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by sprout 5845 days ago
>Also, the problem with ignoring people who set out to murder you is that it shows an unwillingness to do so.

Terrorism is not about murdering people. It's about pushing people like yourself to overreact.

1 comments

Terrorism is pretty much about murdering people. If you're talking about the motive for terrorism though, I didn't mention it, so I don't know why you would try to contradict me on something I never mentioned.

Also, what are people like me? And what is a proper reaction to an organized attempt to kill civilians in your country? I do not suggest that the US took the proper course of action, btw.

> Terrorism is pretty much about murdering people.

No. Terrorism is, by definition, about using fear as a weapon to further your goals. Terrorism can be perfectly successful even if nobody dies -- it's all about playing your opponent's need to react against him. That's why even a fake bomb, or pre-announced bomb attacks IRA style are terrorism -- because there has to be a reaction to a bomb threat, at a relatively small cost a terrorist can force the opponent to do huge evacuations and bomb sweeps.

Completely ignoring the 9/11 would have been a better reaction that what the USA took -- but as usually with well planned terrorism, completely ignoring the attack would have been politically impossible.

> And what is a proper reaction to an organized attempt to kill civilians in your country?

A proportioned response against the attackers, instead of some of their various allies or complete third parties.