On Sunday, a group of 250 Iranian legislators introduced a motion that requires the administration to designate the Canadian Army and federal police forces as terrorist organizations.
Historically speaking, from an indigenous perspective, the characterization of the RCMP as terrorist is not too far off the mark.
I mean, we’re kind of known for war crimes too. Was anyone in WW1 worse than the Canadians?
I’m not familiar with this. Can you give a “for example?”
Lots of good articles on Canadian brutality in WW1 if you do a search. As for war crimes in particular, here’s one of many articles mentioning how Canadians killed prisoners of war:
https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/the-forgotten-ferocity-of-canadas-soldiers-in-the-great-war
Oh jeez, what did we do, what did we do…
Just a little of this, you know war time stuff
Edit: Don’t mess with the Cannuks
Fair turnaround.
It’s a stupid political label as long as our nastiest friends are worse than our nicest enemies. Nobody’s about to declare Saudi anything terroristic regardless of how many get chopped up, for example.
Not to mention Saudi Arabia’s massive attack on the World Trade Center, pentagon, and attempted attack on White House
I mean, they didn’t have zero role in it.
Wherever they go, Tim Horton’s Beiber-bites eventually follow. So yeah…in this case I’d agree with that assessment.
On Sunday, a group of 250 Iranian legislators introduced a motion that requires the administration to designate the Canadian Army and federal police forces as terrorist organizations.
The Mounties too, I see.
Anyone who’s seen Lore Lodge says that they probably should be called a terrorist organization
What’s a lore lodge?
A YouTube channel that discusses Missing 411 style content: people disappearing under mysterious circumstances.
A running theme in their show is that overwhelmingly the RCMP are criminally negligent in their duties, are very quick to write off missing persons as runaways, do absolute garbage tier investigation, and that’s where my comment came from.
Not necessarily a topical episode but I like this one: https://youtu.be/f7389EXjdBg
Thanks!
“I know you are but what am I”
Lol butthurt Iran. I’ll make sure to let boys know in Angus 🤣
Um, sorry. We’ll be more polite.
Based and accurate.
All militaries are by definition terrorist organizations, this seems reasonable.
That’s some exceptional watering down of the word terrorist you’re participating in there. Keep going and your both-sides-ing will make it so the IDF’s actions don’t seem abnormal at all!
Considering Canada declared Iran’s army as a terrorist entity…
Not all militaries are equal. Iran != Canada - don’t fall into both-sidesism.
Canada’s military was responsible for the subjugation and genocide of many First Nations group, including against the Metis, Cree, and Assiniboine peoples, as well as deployed abroad to subjugate the Boers in South Africa in support of the British Empire. The Canadian Army was also deployed in Afghanistan, where Western powers fought for two decades to replace the Taliban with the Taliban and caused untold amounts of suffering in the process.
Now do Iran.
The Clovis people would like a word.
But they’re wiped out. Violently.
Weird how that’s not in the stories though.
Genocide is ok because it happened in the past? Glad to know how much you respect the rule of law and whatever.
Do you agree? If so, why not?
Terrorism is any act that uses violence or fear of violence for a political goal. This is what militaries do, if you threaten them they use violence to suppress or kill you. Some of them are more successful than others, but fundamentally whether it’s a group of rebels or the military of a nation state, they use violence to force everyone within their controlled territory to submit to their authority.
I see you chose the double down
If you had a valid counter-argument, wouldn’t you have presented it there?
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That isn’t the definition of terrorism. There isn’t one globally agreed upon definition but national and international law and even attempts by the UN to make a definition generally exclude state militaries. (The UN attempts at a definition always broke down over the status of organized militias in the context of national liberation and self-determination struggles.)
The main exception is undercover agents. Like if a CIA agent pretends to be a civilian and does a terrorist attack, that’s considered terrorism.
Militaries can be awful and violent and commit war crimes and even do the exact same things as terrorists. But it isn’t considered terrorism; it’s considered war. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Definition_of_terrorism
Yes of course the UN definition is going to be carefully crafted to make the violence committed by its member states “legal” and the actions committed by anyone else “illegal”.
By that argument, a “no shirt, no shoes, no service” policy is terrorism. “$1000 fine for littering” is terrorism. “Keep off the grass” is terrorism.
I mean, if enforced with violence, sure. Usually that’s the job of the police, which are terrorist organizations. Some companies may also hire private mercenaries instead of using the state police, which serve the same function.
Uh huh.
I have zero doubt that you would call 911 should the “need” arise. So you’re a terrorist as well. As am I. There is literally zero distinction between you, me, and Mohamed Atta.
A puppy would qualify as a terrorist. A house cat. A sheep. A blackberry bush. An amoeba qualifies as a terrorist under this insane definition.
As a cat owner… house cats are definitely terrorists but I love 'em.
