Terrorist Attacks

[JerrySeinfeld]

We keep being told terrorism is not a purely Islamic phenomenon. So let's talk numbers.

[Shady]

Definitely 99%.

[Bonam]

Information of this type is not a matter of voting on it. You can't decide facts by majority opinion. Such statistics need to be looked up, not invented. I'm sure the proportion is very high, and probably depends somewhat on how one defines a terrorist attack, but a poll asking members to opine on what exact percentage it is is simply silly.

Edited May 2, 2010 by Bonam

[Sir Bandelot]

Information of this type is not a matter of voting on it. You can't decide facts by majority opinion. Such statistics need to be looked up, not invented. I'm sure the proportion is very high, and probably depends somewhat on how one defines a terrorist attack, but a poll asking members to opine on what exact percentage it is is simply silly.

Good point. Why bother with opinion? Let us try to find some statistics.

"An FBI report has shown that, contrary to popular opinion, only a small minority of terrorist attacks in the United States from 1980 to 2005 were carried out by Islamist extremists."[92]

"In 2009, a Europol report also showed that more than 99% of terrorist attacks in Europe over the last three years were, in fact, carried out by non-Muslims."[101]

The article also points out that every empire has suffered from terrorism, primarily carried out by groups who feel they are being oppressed by the empire. This makes sense.

Edited May 2, 2010 by Sir Bandelot

[Sir Bandelot]

Based on these articles from reputeable sources, I'm afraid it's not possible to vote in your little survey, since the answer is clearly below 95%

[Michael Hardner]

Sir B slices and dices, much like the Slap-Chop.

What will the response be ?

Can we finally conclude that extreme acts tend to be propagated by extremists ?

[SAK]

We keep being told terrorism is not a purely Islamic phenomenon. So let's talk numbers.

The Poll asking Members are opine on totally Wrong Question.The question ought tobe"What percentage of terrorist atttacks over the past ten years have been Ideological"?.

[Rue]

The Poll asking Members are opine on totally Wrong Question.The question ought tobe"What percentage of terrorist atttacks over the past ten years have been Ideological"?.

His question shows his preconceived bias that the terrorists who quote Islam are practicing Islam.

Your attempt to correct his question goes too far the other way.

I appreciate your point I just think you are also missing the point.

His question should have been posed:

"What percentage of terrorist attacks have been committed by terrorists professing Islam?"

There is nothing "wrong" with pointing out that the majority of terror attacks come from people

professing Islam or who identify as being Muslims.

What is questionable is then smeering the vast majority of Muslims who do not agree with terrorism, who do not engage in it and who do not believe their religion teaches them to be terrorists.

To incite people to hold all Muslims culpable for the actions of terrorists who are Muslim is nothing

more then negative stereotyping.

It is no different then those who smeer all Jews and Israelis and people who support the right of a Jewish state to exist as evil because one may disagree with certain Israeli government policies.

It is no different then smeering all Americans as evil because one might disagree with the policies of

Dick Chaney or George Bush.

I did not respond to the survey because the question concludes terrorists are Muslims and engage in terrorism because they are Muslims. The terrorists may identify as Muslim, be born in a Muslim society,

been brought up by other Muslims to believe terrorism as an acceptable Muslim religous practice- all verifiable- but there is a way to report that without concluding all Muslims do it or that necessarily is what Islam teaches.

It is no different then saying all Christians agree with those Christians who shoot doctors performing abortions or all Christians agree pedophile priests should simply be sent to a new church or that all Christians agree with the KKK's take on Christianity.

[bush_cheney2004]

...It is no different then smeering all Americans as evil because one might disagree with the policies of

Dick Chaney or George Bush.

...and it is no different than smearing all Canadians for slaughtering seals or strip mining third world countries!

[M.Dancer]

Once you eliminate the hindhu terrorists, buddhist terrorists, the Irish, the Basques, Nepalese communists, Philipine communists, Spanish Communists, Peruvian Communists, Colombian Communists, rightwing xtians...the answer is 94%

[Argus]

Good point. Why bother with opinion? Let us try to find some statistics.

"An FBI report has shown that, contrary to popular opinion, only a small minority of terrorist attacks in the United States from 1980 to 2005 were carried out by Islamist extremists."[92]

"In 2009, a Europol report also showed that more than 99% of terrorist attacks in Europe over the last three years were, in fact, carried out by non-Muslims."[101]

The article also points out that every empire has suffered from terrorism, primarily carried out by groups who feel they are being oppressed by the empire. This makes sense.

I think you're forgetting that while non-Muslims do carry out terrorist attacks, those attacks are almost always far less murderous than those carried out by Muslims. For example, the bombings of oil pipelines out west could be descibed as terrorist acts, though no one was killed. The death rate from non-Islamic terrorist attacks in Europe and the US over the last ten years would be miniscule. And the number of those attacks would also be very slight compared to the number of attacks in countries with higher Muslim populations.

[DogOnPorch]

Terror Attacks 2009 Edited May 3, 2010 by DogOnPorch

[WIP]

Before I vote, I want the definition of terrorism to include state sponsored terrorism, plus many terrorist attacks you would include could fall in the category of reprisals by locals against foreign invaders.

