[Serious] Tit for tat.

[Jehanne]

That was one of their huge fuckups.  Russia has no love for islamic militants.  They're the wrong flavor of islamic militant for aspirant iran.  Isreal lolno.  So what's the smart play..why...to attack the us, ofc!

That will surely make things better for your lives back home.

The September 11th attacks were a desperation move by al qaeda a monstrous crime committed in the hope that the US would act in such a manner that they would be able to revive their moribond terrorist group. The US was attacked because it had a history of reacting to terrorist crimes in a stupid and counterproductive manner. And they reacted to 11/9 in a manner that was beyond al qaeda's wildest imaginings.

Our own country was guilty of horrific acts of terrorism:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarring_and_feathering

Groups who are oppressed and are faced against a superior force are often driven to desperation.

Has there been any revenge killings over the death of al-Zawahiri? I predict that there will be such; Biden's actions, at cost of over $250K, have condemned more innocent individuals to die. For what? Political gain?

[The Grand Nudger]

IDK that tarring and feathering is terrorism - but..sure, we've done all sorts of horrid shit. Similarly, inferiror forces often find themselves desperate, but if in their desperation they attack exclusively civilian targets it would probably be a warcrime, and almost certainly would not be terrorism. Uniformed forces are largely exempt from the designation - which is used to refer to non state actors that attack civilian targets in an effort to get a state to do x (as gubus example of the aim of the 9/11 attacks lays out).

Sure, islamic terrorists claim that some act is revenge for this or that other thing - but we've already established that they say silly shit - and I think we can grant that islamic terrorism has it's own engine. They don't need any excuse to do what they do, they have their own reasons and their own agency in the matter, none of them are taking their marching orders from potus or his actions.

Doing anything about terrorism -at all- is a political act, as it's a political problem. We could mollycoddle them thinking they were fixable and the same comment or criticism would hold. Are we sympathizing with terrorists for political reasons? Personally, I see alot of that. Bog standard anti american sentiment leading to unrepresentative assessments of terrorism and terrorists.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

IDK that tarring and feathering is terrorism - but..sure, we've done all sorts of horrid shit.  Similarly, inferiror forces often find themselves desperate, but if in their desperation they attack exclusively civilian targets it would probably be a warcrime, and almost certainly would not be terrorism.  Uniformed forces are largely exempt from the designation - which is used to refer to non state actors that attack civilian targets in an effort to get a state to do x (as gubus example of the aim of the 9/11 attacks lays out).  

Sure, islamic terrorists claim that some act is revenge for this or that other thing - but we've already established that they say silly shit - and I think we can grant that islamic terrorism has it's own engine.  They don't need any excuse to do what they do,  they have their own reasons and their own agency in the matter, none of them are taking their marching orders from potus or his actions.

Doing anything about terrorism -at all- is a political act, as it's a political problem.  We could mollycoddle them thinking they were fixable and the same comment or criticism would hold.  Are we sympathizing with terrorists for political reasons?  Personally, I see alot of that.  Bog standard anti american sentiment leading to unrepresentative assessments of terrorism and terrorists.

(The bolded bit)

Agreed. The killing of al-Zawahiri might very well be followed by an act of terrorism. NOT killing him might very well be followed by an act of terrorism.

Boru

[Jehanne]

Agreed. The killing of al-Zawahiri might very well be followed by an act of terrorism. NOT killing him might very well be followed by an act of terrorism.

Boru

My hunch is that he knew that the missiles would be coming; the US played right into his hands.

[The Grand Nudger]

His brilliant plan of getting murdered by a flying razor worked, then.

[Jehanne]

His brilliant plan of getting murdered by a flying razor worked, then.

Along the same lines as flying planes into buildings.

[The Grand Nudger]

The crucial difference being that the other guys got some murdering done themselves.....and.... fwiw, there was some silly premise they held on to about their families being taken care of. Zawahiri would have known that pitch was bullshit....since he made it to those poor fuckers himself once. Honestly, they're just people. They don't know when missiles are coming. Walking out on a balcony is something you might do in a taliban controlled kabul two decades after the fact. That we even knew where he was suggests that he's lost some level of protective detail for whatever reason. I guess it's hard to demythologize these guys after both sides in the conflict spent so much time building them up.

[Jehanne]

They can see the drones flying around, daily; how could he have not known that such was coming??

[The Grand Nudger]

Are we surprised by a human being doing any other strange or silly thing. A 71 year old man went out on his balcony in taliban controlled kabul. Who knows, it might cause reprisal, if reprisal is required to explain terrorism...but I doubt it was part of any plot to die. We're talking about the kind of guy who straps explosives to other people, not himself.