7 ms·

As crazy as it sounds some HN users defend ISIS. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8808630 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8808630

milesskorpen 12y ago
Saying that ISIS isn't a terrorist organization doesn't mean that user is defending the organization. Terrorist has become a catch-all term that is used way too broadly (seems to cover any armed force motivated by Islam for many people). ISIS can be an awful organization without consisting of terrorists.
- happyscrappy 12y ago
  They are terrorizing local populations for a political goal. They are not just fighting battles they are slaughtering civilians into compliance. How is that not terrorism? Edit: He also claimed that it would be better if ISIS was in charge of the area. That is quite ridiculous.
  - grandalf 12y ago
    Would you define US drone strikes as attempts at terrorizing the target populations?
    - happyscrappy 12y ago
      Drone strikes explicitly try not to hit non-combatants. ISIS slaughter wantonly. Some people have a world view that needs to see the US and ISIS as equivalently evil.
      - ceejayoz 12y ago
        > Drone strikes explicitly try not to hit non-combatants. http://www.salon.com/2012/05/29/militants_media_propaganda/ http://www.salon.com/2012/05/29/militants_media_propaganda/ "Mr. Obama embraced a disputed method for counting civilian casualties that did little to box him in. It in effect counts all military-age males in a strike zone as combatants, according to several administration officials, unless there is explicit intelligence posthumously proving them innocent." ISIS seems to have a similarly broad definition. No, they're not morally equivalent, but we have serious issues with how we prosecute the War on Terror.
        zachrose 12y ago
        Wow, that's exactly what Judith Butler is talking about when she talks about which lives are grievable and which are not[1]. [1] https://www.rochester.edu/in_visible_culture/Issue_16/reviews/mazurski/mazurski.html https://www.rochester.edu/in_visible_culture/Issue_16/review...
      - rdtsc 12y ago
        > Drone strikes explicitly try not to hit non-combatants. How do you know? What downsides are there to targeting non-combatants? And how do you define non-combatants. Person in the field with a stick in their hand, is that a combatant? A wedding, is it a combatant gathering. If anything it actaully helps to target civilians because it promotes creating and perpetuating more resentment, which in turn provides more opportunities to do drone strikes, make more drones, repair more drones, get promotions based on drone operations, etc.
      - Nanzikambe 12y ago
        > Drone strikes explicitly try not to hit non-combatants. IIRC Laura Poitros's talk at the CCC a few days alluded to the fact that targets on drone "kill lists" have values assigned to them -- denoting specifically the acceptable threshold of non-combatant collateral damage.
  - milesskorpen 12y ago
    By that definition, ANY fighting would be terrorism. Was the Vietnam war terrorism? We definitely terrified some members of the local population. Were the actions by Japan or Germany in WWII terrorism? By some definitions of terrorism, all of the above would count as terrorism. At that point, the term seems to be pretty useless.
    - mullingitover 12y ago
      Germany, Japan, the UK and the US (among others) all did things in WWII that count as terrorism, and no, the term isn't useless. The textbook definition, "the use of violence and intimidation in the pursuit of political aims" is exactly what was happening in the war, although I would add the caveat that it's violence and intimidation against civilians. Using violence and intimidation against enemy troops is just regular warfare.
      - SixSigma 12y ago
        So beheading Lee Rigby on the streets of the UK was regular warfare? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Lee_Rigby http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Lee_Rigby
        thomasfoster96 12y ago
        I think the attackers used that exact defense during legal proceedings.
        SixSigma 12y ago
        I agree with them tbh. but that means they should have been shot on the spot instead of arrested. I don't mean I agree with their cause but I am surprised attacks on service men & women don't happen more on their home soil which, from one perspective, is behind enemy lines.
      - Houshalter 12y ago
        When most people say "terrorism", they are referring to a very specific thing, not "warfare and violence in general". You've made the word useless, just so that you can use it's connotations where they don't belong. Connotations which wouldn't exist if it was really defined that way.
  - tormeh 12y ago
    I've never heard anyone describe Hitler as a terrorist. Not the Soviets either. Even the US during the cold war terrorized their own population (only the communist part of it, but I'm sure IS is fine with the local population as long as it adheres to the IS ideology) I think in order to be a terrorist, terror has to be your main political tool.
    - TheMagicHorsey 12y ago
      History, my brother, check it out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_of_the_Long_Knives http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_of_the_Long_Knives
  - _delirium 12y ago
    If "terrorism" is to retain some specificity, I don't think you can include very old-fashioned war crimes in it. Slaughtering civilians during an attack or pillaging cities after a victory are millennia old types of atrocities, and I'm not sure they need to be recategorized under a neologism.
    - jaekwon 12y ago
      Aren't you making a mistake in assuming that those who fall under this neologism are different? Isis for example wants to be a nation, not just terrorize people. Haven't there been religious crusades of terror for that purpose in the past?
  - hangonhn 12y ago
    Terrorism is the use of mass terror against a civilian population you don't control to reach a political goal. Terrorizing a population is simply oppression and governments have been doing this for as long as there has been governments (Nazis, Soviets, Chinese Communists, etc. are all modern examples of this.)
