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Brussels Rocked by Terrorist Attacks

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11–20 of 345 posts

Re: Brussels Rocked by Terrorist Attacks

#11

As sad as it is, I think the responses will be: - we need more surveillance rights and money for the secret services - we need more police and higher spending - and possibly bomb some country (Syria is en vogue) What won't be said is: - How come this happens again without anyone having seen it coming? - What does it say about the success of the Western anti-terror foreign policy adopted ~2001?

Syria for sure, and there's also Libya.

Ah, and don't forget the European border policies regarding (mostly Syrian) refugees...

Re: Brussels Rocked by Terrorist Attacks

#12
post #9

As sad as it is, I think the responses will be: - we need more surveillance rights and money for the secret services - we need more police and higher spending - and possibly bomb some country (Syria is en vogue) What won't be said is: - How come this happens again without anyone having seen it coming? - What does it say about the success of the Western anti-terror foreign policy adopted ~2001?

Why would we bomb Syria? Isn't the al-Assad government working against ISIS and related organisations?

Assad is anti-west.

Re: Brussels Rocked by Terrorist Attacks

#13
post #9

As sad as it is, I think the responses will be: - we need more surveillance rights and money for the secret services - we need more police and higher spending - and possibly bomb some country (Syria is en vogue) What won't be said is: - How come this happens again without anyone having seen it coming? - What does it say about the success of the Western anti-terror foreign policy adopted ~2001?

Why would we bomb Syria? Isn't the al-Assad government working against ISIS and related organisations?

I am not sure that you can say "we" in here.

Re: Brussels Rocked by Terrorist Attacks

#14
People always freak out when this happens. As long as there have been people with enough hate (or often political motives) there has always been terrorist attacks. Even the Romans suffered as much.

I don't think there is any solution which makes everyone perfectly safe. Politicians always want to guarantee perfect safety but it's not possible. Some things you can prevent, some things you can stop, but some horrible thing will inevitably happen.

Re: Brussels Rocked by Terrorist Attacks

#15
This is a mess larger than I can comprehend, with scores of innocent dead. The spectrum of political issues this crosses is vast. We're talking nationalism, immigration, religion, extremism, surveillance, privacy, and war to name a few.

The nuance required to understand and attack the big picture is almost nowhere to be found.

I saw the French PM said something like "we're at war" - I'm not sure who they're at war with but onward with the endless war.

I've seen plenty of comments about ISIS. It's like a 99.999% chance it's not ISIS - maybe Al Qaeda, maybe a different extremist group. (For why it's probably not ISIS and one of the most fantastic explanations of the what's and whys of ISIS, see [0].) But it shows just how vastly uneducated most people are about the issues that lead to attacks like this.

This breeds calls for extremism in response, like expelling all Muslims (and can only help Trump's campaign) or comments like the one from the French PM above.

I can't imagine being in charge of trying to address all of the underlying issues that feed into attacks like this. And I don't know that those in charge are up to the task.

[0] http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/03/what-isi...

Edit: ISIS inspired maybe, but not ISIS planned and backed. "During his visit to Mosul in December, Jürgen Todenhöfer interviewed a portly German jihadist and asked whether any of his comrades had returned to Europe to carry out attacks. The jihadist seemed to regard returnees not as soldiers but as dropouts. “The fact is that the returnees from the Islamic State should repent from their return,” he said. “I hope they review their religion.”"

I always stand to be corrected.

Re: Brussels Rocked by Terrorist Attacks

#16

As sad as it is, I think the responses will be: - we need more surveillance rights and money for the secret services - we need more police and higher spending - and possibly bomb some country (Syria is en vogue) What won't be said is: - How come this happens again without anyone having seen it coming? - What does it say about the success of the Western anti-terror foreign policy adopted ~2001?

One thing I haven't heard is "we didn't see it coming". Quite the opposite. Everybody's been bracing for this ever since Paris.

But I agree that this is a problem we can't bomb our way out of.

Re: Brussels Rocked by Terrorist Attacks

#17
post #8
post #2

The comments there are... as expected I guess.

I guess it's hard to feel in any other way when recent migration policies have translated into a sharp decline of our own security in our own developed countries.

Maybe yes, maybe not, but you are a troll who created the account about 24 hours before the attacks.

Re: Brussels Rocked by Terrorist Attacks

#18

People always freak out when this happens. As long as there have been people with enough hate (or often political motives) there has always been terrorist attacks. Even the Romans suffered as much. I don't think there is any solution which makes everyone perfectly safe. Politicians always want to guarantee perfect safety but it's not possible. Some things you can prevent, some things you can stop, but some horrible t…

You seem to attribute a lot to politics. I would argue that religion is the variable that plays the dominant role in this war of ideas.

Re: Brussels Rocked by Terrorist Attacks

#20

As sad as it is, I think the responses will be: - we need more surveillance rights and money for the secret services - we need more police and higher spending - and possibly bomb some country (Syria is en vogue) What won't be said is: - How come this happens again without anyone having seen it coming? - What does it say about the success of the Western anti-terror foreign policy adopted ~2001?

I think investing in explosives detection is a better approach. It is an irony that there were explosions at the airport while they are screening you completely before boarding a flight.
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