IS

[Agent327]

The states lacked the adequate means for state terrorism? You're the ONLY person I believe I've ever heard say that, and clearly not a historian. I admire your ability to debate in English, but this is just off the mark.
The French Revolutionary state didn't lack the means, you have no basis for that claim whatsoever, whereas learned historians are in agreement on this.
Here are some names that you are going against...
RR Palmer in The Twelve Who Ruled
Marisa Linton in Choosing Terror
Timothy Tackett in "Interpreting the Terror"
Dan Edelstein in "Do We Want a Revolution without a Revolution" and "The Terror of Natural Right"
Just to name a few...
Please refrain from further ignorant statements, thank you.
P.S. The analogy to draft dodging today versus then is completely irrelevant to the topic, and makes no sense.

That last statement shows your ignorance: if French revolutionary state institutions were equipped with the 20th century bureaucracies there would have been virtually no draft dodging to speak of. In fact it was a serious problem even under Napoleon's Empire. Naming some authors and book titles is not referencing; no historian will ever do this, except in a bibliography.

Secondly, you ignore the fact that the Terror was ended after it served its purpose. This does not comply with the usual definition of state terrorism, on the contrary.

You've clearly not understood what I wrote. I obviously mean the institution of the presidency.

Obviously. Except in the sentence you didn't mention the presidency, but impeachment.

Oh, because something doesn't happen means there isn't consensus?
Your post doesn't seem to display an understanding of what "politics" are.

Another bold assertion that doesn't comply with facts. If there is no consensus whether the president should be impeached, then yes, it doesn't happen. I would think that is rather clear.

In conclusion, so far you've made some assertions, none of which you show any foundation for, and you fail to address criticism on this, instead reversing to personal attacks. I hardly would call that an argument.

Suicide bombers remain effective weapon of relative mass distraction.

Truer words have rarely been spoken.

 

[r16]

the President of the US is to declare the roadmap of the fight against ISIL today ; and we have heard a bit of it on Monday , as White Wabbit was paying a visit to Ankara . On TV , of course ... According to this it's to be a long term commitment to "minimise" casualties in an indirect approach . American Media was referenced as the source of the idea that the plan was to be of 3 years duration and it asks for raising an alliance . It would be futile to try to explain why we even wouldn't bother discussing it but for the sake of posterity allow me some indulging .

the US doesn't aim for any kind of change in any strategic aims . The notion of re-organizing the borders of the Middle East still pertains hence any changes to the ISIL will be merely cosmetic . A name change in 2015 at most ! ISIL being the current leverage that violently breaks the norms of the old , the instrument that makes Nation State borders irrelevant . And ISIL's only crime being that its march on Baghdad becoming impossible with the "now available" numbers of Shia Militia and the revolutionary combat tactics of ISIL as a light infantry force being an hoax and ISIL rank and file needing a diversion lest they would fall on each other over loot disguised as an internal dispute on doctrinal differences hence the raid on the North which dramatically developed in a speed that was hardly unseen in the annals of warfare . Since ISIL's opposition being empty inside , being bark much - bite not so much . No surprise in the last ; with the Peshmerga in its American guise solely meant to deliver the final strike to the Turkish Military overwhelmed by American aerial bombing and stuff . There was no need to waste US Taxpayers' money in making it an actual fighting force . Even in such a profligate get-rich-quick bonanza that was the OIF ... The Joe Public still doesn't know how empty we Turks are in any case , no idea on how pathetic we are .

just as some personal levity , on the day when ı was going home after having posted the "they will run" thing , these two Easterners walked by me , all beaming smiles and all knowing that this was some idiocy and there was never a braver race as if they two were holding those oilfields and stuff in Northern Iraq all by themselves against allcomers . Being conditioned against effeminates does make wonders ... Insert loop : The Joe Public still doesn't know how empty we Turks are in any case , no idea on how pathetic we are . Cue in our defeat in the fight against the seperatists .

makes it a double whammy of wonder as the Peshmerga defeat serves the Western interests even more . As such we have had a busy fortnight with all those politicos and stuff making the offer about arming the seperatists who turned out to be a better bet for fighting ... the sacriligious ISIL and stuff . America loves insulting its friends and enemies with tales of how it acts only on noble humanitarian impulses . Accordingly , a full month after the ISIL flinging up North we hear 5 000 Yezidis were slaughtered by ISIL , 1500 women have been sold in the bazaars of Musul for 5 to 20 $ each and there are still 10 000 people stranded in the Sincar Mountain ... After a month , still 10 000 , after a month , starving in addition to being scalded in the day and freezing at night ... After a month .