    - jaekwon 12y ago
      Like the threat of a nuclear bomb? Not just NK but Fat Man too.
      - adventured 12y ago
        By that definition Russia is a giant terrorist organization, seeing as they're pointing nuclear missiles at a lot of cities in North America and Europe.
        hangonhn 12y ago
        Well I won't rule on the general statement about Russia but their nuclear arsenal isn't being used to change any of our stated policies. They're not saying "stop doing X or we will use nuclear weapons". What most or all current nuclear armed nations have done is basically used their nukes to maintain the status quo -- a Nash equilibrium of non-usage.
        amadvance 12y ago
        Russia invaded Crimea some months ago. Only a nuclear power could have done that without retaliation.
        jaekwon 12y ago
        Yes. That's my point. Most of us live under terrorist regimes. Black people are terrorized by the police. The middle east is terrorized by the US. We're terrorized by Russia. To isolate a few and to give them the label of "terrorist" for being a bit more terrifying is a form of brainwashing.
  - mikeash 12y ago
    Irrelevant to the question at hand. ISIS may or may not be a terrorist organization depending on how you define it, but arguing the "may not" side is not "defend[ing] ISIS."
  - xnull2guest 12y ago
    Let me chime in here as I am the original commenter. I did not say that it would be better if ISIS was in charge of the area. I did say that a three state solution would be an improvement to the way that state boundaries are drawn in the Middle East - they were drawn the way they are now specifically to keep the area unstable by the British as a result of the Sykes–Picot Agreement. This is a sentiment also expressed by many nations in the UN and by scholars who study stability in the Middle East. Regarding their 'slaughter of civilians into compliance' I would point out that as this is war, in fact the most violent geographic location today, that the cost of innocent civilians is a historical certainty (completely 'typical' even in its horrendousness) and that there is no side that is innocent of such things including the United States and our contractors, allies and the militant extremist (anti-ISIS) factions that we fund, support and arm there - and that also our lauded drone program institutionalizes compliance with slaughter of innocents. Again this is not to say "Go ISIS!" or "Boo America" - it's to say "Boo war!". If you'd like to ask for more details, supporting media coverage, or clarification about any of my comments including this one please feel free to ask(/challenge).
tormeh 12y ago
He has a point, you know. His claims are: 1) IS is not a terrorist organization, it is an army. 2) IS is better, or at least not worse, than existing middle east governments. 1 seems pretty obvious to me. Sure, they are terrorizing the local population, but lots of governments do that without being labeled terrorists. 2 is more difficult to swallow. Many ME governments are pure garbage, but IS looks a lot worse.
- grandalf 12y ago
  Exactly. His point is well stated too, and ironically the grandparent in this thread fell victim to the mode of thought the author of the linked comment cautions against.
  - happyscrappy 12y ago
    Armies do not melt into the civilian population at the first sign of trouble.
    - tormeh 12y ago
      Presumably because tanks are hard to hide, not because they don't want to. Guerrilla warfare warfare is not a middle eastern thing; a strategic manual we were encouraged to read in the Norwegian army told us we should source food and supplies from the local population and fill sugar on the gas tanks of the enemy. Assuming you've lost tanks and airspace first, of course. From what I've heard IS has all kinds of heavy weaponry and hold territory. Seems like hiding would be hard.
    - SixSigma 12y ago
      They most certainly do.
- chimeracoder 12y ago
  > Sure, they are terrorizing the local population, but lots of governments do that without being labeled terrorists. ...including the US government, let's not forget. Drone strikes aren't "local" to the US, but they are conducted against US citizens in countries that the US is not at war with[0]. Moreover, if any middle eastern country did to the US what the US does in Pakistan, you'd bet the US would call it "terrorism"! The word "terrorism" is inherently subjective; there is no way to define it consistently in a way that doesn't hinge either on race or on political affiliation[1]. I won't defend ISIS, but calling them "terrorists" doesn't mean anything. The word "terrorist" has basically become the government equivalent of playground name-calling. It's a way of saying "we don't agree with the way that that group is using violence, so we're going to use a different word to de-legitimize it"[2] To borrow an example from another thread, look at the way the label "communist" was used during the McCarthy era. Oftentimes it was just used as a general term for "subversive actor", and in fact the targets were actually being accused of completely different ideologies altogether, many of them completely incompatible with Communism! But the literal meaning of the word itself doesn't matter; what it really represented was a rhetorical way to other a group of people considered dangerous. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anwar_al-Awlaki https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anwar_al-Awlaki [1] Notice that many media outlets were hesitant to label the Boston bombings "terrorism" until after the culprits had been identified (with some even going so far as to say things like, "It's unknown if this was an act of terrorism or not"!) [2] Whether or not they are correct to delegitimize it is a separate issue; the point is simply that the word "terrorist" is itself a political statement.
frozenport 12y ago
Yeah, and some HN users are hired shills for Russia and China.

