[Bobboau]

That would depend entirely on who you talk to...

That is very true, the question is is there anyone on this forum who would make that distinction? I do not know of anyone who would be so discriminating here (I have certainly encountered such people elsewhere though).

[NGTM-1R]

It can be easily argued that the spike between 2005 and 2006 has already been surpassed, given how that graph only includes data until march 2016. If you multiply that bar by 4 times (I'm obviously assuming the rest of the year will mirror the first half of it), it will be a bar that is pretty much in the same ballpark as 2015.

You're going to get dragged down by a smaller 2015 in comparison anyways.

But even if it's true, as I already pointed out to Bob, this lone-wolf sequence is inherently far more random. The complete lack of organization or control in a series of attacks driven entirely lone wolves means that there is a great deal of random chance about when they start, stop, what gets hit, and how successful they are. Surpassing 2005-2006 would reflect only exceptional bad luck, not any kind of inherent threat. Aryan Nations in their heyday were a lot more dangerous than the Klan nearing their nadir, too, but they never reached the heights the Klan did. (The elephant in the room here that I've tried to refrain from pointing out, but I suppose I should: if we're going to talk about Islamic terrorism's successes, we have to consider Israel in the '90s where people were constantly blowing up buses and ambulances vs. having resorted to stabbings and pretty much ineffective rocket attacks in the modern era. If we compare the height of the Jim Crow Klan to the bad old days of 1970-2000 Israel vs. what's going on now in the whole world, this argument is all over.)

It's also a declining asset. Not just in that the lone wolf mentality is relatively rare, but in that while Turambar has a point about media coverage begets copycats who beget media coverage, it also has a negative effect in discouraging people who might otherwise go down that path. The copycats are simply those awaiting a spark, not those who might someday. This is one of the reasons why such patterns are cyclical in the first place.

[Luis Dias]

I think those comparisons are not only fair but they are required for understanding. Here's the thing though, yes, we can totally see that Israel had it a lot worse in the past, and that things that happened a hundred years ago were usually even more violent than whatever it is that is happening today. However, people smell trends. And this trend can end tomorrow. But that's not what even politicians are communicating to the public (the french saying we have to start treating these things like we treat a bad case of rain or smth to that effect), what is being communicated is that the whole of Europe is slowly turning into an Israel. Except without its own stubburness and persistence.

Regarding that graph where 2015 is still smaller than 2005 or wtv, well is that remotely important? If we add Nice to that chart (and all the others that have happened since March), 2016 has probably already surpassed 2015 by this point.

[Mikes]

This is getting bizarre: http://www.berliner-kurier.de/news/panorama/patient-attackiert-chirurgen--er-schrie-allahu-akbar-und-wollte-mich-enthaupten--24461488

Now a patient not listening to what the surgeon tells him comes back with his brother and father, who was wielding a 30cm knife and proceeded to threathen and manhandle the surgeon, beating his wife (who suffered a heart attack), shouting Allahu Akbar...  police detained them, surgeons wife in hospital.

Now this probably isn't terror but seriously WT* is this?

Is everyone going crazy suddenly or something?

[Grizzly]

Anti-intellectualism?

[Luis Dias]

Anti-intellectualism?

Nah, I'd blame the vegans here. That must have been it. ****ing vegans.

[666maslo666]

This is an obvious lie. It's not a misstatement, it's not ignorance, you are lying to my face. You know this statement is false. You literally linked the chart that disproves it. 2005-2006 was worse than the current situation.

Oh, sorry, the bars are around 20% smaller... Are you seriously trying to imply that means I am lying? Do you think this is some kind of an exact science, lol? It is basically the same. So the chart obviously does prove me right, islamic terror is not on a downward trajectory at all. Not to mention that it doesnt even include most recent attacks.

Linking to that chart was your worst decision ever.

You see that big mess up to 1992?

Do you know what's behind that?

The Soviet Union and Libya providing material and financial support and safehavens to terrorist groups throughout Europe.

Do you see how quickly the terror ended after the collapse of the Soviet Union?

