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Do you have an alternative? All I see is naïve suggestions. As I see it we have several options: 1. We accept the fact that we will have more terror attacks i

• mbrock 11y ago
  No, I don't know what to do. Presumably neither of us are experts in counterterrorism or experienced in military strategy, which technically makes both of us naïve. I disagree that draconian monitoring of Muslims in general is accurately described as "targeted surveillance." Targeted surveillance means intelligence gathering on specific individuals or groups of individuals, not entire religious-ethnic populations. I also see no a priori reason why broadening the scope of surveillance to require monitoring of more than 50 million peaceful citizens would be an effective use of intelligence resources. I could come up with some naïve suggestion of my own, but they would probably be too radical for the leaders of the Western world to consider. Western diplomatic apology for illegal wars and terrorism in the Middle East could be one part. For a hopefully less naïve perspective, I'll link to this interview with professor Chomsky. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZW_5WmusqY0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZW_5WmusqY0
• vezzy-fnord 11y ago
  In practice, #3 is already done by almost all countries, though usually HUMINT is far more granular than just "lol infiltrate the minorities," because that's too general to be any of usefulness. #2 wouldn't get rid of terrorism. Instead, it would make the state the terrorist. #1 is a premature conclusion.
• mtreis86 11y ago
  This makes zero sense to me. No offense. Reality is far more complicated. No single solution could possibly work. Your suggestions (that people 'accept' your perspective as their reality) are equally naive.
  • barry-cotter 11y ago
    No offense generally means "I'm about to be a cunt and expect you to suck it up." You aren't being a cunt but you completely failed to address any arguments. All you've got are assertions.
• fabulist 11y ago
  "You don't see the world as it is, you see it as you are." -- Krishna Saagar With all the information now available regarding mass surveillance, the only ways to believe it is an effective deterrent to terrorism are ignorance and obstinacy.
• mirimir 11y ago
  Maybe we don't expect that we can fuck with other people without getting fucked with ourselves?
  • mirimir 11y ago
    Let me rephrase that: "Do to others as you would have them do to you."
• oneeyedpigeon 11y ago
  2. and 3. play into the terrorists' hands perfectly: they transform our society from a free, liberal one to a fascist surveillance state. When the choice is a lack of freedom ruled over by ISIS or a lack of freedom ruled over by our current leaders, it's a meaningless choice. 1. is the only option that doesn't ultimately destroy our way of life.
• TeMPOraL 11y ago
  I strongly vote for #1. The attack, while tragic, was small-scale, and should not be treated as anything else as organized crime. Have the police find all responsible and bring them to justice. Anything else is basically doing what the terrorists want you to do - overreact. We should learn from the mistakes of the United States: two long, bloody and expensive wars, bombing third country and terrorizing fourth, mass surveillance and transportation security theatre - all tallying up to orders of magnitude more innocent deaths than caused by 9/11 attacks, which themselves amounted to something around 3-4 month's worth of traffic-related deaths in the US.
  • ryanwaggoner 11y ago
    Actually, there were 42k traffic fatalities in the US in 2001, so 9/11 was equal to more like 3-4 weeks' worth :(
  • rebootthesystem 11y ago
    I would be interested to see what you would think of this, your statement, if you were holding the dismembered body of your father, mother, sib,ing or loved one in your arms. Dead. Our free societies do not no Eed to change. Theirs do. And the solution is very simple. The problem is nobody has the balls and determination to do it. There's a fundamental incompatibiliti between ideologies and behavior. Being poor, uneducated and without a job isn't a driver. Poor, uneducated and unemployed people in the wort ghetto's in western countries haven't historically translated their circumstances into "let's use automatic weapons to organize a multi-headed attack, kill ourselves and a bunch of people". No, there's only one ideology on the planet with a radicalized extreme minority that supports and promotes this kind of behavior. To use the priot poster's analogy, let's stop blaming the cancer on the patient. We are not the problem. They are. And those who support them. We sit idly while watching whole societies who behave like animals. Women in muslim countries walk around u der tents and are stoned to death. People are beheaded. Brutality and cave-men behaviour abounds. And we are supposed to respect it because it is religion? As a scientist this whole concept is revolting. Religion, a collective stone age dellusion that infects the minds of billions of people. It deserves no respect whatsoever. None. In that sense we are at fault. We don't have to change. The delusional stone age brutal inhuman apes pushing around nonsense have to. The world needs to unite against them, not respect their bullshit religion and ideology.
• jsmcgd 11y ago
  0. We should try to counter the radical ideology by allowing everyone to air their grievances in public without condemning or shouting down those we disagree with. Debate should be welcomed and encouraged not stifled and stigmatised otherwise those with extremist views will still be able to seek out the impressionable and monopolise the narrative they hear. As I see it this is the most important solution. Trying to catch people just as they are about to commit an atrocity doesn't go anywhere to help solving the root problem. Extremists have been using secure lines of communication for a while and will continue to do so regardless of whether is is decreed legal or illegal and this is to say nothing of offline communication. You may prevent some fraction of the attempts, but many will be successful and all we will be doing is treating the symptoms whilst probably severely aggravating the cause. No one has their privacy routinely violated and feels more sympathetic to those violating those rights. We have been involved in a battle of ideas and we need to start formulating a response on this front. Everything else is secondary.
