Sectorgame

...is a suicide bomber incapable of either commiting suicide or setting off a bomb, then i don't think we have much to be terrified about.

To coin an Americanism, these guys are pussies compared to the IRA. So why are we supposed to be scared and threatened?

They are idiots!

Posted this on HLP on the same subject.

I don't think they're terrorists. They simply saw an advert from the 80's for these things and got it all wrong.

It's kind of like being terrorised by the Keystone Cops, if it wasn't kind of scary, I'd laugh about it.

I laugh about it anyway. Best way to show them that we're not scared.

It's odd that if they believe some kind of deity is 'on their side', that 4 out of the last 5 attempts at Terrorism have failed in some way or another, often at the critical moment, as it were, if I were a religious man, I'd be wondering about that.

theres nothing in the koran about bombing americans...

Flipside wrote:It's odd that if they believe some kind of deity is 'on their side', that 4 out of the last 5 attempts at Terrorism have failed in some way or another, often at the critical moment, as it were, if I were a religious man, I'd be wondering about that.

Strangely enough out of all places SomethingAwful seem to have figured out the cause.

"Practice makes perfect!"

Great advice for kids lobbing basketballs, but it turns out it's really really really hard to practice blowing yourself up until you're perfect. The first time you have a scrimmage everyone on your team dies instantly. You can't learn any lessons. You can't go back to the locker room and talk about how you can go back out there and beat them after half time.

The problem terrorists are experiencing now is that all of the guys that were really good at being terrorists are dead. They were so good at being terrorists that they went ahead and blew themselves up.

terrorists are kinda idots...you'd think they'd rebel against us by not agreeing to be part of the new iraq.

akenbosch wrote:terrorists are kinda idots...you'd think they'd rebel against us by not agreeing to be part of the new iraq.

?

Not to mention, of course, that a pensioner is more dangerous.

Kara; that's not really true. Suicide bombers and experience don't go together, to be sure, but there are plenty of good terrorists out there. They're just not Islamic ones. Islamic terrorists seem to lack the necessary cold-bloodedness for real competency, or practice tactics that don't allow them to develop the level of proficency that most European terrorists developed.

They also seem almost compelled to go for big, showy explosions. That's not the only kind of terrorism there is, and it's not necessarily the most effective either.

Except that if you read the article you'll see it was only really referring to Islamic suicide bombers so the point is still valid.

And most of the attempts Flipside was on about were suicide bombings (The Glasgow attack, 21st July attack and for all we know last weeks attempt in London - except that the guy had trouble driving around dustbins).

Referring to the topic title, Al-Queda seem to have done enough in the past to prove even the worst the IRA had to offer is a pale comparison in terms of damages and hysteria.

Hunter wrote:Referring to the topic title, Al-Queda seem to have done enough in the past to prove even the worst the IRA had to offer is a pale comparison in terms of damages and hysteria.

Al-Queda have done some horrible s###, sure, but they've never posed anywhere near the threat to the UK that the IRA did; nor do they have the long term consistency - they've regressed from suicide bombings (not counting 9/11, which was caused by hideously lax security in both airports and in an immigration waiver system that voided all checks on Saudi nationals) with reasonable precision and sophistication (i.e. Madrid, London) to infeasible plots involving liquid explosives (impossible to mix into a viable mixture without a bathtub and constant temperature) and glorified molotov cocktails.

And yet the message is that these idiots (in every sense) are more of a threat than the IRA, than the Cold War, and possibly even more than the Axis in WW2 - we're given the story of a long, vaguely defined war which will require sacrificing individual liberty (in contradiction to what this war is supposed to defend) to attack some nebulous ill-defined threat whose very name and supposed structure was in all likelihood invented to allow the US to charge Bin Laden under racketeering laws.

The IRA came close to destroying the government itself not once, but twice, as well as assassination prominant people within the government or 'ruling class' such as Lord Mountbatten or Richard Sykes. Al-queda (if they even exist as we are told they do, which is unlikely), for all their bodycount, have come nowhere near this.

Sure, Al-queda are dangerous as any lunatic with a gun and a mission are - but a threat to the country or society?