[user104658]

Originally Posted by DemolitionRed

Untruth or not, this is about adding fear to the general public whilst allowing this murderer to recieve some sort of status.

The sort of people who are perpetrating these acts are just criminals with mental health issues. In the Berlin case, the murderer was already a criminal before deciding to aggrandize his crimes as ‘serving a greater purpose’. There are plenty of lone people with mental illness and the sort of person who is/was willing and capable of perpetrating horrible acts is the sort of person that would of done it anyway, but the ISIS thing gives them something to hang on, they can feel supported if they align themselves with a terrorist organization and we, the public, reassure the perpetrator that he will be remembered as a terrorist and not just a murderer.

Exactly DR. I'm constantly amazed that in a post 9/11 world people STILL don't seem to understand the goal of terrorism (hint: IT'S IN THE ****ING NAME) and are willing - nay, desperate - to confirm repeatedly that it is working. Allowing ISIS to take credit for every attack whether it was ISIS planned or not, quite simply, gives them the tools to create martyrs, radicalise more extremists, kill more innocent people and spread more terror to achieve their goals of destroying Western freedom, liberty and individuality. Hello snoopers charter, come on in, have a cup of tea.

Branding them insane / petty murderers rather than Jihadists / Holy Warriors takes away their power and takes away part of what makes other lone-wolf would be martyrs want to do this sort of thing. They WANT to be remembered as Jihadists. That's WHY they do it, ffs.