Quote Originally Posted by Bob's World View Post
Some of these "terrorist" organizations are truly evil; most are insurgent organizations seeking better conditions in countries that the US has placed in the "Friend" bucket. If the same organization existed in a country we had placed in the "Enemy" bucket they would be regarded as brave freedom fighters.
One way to manage this might be to change the law on dealings with designated terrorist organizations. Another, likely easier, would be to review the list of designated terrorist organizations and trim out those that are more insurgent than terrorist. On my own turf, I'd have to say that while I've no great affection for the New People's Army, the "terrorist" designation has no real basis.

I do think, though, that the assumption that insurgents are necessarily "seeking better conditions" is as naive as the assumption that insurgents are by definition bad people seeking bad things. Most of them are simply seeking power. They may try to ride on popular grievances but in most cases they've little real desire to resolve those grievances. They want power, and once they have it they generally use it in much the same ways their predecessors did.