When President George W. Bush later responded by occupying Iraq in 2003, millions of Americans insisted that doing so was exactly what al Qaeda wanted. When, in 2004, Spain had the opposite reaction after the Madrid train bombings, and pulled back from that conflict, Americans told me that withdrawing from Iraq was actually what al-Qaeda wanted.
Today, a similar thing is happening with the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, as politicians and pundits accuse one another of “playing into the terrorists’ hands.”
How is everyone so savvy when it comes to knowing what terrorists want?
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This also helps explain why the presumed motives of terrorists seem to shift so rapidly and contradictorily. Consider that until the Paris attacks this past week, the conventional wisdom held that the group wields violence to achieve a Caliphate unadulterated by Western interference. Since the attacks, however, we’ve been told that actually the Islamic State wants to provoke the West into more military interference in order to showcase the West’s brutal behavior. Before the attacks, we were told that France is a juicy target for the Islamic State because of its failure to integrate its Muslim population. After the attacks, we are being told that the Islamic State actually wants France and the rest of the world to become even more xenophobic against Muslims on the theory that alienated moderates may be more receptive to extremism.
It’s no wonder the media are constantly talking up terrorists as “masterminds” who commit “sophisticated” attacks. Regardless of their outcome, whatever happens will invariably be seen as exactly what the terrorists want.
Before the attacks, we were told that France is a juicy target for the Islamic State because of its failure to integrate its Muslim population. After the attacks, we are being told that the Islamic State actually wants France and the rest of the world to become even more xenophobic against Muslims on the theory that alienated moderates may be more receptive to extremism.
Much of the article is quite on point, but this portion is just restating the same thing in different terms. The whole reason ‘alienated moderates’ are at risk of being ‘receptive to extremism’ is that France was unsuccessful in its attempt to assimilate its Muslim population.
--Not for lack of trying, mind you, and they even had a pretty sensible policy stance—quite far from the spineless multiculti ideology that seems to be ubiquitous in ‘Anglo’ countries. One critical problem is that the ‘ethnic’ population bears the brunt of the failing French economy and labor market, because their lack of social capital effectively makes them marginal participants in the best of cases; the end result is that these folks are now pretty much excluded from any sort of productive activity and become structurally unemployed. Young male idle hands being the devil’s workshop, and all that.
Why People Keep Saying, “That’s What the Terrorists Want”
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It’s like Texas sharpshooter fallacy by proxy.
Much of the article is quite on point, but this portion is just restating the same thing in different terms. The whole reason ‘alienated moderates’ are at risk of being ‘receptive to extremism’ is that France was unsuccessful in its attempt to assimilate its Muslim population.
--Not for lack of trying, mind you, and they even had a pretty sensible policy stance—quite far from the spineless multiculti ideology that seems to be ubiquitous in ‘Anglo’ countries. One critical problem is that the ‘ethnic’ population bears the brunt of the failing French economy and labor market, because their lack of social capital effectively makes them marginal participants in the best of cases; the end result is that these folks are now pretty much excluded from any sort of productive activity and become structurally unemployed. Young male idle hands being the devil’s workshop, and all that.