A third bomb exploded just now.
Brussels Rocked by Terrorist Attacks
131–140 of 345 posts
Re: Brussels Rocked by Terrorist Attacks
#132Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's not exactly true; e.g. in the UK, there was a lot of terrorism in the past by IRA - although Ireland and the UK have different religions, I don't think that was the main issue. The main issue was divisions between two groups of people and the resulting inter-group hate. On the other hand, religion is probably the most important, yet arbitrary and completely illogical, divisive influence in the world. So, relig…
You don't think religion was the main issue in the sectarian violence in Northern Ireland? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sectarian_violence#Northern_Ir...
Maybe it was a poorly chosen example, I though it was mainly a fight for independence. ETA (Basque) vs. Spain would probably be a better example.
Re: Brussels Rocked by Terrorist Attacks
#133Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Local", yes, keep telling yourself that 2nd generation immigrants I'm not against immigration per se, but there's a lot of problems coming from people who fail (because it's mostly their responsibility) to integrate
If they're born in the country and lived there their whole life, they're local by any non-racist definition.
Do they think of themselves as local?
Re: Brussels Rocked by Terrorist Attacks
#134Earlier quoted context omitted.
According to BBC the explosion are believed to have been in the checkin area, i.e. outside of the security screening.
Get dogs trained to detect explosives patrolling all areas of the airport and I'm not sure what they're called, but they have these sniffer devices at the CN tower where they basically make you walk through a large hairdryer and it sniffs the residue blown off you for chemical signatures. It's not perfect, but a combination of those two things any place where you have large volumes of people congregating would surely…
A malicious person will always be able to find a public space with lots of people. A public square, schoolyard, mall, busy street, library or whatever.
Besides, to defend against suicide bombings, the dogs would have to encounter everyone before they enter the airport checkin area, otherwise the bomber could just detonate once the dog start barking (or whatever they do to mark that they've found something).
Re: Brussels Rocked by Terrorist Attacks
#135This 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 wi…
> This is a mess larger than I can comprehend, with scores of innocent dead. What's most sad about it, is that the current situation is the result of doing nothing, despite having crystal clear data on the situation, and in which (wrong) direction things has been changing. It's been clear that something needs to be done for years, even decades, but actually doing something about the situation would mean publicly ackn…
> Putting the specific issue of immigration aside
Why?
https://twitter.com/caitlinmoran/status/712254657662418944
> Always good, on days like this, to remind everyone that the guys blowing up Brussels are THE PEOPLE THE REFUGEES ARE RUNNING AWAY FROM
Re: Brussels Rocked by Terrorist Attacks
#136What I find reassuring in the midst of this tragic mayhem however, is how little actual damage the terrorists could do.
They had explosives, weapons, the resolve to sacrifice themselves and tried their best to do as much damage as possible. And they managed to to kill less than 30 people (provisional count).
Of course every death that brought on by this fanatic mob is too much, but we should keep our perspective.
A bus accident in Spain last week left 11 exchange students dead, in the US alone every day more than 50 people die in road accidents.
Of course we should root out the people that try to bomb our freedom away. But don't let us be terrorized by something that doesn't make a statistically recognizable dent in our probability for survival.
Re: Brussels Rocked by Terrorist Attacks
#137Earlier quoted context omitted.
> that the current situation is the result of doing nothing I think the current situation is the result of doing way too much the the past decade (or two). If the US and EU stayed out of the Middle East (Iraq, Libya, Syria), the EU+ME part of the world would be a much more peaceful place.
Fair enough and absolutely a valid counterargument. Allow me to amend my comment slightly, and emphasise that I'm speaking of domestic policies. Across Europe we've seen increased ghettofication, social segregation and religious extremism. But because this has mostly been within demographic segments considered "weak" or "minorities", the explicit policy has consistently been sweeping things under the rug and proceedi…
> What bothers me the most is honestly the low status facts have in the politics of nations today
100% agree....when you can sit and watch a debate or discussion on TV, and one side or the other, or both, are using arguments that are known to be factually incorrect, it's bound to not turn out well.
I think if we are going to accept immigration from anywhere, we should first figure out how to assimilate all cultures to prevent as you correctly note ghettofication, social segregation and religious extremism. The things we're seeing today might be small potatoes compared to what could happen if there's a mass uprising.
Re: Brussels Rocked by Terrorist Attacks
#138How can technology help prevent such attacks without infringing on the basic right to privacy?
Perhaps some sort of real time image recognition of video streams from major public areas (like airports), which can detect things like guns and unattended packages and alert authorities automatically? Of course, that doesn't help detect the suicide bomber scenario.
Automatic facial recognition of known criminals? That would be hugely open to abuse.
Re: Brussels Rocked by Terrorist Attacks
#139Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
You and many others seem to post that there is a mental cancer infecting 1.5 billion people on this planet, and at any time it could transform its host into a bloodthirsty murderer seemingly at random. I don't buy it.
Islam, and radical Islam specifically, are not the sole ingredient transforming random people into murderers or suicide murderers.
It is an ingredient. Eric Hoffer's _The True Believer_ is a good sketch of the phenomenon. Among the disaffected, some will latch onto any available dogmatic belief system. As long as radical Islam is in the news, and is accessible, some among the disaffected will choose that path.
Not all dogmas result in blowing yourself up in crowds, or setting off bombs or gunning down people in theaters. Doesn't it make sense to preferentially attack those dogmas that bring out, at present, the worst characteristics in their adherents?
It would be great if our foreign policy in the past 1.5 (or 3, or 5, or 7) decades hadn't been a disaster and promoted unrest in the region, because that undoubtedly increased the seriousness of our current situation. We (by that I mean our leaders who make foreign policy and military decisions) should try to learn from history and not repeat the same mistakes, although they all (no matter their politics) seem to do a very poor job of that. But the question of why radical Islam is such a problem now is irrelevant to the question of whether we should fight radical Islam. It's not a very reasonable thing to conclude that because we're partly responsible for the rise of radical Islam, we should do nothing and let it conquer the world if it wants.
Re: Brussels Rocked by Terrorist Attacks
#140Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Explosives detection is a perfectly worthy thing to do. Unfortunately, by the time there's a bomb at the airport, it is too late unless "James Bond" is on the scene. The core issues here need to be addressed.
why is it too late? it can still save many lives even if there is a 5 min notice