Reply #47: Yes, I'm with you 100% (I think)

[coalition_unwilling]

A dead child is a dead child, and it matters little to me how that child died. The point I've been trying to make in all my previous posts (apparently not so successfully) is that calling the perpetrators "terrorists" allows the state(s) not to have to negotiate for redress of grievances.

The context for Bezlan is that (depending on which human rights organization you consult) between 44 and 200 of every 1,000 Chechens have been killed or "disappeared" by the Russian military or Security Services in the past decade. No one has called what Russia is doing in Chechnya "terrorism." But when those who have suffered under Russian brutality resist, suddenly their tactics, which have the exact same outcome as Russian tactics, are labelled 'terrorists'.

It's like once you've labelled someone or some group a "terrorist", that person ceases to be human and instead becomes 'The Other', non-human and demonic. All discourse stops when the word is deployed. So I don't really feel the word has much usefulness, other than to play on people's fears.