120 Dead In Paris

[Josh]

 

Nothing will happen. Nothing will change. These deaths are without meaning. Much like Paris. It will continue to happen because there is no consequence to this. In Molenbeek, they celebrate behind closed doors.

I have my doubts wrt the closed doors actually... At the arrest of Abeslam last friday the police was confronted with 100+ locals throwing stones and glass. Scumbags.

 

But you're right I'm afraid, as national television deliberately chose not to air images of those riots. PC, y'know...

 

I suspect this event alone won't change anything, but it won't be the last. I think ultimately public opinion about the Muslim community will change. I'd even argue that feelings about the Syrian refugees has already changed with some of the recent events. But this will happen many more times before there are major policy changes.

[rmgill]

I have my doubts wrt the closed doors actually... At the arrest of Abeslam last friday the police was confronted with 100+ locals throwing stones and glass. Scumbags.

 

this. In Molenbeek, they celebrate behind closed doors.

 

But you're right I'm afraid, as national television deliberately chose not to air images of those riots. PC, y'know...

 

 

Sounds like people were self identifying themselves as unsuitable for guest status.

 

Those folks should be identified, if immigrants deported. If not, charged with the appropriate crimes and told that their continued forebearance is imperiled.

[rmgill]

T-44, this had not be reported until you mentioned it and I went looking for articles.


http://www.jihadwatch.org/2016/03/belgium-muslims-riot-attack-police-after-arrest-of-paris-jihad-mass-murderer

As I heard today, "the carpet appears to be more fringe than carpet".

[Mr King]

Nothing will happen. Nothing will change. These deaths are without meaning. Much like Paris. It will continue to happen because there is no consequence to this. In Molenbeek, they celebrate behind closed doors.

 

The adults are in charge.

Bush's war on terror is over

In the past few weeks, we've seen a British soldier hacked to death with a meat cleaver on the streets of London and bombers blowing up spectators at the Boston Marathon.

On the surface, terrorism is alive and well.

So how should the United States react to these continuing threats?

For the first time on Thursday, President Obama laid out the full scope of his proposed counterterrorism strategy, and it boiled down to this: George W. Bush's endless war on terror is over.And that's appropriate, since the enemy Bush went to war with after September 11 has largely been defeated.

Obama's speech at the National Defense University in Washington was designed to lay the political groundwork to wind down America's longest war, the war that began when al Qaeda destroyed the World Trade Center and a wing of the Pentagon 12 years ago.

Thursday's speech was the first time Obama had delivered an overarching framework for how to conceptualize the conflict that has defined U.S. national security policy since 9/11.

Other speeches by Obama have focused on aspects of that conflict, such as Guantanamo and the Afghan war. But no speech has made such an expansive examination of the war against al Qaeda and its allies in all its manifestations, from drone strikes to detention policies to a clear-eyed assessment of the scope of the threats posed by al Qaeda and its affiliates, as well as by those "homegrown" extremists who attacked the Boston Marathon in April.Much of the coverage of the speech has centered on the measures the president outlined to impose greater constraints on CIA drone strikes and to try to hasten the eventual closing of Guantanamo.

But the most significant aspect of the speech was the president's case that the "perpetual wartime footing" and "boundless war on terror" that has permeated so much of American life since 9/11 should come to an end.

Obama argued that the time has come to redefine the kind of conflict that the United States is engaged in: "We must define the nature and scope of this struggle, or else it will define us."

This is why the president focused part of his speech on a discussion of the seemingly arcane Authorization for the Use of Military Force that Congress passed days after 9/11 and that gave Bush the authority to go to war in Afghanistan against al Qaeda and its Taliban allies.

Few, if any, in Congress who voted for the authorization understood at the time that they were voting for a virtual blank check that has provided the legal basis for more than a decade of war. It is a war that has expanded in recent years to other countries in the Middle East and Africa, such as Yemen and Somalia, where the U.S. has engaged in covert military operations against al Qaeda-affiliated groups.

Theoretically, when U.S. combat troops finally withdraw from Afghanistan in December 2014, the authorization should simply expire, and the nation will no longer be at war. After all, once combat operations are over in Afghanistan, why would you want to keep in place an authorization for a permanent war?

However, there are now some in Congress who would like to expand the scope of the Authorization for the Use of Military Force beyond its present parameters to include military operations against terrorist groups that were not involved in the 9/11 attacks, which could prolong America's wars indefinitely and add additional terrorist groups to the United States' list of enemies it is at war with.

U.S. Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tennessee, ranking member of the influential Senate Foreign Relations Committee, for instance, last month called for an expansion of the scope of the authorization.

