h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

well, the biggest terrorism act in all of mankinds history is not the 9/11 twin towers , it was when America dropped atom bombs on Japan, WW2.

I mean, what were they thinking?!? Lets blast two whole cities off the face of the earth, just for a quick solution?!? Typical American thinking. Lets take the biggest bomb in our arsenal to win a war. Now they had the odassity to go and decimate Iraq, with the excuse of biological weapons?!? Why dont they show their weapons to the world?

America is the biggest terrorist state in all the world and we would be better off without them. They just hide their acts under a blanket of peace, justice and patriotism. They are going to be the end of us all.

what about the British strategic bombing campaign in WW2, or the Holocaust, or the Japanese occupation of Korea, or the collectivization of farm land in the USSR or Mao's cultural revolution...

..oh silly me these acts weren't carried out by the USA, so they can't have been that bad.

Grow up or shut up.

Bardacka is only giving a point of view. No need to be so rude about it just because you don't agree.

its not that I disagree. If Bardacka had given a well argued reasonable opinion I would have no problem, its this mindless anti-americanism I can't stand. There are serious issues at stake, and that sort of childish nonsense just gets in the way of a proper debate.

It was not terrorism. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were military targets. There was a war going on. It was completely legitmate. The war did end.

H2G2 is open to all, let's not get elitist about the standard of debate. By resorting to abuse, you lower the tone yourself.

Oh, this is a silly question. There is no way war can be avoided. Otherwise those who have no morals would rule the world with an iron fist, since no one could force them to give up there power. You can not talk a murderous dictator out of his power, no mater how much you try. The question that should be asked is: Can war be avoided? The answer is of course not.

Well, as a matter of fact it can be and often is, but at the expense of shifting boundaries and diplomats and industrialists making trades and compromises.

No war just starts out of nowhere.
They are usually built on decades of hesitation and inaction.
They are often built on decades, if not centuries of hatred and fear.

My main concern is for the soldiers. Often they get lots of money spent on them for equipment and training, but when the war is over, the governments who thought them so valuable before toss them away like old dolls.

I know the current thinking is 'mourn the poor non-combatants', but they were often the one's who let the regime into power that needed the soldiers. I know they get left with the landmines and the bomblets and the depleted uranium. I know they get left with the cholera and the ding-dongs who pop up to take over after the old regime is gone. But if the clerics and the legislators really cared about their people, instead of some book-bound principles that demand sacrifices from the people but not the clerics and the legislators, then the power would be in the streets and the fields instead of closeted in sequestered buildings where the blessed and the betters know best and everybody else better just live with it.

Remember, the British once went to war over a fellow's ear!

There are no just wars.
Just wars that either should have been fought years before and gotten it over with or wars that should have been stopped in their planning stages by someone with common sense.

Terrorism, on the other hand, is not war.
It is a form of resistance to the dominant authority.
The Nazis called resistance to their rule 'terrorism'.
The British in Ireland have called resistance to their rule 'terrorism'.
The Americans in the Philippines and South and Central America and Vietnam have called resistance to their rule 'terrorism'.

Terrorism is a strange concept coming from people who only rule because they overthrew someone else's rule.

Terrorism is also a word invented by people who sit in suits in well-guarded rooms who want the populace to go to work to pay their taxes unimpeded by reality or bombs.

It is impossible, under these circumstances and definitions, for a nation to be a 'terrorist' nation. Because, if it is possible, then every nation is a 'terrorist' nation and everybody is a liar.

If that is the case, then everyone should be able to do and say what they want, because that is what all the big people and the nations are doing.
Do what you want, lie about it later. Or, lie about it now and get somebody else to do it for you.

As someone who lives in Texas, I find the Alamo lie to be particularly irritating.
"Remember the Alamo!"
If people really had, they would have learned something.
Stay away from crumbly old buildings when the entire Mexican Army is coming to visit.

But that is not what was said or thought. It was an act of defiant resistance! It was noble, pure, and heroic!
Dogspittle.
By modern standards, the Texians were "terrorists".
They had signed papers and been granted deeds and they decided they wanted to renege on the whole thing and their back taxes.
Put that in an After School Special.

Not that Santa Anna came off much better. Overwhelming force decimated in the face of underwhelming odds is just plain silly.

But then, neither side actually featured the geniuses of their generation.

The smart people were probably at home in Dallas or Mexico City, inventing the time-share...

Hiroshima and Nagasakai, like Dresden, were not strategicly important targets. They could not be considered legitimate military targets. Then again bombing them probably did shorten the war and save many lives. Back to the old question of can the end justify the means? To me the answer is yes, but only if no other less destructive means would've achieved the same ends.

President Bush included in a speech once again this week that we are in the first war of this new century. Sounds like he assumes there are more to comeI do not like the way he keeps including that phrase.....

Unless we have 1 war that lasts for the century and beyond as the "War on Terrorism" easily could.

Sadly that could be true I suppose.
Let's hope not.
Terrorism will probably not go away. I hope we learn others ways to deal with it. If it has no Countries borders as boundaries then seems like other ways are needed.