Might be related to today's yearly 'Prinsjesdag' in the Netherlands: The day on which the reigning monarch of the Netherlands addresses a joint session of the States-General of the Netherlands (consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives) to give the Speech from the Throne (Dutch: Troonrede), similar to the annual State of the Union in the United States or the British State Opening of Parliament. This s…
>Speech from the Throne (Dutch: Troonrede) Is "troonrede" essentially just the Dutch pronunciation of "Throne read"?
Suspected sabotage causes major Netherlands rail disruption
361–370 of 527 posts
Re: Suspected sabotage causes major Netherlands rail disruption
#362Europeans don't realise how close war is to their homes. Russia won't stop unless it's stopped.
Re: Suspected sabotage causes major Netherlands rail disruption
#363Earlier quoted context omitted.
Here's Deutsche Welle - what used to be the German international radio service - on the subject: https://www.dw.com/en/germany-news-police-raid-vehicle-of-su... German authorities believe a militant climate activist was behind a series of recent sabotage attacks on the country's power grid and are hunting for a 48-year-old suspect. This suspect is now under arrest as also can be read in the following report by The Lo…
Why is it unlikely that Russia would seek to obscure its involvement by recruiting (possibly without their knowledge that Russian was involved ) locals to carry out these acts? If Russia was behind it, this seems like the most likely way they would proceed.
Re: Suspected sabotage causes major Netherlands rail disruption
#364Earlier quoted context omitted.
maybe, but it's a step or two up from blocking roads?
Stopping traffic on railways isn't much different from stopping traffic on highways, is it?
If this is XR, would be very dumb and against their message.
Re: Suspected sabotage causes major Netherlands rail disruption
#365Earlier quoted context omitted.
Protests draw attention to your cause. This doesn't draw attention to anything, it is straightforward sabotage. Neither is it in line with how typical protestors operated before. You are jumping to the assumption that foreign agents wouldn't be exposed, but any willing idiot can be bought to conduct such activity. Recent research in Denmark showed that sabotage comes, most likely, from locals, persuaded by foreign ac…
It could also be kids doing it "for the lolz", like in slovenia: https://www.rtvslo.si/crna-kronika/na-zelezniski-progi-iz-ce... similar thing happened next to a minority area where they put railroad ties (the big wooden things, usually supporting the tracks) on the tracks themselves, and well, that even got politicized for the location reasons.
Re: Suspected sabotage causes major Netherlands rail disruption
#366Earlier quoted context omitted.
Let's say I pay someone to punch you int the face every day. Then one day when you punch me in the face do I have a right to complain?
Your analogy is way off base. This is how you've framed it: > Let's say I [the Netherlands] pay [!?] someone [Ukraine] to punch you [Russia] int the face every day. Then one day when you [Russia] punch me [Ukraine] in the face do I have a right to complain? Ukraine is defending itself, and nobody is paying Ukraine to do that. Russia is the aggressor here. It's weird that I need to point that out. We're talking about…
With you up until there. There's nothing defensive about drones. Retributive capabilities certainly, pre-emptive capabilities maybe, but absolutely offensive capabilities, not defensive ones. Attacking Russia back was a line that was definitively crossed in May 2024. You may argue it was justified, but not that it wasn't attacking. In terms of that stupid punching analogy (which wasn't yours to begin with, I know) this is going over to your bully's neighborhood with that baseball bat.
Re: Suspected sabotage causes major Netherlands rail disruption
#367Earlier quoted context omitted.
Are we allowed to call it terrorism now? Or just when it is farmers? I know that both climate activists and BLM have disrupted highways as well....
>caused accidents vs >"disrupted" This equivocation is noted but not compelling
This was something that people decried about during the BLM and Stop Oil protests, see below for some of the accidents caused by those actions:
>M25 Police Motorbike Crash (November 2022): An Essex Police motorcycle officer was injured in a collision involving two lorries during a rolling roadblock. The roadblock was set up because Just Stop Oil activists were trespassing and climbing onto overhead gantries along the M25.
>Greenpeace bridge protesters blamed for crash on Fred Hartman Bridge https://www.khou.com/article/news/local/greenpeace-bridge-pr...
>Crash data raises safety questions about bridge protests on I-40 https://www.carolinajournal.com/crash-data-raises-safety-que...
Re: Suspected sabotage causes major Netherlands rail disruption
#368Earlier quoted context omitted.
There was recently this german lady reporter who posed as actively pro-Putin for few months and it didn't take long for fsb/gru to come to her online. It started small, just check this or that, little favor there but soon escalated to proper spycraft. Some other folks reported having death threats against family. Its for peanuts, few hundred euros mostly. They just need to find the dumbest and most desperate folks to…
The chances of this being real are basically zero, or Russia would be getting double agented, and reverse intelling themselves, out the arse. Instead all we get are attempts to connect random events, of which there are endless viable suspects, to Russia. It's fair to say that if one jumps in the middle of a fight, they should expect to get punched, but it's also fair to say that for now Russia has been avoiding throw…
* That actually happened. It was a false flag operation to discredit the Greens (party).
Re: Suspected sabotage causes major Netherlands rail disruption
#369Re: Suspected sabotage causes major Netherlands rail disruption
#370Earlier quoted context omitted.
Correct, this is their exact MO and has been for decades. "Random thug" recruitment notwithstanding, part of the point of such ops is to prove to themselves that they can, in fact, reach out and touch a target - i.e., exercising the entire operational chain from C&C down to the minutiae of execution. A kind of integration test for sabotage, if you will. (Not saying this specific incident is or isn't anything in parti…
France does some version or style of derailing Russian trains, you say?