New york incident

[Junkenstein]

Not very up on this yet, but I'm sure a thread will be justified.

[Cain]

NYPD are looking for Ahmad Khan Rahami, a naturalised Afghan born 28 year old, for questioning.

He also appears to be responsible for the backpack bomb found in New Jersey yesterday too, though it's not clear if he's responsible for the pipe bomb planted during the charity race in New Jersey on Saturday.

[Junkenstein]

There was also a mass stabbing over the weekend and I've seen links between this and that incident but I'm not sure if that's an actual link or just wild media speculation.

Just to be clear, this is terrorism right? Because of the heritage and skin colour? Everything over the weekend was quite neutral in that regard but with the suspect having Afghan ancestry that will surely change a lot in the next week.

[Cain]

I'm pretty sure any time someone uses a bomb it should be considered terrorism until it can definitely be ruled out (assassination, personal grudge, insurance scam, whatever).  De Blasio seemed much less certain on this point, and while I will concede defining terrorism is a messy and convoluted affair, it seems safe to say that putting a bomb on a crowded street is a classic tactic of terrorism.

I don't think the stabbing is linked, except in that vague, empheral way that all Muslims everywhere are linked (which is why we have to burn down mosques in revenge for suicide bombings).  The guy did definitely scream something about Allah before he was shot, and the police are treating the investigation as terrorism linked.  Stabbing attacks were also, of course, promoted by ISIS a couple of years back.  But bombings and stabbing are a very different kind of tactic.  At the very least, the bomber was looking not to be injured themselves, and may have even been undertaking trial runs, while the knife attacker had to know they were going to die.

However the safe bet in both cases is "self-radicalised lone wolf".  The bomb technique was in one of those ISIS jihadi training manuals they put on the web, and likely the other idiot had been watching propaganda on liveleak or whatever.

[Junkenstein]

Ah, thanks. I was partly expecting it to be a white guy so we got the "domestic extremism" narrative. It's kind of a shame the guy isn't white because it's going to get fucking ugly over the next couple of months as a direct result of this. There's already enough pissed off racists riled up to practically guarantee reprisal attacks against unrelated people and places.

[Prelate Diogenes Shandor]

I'm pretty sure any time someone uses a bomb it should be considered terrorism until it can definitely be ruled out (assassination, personal grudge, insurance scam, whatever).

I think it's a slightly premature Republican october surprise

[Cain]

Because idiots can't be convinced to attack America on their own initiative?

Meanwhile, Trump seems confused yet again about the Constitution and basic decency.  He appears to be crying because the accused is being given legal counsel, as is his right, and medical treatment.  What liberal madness.

[Goddess Eris]

"Fat guy sets trash can on fire after father's chicken shop is repeatedly raided by the police state for catering to drunks, is also a Muslim."

[Cain]

"Fat guy sets trash can on fire after father's chicken shop is repeatedly raided by the police state for catering to drunks, is also a Muslim."

I know, right?

If this had happened in Queens or Brooklyn, no-one would give a shit.  They don't even call out the police when cars are set on fire there.

[Junkenstein]

I would have thought that there would have been more to this than the traction it got.

Not sure if that's due to the non stop election distraction, fatigue at/for these kind of events or it not being particularly remarkable.

Either way a sign of changing times as the media would have lost their shit for weeks over this a year ago and even moreso 5 years+ back.

Considering that, It may be worth repuposing this thread into weekly terrorist incident general thread or similar.

[P3nT4gR4m]

Any public fear propaganda project only has a finite shelf life. Maybe they decided the war on terror is not effective anymore. Time to stick it on the shelf along with the war on drugs, aids and communism. Time for a fresh new boogeyman to attack our glorious way of life. Bout time, imo, muslims with splodeypants kinda bored the shit out me from the git go. Maybe something along the lines of the Y2K bug next time? That was an epic lulzfest.

[Junkenstein]

Well drugs progressed to comedy drugs (bath salts) so I am curious if we'll see a shift here too. Smaller attacks on softer targets seems to be increasing compared to previous years.

[P3nT4gR4m]

It's a long shot but there's been a lot of mumbling about the rise of the robots and ai lately from some pretty high profile (if a little clueless) players. Anything from robots will eat all the jobs to Skynet is going to wipe out humanity. Doubt if it would happen but I'd love to see a massive drive to drum up public fear about that one. Maybe  boots on the ground in Taiwan by way of throwing a bone to Haliburton 

Realistically, I'm pretty sure they're going to keep going with the economic bullshit that seems to have the rubes on edge lately. Media has been playing a heavy - love the rich/hate the poor storyline - across all channels, otherwise the whole thing would backfire hilariously. Imagine if we weren't hating the unemployed and the starving immigrants for the fact we're losing our 3 bed semi in the burbs 

[Junkenstein]

Luddites 2 sounds like a fair possibility.