roachboy

whether you agree with the dominant characterization of what israel is doing in lebanon or not, the simple fact of the matter is that the infrastructure being attacked is civilian and the casualties are civilian.

what is happening in lebanon is not pretty.
i see no reason to pretend it is otherwise.

at this point, i am checking out of this thread.
i have posted many times on the problem of this category "terrorism" in the past--i have little to add to that at the moment--what is happening in the spinning of the israeli attack on lebanon is simply another instance that shows the problems generated by this term. i see no reason to defend it as a category, no reason to look for a neutral-seeming usage that would enable "us" to rescue it from its ideological functions.
you cannot seperate an analysis of the category "terrorism" from one of the frameworks within which it functions, and these frameworks cannot be separated from particular actions and their justifications.
to go further with this here would turn this into another thread about the israeli action in lebanon as such.
two other such threads simply limp along. anything else i have to say about the conflict, i'll put in one of these, if i can screw up the energy for it.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite