Explosions reported at Brussels airport.

[Crossie]

And you know this how???

You think that your average criminal would blow himself up just to avoid capture?

I know this because there are thousands of muslims who can counter every claim that what 'IS' wants to achieve with quotes from Koran that 'IS' disciples are utterly wrong.
People like Anders Brejvig (sp??) claimed Christianity for his cruel actions. You'll always have people abusing religion for their criminal actions.

Revenge is a convenient justification for them but they will carry out attacks against nations which played no role in colonialism. What they want to stop is anything that does not comply with sharia law.

It's not just colonialism they bring on in their propaganda but all recent conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, etc you name them. It really isn't mutually exclusive to want revenge and domination. Needless to say that I don't tolerate or accept one or the other.

 

[matherto]

Any chance we can keep this thread to what is going on in Belgium?

Well there's nothing to discuss about what's going on other than the reasons behind it. The event has hopefully already happened (I mean that as in 'it's over' rather than hoping it happened myself) and there won't be more attacks in the immediate future. Unless you want to keep talking about the news reporting on how many have died and been injured then what is there to talk about?

 

[VeevaVee]

So in your view it is sensible to go after people wearing rucksacks although suicide bombers don't need any luggage? I just hope you are not involved in any security-related activities in any country.

I think it's better than searching no one, because they can't search everybody and rucksacks have been the chosen method plenty of times before.

 

[africanspur]

Matherto, were you as bothered when they blew up innocent people in Turkey? It was Muslims dying then? Just as the majority of the victims of these kinds of attacks are Muslim?

My word this is a fecking appalling thread.

 

[BarstoolProphet]

I do realise that what I've been saying does indeed sound a lot like 'the final solution' the Nazis had.

It sounds a lot like Donald Trump and his awful declarations about Muslims and what he would do if he was president.

I'm not trying to argue against Islam, or Muslims. People are free to believe and follow in whatever they want to. As said, there are many, many millions if not billions that follow the religion and don't want to blow everyone up, but some of the passages in the Quran support the idea of Sharia law and Islam ruling the world. IS knows this and they use that to radicalise some of the innocents. IS's version of Islam is completely incompatible with anything in the modern world, it's very much a similar thing to the ideology of the Nazi party. Anyone and anything that doesn't fit their version of the world will be destroyed and they want to conquer the world. They want us to attack them so they can bring about the apocalypse. How do you rationally deal with people thinking that irrationally?

I'm just offering up the end game of all of this. The worst possible outcome. These attacks will continue, and they'll escalate in scale until millions of innocent people following western religions and completely immersed in western culture (including the many Muslims around the world) are dead. So it's us or them, that simple.

That's what they (islamists) want you to feel and say. They want the Western world to use such rhetoric to ease the recruitment opportunities from the rest of the Muslim population. I understand that for a lot of people statements such as 'Muslims and rest of the world must unite against these barbarians' might feel like hollow words after yet another attack but the route you're suggesting is by far the most dangerous and inhumanic one.

 

[ravi2]

Matherto, were you as bothered when they blew up innocent people in Turkey? It was Muslims dying then? Just as the majority of the victims of these kinds of attacks are Muslim?

My word this is a fecking appalling thread.

That is statistically true, more muslims have died in terrorist attacks that anyone else.

 

[Mockney]

Surely there are more than 700 million Muslims outside the middle east? Crazy. Anyway, as the terrorists tend to be homegrown, we'd be well fecked.

A very important fact which belies the notion that this is all because of "what we're doing to people in the Middle East"....However much of an affinity they may feel, they aren't living it. It's much more because the life they are living is so dislocated from Western society, and seems to have so little potential for success, that they're uniquely vulnerable to brainwashing by leaders who certainly don't care what's happening in the Middle East. In fact they actively relish every new attack as a fresh recruitment tool.

Which isn't to say there's no correlation, there obviously is, but people in the Middle East are dying more numerously at the hands of Islamists than they are by Western bombs. If Jihadi recruitment was solely the result of what's happening out there, then there'd be way more potential Jihadi's fighting the likes of ISIS than fighting Western transport hubs.

