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I think it's a mistake to lump all terrorists into one group. Different terrorist groups have very differing goals, moral systems, and levels of sanity. The IR
by hugh3 16y ago
I think it's a mistake to lump all terrorists into one group. Different terrorist groups have very differing goals, moral systems, and levels of sanity.
The IRA, for instance, while an evil bunch of fuckers, would never attempt to kill thousands of people in a single attack, because they had clear and fairly realistic political goals and a strategy for pursuing them.
Islamic terrorists, on the other hand, for the most part appear to just like killing -- it's not too much of an exaggeration to say that their goal is more or less the genocide of every non-Muslim on the planet, and individually their goal is to die for Allah. This gives them a very different set of priorities to old-school terrorist groups like the IRA or ETA.
To summarize: the IRA wants to terrorise you to achieve a goal, but Al Qaeda pretty much just wants to kill you.
- chc 16y agoThen why have their attacks so far had the primary effect of creating panic when a couple dozen random bombs would both be easier to execute and cause more destruction? Why continue to attack planes — the area in which our paranoia is most concentrated — when legions of American-born madmen have proven that just pulling out a gun in a public place and shooting people is plenty effective? It seems to me that they don't necessarily want us to die, at least not on any particular schedule — just to be so afraid that we won't be able to oppose them with any strength.