Suicide Bomber in Manchester Arena - targets Ariana Grande concert

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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-40010124

It happened at about 10:30pm last night in Manchester Arena. There were also nail bombs on the suicide bomber too. So far 22 dead, 59 injured.

Sometime today police will confirm it was a Muslim, that he was probably on a terror watch list or something of the like. So Wahabbism and its terror related affiliations strikes again.

 

The last time Manchester had a terrorist attack was in 1996 when the IRA detonated a truck bomb, at least the IRA were kind enough to send a warning 90 minutes before they detonated.

[_Michael 2,681]

However likely, or unlikely, I think it is wrong for people to be presuming the identity of anyone who committed this atrocity. Police have confirmed it was a suicide bomber; that's all we know. That's all we should be talking about. That's all we should be commentening on; not speculating on 'facts' which we do not know. 

 

I think I'm right in thinking this is the worst attack since 7/7, and it's a true tragedy. 

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24 minutes ago, _Michael said:

However likely, or unlikely, I think it is wrong for people to be presuming the identity of anyone who committed this atrocity. Police have confirmed it was a suicide bomber; that's all we know. That's all we should be talking about. That's all we should be commentening on; not speculating on 'facts' which we do not know. 

 

I think I'm right in thinking this is the worst attack since 7/7, and it's a true tragedy. 

Yeah it's the second worse Islamic terror attack of this century in the UK. Before this year MI5 and the UK police had a pretty good track record of keeping the Islamic terrorists at bay. Thing is if it was a lone-wolf attacker then there is no terror cell and nothing to really track.

I'll put money it was a lone-wolf Muslim terrorist or someone from an Islamic terror cell. Or maybe ISIS will pipe up sometime today and claim it was behind it. Besides there will be tens of millions of people in the UK who see the news and think what I'm thinking- another Islamic terrorist attack, ISIS or the like. Maybe it was someone else... But I doubt it.

That's the pattern.

Anyway I said a prayer for all those affected then I moved on- it used to shock me these terror attacks. But it's become the norm in Europe every month or couple of months. So that's the state of the world.

[SS3K 160]

this is my home town, I'm sure no religious kingdom would accept a coward who kills children. I try my best not to fuel my anger with hate. We are all a family of humanity.

[rsc204 21,804]

Sad news, such events are becoming all too frequent these days. I was in London when the last one hit the UK in March, although safely waiting for a Eurostar train at the time.

3 hours ago, Ln X said:

The last time Manchester had a terrorist attack was in 1996 when the IRA detonated a truck bomb, at least the IRA were kind enough to send a warning 90 minutes before they detonated.

The thing is, the IRA weren't a bunch of nice people trying only to cause panic and damage to property. They killed many people indiscriminately and found a way to justify their actions. Geez, look at the bombing in Warrington where they set a second bomb to catch those fleeing from the first one. Just because sometimes they gave a warning doesn't really make their actions any more acceptable. When it comes down to it, they were also a bunch of cowardly blackmailers, using the threat of violence and death to get what they wanted.

I fear however we use the word terrorist all too quickly in this day and age. If someone who is mentally unstable decides to go on a killing spree in the name of ISIS, that doesn't make them a member of ISIS, nor necessarily a terrorist. But it's much easier to lump all these separate acts into one scary group, than see them for what they are. This is partly the fault of the media, because it's easier to make people afraid this way, suggesting there is one scary group coordinating the whole.

The fact is there have always been nutcases, murderers and terrorists. Sure most of the events recently can be attributed to some sort of religious motives, based around Islam. But frankly, unlike groups like the IRA, what they want is even less clear. As such, I'm sad to say I don't see this issue going away any time soon.

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37 minutes ago, rsc204 said:

Sad news, such events are becoming all too frequent these days. I was in London when the last one hit the UK in March, although safely waiting for a Eurostar train at the time.

