Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Servant Corps]

Anders Behring Breivik, the Norway shooter, was found to be insane.

This...troubled me. The Norway shooter was an example of Lone Wolf terrorism at the finest; he conducted a car bomb as a distraction for his main attack, killed more people than the Unabomber in a shorter period of time, and got his message across. But, in my previous research on terrorism, I excluded acts by entities deemed to be "insane". So if I stick with my original qualification that you have to be sane to conduct terrorism, Breivik wouldn't be a terrorist. But...I feel uncomfortable with this designation...and it seems to be a slap on the face for this man's "efforts".

Terrorism is defined in the GTD as

an intentional act of violence or threat of violence by a non-state actor that meets two of the following three criteria:

*The violent act was aimed at attaining a political, economic, religious, or social goal;
*The violent act included evidence of an intention to coerce, intimidate, or convey some other message to a larger audience (or audiences) other than the immediate victims; and
*The violent act was outside the precepts of International Humanitarian Law.

Nothing in this definition implies that the non-state actor has to be sane at the time of attack, and in fact, the GTD included one attack by Russell Watson who was later found insane. But I always felt that if you were insane, you weren't control of your actions, and that therefore means you couldn't do terrorism (so I excluded Russell Watson).

Since I'm torn as how to interpret the Norway shooting in light of Breivik's newfound insanity defense, I might as well ask the Bay12 community whether sanity is a necessary prerequisite to conducting terrorism or if it is not necessary at all. (A third option may be that as insanity is a legal concept, it could be disregarded as the government is not impartial when determining if someone is insane or not.)

[Lord Shonus]

Depends on the disorder in question. Paranoid schitzophrenia doesn't keep you from planning, attempting to coerce through force, or any other terrorist objective. All it does (in this context) is change what you see as a threat.

[kaenneth]

Yeah, I think you would have to be specific as to which mental disorder is affecting the subject.

Consider the point of view that anyone who would kill many other people just to send a message is insane by definition. I for one don't consider terrorism to be a sane act.

The 9/11 attacks as an example, if Al'Queda had millions of followers, they would have a proper army, and be able to have a proper war, take control of land, etc. But they didn't have enough to form an army, so they just went for pointless destruction, like a child knocking over a game board when he's losing.

To me, 9/11 indicates the point at which the islamic extremists basically gave up on actually winning, and were just throwing a tantrum because they were sore losers. Not a rational act at all.

[ChairmanPoo]

Paranoid schitzophrenia doesn't keep you from planning

It might well do. Paranoid schitzophrenics aren't known for their mental acuity. Their thought processes tend to be rather disorganized.

[kaenneth]

Paranoid schitzophrenia doesn't keep you from planning

It might well do. Paranoid schitzophrenics aren't known for their mental acuity. Their thought processes tend to be rather disorganized.

Well, "Making Plans and Schemes" is one of the symptoms if I recall correctly... just not realistic/viable ones. (Think Wheatly in Portal 2)

[MetalSlimeHunt]

To me, 9/11 indicates the point at which the islamic extremists basically gave up on actually winning, and were just throwing a tantrum because they were sore losers. Not a rational act at all.

Bin Laden's philosophy on war was that even small movements can bring superpowers to their knees by manipulating them into being mired in expensive progressless conflicts until they suffer internal collapse from bleeding all the money out of them. Good thing that didn't happe-

Oh. Wait.

[kaijyuu]

To me, 9/11 indicates the point at which the islamic extremists basically gave up on actually winning, and were just throwing a tantrum because they were sore losers. Not a rational act at all.

Erm, terrorism thrives on attention and reaction. It's essentially a violent protest. Now you can say violence is inherently an insane act, but protesting is not. This isn't flipping a game board; this is flipping the bird and going "nya nya nya" in order to get a reaction.

Al'Queda got a huge boost in membership and notoriety from the US's fearful reaction. What was originally a terrorist group no one but those who've studied middle eastern politics knew about is now a household name. Their methods seem to have worked quite well in the favor of spreading their message (and convincing locals of it), so except for the violence part I'd say they were acting far from irrationally.

[Luke_Prowler]

A psychopath has full control of their higher brain functions, they only lack the ability to feel emotion. If they knew they could get something out of it, they'd probably commit terrorism in a heart beat

[kaijyuu]

A psychopath has full control of their higher brain functions, they only lack the ability to feel emotion.

*Empathy.

A psychopath can still be happy, sad, etc etc, they just don't feel those things about other people. They can also still logically come to the conclusion that needlessly harming people = bad, they just don't get the negative emotion from harming others.

Psychopath != complete monster.

[Luke_Prowler]

Oh, okay. I guess I learned something today

That still doesn't mean I want to be in the same room as one

[kaenneth]

To me, 9/11 indicates the point at which the islamic extremists basically gave up on actually winning, and were just throwing a tantrum because they were sore losers. Not a rational act at all.

Bin Laden's philosophy on war was that even small movements can bring superpowers to their knees by manipulating them into being mired in expensive progressless conflicts until they suffer internal collapse from bleeding all the money out of them. Good thing that didn't happe-

Oh. Wait.

Yeah, but how does that allow Al'Queda to win? it's just ruining it for everyone.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Ruining things for everyone else is pretty much Al-Qaeda's objective. They wouldn't be happy with any actual end goal other than Allah himself coming down and incinerating the nonbelievers.

[Euld]

Paranoid schitzophrenia doesn't keep you from planning

It might well do. Paranoid schitzophrenics aren't known for their mental acuity. Their thought processes tend to be rather disorganized.

Well, "Making Plans and Schemes" is one of the symptoms if I recall correctly... just not realistic/viable ones. (Think Wheatly in Portal 2)

I have family who suffer from that disorder, I can personally account (of course this isn't scientific, this is one person's view of one other person) that a non-medicated paranoid schizophrenic probably couldn't pull off an organized, complex attack of any kind.  Said family member is more likely to stare into space for hours at a time, sleep at odd hours, or throw a tantrum about how we don't believe his crazy delusions.  He used to be violent before we got him medicated, but even then the worst he did was throw things, punch, scratch, or bite.  Sure if he had access to a weapon he MIGHT have used one, but only in a random sort of way.

[ChairmanPoo]

Being a psychopath likely would not fly as an insanity defense. It's classified as a personality disorder (which is medical lingo for "being an ass"), and it wouldn't in principle affect personal responsability for a deed.

(Edit: I'm assuming you're referring to Antisocial Personality Disorder, which what usually people refer to when talking about psychopaths. Also and btw: they're not that organized either, and tend to end up badly due to poor impulse control)

[Montague]

Though I think most philosophies, if taken and applied to every situation to their full framework, tend to be very black and white and extreme. Their appeal lies in their logical consistancy. This is how basically normal people can feel justified in doing horrific things in the name of some political cause. Timothy McVeigh, The Unibomber, communist insurrectionists, islamic fundamentalists, anarchist rioters all have one thing in common, they take their ideological ideas and apply them in an absolute, uncompromising and extreme way. The end result of taking a philosophy to its logical extreme end is usually violence.

I think most lone wolf terrorists, spree shooters and the sort are basically not sane. They don't really have a coherant philosophy to back up their actions, at best they fixate on a single idea, like the Norway bomber did with immigration, and go with that. Although I wonder, because how well planned and effective his dispicable actions were, that he must have been thinking pretty clearly to pull it off. Most spree shooters and would-be mass murderers are caught before they act because they are often inept, disorganized and incredibly obviously dangerous and insane. This guy in Norway managed to keep conceal his intentions and his plans untill after the fact.