I think there is a risk that these two things can get conflated.
On the Venn Diagram of horrific mass killings they are not mutually exclusive. A disaffected madman can decide to be a terrorist. But I think that it is important to understand the different sorts of people that we have seen carry out recent atrocities so that we can try and find a way to 'catch' these people before it is too late. That to my mind is so very important, because once someone decides one day to plough a lorry into a crowd of innocent people it is virtually impossible to stop them doing it. They can only truly be stopped by being picked up before they reach that stage.
The unfortunate truth is that there have always been and I suspect will always be individuals willing to sacrifice their own lives in order to lash out at whatever they feel represents injustice. Examples would be the Columbine killers, Timothy McVeigh, Andres Breivik and the killer of the labour MP Jo Cox recently. Were they terrorists? I would say not. The Columbine massacres were committed by disaffected youths without any real cause. McVeigh has been labelled a terrorist, but on his own account he saw the bombing as a one-off revenge attack for what he saw as the wrongs perpetrated by the federal government. Likewise Breivik, who was a self-styled neo-Nazi who decided that he wanted to be notorious. The alleged killer of Jo Cox was, it appears, railing against what he saw as betrayal of the nation by politicians. They were not part of any wider organised campaign.
One interesting feature of those events is that they were all committed by people who were white ethnic nationals. If those same individuals had been Muslim, perhaps they would have committed the same or similar heinous actions but may have become associated with IS or some similar cause. Perhaps sometimes we are too quick to use the 'terrorist' label when perhaps it isn't really terrorism but violence that is spawned from within our society. Perhaps what is most frightening is that seemingly ordinary people in our midsts can suddenly become capable of such unspeakable horrors.
Clearly there are people out there who rationally and carefully plan and perpetrate attacks because of deeply held, misguided views. Equally clearly there are idealogical groups out there happy to prey on vulnerable people and recruit them to further their cause. My point is that we should be careful not to put every awful event into the box marked 'terrorism'. To do so is to ignore the truth that there is a small proportion of people who are for whatever reason begin like you or I but end up in a very, very bad place. As a society we need to look at how that happens, and what (if anything) we can do to stop it happening.
The attacks you mentioned all took place within an ideological framework. Just because there arent clear lines or links to an actual organisation does not mean they arent terrorists. Terrorism is not something to apply only to individuals embedded in cohesive groups. An individual can terrorise and when they are influenced by a belief system then there is clearly a causal link to their actions of terror.
A psychopath is not someone who kills indiscriminately. Rarely do they do so if ever. Indeed a psychopath is the most motivated of killers or manipulators as actions are linked to clear lines of belief and purpose. In that sense the dichotomy you headline with is a little out of context.
The question would be much clearer if you and I were free to pose the correct question without fear of being misunderstood.
The cop killings in the US are not part of a terror organisation but they are clearly now terrorist by definition...speak to any cop or family of a cop. Black lives matter is not yet defined as having a terrorist agenda but it like many other organisations has an ideology that may incite some.
So, lack of identification by the media or government is not something we should wholly allow ourselves to be identified with. I can make my own mind up quite easily and without denying the sophistication of the motivation for actions.
A simple equation for me is whether the person identifies themselves via speech or via behaviour with an ideology. I thin you will find that the examples you gave all did.
Google something like "van driver goes mad and kills" and you will see countless accounts of road rage where people have died.. I would compare that to the examples we are dealing with in your main body. Its quite simple to me.
-- Edited by ian on Monday 18th of July 2016 09:31:02 PM
I like that Ian but I would question whether Black Lives Matter has incited the violence. I would suggest the killing of blacks by a few poorly trained, frightened and ignorant police officers have more to do with the murders of police officers.
According to reports the Nice lorry driver had been researching ISIS and his computer was full of stuff. They (ISIS) also have materials that encourage such attacks using such 'weapons'. The worrying thing is how rapid the radicalisation can take place - from bored loner to mass murderer in a few days.
That's what I was driving at really NY. I see what you have said Ian and as you are someone who clearly has an insight into the human psyche and who gives these things a lot of thought, I am not surprised that you find it clear cut when assessing who is a terrorist and who isn't. What I am suggesting is that the vast majority do not think so analytically, and it is very dangerous to assume that all acts like the Nice were directly caused by the 'movements' that they are associated with.