The thing is, the IRA weren't a bunch of nice people trying only to cause panic and damage to property. They killed many people indiscriminately and found a way to justify their actions. Geez, look at the bombing in Warrington where they set a second bomb to catch those fleeing from the first one. Just because sometimes they gave a warning doesn't really make their actions any more acceptable. When it comes down to it, they were also a bunch of cowardly blackmailers, using the threat of violence and death to get what they wanted.

I fear however we use the word terrorist all too quickly in this day and age. If someone who is mentally unstable decides to go on a killing spree in the name of ISIS, that doesn't make them a member of ISIS, nor necessarily a terrorist. But it's much easier to lump all these separate acts into one scary group, than see them for what they are. This is partly the fault of the media, because it's easier to make people afraid this way, suggesting there is one scary group coordinating the whole.

The fact is there have always been nutcases, murderers and terrorists. Sure most of the events recently can be attributed to some sort of religious motives, based around Islam. But frankly, unlike groups like the IRA, what they want is even less clear. As such, I'm sad to say I don't see this issue going away any time soon.

Yeah the IRA were real SOBs, but as you said at least they had an end goal and there was something to negotiate with.

And lone-wolf, or part of a terror cell, or Al-Qaeda or ISIS, that suicide bomber was a terrorist. And this suicide bomber can't have been that mentally unstable because he had the brains to assemble a bomb without getting caught. He also had the brains to attack just after the concert is over when security becomes more lax as parents and friends arrive to pick up those who were in the concert.

Committing really evil acts doesn't necessarily equate to mental instability- just amorality and wickedness.

[rsc204 21,804]

23 minutes ago, Ln X said:

And this suicide bomber can't have been that mentally unstable because he had the brains to assemble a bomb without getting caught.

That's sadly not anything like as difficult as you might imagine. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to assemble an IED from items you can buy quite legitimately.

23 minutes ago, Ln X said:

He also had the brains to attack just after the concert is over when security becomes more lax as parents and friends arrive to pick up those who were in the concert.

We don't know this, could have been coincidence after all? Either way that doesn't make you smart or sane because you thought it through.

23 minutes ago, Ln X said:

Committing really evil acts doesn't necessarily equate to mental instability- just amorality and wickedness.

Depends really, psychologically speaking the desire to commit such an atrocity suggests a mental defect of some sort. A completely sane person would see that their actions wouldn't bring about any change whatsoever, thus were unjustifiable and pointless. Add to that when someone is willing to kill themselves in the process, you don't really end up painting a picture of a rational thinking person.

23 minutes ago, Ln X said:

And lone-wolf, or part of a terror cell, or Al-Qaeda or ISIS, that suicide bomber was a terrorist.

Why is a suicide bomber always a terrorist? Isn't the definition of a terrorist someone who wants to force you to do something and is willing to kill others to make it happen? Usually as part of a larger group with some political or ideological goal? Just because someone thinks they are in ISIS or another terrorist group, doesn't mean they have any connection to it. So if you have no official affiliations with any terrorist group and kill yourself in the act, aren't you just a killer?

For example, was the pilot who deliberately flew the Lufthansa jet into a mountain a terrorist? No, just someone who was mentally ill, wanted to kill himself and others and become "famous" in the act. Once more he planned this deed in advance and took steps to ensure he would succeed, that doesn't make him sane, quite the opposite.

Just because you bring religion into such an act, doesn't change the nature of the offence. As such, if this person didn't have official ties to a terrorist group, he is simply a murderer. In fact, most of the recent spate of killings are similar, there is no actual link to ISIS or another terrorist group. These are just murderers. It's just the world terrorist is so much more scary than murderer in these cases, so that's what the press go with. But in reality, most of them are simply not, by definition, terrorists, even if they choose to call themselves that. We only serve to strengthen the fear ISIS and other groups have over us by going along with this fallacy.

