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State of emergency in France

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Re: State of emergency in France

#81

Post by dogma1138 »

scrollaway wrote: post #62
kingmanaz wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

5. Close borders, transfer populations, and return to ethnostates. Use Israel and her 20' concrete border walls as a template.

That worked out great for Israel. /s

Well it kinda did, in early 2000's there would be one suicide bombing on average per week, after 2 fairly brutal military operations, and erecting a huge fence and checkpoints it pretty much stopped.

One can argue what was more effective the military operations that dismantled the infrastructure* or the fence but no one in their right mind in Israeli politics would wage on either.

It doesn't help them to stop the current run of violence with the knife attacks for sure, but many of the perpetrators in recent attacks actually were either Israeli residents (Palestinians with an ILR type permit) or even citizens so wall or no wall they could get to their targets in any case.

* Suicide bombings unlike many people think aren't a simple lone-wolf/small group type of operation, they are a very sophisticated and well funded operation. The bombers are pre-selected usually by a close family member (uncle, older brother, cousin in most cases), they are groomed, then put into a program not unlike a one that the CIA would use to break a prisoner to get them to turn, they are brought to the brink programmed to disregard their own life. The family of the bomber would usually be paid out up to 100,000$ coming from Gulf state patrons, in many cases they would be whisked away to Europe or other countries by NGO's that claimed that they were at risk for retaliation, one British NGO was "caught" processing paperwork for a family with the justification that under Israeli law their house will be demolished due to the attack prior to the attack actually taken place (this was discovered by NGO Watch IIRC several years after the event).

Re: State of emergency in France

#82

Post by mirimir »

CPLX wrote: post #54
junto wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have an alternative? All I see is naïve suggestions. As I see it we have several options: 1. We accept the fact that we will have more terror attacks in major European cities as a given. We such it up and we continue to live in a free and liberal society. 2. We accept total surveillance of our society. As the technology becomes more honed, terror attacks might be easier to prevent before they start. 3. We acce…

I always wonder why I never see this one on lists of choices: 5. Stop killing large numbers of Muslim people in the Middle East every week and see if that doesn't make them less likely to kill comparatively small numbers of people in Western cities every couple of years.

> “I’m going to ask you this question that people asked after 9/11, because I don’t think we still know the answer: Why do they hate us?” [said Maher] ...

> “That’s not what terrorists say,” said Maher. When you capture one, or when they leave a note, you know what they say? Because you’re in Muslim lands. I have a crazy idea: Why don’t we get out of Muslim lands?”

> “But bombing them over there is what is causing the Paris thing to happen! That connection needs to be made. We don’t have to be bombing them there,” said Maher, before discussing how the U.S. military should vacate the Middle East and let other Middle East countries take on the fight against ISIS.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/11/13/bill-maher-...

Re: State of emergency in France

#83

Post by morgante »

vlehto wrote: post #80
CPLX wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always wonder why I never see this one on lists of choices: 5. Stop killing large numbers of Muslim people in the Middle East every week and see if that doesn't make them less likely to kill comparatively small numbers of people in Western cities every couple of years.

I didn't know France was doing that? Anyhow it works relatively nicely here in Finland. We only take part in UN operations as peacekeepers. And we don't have radicalized Muslims doing strikes in Finland. But for some reason Finnish Muslim radicals still travel to Syrian and join ISIS. I don't think Levant will be peaceful in my lifetime unless Israel magically disappears from the map.

Blaming the violence of the Middle East on Israel is naive.

Re: State of emergency in France

#84

Post by hodgesrm »

pfooti wrote: post #73
junto wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We need targeted surveillance and by that I mean something that many will vehemently disagree with. Before you down vote, please make the effort to read to the end and then down vote! If I was a doctor and my patient had cancer in his foot, then if try to treat the foot to get rid of the cancer. I would also pay particularly close attention to the leg connected to that foot, to make sure that the cancer did not sprea…

You understand how bayesian reasoning works, right? There are probably between three and six million muslims in France alone. Whatever monitoring you're doing, you're proposing to find on the order of a few hundred people, if that. False positives (which, remember: we cannot distinguish from actual positives) would end up targeting orders of magnitude more innocent people than guilty. Worse, by breaking the compact o…

Not to disagree with your point about Bayesian reasoning but would you care to cite some source for your assertion about the relative dangers of white-supremacy groups and their ilk versus Islamic terror groups? 9/11 alone killed 2996 people [1] including hijackers and there's little question Al Qaeda/ISIS adherents would have killed many more if they could have. It was certainly not for lack of trying.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_11_attacks

Re: State of emergency in France

#85

Post by fnordfnordfnord »

vlehto wrote: post #80
CPLX wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always wonder why I never see this one on lists of choices: 5. Stop killing large numbers of Muslim people in the Middle East every week and see if that doesn't make them less likely to kill comparatively small numbers of people in Western cities every couple of years.

