Does the term "Axis" as in "Axis Lock" bear negative connotations for you?

Benjamin Liu said:
The book "Secret Freedom Fighter" by Jefferson Mack teaches the difference between a freedom fighter and a terrorist from the point of view of instructing the readers to be freedom fighters and not terrorists. It is out of print but an updated version, "Invisible Resistance to Tyranny" is available. Basically the difference lies in your choice of targets. Military and government targets are OK but civilian targets are not. The 9-11-01 attacks were terrorist acts but the attack on the USS Cole was not. Had they used a military aircraft, a truck bomb, or an infantry assault on the Pentagon it would have been an act of war, not terrorism.
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I see many problems here.

I suppose that an attack on an industrial target (such as a pharmaceutical factory) or even more so on a TV tower (Belgrade), not to mention various "degradation of support infrastructures" (read: Kosovo air campaign in its second phase) were all acts of terrorism. One can also easily make the case that the Twin Towers were more important for the overall US power than the Pentagon. Are they then still to be considered as "civilian"? Even if key government agencies and contractors use them? I think you can see where the slippery slope leads.

Remember also when Sec. Baker told T. Aziz "we will bomb you into the stone age" he did obviously not have only military targets in mind.

Actually, the law of war has the concept of proportionality as a ratio of expected collateral damage to the military benefits of a strike. Since the attacks on the Twin Towers brough huge economic damage not only to the USA, but to the entire international economic system, a Wahabi extremist would then claim that while he is, of course, sorry for the innocents who died that day, the overall effect of the strikes very much justified them. Again - a slippery slope.

I have yet to find a clear definition which would make it possible to separate these categories. Several US agencies refer to a legal and illegal use of force and explain that terrorists use force illegally. But so do freedom fighters.

I also think of Trotsky who wrote in an article (called something like "our terror and their terror" in English) that there is a good terror, the one which accelerates the course of history - the progressive terror, and a bad terror, the one who slow down the course of history - the reactionary (in his case "white") terror. This is for sure one of the more sickening justification of terror I ever came across.

This is really very much off topic now - I apologize for this.

Let's get back to knives and the joyful things of live! :)
 
JR42 said:
I once looked this up, and the counterclockwise swastika is called a sauvastika in some cultures. There's a ton of online info on both symbols; here's a site with info on the swastika and the sauvastika.
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Hi Jeremy,

Thanks for the info. Very interesting and great URL.

Cheers,

TN
 
There will always be grey areas, but that does not mean a distinction is impossible. Some examples given have more to do with total war which IMO is a few steps beyond even terrorism and should only be used in extreme situations.

I was totally against any actions against Serbia as the entire conflict had nothing to do with us and Serbia is historically a close ally of the Soviets. We could have actually had the Serbs as allies in our current war if we did not attack them.

Totally blurring distinctions will get people in trouble. If you carry a weapon you should know when deadly force is justified. If you keep stretching the definition and you hear someone listening to music telling him to kill people, no sane person would say that he was an immediate threat and should be terminated. If you walk into a knife store and see a few people holding knives you cannot legally shoot them just because it is possible that they might attack you.

There is no justification for hijacking a plane and using it as a weapon unless it is a military plane. They chose civilian targets BECAUSE they were civilian targets. They wanted to take out civilians to scare the rest of us.

The book I referred to is a guide to being a freedom fighter. It does not get into specific fighting techniques or into detail on improvised weapons. It is a guide to how to use what you know and who to take out and who to leave alone. Legitimate targets are enemy soldiers, police, politicians, and collaborators. Equiptment and sometimes buildings are also possible targets. Do not blow up schools, slaughter kids, or just kill people at random. It is not that difficult to find the right targets if you are an operator on the ground.

If they really wanted to take the war to our leaders and not us as private citizens, why did they not take attack meetings or conventions of the elites such as the Council of Foreign Relations, the Bilderbergers, the Trilateral Commission, and similar groups? Why not assassinate politicians? The answer is that this is not their goal.
 
this kinda reminds me of people I encounter at work who's total is $6.66 or $9.11 and freak out about it. I had a girl last week freak out about $6.66, so she ran back for something. The total after the other item was $9.11. And of course she freaked out about that too and had to run back. I was thinking the whole time "ok, look... they're just numbers, don't mean a damn thing... and you're killing my efficiency here."

Axis is a pivot or the central point of something. 666 is the number after 665 and before 667. 911 is what you call when someone's in need of help or the number before 912.

Ben
 
If you want to see a very wierd site that has articles based on jumping to weird conclusions from a single bit of information as in a word like "axis" (nothing on "axis" but similar ideas) go to www.stargods.org . The truth is out there! Trust no one! :eek: :D :rolleyes:
 
Psychopomp said:
911 is what you call when someone's in need of help or the number before 912.
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Or a Porsche.
 
Benjamin Liu said:
While I don't own an axis lock, I never associated them with the Axis Powers or Nazism. It's a common English word. I never thought of Nazis during Geometry class.
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Haha, same here. It never occured to me until I saw the thread title, but then it was obvious what he was talking about so there obviously is a connection to some degree.
 
Nope, I instantly think of the x and y axis on a graph or axis of symetry (being the line around which an object is symetrical).

I never think of the usage that means political alliance and wonder why they used the term on Germany/Italy/Japan, though I suppose we already were calling ourselves "the allied forces" and needed a different term... the "we" allies vs the "them" allies just sounds sort of silly.
 
Um no. Do you also have a problem with ovens being called ovens? What about the word camp? You're just WAY too sensitive. But I would guess the ACLU would say you have a very good case against Benchmade. :rolleyes:
 
Lil Timmy said:
What about the word camp?
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I don't like the word camp. Every time I hear it I think of people who play computer games online and do nothing other than sit in one spot and wait for others to run by (this can be effective but its also usually considered being a bad sport).

I don't mind the Axis lock though.
 
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