[matias93 7,535]

I don't want to get caught on a dumb lexical argument, but that's the problem with the very concept of terrorism: it doesn't mean anything besides an effect that is impossible to precisely predict. If I pull the emergency brake of a metro train and the sudden stop makes people get in panic, causes an stampede and people die because of that, I was a terrorist or just a stupid that didn't thought on the severe consequences of their acts? The basic definition of terrorist as bringer of terror doesn't allow for differentiate both acts.

And it is deliberately that way: States needed to change the terminology to refer to their violent opponents because accepting them as combatants implied to recognise them a group of war rights that made more difficult to persecute and crush them: 'terrorism' emerges as the convenient middle ground between petty delinquence and guerrilla activity, violent enough to be considered as a danger to the State, but not as legitimate to require to be respected as a 'real' enemy.

And the terrorist tag allows to respond in any imaginable way to basically everything that looks suspicious, even if that doesn't make the response more effective to curb terrorist acts. They simply keep occurring, no matter the retaliation on Middle East, the screen checking, the online surveillance, the no-fly lists or the border walls; so called terrorists keep appearing from the inside of the 'terrorised' societies, from diverse social backgrounds, with different methods, wildly different effectivity, and more often that not, no cause to be authentically affiliate of.

Long gone in western countries are the days when bombings were made by maoist cells or anarchist movements, now most attacks are simply anodyne youngsters without any real link to any cause, taking a bloody revenge on the world for any imaginable motivation. There is no win on that, there is no cause sponsored, no movement getting a better negotiation stance or gaining time on media, is basically equivalent to the weekly US-based mass shooting, that some guerrilla on the other side of the world can comfortably reivindicate without having any idea who did what.

Keeping on the conviction that those are terrorist acts will only make more difficult to prevent them and to confront the ones opportunistically reivindicate them. 

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19 minutes ago, rsc204 said:

Why is a suicide bomber always a terrorist? Isn't the definition of a terrorist someone who wants to force you to do something and is willing to kill others to make it happen? Usually as part of a larger group with some political or ideological goal? Just because someone thinks they are in ISIS or another terrorist group, doesn't mean they have any connection to it. So if you have no official affiliations with any terrorist group and kill yourself in the act, aren't you just a killer?

For example, was the pilot who deliberately flew the Lufthansa jet into a mountain a terrorist? No, just someone who was mentally ill, wanted to kill himself and others and become "famous" in the act. Once more he planned this deed in advance and took steps to ensure he would succeed, that doesn't make him sane, quite the opposite.

Just because you bring religion into such an act, doesn't change the nature of the offence. As such, if this person didn't have official ties to a terrorist group, he is simply a murderer. In fact, most of the recent spate of killings are similar, there is no actual link to ISIS or another terrorist group. These are just murderers. It's just the world terrorist is so much more scary than murderer in these cases, so that's what the press go with. But in reality, most of them are simply not, by definition, terrorists, even if they choose to call themselves that. We only serve to strengthen the fear ISIS and other groups have over us by going along with this fallacy.

From wikipedia: Terrorism is, in its broadest sense, the use of intentionally indiscriminate violence as a means to create terror or fear, in order to achieve a political, religious, or ideological aim.

Was there intentional indiscriminate violence? Check. Did it create terror and fear? Check. Was it committed to achieve a political, religious or ideological aim? Well for the last point it could be checked off if the attack was waged as part of jihad. Even if the killer was a lone-wolf, his political views did not come out a vacuum, he was probably watching too many Islamic militant propaganda videos and decided to wage his own personal holy jihad. What was the goal? (Presuming the attacker was an extremist Muslim) Death to the infidels.

Now then did the suicide bomber terrify people? He sure did- he terrified thousands of people in Manchester Arena. He has also shocked a nation- it shocked me when I first heard of the news. So he succeeded in his aims. Furthermore there will be stricter security measures in concerts and public events, so that means more money spent on security and so that is another victory for this suicide bomber. He forced a country to raise its defences a bit more.

