View Full Version : The stupidest video I have seen - "What Do Terrorists Want?"
These are some of the stupidest arguments I have ever heard on this topic.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpifclvMEOE
This guy's channel sometimes, once in a blue moon, has some OK points, but generally takes a typical leftist's mechanistic world view when it comes to the enemy.
See if you can spot all the logical fallacies and insane premises.
I will chime in later with my thoughts. I am curious what you guys think.
Despite what most people think, terrorism is not really about mass murder. The primary goal of a terrorist attack is to strike fear and panic in the heart and minds of oridinary civilians. It's all about the psychological impact rather the physical damage. In this report we look at the reality of terrorist organizations and how sophisticated they really are. Furthmore we discuss how media exposure contributes to fearmongering.
I think anyone who can't figure out exactly what terrorists want, doesn't deserve to have me watch their video. I have already read the demands of Al Quida, ISIS, Black September and similar shitheads. They can all go **** themselves.
I always thought that deep down, terrorists were all emo and wanted someone to waste them and put them out of their misery. That's tge most thought I'm willing to give the matter.
Benito - I don't know if I'm understanding what you meant. I didn't think the video related any 'falsehoods' - terrorism has always been about, well, you know, causing terror and exploiting that terror for political change. In today's world the political change aimed for is an Islamic World.
So in that vein, if a terrorist attack causes the government to enact something, lets call it the Patriot Act which erodes the rights of all citizens, they have won a small victory. If ultimately there is pushback against the government as a result, they've won an even larger victory.
So while 'a' body count is not the ultimate goal, it still has to be large enough or spectacular enough to accomplish the goal of causing fear in the population. I thought the portion of the video which talked about the media was spot on.
Despite my efforts to be unaffected by the efforts of the asshole terrorist, I have been. I no longer fly. Not because I am afraid of a plane crash, hijack, or bomb, simply because I'm unwilling to put up with the pain-in-the-ass flying has become.
Now, having said all that, what should our response to terrorist attacks or threats be? Less publicity. More people responsible just being dead one day with little fanfare. Exterminate them as you would a bug, without any fanfare.
I'm not going to be so unreasonable as to say no change to daily activities, going armed, etc. but we can't live in fear, if we do they've already won.
Benjamin Franklin said it first - 'They that can give up essential Liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither Liberty nor safety.'
Benito - I don't know if I'm understanding what you meant. I didn't think the video related any 'falsehoods' - terrorism has always been about, well, you know, causing terror and exploiting that terror for political change. In today's world the political change aimed for is an Islamic World.
So in that vein, if a terrorist attack causes the government to enact something, lets call it the Patriot Act which erodes the rights of all citizens, they have won a small victory. If ultimately there is pushback against the government as a result, they've won an even larger victory.
So while 'a' body count is not the ultimate goal, it still has to be large enough or spectacular enough to accomplish the goal of causing fear in the population. I thought the portion of the video which talked about the media was spot on.
Despite my efforts to be unaffected by the efforts of the asshole terrorist, I have been. I no longer fly. Not because I am afraid of a plane crash, hijack, or bomb, simply because I'm unwilling to put up with the pain-in-the-ass flying has become.
Now, having said all that, what should our response to terrorist attacks or threats be? Less publicity. More people responsible just being dead one day with little fanfare. Exterminate them as you would a bug, without any fanfare.
I'm not going to be so unreasonable as to say no change to daily activities, going armed, etc. but we can't live in fear, if we do they've already won.
Benjamin Franklin said it first - 'They that can give up essential Liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither Liberty nor safety.'
The clown who made that video made the following errors:
1) No definition of the term "terrorist". After asserting that it is overused and misused, and then acknowledging that there are genuine terrorist organizations. It would be helpful to hear what the criteria for genuine terrorism is.
2) Set up a straw man with the notion that the image of terrorists are uneducated, cave-dwelling bearded illiterates. Most people are well aware that many terrorists are highly educated (doctors, engineers, etc.), well-funded, sometimes even wealthy, well-connected, technologically savvy and more strategically shrewd than the pathetic leadership in the West.
3) Reacting to terrorism by defending one's self is not "hysteria", or "irrational". It is a rational, natural instinct of self-preservation.
4) With regards to his points about the media, he is only are partly correct. The media are companies, and they do have financial interests. But here, he misses another "interest" that those individuals in the media, just like any human being have, and that is ideological. One simply cannot deny that ideology plays into how reporters and media organizations perceive reality and report that reality (or just make things up, of course). Many media outlets will actually go to great lengths to deflect blame from certain terrorists' motivating factors (ahem, Islam), for either political correctness, Islamophilia, naivete, financial gain (money from Muslim sources), etc. As for negative news, even that is not so clear. Some media will minimize certain negative news (again, for ideological and other reasons), while playing up other negative news. Sometime negative news are spun into positive news. There are numerous examples of this.
It isn't always counterproductive to report negative news. In fact, a lot of the time it is politically dangerous to report certain negative news. Reporting the swamping of Europe by Muslims is negative news, but is politically dangerous, and opens one up to all sorts of smears and accusations, and possibly even criminal charges.
