OT...Getting Sick of this Spit

[SHOXAAC]

So your only point is that if you see an Arabic name tied to it, then you generalize to based on extremist Islam?

Sure. No problem with that. That's not what I was responding to at all, though:

Sometimes my ADD sets in. I did think your mass murder link was not a true look at what much of the slaughter that is taking place today. Let's face it, SB was terrorist driven...period.

[Rlh04d]

Sometimes my ADD sets in. I did think your mass murder link was not a true look at what much of the slaughter that is taking place today. Let's face it, SB was terrorist driven...period.

Like I said before, I think it's actually more likely to be workplace violence by terrorists. I think these two got pissed and abandoned their real plan.

In what way is a link detailing mass shootings in the US, in a discussion about who conducts mass shootings in the US, not a true look? If you're meaning "worldwide slaughter," then absolutely, but again that wasn't the point.

[ShockTalk]

I'm personally wondering if this was actually work place violence BY terrorists.

Given the stash these folks had, they obviously WANTED to be terrorists. They were clearly planning something bigger. Yet then they blow their load on what ultimately amounts to a pretty small attack, relative to what could have happened. I wonder if this really was workplace violence, in a way that saved a LOT more people from the terrorist attack they wanted to have.

The only other explanation I can think of is that they were so stupid they thought they could do both. Personally, I think these two were planning something bigger, and the guy snapped at a party, and decided to toss aside the real plans to get revenge on his co-workers.

If this is the case, then the 14 people who lost their lives here may have saved a lot more people from whatever the real attack was meant to be, and if this wasn't actually planned, hopefully they didn't cover their tracks enough to prevent us from grabbing information from their phones/computers/etc. that may lead enable the government to identify others they were in communication with, and possibly prevent other attacks.

Let me make sure I understand. They were Muslim extremists/terrorists who were planning a much bigger, better target, but because he might have been bullied (we have nothing so far on this), we should consider changing this from a terrorist attack to a work related incident. Really!

Let me give another possibility. Now, maybe they were hoping to survive to do more havoc, but I don't see what they did do as not being very effective. We talk about ISIS needing to put a wedge between the western world and moderate Muslims to be really effective by adding to their ranks all over the world. Seems to me that this terrorist attack fits the bill perfectly: "You can't even trust your fellow long time worker who you know is Muslim, comes from a good Muslim family, born in the US, educated in the US, have had no problems with, and has a family with a very young child and tomorrow may gun down/blow up you and your other fellow workers". Seems like an effective approach to me.

[Rlh04d]

I see. I am probably a little too emotional and a little too low on statistics. I'm thinking of events like Ft Hood, Boston, Paris, this recent California deal, the crazy decapitation incident in Oklahoma, etc.
I wasn't really thinking about all of the many other ways it keeps happening. Maybe I was being a little biased. There are crazy people everywhere you look. At least in the other cases you are talking about, there doesn't seem to be a network of support for the violence the same way you get the feeling there is with terrorism. That's one of the things that bothers me most... When you have people celebrating mass murder. I get a little sensitive when I find out that the network of support is almost always Islamic.

When people who claim to be Christian go off and shoot up abortion clinics, you won't find a network of support. They are on their own and their actions get denounced. Same with crazy school shooters. There is no network for that. They are nuts.

I just have trouble articulating my real thoughts sometimes because a lot of these big time issues escape me a little bit when you are inclined to have emotional responses. Thanks for helping me get down to it a little better.

Absolutely. Information is always good to have :)

I do disagree with your "you won't find a network of support" comment, though. The Planned Parenthood shooter had called members of the Army of God "heroes" for their violent attacks against abortion providers in the past. The Army of God is a terrorist organization operating within the United States, providing a network of support for extreme Christian terrorists who target Planned Parenthood and abortion providers. ISIL is clearly far bigger, but that doesn't mean there isn't a network of support to extreme Christian terrorists operating within the US, and encouraging further violence.

School shooters, no, I don't think there's a network of support there, which is probably part of the problem in the first place. But there also isn't a political/religious goal there, while there is with Christian extremism. Any time there's a political/religious goal, you can almost always find a network of support.

[Rlh04d]

Let me make sure I understand. They were Muslim extremists/terrorists who were planning a much bigger, better target, but because he might have been bullied (we have nothing so far on this), we should consider changing this from a terrorist attack to a work related incident. Really!

Let me give another possibility. Now, maybe they were hoping to survive to do more havoc, but I don't see what they did do as not being very effective. We talk about ISIS needing to put a wedge between the western world and moderate Muslims to be really effective by adding to their ranks all over the world. Seems to me that this terrorist attack fits the bill perfectly: "You can't even trust your fellow long time worker who you know is Muslim, comes from a good Muslim family, born in the US, educated in the US, have had no problems with, and has a family with a very young child and tomorrow may gun down/blow up you and your other fellow workers". Seems like an effective approach to me.

