On Mon, 29 Oct 2001, F. Marc de Piolenc wrote:
Let's try to spell this out so even you can understand it, Jim. The distinction is between killing combatants and killing noncombatants. Do you get that? Location is incidental. Motive is irrelevant to the definition.
I understand your point. It's specious. The distinction you try to draw is based on a flawed morality. You believe that there is some effective difference between attacking a soldier of a country, and the mother of that soldier. That somehow attacking only certain aspects of a society are allowed. Then when 'your' side commits equal acts they are somehow justified because 'your' side is the 'right' side. That somehow the people who vote to put a certain contingent in charge are then somehow insulated from the consequences of the acts of those representatives. So much for "Of the people, By the people, For the people". The fact is that there are no 'innocents'. There never were.
American revolutionaries killed British soldiers and their unfortunate Hessian co-belligerents, not office workers in London (or Boston for that matter). That's what makes them something other than terrorists.
The British certainly didn't see it that way. They saw some group of miscreants raising hell in THEIR country. People it's worth noting a significant fraction of which were not generaly born in this country. -- ____________________________________________________________________ The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion. Edmund Burke (1784) The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage@ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------