5) Covering the murder in Munich of Israeli Olympic athletes was not senationalistic. The event itself was sensational. It is perfectly reasonable to cover an event like that, because it was so disgusting and out of the ordinary.
6) Nice cheap shot at survivalists. People who acquire gas masks, canned goods, bunkers, etc. are not the problem. This is a red herring, and has nothing to do with what terrorists want.
7) While a part of the goal of terrorists is to strike fear and panic into the hearts and minds of its targets (non-Muslims and Muslims of other sects), that is a means to an end. With regards to Muslim terrorists, the end that this clown left out of his video is the end of killing, converting, enslaving or subjugating non-Muslim infidels/dhimmis, as specifically laid out in the Quran.
As for terrorists motivated by other ideologies, their end goal is likewise very much ideologically driven, and is either to destroy "capitalists", Jews, etc.
8) He asserts that terrorism is only as powerful as we perceive it to be. This is naive at best, and downright suicidal at worst. The not-so-subtle implication of this argument is that we more or less bury our heads in the sand as to the horrors and goals of terrorists. Pretending it's not there will not make it go away.
9) He assumes, mistakenly, that terrorist attacks will always happen, and that we must simply accept this reality as we accept the sun rising and setting.Terrorism is not like a natural disaster at all. The former is caused by human free will, the latter is not. This is such a fundamental difference, that I can't believe that I am pointing it out.
This is crazy. The reason that these attacks keep happening is that we, the West, have taken a very kid gloves approach to Islamic terrorism.
Allow me to draw a quick analogy:
We didn't simply accept Nazi attacks or Kamikaze missions. We went all out, killed their leadership, destroyed their symbols, and humiliated its ideological foundations.
That is why these attacks are effectively no longer happening.
With Islamic terrorism, we play whack-a-mole, rather than go after the root cause - the ideology itself, Saudi Arabian/Gulf funding, absurd levels of Muslim immigration into the West, and mosques/madrasas in the West itself.
This video really pissed me off because it hides so many absurd premises and assumptions beneath its surface facade of rationality and analysis.
Okay, I see where you are coming from.
A couple of things that I kind of see both ways: 3) Reacting to terrorism by defending one's self is not "hysteria", or "irrational". It is a rational, natural instinct of self-preservation. I agree, but I also note that many of the well publicized 'anti-terrorism' measures were/are placebos, feel good stuff that has little to no impact. In terms of invading, Iraq, wrong place, in terms of Afghanistan, wrong methodology. I'm more in favor of this type of behavior (paraphrased from LGOP's):
After the demise of the WTC, a most terrifying effect occurred on the battlefield. This was known as the rule of the LGOPSOP (Little Groups of Pissed Special Operations Personnel). This is, in its purest form, small groups of pissed-off American Special Operations Personnel. They are well trained. They are armed to the teeth and lack serious adult supervision, they rule the terrain they stride upon. They collectively remember the Commander's intent as "hunt down the ones responsible and put their heads on pikes" - or something like that. Happily they go about their work.....
That would have been my response. Oh, hey, that explosion? Those dead guys? Umm, gee that's too bad, we can go in on flowers. You say he was shot in the ear? Fell from a cliff? Wow he must of pissed someone off...
I think on 6) nice shot at survivalists he was commenting that the terrorists has succeeded by getting that type of reaction. (I could be wrong though, I didn't watch the video more than once).
8) He asserts that terrorism is only as powerful as we perceive it to be. I agree with this statement. The hard thing to define is 'what is over reaction?' Ratcheting up personal and national alertness is good, restricting personal freedoms is bad. NOT going about your daily business as usual, albeit with heightened alertness, is bad. Freedom is not risk free.
The rest I agree with.
Thanks for the well thought-out reply!
I consider the piece to be naïve and superficial. I typed up a long winded treatise on what drives people to do things that will hurt those who differ from them, but in the end it's all just bullshit. Unhappy people are even more unhappy, because they perceive that someone else is responsible for all the problems in their lives. In order to gain some semblance of control over their pathetic little existence, they hurt others to make themselves feel better. Somewhere in the mix, you stir in a few mentally defective dimwits, along with a dash of truly evil sociopaths and you've got yourself a violent movement. Subtract an effective governing body and voilà! Anarchy rules. Left unchecked for long enough? Genocide. The only difference between our domestic terrorists and the exploding threat posed by IS, is our effective deterrents. Let's hope they stay effective.
The reasons are all crap. A righteous man only attacks when no other options are available. Once the upper hand is gained, they establish control and attempt to restore justice. Evil men will continue until all that's left is to cannibalize their own group. Absent victory, they often fall on each other like rabid dogs.
You can look up the FBI definition of terrorism if you want, but it's crap. It's just a weak attempt to put evil men in little philosophical boxes, when all they really need is a shallow grave...
Okay, I see where you are coming from.
