• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

The next successful US terrorist attack

When will the next successful major city terrorist attack occur in the US?

  • Total voters
    12
  • Poll closed .
Ockham

Ockham

Noblesse oblige
DP Veteran
Joined
Oct 12, 2009
Messages
23,909
Reaction score
11,003
Location
New Jersey
Gender
Male
Political Leaning
Libertarian - Right
This includes home grown terrorists as well as foreign terrorists actions. Take your best guess given your opinion of the state of terrorism today.
 
Ockham said:
This includes home grown terrorists as well as foreign terrorists actions. Take your best guess given your opinion of the state of terrorism today.
Click to expand...

Terrorism is defined as using threats or violence to coerce or force - mostly for political gain.

How are things looking in Ferguson?

I consider trying to condemn a man before anyone has all the facts and before he even has a trial - under the threat of worsening your ****head behavior and further destroying the town and people's livelihoods if he's not found guilty - to be an act of terrorism.

So - how many hours between now and tonight?

When will we have a verdict past - and if he's not guilty - then they better barricade the city and bring on a massive bulk of LEO's.
 
Ockham said:
This includes home grown terrorists as well as foreign terrorists actions. Take your best guess given your opinion of the state of terrorism today.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure, it will happen though. Given enough time all probabilities work out. But I can see it being more than 2 years if we're talking attack on the 50 States proper. Those events have typically been very rare.
 
Aunt Spiker said:
Terrorism is defined as using threats or violence to coerce or force - mostly for political gain.
Click to expand...

Wouldn't that apply to the Bundy ranch then - using threats of violence for political gain?
 
Aunt Spiker said:
Terrorism is defined as using threats or violence to coerce or force - mostly for political gain.

How are things looking in Ferguson?

I consider trying to condemn a man before anyone has all the facts and before he even has a trial - under the threat of worsening your ****head behavior and further destroying the town and people's livelihoods if he's not found guilty - to be an act of terrorism.

So - how many hours between now and tonight?

When will we have a verdict past - and if he's not guilty - then they better barricade the city and bring on a massive bulk of LEO's.
Click to expand...

At least in political science terrorism is defined as the use of violence against civilians for political purposes. Although an unstated caveat is that the person/group in question has to be non-state actor.

Condemning someone before they get a trial is not terrorism. Please learn the difference.
 
Aunt Spiker said:
Terrorism is defined as using threats or violence to coerce or force - mostly for political gain.

How are things looking in Ferguson?

I consider trying to condemn a man before anyone has all the facts and before he even has a trial - under the threat of worsening your ****head behavior and further destroying the town and people's livelihoods if he's not found guilty - to be an act of terrorism.

So - how many hours between now and tonight?

When will we have a verdict past - and if he's not guilty - then they better barricade the city and bring on a massive bulk of LEO's.
Click to expand...

You mean like condemning a man to being executed by a one-man firing squad? You do know, of course, that the police officer who killed the unarmed black man - at a distance too far away for gunpowder residue, apparently - all by himself shot more bullets than was used by the entire English police last year.

I'm certainly not anti-police - I'm very proud of what the vast majority of them do day after day. There's several factors that led to Michael Brown's shooting, the largest of which is that we have 300 million privately-owned firearms in America, and every time a policeman approaches someone, he has to worry about what that (possibly bad) guy might be packing.

And in keeping with the OP, the easy access to firearms that we have is also a great enabler to terrorists. A terrorist can legally buy a military-grade sniper rifle...and when a decent sniper can take out a target from a half klick or more, all the constitutionally-protected access to firearms by law-abiding citizens in the nation won't stop him - because no one can even see where he's at.
 
Mr. Invisible said:
At least in political science terrorism is defined as the use of violence against civilians for political purposes. Although an unstated caveat is that the person/group in question has to be non-state actor. [...]
Click to expand...
I like that definition, but I'd like to add the use of violence against government as well (seen in several countries over the past few decades). I'd also suggest "organized" violence, even if only loosely organized or simply just following a common agenda (towards a common goal).