Obama made it quite clear in his Thursday speech that he would oppose such an expansion, saying he hopes instead to "ultimately repeal the AUMF's mandate. And I will not sign laws designed to expand this mandate further."

In short, Obama intends to end a seemingly endless war.

That's because, according to Obama, "the core of al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan is on the path to defeat. Their remaining operatives spend more time thinking about their own safety than plotting against us."

On Thursday, Obama asserted (in my view, correctly) that what remains of the terrorist threat, while significant and persistent, is nothing on the scale of the al Qaeda organization that launched the 9/11 operation and instead consists of "less capable al Qaeda affiliates, threats to diplomatic facilities and businesses abroad, homegrown extremists."

These threats, the president further asserted, can be managed by carefully targeted drone strikes overseas and efforts to counter extremist ideology at home and do not require some kind of broader war.

Obama is also looking to his legacy and the presidents who will follow him and is trying to begin to create the public consensus and legal framework that will help to ensure that the United States isn't "drawn into more wars we don't need to fight, or continue to grant presidents unbound powers more suited for traditional armed conflicts between nation states."

Obama clearly hopes to leave office in 2016 as the commander in chief who finally ended America's longest war.

Follow @CNNOpinion on Twitter

 

http://www.cnn.com/2013/05/24/opinion/bergen-end-of-terror-war/

[Stuart Galbraith]

 

The Charlie Hebdo attack was perpetuated by people who were in the EU long before the Syrian crisis. So have all the other previous attacks. Im sure that subsequently we will see many more refugees (or people pretending to be refugees) taking part in these attacks just as we did with the Paris attack, but its not as if we didnt have a long standing problem already. You cant dump it all in Angela Merkels lap. We have a problem with terrorists who were born here but seem more easily to identify with a bunch of head chopping fuckwits in the sandy place. Not much you can do to legislate for stupidity unfortunately.

 

A British comedian once said that you can be born in a stable and it doesnt make you a horse. Which is probably vilely politically incorrect, but at least as far as Europe's terrorist problem pretty much spot on.

 

First time I've seen the 1st. Duke of Wellington referred to as a comedian. Curiouser and curiouser...

 

 

Well the French thought he was hilarious. He went down a storm at Hougoumont farm.

 

Actually I heard it from Bernard Manning, a comedian notorious for his efforts to offend, though possibly he heard it elsewhere.

[Stuart Galbraith]

 

“All of this is to say that the implantation of the network is more firm than we thought,” Mr. Juillet added. “The police were efficient — and yet this happened. So, there is a very strong implantation in Belgium,” he said, referring to the terrorist network.

“The Belgian police are excellent,” said another former D.G.S.E. official, Alain Chouet. “The problems are political. They let develop violent Islamist currents. They were not disrupted because they didn’t want problems with the Muslim community.”

 

There are also structural problems. Apparently the Belgium police and their Intelligence service dont talk to each other. According to a report on the BBC, the only way the Belgium police hear what their intelligence service hears, if if its passed on by the British police when they receive it from the Belgian intelligence service.

 

Which whilst its a bit early to say yet, might be something they want to look at one cant help but think.

[Briganza]

Nothing will happen. Nothing will change. These deaths are without meaning. Much like Paris. It will continue to happen because there is no consequence to this. In Molenbeek, they celebrate behind closed doors.

It was reported this morning that the Belgian police had difficulty working with the Belgian security service. For the police to get info on terrorism threat in Belgium they had to contact Scotland Yard who would contact MI5 who work well with Belgian Security Service. The info would then be relayed by Scotland Yard to the Belgian policy.

 

One would hope that this problem would be sorted out now, so something may change.

[Briganza]

You can type faster than me.

[sunday]

It's Belgium, after all. There was that conspiracy of pederasts not so long ago, with ramifications into law enforcement and the judiciary. It's sad, but unless they put their house in order, they will continue attracting the scavengers of international politics.

 

Like we Spaniards did with all "Not to war" demonstrations, and the Madrid bombings. Lack of national unity is like the smell of a rotting corpse to terrorists.

[Paul G.]

The problem in Belgium isn't with potentially importing terrorists...its exporting them.

 

 

Belgium has contributed more fighters per capita to the fight in the Levant than any other European country.

 

 

 

Apparently conditions in Belgium have produced a perfect storm of extremism.

[T-44]

It's Belgium, after all. There was that conspiracy of pederasts not so long ago, with ramifications into law enforcement and the judiciary. It's sad, but unless they put their house in order, they will continue attracting the scavengers of international politics.

