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by rtpg
4608 days ago
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Do you really think that all terrorism can be explained through mental illness solely? The IRA and ETA are both extremist movements with well defined goals, and structure. They wouldn't disappear through more mental care (maybe you're confusing this with school shootings?) These groups are like the militias that plague countries in civil war. They have chains of commands and objectives and whatnot. This isn't like bullying in schools, this is more like rival gangs , or maybe rival gangs vs. the school administration. The fact that you think it's about "destroying America" proves your point. Out of curiosity though, can you point out the hypocrisy in US foreign policy? Almost all actions taken in the past half century have been done with explicit American interests in mind, just like any other country's. You'd probably find that a lot of American resentment is consequence of economic policy (crushing local agriculture with subsidized products doesn't make many happy campers) more than foreign policy. Granted, countries that have been invaded by the US are probably the exception. EDIT: I don't necessarily disagree with your thesis though, any time this sort of thing comes up (is the "battle for intelligence" a thing), I think of this article (http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/posts/BUGGER) which basically answers 'no' in a much more convincing way than anyone on HN has ever been able to do. |
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In general I think anyone who's willing to kill innocent people to make a political point is mentally ill to say the least, but mental illness is certainly not the only cause of international terrorism. It seems to be the main cause of national "terrorism", however, e.g. mass shootings (school or otherwise), anthrax letters and all that lot.
I'm not arguing that international terrorism is mostly caused by mental illness, though (even though the people who carry it out probably should be sent to a psych ward). That I blame on "foreign policy hypocrisy", which you ask about next.
The hypocrisy I refer to is repeated many times across the last 50 years or so of history. It's a pretty simple premise. The US presents itself as the champion of freedom and democracy and human rights, but tramples those abroad. It supports autocratic regimes in the middle east, selectively attacks oil-rich countries like Iraq on thin pretexts while pretending to do it "for the people", supports coups, assassinations, and other deeply disturbing things in south america, and I don't even want to get started to what they were up to in Vietnam...
Perhaps there would be less hate for the US abroad if it wasn't for this two-facedness. Don't get me wrong, I am a westerner through and through. I have no hatred for the US. However, I have also not had "the US is the champion of peace and freedom and democracy" shoved in my face while the US supported a tin-pot dictator in my country who shot half my family and gassed the other half. I can see how that might be much for some people (even relatively smart people) to bear.
The foreign policy of the US says "we're the good guys", but often acts the part of the bad guys. That's the hypocrisy I'm talking about.