That's not at all my point.

My point is that, given the ammunition, pipe bombs, and other weapons they had (but did not use), I seriously, seriously doubt what they ended up carrying out was actually what they planned.

It's like if the 9/11 bombers got drunk at a bar on September 10th, got into a fight, and blew it up. They would still have been terrorists, planning a massive terrorist attack, with concrete ties to a terrorist organization ... but I'm not sure I would have specifically called them blowing up a bar because they got into a drunk fight terrorism.

It's really just semantics at that point, but terrorism is defined by an intent to cause terror by targeting civilians, to advance political/religious goals. If their goal with the attack in San Bernandino was retribution against his co-workers for some perceived slight, then even if they were terrorists planning a terrorist attack with ties to a terrorist organization, the attack itself actually wasn't terrorism, because it had a different intent.

It's very possible they were just stupid enough that they thought they could carry out multiple terrorist attacks -- or, like you said, that their intent was to show that you can't trust anyone, and to show how easy soft-targets like that could be targeted. I'm not ruling that out. I just think this specific attack was so bizarre and poorly carried out, and left so much more on the table, that I seriously doubt it was their actual plan. I personally think they got mad and ****ed up their real plan.

What we know for a fact is that the male involved in here worked there, and stormed out of the party, and then came back guns blazing. The reason they were stopped so quickly afterward is because he had made a scene in leaving, and thus was the only possible suspect -- so the police quickly bee-lined for his home, where the terrorists saw them and fled. I have studied many successful and unsuccessful terrorist attacks -- I have never seen a terrorist so blatantly draw attention to himself without an intent to die in the attack. Which is why I personally doubt this was an intentional terrorist (politically/religiously motivated) attack -- this whole thing strikes me as "**** it, let's just do it now!" because he was mad at someone, probably because he was so on-edge over the terrorist attack he actually planned to carry out.

I don't care what words are used for it, really -- by all means, call it terrorism either way. It's close enough that it would only matter academically. But I am very interested in whether they actually intended to attack that target, or whether it was an impromptu decision that cost them their real target.

[ShockTalk]

That's not at all my point.

My point is that, given the ammunition, pipe bombs, and other weapons they had, I seriously, seriously doubt what they ended up carrying out was actually what they planned.

It's like if the 9/11 bombers got drunk at a bar on September 10th, got into a fight, and blew it up. They would still have been terrorists, planning a massive terrorist attack, with concrete ties to a terrorist organization ... but I'm not sure I would have specifically called them blowing up a bar because they got into a drunk fight terrorism.

It's really just semantics at that point, but terrorism is defined by an intent to cause terror by targeting civilians. If their goal with the attack in San Bernandino was retribution against his co-workers for some perceived slight, then even if they were terrorists planning a terrorist attack with ties to a terrorist organization, the attack itself actually wasn't terrorism, because it had a different intent.

It's very possible they were just stupid enough that they thought they could carry out multiple terrorist attacks -- or, like you said, that their intent was to show that you can't trust anyone, and to show how easy soft-targets like that could be targeted. I'm not ruling that out. I just think this specific attack was so bizarre and poorly carried out, and left so much more on the table, that I seriously doubt it was their actual plan. I personally think they got mad and ****ed up their real plan.

I don't care what words are used for it, really -- by all means, call it terrorism either way. But I am very interested in whether they actually intended to attack that target, or whether it was an impromptu decision that cost them their real target.

So, are you saying their terrorist attack was not an effective means to create even more distrust of US Muslims? Yes, we are splitting hairs, but you're sounding more like what I expect out of the government trying to keep calm among its citizens. You call them stupid, I view them as possibly very brilliant. It may have been poorly carried out, but that's what ISIS is going to get here...every day people turning terrorist and quickly creating havoc before the US government finds out about them. He knew the situation, he knew the people, he knew he wasn't walking into something that was going to "surprise" him or thwart him, and, yes, a situation he may very well get out of to strike again. Just an opinion.

[SHOXAAC]

Like I said before, I think it's actually more likely to be workplace violence by terrorists. I think these two got pissed and abandoned their real plan.

In what way is a link detailing mass shootings in the US, in a discussion about who conducts mass shootings in the US, not a true look? If you're meaning "worldwide slaughter," then absolutely, but again that wasn't the point.

Behind the curtain, in the SB tragedy, even in your assessment, has foreign terrorism smeared all over it. I just don't think your example is accurately comparing the real world "terrorism" slaughters going on whether it happens on home soil, Paris, or where ever.

[Rlh04d]

Behind the curtain, in the SB tragedy, even in your assessment, has foreign terrorism smeared all over it. I just don't think your example is accurately comparing the real world "terrorism" slaughters going on whether it happens on home soil, Paris, or where ever.