 

The Dutroux affair from the 1990s? Wouldn't really call that a conspiracy, though it did highlighted the abysmal communication between the then three active police branches (municipal, gendarmerie and judiciary police), which led to the creation of a unified police in 2001. Though perhaps it's now a redux with the relations between police and intelligence agencies (wouldn't surprise me)

[Stuart Galbraith]

You can type faster than me.

I admit my fault.

[rmgill]

 

 

Apparently conditions in Belgium have produced a perfect storm of extremism.

What conditions? I'm still trying to figure out what's making folks raised in Europe decide that mass murder is a great thing to do...

[Briganza]

 

Apparently conditions in Belgium have produced a perfect storm of extremism.

 

What conditions? I'm still trying to figure out what's making folks raised in Europe decide that mass murder is a great thing to do...

Kettle calling pot?

[Paul G.]

Didnt we ask that same question in 1945?

[rmgill]

Birganza, there are lots of poorly educated yokels with no opportunity and who are deeply superstitious all over the US. We are struck with a large quantity of Hatfields and McCoys who routinely blow up scores if not hundreds of people.

I'm still trying to figure out what sort of horrid conditions Europeans are subjecting muslims to that makes so many of them hell bent on killing Europeans and others.

[Damian]

 

 

I'm still trying to figure out what sort of horrid conditions Europeans are subjecting muslims to that makes so many of them hell bent on killing Europeans and others.

 

Maybe it's not abour horrid conditions, they just hate you because you help them, because you try to show respect, and so on, in the end in their culture and mentality, they start to perceive you as weak, easy prey.

[Paul G.]

Ryan its always the same reason. Has been for all of history.

 

A sordid combination of fear, isolation, desperation, anger, loss of hope combined with some ideology, religion or secular.

 

Same in Germany 1939, Northern Ireland until recently, much of Africa, South East Asia in the 1970s, the Middle East...

 

A school mass shooting is a microcosm of international terrorism. The human element is the same.

Edited March 22, 2016 by Paul G.

[T-44]

While I agree in part, thar are not the reasons, but the conditions. And like 'has been for all of history', you always have scum who are happy to jump on any wagon or use any ecxuse to give in to their own natural violent inclinations

[Mr King]

What a crock of bullcrap. The only thing education, money, and social status changes for these twats is where they fall on the terror totem pole. If they are not henchman, they are planning, promoting, leading, and funding terror. Heaven forbid we point fingers at failings of their culture and religion. Must protect the western white liberal sensibilities.

[JasonJ]

You can type faster than me.

 

At over 30,000 posts, and many of them being walls of texts, he's had lots of practice

[Paul G.]

"natural violent inclinations" So what is the theory there exactly?

 

As for the conditions...as I said a perfect storm, but many similar to France. Easy enough to look for your self if you do a search for 'Belgium terrorism problem'. Several articles will come up. Of note:

 

Concentrated areas of Muslims with a youth unemployment rate of 40%" Isolated from "growing up in Europe". Youth feel no belonging to Belgium, and look for something to direct their anger and hopelessness towards. Easy picking for recruiters...

 

Many are not your typical "Islamists" Salah Abeslam was a drug dealing bar owner. The Charlie Hebdo attackers started out as common criminals. Really no different from some gangs in the US.

 

"500 man and women have left Belgium for Iraq and Syria since 2012. Many from a single area. More than 100 have returned, some facing arrests."

 

It is easy to get illegal firearms in Belgium. Combine that with Belgian legal limitations on surveillance. The conditions mount.

 

The US does not have the extremism problem to nearly the extent much of Europe does for the opposite reasons Belgium does.

Edited March 22, 2016 by Paul G.

[T-44]

You believe everything is down to nurture? I don't. Some people just tend to "evil" (however you whish to define that) behavior no matter what remedial efforts others/society take.

[Corinthian]

Just got home from work (not in Brussels), quite a hectic day contacting friends and former colleagues - all accounted for luckily, though some close calls, particulary my roommate who was on her way to the airport (but her train got stopped between Brussels and Zaventem), and another friend who was in the metro-car before the one that blew up...

 

Lots still trying to get home, although public transport seems to be starting up again.

Good to know.

[Corinthian]

Nothing will happen. Nothing will change. These deaths are without meaning. Much like Paris. It will continue to happen because there is no consequence to this.

I would tend to agree with this. After the last Paris attacks with a lot saying war has been declared and all that, wot we get are just punitive airstrikes.

 

Sorry, but I'm with Simon on this one. Getting a bit tired already with such events and knowing not much will change. Sorry if I sound so callous. I was shocked alright, and am saddened for what happened, but all that is tempered with the knowledge that nothing much will change to prevent this and solve the greater problem. