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That's the general theme of public discourse... Americans killing Muslims in Iraq are "soldiers", wherears Muslims killing Americans in the US are "terrorists".

• reitanqild 11y ago
  Did you ever attend military training? I assume no because then you would know that there is a massive difference between somebody in civilian clothes attacking random people and soldiers in uniform and/or with other clearly visible signs that clearly tells they are combatants attacking people who were likely to be dangerous. That said, there's a lot to say about the notions that "(American) soldiers are good, insurgents are evil" We fought the nazis in every conceivable way, and although we were "terrorists" and they were proper soldiers we still think of ourselves as the good guys.
  • tomp 11y ago
    > people who were likely to be dangerous That's a convenient excuse. The number of civilian causalties in Iraq makes me unlikely to believe it.
    • reitanqild 11y ago
      Totally agree that we have a problem here, see my two last paragraphs. I only pointed out that soldier is very well defined. (And if they shoot at random civilian they should be bought to court and sentenced, although I suspect we see that far to rarely)
• aikah 11y ago
  > That's the general theme of public discourse... Americans killing Muslims in Iraq are "soldiers", wherears Muslims killing Americans in the US are "terrorists". Americans aren't killing Muslims in Iraq just because they are muslims. That's a straw-man. > wherears Muslims killing Americans in the US are "terrorists" (Some) Muslim extremists certainly are killing americans because of what they are and what they believe in. They are effectively called terrorists because they don't kill soldiers. They go kill random civilians in the streets. A soldier that would do the same would be charged with war-crime, and it happened. Quit your post-modernist framework which is making you say despicable things frankly.
  • tomp 11y ago
    > Americans aren't killing Muslims in Iraq just because they are muslims. Then s/Muslims/Iraqis/. But then, what about Palestine, Syria, Lybia, ...? On the other hand, I'm sure they aren't killing Americans because they're Americans either... but because they the agressors. > They go kill random civilians in the streets. What would you do, if a technologically-superior country was killing your friends, family, children? They fight any way they can, and hurt us where it hurts us most. > A soldier that would do the same would be charged with war-crime, and it happened. Wait, more than 150k civilians were killed in Iraq. I don't recall seeing that many war-crime trials.
    • vonmoltke 11y ago
      > Wait, more than 150k civilians were killed in Iraq. I don't recall seeing that many war-crime trials. By who? The vast majority were killed by various insurgent and terrorist groups, and those groups are still killing thousands of people a year.
  • Lawtonfogle 11y ago
    >A soldier that would do the same would be charged with war-crime, and it happened. Such a great thing that we have such loose criteria on what it means to be a combatant.
  • oneeyedpigeon 11y ago
    It's a pity that, whenever some idiot tries to set light to a mosque in a 'revenge' attack, it never seems to get described as a 'terrorist attack'. I don't know why that is.
    • reitanqild 11y ago
      Where is this happening on a regular basis except in Muslim countries? Also FWIW I think my local news sources tend to write about it in about the same way they write about other forms of terrorism.
  • reitanqild 11y ago
• reitanqild 11y ago
  Didn't downvote but... > Edit: Looks like I've hit a very sore point... What you said is wrong because you use wrong words. Try changing soldier to hero and we almost agree although I would still hold that attacking random civilians is bad anyway.
  • tomp 11y ago
    > you use wrong words Intentionally, that's the point! It's absurd that some words are "right" and some are "wrong", when they essentially mean the same thing - a murderer killing others, for some definition of others.
    • reitanqild 11y ago
      Absolutely not absurd. First lets agree that bot all soldiers are good and just and that you can fight for a good cause without using a uniform. That said : > essentially mean the same thing - a murderer killing others, for some definition of others. There is a again a massive difference between a good cop ending a life to save others and a brutal robber ending a life to bet away after a robbery.
      • tomp 11y ago
        So who exactly is good in this situation? And please don't say the "soldiers" who invaded Iraq...
        • reitanqild 11y ago
          I specified good because we both know not all cops are good. As for the soldiers that invaded Iraq I'd say you should judge the politicians first. I guess a lot of the soldiers felt a lot like the German soldiers that invaded certain European countries and were surprised to be shot at when they were told and many honestly thought they came to protect the locals against an imminent attack from British forces. Edit: and lets not forget that it was lame European pacifist politicians that let Hitler get so far.
• cmiles74 11y ago
  I believe anyone killing Americans in the US is at risk of being labeled a terrorist. Typically the violence is often linked with political or religious beliefs but that is not a requirement. You say "that's the theme of public discourse" as if this is something novel. On the contrary, I think any nation attacked on it's own ground is likely to view the perpetrator as a terrorist; in my opinion this is consistent with the US usage. For instance, victims of a US drone attack might view the US as terrorists in that scenario.
• dang 11y ago
  We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10758044 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10758044 and marked it off-topic.