Except that terrorists aren’t irrational and insane. They have a plan. Al Qaida, for example, wants the United States to pull all of its troops out of any Islamic country. And they’re going to kill Americans until we do this. They’ve been saying this all along.
Now this is evil but it’s not irrational or insane. And it’s not beyond the ability of a sane and rational person to understand. And understanding it doesn’t mean you agree with it or support it or are going to give in to it.
This is the most simplistic, least useful explanation for crime I’ve ever seen. “Why do people commit violent acts? Gosh, who knows! It’s a mystery!”
People do things for reasons; even Meatwad understands that. There are insane people everywhere, so if that’s your explanation, why is it that only a few groups are known for committing acts of terrorism?
I agree with Stephe96. This is a slogan, not a policy. Just a little pablum for the masses to make them overlook the incompetence of US foreign policy.
There is nothing sane or rational about their plan. And just because they have very complicated plans, and are able to build bombs out of a potato and duct-tape doesn’t change that fact.
Insanity is often discribed as performing the same action over and over expecting a different result. You gave the example of Bin Laden wanting the US military out of every Islamic country. First, this isn’t a rational idea. The second problem is that his “solution” is to kill Americans–at random. But if Americans are hard to find, he’ll kill Spanairds, or Britons, maybe some Africans, perhaps a resort in Bali, or maybe just tip over a few mailboxes. Most of us on this board are rational people, and we can all see the flaws with bin Laden’s so called ‘plan.’ A rational person, wanting the US out of Islamic countries would more likely go through a very different route to achieve their goal, starting with the Islamic country that allowed the US bases in the first place.
It all boils down to: we disagree with US foreign policy, so we’ll kill Americans. What part of that is sane or rational?
My point, again, is that I believe we as a society need to stop tolerating terrorism as if its a justifiable response to US military presence in Islamic countries, or theft of Palestinian land, or over taxation.
Why?
It’s strange what illogical things people will do if they don’t see any other possible way. Like tipping crates of tea into the Boston harbour, for instance.
And who exactly is justifying or tolerating it??? :dubious:
You do understand the difference between seeking to explain, and justifying?
As long as you want to stop people explaining terrorism, and trying to paint it as the acts of plain madmen, you immediately close off any possible way of defeating it.
emacknight, I’m afraid the problem here is that while you may not get the rational of OBL’s plans, that does not mean that there is no rational reason. And it’s not like you’re supplying an alternative approach for him to achieve his goals, are you?
And I’d be very careful about that bit with the “we don’t agree with your foreign policy, so we kill Americans”. Your point being, apparently, that it’s unjustifiable to kill Americans, but perfectly okay if, in “disagreements over foreign policy”, others die – for every war is, at its core, a disagreement over foreign policy. Killing people in pursuance of a disagreement over foreign policy is par for the course.
And you’re STILL not getting the difference between a justification and an explanation. Provide a cite where any reasonable source (you’ll spare me the Ward Churchills and I’ll spare you the Ann Coulters) actually attempted to justify the terror, and I’ll go out and say that yeah, we really shouldn’t be doing THAT. But it’s not like it’s a general policy that is currently hampering U.S. efforts at stopping the terror. There’s plenty of other things that should stop, and many that should start, in order to help the fight against terror.
Is this the description given by psychiatrists, or by Hollywood?
It’s no less rational an idea than wanting “all countries to enjoy freedom”, for example.
Extremist Islamists view moderate Muslims, let alone anyone else, as enemies. Not a nice view, no. But you haven’t shown it to be irrational.
True, but when I hear this phrase I think of politicians who object to the Patriot Act I wonder how seriously they take the threat. So it is not unreasonable to say we have less than 100% tolerance.
Are you saying the Patriot Act will stop terrorism?
One of the major problems in defeating terrorism is overreacting. Where do you think terrorists and their supporters come from? Guantanamo Bay, invading Iraq etc - these actions create more terrorists.
To give an example, the current London bombings appear to be the work of British Muslims. So should we here in the UK round up all British Muslims and pop them into a prison camp without trial?
And would you then write “When I think of politicians who object to the internment of British Muslims, I wonder how seriously they take the threat. So it is not unreasonable to say we have less than 100% tolerance.”?
Yes, the Patriot Act will stop terrorism. It will also stop global warming and people from asking questions they already know the answer to.
And Yes, you should round up British Muslims and put them into internment camps. That will solve everything because it’s common knowledge that only British Muslims are involved.
Just in case that fails, your elected officials could pass laws that allow quicker access to search warrants. Certainly, if you don’t gain a better foothold on intelligence information you will eventually have a camera on every street corner.
When I hear of politicians who support the Fourth Amendment, I wonder how seriously they take the threat of terrorism. Just think how many more terrorists we could catch if we were able to search any property at any time for any reason.
Same goes for that pesky Third Amendment. If we could just quarter a few soldiers in the homes of suspected terrorists, we’d be able to find out exactly what they’re up to, and the military presence would keep them in line.
That Sixth Amendment is a problem too. If we give terrorists a trial, there’s a chance they might get off on some technicality, or because we’re missing some piddling piece of “evidence”. They might go free and then blow up some more of our skyscrapers. If we could just sentence them without a trial, we’d know for sure that they aren’t running free.
Wait, no, that’s not what I think. That’s what someone would think if he were so paralyzed by fear that he were willing to give up the freedoms that make this country great, just to feel a little more secure.