• CPLX 11y ago
  I always wonder why I never see this one on lists of choices: 5. Stop killing large numbers of Muslim people in the Middle East every week and see if that doesn't make them less likely to kill comparatively small numbers of people in Western cities every couple of years.
  • ant6n 11y ago
    Aka 5. Make peace But I forgot, that's just 'naïve'.
    • junto 11y ago
      ISIS don't want peace. They want to fulfill a prophesy. Everyone be who is not IS is to be killed. That includes moderate Muslims that don't join IS. Read the wikileaks article linked above. This isn't about revenge or retribution.
      • ant6n 11y ago
        I think it's naive to think that IS exists in some sort of vacuum, rather than within a context of ongoing conflicts between the Western and the muslim world.
  • sethherr 11y ago
    Agreed. Sort of funny this doesn't make the top of everyone's list.
  • chinathrow 11y ago
    A million times this. Disarm the region by UN force. Establish peace and lot's of the issues at hand will be solved with it. Yes it's hard but it needs to be on the top of that list.
    • zo1 11y ago
      That'll just make things worse, I'm afraid. "Disarm" in this context probably includes a very large occupation force, and would be seen as a defacto invasion of their lands. Really, the only way (in my opinion) to stop this now and de-escalate the hatred, is to segregate via mass deportations and pull-backs of expats. It's not a "pretty" thing to suggest, and I'd even argue against it on moral grounds as it'll include complete innocents.
• jakobegger 11y ago
  Surveillance is not going to fix the issue. If we want to have fewer terrorist attacks, we have to prevent radicalisation by fixing the social issues that cause it. If we continue to do nothing, the problems will get worse, and surveillance will be futile. Fixing social issues is not easy. Masses of youths without education or perspective, racism, increasing segregation between the middle and lower classes can't be fixed with simple methods. Where do we start? I'd suggest starting with schools. Make sure that kids go to school. Send social workers to schools, that talk to students. Offer courses in the native language of migrant children, to make sure they are not left behind and drop out early. Make sure that every student has a grown up at school that they can talk to, that they relate to. Next, housing. Rents in most european cities are skyrocketing. I assume that this is caused by the current low interests rates, which lead to more and more people to use real estate as an investment. Low interest rates also make credit cheap, increasing the amount people can pay for housing, again increasing prices. This means that even the middle class is struggling to afford housing, and people working low income jobs have to live in very low quality housing, in poor areas. Fixing this is probably not easy, and probably requires a number of unpopular measures like rent control, or subsidised housing (for example you could require real estate developers to offer a percentage of affordable appartements when they apply for a permit to construct a new building). Also, jobs. I really don't know how to fix this. A starting point would probably be to require minimum wages even for contract employees, or better to outlaw the current practices of hiring people as "independent contractors" instead of proper employees. Anyway, these are just some suggestions. Note that all these measures are about helping people, rather than harassing them. Happy people don't become terrorists, and happy people don't need to be put under surveillance.
  • munin 11y ago
    > I'd suggest starting with schools. Make sure that kids go to school. We already try to do this, they already fight this with violence (on us and on their own children).
    • vixen99 11y ago
      You mean so that they go to engineering school? Terrorist organizations have long recognized that engineering departments are fertile ground for recruitment and have concentrated their efforts there. A 2005 report from British intelligence noted that Islamic extremists were frequenting college campuses, looking for 'inquisitive' students who might be susceptible to their message. In particular, the report noted, they targeted engineers."
• morgante 11y ago
  #1 seems acceptable to me. Yes, these attacks are horrific and I wouldn't wish this on any nation. But it's not worth sacrificing our essential values to save a few lives. Automobiles kill way more people than terrorists ever will, yet I don't see anyone calling for the evisceration of liberty to protect us from it.
• kingmanaz 11y ago
  5. Close borders, transfer populations, and return to ethnostates. Use Israel and her 20' concrete border walls as a template.
  • scrollaway 11y ago
    That worked out great for Israel. /s
    • dogma1138 11y ago
      Well it kinda did, in early 2000's there would be one suicide bombing on average per week, after 2 fairly brutal military operations, and erecting a huge fence and checkpoints it pretty much stopped. One can argue what was more effective the military operations that dismantled the infrastructure* or the fence but no one in their right mind in Israeli politics would wage on either. It doesn't help them to stop the current run of violence with the knife attacks for sure, but many of the perpetrators in recent attacks actually were either Israeli residents (Palestinians with an ILR type permit) or even citizens so wall or no wall they could get to their targets in any case. * Suicide bombings unlike many people think aren't a simple lone-wolf/small group type of operation, they are a very sophisticated and well funded operation. The bombers are pre-selected usually by a close family member (uncle, older brother, cousin in most cases), they are groomed, then put into a program not unlike a one that the CIA would use to break a prisoner to get them to turn, they are brought to the brink programmed to disregard their own life. The family of the bomber would usually be paid out up to 100,000$ coming from Gulf state patrons, in many cases they would be whisked away to Europe or other countries by NGO's that claimed that they were at risk for retaliation, one British NGO was "caught" processing paperwork for a family with the justification that under Israeli law their house will be demolished due to the attack prior to the attack actually taken place (this was discovered by NGO Watch IIRC several years after the event).
