Originally Posted by
Danny42C
Can we not see that all the outpouring of grief which has dominated the media over the past few days is exactly the reaction that the terrorist hoped to produce ? - and that we are doing his work for him ?
My qualifications for disagreeing are not great - only that I lived in a Muslim country for a couple of years which doesn't mean all that much but FWIW I think it's nothing to do with making us sad.
The aim is to make everyone "pick sides."
The people I stayed with and met had had to live with terrorism all their lives and their attitude is an intolerance that is more bitter, if anything, than I notice in the UK. I was associating with engineers and middle-ish class people like myself who were both kind and unkind, decent and grasping in the same proportions you'd find in the UK. Such people are biased a little towards reason but propaganda works on them too in the end especially if someone can make them scared of being victimised. They should be our allies and someone wants them not to be.
The point of terror is to activate a response and provoke an overreaction which will make reasonable people on "the other side" feel less reasonable and so start a spiral.
It's an attempt to generate support.