http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/What-We-Know-About-Suspect-Battery-Park-City-Tribeca-Terror-454320243.html

Current report has 8 dead and 15 injured.

The 29-year-old man detained after a flatbed truck drove down a popular lower Manhattan bike path, killing at least 8 people and injuring more than a dozen more, has been identified as an Uzbek national who came to the United States in 2010.

Reports of guns are somewhat misleading. Current info says he had a bb gun and a paintball gun. No actual firearms.

"Suspect" is in custody after being shot by a policeman.

Great :(

Hope the death toll does not rise.
And I'm sure more info on suspects and motive come out in a day or two.

http://www.dailywire.com/news/23002/manhattan-attacker-identified-29-year-old-uzbek-emily-zanotti?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_content=062316-news&utm_campaign=benshapiro

"Police say that Saipov drove a rented truck over a curb and onto a bike path near the World Trade Center. After mowing over several pedestrians, Saipov crashed his truck into a school bus, injuring at least two adults and two children inside. He then jumped from the truck, screamed "Allah Akbar!" and ran toward a group of children, brandishing two items that appeared to be firearms."

Well I'm sure his preferred political ideology will have no relation at all to his actions...


On Halloween too of all days.

My condolences to the victims.

And I’ve got a horrible feeling that this is only going to be the first in another batch of attacks over the coming weeks.

 Crablezworth wrote:
http://www.dailywire.com/news/23002/manhattan-attacker-identified-29-year-old-uzbek-emily-zanotti?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_content=062316-news&utm_campaign=benshapiro

"Police say that Saipov drove a rented truck over a curb and onto a bike path near the World Trade Center. After mowing over several pedestrians, Saipov crashed his truck into a school bus, injuring at least two adults and two children inside. He then jumped from the truck, screamed "Allah Akbar!" and ran toward a group of children, brandishing two items that appeared to be firearms."

Well I'm sure his preferred political ideology will have no relation at all to his actions...


On Halloween too of all days.

I did not want to assume. But this seems pretty solid clue to motivation. It's hard to argue against that.

We need to do more to find these freaks.

To be honest, until now I didn't even know the Republic of Uzbekistan existed.

200+ nations, you don't need to know them all.

IIRC It is one of the breakaway territories of the Soviet Union that were once part of Tsarist Russia but had a non-Russian ethnic majority.
Ukbekistan gained sovereignty as part of the break up of the Soviet Union.

Literally everything I know about Uzbekistan I know from Borat.

This feels so much like the situation of those brothers who put that bomb at the finish line of the Boston marathon a few years back. Immigrant child comes to America with his parents, later becoming radicalized, and finally carrying out a lone wolf attack.

It doesn't matter if ISIS was responsible or not. There's a culture of radicals and murderous ideologues in that area of the world that nobody seems willing to deal with. Each attack like this simply emboldens others to do the same. To be honest, I'm surprised there haven't been more of these car attacks already.

EDIT: 2010 arrival puts him at 21 or 22, so not a child. Still no word yet on how early he became radicalized.

 Breotan wrote:
This feels so much like the situation of those brothers who put that bomb at the finish line of the Boston marathon a few years back. Immigrant child comes to America with his parents, later becoming radicalized, and finally carrying out a lone wolf attack.

It doesn't matter if ISIS was responsible or not. There's a culture of radicals and murderous ideologues in that area of the world that nobody seems willing to deal with. Each attack like this simply emboldens others to do the same. To be honest, I'm surprised there haven't been more of these car attacks already.

EDIT: 2010 arrival puts him at 21 or 22, so not a child. Still no word yet on how early he became radicalized.

He predates IS on arivial. It likely was when in the US not outside it.
Also. While I know about as little as everyone else, Uzbekistan is not exactly a known jihadists hot spot.

It does not come up on axis of evil etc.

If you wanted jihadists. Then chechnia, a few others known for. Not his country far as I know.

 jhe90 wrote:
Also. While I know about as little as everyone else, Uzbekistan is not exactly a known jihadists hot spot.

It does not come up on axis of evil etc.

If you wanted jihadists. Then chechnia, a few others known for. Not his country far as I know.

Newsweek would like to disagree with you.

http://www.newsweek.com/new-york-terror-attack-makes-americans-wonder-are-terrorists-coming-uzbekistan-698120

I know the area. It's near the WTC. No virgins for you slappy.

Village Halloween Parade Still On Despite Deadly Attack in Lower Manhattan

GOOD!

Earlier this year there was an attack in Stockholm, the capital of Sweden, perpetrated by an Uzbek man using a lorry to mow people down. He had reportedly expressed sympathies for Daesh, but he seemed more like a man who'd given in to despair and only used religion as an excuse, and a way to get more attention.

There are certainly religious fanatics who commit atrocities in the name of Islam, but I wouldn't assume the true motive to be religious just because the perpetrator says so. For some, admitting you're an extremist is easier than admitting you're a loser.

My condolences to those affected by this attack. Such waste of life.

 Cream Tea wrote:
There are certainly religious fanatics who commit atrocities in the name of Islam, but I wouldn't assume the true motive to be religious just because the perpetrator says so.

Yelling god is great in arabic... obviously mental illness.

 Crablezworth wrote:

Yelling god is great in arabic... obviously mental illness.

These actions seem sane to you?

Claiming a higher cause such as religion when you're really a deranged person murdering for murder's sake isn't unheard of.

Being driven to committing atrocities by extreme religiosity also isn't unheard of. I don't know which one this is, could be a mixture.

Anyway, religion bears a striking resemblance to mental illness.

If a Christian man commits an act of terror we ask what the real motive could be, or look for some other issue that could drive a man to such a murderous rampage.

If a Muslim man commits an act of terror we assume that's enough by itself, case closed.

You're right, it was probably a spur of the moment type of murderous killing spree, the kind that stretch on for a mile. Crime of passion.You know, you just rent a pickup truck one day from home depot and decide, shucks, life just ain't worth a livin, better mow down women and children while shouting the takbir.



He's obviously just a hipster or amish. Glad they got this guy alive.

 Crablezworth wrote:
You're right, it was probably a spur of the moment type of murderous killing sprees that stetch for a mile. You know, you just rent a pickup from home depot and decide, shucks, life just ain't worth a livin, better mow down women and children while shouting the takbir.

Renting a pickup and mowing down civilians armed with a BB gun and a paintball gun (in the US where real guns are quite accessible) doesn't sound like an evil master plan coming to fruition after years of planning. It sounds like the acts of a human being gone off the rails.

If you're a Muslim and decide to go on a murderous rampage, you may well decide to invoke Allah and claim connections to Daesh just because you know it gets you more publicity.

The WTC attacks in 2001 were Islamist terrorist attacks. They were planned, coordinated and mentally prepared for way in advance, all for a religious-political cause.

This is very far from that.

 sebster wrote:


If a Muslim man commits an act of terror we assume that's enough by itself, case closed.

When he's yelling the takbir while murdering women and children it's probably a good bet.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 sebster wrote:
If a Christian man commits an act of terror we ask what the real motive could be, or look for some other issue that could drive a man to such a murderous rampage.

Yes, we all scratch our heads, shrug out shoulders and do some real obfuscation and magic thinking every time a christian gets arrested for murdering a doctor or bombing an abortion clinic. Gimme a break seb.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Cream Tea wrote:

 Crablezworth wrote:
You're right, it was probably a spur of the moment type of murderous killing sprees that stetch for a mile. You know, you just rent a pickup from home depot and decide, shucks, life just ain't worth a livin, better mow down women and children while shouting the takbir.

Renting a pickup and mowing down civilians armed with a BB gun and a paintball gun (in the US where real guns are quite accessible) doesn't sound like an evil master plan coming to fruition after years of planning. It sounds like the acts of a human being gone off the rails.

If you're a Muslim and decide to go on a murderous rampage, you may well decide to invoke Allah and claim connections to Daesh just because you know it gets you more publicity.

The WTC attacks in 2001 were Islamist terrorist attacks. They were planned, coordinated and mentally prepared for way in advance, all for a religious-political cause.

This is very far from that.

An uzbek national (96% muslim) stateside on a visa lottery plans and executes a terror attack killing 8 and injuring more while yelling "allahu akbar" (the takbir) and you're still waiting for which facts exactly? I bet the boston bombers were just a couple a good kids who lost their way.... just misunderstood.. ya .. ya know? Nothing to do with a certain political ideology that rhymes with fizzz-lamb.

No one in here committed the attack, no one in here is excusing the attack.

Respond to other users politely, in line with Rule 1, or the topic goes away

"Note About ISIS Found in Truck Used in NYC Terrorist Attack, Sources Say"

"Police have found a note inside that truck that was used Tuesday to run down people on a bike path in lower Manhattan that indicates the suspect claimed to have carried out the attack for the Islamic State terrorist group, law enforcement sources said."


https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/nyc-terrorist-attack/note-about-isis-found-truck-used-nyc-terrorist-attack-sources-n816276



The note seems rather conclusive.

So, it was a Truck of Peace attack, huh? Good thing he didn't use a semi like the jihadis in Europe have done. The body count may have been higher.


I'm just waiting for the Western World's Terrorism Response Guide to come into play.


Step 1: Sad, tearful cartoons

Step 2: Facebook flag filters

Step 3: Tearful candlelight vigils in the media

Step 4: Light up some buildings

Step 5: Worry about a "backlash" that never happens

Step 6: Wash, Rinse, Repeat.


My condolences to the victims and their families. But I know nothing will be done to cut back on the chances of it happening again.

 Ouze wrote:
Literally everything I know about Uzbekistan I know from Borat.

Ummm, thats Kazakhstan.

 Grey Templar wrote:

 Ouze wrote:
Literally everything I know about Uzbekistan I know from Borat.

Ummm, thats Kazakhstan.

Borat was always speaking ill of uzbekistani's on the show and in the movie.

I don't doubt the attacker wants it to be known as an Islamist terror attack, I just doubt that's what's really behind it. It may be, but the fact remains that if you want your attack to be more pulicised, swearing allegiance to Daesh and yelling Allahu akbar will help a lot.

His actions are inexcusable in either case, and it's not unreasonable to believe that Islamism was the main motivating factor here. However, I believe it's at least as reasonable to believe he's a man unhappy with life who decided to commit this horrendous act and added Islam for extra attention.

I don't think his motivations are of any real importance compared to the damage he's done though, and focussing on them isn't very meaningful. You commit an act like this to be noticed, and the more we focus on the perpetrator, the more we do what he wants. I'm glad they got him alive, now let justice have its course. Don't give him the fame he craves. Don't fear him. He's not worth that.

 Cream Tea wrote:


it's not unreasonable to believe that Islamism was the main motivating factor here. However, I believe it's at least as reasonable to believe he's a man unhappy with life who decided to commit this horrendous act and added Islam for extra attention.

Would you say the same of the uzbeki national who murdered 15 innocent people in april of this year in Sweden? http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/04/07/truck-crashes-crowd-people-stockholm/

 Crablezworth wrote:

 Cream Tea wrote:


it's not unreasonable to believe that Islamism was the main motivating factor here. However, I believe it's at least as reasonable to believe he's a man unhappy with life who decided to commit this horrendous act and added Islam for extra attention.

Would you say the same of the uzbeki national who murdered 15 innocent people in april of this year in sweden? http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/04/07/truck-crashes-crowd-people-stockholm/

The total number of dead was five. And indeed, as I commented on that attack in my first post in this thread, I don't think he did it because of Islam. He didn't even seem to know the difference between Shia and Sunni Islam, as he expressed sympathies for Islamist organisations from both branches. His life was in shambles, his wife seems to have left him, he had no job, he faced deportation and he appeared to be spending his time mostly smoking and sleeping.

His actions are still inexcusable.

Two points I'd like to add:

Why, in a world where we have SO many Islamic extremists committing these atrocities, do we need to suddenly disregard Islamic extremism as a motive? Seems pretty cut and dry.



Also, does this mean we need stricter vehicle laws in the US?

 Just Tony wrote:


Also, does this mean we need stricter vehicle laws in the US?

Don't be silly, cars don't kill people. People kill people.

Was kind of wondering when something like this was going to happen, but from what I heard the good guys with guns did not make an appearance. Kuddis to the police though, for not outright killing him. Now we get to enjoy a trial. (Side question: are trials for crimes like these also done with a jury? My country does not have juries, hence why I'm asking.)

 sebster wrote:
If a Christian man commits an act of terror we ask what the real motive could be, or look for some other issue that could drive a man to such a murderous rampage.

If a Muslim man commits an act of terror we assume that's enough by itself, case closed.

Not every Muslim is a terrorist. That being said, Muslims raised in certain parts of the world have a very high likelihood of being radicalized. The current government estimate is that there are 400,000,000 radicalized Muslims in the world. That's about the population of the US and Canada, so yes, that does worry me.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Cream Tea wrote:

Renting a pickup and mowing down civilians armed with a BB gun and a paintball gun (in the US where real guns are quite accessible) doesn't sound like an evil master plan coming to fruition after years of planning. It sounds like the acts of a human being gone off the rails.

.

Hate to point this out, but getting a gun in New York isn't that easy. This guy was also NOT a citizen, so that rules out pretty much any legal gun sale in the state. Even those that would be willing to sell a gun illegally would likely hesitate to sell to an obviously foreign man of Arab decent. Black market arms dealers aren't exactly known for their racial inclusiveness.

 Just Tony wrote:
Two points I'd like to add:

Why, in a world where we have SO many Islamic extremists committing these atrocities, do we need to suddenly disregard Islamic extremism as a motive? Seems pretty cut and dry.



Also, does this mean we need stricter vehicle laws in the US?

Isn't more of an issue where the Islamic Extremism is an effect of the motivation, perhaps even a catalyst, but not really the cause? If we understood what caused these attackers to radicalize in the first place, we might prevent others from radicalizing. The factor we need to study is the Extremism much more than the Islam. This type of crime is much more similar to a spree killing or "going postal" than it is to the 9/11 hijackings.

 Just Tony wrote:
Also, does this mean we need stricter vehicle laws in the US?

Like what? What sort of law could possibly be put into place that would stop someone from getting in their car one day and deciding that "today is the day" then plowing into a group of people somewhere?

Cruxeh wrote:

 Just Tony wrote:


Also, does this mean we need stricter vehicle laws in the US?

Don't be silly, cars don't kill people. People kill people.

Was kind of wondering when something like this was going to happen, but from what I heard the good guys with guns did not make an appearance. Kuddis to the police though, for not outright killing him. Now we get to enjoy a trial. (Side question: are trials for crimes like these also done with a jury? My country does not have juries, hence why I'm asking.)

Breotan wrote:

 Just Tony wrote:
Also, does this mean we need stricter vehicle laws in the US?

Like what? What sort of law could possibly be put into place that would stop someone from getting in their car one day and deciding that "today is the day" then plowing into a group of people somewhere?

I agree here, he had a desire to kill people...car or not. Lets say he didn't have access to a car for whatever reason, okay then he would have stabbed people, or found some other way to cause injury. So long as sick people have a desire to do this it is hard to prevent. All you can really do is try and mitigate the amount of damage a person can do and that is not easy.

 Crablezworth wrote:
You're right, it was probably a spur of the moment type of murderous killing spree, the kind that stretch on for a mile. Crime of passion.You know, you just rent a pickup truck one day from home depot and decide, shucks, life just ain't worth a livin, better mow down women and children while shouting the takbir.

Obviously his faith was a prime driver in him deciding to do this. But that is not an answer in itself. Because every day a billion muslims wake up and don't commit mass slaughter, so obviously this guy was very different to most people in his faith.

In the same way, every so often a Christian will bomb an abortion clinic. Obviously their faith played a major role in the decision. But every day a billion Christians wake up and don't bomb abortion clinics, so obviously the ones who do are very different to most of their faith.

 Crablezworth wrote:
When he's yelling the takbir while murdering women and children it's probably a good bet.

You gave two responses to one post I made, with the second response containing even less useful content. That's a new line of approach.

Anyhow, the question isn't 'is it a total coincidence that he's a muslim?', but 'how did his particular branch of Islam combine with other factors to cause this attack?'

Yes, we all scratch our heads, shrug out shoulders and do some real obfuscation and magic thinking every time a christian gets arrested for murdering a doctor or bombing an abortion clinic. Gimme a break seb.

Your opinion here is divorced from reality. We actually do spend time looking in to their specific branch of faith and their immediate religious community. And we look in to their background for any possible causes, marriage breakdown, financial stress etc. We build an overall picture on why this particular person decided to make that attack.

We actually do this Muslim attackers as well. Lots of work is done by law enforcement and some of the better sections of the media. This has resulted in some circles having really good understanding of what the trigger points are, which particularly Islamic communities cause most of the issues etc. It's great work that can actually help to address the problem. Unfortunately very little of that work reaches popular understanding because for too many people 'coz he's a muslim' is enough of an answer.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 cuda1179 wrote:
Not every Muslim is a terrorist. That being said, Muslims raised in certain parts of the world have a very high likelihood of being radicalized.

That's true, I agree.

The current government estimate is that there are 400,000,000 radicalized Muslims in the world. That's about the population of the US and Canada, so yes, that does worry me.

That figure is stupid beyond belief. I've seen a takedown of a similarly stupid number Ben Shapiro put up, and the con he played is probably the same one used by 'the current government' to produce that absurd figure. The con is that they take surveys and note that a lot of the respondents give deeply conservative answers - support Sharia Law, think 9/11 was done by the West etc... Those are horrible views, no doubt, and it's a big issue that those issues are held by many Muslims, but that doesn't make them radicals.

Radicals mean they want to take part in terror, or support those who do. And let me ask you - if 400m people on Earth were radical Muslims who wanted to conduct terror attacks on the West, how fething lazy must 399,999,999 of them be if at the end of the day one guy is left to hire a car for himself to run down some people?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 oldravenman3025 wrote:
I'm just waiting for the Western World's Terrorism Response Guide to come into play.

Step 1: Sad, tearful cartoons

Step 2: Facebook flag filters

Step 3: Tearful candlelight vigils in the media

Step 4: Light up some buildings

Step 5: Worry about a "backlash" that never happens

Step 6: Wash, Rinse, Repeat.

Its quite amazing how closely that matches the response we see whenever there's a gun massacre. It says a hell of a lot about both issues.

 Cruxeh wrote:

 Just Tony wrote:


Also, does this mean we need stricter vehicle laws in the US?

Don't be silly, cars don't kill people. People kill people.

Was kind of wondering when something like this was going to happen, but from what I heard the good guys with guns did not make an appearance. Kuddis to the police though, for not outright killing him. Now we get to enjoy a trial. (Side question: are trials for crimes like these also done with a jury? My country does not have juries, hence why I'm asking.)

Hes making a facetious comment about gun laws, since there is talk of stricter gun laws everytime theres a mass shooting.

Trump talks about turning up ‘extreme vetting’ even more, but is that really the answer? Coming through the US customs is unpleasant enough as it is, this recent attacker had been in the US years and avoided all of that. The problem with a lot of the current attackers are that they are not recent arrivals.

 Orlanth wrote:
We need to do more to find these freaks.

You need to do more to stop generating them in the first place.

 Howard A Treesong wrote:
Trump talks about turning up ‘extreme vetting’ even more, but is that really the answer? Coming through the US customs is unpleasant enough as it is, this recent attacker had been in the US years and avoided all of that. The problem with a lot of the current attackers are that they are not recent arrivals.

The problem starts with there being no clear policy on what extreme vetting would actually be. Because there's already strict vetting processes in place, and I've not heard about one suggestion about what would be added to turn vetting in to extreme vetting, outside of possibly Mountain Dew. So does it mean expanding vetting processes to more people than just those under existing vetting? I don't know. No-one does. It was a slogan by Trump to signify he was serious about Islamic terrorism and was totally gonna do something. But it was never more than a slogan, there was never an actual policy. The closest we got in office was the travel ban, which was meant to be temporary while they set about adding 'extreme' to the existing vetting practices.

 Just Tony wrote:
Two points I'd like to add:

Why, in a world where we have SO many Islamic extremists committing these atrocities, do we need to suddenly disregard Islamic extremism as a motive? Seems pretty cut and dry.

Because knowing the actual factors involved help identify places where we can improve it. It's all well writing it off as a terrorist attack, but what do you do next? How do you prevent it?

