People are good at having enemies, whether they deserve them or not. There are people who would kill me right now having done nothing particularly wrong. There are even places where it is legal and encouraged to do so.
Additionally, notice that what jacquesm said is never brought up in these debates much like what U.S. did in Operation Ajax or sanctions that followed wasn't factored into recent Iran debates. Much easier to pretend all this stuff happens in a vacuum that requires a surveillance or police state. Which doesn't work anyway:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10591617
https://www.schneier.com/essays/archives/2006/08/refuse_to_b...
You know who is involved in these regions? Countries with money. Because without money, you can't do anything but let dictators and mass-murderers trample around like vicious kings. Turning a blind eye to your abused neighbors isn't a way to prevent terrorism, either. You might reduce anti-US terrorism by ignoring the rest of the world, but a lot of people will die, and you're still going to have enemies. It's a factor, not a solution.
Though I suppose if the US were poor as dirt, we wouldn't have to worry about terrorism. Just civil war and invasion.
And so on and so forth. Vast majority of terrorism against the U.S. is by actors whose activities or capabilities are directly tied to U.S.'s own imperialism abroad. Not our money, democracy, religion, anything. Just doing evil dangerous stuff over there and funding/equipping those that do the same often to rip off resources.
Far from a mere "factor," it's been the single most consistent and driving force behind all terrorism against us. That means... that eliminating that while working to improve the situation over time might eliminate most terrorism against us? Well, let's do that then!
That's a stupid and suicidal policy.
>Far from a mere "factor," it's been the single most consistent and driving force behind all terrorism against us.
So you say. But I can't distinguish that whether that statement is fact or ideology. So I don't believe you, and I shouldn't until you've got some convincing evidence that it's true. You can tell me a story. I don't want a story.
And I really don't see how people committing acts of terrorism are making good decisions that we should support by giving them what they want for doing so. Seems like a bunch of grudge-holders that need to grow up before negotiations become an option.
Surely you can discern why disagreeing with someone on HackerNews is different from invading their country, seizing their resources, and killing their family members.
> So you say. But I can't distinguish that whether that statement is fact or ideology. So I don't believe you, and I shouldn't until you've got some convincing evidence that it's true. You can tell me a story. I don't want a story.
And you can distinguish fact from ideology when people say that the solution to terrorism is more of what we're already doing?
I can understand you discarding information because you don't believe it's reliable. What I don't understand is that in the absence of information you believe to be reliable, you've still decided to form an opinion and argue for it. If you don't have enough information, it's okay to admit you don't know.
> And I really don't see how people committing acts of terrorism are making good decisions that we should support by giving them what they want for doing so.
I really don't see anyone proposing that.
So you're saying we should have committed mass murder and armed terror groups throughout the Middle East in the name of stealing resources or manipulating politics? Did you do any research to back this or are you writing up some far-fetched, sophist comment since you can't counter my points?
"And I really don't see how people committing acts of terrorism are making good decisions that we should support by giving them what they want for doing so."
Last I checked, the U.S. was still trying to screw with and control much of the Middle East instead of support them. The regions where we have the most meddling are among the least stable. Doing good over there instead of evil might actually accomplish something. Further, areas with groups like ISIS aren't terrorism vs Some Good Government rather than a group of competing evil groups all set on controlling and oppressing the area. So, fighting one isn't fighting terrorism so much as fighting one group while putting another into power.
You won't see the U.S. truly fight oppression over there because it's not in power-players financial and political interests. There's benefits to be had from continued partnerships with dictators and theocracies. Just ask Saudi Arabia.
>Did you do any research to back this or are you writing up some far-fetched, sophist comment since you can't counter my points?
No, I didn't do any research. I took a class on West Asia and North Africa in school. I lived in Iraq for a year.
But I don't think you've done any research, either. You're just saying talking points.
>Last I checked, the U.S. was still trying to screw with and control much of the Middle East instead of support them.
You checked? Let me know what you checked. Where you checked. Who you checked with.
>You won't see the U.S. truly fight oppression over there
Truly? Isn't there a term for this kind of waffling? "No true scotsman" or something?
> So, fighting one isn't fighting terrorism so much as fighting one group while putting another into power.
