newt g. advocates terror

[bobman0330]

In case anyone was still on the fence, I think this thread proves that arguments about definitions are always stupid.

[TomVeil]

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TomVeil,

"Do we have any examples of this happening with Iran?"

An example of Iranian state terrorism that people may not know about is the 1994 bombing of a Jewish center in Buenos Aires, Argentina, which left 85 people dead.

wiki page

"On 25 October 2006, prosecutors in Buenos Aires formally charged Iran and Shi'a militia Hezbollah with the bombing, accusing the Iranian authorities of directing Hezbollah to carry out the attack and calling for the arrest of former President of Iran Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and seven others, including some who still hold official positions in Iran."

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Thank you for the article, Goat. It's always good to be able to learn. However, from that page, it seems that nobody really knows WHO did it. Iran denies it (of course), and the courts have been unable to establish anything. (Although admitedly because of corruption and incompetance)

"On October 25, 2006, Argentine prosecutors Alberto Nisman and Marcelo Martínez Burgos [2] formally accused the government of Iran of directing the bombing, and the Hezbollah militia of carrying it out.[3][4] According to the prosecution's claims in 2006, Argentina had been targeted by Iran after Buenos Aires' decision to suspend a nuclear technology transfer contract to Tehran.[5] This however, has been disputed, because this contract was never terminated, and Iran and Argentina were negotiating on restoration of full cooperation on all agreements from early 1992 till 1994, when the bombing occurred."

Now I don't want to give you the idea that I think that Iran isn't an awful country. And I think that they DO support terrorism. HOWEVER, this CANNOT be a reason to justify military action against them until we have a LOT more evidence and a MUCH MUCH larger threat. So much of what the Bush administration does is "framing" the arguments to make their side look like the obvious choice. Calling Iranian soldiers terrorists is just politics to advance the agenda of the hawks, IMHO.

[TomVeil]

Coper, in the case of Blackwater, we're not only paying them, we're protecting them from any kind of prosecution AFTER these incidents. Could you not see how the Iraqis, Iranians, or ANYBODY ELSE IN THE WORLD could see this as a legitimate sponsoring of terrorism?

And still, war with Iran would have nothing to do with terrorism. Just like war with Iraq had nothing to do with terrorism. It's just the "big bad enemy" like communism was in the 80s.

[DblBarrelJ]

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I'm still undecided as to whether I believe attacking Iran's oil refinery would be a good idea, however, if we do it, it's still not terrorism imo.

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so by the same logic, if iran decides to covertly and deniably blow up oil refineries in texas, that would be ok with you?

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No, it would be an act of war, much like Pearl Harbor, and we should respond with exactly the same tactics which were so amazingly effective with Japan.

It wouldn't be ok. It would be an act of war. It is (and you liberals are going to hate this) an act of war by one country, which would justify mushroom clouds over Iran.

A justified war! ZOMG!

[TomVeil]

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[ QUOTE ]
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I'm still undecided as to whether I believe attacking Iran's oil refinery would be a good idea, however, if we do it, it's still not terrorism imo.

[/ QUOTE ]

so by the same logic, if iran decides to covertly and deniably blow up oil refineries in texas, that would be ok with you?

[/ QUOTE ]

No, it would be an act of war, much like Pearl Harbor, and we should respond with exactly the same tactics which were so amazingly effective with Japan.

It wouldn't be ok. It would be an act of war. It is (and you liberals are going to hate this) an act of war by one country, which would justify mushroom clouds over Iran.

A justified war! ZOMG!

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I agree with you, but how is this different than us blowing up their oil fields? Why would they react any differently than we would?

[Kaj]

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did you even bother to read your first link? Obviously when a group supports or commits terrorist acts, they are terrorists, whether or not they happen to also be part of an organized army. Hint: second paragraph

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Who trained the countless Latin American thugs who committed terrorism in support of pro-American regimes in the Western Hemisphere?

Answer: The US Army.

By your own logic and that of the administration, the US Army is a terrorist organization.

Oh wait, I'm sure you'll claim something about moral equivalence, right? There was nothing moral about what those trained in Latin America perpetrated, and we knew full well the nefarious activity as we trained them.

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<font color="blue"> "If any government sponsors the outlaws and killers of innocents," George Bush announced on the day he began bombing Afghanistan, "they have become outlaws and murderers themselves. And they will take that lonely path at their own peril." I'm glad he said "any government", as there's one which, though it has yet to be identified as a sponsor of terrorism, requires his urgent attention.

For the past 55 years it has been running a terrorist training camp, whose victims massively outnumber the people killed by the attack on New York, the embassy bombings and the other atrocities laid, rightly or wrongly, at al-Qaida's door. The camp is called the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, or Whisc. It is based in Fort Benning, Georgia, and it is funded by Mr Bush's government.