milesskorpen 12y ago

Saying that ISIS isn't a terrorist organization doesn't mean that user is defending the organization. Terrorist has become a catch-all term that is used way too broadly (seems to cover any armed force motivated by Islam for many people). ISIS can be an awful organization without consisting of terrorists.

happyscrappy 12y ago
They are terrorizing local populations for a political goal. They are not just fighting battles they are slaughtering civilians into compliance. How is that not terrorism? Edit: He also claimed that it would be better if ISIS was in charge of the area. That is quite ridiculous.
- grandalf 12y ago
  Would you define US drone strikes as attempts at terrorizing the target populations?
  - happyscrappy 12y ago
    Drone strikes explicitly try not to hit non-combatants. ISIS slaughter wantonly. Some people have a world view that needs to see the US and ISIS as equivalently evil.
    - ceejayoz 12y ago
      > Drone strikes explicitly try not to hit non-combatants. http://www.salon.com/2012/05/29/militants_media_propaganda/ http://www.salon.com/2012/05/29/militants_media_propaganda/ "Mr. Obama embraced a disputed method for counting civilian casualties that did little to box him in. It in effect counts all military-age males in a strike zone as combatants, according to several administration officials, unless there is explicit intelligence posthumously proving them innocent." ISIS seems to have a similarly broad definition. No, they're not morally equivalent, but we have serious issues with how we prosecute the War on Terror.
      - zachrose 12y ago
        Wow, that's exactly what Judith Butler is talking about when she talks about which lives are grievable and which are not[1]. [1] https://www.rochester.edu/in_visible_culture/Issue_16/reviews/mazurski/mazurski.html https://www.rochester.edu/in_visible_culture/Issue_16/review...
    - rdtsc 12y ago
      > Drone strikes explicitly try not to hit non-combatants. How do you know? What downsides are there to targeting non-combatants? And how do you define non-combatants. Person in the field with a stick in their hand, is that a combatant? A wedding, is it a combatant gathering. If anything it actaully helps to target civilians because it promotes creating and perpetuating more resentment, which in turn provides more opportunities to do drone strikes, make more drones, repair more drones, get promotions based on drone operations, etc.
    - Nanzikambe 12y ago
      > Drone strikes explicitly try not to hit non-combatants. IIRC Laura Poitros's talk at the CCC a few days alluded to the fact that targets on drone "kill lists" have values assigned to them -- denoting specifically the acceptable threshold of non-combatant collateral damage.
- milesskorpen 12y ago
  By that definition, ANY fighting would be terrorism. Was the Vietnam war terrorism? We definitely terrified some members of the local population. Were the actions by Japan or Germany in WWII terrorism? By some definitions of terrorism, all of the above would count as terrorism. At that point, the term seems to be pretty useless.
  - mullingitover 12y ago
    Germany, Japan, the UK and the US (among others) all did things in WWII that count as terrorism, and no, the term isn't useless. The textbook definition, "the use of violence and intimidation in the pursuit of political aims" is exactly what was happening in the war, although I would add the caveat that it's violence and intimidation against civilians. Using violence and intimidation against enemy troops is just regular warfare.
    - SixSigma 12y ago
      So beheading Lee Rigby on the streets of the UK was regular warfare? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Lee_Rigby http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Lee_Rigby
      - thomasfoster96 12y ago
        I think the attackers used that exact defense during legal proceedings.
        SixSigma 12y ago
        I agree with them tbh. but that means they should have been shot on the spot instead of arrested. I don't mean I agree with their cause but I am surprised attacks on service men & women don't happen more on their home soil which, from one perspective, is behind enemy lines.
    - Houshalter 12y ago
