Indeed. But this is the core of the matter. Black people defending themselves with guns in the 60s would probably make them "terrorists" (even if the white people throwing fire-bombs, shooting and lynching would be "terrorists" too). Now this need to be connected to what "terrorist" means today: it means being on a watch-list (questionable, but ok -- the whole reason for a clandestine police force is to monitor those that might be willing and capable to attack civilian infrastructure -- for whatever reasons) -- and also placing them on kill lists. The latter is not ok, by any standard. Could we imagine calling in a drone strike on a black panther activist, because he was in a "part of town sympathetic to his cause" and the number of non-adult-male people in the kill zone constituted "acceptable collateral damage"? I think not.

>Could we imagine calling in a drone strike on a black panther activist, because he was in a "part of town sympathetic to his cause" and the number of non-adult-male people in the kill zone constituted "acceptable collateral damage"? I think not.

This is essentially what happened to Fred Hampton. People don't like to admit it, but freedom is protected by blood, and in order to maintain the society we have, we have to continually suppress the people who would seek to destroy what we've worked so hard to achieve.

I wasn't familiar with that particular case[1] -- but as I gather, he was assassinated by an FBI/Police kill-squad -- so more similar to how the US trained dictators to operate across the Americas, than to how the US operates in Yemen and Pakistan. I obviously don't support kill-squads as a means to "support democracy" either -- but there's still a difference between going in and killing one man (even if 20+ were expected to be found/killed) -- an dropping a couple of hell-fire missiles on a civilian structure.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Hampton

They killed two men, and shot at more people. Hampton's pregnant girlfriend could have been killed.

But really, all we need is this:

>I ... don't support... democracy

You're the real terrorist.

>> I ... don't support... democracy > > You're the real terrorist.

Maybe I was unclear. I don't consider Pinochet a paragon of democracy, and I don't support neither illegal drone strikes, or illegal kill squads.

I still think there's a difference between hands-on assassination and drone strikes -- while both remain deplorable.