You aint getting that when the terrorist sympathisers are among us, as a decentralized organization, or even worse, mere lone wolfs created by an abstract idea of extremism which has taken root in the population.

Current terrorism wave will be much more persistent and the West will be even less able to defend against it. Ultimately, it could be more dangerous than Soviet Union and Iran were, and I say it as a citizen of a post-communist country with lots of aversion towards the Soviets. Because solving it wont be as trivial as a regime change in some country. It is to a large degree homegrown and decentralized. And that was my point. If you cant see how that makes it more resistant and dangerous than a top-down organization such as an foreign enemy regime, then you have no strategic thinking.

[The E]

And to get back to the incident that started this whole mess of a thread, there is a growing amount of evidence to show that the Munich shooter was motivated by racist motives. Apparently, he had quite a strong anti-immigrant, pro-aryan streak, and wanted to take revenge on the arabs and turks; chat logs show him as your typical internet alt-right idiot, spewing hate and supporting the AfD.

I now turn over the thread to maslo to explain why this was definitely IS' fault.

[666maslo666]

I now turn over the thread to maslo to explain why this was definitely IS' fault.

I dont think this particular attack was IS fault. Let me quote my own post here:

That said, in this particular case I have yet to see any evidence that ISIS or islam is to blame.

I do think it can be argued that it was a fault of multiculturalism, tough. If you randomly import Iranians, Arabs, Turks, Sunnis, Shias etc. you are going to import their mutual conflicts, too. And this immigrant background is really what all these recent wave of attacks have in common, even more so than a connection to IS. The obvious lesson is, strict immigration control is the best cure and prevention for 21st century terrorism (and not just terrorism, for every deadly terrorist attack you have a thousand incidents of less serious ethnic tension). This doesnt mean you have to build THE WALL and ban all them muslims, but maybe n well regulated immigration policy inspired by those in Eastern Europe or east Asia is appropriate here. The goal is to have a small muslim minority that is well integrated and wealthy, not x million of random arabs coming every year..

[Phantom Hoover]

And to get back to the incident that started this whole mess of a thread, there is a growing amount of evidence to show that the Munich shooter was motivated by racist motives. Apparently, he had quite a strong anti-immigrant, pro-aryan streak, and wanted to take revenge on the arabs and turks; chat logs show him as your typical internet alt-right idiot, spewing hate and supporting the AfD.

I now turn over the thread to maslo to explain why this was definitely IS' fault.

It does seem quite absurd to hold up the fact that we've finally had a terror attack that wasn't in the name of IS as evidence of anything.

[Bobboau]

the Munich shooter was motivated by racist motives. Apparently, he had quite a strong anti-immigrant, pro-aryan streak, and wanted to take revenge on the arabs and turks; chat logs show him as your typical internet alt-right idiot, spewing hate and supporting the AfD.

link?

I mean last I heard the guy was an ethnic Iranian named Ali...
Pro-"aryan"?
At the very least I have a hard time seeing this as the mold from which your typical anti-immigrant AfD supporter is cast.


or was there another shooting I missed? (being serious, there are so many maybe I missed one or am just thinking of the wrong one)

[NGTM-1R]

I mean last I heard the guy was an ethnic Iranian named Ali...

Iranian ethnicity isn't Arabic or Semitic, y'know. The are that Caucasian takes its name from is right next door to Iran, even. In Hitler's perfect world, they would have been a-okay, and one of the fun little farces of history was the Nazi effort to provoke Iran into resisting the British and Russians who wanted to use it as a supply corridor for Lend-Lease to Russia and oil to the British forces in North Africa and India.

If you go back to the source material, there's plenty there for an ethnic Iranian to like.

Oh, sorry, the bars are around 20% smaller... Are you seriously trying to imply that means I am lying?

20% is well beyond any reasonable margin of error. Do you have any kind of science background at all, much less social science? Trends are normally predicted on much smaller differences.

Do you see how quickly the terror ended after the collapse of the Soviet Union?

