62 dead in suspected blast on India-Pakistan train

system · February 23, 2007, 3:48am

Re: 62 dead in suspected blast on India-Pakistan train

nikhil25:

the distinction doesn’t necessarily signify some greater level of evil. that should not be the assumption. a life taken by a terrorist is not more valuable than a life taken by a standard murderer. at the same time, attacks of equal heinousness can fall into to separate categories of crime. not necessarily “worse”, but different.

the difference is relevant to this discussion simply because the act in question was an act of conventional terrorism as opposed to an act of mob violence or some other form of assault. as such, the classification of criminal style is important when evaluating probabilities of different groups being responsible.

no, i have no problem calling a spade a spade. if a hindu organization is involved in terrorism, i have no problem with them being classified as terrorists.

certain factions of the LTTE can be classified as terrorists. i find the label to be perfectly acceptable. it doesn’t offend me in the least.

and if some muslim kills his wife because she cheated on him, i would not label him a terrorist.

Its all really relative dude… One Mans terrorist is another mans …
I mean, the definition of Terrorist as we have come to understand it is really from the Western and particularly American notion of it.
You have a point, but I think it is relative. Take Modi for example, and certain other Shiv Sena members or groups who have advocated violence either directly or indirectly towards certain groups, and because of whom, violence has actually occured. Do you really think the vicitms of that violence see the distinction between a terrorist and murderer? Convention is lost on them, and frankly I think they are right.
Im sure there are many people in Kashmir who consider the Bharti fauj as big of a terror as the terrorists.
But whatever, we can stick to the defintion of terrorist as we have come to understand it, in accordance with the methods employed…
So, this attack on the train you will agree was a terrorist act in the conventional sense, so whoever commited it, is thus a terrorist, be they Muslim or Hindu.