So one attacker, who may have spent several hundred pounds for his bomb, has now forced a country to spend probably a few hundred million pounds for tighter security measures. That's effective terrorism if you ask me because its produced a strong defensive outcome. Mark my words- there will be tighter security measures after this. Already there will be reviews set up and committee hearings to analyse what could have been done to prevent the attack and what can be done in the future.

Right now in this country (UK) there a few hundred people, mostly Muslim, who are being tracked and monitored by MI5 and the other intelligence services, these are people actively planning to commit acts of terror. Many of these will be arrested within five years. Then there are several thousand people who are sympathise with terrorist groups or may have worked with terrorist groups before in the past.

Now here's a fallacy: saying all the recent terrorist attacks -- sorry spate of killings -- in Europe are just the work of murderers. Repeating a mantra of "we fear ISIS and other groups if we consider these attacks actual terrorism" is fearing ISIS; denial is a form of fear. If this were to really hold true then security measures would not have been increased, Muslim communities would not be monitored and so forth. If it looks like terrorism, and it feels like terrorism then it bloody well IS terrorism.

Right now in Europe there are a few thousand extremist Muslims who want to kill people, sometimes they succeed but the vast majority of the time they get caught and their terrorist plans are thwarted. As long as there is chaos and mass exoduses in the Middle East then a little bit of it will spill over into Europe. So this Islamic terrorism is here to stay for a while. Maybe it will lessen when ISIS collapses this year or next. That's the situation- arguing about what constitutes terrorism will not change this situation.

And now I'm done- I've said my bit and I'm going out for a walk.

Peace.

 

[LexusInfernus 908]

3 hours ago, rsc204 said:

Depends really, psychologically speaking the desire to commit such an atrocity suggests a mental defect of some sort. A completely sane person would see that their actions wouldn't bring about any change whatsoever, thus were unjustifiable and pointless. Add to that when someone is willing to kill themselves in the process, you don't really end up painting a picture of a rational thinking person.

Careful there, you just called our soldiers, fighterbomber pilots and drone operators mentally deficient. I'm pretty sure that joining the armed forces is not a sign of mental deficiency. 

Terrorists aren't mentally defect. And why would they have to be? Rational thinking people can have a messed up world view just as well.

Besides, I don't believe for a second that this terrorist actually 'desires' to kill children, as in I don't believe he gets excited about it. More likely he just views it as a necessary act to further a certain goal. The goal being to drive a further wedge between Muslims and Non Muslims in the West. Prolong the conflict in Syria. And possibly taking revenge for what the West does in Syria. 

And that last 'goal' might also be our weakest point in any further discussion concerning terrorism in the West. I mean, we all think this guy bombing a bunch of children is terribly evil. But how many of you spend even a second thinking about children in Syria that get bombed by us? Not saying that this guy is right or not evil, but we do have a massive blind spot towards our own actions and how they affect people thousands of miles away. 

[Terring 6,473]

6 hours ago, SS3K said:

We are all a family of humanity.

Hate to be the cynical one, but we are not a family of humanity, and those suicide attacks can prove it. Or, at least, we are not yet a family of humanity. A united mankind can do much more and can be way more beneficial for everybody that a separated one. We all face the same problems and challenges, such as poverty and global warming, and we should work together, while building communication and cultural bridges between us. I want to say more, but I don't want to derail the topic.

2 minutes ago, LexusInfernus said:

Rational thinking people can have a messed up world view just as well.  

Rational thinking doesn't require you to put aside your believes, study the situation objectively, and take the big picture, while having as many facts and data at your disposal as possible? How it's possible to still have a messed up world view?

[LexusInfernus 908]

Just now, Terring said:

Rational thinking doesn't require you to put aside your believes, study the situation objectively, and take the big picture, while having as many facts and data at your disposal as possible? How it's possible to still have a messed up world view?

If you would just go by rational data, you'd be little more than a pocket calculator. How good is your pocket calculator at making moral and ethical decisions? 

