Political Pissing Match Catch-All | Response to NOLA Attack & Vegas Cybertruck explosion

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superrific said:
you don't even know if he was a practicing Muslim. Just STFU. You had a wonderful post about the impact of COVID on hospitals and that post justifies your existence here, but for the most part, you're one of the posters who just talk and talk out of their ass.
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It is pretty clear that he was a practicing Muslim. It has been well reported that he converted over a year ago and became radicalized since. What does the first "I" in ISIS stand for again?
 
ZZLPHeels said:
It is pretty clear that he was a practicing Muslim. It has been well reported that he converted over a year ago and became radicalized since. What does the first "I" in ISIS stand for again?
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I'll add that there's no requirement of practicing to be radicalized.
 
ZZLPHeels said:
The death toll from Islamic terrorism in the United States in our lifetimes is many times higher than the death toll from any other type of terrorism. It isn't even close. Most right-wing terrorism in the United States is committed by anti-government activists or white supremacists, not people intent on forcing Methodism on others. And even then, the deadliest attack committed by one of these people in recent history killed a couple of dozen people, not thousands in one day like Islamists did.

Let's not forget about the attacks committed or attempted by Islamist terrorists in the United States since 9/11. Omar Matteen killed 50 people in Orlando. The San Bernadino terrorists killed 14 people at a Christmas party. Another terrorist killed 14 people at Fort Hood. There was a bombing at the Boston Marathon. A terrorist killed 8 people in New York City. And less than 48 hours ago another terrorist killed 15 people in New Orleans. Not to mention the fact Islamist terrorists smuggled bombs on two large commercial airliners and attempted to detonate them, which would have killed hundreds of people.


This is nonsensical. 9/11 was the largest terror attack in history and drug the United States into a protracted war in which many thousands of our soldiers and many hundreds of thousands of civilians were killed. It is disrespectful to all who were lost to play thought exercises and say "well suppose 9/11 actually wasn't that bad, that means we should just not count it".
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9/11 didn’t drag America into the second Iraq War. America went willingly and cheering.

9/11 didn’t drag into a decades long conflict in Afghanistan. After we failed to quickly kill Bin-Laden, we willingly chose to stay in Afghanistan for years and years.
 
Zoo_View said:
9/11 didn’t drag America into the second Iraq War. America went willingly and cheering.

9/11 didn’t drag into a decades long conflict in Afghanistan. After we failed to quickly kill Bin-Laden, we willingly chose to stay in Afghanistan for years and years.
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A bit more complex than that. Without 9/11 we don't go to Iraq or Afghanistan. And the GWOT was about far more than killing one person. We had to take away Al Qaeda's safe haven in Afghanistan and significantly reduce their ability to conduct major terrorist attacks within the United States. I'd argue that we were successful in both endeavors.
 
Zoo_View said:
9/11 didn’t drag America into the second Iraq War. America went willingly and cheering.

9/11 didn’t drag into a decades long conflict in Afghanistan. After we failed to quickly kill Bin-Laden, we willingly chose to stay in Afghanistan for years and years.
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9/11 was a convenient pretext for neocons to finish what Bush the Elder chose not to. If anything, we should have obliterated the Saudi peninsula.
 
ZZLPHeels said:
It is pretty clear that he was a practicing Muslim. It has been well reported that he converted over a year ago and became radicalized since. What does the first "I" in ISIS stand for again?
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It really is about branding.

There is no court or international body that gets to adjudicate the use of a religious brand. Lots of Muslims would say he is an infidel. Others would say he is straight on his way to 72 virgins. Neither is right and neither is wrong. It is solely a matter of religious opinion, for which there is no objective truth.

But it is useful to think about radicalism as more of an ideology and culture than a religion -- similar to Christian nationalism on the right. That is more a political ideology than a religious view, but it blurs religion and ideology and politics into a single identity that makes it hard to know where the religion ends and the other stuff begins.
 
Calheel said:
It really is about branding.

There is no court or international body that gets to adjudicate the use of a religious brand. Lots of Muslims would say he is an infidel. Others would say he is straight on his way to 72 virgins. Neither is right and neither is wrong. It is solely a matter of religious opinion, for which there is no objective truth.

