Rising Hegemon
In fact, they are almost always individuals who bury whatever intellect they have to accomplish a mission like a drone -- including the unthinking part. Read for example the Looming Tower and the picture you get of bin Laden is not some super genius, but some incredible hack who lived a privileged lifestyle and took advantage of one of the most fucked-up societies on earth, Saudi Arabia. He's a complete and utter boob, truly. He and Zawahiri got unbelievably lucky on 9/11.
The Christian Science Monitor gets into this topic today in a display of actual journalism:
“Terrorism is a tool of the less-powerful, and they use what they have at hand,” says Gary LaFree, a professor of criminology and director of the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism at the University of Maryland in College Park.
The deadly successes of the 9/11 attacks perhaps have made Islamist terrorists appear more competent than they are, in general. Mr. LaFree counts some 50 or 60 thwarted attacks linked to Al Qaeda or its allies since 2001.
“Terrorists use readily-available, low-tech weapons, and they often screw up,” says LaFree.
And yet, it is us and our rank panic and stupidity, fed by those desiring ever more power, that allows these idiots to be really successful -- in that they make our life worse in small day-to-day things.
Perhaps it has always been this way. After all the assassin of Franz Ferdinand succeeded despite being a shitty shot when he and his associates plot to kill him failed...only to be given the gift of incredible luck shortly afterwards at a range he could not possibly miss.
It was a lot easier to throw a bomb at the Czar in the late 19th century (in part of course, because then there were, y'know real Czars instead of fake FoxNews declared Czars) because he received a lot less security than your father does at the Native American Casino as he plays electronic poker.
16 comments:
Fear sells. That's the big problem. People are easily scared, and especially by their own government, because for all the talk about government being too big, too inefficient, that it ought to be run like a business, people still bend to authority. It's just a fact of life.
Ever since WWII, the government has been operating under one or another Presidential directive declaring a national state of emergency, and that has been inexorably exploited by the people in the country seeking greater power and more profit. Whether it's immigration, national security, oil, weather, no matter, the public wants to be protected by the government, or have been convinced that they want that, even though government is less and less able to protect them.
Four times the number of people killed on 9/11 are killed each and every year by handguns. Fourteen times the number of people killed on 9/11 are killed in automobile accidents each and every year, but, still, terrorism is an easily pushed hot button. It scares people because the government has conditioned people to be scared, to give in to that fear of the unknown, to succumb to the fear that they could be wiped out any second (even though the same can happen to them in a car wreck).
On balance, it's irrational. Life itself is unpredictable, and yet, the knowledge that some "other" can be at the controls of one's life makes people think in irrational ways. It encourages all manner of societal ills which are then easily exploited.
In such times, personal security and national security are intimately and psychologically linked. And trying to talk sense about it doesn't do much good. Only when people sense their lives are worse because of their irrational fears do they begin to push back against the fearmongers, and we've not yet arrived at that time.
Jihadis are we
Born to be free,
Just like the fish in the sea!
just like the gnews helping poor poor hapless republikkklans, why is the press giving them helpful hints???
loose lips and all. TMI!
Four times the number of people killed on 9/11 are killed each and every year by handguns. Fourteen times the number of people killed on 9/11 are killed in automobile accidents each and every year, but, still, terrorism is an easily pushed hot button.
This is a dishonest or at the very least an ill-informed "argument" posed by Montag. It's false equivalency on several levels.
I'm guessing that it's mostly dishonesty, though, since Montag can write fairly well and seems to have some semblance of basic intelligence.
Handguns are tools that people use, whereas terrorists are people that use handguns (among many other tools used for their purpose of killing innocent people).
Car accidents are exactly that: accidents.
That's why we call them "accidents". Accidents differ greatly from what terrorists do, which is kill and maim people on purpose. And again, cars are merely tools of transportation, ....again, objects with no conscience whatsoever.
Montag's attempt at "argument" is largely one that's been used by the likes of Michael Moore. And rational thinking people know how adept Moore is at lying and deception.
Handguns are tools that people use, whereas terrorists are people that use handguns (among many other tools used for their purpose of killing innocent people).
What a magnificent moron you must be in person. Tools, my ass--they're weapons. In the context I mentioned, they are used with the specific intent of killing someone (well, except for idiots that leave them out for kids to play with, which results in negligent deaths).
Car accidents are exactly that: accidents.
That's why we call them "accidents". Accidents differ greatly from what terrorists do, which is kill and maim people on purpose. And again, cars are merely tools of transportation, ....again, objects with no conscience whatsoever.
They are still entirely unnecessary deaths, which occur with great regularity, and very often to people who have absolutely no expectation of being killed in them--exactly like the people who are victims of terrorism.
What I am talking about, and which you've done your absolute--and wholly deficient--best to sidestep here, is that as a society, we are able to compartmentalize and contain our fears about car accidents and gun deaths--even though those events are far more widespread and more pervasive than successful acts of terrorism--in order to go about our daily lives without being overwhelmed by fear. And yet, we have a government--and a corrupt right wing--which exploits the uncertainty of terrorism to keep those fears uppermost in mind, and for political advantage.
And you know goddamned well that is what I said, rather than, as you claim, making a false moral equivalency between car accidents and terrorism.
You're dreadfully bad at what you do here. Your time would be much more profitably spent jerking off to Scary Sarah's appearances on Fox News.
Yeah, that's it-- they got lucky on 9/11. Right.
