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Such political spin on terrorist behavior has a long history. During the Revolutionary War, when the American colonists broke free of the British, the latter were "astonished" and "mortified" by the "uncivilized" and "barbaric" behavior of the American fighters. Their "crimes?" They didn't march in ranks across open fields and engage the Redcoats "man-to-man" in head-to-head shoot-outs. Instead, they hid behind trees and bushes and took pot shots at their adversaries. Shocking! In addition, they had a distressing habit of shooting officers FIRST in battles, instead of merely blowing away the commoner scum who made up the rank and file. Judging by a comment made by Samuel L. Jackson in the movie Rules of Engagement...the Vietnamese fighters learned well from our experience...since the average life of a second lieutenant in battle was eleven minutes! Oh, yes. In that movie, Jackson also breaks some rules of war...he executes a captured soldier in order to get the Vietnamese commander to call off an ambush...and, incidentally, saving many of Jackson's troops from death. Indeed, our troops during that conflict had a habit of killing women and children on the logical grounds that they were often combatants. Isn't that EXACTLY the rationale being offered by the so-called "suicide bombers" in Israel? Oh, wait, my son just informed me that the Bushies are now designating such attacks as "homicide bombings," probably a brilliant maneuver of the Moron in Charge.
The rationale of the Palestinians...at least according to U.S. spin-doctors...is to even out the "body count," which before the latest spate of "terrorism" was running about 25 to 1 in favor of the Israelis, but was reduced to about 3 to 1 by the bombings. The fact that each and every Israeli "civilian" is considered, by the Israelis themselves, to be a combatant was overlooked.
Israelis love to contend that Palestinians...and perhaps all Arabs...don't respect human life, since they encourage their youth to become martyrs by blowing themselves and a passel of Israelis to kingdom come. Leave aside the rather obvious fact that ALL cultures willingly sacrifice their youth when it comes to open...and "total"...warfare...those first soldiers to breach Omaha Beach during the Normandy invasion were OBVIOUSLY cannon fodder to use up the German ammunition before the main force hit.
But, what about all those payments and honor bestowed upon the surviving family members of Palestinian martyrs? Doesn't that prove that Arabs are crazy, death loving creeps? Willy is old enough to remember Gold Star Mothers. During WW II, every family was given a placard with a blue star on a white field for each son (or occasional daughter) who was serving in the U.S. armed forces. When one...or more...of these young men were killed, the color of the star was changed to gold. Furthermore, there were Gold Star Mother clubs where women proudly boasted of the accomplishments of their dead children.
Willy also remembers being present in the early seventies when a U.S. journalist...Paul Jacobs...interviewed future Israeli leader Menachim Begin over the phone. Begin was in Israel and Jacobs was in Washington, D.C. and the conversation was "broadcast" to all present over speakerphone. In this interview, Begin boasted about the fact that Israelis had invented many of the modern forms of terrorism, including the letter bomb, used much later to devastating effect by the Unabomber in the United States.
In fact, Israel has engaged in all sorts of terrorist actions. The current Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, was stigmatized by his own government when, as a general in the IDF he "allowed" a massacre to take place in Lebanese refugee camps Sabra and Shatila, where almost all the slain people were women and children. That action forced Israel to withdraw from Lebanon in defeat, but Sharon seems to wish to continue his evil ways...pardon our use of the "E" word, so overused by the Shrub since 9-11.
The military itself has long "honored" what is currently being called terrorism by teaching it in our military academies. There it is more properly called "asymmetric warfare," because it allows a few suicidal soldiers to inflict heavy damage upon their enemy. Remember the Kamikaze attacks of the Japanese during WW II? If it hadn't been for the atomic bomb...the greatest terror weapon of all time...the Japanese may very well have carried out their threat to resist "to the last person" alive.
Perhaps the message of all this is it is not HOW people resist when they are forced into armed combat that is wrong, but the mere fact of using violence at all to settle disputes. At least, that's OUR spin!
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