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Comment by gcatalfamo | Hacker News Reader

This is how you create terrorists. What do you think the children and friends feelings towards the US will be from now on? People get radicalized for much less than that.

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Also stories like this will be passed down for generations to recruit new jihadists/terrorists. They use this stuff as proof that the USA is anti-muslim or to prove that there is a war against muslims going on. You simply cannot bomb your way out of resolving the terrorism issue. This will probably have the same effectiveness as the war on drugs: lots of money spent....little to no impact on drug smuggling/drug abuse etc.

> They use this stuff as proof that the USA is anti-muslim or to prove that there is a war against muslims going on.

And the worst thing is: from a policy perspective (obviously not arguing about every single US citizen) that's really hard to argue with, given which countries the US has entered into armed conflicts with, which groups of people are most picked upon by politicians, etc.

I think 'entered into armed conflict with' is a judicious way to put it, given 9/11 and the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Neither of these are fights the USA would have freely chosen.

But for every confict in which the USA is fighting one group of Muslims, it's doing so to protect or ally with another group of Muslims. The Afghan government are Muslims, the elected Iraqi government are Muslims, the victims of IS and the Taliban are overwhelmingly Muslims. Saudi Arabia, the west's biggest ally in the region is Muslim. We are allying with tens of millions of Muslims against groups consisting of thousands of Muslims. The west has far, far more Muslim allies than Muslim enemies.

Luckily (for muslims), the focus of racism is slowly changing to Chinese people now. It is as if Americans (and most others) can't exist without an ethnicity to be mad about.

This seems to surprise everyone though, and I don't understand why.

I remember in the early days of our being in Afghanistan, there were a few media pieces reporting that they remembered the last time the British were there, 100 or 150 years ago. The tone was very much that it was somehow surprising the Afghans brought this up again.

Yet Britain and the US are built on national history, myths and memories. The US has a huge national story around independence and the push west into the frontier. The UK has our tales and myths of 1940 and 1066. Scots still remember "the 45" (that's 1745). Why wouldn't Afghanistan or Iraq?

People should travel (and live!) more abroad for a while. As you wrote, many seem to be surprised that the people living in Asia, Africa, etc. are humans too (in the sense of: people with history, dreams, expectations on life, etc.)

My hope is that the Internet will have the positive effect of removing this misperception in the long run.

Personally, my eyes were opened quite a while ago when the US dropped one of the largest conventional bombs on some mountain region in Afghanistan where they suspected Taliban leaders to hide out. The next day some guy on Reddit wrote (loosely paraphrased) "Hey, that's were I always travel with my motorbike! Glad I wasn't there when that bomb went down..." and posted a picture of where the bomb hit, with his motorbike in the foreground.

The British oppressed the Irish for 800 years with a systematic destruction of culture and contribution to genocide which halved the population and then recently had the audacity to assume Ireland would be allies during Brexit negotiations.

The negotiations and the deal were extremely dumb in many ways (as is Brexit overall), but this is a really weird take on it. It does make sense that Britain would try to use the fact that Ireland has a substantial amount of trade with the UK and it is not inconceivable that Ireland might therefore in its own self-interest want some sort of deal.

Weird or not, that's the take in many places, Ireland and Afghanistan alike. A modest proposal, eh?

You're mistaken if you think that even the more recent atrocities like the great famine or the violent oppression of the Irish home rule (and ultimately independence) movement have informed the Irish response to Brexit negotiations. It is to their credit that they're pragmatic people, since they could easily dish out a black-eye to the UK if they wanted to.

If Éire had a few UK sponsored drone bombings I’d bet that would change real quick. Otherwise I take your point.

We have a PM who is filmed responding to a protester in front of dozens of press and TV cameras at an event with "there's no press here", while hearing constant shutter clicks audible in the background. That he's completely tone deaf dealing with the EU, our neighbours or electorate shouldn't be the least bit surprising.

That said, since Irish independence there has been a good degree of desired closeness between the two countries, not least the passport free freedom of movement and voting, which survived the worst of the NI violence. Looking back that can seem surprising. Record numbers of Brits have been applying for Irish passports (a remarkably high number are eligible) since the Brexit vote.

Yep. Gunboat diplomacy is not a good way to spread democracy.

I think by bombing other countries and use other military power, US is establishing a target for the terrorists and prone terrorist people, shout out for a peaceful way to solve issues, anyway, it not the policy makers and politicians that got retaliated, it's the innocent civilians.

