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Newsweek has this article on America's skewed definition of terrorism:
What is terrorism? According to the FBI, animal activists who stole two piglets from a farm were terrorists. As of now, Stephen Paddock, who killed 58 people at a country music concert in Las Vegas two weeks ago, has not been labeled a terrorist by the federal security organization.
In a viral story posted on The Intercept, journalist Glenn Greenwald details an account of federal agents investigating animal activists and scouring farm-animal sanctuaries to find two missing piglets that allegedly had been stolen from a farm. The FBI devoted such resources to finding these two piglets because their alleged theft and the capturing of undercover videos of the farm's conditions count as terrorism.
Why is the piglet theft classified as terrorism, but not the Las Vegas shooting? The distinction is rooted in the definition of the term. In spite of the emotions the word "terrorist" might elicit, the definition is not "mass killer" or "Muslim extremist" or "very bad person." The legal definition of terrorism is "the unlawful use of force or violence against persons or property in order to coerce or intimidate a government or the civilian population in furtherance of political or social objectives."
(Score: 2) by Entropy on Thursday October 12 2017, @08:09AM (7 children)
They historically don't really claim credit for things they didn't do. Also there seems to be a lot of evidence for at least one more shooter, but neither of those things fit the preferred narrative. So yeah, it's probably a terrorist act.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 12 2017, @08:50AM
if there was a second shooter, and they were from ISIS, they would have made as much information as possible as public as possible.
for instance they would have filmed themselves shooting, and then posted that on the internet.
because they want the publicity.
even if the second person wanted to remain alive to do other stuff, it would have been trivial for such a video to be made public.
so your conspiracy theory fails early on.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Thexalon on Thursday October 12 2017, @02:14PM (3 children)
Yes they do. All the time. Basically, if somebody attacks Westerners and either has no obvious motive or seems vaguely involved in Islamic radicalism, they claim it as theirs. That's because they want Islamic radicals to think they're the people they want to be fighting for, not those other lamers in Hezbollah or something.
One reason they do this is that they're in a desperate position militarily right now. As in, they're completely surrounded and losing ground rapidly on both sides of the Iraq/Syria border. They're lashing out with terrorism as best they can to try and distract people from that fact.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 12 2017, @05:17PM (1 child)
Out of more than 50 cases that ISIS claimed, ISIS was wrong only 3 times. There are also numerous cases that ISIS chose not to claim.
So, based on that track record, it's over 94% sure to be ISIS.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 12 2017, @06:53PM
citation please. otherwise, bull shit.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 13 2017, @04:37AM
I liked how, when they had the Orlando shooter on the phone, he claimed affiliation with Al-Qaeda AND Hamas (2 groups that HATE EACH OTHER'S GUTS).
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Thursday October 12 2017, @08:03PM (1 child)
No there isn't. There is a lot of evidence that people who are unfamiliar with objects flying faster than sound, produce a noise all of their own along their entire flight path. In the context of a bullet, this known as sonic crack (or supersonic crack) and is a noise totally separate from the bang from the rifle (or the echoes of either). In every video I've seen, I hear a sonic crack near the person recording (which means the bullet was near enough for them to hear the sonic crack for that portion of its flight) followed by the rifle's report -- as would be expected because the bullet is flying faster than sound - you'll hear the sonic boom first and then the sound of the bang because sound lags behind the bullet. While this sounds like two different things from different directions, it is all related to a single event - the distance bang and the nearby sonic crack are one event stretched out in time.
This video demonstrates the effect rather well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-Fu_4iDOLQ [youtube.com]
(Score: 2) by Entropy on Thursday October 12 2017, @10:47PM
There are windows shot out that are unlikely from the single vantage point. Sound from gunfire can be misinterpreted by folks unfamiliar with it for sure.