Of course it has foreign terrorism smeared all over it. Even in my assessment, if they hadn't done this attack, they would have done a bigger attack that would have killed more people, entirely based on religious extremist motivations.

[Rlh04d]

So, are you saying their terrorist attack was not an effective means to create even more distrust of US Muslims? Yes, we are splitting hairs, but you're sounding more like what I expect out of the government trying to keep calm among its citizens. You call them stupid, I view them as possibly very brilliant. It may have been poorly carried out, but that's what ISIS is going to get here...every day people turning terrorist and quickly creating havoc before the US government finds out about them. He knew the situation, he knew the people, he knew he wasn't walking into something that was going to "surprise" him or thwart him, and, yes, a situation he may very well get out of to strike again. Just an opinion.

How is my opinion that they intended to do something bigger and kill MORE people similar to an attempt to keep people calm?

My personal feeling is that we got lucky here. That isn't something that should keep you calm -- I think we just escaped something very, very bad happening, by pure dumb luck.

The only silver-lining I see would be that, in this pure luck, these guys screwed up and didn't cover their tracks the way they intended to, possibly opening up a treasure trove of forensics data on their electronic devices. That's really the only point I think matters in whether this was their intended goal or not -- if it was their goal, then they likely planned for it ahead of time and covered their tracks. If it wasn't the plan, chances are they didn't.

[SHOXAAC]

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/...ones-full-data

The statistics don't back up generalizing mass-murders as being tied to muslims.

Why did you use this broad source to make such a specific point. You are using a source dating back to the early 80's, well before any "separitist group" flew planes into towers, slaughtered innocent humans in a Paris theater, or gunned down members of a holiday gathering. Your source details a welding shop shooting, a Dallas night club shooting, a Connecticut Lottery shooting, etc...I thought this thread was about discussing mass murders promonately based on separitist groups, whether Muslim or not, intended to put fear in western civilization, not somebody pissed off because you called his/her baby ugly.

[MoValley John]

This whole workplace violence thing is dumb. Really dumb. Quantifying the number of victims to determine whether it was workplace violence or terrorism is dumb. 9/11 had thousands of victims, Paris had over a hundred. They were both terrorism. Bombings in Israel often have 10 or fewer victims, still terrorism.

San Bernadino was terrorism. Period.

[Rlh04d]

This whole workplace violence thing is dumb. Really dumb. Quantifying the number of victims to determine whether it was workplace violence or terrorism is dumb. 9/11 had thousands of victims, Paris had over a hundred. They were both terrorism. Bombings in Israel often have 10 or fewer victims, still terrorism.

San Bernadino was terrorism. Period.

The number of victims isn't the difference. Intent is. Terrorism is defined by intent.

Literally, defined.

[Rlh04d]

Why did you use this broad source to make such a specific point. You are using a source dating back to the early 80's, well before any "separitist group" flew planes into towers, slaughtered innocent humans in a Paris theater, or gunned down members of a holiday gathering. Your source details a welding shop shooting, a Dallas night club shooting, a Connecticut Lottery shooting, etc...I thought this thread was about discussing mass murders promonately based on separitist groups, whether Muslim or not, intended to put fear in western civilization, not somebody pissed off because you called his/her baby ugly.

I don't understand why you think that's relevant. It's a timeline. You can choose literally any point of time to stop on there that you want.

If you go back to the rise of ISIL, my point still stands. If you go back to the rise of Al Qaeda, my point still stands. If you go back to the falling of the Twin Towers, my point still stands. If you go back to the early 80s, my point still stands.

And my point was that generalizing a mass shooting on US soil as inevitably being a terrorist attack related to extreme Islam is incorrect. That's very rarely been the case. I don't care what point along the timeline you choose to stop at, because unless you stop at 12/3/2015, extreme Islamic terrorism will never be close to the majority in that situation.

I'm not sure why you're generalizing my argument, which was directed at one person making an overly broad point, to things that I never stated. He made a point. I disagreed with it. And now you are adding more and more things that were not part of his point or my counter-point to somehow disagree with something I didn't say. I'm not responding to the thread as a whole. That's why the quote function exists. He made a comment, I disagreed with it, and he accepted my reasoning. You aren't agreeing with his initial point, or disagreeing with my point, so I don't know why we're still talking about this.

[MoValley John]

The number of victims isn't the difference. Intent is. Terrorism is defined by intent.

Literally, defined.

Stockpiling weapons= intent.
Bringing multiple weapons, including bombs, to the party= intent.
Changing into body armor and bringing an additional shooter, not employed by your employer= intent.
Communicating with known terror organizations= intent.

Pretty cut and dry.

[MoValley John]

Booby trapping your house= intent.

There are more.