I didn't know France was doing that? Anyhow it works relatively nicely here in Finland. We only take part in UN operations as peacekeepers. And we don't have radicalized Muslims doing strikes in Finland. But for some reason Finnish Muslim radicals still travel to Syrian and join ISIS. I don't think Levant will be peaceful in my lifetime unless Israel magically disappears from the map.

> France is sending its largest warship to join operations against Islamic State (IS) in Syria and Iraq.

source: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-34738177

Re: State of emergency in France

#86

Post by an0nym1ty »

fasterthanlime wrote: post #70
spoiledtechie wrote: post #69

This should have been placed in politics.stackexchange.com. This isn't truly searchable by google or Bing and stack exchange is. Can someone please move this to the better alternative?

seems searchable enough: http://i.imgur.com/VwLGFxG.png

This is completely tangential to the discussion of this thread, but so much of google search is forecasting based on user's search history these days it's hard to tell if it's just biased towards HN because we all visit it.

Re: State of emergency in France

#87

Post by mercer »

aw3c2 wrote: post #36
junto wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please don't partially quote me as it alters the meaning: > is to monitor all Muslims living in Europe who have the potential to be radicalised The last part of that is important. I'm talked about targeted surveillance.

Every person has the potential to be radicalised. You are suggesting surveillance to target thoughtcrime.

While I agree that everyone has that potential in theory, it is much more likely for radicalization to occur among certain groups, third-generation muslim immigrants in particular. And perhaps in a broader sense targeting people in particular socio-economic groups might also be useful (jobless, young, low education,etc.).

The way I see it, targeted surveillance of these at-risk groups should be possible, and specifically in relation to terrorism or extremism in general it might even be effective. There are volumes of studies on how radicalization occurs, or how cults work, and what problems are caused by jobless young men disconnected from society around them (both by upbringing and through various forms of racism/classism, hidden or otherwise). The process is not exactly mysterious.

That said, I get the impression that there's a huge gap between what researchers know about these processes, and how this is used by police, 'neighborhood watchers', and schools, and possibly even intelligence agencies.

I'll also add that regardless of how effective targeted surveillance might be, on a 'gut' level I feel uncomfortable with this scenario and would not be in favor of it. I can't quite articulate why at this point, but personally I'd still prefer not significantly changing our way of life over the, so far, infrequent terrorist attacks. Perhaps the best answer is to simply not let it phase us and continue with life. Most other solutions feel like (partly) playing into the hands of terrorists. But I don't think that's a realistic option, sadly, and perhaps it's easy for me to say these things without having felt the effects of such terrorist attacks personally.

Re: State of emergency in France

#88

Post by makeitsuckless »

mbrock wrote: post #22
junto wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We need targeted surveillance and by that I mean something that many will vehemently disagree with. Before you down vote, please make the effort to read to the end and then down vote! If I was a doctor and my patient had cancer in his foot, then if try to treat the foot to get rid of the cancer. I would also pay particularly close attention to the leg connected to that foot, to make sure that the cancer did not sprea…

Draconian measures targeted against large ethnic groups has been historically unsuccessful in Europe. It also grievously violates the core principles of an open and liberal society, which are presumably what we are supposed to be defending. Vehemently disagreeing with your opinion is a crucial necessity for anyone who stands for democracy and liberty.

People who share a certain ideology aren't an "ethnic" group. We do exactly the same with nazis.

Whether those measures are effective or desirable is up for debate, but the constant attempt to shut down that debate by playing the ethnic/race card is extremely counterproductive.

Re: State of emergency in France

#89

Post by gnaritas »

junto wrote: post #18
Luker88 wrote: post #5

Didn't France approve sweeping surveillance laws back in July? And they even were on high alert due to international talks happening in Paris... Italy and Spain also stopped terrorist cells this month, but they don't seem to have such laws... Guess they need more unwarranted power, uh?

We need targeted surveillance and by that I mean something that many will vehemently disagree with. Before you down vote, please make the effort to read to the end and then down vote! If I was a doctor and my patient had cancer in his foot, then if try to treat the foot to get rid of the cancer. I would also pay particularly close attention to the leg connected to that foot, to make sure that the cancer did not sprea…

> Or societies are desperately trying not to impose draconian rules of monitoring on a religious group, but as it stands I see little choice in the matter.

Try harder. You don't maintain liberty by destroying it.

> is to monitor all Muslims

No, that is not a solution. You are responding with fear to the fact that the world is a dangerous place. Fear is not a place from which to make decisions. Terrorist attacks are barely worth replying to, they kill very few people and simply don't matter; they are something for police to deal with, no laws need changed, no big actions need taken, ignore them, they are statistical noise. Cars and lightening are far more dangerous.

Re: State of emergency in France

#90

Post by morgante »

scrollaway wrote: post #62
kingmanaz wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

5. Close borders, transfer populations, and return to ethnostates. Use Israel and her 20' concrete border walls as a template.

That worked out great for Israel. /s

Actually, it kind of did. Israel does probably the best job of counterterrorism in the world when you consider the constant threats they face.
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