Moscow Terror Attack Predicted?

[Ninurta]

The objective of terrorism is not to show strength, it's to terrorize folks. Terrorists nearly always go after the weak and helpless, because those types can't kill them right back.

Thanks for correcting me, although I'd say that applies more for serial killers (with a few exceptions, such as Pedro Rodrigues Filho).

Terrorists are usually more brazen. If terrorists were really behind 9/11, then they let the world know that the US wasn't as strong and mighty, that it could be touched, that no one was safe.

As for body count, again I'd say that applies more for serial killers. Terrorists don't always kill to satiate their bloodlust or to relish bloodshed.

It actually does apply to serial killers as well. Anyone interested in creating mass casualties, whether serially or simultaneously, wants to find the softest targets available. In the US, the current "mass shooter" phenomena follows the same script - they seek out crowds of unarmed people. Personally, I believe that US "mass shooters" should be classified as terrorists, and prosecuted as such in the cases where they live long enough to be prosecuted.

Any persons seeking a large body count, whether to "make a statement", or to terrorize a populace, or for whatever reason, tends to seek victims who cannot retaliate. Retaliation is anathema to their "cause".

You are correct - terrorists do not kill to satiate a blood lust. they kill to create terror, to demonstrate that "the state", or whatever their target demographic is, "cannot protect you". That impression is best accomplished by seeking out undefended, and if possible indefensible, targets.

I really don't see a nickel's worth of difference between "serial killers", "mass murderers", "mass shooters", and "terrorists" when it comes down to their methodologies. The motivations are of course different, but the means of accomplishing, and the end results, are not really very different at all.

IThe problem with "backing" organizations of this nature is that there comes a time when there are too many people involved to properly control.

I heard Russian historian Andrei Fursov confirming this was the case as far as his country was concerned: "One shouldn't think that the KGB is an absolute organization. It's a typically routine organization with its own mess. Some things were lost."

But does that really apply for CIA?

Yes. it applies to any organization where mass numbers of "underlings" are involved, and is exacerbated when mechanisms are put in place specifically to isolate the Overlords from the Underlings. There comes a point where control is weakened, or at times lost altogether, because of too many Underlings with their own minds combined with a weakened control structure. So, the CIA, the KGB, or any other organization that wished to create a "movement", but whom cannot politically afford to be seen or associated with it, will eventually run into the same problem when the "movement" reaches a critical mas and they cannot personally be present to exert or maintain control over it.

Good point about sending a message to the terrorists, that hadn't occurred to me. I had the impression Russia would've bombed them like they did with Ukraine after Belgorod.

If Putin really does have in mind to re-form the old Soviet Union, as I have heard claimed, then he cannot afford to simply start indiscriminately bombing Tajikistan, a former Soviet Republic, until he has at least given them an ultimatum to "rejoin or else". The retaliation will have to be more surgical than that, more strictly tailored to the perpetrator demographic, in order to avoid alienating those who would otherwise have been his "allies" in the effort.

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