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Suspected sabotage causes major Netherlands rail disruption

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401–410 of 526 posts

Re: Suspected sabotage causes major Netherlands rail disruption

#401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what do you mean "fair game"? by the same logic russia attacking ukraine is also "fair game". "hei cmon im just atacking my neighbor its fair game, what else should i do"

I mean what I said: if you're being attacked by drones, then no one can fault you for trying to sabotage the production of those drones, even if they're made in a different country than the one which is sending them against you. But, you can and should fault Russia for getting into that position in the first place, that their neighbor is attacking them back with drones.

I guess no one can fault the West for retaliating by paying people to light stuff on fire in Russia, for deterrence. And I guess no one can blame the West for sending Ukraine more missiles to fire into Russia, to end the war.

Re: Suspected sabotage causes major Netherlands rail disruption

#402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But all those political divisions are a result of national politics of those countries. People want higher wages, less taxes, affordable housing, more recently cheaper gas/diesel, and in the last decade (or more in some places), less foreign migrants. If no other political party will do anything about that, people are forced to vote for Alternatives (intentionally capitalized). Especially after all the anti-russian p…

> But all those political divisions are a result of national politics of those countries. Do you claim that Russia doesn't invest in disinformation campaigns against the West?

They certainly seem to be implying it. And not only that, disinformation narratives often to to emphasize domestic political troubles that fan the flames of skepticism against mainstream institutions, and their reply to a topic about Russia was to go straight to that particular well.

Re: Suspected sabotage causes major Netherlands rail disruption

#403
post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rubbish. They don't want to. The tractors have license plates, allowing them to be pursued after the fact, and the NL police have firearms if they want to get spicy. There have been a number of attacks in Europe of the form "deranged person drives vehicle into crowd". I'm sure the police wouldn't sit back and shrug if that was done with a tractor. The vehicle doesn't have magic properties, the driver has police prote…

The protestors tape their license plates. And I'm happy to report Dutch police generally doesn't draw guns on people who are no direct threat. And how is the "vehicle driven into crowd" even relevant here? Nobody's using these tractors to kill (intentionally), but they're just many and hard to stop.

> The protestors tape their license plates.

One weird trick: simply commit an offense in front of the police, and suddenly they can't do anything because it's "too hard".

Re: Suspected sabotage causes major Netherlands rail disruption

#404
post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because being too blatant will galvanize the public and create support for open war. The goal is to ensure all reasonable people know, while keeping enough deniability that Russian-funded right-wing groups can sow doubt about attribution and response policy’s They don’t care whether it can be proven in court or by people paying close attention. They care whether it can’t be denied even by their aligned agents in west…

Maybe it depends on the country, but here the public automatically assumes everything like this done by Russia and these increase support for open war. I don't think Russia wants deeper European involvement in the war, so I'm having trouble understanding why Russia would be doing this. They're already having difficulties in Ukraine, how would angering the European public and increasing the support for further involve…

Exactly. If anything, the country that would benefit most from heightened Europe-Russia tensions (as a result of these sorts of infrastructure "accidents") isn't even on the continent. I'm not ruling out Russia completely, but it would sure be stupid for them to effect this strategy. Additionally, Russians weren't the ones that blew up a pipeline at the start of the Russia-Ukraine war.

Re: Suspected sabotage causes major Netherlands rail disruption

#405
post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your analogy is way off base. This is how you've framed it: > Let's say I [the Netherlands] pay [!?] someone [Ukraine] to punch you [Russia] int the face every day. Then one day when you [Russia] punch me [Ukraine] in the face do I have a right to complain? Ukraine is defending itself, and nobody is paying Ukraine to do that. Russia is the aggressor here. It's weird that I need to point that out. We're talking about…

> defensive capabilities to Ukraine With you up until there. There's nothing defensive about drones. Retributive capabilities certainly, pre-emptive capabilities maybe, but absolutely offensive capabilities, not defensive ones. Attacking Russia back was a line that was definitively crossed in May 2024. You may argue it was justified, but not that it wasn't attacking. In terms of that stupid punching analogy (which wa…

So when someone is firing missiles at you, it’s not defensive to blow up the launcher?

Re: Suspected sabotage causes major Netherlands rail disruption

#406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what do you mean "fair game"? by the same logic russia attacking ukraine is also "fair game". "hei cmon im just atacking my neighbor its fair game, what else should i do"

I mean what I said: if you're being attacked by drones, then no one can fault you for trying to sabotage the production of those drones, even if they're made in a different country than the one which is sending them against you. But, you can and should fault Russia for getting into that position in the first place, that their neighbor is attacking them back with drones.

Amazes me how the right wing American view point is so anti the “Someone ever tries to kill you, you try to kill 'em right back” of libertarian darling Malcolm Reynolds from 25 years ago. Reagan would be spinning in his grave with how Russia has owned the discourse.

Re: Suspected sabotage causes major Netherlands rail disruption

#407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Define Europeans - us Poles absolutely understand the danger. In fact I'd say we're already at war with Russia, the way they attack our democracy, our institutions and politics daily. But someone in Portugal might not see it the same way we do.

Russians are Europeans.

Many, maybe even most Russians would like to be part of Europe, even if they would complain about the terms that would enable them to join pan European organizations. For now they are just potential Europeans.

Re: Suspected sabotage causes major Netherlands rail disruption

#409
post #104

Sad to see so many people here in the comments jump the gun and think of Russia. Some local context: Today is "prinsjesdag" when the budget is announced. Protests are common, particularly when sensitive decisions are made. There are multiple organized protest movements in the country that have used physical force in the past and some of them had announced protests for today. Could it be Russia? Yes. But local protest…

If this was a protest it would be clear who did it. The farmers' have no incentive to mess with infrastructure without being visible for their cause.

yes they do, it hurts their image more directly if you claim it's you.

Re: Suspected sabotage causes major Netherlands rail disruption

#410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correct, this is their exact MO and has been for decades. "Random thug" recruitment notwithstanding, part of the point of such ops is to prove to themselves that they can, in fact, reach out and touch a target - i.e., exercising the entire operational chain from C&C down to the minutiae of execution. A kind of integration test for sabotage, if you will. (Not saying this specific incident is or isn't anything in parti…

France does some version or style of derailing Russian trains, you say?

If their foreign intelligence office hasn't made the kind of contacts and capabilities that could, they wouldn't be doing their jobs.

Low level sabotage under the guise of hooliganism wasn't invented in Leningrad.

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