Yes, but you don't seem to understand why it's important. An organized campaign backed by a nation state. That is what one looks like. That is what one can do. Even given the vast disparity in resources between the USSR and ISIS what is currently going on looks nothing like that.

You aint getting that when the terrorist sympathisers are among us, as a decentralized organization, or even worse, mere lone wolfs created by an abstract idea of extremism which has taken root in the population.

Your goalposts are sliding. This is the first time you've admitted the possibility of a total lack of coordination rather than a decentralized network.

Current terrorism wave will be much more persistent

Why? What about a group of disorganized, unfunded, unconnected attacks makes them likely to beat out a large number of organized groups conducting a coordinated campaign with the backing of one of the two superpowers on the planet for funding, training, technical support, mission planning, intelligence?

Again, the strength of humanity, the most successful of its accomplishments, have always been through our ability to coordinate with each other and plan to accomplish things larger than we ever could alone. 9/11 took the work of at 19 people at the point of fire and required the active participation in funding, transport, planning, and other ways of at least three dozen more, plus the existence of a network that could have even contemplated going to that scale in the first place, which took the efforts of hundreds if not thousands.

The 1970s and 1980s took the work of an entire specialized department of handlers in the KGB, millions of dollars equivalent, weapons and equipment by the literal ton, the work of the entire Soviet intelligence service for operational planning, the complicity and support of Iran, East Germany, and Libya in maintaining training facilities and putting people up there, and dozens of other things I could spend hours listing. It was an operation that required the efforts, peripheral or direct, of tens of thousands of people and the investment of well over a million man-hours, and the risk of hundreds of actual terrorist or supporters in Western Europe.

You're proposing that something like a hundred and fifty to two hundred people, if we continue at current rate to this time next year, whose only abundant resource is their willingness to do violence, are able to match that.

You realize how insane that sounds, right?

[Bobboau]

Ok, did not know Nazis where down with Persians. I mean they didn't like Slavs so I figured Iranians would be way out.

[666maslo666]

20% is well beyond any reasonable margin of error. Do you have any kind of science background at all, much less social science? Trends are normally predicted on much smaller differences.

This is complete BS. The amount of dead fluctuates randomly year by year much more than 20%, so it is mathematically impossible for 20% difference to be significant. The only thing that would be significant here are order of magnitude differences over multiple years, such as witnessed after the fall of the soviet union. Otherwise it is statistical noise. May be enough to speculate about, but not enough to do any science, except for pseudoscience, that is.

[666maslo666]

Your goalposts are sliding. This is the first time you've admitted the possibility of a total lack of coordination rather than a decentralized network.

My goalposts are sliding because it is a sliding scale. The more decentralization you have, the harder it is to stop the threat.

Why? What about a group of disorganized, unfunded, unconnected attacks makes them likely to beat out a large number of organized groups conducting a coordinated campaign with the backing of one of the two superpowers on the planet for funding, training, technical support, mission planning, intelligence?

You are implying that islamic extremism has degenerated into decentralization, I am saying it evolved into that. This will make it much harder to eliminate, if its at all possible.

The former is much harder to stop because there is no centralised power structure to target, no relatively military solution, therefore the campaign of terror can continue for a longer period of time. If we have a specific terrorist state conducting attacks against us, the plan is clear - eliminate the terrorist state and the attacks stop (just like happened with Soviet Union and is happening with ISIS). What can you do against a virulent ideology or meme? You can try education, but that might not work for a long time, if at all. How effective was such strategy recently against other virulent problematic memes, like Brexit or Trump? Not very.

Or you can try to limit the % of problematic meme carriers in your society (by controlling their immigration in this case), which is a blunt solution, but guaranteed to be reasonably effective in preventing the increase of the threat. It is already too late for this solution in western Europe to completely prevent the threat, you will unfortunately have to get used to this new normal (as French PM said) and attempt to implement the harder solutions on your existing muslim populations. But fortunately its not too late for V4 countries, we can still learn from your mistakes and not repeat them. And in a rare show of competence, it seems that most of our politicians understand that.

