68
submitted 10 months ago by Rapidcreek@lemmy.world to c/world@lemmy.world
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] Candelestine@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago

Ah, I see. So, I don't believe Bin Laden foresaw the Patriot Act in any way shape or form. From his perspective specifically, it'd be about sowing as much fear and discomfort as possible. I doubt he personally was able to predict the exact form that fear and discomfort would take, but it doesn't really matter. Surveillance harms us exactly because it creates more fear and discomfort. The specifics are an irrelevant detail though, not something he has influence over or needs to care about. Not mission-critical information.

The fear and discomfort in turn leads to more radical behavior, it helps drive folks crazy, to speak colloquially.

This is the real key that can and probably eventually will drive us from the Middle East. Without it, and the emotional feeling of disgust it creates within us, it would've taken a mammoth amount of casualties and/or economic damage to accomplish that. We have a long history of being unbelievably stubborn. Additionally, we weren't yet energy independent back then, before our fracking boom, so being there was an additional economic necessity he would've felt needed to be overcome.

Look at it this way: He wanted to create more Islamophobia. So we would leave all the Muslims alone, eventually, since genociding them isn't an option for decent folk, which we (mostly) want to be. Something we now have to wrestle with concerning Israeli actions.

It's basically how terrorism works as a political and military tool, how it attempts to accomplish its intended goals. It's not usually so successful, though. But I would say this time, fear was successfully sown, and domestic harmony effectively destroyed. We haven't really been politically functional since then, though that's my opinion, again.

[-] FishFace@lemmy.world 2 points 9 months ago

OK, looks like I misunderstood what you were saying. Fair enough.

this post was submitted on 03 Jan 2024
68 points (70.0% liked)

World News

38936 readers
2095 users here now

A community for discussing events around the World

Rules:

Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.


Lemmy World Partners

News !news@lemmy.world

Politics !politics@lemmy.world

World Politics !globalpolitics@lemmy.world


Recommendations

For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS