Bastille Day attack Nice

[G-Man]

Bastille Day attack Nice

Bruneau wrote:

It was inexcusable and incredibly irresponsible of Hollande to ascribe the mass murder of Nice to Islamic terrorism when it was not clear that it was a jihadist attack.

One cannot just make that assumption and state it as of it was a fact. Some people on this thread made the same mistake.

But the common perception that Nice was another Islamic attack will stick.

I think it's a stretch to say that people on this thread "stated it as if it was a fact." BLT perhaps did so. The discussion naturally followed the non-crazy hypothetical that he was a terrorist, because the world these days. And everyone here is smart enough not to stick to that narrative once it's been falsified.

Yeah, you're right. Re-reading this thread, I overestimated the occasions in which the presumption was made that this was a jihadists' attack (and I underestimated the number of posts that expressly opposed that presumption). I my impression was formed by a number of ambiguous allusions and one post that used the language of "a medieval death cult arsehole may decide to get into a vehicle and drive it into a crowd."

CV nailed it on page 2, except that the murderer apparently didn't allign himself with jihadism;

Early reports are that the murderer was known to local police in a criminal capacity for a variety of offences ranging from theft to violent behaviour. No group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack (though I'm sure that's forthcoming) but I have a suspicion that this will resemble the Orlando massacre in that it'll turn out to be the result of a damaged loser trying to assign some meaning to his life by aligning himself with what he sees as a higher calling. How you combat that isn't easy. You certainly can't defeat a threat like that by bombing another country or by locking up foreigners.

[Satchmo Distel]

Bastille Day attack Nice

Holland was immediately promising to drop bombs on ISIS before anything was known about the guy so I think all government statements on this are tainted. Contrast with Obama on Orlando, where he downplayed the jihadists angle.

Lone Wolf is the Occams Razor answer at this point.

[Janik]

Bastille Day attack Nice

Bruneau wrote: I look at the "mental health issues" as being foregone with anyone who has an agenda of directly targeting innocent bystanders, or has twisted them into soldiers for a enemy cause.

No, that doesn't wash. The Paris attackers are not alleged to have mental issues to anything like the same extent. Nor the 9/11 plotters, or those attacking Mumbai. Those were all long-term plans carried out with clear thinking and objectives.

To call them the actions of insane people, you have to apply the same to, say, as far as Dubya and Blair. All those people knew exactly what they were doing, why they were doing it, the effects it would have on others, and went ahead anyway because it fitted their political agenda. Basically if that specific person hadn't been there, there was a very good chance that someone else would have stepped into their place. All acts of war, basically.

Orlando, Nice, Virginia Tech and some others look to be a different kettle of fish, in which the unbalance of the perpetrator is the absolute driver of the event happening.

[Wouter D]

Bastille Day attack Nice

Satchmo Distel wrote: Holland was immediately promising to drop bombs on ISIS

I was like "Wait, WHAT!!?!" until I realized that you might be missing an e there...

[Satchmo Distel]

Bastille Day attack Nice

Autocorrect blues.