The Logic Off Topic list

Thoughts from the mind of marc lindahl, 9/24/01:

>  > From: Hendrik Jan Veenstra <h@...>
>>
>>  No, it's the original poster who failed to make this distinction.  If
>>  one says the US only killed people in war-acts, then clearly such a
>>  person considers every armed conflict to be war-acts.  That's
>>  precisly the viewpoint I was _opposing_.  Many of these so-called
>>  "war acts" were simply interventions in defence of e.g. US interests,
>>  etc.
>
>You need to go back and read what I asked.  It was a clear question.

In the post I replied to, you didn't ask anything.  You just 
'accused' me of something which I was trying to _refute_.  So imo we 
_agree_.  Gosh...

>Tell you what, why don't you venture a distinction between terrorism and war?

War is an armed conflict between nations -- i.e. political entities 
each occupying a piece of land and each having its own government.
Terrorism is any form of violent attack by a (often minority) group 
on another group.  The group being attacked can be a nation, but as 
soon as the attacker also is anation, it's called 'war'.  Usually the 
terroist action is not condoned by the terrorist group's government 
(if it exists -- with international groups, it makes no sense to talk 
about "its government" of course).
If the terrorists are 'native' to a country (i.e. not an 
international country-less group), and if their country condones 
their actions, then the situation is somewhat unclear.  If such 
terrorists attack a nation (instead of some particluar group of 
individuals), then this nation has every reason to declare war to the 
condoning government.


Surely someone can find some falacy in the above definition.  Go 
ahead.  Maybe I should have written a two-page definition, just to 
cover all eventualities, but I don't feel like doing that right now. 
Besides, I _do_ have work to do sometimes.


cheers,
HJ
-- 
     Hendrik Jan Veenstra
     email: mailto:h@...
     www:   http://www.ision.nl/users/h/index.html