Consider this, one of the most closely and widely held beliefs is that human life is somehow special. Every religion says it and even most Atheists say it. But the objective facts tell us that no, human life is not special at all. Now consider what this should mean to your decision making proces if human life has no special value? Mass murder of humans becomes as ethical as the mass murder of cows in a slaughterhouse. That is of course, if you count every living organism as being on an equal basis. And thats where you run into your second problem, if human life isn't special how do you measure its worth when making a decision. You could, as I said, count it on a one on one basis. But you could also count it in terms of weight basis. Which organism weighs more and is therefor worth more. Or you could look at it from a scarcity point of view. The more there are of a certain organism, the less it becomes worth. But which counting mechanism do you use, because none of these is objectively false. 

Pure rationality is overrated, our morality and ethics come from our ability to be irrational at times. 

[matias93 7,535]

But now applying a much less radical version of rationality, I would bring back the neccesary doubt about what the bomber was thinking about when doing the attack. Honestly, we have no way to know for sure. If the person is got caught alive, police can interrogate them, but what they answer is not neccesarily true, either fo self-delusion or simply to hide the real motive. Information about the event is fractionary, so it is not impossible that the police has caught the wrong person. Also, supossedly, the ISIS also recognised the attack, but for they is easy enough: checking the news, see some crazy person killing people in a western country, send a social media message saying that they sent the bomber to look more powerful and pervasive without any real effort.

I would prefer to keep a sensible amount of disbelief over newly known information, and to let the investigation to resolve. Maybe we can be surprised.

[rsc204 21,804]

3 hours ago, LexusInfernus said:

Careful there, you just called our soldiers, fighterbomber pilots and drone operators mentally deficient. I'm pretty sure that joining the armed forces is not a sign of mental deficiency. 

Knowingly killing a bunch of children is slightly different from being ordered to bomb/invade/capture something without bothering to check it's all clear of innocents first. I don't think anyone in the armed services would knowingly slaughter a bunch of children frankly, even if some bad guy/(s) were there. You know, rules of engagement and all that.

Isn't that statement more an affirmation that you would equate the two acts as being the same, when the reality is they are anything but? In any case if you take that to mean I was calling everyone in the armed services mentally deficient, you clearly have misunderstood what I was trying to convey at some fundamental level.

3 hours ago, LexusInfernus said:

Terrorists aren't mentally defect. And why would they have to be? Rational thinking people can have a messed up world view just as well.

I think there is a distinction to be made here. The point I was trying to convey previously is simply that many of those committing so called terrorist atrocities recently are not actually terrorists. They do not belong to any terrorist organisation, they were not trained by one nor radicalised in the strictest sense. Some of them are just people who decided they wanted to hurt people and end it all, giving themselves a cause to die for in the process. As for whether that is the case in this instance, well it remains to be found out, I was just putting that out there as a possibility.

Not all terrorists are insane, not all bombers are terrorists and many of those committing these acts would be considered to have mental deficiencies. But what does that mean? A serial killer might just be someone who doesn't place a value on the lives of those they kill. But it is society that has created standards, including what is and isn't considered sane. But, we know that some of those recent incidents, not explicitly the person behind yesterday's attack, were not what society would call mentally stable. In all likelihood that is the main reason behind their crimes, but they are chalked up to terrorism instead.

3 hours ago, LexusInfernus said:

Rational thinking people can have a messed up world view just as well.

Yes and no. Because what we're getting into here is what is considered by most in civilised society to be rationale and sane. But these are human constructs, born by a desire to evolve beyond our animal tendencies into civilised beings. You could argue life isn't worth a damn, the universe is chaos and random and so nothing we all do matters. After all we're pretty sure one day it will all end somehow with another mass extinction anyway.

But I think most people do think life has value.

2 hours ago, LexusInfernus said:

Mass murder of humans becomes as ethical as the mass murder of cows in a slaughterhouse.

Just because cows who are bred for the express purpose of being eaten and used in products are slaughtered, does not mean it follows it's OK to slaughter humans. That's a really poorly thought out argument that completely ignores the reason why we're doing it in the first place. There wouldn't be anything like as many cows, chickens, pigs, sheep etc if we were not breeding them to eat and survive. If the process seems heartless, perhaps you should take a look at the number of people that need feeding these days? If we were going around taking pot-shots at animals for fun, or for some religious reason, that would be a different story altogether. But do such animals bred for an explicit purpose hold a similar value to humans? Of course they don't, suggesting they do is frankly ridiculous, if we weren't eating them, wouldn't exist in the first place.

2 hours ago, matias93 said:

Also, supposedly, the ISIS also recognised the attack, but for they is easy enough: checking the news, see some crazy person killing people in a western country, send a social media message saying that they sent the bomber to look more powerful and pervasive without any real effort.

Which is really the entire point I was trying to make earlier. We can't assume this is the work of ISIS or a terrorist group at this time. If indeed he was working alone, which of course is speculation at this point, there is a possibility he was not a terrorist. At the very least he wasn't a part of ISIS in that case. And we as a society should stop playing into this narrative, because it makes groups like ISIS look far bigger and scarier than the actual reality is. That's exactly the effect the news is trying to create, in some ways governments too. Since it justifies a limitless invasion over our private lives, creating laws which are rarely used for the defined purpose. Want an example of why that's bad, imagine a 21st century Gestapo with access to everything you've ever done and said online? Now that's something to truly be scared of. The reality is that however terrible the acts of terrorists are, over the course of a fraction of an average year, more will die in traffic accidents. In 2015, 1,732 people were killed on the roads, but few are scared of cars. Yet we are far more likely to die in one than by the hands of a terrorist.

It's about remaining grounded enough to see things for what they are. We're not going to stop terrorism, murderers or people dying, to think we could simply belies the reality of how things work. There will always and have always been people who wish to do others harm. But we need to put the actual risk into perspective, that's all.

3 hours ago, LexusInfernus said:

I mean, we all think this guy bombing a bunch of children is terribly evil. But how many of you spend even a second thinking about children in Syria that get bombed by us?

Again I fear you are comparing apples with oranges, you know an eye for an eye, so it's somehow all the same. But knowingly blowing up young people and children is very different to trying to stop an evil dictator who's murdering his own people on a daily basis. I think it's pretty obvious that children were a target in this case, but you can't tell me the US, UK or other countries involved in action in Muslim countries are targetting children. Sadly, war is a nasty business, people get caught in the crossfire. Where do you really think the refuge problem stems from? The root cause is Assad's regime and the manner in which it was treating it's civilians. Other groups then waged war to try and depose him, in the meantime the world powers have dipped one toe into the water and picked their sides. It's this ongoing war that has led to a mass exodus. It's not like it's all the fault of those fighting against it, the problem is much more complex than that. To conveniently ignore all those factors doesn't help anyone, simplification of very complex events ultimately leads to big misunderstandings, sometimes with terrible consequences.

Should we have just sat by and watched Hitler take over the globe piece by piece? At some point, for the betterment of mankind, someone had to have the guts to stand up to his regime. Of course not all such wars are so black and white, but I'd like to think the idea of protecting the people of Syria from Assad, is ultimately a moral one. How we go about that, well that's a lot more tricky, since the last thing people support is long and drawn out conflicts. So instead we go in with limited people on the ground and using technological and weapons superiority. That brings a whole other bunch of problems and morality issues into the fold. But let's not forget the target in this example is a maniac prepared to use chemical weaponry on kids (and adults), among his many crimes against humanity.

Of course it's true that we try to assign ethicality to such scenarios, yet we turn a blind eye to similar or worse atrocities where it suits our interests to ignore the plight of those involved. Just like it can be said we could go about fighting such evil better and avoiding more innocents getting caught up in the ordeal. But rather than bomb you because I disagree with your solution, rationale people prefer to try and open discourse. There are people who believe (wrongly), that this is all some anti-Muslim crusade, which couldn't be further from the truth. So if that's your starting point, I think it's fair to call you delusional at the very least. But looking at the events rationally, even if you disagree with one side of it, is no justification for spilling more blood, you'd have to be crazy to think that way.

