What is terrorism?

[img]/LDPforum/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smirk.gif[/img]Not the ones too young to speak or walk.....study more...or somewhere else. [img]/LDPforum/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/mad.gif[/img]

you have got to be kidding me, Hiroshima and Nagasaki are nothing like 9/11... Japan had been warned several times if they did not surrender what would happen, and you cannot possibly tell me they didnt get whats coming to them after Pearl Harbor,(in which we were a neutral country,not even involved), the Bataan Death March, and how they treated POW's. Yes many citizens were killed, which is unfortunate, however even with the number that was killed, those 2 bombs stopped an ongoing war and ultimately saved thousands and thousand of more lifes....if there is 1 thing to blaim America in being unjust during WWII, is its treatment of Japanese-American citizens....not its retaliation against a deserving country. If it (or Germany for that matter) had won the race of creating the bomb, do you think they would of hesitated for 1 second to drop them on us...w/out warning??

dont we get all kinds of videos form Osama Bin Laden wanting us to step down or he will attack us??

yeah, but thats comeletely different! he is not giving us an ultimative. He attacked us because he didnt like us, because quite simply he doesnt like the American way of life and what it represents. Not to end a war!! To start one!....thats how its different..

so what makes something terrorism is when it happens? not the act itself?

It's how and why it was done.

Here is an excerpt from President Truman's diary . This may cause the bombings to be viewed differently.

"We have discovered the most terrible bomb in the history of the world. It may be the fire destruction prophesied in the Euphrates Valley Era, after Noah and his fabulous Ark.

Anyway we "think" we have found the way to cause a disintegration of the atom. An experiment in the New Mexico desert was startling - to put it mildly. Thirteen pounds of the explosive caused the complete disintegration of a steel tower 60 feet high, created a crater 6 feet deep and 1,200 feet in diameter, knocked over a steel tower 1/2 mile away and knocked men down 10,000 yards away. The explosion was visible for more than 200 miles and audible for 40 miles and more.

This weapon is to be used against Japan between now and August 10th. I have told the Sec. of War, Mr. Stimson, to use it so that military objectives and soldiers and sailors are the target and not women and children. Even if the Japs are savages, ruthless, merciless and fanatic, we as the leader of the world for the common welfare cannot drop that terrible bomb on the old capital or the new.

He and I are in accord. The target will be a purely military one and we will issue a warning statement asking the Japs to surrender and save lives. I'm sure they will not do that, but we will have given them the chance. It is certainly a good thing for the world that Hitler's crowd or Stalin's did not discover this atomic bomb. It seems to be the most terrible thing ever discovered, but it can be made the most useful...

yeah...thank goodness we didnt use a bomb whose effects lasts for years giving many cancer and raditation problems..not to mention the whole "blast" thing that killed a couple people

i see where your coming from, and understand what you mean... So basically, yeah , I beieve how an attack is carried out does not make it a terrorist action. (if that were the case every unexpected attack, in which citizens were involved, in history would be a terrorist attack) ...so its more the background and reasons for the attack..

I think all that gcdevil22 is doing is trying to use the forum as debate class practice, so have at it.