Freedom Fighter or Terrorist?
Definitions
Let’s go crazy and define freedom fighter as a person who fights for freedom. If that’s not wacky, I don’t know what is. (OED doesn’t offer a definition.)
Let’s define terrorist as a person who a person who attempts to further his views by a system of coercive intimidation (OED).
“They Hate Our Freedoms”
I was recently talking to a friend, a UW grad, about the war in Afghanistan. He mentioned the statement by Bush, that “they hate our freedoms”, and thought it was just the silliest thing ever.
He’s not alone. Many Liberals believe that the statement “they hate our freedoms” is pure, unadulterated hogwash. I get the feeling they’d like to take Bush out back and beat the dickens out of him.
Thomas J. DiLorenzo, outspoken Liberal and economics professor at Loyola College in Maryland, thought the statement was “the most ridiculous statement to have emerged from the neoconservative regime”.
American Liberals take for granted the absurdity of Bush’s statement without any fact checking. While facts do prove troublesome and inconvenient on a regular basis, one must admit their frequent necessity in the search for truth.
Islam and Freedom
The idea that Islamic militants are heroic freedom fighters is hugely popular amongst Liberal Democrats. The real terrorists, they say, are the Americans. Some go so far as to congratulate al Qaeda on their killing of American soldiers.
The truth, however, is that freedom is precisely what they oppose. Specifically, freedom from Islamic Law, Sharia.
The Taliban, still very much active in Afghanistan and parts of Pakistan, opposes freedoms that allow girls to go to school. They oppose it so much that the Taliban has murdered 61 teachers for their crime of educating girls. Over 183 schools have been bombed for admitting girls.
These freedom fighters now have little time left to fight foreign invaders, what with their busy schedule of beating and executing fellow Muslims who deviated from their law and listened to Western music, ate lobster, applied finger polish, played chess, owned a VCR or exchanged Christmas cards.
For the crime of applying fingernail polish, a young girl may have her fingers chopped off. Do they hate our freedoms? Yes, and they believe that our culture is corrupting theirs. Our music. Our television programs. Our revealing clothes. Our very culture is, to radical Islamics, is “evil”. We are very much “Satan”, and to strike at us is honorable and heroic.
A Cultural War
Many people would paint the struggle against freedom as a religious one. This perspective ignores the fact that the vast majority of Muslims in Muslim majority nations prefer democratic freedoms. They struggle against a totalitarian minority of Muslims who prefer and fight for a strict Muslim State which applies its own version of Islamic law without mercy.
The Muslim extremists look to the West and they see high divorce rates, promiscuity, sexually liberated women, and they fear that Western culture is corrupting their own traditions. And their perception is correct. In moderate Islamic nations, young people watch Western television shows via satellite. They buy the latest pop music CDs. They dress in Western fashions, and have relations outside of marriage.
These freedoms are seen as a threat to traditional Islamic culture.
Democratic freedoms are not compatible with Islamic Law. And while the Liberals in the US insist that the terrorists are freedom fighters, those same freedom fighters do not even attempt to hide the fact that they oppose the very freedoms that uninformed American Liberals claim they are fighting for.
The very definition of freedom precludes a reasonable person from describing their goals as “freedom”. When they commit terrorist acts against young men who bought Western CD’s, they are opposing freedom.
Whether or not the West should assist the freedom-minded majority fight the extremist minority is another question. But there should be no doubt in anyone’s mind about the goals of these terrorists. The goal certainly is not freedom.
January 22nd, 2008 at 2:45 pm
It’s all about control and the more freedom people have the harder it is to control them. Also, the fact that their actions are glorified is the most sickening part of the entire escapades that are ‘Freedom Fighters’.
I’ve spent too much time with current and retired marines to know that we ARE doing good and that the majority of people in these countries appreciate what we are doing. It’s the liberals who are trying to look like they ‘care’ who are blurring the truth, the truth that we are impacting in a positive manner and that the insurgents are truly a small percentage of populace in these war time countries.
Thanks for the post John.
January 22nd, 2008 at 8:36 pm
The Taliban are a horrible bunch for sure. Illiterate, backward, uneducated
bullies who idolise a dead 7th century paedophile and would like to return the
world to the century of said nonce. It would have been nice if they could have
been left alone to evolve for another 500 years before the West engaged in
any kind of contact with ‘em but the 9/11 attacks ruled that out, I guess.
