Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Brussels Rocked by Terrorist Attacks

wsj.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

261–270 of 345 posts

Re: Brussels Rocked by Terrorist Attacks

#261

Post by glastra »

blahblah3 wrote: post #231
DoubleMalt wrote: post #136

What 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…

I find it concerning that this much damage can be done by just a few individuals. You can't just look at the number of deaths. Saying that terrorist attacks barely impact P(death) trivializes them.

Walk around a crowded square with a backpack. Now wonder, what if you had a bomb in there and were ready to blow yourself up?

There you go. Killing 50+ people is absurdly easy. Hello, blacklists.

Re: Brussels Rocked by Terrorist Attacks

#262

Post by peter303 »

elcapitan wrote: post #41

Belgium hasn't had stable governments for many years, with many observers, especially in the aftermath of the Paris attacks, calling it a 'failed state'. I read an article about that a while ago, couldn't find it directly, but I found this one: http://www.politico.eu/article/belgium-failed-state-security...

A failed state is one unable to provide basic services like Somali and Libya.

Re: Brussels Rocked by Terrorist Attacks

#263

Post by marcosdumay »

tremon wrote: post #112
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?

How come this happens again without anyone having seen it coming? But they did see it coming. From what I gathered from the response of many Brussels residents and airport personnel, the question was "when", more than "if".

Yet, they had no idea of "who".

Re: Brussels Rocked by Terrorist Attacks

#264

Post by alanwatts »

twoodfin wrote: post #155
DoubleMalt wrote: post #136

What 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…

On the other hand, a bus accident doesn't result in an international airport or a city's entire metro system shutting down for an extended period of time, nor frightfully disrupt the lives of hundreds of thousands of people. I appreciate your point, and it is somewhat reassuring, but terrorists can cause damage beyond the raw numbers because their damage can be focused.

>On the other hand, a bus accident doesn't result in an international airport or a city's entire metro system shutting down for an extended period of time, nor frightfully disrupt the lives of hundreds of thousands of people.

Regular old inclement weather does this all the time and people don't cry panic that society is going to implode.

Shutting down transportation for a day is a silly thing to be terrorized about.

>As for us, we behave like a herd of deer. When they flee from the huntsman's feathers in affright, which way do they turn? What haven of safety do they make for? Why, they rush upon the nets! And thus they perish by confounding what they should fear with that wherein no danger lies. . . . Not death or pain is to be feared, but the fear of death or pain. Well said the poet therefore:—Death has no terror; only a Death of shame!

-Epictetus

Re: Brussels Rocked by Terrorist Attacks

#265

Post by elliottcarlson »

trgn wrote: post #178
pjc50 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Knowing how Belgium handles their minorities in Brussels, it's not a big surprise Could you elaborate? Is this a banlieu situation?

Belgium handles it minorities with a patronizing benevolent disinterest.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vlaams_Blok

Re: Brussels Rocked by Terrorist Attacks

#266

Post by mistermann »

ascorbic wrote: post #241
mistermann wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Second generation immigrants don't mean this a problem with immigration And that they're not first generation immigrants doesn't prove it isn't a problem with immigration either. We are still left with this recurring coincidence aren't we. I don't claim to know the absolute truth here, I'm just suggesting we honestly acknowledge reality during discussions.

It's not first generation immigrants or refugees doing this. It's not Syrians doing this. By what possible rationale could you say that recent immigration has anything to do with this, other than that they're Muslim?

> By what possible rationale could you say that recent immigration has anything to do with this

I didn't say it was recent immigration that caused this incident, we both know that (if they are 2nd generation, it couldn't be recent).

> other than that they're Muslim

You think that their religion has absolutely nothing to do with this? I mean, even unjust prejudice within their host country because of their religion could easily cause social isolation and economic disadvantage leading to anger - that seems like a perfectly reasonable explanation to me and largely places the ultimate blame on the host country.

Re: Brussels Rocked by Terrorist Attacks

#267

Post by adrianratnapala »

BFatts wrote: post #217
wslh wrote: post #20

Earlier 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.

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.…

It gets worse, since in this case it's not even a trade-off between convenience and security. In Sri Lanka they had (and perhaps still have) security scanning at the entrance to the terminal.

As a result people have to bunch up outside the terminal, making them even more vulnerable than they otherwise would be.

Any true improvements would have to come from streamlined pre-screening, e.g. chemical detectors (or dogs?) in the concourse sniffing things out without making people stop or bunch up. Hard to do.

Re: Brussels Rocked by Terrorist Attacks

#268

Post by qb45 »

eis wrote: post #255

I wonder why this important event is getting not many upvotes and also ranks lower than other stories with less upvotes but older. Is it getting flagged for being off-topic?

Quite possibly. Another submission had been flagged to death earlier today:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11334908

Re: Brussels Rocked by Terrorist Attacks

#269

Post by rtpg »

pif wrote: post #205
rtpg wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Acknowledging that this happens because of conscious policy decisions by many people is also good. > We could bring this sort of event down to a number real close to 0. Please, would you mind elaborating a bit on these two points?

I might be a bit overzealous in saying we can get the results down to 0 but there are many major countries that have not been attacked by ISIS.

The narrative after 9/11, and after both Paris attacks were "this is a war of civilization, of culture. They attack us because we are free". I think a lot of us realise on a conscious level that this narrative simply isn't true, but the narrative still stands.

Foreign intervention make us targets for "retaliation" (I'm trying hard to not apologise for monsters murdering a bunch of civilians pretty indiscriminately). There are many major countries and populations that are easier targets for Daesch that don't seem to get attacked. If this was about maximum carnage so many worse things could be happening right now.

The whole "having a population not super happy about the current government" thing doesn't seem to help (in terms of building a support network). Though even that requires a pound of salt: a journalist on twitter pointed out that in the case of the Paris attacks, there were support networks... but they were mainly for "normal" criminals (drug dealers and the like). We're not talking about a huge set of jihadists, but a bunch of opportunists [0].

I think most people would recognise that the IRA bombings and the Troubles was a result of policy, not culture. Daesch is, I think, pretty similar. It's not like a bunch of people got up and were like "We hate the West!". There's a lot of stuff involved. Not that it justifies their actions, but it's at least good to be lucid when thinking about the why.

[0]: https://twitter.com/joshuahersh/status/712280093343793153

Re: Brussels Rocked by Terrorist Attacks

#270

Post by lgieron »

lgieron wrote: post #247
gambiting wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some of them are French citizens with no other nationality - you cannot "banish" them, the only thing you could maybe do is put them in prison, but putting people in prison for speech you don't like is a dangerous avenue.

That's of course debatable, but for me it's more dangerous to have them free disseminating warmongering propaganda.

Wondering why did I get a downvote? Isn't what I said just a valid opinion, on a matter of philosophical (i.e. irresolvable) differences?

Edit: getting more downvotes, without any of the downvoters caring to justify them so far, so I can only speculate as for the reasons behind them.

I'm wondering if the downvoters (I'm guessing from the USA) are aware that my views are already a law in many of the liberal democracies of Europe? There are laws which put you in jail for saying certain things, and they are enforced (there are people who are doing time just for saying things).

Post reply on HN