Until January this year, Whisc was called the "School of the Americas", or SOA. Since 1946, SOA has trained more than 60,000 Latin American soldiers and policemen. Among its graduates are many of the continent's most notorious torturers, mass murderers, dictators and state terrorists. As hundreds of pages of documentation compiled by the pressure group SOA Watch show, Latin America has been ripped apart by its alumni.

In June this year, Colonel Byron Lima Estrada, once a student at the school, was convicted in Guatemala City of murdering Bishop Juan Gerardi in 1998. Gerardi was killed because he had helped to write a report on the atrocities committed by Guatemala's D-2, the military intelligence agency run by Lima Estrada with the help of two other SOA graduates. D-2 coordinated the "anti-insurgency" campaign which obliterated 448 Mayan Indian villages, and murdered tens of thousands of their people. Forty per cent of the cabinet ministers who served the genocidal regimes of Lucas Garcia, Rios Montt and Mejia Victores studied at the School of the Americas.

In 1993, the United Nations truth commission on El Salvador named the army officers who had committed the worst atrocities of the civil war. Two-thirds of them had been trained at the School of the Americas.... more </font>

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[PLOlover]

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No, it would be an act of war, much like Pearl Harbor, and we should respond with exactly the same tactics which were so amazingly effective with Japan.

It wouldn't be ok. It would be an act of war. It is (and you liberals are going to hate this) an act of war by one country, which would justify mushroom clouds over Iran.

A justified war! ZOMG!

[/ QUOTE ]

do you guys understand the word "covert". It means that an oil refinery blows up in texas and nobody knows who did it.

of course I guess the iranians will know who did it since newt spilled the beans on national tv.

but since you agree that such a thing is not "ok", then why are we (US) thinking about doing it to iran?

[DblBarrelJ]

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[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
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I'm still undecided as to whether I believe attacking Iran's oil refinery would be a good idea, however, if we do it, it's still not terrorism imo.

[/ QUOTE ]

so by the same logic, if iran decides to covertly and deniably blow up oil refineries in texas, that would be ok with you?

[/ QUOTE ]

No, it would be an act of war, much like Pearl Harbor, and we should respond with exactly the same tactics which were so amazingly effective with Japan.

It wouldn't be ok. It would be an act of war. It is (and you liberals are going to hate this) an act of war by one country, which would justify mushroom clouds over Iran.

A justified war! ZOMG!

[/ QUOTE ]

I agree with you, but how is this different than us blowing up their oil fields? Why would they react any differently than we would?

[/ QUOTE ]

The difference in the US and Iran? Simple. If we use all of our military training and technology, we can win. The simple fact of the matter is, I'm a realist. You can politic and negotiate until you're blue in the face, but sometimes might = right.

Flame away.

[DblBarrelJ]

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[ QUOTE ]
did you even bother to read your first link? Obviously when a group supports or commits terrorist acts, they are terrorists, whether or not they happen to also be part of an organized army. Hint: second paragraph

[/ QUOTE ]

Who trained the countless Latin American thugs who committed terrorism in support of pro-American regimes in the Western Hemisphere?

Answer: The US Army.

By your own logic and that of the administration, the US Army is a terrorist organization.

Oh wait, I'm sure you'll claim something about moral equivalence, right? There was nothing moral about what those trained in Latin America perpetrated, and we knew full well the nefarious activity as we trained them.

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I believe OP's underlying point is just that, ie claiming the US Army is a terrorist organization. You know the drill. All wars are wrong, there are no good wars, can't we smoke a peace pipe and sing Kumbaya, etc.

Typical peacenik bs.

edit: So basically, the two of you are probably in agreement.

[Kaj]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
did you even bother to read your first link? Obviously when a group supports or commits terrorist acts, they are terrorists, whether or not they happen to also be part of an organized army. Hint: second paragraph

[/ QUOTE ]

Who trained the countless Latin American thugs who committed terrorism in support of pro-American regimes in the Western Hemisphere?

Answer: The US Army.

By your own logic and that of the administration, the US Army is a terrorist organization.

Oh wait, I'm sure you'll claim something about moral equivalence, right? There was nothing moral about what those trained in Latin America perpetrated, and we knew full well the nefarious activity as we trained them.

[/ QUOTE ]

I believe OP's underlying point is just that, ie claiming the US Army is a terrorist organization. You know the drill. All wars are wrong, there are no good wars, can't we smoke a peace pipe and sing Kumbaya, etc.

Typical peacenik bs.

[/ QUOTE ]

The US Army is a terrorist organization if you use the rationale that the administration and pro-war group is using to denounce Iran as a terrorist state. Except, the US Army is even more a terrorist organization because unlike Iran's army, it recently invaded a sovereign nation, launching an act of aggression which has led to possibly hundreds of thousands of deaths. It is the administration and war supporters who are doing the terrorist labeling -- when their own definition is applied to ourselves, of course you call it peacenik bs. You have no shame.