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Comment by pajop | Hacker News Reader

hmm you probably couldn't be faulted about thinking that all this was imaginary until you get a grenade thrown at you - I was part of an NGO team in Kabul, Afghanistan that was targeted by a grenade thrown from a motorcycle (tandem) that providentially didn't explode.

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And how is that an example of terrorism? By your own admission you were in Kabul, Afghanistan, a country that neither called for nor welcomes the U.S., it was an invasion. I would expect hostile action in an invaded territory (unless you were a muslim NGO, in which case I'd retract).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasions_of_Afghanistan#Invasi...

"Terrorism is the systematic use of terror, especially as a means of coercion."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism

Exactly. This is the thing that frustrates me the most about the reporting about Iraq and Afgan wars: anyone who fights back is part of the terrorist organization. I imagine if Russia plopped down bases, artillery, tanks and so on on american soil, citizens would probably attack them in the hopes of driving them out. That's not terrorism, that's defending your country from an unwanted foreign invader. Some might say that's the duty of any able bodied citizen.

But the presence of violence in Afghanistan is not evidence of a broader existential threat or a globally organised campaign. Its evidence of a country that has had decades of war and death. This [1] survey suggests that many Afghans don't even know about 9/11. What threat are these people to the USA?

[1] http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/11/19/think-tank-afghans-don...

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