U.S. drone strike kills 30 pine nut farm workers in Afghanistan

No it's not. These types of comments are extremely inappropriate. Your comment tries to suggest that:

1. Terrorists are people with legitimate grievances

2. Terrorists are representatives of oppressed people

3. Terrorists have genuine reasons for their actions

All of these things are false. People do not turn into international, careless murderers just because they experience travesty. Terrorists exploit this concept to try to give themselves legitimacy, but the reality is that it's highly removed from the actual reality of what's happening.

You know what does create terrorists though?

1. Sanctions and

2. Funding of militias.

These are things that everyone - except for isolationists - stand behind and support.

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Thanks for the 5 downvotes in 10 minutes! Feel free to help me (someone from the region who was directly caught up in not one but two American wars) understand why I should be a terrorist now. I'll also forward the comments to my cousin who was working inside a Red Cross clinic hit by a US airstrike so she also knows what to think. Thanks in advance HN!

Because your average farmer is obviously going to join up with a militia or terrorist group because of some abstract political thing like sanctions, which he probably has trouble even measuring in his day to life.

As opposed to your elected politicians and your military having blown up his daughter at her wedding, scattering her remains over a wide enough area that it is hard even finding anything to bury.

Makes sense.

The only way you're going to get someone mad enough for that, is if the militia you equipped happens to inflict similar cruelties, or you otherwise mess with his nation in a way that is more than just an inconvenience.

If the US imposed sanctions against my country, I'd just shrug. If the US killed my family members and I had no recourse...

Sanctioned people are in a way oppressed people and their grievances may well be legitimate (i.e., "I had a nice family business and now my export targets are gone while I did nothing wrong.") Retaliation probably feels like a genuine reason for their actions too. Many sanctions hit the population while their government hardly feels it (they still have enough to eat, places to live etc.)

All those things you think are false are 100% absolutely true.

Terrorism is a political tactic coming from a power asymmetry and is labeled as such due to this power dynamic as a consequence of who controls the narrative.

labels aside, if x state drops a bomb and kills your 4 year old playing outside you will want revenge, if you're from those areas. Simple as that, call it whatever you want. You killed my son for no reason...

USA should better rush with million dollar offers to families, along with apologies, of course.

I disagree with this comment, I think, but it's well written and provides a useful alternative viewpoint. Upvoted to counter the downvotes.

> Because your average farmer is obviously going to join up with a militia or terrorist group because of some abstract political thing like sanctions which he probably has trouble even measuring in his day to life.

Sanctions starve people to death, literally. There is a blockade on food, medicine and your entire life savings turn to nothing. Your life becomes rations. It has such a significant effect that this even turned the non-religious Arab nationalist socialist Ba'ath party into an extremist Islamist brigade in under a decade[0].

These sanctions are even one the major stated reason of the 9/11 attacks by Al Qaeda[1] - not that Saudis flying planes into the world trade center somehow represents the suffering of Iraqis.

I'm not even sure why this would be contested, I don't think you understand what sanctions are or what kind of almost-genocidal effects they have[2] but with your comment I'm suddenly understanding the reasoning of the people downvoting me and upvoting others.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faith_campaign

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motives_for_the_September_11_a...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanctions_against_Iraq#Effects...

Because you seem to be missing that it's not the "sanctions" that radicalize people, but the "starve to death" part, or in general, the "death" part. In so far as heavy sanctions breed resentment and further violence, bombing people's families into tiny pieces does that even more.

Perhaps you are confused with the term "terrorist". s/terrorist/freedom fighter/g. Is that more palatable ? Or is the narrative contextual, depending on which side you find yourself on ?

All three of your assertions are wrong, regardless. And you have no business judging 'appropriateness'. Of course there are criminals that take advantage of situations, I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that they are not the types that blow themselves up to make a quick buck.

What I find shocking about your comment is that your points 1-3 can obviously be true and very often are - and if you don't believe they can be true, then you couldn't possibly understand why terrorism exists in the first place.

The devil is always in the detail, but generally speaking terrorists are violent combatants who pursue certain political goals, but don't have a regular army, and at some point in their life unfortunately accepted the idea that it is legitimate to intentionally harm or kill civilians to reach those goals. Accepting this horrible idea is what makes them terrorists.

Reminds me of this story of the British paying "blood money" in Iraq which I found quite illuminating at the time: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/jul/02/iraq.features1...

> If the US imposed sanctions against my country, I'd just shrug.

You obviously do not understand that sanctions are usually a way to prepare for war with weapons. Sanctions bring up the cracks in societies that are otherwise hidden under a thin layer of comfort we call civilized behavior. With sanctions you get a black market and all that is related to it. Sanctions are a trade war at another level.