Much has been made of the association of Obama with Bill Ayers. Bill Ayers was part of the Weather Underground, which was a lightweight terrorist organization back during the Vietnam war. We rightly call them lightweight because they called ahead of time to evacuate the buildings they set bombs in, and were more about raising awareness through extreme methods rather than killing. They were of greatest threat to themselves as a bomb creation mishap did kill several of the members of the Weather Underground. A detailed account of them can be seen at Wikipedia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weatherman_(organization)

However, what is not discussed is what Ayers and the Weather Underground was protesting. They were protesting the Vietnam War. During the Vietnam War the US illegally bombed at least three countries (Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia), generally accepted estimates are that this lead to the death of 3.5 million people, the dissolution of civil society in Cambodia allowing the Khmer Rouge to come to power and other negative outcomes that have left these countries in an extremely bad state. This bad state extends to the present day, and will extend to the future. A huge amount of unexploded bombs has made amputees of many in the areas that were bombed. The invasion of Vietnam was illegal, as were the bombings of Laos and Cambodia. Strange it is that Bill Ayers, who killed no one, but was responsible for property damage is considered a terrorist by conservatives, yet one of the main architects of Vietnam and a person directly responsible for taking the bombing to Laos and Cambodia is considered a lauded specialist in international relations. That would be Henry Kissinger. This brings up the question of what really is illegal. Is something illegal if it is done by a powerful country against a weaker country? What Bill Ayers did could certainly be considered justified as a way of increasing the costs of the Vietnam War to America. What else were his options? In an only slightly democratic society (notice how long a majority of the population opposed the war and how long it continued) like the US, there is little but violent action that will change its course. This is the root of terrorism of the weak against the strong, an inability to change policy through rational and peaceful means. As much as large power centers complain about terrorism, they are really referring to the very minor terror of citizens against them The US had no excuse of self protection against the Vietnamese. There was no Soviet threat, and Vietnam posed zero risk to the US. There Vietnamese were not coming to invade Peoria. This was a colonial war prosecuted after the power vaccum left when the French, who had their own illegal Vietnam War with 40,000 casualties withdrew from the area. Furthermore there was no South Vietnam and elections in Vietnam were on course until the Kennedy Administration manipulated by the CIA decided to assasinate Diem.

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

The entire basis for the war, that the US was protecting South Vietnamese independence was pure fiction. (See below for support for these contentions. Its long, but worth it. If you respond to this post without watching this in its entirety, you won’t have a good basis for a response and I will delete the reply.)

US education and media has done its job, so not only do most Americans not know these facts, they can not interpret them properly when they are explained in even the most serene environment with all the facts place on the table. But their lack of acceptance does not change the illegality of the war. An objective view would certainly say that a war which killed 3.5 million people, which was not in any way defensive (in addition to other massive societal damage which is difficult to measure) is far more of a terrorist action. In fact it was infinitely more of a terrorist action than the Weather Underground’s activities. Kissinger, Nixon, Kennedy Johnson and the 1000s of Americans, both military and civilian, responsible for the hell on earth that was brought down upon the people of SouthEast Asia, and that continues to deeply hamper their development are the terrorists par excellance. Bill Ayers can’t be uttered in the same breath as them.

http://www.worldfreeinternet.net/news/nws125.htm