Terrorism

[The Fish 9193]

No, they were cybermates but definitely different people. HTL was an utter cunt of a man, kept wanting to meet up with Alex.

 

Thompers completely missed my radar.

Lucky escape.

[aimaad22 3599]

I don't disagree with a lot of that but notice you seem to put no blame on the countries involved, it's all the fault of the west from your perspective. You might want to look into the cause if Iraq 1 and Afghanistan BTW, although I admit Iraq 2 was inexplicable.

 

But anyway, let's get back to the point of why you're being criticized. In your OP on this thread, you report a horrific massacre that occurred near where you live. This was sectarian Muslim on Muslim violence, although I'm sure you will find a way to blame the west for it.

 

You had nothing but sympathy from the posters on this board, nobody tried to blame your countries inadequacies or your religion for it. To do so would have been in extremely bad taste after all.

 

Then we have an atrocity in the heart of Europe 2 days ago, in an area near where some posters live (and indeed it looks like a man from NE England was killed). You immediately blame the cause of this on "the west". Personally I find this mentality pretty disrespectful.

 

Umm no, like I explained to the Fish, I believe there are a host of other factors responsible for terrorism most of which can be attributed to failings of those countries. The discussion started with what Chez believed Europe should now do, not Iraq or Syria or whatever. And I responded with what I believe to be a necessary shift in foreign policy thats required for any other measure to be effective long term. If you are going to put words in my mouth and construe that as being disrespectful to the victims, thats your problem. Like I said before, I have seen 60,000 of my countrymen die since this so called war on terror. I have had family die in terrorist attacks. I do not need you to lecture me on the sensitivity of the issue. And I do not take responsibility for words you are attributing to me.

 

The US and its allies, most notably the UK, have been involved in pretty much every major conflict since WWII. So you should not be surprised if their name comes up in the resulting fall out. It does not mean that everything in those areas was fine and dandy when they did arrive however. There obviously have to be massive failings in the local governments and society generally for it to come to the situation it has in some of these countries. For instance, people here are quite fond of blaming the US for their Afghan war and what has happened in my country as a result of that. Rightly so, but only to an extent. I have always been of the opinion that we only have ourselves to blame for not standing up to the Bush government post 9/11 and getting involved in the mess. Similarly, general lawlessness, poor development and lax control in areas along the Afghan border was going to cause big problems sooner or later. Its not really as simple as pinning all the blame on one party.

 

I did not note that that was the topic of discussion for the time being however.

[aimaad22 3599]

I remember that anti war demonstrations before the Iraq invasion were much larger in London than anywhere in the muslim world. I could make a list of things that we would do well to learn from you lot. Not really as simple as evil Islam hating west for me. Though I do agree that some sections see it that way. Which is inaccurate.

[Renton 18028]

Alright, those are two canny posts that a lot of which I can largely agree with. I admit I had forgotten you had initially responded to a fairly antagonistic post from Chez, so fair enough.

 

I reckon you understand the Pakistani issues, and surrounding countries, better than I can, obviously. But similarly I don't think you fully get, or are willing to open your mind to, the problems in Europe. Imo what motivates third generations to murder has little to do with foreign policy. Doesn't matter what we do on that score now.

 

Large parts of the younger generation of Muslims are marginalised and turned to a poisonous dogma. Although actual terrorist acts are rare in the UK, literally dozens of plots have been thwarted by our security services. Only a matter of time now until something terrible happens. This is what I think we in Europe need to deal with, and so far nobody has a clue how to.

[Dr Gloom 20128]

The MI5 chief Andrew Parker reckons it's only a matter of time till Lindon is hit again. It's more likely to be a brussels style attack than the one in Paris though, if or when it happens, with home made suicide vests. Not so easy to smuggle assault rifles here.

[aimaad22 3599]

Alright, those are two canny posts that a lot of which I can largely agree with. I admit I had forgotten you had initially responded to a fairly antagonistic post from Chez, so fair enough.

 

I reckon you understand the Pakistani issues, and surrounding countries, better than I can, obviously. But similarly I don't think you fully get, or are willing to open your mind to, the problems in Europe. Imo what motivates third generations to murder has little to do with foreign policy. Doesn't matter what we do on that score now.

 

Large parts of the younger generation of Muslims are marginalised and turned to a poisonous dogma. Although actual terrorist acts are rare in the UK, literally dozens of plots have been thwarted by our security services. Only a matter of time now until something terrible happens. This is what I think we in Europe need to deal with, and so far nobody has a clue how to.

 

Yeah fair enough

 

I said after the Paris attacks, the idea behind trying to get into what motivates these people is to get to know your enemy. To work at every possible means of stopping them. Not to understand or agree with whatever they are doing. What they're doing is of course cold blooded cowardly murder. There's no justification whatsoever for it, not even if lets say somehow a single innocent life would satisfy their supposed 'vengeance' against the West. Any half reasonable human being knows that.

[ChezGiven 0]

Alright, those are two canny posts that a lot of which I can largely agree with. I admit I had forgotten you had initially responded to a fairly antagonistic post from Chez, so fair enough.

 

I reckon you understand the Pakistani issues, and surrounding countries, better than I can, obviously. But similarly I don't think you fully get, or are willing to open your mind to, the problems in Europe. Imo what motivates third generations to murder has little to do with foreign policy. Doesn't matter what we do on that score now.

 

Large parts of the younger generation of Muslims are marginalised and turned to a poisonous dogma. Although actual terrorist acts are rare in the UK, literally dozens of plots have been thwarted by our security services. Only a matter of time now until something terrible happens. This is what I think we in Europe need to deal with, and so far nobody has a clue how to.

Provocative maybe, nothing antagonistic about my post. 400 to 600 militant jihadists are living across Europe according to the news, so the notion of some form of pre-emptive action against these individuals is not antagonistic. If you target these known jihadists living amongst us, what do you do with them? Where do you take them? Hence my point.

[Ken 119]

Provocative maybe, nothing antagonistic about my post. 400 to 600 militant jihadists are living across Europe according to the news, so the notion of some form of pre-emptive action against these individuals is not antagonistic. If you target these known jihadists living amongst us, what do you do with them? Where do you take them? Hence my point.

Internment camps. I was laughed at when I brought up the notion a couple of years ago. Doesn't sound so silly now does it?

 

Those numbers you have suggested are a guesstimate. 400 to 600 currently maybe. Could be higher. Much higher. Nobody has screened the million that have crossed into Europe. What about the home grown jihadists who cave into online propaganda?

[ChezGiven 0]

"It is also becoming increasingly clear that a thriving, well-organised Islamic State network straddling France and Belgium was responsible for both the Brussels attacks and Novembers carnage in Paris, which left 130 people dead."

 

The Guardian.

[Dr Gloom 20128]

Suicide bomber in a busy park in Lahore kills at least 50. Absolute scum. Hope you're ok aimaad

[aimaad22 3599]

Yeah fine mate. Thanks

 

This world is fucked

[Kid Dynamite 6077]

It's always been fucked man. Not that long since Hitler ordered 6million dead, many of them kids, for no reason other than he didn't like Jews

[aimaad22 3599]

True

 

Conventional warfare seems to have morphed into proxy wars and terrorism.

[Kitman 2188]

Suicide bomber in a busy park in Lahore kills at least 50. Absolute scum. Hope you're ok aimaad

Mostly kids and women enjoying a day out. Absolutely horrific, the people who perpetrate this are worse than animals.

[Anorthernsoul 1221]

Egyptian plane hijacked and lands in Cyprus with explosives onboard, how many attacks already this year?

[ewerk 26782]

It's a bit early to call it an attack. It's one guy, a vetinary professor, who has already let most of the plane go. Not exactly the work of IS.

[Andrew 4263]

Authorities seem to think his motives are personal rather than political and that his explosive belt may actually be fake.

[ewerk 26782]

Turns out the professor was only a passenger, not the hijacker.

 

Aye, think the fella just wants to talk to his ex. Of course she won't appreciate this grand romantic gesture, the ungrateful cow.

[Happy Face 29]

Although actual terrorist acts are rare in the UK, literally dozens of plots have been thwarted by our security services.