the PR is all important , as ever ...

and there was this two year old boy , paralysed from birth and there was the urgency of running and he was a risk for all his family and he was left behind lying on the ground and he couldn't even blink and his eyes just "burned" . The US Goverment would have won a cookie or two if it had kept a reserve of those pickup 4x4s instead of giving 'em trucks all to ISIL and used the reserve to get those people off the mountains , but there's nothing like battling the PR battle . Just like those think tank dudes who were on the air in July , just two months back , with irrefutable proof and personal anectodes that we should give up and accept the 'stan as all those Spec Ops types and oil company mercenaries had like taught the Peshmerga and the rest of the Kurds how to zero their rifles and guns and we totally had no chance of having influence in the "geography" , as people are advised -by other people including Americans- not to use the 'stan if people are supposed to make the great unwashed masses of Turks to understand and accept the 'stan ...

and mind you , that "nothing would have changed" was well known in Turkey . The Counter-revolution continues unabated . The PM won the Presidential election and the Little Imperialist replaced him and the Little Imperialist's inaguaration speech took the thing from Kemal's orders from the Battle of Sakarya . Instead of Patrie Belle being sacred and not an inch of it could be given without a fight and linear defence replaced by the defence of the entire battle area and there would be no withdrawals whatsoever , the influence of the new Turkey will now extend to the entire world ; this thing would be more understandable in Turkish . It's not that there has been action or stuff ; it's merely perception and stuff . Accordingly the PM gets a palace of a 1000 rooms in the farm where Kemal would while away the days 80 years back and the Little Imperialist moves into the former presidential mansion . Everything is much bigger in the new Turkey .

and actions are "limited" to drops instead of floods : A huge reform in education where people will have the right to choose the best and stuff for their kids and the Goverment will assist with the fees if the best for the kids is deemed to be a private school . Oh yeah , supposedly 100 000 kids found themselves in Imam Hatips . The kind of the school the Goverment likes and is free of any kind of accusations about wrongdoing . It's computers that allocates the schools and after some parents in Istanbul complained in the Media that their kids were to either go to Imam Hatips nearby or other schools on the other side of the city , 100-150 km away with 4 hours of daily driving time , some kid from the East was assigned a place in the West , a distance of 1840 kilometers ; that like royally shut everybody up . All this comes up with the eternal fight of the Party with the Congregation ; when Congregation's prep schools were being closed their owners were given the option of conversion to Party and their investments into private schools . So , if you ain't with rich parents and the Party kinda doesn't like your poor parents , you end up in Imam Hatip and be happy about it .

afterall , the Little Imperialist announces his Goverment controls everything ; he is about to pass laws or something that outlaws the trial of prime ministers in court . At least part of the confidence comes from the defeat of the Peshmerga ; America still needs the Party for the Civil War that will destroy this country , the Barzani folk needing a year or two for their rebuilding in the belief that like they are the gods of war or something . Which means Congregation has to contend with the scraps , otherwise the "Golden Generation" would be like so gloriously leading the country to the same Civil War . America's support for the Party extends to assigning a "new" guy to their Embassy in Ankara ; with the US Congress in holidays and stuff , the ambrassador dude was not yet confirmed and they naturally chose Ross Wilson as a care-taker , the former Colonial Governor in Ankara , serving at a time the Congregation led kangoroo courts devastated the Military with cases made on intentional lies and conspiracy . How much of a coincidence that the same language and the tone is being used by the Party courts to accuse the fans of Beşiktaş with coup plotting and asking sentences upto imprisonment for life for the Gezi events of yesteryear ?

to be clearly shown , too . With White Wabbit visiting the Anıtkabir , after meeting with the PM . And kinda stressing who comes first . The history will take note that years back it was clearly -almost bluntly- advised that there was no need for Americans to show respect to Atatürk ; he is most unlikely rise from the grave .

instead of an invasion in 2009 , the US gave us Barack Hussein and he now asks an alliance until the end of his term . What makes he think there is any care for his legacy , or he would have an alliance for 3 seconds , let alone years or even hours ?

 

[Flying Pig]

That last statement shows your ignorance: if French revolutionary state institutions were equipped with the 20th century bureaucracies there would have been virtually no draft dodging to speak of. In fact it was a serious problem even under Napoleon's Empire. Naming some authors and book titles is not referencing; no historian will ever do this, except in a bibliography.

Secondly, you ignore the fact that the Terror was ended after it served its purpose. This does not comply with the usual definition of state terrorism, on the contrary.