A couple of things that I kind of see both ways: 3) Reacting to terrorism by defending one's self is not "hysteria", or "irrational". It is a rational, natural instinct of self-preservation. I agree, but I also note that many of the well publicized 'anti-terrorism' measures were/are placebos, feel good stuff that has little to no impact.
I agree, so many of our responses to terrorism have not only been ineffective, but have been insane, such as having to randomly pat down old grannies while letting burqa-clad women and bearded guys in man-jammies stroll around like it ain't no thang. This stupidity, however, is forced due to political correctness and the premise that to reduce terrorism, once must ignore it.
In terms of invading, Iraq, wrong place, in terms of Afghanistan, wrong methodology. I'm more in favor of this type of behavior (paraphrased from LGOP's):
After the demise of the WTC, a most terrifying effect occurred on the battlefield. This was known as the rule of the LGOPSOP (Little Groups of Pissed Special Operations Personnel). This is, in its purest form, small groups of pissed-off American Special Operations Personnel. They are well trained. They are armed to the teeth and lack serious adult supervision, they rule the terrain they stride upon. They collectively remember the Commander's intent as "hunt down the ones responsible and put their heads on pikes" - or something like that. Happily they go about their work.....
That would have been my response. Oh, hey, that explosion? Those dead guys? Umm, gee that's too bad, we can go in on flowers. You say he was shot in the ear? Fell from a cliff? Wow he must of pissed someone off...
Agreed on the LGOP, or LGOPSOP as you put it. The reason we don't see that is because of retards, like the maker of the video, who hypothesize that nuance and negotiations will put a stop to an evil, shrewd, intelligent, persistent and committed enemy.
I think on 6) nice shot at survivalists he was commenting that the terrorists has succeeded by getting that type of reaction. (I could be wrong though, I didn't watch the video more than once).
He was commenting on terrorists getting a reaction, but:
a) survivalists have been around since, well, forever. Most of them aren't even survivalists because of Muslim terrorism, but because of natural disasters, and have plenty of time-tested reasons for fearing such disasters.
b) arguing that a perpetrator has succeeded because his potential victims have taken steps to protect themselves is like arguing that criminals have won because people get CCW's. Therefore, by this logic, to defeat criminals (or at least not give them the satisfaction), no one should be allowed to CCW.
8) He asserts that terrorism is only as powerful as we perceive it to be. I agree with this statement. The hard thing to define is 'what is over reaction?' Ratcheting up personal and national alertness is good, restricting personal freedoms is bad. NOT going about your daily business as usual, albeit with heightened alertness, is bad. Freedom is not risk free.
The rest I agree with.
Thanks for the well thought-out reply!
Sure, there may be such a thing as blowing a statistical risk out of proportion. However, that is not the case with terrorism.
I assert that, if anything, we (Western nations) have consistently UNDERestimated and UNDER-reacted to terrorism.
All of the responses have been weak-willed, half-assed and misdirected. The TSA for starters, not attacking Saudi Arabia, allowing Islam to spread within the US (as well as every other Western nation).
The erosion of personal freedoms wasn't a response to terrorism, but just opportunistic officials doing what they do. I know that the world is a different place than it was 70 years ago, but military principles, and human psychology do not fundamentally change in 70 years, nor 7,000 years for that matter.
We have a tried and tested blueprint for how to win wars, yet the anointed ones think they can turn reality on its head and win wars fighting like the Care Bears would.
It's pathetic. The funny part is that all this makes the enemy hate us even more.
"A tried and tested blueprint for how to win wars?"
Wars on Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany, sure. Our track record since then has been spotty at best.
I know this sounds crazy when it seems so easy and useful to just DEFINE:ENEMY = ACTION:KILL proselytize but it's important that we pick our battles, manage our resources and avoid overreacting. This is particularly true when the punditocracy and a herd of helpful zealots are, for political, financial or personal gain ready to proclaim just about any action and any group a mortal enemy.
If you want the most succinct advice on what NOT to do, Tom Cotton has created a real, actionable blueprint which, helpfully, involves an impossibility by definition:
".....the global superpower can't pivot. You have to be focused everywhere"
"A tried and tested blueprint for how to win wars?"
Wars on Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany, sure. Our track record since then has been spotty at best.
I know this sounds crazy when it seems so easy and useful to just DEFINE:ENEMY = ACTION:KILL proselytize but it's important that we pick our battles, manage our resources and avoid overreacting. This is particularly true when the punditocracy and a herd of helpful zealots are, for political, financial or personal gain ready to proclaim just about any action and any group a mortal enemy.
If you want the most succinct advice on what NOT to do, Tom Cotton has created a real, actionable blueprint which, helpfully, involves an impossibility by definition:
".....the global superpower can't pivot. You have to be focused everywhere"
The best warfare strategies transcend tactical shifts and sociopolitical boundaries. What we've experienced since WWII is nothing more than a lack of will. We're simply not prepared to do what needs done in the face of a dedicated enemy. Medgar Evers got it right. "You can kill a man, but you can't kill an idea."
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