As such, narrowing down such activity to a single city or single large event, as the OP does, tends to deny the typical long term effectiveness of terrorism and instead gives the appearance of sensationalism (the 'mushroom cloud' hype, typically a propaganda ploy or even emotional terrorism in and of itself).
 
Ockham said:
This includes home grown terrorists as well as foreign terrorists actions. Take your best guess given your opinion of the state of terrorism today.
Click to expand...

There's absolutely no way to know. It could come next hour - or it could come after the next election. The only certainty is that it will happen at some point.

The fact that it hasn't happened is a testament to the Department of Homeland Security. And it sorta shows us the position we've put ourselves in: we can either (1) accept the vast security state that we've put ourselves in, with all its many violations of several Amendments of the Bill of Rights that go along with the prevention of terrorist attacks on our soil, or (2) we can go back to the days before the security state, when people like the 9/11 attackers could much more easily move around without drawing attention to themselves.

And that kind of choice really sucks, since on the one hand, we've fallen afoul of Benjamin Franklin's quip that "Those who sacrifice liberty for the sake of security deserve neither", but on the other hand there are threats out there of which Franklin probably never dreamt.
 
Not anytime soon...though I have no idea of a timeline.

Why would they do it?

IMO, the point of 9/11 was to suck America into direct involvement in the Middle East...and it worked (sadly) beautifully.

Now all ISIS had to do to get America riled up (to a much lesser extent, of course) is behead a journalist on video and post it on twitter. This should keep the American masses okay with direct involvement for a while. And when they tire of it - they have another hostage to behead.

Why run a huge terrorist attack on America to get America to commit when killing individual people in horrific ways is so much cheaper/easier?

Unfortunately, the masses are easy to bait.
 
Last edited:
DA60 said:
Not anytime soon...though I have no idea of a timeline.

Why would they do it?

IMO, the point of 9/11 was to suck America into direct involvement in the Middle East...and it worked (sadly) beautifully.

Now all ISIS had to do to get America riled up is behead a journalist on video and post it on twitter. This should keep the American masses okay with direct involvement for a while. And when they tire of it - they have another hostage to behead.

Why run a huge terrorist attack on America to get America to commit when killing individual people in horrific ways is so much cheaper/easier?

Unfortunately, the masses are easy to bait.
Click to expand...

Even if we are not baited (and we may have been already), once another attack on a major city occurs the public outrage will be one of retribution. I listened to Richard Engel, who lives in Turkey this morning on CNBC talk about the ME and how the US created ISIS. According to him it was very similar to how we created the modern Iran. According to him, the US praised and supported the Arab spring in Egypt and supported the uprising in Syria - then when it fizzled out and degraded to violence the US stepped away. The Sunni's (again according to Engle) assumed the US would help them with arms, money and support but when we left them alone and stepped away - they grew angry. ISIS then stepped in and formed in the vacuum which now vows to hurt America. They also are very pissed about the 200,000 who have died in the Syria uprising at the behest of Assad with help from Iran.

I checked CNBC for a video but it was only 2 hours ago I saw this so I'll keep watching to post a link. It would show up here if there is one: CNBC Video and TV
 
DA60 said:
Not anytime soon...though I have no idea of a timeline.

Why would they do it?

IMO, the point of 9/11 was to suck America into direct involvement in the Middle East...and it worked (sadly) beautifully.

Now all ISIS had to do to get America riled up is behead a journalist on video and post it on twitter. This should keep the American masses okay with direct involvement for a while. And when they tire of it - they have another hostage to behead.

Why run a huge terrorist attack on America to get America to commit when killing individual people in horrific ways is so much cheaper/easier?

Unfortunately, the masses are easy to bait.
Click to expand...
Because they want to dominate us. That is the ultimate goal, cant do it from a desert thousands of miles away.
 
Aunt Spiker said:
if he's not guilty - then they better barricade the city and bring on a massive bulk of LEO's.
Click to expand...

I think Scorpios would be a better choice.

Smiting comes natural to them.
 
Mr. Invisible said:
At least in political science terrorism is defined as the use of violence against civilians for political purposes. Although an unstated caveat is that the person/group in question has to be non-state actor.

