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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
by dmichulke 11y ago
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?
- odinduty 11y agoWhy would we bomb Syria? Isn't the al-Assad government working against ISIS and related organisations?
- subliminalpanda 11y agoAssad is anti-west.
- george_soros 11y agoWell, what is he suppose to do, take orders from merica ?
- balabaster 11y agoThere 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 wish to maim and murder the innocent (on either side of the argument!) in order to make our point. 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. Or maybe that's just me.
- marcosdumay 11y ago> 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.
- eveningcoffee 11y agoI am not sure that you can say "we" in here.
- ascorbic 11y agoISIS are in Syria.
- sre_ops 11y agoBut we, the United States, are more concerned about getting rid of Assad than we are about fighting ISIS, which is why we even train and arm some of the less ISIS-ish ISIS groups that fight Assad.
- maniacalrobot 11y agoThe enemy of my enemy is my friend?
- kehrlann 11y agoSyria for sure, and there's also Libya. Ah, and don't forget the European border policies regarding (mostly Syrian) refugees...
- ageofwant 11y agoAssad was one of the few that survived the Arab Spring. The Saudi's was another, and a US ally. It is interesting to note that one of the most regressive regimes in the world, Saudi Arabia is one of America's strongest allies in the middle east. But that's none of my business. Many believe that getting rid of Assad will end the Syrian refugee crisis. Others observe that when the Saddam and Gaddafi heads were cut off the snake grew ISIS. And so it goes.
- ZanyProgrammer 11y agoThere's simply no way that even if we wanted to, restoring Assad in Syria will ever work again. Too many (basically, everyone whose not an Alawite or Christian) people will never acquiesce to living under his rule.
- pluma 11y agoAnything's better than the status quo. The only difference between Assad and the other remaining dictators in the region is that the US was heavily invested in getting rid of Assad -- and then Russia came and basically ruined their plans indefinitely. If there's one Muslim country whose government is in dire need of being overthrown it's Turkey -- but sadly Erdogan has learned from his country's past and made sure the military won't turn against him anytime soon.
- ZanyProgrammer 11y agoAssad's regime (and his father's) helped radicalize the population for years, prior to any sort of silly Arab Spring or anything like that. Any post war settlement will by necessity not have to include his family.
- 11y ago
- acjohnson55 11y agoOne thing I haven't heard is "we didn't see it coming". Quite the opposite. Everybody's been bracing for this ever since Paris. But I agree that this is a problem we can't bomb our way out of.
- tomp 11y agoI believe "see it coming" is mean in the way that the security services would be able to predict the attack precisely (when, where, who), given the amount of survelience, data gathering and spying they do. Alas, the spying is apparently targeting mainly the innocent civilians and is mostly ineffective against criminals.
- pluma 11y agoIf the NSA revelations are anything to go by, the only difference between "not enough data" and "too much data" is that the after-the-fact investigations are now a bit easier. There doesn't seem to be a "Goldilocks" amount of data. Or if there is, intelligence services seem to have no interest in finding it if it means restraining themselves.
- AlgorithmicTime 11y agoOn the contrary, it just means we haven't resorted to an appropriate level of violence yet.
- x1798DE 11y agoFrom 5 days ago, Travel Stack Exchange, "What areas to avoid in Brussels after the recent terrorism events": https://travel.stackexchange.com/questions/65332/what-areas-to-avoid-in-brussels-after-the-recent-terrorism-events/65333 https://travel.stackexchange.com/questions/65332/what-areas-...
- ptaipale 11y agoSadly, there were really no answers, just the usual meta discussion. For any city, I could give the advice: avoid the airport, trains stations, the metro, and famous tourist attractions. On the other hand, these are typically the places that you need and want to go if you visit a city, so it's anyway better just not care. The risk is very, very, very small.
- wslh 11y agoI 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.
- BFatts 11y agoThey don't scan for explosives until you're going through security. If they had the security checkpoint at the entrance to the airport: a) People would bitch more because it would take forever to get into an airport. And, b) It isn't practical. What's next, stopping you at your car or bus before you park? People demand security but don't want inconvenience. And if security fails, they point and say "it's ineffective." Even if it stops 80% of attacks, unless it's 100% people will bitch. AND if there aren't any attacks, can they really claim that they stopped one unless they publicly acknowledge every attempted attack?
- adrianratnapala 11y agoIt gets worse, since in this case it's not even a trade-off between convenience and security. In Sri Lanka they had (and perhaps still have) security scanning at the entrance to the terminal. As a result people have to bunch up outside the terminal, making them even more vulnerable than they otherwise would be. Any true improvements would have to come from streamlined pre-screening, e.g. chemical detectors (or dogs?) in the concourse sniffing things out without making people stop or bunch up. Hard to do.
- jonatanheyman 11y agoAccording to BBC the explosion are believed to have been in the checkin area, i.e. outside of the security screening.
- ekianjo 11y agoThis is a clear weakness of airports: where people regroup even before reaching the terminal, with no surveillance or security checks whatsoever. And that's not just in Brussels.
- ekianjo 11y ago> - we need more surveillance rights and money for the secret services Looks like it's not working too well. Surveillance services have gained mass resources since 2015 in France and that did not stop the December attacks at all.
- creshal 11y agoFrance has had the most extensive surveillance system in continental Europe for over a decade and it has helped roundabout nothing.
- danieldk 11y agoIndeed. It seems to be the prevalent opinion among European counter-terrorism experts that the most effective policies are: - Bringing more eyes and ears in the form of social workers and community policemen in problematic neighborhoods. - Provide better education/work opportunities for immigrants. - Better cooperation between municipalities and Muslim organisations/mosques. - Deradicalization programs. Of course, implementing such policies takes time and it's much more popular to present the 'easy solutions' (more surveillance, closing borders, etc.). France has been doing pretty much the opposite, investing money in surveillance and special forces instead. Belgium has kind of ignored problems.
- lgieron 11y agoWhat are 'deradicalization programs'? I'd say if some people (i.e. some imams) are semi-openly calling for destruction of France, they should just be banished from the country.
- gambiting 11y agoSome of them are French citizens with no other nationality - you cannot "banish" them, the only thing you could maybe do is put them in prison, but putting people in prison for speech you don't like is a dangerous avenue.
- rogeryu 11y ago> - How come this happens again without anyone having seen it coming? Knowing how Belgium handles their minorities in Brussels, it's not a big surprise. The fact that this happens now is neither a surprise. Salah Abdeslam has been caught, and there were messages that he wanted to cooperate with the Belgium police. Whether it's true or not, if they were planning something, and he knew about it, waiting was not a real option.
- pjc50 11y agoKnowing how Belgium handles their minorities in Brussels, it's not a big surprise Could you elaborate? Is this a banlieu situation?
- rogeryu 11y agoNeighborhoods like Molenbeek are notorious, similar to banlieus in Paris and Lyon. They lost control over it, don't know what happens there. This is happening in all big cities, but it seems this is much worse here. Belgium has big problems between the Flemish and French speaking parts, and particularly in Brussels it's politically very complicated. For some city wide measures, they need like 26 police commanders to agree. I don't know the numbers, but it's very complex to get all people in line. And I'm not talking about the people in the street, this is about city councils, police departments etc. Brussels itself resembles the EU in this respect.
- trgn 11y agoBelgium handles it minorities with a patronizing benevolent disinterest.
- elliottcarlson 11y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vlaams_Blok https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vlaams_Blok
- cr1895 11y agoI'm having trouble finding an article I read a while back, but it was discussing the failure of effective community policing. I'll keep looking. This article discusses the mess that is Belgian governmental organization: http://www.politico.eu/article/belgium-failed-state-security-services-molenbeek-terrorism/ http://www.politico.eu/article/belgium-failed-state-security...
- Kiro 11y ago> we need more police Why is this a bad thing? I feel safer with more police presence but maybe that's just me.
- Strom 11y agoThat's exactly what more police will do. Make people feel safer, not actually be more safe. It's security theater. [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_theater https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_theater
- tremon 11y agoThat's simply not true. A larger police force translates to more comprehensive law enforcement. If it doesn't, then there's a systemic failure in the way police are run (and we have plenty of examples of those too). Of course "more police" isn't the only way to increase the effectiveness of policing, but it does help. The security theater was specifically about TSA and other untrained (or minimally trained) symbolic gestures. Actual policing is not theater.
- Strom 11y agoMore police can help with theft, possibly with solving murders. It will do almost nothing to prevent terrorist attacks. This airport attack is a prime example of the reason why. You can put large checkpoints everywhere, but there will always be, by definition, a line of people that haven't yet passed the checkpoint and this is where they will attack.
- mikeyouse 11y agoBelgium recently said that nearly every one of their available officers was running down ISIS / jihad leads, they've essentially stopped investigating other crimes and still don't have the manpower required. They're in desperate need of more well-trained police.
- Strom 11y ago
- raverbashing 11y ago> How come this happens again without anyone having seen it coming? A lot of people could see it coming, except for the naive PC people
- pstuart 11y agoPolitical correctness supports terrorism? I bet you are as anti-terrorism as they get.
- raverbashing 11y agoWhen they think it's all puppies and rainbows, yeah
- danharaj 11y agoI'm sure people like you would like to continue and strengthen domestic and foreign policies that would just lead to further violence. Western governments and their right wing supporters in the populace love bashing heads, and when that leads to disenfranchised people with no future who feel utter hostility towards them, they blame everyone but their own actions and bash even harder.
- raverbashing 11y ago> to disenfranchised people with no future Better than most people that didn't have the privilege of being there in the first place. Also access to better education and social support, which most people in the world doesn't have > they blame everyone but their own actions Yes, that's the main excuse of people who don't make an effort and expect everything from society (including several 'natives')
- mineshaftgap 11y agoISIS just needs a hug, that's cute.
- Khaine 11y ago> - 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
- melicerte 11y agoMy advice: stop making opinions about what you read on twitter and carfully select the so called CT experts you are talking about.
- Khaine 11y agoMy advice: I do carefully select the experts I listen too "One Belgian counterterrorism official told BuzzFeed News last week that due to the small size of the Belgian government and the huge numbers of open investigations — into Belgian citizens suspected of either joining ISIS, being part of radical groups in Belgium, and the ongoing investigations into last November’s attacks in Paris, which appeared to be at least partially planned in Brussels and saw the participation of several Belgian citizens and residents — virtually every police detective and military intelligence officer in the country was focused on international jihadi investigations. “We just don’t have the people to watch anything else and, frankly, we don’t have the infrastructure to properly investigate or monitor hundreds of individuals suspected of terror links, as well as pursue the hundreds of open files and investigations we have,” the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media, said. “It’s literally an impossible situation and, honestly, it’s very grave.”" See http://www.buzzfeed.com/mitchprothero/belgian-authorities-overwhelmed-by-terror-investigations#.doQw2Qrwq http://www.buzzfeed.com/mitchprothero/belgian-authorities-ov...
- mtgx 11y agoAlso - "how come nobody ever gets fired over such disasters?" It's like the spy agencies and law enforcement are always highly competent and can never do any wrong.
- ptaipale 11y agoGenerally, people (authorities, policemen, etc) don't get fired if they failed to prevent a disaster. They get fired if they break rules, fail to obey standard operating procedure, do not fill tick marks correctly on a paper. They work in a system, and the system has responsibility, not individual people who work for it -- unless they neglect or break rules and procedures.
- tremon 11y agoHow come this happens again without anyone having seen it coming? But they did see it coming. From what I gathered from the response of many Brussels residents and airport personnel, the question was "when", more than "if".
- rahvin 11y agoThat's really easy to say about any capital city, but not what the parent means at all.
- mdemare 11y agoNot any capital city - Brussels specifically. There was a lockdown of nearly a week after the Paris attacks. People were really bracing for an attack, in a way that London, Berlin, Amsterdam, Vienna, etc. weren't.
- rahvin 11y agoMy point was that it is really easy to say that any big city will have a terrorist attack. So it's never if, but always when. Yet with all the surveillance and lockdowns they have, they didn't see this coming, which was the point of the parent, that more surveillance is not going to solve anything.
- marcosdumay 11y agoYet, they had no idea of "who".
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- BFatts 11y agoFor 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 let it happen." Because THAT, sure as hell, will not fly with the people. And "yeah, we saw it coming and stopped it" is questioned as just posturing. When people say "scanning individuals in airports makes us no safer," what are they comparing it to? Is it that they doubt the effectiveness because people are still getting killed by terrorists in planes? No. It's because there are no attacks, so they have no data to say "yeah... it's been effective."
