Re: [Gnu-arch-users] [OT] facism gaining ground in US

[Stephen J. Turnbull]

If I guess right, Robin Green wrote:

    >> Terrorising people by the use of violence. That's pretty much
    >> the definition of terrorism.

Circular, therefore not a definition.  It's missing a couple of
crucial qualifications before it's useful in political discussion, as
well.

>>>>> "Pierce" == Pierce T Wetter, <Pierce> writes:

    Pierce>   I think that Terrorism is Terrorizing _a_ people by the
    Pierce> use of violence is terrorism, but I'm just being nitpicky.

No, you're not.  You're awfully close to Wikipedia, definition 1,
which _is_ useful.  The points the first definition lacks are that
terrorism (a) has no military objective at all (b) the objective is to
scare civilians, for the purpose of undermining morale or social
cohesion (eg, to generate opposition to government policy on the
ground that it may lead to terrorist attacks) and (c) is intended to
achieve a political purpose.

You also came damn close to the Wikipedia definition of fascism,
closer than me (I have argued that the Führer concept is part of the
generally accepted _definition_ of fascism and/or Nazism, but neither
article in Wikipedia suggests that), while nobody else in the
discussion seems to be familiar with any useful definition.  Eg, Tom
has suggested "police state", but that includes communism and Saddam's
government, but not the U.S., at least not by any evidence anyone
presents.

[Granted, the strongest argument for worrying about it is that it's a
conspiracy, which if successful will have fascism or some other form
of police state in place before we can "prove" that's what the
conspiracy is up to.  Of course, that's the kind of logic that the
Dept of Homeland Security is famous for....  The big difference, of
course, is that Tom can win his point (and lose it, simultaneously ;-)
by defeating the conspiracy's candidate in the next election, while if
the conspiracy succeeds, people will be jailed and probably shot.]

So I'd say, keep being picky, please.  I disagree with about half of
what you say, but not because it's so incoherent that I have to
disagree in self-defense.  :-)

Here's an example:

    Pierce> So my take: Rumsfeld authorized some questionable
    Pierce> stuff. There are quite a few issues where its better to
    Pierce> draw the line clearly then it is to try to adapt that line
    Pierce> to every situation. I think "how far you can go" when
    Pierce> interrogating prisoners is one of them. Rumsfeld was
    Pierce> trying to draw a distinction where none really exists...

I think you're missing the whole idea of "plausible deniability"
here.  I find it hard to believe that Rumsfeld is so naive as to think
that authorizing "questionable stuff" would not be interpreted in some
quarters as _ordering_ unquestionably abusive stuff.  Cf. Iran/Contra.

I have to think that what happened in that prison was intended to
weaken family/clan/religious ties through violence and fear of
violence.  That is terrorism (by the useful definition).  Was that
terrorism the consistent policy of the United States?  Of course not;
Congress and the American people are justifiably horrified; Bush of
course had "nothing" to do with it; and Rumsfeld was sufficiently
aware that matches are inflammable as to avoid direct authorization of
anything that verbatim violates the Geneva Convention.

Do we need to have a policy response to it?  I think so---we need to
make clear that this is _not_ the policy of the U.S., to encourage the
kind of whistleblowing that happened.  I'd say firing Rumsfeld, and
saying that this "mistake in judgment" is why, would do.  (I'm sure
some people would like to see him tried as a war criminal, but that's
not going to happen.)

-- 
Institute of Policy and Planning Sciences     http://turnbull.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp
University of Tsukuba                    Tennodai 1-1-1 Tsukuba 305-8573 JAPAN
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