Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site ubc-vision.UUCP Path: utzoo!utcsri!ubc-vision!mokhtar From: mokhtar@ubc-vision.UUCP (Farzin Mokhtarian) Newsgroups: net.politics Subject: Re: Terrorism, Inc. (Who is moral?) Message-ID: <1065@ubc-vision.UUCP> Date: Fri, 11-Oct-85 21:18:44 EDT Article-I.D.: ubc-visi.1065 Posted: Fri Oct 11 21:18:44 1985 Date-Received: Sat, 12-Oct-85 16:07:39 EDT Organization: UBC Computational Vision Lab, Vancouver, B.C., Canada Lines: 33 Subject: Re: Terrorism, Inc. (A definition?) >>Even in real, full-scale wars waged by legitimate governments for whatever >>reason, casualties inflicted on the civilian population is definitely *not* >>a "mere unfortunate by-product". The concept of total war, formally adopted >>and used in WWII as well as Vietnam, is that civilian populations directly >>support the armed forces, run the economy and the weapon-producing factories >>and provide new recruits and should therefore come under direct attack, >Can you say: "rationalization"? No, I can't, and that's the point. It is intended to show that you can not expect "terrorists" to have higher moral codes than governments who have terrorized them. I do not approve of murder of innocent civilians by an individual or a group of people but I do not disapprove of it any more than I disapprove of the same act by a government (in this case take these to mean Israel and the Palestinians). This is what morality tells me. If you now tell me that being bound by morality is not always politically sound, then you have in fact said that you don't consider yourself bound by morality when it is not to your advantage. Then how can you expect the "terrorists" to feel morally bound? They are more crude but they have hardly changed the rules of the game. Politics can't afford morality. Isn't this what we have been told over and over? Farzin Mokhtarian ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- "From which may be drawn a general rule, which never or very rarely fails, that whoever is the cause of another becoming powerful, is ruined himself; for that power is produced by him either through craft or force; and both of these are suspected by the one who has been raised to power."