[LexusInfernus 908]

1 hour ago, rsc204 said:

Knowingly killing a bunch of children is slightly different from being ordered to bomb/invade/capture something without bothering to check it's all clear of innocents first. I don't think anyone in the armed services would knowingly slaughter a bunch of children frankly, even if some bad guy/(s) were there. You know, rules of engagement and all that.

Isn't that statement more an affirmation that you would equate the two acts as being the same, when the reality is they are anything but? In any case if you take that to mean I was calling everyone in the armed services mentally deficient, you clearly have misunderstood what I was trying to convey at some fundamental level.

No, I wasn't trying to imply that you thought people in the armed services are mentally unstable or something. I apologize if thats what you took from it. What I meant was that the statement I highlighted in bold could be turned around and applied to the armed forces. Soldiers killing, be it other soldiers or innocent civilians that are hurt accidentally, as an individual act accomplishes nothing. Only the combined killing done by a lot of soldiers at the same time maybe does something. But as you said, if individual acts accomplish nothing by themselves, they are unjustifiable. 

Oh and lets not kid ourselves. Drone operators knowingly shoot missiles at people knowing full well they also kill innocent people, even children. They see it happening on camera. And fighter pilots might not see the results of their actions directly live, they too must realize that given the civilian casualty reports as a result of airstrikes, they probably ended up killing civilians as well. 

1 hour ago, rsc204 said:

I think there is a distinction to be made here. The point I was trying to convey previously is simply that many of those committing so called terrorist atrocities recently are not actually terrorists. They do not belong to any terrorist organisation, they were not trained by one nor radicalised in the strictest sense. Some of them are just people who decided they wanted to hurt people and end it all, giving themselves a cause to die for in the process. As for whether that is the case in this instance, well it remains to be found out, I was just putting that out there as a possibility.

I'd say that wanting to hurt people for some taken up cause is pretty much the very definition of radicalization. 

Also, technically everyone who strikes at civilians or civilian infrastructure with violence to achieve a political goal falls under the definition of terrorist. I know, thats pretty wide, but the definition for terrorist is pretty wide. 

1 hour ago, rsc204 said:

Not all terrorists are insane, not all bombers are terrorists and many of those committing these acts would be considered to have mental deficiencies. But what does that mean? A serial killer might just be someone who doesn't place a value on the lives of those they kill. But it is society that has created standards, including what is and isn't considered sane. But, we know that some of those recent incidents, not explicitly the person behind yesterday's attack, were not what society would call mentally stable. In all likelihood that is the main reason behind their crimes, but they are chalked up to terrorism instead.

Nah, but the risk is that we start treating it like some medical deficiency when really its not. Its the problem we see with spree shooters in the US, if its a white guy its because he has some kind of mental disorder, if its anyone else its a criminal or a terrorist. While I'm not arguing that a mental problem can't be the cause for becoming a spree shooter or indeed, a terrorist, going for a medical issue as the default option is not good. Its a cop out that ignores the abundant socio-economic, cultural and political factors that are far bigger contributors to someone going on a shooting spree than whatever mental health disorder they can find. 

1 hour ago, rsc204 said:

Yes and no. Because what we're getting into here is what is considered by most in civilised society to be rationale and sane. But these are human constructs, born by a desire to evolve beyond our animal tendencies into civilised beings. You could argue life isn't worth a damn, the universe is chaos and random and so nothing we all do matters. After all we're pretty sure one day it will all end somehow with another mass extinction anyway.

But I think most people do think life has value.

What is rational isn't determined by popular vote, it is by definition objective. And its not up for consideration either. It either is, or it is not. 

Also, I agree, it is sane to believe human life has value. I believe human life has value. But I do not pretend that this particular view is the result of some rational conclusion. It is something I believe because believing it pleases me and forms the basis of many arguments that I can build on to inform and justify some of the other views I hold. It is what most people do. 

