I can sympathize with Fox on this one. It was always very hard to tell who was cheating because we don't know people's skin color online. I'm not sure how JMO is so good at it; I suspect he's hacked users' webcams.

Bo....it's pretty fucking simple. First off all, quit being such a retard and accepting hit-pieces on Fox that took some assinine conversation OUT OF CONTEXT and pretending like you know what happen.

NOW....here's an example for you:

"The guy was 6'3", about 225 pounds in blue jeans..."

***OR**

"The guy was 6'3", about 225 pounds in blue jeans AND HAD PURPLE SKIN..."

....

Now...I know you are just a liberal puke freshman in college....but I'll bet even you are able to guess which description above will better help you narrow down your search.

Good lord....will all you idiots stop being such panty-waisted morons. Describing a person in more detail rather than less is not racist....it is fucking FACTUAL.

So...presumably AFTER the attack, when a person with a ski-mask is being persued, they will lose the ski-mask. AT WHICH POINT....if you happen to have more description about them....say....of....I don't know....skin color, for example....it will help identify them.

Quit being such a liberal twat.

The "typical bad guys" comment kind of throws that out, though.

It wasn't taken out of context at all.
Watch the video.

Awwww....Jeffy-poo....that's SO CUTE how you think that 4 minute clip is actually the full context of a conversation that probably was taking place for pretty much the entire day on the network in general, and specifically for the duration of what is no-doubt an hour-long show. And you think a carefully selected 4 minute clip tells you the whole story. Awwww.....that's ADORABLE how utterly and completely naive you are. Stay sweet, Little One....

Yeah....keep your little head buried in the sand.


And for the little ones here that don't grasp that there are *AT LEAST* two different conversations -- ONE is about the general concept of police presence, generally speaking, will help deter "bad guys" from doing things wrong. REGARDLESS of color.

And then there is the SPECIFIC comment about the fact that THE PARTICULAR bad guys in this particular terrorist attack -- nobody knew what color they were....which would have been helpful information as a MASSIVE national manhunt took place to find them.

SOME of you blithering idiots are so afraid of offending people that you would rather NOT have valuable information -- such as skin color of a suspect -- discussed. What is wrong with you people, seriously?

A sentence later she said "in the context of typical terrorist groups." Racial profiling? Yes. Racist? Not at all. She is not saying "most Arabs are terrorists" in that sentence. She is saying "most terrorists are Arabs". There is a world of difference between those two. Because, statistically speaking one is true and the other is not.

Now, why that was said at all in a discussion on the militarization of the police? I have no idea. Seemed to come out of left field to me. I found it kinda odd that on Fox the guy advocating for stop and frisk was outnumbered in the debate.

Person 1: "We are being hunted, so how would you like for us to be protected. What message do you want to send."
Person 2: "I think that the best thing Americans can do is arm themselves."
Person 3: "Me too!"

It always amazes me how hard it is to watch the mind-numbing "News" on Fox. I couldn't watch any further than that. So I sorry, bo_sox48, but I didn't get to the overt racism.

goldfinger0303: And you think "most terrorists are Arabs" is an accurate statement?

krellin: You need more than four minutes of Fox News to determine whether you're watching mindless bullshit? Amazing!

So I sorry --> So sorry

Yes, JECE. Well, depends on where you draw the line of Arab, if you want to strictly look at numbers.

Al Qaeda's core was Arab. ISIS is mainly Arab (most recent estimates around 200,000 members). Al Qaeda in the Arabian peninsula is mostly Arab. If you count Libyans, Algerians and Sudanese as Arabs, then that adds a whole lot more to that list.

So if you take most as being >50%, then yes I have no qualms with stating most terrorists are Arabs.

Ah, but those are still mostly terrorists acting in the Arabian area. The terrorists active in the Western world aren't actually always Arabs. Even Muslim terrorists aren't always Arabs, for example the Tsarnaev brothers. Non-Islamic terrorists also tend not to be Arabs, by the way. People seem to have forgotten all about those. In a case where you're looking for Islamic terrorists, you have no way to know what they look like. They could be African, Caucasian, European, Arab, Indian, Iranian/Central Asian, South-East Asian...

This is true phil. I just said terrorists though, not based on location.

But when you have a 200,000 strong group of mostly Arab terrorists in ISIS...well, its hard to say that more than 200,000 other terrorists exist in the world. If if did, then the world would be a whole lot scarier than it is today. The next largest group I can think of is Boko Haram, which is less than a tenth of the size of ISIS by the estimates I've found.

Also, this is FOX we're talking about haha. I'm not sure if the lady there would differentiate between Turkish, Persian, Arab, etc.