 

[Crossie]

I think it's better than searching no one, because they can't search everybody and rucksacks have been the chosen method plenty of times before.

Plenty of times? I'm interested in details because suicide bombers wear belts around their waist. They don't put them in rucksacks.

The suicide bombers in Paris in November who tried to reach the stands of Stade de France got caught* because of a body search, not a rucksack search. All the recent terror attacks in Turkey have witnesses who described the suicide bombers activated belts, not explosives in a rucksack.

You can put explosive device in a handbag. In a tote. In a suitcase. It's utterly pathetic to focus on those who carry a rucksack.


* caught in the sense of they weren't able to enter the stadium; sadly they couldn't catch them in the real sense.

 

[Fener1907]

Well in essence we're both right. It's a sickness, a cancer of society that needs to be cured. But that sickness leads to war and a war is defined by a winner and a loser otherwise it's never really ended..

Again, though, we see it differently. Even our definitions of what constitutes this 'sickness' don't appear to parallel each other, because my solution certainly isn't a war.

This.

'This' what?

 

[lem8sh]

This thread is some embarrassment.

 

[Dumbstar]

A very important fact which belies the notion that this is all because of "what we're doing to people in the Middle East"....However much of an affinity they may feel, they aren't living it. It's much more because the life they are living is so dislocated from Western society, and seems to have so little potential for success, that it makes them uniquely vulnerable to brainwashing, by leaders who certainly don't care what's happening in the Middle East, and in fact actively relish every new attack as a fresh recruitment tool.

Agreed but to further add: and these leaders are in no way interested in entering heaven or pleasing Allah. They are educated enough to know they are doing the dajjal/devil's bidding.

 

[rcoobc]

This thread is some embarrassment.

Why?

 

[MikeUpNorth]

Plenty of times? I'm interested in details because suicide bombers wear belts around their waist. They don't put them in rucksacks.

The suicide bombers in Paris in November who tried to reach the stands of Stade de France got caught* because of a body search, not a rucksack search. All the recent terror attacks in Turkey have witnesses who described the suicide bombers activated belts, not explosives in a rucksack.

You can put explosive device in a handbag. In a tote. In a suitcase. It's utterly pathetic to focus on those who carry a rucksack.


* caught in the sense of they weren't able to enter the stadium; sadly they couldn't catch them in the real sense.

You've definitely latched on to the most oppressed group in all of this, rucksack wearers everywhere.

 

[Crossie]

A very important fact which belies the notion that this is all because of "what we're doing to people in the Middle East"....However much of an affinity they may feel, they aren't living it. It's much more because the life they are living is so dislocated from Western society, and seems to have so little potential for success, that it makes them uniquely vulnerable to brainwashing, by leaders who certainly don't care what's happening in the Middle East, and in fact actively relish every new attack as a fresh recruitment tool.

The sad truth is that many of those home-grown terrorists had a good education, a job, family and friends. It's not just the alienated, poor people who can be radicalized.

 

[VeevaVee]

Plenty of times? I'm interested in details because suicide bombers wear belts around their waist. They don't put them in rucksacks.

The suicide bombers in Paris in November who tried to reach the stands of Stade de France got caught* because of a body search, not a rucksack search. All the recent terror attacks in Turkey have witnesses who described the suicide bombers activated belts, not explosives in a rucksack.

You can put explosive device in a handbag. In a tote. In a suitcase. It's utterly pathetic to focus on those who carry a rucksack.


* caught in the sense of they weren't able to enter the stadium; sadly they couldn't catch them in the real sense.

I didn't realise Paris was the be all and end all. They don't all wear belts and they aren't all suicidal.

I don't really see how it's pathetic and you don't know if they are actually only stopping those with rucksacks or if it's anyone who looks dodgy. Profiling or not, in my opinion it's not a time to be worried about that.

 

[VeevaVee]

The sad truth is that many of those home-grown terrorists had a good education, a job, family and friends. It's not just the alienated, poor people who can be radicalized.

I work at a uni (in the UK) and they know of two students who have gone over to Syria. Crazy.

 

[Crossie]

You've definitely latched on to the most oppressed group in all of this, rucksack wearers everywhere.

I'm pointing out stupid police actions that don't increase security against suicide bombers by one tiny bit.