>hey use this stuff as proof that the USA is anti-muslim or to prove that there is a war against muslims going on.

isn't there though? https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-49764305

Don't forget when Trump said killing terrorists families, really shortly after the clips were in terrorist recruitment videos.

Comparing the reactions between this (seemlingly little) reported incident, and the attack on Saudi oil facilites (zero fatalities) is an interesting exercise.

edit: added word 'Saudi'

very good point, i didn't think about

Yeh the difference in the press' reactions between the two is pretty stark. However the most interesting thing about the Saudi attack is the faux outrage at the idea that _Iranian_ arms were used in the attack. As if it's totally cool that British and American arms are used by the Saudis to flatten Yemen but the idea that the Houthis can strike back with Iranian-provided arms is somehow a despicable disgrace.

Do you think it might have something to do with one attack reducing the nut harvesting capacity of that town by 50%, versus the other reducing the oil output of Saudi Arabia by 50%?

Or maybe because one was a tactical op gone horribly wrong based on bad intel from the ground, and the other was a well planned and highly coordinated strategic op designed to destabilize international markets?

> This is how you create terrorists.

Um no, you are wrong.

_What USA does_ is terrorism. When you drop bombs on people out of nowhere, that's called terrorism. Sorry if you're an American but you've got some learning to do about the biggest terrorist organization in the world before calling others a terrorist. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRbnPA3fd5U

> A U.S. drone strike intended to hit an Islamic State (IS)

Then what does the IS represent to you? The good guys?

ah yes. the perfect centrist. if you aren't black vs white, why are you playing chess?

Aristotelian logic is flawed.

Only in some situations. In a lot of situations it works as intended. The crucial point is being able to distinguish when it applies and when it doesn't.

This is not a small thing, it easily steers your life only to where it works. In other words your life becomes a slave of your limited logic, it makes you optimize your life for the logic to be a safe and working.

bit of a flawed response really. i cant think of many subject matters that are more nuanced than middle-eastern affairs. almost nothing is black and white in this area

Um no, you are wrong.

"A U.S. drone strike intended to hit an Islamic State (IS) hideout"

Oh ok sorry, that's fine then.

And the Islamic State is finished with this strike?

I urge you to take a closer look at U.S. drone strike programs and how effective they are. It's closer to 0 than it is to 100%. The U.S. takes no responsibility for its actions in the world stage, like ever. Have you even seen US held accountable for anything?

Yeah if US wasn't so hell-bent to be excluded from International Court of Justice in Hague, we would see quite a few US servicemen (and mercenaries from companies like Blackwater), err sorry 'patriots' being tried there and getting long/life sentences.

But that ain't gonna happen, ever.

> When you drop bombs on people out of nowhere, that's called terrorism

Only if the motive for dropping those bombs is to advance a political/ideological agenda.

We need to be very clear that "terrorism" has a very specific meaning. It's not just a group or individual who terrorises.

This definition only reinforces the parent's point. What it rules out as "not terrorism" is regular organized crime, which isn't too much into bombings anyway. Bombs are almost never used without a political/ideological agenda, because they're too expensive and require too much coordination to make, maintain and deploy.

By that logic, you could describe WWII as just a bunch of terrorists who disagreed.

Which of course, nobody does.

Except that to some extent, they do. When my country was occupied by the Nazi Germany, people who fought back were called freedom fighters by us. They were called terrorists by the Nazis.

Sure, but I don't think that extent is useful for the purposes of this discussion.

FWIW, you and I are likely from the same country.

My point being, one country's terrorist is another country's freedom fighter. There is some nuance here, but we're talking about somewhat random and indiscriminate murder of civilians who may or may not be connected to a military group in hopes people at large will stop supporting that group. There's a political agenda in there, and there's death of innocent civilians. There's strong element of fear too - I remember reading articles about drone strikes in Pakistan years ago, in which it was reported that the locals developed a fear of clear blue sky. A fear of good weather, because that's when drones come.

If one objects to calling it terrorism because they're really trying to hit the combatants only, and objects to calling it a war crime because technically there's no war with an internationally recognized nation state, then how should we call it?

You're wrong, all those WWII resistance fighters were by definition terrorists to germans/japanese. Its just that US marketing over-used the term in past decade and a half to label anybody inconvenient as a justified target for extermination because 'national security'

Genuine question: if the motivation for this bombing was not political or ideological, what was it then?