      When most people say "terrorism", they are referring to a very specific thing, not "warfare and violence in general". You've made the word useless, just so that you can use it's connotations where they don't belong. Connotations which wouldn't exist if it was really defined that way.
- tormeh 12y ago
  I've never heard anyone describe Hitler as a terrorist. Not the Soviets either. Even the US during the cold war terrorized their own population (only the communist part of it, but I'm sure IS is fine with the local population as long as it adheres to the IS ideology) I think in order to be a terrorist, terror has to be your main political tool.
  - TheMagicHorsey 12y ago
    History, my brother, check it out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_of_the_Long_Knives http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_of_the_Long_Knives
- _delirium 12y ago
  If "terrorism" is to retain some specificity, I don't think you can include very old-fashioned war crimes in it. Slaughtering civilians during an attack or pillaging cities after a victory are millennia old types of atrocities, and I'm not sure they need to be recategorized under a neologism.
  - jaekwon 12y ago
    Aren't you making a mistake in assuming that those who fall under this neologism are different? Isis for example wants to be a nation, not just terrorize people. Haven't there been religious crusades of terror for that purpose in the past?
- hangonhn 12y ago
  Terrorism is the use of mass terror against a civilian population you don't control to reach a political goal. Terrorizing a population is simply oppression and governments have been doing this for as long as there has been governments (Nazis, Soviets, Chinese Communists, etc. are all modern examples of this.)
  - jaekwon 12y ago
    Like the threat of a nuclear bomb? Not just NK but Fat Man too.
    - adventured 12y ago
      By that definition Russia is a giant terrorist organization, seeing as they're pointing nuclear missiles at a lot of cities in North America and Europe.
      - hangonhn 12y ago
        Well I won't rule on the general statement about Russia but their nuclear arsenal isn't being used to change any of our stated policies. They're not saying "stop doing X or we will use nuclear weapons". What most or all current nuclear armed nations have done is basically used their nukes to maintain the status quo -- a Nash equilibrium of non-usage.
        amadvance 12y ago
        Russia invaded Crimea some months ago. Only a nuclear power could have done that without retaliation.
      - jaekwon 12y ago
        Yes. That's my point. Most of us live under terrorist regimes. Black people are terrorized by the police. The middle east is terrorized by the US. We're terrorized by Russia. To isolate a few and to give them the label of "terrorist" for being a bit more terrifying is a form of brainwashing.
- mikeash 12y ago
  Irrelevant to the question at hand. ISIS may or may not be a terrorist organization depending on how you define it, but arguing the "may not" side is not "defend[ing] ISIS."
- xnull2guest 12y ago
  Let me chime in here as I am the original commenter. I did not say that it would be better if ISIS was in charge of the area. I did say that a three state solution would be an improvement to the way that state boundaries are drawn in the Middle East - they were drawn the way they are now specifically to keep the area unstable by the British as a result of the Sykes–Picot Agreement. This is a sentiment also expressed by many nations in the UN and by scholars who study stability in the Middle East. Regarding their 'slaughter of civilians into compliance' I would point out that as this is war, in fact the most violent geographic location today, that the cost of innocent civilians is a historical certainty (completely 'typical' even in its horrendousness) and that there is no side that is innocent of such things including the United States and our contractors, allies and the militant extremist (anti-ISIS) factions that we fund, support and arm there - and that also our lauded drone program institutionalizes compliance with slaughter of innocents. Again this is not to say "Go ISIS!" or "Boo America" - it's to say "Boo war!". If you'd like to ask for more details, supporting media coverage, or clarification about any of my comments including this one please feel free to ask(/challenge).

