Brussels Rocked by Terrorist Attacks • Hacker News Board

Re: Brussels Rocked by Terrorist Attacks

#141

Post by pluma » Tue, Mar 22, 2016, 1:05 PM UTC

My first visceral reaction was "Fuck it, just kill them all and bomb them back to stone age". I know I'm not alone on this -- the recent rise of nationalism, isolationism, Euro-scepticism and hostility towards refugees all over Europe is painful evidence for this sentiment.

But it's important to understand that these feelings are what such attacks are intended to invoke. They're intended to harden the gap between "us" and "them", to make Westerners despise anyone who looks conveniently foreign enough to be suspicious of belonging to "them" and to use them as scapegoats for the perpetrators who have often already escaped justice through death.

These atrocities weren't committed by "Muslims" just like the atrocities in the UK during the Troubles were not committed by "Christians". The perpetrators were individuals -- even if they belonged to a group that group wasn't "Muslims", it most likely wasn't even "ISIS"; just a small group of like-minded dangerous individuals who were convinced they would aid mankind by committing atrocities like these.

In so far as certain ideologies led to these convictions it is important to understand that you can't kill ideas with weapons. Yes, where there are armies fighting for dangerous ideologies they need to be stopped, but where you can't even clearly distinguish the soldiers from the civilians you need to destroy the ideology, not the people.

But unlike people, ideologies are very difficult to destroy and take a long time to fully extinguish. And in times like these it's far too easy to fall prey to politicians promising fast satisfaction rather than a long-term strategy towards a shift in ideologies.

We need to embrace our humanity and liberties. We have already had our period of enlightenment and we have overcome totalitarianism and theocracy. We must not allow ourselves to regress to the dark age, no matter how appealing it may seem in times like these -- neither here in Europe, nor oversees in the US.

Re: Brussels Rocked by Terrorist Attacks

#142

Post by noobie » Tue, Mar 22, 2016, 1:05 PM UTC

geon wrote: post #54

noobie wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am almost certain they are not doing this for attention.

The whole point of terrorism is attention.

Is that so? Why is it that terrorism goes hand in hand with religion then? Terrorism is about fulfilling an arguably skewed view of religion.

Re: Brussels Rocked by Terrorist Attacks

#143

Post by danharaj » Tue, Mar 22, 2016, 1:06 PM UTC

artursapek wrote: post #75

twoquestions wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Religion is the way the leaders of these groups convince their followers to blow themselves up. Without religion it would be completely against their self interest to do so.

I'm pretty sure desperate economic conditions, political instability and alienation have a lot more to do with it.

Re: Brussels Rocked by Terrorist Attacks

#144

Post by mistermann » Tue, Mar 22, 2016, 1:06 PM UTC

kome wrote: post #64

josteink wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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, I think that it's a very bad sign for the future of enlightened democracy when actually running a fact-based policy is deemed as "risky" and even unacceptable from a public relations point of view. A "fact-based policy" is utopia. What for you is a fact, for me it's not. You can not have policy without politics.

Do you really think that? I mean, what would you consider a fact that is not agreed upon?

Re: Brussels Rocked by Terrorist Attacks

#145

Post by cm2187 » Tue, Mar 22, 2016, 1:06 PM UTC

ekianjo wrote: post #67

jonatanheyman wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to BBC the explosion are believed to have been in the checkin area, i.e. outside of the security screening.

This is a clear weakness of airports: where people regroup even before reaching the terminal, with no surveillance or security checks whatsoever. And that's not just in Brussels.

But why should checkin areas be more protected than any bakery, bus stop or supermarket, any place where people gather. One can't (and shouldn't) put policemen at every corner of every street.

Re: Brussels Rocked by Terrorist Attacks

#146

Post by eonwe » Tue, Mar 22, 2016, 1:07 PM UTC

ekianjo wrote: post #67

jonatanheyman wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to BBC the explosion are believed to have been in the checkin area, i.e. outside of the security screening.

This is a clear weakness of airports: where people regroup even before reaching the terminal, with no surveillance or security checks whatsoever. And that's not just in Brussels.

Only place I've seen some security checks was at Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv, where there was a mild security check when entering the airport.

This consisted of a small interview on what I've been doing in Israel, where I am going to, with whom and who packed my stuff. This all was before even entering the actual terminal building.

Re: Brussels Rocked by Terrorist Attacks

#147

Post by Steve44 » Tue, Mar 22, 2016, 1:08 PM UTC

ekianjo wrote: post #60

dmichulke wrote: post #7

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?

> - we need more surveillance rights and money for the secret services Looks like it's not working too well. Surveillance services have gained mass resources since 2015 in France and that did not stop the December attacks at all.

The thing often missed is we have absolutely no idea what has been stopped, you don't know if they stopped 50 attacks and just one succeeded. In some instances the 'bomber' may have been identified and stopped in some way, they may have infiltrated the supply chain of parts or countless other things. They can't publicise how they found their intelligence, if it is know how they operate it's makes it easier to evade. We just don't know, and that is a double edged sword especially when being critical of their powers. I fully appreciate all the arguments about how they operate and what they should and should not be able to do but there needs to be a balance and level of trust. If you were empowered with gathering intelligence what tools would you want? You are not fighting an army with a different uniform on the other side of the field here.

Re: Brussels Rocked by Terrorist Attacks

#148

Post by tremon » Tue, Mar 22, 2016, 1:08 PM UTC

Strom wrote: post #118

Kiro wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> we need more police Why is this a bad thing? I feel safer with more police presence but maybe that's just me.

That's exactly what more police will do. Make people feel safer, not actually be more safe. It's security theater. [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_theater

That's simply not true. A larger police force translates to more comprehensive law enforcement. If it doesn't, then there's a systemic failure in the way police are run (and we have plenty of examples of those too). Of course "more police" isn't the only way to increase the effectiveness of policing, but it does help.

The security theater was specifically about TSA and other untrained (or minimally trained) symbolic gestures. Actual policing is not theater.

Re: Brussels Rocked by Terrorist Attacks

#149

Post by jbmorgado » Tue, Mar 22, 2016, 1:09 PM UTC

ascorbic wrote: post #89

raverbashing wrote: post #76

Earlier 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.

Even when they don't speak the local language like it sometimes happens?

Truth is, you can be so enclosed in a foreign culture that you will actually stay a foreigner trough all your life.

P.S.: I'm not saying that was the case here, I'm just answering your broader remark.

Re: Brussels Rocked by Terrorist Attacks

#150

Post by pluma » Tue, Mar 22, 2016, 1:09 PM UTC

tomp wrote: post #61

acjohnson55 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I believe "see it coming" is mean in the way that the security services would be able to predict the attack precisely (when, where, who), given the amount of survelience, data gathering and spying they do. Alas, the spying is apparently targeting mainly the innocent civilians and is mostly ineffective against criminals.

If the NSA revelations are anything to go by, the only difference between "not enough data" and "too much data" is that the after-the-fact investigations are now a bit easier.

There doesn't seem to be a "Goldilocks" amount of data. Or if there is, intelligence services seem to have no interest in finding it if it means restraining themselves.