Acts of Terrorism megathread

[viper37]

The problem being that "for political purposes" makes the definition much more plastic than what you seem to allow from the moment the violence is not simply instrumental for a clear material goal (i.e., bank robbery). Terrorism may "mean something", but calls such as these are also attempt to signify there is a clear political effect to these shootings that is not adequately captured by either media tone, and legal response. I think it is difficult to deny the difference in tone in media between mass white shooters, mass "brown" shooters, and even black victims of cops. That some want to pin the terrorism label on the predominantly white mass shooters is an attempt to call attention to such imbalance.

Mass shootings by white people, in the US, happen with regularity, yet few people seem willing to carve out a new legal status for them that would answer their regularity, and their effects - yet we see travel bans and deportations being proposed out of the fear of terrorism. On that, the Onion is right: it is the perpetration of mass shootings that have become normalized in political discourse, while answers to them are labelled "undue politicizing", while the perpetration of terrorism is always shocking, and its political and State-response, normalized. 

Terrorism involves a political motivation.  You want your target(s) to change behavior, to change policies, to change laws.

IRA were whites and christians, they were described as terrorists.
The Basques were whites and christians, they were described as terrorists.
There's a clear political motivation there.

The mafia bomb campaign wasn't branded as terrorism, nor were the Columbians of Pablo Escobar while they were attacking judges and politicians.  But you could argue that they were terrorists, aiming to a change in governmental policy.  But imho, it's more of a general criminal activity, they do not want the laws to change so much for everyone as they want the laws to change for them: they want to be left alone and they hope to intimidate anyone attacking their activities.  They react the same toward competition than toward law enforcement.

A man entering a kindergarden to shoot kids is not committing an act of terrorism.  A man entering a kindergarden to shoot kids while leaving a manifest at home saying how he hates kids, these horrible little things and our society is way too tolerant toward kids running amok in our streets is committing a terrorist act.  There's a political motivation absent in the first.

A road rage incident is not indicated of terrorist behavior.  Setting fire to a truck inside a tunnel while you protest against proposed changes to provincial work laws is an act of terrorism, even if no one is killed.

Bombing a pick up truck when no one is in it, or putting dynamite on an excavator so that it explodes on startup is a terrorist act because it aims at intimidating your targets into following your rules and the government turning a blind eye to it because they are too scared.

[grumbler]

that's false.  Lone wolf has been used for many muslims terrorism acts when committed alone.  We generally reserve "terrorisme" accusations for when there's a clear link between a terrorist organization and the person committing the crimes.

I think that it is mistaken to restrict terrorism to only those cases where there is a clear link between the perp and a terrorist organization (not that I am saying you are making more than an observation that it seems to be so).  Individuals like McVeigh and Roof didn't belong to terrorist organizations (as far as we know) but were clearly carrying out acts of terror.  The violence itself (and the public reaction to it) was their objective, not the specific people whom they killed.

[The Minsky Moment]

Berkut, your point would only hold water if people like Timothy McVay, were considered terrorists. 

Is there any dispute about McVey being a terrorist?  That would be ridiculous.

[grumbler]

Berkut, your point would only hold water if people like Timothy McVay, were considered terrorists. 

Is there any dispute about McVey being a terrorist?  That would be ridiculous.

Is there any doubt that my comment was tongue-in-cheek? 

[The Minsky Moment]

IMO a requirement of a some political program is unduly restrictive.  Or alternatively, one should not count out nihilism as a political motivation.  A serial killer who kills for the sake of killing (eg out of some mental urge) is not a terrorist, nor is someone who creates mayhem in order to facilitate a robbery.  But if one of the principal ends of the crime is to sow fear and terror in the general population  - as opposed to that being a collateral side effect - then in my book it's a terrorist attack.  So for example, Zodiac could be argued to be a terrorist, as opposed to Dahmer.  The facts still are coming in on Paddock but at first glance it looks like a terrorist attack to me.

[alfred russel]

It seems to me like what makes something a terrorist act is the intention to advance some agenda by means of terrorizing people.  The main goal of terrorist act is not to cause casualties, but to affect behavior of people.  Not all mass casualty crimes fit this, and this one doesn't appear to.

Should that remove ISIS from the list of terrorist organizations? My understanding is that their long term goal is to kill all us infidels, not bring us scare us into negotiating with them or something.

[Eddie Teach]

Don't they want us to submit to Allah?

[Barrister]

It seems to me like what makes something a terrorist act is the intention to advance some agenda by means of terrorizing people.  The main goal of terrorist act is not to cause casualties, but to affect behavior of people.  Not all mass casualty crimes fit this, and this one doesn't appear to.

Should that remove ISIS from the list of terrorist organizations? My understanding is that their long term goal is to kill all us infidels, not bring us scare us into negotiating with them or something.

No, ISIS is a classic terrorist organization.  They want to provoke the West into a disproportionate response, which while cause the Islamic world to rally behind ISIS and bring about the global caliphate.

[alfred russel]

No, ISIS is a classic terrorist organization.  They want to provoke the West into a disproportionate response, which while cause the Islamic world to rally behind ISIS and bring about the global caliphate.

If that is their goal, then I agree.

If their goal is to kill all infidels, then it sounds more like a mass murder organization.

[Barrister]

No, ISIS is a classic terrorist organization.  They want to provoke the West into a disproportionate response, which while cause the Islamic world to rally behind ISIS and bring about the global caliphate.

If that is their goal, then I agree.

If their goal is to kill all infidels, then it sounds more like a mass murder organization.

That's definitely their goal.  It also ties into their islamic millenialist views that doing so will also bring about the end times.

[Razgovory]

Can anyone honestly say that if the guy's name was Abdul rather than Steve the President wouldn't be tweeting about terrorism and how the courts were harming America by stopping his Muslim ban?

[Eddie Teach]

Assuming Abdul was from one of the affected countries that might be relevant. It would certainly be a nonsense response to domestic Steve.

[The Minsky Moment]

 First we had the Alexandria shooting, then this.  No one wants to say the obvious, but we need to cut with the PC bullshit and face facts. White guys in their mid-60s are a menace and we need to focus law enforcement resources on them now.  The PC crowd is going to whine about stereotyping.  But the malign combination of curmudgeonly bad temper, marksmanship experience, and lack of rhythm so typical of this demographic is deadly.

[viper37]

But if one of the principal ends of the crime is to sow fear and terror in the general population  - as opposed to that being a collateral side effect - then in my book it's a terrorist attack.  So for example, Zodiac could be argued to be a terrorist, as opposed to Dahmer.

As I said, I would not consider the actions of the Mafia in the 90s or that of Pablo Escobar campaign against judges to be terrorism.  Yet the goals were to create terror in the general population: "Look at me how powerful I am.  Let me do what I want, and I will leave you all alone".  It's a message to the population to elect the right kind of politicians, and to the cops to leave them alone otherwise they die.

The facts still are coming in on Paddock but at first glance it looks like a terrorist attack to me.

I might be missing some facts here, because it seems similar to a serial killer in my case.  But Malthus gave us some study that made mass shooters and suicide terrorists really alike in their psychological profiles, so it's hard to determine.

[Eddie Teach]

First we had the Alexandria shooting, then this.  No one wants to say the obvious, but we need to cut with the PC bullshit and face facts. White guys in their mid-60s are a menace and we need to focus law enforcement resources on them now.  The PC crowd is going to whine about stereotyping.  But the malign combination of curmudgeonly bad temper, marksmanship experience, and lack of rhythm so typical of this demographic is deadly.

Aren't you a white guy in his mid 60s?