I think terrorism is killing random members of a population to scare the others into some political or ideological change. It wouldn't count if it was targeted at fighters and civilians got killed by accident.

That sounds like a reasonable definition. But how would this definition qualify the Taliban attacks on military bases and police stations in Afghanistan?

I think one would need to put something like that as a guerrilla war.

There needs to be a distinction between:

* attacking civilians (terrorism)

* attacking The System, but going for softer targets and not taking its military might directly head on (guerilla war)

* attacking The System, in a Military v Military setting (regular warfare)

While there are groups that will never have the direct strength to take a head on fight, I think it's beneficial to have a category showing that they limit their targets to agents of the system rather than any random civilian.

It was an accident.

Sure, but what was the motivation for dropping the bombs if you say it was not political or ideological?

Is the killing of tens of millions of civilians so far with sanctions an accident too? If you can kill them with sanctions why not with drone strikes?

This is such an inane counter-argument.

Is it really? You're fighting by instilling fear in the enemy and mostly killing civilians.

But also, the US should be held accountable for its actions.

I ... kind of see the point. Do you have a more substantial counter argument?

Just stop. Absolutely stop equating these things.

The world as we know it, the progress in art, science, and humanities. The cures for polio, infant mortality and poverty dropping.

The website you are currently using to spread poison.

Those are all “_What USA does_”

Cut it out with this evil language.

Good you mention cures for polio. The US does both cures for polio and ensuring polio exists and spreads, by virtue of CIA pretending to be agents of vaccination charities, which killed polio eradication efforts in some places.

Point being, the US does a lot of things. Some good, some bad. You don't get to trade the good things for the bad things. There could be progress in art, science and humanities without indiscriminate drone bombings of innocent civilians worldwide.

I mean - the US can simultaneously do very good things and very bad things.

I don't see how that prevents an organization from doing terrorist actions. In fact, it's fairly common, for example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hezbollah_social_services

How dare people criticize the U.S. They certainly created art, science and the humanities, not to mention put them in books to civilize all those shithole countries?

I was not aware that curing polio is a global absolution of sins.

I think the downvotes you got speak for itself. I am not even gonna bother answering.

Also USA has some of the highest infant mortality and poverty rates in the western world.

I mean, the US are not even 250 years old and built by immigrants. The rest of the world didn't wait for them for science, medicine, art and philosophy. From a social standpoint they're still 20-30 years behind most EU countries for example.

I think most americans fail to recognise how much propaganda they're constantly fed about how great the US are. From the outside it almost looks like a parody, especially since Trump is in the office. Example: https://www.vox.com/2014/6/16/5814270/the-successful-70-year...

It sounds like you judge people by the consequences of their actions rather than their intentions. I tend to agree with that way of thinking but many people do the opposite and believe intentions are the morally superior way of judging good and bad.

The trouble with judging by actions is it makes everybody bad, including the judge! I suspect that's why people don't like it. Since nearly everyone believes their own intentions are good, judging by intentions preserves their own sense of goodness even if they contribute to a few killings by accident/negligence.

When it comes to this, taking intent on faith isn't good enough. Vietnam, a possible war of aggression in Iraq, illegal drone strikes in Pakistan, public threats and shows of force - the stick isn't subtle and I think it's fair to question whether it's measured (and what it means if it isn't).

I actually think I'm right of center on this issue in general, I just wish we called it as it is.

That's a fine and dandy distinction until it's not.

If you keep punching me in the face while claiming it was your intention to punch someone else I'm going to come to the conclusion sooner rather than later that you're lying or stupid or incompetent – either way I'm going to do something about it rather than continue to let you punch me in the face.

Is it too much to ask that a lot more effort be expended in not mowing down innocent civilians while prosecuting the so-called global-war-on-terror?

Even if the USA's intentions were good, they can be blamed for choosing the wrong kind of action.

It is well known that drone strikes are terribly inaccurate and therefore the risk for civilian casualties is high.

Splitting hairs.

This is how the cycle of violence is perpetuated.

Better?

> This is how you create terrorists.

Which the war machine needs in order to grow.

Which the politicians need in order to get elected (Some people want "strong" leaders, for this definition of strong).

No, this is how you create market-share for Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grumman etc.

yip, can't buy new weapons if you don't use the ones you already have

More like: you bomb them, they eventually find a way to strike back at you, and then you say you need more weapons and better weapons so "such tragedy never happens again".