But it is useful to think about radicalism as more of an ideology and culture than a religion -- similar to Christian nationalism on the right. That is more a political ideology than a religious view, but it blurs religion and ideology and politics into a single identity that makes it hard to know where the religion ends and the other stuff begins.
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I would say that the religious aspect matters to the radicalized person. He chose to murder people because he believed that his religion compelled him to do so. He believed that he would be rewarded in heaven for his horrific acts on earth. He initially wanted to kill his family, which would have been terrible enough. However, he became radicalized by his religion and afterwards decided to commit a premeditated terrorist attack on random civilians, just as ISIS wants its followers to do.
 
ZZLPHeels said:
I would say that the religious aspect matters to the radicalized person. He chose to murder people because he believed that his religion compelled him to do so. He believed that he would be rewarded in heaven for his horrific acts on earth. He initially wanted to kill his family, which would have been terrible enough. However, he became radicalized by his religion and afterwards decided to commit a premeditated terrorist attack on random civilians, just as ISIS wants its followers to do.
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ISIS isn’t a religion.
 
ZZLPHeels said:
The death toll from Islamic terrorism in the United States in our lifetimes is many times higher than the death toll from any other type of terrorism. It isn't even close. Most right-wing terrorism in the United States is committed by anti-government activists or white supremacists, not people intent on forcing Methodism on others. And even then, the deadliest attack committed by one of these people in recent history killed a couple of dozen people, not thousands in one day like Islamists did.

Let's not forget about the attacks committed or attempted by Islamist terrorists in the United States since 9/11. Omar Matteen killed 50 people in Orlando. The San Bernadino terrorists killed 14 people at a Christmas party. Another terrorist killed 14 people at Fort Hood. There was a bombing at the Boston Marathon. A terrorist killed 8 people in New York City. And less than 48 hours ago another terrorist killed 15 people in New Orleans. Not to mention the fact Islamist terrorists smuggled bombs on two large commercial airliners and attempted to detonate them, which would have killed hundreds of people.


This is nonsensical. 9/11 was the largest terror attack in history and drug the United States into a protracted war in which many thousands of our soldiers and many hundreds of thousands of civilians were killed. It is disrespectful to all who were lost to play thought exercises and say "well suppose 9/11 actually wasn't that bad, that means we should just not count it".
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1. omar matteen's father said that his murder spree had nothing to do with religion and a review of his wikipedia biography (it's extensive) suggests exactly that. He was a violent person since childhood, and he hated gay people.

2. Islamic terrorists aren't trying to force religion on others either. It's hard to force religion on dead people. There's no real difference in motivation between terrorists like Dylan Roof or the synagogue shooter and the Islamists. They are trying to terrorize people out of hatred.

3. Nobody said "don't count 9/11." Seriously, why do you do this? When you make crazed allegations that have no relationship to what is written, you just make yourself look stupid and desperate.

The point is that the body count doesn't matter after a certain point. 9/11 wouldn't have been better if only 500 had died. It would not have been twice as bad had the towers fallen more quickly and 4000 died. It was a mass terrorist attack. The goal was to kill lots and lots of people. Same goal as Tim McVeigh or the San Bernardino killers. Bin Laden simply had more resources to throw into his endeavor. They are all terrible and the effort to make Muslims out as "worse" is ignorant and biased.
 
superrific said:
1. omar matteen's father said that his murder spree had nothing to do with religion and a review of his wikipedia biography (it's extensive) suggests exactly that. He was a violent person since childhood, and he hated gay people.

2. Islamic terrorists aren't trying to force religion on others either. It's hard to force religion on dead people. There's no real difference in motivation between terrorists like Dylan Roof or the synagogue shooter and the Islamists. They are trying to terrorize people out of hatred.

3. Nobody said "don't count 9/11." Seriously, why do you do this? When you make crazed allegations that have no relationship to what is written, you just make yourself look stupid and desperate.

