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Were the American Revolutionaries also "terrorists"? Where do you draw the line between revolutionary armies and terrorism?

by lambda 13y ago

a8da6b0c91d 13y ago
I don't know where the line is exactly, but I don't think Sam Adams blew up a school bus or dozens of passers by in downtown Pretoria with a car bomb.
- dragonwriter 13y ago
  Since school busses, cars, and downtown Pretoria didn't exist when Sam Adams was alive, that's probably a good bet.
- shrikant 13y ago
  Neither did Nelson Mandela, if that's what you're implying. To wit, the Church Street bombing (which is presumably what you're referring to by the Pretoria car bomb) by the MK happened in 1983. That's 20 years after Mandela was imprisoned. Unless you have some credible evidence that he was somehow the kingpin behind all the violent activities of the ANC and/or MK during the time that he was in prison, I think it's fair to say you're wrong.
- lambda 13y ago
  I believe the car bombing you are referring to was the Church Street bombing, which took place in 1983 while Nelson Mandela was in jail and Oliver Tambo was leading the ANC. I'm not sure you can really say that he bore responsibility for that attack. Before Mandela was jailed, when he was actively leading the ANC, he was careful to target only infrastructure and economic damage, not civilians. When Nelson Mandela was arrested, they were in the process of moving from that type of sabotage toward actual guerrilla action against the military, but were still not targeting civilians. Hmm. Escalating from boycotts and economic attacks to guerrilla warfare against the military; not too different than what Sam Adams did. What the ANC did after while he was jailed did escalate beyond that, but as far as I can tell, what he did and advocated never went much beyond what the American Revolutionaries did. From the Truth and Reconciliation report http://www.justice.gov.za/trc/report/finalreport/Volume%202.pdf http://www.justice.gov.za/trc/report/finalreport/Volume%202.... volume 2 page 326-7: In the course of the armed struggle, a number of military actions took place which resulted in the death or injury of civilians, and where gross violations of human rights can be said to have been committed, despite ANC policy to avoid unnecessary loss of life. Police statistics indicate that, in the period 1976 to 1986, approximately 130 people were killed by ‘terrorists’. Of these, about thirty were members of various security forces and one hundred were civilians. Of the civilians, forty were white and sixty black. A total of 130 civilian deaths is quite low for a violent conflict over that long of a period. That's far lower than the number of civilian casualties caused by the US in Iraq and Afghanistan. Heck, per year the US has killed more civilians in Afghanistan than the ANC killed in that entire period. I don't endorse attacks like the Church Street bombing at all; I find them quite abhorrent. But you need to keep some perspective on this. "Terrorist", in many cases, is just a convenient label for particular people who we want to judge more harshly than we judge ourselves.

Were the American Revolutionaries also "terrorists"? Where do you draw the line between revolutionary armies and terrorism?

by lambda 13y ago

Were the American Revolutionaries also "terrorists"? Where do you draw the line between revolutionary armies and terrorism?

a8da6b0c91d 13y ago

I don't know where the line is exactly, but I don't think Sam Adams blew up a school bus or dozens of passers by in downtown Pretoria with a car bomb.

dragonwriter 13y ago
Since school busses, cars, and downtown Pretoria didn't exist when Sam Adams was alive, that's probably a good bet.
shrikant 13y ago
Neither did Nelson Mandela, if that's what you're implying. To wit, the Church Street bombing (which is presumably what you're referring to by the Pretoria car bomb) by the MK happened in 1983. That's 20 years after Mandela was imprisoned. Unless you have some credible evidence that he was somehow the kingpin behind all the violent activities of the ANC and/or MK during the time that he was in prison, I think it's fair to say you're wrong.
lambda 13y ago
I believe the car bombing you are referring to was the Church Street bombing, which took place in 1983 while Nelson Mandela was in jail and Oliver Tambo was leading the ANC. I'm not sure you can really say that he bore responsibility for that attack. Before Mandela was jailed, when he was actively leading the ANC, he was careful to target only infrastructure and economic damage, not civilians. When Nelson Mandela was arrested, they were in the process of moving from that type of sabotage toward actual guerrilla action against the military, but were still not targeting civilians. Hmm. Escalating from boycotts and economic attacks to guerrilla warfare against the military; not too different than what Sam Adams did. What the ANC did after while he was jailed did escalate beyond that, but as far as I can tell, what he did and advocated never went much beyond what the American Revolutionaries did. From the Truth and Reconciliation report http://www.justice.gov.za/trc/report/finalreport/Volume%202.pdf http://www.justice.gov.za/trc/report/finalreport/Volume%202.... volume 2 page 326-7: In the course of the armed struggle, a number of military actions took place which resulted in the death or injury of civilians, and where gross violations of human rights can be said to have been committed, despite ANC policy to avoid unnecessary loss of life. Police statistics indicate that, in the period 1976 to 1986, approximately 130 people were killed by ‘terrorists’. Of these, about thirty were members of various security forces and one hundred were civilians. Of the civilians, forty were white and sixty black. A total of 130 civilian deaths is quite low for a violent conflict over that long of a period. That's far lower than the number of civilian casualties caused by the US in Iraq and Afghanistan. Heck, per year the US has killed more civilians in Afghanistan than the ANC killed in that entire period. I don't endorse attacks like the Church Street bombing at all; I find them quite abhorrent. But you need to keep some perspective on this. "Terrorist", in many cases, is just a convenient label for particular people who we want to judge more harshly than we judge ourselves.