tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2623721153002721356.post2925162247662683027..comments2024-03-28T17:49:01.125+00:00Comments on Three Thousand Versts of Loneliness: Corporate responsibility, Dawn and Gerry.Owen Polleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00567787385096905811noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2623721153002721356.post-90517009719572260062010-02-22T20:34:54.203+00:002010-02-22T20:34:54.203+00:00Very well said Owen. Excellent piece.Very well said Owen. Excellent piece.Jeff Peelhttp://jeffpeel.netnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2623721153002721356.post-71316083936785835592010-02-22T16:05:58.038+00:002010-02-22T16:05:58.038+00:00Wow. Iraq a 'liberal secular state'. Giv...Wow. Iraq a 'liberal secular state'. Give my regards to the other spacemen on your craft.Owen Polleyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00567787385096905811noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2623721153002721356.post-2004587937855983242010-02-22T15:58:20.412+00:002010-02-22T15:58:20.412+00:00How do you define a terrorist? The American Herita...How do you define a terrorist? The American Heritage Dictionary describes it as "the unlawful use or threatened use of force or violence by a person or an organized group against people or property with the intention of intimidating or coercing societies or governments, often for ideological or political reasons".<br /><br />Under that definition, most modern industrial states owe their title deeds to terrorism. And, indeed, they sustain their continued existence on the application of, or at least the threat of, coercive violence (in the western world this takes the form of a 'police'). The modern British state is a creation of the Revolution of 1688 - while peaceful in England, in Ireland, like the Scottish Highlands, it took the form of a brutal military conquest. The Republic of Ireland owes, at least indirectly, its existence to a War that cost the lives of thousands caught up in guerilla warfare. The American and French Revolutions were both illegal, under the codes of the <i>ancien régime</i>, and yet the legitimacy of the sovereignty creditionals of their successor states are never in dispute. Had the IRA militarily acheived their political aims, it would doubtless be the same. Nothing succeeds like success.<br /><br />The British state has rarely exhibited much moral scruple in the application of political violence; consider Iraq, where a liberal secular state was violently overthrown. And illegally too!...at least under the laws of the constitutionally established Iraqi state. If violence for political aims is never legitimate, then revolution and war are both morally illict. But Britain has never functioned on those principles. And it can hardly expect others to either.shanenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2623721153002721356.post-83818286650064741842010-02-22T15:11:55.604+00:002010-02-22T15:11:55.604+00:00Absolutely.Absolutely.thedissenterhttp://www.thedissenter.co.uknoreply@blogger.com