[The E]

You are implying that islamic extremism has degenerated into decentralization, I am saying it evolved into that. This will make it much harder to eliminate, if its at all possible.

No, it's definitely a degeneration. Under al-qaeda, islamic terrorism had a game plan, a unified vision behind it. Now, with IS and all those lone wolfs, there is no unified goal anymore (other than the somewhat nebulous "attack the west!"). 9/11 was a grand gesture, a massive blow to the US on many, many levels. A random guy taking over a church? Some dude blowing himself up at a market somewhere? That's nowhere near the same level of effectiveness. All it does is cause a momentary panic (and its motivating guys like you to draw wrong conclusions); it's a nuisance more than anything. Qaeda wanted to bring down nations. The worst things the current crop of idiots are capable of is encouraging people like you to do what they want.

The former is much harder to stop because there is no centralised power structure to target, no relatively military solution, therefore the campaign of terror can continue for a longer period of time. If we have a specific terrorist state conducting attacks against us, the plan is clear - eliminate the terrorist state and the attacks stop (just like happened with Soviet Union and is happening with ISIS). What can you do against a virulent ideology or meme? You can try education, but that might not work for a long time, if at all. How effective was such strategy recently against other virulent problematic memes, like Brexit or Trump? Not very.

You could start by reframing the problem. Lone wolf terrorism isn't an attack on the state, it's an attack on the people, and as such no longer a military issue but a policing one. Second, treating those perpetrators with the reverence and respect that people like bin Laden got has to stop. They're deluded idiots, barely above football hooligans in terms of their effectiveness, nothing more. We, or rather our media, are doing the heavy lifting for these morons right now, and that's got to stop.

Or you can try to limit the % of problematic meme carriers in your society (by controlling their immigration in this case), which is a blunt solution, but guaranteed to be reasonably effective in preventing the increase of the threat. It is already too late for this solution in western Europe to completely prevent the threat, you will unfortunately have to get used to this new normal (as French PM said) and attempt to implement the harder solutions on your existing muslim populations. But fortunately its not too late for V4 countries, we can still learn from your mistakes and not repeat them. And in a rare show of competence, it seems that most of our politicians understand that.

You ... do not understand the issue you yourself brought up. If lone wolf idiots are so hard to stop, why would you think that (in the absence of the ability to read minds and see the future) any one of them can be stopped at the border? Memes are like diseases: All it takes is one carrier to infect others. And they're not like diseases, because the carrier doesn't even have to be a person. It can be an article, a video, a tweet, and we cannot control those things without sacrificing the fundamental liberties our societies are justly proud of.

[666maslo666]

No, it's definitely a degeneration. Under al-qaeda, islamic terrorism had a game plan, a unified vision behind it. Now, with IS and all those lone wolfs, there is no unified goal anymore (other than the somewhat nebulous "attack the west!"). 9/11 was a grand gesture, a massive blow to the US on many, many levels. A random guy taking over a church? Some dude blowing himself up at a market somewhere? That's nowhere near the same level of effectiveness. All it does is cause a momentary panic (and its motivating guys like you to draw wrong conclusions); it's a nuisance more than anything. Qaeda wanted to bring down nations. The worst things the current crop of idiots are capable of is encouraging people like you to do what they want.

It does not matter what al-Quaeda wanted, what matters is what they were capable of accomplishing. Al-Quaeda was never capable of bringing down any western nation with their attacks. All they were capable of is momentarily killing people at a higher rate than lone wolfs, but in the process exposing themselves and thus ensuring their own timely elimination or at least containment. With IS the situation is the same, and will be the same for any future islamist organization that is spawned by worldwide islamist underground and follows their footsteps. This is the area where often recommended intelligence counter actually works. What it does not work against is the lone wolfs or very small decentralized networks.

You could start by reframing the problem. Lone wolf terrorism isn't an attack on the state, it's an attack on the people, and as such no longer a military issue but a policing one.

That does not actually solve anything. Police are already trying to stop the attacks, some still slip by.