 

Wiki only lists 10 folied attempts since 9/11

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_terrorist_incidents_in_Great_Britain#Prevented.2C_failed_or_aborted_attacks

[The Fish 9193]

Turns out the professor was only a passenger, not the hijacker.

 

Aye, think the fella just wants to talk to his ex. Of course she won't appreciate this grand romantic gesture, the ungrateful cow.

[Kid Dynamite 6077]

Stop advertising your 'comedy' account you whore

[Happy Face 29]

According to the Global Terrorism Database, fewer and fewer terrorist attacks have targeted airplanes and airports. When I ran my findings by Erin Miller, program manager at the Global Terrorism Database, she confirmed that it was fair to compare transportation targets in North America and Europe this way. The trend in attacks on transportation targets generally reflects the trend in all kinds of terrorist attacks, she added, which she said suggested that its more the result of decline of conflicts than increased security.

 

Attacks on any form of transportation are a small share of all terrorist attacks (these targets accounted for only 4 percent of all attacks in Western Europe and North America from 2002 through 2014). However, such attacks were disproportionately deadly. Terrorism directed at all forms of transportation (airports included) from 2002 through 2014 claimed nearly as many lives as attacks on the top four most frequent targets put together (private citizens or property, businesses, governments and police). In this time period, 252 people were killed as a result of attacks on all forms of transportation, and 265 were killed by attacks on those four targets combined. There are fewer transportation hubs than private businesses, but theyre more crowded spaces.

 

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/attacks-on-transportation-targets-like-those-in-brussels-have-become-rarer/

[Happy Face 29]

Good write up from Edward Snowden. This especially gets to the heart of the situation...

 

ONE OF THE extraordinary things about the revelations of the past several years, and their accelerating pace, is that they have occurred in the context of the United States as the “uncontested hyperpower.” We now have the largest unchallenged military machine in the history of the world, and it’s backed by a political system that is increasingly willing to authorize any use of force in response to practically any justification. In today’s context that justification is terrorism, but not necessarily because our leaders are particularly concerned about terrorism in itself or because they think it’s an existential threat to society. They recognize that even if we had a 9/11 attack every year, we would still be losing more people to car accidents and heart disease, and we don’t see the same expenditure of resources to respond to those more significant threats.

 

What it really comes down to is the political reality that we have a political class that feels it must inoculate itself against allegations of weakness. Our politicians are more fearful of the politics of terrorism — of the charge that they do not take terrorism seriously — than they are of the crime itself.

 

 

https://theintercept.com/2016/05/03/edward-snowden-whistleblowing-is-not-just-leaking-its-an-act-of-political-resistance/

 

While there is of course a significant and serious threat, one which Snowden identified and chose to devote a career to fighting, he pinpoints the amplification of that threat and the harm it does our society as being greater.

 

Inevitably that conceptual subversion finds its way home, along with the technology that enables officials to promote comfortable illusions about surgical killing and nonintrusive surveillance. Take, for instance, the Holy Grail of drone persistence, a capability that the United States has been pursuing forever. The goal is to deploy solar-powered drones that can loiter in the air for weeks without coming down. Once you can do that, and you put any typical signals collection device on the bottom of it to monitor, unblinkingly, the emanations of, for example, the different network addresses of every laptop, smartphone, and iPod, you know not just where a particular device is in what city, but you know what apartment each device lives in, where it goes at any particular time, and by what route. Once you know the devices, you know their owners. When you start doing this over several cities, you’re tracking the movements not just of individuals but of whole populations.

 

By preying on the modern necessity to stay connected, governments can reduce our dignity to something like that of tagged animals, the primary difference being that we paid for the tags and they’re in our pockets. It sounds like fantasist paranoia, but on the technical level it’s so trivial to implement that I cannot imagine a future in which it won’t be attempted. It will be limited to the war zones at first, in accordance with our customs, but surveillance technology has a tendency to follow us home.

 

[Anorthernsoul 1221]

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/may/10/people-injured-knife-attack-train-station-near-munich-grafing

[Christmas Tree 4003]

Reports of gunman in German cinema shooting people

 

Edited June 23, 2016 by Christmas Tree