Condemning someone before they get a trial is not terrorism. Please learn the difference.
Click to expand...

?

I think you missed my point.

Some people claimed that their acts of rioting and looting - violence - would increase IF he was not found guilty.

Blatant terrorism.

That is not the same as people protesting. That is not the same as people demanding truth, honesty, and an investigation / fair trial.

Two different things took place - one is understandable, the other were acts of terrorism.
 
Ockham said:
This includes home grown terrorists as well as foreign terrorists actions. Take your best guess given your opinion of the state of terrorism today.
Click to expand...

The next terror attack will occur when (and if) a Republican is elected President again. It worked out so well for Bush that it will be irresistible for the next one to allow an attack to happen also. Bush got everything he wanted after 911 including his foolish war with Saddam. The precedent will be strong for the next one to do the same.
 
Last edited:
Aunt Spiker said:
?

I think you missed my point.

Some people claimed that their acts of rioting and looting - violence - would increase IF he was not found guilty.

Blatant terrorism.

That is not the same as people protesting. That is not the same as people demanding truth, honesty, and an investigation / fair trial.

Two different things took place - one is understandable, the other were acts of terrorism.
Click to expand...

And I am telling you that even by a basic definition, rioting is not terrorism.
 
Mr. Invisible said:
And I am telling you that even by a basic definition, rioting is not terrorism.
Click to expand...

No - rioting itself is not terrorism.

It's what they were doing it for and what they hoped to accomplish by using the threat of violence. It's the intent of the act.

What's difficult to understand about that? Terrorism doesn't just come from agents sent by other countries in the name of Jihad.
 
Aunt Spiker said:
No - rioting itself is not terrorism.

It's what they were doing it for and what they hoped to accomplish by using the threat of violence. It's the intent of the act.

What's difficult to understand about that? Terrorism doesn't just come from agents sent by other countries in the name of Jihad.
Click to expand...

What difficult to understand that what you are talking about is not terrorism and that no one is threatening violence?
 
I'm going with "before the 2016 general election".

I'm also going with some version of "homegrown".
 
Mr. Invisible said:
What difficult to understand that what you are talking about is not terrorism and that no one is threatening violence?
Click to expand...

Do you not think that the mere thread of violence, violence that we have witnessed in Ferguson lately, should be included?
I suppose the OP speaks of terrorism threats from abroad, but by definition, we should not exclude one if favor of another, esp when terrorizing fellow citizens seems like a natural act .

"International terrorism" means activities with the following three characteristics:

Involve violent acts or acts dangerous to human life that violate federal or state law;
Appear to be intended (i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; (ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or (iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping; and
Occur primarily outside the territorial jurisdiction of the U.S., or transcend national boundaries in terms of the means by which they are accomplished, the persons they appear intended to intimidate or coerce, or the locale in which their perpetrators operate or seek asylum.*

"Domestic terrorism" means activities with the following three characteristics:

Involve acts dangerous to human life that violate federal or state law;
Appear intended (i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; (ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or (iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination. or kidnapping; and
Occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the U.S.
Click to expand...
FBI — Terrorism Definition

Not too different in its intent, is it?
 
Ockham said:
This includes home grown terrorists as well as foreign terrorists actions. Take your best guess given your opinion of the state of terrorism today.
Click to expand...

Actually, I'm VERY concerned about this. I've been seeing news blurbs, albeit from alarmist sources, that ISIS is aggressively pursuing the ability to "blow up a major American city." Add to that, reportedly western membership in the group including a reported 100+/- Americans, a porous southern boarder, a reported $3 million a day in revenue generated from our refusal to modernize transportation energy and defund petroleum and North Korea being a nuclear power who will likely hand over what they know for money and this is a serious situation. It wouldn't surprise me at all if we start seeing nukes used both on the US and Western Europe by ISIS and our forced responses on the Middle East and North Korea. I hate to say it but its time for some Bush Doctrine in Iraq and Syria and end ISIS now before its too late and quit being nice about it.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom