible government” in Canada.

So your saying that if a Continental soldier in blue shoots at a British regular from behind a rock, that is an act of terrorism? I think that is stretching the definition of terrorism quite a bit. The Continental soldier conceils himself because he doesn't not want to get hit by a musket ball fired from the British regular that he is shooting at. So are you saying that if Continental soldiers didn't stand erect in perfect squares to fight British regulars in perfect squares in a flat open field, they are being a terrorists? I dispute this definition of terrorism. Terrorism is more like planting a bomb in an open market place to kill civilians, it isn't shooting at British regulars from behind a rock or place of conceilment. Just because the Continentals weren't so dumb as to wear bright red uniforms and to stand in perfect squares and rectangles as they march in uniform and load and fire their muskets to the beat of the drum and the wail of bagpipes, doesn't mean that they were terrorists.

New Mars Forums

Announcement

#26 2007-01-05 10:23:18

Re: Saddam Hussein's Dead: Iraqi Justice brought to you by Bush

#27 2007-01-05 11:40:15

Re: Saddam Hussein's Dead: Iraqi Justice brought to you by Bush

#28 2007-01-05 13:31:11

Re: Saddam Hussein's Dead: Iraqi Justice brought to you by Bush

#29 2007-01-05 15:10:56

Re: Saddam Hussein's Dead: Iraqi Justice brought to you by Bush

#30 2007-01-05 21:57:33

Re: Saddam Hussein's Dead: Iraqi Justice brought to you by Bush

#31 2007-01-06 00:43:03

Re: Saddam Hussein's Dead: Iraqi Justice brought to you by Bush

#32 2007-01-06 01:01:29

Re: Saddam Hussein's Dead: Iraqi Justice brought to you by Bush

#33 2007-01-06 08:48:05

Re: Saddam Hussein's Dead: Iraqi Justice brought to you by Bush

#34 2007-01-06 13:34:01

Re: Saddam Hussein's Dead: Iraqi Justice brought to you by Bush

#35 2007-01-07 09:26:54

Re: Saddam Hussein's Dead: Iraqi Justice brought to you by Bush

#36 2007-01-07 12:48:54

Re: Saddam Hussein's Dead: Iraqi Justice brought to you by Bush

#37 2007-01-08 00:05:12

Re: Saddam Hussein's Dead: Iraqi Justice brought to you by Bush

#38 2007-01-08 20:21:56

Re: Saddam Hussein's Dead: Iraqi Justice brought to you by Bush

#39 2007-01-08 23:56:05

Re: Saddam Hussein's Dead: Iraqi Justice brought to you by Bush

#40 2007-01-09 00:50:13

Re: Saddam Hussein's Dead: Iraqi Justice brought to you by Bush

#41 2007-01-09 09:34:21

Re: Saddam Hussein's Dead: Iraqi Justice brought to you by Bush

Board footer