Blogging is subject to my limited time right now, but there’s one important event today which I hope everyone keeps in mind, and that is the Ukrainian election. Yushchenko (his face scarred by an attempt to kill him by poison) is favored to win, and I’m hoping the Ukrainian people hand him a decisive victory this time — not just to reject Russian hegemony but to protest the kind of political machinations which many thought had died with Stalinism. I think it’s fair to call attempted assassination by poison political terrorism — and the allies of the KGB deserve to lose this election resoundingly.
In the spirit of victory, here are some photos I found at Yahoo.
“Santas” in a show of solidarity for Yushchenko (after all, it’s the day after Christmas):
Here’s candidate Yushchenko at the polls:
Yushchenko’s supporters have been living in tents like these for the past five weeks:
And finally, a child raises an orange balloon of hope:
UPDATE: As of 21:30 GMT, Yushchenko appears to be winning big. Glenn Reynolds thinks Putin miscalculated.
Yeah; Stalinist tactics don’t work too well if people have the vote.
UPDATE (12/27/04): It’s now official that Yushchenko won, although he’s contesting the results. For some reason, a lot of leftists seem to be yawning. (Via InstaPundit.)
May Orange defeat political terror!
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One response to “May Orange defeat political terror!”
I was going to say something kooky about the Orange Lodges again, but on a non-kooky point.
No, I would not call assassination terrorism. Terrorism has a distinct meaning. Assassination is, in fact, rather the opposite of terrorism. An assassin targets a specific individual, a President, Presidential candidate, or other person in a position of polical power or influence. A terrorist targets random civilians who have nothing to do with politics. An act of war is also not terrorism. The attack on Pearl Harbor was not terrorism, it was an attack on a naval base. The attack on the Pentagon was terrorism only in that the the attackers used a hijacked civilian airliner.
The attack on the World Trade Center _was_, by contrast, a quintessential act of terrorism, since it was an attack, not on a political or military center, but on a civilian center and symbol of commerce and civilization, where thousands of people worked as well as visited every day.
If a Palestinian assassinated Ariel Sharon, that would not be terrorism. If a Palestinian murdered all of Sharon’s family, that would be terrorism. When Palestinians blow up discos and pizzarias, that is terrorism.
I don’t approve of assassinations or attacks on our armed forces, but I won’t call them terrorism. Words have, and must have, fixed and distinct meanings. To label all forms of political violence as “terrorism” destroys the meaning of the word “terrorism” and obscures the horror of what terrorism actually is.