[sharkman]

I have a feeling that what you want and what you are going to get will never meet. Why don't you start another thread.?

[eyeball]

Sir B slices and dices, much like the Slap-Chop.

What will the response be ?

Can we finally conclude that extreme acts tend to be propagated by extremists ?

If the definition of extremist includes those rogue empires that terrorists feel compelled to target, count me in.

[Argus]

Before I vote, I want the definition of terrorism to include state sponsored terrorism, plus many terrorist attacks you would include could fall in the category of reprisals by locals against foreign invaders.

In other words, you support terrorism as long as you agree with the aims of the terrorists.

[eyeball]

In other words, you support terrorism as long as you agree with the aims of the terrorists.

It's generally a given these days that you must support terrorism if you don't support the state.

[WIP]

In other words, you support terrorism as long as you agree with the aims of the terrorists.

If you send a laser guided bomb from a drone airplane into the middle of a wedding happening in my village, I might consider it a terrorist attack!

[Guest TrueMetis]

There is nothing "wrong" with pointing out that the majority of terror attacks come from people

professing Islam or who identify as being Muslims.

Except there is, see Sir Bandelot's post. Or when did "a small minority of terrorist attacks" become the majority?

[wyly]

something of interest I came across a week ago... the attacks that are attributed to Islamic groups aren't really religious in nature they're not anti Christian but anti imperialistic, they're in response to foreign aggression/occupation/interference in various countries...

[bush_cheney2004]

something of interest I came across a week ago... the attacks that are attributed to Islamic groups aren't really religious in nature they're not anti Christian but anti imperialistic, they're in response to foreign aggression/occupation/interference in various countries...

So when can we expect Haitian terror attacks on Canada?

[Moonlight Graham]

I think you're forgetting that while non-Muslims do carry out terrorist attacks, those attacks are almost always far less murderous than those carried out by Muslims. For example, the bombings of oil pipelines out west could be descibed as terrorist acts, though no one was killed. The death rate from non-Islamic terrorist attacks in Europe and the US over the last ten years would be miniscule. And the number of those attacks would also be very slight compared to the number of attacks in countries with higher Muslim populations.

“Terrorism is the war of the poor, and war is the terrorism of the rich.” - Sir Peter Ustinov

[Argus]

“Terrorism is the war of the poor, and war is the terrorism of the rich.” - Sir Peter Ustinov

So when the Allies attacked Europe to free it from the Germans they were commiting terrorism, and when Osama Bin Laden, multi-millionaire oil sheik, flew airplanes into buildings in Manhattan, he was only fighting the war of the poor man, is that it?

How about this for a quote.

"People who try to make intellectual distinctions about terrorism deserve to have their families die in a terrorist attack." - Me.

[Argus]

something of interest I came across a week ago... the attacks that are attributed to Islamic groups aren't really religious in nature they're not anti Christian but anti imperialistic, they're in response to foreign aggression/occupation/interference in various countries...

It's just a coincidence that 95% of such attacks are carried out by religious groups, and that the countries on earth which have had the most foreign aggression/occupation/interference generally don't produce any terrorists.

Left wingers often make torturous excuses for terrorism commited by groups whose aims they approve of or whose enemies they dislike.

[eyeball]

Here is an anaylsis of the various root cause theories underlying the war on terror advanced since 9/11 in order of plusibility starting with the least and most flawed and ending with the likeliest.

What were the causes of 9/11?

The author: Peter Bergen is a senior fellow and the co-director of the Counterterrorism and Counterinsurgency Initiative at the New America Foundation.

I think the core argument I often feel compelled to make, that western foreign policies resulting in undue interference in the affairs of the Muslim world are the most plausible cause for the general conflict between the Islamic world and the west, is well supported by this passage within the 2nd most plausible cause offered in the analysis;

The Egyptian jihadists believed that they should overthrow the “near enemy”—middle east regimes run by “apostate” rulers. Bin Laden took the next step, urging Zawahiri that the root of the problem was not the “near enemy” but the “far enemy,” the US, which propped up the status quo in the middle east.

The final analysis and the most plausible root cause given for the disaster of 9/11 also speaks to the results of continuing to make really bad foreign policy choices in the region.

To conclude, 9/11 was collateral damage in a civil war within the world of political Islam. On one side there are those, like Bin Laden, who want to install Taliban-style theocracies from Indonesia to Morocco. On the other side there is a silent majority of Muslims who are prepared to deal with the west, who do not see the Taliban as a workable model for modern Islamic states, and who reject violence. Bin Laden adopted a war against “the far enemy” in order to hasten the demise of the “near enemy” regimes in the middle east. And he used 9/11 to advance that cause. That effort has, so far, largely failed.

The vast majority of the victims of 9/11 are really not that different than the majority of victims in, say...Gaza, for example. Both suffer the consequences of being collateral damage and the often unwitting and unwilling human shields for the real combatants that are embedded within civilian areas.

Edited May 4, 2010 by eyeball