>These things may have occurred, but that was not my point. My point was
>that the terrorism I spoke of is not liberaratory in itself, and that if
>a measure of liberation was achieved then this was despite such
>incidents not because of them.
Ok, here's what you had to say about terrorism:
<snip>
There are a great many things that could be said about this, which I'll refrain from saying right now except for this one: Terrorism (blowing up people in the street, etc.) has NEVER liberated anyone and never will. It is nothing more than armed propaganda, which hopes by human sacrifice to bring the opposite side to the negotiating table and thereafter to divide the spoils. Those who are poor stay poor and those who are dead stay dead. You equate terrorism with resistance, why? Anyone who knows anything about an anti-colonial struggle and has lived through one knows that what brings down the old regime is not the actions of the few but the concerted action of the mass that destroys its legitimacy. Where the opposite happens, i.e. a terrorist group manages to take state power directly, then watch out .... (think: Cambodia, Zimbabwe, Ethiopia, Liberia .... )
<end>
Ok, you seem to be saying that terrorism (on its own, by a relatively small number of people, with NO kind of outside support) doesn't liberate people. There has to be some sort of mass action that "destroys the legitimacy" of the regime, right? Correct me if I'm wrong, but that seems an accurate summary of your position.
I thought, in a way, we were on the same wavelength wrt the effectiveness of unsupported terrorists since I said:
>A big difference between then and now seems to be the lack of a "big"
>supplier to the "terrorists" of money and materials.
I wasn't clear enough about my position; I see that now. I thought the mention of such "terrorist groups" as the various French and Jewish resistance fighters against Nazi occupation, explicitly aided and abetted by the US (where they could) as well as implicitly by its engaging in conventional warfare, would serve to illustrate my point. Which is basically that that these small groups, I strongly believe, can make a difference under the right circumstances when supported by (a) larger, wealthier group(s) and/or mass(es). And I doubt those circumstances are present in Iraq, assuming the "terrorists" are all of one mind and goal, which I also doubt.
>As for killing soldiers, well that is not
>part of my definition of terrorism. I call that self defence.
<shrug> Depends on how the deed's done and what's made of the aftermath. Terrorism's basically about using violence for political ends, right? If the politicians are reluctant to put more soldiers in the field because they're getting too many calls from parents/spouses/children about troops getting murdered in their own beds, I'd call that terror campaign a success.
Same goes for troops, or parts of them, being put on display as examples and warnings.
>Let me
>give you an example of terrorism in my home town. Just prior to the
>change of regime in South Africa, the military wing of the Pan
>Africanist Congress suddenly embarked on a spate of terrorist
>activities, targetting particularly those places where racial mixing was
>taking place, like the St James church in the street where I was living
>at the time and the Heidelberg tavern near where I live now. They burst
>in and sprayed the worshippers and drinkers with automatic weapon fire
>and lobbed in grenades. Many were killed or maimed. What was the
>contribution of this to liberation in SA? Less than zero in my view - it
>was just an expression of a dehumanised mentality that saw blacks mixing
>with whites as something ideologically unacceptable and hateful. I think
>that the terrorism we are seeing in Iraq (I'm NOT talking about the
>killing of American combatants, which leaves me cold, I have to say) is
>of the same order.
Assuming your analysis of the reasoning behind the murders is the right one, I agree. But could their reasoning have been different? Could they have been trying to get someone in particular and didn't really care who got killed along the way? Could the shooters have wanted to get rid of white people they saw colonising "black space" and punish those blacks who collaborated by allowing/encouraging it? I think that might be more understandable than simply calling the killings an expression of unreasoning and illogical hatred.
Todd
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