Terrorism

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Is there anyone who sincerely believes that Islamic terrorism is a real and present danger? Surely western policies are actually creating and radicalising terorrists? Our approach to terrorism is similar to our approach to drugs insofar as they both make the situation far worse.

Terrorism is touted as the biggest threat to the west but our politicians are eroding our freedoms and invading our lives more and more brazenly under this pretext. The real and present danger is this process!

Last edited by Ectryon on 23 Aug 2014, 11:12 am, edited 3 times in total.

To me personally, sitting at my computer in Northern France, "no". To many people living in other countries very much "yes".

Terrorism is also a real a present danger to a small number of people in the west (i.e. Europe and America) e.g. in England where terrorists ambushed a soldier and cut off his head or other terrorist actions take place e.g. bombings.

The current relatively small threat in the west does not mean it should be ignored though or it may grow like a cancer and then become a very real danger to everyone and our way of life.

There is always the potential for terrorism but the probability varies by location. I don't lie awake at night and worry about it.

Terrorism has many forms. The United States is full of terrorists. Violence does not have to be present for terrorism to exist. Words can be a form of terrorism if directed in specific ways. Terrorism is not always about death.

^ Agreed.

The worst non-lethal fear-mongering can get people just as riled up.

I don't know how serious a threat these guys pose to people outside or Iraq and Syria. It's quite easy to break things, so even a bunch of backward fools can cause a lot of trouble. (We have plenty here in the US already.) The OP is right that the government can use this as an excuse for more war-powers.

(Moderator edit: No personal insults please, it is against the site rules. TallyMan)

Last edited by Atom1966 on 23 Aug 2014, 11:51 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Terrorism doesn't exist in a vacuum, they aren't supervillians doing it just for kicks. Most threats the US faces are created by themselves and that is conveniently ignored whenever we decide to face these threats and thus we have a never ending cycle.

The US government is directly responsible for the rise of al-Qaeda and now ISIS the group they say is even more dangerous. If we ever want it to end, we have to look at ourselves first.

Victim blaming.

those perpetrating terrorism usually consider themselves victims of an earlier aggression

Yes, they tend to blame their own failures on America and the Jews.

America and Israel certainly are not without fault

True. They are too soft. Anyway...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conspiracy ... Arab_world

The motivation of these jihadists and their sympathizers are pretty simple, it is usually "they kill Muslims" or "they occupy our land." Doing more of the same isn't going to solve the problem, you can bomb and kill the problem away in fact that just perpetuates it. Jeremy Scahill has a great documentary called 'Dirty Wars' that is available on Netflix that might have come away with a different point of view on America's wars.

This notion is understandable given a too narrow time frame. I think it was General Mattis who compared the current conflict to the American Indian Wars, which went on for quite some time.

A lot of people consider what was done to the American Indian to be a genocide so what are suggesting?

Mattis was simply giving an estimate, suggesting the current conflict could drag out just like the American Indian Wars. For some, this could seem like a perpetual war, possibly due to the fact that their own lifespan is shorter. "Someday this war's gonna end," but not during our lifetime.