Could someone provide a link to a not paywalled version? Going through google didn't helped.
Brussels Rocked by Terrorist Attacks
181–190 of 345 posts
Re: Brussels Rocked by Terrorist Attacks
#182Earlier quoted context omitted.
> - How come this happens again without anyone having seen it coming? Knowing how Belgium handles their minorities in Brussels, it's not a big surprise. The fact that this happens now is neither a surprise. Salah Abdeslam has been caught, and there were messages that he wanted to cooperate with the Belgium police. Whether it's true or not, if they were planning something, and he knew about it, waiting was not a real…
Knowing how Belgium handles their minorities in Brussels, it's not a big surprise Could you elaborate? Is this a banlieu situation?
I'm having trouble finding an article I read a while back, but it was discussing the failure of effective community policing. I'll keep looking.
This article discusses the mess that is Belgian governmental organization: http://www.politico.eu/article/belgium-failed-state-security...
Re: Brussels Rocked by Terrorist Attacks
#183Earlier quoted context omitted.
By "some support" you mean extensive training and material support, then sure... I guess... I think it would be fair to call them French/Belgian ISIS members. There is no requirement that you must be Syrian to be a member of ISIS.
European communist terrorists in the 70s were getting trained in Palestinian terrorists camps. They would even get weapons there. They are still European movements. Pretending that it was a foreign aggression is a lie.
I don't see how that example applies. You're trying to compare ISIS (a group brought together by a common ideology) to Palestinians (a nationality/ethnicity).
You're drawing a foreign/domestic distinction when none exists. There is no reason someone cannot be Belgian, and also a member of ISIS. What is your criteria for inclusion in "ISIS" if it's not someone saying "I'm with ISIS"?
Re: Brussels Rocked by Terrorist Attacks
#184Earlier quoted context omitted.
They don't fail to integrate, they don't want to. Big difference. I believe there will be a time in Europe, when people will have enough and will demand deportation of every muslim. So 99 good muslims will be deported for every 1 bad muslim. I'm not saying I want this time to come, but what else can happen ? Drastic times == drastic measures.
Except these times really aren't that drastic. A moderately successful terrorist attack on occasion does not Armageddon make.
They are, living in a place where such things can happen at any time is stressful and sooner or later people will get pissed of.
Re: Brussels Rocked by Terrorist Attacks
#185Earlier 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.
Crazy people can be found from all walks of life. Unfortunately many of those people do not receive the mental health services they need. It's not the religion that makes people crazy, it's the lack of other social support services available to the very few that really need it. Instead of the support they need, these people get a radicalised church offering meaning and the promise of a better life.
Re: Brussels Rocked by Terrorist Attacks
#186Earlier quoted context omitted.
> - 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.…
Agree with you.
I also feel governments today are under much more scrutiny than they have ever been. Are we at a place were a new Bin Laden is going to get a new Bush to launch a war. Who knows? But people are much more aware of the costs than in 2001.
Still security responses aren't mature/sophisticated enough to prevent such tragic incidents, and must be given some leeway to evolve.
Re: Brussels Rocked by Terrorist Attacks
#187Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
That's just one strain of terrorism i.e. religious terrorism or more specifically Islamic terrorism as I may speculate that's what you intended.
There are many other strains of terrorism like the last terrorist attack in Ankara last week where a female Kurdish ultra-nationalist militant blew herself in a bus killing about 40 civilians in the process. This was just an instance of a political/nationalist violence/terrorism that has nothing to do with religion or Islam for that matter.
Re: Brussels Rocked by Terrorist Attacks
#188Earlier quoted context omitted.
Perhaps, but then bombs could just be detonated in open public squares, playgrounds, etc - it's actually surprising they're not.
Indeed, you cannot protect any place when more than a few people gather. You have to stop the issues at their source: why did people who were born and raised in Europe radicalize in just one or two years? And why did the community they lived in not see or report that this was happening?
While I agree, I think we can admit that doing so will take some time. Would it not be appropriate to have compensating controls in the meantime?
Re: Brussels Rocked by Terrorist Attacks
#189What 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 b…
A major airport and the entire rail system of the city was shut down. A lot of damage was done. And, of course, a bunch of people died from something not many signed up for. Driving a car at least gives you the opportunity to reject taking on the risk. The fabric of society is based around us not shooting each other/ blowing up trains. Every event like this (or, say, some countries bombing out neighborhoods in other…
I don't drive a car, I cycle. I reject the risk of driving, but drivers put that risk on me anyway. Even more so than they do to themselves, because I'm more vulnerable than a person sitting in a moving steel cage, and because many drivers seem eager to put risk on me.
In my life time, I'm much more likely to be murdered by a driver than a terrorist.
Re: Brussels Rocked by Terrorist Attacks
#190My 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…
> ideologies are very difficult to destroy and take a long time to fully extinguish
I like that you used "extinguish" here.
I'm not sure if you intended it, but I think the behavioural psychology definition of "extinguish" is especially relevant.
In other words, to get rid of the ideology, we'd have to not reinforce it: i.e. to neither reward it or punish it.
And yes extinction[1] takes a long time.
Also see "extinction burst".