I'm replying to both of you, so I didn't know exactly where to put this 
In the end, the "definition" of whether a jihadist is an insurgent/terrorist/guerilla warrior/super-late term abortion doctor doesn't really matter.
If a guy attacks a US convoy one day, and then the next day attacks an orphanage, his status doesn't really matter, does it? He's a bad guy that needs to be killed.
So to me, the whole definition debate is moot anyway.
In the end, the "definition" of whether a jihadist is an insurgent/terrorist/guerilla warrior/super-late term abortion doctor doesn't really matter.
If a guy attacks a US convoy one day, and then the next day attacks an orphanage, his status doesn't really matter, does it? He's a bad guy that needs to be killed.
So to me, the whole definition debate is moot anyway.
Being a soldier for the other side doesn't automatically make someone a "bad guy. " Often it just makes him a guy, making the best of a bad situation. There are a lot of US servicemen who signed up on 911 to fight in Afghanistan but found themselves in Iraq wondering why; many don't want to be there but no one asked them. In the words of MacArthur, "I'm an American soldier: I fight where I'm told and I win where I fight. " That doesn't make him good, bad or indifferent, it makes him a soldier, and reducing everyone who opposes you on the battlefield to a "bad guy" means they're just as entitled to call you a "bad guy. " That doesn't mean you throw down your rifle and sing Kumbaya together; he'll blow your head off, in part because he's had everyone telling him what a bad guy you are, for years. It means you're both soldiers in a war, and soldiers kill each other in wars, often despite being good guys, not because of being bad ones.
The terrorist is a completely different animal. Literally. He's not thinking about getting home to his family, frequently he's not even concerned with staying alive, let alone achieving some murky mission objective. He's concerned with murdering out of hate; that's why he goes after people who are no threat to him, why the soldier recoils at shooting an unarmed infant and the terrorist drools over an easy target. It's why a POW known to have killed dozens can be released after a war but a terrorist who murders two or three needs to rot in jail. One of them is fighting, killing, because he's in a war (and, in other countries, often a conscript ) and his life expectancy is the same as yours if he just decides "killing is WRONG!" When it's all over he can probably, in time, become a functioning member of a civilized country. The terrorist is murdering because he LIKES it, and that's never over for him. The only safe place to put him, KEEP him, is a box, above ground or below it.
We're back to the same old thing: Equating bin Laden with Sgt. York is absurd, and insulting to the latter (among others. )
The guy shooting at your convoy isn't automatically a "bad guy" he's the guy shooting at your convoy, so you kill him first. To the extent I'll judge humans rather than their acts, the terrorist IS a "bad guy" because whether you're in a convoy or walking down the street in civvies he'll kill you as soon as look at you (sooner, actually. ) One of them is trying to kill you because he's an enemy soldier in a war (the same reason you're trying to kill him) and the other is just committing random murder. If soldiers in war are "bad guys" then all are equally guilty, but soldiers on both sides stop when the war does, and even before that they won't do things terrorists will eagerly do. That's the difference.
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Last First in wotmania Chat
Slightly better than chocolate.
Love still can't be coerced.
Please Don't Eat the Newbies!
LoL. Be well, RAFOlk.
All Terrorists are Muslims… except the 94% that aren’t.
- 01/02/2010 10:42:12 PM
1714 Views
Lot of BS in there
- 01/02/2010 11:33:08 PM
516 Views
I'm afraid I have to agree with this.
- 01/02/2010 11:46:02 PM
469 Views
Well, no. Robbery accounts for a very small percentage of those attacks. Look at the chart.
- 01/02/2010 11:50:39 PM
427 Views
I found the so-called Islamophobic reply... allow me to quote it in its entirety.
- 01/02/2010 11:52:37 PM
446 Views
It's a valid complaint. *NM*
- 02/02/2010 01:49:08 AM
183 Views
I did note the rampant bias.
- 01/02/2010 11:48:55 PM
524 Views
- 01/02/2010 11:48:55 PM
524 Views
Most of the Iraq violence isn't against the foreign occupier...
- 01/02/2010 11:54:44 PM
441 Views
Um, since when is all Mid-East terrorism against foreign occupiers?
- 02/02/2010 12:33:13 AM
594 Views
I would agree with this.
- 02/02/2010 02:33:47 AM
515 Views
It was bound to happen sooner or later.
- 02/02/2010 04:10:13 AM
540 Views
- 02/02/2010 04:10:13 AM
540 Views
This is the only problem I have with "definitions"
- 02/02/2010 04:51:00 AM
421 Views
You're conflating two types of fighters who shouldn't be, I believe.
- 03/02/2010 06:16:21 AM
411 Views
I think you missed the point.
- 05/02/2010 05:15:40 AM
416 Views
One of us did. 
- 05/02/2010 08:26:07 AM
591 Views
- 05/02/2010 08:26:07 AM
591 Views
Churchill's justification of bombings cited civilians as the targets, IIRC
- 03/02/2010 12:46:16 AM
608 Views
I did say, "deliberately, " and for a reason.
- 03/02/2010 04:23:44 AM
556 Views
WTF? Are these people serious?
- 02/02/2010 02:19:05 AM
460 Views
Ah, good. I've driven you out of lurking. Now recommend me operas. *NM*
- 02/02/2010 02:41:30 AM
173 Views
So I presume the article meant to highlight that Muslim American citizens aren't all that violent?
- 03/02/2010 04:17:06 AM
510 Views
How many other attacks killed almost 3,000 people of over 90 different nations?
- 03/02/2010 06:26:23 AM
494 Views