He's been in the US a long time, so maybe there's mental health issues at play, or he's been feeling marginalized; we can potentially do something about both of those with better mental health support and education. Or we can just ban brown people from renting trucks (sarcasm).

Crazyterran wrote:

 Cruxeh wrote:

 Just Tony wrote:


Also, does this mean we need stricter vehicle laws in the US?

Don't be silly, cars don't kill people. People kill people.

Was kind of wondering when something like this was going to happen, but from what I heard the good guys with guns did not make an appearance. Kuddis to the police though, for not outright killing him. Now we get to enjoy a trial. (Side question: are trials for crimes like these also done with a jury? My country does not have juries, hence why I'm asking.)

Hes making a facetious comment about gun laws, since there is talk of stricter gun laws everytime theres a mass shooting.

This guy got it. I seriously didn't think it'd go over people's heads like it did. Just like any time someone uses a hammer or kitchen knife to murder someone, I immediately ask if that means we need to ban carpentry or the culinary arts.

Herzlos wrote:

 Orlanth wrote:
We need to do more to find these freaks.

You need to do more to stop generating them in the first place.

What, you mean just showing up non-Muslim? Because that is seriously a motivator to some of the more extreme Islamists. I keep forgetting that every bad person on this planet is a direct result of the US in some way, shape, or form...

 cuda1179 wrote:
The current government estimate is that there are 400,000,000 radicalized Muslims in the world. That's about the population of the US and Canada, so yes, that does worry me.

Do you have a citation for that? That's 5% of the worlds population.

Herzlos wrote:

 Just Tony wrote:
Two points I'd like to add:

Why, in a world where we have SO many Islamic extremists committing these atrocities, do we need to suddenly disregard Islamic extremism as a motive? Seems pretty cut and dry.

Because knowing the actual factors involved help identify places where we can improve it. It's all well writing it off as a terrorist attack, but what do you do next? How do you prevent it?

He's been in the US a long time, so maybe there's mental health issues at play, or he's been feeling marginalized; we can potentially do something about both of those with better mental health support and education. Or we can just ban brown people from renting trucks (sarcasm).

You're right, you know. He probably needed a hug, plain and simple.

Wait, I just assumed that person's gender, I'm already on my way to marginalizing them and turning them into an extremist. Bad me. Bad BAD me.






Seriously, not everything gets solved by counseling. Some people are inherently evil. For simplicity's sake we'll call them Americans, right?

 sebster wrote:

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 oldravenman3025 wrote:
I'm just waiting for the Western World's Terrorism Response Guide to come into play.

Step 1: Sad, tearful cartoons

Step 2: Facebook flag filters

Step 3: Tearful candlelight vigils in the media

Step 4: Light up some buildings

Step 5: Worry about a "backlash" that never happens

Step 6: Wash, Rinse, Repeat.

Its quite amazing how closely that matches the response we see whenever there's a gun massacre. It says a hell of a lot about both issues.

Well, to be fair, American gun owners tend to no bet part of a hateful ideology that promotes child abuse, abuse of women, throwing homosexuals from the roof of a building, and the lying to (taqiyya/kitman), killing (jihad),and forceful conversion of the kuffar (non-believer). And it's a hell of a lot harder to catch somebody who snaps (but looks completely normal until the big event) than a potential jihadist.

 oldravenman3025 wrote:
Well, to be fair, American gun owners tend to no bet part of a hateful ideology that promotes child abuse, abuse of women, throwing homosexuals from the roof of a building, and the lying to (taqiyya/kitman), killing (jihad),and forceful conversion of the kuffar (non-believer).

Look, there are issues in Islam as its practiced in many places around the world. But to assert those issues are universal across all of Islam is simply wrong, and to focus just on Islam for this stuff is just a horrible bit of selection bias - you should do some reading about how Christianity is practiced in much of Africa.

And it's a hell of a lot harder to catch somebody who snaps (but looks completely normal until the big event) than a potential jihadist.

You're wrong. You're wrong that they 'just snap'. The warning flags are similar, the descent in to violence is similar.

It isn't easy to locate ahead of time in either case, but the level of difficulty is the same.

Not for a minute am I saying that the background info I'm posting here is the motivation behind this horrible attack, but in the wider context, it might explain why somebody from Uzbekistan carried out this attack.

From time to time, I read Craig Murray's blog. Craig Murray was the former British ambassador to Uzbekistan. He was sacked for whistleblowing about human rights abuses, and the use of Uzbekistan as a stopping point by the British and the CIA for Taliban and AQ suspects that were captured in Afghanistan.

Uzbekistan is a dictatorship, and not being too keen on human rights, the CIA were happy to 'accidently' leave suspects in the hands of the Uzbek security services.

And if suspects were 'tortured' and if info was 'accidently' revealed, well, the CIA weren't going to put their fingers in their ears. I think people can draw their own conclusions from this. Anyway, Murray was sacked for blowing the whistle on this, and has revealed that a lot of Uzbek people were radicalsied as a result of this kind of action. Uzbekistan is a Muslim nation that is very conservative.

Is it the motivation for this horrible attack? Who knows, but I though people would like to know this background info.

 sebster wrote:

 oldravenman3025 wrote:
Well, to be fair, American gun owners tend to no bet part of a hateful ideology that promotes child abuse, abuse of women, throwing homosexuals from the roof of a building, and the lying to (taqiyya/kitman), killing (jihad),and forceful conversion of the kuffar (non-believer).

Look, there are issues in Islam as its practiced in many places around the world. But to assert those issues are universal across all of Islam is simply wrong, and to focus just on Islam for this stuff is just a horrible bit of selection bias - you should do some reading about how Christianity is practiced in much of Africa.

Would be of terribly poor taste to focus on islam in a thread about islamic terrorism.






Automatically Appended Next Post:

 sebster wrote:


Obviously his faith was a prime driver in him deciding to do this.

It's where he got his ideas from.

 sebster wrote:



But that is not an answer in itself.

No, it's the answer, its been pretty conclusively the answer as to the islamic terrorists motivations since screaming "allahu ackbar" and the note presumably written by him makes it a direct fact of life.

 sebster wrote:


Because every day a billion muslims wake up and don't commit mass slaughter, so obviously this guy was very different to most people in his faith.

You know you're right, he's clearly more devout.


Islamic terror attacks in 2017: 1,049

(that includes attacks by the PKK, who are technically not driven by islamic idealogy but kurdish nationalism) But I guess that fact renders that number meaningless. I mean, all the others are motivated by Islamic ideology to do what they do. Al-shabaab, isis, al-qaeda, taliban, boko haram.

 Crablezworth wrote:
Would be of terribly poor taste to focus on islam in a thread about islamic terrorism.

That comment has nothing to do with the conversation preceding it. There was no issue with Islam being discussed, I was pointing out that focusing purely on the most negative aspects of Islam as a descriptor of the whole is foolish. Your comment that there's nothing wrong with discussing Islam was a completely nonsense reply.

It's where he got his ideas from.

Yes, well done. That'd be what a prime driver is.

No, it's the answer, its been pretty conclusively the answer as to the islamic terrorists motivations since screaming "allahu ackbar" and the note presumably written by him makes it a direct fact of life.

There's a billion muslims. 999,999,999 of them didn't drive a car in to random people today. Which means this guy was different to other muslims. As such, just concluding that this guy is a muslim and that explains the whole issue is incredibly stupid.

You know you're right, he's clearly more devout.

Uurgh.

 sebster wrote:
As such, just concluding that this guy is a muslim and that explains the whole issue is incredibly stupid.

It explains his motivation for murdering the people he murdered, and again in his own words. As for the "whole issue" perhaps you could elaborate on what that ascribed (islam) motivation leaves out?

 Crablezworth wrote:

Islamic terror attacks in 2017: 1,049

How many by people identifying as Christian?

Even the CIA acknowledges that far-right whites are a bigger threat to the US.


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 Just Tony wrote:
What, you mean just showing up non-Muslim? Because that is seriously a motivator to some of the more extreme Islamists. I keep forgetting that every bad person on this planet is a direct result of the US in some way, shape, or form...

My point is that he didn't do this because of Islam, and he wasn't radicalised in Uzbekistan and then smuggled in the US. He'd been here since before ISIS was a thing, so if he was radicalized, it happened on US soil due to a series of US generated conditions. Was he the victim of abuse for being brown in a country with an openly racist president, where white supremacy is almost legitimized? Was he struggling with untreated mental health issues because the care is so poor? Generally to be radicalized, you need to be pretty detatched from the local community and have lost hope, so that the radicalization sounds like an improvement or a way to fight back. Successful, integrated Muslims don't just turn into terrorists because someone asks them to.

As pointed out, it's likely he just went "postal", in the same way a Christian would, and decided to kill people assigning it to ISIS, whilst yelling "God is great". Incidentally, the Christian God is still called "Allah" in Arabic, so it's not even confirmation that he was Muslim.

If it was a pre-planned attack with the help of a wider terrorist network, they'd have been able to supply him with something other than a paintball gun. This all sounds like an impulsive attack by someone who snapped, than an orchestrated terrorist attack.


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 Crablezworth wrote:
It explains his motivation for murdering the people he murdered, and again in his own words. As for the "whole issue" perhaps you could elaborate on what that ascribed (islam) motivation leaves out?

It doesn't. There are millions of Muslims in the US that aren't killing people, so killing people isn't inherent to Islam. Why did this one do it? Because Islam told him to, or because of some other reasons?

Herzlos wrote:
There are millions of Muslims in the US that aren't killing people, so killing people isn't inherent to Islam. Why did this one do it? Because Islam told him to, or because of some other reasons?

Ya seb already did the no true scotsman thing, it didn't add much. Are you aware the perp wrote a note saying he did it for the islamic state? I mean, what does he know about his own motivations?


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Herzlos wrote:

How many by people identifying as Christian?

I'm gonna guess they'll have some catching up to do on 1049 for the year

An interesting website I just found.

http://storymaps.esri.com/stories/terrorist-attacks/?year=2017

Apparently that site only considers something terrorism if it was done by Muslims...

 skyth wrote:
Apparently that site only considers something terrorism if it was done by Muslims...

Right... so Mexican drug cartels are Muslim now.

I mean seriously, did you even bother looking? Like the one in the US where a white man shot Indian's because he thought they were Muslim.

 Crablezworth wrote:

Herzlos wrote:
There are millions of Muslims in the US that aren't killing people, so killing people isn't inherent to Islam. Why did this one do it? Because Islam told him to, or because of some other reasons?

Ya seb already did the no true scotsman thing, it didn't add much. Are you aware the perp wrote a note saying he did it for the islamic state? I mean, what does he know about his own motivations?


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Herzlos wrote:

How many by people identifying as Christian?

I'm gonna guess they'll have some catching up to do on 1049 for the year

Hey dude. Not sure why they contacted me, but ISIS wanted to pass on their thanks for your sterling efforts in supporting their 'it's us vs them and it's inevitable' rhetoric.

Top marks, apparently.

A quick look at wiki says there have been over 1400 terrorist incidents, so that map may be missing a few.

It could be how they define it being in that crowdsourced map thing, maybe requires a certain number of fatalities I don't know.

 MrDwhitey wrote:
A quick look at wiki says there have been over 1400 terrorist incidents, so that map may be missing a few.

It could be how they define it being in that crowdsourced map thing, maybe requires a certain number of fatalities I don't know.

I've been looking through it, not sure. I've seen some listed that had no fatalities, like one in London in September. I would like to know more about it's methodology, but is very clearly more then just "Islamic terror".

Yeah it does show non-islamic stuff, I'm not questioning that in the slightest. Examples being two no-fatality ones in Ireland.

 Crablezworth wrote:

Herzlos wrote:
There are millions of Muslims in the US that aren't killing people, so killing people isn't inherent to Islam. Why did this one do it? Because Islam told him to, or because of some other reasons?

Ya seb already did the no true scotsman thing, it didn't add much. Are you aware the perp wrote a note saying he did it for the islamic state? I mean, what does he know about his own motivations?


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Herzlos wrote:

How many by people identifying as Christian?

I'm gonna guess they'll have some catching up to do on 1049 for the year

Got to get on with marking terrible essays so only had a quick look but at least between 2008 and 2016 in the states, Islamic extremists were responsible for less than half of terrorist incidents. Not sure exactly what qualifies as an 'incident', though, nor the religious affiliations of the other perpetrators, but given the vast majority are on the extreme right I reckon I could have a guess.

In Europe, the overwhelming majority of terrorism has generally been committed by nationalist groups or their opponents - ETA, the IRA etc - though this will be changing since the ceasefires that have toned down many of these conflicts.

Meanwhile, worldwide, there's an awful lot of terrorism that goes on in South and East Asia that has nothing to do with Islam. The former are the world leaders in acid attacks, too, frequently presented as a primarily Islamic phenomenon.

As others have said, nobody is saying there isn't a problem with Islamic Extremism.

But, there is a significant danger in getting as far as 'Muslim' when seeking to understand the motivations.

To do so ignores other factors. I find it hard to believe anyone in their right mind decides to just do these heinous acts. You have to be angry first, and have an excuse second.

If someone has mental health issues, that's a far larger part of the problem than any given faith. It skews their thinking, making them easy prey for radical ideologies, regardless of what said ideology is based upon.

To oversimplify any act of terror to 'well, he/she was X' is not how you set about countering it.

If you're not smart enough to realise that, may I politely suggest you may want to keep your ignorance to yourself, and stop fanning the flames.

Too much snark. Final warning

 Crablezworth wrote:
Are you aware the perp wrote a note saying he did it for the islamic state?

Yup, but that doesn't tell us what caused him to affiliate with IS. He presumably didn't just run into an IS recruiter in the street and agreed to do the attack. He also doesn't seem to have been supported by IS.

More likely is he's gone postal for some other reason and latched onto IS as either a claim to fame or an excuse. Or he's had issues and been gradually indoctrinated.

But it's unlikely the problem is because he was Muslim.

Being Muslim doesn't in itself predispose you to becoming a terrorist. The current problem with Muslim extremism has arisen because of a cluster of issues in the Muslim world, particularly in the Middle-East. I won't go into them because they are pretty obvious to everyone.

These circumstances have given possible reasons for Muslims to be angry at the West, and a tiny number of individuals have enacted their anger. A vastly larger number of Muslims either haven't become angry with the West, or at least they don't think the way of dealing with that anger is to commit acts of random murder.

If this guy had done the attack 10 years ago, he would probably have credited Al Qaeda, not IS, because 10 years ago IS hadn't been invented, and Al Qaeda was much better known.

 Howard A Treesong wrote:
Trump talks about turning up ‘extreme vetting’ even more, but is that really the answer? Coming through the US customs is unpleasant enough as it is, this recent attacker had been in the US years and avoided all of that. The problem with a lot of the current attackers are that they are not recent arrivals.

There is an answer but most Americans (including myself) choose not to use it.

And even if he hadn't left this note, IS would've claimed it anyway - because that's their shtick.

If you stubbing your toe of a morning somehow made the news, IS would claim responsibility.

That's how they promote themselves. That's how they appear far larger and more influential than they actually are. I mean, look at their 'heartlands'. Pushed back on every front, losing ground every day. They're on the wane. So in order to keep recruiting, they need to pretend their reach is truly global.

Galas wrote:To be honest, until now I didn't even know the Republic of Uzbekistan existed.

What?

Orlanth wrote:200+ nations, you don't need to know them all.

Ouze wrote:Literally everything I know about Uzbekistan I know from Borat.

I don't want to go off topic, but haven't you guys been taught topography in class?


Also, on the topic of terrorist attacks, I would be reluctant to blame attacks like these on islamic extremism. Usually the terrorists committing these attacks aren't even very religious. Usually the primary motive is something else, islam only gets involved because it is involved in everything muslims say and do. Like shouting the takbir, which doesn't have to signify any religious motives at all (muslims invoke God and the takbir over pretty much everything). From a secular western perspective it can be hard to understand just how much religion in islamic cultures is mixed up with everything.

In this specific case, it just sounds like some mentally disturbed muslim guy going off the rails. Just like most other killing sprees committed by mentally disturbed non-muslims, but this one was committed by a muslim so it is terrorism. Invoking God or even ISIS doesn't change that, because neither religion nor ISIS probably played an actual role in this man's motivations or in the attack.
Of course, this doesn't make it any less bad or horrible. People getting killed is always incredibly sad

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
And even if he hadn't left this note, IS would've claimed it anyway - because that's their shtick.

If you stubbing your toe of a morning somehow made the news, IS would claim responsibility..

Or not. Have they claimed here it yet? IS doesn't seem to take claim for terrorists _who survive_. See the terrorist in Finland. IS stayed quiet. Very quiet. Not a whisper.

Just to comment on the analogy of "we call for gun bans, why not car bans / kitchen knife bans / <latest murder instrument> bans."

Guns are for killing. The genesis of the firearm was to kill either animals or people.

Cars are for transportation. The fact that they can be used to kill is undeniable, but it is not their designed purpose.

Knives are tools used for a variety of purposes. Certain knives (i.e., daggers, etc) are in fact used for killing, but a 'kitchen knife' is not.

That's the difference between guns and cars/knives/pencils/pans/aircraft/whathaveyou. Guns are for killing, and they kill, and they are so good at it they even kill accidentally sometimes.

Terrorism is the act, and religion the rationalization. America has had its share of terrorists motivated by other factors, from Timothy McVeigh to the Unabomber to Marvin Heemeyer's Killdozer. Heck, the Vegas shooting wasn't too long ago, and with a seven-fold death toll compared to yesterday, and yet even then there was waffling on calling it "terrorism" instead of the "act of a deranged loner nutjob" or so, but finding the magic AA notepad (I don't mean Alcoholics Anonymous) magically upgrades this to Terrorism.

This reminds me of an Onion article after the Boston Bombing, "Majority of Americans not informed enough to stereotype Chechens."

https://www.theonion.com/study-majority-of-americans-not-informed-enough-to-ste-1819574848

The Onion wrote:“Clinical trials show that most individuals will make brief, fumbling attempts to stereotype Chechens based on what little they know about Russians, but eventually drop the subject entirely after running out of anything to say within seconds.” Kinane’s team was able to confirm, however, that once research subjects were told Chechnya is a predominantly Muslim region, they were “usually pretty good to go from there.”

 sebster wrote:


Anyhow, the question isn't 'is it a total coincidence that he's a muslim?', but 'how did his particular branch of Islam combine with other factors to cause this attack?'

Yes, we all scratch our heads, shrug out shoulders and do some real obfuscation and magic thinking every time a christian gets arrested for murdering a doctor or bombing an abortion clinic. Gimme a break seb.

The current government estimate is that there are 400,000,000 radicalized Muslims in the world. That's about the population of the US and Canada, so yes, that does worry me.

That figure is stupid beyond belief. I've seen a takedown of a similarly stupid number Ben Shapiro put up, and the con he played is probably the same one used by 'the current government' to produce that absurd figure. The con is that they take surveys and note that a lot of the respondents give deeply conservative answers - support Sharia Law, think 9/11 was done by the West etc... Those are horrible views, no doubt, and it's a big issue that those issues are held by many Muslims, but that doesn't make them radicals.

Radicals mean they want to take part in terror, or support those who do. And let me ask you - if 400m people on Earth were radical Muslims who wanted to conduct terror attacks on the West, how fething lazy must 399,999,999 of them be if at the end of the day one guy is left to hire a car for himself to run down some people?

That stat is actually a few years old, so it was Obama era, not "current administration". Also I believe the largest limiting factors on terror attacks are funding, ability, and infighting. I make more money than a vast majority of people in the Middle East, yet I know I don't have enough spare cash to attack someone halfway across the world.


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Herzlos wrote:

 Crablezworth wrote:

Islamic terror attacks in 2017: 1,049

How many by people identifying as Christian?

Even the CIA acknowledges that far-right whites are a bigger threat to the US.

?

Yeah, and swimming pools are 9 times deadlier than guns. That doesn't mean I'll leave a loaded Glock with my daughter while I install a cyclone fence around the pool.


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 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Just to comment on the analogy of "we call for gun bans, why not car bans / kitchen knife bans / <latest murder instrument> bans."

