Mishka wrote:
how about bombing shit out of a city (say, dresden) with conventional
bombs? how about "shock and awe"? why do we say, killing a few dozen
on a bus (or a few hundred in a business tower) is terrorism,
while killing same hundreds in an air strike is "collateral damage"?
how about killing civilian collaborators during the war (like, eg
in USSR, France and Italy during the WWII)? how is that different
from killing civilian collaborators in Iraq now? how is that different
from killing civilians who support the regime that's waging the war?
what about hostage taking?
my understanding is that attacks on military targets (even if some civilian
population dies) is not a terrorism. everything else is.
if you look this way, ETA blowing up police stations are not terrorist acts.
neither are iraqi bombings of checkpoints. but WTC, "shock and awe",
recent london attacks, hiroshima, dresden and coventry certainly are.
this classifications is clearly differs from the one used in press and
on political tribunes.
One correction Mishka. Dresden wasn't bombed with conventional weapons
but with magnesium and phosphorous firebombs. That's why it burned the
way it did.
Civilized warfare is the biggest of all oxymorons.
Tom Reese