Second, treating those perpetrators with the reverence and respect that people like bin Laden got has to stop. They're deluded idiots, barely above football hooligans in terms of their effectiveness, nothing more. We, or rather our media, are doing the heavy lifting for these morons right now, and that's got to stop.

You are right that media can make spreading of harmful memes easier, but that cannot actually be practically prevented, especially in the modern information age. What do you propose, media censorship? Internet censorship? I dont see how you could accomplish something like that without significant authoritarian anti-free-speech measures. This is not desirable or realistic at all, and thus a non-solution.

If lone wolf idiots are so hard to stop, why would you think that (in the absence of the ability to read minds and see the future) any one of them can be stopped at the border?

Perhaps I have not made myself very clear. I am not proposing we limit only immigration of islamic extremists, that wont be possible since as you say we cannot read minds or see the future. We limit the immigration from all populations where the prevalence of these extremists is high (or which spawn these extremists at an increased rate). I am not even talking about an absolute limit here, merely strict selection so that resulting muslim minority is integrated, wealthy, educated and so on. This way their tendency to commit terrorist attacks would be balanced by these factors which are negatively correlated with terrorism.

Memes are like diseases: All it takes is one carrier to infect others. And they're not like diseases, because the carrier doesn't even have to be a person. It can be an article, a video, a tweet, and we cannot control those things without sacrificing the fundamental liberties our societies are justly proud of.

When it comes to the islamist extremism meme, it is not like a flu that it spreads universally. It pretty much a disease that targets only some specific populations, with others being (almost?) completely resistant. If you limit those the immigration of those problematic populations, you limit the prevalence and spread of islamist extremism in your country, without needing to resort to such drastic measures as restricting freedom of speech (as I said above, that wont be desirable or realistic).

[Mikes]

Lone Wolf attacks would severely diminish if not outright stop .... if only moderate muslims and especially moderate muslim leadership, i.e. Imams at the very least, would publically take a stand and condemn these things on a large scale, publically denying those people paradise with religious authority and clearly defining what is "islamic behavior" and what is not in a civilized way.

Instead we get some vague noise and if Imams make the news at all then it's more often than not with another ultra conservative outrage if not outright radical extremism... or merely idiotic nonsense.


Best example: Let the Saudi Grand Mufti (the prime religious authority in Saudi Arabia - you know that reliable "partner" country we sell all those weapons to!) explain to you what ISIS *really* is all about: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/205570

[NGTM-1R]

You are implying that islamic extremism has degenerated into decentralization, I am saying it evolved into that.

It doesn't matter.

Get this through your head. It doesn't matter. How they got here hasn't got an ounce of relevance.

What does have relevance is the ability of their current structure to support operational goals. Which has gone from "relatively high" to the absolute nadir of "completely unable".

Two hundred guys, operating alone in rough parallel, no matter how brilliant or well-equipped, will lose in a direct confrontation with a hundred thousand other humans who are coordinating. It might as well be a physical law. We are stronger together than they can ever be apart. Your only argument, that it makes them harder to find, has no bearing on their physical ability to accomplish some kind of political pressure or policy change in Europe through violent direct action. Anyone can be hard to find. All it requires is to do nothing suspicious.

Lone wolves, by their nature as violent and possibly disturbed individuals who will profess their beliefs in public, beat their significant others, be socially withdrawn, and all the other risk signs of the angry loner, actually tend to be much more visible to law enforcement agencies than trained operatives from a major network, who will go out of their way to present a picture of relative normalcy. The trick is in separating the ones who need a spark from the ones who don't, since even among that demographic they're relatively rare. Have you learned nothing from the fact the majority of lone wolves have a prior criminal record?

[666maslo666]

What does have relevance is the ability of their current structure to support operational goals. Which has gone from "relatively high" to the absolute nadir of "completely unable".

No such thing happened. Islamic terrorism is as deadly as ever, and as effective as ever, if not more so. And it is composed of everything ranging from actual terrorist state, through well organized terrorist networks, to random muslim extremists and lone wolfs.