My post had nothing to do with ideology, not really. But someone asked why we hadn’t freaked out about terrorism post Oklahoma City like we did post 9/11. And so I was basically shitposting.
But I do really think the reason does come down to McVeigh was white, not brown and of a foreign religion.
I think the scale of 9/11 had a lot to do with it. Though the '90s had been developing increasing ominous signs with the rise of Bin Laden, the failed World Trade Center bombing of 1993, and the Kenya and Tanzania embassy bombings.
We transitioned from a time when Islamic terrorism was one of several types (white militant separatist in the U.S., IRA actions in Ireland, etc.) to The One True Threat. When the body count goes into the thousands (to say nothing of the symbolic coup), it enters a different brain space than, say, Munich '72. And then things spiral from there…
Come on. Give me a real challenge.
There’s still the other factors, 10 arrested, including 2 “significant” arrests today, known associate of extremists, albeit a peripheral figure, previously under MI5 surveillance etc, none of which add up to a “random mentally ill person disgruntled at MPs for another supposed reason”.
Impossible to know, really. The intelligence services and police will have a huge list of potential threats, but not enough to warrant action. After an incident, they sometimes swoop in and detain these suspicious actors for questioning, just as a precaution that they’re not planning something bigger.
Or it would, as you suggest, be a much larger operation. We really don’t know.
At some level the size of the conspiracy, if that’s what you want to call it, doesn’t matter, really. We know there are a number of people world wide, and within our own countries, who are willing to commit these sorts of attacks. We know there is a network of people across the globe who encourage and facilitate this sort of thing. That is worth attention by law enforcement and intelligence organizations. It doesn’t alter the fact that the objective level of threat is still very low, in terms of actual damage inflicted in comparison to the size and population of the societies targeted.
Psychologically, yes, one person killed by a terrorist acting in support of an ideology and with the direct intent to make the average citizen feel threatened is much different than one nutjob lashing out at random. No argument there. But the threat is almost totally psychological, and thus, in addition to the law enforcement response, there needs to be a psychologically meaningful response–or non-response–as well. I just don’t think panic, hysteria, and knee-jerk over-reaction are the proper psychological responses.
I’d also add that the UK - London particularly - has a history of experiencing undeniably more organised, more frequent and more lethal terrorist acts from a purely domestic source. They did things like this:
That there is a global network makes it more scary, perhaps, but the domestic terrorism has been far worse than any global organisation acting against the UK. Which is probably why the reaction to this has been fairly muted in comparison to reactions to similar events across the globe.
Every office I’ve worked in the City had been damaged at some point during the 80s.
If ISIS had 10% of the professionalism, skills and capabilities of the IRA we’d all be fucked. They may have been murdering bastards, but you damn well took them seriously and respected their abilities.
What are we supposed to be doing, cowering inside?
I guess? Was there recent news of an imminent threat I missed?
Electing fascists and passing freedom stripping, racist laws.
Well, we did do that, unfortunately.
Oopsie daisy!
Well, at least we’re in that club, too, now.
UK and US–bosom buddies once more!
It’s a Special Relationship!