The Taliban’s cruelty and intolerance towards their fellow countrymen is
apalling and terrible but all the same, is it really any of our business?. I would
have said no, before the twin towers attacks. Without 9/11 we no doubt would
have left them to pursue their internal terror tactics unchallenged. I don’t
consider it worth the loss of a single American or British life to civilise a distant
and essentially alien culture with no tradition of democracy. Many cultures are
lacking in civilised values and practices compared to the US and Britain. We
don’t go to the lengths of invading and reforming them, but the fact of what the
Taliban did in harbouring Bin Laden and his training camps changes things
somewhat. They bloody well asked for a breach of the prime directive and
deserve everything they get.
Ideally, we should imprison every male member of the Taliban and help the
Afghans found a state based on Women holding the reigns of power. Male
members of their society could then grow up in shackles and be dragged out of
their filthy cells once a year to perform sperm donor duties and perhaps be
allowed to attend the annual Taliban disco and dance to crap Yusuf Islam
records. If laws enacted by the new female judiciary compelled them to wear
flesh coloured male only burka’s over the top of their bulbous turbans giving
them the appearance of ridiculous dancing pricks, so much the better.
Freedom Fighters? Oppression Fighters is nearer the mark. It’s impossible to
find anything nice to say about the Taliban and I find it hard to believe that
American liberals can. Here in England, Liberal Democrats are sane and
respectable folk who talk about the environment and healthcare.
The attacks against young music fans are perhaps excusable if the youths in
question are buying rap records [sorry, I just hate rap] but attacks on girls
and women for what in most societies is normal female behaviour makes me
so angry that I’d like to rip their Islambecile heads off and shit down their
necks.,
They make me maaaaad! [staggers off, grasping head in both hands and
wearing manic expression of seething, pent up indignation]…
January 22nd, 2008 at 9:11 pm
Was the Jewish extermination by the National Socialists our business? Or Darfur? Or any of the other genocides? The same people who criticize the US for taking the Taliban out of control also criticize the US for not bombing Auschwitz. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.
January 22nd, 2008 at 9:51 pm
The crimes of Nazism against the Jews were certainly deserving of
intervention if we had known about them. I guess It’s like watching a
dysfunctional family ruled by a murderous psychotic parent from a distance.
You might witness small abuses as father cuffs young Ferdinand in the local
supermarket, but you wouldn’t dream of intervening and don’t get to see him
garotte the hapless young man and bury him beneath the floorboards at home
later that evening.
America twatting the Taliban is laudable but isn’t taking place out of US
altruism towards their Afghan victims but as a retaliation for the outrage of 9/11
to which the Taliban are connected. American interests are uppermost, as
they should be.
Iraq is a different question. Why attack Iraq and let the actual perpetrator
of the crime escape. Is it a case of, “Well we can’t get at Bin Laden but these
guys are not very nice and they are Arabs so.. They’ll do!”
January 22nd, 2008 at 9:52 pm
Or was Dubya just trying to impress Pop?
January 23rd, 2008 at 2:01 pm
I see a wall of text that apparently skirts the issue dave.
John essentially took the words out of my mouth in regards to having an obligation to look after our fellow man. The bleeding hearts love shoving pictures of injured vets, murdered civilians down our throats, but history will sing a different song. I know so.
January 23rd, 2008 at 2:53 pm
hmmm. So you think the invasion of Iraq was undertaken with the intention of
being nice to our fellow man Mr Nails? Sounds very noble but I’m sure that a
not intellectually overendowed President’s inability to distinguish one obnoxious
arab from another was a greater factor in the decision to invade.
And another thing. A “War On Terror” is futile, like a war on the weather.
Terror is a technique involving individuals or small groups that stay in the
shadows and strike unexpectedly, not a bunch of guys on a foreign soil that
you can go and bomb into oblivion.
I also hope history sings a happy song. Just so long as it’s not Rap.
January 24th, 2008 at 4:04 am
Yes, I think the preservation of human rights was in the hearts and intentions of those involved. Do I think Oil, policy, and other factors were also considered, yes. In addition, I’m sure you would agree that it was not just our President who decided to go to war, since it did receive a vote from congress, not to mention endless amounts of Presidential aids.
In response to the war on terror being futile, so because it’s difficult we should let it slide? We should let horrible things happen just because it’s hard to gauge effectiveness?