Oppressive rulers aren't oppressive for the fun of it; all measures are means to an end. All that the last thing shows is that France wasn't run by Darth Vader. I'm also not convinced that the difference of scale is meaningful - one might talk of late Tudor England as a 'terrorist state' towards religious minorities. They may have lacked the means to actually kill every priest and member of whatever group they chose to dislike, but the fact that Catholics or Protestants were being arrested and killed on a regular basis certainly terrified and drove underground the rest. That was state policy, and that was certainly terrorism. Put another way, small groups of suicide bombers don't have the means to bomb very many people, but they're definitely terrorists. There's definitely something quantitatively different about Soviet or Nazi state terrorism compared with Jacobin or Tudor, but the same term seems appropriate.

 

[Agent327]

Oppressive rulers aren't oppressive for the fun of it; all measures are means to an end. All that the last thing shows is that France wasn't run by Darth Vader.

Well, that certainly makes sense...

I'm also not convinced that the difference of scale is meaningful - one might talk of late Tudor England as a 'terrorist state' towards religious minorities.

No, one might not. State terrorism is dependent, among other things, on the presence of mass media and a secret police. One might term, say, Cromwell's Commonwealth a proto-state terrorist state, perhaps - as long as one realizes one is applying an anachronism. I don't think it is meaningful to apply essentially 20th century labels to past phenomena. If anything, it doesn't help explain or understand the past better; on the contrary.

They may have lacked the means to actually kill every priest and member of whatever group they chose to dislike, but the fact that Catholics or Protestants were being arrested and killed on a regular basis certainly terrified and drove underground the rest. That was state policy, and that was certainly terrorism.

State policy doesn't imply state terrorism. It would imply intolerance though. Lacking the means is rather essential if one wishes to apply the label of state terrorism.

Put another way, small groups of suicide bombers don't have the means to bomb very many people, but they're definitely terrorists. There's definitely something quantitatively different about Soviet or Nazi state terrorism compared with Jacobin or Tudor, but the same term seems appropriate.

I disagree. Jacobins, Tudor or any pre-19th-century regime lacked a secret police, and they most certainly didn't have political prisoner camps. The mention of the effect of suicide bombers doesn't help either as they have little connection to state terrorism, which differs both in quality and quantity. Terrorism is typically used by political groups that perceive to have little effective means available to make their presence felt on the polity. Such as the Russian nihilists.

Many regimes and polities employed terror throughout history. Lumping all such together under the heading of state terrorism is simplifying beyond measure.

 

[Flying Pig]

What are you using as a definition? I'm working on something like 'the systematic use of terror by a government as a means of state policy'. That doesn't require scale or effectiveness, but equally doesn't comfortably admit the concept of a 'proto-terrorist-state', so I'm interested to see what you're thinking. I'd argue from your last sentence that you want a phrase like 'industrialised state terrorism' in the same way as we might separate 'mass mobilisation' in the Roman, Greek or Napoleonic sense with 'industrialised mass mobilisation' as occurred in the twentieth century.

 

[Borachio]

I rather thought Thomas Cromwell (NB not Oliver) had a rather (in fact, extremely) well-developed network of spies. Doesn't that constitute a secret police?

 

[Flying Pig]

As did Elizabeth, quite famously, and the Stuart kings - the Gunpowder Plot and the conspiracy of Mary, Queen of Scots didn't foil themselves. Although I'm not sure that we'd call MI5 a secret police - but I suspect this may be a 'terrorist/revolutionary' distinction.

As an aside, the very word 'terrorism' was coined to describe the actions of the French state during the Terror - meanings shift, granted, but I think if we're looking for a new word then it should be used for the modern intensification rather than the older 'primitive' methods of terrorism.

 

[Tigranes]

That last statement shows your ignorance:

The person is banned and cannot answer back to you. Simple courtesy would require to wait until the opponent is reactivated and can defend himself.

 

[Agent327]

Pray tell, how am I to be alerted if someone is being banned in the middle of an argument? And furthermore, how is this relevant to what was argued?

I rather thought Thomas Cromwell (NB not Oliver) had a rather (in fact, extremely) well-developed network of spies. Doesn't that constitute a secret police?

No. Having a secret police does not state terrorism make. As I explained.

As an aside, the very word 'terrorism' was coined to describe the actions of the French state during the Terror - meanings shift, granted, but I think if we're looking for a new word then it should be used for the modern intensification rather than the older 'primitive' methods of terrorism.

So the French experienced a period of state terrorism. This is different from modern states who use it consistently, not as an 'emergency measure'.

 

[Borachio]

OK. But I wasn't taking issue with "state terrorism", but with this statement of yours:

Jacobins, Tudor or any pre-19th-century regime lacked a secret police,

Though I wasn't taking a particularly serious "issue".

The Spanish empire, btw, regarded England as something of a rogue state. Even sent an Armada to sort it out, and everything.

So... state-sponsored terrorism, in a way. Though really it was just plain piracy.

 

[Flying Pig]

Pray tell, how am I to be alerted if someone is being banned in the middle of an argument? And furthermore, how is this relevant to what was argued?



No. Having a secret police does not state terrorism make. As I explained.



So the French experienced a period of state terrorism. This is different from modern states who use it consistently, not as an 'emergency measure'.

I see - so state terrorism has to become 'business as usual'? I certainly understand the concept of a kind of 'phobocracy' in which the government needs terror to keep it intact even at the best of times. I do think that's distinct from 'state terrorism', though, because it's so highly subjective. After all, many of the most repressive governments in history claimed to be acting under emergency powers and pledged to restore normality in the future.

 

[classical_hero]

As did Elizabeth, quite famously, and the Stuart kings - the Gunpowder Plot and the conspiracy of Mary, Queen of Scots didn't foil themselves. Although I'm not sure that we'd call MI5 a secret police - but I suspect this may be a 'terrorist/revolutionary' distinction.

As an aside, the very word 'terrorism' was coined to describe the actions of the French state during the Terror - meanings shift, granted, but I think if we're looking for a new word then it should be used for the modern intensification rather than the older 'primitive' methods of terrorism.

I don't think it was state terror when the option was destroy them or they destroy you. Any ruler would take the first option.

 

[Flying Pig]

It was absolutely terror - whether it was justified is another matter. Whatever we think of the morality of the 'Shock and Awe' over Germany, Japan or Iraq, we have to agree that they were acts of terrorism.

 

[Tigranes]

ISIS Laptop Shows Plans for Biological Attacks​

A laptop purportedly belonging to an ISIS fighter was found by other rebels in Syria, and seems to show that its owner was gathering information to plan biological weapons attacks.

Abu Ali, a commander of a "moderate Syrian rebel group," showed the dusty Dell laptop — obtained after his men took over an ISIS building — to Foreign Policy. (What counts as a "moderate Syrian rebel group" these days? Al Nusra?)

The laptop itself appeared to belong to a young Tunisian chemistry and physics student named Muhammed, whose course work was confirmed to FP by a Tunisian university he attended until 2011. He's one of almost 2,500 Tunisians thought to have moved to Syria to join the ranks of ISIS.

On it, Foreign Policy's reporters found documents in English, French, and Arabic, stowed away on a non-password-protected hard drive. In addition to the usual videos, bomb-making instruction manuals, and such, the laptop contained an unexpected surprise:

The ISIS laptop contains a 19-page document in Arabic on how to develop biological weapons and how to weaponize the bubonic plague from infected animals.

"The advantage of biological weapons is that they do not cost a lot of money, while the human casualties can be huge," the document states.

The document includes instructions for how to test the weaponized disease safely, before it is used in a terrorist attack. "When the microbe is injected in small mice, the symptoms of the disease should start to appear within 24 hours," the document says.

The laptop also includes a 26-page fatwa, or Islamic ruling, on the usage of weapons of mass destruction.

*****
Which would be much more than distraction, God forbid! Who writes those fatwas?

 

[Berzerker]

did Obama arm ISIL while supporting anti-Assad forces? I seem to recall Rand Paul asking if we were sending stuff over there via Turkey during the Libyan fiasco

 

[classical_hero]

It was absolutely terror - whether it was justified is another matter. Whatever we think of the morality of the 'Shock and Awe' over Germany, Japan or Iraq, we have to agree that they were acts of terrorism.

Of course rulers are a terror to those who do evil otherwise they aren't rulers at all.
Romans 13:1-5 Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God.
2 Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation.
3 For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same:
4 For he is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil.
5 Wherefore ye must needs be subject, not only for wrath, but also for conscience sake

 

[kramerfan86]

So are you suggesting all Germans and Japanese people were evil?

 

[Borachio]

It's considered normal practice, if not downright obligatory, to demonize one's enemies, so... yes.

 

[classical_hero]

So are you suggesting all Germans and Japanese people were evil?

If any of the citizens of the countries opposed the leadership, then they didn't show it, so in effect they legitimised the leaders actions by not actively opposing them.

 

[Agent327]

So, in your view, the USSR was supported by the entire population? You do realize this is just their propaganda you are repeating?