    • morgante 11y ago
      Actually, it kind of did. Israel does probably the best job of counterterrorism in the world when you consider the constant threats they face.
• scrollaway 11y ago
  You're asking for more ideas and this is something I've had to painstakingly talk to people about all day, so here's a shot at this. First of all, identify the problem. Why are there terrorist attacks? Saying "religious nuttery" achieves nothing. Nuttery always exists but is in majority not enough to push people to suicide bombings. Terrorist attacks exist because of political power and influence. They're efficient, because we let them be efficient. Compare it to the drug trade. [Cartels|terrorist cults] thrive because there is [money|power] to be made. Going after the [cartels|terrorists] is not enough long term. [Jailing|Discriminating against] [potheads|muslims] only serves to worsen the situation for them, pushing them even further out of society, but does nothing to solve the problem. Criminalizing the components such as [drugs|encryption] only makes the problem worse for your citizens, doesn't affect the bad guys. You need to take care of the problem at the root by removing the bad guys' incentives. In the case of terrorist cults, religion is a mask. It's just whatever's currently marginalizing people as much as possible. You see, marginalized people make for excellent subjects. Just like any other cult, they prey on the weak. They prey on the ones who are feeling alone, those feeling rejected by everybody even their own country. Those who have nowhere else to go find a place they're taken care of, where they're cheaply promised great rewards (in the afterlife) and where they can find a purpose. Not just that, but somewhere they can take revenge on the country that hates them. "Muslim" terrorists know quite well that their attacks only make the lives of muslims worse. They only serve to get them more subjects so they can get even more political power. So you want an idea? You take care of that problem. You start teaching others about how those cults really work - know your enemy. You make people understand that more hatred, more blood, are exactly what the terrorists want. That's why we call them terrorists: Politics through terror. Education. Teaching to be more critical of media - media has complete control over the narrative through most mediums, and as long as some media outlets stand to gain from instilling fear of your neighbour, they'll keep doing it and readers will not be any less impressionable for it. I dunno, maybe it'll make a difference. Maybe it won't. I want to believe it will, but today, as a French person, I have seen more xenophobia than I care to admit. I'm hating humanity pretty badly right now. HN has been the only place where I've found mostly reasonable reactions.
  • vlehto 11y ago
    It's completely possible that the message sent here was not aimed to anybody living in France. It's also likely that certain large portion of French are not going to be satisfied unless something drastic is done. To them it's not about the problem, it is about feelings and identity. So this can't be solved entirely. Best thing to mitigate the problem would be a knee-jerk reaction that does least amount of damage. Because in democracy you will have that knee-jerk, sooner or later.
• rsync 11y ago
  "Do you have an alternative? All I see is naïve suggestions." Another option is to recolonize. Failed (or failing) states like Syria and Egypt and Iraq become permanent vassal states and their populations are ruled in-place (as they were in the past). I am not suggesting this course, but it should be included in this list, for completeness' sake. Interestingly, it does solve the refugee crisis...
• wyager 11y ago
  Do a risk analysis. Terror attacks (and most other high-profile murders) are tragic and scary, but in terms of death count, statistically insignificant. Adopt absolute surveillance, ban all guns, etc etc and you might save a very small number of people each year, but you've paid a lot to do that.
• gnaritas 11y ago
  1 is the correct answer. Beyond that, you say "more" as if there are many. You have a better chance of being killed by lightening, stop promoting terror as a major fear, it is not.
• nurb 11y ago
  Agree with #1 From my point of view we can't fight terrorism by war or massive surveillance. It's a matter of culture, if everyone knew about the beauty of life, and all good things that she provide, this would not happen. Your culture allows you to link your actions to different kind of emotions, and especially the one which make you unable to hurt anyone else. This is the way religions (all of them) were spreading peace, way before the internet, when the only culture you add access to was the holy book in the nearest temple. That's what is making us different than these emotionsless animals who are manipulated to kill people and themselves. So to stop this we need to share more values, more principles, with more people. Values and principles are carried by culture. Now think about the huge amount of free culture that governments and industries are trying to stop, to reduce and to slow down. All these torrents and files shamefully shared from all over the world, this could be the answer. Legalising piracy and encouraging people to share more, will make the culture spread faster and reduce the number "lost" people, on the long term, or maybe even on the short term with a good old internet buzz. Let's show them how we live and how we think and how good it is.
  • codedokode 11y ago
    You say like terrorists are some evil beings that just hate all the living people. But what if they are just ISIS soldiers whose objective is to force a country withdraw the army from their territory using all possible means? What if terrorists' friends or relatives died from US and european bombs? In their eyes you a just a liar bombing their cities while taking how you cannot hurt anyone else. I cannot believe there are people who don't understand such a simple thing. You are probably brainwashed by western media.
• codedokode 11y ago
  Surveillance and extended police privileges are acceptable measure in the time of war.