The point is that the body count doesn't matter after a certain point. 9/11 wouldn't have been better if only 500 had died. It would not have been twice as bad had the towers fallen more quickly and 4000 died. It was a mass terrorist attack. The goal was to kill lots and lots of people. Same goal as Tim McVeigh or the San Bernardino killers. Bin Laden simply had more resources to throw into his endeavor. They are all terrible and the effort to make Muslims out as "worse" is ignorant and biased.
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1. False. "At 2:45 a.m., Mateen called News 13 of Orlando and said, "I'm the shooter. It's me. I am the shooter." He then said he was carrying out the shooting on the behalf of IS and began speaking rapidly in Arabic Mateen also said the shooting was "triggered" by a U.S.-led bombing strike in Iraq that killed Abu Wahib, an IS military commander, on May 6." Source: wiki

2. While everyone you mentioned qualifies as a terrorist, there is a major difference in magnitude between the Islamist terrorists and everyone else. A white supremacist may carry out a mass shooting or a radical pro-lifer might bomb an abortion clinic, but they aren't murdering thousands of civilians at a time the way the Islamists have. And hopefully it stays that way.

3. I'm not the one who started trying to keep score. You erroneously claimed that Christian terrorists kill more people in the US than Islamist terrorists. 9/11 is a big reason why that statement is false.
 
ZZLPHeels said:
1. False. "At 2:45 a.m., Mateen called News 13 of Orlando and said, "I'm the shooter. It's me. I am the shooter." He then said he was carrying out the shooting on the behalf of IS and began speaking rapidly in Arabic Mateen also said the shooting was "triggered" by a U.S.-led bombing strike in Iraq that killed Abu Wahib, an IS military commander, on May 6." Source: wiki

2. While everyone you mentioned qualifies as a terrorist, there is a major difference in magnitude between the Islamist terrorists and everyone else. A white supremacist may carry out a mass shooting or a radical pro-lifer might bomb an abortion clinic, but they aren't murdering thousands of civilians at a time the way the Islamists have. And hopefully it stays that way.

3. I'm not the one who started trying to keep score. You erroneously claimed that Christian terrorists kill more people in the US than Islamist terrorists. 9/11 is a big reason why that statement is false.
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1. Sure, that's what he said while he was doing the shooting. I've got news for you: people in the midst of a mass shooting are almost by definition not of sound mind. Taking what they might say literally is a bad idea.

2. I didn't say anything about body counts. I said "By far the most terrorism on US soil has been committed by Christians" and that remains true. And it's not close -- especially when you count the KKK as you've now admitted we should.
 
superrific said:
1. Sure, that's what he said while he was doing the shooting. I've got news for you: people in the midst of a mass shooting are almost by definition not of sound mind. Taking what they might say literally is a bad idea.

2. I didn't say anything about body counts. I said "By far the most terrorism on US soil has been committed by Christians" and that remains true. And it's not close -- especially when you count the KKK as you've now admitted we should.
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1. When a mass shooter literally states, "This is the reason I am committing this terrorist attack", attempting to ignore their motivation because it makes you feel bad is bogus. He was an Islamist terrorist, who committed an Islamist terrorist attack. These are facts, not up for debate.

2. You said, "I assume he means that the total death toll from Islamic terrorism is higher (though that is almost certainly not correct any more)". That is also incorrect unless you selectively adjust the time period included to exclude 9/11.
 
ZZLPHeels said:
1. When a mass shooter literally states, "This is the reason I am committing this terrorist attack", attempting to ignore their motivation because it makes you feel bad is bogus. He was an Islamist terrorist, who committed an Islamist terrorist attack. These are facts, not up for debate.

2. You said, "I assume he means that the total death toll from Islamic terrorism is higher (though that is almost certainly not correct any more)". That is also incorrect unless you selectively adjust the time period included to exclude 9/11.
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It has nothing to do with whether I feel bad or not. I'm just smart enough to realize that people don't always speak the truth.

Terrorists always make themselves out to be principled, honorable warriors. They don't usually say, "I am killing these gay people because I hate gay people." Or "I'm robbing this armored truck because I need the money." It's not a noble path forward. And thus, terrorists have all sorts of excuses. The Brinks armed robbery that landed Kathy Boudin in prison for life was supposedly about the ongoing struggle against imperialism. It wasn't. They needed cash.

Similarly, if you read about the Red Army Faction in Germany in the 1970s, you would see that they committed acts of violence in retribution for all sorts of different perceived crimes. In the end, though, they were just violent people. If you think they wouldn't have taken hostages in Sweden if only Holger Meins had not died in prison, I've got a bridge to sell you. [incidentally, the character of Hans Gruber was based on the Baader-Meinhof Red Army Faction, if that tells you anything about the perception in Europe of the RAF's motivations]
 
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