Minardil wrote:Dude, I'm not sure how much more "serious" a discussion you could ask for.
But setting aside the vigorous fisking you just endured, perhaps you could provide specific examples of anyone here actively supporting a policy of, as you put it, "giving the terrorists what they want". I'd like to see some actual quotes of folks here advocating these so we can, you know, discuss them. Seriously.
Vigorous fisking? My, how the standards have fallen around here.
Let me wade into Jnyusa's cloud of ink after all.
Jnyusa wrote:1. "not inexplicable:" An explanation probably does exist if we dig deep enough but there is also some chance that we will never find it. I give this statement an 80% probability of being literally true.
The explanation was provided by the perpetrators themselves, and it is quite sufficient. I suppose if one dismisses it on no particular basis and seeks an alternative explanation that satisfies artificial demands of someone not interested in explaining, we might indeed never find it.
2. "periphery of organized thought:" Since there is no evidence of this for the bombers in question, I give this a 20% chance of being right.
Again, the terrorists themselves (not sure why you keep calling them bombers when in the incidents discussed they were mainly shooters) declared allegiance to a specific ideology, and there is no reason to not take their word on it.
4. "tens of thousands wishing:" Surely any estimate of what goes on in other people's head would be pure guesswork. Probability = 50%
Unless there are polls, of which there are plenty.
5. "hundreds of thousands vocal:" From videos of post 9/11 I would put this number in the thousands, possibly the tens of thousands, but not the hundreds of thousands. Probability = 20%
The choice of "post 9/11 videos" as the sole source of estimating the vocal support for terrorism among Muslims suggests that if it's not on camera, it doesn't exist. Lousy logic to say the least.
Polls taken after the 7/11 bombings in Britain showed that 6% of Britain's Muslim population fully supported them. Given the size of the Muslim population of Britain at the time (around 2.5 million), that's some 150 000 people
in Britain alone willing to declare support for terrorism.
6. "millions agree:" Again, estimates of what people think in their own homes, particular when we know that they are also exposed to condemnation, would be pure guesswork. Probability = 50%
Unless, of course, opinion polls and other statistics are widely available and the person evaluating the statement possesses at least elementary Googling skills. Otherwise, it'd be pure guesswork of course.
(A 2010 Pew poll showed support among Muslims for attacks against civilians "in order to defend Islam" ranging from the low of 7% for German Muslims to 46% among Nigerian Muslims. The figure for Indonesia was 10% - that's 24 million people).
7. "true for leftist murderers:" I must presume you refer to the Bolsheviks and other communist revolutions that took place during the past era. I have a very different view of those historical developments. I put the probability that all revolutionaries are terrorists - which is your implication - at 1%. And I only give it 1% to prevent it from being 0% - my true opinion - because setting it equal to 0 would cause your entire argument to collapse probabilistically. And I don't think it is entirely without merit.
Why must you presume such things, when there are so many other examples of leftist terrorists throughout the 19th and 20th century? And where do I imply that all revolutionaries are terrorists? More interestingly, did you set out to evaluate the factuality of my claims or how well they fit
your view?
8. "true for Moslem bombers:" I take this statement to mean that today's bombers are identical to communist revolutionaries of yesterday. 1%, for the same reason give in #7.
Dismissed for the same reason given in #7.
9. "revolutionary movement:" Another unmediated equation to revolutionary movements. 1%, for the same reason given in #7 and #8
Likewise dismissed for the same reason given in #7 and #8.
10. "ideologues:" Ideologue implies a coherent connection to an articulated theory. I would be surprised if half of all terrorists would fulfill this description. 50%
You get a C- for reading comprehension, then.
I was, of course, describing the structure of your typical revolutionary movement, in which ideologues are the top layer. Suggesting that half of all terrorists
should fit that description for it to be valid is absurd. Numerically, cannon fodder always dominates, that's a given.
11. "rules for the world:" The truth of this statement rests upon one's definition of "rules." If you had said instead, "laying down the conditions they want for the world to be," I would give it 100%. But I would be surprised if half of all terrorists had as their goal a world in which every living person followed the rules of a particular brand of Islam. In fact, the minute we say 'particular brand of Islam' we know the same rules cannot be true for all terrorists. Let's say 'Islam' in general and give you 50%.
You'd be surprised, but public statements by both terrorist organization leaders AND by the cannon fodder's social media pronouncements often and very explicitly say exactly that - they want their brand of Islam to dominate the world. Most recently, ISIS made claims to that end with their declared ambition to eventually conquer "Rome" - Islamic code for the Christian lands - and releasing a rather elaborate instruction booklet explaining how they plan to accomplish it. That terrorist groups from different brands want to conquer the world for their particular brand of Islam doesn't render my claim invalid. They disagree on the particulars, not on the grand goal.