Does is really make sense to refer to the local military force of ISIS as terrorists?

Well, they do kidnap, enslave, conduct acts of terror, etc.

They're still mostly an army that commits despicable acts. They have a terrorist wing, but it's more individualistic. The acts of terror are there, mostly in killing anyone they find, but it's more a very hostile occupying force.

goldie, basically every occupying army throughout history has done versions of that list. My contention is that ISIS is not a terrorist group but an occupying military force, and that it is more useful to analyse their behavior through that lense.

Why is this even something worth talking about? Surely the shooting and the reasons for it are more important in every way.

mendax - applying that logic to its natural conclusion says that most "terrorist groups" aren't actually terrorist groups. I think you are defining terrorism much too narrowly. Because based upon what you say, Boko Haram, Al Shabab, Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Magreb, etc are not actually terrorist groups, but occupying armies.

goldfinger0303: 'Terrorism' is not well defined. For instance, the traditional definition of terrorism limits it to state actors (today called 'state terrorism'). Through this lens, the U. S. military is by far the largest actor which commits acts of terrorism on the world stage. If you accept Henry David Thoreau's arguments in "On Civil Disobedience" (paying taxes is active support for unjust actions of your state), then the largest constituency of terrorists are the U. S. taxpayers.

Even using the new definition of terrorism (which limits the term to non-state actors and states in rebellion), your claim that >50% of 'terrorists' are Arabs is flimsy. Firstly, estimates of the Islamic State's strength are not reliable for a variety of reasons (not least because an organization that large requires a civil service). But even taking your 200,000 figure at face value, let's compare it to other groups: Naxalites count around 20,000, CPP around 5,000, PKK around 5,000, Boko Haram around 9,000, ELN around 2,000, FARC around 9,000, Shining Path around 500, Pakistani Taliban (TTP) around 35,000, Caucasus Emirate perhaps 1,000, Al-Shabaab around 5,000, Balochistan Liberation Army at least 500, Movement of Democratic Forces of Casamance around 2,000, Donbass pro-Russian separatists around 20,000, FDLR (Rwandan Hutu rebels in the DRC) around 2,000, MNLF perhaps 10,000, EPP (Paraguayan rebels) around 150 . . . Okay, I give up. This is taking too long. There are many more groups that fit the bill, but it takes too long to find semi-reliable estimates. And this is without counting the dozens of insurgent groups (with many thousands of members) in Northeast India, Myanmar and South Thailand, of which little information is available.

Wait, someone reads Fox News?

JECE - you are absolutely right in that this topic is riddled with vague definitions and a lot of uncertainty. If you take mendax's point of view that ISIS is more of a military proto-state than a group of terrorists, then you radically change the definition and have to exclude many of the groups that you have mentioned such as the TTP, Donbass separatists, and Boko Haram (Very good research, btw).

Then you get into the whole debate of what is a terrorist versus what is a freedom fighter. An interesting debate. Are terrorists those who use terror tactics, or are they those who have a specific ideological goal? And what exactly are the list of defined acts of terror? Is assassination one? If yes, then you could argue that the US military is a state actor. If no, then I really fail to see the argument you mentioned in the first paragraph (but I digress).

But since I have way too much time on my hands, I went to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_designated_terrorist_organizations
and counted the terrorist organizations. Of those that had actual pages, 54 were Arab, 100 were non-Arab. This proves me wrong on the >50% bit, but you can see where the layperson would assume most of the time that terrorist = Arab. Especially considering that a *huge* portion of that 100 non-Arab were based in the Caucasus, Iran, Pakistan and Somalia. If I were to go Muslim/non-Muslim, the disparity would be even larger.

That sounds like an issue for another time, though. The person on Fox was specifically referring to skin tone.

Yep. If you go just by skin tone, I think that actually works in the woman's favor. Again, don't know how it was relevant at all to the discussion, but yeah

Pakistanis and Somalians are a great deal darker than Arabs, though. And the peoples of Caucasus are lighter by far. From looking at the pictures of the attackers, even, they are not of average Arab skin tone.

I think her line of reasoning was more along the line of: not white, not black, not asian, not indian, not latino = terrorist

But that definitely doesn't hold up under your previous post. Peoples of the Caucasus are typically white, Pakistanis typically have a skin tone resembling Indians, and Somalians are typically black. Iranians are the closest you listed of that large portion that has a skin tone anywhere near the typical Arab.

"If no, then I really fail to see the argument you mentioned in the first paragraph (but I digress)." You don't think purposefully causing collateral damage is an act of terror? U. S. military operations aren't known for lacking civilian casualties (targeted assassinations included, since you mentioned them).

goldfinger0303: That was to you.

