How can you make a "war on terror" if war itself is "terrorism"? ?

Question

How can you make a "war on terror" if war itself is "terrorism"? ?

Answer 1

You can't because it's a contradiction, it's like war for peace. It's neocon double talk. Anyway many people engage in terrorism as part of a war

Answer 2

Good question... War is discustion and to me shooting or bombing people that might have nothing to do with Terrorism, is exactly that... Terrorism.

Changing the name of something doesn't change what it is.

C

Answer 3

Terrorism is the act of intimidating, or otherwise influencing, a country or group of people with radical, violent, tactics.  What the United States did is retaliate...but did not commit an act of terrorism.  

If you don't believe me, go look up the last time United States military personel hijacked a plane and crashed it into 2 buildings in a major metropolis...you'll be hard pressed to find evidence of that.

Answer 4

oh, oh, I know this one!!  you suspend human rights, political debate, and political transparency!  can I have the 10 points please?

Answer 5

It's relatively easy if you're an imperial power bent on reckless military adventurism in order to enforce your global hegemony for the purpose of crushing anyone who disagrees, anyone who is too weak to fight back, or to steal whatever resources others have that you want.

One need only look at every single military action the U.S. has taken in the last sixty years. We only fight people who are too weak to put up any real defense. We overthrow democratically elected governments, then we install pro-U.S. dictators. And, then we arm, fund, and train death squads to keep those dictators in power by murdering anyone who dares to stand up against those dictators. We commit genocide in order to get the resources and/or the control of those resources. We used chemical weapons in Vietnam that are still poisoning the children in that country. We bombed a country, Laos, that we weren't even at war with; and many of the innocent victims of those bombs weren't even alive during the war...but many of those bombs are still waiting to explode to this day. We made it possible for Pol Pot and the bloody Khmer Rouge to come to power and depopulate Cambodia by genocide. And today, because we are too fat and lazy to use energy efficiently, we have murdered a million Iraqi people  just to gain a critical foothold in the Middle East. But that's not all, because we don't only want the oil for our use...we want to control the flow of oil out of Iraq so that we can put a stranglehold on the politics of Europe. We can threaten to cut their flow of oil and silence any potential dissent with our vicious Imperial policies.  Do I need to even bother mentioning our ongoing covert wars of terror against the people of Central and South America? Do I need to list the names of every single Cuban citizen who has ever been murdered by American agents or by American-sponored anti-Cuban terrorists? I doubt that I would even come close to having enough room to list all the women and children we have murdered in that country.

We have found the world's worst terrorist; and it is US.

Answer 6

You can't.

Terrorism is a tactic that's been around forever and will most likely be around as long as people inhabit the earth. Terrorism is the war of the poor, always was, always will be. "A terrorist is someone who has a bomb, but doesn't have an air force"  William Blum

Because the enemy is not clearly defined you can never win a "war on terror" giving the Military industrial complex what they missed after the collapse of the USSR, a neverending war and a pretext for any Imperialistic intervention

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8y06NSBBR...

"War isn't terrorism" a lot of people say here and they're right. For us sitting comfortably at home or at work sipping cofee behind a computer or for the decision makers in Washington and other Western Capitals the difference is very clear.

For all those ordinary innocent people around the world whose house got bombed and who's family got murdered or maimed, even if it was just an accident, collateral damage, the difference is far less clear. When you're family dies, when you fear for your life you are terrorized and it really doesn't make a whole lot of difference who's behind the bombs, Muslims fanatics or Americans coming to "liberate" you. It's all about perspective, their perspective in the grim reality and our perspective of the spoiled Westerner in denial.

“Um Mohammed, a 49-year-old widow in Baghdad’s western Mansur neighborhood, whose husband was abducted and shot by gunmen 15 months ago, bitterly blamed the US military for the loss, which has profoundly affected her and her family,” AFP reported.

“Why does the world care so much about the 4,000 soldiers killed? No one cares about the Iraqis,” she said. “All the killings in Iraq are because of the Americans. They are the cause of all the bloodshed. I ask Allah to kill all the American soldiers—to count them all and not leave any one of them. The world regards the American soldiers as our saviors but they are murderers.”

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/mar200...

Answer 7

Excellent point you make. And of course it is terrorism. More people have died in the 'war' than when Saddam was around.

Answer 8

War and terrorism are not the same.

War is combat between two countries, two parts of one country, or some similar two parties.  

Terrorism targets defenseless civilians instead of military targets.  Some would probably say that terrorism isn't war at all, since it doesn't involve engaging the enemy in combat.  The purpose of terrorism, if it has one beyond expressing hatred, is to frighten the population to such an extent that they will surrender without fighting back.  

Still, terrorism is used often enough during wars, mixed with other methods.  I would certainly say that terrorism is not a "legitimate" or "just" form of warfare.  In a just or legitimate war, combatants will engage other combatants and try to avoid harming civilians, though this isn't always possible.    

Answer 9

Haven't seen many IEDs being used in the War on Drugs... but maybe I missed something.

Answer 10

War is not terrorism

Answer 11

War is not terrorism... all though it can be just as bad, if not worse.   What the US has done to Iraq and Afghanistan's civilian population is in every way as bad as what Hamas or Hezbollah does in Israel.  

Answer 12

You've reminded me how much I miss my young and idealistic days.  Hope you can grow out of that.

Would you prefer doing nothing and having those that hate us bring the terror to our land?  

fs

Answer 13

Terrorism is killing of unarmed people to make some statement (usually political)

War is a combat between to armies

Answer 14

Bingo.

"One cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war."

Albert Einstein

Regards.

Edit : War is not terrorism? lmao, dropping 15,000, 20,000 and 30,000 lbs bombs from 40,000 feet in sky on innocents defenseless men women and children killing over 1,200,000 of them  so cowardly, brutally and inhumanly is the worst type of terrorism there is.

At least a suicide bomber has the guts to blow himself up along with his victims.

War criminal bush and cheney are the most dangerous terrorists in today's civilized world, the h**l with them both.

Long live the people of Iraq.

Death to aggression and to criminal Elites and big fat corps.

Have a wonderful day !

Answer 15

war is not terrorism

Answer 16

One man's trash is another man's treasure...

I think we often forget the definitions are derived by the victors, thus, we neglect the fact that the US was founded by terrorists and insurgents, albeit from a British perspective.

Answer 17

Because war does not equal terrorism.

It seems a dictionary may come in handy for the asker and several of the answerers.

Answer 18

this is America were talking about, it dosen't have to make sense

Answer 19

By defining war as terrorism - your definition, of which many would disagree - you have created your own puzzlement. I suggest you see the new movie "Traitor;" it gives some interesting views on your very argument.  

Answer 20

When you are fighting against other declared "fighters" then you are not being a terrorist.  Attacking civilians is terrorism.

Answer 21

War isn't terrorism, there are guidelines set out to conduct a war, terrorists just randomly target civilians whereas troops try not to harm any civilians.

Edit: It would be lovely to live in the Nirvana that some of these answserers think we would live in if it wasn't for Bush/Brown/Blair, but it just wouldn't be the case.  If everyone played fair then it would work, but they don't especially the terrorists so therfore there has to be forces to keep those terrorists in some form of order.