Terrorist Attack in Nice

[Giancarlo]

https://www.yahoo.com/news/france-killer-truck-driver-convicted-road-rage-152620849.html

Possibly just an extremely angry lunatic who was previously convicted of road rage. No known ties to any group. This is similar to what happened in Orlando.

[Ben Kenobi]

Oh, and just to kick BK in the balls, France was only involved in syria from 1920 to 1946 s a protectorate. That can't really be compared with Algeria wich was considered a part of France.

How does that actually change my point about the Tunisian?

[C0ckney]

What's the alternative? At this rate, it seems highly likely that the situation will degrade into several decades of all-but-direct war between the two big dogs, resulting in tens of millions of deaths and far more refugees. The area will be blanketed in ruined and failed states, and the chaos will spread outwards until the core is simply too exhausted to fight any longer.

We won't have pure motives, assuming there are such things in international politics. But we can be a bit more clever in choosing our friends, and treat them as actual partners instead of tools for the simple reason that treating them as tools has not worked.

the alternative is stop interfering and let them get on with it. it might be bad, but if history is any guide, anything we do to 'help' is likely to make things worse.

i had a long discussion with ken about the subject of doing things better in iraq. my basic argument was that we cannot do good things there because the internal logic of anything we do prevents it, and therefore we should not get involved.

[Giancarlo]

Not getting involved may have been the right thing to start with, but now we must be there to eradicate Daesh. Better to have Iran and Russia having the upper hand, instead of Daesh.

Unfortunately we don't have much of a choice at this point.

[C0ckney]

even supposing that the islamic state can be defeated (happened before, they just went underground and waited for the next opportunity), the thinking behind them is here to stay. men can be killed; ideas not so much. moreover, if the islamic state goes, none of the problems that allowed them to emerge are likely to be resolved.

[Elok]

We do not, at this point, have the luxury of "letting them get on with it." The region looks set for, essentially, a Muslim version of the Thirty Years' War. Even if we were willing to scratch the backs of our necks and say, "eh, they'll work it out, by and by," the fact remains that conflicts of this scale have a way of exploding past their boundaries. Most of these attacks are essentially freebies for ISIS's propaganda nutter-fishing campaign. It could easily get far worse, especially now that Turkey is looking unstable. If Turkey--presumably part of "them"--goes under, there will be a war zone right on the edge of the Balkans. The Balkans are not going to contain that ****. Not a prayer.

I just don't get why previous incompetence in our engagements with the Near East makes them a no-fly zone for foreign policy. The answer to past incompetence is to get a damn clue what we're doing. Not invading countries for nonsensical reasons, not allying with the region's (if not the world's) chief exporter of religious hatred, not giving out guns like party favors to unaccountable non-state actors. It's not hard to do better than that.

[Berzerker]

Well, the creation of Israel dates back to the 40s, so yeah, I can see him motivated by something that happened 50-60 years ago.

I think the attacker was motivated by recent events and you called that convoluted while you're going back 70 years now? How many terrorists today are killing people because of Israel's founding in the 40s? If terrorists are killing people because of Israel its related to recent/present policies.

[Ben Kenobi]

How many terrorists today are killing people because of Israel's founding in the 40s?

Quite a few, actually. The rationale for KSM targeting the Capitol is because that is where the treaties were signed that created Israel.

[Giancarlo]

Again we don't have motives regarding the attacker. Just like in Orlando, the guy had no real ties to any terror group and didn't appear radicalized. He had multiple run-ins with the law (like the guy in Orlando). None of them were terror based. It could have really been just someone who snapped. Again, this isn't what republicans want. They want a terrorist.

[Ben Kenobi]

Again we don't have motives regarding the attacker. Just like in Orlando, the guy had no real ties to any terror group and didn't appear radicalized. He had multiple run-ins with the law (like the guy in Orlando). None of them were terror based. It could have really been just someone who snapped. Again, this isn't what republicans want. They want a terrorist.

Right. It has nothing to do with Islamic terrorism. Did you figure that one out yourself?

[Berzerker]

you cite 1 dude and he's been in a cage for over a decade

and he targeted the capitol because he was at war with us, not because a treaty was signed there ~70 years ago

[Ben Kenobi]

you cite 1 dude and he's been in a cage for over a decade

Well, I'm not sure why you're quibbling with the mastermind of 9-11. He referred specifically to the treaties that created Israel.

[Berzerker]

9/11 wasn't because of a treaty or Israel's founding and the guy has been in prison for over a decade

I asked how many terrorists are killing people today because of a 70 year old treaty

[Ellestar]

Horrible.

I have to say these things, if terrorist attack, are working. If the goal is to terrorize, this does. I was in the London underground today and it was fairly empty, but I did think one day something will happen here again. In a busy morning during work transit... **** will go down. Or something similar, in some other place. It is horrible and realistically it cannot be stopped. No amount of police work will stop these; how do you stop a bus? You don't. Maybe it was someone who just went totally insane?

That's why EU shouldn't have destroyed Libya and Syria, two border countries that protected EU. Now the blood EU and NATO spilled in Libya and Syria starts to overflow from these countries to the streets of EU.

While it doesn't looks like he's linked to terrorists, it seems that insane people start to do things "like these guys from ISIS". Instead of protests, suicide or whatever, they start to mass-murder people more and more.

[Giancarlo]

Right. It has nothing to do with Islamic terrorism. Did you figure that one out yourself?

Unlike you, I actually backed myself up and posted an article. The investigation has found no links to any terror groups. It could have been someone who snapped. Of course, you need it to be about Islamic terrorism because that's politically beneficial for you. Disgusting.