- fweespee_ch 11y ago1) Surveillance doesn't work. 2) Finding real plots are too hard so they entrap people and even then, they don't find many. 3) They aren't spreading around their "successes" because they are absurdly few and borderline entrapment. 4) Homegrown threats are a greater danger and largely being ignored. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/25/us/tally-of-attacks-in-us-challenges-perceptions-of-top-terror-threat.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/25/us/tally-of-attacks-in-us-... > But the breakdown of extremist ideologies behind those attacks may come as a surprise. Since Sept. 11, 2001, nearly twice as many people have been killed by white supremacists, antigovernment fanatics and other non-Muslim extremists than by radical Muslims: 48 have been killed by extremists who are not Muslim, including the recent mass killing in Charleston, S.C., compared with 26 by self-proclaimed jihadists, according to a count by New America, a Washington research center. > Non-Muslim extremists have carried out 19 such attacks since Sept. 11, according to the latest count, compiled by David Sterman, a New America program associate, and overseen by Peter Bergen, a terrorism expert. By comparison, seven lethal attacks by Islamic militants have taken place in the same period. > The contentious question of biased perceptions of terrorist threats dates back at least two decades, to the truck bombing that tore apart the federal building in Oklahoma City in April 1995. Some early news media speculation about the attack assumed that it had been carried out by Muslim militants. The arrest of Timothy J. McVeigh, an antigovernment extremist, quickly put an end to such theories. http://www.nbcnews.com/news/other/nsa-program-stopped-no-terror-attacks-says-white-house-panel-f2D11783588 http://www.nbcnews.com/news/other/nsa-program-stopped-no-ter... > A member of the White House review panel on NSA surveillance said he was “absolutely” surprised when he discovered the agency’s lack of evidence that the bulk collection of telephone call records had thwarted any terrorist attacks. https://theintercept.com/2015/11/17/u-s-mass-surveillance-has-no-record-of-thwarting-large-terror-attacks-regardless-of-snowden-leaks/ https://theintercept.com/2015/11/17/u-s-mass-surveillance-ha... > And even before Snowden, the NSA wasn’t able to provide a single substantiated example of its surveillance dragnet preventing any domestic attack at all. https://news.vice.com/article/the-line-between-fbi-stings-and-entrapment-has-not-blurred-its-gone https://news.vice.com/article/the-line-between-fbi-stings-an... > A report released this week from Human Rights Watch highlights how, consistently, FBI sting operations are over aggressive and premised on the racist profiling of Muslim communities — that old building block of our contemporary national security state. Based on 215 interviews and focusing on 27 post-9/11 cases of alleged terror plot thwarting, HRW's findings call into question the very legitimacy of the FBI's counterterror work. The authors go as far as to call a number of stings "government-created" terror plots. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/nov/16/fbi-entrapment-fake-terror-plots http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/nov/16/fbi-entrapment-... > But the issue is one that stretches far beyond Newburgh. Critics say the FBI is running a sting operation across America, targeting – to a large extent – the Muslim community by luring people into fake terror plots. FBI bureaux send informants to trawl through Muslim communities, hang out in mosques and community centres, and talk of radical Islam in order to identify possible targets sympathetic to such ideals. Or they will respond to the most bizarre of tip-offs, including, in one case, a man who claimed to have seen terror chief Ayman al-Zawahiri living in northern California in the late 1990s. http://www.wired.com/2013/02/american-muslim-terrorism/ http://www.wired.com/2013/02/american-muslim-terrorism/ > Since 9/11, Kurzman and his team tallies, 33 Americans have died as a result of terrorism launched by their Muslim neighbors. During that period, 180,000 Americans were murdered for reasons unrelated to terrorism. In just the past year, the mass shootings that have captivated America’s attention killed 66 Americans, “twice as many fatalities as from Muslim-American terrorism in all 11 years since 9/11,” notes Kurzman’s team. > “Until public opinion starts to recognize the scale of the problem has been lower than we feared, my sense is that public officials are not going to change their policies,” Kurzman says. “Counterterrorism policies have involved surveillance — not just of Muslim-Americans, but of all Americans, and the fear of terrorism has justified intrusions on American privacy and civil liberties all over the internet and other aspects of our lives. I think the implications here are not just for how we treat a religious minority in the U.S., but also how we treat the rights & liberties of everyone.”
- boomlinde 11y ago"Without seeing it coming" might be a stretch here. When I was at BRU some month ago, the whole airport was patrolled by heavily armed military guards. AFAIK this has been the case since the Paris attacks.