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re: Did I miss something?
gbaikie — (archived)

"Terrorism is a mode of behavior, not any particular ideology. Raoul is absolutely correct when he says terrorism cannot be defeated by the military invasion of sovereign nations."

How can he be right when he is making a strawman argument? No one is claiming you defeat terrorism by invading sovereign nations.
Is it such a unreasonable demand that countries not act as a base in which terrorist can act freely. Let me draw a simple example. Take Canada and the US. Say there were some Americans who didn't like Canada's laws (say allowing Americans to buy cheaper drugs by reselling them:) who for this reason crossed the border, blew up things, then returned to America. Isn't it American's obligation to attempt to arrest these people and hand them over to Canadian officals? What if America actually encouraged this kind of action- say cheered them on, making them into "heros". We would simply at war with Canada- we would be at war with illegal miltary combatants who are engaged in terrorist attacks.

In other words sovereignity has "rights" but it also has responsibilities.

The US and many countries condemn attacks of terror. I think this is "action" is underestimated. But I don't think it's seen as a big deal when America does these, because it's expected- of course we comdemn terror and it's good to affirm this, but what should be "required"/asked/expected is the nation states which shall we say has a "questionable status" also publically state that they oppose these types of acts. So for instance the PLO should step up and say they condemn this act of terror in Spain- I don't know, maybe they actually do this and it's ignored- but I don't think it should ignored; I think it should be headline news- more so then what the US president says it.

Security is the basis of a sovereign power. Terrorism isn't new. Rather, it's the reason there is sovereign power. If terrorism had "never existed" you wouldn't have developed sovereignty and nation states.
As far as Raoul being "right", he has previously expressed the opinion the nations should not even exist. He thinks that since nations cause war, that if you got rid of nations, you would also get rid of war. We certaintly would get rid of warfare which was legal- soldiers in uniforms who have some restaint in the use of force according to laws. But this would replaced by rivers of blood, which would only stop once someone organizes something resembling a soveriegn power- probably a dictorship of some kind.

So as far as missing something- yeah, just about everything:)

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