(eyeroll)
....we are able to compartmentalize and contain our fears about car accidents and gun deaths--even though those events are far more widespread and more pervasive than successful acts of terrorism--in order to go about our daily lives without being overwhelmed by fear.
.....and we are able to compartmentalize and contain fears of terrorism, as well. Life has changed very little since 9/11. As a society we compartmentalized by sending our military to deal with (some of) the countries where terrorist organizations fester. I personally don't feel overwhelmed with fear of terrorism. More accurately I don't even feel mediumwhelmed, just more aware is all. And supportive of taking away potential and existing breeding grounds for terrorist filth.
And speaking of terrorist filth -- your choice of words (which I've taken the liberty of bolding above) is very telling. It also highlights the false moral equivalency in discussion here. For instance a normal person wouldn't refer to a car accident as being successful". Very telling....the language that you cretinous terrorist enablers tend to choose.
....we are able to compartmentalize and contain our fears about car accidents and gun deaths--even though those events are far more widespread and more pervasive than successful acts of terrorism--in order to go about our daily lives without being overwhelmed by fear.
.....and we are able to compartmentalize and contain fears of terrorism, as well. Life has changed very little since 9/11. As a society we compartmentalized by sending our military to deal with (some of) the countries where terrorist organizations fester. I personally don't feel overwhelmed with fear of terrorism. More accurately I don't even feel mediumwhelmed, just more aware is all. And supportive of taking away potential and existing breeding grounds for terrorist filth.
And speaking of terrorist filth -- your choice of words (which I've taken the liberty of bolding above) is very telling. It also highlights the false moral equivalency in discussion here. For instance a normal person wouldn't refer to a car accident as being successful". Very telling....the language that you cretinous terrorist enablers tend to choose.
....we are able to compartmentalize and contain our fears about car accidents and gun deaths--even though those events are far more widespread and more pervasive than successful acts of terrorism--in order to go about our daily lives without being overwhelmed by fear.
.....and we are able to compartmentalize and contain fears of terrorism, as well. Life has changed very little since 9/11. As a society we compartmentalized by sending our military to deal with (some of) the countries where terrorist organizations fester. I personally don't feel overwhelmed with fear of terrorism. More accurately I don't even feel mediumwhelmed, just more aware is all. And supportive of taking away potential and existing breeding grounds for terrorist filth.
And speaking of terrorist filth -- your choice of words (which I've taken the liberty of bolding above) is very telling. It also highlights the false moral equivalency in discussion here. For instance a normal person wouldn't refer to a car accident as being successful". Very telling....the language that you cretinous terrorist enablers tend to choose.
....we are able to compartmentalize and contain our fears about car accidents and gun deaths--even though those events are far more widespread and more pervasive than successful acts of terrorism--in order to go about our daily lives without being overwhelmed by fear.
.....and we are able to compartmentalize and contain fears of terrorism, as well. Life has changed very little since 9/11. As a society we compartmentalized by sending our military to deal with (some of) the countries where terrorist organizations fester. I personally don't feel overwhelmed with fear of terrorism. More accurately I don't even feel mediumwhelmed, just more aware is all. And supportive of taking away potential and existing breeding grounds for terrorist filth.
And speaking of terrorist filth -- your choice of words (which I've taken the liberty of bolding above) is very telling. It also highlights the false moral equivalency in discussion here. For instance a normal person wouldn't refer to a car accident as being successful". Very telling....the language that you cretinous terrorist enablers tend to choose.
Olives and Arrows said....
....we are able to compartmentalize and contain our fears about car accidents and gun deaths--even though those events are far more widespread and more pervasive than successful acts of terrorism--in order to go about our daily lives without being overwhelmed by fear.
.....and we are able to compartmentalize and contain fears of terrorism, as well. Life has changed very little since 9/11. As a society we compartmentalized by sending our military to deal with (some of) the countries where terrorist organizations fester. I personally don't feel overwhelmed with fear of terrorism. More accurately I don't even feel mediumwhelmed, just more aware is all. And supportive of taking away potential and existing breeding grounds for terrorist filth.
And speaking of terrorist filth -- your choice of words (which I've taken the liberty of bolding above) is very telling. It also highlights the false moral equivalency in discussion here. For instance a normal person wouldn't refer to a car accident as being successful". Very telling....the language that you cretinous terrorist enablers tend to choose.
f'n haloscan /sigh
Idiot. It's always the same blather anyway.
Idiot. It's always the same blather anyway.
Indeed. What O&A is doing here is a classic straw man rhetorical fallacy. He mischaracterizes and misrepresents what I said, then attacks the mischaracterization as if it were the original premise.
It's something that freshmen in high school learn in debating club and think is a really neat trick, but, in the real world, it's quickly seen for the tawdry and transparent ploy that it is. O&A does this rather consistently because he doesn't really have any cogent counter-arguments, and, frankly, is too poorly trained in rhetoric to actually debate a point without resorting to a basket of rhetorical fallacies.
In other words, he's just a typical troll with an agenda.
Wowser. Montag.
You're in pretty bad shape then, aren't you?
Considering that a supposed high school debater has consistently kicked your sorry ass around whenever you attempt to argue, it certainly doesn't stand you in very good stead.
Tell us again how you wish for terrorist attacks to be "successful".
What a laugh. OnA unwittingly proves Montag's point. Utterly Pavlovian.
Dimwit.
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