Congratulations, you’ve realized terrorist is a meaningless word. Governments throw it around to tell us who to hate but ultimately it means nothing.
Or, and hear me out on this: terrorist doesn’t mean “fucking anything ever”. The term actually only refers to those who use or threaten unlawful violence in an attempt to achieve an effect that could only be lawfully acquired through executive, legislative, judicial, or democratic processes.
Im with you ! I know and understand people don’t like to see things this way, but I never saw any good argument as to why this nuance between legal/legitimate and illegal/illegitimate power should be taken into account in theory (other than practical matters, like it would be kinda hard to organize any other way now)
I think the big difference is whether the force follows the rules of war or not. Obviously the CAF has had some violations, but not on an organisational level like the IRGC.
Yeah, this is what makes one legal and the other one not. I suppose that in your opinion, being legal and following rules of war makes it better and I would agree, it seems reasonably better. But is it good though ? To my eyes, killing and spreading terror remains bad, legally or not. If we add some other parameter, it may even be worse to do it legally : the scale of destruction is far worse when a violent group is legal (and so financed and supported by whole countries).
The result of the analysis depends on what parameters you choose : is it legal ? Is it big ? What are the motives ? You can choose what you want, and that’s probably why we (I assume this here) have different opinions. My wonder is : why should we focus mostly or entirely on the legal aspect/parameter when analysing things like violence and power ?
(If i misunderstood what you said, sorry by advance)
I’m not sure what you mean by “spreading terror”. IMHO, most actions that would meet those requirements are war crimes.
We can debate whether pretty much any law is moral in our own opinion. However, I think laws are a good place to start with what rules should be followed. They can be changed/updated as necessary.
Yeah, I can understand the initial trust in law, and maybe debatting it later. This is not my way of thinking but i admit it’s really reasonable.
For the terror, my reflexion is the following : army/cops try to maintain a specific system in place and have 2 ways to do so. For people who (more or less) actively defy their authority, they take violent actions (kidnapping, pressure, wounding, killing, etc). For people who are not (yet) actively defying their authority, they hope that their violent actions will make people afraid of them, so they do not act against authority. I refer to thz first part as killing (though it’s not only killing but more generally violent actions against people), and the second part as terror.
So, imho, though war crimes may spray more terror in a single act than usual army stuff, both spray terror in their own way.
Who makes the official rules of war? Who decides who follows those rules and who doesn’t? Obviously the practical answer is the UN, ICC, ICJ, etc, but note that the UN is itself made up of countries that all field militaries. They write the rules such that they’re in, and others who are less powerful are out. And as we’ve seen recently, they don’t even apply the rules uniformly. Russia and the US have committed war crimes in their invasions of Ukraine and Iraq respectively, but the general consensus is that their militaries are still not terrorist organizations. Or arguably the most clear example, the IDF. Few organizations could claim to commit more war crimes with such predictability and regularity than the IDF. Yet most of the world considers them legitimate, but considers groups like ISIS to not be, even though conduct wise they’re similarly abhorrent.
The rules of war are basically “if you win it’s ok” and everything else is just politics.
Russia and the US have committed war crimes in their invasions of Ukraine and Iraq respectively, but the general consensus is that their militaries are still not terrorist organizations.
War Crimes != Terrorism. Some acts qualify as both, but words have meanings, and I think it’s important we recognize that. I don’t think the actions of the US in Iran would make a reasonable person say the US Military is a terrorist organization, though they are definitely harbouring some war criminals.
I think the other thing is asking, what’s the value in labelling an organization? Telling your friend with a substance problem that they’re an addict/alcoholic might just drive them away and towards worse influences. Or telling off your toxic coworker might be cathartic, but it’ll probably just make the situation worse.
PS I’m pretty sure labelling the IDF as “similarly abhorrent” isn’t very helpful.
I agree with the part that labeling organizations is mostly pointless, if not harmful. An underlying goal in my intentional conflation here is that the difference is pointless. Hopefully someone read that and was like “huh I guess these two things aren’t all that different”. Governments call the violent armed forces they like “militaries” and the ones they don’t like “terrorists”.
I’ll take “what is reductivism?” for $400, Alex.
You’re being down voted, but I want to add in that terrorism is a word used by the ruling class to tell you who to hate. When the state (usually, although this case didn’t exempt them) uses violence and fear, that’s the good kind of violence and fear. When a non-state actor uses it, it’s terrorism. The only thing that separates “justified force” from “terrorism” is if the ruling class wants you to like it or not. For example, look at what the IDF is doing. It somehow isn’t terrorism just because they’re a state who’s in favor with the ruling class?
100% agree, the difference is entirely political.
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The CF is an armed force. It’s a force that is armed.
Primarily it’s brought out for prisoner search and sandbags. So, so, so-so, so, so many sandbags.
No, no, they’re the good kind of murderers.
