daveman
Diamond Member
Don't move the goalposts here. You claimed it can't be terrorism if the terrorists don't leave an immediate message.Was this message immediate -- three years after the fact?Bullshit. Terrorism sends its message by itself -- it doesn't depend on some later police/FBI investigation. If it did it would never work.
Terrorism isn't simply for the sake of terror. That's simple sadism. Terrorism's raison d'être is to convey a message. If a terrorist has no message to convey, then the act never happens -- because there's no point in doing it. And no, they're in no way "random" except as regards who the victims are. The act itself is planned, calculated and engineered specifically to make a statement to the general public. Without the statement ... there is simply no point. And without a point, it's not terrorism.
The Badenov Brothers may have had a motive. But what they didn't have is a message. No message; no terrorism. Perhaps they might have intended to plan an act of terrorism. If they did, they fucked up, because they failed to accomplish it. At most you have some abstract perceived revenge. You don't have terrorism.
Eric Rudolph didn't fail. Tim McVeigh didn't fail. Al Qaeda didn't fail. The messages were obvious and immediate, which is what they're supposed to be. You're not sending a message when you have to depend on a third party who's not even a participant to get the word out two weeks later.
As if a third party could be a reliable source to convey that message anyway.
Terrorism ALWAYS controls the message. When Ted Kaczynski put out his manifesto he didn't just jot down notes and tell the press "tell this in your own words" -- he demanded that it be printed verbatim, in his words. Again, controlling the message is vital. It's the whole point.
Terrorism is at base a political statement. You haven't made a statement by simply holding some belief and then not telling anybody what it is.
So your stretch here is absurd.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/29/international/30osamaCND.html
Bin Laden Takes Responsibility for 9/11 Attacks in New Tape
By MARIA NEWMAN
Published: October 29, 2004
Osama bin Laden said for the first time that he ordered the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, according to a videotape made public today, and he accused President Bush of "misleading the American people" about the attacks.
That's not adding up. How are we to have been "misled" if it was pinned on Al Qaeda immediately after the event? I don't get it.
Off the point anyway; the criterion isn't "who done it" but what the message is. When you have hijacked airliners flying into the soaring symbol of capitalism and the center of military operations, you don't need to ask what the reasoning for the target was. Those are highly symbolic targets. The relevance is obvious. And yes, immediate. When Flight 11 hit the North Tower we had an incident that looked accidental. When the second one hit the other tower -- we knew.
When on the other hand you have bombs going off at a foot race ..............
There is no way to equate the two.
bin Laden didn't take credit for 9/11 for THREE YEARS. That's not immediate. You never said anything about who it's blamed on; your criteria were an immediate message from the terrorists.
Was 9/11 terrorism?