Quote:
Originally Posted by flylock shox
You've had great insight into the ISIS issue in another thread CC. I've enjoyed reading your posts on the subject, and the difficulty in addressing the threat, particularly where individual actors are concerned.
A question I'd like to pose to you is where you draw the line (or whether you draw a line at all) between: (1) a person who sees some appeal in ISIS, learns about them and believes in their cause, gets in touch with them, gets direction from them, and conducts an attack like today's; and (2) a person with mental health issues and a propensity for violent or anti-government thinking who latches onto ISIS-inspired ideology as a basis for carrying out an attack like today's, but without a real understanding or genuine attachment to the ideology itself.
Obviously person 1 is what you'd think of as your classic single-cell or lone-wolf terrorist; while person 2 might be your run-of-the-mill survivalist-paranoiac-freeman-on-the-land type who doesn't really belong to or even fully understand the ideology he's serving.
Is one a terrorist and the other not? Are they both terrorists? Does it matter?
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I subscribe to the interpretation of threats in this case and not motives. You need to cancel the threat first in this case.
While I agree that nations are going to have to deal with root causes that create what seems to be a fairly fertile recruiting base. Once their radicalized and preparing for an action, whether they're mentally ill or a loner or whatever to me isn't relevant in the face of public safety.
Also sometimes its too easy to label people with the "Mental Illness" label when they do something that we don't see as rational in our mind set to justify and feel better about humanity as a whole. The whole "a sane person" wouldn't do that.
I don't know if I'm answering your question, however to end that string Osama Bin Laden was a very rational human being in his personal world view, and his sense of right and wrong was defined by his interpretation of his religion and a twisted world view, he wasn't by most definitions insane, however his actions by some could be interpreted as Insane.
But to me, in both cases they're terrorists because they committed an act of terror and they could justify it as the right thing to do.
The proper question of number two though to be honest and it defines state of mind, does he has an understanding of the consequences of his actions?