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Brussels Rocked by Terrorist Attacks

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Re: Brussels Rocked by Terrorist Attacks

#301

Post by realitygrill »

SonicSoul wrote: post #223
ant6n wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

wait. you cycle because driving is too risky? are you statistically less likely to get injured while cycling, or is it mainly about caring for not injuring others?

Cycling appears to be about an order of magnitude (~10x) times more dangerous, per mile travelled, than driving.

Re: Brussels Rocked by Terrorist Attacks

#302

Post by tmptmp »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #271
BFatts wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 l…

> 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. The problem with this argument is that it can be used t…

>>So no, they have to justify that the costly and stupid security measures actually work. Or we'll have nothing but costly and stupid security measures that don't actually work.

How exactly do you want them to justify. Your demand is too vague to be even considered. How do you propose, they should advertise every thwarted terrorist attack, without alerting the other terrorists?

All security is plain unproductive overhead, which is compulsory in the presence of adversary.

>>You're basically saying "trust us, we're the government." It's the recipe for total unaccountability.

You're basically saying, "don't trust the govt" and that is the recipe for total anarchy, which is heaven for terrorists.

Re: Brussels Rocked by Terrorist Attacks

#303

Post by Cyph0n »

tobltobs wrote: post #295
Cyph0n wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah I didn't know Tunisia and Turkey had civil wars. I was in both 6 months back, must have happened recently.

How would you call it?

How would I call what?

A civil war is when two or more parties are actively fighting each other within one country. Current examples in the Middle East: Yemen, Libya, and Syria.

My country Tunisia is quite peaceful and is a young and successful democracy. Turkey is a stable country but is unfortunately sharing its border with Syria and has some trouble with extremist Kurd separatists.

I don't see what you're getting at mate.

Re: Brussels Rocked by Terrorist Attacks

#304

Post by altotrees »

dwaltrip wrote: post #293
altotrees wrote: post #281

Today is the first time since 9/11 that I can remember hearing the news of a terrorist attack and not being gripped by panic. I guess the Boston Marathon Bombings, Paris Attacks (Charlie Hebdo and Bataclan both) shootings and other events have kind of led me being in an oddly calm state when I hear news like this now. This is not the way I want to feel. If you would've told me around 8:30 a.m. on September 10th the w…

I think one of the most important things that we can do when faced with these types of events, but which usually fails to happens, is for us to humbly drop our assumptions, and to dig in to try understand the deeply complex histories and motivations that led to the attacks. If we don't understand why something is happening (and no, it's not because "ISIS is evil incarnate", as some try to proclaim), how we can ever h…

I completely agree. I spent lots of time, especially after the Paris attacks, reading about Daesh, and the origins of their beliefs. The Atlantic article you mention is a fantastic primer on this very complex and hard-to-digest topic.

Many people seem to view doing this kind of reading and learning as some kind of gesture that is sympathetic to those who commit such acts. I will never understand how wanting to be educated on the history of a group automatically means you are siding with them ideologically...but I am from the midwest and left quite a few beliefs I will never understand.

Re: Brussels Rocked by Terrorist Attacks

#305

Post by 13thLetter »

rtpg wrote: post #269
pif wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 interve…

> 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.

I agree with you on that; it's unfortunate, though, that a lot of political bad actors have spot-welded "we need to understand why they're doing this" -- which is obviously true, it's much harder to defeat an enemy you don't understand -- to "it's racist to think that we have an enemy at all, never mind actually fight them effectively."

Re: Brussels Rocked by Terrorist Attacks

#306

Post by 13thLetter »

Bard7 wrote: post #202
grp wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They seek fear, not the maximum number of deaths. Victims are not the goal but a way.

They seek a Bush type response.

Nope. You're making the mistake of mapping a foreign political force with its own motives and ideas onto Western political disputes.

Re: Brussels Rocked by Terrorist Attacks

#307

Post by marcosdumay »

balabaster wrote: post #109
subliminalpanda wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assad is anti-west.

There are many of us Westerners that have some anti-west tendencies - like anti-surveillance, anti-government-sticking-its-nose-in-where-it-shouldn't-be, anti-corruption-caused-by-lobbyists-and-big-business-running-our-government, etc. etc. But we're not completely anti-west, we enjoy the freedoms and religious autonomy we're granted and we enjoy the cultural mix that "the West" affords us. It also doesn't mean we wi…

> I think 99% of us can agree that groups (like ISIS) who think it's acceptable and act to torture and kill the innocent to make their political point need to die in a hell-fire and be damned to all eternity.

Oh, completely agree with that.

The only problem is that this description fits not only ISIS, and its opposing government by Assad, it also fits the US friendly Iraq, and Saudi Arabia, and the US government itself, and anybody else that has the intention of doing anything there.

Re: Brussels Rocked by Terrorist Attacks

#308

Post by ascorbic »

mistermann wrote: post #266
ascorbic wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 co…

The original comment specified recent immigration. What gave you the impression I thought religion had nothing to do with this? Of course it does. I was talking about immigration though, and the fact they're both Muslim doesn't mean that these incidents have any connection to recent refugees from Syria, aside from the fact that the Syrians are running from these kind of people.

Re: Brussels Rocked by Terrorist Attacks

#309

Post by falcolas »

glastra wrote: post #259
falcolas wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do we let one incident shut down an entire metro system? Would we do the same if a bus overturned? I have no intention of belittling the incident, but I fail to see how shutting everything down is a proper response to any incident of less than catastrophic scale. I take that back, I can see a reason: CYA. Nobody would want to be the one who makes the decision to keep the metro system running and have a second att…

I had to look up what that acronym means ("cover your ass", for anyone interested). WTPOUAWYCJWOTFS? That's "what's the point of using acronyms when you can just write out the full sentence?"

Well, you could ask the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the Central Intelligence Agency, or even consult with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Perhaps you can send them JavaScript Object Notation using the Asynchronous Javscript and Extensible Markup Language standard over HyperText Transfer Protocol?

I use acronyms to reduce the cognitive overhead of reading, and (relevant to this discussion) make otherwise offensive terms acceptable in a broad range of environments (snafu, CYA, OMFG, WTF, etc). I'm sorry you haven't run across CYA before (though that might be a good thing), but it's not a terribly uncommon acronym either.

Re: Brussels Rocked by Terrorist Attacks

#310

Post by tobltobs »

Cyph0n wrote: post #303
tobltobs wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would you call it?

How would I call what? A civil war is when two or more parties are actively fighting each other within one country. Current examples in the Middle East: Yemen, Libya, and Syria. My country Tunisia is quite peaceful and is a young and successful democracy. Turkey is a stable country but is unfortunately sharing its border with Syria and has some trouble with extremist Kurd separatists. I don't see what you're getting…

http://www.coe.int/en/web/commissioner/-/turkey-should-ensur...

If that for example is just "has some trouble with extremist Kurd separatists" then ok.

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