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Brussels Rocked by Terrorist Attacks

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Re: Brussels Rocked by Terrorist Attacks

#82

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.

Mohamed Abrini and Salah Abdeslam really do sound like francophone names! Come on, let's try not to have to discuss this...

There we go. Barack Obama really does sound like an anglophone name. I bet their skin colour is really suspicious too.

Re: Brussels Rocked by Terrorist Attacks

#84
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> that the current situation is the result of doing nothing I think the current situation is the result of doing way too much the the past decade (or two). If the US and EU stayed out of the Middle East (Iraq, Libya, Syria), the EU+ME part of the world would be a much more peaceful place.

Fair enough and absolutely a valid counterargument. Allow me to amend my comment slightly, and emphasise that I'm speaking of domestic policies. Across Europe we've seen increased ghettofication, social segregation and religious extremism. But because this has mostly been within demographic segments considered "weak" or "minorities", the explicit policy has consistently been sweeping things under the rug and proceedi…

> But because this has mostly been within demographic segments considered "weak" or "minorities", the explicit policy has consistently been sweeping things under the rug and proceeding as if nothing has been wrong.

perhaps the fact that they are "weak" or "minorities" is the cause and not the consequence of the attacks... I mean, in a complex society causality goes in any direction.

Re: Brussels Rocked by Terrorist Attacks

#85
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.

According to BBC the explosion are believed to have been in the checkin area, i.e. outside of the security screening.

Get dogs trained to detect explosives patrolling all areas of the airport and I'm not sure what they're called, but they have these sniffer devices at the CN tower where they basically make you walk through a large hairdryer and it sniffs the residue blown off you for chemical signatures. It's not perfect, but a combination of those two things any place where you have large volumes of people congregating would surely yield an above average result. The dogs alone I would wager would be an efficient response - they're portable, don't take up much room and can clamber over all kinds of obstacles.

Re: Brussels Rocked by Terrorist Attacks

#86

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?

> - we need more police and higher spending

Belgium certainly does. Its failures in counter terrorism have lead to the Paris attacks and now these attacks. At least that is the understanding I have gleaned from twitter conversations of CT experts

Re: Brussels Rocked by Terrorist Attacks

#87
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.

According to BBC the explosion are believed to have been in the checkin area, i.e. outside of the security screening.

Indeed, the explosions were in the checkin area. I was there last week and there's a couple of armed soldiers in the area, but you can walk right in without any security screening.

Re: Brussels Rocked by Terrorist Attacks

#88
post #70
post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not exactly true; e.g. in the UK, there was a lot of terrorism in the past by IRA - although Ireland and the UK have different religions, I don't think that was the main issue. The main issue was divisions between two groups of people and the resulting inter-group hate. On the other hand, religion is probably the most important, yet arbitrary and completely illogical, divisive influence in the world. So, relig…

You don't think religion was the main issue in the sectarian violence in Northern Ireland? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sectarian_violence#Northern_Ir...

The parent's point is valid – although religion is the most obvious expression of social division, the roots are deeper. People don't erupt in open warfare due to differences in religion unless there are other issues – such as social injustice, or economic differentials, or so on.

Re: Brussels Rocked by Terrorist Attacks

#89

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

If they're born in the country and lived there their whole life, they're local by any non-racist definition.

Re: Brussels Rocked by Terrorist Attacks

#90
post #20

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.

Many commonplace chemicals, such as hand sanitizer, confound the explosives detectors used at airports. Dogs can only work a very limited time before their sense of smell gets fatigued.

Moreover, the bomb was set off outside the secure area. It is VERY likely that existing security measures got more people killed because there are dense crowds waiting to clear security. This exact type of attack, outside the secure area, was predicted long ago. And there you have it.

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