Boston Bomber Cites Iraq and Afghanistan for Bombing

And these kinds of attacks were around long before we invaded Iraq/Afghanistan. Seems kind of far-fetched to suggest that catering to their demands would prevent future attacks.

 

Radicalizing people and creating more terrorists in the process has been one of the main arguments against our military attacks of Muslim countries. Usually these terrorists are created far away from the US, so the effect is not so visible and obvious.

 

"Catering to their demands"? You make it sound like they're asking us to release the nine members of Asian Dawn*.

Evaluating our foreign policy is more prudent than ever. Sure, these guys seemed to be just itching for a reason, but there are a hell of a lot of other folks around the world with real grievances. And we can and should understand those and react to them. It's not "catering to demands", its "re-evaluating the root cause" and acknowledging that our legacy of dirty wars and droning isn't exactly making us a lot of friends. Again, I don't think that's all that hard to understand/determine.

*rep to the first to name the reference

 

What's so random about it? This was a systematic terrorist response to those wars. What kind of planning can ignore the predictable outcome of actions?

 

Exactly. But that is precisely what the crazies here are implying.

 

These kinds of terrorist attacks have not preceded US intrusion into the regions which are generating terrorists.

Do you think Iraq and Afghanistan were the first forays, or the only important ones?

Not at all. Those are just the most recent. But not the first, and looks like it won't be the last either.

 

What if their were Muslims in the crowd? So these guys want to take revenge for the US killing Muslims by maybe killing more Muslims?

 

"I read about them in Time magazine"

 

Well done.

 

These guys are way sicker than you imagine. If there were Muslims killed by this, then they assume those Muslims will go to heaven as martyrs in the quest for divine justice.

If the Muslim victims disagreed with them, then they would simply assume that they are traitors and deserve to die with everyone else.

Crazy knows no bounds.

 

Systematic terrorist response? 12 years after one began, 10 year after the other, over a year after it ended?

1993 WTC Bombing: 6 Deaths
1995 OKC Bombing: 168 Deaths
2001 WTC Attack: Almost 3,000 Deaths

2013 Boston Marathon Bombing: 3 Deaths

I predict there will be several more terrorists attacks in the USA before I'm dead. I predict no matter what we do, we will not prevent some terrorist attacks from happening.

 

Absolutely true. I don't think that should be justification to continue bad and brutal foreign policies (terrorism, by any reasonable definition). However, it should be rationale to not stomp on our own civil liberties in pursuit of unattainable "security".

 

Absolutely. People are still dying in Iraq as a result of and even being killed as a result of that war. Afghanistan of course is still ongoing, and somewhat heightened after the US essentially put a drug lord in place to "lead" them.

Don't be obtuse. A country that big will always have terrorists. The measure of success is not whether terrorism can be eliminated because each terrorism has a different root and thus requires a different solution. The measure of success is weather terrorism can be reduced to a negligible level - and given that a huge portion of your history particularly in the first half of last century was devoid of attacks by Middle Eastern terrorists, it is insanity to assume that it can't be achieved again. Security was much more lax back then. You make it seem like reduction of people seeking terrorism against your country is not desirable unless it can be 100% eliminated - essentially setting a standard that can't be met by anyone, ever.

Very simple: before you were in their countries, they never produced terrorists who wanted to attack you. While I understand that your politicians have taken withdrawal from strategic international locations off the table for citizens, it stands that withdrawing physical AND political INTRUSION into a country's politics will reduce the potential for terrorism from that country. This is factual. There is nothing which makes Middle Easterners, Arabs or Muslims hate America other than America's behavior outside its borders ad inside their countries. This is true for all. Altering that behavior will result in change. That's not asking for America to stop being free. No one gives a **** about your freedoms. It's about allowing people to pursue their own freedom in their own countries.

As people like Kojirou will tell you, the US has no interest in losing its spot as the most dominant empire in the world. So if that's what you're saying, then you are leaving out the condition that is critical to this discussion. In that case, you should be phrasing it as:

If that's what you're saying, then you're absolutely correct. But that's the root of why crazies are flying over there to kill you. Because they don't accept the legitimacy of you imposing dominance in their countries, just like you would never accept it. In fact, your country fought a long bloody no-rules war against the British to reject it. You blew things up in breach of any and all laws, killed innocent people, some soldiers went off on their own crazy quests, the whole shebang.

 

You're ignoring his crafty "Well, it's ya'll's fault, y'all started it" argument."

Negligible level of terrorism. Gotcha. And your historical example here is laughable. You mean from 1901-1950?

 

I agree, though Mathloom would act like even though we don't like being attacked we should just "understand," and that somehow our distaste for the killing of innocents is a support for said policy.

I don't disagree with everything he says, but I do not care for the way he cherrypicks his arguments.

 

China takes a relative isolationist policy towards the Middle East and Afghanistan and instead focus on economic expansion. I don't agree with how they do business with crooked warlords in places like the Sudan and Congo, but it's hard to argue with their priorities. National Security in China has not been an issue.

 

No, it's more like you don't hear about them because they're well, China. Google Xinjiang sometime.

 

They have more domestic strife than the US.

 

Except tens of terrorist attacks in Xinjiang since 1980s and Tibet in 1950s and recently.

It is ironic that USA and Europe are funding the terrorism groups targeting China, but in the end, they will bite US in the ass like Taliban, Al Qaeda and now Chechen ...

 

Yes, obviously in reference to "Mauzlim" terrorism.

Having said that, I doubt that even overall international terrorism was worse back then. If you are going to bring up state terrorism, be prepared to defend your own state terrorism.