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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.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 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.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 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.