 

[RobinLFC]

Incredibly sad news, specially frightening for me as I've just came back from France on Sunday. Thoughts with those who lost their lifes and their families.

One thing though regarding my journey that's very loosely (but still) connected to what has happened. I was incredibly disappointed and actually shocked at the poor standards of security measures at Lyon's airport. Mind you, I'm not a traveller type, I've flown the plane for the first in my life but still I could draw a comparison between Polish airport in Kraków from which I've flown to France and Lyon's from which I came back to Poland.

In Kraków, during the check in you've had armed guards everywhere, those police dogs or whatever, despite not beeping when going through this metal detector gate I was still personally checked by one of the guards and then he used some thing (pardon my lack of proper nomenclature) that looked like some explosives-marker or something.

Then Lyon. No dogs, very little police/guards with military-grade hardware, poor job done at check-in, no personal checking whatsoever and the worst thing for me was that one of my friends that flew with me had some soft cheese that is regarded as a fluid (and therefore had to be better packed or disposed of) and she couldn't get past the gate. Problem is, nobody spoke bloody English. I tried to help her with my very poor French and when the woman that wouldn't let her go asked me if I spoke French, to which I replied that I do a little, she started talking to me like to a fecking native. I couldn't understand shit. Finally I got pissed off and asked her if anybody here spoke fecking English. She answered that no.

We finally understood what her problem was after some minutes of gesticulation and working with a translator/dictionary but for me it was incredibly pathetic. I mean Jesus, how are you supposed to feel safe there? I'm comparing two countries: one not even touched by terrorism and one that's a recent victim of terrorist attacks and is going to be a host of Euro 2016. France looks incredibly pale in this comparison.

Edit: Before anybody tries to jump me; yes, I'm aware that it's not completly related, perhaps it's a lot safer in Belgium and yeah, sometimes you just can't prevent those attacks but still, there seems to be a bloody lot to be done if we really are to say afterwards that everything that could have been, has been done.

It isn't, sadly. Security checks in our airports are pretty poor imo, for example last time I flew I unintentionally brought a pair of scissors with me and it easily got on the plane itself in my hand luggage. It's just one security check and then you're in, the people checking your luggage look very disinterested and almost lazy at times. It's so easy-going compared to when you need to get in or out of the UK, let alone the security standards in JFK or elsehwere in the US.

I've never been to France by plane but surely they won't do such lax controls in airports and at borders when the Euros start? I'd imagine the security level will be insane, something we've never seen before, or at least that's what I hope. Not that armed military at every corner of the streets really make me feel safe, but still.

 

[Mockney]

The sad truth is that many of those home-grown terrorists had a good education, a job, family and friends. It's not just the alienated, poor people who can be radicalized.

Being educated doesn't mean you can't feel disconnected. Something has obviously gone wrong where people feel more affinity to a country they've never been, nor probably know much about, than to the one they've grown up in.

 

[Rado_N]

At least we know Donald Trump's caf username now I guess.

 

[MikeUpNorth]

Being educated doesn't mean you can't feel disconnected. Something has obviously gone wrong where people feel more affinity to a country they've never been, nor probably know much about, than to the one they've grown up in.

I don't even know if it's that they feel an affinity to another country like Iraq or Syria or wherever. I'm coming to think that the theme of martyrdom, victory and salvation espoused by radical Islam is just a very seductive ideology. People want to feel important.

 

[Crossie]

I work at a uni (in the UK) and they know of two students who have gone over to Syria. Crazy.

That's crazy and sad and what you hear from every country. Students, people with a university degree and a job, ... one day leave all this behind to fight for a stupid ideology.

In one way or the other though it had happened pre-'IS' terror attacks as well:
I'm to lazy to go back but wasn't one of the attackers in London a doctor who worked in a hospital in the UK?
I'm pretty certain that some of the 9/11 attackers were engineering students from Hamburg, Germany.

This really shows how complex the matter is.

 

[Classical Mechanic]

I don't even know if it's that they feel an affinity to another country like Iraq or Syria or wherever. I'm coming to think that the theme of martyrdom, victory and salvation espoused by radical Islam is just a very seductive ideology. People want to feel important.

