originally posted by MycroftYes, I understand that. You’ve worked very hard at obfuscation.
Once again I am sorry that you choose to start by misrepresenting me. If you want to substantiate your claim of obfuscation I will be more than happy to reply to your evidence.
This not a life or death situation here. It is a sceptics discussion board. I have asked a simple question. If you don't want to answer a simple question, fundamently aimed at testing the validity of your assertion of influence, don't.
I could go through all this line by line, but that would be impossible to follow and by the time you responded, it would be impossible to maintain any sort of context, so let me hit the main themes and see if I can clarify some things:
Feel free.
First I would ask if your definition of terrorism covers all military action, or are there some military actions that you would agree are not terrorism?
I am somewhat intrigued that you start by asking me questions in order to clarify what you (not me) are claiming. Nevertheless, although you rule a simple question off limits, let me address your questions once again.
I believe there are indeed some military actions which do not fall under the definition of terror. As I have mentioned before, I believe that Israel is entitled to use all legal force to stop terrorist bombings happening. Using the Israeli airforce to assassinate suspects in circumstances which guarantee innocent children die, is however not one of them, as some of the pilots themselves seem to be agreeing. Many in the UK believe that the bombing of Dresden also crossed the line.
Yes, I know the Moroccan girls expressed an admiration for OBL. My thesis does go beyond just the scope of the article, if it didn’t I would just have copied the article without comment. Because the actions of the girls bear a striking similarity to Palestinian-Arabic terrorist actions in the disputed territories in Israel, I conclude that there is an additional influence that is not mentioned in the article. This influence I call Arafat’s gift to civilization.
I distinguish between actual influence and asserted influence. They are not the same. As you know, there is not one word from the girls which demonstrates Arafat was an actual influence on them. In the absence of such hard evidence, you have chosen to assert (or in your words, conclude) that Arafat had an influence on the basis of religion, modus operandi and culture. You feel this is all you need to demonstrate actual influence as opposed to asserted influence. That is where we differ.
You imply that I should be able to “test” this hypothesis by looking for an influence to early Israeli militants. This is false. Seeing an influence between two terrorist groups does not imply a similar influence will be found with any other group. Finding or not finding a similar influence to another group will not add or take away from the influence seen between the Palestinian-Arab terrorists and the Moroccan girls.
Unfortunately you appear to still confusing actual influence with asserted influence. You have yet to demonstrate that there is any actual influence by Arafat on the girls. Just because you are of the same religion, culture and use the same methods as another person does not demonstrate actual influence. It only demonstrates that you are of the same religion, culture (a wonderfully wooly term)and use the same methods.
In the absence of hard evidence your thesis therefore rests on the assertion that all you need to conclusively demonstrate influence is three specific factors. If they were indeed so conclusive, one would imagine that you would be very interested in showing what part those three specific factors played in influencing other terrorist groups. The terrorists who founded Israel are, at first sight, good candidates for analysis.
Corroboration by other terrorist groups, if found, would then support your use of the three factors in the case of the girls, because let me reiterate - you have no hard evidence whatsoever of influence by Arafat.
To use my previous analogy, If I were to say that of all mammals, the panther is most closely related to the leopard, that hypothesis would not be tested by asking what animal is most closely related to the dolphin. The relationship between panthers and leopards does not imply a similar relationship with other animals, and I don’t have to find a similar relationship between other animals to take note of the relationship between panthers and leopards.
If that were a relevant analogy I would be happy to pursue it. Unfortunately it is not because you still need to differentiate between actual influence and asserted influence. In the absence of any hard evidence of actual influence you chose to claim that three specific facors conclusively demonstrated influence. This can be tested, if not proved, by looking at how your claimed factors work with other terrorist groups. If they were relevant to other groups then they might have some relevance. You won't do that therefore there can be little confidence that they are of any use in the case you chose to cite.
If the terrorists who founded Israel thought up all their terrorist methods by themselves and weren't influenced by any other terrorists a simple question arises - why couldn't the girls do the same?
If the terrorists who founded Israel were however influenced by other terrorists the question arises, who were they? What was their religion? If it was different from the Stern Gang and Irgun, couldn't the girls also be different. Etc. That is why testing your thesis with the terrorist who founded Israel is relevant and might give it some credibility. It is a question of sauce for the goose sauce or sauce for the gander?
There is a difference between committing suicide and being willing to risk your life. You can use semantics to try to minimize the difference, you draw moral comparisons, but you can’t erase the difference.
The problem is that this argument simply doesn't work in practice. I note that once again you won't answer simple questions.
Let me look at the real effects of terrorism. There is absolutely no practical difference between a suicide bomber who kills ten people and a non-suicide terrorist who dies blowing up ten people. In both cases you have one dead bomber and ten dead innocents. The families of the ten killed by the suicide bomber have a dead family member, in exactly the same way as the families whose members were killed by a non-suicide bomber.
In fact it can be argued that non-suicide bombers are worse because, if they survive and run away from their atrocities like cowards, they still terrorise other innocent people by their very existence. All terrorist bombers are wrong at all times but the successful suicide bomber is, by definition, not going to kill anyone else. The non-suicide bombers however can, and on many occasions do, bomb and murder innocent people again and again and again.
I’ve read about it, both pro and con. Some claim that what happened there was an atrocity, that the town had declared it’s neutrality and should have been left alone. Others claim that Arab militants were taking refuge there and that the town was a legitimate military target. I’m not going to argue about the right or wrong of Deir Yassin, that’s way beyond the scope of our discussion, but there is one thing I can say about the event with absolute certainty:
It has nothing to do with the girls in Morocco.
It has everything to do with the fundamentals of your own argument however. In relation to Arafat you claimed that
Innovation deserves credit. The first to conceive an idea and put it into practice should get mention when the idea or action is put to use in other places at other times.
You then stated
The innovation I am speaking of is not just dying in the attack, many soldiers are prepared to do that, but dying in attacking civilians.
Some terrorists died murdering civilians in Deir Yassin quite early in the modern Middle East conflict. It wasn't Arafat's work.
Yes, you are correct to point out that initially a Muslim cleric told the girls that their plans were illegal. I’m glad for that, it shows the lie to those who would claim that Islam is bad. I personally am a religious man who has a deep respect for other good people who are also religious, even if their religion is different from mine.
I am happy you agree that there are many good Muslims. Many presumably, who are against terrorism and who are happy to live in peace with their neighbours - whoever they are.
This clearly demonstrates that the girls themselves saw an Islamic influence in what they were doing. When the first cleric gave them an answer they didn’t like, they sought the advice of different clerics. One can only speculate on what was in those documents on Jihad sent to the girls, but it did reassure them.
Therefore we have hard evidence that those specific clerics influenced the girls. What still escapes me however is what that has got to do with Arafat? Is it simply that he is of the same religion as the initial cleric who told the girls what they were planning was illegal and of the vast numbers of Muslims who are against terrorism?
You have said before that you are look for similarities between terrorist groups that differentiate them from other terrorist groups rather than similarities which are inherent in the definition of a terrorist. That may be a reasonable aim. It would not however demonstrate actual influence. I feel that is a fundamental problem for your thesis.