But, its important to remember that it is possible for otherwise sane and rational people to take on absolutely abhorrent starting points. For example, slave holders. Somewhere at the start of their chain of moral and ethical logic, they had decided that white people were superior to black people. If you believe in that proposition, than slavery logically follows from it. 

Nazis (I know) took it even further. They had decided that the root cause of their problems were Jews. From there they implemented a policy of systemically rooting out the problem by killing all Jews. This is in my opinion the true horror of the holocaust. Mass murder resulting from some kind of psychosis or what happens in a fit of rage most people can understand. They don't approve, but its understandable or in a sense relatable. But what the Nazis did was mass murder while treating it the same way governments treat things like city planning or economic development programs. Bureaucrats sat in offices discussing the best cost effective ways of exterminating millions of human beings. They drew up time tables, policy proposals, budgets, they build a whole bureaucracy around killing human beings. 

Anyways, the point I'm trying to make is that if you take up a messed up starting position, rational and logical thinking can get you to conclude absolutely horrible acts are necessary to achieve your goals. Terrorists have a messed up starting position and that allows them to conclude it makes total logical sense to bomb a bunch of children. 

1 hour ago, rsc204 said:

Just because cows who are bred for the express purpose of being eaten and used in products are slaughtered, does not mean it follows it's OK to slaughter humans. That's a really poorly thought out argument that completely ignores the reason why we're doing it in the first place. There wouldn't be anything like as many cows, chickens, pigs, sheep etc if we were not breeding them to eat and survive. If the process seems heartless, perhaps you should take a look at the number of people that need feeding these days? If we were going around taking pot-shots at animals for fun, or for some religious reason, that would be a different story altogether. But do such animals bred for an explicit purpose hold a similar value to humans? Of course they don't, suggesting they do is frankly ridiculous, if we weren't eating them, wouldn't exist in the first place.

You say that because you believe human life has a special value, something that makes it inherently more worthy than the lives of cows. But what is the objective basis for that?

1 hour ago, rsc204 said:

Again I fear you are comparing apples with oranges, you know an eye for an eye, so it's somehow all the same. But knowingly blowing up young people and children is very different to trying to stop an evil dictator who's murdering his own people on a daily basis. I think it's pretty obvious that children were a target in this case, but you can't tell me the US, UK or other countries involved in action in Muslim countries are targetting children. Sadly, war is a nasty business, people get caught in the crossfire. Where do you really think the refuge problem stems from? The root cause is Assad's regime and the manner in which it was treating it's civilians. Other groups then waged war to try and depose him, in the meantime the world powers have dipped one toe into the water and picked their sides. It's this ongoing war that has led to a mass exodus. It's not like it's all the fault of those fighting against it, the problem is much more complex than that. To conveniently ignore all those factors doesn't help anyone, simplification of very complex events ultimately leads to big misunderstandings, sometimes with terrible consequences.

Well, do you think our motives matter to the dad who just lost his child in an allied air strike? You think he will think 'but the Americans just try to depose of IS, so my son's death is all for the greater good'. Also, everyone who is currently bombing Syria is bombing cities or otherwise urban areas. We may claim that we just want to kill evil terrorists, but once you start dropping a lot of bombs on cities civilian deaths become inevitable. How long can we act innocent by claiming we weren't targeting civilians when we kill about 300-400 civilians a month? When we deliberately drop bombs over cities? 

Look, I get it, we really do need to take out IS and Assad. And yes that unfortunately means civilians are going to die. But if we do that we should accept the consequence that our actions will create terrorists on our own soils who will strike out at us. Civilians deaths are collateral damage in war, but that also applies to our own civilians. 

[Wiimeiser 434]

Someone said that the guards didn't actually search the bags. Why wouldn't they?

Also, doesn't taking out their leader usually make them more aggressive? I mean, look at what happens after Master Kohga dies: the Yuga will chase Link to the ends of Hyrule.