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A comment on How War in Syria Turned Ordinary Engineers Into Deadly Weapons Inventors. Parent comment

Re:How War in Syria Turned Ordinary Engineers Into Deadly We... by eeky on Wednesday July 17, 2013 @01:03PM (#6058766)
Couldn't agree more. The Syrian rebels are a loosely associated group with several elements who are radical Islamist and Al Qaeda. This could have easily been titled "DIY Terrorism".
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Re:How War in Syria Turned Ordinary Engineers Into Deadly We... by pyre on Wednesday July 17, 2013 @01:13PM (#6058839)
But is it really terrorism at this point? It's a civil war. Just because some groups that use terrorism to further their goals are participating doesn't make it any less of a war.

If the residents of New York City rebelled, and managed to take control of 2/3rds of the city, that would be a civil war (or at least I would classify it as such), even if Al Qaeda showed up to participate.

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Re:How War in Syria Turned Ordinary Engineers Into Deadly We... by dragonwriter on Wednesday July 17, 2013 @01:42PM (#6059023)
> But is it really terrorism at this point? It's a civil war.

Civil war distinguishes context of conflict independent of methods, terrorism distinguishes methods of conflict indepedent of context; they aren't mutually exclusive categories.

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Re:How War in Syria Turned Ordinary Engineers Into Deadly We... by chongli on Wednesday July 17, 2013 @02:54PM (#6059473)
But is it really terrorism at this point?

One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. History is written by the victors.

Language designed to engender support for one opinion or another; propaganda. That's all this crap is.

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Re:How War in Syria Turned Ordinary Engineers Into Deadly We... by darkarmani on Wednesday July 17, 2013 @03:52PM (#6059852)
> One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. History is written by the victors.

So the Kurds in Northern Iraq that got gassed by Saddam were terrorists? The VC won in Vietnam. Were we the terrorists there? Chiang Kai-shek?

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Re:How War in Syria Turned Ordinary Engineers Into Deadly We... by chongli on Wednesday July 17, 2013 @05:27PM (#6060291)
I'm not espousing this opinion, it's an (admittedly cynical) commentary on the use of the word terrorist in the media.
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Re:How War in Syria Turned Ordinary Engineers Into Deadly We... by quantumpotato_ on Wednesday July 17, 2013 @01:36PM (#6058987)
Does the word "terrorism" have a solid definition, or is it "I'll know it when I see it"?
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Re:How War in Syria Turned Ordinary Engineers Into Deadly We... by grecy on Wednesday July 17, 2013 @03:11PM (#6059587)
More like "I'll use the terrorism label when it's to my advantage"
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Re:How War in Syria Turned Ordinary Engineers Into Deadly We... by msandford on Wednesday July 17, 2013 @01:32PM (#6058961)
Yeah but you don't get to classify it, those in power do. And it'd likely be classified as terrorism.
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Re:How War in Syria Turned Ordinary Engineers Into Deadly We... by pessimizer on Wednesday July 17, 2013 @02:11PM (#6059193)
Equally inaccurately, though. Both "freedom fighters" and "terrorists" are marketing terms. "Rebel" is accurate since they're fighting the government; that's definitely a rebellion.
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