Collateral damage is a part of any military operation, JECE. Even in special operations infiltrations, there is collateral damage. Complete disregard for collateral damage is to be frowned upon, but does it mean that the military are terrorists? Of course not.

I'm sure innocents were killed in Mali when the French led a counter-attack. Same in Somalia when the AU combated Al-Shabab. So, I don't think the mere presence of collateral damage merits an act of terror designation

You don't know the scale; we're talking about large and small attacks alike where there were nothing but civilian casualties.

. . . and many more attacks where the U. S. military doesn't know who it is killing. Doesn't that sound a bit like state terrorism to you? Indiscriminate killings that terrorize a population? To be clear, I don't think their intent is to terrorize, but complete idiocy leads to the same result.

On the other hand, I do entirely thing their intent is to terrorise. I mean, their military doctrine for a while was "Shock and Awe".

Plus, mass torture is a classic act of state terrorism. The United States kidnapped people anywhere from Western airports to Iraqi cities to Afghan villages. They were sent to be tortured in prisons in Afghanistan (like Bagram), in prisons in Iraq (like Abu Ghraib), in CIA black sites (like Eastern Europe), in Guantánamo Bay and by authoritarian regimes (like Mubarak's Egypt or Gaddafi's Libya) on behalf of the United States. People have died from the severe torture they received, even recently (http://www.bostonglobe.com/news/world/2013/05/21/torture-victim-body-found-near-base-afghans-say/RIqShgNJyM0B8smM24TCMN/story.html). Now before you say this was all the CIA, let me make clear that much of this torture was committed by uniformed members of the U. S. military (especially in Iraq and Afghanistan). These victims, over and above getting detained illegally and tortured, were disappeared: the epitome of state terrorism perfected by South American dictatorships under the supervision of the CIA.

mendax: That was the invasion doctrine. But the killing continued.

JECE - I'm not denying that those things happened. But if you define state terrorism that broadly, then pretty much every war in modern history had state terrorism. Going back to the American Revolutionary War when they locked up Americans on prison ships in New York Harbor and executed many of them. When you define it that broadly you lose the true meaning of state sponsored terrorism, which is states funding cells of radicalized individuals to conduct acts of terror in other countries.

War is hell. Lots of shitty things happen in war - mass incarceration, torture, execution, etc. And much of it has been done by uniformed members of the military - Sherman's March to the sea in the American Civil War, for example. My point again is that indiscriminate killings to terrorize a population is a part of war, and always has been, at least in modern history.

Note, I'm not trying to justify any of those things. I just think that they shouldn't be labeled as terrorism, because then the term terrorism covers way too many acts.

goldfinger0303: I see where you're confused. There is a big difference between state terrorism and "State Sponsors of Terrorism".

State terrorism is used to refer to acts committed directly by a state apparatus. The term 'terrorism' originally referred exclusively to state actors. Now the original meaning of 'terrorism' needs to be qualified by adding the word 'state'.

"State Sponsor of Terrorism" is a term used by the U. S. State Department to refer to states which sponsor non-state actors committing acts of terrorism. A state cannot be added to the list if it uses its own state apparatus to commit alleged acts of terrorism.

My main point is that the term 'terrorism' has become too vague to be of much use. For instance, although enforced disappearances and torture are some of the most blatant acts of state terrorism (which has a more narrow definition that 'terrorism'), the legal term 'crime against humanity' is much more useful. Similarly, the legal term 'war crime' is much more useful than 'state terrorism' when it comes to defining disproportionate/indiscriminate collateral damage or targeted assassination.

Point noted on the difference in terminology. But doesn't "State terrorism" cover events that have happened in every war? Shouldn't that just then be classified as acts of war or crimes against humanity?

The term is actually more commonly used for a state supressing its own people than for state actions during wartime.

And no, of course. There have been wars with horrid war crimes and wars with almost no war crimes. Saying that war crimes and crimes against humanity are a normal side effect of all wars negates international law.

Idk...I think you can argue that war crimes have been committed in every war that has occurred since the Geneva convention. The only difference is that the losers go to jail now if their own people don't kill them first.

But back to the state terrorism bit, if it is most commonly used for a state supressing its own people, that makes a lot more sense. I had just never heard it used that way before

guys i love Fox news, theyre always reliable

Isn't the problem with "terrorism" that it is not something scientific-technologic (anymore ?) but a rhetorical description that aimed to discredit the so called target? In consequence it is just a word that attracts a great deal of reinterpretations.