Guns are for killing. The genesis of the firearm was to kill either animals or people.

Cars are for transportation. The fact that they can be used to kill is undeniable, but it is not their designed purpose.

Knives are tools used for a variety of purposes. Certain knives (i.e., daggers, etc) are in fact used for killing, but a 'kitchen knife' is not.

That's the difference between guns and cars/knives/pencils/pans/aircraft/whathaveyou. Guns are for killing, and they kill, and they are so good at it they even kill accidentally sometimes.

Are you saying cars and knives DON'T accidentally kill people??????

 Iron_Captain wrote:

Galas wrote:To be honest, until now I didn't even know the Republic of Uzbekistan existed.

What?

Orlanth wrote:200+ nations, you don't need to know them all.

Ouze wrote:Literally everything I know about Uzbekistan I know from Borat.

I don't want to go off topic, but haven't you guys been taught topography in class?

Hey, give me a break! When I was in high school, that whole region was still part of the big red blob of USSR on the map.

Also, on the topic of terrorist attacks, I would be reluctant to blame attacks like these on islamic extremism. Usually the terrorists committing these attacks aren't even very religious. Usually the primary motive is something else, islam only gets involved because it is involved in everything muslims say and do. Like shouting the takbir, which doesn't have to signify any religious motives at all (muslims invoke God and the takbir over pretty much everything). From a secular western perspective it can be hard to understand just how much religion in islamic cultures is mixed up with everything.

In this specific case, it just sounds like some mentally disturbed muslim guy going off the rails. Just like most other killing sprees committed by mentally disturbed non-muslims, but this one was committed by a muslim so it is terrorism. Invoking God or even ISIS doesn't change that, because neither religion nor ISIS probably played an actual role in this man's motivations or in the attack.
Of course, this doesn't make it any less bad or horrible. People getting killed is always incredibly sad

This is true. Also, the main factor that links most of the spree killings around the world, more than any particular religion, is the state of the perpetrator's personal life. No job, no money, no partner, and usually drug and alcohol abuse.
I'm sure the usual fething suspects who gleefully celebrate these stories because they think it validates their ignorant world views will point out specific attacks where this is not the case, but note I said most.

Most of spree killings around the world are committed not because of Islam or Christianity or even the Dark Side of the Force, but because some guys just can't handle being nobodies, failures, losers.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Just to comment on the analogy of "we call for gun bans, why not car bans / kitchen knife bans / <latest murder instrument> bans."

Guns are for killing. The genesis of the firearm was to kill either animals or people.

Cars are for transportation. The fact that they can be used to kill is undeniable, but it is not their designed purpose.

Knives are tools used for a variety of purposes. Certain knives (i.e., daggers, etc) are in fact used for killing, but a 'kitchen knife' is not.

That's the difference between guns and cars/knives/pencils/pans/aircraft/whathaveyou. Guns are for killing, and they kill, and they are so good at it they even kill accidentally sometimes.

The other big difference, if we decide to pass a federal regulation to build posts to stop cars from driving onto these paths, or making parking meters to be able to withstand an impact to keep cars from getting onto sidewalks, no one would bat an eye. there would be no claims of "you're just trying to turn lawful car owners into criminals." nor "laws don't stop problems, look at the speed limits, there's still speeders" and you'd never hear "there's nothing we can do, we just have to live with cars being able to run down people"

applying the pro gun arguments anywhere else shows how ludicrous they are.

Do we have to turn this into another gun thread? Actual firearms are not involved in this incident, and comparing them to cars is almost always pointless.




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 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
And even if he hadn't left this note, IS would've claimed it anyway - because that's their shtick.

If you stubbing your toe of a morning somehow made the news, IS would claim responsibility.

That's how they promote themselves. That's how they appear far larger and more influential than they actually are. I mean, look at their 'heartlands'. Pushed back on every front, losing ground every day. They're on the wane. So in order to keep recruiting, they need to pretend their reach is truly global.

Funny, every time I bring this exact thing up I usually get dogpiled by people telling me how IS is actually a massive threat to the western world through their top-tier social media recruitment and radicalization skills...

 Ouze wrote:
Literally everything I know about Uzbekistan I know from Borat.

The character Borat portortedly came from Kazakhstan. Confusing the two is easy enough, I don't even know how to spell them

 Iron_Captain wrote:

Galas wrote:To be honest, until now I didn't even know the Republic of Uzbekistan existed.

What?

Orlanth wrote:200+ nations, you don't need to know them all.

Ouze wrote:Literally everything I know about Uzbekistan I know from Borat.

I don't want to go off topic, but haven't you guys been taught topography in class?

To be honest? No. Not in 12 years of school did I study topography for more than just the normal European and American countries.

 Cream Tea wrote:

 Crablezworth wrote:
You're right, it was probably a spur of the moment type of murderous killing sprees that stetch for a mile. You know, you just rent a pickup from home depot and decide, shucks, life just ain't worth a livin, better mow down women and children while shouting the takbir.

Renting a pickup and mowing down civilians armed with a BB gun and a paintball gun (in the US where real guns are quite accessible) doesn't sound like an evil master plan coming to fruition after years of planning. It sounds like the acts of a human being gone off the rails.

If you're a Muslim and decide to go on a murderous rampage, you may well decide to invoke Allah and claim connections to Daesh just because you know it gets you more publicity.

The WTC attacks in 2001 were Islamist terrorist attacks. They were planned, coordinated and mentally prepared for way in advance, all for a religious-political cause.

This is very far from that.

I disagree. The method of mass killing was vehicular, it's a tried and tested method and a signiture move for Daesh, the paintball gun was a means of invoking suicide by cop (which failed) which would unlock martyrdom according to doctrine.
The scumbag had as much planning as he needed.

Instead he gets gutshot, and a trial, and on conviction a one way trip to supermax or if he is lucky death row.

Borat did talk about Uzbekistan a lot. He constantly compared it to Khazakstan. In fact, isn't in his (fake) Khazak national anthem? About being only in 2nd place as world's largest exporter of potassium or something?

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Borat did talk about Uzbekistan a lot. He constantly compared it to Khazakstan. In fact, isn't in his (fake) Khazak national anthem? About being only in 2nd place as world's largest exporter of potassium or something?

Yep read the later post after masking my own, explanation accepted.
I never watched much Borat, I didnt like Sasha Baron Cohen's methods.
.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Borat did talk about Uzbekistan a lot. He constantly compared it to Khazakstan. In fact, isn't in his (fake) Khazak national anthem? About being only in 2nd place as world's largest exporter of potassium or something?

I think the line you're thinking of is "Kazakhstan, friend of all except Uzbekistan: they very nosy people with bone in their brain."

Much as I like Borat, he is a bit OT...

 Orlanth wrote:
I disagree. The method of mass killing was vehicular, it's a tried and tested method and a signiture move for Daesh, the paintball gun was a means of invoking suicide by cop (which failed) which would unlock martyrdom according to doctrine.
The scumbag had as much planning as he needed.

Instead he gets gutshot, and a trial, and on conviction a one way trip to supermax or if he is lucky death row.

The method being common doesn't make it an extensively-planned attack. Why not bring a real gun instead of a paintball gun to invoke suicide by cop and kill a lot more people while guaranteeing that the cops won't figure out that it isn't a real threat? Why not put a bomb in the truck to add to the damage? Why not wait for a more effective target, something with more symbolism or at least more casualties instead of murdering some random people? This is not the sort of expert effort you'd expect from a terrorist mastermind, it's a bare-minimum plan that looks like the guy impulsively decided to go kill some people that day and took whatever was immediately available.

 cuda1179 wrote:

 sebster wrote:
If a Christian man commits an act of terror we ask what the real motive could be, or look for some other issue that could drive a man to such a murderous rampage.

If a Muslim man commits an act of terror we assume that's enough by itself, case closed.

Not every Muslim is a terrorist. That being said, Muslims raised in certain parts of the world have a very high likelihood of being radicalized. The current government estimate is that there are 400,000,000 radicalized Muslims in the world. That's about the population of the US and Canada, so yes, that does worry me.

That would be about 1 in 3 or 1 in 4 muslims, and about 6% of the entire world population. That is an insanely, absurdly high estimate. Where did that estimate come from? RAND's numbers on those at risk of *becoming* radicalized are...multiple orders of magnitude smaller.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Orlanth wrote:
I disagree. The method of mass killing was vehicular, it's a tried and tested method and a signiture move for Daesh, the paintball gun was a means of invoking suicide by cop (which failed) which would unlock martyrdom according to doctrine.
The scumbag had as much planning as he needed.

Instead he gets gutshot, and a trial, and on conviction a one way trip to supermax or if he is lucky death row.

The method being common doesn't make it an extensively-planned attack. Why not bring a real gun instead of a paintball gun to invoke suicide by cop and kill a lot more people while guaranteeing that the cops won't figure out that it isn't a real threat? Why not put a bomb in the truck to add to the damage? Why not wait for a more effective target, something with more symbolism or at least more casualties instead of murdering some random people? This is not the sort of expert effort you'd expect from a terrorist mastermind, it's a bare-minimum plan that looks like the guy impulsively decided to go kill some people that day and took whatever was immediately available.

No it doesn't, but when you add all the factors together it makes sense.

As for why he didn't have a real gun.perhaps he couldn't afford one or didn't want to draw attention to himself.
Again bombs require bomb making skills, they don't suddenly flood into the brain when one decides to become a terrorist. It also requires research and materials either stage could attract attention.
Finally this guy clearly wasn't a terrorist mastermind, they get other people to do it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Anyway, its academic now, watching press conference online from New York. The question now is not whether he is classified as a terrorist, but what type of terrorist.
The speakers cannot confirm at this time whether or not Saipov is considered an 'enemy combatant'.

 Vaktathi wrote:

 cuda1179 wrote:

 sebster wrote:
If a Christian man commits an act of terror we ask what the real motive could be, or look for some other issue that could drive a man to such a murderous rampage.

If a Muslim man commits an act of terror we assume that's enough by itself, case closed.

Not every Muslim is a terrorist. That being said, Muslims raised in certain parts of the world have a very high likelihood of being radicalized. The current government estimate is that there are 400,000,000 radicalized Muslims in the world. That's about the population of the US and Canada, so yes, that does worry me.

That would be about 1 in 3 or 1 in 4 muslims, and about 6% of the entire world population. That is an insanely, absurdly high estimate. Where did that estimate come from? RAND's numbers on those at risk of *becoming* radicalized are...multiple orders of magnitude smaller.

This is not the first time a really questionable stat has been provided by this poster. Usually it's either not sourceable, or turns out to be from a infowars-style garbage dump. If you google " 400,000,000 radicalized Muslims in the world" the sole result is this post... so I imagine it's gonna get walked back pretty soon, just as "the current government" has already been retconned to "the Obama administration", for some reason.

I doubt this thread lasts enough to ever find out if it was poorly sourced, or just totally made up on the spot.

 Orlanth wrote:
No it doesn't, but when you add all the factors together it makes sense.

As for why he didn't have a real gun.perhaps he couldn't afford one or didn't want to draw attention to himself.
Again bombs require bomb making skills, they don't suddenly flood into the brain when one decides to become a terrorist. It also requires research and materials either stage could attract attention.
Finally this guy clearly wasn't a terrorist mastermind, they get other people to do it.

Yes, of course these things require a small amount of effort, that's the point. A well-planned vehicle attack, as you would expect from an organized terrorist group, would have taken some relatively easy extra steps to inflict more damage. Yes, getting a gun requires a bit of money, but if you are planning an attack in advance you can, say, work a bit of overtime to get $100 and go over to your local walmart to buy a gun. Or, even if you think that gun shopping is an unacceptable level of risk, you can pick a target for your attack that has more symbolic value and more potential casualties than a random bike path. If you're planning things out in advance like an organized terrorist group you can afford to wait a few days/weeks to do it right. This, on the other hand, looks like the result of some random guy googling "how to be a terrorist" the night before and taking whatever was immediately available.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Orlanth wrote:
No it doesn't, but when you add all the factors together it makes sense.

As for why he didn't have a real gun.perhaps he couldn't afford one or didn't want to draw attention to himself.
Again bombs require bomb making skills, they don't suddenly flood into the brain when one decides to become a terrorist. It also requires research and materials either stage could attract attention.
Finally this guy clearly wasn't a terrorist mastermind, they get other people to do it.

Yes, of course these things require a small amount of effort, that's the point. A well-planned vehicle attack, as you would expect from an organized terrorist group, would have taken some relatively easy extra steps to inflict more damage. Yes, getting a gun requires a bit of money, but if you are planning an attack in advance you can, say, work a bit of overtime to get $100 and go over to your local walmart to buy a gun. Or, even if you think that gun shopping is an unacceptable level of risk, you can pick a target for your attack that has more symbolic value and more potential casualties than a random bike path. If you're planning things out in advance like an organized terrorist group you can afford to wait a few days/weeks to do it right. This, on the other hand, looks like the result of some random guy googling "how to be a terrorist" the night before and taking whatever was immediately available.

Or he was a very unintelligent and impulsive person who got recruited, and his natural lack of intellect and impulsiveness resulted in a poorly planned attack. He doesn't have to be crazy or have any other factors which were actually the cause instead of him being an islamic terrorist, he could just have been a dumb and impatient Jihadi.

 feeder wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:

Galas wrote:To be honest, until now I didn't even know the Republic of Uzbekistan existed.

What?

Orlanth wrote:200+ nations, you don't need to know them all.

Ouze wrote:Literally everything I know about Uzbekistan I know from Borat.

I don't want to go off topic, but haven't you guys been taught topography in class?

Hey, give me a break! When I was in high school, that whole region was still part of the big red blob of USSR on the map.

Oh yeah, sorry. Sometimes I forget just how old all of you people are

 Peregrine wrote:


The method being common doesn't make it an extensively-planned attack.

The planned terrorist attack wasn't planned enough... right

 Grey Templar wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

 Orlanth wrote:
No it doesn't, but when you add all the factors together it makes sense.

As for why he didn't have a real gun.perhaps he couldn't afford one or didn't want to draw attention to himself.
Again bombs require bomb making skills, they don't suddenly flood into the brain when one decides to become a terrorist. It also requires research and materials either stage could attract attention.
Finally this guy clearly wasn't a terrorist mastermind, they get other people to do it.

Yes, of course these things require a small amount of effort, that's the point. A well-planned vehicle attack, as you would expect from an organized terrorist group, would have taken some relatively easy extra steps to inflict more damage. Yes, getting a gun requires a bit of money, but if you are planning an attack in advance you can, say, work a bit of overtime to get $100 and go over to your local walmart to buy a gun. Or, even if you think that gun shopping is an unacceptable level of risk, you can pick a target for your attack that has more symbolic value and more potential casualties than a random bike path. If you're planning things out in advance like an organized terrorist group you can afford to wait a few days/weeks to do it right. This, on the other hand, looks like the result of some random guy googling "how to be a terrorist" the night before and taking whatever was immediately available.

Or he was a very unintelligent and impulsive person who got recruited, and his natural lack of intellect and impulsiveness resulted in a poorly planned attack. He doesn't have to be crazy or have any other factors which were actually the cause instead of him being an islamic terrorist, he could just have been a dumb and impatient Jihadi.

America has millions of unintelligent and impulsive people. So how were Islamist Extremists able to convert this guy? What was their in with him? Maybe if we knew that, we could hinder their recruitment of unintelligent and impulsive people.

 Just Tony wrote:

Also, does this mean we need stricter vehicle laws in the US?

No. But you guys need stricter gun laws.

 Crablezworth wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:


The method being common doesn't make it an extensively-planned attack.

The planned terrorist attack wasn't planned enough... right

It wasn't. It was a minimum-effort attack, with zero apparent planning beyond googling "HALP HOW DO I TERRORIST" the night before.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Crablezworth wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:


The method being common doesn't make it an extensively-planned attack.

The planned terrorist attack wasn't planned enough... right

It wasn't. It was a minimum-effort attack, with zero apparent planning beyond googling "HALP HOW DO I TERRORIST" the night before.

I'm sure that will be quite a relief for the victims families to hear. I'll make sure to notify the papers and ensure they make a correction.

"NEW YORK — Authorities said Wednesday said a 29-year-old man accused of mowing down pedestrians and cyclists on a Manhattan bike path, killing eight people, had begun planning a year ago before carrying out the attack in the name of the Islamic State."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2017/11/01/new-york-attack-probe-expands-to-uzbekistan-as-possible-militant-links-explored/?utm_term=.5e27f8f6b4f3

 Grey Templar wrote:
Or he was a very unintelligent and impulsive person who got recruited, and his natural lack of intellect and impulsiveness resulted in a poorly planned attack. He doesn't have to be crazy or have any other factors which were actually the cause instead of him being an islamic terrorist, he could just have been a dumb and impatient Jihadi.

Recruiting implies some kind of extended contact, during which the people recruiting him could give him a better plan. Normal, stable people don't go from zero to terrorism overnight, and if the process of turning him into a terrorist took longer than that we should expect to have seen better planning. The much more likely explanation is that any "recruiting" was minimal at best, and his issues go way beyond a calculated attempt at fighting a war through terrorism.

Saipov reportedly immigrated under the State Department's diversity visa program, which distributes visas via lottery to applicants from countries with low immigration rates. Applicants to the diversity visa program must "have a high school education, or its equivalent, or two years of qualifying work experience as defined under provisions of U.S. law," according to the State Department.

On a side note, I don't think i am too keen on this. Obviously when you're taking refugees in and granting asylum, you take what you can get. This seems more like "this ethnic group is underrepresented in the US, so lets get some", which is OK in theory but maybe we could aim a little higher? Must have a HS diploma or 2 years of work history? Man, you sure can't get into Canada with creds like that.

 Crablezworth wrote:
I'm sure that will be quite a relief for the victims families to hear.

Sorry if the truth hurts, but that doesn't make it any less true. You aren't going to get anywhere in understanding terrorism if you feel an obligation to hype up every random murderous as some kind of expert terrorist just to make the families of the victims feel better. The simple fact here is that this attack was a minimum-effort plan by someone who didn't take even very basic steps to increase the body count and emotional impact of it.

 Peregrine wrote:

Normal, stable people don't go from zero to terrorism overnight

Overnight, 12 months, seems no hyperbole detected. Even I made a mistake earlier in the thread when quoting casualties from the attack in sweden. Quote 15 when it was actually 5, and I was corrected on that.




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 Peregrine wrote:

 Crablezworth wrote:
I'm sure that will be quite a relief for the victims families to hear.

You aren't going to get anywhere in understanding terrorism if you feel an obligation to hype up every random murderous as some kind of expert terrorist just to make the families of the victims feel better.

I say it's about as healthy as ensuring you split hairs on every last one...

 Crablezworth wrote:
Overnight, 12 months, seems no hyperbole detected. Even I made a mistake earlier in the thread when quoting casualties from the attack in sweden. Quote 15 when it was actually 5, and I was corrected on that.

Wait, I thought he was too impulsive to make a better plan?

"Or he was a very unintelligent and impulsive person who got recruited, and his natural lack of intellect and impulsiveness resulted in a poorly planned attack. He doesn't have to be crazy or have any other factors which were actually the cause instead of him being an islamic terrorist, he could just have been a dumb and impatient Jihadi."

And now we're seriously supposed to believe that, with a full year to prepare, this was the best he could do? 20 victims, picking a random bike path as the target? I could come up with a more successful attack overnight, if I was a murderous . Nothing about that one year claim adds up, at all.

There's no way he planned this for 12 months.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
Or he was a very unintelligent and impulsive person who got recruited, and his natural lack of intellect and impulsiveness resulted in a poorly planned attack. He doesn't have to be crazy or have any other factors which were actually the cause instead of him being an islamic terrorist, he could just have been a dumb and impatient Jihadi.

Recruiting implies some kind of extended contact, during which the people recruiting him could give him a better plan. Normal, stable people don't go from zero to terrorism overnight, and if the process of turning him into a terrorist took longer than that we should expect to have seen better planning. The much more likely explanation is that any "recruiting" was minimal at best, and his issues go way beyond a calculated attempt at fighting a war through terrorism.

Take a look at the press relase from New York attorney generals office and NYPD today. It not only goes into detail about charges being prepared and the progression of the police investigation, it will also give you info so you can see the pattern for yourself.
IMHO the police are giving too much info away, perhaps because they want to look busy. I think it would be better of they handed out the minimum like 'police are continuing with their enquiries, as happens in Europe after events like this.

Saipov was found to have in his possession a large volume of Daesh propaganda, including instructions on preparing evidence to be found to link an attack formally to IS ( the UK police would never include that type of info in a press release). There was also evidence from his phone that he had been self radicalised on the internet and researched how to commit a vehicle ramming attack. And the phone had various links to a possible network ( why put stuff like that in a press release!!! it will scatter the roaches and also make the next terrorist more cautious and help prepare better jihadist training 101).




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 Peregrine wrote:

 Crablezworth wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:


The method being common doesn't make it an extensively-planned attack.

The planned terrorist attack wasn't planned enough... right

It wasn't. It was a minimum-effort attack, with zero apparent planning beyond googling "HALP HOW DO I TERRORIST" the night before.

Not true read the reports. We now know he did a practice run.

Also terrorists have to prepare themselves, its hard to just do the things they do, it takes mental preparation a fair number bottle out. One of the 7/7 bombers bottled out.

Depending on the sect there might be spiritual preparation also, rites to perform, fasting etc. Clerics include this to help indoctrinate, evidently one doesnt always need to jump through religious hoops beyond bein a willing Moslem, but being told you have to jump through religious troops can be used to work alongside psychological training to indoctrinate the would be attacker. After all this is about motivating people for suicide attacks, you need to get into their heads.

Even if Saipov was radicalised online and trained remotely, it could easily take 12 months indoctrination to get him ready for a suicide attack.

And apparently nobody, in all that 12 months of preparation to commit a suicide attack, bothered to cover such trivial details like "how to commit a suicide attack effectively".

 Hollow wrote:

 Just Tony wrote:

Also, does this mean we need stricter vehicle laws in the US?

No. But you guys need stricter gun laws.

No thanks brah.


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 Ouze wrote:

Saipov reportedly immigrated under the State Department's diversity visa program, which distributes visas via lottery to applicants from countries with low immigration rates. Applicants to the diversity visa program must "have a high school education, or its equivalent, or two years of qualifying work experience as defined under provisions of U.S. law," according to the State Department.

On a side note, I don't think i am too keen on this. Obviously when you're taking refugees in and granting asylum, you take what you can get. This seems more like "this ethnic group is underrepresented in the US, so lets get some", which is OK in theory but maybe we could aim a little higher? Must have a HS diploma or 2 years of work history? Man, you sure can't get into Canada with creds like that.

...eh... I get the idea and I think it has merits. But, yeah that program should aim higher in skillsets/education.

"Investigators who question Saipov told the prosecutors that Saipov requested to display the ISIL flag in his hospital room and that he said he "felt good about what he had done".


I really can't wait to hear the parsing out of that one. He sounds like a real charmer.


http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/11/nyc-attack-sayfullo-saipov-charged-terrorism-171101215417508.html



"The documents added that Saipov decided to use a truck to "in order to inflict maximum damage against civilians", and that he had planned to drive to the Brooklyn Bridge "to continue to strike pedestrians"."

Oh and this seems like an odd fact for someone so confused and rife with neuroticism. Certainly a spur of the moment decision.


I can't help but think he seems rather devout and resolute given these developments.

 Crablezworth wrote:
"Investigators who question Saipov told the prosecutors that Saipov requested to display the ISIL flag in his hospital room and that he said he "felt good about what he had done".


I really can't wait to hear the parsing out of that one. He sounds like a real charmer.


http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/11/nyc-attack-sayfullo-saipov-charged-terrorism-171101215417508.html



"The documents added that Saipov decided to use a truck to "in order to inflict maximum damage against civilians", and that he had planned to drive to the Brooklyn Bridge "to continue to strike pedestrians"."

Oh and this seems like an odd fact for someone so confused and rife with neuroticism. Certainly a spur of the moment decision.


I can't help but think he seems rather devout and resolute given these developments.

Yeah, him doubling down on this is not surprising. What is surprising is that he decided to take the scenic route to the Brooklyn Bridge, which I assume would have much more foot traffic and would cause much more harm. Really well thought out plan there.

On the upside, if you want to capture a terrorist, just send in the NYPD. Notoriously bad shots.

I heard an interesting interview with John Safran here in Australia some months ago. He's a lapsed Jew who's done a bit of work with extremist religion. He made a very good point that it's easy for a lot non-religious people to assume that extremist beliefs are just a cover for underlying issues. But he tells of his own upbringing in an extreme Jewish school, where they were taught a very dogmatic and very confrontational doctrine. He says it is false to believe those beliefs aren't part of the issue - because people really believe this end of the world, clash of civilisations stuff and it's part of why these people do what they do.

Now, we don't know in this case if this guy belonged to a more radical islamic sect, or even he was particularly devout at all. But if he was, it's a mistake to say it didn't play any part and it must really be because of other reasons. That's as big a mistake as seeing he was a muslim and concluding that's the beginning and end of the motive. There is a complex middle ground here, where radical teaching plays a part among other factors.

 Crablezworth wrote:
It explains his motivation for murdering the people he murdered, and again in his own words. As for the "whole issue" perhaps you could elaborate on what that ascribed (islam) motivation leaves out?

Think about another crime, like a guy who killed his wife. Report comes out that they had a screaming row just before. Sure, that screaming row played a part but it'd be stupid to conclude that the screaming row explains everything. Because husbands and wives argue all the time but don't kill each other. So it only makes sense to look at what else was going on. Was this a particularly unhappy marriage in other ways? Were there previous acts of violence? Did he have a violent record outside of the home? Other causes of strain on him or the marriage, like money problems?

Same thing with this guy. Because there's a billion muslims who didn't murder 8 people in NY yesterday, so this guy is obviously different to all of them. So it's important to ask how he's different. What mosque did he attend? Did he regularly attend, or recently change his attendance patterns? Did he have a prior criminal record? Was he in contact with ISIS figures on-line? That kind of thing.


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 Crablezworth wrote:
Ya seb already did the no true scotsman thing, it didn't add much.

I never attempted or even hinted at anything that could be read as a 'No True Scotsman' argument. That's an objectively awful bit of reading on your part.

To be NTS, I would have to argue that muslims don't kill, he killed, therefore he's not a muslim. And that would be a terrible argument, but its one that no-one made, particularly not me. What was argued, that you appear to be really struggling to follow, is that Islam in itself is not a motivation, because there are a billion muslims who aren't murderers, therefore Islam in itself is not a complete motive.


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 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
That's how they promote themselves. That's how they appear far larger and more influential than they actually are. I mean, look at their 'heartlands'. Pushed back on every front, losing ground every day. They're on the wane. So in order to keep recruiting, they need to pretend their reach is truly global.

The caliphate is falling apart so they're transforming themselves in to another franchise terror network, pretty much becoming the same thing AQ did after the response to 9/11 collapsed their cell structures.

 Peregrine wrote:
And apparently nobody, in all that 12 months of preparation to commit a suicide attack, bothered to cover such trivial details like "how to commit a suicide attack effectively".

Not relevant.

1. It appears he got his training by reading online jihadist how-tos and local contacxts encouraged him..

2. He training was successful from the point of view of Daesh, they placed info where radicalist scum would find it, and helped them motivate for an attack.

3. This is a new attack on the vicinity of the World Trade Centre, it worked and people died.

Saipov's only failure from the point of view of Daesh is that he didnt get martyred. Allowing for how detached that organisation is they probably couldnt give a rodents rectum about that. Though not destroying his media would likely be considered a mistake, but then again if his compatriots are also caught Daesh itself will not care, so long as attacks happen..

 cuda1179 wrote:
That stat is actually a few years old, so it was Obama era, not "current administration".

I can't find anything reporting that number, and you seem indifferent to actually providing it.

Also I believe the largest limiting factors on terror attacks are funding, ability, and infighting. I make more money than a vast majority of people in the Middle East, yet I know I don't have enough spare cash to attack someone halfway across the world.

Yeah, so they're 'radicalised', which is complex term to which you've not given the government report's definition, but they're not radicalised enough to actually, you know, do anything. So you're describing a vast sea of angry people, quietly stewing, grumpily eating their dinner and thinking about the death to Americans they're totally gonna do if they get a better paying job.

Meanwhile, in a more sensible world, it's almost certain that 'radicalisation' refers to people with hardline beliefs, such as supporting Sharia law, not people actually supporting terror attacks. Or possibly it's a totally made up number. Hard to tell without the report.


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 feeder wrote:
This is true. Also, the main factor that links most of the spree killings around the world, more than any particular religion, is the state of the perpetrator's personal life. No job, no money, no partner, and usually drug and alcohol abuse.
I'm sure the usual fething suspects who gleefully celebrate these stories because they think it validates their ignorant world views will point out specific attacks where this is not the case, but note I said most.

Most of spree killings around the world are committed not because of Islam or Christianity or even the Dark Side of the Force, but because some guys just can't handle being nobodies, failures, losers.

The other very common factor is that they're generally men in their early to mid 20s, when the instinct to turn rage and anger in to violence is at its strongest. By the time they hit 30 most guys just don't have that same urge.

One of the interesting things about this murderer is that he was 29, a bit outside the age bracket of most of these guys.


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 Ouze wrote:
On a side note, I don't think i am too keen on this. Obviously when you're taking refugees in and granting asylum, you take what you can get. This seems more like "this ethnic group is underrepresented in the US, so lets get some", which is OK in theory but maybe we could aim a little higher? Must have a HS diploma or 2 years of work history? Man, you sure can't get into Canada with creds like that.

The visa lottery is crazy*, and for the life of me I can't imagine what Reagan and a bi-partisan congress were thinking when they signed it in to law. But note that just because the visas are assigned by lottery, there's still extensive vetting. In fact, this guy like almost every US domestic Islamic terrorist, was radicalised once he reached the US. The problem isn't who is being letting in. The problem is what happens to a few of them once they get there.





*Crazy because one of the best things about being an immigrant nation is you get to pick the best of the best from among all the people you want to bring in to the country. You can pick the best educated, the people who's skills perfectly much whatever shortage your country is lacking at that moment. Giving that up to hand out a whole lot of visas by lottery is pretty weird. It's probably why the Gang of 8 bi-partisan deal planned to replace the lottery. Shame that got sunk by the hardliners of the Republican party.

Yeah the latter part is struck me as so odd. I'd like to assume we always vet people, my concern is why would we take people that have 2 years of work equivalent of a HS diploma? That seems like a ludicrously low bar. Surely we can expect more from immigration candidates.

People with a high level of education get in with different classes of visas.

 Ouze wrote:
Yeah the latter part is struck me as so odd. I'd like to assume we always vet people, my concern is why would we take people that have 2 years of work equivalent of a HS diploma? That seems like a ludicrously low bar. Surely we can expect more from immigration candidates.

I think setting that low bar and then having a lottery among all the qualifying applicants is unique US thing. I think most countries have a points system, or some other way of setting standards high enough that the number of qualifying applicants is pretty close to the desired immigrant intake. It was weird to see the freakout earlier this year when Trump put out a proposed points system, as if such a scheme was somehow inherently bad. I mean, sure, the actual system Trump put out was really stupid, including less recognition for degrees from first tier international unis like Oxford than for third tier US colleges, but people were making out like that points system or any kind of criteria for applicants was bad.

And the Gang of 8 immigration reform bill dropped the lottery, and I'm pretty sure the replacement was a points system. Shame that bill got trashed.

 Hollow wrote:

 Just Tony wrote:

Also, does this mean we need stricter vehicle laws in the US?

No. But you guys need stricter gun laws.

The city where this attack happened has some of the strictest gun control laws in the country. Turning the US into Europe isn't going to solve the problem.

We have the same problem in Europe anyway.

The basic problem is that it is impossible to stop a disaffected individual from getting a car and driving it into a bunch of people.

The very difficult to solve problem is how to discover people who are in danger of becoming disaffected and resorting to this kind of random killing spree, before they do so, and then how to defuse the social pressures and triggers that are leading them down that path.

This is an area where a blanket distrust of Muslims is actively negative. One of the things that sets these guys off is feeling alienated from the society they live in.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
We have the same problem in Europe anyway.

The basic problem is that it is impossible to stop a disaffected individual from getting a car and driving it into a bunch of people.

The very difficult to solve problem is how to discover people who are in danger of becoming disaffected and resorting to this kind of random killing spree, before they do so, and then how to defuse the social pressures and triggers that are leading them down that path.

This is an area where a blanket distrust of Muslims is actively negative. One of the things that sets these guys off is feeling alienated from the society they live in.

This.

Never lose sight that it's been 16 years now since the atrocities at the World Trade Centre and Pentagon.

Ever since then, certain corners (including Das Daily Heil, Express and The Scum) have mounted an insidious campaign of bigotry against Muslims.

That's long enough for many young Muslim men to have only known a world hostile to their faith.

Is it any wonder a tiny minority then fall prey to the vicious circle? Remember, those doing the radicalisation rarely seem to get their hands dirty. They're recruiting very angry young men, and giving them an excuse.

If they hate the US and Europe so much maybe they could I dunno... stay in the middle east? I wouldn't consider moving to a new country if I felt that their standard way of living conflicted with or forced me to compromise my morals. If by some circumstance I found myself living in such a place I'd do whatever it takes to leave. Just as you're free to enter the country you're also free to leave if you decide you don't like it. Too many of these extremist want to glorify the way of living in their old world country but seem unwilling to continue living there, what's so great about it if they themselves can't endure their own homeland?

 stanman wrote:
If they hate the US and Europe so much maybe they could I dunno... stay in the middle east? I wouldn't consider moving to a new country if I felt that their standard way of living conflicted with or forced me to compromise my morals. If by some circumstance I found myself living in such a place I'd do whatever it takes to leave. Just as you're free to enter the country you're also free to leave if you decide you don't like it. Too many of these extremist want to glorify the way of living in their old world country but seem unwilling to continue living there, what's so great about it if they themselves can't endure their own homeland?

Good point, but for them it's not enough to simply avoid the kuffar. The fact that the kuffar even exist in any capacity is intolerable to them. Basically they are told to "fight them (them being the disbelievers) until there is no more disbelief and religion will be for Allah alone". It's a command to forcibly convert everyone to Islam and to not stop until that is done. They utterly reject any notion of live and let live.

There is an element of cognitive dissonance to it as well. They want to maintain the laws, customs and standards of their own countries, but they also want to escape all the gak that comes with that whilst seeking to capture all the benefits of western culture too. That's why they fight tooth and nail to get into the west only to then turn around and demand that we become more like the middle east whilst occasionally carrying out acts of terror on us. Irony is completely lost on them.

 stanman wrote:
If they hate the US and Europe so much maybe they could I dunno... stay in the middle east? I wouldn't consider moving to a new country if I felt that their standard way of living conflicted with or forced me to compromise my morals. If by some circumstance I found myself living in such a place I'd do whatever it takes to leave. Just as you're free to enter the country you're also free to leave if you decide you don't like it. Too many of these extremist want to glorify the way of living in their old world country but seem unwilling to continue living there, what's so great about it if they themselves can't endure their own homeland?

That's assuming they were radicalised or at risk of it when they moved to the US or to Europe.

Seriously, this isn't a simple matter. As we know from crime stats, most homicides/murders involve people known to each other, whether premeditated or heat of the moment.

For someone to go off the deep end and target complete strangers is very unusual human behaviour, and not something that's done on a whim.

The whole 'don't like it go home' mentality just adds to the general ignorance about the actual causes. For whatever reason, they want to harm and punish their adopted homeland. I can't even begin to conceive how someone gets to feel that way - and I'm willing to bet you can't conceive of it either.

These people are damaged. They are not normal. They are not sane. They are not rational. There's far, far more behind their appalling actions than 'Muslim *shrug*'

Look at the Vegas Shooter. Deadliest shooting in US history. Was he a migrant? Nope. I've not heard much more on that this side of the Atlantic since the initial shock. What's happening there? Is anyone now discussing his creed and ethnicities and ways to keep tabs on everyone who happens to also fall into those categories?

 stanman wrote:
If they hate the US and Europe so much maybe they could I dunno... stay in the middle east? I wouldn't consider moving to a new country if I felt that their standard way of living conflicted with or forced me to compromise my morals. If by some circumstance I found myself living in such a place I'd do whatever it takes to leave. Just as you're free to enter the country you're also free to leave if you decide you don't like it. Too many of these extremist want to glorify the way of living in their old world country but seem unwilling to continue living there, what's so great about it if they themselves can't endure their own homeland?

Sure and many would get killed. Have you met anybody who tried to come elsewhere, were sent back and were killed by the very guys trying to flee from? I have.

Most of the Muslims doing these car attacks get killed. The same happens to most white middle-aged men doing gun massacres, like the bloke in Las Vegas.

These kinds of people aren't afraid of being killed, or they would not put themselves in a position where they are very likely to be killed.

It follows that the Muslim ones aren't afraid of "going home" and getting killed so they decide to stay. Clearly they don't want to "go home", they want to take revenge where they are now.

The New York guy had two imitation guns he brandished at police. It was very lucky he was not fatally shot, because he can be questioned and his psychology can be investigated.

tneva82 wrote:

 stanman wrote:
If they hate the US and Europe so much maybe they could I dunno... stay in the middle east? I wouldn't consider moving to a new country if I felt that their standard way of living conflicted with or forced me to compromise my morals. If by some circumstance I found myself living in such a place I'd do whatever it takes to leave. Just as you're free to enter the country you're also free to leave if you decide you don't like it. Too many of these extremist want to glorify the way of living in their old world country but seem unwilling to continue living there, what's so great about it if they themselves can't endure their own homeland?

Sure and many would get killed. Have you met anybody who tried to come elsewhere, were sent back and were killed by the very guys trying to flee from? I have.

Plus in many cases (in Europe at least) these attacks are also comitted by second or third generation immigrants. Europe/the US might be all they know and it would be their homeland. Being born here means that they don't have anywhere to 'go back to'. There are factors at work here that need to be identified that push the next generation to do these things.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
It was very lucky he was not fatally shot, because he can be questioned and his psychology can be investigated.

It was the NYPD. It was lucky he was hit and not a bystander.

Personally, I think the guy couldn't find a reason to live, and ISIS was an ideology that would allow him to die with the knowledge that someone would celebrate his accomplishments . A lot of people commit suicide because they feel they have no reason to live, and noone cares about them. In this case, he found someone who would take pride in his accomplishments, as horrible as they were. A sort of instant radicalization, but not religion based.

If that made any sense, I'm tired and at work.

EDIT: Spelling

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
We have the same problem in Europe anyway.

The basic problem is that it is impossible to stop a disaffected individual from getting a car and driving it into a bunch of people.

The very difficult to solve problem is how to discover people who are in danger of becoming disaffected and resorting to this kind of random killing spree, before they do so, and then how to defuse the social pressures and triggers that are leading them down that path.

This is an area where a blanket distrust of Muslims is actively negative. One of the things that sets these guys off is feeling alienated from the society they live in.

This.

Never lose sight that it's been 16 years now since the atrocities at the World Trade Centre and Pentagon.

Ever since then, certain corners (including Das Daily Heil, Express and The Scum) have mounted an insidious campaign of bigotry against Muslims.

That's long enough for many young Muslim men to have only known a world hostile to their faith.

Is it any wonder a tiny minority then fall prey to the vicious circle? Remember, those doing the radicalisation rarely seem to get their hands dirty. They're recruiting very angry young men, and giving them an excuse.

it's worse than that too; with every attack, the reaction from the far-right usually make things worse. Every time there's an attack by a radicalizaed Mulsim over here, the next day a handful of brown people get attacked. Usually not even Muslim, and in no way linked to the attack in any way beyond being Muslim looking. Even the guy that ran down a group of Muslims outside a mosque was regarded as a "revenge attack" and not a "terrorist attack".

We as a whole can be pretty hostile towards foreigners, and sometimes that hostility rubs off.

Here is how to think about it.

Can Islam inspire people to commit terrorist acts? Clearly yes, because a number of recent terrorists were obviously inspired by the Islamic State.
However, equally clearly, 99.99% of Muslims have not been inspired to commit terrorism.

We also see that 0.001% of Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, Christians and secular people have been inspired to commit terrorism. See the IRA, Haganah, Weathermen, numerous going postal workers, etc etc.

The implication is that 0.001% of people are liable to commit terrorism in the name of some or other cause, or no cause at all, if they are set off to it by some other kind of factors.

People see what they want to see.

 Inquisitor Lord Bane wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
It was very lucky he was not fatally shot, because he can be questioned and his psychology can be investigated.

It was the NYPD. It was lucky he was hit and not a bystander.

Personally, I think the guy couldn't find a reason to live, and ISIS was an ideology that would allow him to die with the knowledge that someone would celebrate his accomplishments . A lot of people commit suicide because they feel they have no reason to live, and noone cares about them. In this case, he found someone who would take pride in his accomplishments, as horrible as they were. A sort of instant radicalization, but not religion based.

If that made any sense, I'm tired and at work.

EDIT: Spelling

That may be an incredibly accurate assessment.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Here is how to think about it.

Can Islam inspire people to commit terrorist acts? Clearly yes, because a number of recent terrorists were obviously inspired by the Islamic State.
However, equally clearly, 99.99% of Muslims have not been inspired to commit terrorism.

We also see that 0.001% of Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, Christians and secular people have been inspired to commit terrorism. See the IRA, Haganah, Weathermen, numerous going postal workers, etc etc.

The implication is that 0.001% of people are liable to commit terrorism in the name of some or other cause, or no cause at all, if they are set off to it by some other kind of factors.

One point, Weathermen were about bringing about a socialist system through violence. Religion was not involved and would have been oppressed under their system.

gakky people will find an excuse to express their shittyness, any ideology can be the facade that covers their true drive.

I've never felt this to be a more accurate commentary:





We're doing everything we can to try and obfuscate doctrine and principles with context. We hear weasel words like "many factors" without ever hearing much about what said other factors are.

If I applied the same tactic with, say, white supremacists, I'm sure all the same open minded and compassionate individuals would be agreeing with me in lock step just how rare it is for a white supremacist to commit terrorism or violence and many of them come less than ideal socioeconomic backgrounds and poor education and home life blah blah blah. It's all true and missing the point.

 d-usa wrote:
gakky people will find an excuse to express their shittyness, any ideology can be the facade that covers their true drive.

Discrimination and failure to condemn attacks against Muslims certainly doesn't help though. Though it occurs that if we do want to say certain groups are prone to radicalization right-wing political supporters would be among them, since they are obviously prone to attack minorities.

 Crablezworth wrote:
I've never felt this to be a more accurate commentary:

Sounds an awful lot like all those 'I'm sick and tired of people calling me a bigot, so I support/did this bigoted thing' that keeps cropping up.

It's an obnoxious little meme and it's positively dripping projection.

It's also incredibly accurate.

 Crablezworth wrote:
I've never felt this to be a more accurate commentary:

the point is more "dont create a perpetually hostile cultural atmosphere around people specifically because they happen to belong to X, Y or Z group, as this fosters the crazies amongst them to do terrible things".

By all means draw silly cartoons of Mohammad or the like. Draw silly cartoons of Jesus and Yahweh and Abraham and Shiva and Buddha and Thor too. Take issue with how Islam treats women or how Christianity seemingly allows for anyone to get a "get out of hell free" card and avoid living a morale lifr by confessing everything and taking Jesus into their heart microseconds before they die. Thats fine.

Just don't go around telling telling everyone that their Nordic Pagan neighbors are gonna come over and kill them because they can only go to Valhalla if they die in battle and they cant be trusted because of that, or that they shouldn't be able to build a religious center because then Vikings are gonna go roaming about the neighborhood pillaging if that sort of thing is allowed. That sort of thing is what drives people to do insane things. That's more the point.

 Crablezworth wrote:
If I applied the same tactic with, say, white supremacists, I'm sure all the same open minded and compassionate individuals would be agreeing with me in lock step just how rare it is for a white supremacist to commit terrorism or violence and many of them come less than ideal socioeconomic backgrounds and poor education and home life blah blah blah. It's all true and missing the point.

Not really the same tactic is it. Going around screaming its Islam when dealing with terrorism is the same as screaming its white people when it comes to white supremacists. They both (white people and Islam) hold vast groups of people with only a tiny violent minority that do not represent the larger group. Also in case you missed it we do tend to go over the reasoning of why white supremacists do what they do beyond just 'they're white supremacists nuff said'. Hell you have a whole political group on the national stage apologising for white supremacist violence while just equating Muslims/immigrants=terrorists. The debate is a lot more nuanced around non Islamic terrorism.

 Crablezworth wrote:
If I applied the same tactic with, say, white supremacists, I'm sure all the same open minded and compassionate individuals would be agreeing with me in lock step just how rare it is for a white supremacist to commit terrorism or violence and many of them come less than ideal socioeconomic backgrounds and poor education and home life blah blah blah. It's all true and missing the point.

That's because the argument is nonsense when applied to white supremacists. White supremacy is inherently a violent and generally awful ideology, one that is incompatible with being a good person. If you are a white supremacist you are a terrible person, period. The fact that the threat of prison is generally successful in preventing white supremacists from committing acts of terrorism doesn't erase the problems with their ideology. Contrast this with Islam, where there are vast numbers of Muslims who are generally good people and the religion's flaws are on par with the flaws of other religions. Unlike with the white supremacists membership in the group is insufficient to explain the violent actions, so we have to look for some other factor that caused it.

A better comparison would be with Christianity, where we get the exact same sort of "not all Christians" argument every time a Christian commits an act of violence (or does something awful in general). We hear all about how most Christians are good people who have no interest in violence, it's not the religion it's {unrelated factor}, etc. And if you don't word your arguments very carefully to make it explicit that you aren't generalizing about all Christians you're likely to get a forum ban and guaranteed to get outraged Christians saying "not all of us", "hate speech", etc.

The problem is that people have simply learned nothing from decades worth of public outreach and education.

We have known for a very long time that many different socioeconomic factors contribute to crime and substance abuse, as an example. Poverty, single-parent households, incarcerated family members, education level, availability of community resources, being raised by an alternate primary caregiver, crime levels in the community, etc etc etc. We know that in many communities, certain minorities are impacted by these issues at a disproportionate rate. We also know that members of these communities are then also more likely to continue to cycle of poverty, crime, and/or substance abuse.

And even after lots of education, we still have people who will insist that being a minority is the reason why someone is more likely to be poor, become a criminal, or abuse substances rather than acknowledge that being exposed to increased adverse socioeconomic factors increases the risk of someone being poor, becoming a criminal, or abuse substances.

So I guess we can continue to sit here with our fingers in our ears going "lalalalala Islam is bad lalalalala", or we can see that the issues and circumstances that drive people to extremism in the name of Islam are often the same issues and circumstances that drive people to join gangs and commit other violent crimes.

 d-usa wrote:
The problem is that people have simply learned nothing from decades worth of public outreach and education.

We have known for a very long time that many different socioeconomic factors contribute to crime and substance abuse, as an example. Poverty, single-parent households, incarcerated family members, education level, availability of community resources, being raised by an alternate primary caregiver, crime levels in the community, etc etc etc. We know that in many communities, certain minorities are impacted by these issues at a disproportionate rate. We also know that members of these communities are then also more likely to continue to cycle of poverty, crime, and/or substance abuse.

And even after lots of education, we still have people who will insist that being a minority is the reason why someone is more likely to be poor, become a criminal, or abuse substances rather than acknowledge that being exposed to increased adverse socioeconomic factors increases the risk of someone being poor, becoming a criminal, or abuse substances.

So I guess we can continue to sit here with our fingers in our ears going "lalalalala Islam is bad lalalalala", or we can see that the issues and circumstances that drive people to extremism in the name of Islam are often the same issues and circumstances that drive people to join gangs and commit other violent crimes.

But...but that doesn't fit neatly on a crappy MSpaint wannabe political cartoon!

I will be and often am critical of certain facets of Islam, just as I am any religion, including militant atheists that give the rest of us a bad name.

But that doesn’t mean I tar all Muslims, Jews, Christians, Buddhists, Shintoists etc with the same brush.

I can tell when a religion is an excuse, and not a motivation or cause. For instance, Israeli foreign policy is nothing to do with Judaism. Like, at all. Yet criticism is often stifled under a blanket of anti-semitism. And that accusation gains credence because anti-seimitism remains a global problem.

Bigotry of all stripes is holding us back as a species. Thanks to cretins like Britain First, English Defence League and their international counter parts, intelligent, ratioral assessment of the causes is obfuscated under a pall of rank stupidity and racism.

Look at the Gutter Press. They have always thrived by promoting an us vs them mentality. In the past it’s been Jews, ‘Blacks’, Indians, Pakistanis, Gays, Germans, French. Of course, all the above are off the menu (and rightfully so). They’re left with Islam and Muslims as their whipping boys.

Anyone who can see through such tissue thin bigotry needs to call it out, just as we’ve called out others in this very thread for unreasoning and idiotic stances which simply aren’t based in reality.

Of course, now we’ve got actual Nazis to contend with, spurned on yet again by simplistic and moronic rhetoric which, again, just isn’t based in reality.

 Frazzled wrote:

 Inquisitor Lord Bane wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
It was very lucky he was not fatally shot, because he can be questioned and his psychology can be investigated.

It was the NYPD. It was lucky he was hit and not a bystander.

Personally, I think the guy couldn't find a reason to live, and ISIS was an ideology that would allow him to die with the knowledge that someone would celebrate his accomplishments . A lot of people commit suicide because they feel they have no reason to live, and noone cares about them. In this case, he found someone who would take pride in his accomplishments, as horrible as they were. A sort of instant radicalization, but not religion based.

If that made any sense, I'm tired and at work.

EDIT: Spelling

That may be an incredibly accurate assessment.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Here is how to think about it.

Can Islam inspire people to commit terrorist acts? Clearly yes, because a number of recent terrorists were obviously inspired by the Islamic State.
However, equally clearly, 99.99% of Muslims have not been inspired to commit terrorism.

We also see that 0.001% of Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, Christians and secular people have been inspired to commit terrorism. See the IRA, Haganah, Weathermen, numerous going postal workers, etc etc.

The implication is that 0.001% of people are liable to commit terrorism in the name of some or other cause, or no cause at all, if they are set off to it by some other kind of factors.

One point, Weathermen were about bringing about a socialist system through violence. Religion was not involved and would have been oppressed under their system.

I said 0.001% of secular people (i.e. like the Weathermen) have been inspired to some form of terrorism by secular ideas. My point is that a small number of people of any persuasion whatsoever are liable to turn to violence, so it's unrealistic to pick specifically on any one group.

As a side note, it's being reported that the suspect in question has been seeing driving around for weeks in a rented U-haul truck with the same 4 or 5 dudes in a really suspicious manner. There might be a fair chunk left to this story so maybe we can try not to get this thread locked just yet.

So the President has said (on twitter no less) that he should get the death penalty. Is it normal for a sitting President to chip in like that?

 Ouze wrote:
As a side note, it's being reported that the suspect in question has been seeing driving around for weeks in a rented U-haul truck with the same 4 or 5 dudes in a really suspicious manner. There might be a fair chunk left to this story so maybe we can try not to get this thread locked just yet.

He had two cell phones on him. One had the numbers of person's already on the NYC radar.
Declare him an enemy combatant and ship him to Gitmo.

Yeah, to hell with due process! Who needs laws anyway?

 Frazzled wrote:

 Ouze wrote:
As a side note, it's being reported that the suspect in question has been seeing driving around for weeks in a rented U-haul truck with the same 4 or 5 dudes in a really suspicious manner. There might be a fair chunk left to this story so maybe we can try not to get this thread locked just yet.

He had two cell phones on him. One had the numbers of person's already on the NYC radar.
Declare him an enemy combatant and ship him to Gitmo.

thats gonna be difficult given that he was in the US legally, committed the attack in the US, is held by civilian law enforcement, etc.

On what legal basis would he be transferred to military jurisdiction?

To me this line of thinking is dangerous. If the justice system can handle McVeigh, it can handle this guy. No need for American Gulags.

But McVeigh was a disaffected white Christian. He wasn't a terrorist like this guy...

 Vaktathi wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:

 Ouze wrote:
As a side note, it's being reported that the suspect in question has been seeing driving around for weeks in a rented U-haul truck with the same 4 or 5 dudes in a really suspicious manner. There might be a fair chunk left to this story so maybe we can try not to get this thread locked just yet.

He had two cell phones on him. One had the numbers of person's already on the NYC radar.
Declare him an enemy combatant and ship him to Gitmo.

thats gonna be difficult given that he was in the US legally, committed the attack in the US, is held by civilian law enforcement, etc.

On what legal basis would he be transferred to military jurisdiction?

To me this line of thinking is dangerous. If the justice system can handle McVeigh, it can handle this guy. No need for American Gulags.

In fairness, did they not try ksm by jury but eventually had to to do tribunal because the jury selection didn't go well? It's going to be hard to find people who don't already have opinions of this guy one way or another. (not sure whether or not that means gitmo or stateside)

 Frazzled wrote:

 Ouze wrote:
As a side note, it's being reported that the suspect in question has been seeing driving around for weeks in a rented U-haul truck with the same 4 or 5 dudes in a really suspicious manner. There might be a fair chunk left to this story so maybe we can try not to get this thread locked just yet.

He had two cell phones on him. One had the numbers of person's already on the NYC radar.
Declare him an enemy combatant and ship him to Gitmo.

No. We have a justice system for that currently.

In fact, I'm pretty sure you can't declare him an enemy combatant.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 skyth wrote:
But McVeigh was a disaffected white Christian. He wasn't a terrorist like this guy...

Erm... McVeigh is by definition a domestic terrorist.

 Crablezworth wrote:
I've never felt this to be a more accurate commentary:





We're doing everything we can to try and obfuscate doctrine and principles with context. We hear weasel words like "many factors" without ever hearing much about what said other factors are.

If I applied the same tactic with, say, white supremacists, I'm sure all the same open minded and compassionate individuals would be agreeing with me in lock step just how rare it is for a white supremacist to commit terrorism or violence and many of them come less than ideal socioeconomic backgrounds and poor education and home life blah blah blah. It's all true and missing the point.

QFT.

Meanwhile the same people, here and elsewhere who insist that it is a 'tiny minority' of Islamic fundamentalists we have to worry about, are sure that the far right is everywhere and for each attack there are reprisals. Where?

Also we must be nice to these radicals. The scum who stabbed Lee Rigby in the street, its all our fault, if only we had given them more love hugs and Sharia law they wouldn't need to be so angry at us and swing machetes so much.

The Glasgow bombers were a pair of doctors, not exactly an underprivileged, uneducated underclass struggling for freedom and equality.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 d-usa wrote:
The problem is that people have simply learned nothing from decades worth of public outreach and education.

We have known for a very long time that many different socioeconomic factors contribute to crime and substance abuse, as an example. Poverty, single-parent households, incarcerated family members, education level, availability of community resources, being raised by an alternate primary caregiver, crime levels in the community, etc etc etc. We know that in many communities, certain minorities are impacted by these issues at a disproportionate rate. We also know that members of these communities are then also more likely to continue to cycle of poverty, crime, and/or substance abuse.

And even after lots of education, we still have people who will insist that being a minority is the reason why someone is more likely to be poor, become a criminal, or abuse substances rather than acknowledge that being exposed to increased adverse socioeconomic factors increases the risk of someone being poor, becoming a criminal, or abuse substances.

So I guess we can continue to sit here with our fingers in our ears going "lalalalala Islam is bad lalalalala", or we can see that the issues and circumstances that drive people to extremism in the name of Islam are often the same issues and circumstances that drive people to join gangs and commit other violent crimes.

If this was true the African-American community, which shares these grievances and is statistically greater presence in underclass society would be involved in more domestic terrorism.

Nobody's saying 'hey, if you see someone drive a truck down a bike path, give him a hug'. It's pretty universally agreed that that was a terrible thing to do.

People are saying 'respect the rule of law, don't be a bigot, and for crying out loud, don't drive a truck into a crowd in front of a mosque'.

It's a shame we can't have a reasonable debate about the factors influencing terrorism without being accused of a terrorist hugging circle jerk by the 'blame all the Muslims' faction.

 Orlanth wrote:


If this was true the African-American community, which shares these grievances and is statistically greater presence in underclass society would be involved in more domestic terrorism.

Exactly, socio economic status is a massive factor, but people's ideas are rarely self generated. They're external, come from somewhere. And there is a difference between being groomed into criminal enterprise and gang warfare (and the short sighted rationale $) and being groomed to potentially committing an act of terrorism.

Plenty of taliban fighters really fight for whoever will feed them (its not uncommon to spend seasons fighting for either side). But that like with gang warfare is semi rational if it means sustaining life. Not the same once recruited for a suicide mission and whether we say naive or devout, it really doesn't matter how it's framed in hindsight.




This individual shows no remorse for his actions and I think a fair statement would be he is proud of his actions.

He wanted to drape an isis flag on his wall while in hospital.

Human beings are certainly nuanced and complicated things, maybe breastfeeding and vitamin deficiency are at the heart of this, I can't help but feel the fact that he was taken alive certainly turned the volume down on the assumptions that are usually made freely in cases where the perp is deceased. The lets do everything we can to divorce his actions from religious ideology crowd kinda struggled as the evidence of just how much a garbage human this individual was mounted up over the course of the thread.

Actually suicide bombing has motivations beyond that of religion or being naive. It includes a range of motivations such as emotional or political factors like fighting for independence, as the Tamil Tigers did.

 Disciple of Fate wrote:
Actually suicide bombing has motivations beyond that of religion or being naive. It includes a range of motivations such as emotional or political factors like fighting for independence, as the Tamil Tigers did.

Certainly, and I've fully run the numbers as to the likelihood of this individual accidentally swapping souls with that of a japanese kamikaze pilot kinda like quantum leap. Only a 31% likelihood sadly. In fairness, what I thought was a calculator turned out to be cocktail napkin.


"Al, they want me to clip my toe nails and drink some sake" -




It's generally preferably if one must choose their horrors to have a soldier or soldiers die from a suicide attack than civilians. Whether it's for god or country or both.

In that context suicide bombing can be seen as rational as other means. Suicide bombing is an odd concept in the West. But dying for your country/freedom/independence is pretty similar as a more Western idea. The method of dying is different but they are both equally final. Dying for your convictions is what almost every culture has some form of. Kamikaze is a good example of another method with the same result.

 Disciple of Fate wrote:
In that context suicide bombing can be seen as rational as other means. Suicide bombing is an odd concept in the West. But dying for your country/freedom/independence is pretty similar as a more Western idea. The method of dying is different but they are both equally final. Dying for your convictions is what almost every culture has some form of. Kamikaze is a good example of another method with the same result.

Dying for one's convictions is one thing, killing for them is another. Who must be sacrificed to sate one's convictions? Anyone can end their own life, some choose to make that decision for others before making it for themselves.

The concept of an individual sacrificing themselves to save others can be made to sound noble and heroic in the abstract. The devil as always is in the details. There's certainly a difference between a suicide bombing on an occupying force and bombing a popular ice cream shop in the middle of baghdad.


Suicide attack went out of style with the advent of advance aspect seeking ordnance. Of course not everyone has a standing army or billion dollar military assets.

"No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. You won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his" - George S. Patton

 Crablezworth wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:
In that context suicide bombing can be seen as rational as other means. Suicide bombing is an odd concept in the West. But dying for your country/freedom/independence is pretty similar as a more Western idea. The method of dying is different but they are both equally final. Dying for your convictions is what almost every culture has some form of. Kamikaze is a good example of another method with the same result.

Dying for one's convictions is one thing, killing for them is another. Who must be sacrificed to sate one's convictions? Anyone can end their own life, some choose to make that decision for others before making it for themselves.

The concept of an individual sacrificing themselves to save others can be made to sound noble and heroic in the abstract. The devil as always is in the details. There's certainly a difference between a suicide bombing on an occupying force and bombing a popular ice cream shop in the middle of baghdad.

Dying and killing for one's convictions can frequently be tied together though. Dying for one's convictions be they country/freedom/independence can often be linked to some violent conflict. To achieve certain goals bloodshed is required. These are the basics of political terrorism, its a strategy. Hitting civilians in conflicts is pretty standard when two sides aren't equal. It demonstrates to the public an inability of the state or occupying power to protect them. Furthermore it is designed to draw out a heavy handed approach to end this terrorism. This heavy handed approach the state/enemy employs is exactly how you lure in the next batch of recruits. Suicide bombing for example can be broken down into motivations. Emotional motivation such as the death of a family member at the hands of the state/enemy is as good as any. In that context civilians who don't support the underdog/terrorist organization are seen as supporters of the state. So for terrorism as a strategic approach hitting civilians make perfect sense. It enforces the idea of the state being weak. Yes we might find it reprehensible. But how many civilians have died as 'collateral damage' in the War on Terror in the ME? From their perspective, why is a drone hitting a funeral any different from a bomb going off in an ice cream shop?

We divide them up according to our morality. But at the end of the day both end in dead civilians. Its horrible, but its nothing new or exclusive to Islamic terrorism.

 Disciple of Fate wrote:


We divide them up according to our morality. But at the end of the day both end in dead civilians. Its horrible, but its nothing new or exclusive to Islamic terrorism.

Imagine if only we counted and kept track of the cause of said dead civilians. We'd be able to see some kind of trend perhaps.

Collateral damage is just called innocent bystanders when it's a domestic gang war. I would still say there is a difference between a disregard for the lives of others and a flat out intention to take their lives as primary goal.

 Crablezworth wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:


We divide them up according to our morality. But at the end of the day both end in dead civilians. Its horrible, but its nothing new or exclusive to Islamic terrorism.

Imagine if only we counted and kept track of the cause of said dead civilians. We'd be able to see some kind of trend perhaps.

Collateral damage is just called innocent bystanders when it's a domestic gang war. I would still say there is a difference between a disregard for the lives of others and a flat out intention to take their lives as primary goal.

Well they do in the US. Discounting 9/11 as the unique attack it is right wing terror has claimed more lives in the US, including that of police and military personel. In Europe Islamic terrorism is currently the bigger issue. But not for all countries and certainly a lot smaller than the domestic terrorist organizations of the 70's-80's. Islamic terrorism is a problem, yet statistically its a tiny one. Its sad for the victims, but if the year holds like this the most violent act in number of deaths is the Vegas shooting, more than the number killed by Islamic terrorism in the US for this year combined. Offset that to the tens or even hundreds of thousands of civilians that have died as collateral damage to the consequences of the Western War on Terror and any trend you identify is insignificant compared to that number. IS would have the hardest time existing right now if it wasn't for those consequences.

You might think there is much of a difference. But US drone strikes can be very 'random' in who they hit. They also indiscriminatly hit medical personnel and family. Just look up second strikes on first responders of drone attacks under the logic that the first strike always hits terrorists so those that show up to help must be terrorists as well. Again this is more a debate on morality, as both ways are at their most basic one of the end justifying the means to the parties involved.

 Disciple of Fate wrote:
Discounting 9/11

Yeah, probably best not to do that.

The irony is not lost on me either that a lot of the thread has felt like "discounting islam" the spread of religious ideallogical motivation for terrorism is all over the map and totally evenly spread and shows no trends or disparities at all. The room feels a lot bigger when you let the elephant out. Among other factors. And sadly socioencomic status didn't seem as big a factor in the radicalization of the perpetrators of the deadliest domestic terror attack on us soil.

 Crablezworth wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:
Discounting 9/11

Yeah, probably best not to do that.

The irony is not lost on me either that a lot of the thread has felt like "discounting islam" the spread of religious ideallogical motivation for terrorism is all over the map and totally evenly spread and shows no trends or disparities at all. The room feels a lot bigger when you let the elephant out.

You want to include a spectacular incident that is highly unlikely to ever be repeated again to be included in a trend? That defeats the defenition of a trend, as small scale attacks vastly outnumber big scale attacks. But sure lets put Islamic terrorism victims in the West including and since 9/11 against gun violence deaths of a single year in the US. The number of people that have died in the West to the particular type of terrorism is still significantly smaller than that. On 9/11 about 3000 people were killed while in the overall year 15.000 were killed by guns. While tragic it just shows how statistically insignificant that is. 15.000 on a Western population of around 750-800 million is tiny, especially if you take into account that Islamic terrorism hasn't been able to add up to that in a period of 16 years. So trend wise its a tiny issue that gets an incredibly inordinate amount of attention and funds.

So a population of over a billion Muslims (because if you argue that religion is the prime/most important motivator, they are technically all a risk) have killed less than 15.000 people in the West over 16 years. Hardly a life ending threat, hardly makes Muslims or Islam any more dangerous to the West than your run of the mill car or murderer. Islamic terrorism is insignificant put into perspective. But it plays into base fears like no other cause of death really can.

So if so many Muslims manage such a small body count, it becomes important to look at motivations beyond those purely religious. As everybody has tried to argue that isn't blaming Islam. Most Muslims are good people, their version of Islam doesn't include terrorism.

 Frazzled wrote:

 Ouze wrote:
As a side note, it's being reported that the suspect in question has been seeing driving around for weeks in a rented U-haul truck with the same 4 or 5 dudes in a really suspicious manner. There might be a fair chunk left to this story so maybe we can try not to get this thread locked just yet.

He had two cell phones on him. One had the numbers of person's already on the NYC radar.
Declare him an enemy combatant and ship him to Gitmo.

You know what would be better then that? A successful prosecution within our existing legal system. Since 9/11 there have been upwards of 600 successful prosecutions and convictions for terrorism related charges. In that same timeframe, military tribunals have had 8.

He'll spend the rest of his life in ADX Florence.

Please stop rooting for some of the worst stuff the US does. The continued existence of our extrajudicial gulag in Cuba is one of our greatest national tragedies.

To hook into the point of Ouze that perfectly demonstrates strategic terrorism at work. Gitmo is one of those heavy handed measures by the state in response to terrorism that terrorist organizations can hold up to show the evil of said state and use to recruit. What goes on in Gitmo is seen as validation for their actions, even if it was never meant to by the US, its exactly the type of response strategic terrorism strives for.

 Ouze wrote:
The continued existence of our extrajudicial gulag in Cuba is one of our greatest national tragedies.

One of, certainly. I seem to remember another that preceded it. It should be shut down, but where would you send erbody?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:
To hook into the point of Ouze that perfectly demonstrates strategic terrorism at work. Gitmo is one of those heavy handed measures by the state in response to terrorism that terrorist organizations can hold up to show the evil of said state and use to recruit. What goes on in Gitmo is seen as validation for their actions, even if it was never meant to by the US, its exactly the type of response strategic terrorism strives for.

Sure but may I simply point out that if you believe the ideology fully you've already got an excellent in group out group mechanic. Bad ideas can make good people do bad things. Leading to other good people doing bad things in response. Gitmo like islam was and is a bad idea, but one certainly preceded the other an is inexorably linked with its terrible conception. And any fair person for or against the continued existence of gitmo would have to admit there is no shortage of reasonable grievance for any radical to point to, genuine, projected or imagined.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
The very difficult to solve problem is how to discover people who are in danger of becoming disaffected and resorting to this kind of random killing spree, before they do so, and then how to defuse the social pressures and triggers that are leading them down that path.

This is an area where a blanket distrust of Muslims is actively negative. One of the things that sets these guys off is feeling alienated from the society they live in.

It also hurts the frequency of Muslims reporting other muslims they suspect are planning to do something stupid. And that's a big issue, the overwhelming number of foiled terror attacks comes from tips by people in the terrorist's community.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 stanman wrote:
If they hate the US and Europe so much maybe they could I dunno... stay in the middle east? I wouldn't consider moving to a new country if I felt that their standard way of living conflicted with or forced me to compromise my morals. If by some circumstance I found myself living in such a place I'd do whatever it takes to leave. Just as you're free to enter the country you're also free to leave if you decide you don't like it. Too many of these extremist want to glorify the way of living in their old world country but seem unwilling to continue living there, what's so great about it if they themselves can't endure their own homeland?

You've missed most of the dynamics of the issue. Hardly any of these guys love the regimes in the middle east either. They are muslim states, but they are corrupted etc. You might have noticed most of the attacks happen in those countries.

You'll also note most of these attacks are suicide attacks. Suicide attacks aren't what you do when you're trying to build a new utopian society. They're what you do when you're chasing martyrdom, checking out of this life in pursuit of a fantasy in the next. The motivation, speaking very generally, is more just a crude suicidal/homicidal rage. This guy wasn't thinking 'I'll kill a bunch of people with a car, then die, and then the New York caliphate will begin!' He was thinking 'I'll kill a bunch of people with a car, then die.'

 Crablezworth wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:
To hook into the point of Ouze that perfectly demonstrates strategic terrorism at work. Gitmo is one of those heavy handed measures by the state in response to terrorism that terrorist organizations can hold up to show the evil of said state and use to recruit. What goes on in Gitmo is seen as validation for their actions, even if it was never meant to by the US, its exactly the type of response strategic terrorism strives for.

Sure but may I simply point out that if you believe the ideology fully you've already got an excellent in group out group mechanic. Bad ideas can make good people do bad things. Leading to other good people doing bad things in response. Gitmo like islam was and is a bad idea, but one certainly preceded the other an is inexorably linked with its terrible conception. And any fair person for or against the continued existence of gitmo would have to admit there is no shortage of reasonable grievance for any radical to point to, genuine, projected or imagined.

This is starting to become a bit silly on an eye for an eye level. Islamic radicals can and will point to reasons why 9/11 was justified and then it never ends. One country has to be the bigger person so to speak. You don't defeat your enemy by becoming your enemy. Like it or not the War on Terror and Gitmo have provided amazing recruitment tools and proving grounds for organizations that would have never become this big without the chaos Western nations cause and have caused in the ME. The US drone program is the biggest recruiter for Al Qaeda in Yemen for example. Saying its just bad because its Islam is doing a massive disservice to the history behind the rise and development of Islamic terrorism. Beyond the incredibly offensive insult and marginalisation of Muslims of course.

 sebster wrote:


You've missed most of the dynamics of the issue. Hardly any of these guys love the regimes in the middle east either. They are muslim states, but they are corrupted etc. You might have noticed most of the attacks happen in those countries.

You'll also note most of these attacks are suicide attacks. Suicide attacks aren't what you do when you're trying to build a new utopian society. They're what you do when you're chasing martyrdom, checking out of this life in pursuit of a fantasy in the next. The motivation, speaking very generally, is more just a crude suicidal/homicidal rage. This guy wasn't thinking 'I'll kill a bunch of people with a car, then die, and then the New York caliphate will begin!' He was thinking 'I'll kill a bunch of people with a car, then die.'

You left out the paradise part. And the being proud of slaughtering other human beings now that he's able to reminisce and give us a play by play and look back fondly and with nostalgia on injustice he has done to his fellow humans.


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 Disciple of Fate wrote:
Beyond the incredibly offensive insult and marginalisation of Muslims of course.

The largest amount of human beings negatively affected by the terrible ideology of Islam are themselves muslims. If being offended on their behalf achieved anything I'd pat you on the back.



Can we all agree that point to atrocities done by one specific ideology is generally more productive and topical when every other breath aren't trying to take focus away in any possible direction or tangent. Throwing everything at the wall to see what sticks is even more evident and a lot harder when the elephant is still in the room. Again, it's all nuance/psychology/context when its islamic terror but when it's white supremacist terror it's a conspiracy that goes to the top and probably ordered by trump and everyone is actually a secret racist. Not tarring you specifically with the white supremacist comparison, speaking very much in generalities of what I've observed. I would never rush to the defense of human garbage like the guy who killed 9 innocent people in charleston. But if someone really thought the ideology at play wasn't primarily the white supremacy I don't know what to tell you. As an ex chrisitan myself, religion does great harm and certainly wasn't likely something that helped the sick bastard, but he chose his victims based on his racist ideology, that was where he got the idea that he should murder people because of their race and the victims themselves were chrisitan.

 Crablezworth wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:
Beyond the incredibly offensive insult and marginalisation of Muslims of course.

The largest amount of human beings negatively affected by the terrible ideology of Islam are themselves muslims. If being offended on their behalf achieved anything I'd pat you on the back.

Saying Muslims are the primary victims of Islam does not diminish in the slightest the fact that you're telling the main victims of Islamic terrorism their own religion is a "bad idea" and "terrible" anyway. If the first sentence was an attempt to deflect away from calling Islam a "bad idea" you only made it worse...

 Disciple of Fate wrote:

 Crablezworth wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:
Beyond the incredibly offensive insult and marginalisation of Muslims of course.

The largest amount of human beings negatively affected by the terrible ideology of Islam are themselves muslims. If being offended on their behalf achieved anything I'd pat you on the back.

Saying Muslims are the primary victims of Islam does not diminish in the slightest the fact that you're telling the main victims of Islamic terrorism their own religion is a "bad idea" and "terrible" anyway. If the first sentence was an attempt to deflect away from calling Islam a "bad idea" you only made it worse...

All religions are a bad idea. Bad ideas are bad, no way around it. A lot of things sound good on paper but end up being bad ideas. Even the most seemingly ingenious or exciting ideas can go bad.

 Crablezworth wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:

 Crablezworth wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:
Beyond the incredibly offensive insult and marginalisation of Muslims of course.

The largest amount of human beings negatively affected by the terrible ideology of Islam are themselves muslims. If being offended on their behalf achieved anything I'd pat you on the back.

Saying Muslims are the primary victims of Islam does not diminish in the slightest the fact that you're telling the main victims of Islamic terrorism their own religion is a "bad idea" and "terrible" anyway. If the first sentence was an attempt to deflect away from calling Islam a "bad idea" you only made it worse...

All religions are a bad idea. Bad ideas are bad, no way around it.

People always find reasons to murder each other. Right and left wing violence and terrorism were king during the Cold War. Three decades from now we will likely have moved on to the next big terrorism thing. Religion isn't inherently good or evil, its always the people, and people always find a reason.

 Disciple of Fate wrote:

Religion isn't inherently good or evil, its always the people, and people always find a reason.

"You can make up statistics to prove anything, 14% of people know that."

Also, what you just said actually needs to be defended and I can't think you'll be defending the principles of stoning or forced mutilation or execution for homosexuals by saying in principle it's fine but if you act on it somehow it makes YOU evil. C'mon man. Now you're just boxing farts.

 Disciple of Fate wrote:

People always find reasons to murder each other. Right and left wing violence and terrorism were king during the Cold War. Three decades from now we will likely have moved on to the next big terrorism thing. Religion isn't inherently good or evil, its always the people, and people always find a reason.

Probably, but if you could somehow hypothetically (for the sake of argument) change the brains of people who believe in these invisible sky wizards so that they did not believe in them anymore, do you think you would see an increase in these attacks? Would there really be anything lost?

 daedalus wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:

People always find reasons to murder each other. Right and left wing violence and terrorism were king during the Cold War. Three decades from now we will likely have moved on to the next big terrorism thing. Religion isn't inherently good or evil, its always the people, and people always find a reason.

Probably, but if you could somehow hypothetically (for the sake of argument) change the brains of people who believe in these invisible sky wizards so that they did not believe in them anymore, do you think you would see an increase in these attacks? Would there really be anything lost?

From my understanding there's been very slight progress, but progress none the less with the saudi's. Women being able to drive is a sad thing to have to celebrate (they should have been able to drive from the inception of driving), but it's objectively positive.

 Crablezworth wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:

Religion isn't inherently good or evil, its always the people, and people always find a reason.

"You can make up statistics to prove anything, 14% of people know that."

Also, what you just said actually needs to be defended and I can't think you'll be defending the principles of stoning or forced mutilation or execution for homosexuals by saying in principle it's fine but if you act on it somehow it makes YOU evil. C'mon man. Now you're just boxing farts.

Religion was penned down by humans. Any element of 'good' or 'evil' was penned down by humans. Your argument is very weak, its to assume the book is the source of 'evil', but a book can't will itself into being. You will find I'm defending nothing. A book can't act on anything that is written in it, only people can. Its like saying catcher is the rye turns people into killers because of what people do. People will find ways to mutilate or execute homosexuals beyond religion and it has already happened in the past.

 Crablezworth wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:
Discounting 9/11

Yeah, probably best not to do that.

The irony is not lost on me either that a lot of the thread has felt like "discounting islam" the spread of religious ideallogical motivation for terrorism is all over the map and totally evenly spread and shows no trends or disparities at all. The room feels a lot bigger when you let the elephant out. Among other factors. And sadly socioencomic status didn't seem as big a factor in the radicalization of the perpetrators of the deadliest domestic terror attack on us soil.

It probably is best to do that. None of this started with 9/11. I know the news media and most north americans have forgotten the 70s and 80s ever existed, but car bombings against US military bases in Europe (particularly Germany) by people that fall under the current label of 'Islamic extremists' were fairly regular occurrences. The IRA was often fond of small scale explosives in mailboxes and trash bins as well, despite how well they're thought of over here. The 'norm' of terrorism is far more the small scale event, and has gone on a lot longer than most bother to remember.

I'm puzzled by your theory that socioeconomic status doesn't play into it- it absolutely does, very consistently.

 daedalus wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:

People always find reasons to murder each other. Right and left wing violence and terrorism were king during the Cold War. Three decades from now we will likely have moved on to the next big terrorism thing. Religion isn't inherently good or evil, its always the people, and people always find a reason.

Probably, but if you could somehow hypothetically (for the sake of argument) change the brains of people who believe in these invisible sky wizards so that they did not believe in them anymore, do you think you would see an increase in these attacks? Would there really be anything lost?

Would we? Its impossible to predict, but it might. Where the divide now lies between Sunni and Shia in the ME for conflict it is not hard to assume that the dissapearence of that divide might cause (even) more ethnic/national struggles. The Shia/Sunni divide presents a comfortable divide, but European history showed that we would just as easily fight over a coloured piece of fabric or political ideology for which absolutely massive numbers of people died. The historical evolution and socioeconomic conditions of the ME have to be taken into account as a source of the current violence as well. There is more to it than just religion. For example, this whole IS thing might have never gotten off the ground if not for the Iraq invasion. So we might have never seen a significant increase in attacks if not for 2003.

Of course I'm not a sky wizard either and unless we invent some device to look into alternate dimensions who knows. Humans have had no trouble killing each other for reasons beyond/besides religion however. The most violent phase in Western history wasn't based on religion.

 Disciple of Fate wrote:

Would we? Its impossible to predict, but it might. Where the divide now lies between Sunni and Shia in the ME for conflict it is not hard to assume that the dissapearence of that divide might cause (even) more ethnic/national struggles. The Shia/Sunni divide presents a comfortable divide, but European history showed that we would just as easily fight over a coloured piece of fabric or political ideology for which absolutely massive numbers of people died. The historical evolution and socioeconomic conditions of the ME have to be taken into account as a source of the current violence as well. There is more to it than just religion. For example, this whole IS thing might have never gotten off the ground if not for the Iraq invasion. So we might have never seen a significant increase in attacks if not for 2003.

Of course I'm not a sky wizard either and unless we invent some device to look into alternate dimensions who knows. Humans have had no trouble killing each other for reasons beyond/besides religion however. The most violent phase in Western history wasn't based on religion.

I suppose it's possible. I don't know the answer. I'll concede that violence is capable of happening without religion. I'm still not convinced that it's not a significant contributing factor. And I'm not sure I see many tangible benefits to religion that couldn't exist without it, and I see a whole lot of bad happening in the name of it. I'm also probably at least a little prejudiced though.

 Crablezworth wrote:
We're doing everything we can to try and obfuscate doctrine and principles with context. We hear weasel words like "many factors" without ever hearing much about what said other factors are.

That's a straight up lie.

"However, I believe it's at least as reasonable to believe he's a man unhappy with life who decided to commit this horrendous act and added Islam for extra attention."
" I don't think he did it because of Islam. He didn't even seem to know the difference between Shia and Sunni Islam, as he expressed sympathies for Islamist organisations from both branches. His life was in shambles, his wife seems to have left him, he had no job, he faced deportation and he appeared to be spending his time mostly smoking and sleeping."
"any possible causes, marriage breakdown, financial stress etc"
"He's been in the US a long time, so maybe there's mental health issues at play, or he's been feeling marginalized; we can potentially do something about both of those with better mental health support and education."
"So it's important to ask how he's different. What mosque did he attend? Did he regularly attend, or recently change his attendance patterns? Did he have a prior criminal record? Was he in contact with ISIS figures on-line?"
"To do so ignores other factors. I find it hard to believe anyone in their right mind decides to just do these heinous acts. You have to be angry first, and have an excuse second. If someone has mental health issues, that's a far larger part of the problem than any given faith. "
"This is true. Also, the main factor that links most of the spree killings around the world, more than any particular religion, is the state of the perpetrator's personal life. No job, no money, no partner, and usually drug and alcohol abuse."
"The other very common factor is that they're generally men in their early to mid 20s, when the instinct to turn rage and anger in to violence is at its strongest. By the time they hit 30 most guys just don't have that same urge."

If I applied the same tactic with, say, white supremacists, I'm sure all the same open minded and compassionate individuals would be agreeing with me in lock step just how rare it is for a white supremacist to commit terrorism or violence and many of them come less than ideal socioeconomic backgrounds and poor education and home life blah blah blah.

Are you genuinely ignorant of the masses of literature talking about how economic marginalisation drives white supremacy?

And yes, if someone said 'oh that white supremacist just committed that act of terror because he hates black people' would also be a crappy, superficial and absolutely useless answer.

 daedalus wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:

Would we? Its impossible to predict, but it might. Where the divide now lies between Sunni and Shia in the ME for conflict it is not hard to assume that the dissapearence of that divide might cause (even) more ethnic/national struggles. The Shia/Sunni divide presents a comfortable divide, but European history showed that we would just as easily fight over a coloured piece of fabric or political ideology for which absolutely massive numbers of people died. The historical evolution and socioeconomic conditions of the ME have to be taken into account as a source of the current violence as well. There is more to it than just religion. For example, this whole IS thing might have never gotten off the ground if not for the Iraq invasion. So we might have never seen a significant increase in attacks if not for 2003.

Of course I'm not a sky wizard either and unless we invent some device to look into alternate dimensions who knows. Humans have had no trouble killing each other for reasons beyond/besides religion however. The most violent phase in Western history wasn't based on religion.

I suppose it's possible. I don't know the answer. I'll concede that violence is capable of happening without religion. I'm still not convinced that it's not a significant contributing factor. And I'm not sure I see many tangible benefits to religion that couldn't exist without it, and I see a whole lot of bad happening in the name of it. I'm also probably at least a little prejudiced though.

Yes, the trouble will always be weighing what part religion has to the overall contribution. Its hard, because a good number of countries that are majority Muslim do quite well, they have few problems with Jihadists going abroad to fight or internal problems. Then you have the ones with few problems but supporting terror groups, followed by countries that mainly supply jihadists that leave their country to fight elsewhere. Conditions have a lot to do with it. The amount of foreign fighters exploded with IS. But not many were willing to go and risk their lives for their religion (so to speak) when it was the Afghan or Iraqi slog pre 2014. The succes and amount of volunteers that IS attracted because of it really demonstrates the more cynical reasons for going beyond religious conviction. People like to be on the winning team more than fighting a losing holy conflict for the end of days as IS likes to put it.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
I will be and often am critical of certain facets of Islam, just as I am any religion, including militant atheists that give the rest of us a bad name.

But that doesn’t mean I tar all Muslims, Jews, Christians, Buddhists, Shintoists etc with the same brush.

I can tell when a religion is an excuse, and not a motivation or cause. For instance, Israeli foreign policy is nothing to do with Judaism. Like, at all. Yet criticism is often stifled under a blanket of anti-semitism. And that accusation gains credence because anti-seimitism remains a global problem.

Bigotry of all stripes is holding us back as a species. Thanks to cretins like Britain First, English Defence League and their international counter parts, intelligent, ratioral assessment of the causes is obfuscated under a pall of rank stupidity and racism.

Yes, thankyou, well said. I too would like to have a decent conversation about the issues within Islam, but find that conversation near impossible because it gets swamped by bigots, and then by people who shout bigotry at any challenge to the religion.

 sebster wrote:

 Crablezworth wrote:
We're doing everything we can to try and obfuscate doctrine and principles with context. We hear weasel words like "many factors" without ever hearing much about what said other factors are.

That's a straight up lie.

"However, I believe it's at least as reasonable to believe he's a man unhappy with life who decided to commit this horrendous act and added Islam for extra attention."
" I don't think he did it because of Islam. He didn't even seem to know the difference between Shia and Sunni Islam, as he expressed sympathies for Islamist organisations from both branches. His life was in shambles, his wife seems to have left him, he had no job, he faced deportation and he appeared to be spending his time mostly smoking and sleeping."
"any possible causes, marriage breakdown, financial stress etc"
"He's been in the US a long time, so maybe there's mental health issues at play, or he's been feeling marginalized; we can potentially do something about both of those with better mental health support and education."
"So it's important to ask how he's different. What mosque did he attend? Did he regularly attend, or recently change his attendance patterns? Did he have a prior criminal record? Was he in contact with ISIS figures on-line?"
"To do so ignores other factors. I find it hard to believe anyone in their right mind decides to just do these heinous acts. You have to be angry first, and have an excuse second. If someone has mental health issues, that's a far larger part of the problem than any given faith. "
"This is true. Also, the main factor that links most of the spree killings around the world, more than any particular religion, is the state of the perpetrator's personal life. No job, no money, no partner, and usually drug and alcohol abuse."
"The other very common factor is that they're generally men in their early to mid 20s, when the instinct to turn rage and anger in to violence is at its strongest. By the time they hit 30 most guys just don't have that same urge."

You apparently know more about his motivations than he does, no cognitive distortions there at all. You presented some decent assumptions, but that's all they are and not everyone having a bad time in life becomes a terrorist, but an inordinate portion of those that do have a bad time and do become terrorists fall inordinately under one religion, one you seem positively hell bent to do anything to draw away from. All the parts matter, but in trying so hard to push relativism and remind us "not every" it seems like a pretty massive portion doesn't get examined. We got a lot of mind readers here I guess. And in all honesty. The fact that you're still seemingly of the opinion that "added Islam for extra attention." if it's so ancillary why keep up the farce? Does the lack of remorse and general hubris over his crime not point pretty much directly at islam?

When bill maher said, paraphrasing: "it's not fair to assume you're a racist because you're republican" he also didn't leave out "but if you are a racist, you're more likely a republican" I tend to agree with him and I'm no fan of the democrats. Not all muslims commit terrorism but most terrorists are musilm.

 sebster wrote:


Are you genuinely ignorant of the masses of literature talking about how economic marginalisation drives white supremacy?

And yes, if someone said 'oh that white supremacist just committed that act of terror because he hates black people' would also be a crappy, superficial and absolutely useless answer.

It would be an incomplete answer. But we don't get to choose the facts we like, I feel like we're explaining that to each other. Radicalism and victim hood (real or imagined) aren't solely found with the down trodden and those just trying to make ends meet. Victim-hood knows no exclusive economic status. The aggrieved are capable of terrible things with or without an ideology, certainly. But a miserable existence focused, forged and tempered by a terrible set of ideas is more destructive, clearly.

 Henry wrote:
So the President has said (on twitter no less) that he should get the death penalty. Is it normal for a sitting President to chip in like that?

It absolutely is not normal. A few year's back Obama wanted gitmo inmates moved to New York for civilian trials. Among other reasons this was opposed, it was claimed that they might get off in a civilian trial. Obama said that possibility wasn't likely. That caused one hell of a freak out on the right, claiming Obama was interfering in court processes. It was a reasonable complaint, Obama shouldn't have said it and it was reckless for a president to talk publicly about what a court should find.

So Trump talking about details of the case (wanting the ISIS flag, being proud of what he did) and giving his preferred penalty is miles worse, and could possibly make it hard for the prosecution.

 sebster wrote:

 Henry wrote:
So the President has said (on twitter no less) that he should get the death penalty. Is it normal for a sitting President to chip in like that?

It absolutely is not normal. A few year's back Obama wanted gitmo inmates moved to New York for civilian trials. Among other reasons this was opposed, it was claimed that they might get off in a civilian trial. Obama said that possibility wasn't likely. That caused one hell of a freak out on the right, claiming Obama was interfering in court processes. It was a reasonable complaint, Obama shouldn't have said it and it was reckless for a president to talk publicly about what a court should find.

So Trump talking about details of the case (wanting the ISIS flag, being proud of what he did) and giving his preferred penalty is miles worse, and could possibly make it hard for the prosecution.

He shouldn't be commenting. Its a political football better left ignored because no matter how wrong he was to do it, damage done. No sense ensuring his next election victory before you get to impeach him. When clinton wouldn't even say the words islamic terrorism after the terrorist attack in orlando, she all but handed trump the win.

 Crablezworth wrote:
Suicide attack went out of style with the advent of advance aspect seeking ordnance.

You don't know what you're talking about. While suicide bombing as a military weapon ended in WWII, as a civilian weapon of terror it's very new. It started with car bombs in Libya in '81, then became more widespread after the Tamils invented bomb belts and bomb vests.

As a terror tactic it's far from being out of style. It's 35 year old method that's increasingly prevalent.

 sebster wrote:

 Crablezworth wrote:
Suicide attack went out of style with the advent of advance aspect seeking ordnance.

You don't know what you're talking about. While suicide bombing as a military weapon ended in WWII, as a civilian weapon of terror it's very new. It started with car bombs in Libya in '81, then became more widespread after the Tamils invented bomb belts and bomb vests.

As a terror tactic it's far from being out of style. It's 35 year old method that's increasingly prevalent.

My comment couldn't possibly be in relation to the invocation of Japanese suicide bombers. Is it at all possible that the reference to advanced aspect seeking ordnance perhaps indicative it being preferable to humans guiding said ordnance?


"suicide bombing as a military weapon ended in WWII" is literally what I'm saying good sir.


But I guess when you cut out the next sentence, which was "Of course not everyone has a standing army or billion dollar military assets. " you can look really virtuous and smug. Worst movie of the year "movie of the year" declares crab

Attack wasn't plural, I'm literally discussing methodology and not world events.

 Crablezworth wrote:
Yeah, probably best not to do that.

It depends why someone is doing it. If it is because someone wants to discount the impact extremist Islam has had on the US, then that'd be a bad and dishonest reason. Fortunately no-one is doing that.

But if it is because people want to talk about the state of existing threats by looking at recent rates of violent attacks by different groups, it is worthwhile to remove 9/11. Because the AQ that managed that attack is not capable of anything like that today - and they haven't been for more than a decade - US IC work has pulled AQ's capabilities apart. This is why AQ and now ISIS are reduced to sporadic, low tech attacks by single actors, and not the complex, multi-factor attacks from the 90s and early 00s.

The irony is not lost on me either that a lot of the thread has felt like "discounting islam" the spread of religious ideallogical motivation for terrorism is all over the map and totally evenly spread and shows no trends or disparities at all.

You continue to lie about the positions of people opposing your take on the role of Islam in this. Stop it.

 sebster wrote:

 Crablezworth wrote:
Yeah, probably best not to do that.

It depends why someone is doing it. If it is because someone wants to discount the impact extremist Islam has had on the US, then that'd be a bad and dishonest reason. Fortunately no-one is doing that.

But if it is because people want to talk about the state of existing threats by looking at recent rates of violent attacks by different groups, it is worthwhile to remove 9/11. Because the AQ that managed that attack is not capable of anything like that today - and they haven't been for more than a decade - US IC work has pulled AQ's capabilities apart. This is why AQ and now ISIS are reduced to sporadic, low tech attacks by single actors, and not the complex, multi-factor attacks from the 90s and early 00s.

The irony is not lost on me either that a lot of the thread has felt like "discounting islam" the spread of religious ideallogical motivation for terrorism is all over the map and totally evenly spread and shows no trends or disparities at all.

You continue to lie about the positions of people opposing your take on the role of Islam in this. Stop it.

I think you'll find, perhaps in hindsight, you're far more emotionally invested in this. As for calling me a liar, well, that seems very polite.

 Disciple of Fate wrote:
It's a shame we can't have a reasonable debate about the factors influencing terrorism without being accused of a terrorist hugging circle jerk by the 'blame all the Muslims' faction.

There is no 'blame all Moslems' faction. That is the lie PC apologists claim because of an inability cannot handle the actual opinions, and the naked truth that there is a serious problem, and appeasement isnt the answer.

 sebster wrote:

 cuda1179 wrote:
That stat is actually a few years old, so it was Obama era, not "current administration".

I can't find anything reporting that number, and you seem indifferent to actually providing it.
.

If by "indifferent" you mean not being on dakka for a 30 hour period while a worked a full time job, slept, and did parental duties, sure, whatever.

Even by politifacts estimates there are 181 million radicalized Muslims. http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2014/nov/05/ben-shapiro/shapiro-says-majority-muslims-are-radicals/

Pew Research Center states that 8% of Muslims support Suicide bombing http://www.pewforum.org/2013/04/30/the-worlds-muslims-religion-politics-society-app-a/ That's 360,000,000 according to them.

https://www.quora.com/What-percentage-of-Muslims-are-radical

Also, "radical" doesn't mean that you are actively polishing your AK47 waiting to take out the next Christian/Jew/ American you see. It's more of a frame of mind.

 cuda1179 wrote:

 sebster wrote:

 cuda1179 wrote:
That stat is actually a few years old, so it was Obama era, not "current administration".

I can't find anything reporting that number, and you seem indifferent to actually providing it.
.

If by "indifferent" you mean not being on dakka for a 30 hour period while a worked a full time job, slept, and did parental duties, sure, whatever.

Even by politifacts estimates there are 181 million radicalized Muslims. http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2014/nov/05/ben-shapiro/shapiro-says-majority-muslims-are-radicals/

Pew Research Center states that 8% of Muslims support Suicide bombing http://www.pewforum.org/2013/04/30/the-worlds-muslims-religion-politics-society-app-a/ That's 360,000,000 according to them.

https://www.quora.com/What-percentage-of-Muslims-are-radical

Also, "radical" doesn't mean that you are actively polishing your AK47 waiting to take out the next Christian/Jew/ American you see. It's more of a frame of mind.

You're in fact wrong, seb is the first human to develop the ability to read minds lol

 Crablezworth wrote:
He shouldn't be commenting. Its a political football better left ignored because no matter how wrong he was to do it, damage done. No sense ensuring his next election victory before you get to impeach him. When clinton wouldn't even say the words islamic terrorism after the terrorist attack in orlando

This is at least the second bald-faced lie you've posted on this page of the thread.

 Crablezworth wrote:
I've never felt this to be a more accurate commentary:





We're doing everything we can to try and obfuscate doctrine and principles with context. We hear weasel words like "many factors" without ever hearing much about what said other factors are.

If I applied the same tactic with, say, white supremacists, I'm sure all the same open minded and compassionate individuals would be agreeing with me in lock step just how rare it is for a white supremacist to commit terrorism or violence and many of them come less than ideal socioeconomic backgrounds and poor education and home life blah blah blah. It's all true and missing the point.

It's the cartoon that misses the point. It also speaks poorly of the pro-discrimination side, seeing that it demonstrates only a superficial understanding of the argument. One shouldn't discriminate against -any- group of people, -any- group of people that is discriminated against are more prone to radicalization, neither of those two statements relate to Islam beyond Muslims happening to be the ones discriminated against right now. That cartoon demonstrates a complete lack of understanding of the argument it supposedly criticises, which really says a lot about the level of intelligence involved.

And fwiw, no, we should not discriminate against white supremacists either. People are perfectly entitled to have whatever opinion they like and have a right not to be discriminated for it.

 Crablezworth wrote:
You apparently know more about his motivations than he does, no cognitive distortions there at all.

Nope, that's a straight up lie. At no point did I or anyone else say they knew what this guy's motivations were. We simply gave common motivations and factors that lead to this kind of thing, to show you that 'it's the islam' was a crude and superficial answer.

And in response you've lurched from 'no-one is giving any factors other than Islam' to 'you claim to know the inner workings of this guy's mind'. You went from lying that we gave no explanation, to lying that we tried to give a complete explanation of exactly why this guy did it.

Just stop doing this.

You presented some decent assumptions, but that's all they are and not everyone having a bad time in life becomes a terrorist, but an inordinate portion of those that do have a bad time and do become terrorists fall inordinately under one religion, one you seem positively hell bent to do anything to draw away from.

That's another lie. I'm not discounting the role of Islam. I am trying to put Islam in its proper context, by getting people to appreciate the complexity and diversity within the faith, and then consider all the other factors that lead to this kind of stuff. So we can build an actually useful plan for preventing future attacks, and not just think 'its the islam'.

The fact that you're still seemingly of the opinion that "added Islam for extra attention." if it's so ancillary why keep up the farce?

That wasn't me. Read more closely.

When bill maher said, paraphrasing: "it's not fair to assume you're a racist because you're republican" he also didn't leave out "but if you are a racist, you're more likely a republican" I tend to agree with him and I'm no fan of the democrats. Not all muslims commit terrorism but most terrorists are musilm.

Bill Maher is an awful person and I am genuinely concerned there's so many people out there who are unable to tell this.

It would be an incomplete answer. But we don't get to choose the facts we like, I feel like we're explaining that to each other. Radicalism and victim hood (real or imagined) aren't solely found with the down trodden and those just trying to make ends meet. Victim-hood knows no exclusive economic status. The aggrieved are capable of terrible things with or without an ideology, certainly. But a miserable existence focused, forged and tempered by a terrible set of ideas is more destructive, clearly.

All these things are factors. No one thing ensures a person will become a murderous fanatic, and no one thing is absolutely required for it to be possible. And yeah, most people who tick some or even all of the boxes won't end up a murderous donkey-cave. But reality is there's an aggregate numbers game going on here - and with each factor its more likely an individual will end up doing something very awful.

 Ouze wrote:

 Crablezworth wrote:
He shouldn't be commenting. Its a political football better left ignored because no matter how wrong he was to do it, damage done. No sense ensuring his next election victory before you get to impeach him. When clinton wouldn't even say the words islamic terrorism after the terrorist attack in orlando

This is at least the second bald-faced lie you've posted on this page of the thread.

", she all but handed trump the win. "


That's the part of the statement you cut out, sport. Seb already tried the out of context thing man.

 Crablezworth wrote:
He shouldn't be commenting. Its a political football better left ignored because no matter how wrong he was to do it, damage done.

No, because there will be a world after Trump and we can't abandon the political standards we expect of our leaders just because Trump wallows in breaking those conventions.

No sense ensuring his next election victory before you get to impeach him. When clinton wouldn't even say the words islamic terrorism after the terrorist attack in orlando, she all but handed trump the win.

I think you're vastly overstating the important that bit of wordplay has outside of chuckleheaded right wing anti-PC set. And on top of that, you were wrong (thanks Ouze). Well I guess the message here is there is no point playing to the chuckleheaded right wing about anything, because even if you do what they ask they'll just pretend you didn't anyway.

 cuda1179 wrote:
Even by politifacts estimates there are 181 million radicalized Muslims. http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2014/nov/05/ben-shapiro/shapiro-says-majority-muslims-are-radicals

Yes, I see how you could come away with that conclusion from "To be clear, we’re not saying there are 181 million radical Muslims".


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Crablezworth wrote:

 Ouze wrote:

 Crablezworth wrote:
He shouldn't be commenting. Its a political football better left ignored because no matter how wrong he was to do it, damage done. No sense ensuring his next election victory before you get to impeach him. When clinton wouldn't even say the words islamic terrorism after the terrorist attack in orlando

This is at least the second bald-faced lie you've posted on this page of the thread.

", she all but handed trump the win. "


That's the part of the statement you cut out, sport. Seb already tried the out of context thing man.

How does the entire quote change in any way that you claimed she didn't say something she clearly and totally did? I mean, it's a totally, bald faced lie, completely blatant.

I avoided that unrelated snippet because it was needlessly political, and unlike you, I'm not working as hard as I can to get this thread locked for reasons known only to you.

We can drop it now. A user posted something, he was wrong, whether he retracts it after a page and a half of being bludgeoned with his error or not doesn't change whether this is or isn't on topic. Let's just make sure we drop the politics, drop any rudeness, and try and salvage this as best we can

Fine.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 motyak wrote:
We can drop it now. A user posted something, he was wrong, whether he retracts it after a page and a half of being bludgeoned with his error or not doesn't change whether this is or isn't on topic. Let's just make sure we drop the politics, drop any rudeness, and try and salvage this as best we can

I've reported seb for much the same, you'd do well to be unbias.

 Crablezworth wrote:
"suicide bombing as a military weapon ended in WWII" is literally what I'm saying good sir.


But I guess when you cut out the next sentence, which was "Of course not everyone has a standing army or billion dollar military assets. " you can look really virtuous and smug. Worst movie of the year "movie of the year" declares crab

So your point is that such weapons are no longer used in a context that wasn't in discussion. Okay.

 sebster wrote:

 Crablezworth wrote:
"suicide bombing as a military weapon ended in WWII" is literally what I'm saying good sir.


But I guess when you cut out the next sentence, which was "Of course not everyone has a standing army or billion dollar military assets. " you can look really virtuous and smug. Worst movie of the year "movie of the year" declares crab

So your point is that such weapons are no longer used in a context that wasn't in discussion. Okay.

Last post, 5th page.


And I've beem shown to be in error about hillary's denouncement. Not her language. But I'll be an adult and not parse out every word she said to show I was technically correct, because she more or less denounced islmism, close enough to islamic terrorism.

 Crablezworth wrote:
I think you'll find, perhaps in hindsight, you're far more emotionally invested in this. As for calling me a liar, well, that seems very polite.

I've no investment. Dude I've been doing this for years, you're not even the most annoying conversation I've got going right now. You should see the state of the conversation I'm having with my sister over that Charlottesville nazi murder being faked.

Or roll 2d100 and consult the indicated page of the old US politics thread

 sebster wrote:

 Crablezworth wrote:
I think you'll find, perhaps in hindsight, you're far more emotionally invested in this. As for calling me a liar, well, that seems very polite.

I've no investment. Dude I've been doing this for years, you're not even the most annoying conversation I've got going right now. You should see the state of the conversation I'm having with my sister over that Charlottesville nazi murder being faked.

Seb, my man I never thought I'd be reporting you for rule one violations. But calling me a liar while literally playing tetris with my words. Full honesty, I thought the quotes you had pulled were all your own.

Last warning before I start kicking people out of the OT for 1-2 weeks.

Stop. Your. Petty. Rudeness.

Some users here really need to have a hard look at how they're posting. I was about to lock the thread, but no. I'll post this warning, and instead I'll be kicking users out of the OT, rather than taking the thread away from the people who are following the rules. Make smart, mature decisions with your posting and you'll get to stay. Refuse to do so and you're out of the OT.

 cuda1179 wrote:
Even by politifacts estimates there are 181 million radicalized Muslims. http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2014/nov/05/ben-shapiro/shapiro-says-majority-muslims-are-radicals/

No, they really didn't estimate that. In fact, they explicitly stated that the 181 million number is NOT an actual estimate. From the article:

To be clear, we’re not saying there are 181 million radical Muslims.

Please don't post false statements like this.

Also, "radical" doesn't mean that you are actively polishing your AK47 waiting to take out the next Christian/Jew/ American you see. It's more of a frame of mind.

The broader definition of "radical" is useless in this context. If "radical" refers to "political beliefs that diverge significantly from mine" rather than "extremist who uses or attempts to use violence against civilian targets in pursuit of their ideological goals" then you end up including way too many people, the vast majority of them having very little in common with the terrorists and posing very little threat to society. And once you have that broad definition why is it only applied to Muslim "radicals"? What about radical Christians, with their radical anti-LGBT ideology? Should we put all of them (or, even better, all Christians in general) on the terrorist watch lists because a tiny minority commit acts of violence against LGBT people? Or what about radical libertarians and their radical anti-state ideology? Remember those s who occupied federal property and threatened the police with their guns? Definitely need to put anyone who ever voted for a libertarian candidate on the terrorist watch list, they're clearly radicals.

 cuda1179 wrote:
If by "indifferent" you mean not being on dakka for a 30 hour period while a worked a full time job, slept, and did parental duties, sure, whatever.

No, I mean that I questioned the source, and in your response you attempted a justification of the number but didn't include a source for the figure. It would have been very weird for me to put in that reply any complaint that you would be absent for 30 hours after my post, because my ability to see in to the future is not that powerful.

Even by politifacts estimates there are 181 million radicalized Muslims. http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2014/nov/05/ben-shapiro/shapiro-says-majority-muslims-are-radicals/

Heh, called it, it's just that absurd Ben Shapiro number. Anyhow, as I already said Ben Shapiro's claim is crap because having very conservative views is not the same thing as being radicalised. And as the article shows, Shapiro's work doesn't even do a good job of capturing the actually conservative portion of the population, because he doesn't know or doesn't care about the complexities of Islamic beliefs.

But more to the point, neither Ben Shapiro or politifact have either represented the current or former US government. So you claim of 400 million as a government figure is wrong in lots of ways.

Pew Research Center states that 8% of Muslims support Suicide bombing http://www.pewforum.org/2013/04/30/the-worlds-muslims-religion-politics-society-app-a/ That's 360,000,000 according to them.

First up you need some work on your maths. For 8% to be 360,000,000 as you claim, you'd need there to be 4.5 billion muslims on the planet. There's 1.5 billion, so you're off by a factor of 3.

You second error comes from removing context, as you say support suicide bombing, when the actual statement was "are sometimes justified". So that would include people talking entirely about hypothetical, like if a foreign invader was literally going from town to town shooting people. Most populations would have 8% supporting suicide bombs in those situations.

So let's go with the actual worrisome amount, from your own link; "Just 1% of U.S. Muslims and a median of 3% of Muslims worldwide say suicide bombings and other violence against civilian targets are often justified" We'll even ignore that such lowball figures are often problematic and take the number at face value, 3% worldwide. Then we'll take the 1.5 billion muslims and multiply it by 3%, and we get 45m.

And so now we can stop, look back at your original claim, and then look at what your own figures have actually given us. You claimed official government figures state there's 400m radicalised muslims, but there's actually approximately 45m who have a view of suicide attacks that's leniant enough that would could consider them probably sympathetic to some terror groups.

And why did you link to quora?

Also, "radical" doesn't mean that you are actively polishing your AK47 waiting to take out the next Christian/Jew/ American you see. It's more of a frame of mind.

It's also a totally different issue. Let me put this very plainly - the chance that woman in the boonies of Pakistan might suffer an acid attack and local magistrates will show little interest in prosecuting is a serious problem and great human tragedy for people who suffer that bs. And it is directly caused by the teaching of a horrible interpretation of Islam in those areas.

But that issue not usefully discussed by linking it to terrorism. Discussion of both issues suffers.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Crablezworth wrote:
Last post, 5th page.

You raising an issue out of the blue, having it not responded to, and then you mentioning it again doesn't make it part of the conversation.

 sebster wrote:
You might have noticed most of the attacks happen in those countries.

Yep. Terrorism attacks in western countries are by far only tip of the iceberg. Most of those happens funnily enough in their home lands...That's why there's people fleeing from. You don't want to get involved in terrorism attack no doubt. Why anybody would think muslims would like to get hit by one either...But they are. Going back expose you to more of those. And people are asking why they don't go back to home...Gee. Maybe avoiding getting killed by bomb?

 Crablezworth wrote:
Seb, my man I never thought I'd be reporting you for rule one violations. But calling me a liar while literally playing tetris with my words.

Dude, I can walk around the issue with other words if you want. I mean people use 'strawman' and that seems to be a more polite version, but the reality is what it is. You claimed no-one gave other factors than Islam, when many people have given reasons, often in direct response to you, and often in posts you replied to. When I compiled those possible other reasons, you claimed that meant I knew the man's mind because listing possible reasons means saying you know exactly what those reasons were. And while all this went you continued to claim that discussing the importance of other factors means denying that Islam was a factor at all, despite being told repeatedly that people were trying to discuss Islam within the context of other factors that can lead to attacks like this.

How would you describe someone who performs like that in a thread? How would you address them to get them to focus on the actual things people are saying to them?

Full honesty, I thought the quotes you had pulled were all your own.

Honest mistake, and I probably should have made it clear I was grabbing everyone's quotes to show you what you'd been ignoring. Thanks for admitting your error on that one.

 sebster wrote:

 Crablezworth wrote:
Seb, my man I never thought I'd be reporting you for rule one violations. But calling me a liar while literally playing tetris with my words.

Dude, I can walk around the issue with other words if you want. I mean people use 'strawman' and that seems to be a more polite version, but the reality is what it is. You claimed no-one gave other factors than Islam, when many people have given reasons, often in direct response to you, and often in posts you replied to. When I compiled those possible other reasons, you claimed that meant I knew the man's mind because listing possible reasons means saying you know exactly what those reasons were. And while all this went you continued to claim that discussing the importance of other factors means denying that Islam was a factor at all, despite being told repeatedly that people were trying to discuss Islam within the context of other factors that can lead to attacks like this.

I was corrected about the death toll from sweden. I was corrected about hillary denouncing "islamism" , although in that case to call me a liar is false, the words "Islamic terrorism" never left her mouth. But I can see that's splitting hairs. And I'm happy still to have been informed and look silly than not to have. And seb, I kept posting updates with more evidence that every time added to the islam portion and was oddly met with reduction at every new fact.

 sebster wrote:
How would you describe someone who performs like that in a thread? How would you address them to get them to focus on the actual things people are saying to them?

I've been attempting to calm things, even going so far as to apologize formally in pm. How would you describe your actions?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 sebster wrote:

Full honesty, I thought the quotes you had pulled were all your own.

Honest mistake, and I probably should have made it clear I was grabbing everyone's quotes to show you what you'd been ignoring. Thanks for admitting your error on that one.

Sometimes that moves others to acknowledge their errors.

 Crablezworth wrote:
I was corrected about the death toll from sweden. I was corrected about hillary denouncing "islamism" , although in that case to call me a liar is false, the words "Islamic terrorism" never left her mouth. But I can see that's splitting hairs. And I'm happy still to have been informed and look silly than not to have. And seb, I kept posting updates with more evidence that every time added to the islam portion and was oddly met with reduction at every new fact.

The 15 to 5 deaths in Sweden wasn't really much of a big deal, don't worry about that. I mean we're in thread where 400m was an official government number that ended up being 45m if we are willing to make a pretty loose interpretation of a single poll, so I wouldn't worry about that one too much.

Credit for conceding your mistake on Clinton's comment.

As to the rest, I've been consistent from my first post to the last the 'it was because Islam' is not a good answer, because many other factors also play a role. It has been painstaking to get you to address that actual argument. Instead you've denied that people have listed other factors, then claimed that listing other possible factors meant knowing the attacker's mind.

I've been attempting to calm things, even going so far as to apologize formally in pm. How would you describe your actions?

Non-generous, possibly even scathing, but always to the point and always honest.

 sebster wrote:
As to the rest, I've been consistent from my first post to the last the 'it was because Islam' is not a good answer, because many other factors also play a role.

And you are right in that it's not as simple as that.

Many ISIS commanders are former officers of Saddam Hussein's army left without a job when the Iraqi army was disbanded after the US invasion. They had a (somewhat) safe job and steady income, then the Americans came and took it all away. So what are you to do when you need money and all you know is military? Maybe join whatever group is willing to employ a Sunni muslim for some military work, hmm? IIRC many of the ISIS higher-ups are scared of the really fanatic foreign volunteers, especially Chechnyans - many of the leaders are in the terror business for pure gain, not because they actually care too much about this "religion" thing beyond looting rights.

 Orlanth wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:
It's a shame we can't have a reasonable debate about the factors influencing terrorism without being accused of a terrorist hugging circle jerk by the 'blame all the Muslims' faction.

There is no 'blame all Moslems' faction. That is the lie PC apologists claim because of an inability cannot handle the actual opinions, and the naked truth that there is a serious problem, and appeasement isnt the answer.

Actually there is. In this thread we have had people so focused on Islam that they are discounting or dismissing any other factor that might influence these terrorists. If Islam has that much of an impact that it can be claimed as the sole factor of worth then you have to consider all people who have Islam as their religion a risk. So no, its not a 'PC apologist lie', its the basic reduction of what dismissing any other factor besides Islam means. Islam plays its part, but its not the end all explanation some would have us believe. That is the naked truth, something which some seem very unwilling to accept.

Lets also not pretend that there isn't a sizeable minority of people in the real world that sees no difference between Islam/muslims=terrorists. They certainly exist, claiming those biggots don't gets us no where. So maybe its some others who can't handle "actual opinions, and the naked truth".

I do not understand how you can say there is a serious problem with Muslims, and in the next breath say that you aren't blaming Muslims, and it is all caused by "PC gone mad".

As a 'PC apologist' (apparently, I'm assuming it means 'anyone who calls out blatant and mindless bigoty'), I absolutely can 'handle your opinion', I just happen to think it's not based on fact and reality, but instead a paranoid fantasy induced by consuming tripe like Das Daily Heil.

There isn't a serious problem with Islamic Extremism. There is a problem, sure. But it's no more serious than the IRA, ETA or other international terrorist groups.

 sebster wrote:

 cuda1179 wrote:
Even by politifacts estimates there are 181 million radicalized Muslims. http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2014/nov/05/ben-shapiro/shapiro-says-majority-muslims-are-radicals/

Heh, called it, it's just that absurd Ben Shapiro number. Anyhow, as I already said Ben Shapiro's claim is crap because having very conservative views is not the same thing as being radicalised. And as the article shows, Shapiro's work doesn't even do a good job of capturing the actually conservative portion of the population, because he doesn't know or doesn't care about the complexities of Islamic beliefs.

But more to the point, neither Ben Shapiro or politifact have either represented the current or former US government. So you claim of 400 million as a government figure is wrong in lots of ways.

Pew Research Center states that 8% of Muslims support Suicide bombing http://www.pewforum.org/2013/04/30/the-worlds-muslims-religion-politics-society-app-a/ That's 360,000,000 according to them.

First up you need some work on your maths. For 8% to be 360,000,000 as you claim, you'd need there to be 4.5 billion muslims on the planet. There's 1.5 billion, so you're off by a factor of 3.

You second error comes from removing context, as you say support suicide bombing, when the actual statement was "are sometimes justified". So that would include people talking entirely about hypothetical, like if a foreign invader was literally going from town to town shooting people. Most populations would have 8% supporting suicide bombs in those situations.

So let's go with the actual worrisome amount, from your own link; "Just 1% of U.S. Muslims and a median of 3% of Muslims worldwide say suicide bombings and other violence against civilian targets are often justified" We'll even ignore that such lowball figures are often problematic and take the number at face value, 3% worldwide. Then we'll take the 1.5 billion muslims and multiply it by 3%, and we get 45m.

And so now we can stop, look back at your original claim, and then look at what your own figures have actually given us. You claimed official government figures state there's 400m radicalised muslims, but there's actually approximately 45m who have a view of suicide attacks that's leniant enough that would could consider them probably sympathetic to some terror groups.

And why did you link to quora?

Also, "radical" doesn't mean that you are actively polishing your AK47 waiting to take out the next Christian/Jew/ American you see. It's more of a frame of mind.

It's also a totally different issue. Let me put this very plainly - the chance that woman in the boonies of Pakistan might suffer an acid attack and local magistrates will show little interest in prosecuting is a serious problem and great human tragedy for people who suffer that bs. And it is directly caused by the teaching of a horrible interpretation of Islam in those areas.

But that issue not usefully discussed by linking it to terrorism. Discussion of both issues suffers.

An interesting comparison when talking about 'radical' Muslims is to bring in the view in one particular country as the culture they grew up in is roughly the same. If you look at US Muslims compared to other denominations they aren't so different in their views on violence (you could even say better) as other Americans, something 'radical' implies isn't the case. Culture matters as much or conservative views as you say. Here is the view of US Muslims compared to other US groups:


http://news.gallup.com/poll/148763/muslim-americans-no-justification-violence.aspx

Yes, I drag this out in every thread about this topic, but its worth considering every time in a religion versus culture/society approach.

 Peregrine wrote:

 cuda1179 wrote:
Even by politifacts estimates there are 181 million radicalized Muslims. http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2014/nov/05/ben-shapiro/shapiro-says-majority-muslims-are-radicals/

No, they really didn't estimate that. In fact, they explicitly stated that the 181 million number is NOT an actual estimate.

The broader definition of "radical" is useless in this context. If "radical" refers to "political beliefs that diverge significantly from mine" rather than "extremist who uses or attempts to use violence against civilian targets in pursuit of their ideological goals" then you end up including way too many people, the vast majority of them having very little in common with the terrorists and posing very little threat to society. And once you have that broad definition why is it only applied to Muslim "radicals"? What about radical Christians, with their radical anti-LGBT ideology? Should we put all of them (or, even better, all Christians in general) on the terrorist watch lists because a tiny minority commit acts of violence against LGBT people? Or what about radical libertarians and their radical anti-state ideology? Remember those s who occupied federal property and threatened the police with their guns? Definitely need to put anyone who ever voted for a libertarian candidate on the terrorist watch list, they're clearly radicals.

Being okay with suicide bombing is a bit more than "political beliefs that diverge from mine". If 15% of any population was okay with this, then yes, I would be somewhat suspicious of them.

 cuda1179 wrote:
Being okay with suicide bombing is a bit more than "political beliefs that diverge from mine". If 15% of any population was okay with this, then yes, I would be somewhat suspicious of them.

At least the article on Shapiro was about his dodgy statistics. And that's the problem with polls and statistics built on them - you can always make them say what you want if you ask the right questions. Where's this 15% from, for example? And what exactly was the question? I'm pretty sure close to 0% of humans, regardless of religion, would approve of a suicide bomber who blew people up just because he felt like it. A whole lot more might approve if their country was occupied by brutal invaders and the suicide bomber made an effort to target the enemy soldiers.

Besides, it does kind of remind me of one where a certain number of of American muslims said it would "sometimes" be OK to use deadly force against other Americans. Yet the piece said nothing about in what circumstances that was fine, or how many Americans in general think it's sometimes OK to use deadly force against other Americans...

Guys, Orlanth has admitted in other areas of Dakkdakka that he is intentionally trolling OT. This is brought up every time he comes in to a thread like this and posts intentionally inflammatory buzzwords to set people off.

Don't feed the trolls.

Disciple of Fate wrote:

 Crablezworth wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:

Religion isn't inherently good or evil, its always the people, and people always find a reason.

"You can make up statistics to prove anything, 14% of people know that."

Also, what you just said actually needs to be defended and I can't think you'll be defending the principles of stoning or forced mutilation or execution for homosexuals by saying in principle it's fine but if you act on it somehow it makes YOU evil. C'mon man. Now you're just boxing farts.

Religion was penned down by humans. Any element of 'good' or 'evil' was penned down by humans. Your argument is very weak, its to assume the book is the source of 'evil', but a book can't will itself into being. You will find I'm defending nothing. A book can't act on anything that is written in it, only people can. Its like saying catcher is the rye turns people into killers because of what people do. People will find ways to mutilate or execute homosexuals beyond religion and it has already happened in the past.

Maybe Catcher in the Rye turns people into murderers because of the frustration of having waded all the way through that gakky book. It's bad when you have to read Kurt Vonnegut to get the taste out of your mouth. Then chase it with some REAL literature...

 cuda1179 wrote:
Being okay with suicide bombing is a bit more than "political beliefs that diverge from mine". If 15% of any population was okay with this, then yes, I would be somewhat suspicious of them.

Then you're going to have a lot of suspicion to give, because take a look at that poll a few posts up. US Muslims actually have the lowest rate of approving of terrorist attacks against civilians among the various religious groups. Protestants, Catholics, Jews, Mormons, even the atheists, they all had significantly higher rates of approval.

 Dreadwinter wrote:
Guys, Orlanth has admitted in other areas of Dakkdakka that he is intentionally trolling OT. This is brought up every time he comes in to a thread like this and posts intentionally inflammatory buzzwords to set people off.

Don't feed the trolls.

Out and out lie.

I challenge you to find a quote to support your accusation.

There are many things about which I disagree with Orlanth, but I don't believe he is a troll. He says things because he believes them, not to get a rise out of people.