tormeh 12y ago

He has a point, you know. His claims are: 1) IS is not a terrorist organization, it is an army. 2) IS is better, or at least not worse, than existing middle east governments. 1 seems pretty obvious to me. Sure, they are terrorizing the local population, but lots of governments do that without being labeled terrorists. 2 is more difficult to swallow. Many ME governments are pure garbage, but IS looks a lot worse.

grandalf 12y ago
Exactly. His point is well stated too, and ironically the grandparent in this thread fell victim to the mode of thought the author of the linked comment cautions against.
- happyscrappy 12y ago
  Armies do not melt into the civilian population at the first sign of trouble.
  - tormeh 12y ago
    Presumably because tanks are hard to hide, not because they don't want to. Guerrilla warfare warfare is not a middle eastern thing; a strategic manual we were encouraged to read in the Norwegian army told us we should source food and supplies from the local population and fill sugar on the gas tanks of the enemy. Assuming you've lost tanks and airspace first, of course. From what I've heard IS has all kinds of heavy weaponry and hold territory. Seems like hiding would be hard.
  - SixSigma 12y ago
    They most certainly do.
chimeracoder 12y ago
> Sure, they are terrorizing the local population, but lots of governments do that without being labeled terrorists. ...including the US government, let's not forget. Drone strikes aren't "local" to the US, but they are conducted against US citizens in countries that the US is not at war with[0]. Moreover, if any middle eastern country did to the US what the US does in Pakistan, you'd bet the US would call it "terrorism"! The word "terrorism" is inherently subjective; there is no way to define it consistently in a way that doesn't hinge either on race or on political affiliation[1]. I won't defend ISIS, but calling them "terrorists" doesn't mean anything. The word "terrorist" has basically become the government equivalent of playground name-calling. It's a way of saying "we don't agree with the way that that group is using violence, so we're going to use a different word to de-legitimize it"[2] To borrow an example from another thread, look at the way the label "communist" was used during the McCarthy era. Oftentimes it was just used as a general term for "subversive actor", and in fact the targets were actually being accused of completely different ideologies altogether, many of them completely incompatible with Communism! But the literal meaning of the word itself doesn't matter; what it really represented was a rhetorical way to other a group of people considered dangerous. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anwar_al-Awlaki https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anwar_al-Awlaki [1] Notice that many media outlets were hesitant to label the Boston bombings "terrorism" until after the culprits had been identified (with some even going so far as to say things like, "It's unknown if this was an act of terrorism or not"!) [2] Whether or not they are correct to delegitimize it is a separate issue; the point is simply that the word "terrorist" is itself a political statement.

frozenport 12y ago

Yeah, and some HN users are hired shills for Russia and China.