With what the US had done, and continues to do, can you really blame them?

-- deleted --

Why not just kill those children and friends then, since we have reasonable expectation that they will become radicalized? We already extensively kill the family and children of terrorists

I hear this a lot but is there any basis for this? Were any of the 9/11 attackers widowed/orphaned by the US? Or were they just whipped up in religious fervor and an abstract idea of a cultural war with the US?

And does it go the other way? Do you create violent anti-Islamists when Muslims commit terror attacks? Were the orphans of 9/11 more likely to sign up for the US military, or commit hate crimes against Muslims than their non-directly-affected peers?

Well we have been bombing a Muslim majority country for 18 years. That probably counts.

Counts for what? My question was about the basis for terrorism, not about the facts of bombing campaigns.

Terrorism is a label slapped on violence that breaks some arbitrary rules someone thinks ought to be followed.

Were the founding fathers terrorists? The British sure thought so...

You can be the gatekeeper of that word all you want, just know that you're playing that role.

The British thought the founding fathers were rebels, which is not the same thing as terrorists(not that they had that word to use anyway)

Nope, rebel is the positive (or at least neutral) version of terrorist, the terrorist for your side.

This exact oratory slight of hand is used constantly in media, virtue signaling through word choice.

No, there is a vast difference in tactics between rebels and terrorists. Rebels may use terrorism, terrorists may be rebels, but the two are not synonyms.

> not about the facts of bombing campaigns

Calling indiscriminately killing civilians something as generic as "a bombing campaign" is like calling 9/11 "a training flight gone wrong".

There was a wave of anti- Muslim hate crime in the US after 9/11, although not by any of the specific families of the victims.

> Do you create violent anti-Islamists when Muslims commit terror attacks?

Yes? E.g. after the murder of Lee Rigby in the UK there was a small wave of attempted arson on mosques.

>Were any of the 9/11 attackers widowed/orphaned by the US? Or were they just whipped up in religious fervor and an abstract idea of a cultural war with the US?

It's so sad that you don't know this.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/nov/24/theobserver

>Full text: bin Laden's 'letter to America'

>As for the first question: Why are we fighting and opposing you? The answer is very simple:

>(1) Because you attacked us and continue to attack us.

Funny how a CEOs public letter is looked at with more skepticism than OBL on here.

Cannot upvote this enough. Folks just don't want to know the truth: Asymmetric war just guarantees more war.

> And does it go the other way? Do you create violent anti-Islamists when Muslims commit terror attacks? Were the orphans of 9/11 more likely to sign up for the US military, or commit hate crimes against Muslims than their non-directly-affected peers?

Yes, of course it does. Hell, even on the recent 9/11 HN thread there were people who said they joined the military after the towers collapsed. It's only natural reaction when your nation gets attacked, and it works the same everywhere.

It's best to think of this as a single self-perpetuating process, with a strong feedback loop of hate and suffering inside. So the US bombs some Muslim countries, and eventually some group manages to pull off a 9/11 in retaliation. US reacts to this by utterly destroying several countries, and in reaction, ISIS is born. Which then US and others attempt to bomb out of existence. Rinse, lather, repeat. A kills B's people, B retaliates by killing A's people, A retaliates to retaliation by killing B's people, ...

It’s just not a loop.

Jihadists aren’t in a loop. That’s a myth. Jihad is real to them, and they are attacking non believers.

The stated motivation for the 9/11 attacks were the presence of U.S. airbases in Saudi Arabia. Not revenge for some past hurt or attack.

Why does everyone presume that what they say isn’t what they mean?

Oh they are in the loop, even if they don't see it.

This is how religion is used to get people to do things. You can read anything you like from a religious book; you'll find justification for anything if you comb for quotes enough. This makes religion a glue, or an amplifier, not a prescriber of behavior.

Consider Christianity - the religion that gave us half of what's nice about the Western culture. That same religion using that same, unchanging book, set half of Europe aflame multiple times, for ostensibly religious reasons. When you look at it from outside it looks ridiculous, and when you study history you discover obvious political goals behind the crusades and other European wars - but then, a lot of people fighting and directing forces believed they do it because "God commands it".

It's no different with Islam. Jihad is just an excuse to get people to fight and die for political causes. If the political reasons disappear, they'll soon find an excuse to not fight, and Jihad will again become "the internal struggle".

