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Brussels Rocked by Terrorist Attacks

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Re: Brussels Rocked by Terrorist Attacks

#211

Post by BFatts »

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?

For every attack that they "didn't see coming" there are, most likely, plenty of attacks that they "did see coming" and stopped. Even more likely is that we don't hear about these stopped attacks because they aren't sexy news. Or, when attacks ARE stopped, and it's published, people question whether it's just blustering by the government to justify their jobs.

It's not like you can say "yeah, we saw that coming and let it happen." Because THAT, sure as hell, will not fly with the people. And "yeah, we saw it coming and stopped it" is questioned as just posturing. When people say "scanning individuals in airports makes us no safer," what are they comparing it to?

Is it that they doubt the effectiveness because people are still getting killed by terrorists in planes? No. It's because there are no attacks, so they have no data to say "yeah... it's been effective."

Re: Brussels Rocked by Terrorist Attacks

#213

Post by maze-le »

golemotron wrote: post #130
Majestic121 wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oversimplification of complex subjects neither leads to useful action nor helps to understand the issue. It is better to stay humble, as the parent comment was.

Dismissal of analysis neither leads to useful action nor helps to understand the issue. Think about it. You owe that to yourself.

Alas, this wasn't an analysis. If you would give substantial arguments, as to why you think that cultural differences, incompatibility how you'd like to call it, are the main reason for terrorism, you could call it an analysis... But not like this.

Re: Brussels Rocked by Terrorist Attacks

#214

Post by twoquestions »

harshreality wrote: post #139
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.

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 al…

Deal with individuals goading others to violence by all means!

What I think would be an awful mistake is to replicate the Roosevelt style policy with regard to Muslims.

Also, The True Believer is already on my to-read list, I'll bump it up after I get done with Piketty. Thanks for the recommendation!

Re: Brussels Rocked by Terrorist Attacks

#215

Post by ZanyProgrammer »

pluma wrote: post #169
ZanyProgrammer wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's simply no way that even if we wanted to, restoring Assad in Syria will ever work again. Too many (basically, everyone whose not an Alawite or Christian) people will never acquiesce to living under his rule.

Anything's better than the status quo. The only difference between Assad and the other remaining dictators in the region is that the US was heavily invested in getting rid of Assad -- and then Russia came and basically ruined their plans indefinitely. If there's one Muslim country whose government is in dire need of being overthrown it's Turkey -- but sadly Erdogan has learned from his country's past and made sure th…

Assad's regime (and his father's) helped radicalize the population for years, prior to any sort of silly Arab Spring or anything like that. Any post war settlement will by necessity not have to include his family.

Re: Brussels Rocked by Terrorist Attacks

#217

Post by BFatts »

wslh wrote: post #20
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?

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.

They don't scan for explosives until you're going through security. If they had the security checkpoint at the entrance to the airport:

a) People would bitch more because it would take forever to get into an airport. And,

b) It isn't practical. What's next, stopping you at your car or bus before you park?

People demand security but don't want inconvenience. And if security fails, they point and say "it's ineffective." Even if it stops 80% of attacks, unless it's 100% people will bitch. AND if there aren't any attacks, can they really claim that they stopped one unless they publicly acknowledge every attempted attack?

Re: Brussels Rocked by Terrorist Attacks

#218

Post by gotchange »

raverbashing wrote: post #76
ascorbic wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Paris attackers were French and Belgian, not immigrants. This has been the case with almost all attacks in Europe, where the perpetrators have almost always been local.

"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

Integration is a two-way street. It's a 50/50 responsibility shared between host governments and migrants. From what I see, the Arabs/Muslims in Belgium (btw I'm from the same region so spare me your lectures about tolerance and openness for now) are not doing enough to integrate with the wider community but the Belgian authorities and political elites are not doing enough either to integrate these people and combat marginalization and discrimination that they may experience.

Also, Belgium political system is also not helping given its fractured nature thus limiting its options to effectively tackle those challenges and if we take into account the weak economic reality of Brussels add to that its ineffective fight of organized crime (Funding terrorist attacks and armaments) creating a perfect storm for this type of events to flourish whether in Belgium or spilling into other parts of Europe like what happened in Paris last November.

Re: Brussels Rocked by Terrorist Attacks

#219

Post by AlgorithmicTime »

acjohnson55 wrote: post #16
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?

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.

On the contrary, it just means we haven't resorted to an appropriate level of violence yet.

Re: Brussels Rocked by Terrorist Attacks

#220

Post by creshal »

sjg007 wrote: post #193
microtonal wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. It seems to be the prevalent opinion among European counter-terrorism experts that the most effective policies are: - Bringing more eyes and ears in the form of social workers and community policemen in problematic neighborhoods. - Provide better education/work opportunities for immigrants. - Better cooperation between municipalities and Muslim organisations/mosques. - Deradicalization programs. Of course, im…

Here's a weird idea. What about cutting benefits and forcing people to get jobs? Would it prevent terrorism? If everyone is too busy working??

Sure, just let me grab a sack full of jobs off my jobs tree.
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