Unfortunately you are just not making any sense to me, unless you are just so against the war you are blind to what we’ve accomplished(or against the president). The fact is we are being effective, things are changing for those whose human rights were previously taken.
I see thoughts like yours everyday on Reddit and Digg and it makes me want to vomit.
January 24th, 2008 at 1:46 pm
The war in Iraq was supposedly pursued on the premise that Saddam
possessed WMD’s and posed a threat to the wider world. This is the case that
was sold to the American populace and to congress. The same thing happened
in Britain with the goverment at one point making the fanciful claim that
Saddam had the capability of striking out at his enemies with WMD’s “within 45
minutes”. The war was pursued even though Iraq had allowed in weapons
inspectors to investigate such claims. They were swiftly revealed to be utterly
false and the Bush/Blair governments were probably aware of that from the
start.
Saddam was a tin pot, third world dictator with no capability of threatening
anyone outside his own region. Admittedly he was a nasty piece of work who
commited crimes against his own people, but it was up to those people to rise
up and depose him after the first Gulf war.That they were unable or unwilling
to do so tells us something about their society, that they haven’t yet evolved
the drive towards a political system that respects individual freedoms and
human rights. They are used to being in the thrall of one sadistic, backward
regime or another and they share this characteristic with other nations in their
region that we don’t feel any particular need to attack and invade, most
notably Saudi Arabia where beheadings, lashings and limb amputations are the
order of the day for the criminal classes and women aren’t allowed to drive
cars or even go out of the house unless accompanied by a male.
The whole Islamic world is in need of reform really from our western
perspective of what constitutes reasonable government and respect for human
rights, so why single out Iraq?
I’ts probably simplistic to claim that the Bush government couldn’t tell the
difference between Hussein and Bin Laden but a great many Americans, the
300 pound behemoths who drive enormous gas guzzling trucks and have sex
with vegetables are probably unaware that Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin
Laden are in fact two separate people and the Bush government exploited this
fact in the aftermath of 9/11 in order to wage an unnecessary and unjustified
war for reasons of their own.
The credulity and lack of sophistication among Americans is the only
explanation I can think of for Bush still being in power. Here in England Tony
Blair eventually had to stand aside and allow Gordon Brown to succeed him,
mainly because of the damage done to his reputation by the lies told in the run
up to the Iraq war.
Since surrendering power Tony Blair has turned Catholic. They have a system
where you can sit in a cubicle and confess your sins to a priest then be
absolved of all responsibility for your actions, so the attraction of such a faith
for him is evident.
January 25th, 2008 at 2:26 pm
Dave, you certainly make some rash generalizations. So as a country who can help, we shouldn’t help those who ‘can’t’ help themselves, not to be confused with ‘unwilling’. Bush this, Bush that, the problem is that people at that level and even those campaigning will not state that they will immediately withdraw troops. Why? Because we are making head way, establishing a government of their choosing, and giving the power back to the people and trying to squash those who want to live in archaic times.
It’s really funny that you lump ‘gas guzzling trucks’ and people who ‘have sex with vegetables’ together. I think you are too blinded with your anti US, and anti Bush to actually see the big picture you claim to know so much about. You do actually remember what was going on before 9/11 right? Saddam was keeping the UN out of his palaces and other places so that no one could confirm, nor deny him having WMDs. He was not playing along and the threat was very real.
Also, I’m really not sure what one’s faith has to do with anything.
January 26th, 2008 at 11:51 am
I do remember the days when Saddam was denying entry to weapons
inspectors, but I also remember him allowing them in as he realised the
impending threat of invasion. Unfortunately by this time, the orchestrated
WMD paranoia had served it’s purpose and the US government had it’s heart
set on war, so this line of investigation was never pursued adequately.
I would not argue that America should immediately withdraw troops and not
try to help replace the governmental structure that it has destroyed. Under the
circumstances it seems the least that it can do, provided such help is welcome.
But ponder this - if you think I’m anti US, how anti US are those Islambecile
Allah botherers who will always regard any new America approved government
in Iraq as a prime target in their drive for martyrdom. This question makes me
wonder if The US will ever be free to leave. I wonder if the likes of Powell,
Rumsfeld and Dubya factored this question into their projections. Maybe not,
eh? I wouldn’t be surprised if the latter is ticking off the days leading up to
when it’s no longer his problem.