>>>>Simple as that: several West European countries were harbouring terrorist groups, which then attacked a sovereign country several times. Would this counry be within its rights if it claimed these attacks to be "acts of war"?
>>>
>>>I know there's a twist here but I'll bite anyway.
>>>
>>>Were these West European countries asked to hand over the terrorists and refused? Were they working in conjunction with one another? State-sponsored? If so then yes theis is clearly an act of war. If the terrorists were merely residing in the country despite their best efforts then no.
>>
>>As for state-sponsored, can't be sure, but they were at least tolerated, and maybe got some help from various secret services. Their Nazi background was ignored, as long as they were willing to attack a communist country - which was officially on friendly terms with each of the governments. So they had training camps, weapons etc.
>>
>>The twist: SFR Yugoslavia never entertained an idea that terrorism could be fought by military means. It's a matter of one secret service against another secret service and its sponsored terrorists. And when they were inserted, they were dealt with by the local police units.
>
>Now wait a second. Were these terrorist attacking civilians or military?
Civilians, that I know of. If they were attacking the military, that wouldn't be published :).
>>The other twist: The West was always keeping their own terrorists ready to be used against other countries. There was always a set of justifiable targets. Once it was the communist countries, then it was Latin American countries which were trying to be too independent (Chile, Nicaragua, and I'm keeping my eyes on Venezuela and Bolivia), then it was aiding the Taliban against the Soviets, or aiding the fundamentalist Islamic mujahedeen against Serbs in Bosnia and Kosovo & Metohia.
>
>Again civilians or military?
Civilians or military what? The mujahedeen?
>>Once the West itself became a target of terrorism, all of a sudden there's a "war on terror", terrorism can be used as a pretext for war. So there must be good terrorists and bad terrorists, the good old double standard. It's just that the line dividing them is only there in the eye of the beholder.
>
>Not exactly all the sudden.
>
http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ho/pubs/fs/5902.htmThe so-called "war on terror" wasn't declared until 9/11.
And going down that list, I see the usual habit of the West to know nothing that doesn't concern themselves. "Guerrillas kidnapped a US oil engineer" is listed, but assasination of Yugoslav ambassador in Stockholm is not, or the numerous bombs exploding at Yugoslav travel agencies in Belgium and Nederlands in the seventies and eighties, or the attempted assasination of Turkish ambassador in Belgrade by two Kurds (or was it Armenians?) which was prevented by passers-by, or the explosion of JAT's airplane over Czechoslovakia (the stewardess Vesna Vulović still holds Guinness' record for surviving the fall from 10 km), or the explosion in a full movie theatre in Belgrade. Again, it seems that this list ignores the "good terrorists".