Doesn't Western culture look back on Roman and especially Greek times as their founding myth?

It does, that's why I said "half of" not "everything". The Western culture is built as much on Roman and Greek legacy as it is on Christianity in Europe. So e.g. while a lot of classical literature is Greek/Roman, classical art and music is mostly from Christianity (and usually religious or semi-religious in nature).

Someone else in this thread posted this [0]. They don't say what you tell us they say.

[0] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/nov/24/theobserver

> Your forces occupy our countries; you spread your military bases throughout them; you corrupt our lands, and you besiege our sanctities, to protect the security of the Jews and to ensure the continuity of your pillage of our treasures.

Did you read your own source? Yes, there's more to it than what OP said, but it is true that this was a motivation.

Yeah, yeah. Beliefs gets mixed on, always. But do you seriously believe the Troubles in Ireland were over theological hair splitting about who is the head of the Holy Church? Yet, it was always framed, even in my school books, as a conflict between Catholics and Protestants. Very puzzling if it were only that.

I love how hn is all about logical discussion and data, but when the topic is emotional enough, now anecdotes count for something.

Considering America has concentrated a large number of bombs on Afghanistan, why are they underrepresented in terrorist bombing of American targets? Why didn't the US see a spate of attacks from Cambodia in the 70s?

These are all great stories that have been talked about. But unless there is some kind of supporting evidence, these are still just stories.

I don't know the answers to your questions, but they are good questions. Not inconsistent with the image of a feedback process I presented. As a supporting evidence, I can say that every single case of terrorism or genocide I recall from both news and history lessons always has the perpetrators retaliating for some perceived or real injustice that happened to them, or their forefathers, in the past. Circle of violence isn't a new concept.

No it's not. These types of comments are extremely inappropriate. Your comment tries to suggest that:

1. Terrorists are people with legitimate grievances

2. Terrorists are representatives of oppressed people

3. Terrorists have genuine reasons for their actions

All of these things are false. People do not turn into international, careless murderers just because they experience travesty. Terrorists exploit this concept to try to give themselves legitimacy, but the reality is that it's highly removed from the actual reality of what's happening.

You know what does create terrorists though?

1. Sanctions and

2. Funding of militias.

These are things that everyone - except for isolationists - stand behind and support.

----

Thanks for the 5 downvotes in 10 minutes! Feel free to help me (someone from the region who was directly caught up in not one but two American wars) understand why I should be a terrorist now. I'll also forward the comments to my cousin who was working inside a Red Cross clinic hit by a US airstrike so she also knows what to think. Thanks in advance HN!

Because your average farmer is obviously going to join up with a militia or terrorist group because of some abstract political thing like sanctions, which he probably has trouble even measuring in his day to life.

As opposed to your elected politicians and your military having blown up his daughter at her wedding, scattering her remains over a wide enough area that it is hard even finding anything to bury.

Makes sense.

The only way you're going to get someone mad enough for that, is if the militia you equipped happens to inflict similar cruelties, or you otherwise mess with his nation in a way that is more than just an inconvenience.

If the US imposed sanctions against my country, I'd just shrug. If the US killed my family members and I had no recourse...

> Because your average farmer is obviously going to join up with a militia or terrorist group because of some abstract political thing like sanctions which he probably has trouble even measuring in his day to life.

Sanctions starve people to death, literally. There is a blockade on food, medicine and your entire life savings turn to nothing. Your life becomes rations. It has such a significant effect that this even turned the non-religious Arab nationalist socialist Ba'ath party into an extremist Islamist brigade in under a decade[0].

These sanctions are even one the major stated reason of the 9/11 attacks by Al Qaeda[1] - not that Saudis flying planes into the world trade center somehow represents the suffering of Iraqis.

I'm not even sure why this would be contested, I don't think you understand what sanctions are or what kind of almost-genocidal effects they have[2] but with your comment I'm suddenly understanding the reasoning of the people downvoting me and upvoting others.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faith_campaign

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motives_for_the_September_11_a...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanctions_against_Iraq#Effects...

Because you seem to be missing that it's not the "sanctions" that radicalize people, but the "starve to death" part, or in general, the "death" part. In so far as heavy sanctions breed resentment and further violence, bombing people's families into tiny pieces does that even more.

> If the US imposed sanctions against my country, I'd just shrug.

