Could pearl harbor be considered a terrorist attack?

[Afrombean]

Re: Could pearl harbor be considered a terrorist attack?

If a Taliban attack was not sanctioned by the Afghan government, it would be a terrorist attack. If it was, it would be an act of war.



Go reread Kilroy's post to find out both why you're wrong and why you can't be right.

--Guido

http://andy.mikee385.com

I think perhaps you misunderstood me. I agree that Japan's attack was not a terror attack, because its function was not to instill fear. My belief is that Japan made the attack as a way of showing us that they were indeed a threat when we were primarily looking at Germany.

[devonin]

Re: Could pearl harbor be considered a terrorist attack?

I think that Pearl Harbour had not a thing to do with Germany, and was because Japan knew full well that once they attacked the Dutch East Indies, that the US would be coming after them, and decided to pre-empt it with a surprise attack, which was, as we know, damn effective.

[GuidoHunter]

Re: Could pearl harbor be considered a terrorist attack?

I think perhaps you misunderstood me. I agree that Japan's attack was not a terror attack, because its function was not to instill fear. My belief is that Japan made the attack as a way of showing us that they were indeed a threat when we were primarily looking at Germany.

Actually, I just quoted too much. What I said was in response to the first sentence of what was quoting, ignoring the rest.

--Guido

http://andy.mikee385.com

[AriesMalvis]

Re: Could pearl harbor be considered a terrorist attack?

so i was in pearl harbor yesterday...
made me remember this post
so basically a terrorist attack is usually for political or religious gain involving a surprise attack
i believe it was a thing of war, not of terror

[devonin]

Re: Could pearl harbor be considered a terrorist attack?

It doesn't necessarily need to be a surprise, I'd say the IRA spent more than a few years very blatantly, and openly committing terrorist acts.

[bobbycat73]

Re: Could pearl harbor be considered a terrorist attack?

It was during a time of war.

Japan was sided with the Axis powers. They bombed us. Do you also want to say the atomic bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki were terrorist attacks as well? They both were a surprise to the opposing side. They also both caused fear.

[Afrobean]

Re: Could pearl harbor be considered a terrorist attack?

It was during a time of war.

Japan was sided with the Axis powers. They bombed us. Do you also want to say the atomic bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki were terrorist attacks as well? They both were a surprise to the opposing side. They also both caused fear.

Well the bombs we dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki weren't standard militarist attacks. Nuking a city of civilians... as a retaliation for them directly attacking a military base?

The function of the bombs we dropped in Japan WERE to scare them. Killing civilians can serve no other purpose in war but to scare.

However, this comes back to what Guido has said. The bombs we dropped in Japan were an official military act, and as such, defining it as a terrorist attack would be quite difficult.

[Kilroy_x]

Re: Could pearl harbor be considered a terrorist attack?

By some definition the dropping of the Atomic Bombs was a terrorist attack, in the sense it was meant to cause as much psychological devestation as physical devestation, but it wasn't a terrorist attack in the common or conventional use of the word.

[devonin]

Re: Could pearl harbor be considered a terrorist attack?

Again, its an issue of whether causing fear was the -primary- intended consequence that tends to define whether it was a terrorist act or not.

The dropping of the atomic bombs was not intended to cause fear, it was intended to demonstrate to the Japanese that continued refusal to surrender in the wake of the major hostilities was a foolish course that would cost them a very large number of civilians and property loss.

The alternative was continuing to fight for months and months and having to grind the Japanese military down into nothing, because Hirohito had already made it abundantly clear that surrender under normal circumstances was completely unacceptable.

In fact, as the story goes, they had only intended to use the one nuclear weapon, but after it was dropped, the Japanese basically accused them of only having one, and intended to keep fighting, so they had to drop a second one just to prove they meant business.

[jewpinthethird]

Re: Could pearl harbor be considered a terrorist attack?

Exactly, the justification for the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was to prevent any further soldier casualties that would arise from invading the country. Basically, it was the US flexing it's power saying, "hey, check us out, we got bombs yo and we could do this all day. You know, because we have hundreds of bombers lying around just waiting to turn your piss-f*ck of a country into rumble...or splinters I suppose. Surrender or we will kill more of your civilians, because are bad ass like that. Don't f*ck with America, because won't hesitate to do it again if we had to."

Also, the fire bombing raids killed more civilians than the Atomic bomb did...but we don't hear some much about that because it didn't look as cool.

[devonin]

Re: Could pearl harbor be considered a terrorist attack?

It amounts to the fact that if the Japanese thought what was coming was a straight up army vs army battle, they would have (and stated explicitly) just kept going until one side or the other was completely destroyed. About the only way to force a surrender was to make it abundantly clear that what they thought was an even fight simply wasn't.

"So it's a knife fight eh...I guess this machine gun might be a little much?"