12. "designating the enemy:" But they do not all designate the same enemy, and the enemy is often poorly articulated. Do they all articular AN animosity? - yes, I would say so. Allowing for cases where the enemy is indecipherable and changeable, I will give this 80%.
The choice of enemies varies somewhat, but not too much. The Sunni juhadists designate the Shi'ite ones as enemies and vice versa, but outside of internal divisions within Islam itself, their lists of enemies overlap pretty neatly.
13. "propaganda apparatus:" This is demonstrably not true in all cases. You are expanding the ability of certain well-organized groups to capture all terrorist activities, and ignoring the selective influence of the media. Probability = 70%
So name me a revolutionary movement without a propaganda apparatus.
As for selective influence of the media, I don't see how it invalidates my point in any way. A good chunk of the media effectively furthers terrorist propaganda and attempts to whitewash them; back in 2006 I conclusively demonstrated that whitewashing in The Media Thread back in 2006 (the near-universal insistence of the major media outlets that the so-called "Prisoners' document" of Hamas included recognition of Israel, which the Hamas furuously insisted it wouldn't include, and it did not). It does not in any way mean that revolutionary movements and terrorist groups do not possess a propaganda apparatus of their own.
15. "radicals with pliable minds:" Not all radicals have pliable minds (as opposed to analytical minds?) Guesswork=50%
Since I did not use the word "all" or imply so, your C- in reading comprehension is hereby downgraded to a D-.
17. "Not everyone who murders for the cause is carrying out a direct order, but it does not mean that they are committing incomprehensible random violence."
It also does not mean that they are not committing random violence. Let's say that in the absence of a direct order we have to look for other explanations. The scenario presented above would not be my first choice of explanations since I gave it a probability of 0.000000028 of being correct in its entirety.
An organization issues a call to commit violence against a particular set of targets. An individual with openly declared affinity for the same ideology as the aforementioned organization - moreover, openly declared (on their social media) allegiance to said organization commits violence against targets that fit the profile outlined by said organization. Even if there is no direct order, only someone who is absolutely determined to deny the connection - say, you or Barack Obama's spokesmen - can describe such violence as "random". (#jesuisbunchofrandomfolksinadeli)
18. "These are not the true lone wolves, living in the woods dreaming to satisfy a need for violence that even their parents don't understand"
Ignoring the lovely metaphor of the woods, and presuming that you inserted the word "true" to allow for leeway, some of the thousands of people you described in #4 and #16 would fit this description very well - dreaming of violence (a pathology of its own) and ripened for the opportunity to act upon it. Both statements cannot be true: that they are like this and that they are not like this. I gave you 50% before, so that seems to have been a good Bernoulli guesstimate. 50% now.
For one, violence is not in and of itself a pathology, it's a method of accomplishing a goal. It may not be a socially acceptable method in some societies, but there is no basis for declaring it a pathology without actual psychiatric evaluation of the subjects. If you possess results of such evaluation, please share.
Secondly, you're simply trying to create a convoluted interpretation to obscure the obvious. Someone like the Paris gumen, inspired by clear outside influence and demonstrating coordination of attack with others (there's evidence that both Paris attacks' perpetrators knew each other and had history of cooperating with other terrorists) cannot be described as a "lone wolf" in the sense of acting alone without outside assistance or influence.
Statements about Condition
19. "This is not crime fighting, the dynamics are completely different"
I accept that this is your opinion. You don't contrast the tactics of fighting crime with the tactics of fighting terrorism to explain why you think they are different, so I can't address your opinion as if it were a logical statement, nor prove it wrong, nor prove it right.
My entire post explained the difference, I believe.
20. "and the streets that need policing are not just the ones that you control."
This is self-evidently true since the event we are discussing happened in France, while the rest of us in the thread are in the US or in Israel.
And you gracefully glide past the obvious again. Let me spell out the ever-so-hidden meaning of the above sentence - the streets that need policing are not just the ones of the Western states where terrorism happens. The source of the problem is in hostile territories of the Middle East and North Africa, and genuinely tackling it with police or SWAT action is impossible.
21. "SWAT teams and SEAL teams only go so far."
Also self-evidently true. We did not invade Iraq using a SWAT team. But the SEALS did a good job on Osama bin Laden. So they are potentially the most effective option in some cases.
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The SEALS did a good job on Osama bin Laden... long after it could have made any meaningful impact on Al Qaeda in particular or Islamic terrorism in general. Had they taken bin Laden out a couple of months after 9/11, that would at least have some psychological impact as a swift and efficient retaliation. Ten years after the fact - what impact had it made?
More importantly, the kind of SEAL action that was done to kill bin Laden could well constitute a casus belli had it been done in a non-allied country just as an airstrike would have, and perhaps more so since it involved actual foreign invasion. It could not have been done in, say, Iran, or even nominally allied Turkey. So once again, 'police and SEAL team" strategy means you cannot tackle transnational terrorism if the terrorists are smart enough to operate out of "streets you can't control".
Got more ink?