There have always been deranged people around. In days gone by (and even now) people walk into schools or McDonalds or wherever and take out innocent people and themselves, or kill their own loved ones before taking their own lives because they are damaged in some way. This man in Nice, he apparently suffered from mental health problems and alcoholism for years. Who is to say that even if IS did not exist he might not at some point have flipped and done something terrible? We will never know. The man who took lives in the gay bar in Florida - was he an Islamic terrorist or was he just suffering from deep issues of his own that made him a walking time bomb? The cop killer in Baton Rouge - would he have ended up doing something shocking one day regardless of the black lives matter issues? Were the 'causes' that these people affiliated themselves to just before they flipped the real cause of their actions or just a peg to hang their anger and problems on?
It is dangerous pigeon holing every such action as 'terrorism' in the sense that most people understand it, because in doing so we are letting our societies and ourselves off the hook instead of critically analysing how it comes to be that these people from within us can do such terrible things. The NRA and the far right in the US will latch on the terrorist narrative to justify the freedom to carry guns (although the Republicans want to change State Law to not allow people to carry guns in the street while their convention is on) when in truth the chances of these atrocities happening in the States would be much reduced if guns were not an everyday sight. Assad labelled the Free Syrian Army terrorists because it suited his narrative when trying to repel their bid to topple him while he allegedly dropped barrel bombs on civilians. Putin seemingly annexed Crimea through the back door and labelled the people who fought against what most observers accept were his troops (who wore face masks and unmarked camouflage jackets) as terrorists for resisting. Whatever your take on those issues, I just think we need to be a bit more careful about how we use such an emotive word, and look a bit deeper behind it.
The causes of an effect are always many and diverse in time and space. What cir***stance you are born in to and the influences throughout ones life are purely what they are. One does not consciously choose them. In the same way, the things that are influencing an action are determined by this collection of cir***stances and thinking/awareness you can bring to that process.
If one is acted upon in a negative way then the outcome behaviour will tend to be negative either directly or indirectly to the cause. Anger is such a case. Anger does not really discriminate. it will react immediately and destroy any thing or person in its vicinity. The projection is so powerful the angry person feels entirely sure the victim is deserving of it...
Old events and cir***stances including belief systems do not disappear but are held under the surface action by cir***stances/environment If the environment around them is weakened or the belief system develops beyond the environment then action will result: Brexit, murder, buying flowers for the Mrs, sexual attacks, taking a risk, usury, robbery, abuse of the weak and elderly..every action both positive and negative is projected and results from a complex system of causation.
The chap who drove the truck has his own set of cir***stances. If he was alcoholic what does this lead to and what has caused it. If he was mentally unstable likewise. If he believes in an islamic state the same. If his Mother neglected him or his wife cheated on him or he was turned down for a job...likewise..cause and effect that is never able to entirely discriminate the just punishment of the cause...
No one acts in isolation. no one is entirely guilty or innocent or indeed praiseworthy as none can really be charged with such independant freedom of thought or action.
So, the question was , was this chap a terrorist? was he an Islamic terrorist?
Whether he acted "alone" or under direct instruction is immaterial to his "guilt" or aims. He may be a professor of ideology or an imbecile. they both are capable of arriving at exactly the same behavioural point in time and space.
I have even seen people in a complete psychotic breaks act out the causes and conditions of their life...in the 70s-90s the vast majority of paranoid delusions in Britain were concerning the IRA. Most believed they were British agents and the IRA were after them. The Behaviour they exhibited which included violence or harm to themselves was directly related to the political and social events of their lifes.
Likewise, Grandiose delusions inevitable involve being the Queen or a saviour type figure (mostly Jesus in the UK).
On a much less dramatic scale we make our choices in the same way.
Control is a very subjective area as is capacity...
In my causal analysis I would have to say he was a terrorist as he is reacting to the terrorist narrative of his life and times and the act or behaviour of being able to hire a truck and plan and drive said truck into a target with a weapon is clearly discriminating.
-- Edited by ian on Wednesday 20th of July 2016 02:39:20 PM
I don't think it's fair to single out the internet - the media in general is partly to blame for publicising these terrible crimes and sensationalising everything remotely linked to 'terror'. The 24hr rolling news stations must be rubbing their hands together at the current crop. Its a vicious circle of 'breaking news' and expert opinion keeping ISIS at the forefront of the mind of the public and still there when a disaffected psychopath decides they are a hard line Islamist and must join the 'war'. The internet further feeds their 'knowledge' by providing a global library of uncontrolled brainwashing and untruths.