Since the Patriot Act doesn’t do any of those things I’m not sure what your point is.
I’m sorry you missed it. My point is that although giving up our civil liberties and allowing the government to spy on our affairs could reduce crime in some cases, most of us don’t think it’s worth it. I would rather have privacy without security than security without privacy.
Perhaps you feel that any invasion of your privacy (PDF) is OK as long as it doesn’t extend to actually repealing those amendments?
You’re cite doesn’t explain how the Patriot Act threatens these amendments. Seriously, it’s just a one page flyer that makes the statement that our freedoms are “threatened”. The ACLU, while not my favorite organization, has my support as watchdog group for any and all political activity they think is detrimental to the US Constitution. I disagree with their premise that it was rushed through Congress. The Act is not that hard to read and any representative could have had it summarized for review.
I’ve read through the Patriot Act and I am not afraid of it in its current state. It bothers me that politicians decided to exclude library record searches because that is the first thing I thought of when 9/11 happened. The Internet is the most logical method of communication worldwide and the anonymity of libraries is the perfect conduit. While I respect your concern for potential loss of freedom I feel the threat posed by terrorists is far greater than most people realize. I would like any access to library records to fall under the same rules used to tap a phone.
The Patriot Act has been the subject of many threads here, and I doubt anything I cite is going to change your mind if you’re already convinced it poses no threat to privacy. And for the record, I’m not making any claims about whether the act affects our 3rd, 4th, or 6th amendment rights, I was just using them as examples to make a general point about privacy vs. law enforcement powers.
You realize library records are more than just logs of who used the internet at what time, right?
Jeese Louise. I already agreed the Patriot Act is worth keeping an eye on. Posing a threat is different than a threat. Get back to me when it’s a threat. Right now the only direct Constitutional threat to me is the recent change in eminent domain laws.
And yes, I realize its more than internet records. Do you realize your library records are already available to police through a search warrant? The Patriot Act was designed to accelerate the process of the search. Can this be abused? Probably. Worth keeping an eye on? Yup.
Let’s see what happened.
Osama bin Laden made a public declaration in October 2003 that any country with troops in Iraq would be a target for terrorist attacks. He specifically mentioned Spain, which had 1300 troops in Iraq, as one of these targets. On March 11, 2004, Al Qaeda blew up several targets in Madrid killed almost 200 people. The Spanish Prime Minister brought home all Spanish troops in Iraq in July.
The Philipines had a military presense in Iraq. On July 15, 2004, Angelo de la Cruz, a Filipinio citizen, was abducted and threatened with death if the Philipines did not withdraw its troops. A withdrawal was announced on July 20.
Other nations which have announced they are pulling their troops out of Iraq in the face of terrorist threats against its citizens include the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Kazakhstan, New Zealand, Nicuaragua, Portugal, Singapore, and Thailand. Bulgaria, Italy, Japan, and South Korea have not pulled out all troops but have reduced troop levels. The Netherlands which was planning on sending troops announced it would not send them.
So you want to explain to me how you think terrorist threats never work? And how terrorists are insane and irrational if they think they do?
I have no idea what the Patriot Act has to do with this debate, especially since the topic at hand faces countries that haven’t developed a patriot act of their own yet.
I’d like to move away from the generic discussion about Islamic Freedom Fighters vs US Colonialists and focus on a guy named Andrew Kehoe. In 1927, Kehoe packed the Bath Consolidated School with dynomite and killed 45 people. He also shot his wife and burned down his farm.
The explanation given was that Kehoe was resentful of the school because its construction raised his taxes, leading to the loss of his farm.
So, we have an explanation for why he did it. Does that help us? Are we now less likely to have an over-taxed farmer blow up a school? Should municiple and state officials be reminded of this situation when ever they consider a tax increase?
GorillaMan, Enterprise, Fustile; was this the work of a sane and rational man (keep in mind how hard he worked and how elaborate his plan was)? Was this action justified to keep Big Government from raising out taxes and building schools?
Long before any of those incidents, bin Laden made the declaration that if the US didn’t remove troops from Islamic land he would wage war. They didn’t so he blew up the World Trade Towers and part of the Pentagon.
The US took over Afghanistan, and then Iraq, and significantly increased their military presence in Islamic countries. The US also brought along a few thousand other foreign troops along for the ride.
Net result, more foreign troops on Islamic land.
This issue is far larger than just Islamic terrorists and US foreign policy.
It helps us rule out the presents of some kind of Russian conspiracy to blow up schools, for example. Are you seriously
If there were a history of schools getting blown up whenever taxes were raised, then yeah, they probably should be. That says nothing about whether a tax increase is right or wrong, of course, simply that a pragmatic official should be aware of the connection between tax hikes and dead schoolchildren. In this case, however, it seems it was an isolated incident.
Sane? Not enough information to tell, unless you have evidence of actual mental illness (one event does not make a diagnosis). Rational? No, his actions did nothing to further his interests. Justified? Of course not, what a silly question.
That said, though… I wouldn’t really call it terrorism, and a quick Google and Wikipedia search suggests that only a couple sources actually do. There was no threat, no ultimatum, no larger political movement.
It’s like a man who murders his wife after catching her in bed with a lover. We can explain that easily: he killed her because she was cheating. That doesn’t justify the crime, nor does it mean that cheating spouses should expect to be murdered, nor does it make him a terrorist advancing some pro-marital-fidelity agenda.