I think a good deal of them do absolutely believe that they will be rewarded in the afterlife for such deeds.

 

[MikeUpNorth]

I think a good deal of them do absolutely believe that they will be rewarded in the afterlife for such deeds.

I imagine they all believe it.

 

[Crossie]

I don't even know if it's that they feel an affinity to another country like Iraq or Syria or wherever. I'm coming to think that the theme of martyrdom, victory and salvation espoused by radical Islam is just a very seductive ideology. People want to feel important.

Oliver Kay, a French professor, said something in this direction and I tend to believe he's right on this one. He also pointed out that many different though smaller groups than 'IS', including cocaine mafia etc, have used barbaric cruelties from the 1980ies on but without social media echo and without such an organized global approach.

 

[gormless]

It isn't, sadly. Security checks in our airports are pretty poor imo, for example last time I flew I unintentionally brought a pair of scissors with me and it easily got on the plane itself in my hand luggage. It's just one security check and then you're in, the people checking your luggage look very disinterested and almost lazy at times. It's so easy-going compared to when you need to get in or out of the UK, let alone the security standards in JFK or elsehwere in the US.

I've never been to France by plane but surely they won't do such lax controls in airports and at borders when the Euros start? I'd imagine the security level will be insane, something we've never seen before, or at least that's what I hope. Not that armed military at every corner of the streets really make me feel safe, but still.

Last year I flew across Europe (4 separate flights,within the Shengen zone admittedly) without once producing ID of any form. I really could have been anyone. My mate who was with me had a scalpel with him in his bag which he uses for art. Security in the USA wouldn't stand for that

 

[matherto]

That's what they (islamists) want you to feel and say. They want the Western world to use such rhetoric to ease the recruitment opportunities from the rest of the Muslim population. I understand that for a lot of people statements such as 'Muslims and rest of the world must unite against these barbarians' might feel like hollow words after yet another attack but the route you're suggesting is by far the most dangerous and inhumanic one.

You're correct. It is exactly what they want us to feel and say, it's exactly what they want the leaders of our 'free' world to think and say in order to engage them in all out war.

I'm also aware what I'm suggesting is the most dangerous and inhumane one but that's the point. The people we're dealing with are dangerous and they are inhumane. They won't stop until we're all gone, so should we just let it happen or do we do it to them so they can't? It's the hardest, most ridiculous decision our leaders could ever make because morally our society would be impossibly horrified by it (and rightly so). We should never need to attempt a holocaust style genocide because we learnt just how bad the last one was (hell, I went to Auschwitz last summer and I was just in absolute despair and at a complete loss as to how we could possibly do what we did as human beings) but these people don't deal in morality. They're barbaric, medieval animals who will stop at nothing because they've been brainwashed so far that they're beyond saving.

There's no right and wrong in this because what we see as right isn't what they see as right, 'one mans terrorist is another mans freedom fighter'. We'd be fighting to preserve our way of life, the freedom to do as we choose, the freedom to believe what we want and accept people for who they are irrespective of race, religion, sexuality, gender, age or nationality. IS don't want that so why don't we get rid of IS and everyone that they could reasonably drag down to their level?

Islam, as followed directly will never be compatible with our way of life. We could leave them well alone and really, we should do, we shouldn't be trying to force our way of life on them anymore than they on us but the Caliphate is different. By definition it has to keep expanding territory until eventually it takes over the world. The prophecy foretold that they would fight the 'armies of Rome' (whether that means Christianity at the time it was written or just western culture/countries and armed forces as a whole is up for debate) until the Apocalypse happens. It's a wild fantasy that sadly has hooked a dangerous amount of people into it and it won't end until it's either wiped out or we are.

 

[Crossie]

Being educated doesn't mean you can't feel disconnected. Something has obviously gone wrong where people feel more affinity to a country they've never been, nor probably know much about, than to the one they've grown up in.

I agree entirely. The point I was trying to make is that contrary to what many politicians say, better education or better chances for a job are not per se the remedy to prevent growing terrorists on your own turf.

 

[Mockney]

I don't even know if it's that they feel an affinity to another country like Iraq or Syria or wherever. I'm coming to think that the theme of martyrdom, victory and salvation espoused by radical Islam is just a very seductive ideology. People want to feel important.

Yeah, feeling important obviously plays a massive part (particularly if it's the only way they can feel important) but there are still loads of young muslims in Britain who don't, and wouldn't go to places like Syria to fight, but still sympathise. Who identify as muslim even though in practice they drink, smoke, feck around etc, and who agree with the idea that the West has brought it on themselves, even though they are westerners. There is definitely some sense of affinity in there somewhere, either to an idealised version of Islam, or an idealised version of the ME, that's more palatable than embracing Britishness/Westernness, at least openly.

 

[K2K]

I hope our Belgian members, their families and friends are all safe and sound. My thoughts go out to the victims and their families and loved ones. Awful that yet another atrocity had to occur but you knew they'd retaliate for the capture of Abdesalam.

Short of nuking the Middle East (I'm aware of the awful thought of massive collateral damage on innocent lives, but seen as we can't make a distinction and everyone is a suspect from that area in these times then....) and making the whole area (and most of Africa too) completely uninhabitable wasteland with no population whatsoever, there isn't much of a message we can send to these people to get them to stop. I'm aware this wouldn't solve all the cells in Europe, the USA and Asia but it might actually get them to look up and think, well shit, we can't really win this.

They want a caliphate state (they've already declared it), if we say to them 'okay, you can have a Caliphate state, complete with your Sharia law and everything you need and we'll just leave you well alone' then eventually they'll have to expand as the Caliphate demands, their ultimate goal is either rule the world with everywhere a Caliphate under their laws and everyone who doesn't abide by it dead or a slave or to make it to the point whereby we get ground forces to go up against them and they believe that final war will bring about the apocalypse and only the worthy will survive afterwards. That's not grounded in logic, it's grounded in fantasy so there's no rational, safe way of dealing with people this far gone.

We can't press our ways and our democracy on them, it's never worked before and it'll never work in the future. We can't reason with them because they're completely unreasonable and inflexible and won't listen to our side and we can't stop them from carrying on their wave of destruction until they feel the prophecy has been fulfilled (the end-game war to bring about the apocalypse). We need to stop being soft and face the facts. We either get rid of anyone that could be a terrorist and completely ruin our morals as a human race or we bow to them and let them take over, there is absolutely no middle ground whatsoever.

We won't nuke the Middle East into oblivion and quite rightly so but bloody hell, there's nothing we can do powerful enough otherwise. It's going to be like this until something truly major happens and it finally escalates to that point anyway. They won't stop until they rule the world so we've got to wipe them and anyone even remotely connected to them off the face of the planet.

I'm aware this sounds massively overreactive and completely horrible from a human rights point of view but these people aren't humans on the same level as us. They're medieval in their ways and they want to drag us all back several centuries and live a life that just isn't compatible with us at all. We need to be just as brutal back to them.

Wow

And I thought the ISIS idiots were the crazy bunch...and then you read this...

 

[Crossie]

Yeah, feeling important obviously plays a massive part (particularly if it's the only way they can feel important) but there are still loads of young muslims in Britain who don't, and wouldn't go to places like Syria to fight, but still sympathise. Who identify as muslim even though in practice they drink, smoke, feck around etc, and who agree with the idea that the West has brought it on themselves, even though they are westerners. There is definitely some sense of affinity in there somewhere, either to an idealised version of Islam, or an idealised version of the ME, that's more palatable than embracing Britishness/Westernness, at least openly.

I don't know about the UK but here in Germany, you have many muslims who are 1st or 2nd generation in Germany, who embrace democracy, freedom, opportunities - and are totally devastated as to why their kids sympathize with 'IS'.

 

[MikeUpNorth]

Yeah, feeling important obviously plays a massive part (particularly if it's the only way they can feel important) but there are still loads of young muslims in Britain who don't, and wouldn't go to places like Syria to fight, but still sympathise. Who identify as muslim even though in practice they drink, smoke, feck around etc, and who agree with the idea that the West has brought it on themselves, even though they are westerners. There is definitely some sense of affinity in there somewhere, either to an idealised version of Islam, or an idealised version of the ME, that's more palatable than embracing Britishness/Westernness, at least openly.

I'd like to see some stats on it and a comparison with other young non-Muslims in Britain. The one thing I have personally noticed among many of the young British Muslims I've come into contact with is a worrying level of antisemitism.

 

[Paul the Wolf]

Incredibly sad news, specially frightening for me as I've just came back from France on Sunday. Thoughts with those who lost their lifes and their families.

One thing though regarding my journey that's very loosely (but still) connected to what has happened. I was incredibly disappointed and actually shocked at the poor standards of security measures at Lyon's airport. Mind you, I'm not a traveller type, I've flown the plane for the first in my life but still I could draw a comparison between Polish airport in Kraków from which I've flown to France and Lyon's from which I came back to Poland.

In Kraków, during the check in you've had armed guards everywhere, those police dogs or whatever, despite not beeping when going through this metal detector gate I was still personally checked by one of the guards and then he used some thing (pardon my lack of proper nomenclature) that looked like some explosives-marker or something.

Then Lyon. No dogs, very little police/guards with military-grade hardware, poor job done at check-in, no personal checking whatsoever and the worst thing for me was that one of my friends that flew with me had some soft cheese that is regarded as a fluid (and therefore had to be better packed or disposed of) and she couldn't get past the gate. Problem is, nobody spoke bloody English. I tried to help her with my very poor French and when the woman that wouldn't let her go asked me if I spoke French, to which I replied that I do a little, she started talking to me like to a fecking native. I couldn't understand shit. Finally I got pissed off and asked her if anybody here spoke fecking English. She answered that no.

We finally understood what her problem was after some minutes of gesticulation and working with a translator/dictionary but for me it was incredibly pathetic. I mean Jesus, how are you supposed to feel safe there? I'm comparing two countries: one not even touched by terrorism and one that's a recent victim of terrorist attacks and is going to be a host of Euro 2016. France looks incredibly pale in this comparison.

Edit: Before anybody tries to jump me; yes, I'm aware that it's not completly related, perhaps it's a lot safer in Belgium and yeah, sometimes you just can't prevent those attacks but still, there seems to be a bloody lot to be done if we really are to say afterwards that everything that could have been, has been done.

Unfortunately, these type of attacks could happen at any time and in any country, doesn't take much to have some fanatics to get hold of some explosives and decide to blow up innocent people whether it be in France, Belgium Germany, the UK or anywhere.
I live in France and do not feel unsafe, although I live in the countryside and may have a different feeling if I lived in the centre of Paris. But there are 66 million people living in France
Fly quite regularly even out of much smaller airports than Lyon and think the checking is quite thorough although you won't see police with dogs and sub-machine guns at the smaller airports.

Sadly it wouldn't be a surprise if Euro 2016 was targetted but the threat wouldn't come from people flying into the country, more likely from cells already living here.

 

[Grinner]

So why is Belgium getting targeted then? What are they doing that's pissing off extremists so much?

 

[Dans]

The suspects:

 

[rcoobc]

So why is Belgium getting targeted then? What are they doing that's pissing off extremists so much?

The attackers are French and Belgium. Or at least, the Paris attackers were.

British terrorists attacked Britain.
French and Belgium attackers attacked Paris.
French terrorists attacked Charlie Hebdo
Chechen/Russia/American terrorists attacked Boston.

And so on

 

[Scrumpet]

Ban hats.

 

[Wednesday at Stoke]

This is getting a little overwhelming just to digest, I cannot honestly fathom how people living within Belgium are even coming to terms with the fact that the extremists have infiltrated into their country to this level.

 

[Joemo]

So why is Belgium getting targeted then? What are they doing that's pissing off extremists so much?

The man behind the Paris attacks was captured in Brussels last week.

 

[Grinner]

The attackers are French and Belgium. Or at least, the Paris attackers were.

British terrorists attacked Britain.
French and Belgium attackers attacked Paris.
French terrorists attacked Charlie Hebdo
Chechen/Russia/American terrorists attacked Boston.

And so on

So European countries are just getting lumped in together? There's no specific demands or statements from whoever planned this? I'm confused about what they want.