> Surprisingly false, and that's the key. Have you any references for that? (I'm interested, not disputing it) > it was an observation that most terrorism is

> Surprisingly false, and that's the key. Have you any references for that? (I'm interested, not disputing it) > it was an observation that most terrorism is in one form or another about hostages. Ah, now that is a slightly different matter I feel. I was more discussing the idea of indiscriminate killing or direct murder of the "offendor". > But by definition, you've created a set of people that are unincitable, they're already permanently incited to the max. How are terrorists made? For the most part the "foot soldiers" are incited by the more calculating leaders. Handing those leaders material that is offensive is ammunition for them to convert foot soldiers to the cause. Your right - it wont affect the leadership, but it removes some of their ammunition to brainwash others with. > If there is an extremist that attacks us no matter what, then frankly our policy doesn't matter for that extremist. We need to be concerned about the ones that are calculating though, because there are far more of them. No, we clearly need to respond - and respond in a cohesive way. What I'm suggesting is that avoiding inciteful actions might make it easier to combat extremism. > It is the production of a situation where attacking the civilization is advantageous that produces chaos and death! Bear in mind that I'm not suggesting we make a big thing of "we are not going to incite you". Just that, perhaps, a more careful personal set of actions is justified. Every time a big thing (in media terms) like this happens the death threats come in, more people are scared and there is added potential for people to die. If it hadn't have happened there would be less fear now than a few weeks ago :) > you invoke extremists so extreme that it doesn't matter what we do To be fair that was what you invoked - I was trying to sync it into my arguments. Incidentally a strong argument for my idea is that modern terrorist leaders have realised they don't have to actually bomb anyone significant or even actually respond to a threat. They just have to get it into the news to propagate fear.