El Pibe Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > My gut says to call this terrorism flatters it and > gives it political justification to some extent. > > To me this is just pointless nihilistic violence, > it's murder. > It's kicking someone to death because they're a > goth with pierced lips, or homosexual walking home > from vauxhall, or running a cyclist over because > they don't pay road tax. > > The cheap bullshit political claptrap whilst > narcissistically posturing for the cameras suggest > a degree of sociopathy to me. > > Boring thoughts aside my heart goes out to the > family of the chap killed, utterly horrific. These assailants plus the 9/11 & 7/7, Boston perpetrators and so on could arguably all be sociopaths, and nihilists and narcissists and many other things however I stick by the term 'terrorist'. Perhaps this UN's description clarifies my point: "Criminal acts intended or calculated to provoke a state of terror in the general public, a group of persons or particular persons for political purposes are in any circumstance unjustifiable, whatever the considerations of a political, philosophical, ideological, racial, ethnic, religious or any other nature that may be invoked to justify them." You may call it political claptrap, but to these (and the others yet to come), the ideology and motivation legitimise the act and more significantly, it satisfies vengeance. It is wholly repugnant.