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AND it was posted pretty soon after the attacks ...Journeyman said:Sorry, words fail me. :brickwall:
:rofl:Jarnhamar said:*Sicilian accent *
AND it was posted pretty soon after the attacks ...Journeyman said:Sorry, words fail me. :brickwall:
:rofl:Jarnhamar said:*Sicilian accent *
jmt18325 said:Given this guys birth name, I tend to lean towards the idea that he was a nut that was taken in by radical Islamic extremists. I'm not really sure what can be done to stop this kind of thing.
George Wallace said:What I read, was that he was converted while in prison. A fact often reported in American press reflecting on the numbers of converts being found in American prisons as well. This would indicate that many prison systems around the world are the breeding grounds for the recruiting of converts to Islam.
The World Health Organization claims that "27 percent of the adult population had experienced at least one of a series of mental disorders in the past year... 35 percent of lone-actor terrorists demonstrated a potential mental-health disorder."1 That isn't a substantial deviation from the broader population. Beyond potential 'disorders' and into full-blown 'psychoses,' in a sample of 500 terrorists, only four had "hints that they experienced beliefs that were not based in reality."2jmt18325 said:It's obvious ...mental illness....
jmt18325 said:Yeah I think I saw that now that you mention it. That said, there's no problem with converting to Islam per say. It's obvious (to me, anyway) that this convert (and too many others) have some combination of mental illness combined with a very bad influence before/during/arter the conversion.
Journeyman said:The World Health Organization claims that "27 percent of the adult population had experienced at least one of a series of mental disorders in the past year... 35 percent of lone-actor terrorists demonstrated a potential mental-health disorder."1 That isn't a substantial deviation from the broader population. Beyond potential 'disorders' and into full-blown 'psychoses,' in a sample of 500 terrorists, only four had "hints that they experienced beliefs that were not based in reality."2
Dismissing terrorists as crazy is both too easy, and not supported by those preferring informed opinion.
1. Jeanine de Roy van Zuijdewijn and Edwin Bakker, “Analysing Personal Characteristics of Lone-Actor Terrorists: Research Findings and Recommendations,” Perspectives on Terrorism, Volume 10, Issue 2, April 2016, 44.
2. Marc Sageman, Leaderless Jihad: Terror Networks in the Twenty-First Century. (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008), 84.
There's very, very little evidence of any sort of a 'terrorist personality.' Radicalization is a process, not an end-state, which usually includes Group- and Individual-motivation.jmt18325 said:I feel that someone like this has somewhat of a predisposition towards doing something like this.
Hard to get those nuanced shades of grey in there via Twitter-length philosophical pronouncements, though ;DJourneyman said:... I know, tl;dr
Journeyman said:There's very, very little evidence of any sort of a 'terrorist personality.' Radicalization is a process, not an end-state, which usually includes Group- and Individual-motivation.
Two recurring factors seem to be a frustration/grievance and a charismatic personality to guide the way. The grievance can meld something like "'Crusaders' oppressing the Muslim homeland" (Group) with being bullied at school (Indiv), where they are felt as part and parcel of the same problem. There is no shortage of frustrations -- nationalism, egalitarianism, anarchy, abortion; it's not just Islamist extremism....
Add a charismatic person (Imam, online propagandist, role models, etc), who gives explanations for the disappointing world and suggested outlets for their previous helplessness. A new-found sense of purpose enhances a positive self-image, perhaps for the first time. They increasingly withdraw into a small group of like-minded people (this site is not immune to echo-chambers of ideological reinforcement), where more intense indoctrination occurs, and.....ta da.... kids blow up so young these days.
Turning to Brihard... I hate the term "Lone Wolf"; most are "stray mutts" (as you know). Lone Wolf gives it a glamour that may appeal to "copy cat" others, and in the bigger picture, only rare cases like Ted Kaczynski qualify for the term. Two weeks before Zehaf-Bibeau got himself 'martyred' 36 times on Parliament hill, he was a drug-addled loser with a string of failed personal and financial dealings; suddenly.....he's a LONE WOLF TERRORIST!!! Ooohhhhh.
But even lone actors are seldom "alone." While being physically loners in plotting or conducting attacks, the Internet makes for their imagined community. Here, they may interact with a larger extremist community, which provides affirmation and encouragement. This reinforces their radicalization trajectory until they cross that “violence threshold” where they see themselves as combatants defending their communities (at home or abroad) in accordance with their recently-articulated grievances.
Edit: grammar. :'(