You obviously do not understand that sanctions are usually a way to prepare for war with weapons. Sanctions bring up the cracks in societies that are otherwise hidden under a thin layer of comfort we call civilized behavior. With sanctions you get a black market and all that is related to it. Sanctions are a trade war at another level.

Sanctioned people are in a way oppressed people and their grievances may well be legitimate (i.e., "I had a nice family business and now my export targets are gone while I did nothing wrong.") Retaliation probably feels like a genuine reason for their actions too. Many sanctions hit the population while their government hardly feels it (they still have enough to eat, places to live etc.)

All those things you think are false are 100% absolutely true.

Terrorism is a political tactic coming from a power asymmetry and is labeled as such due to this power dynamic as a consequence of who controls the narrative.

labels aside, if x state drops a bomb and kills your 4 year old playing outside you will want revenge, if you're from those areas. Simple as that, call it whatever you want. You killed my son for no reason...

USA should better rush with million dollar offers to families, along with apologies, of course.

Reminds me of this story of the British paying "blood money" in Iraq which I found quite illuminating at the time: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/jul/02/iraq.features1...

I disagree with this comment, I think, but it's well written and provides a useful alternative viewpoint. Upvoted to counter the downvotes.

Perhaps you are confused with the term "terrorist". s/terrorist/freedom fighter/g. Is that more palatable ? Or is the narrative contextual, depending on which side you find yourself on ?

All three of your assertions are wrong, regardless. And you have no business judging 'appropriateness'. Of course there are criminals that take advantage of situations, I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that they are not the types that blow themselves up to make a quick buck.

What I find shocking about your comment is that your points 1-3 can obviously be true and very often are - and if you don't believe they can be true, then you couldn't possibly understand why terrorism exists in the first place.

The devil is always in the detail, but generally speaking terrorists are violent combatants who pursue certain political goals, but don't have a regular army, and at some point in their life unfortunately accepted the idea that it is legitimate to intentionally harm or kill civilians to reach those goals. Accepting this horrible idea is what makes them terrorists.

Their feelings will be affected and rightly so, it is a tradegy. However the feelings of a few people about an error can not be the single parameter to decide if drone strikes are used. War have casualties.

What about the feelings of the children and friends after 9.11, Charlie Hebdo, Bataclan, Nice, Stockholm, Trèbes, Paris, Liège and Strasbourg? I could go on. Of the 24 jihadist attacks in the EU in 2018, 10 occurred in France, four in the United Kingdom, four in the Netherlands, two in Germany and one each in Belgium, Italy, Spain and Sweden. In 2017, a total of 62 people were killed in ten completed jihadist attacks in the European Union, according to Europol figures. The number of attempted jihadist attacks reached 33 in 2017.

If a single drone strike is how you create terrorists, what is being created in Europe?

I think that there is an inherent difference between drone killings and atrocities committed by people.

The drone killings are anonymous, out of the sky, with no idea who the guilty party is besides a nebulous "USA" or "the West"; a vacuum of information besides a robotic, faceless apology in a press release (that is itself just more insult, more humiliation), and the knowledge that a foreign country can reach out and murder people living next door to you without consequence. The humiliation and rage and sense of powerlessness and living every day knowing that they'll do it again and nobody will do anything about it simply festers. These are key ingredients in growing terrorists. This is how you make terrorists. Humilation and anger and a sense of powerlessness and that the perpetrator will face no justice.

When some idiot boy shoots up an office in Paris there's a guilty party, a reckoning with a body (or an arrest), a name, an investigation and professional state employees actively going after someone, actively pursuing justice (very different to the state doing no more than shrugging and saying "yeah, that's the USA for you, they murder you and your neighbours, nothing we can do about it"). There is a qualitative difference; the key ingredients above aren't present. Even if the terrorist gets away, it's recognised that it was an individual(s) and that they are being pursued; someone is seeking justice on your behalf.

If a single drone strike is how you create terrorists, what is being created in Europe?

On the face of it, not terrorists.

> Even if the terrorist gets away, it's recognised that it was an individual(s).

That's a tough sell when (large) parts of communities are complicit, hiding, funding, supporting the individuals.

It's my impression that the primary difference is that we expect better from advanced nations and their citizens, not that there's a large difference in behavior. Denmark officially murdering people because of their sexual identity would be a shock. Saudi Arabia doing the same isn't, because we don't see SA anywhere near the level of (cultural, social, civilizational) development of Denmark. A child throwing a temper tantrum is normal, an adult doing the same raises suspicion of delayed development.

That's a tough sell when (large) parts of communities are complicit, hiding, funding, supporting the individuals.

I'm unconvinced; I believe it's not a tough sell. This is based on my observations of to whom people ascribe these crimes. They blame individuals first. Even if they should ascribe more blame to the organisations behind those individuals, those individuals are recognised (rightly or wrongly) as the primary culprits.

When I see news reports of such things, it's individual people that are presented as the culprits. News articles and Wiki articles name the individuals involved. While they do have organisations and groups behind them, if you ask people "who did this" you don't get a nebulous set of organisations; you get a name.

> They blame individuals first.

That depends on who those individuals are though. The media reports and reactions do change very much if you exchange some words, like replacing "islamist radical" with "white supremacist" or "christian fundamentalist" and "mosque" with "website".

You will certainly get individual names for each attack, the difference is whether having those names concludes the investigation or not. There are exceptions to this, of course, it's just my general expression.

> when (large) parts of communities are complicit

you put parentheses around the "large" but I'm still gonna pick on this. For my part, I have yet to hear of a major jihadist attack in the west in which the perpetrators and their supporters were not completely surrounded by police and intelligence personel. In Germany we're watching a parliamentary commission pick apart what happened in the "lone wolf" case where someone drove a truck into a christmas market in Berlin. "You can't do anything about these things!" people exclaim. They're lone wolves after all. BS. That guy, and his supporters, were in constant contact with embedded sources around their milieu. I'm not a big friend of the police state as it is, and especially of intelligence services. And this story and others like it make it really hard to still believe in incompetence and bad coordination as the sources for all the fuck-ups that lead to him succeeding in the first place, and then the crucial witnesses being conveniently deported days after.

But my real point (sorry for digressing here for a bit) is that even in this in-depth investigation, the number of active supporters was tiny. And they were not even really organized. It was more like "I have a friend here ho will help me out, and one here, and one here." Your statement (even with parentheses) does not reflect how small these "parts" are.

Certainly, intelligence services do play a role, both in pushing actors over the threshold and in hindering investigations. In the case of the Bataclan attacks, the perpetrators fled to Belgium and hid in their local communities. It's also where they recruit, get support from and funnel funding through. Obviously it's not "everybody there is on board", but there is an enabling base and little push back from those opposed to the measures chosen by radicals.

1) Whataboutism

2) False equivalent, if you think the USA should be held to the same standards that we hold the terrorists to then effectively the USA have become terrorists as well.

3) The EU has taken its attacks so far quite well, no other countries were invaded, no mass deportations or murders of muslims or immigrants have happened. Unfortunately this bs has shifted the political climate.

Please try to argue your case better.

This post is wrong for obvious reasons, but it's a good point that it goes both ways: drone strikes create anti-western sentiment, and Muslim terrorist attacks create anti-Muslim sentiment.

yes, they're mutually reinforcing. in a perverse way, u.s. drone strikes are good for terrorist organizations, and terrorist attacks are good for major stakeholders of military capital.

that's why you will see some perverts who will openly reminisce about the days after 9/11 and how we were all united, etc.

at some point, cooler heads should intervene, but fear is just too easy to engineer, apparently.

Reminds me of how two rappers (or youtubers or what will you) who have "beef" both benefit in the end (assuming they don't get shot)

You seem to actually believe that and I think that deserves a serious answer, because the terror attacks are changing European society. It’s given us some of our only mass shootings from politically motivated right-wingers like Breviek and the recent would be mosque shooter.

What’s worse though is that it’s given us a general apathy toward the bureaucratic abuse of immigrants that happens everywhere. I live in Denmark, we have a place called Sjælsmark, which is an internment camp for immigrants who weren’t granted asylum but refused to leave. I understand why some people would go “well they could just leave”, but there are children in that camp who’ve been there for years. That would have caused a public outcry throughout danish society 25 years ago. I know because that’s exactly what happened during the Balkan wars where society as a whole cake together and did what the government failed to do, and actually integrated the “unwanted” as the decent thing to do.

After 18 years of anti-Islamic sentiment, however, we instead talked about putting the “unwanted” on a prison island to isolate them even further.

That’s what 9/11, Charlie Hebdo, Batavian and so on has done to Europe.

Thank you for the serious and interesting reply.

You actually got my point, that these wars and terror attacks have a large effect on feelings and behaviours in Europe as well.

How many "error's" does the US make? Far too many for them to be called "error's" anymore. How many kids were radicalised by the US going into Iraq and killing millions of their people? Tens of thousands of orphans, with an evil imperial army coming into their home, bombing their farms, raiding their homes, murdering civilians. Enough to create ISIS and radicalise thousands upon thousands more.

How many families were put out by 9/11? About 3000. And you call that an excuse to invade Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Somalia, Pakistan etc etc etc. So 3000 American lives, taken by Saudi Arabian citizens, cost the lives of millions across the world so that the American people can feel good about their hegemony?

Al-Qaeda won that war before the US even left their own soil. They had one aim, bring about the end of the USA, and they did it by getting your own government to strip away civil liberties overnight, and you didn't even care.

> How many "error's" does the US make?

Usually it's measured in the ratio of civilian casualties to combatants, and as far as I remember, US is keeping this ratio exceptionally low in comparison to other conflicts.

That's the key point here: your criticism applies to any war at all. War is hell, everybody knows that. To be objective in your judgement about US though, you have to quantatively compare different conflicts to each other.

Nobody whose family got blown up cares about one thing that you just typed.

Unfortunately, neither do many Americans who have been affected by terrorism as well (majority most likely). I'm not saying that's how I feel, but I don't think it's going out on a limb to say that it's probably true.

Your memory is wrong. You may want to look that up before making such a dumb claim: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_casualties_from_U.S._...

Ratio of 15-20% civilian deaths is not "exceptionally low" by any means.

But it is EXCEPTIONALLY low - even more so than I remember.

> Starting in the 1980s, it was often claimed that 90 percent of the victims of modern wars were civilians.

> The Vietnamese government has estimated the number of Vietnamese civilians killed in the Vietnam War at two million, and the number of NVA and Viet Cong killed at 1.1 million—estimates which approximate those of a number of other sources.[19] This would give a civilian-combatant fatality ratio of approximately 2:1, or 67%.

> During the First Chechen War, 4,000 separatist fighters and 40,000 civilians are estimated to have died, giving a civilian-combatant ratio of 10:1.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_casualty_ratio#Cheche...

So essentially what you're saying is that it's ok to kill million's of people in Iraq and Afghanistan as long as it fit's into a ratio that they're killing enough enemies to make civilians inconsequential? What utter bullshit you spout and a sad world you live occupy in your own head.

where are you getting those numbers?

"Trump Revokes Obama-Era Rule on Disclosing Civilian Casualties From U.S. Airstrikes Outside War Zones"

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/06/us/politics/trump-civilia...

Maybe US just finally met nation/group of individuals pissed off enough to care and go and deliver revenge the deem adequate. I mean, expecting that some random casualties ratio being upheld means all is a-OK is a bit ridiculous, don't you think?

After all the hell and atrocities done by US in Vietnam, I absolutely do not understand how there was no strong resent towards US anymore after the war to the point of actively seeking and eliminating US targets like terrorist/spies do.

It was a humbling realization for me, and I have great respect for Vietnamese people not only for this.

> How many "error's"

It starts with grocer's apostrophes, but before long everyone's splitting infinitives.

Damn I should have googled that one.

But you are not really opposing his theory. The terrorists are counting on this effect. They want to trigger radicalization of the populous in their target countries. Their idea is to stir up war, because in chaos there's a potential of drastic radical changes. If you truly want to fight terror, you should focus on prevention and educating the masses to not get drawn to a blood thirsty revenge cycle. Because once you start thinking like a terrorist, i.e. justifying civilian bloodshed for ideology, demanding violent response, etc. they win.

If your argument starts with "what about", you may want to reconsider it.

If the West (and USSR/Russia) hadn't been meddling in the political and social affairs of the Middle East for decades, it's completely possible that we wouldn't have any/many Middle Eastern terrorists with the funding and capabilities to do any damage outside their own countries.

It's tempting to suggest, "or if we had done a better job with our meddling", but... no, it just doesn't work, empirically so, and we should stop doing it.

Unfortunately, pushing diplomatic solutions hard would be political suicide in the US; the "us vs. them" mentality is strong here, and I don't think most Americans would be ok with what they'd see as giving in or giving up. And even if the politics at home could work, it's unclear if all that many on the other side are interested in a diplomatic solution, given how radicalized some of them have become due to our recklessness and hubris.

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