That's what fighting is. Any fight you do is going to put someone in power. It doesn't matter if you're fighting terrorism or not; that's the whole point of fighting.
The point of the discussion is U.S. government and a chunk of America wants to stop foreign terrorists from trying to blow us up. The foreigners doing that have exclusively done it due to interference, often violent and imperialistic, in the Middle East. So, many of us draw the logical connection that this was the cause of actual attacks against us rather than terrorism in general which we don't care about. So, to reduce number of attacks, we must stop doing what caused them and modify our strategy of dealing with the mess we're in to account for this. Otherwise, our actions over there, esp collateral murder (err damage) & weapons distribution, will likely just create the next wave of terrorists like Bush/Cheney Administration just did with ISIS.
That's my claims. Now, do you have any counter to those specific points or would you like to add to them? To be extra clear, given your sophistry, I've claimed the following:
1. The U.S. takes overt and covert action against Middle Eastern countries for financial and political reasons rather than for survival. So, it shouldn't have taken that action and should reconsider future behavior like that.
2. Disruptive U.S. actions in the Middle East creates opponents, including the organizations that attacked us. So, they should stop doing that and fewer terrorists that attack us would be created.
3. Previous handling of opponents equipped and trained likely long-term foes before abandoning them. They consistently ended up turning into problems: Taliban; Saddam; ISIS. The U.S. needs to stop doing that. Throw their best minds on fresh strategy before doing any major interventions and with much focus on long-term effects with regard to terrorism blowback.
But with money, you can arm those dictators and mass-murders so that they can become actual vicious kings.
> Turning a blind eye to your abused neighbors isn't a way to prevent terrorism, either.
That's true, which is why it's so puzzling that we so frequently turn a blind eye to our abused neighbors and fund the abusers.
I'm definitely not proposing isolationism. I'm proposing we spend aid money actually helping the populations of nations instead of funding whatever militant promises to protect US interests.
Bingo!
This statement would have more resonance if the US fell into the "or not" category. ISIS is basically America's Frankenstein[1].
[1] Yes, yes it was the doctor's name.
That being said, could you provide examples as to how the Middle East has reacted to meddling as opposed to South East Asia?
Just because some politician claimed that it's tech's people responsibility to fix their flaws, it does not make it true.
It's repetitive, but the police did have all the information they needed to go after such people even before the murdering. What does the GP want? A machine that queries the news from the day after tomorrow? (Because tomorrow won't do - the police had warning that it would happen at the previous day.)
If the Paris police had all the information they needed to go after such people, but didn't, that's the technical problem that really needs solved, not an encryption backdoor.
Better data organization tools are another (a family member is studying forensic science and has done internships with large-ish police departments that still largely use printed and hand-written documents to manage cases)
But that's my point. I haven't done much thinking on this either, so I can't see around the corners of time to see what it could be. But just more yelling back and forth about encryption isn't accomplishing much.
Maybe it's not a bits and bytes technical problem, but it's technical according to the definition of the adjective, "of or relating to a particular subject, art, or craft, or its techniques." If the Paris police had the information, but were unable to properly analyze it, that's completely a technical problem.
But I still don't think this should distract from a conversation about encryption. Encryption has very importat implications for free press and privacy far outside of preventing terrorism, and it's important that it stay legal and accessible to normal people. Experts need to make their voices heard so that legal decision isn't made by people unconcerned with these important issues.
Speak for yourself. I'm an American citizen and I don't want to start economic wars, support violent dictators, create economic sanctions that harm the common people and not the national leaders they purport to, provide conditional and earmarked aid that is sometimes actually harmful, and a wide variety of other internationally sociopathic behaviors. I think most people would agree if they actually understood that that's what's happening. But most people think we're spreading peace and freedom and protecting human rights.
I don't think this is a technical problem, and I don't think it's our responsibility to solve it.
If the US wants to stop terrorism they need to stop creating terrorists. The US created terrorists by starting economic wars, supporting violent dictators, creating economic that harm the common people and not the national leaders they purport to, providing conditional and earmarked aid that is sometimes actually harmful, and a wide variety of other internationally sociopathic behaviors. If we want to stop being attacked by people from other countries, we need to stop harming other countries.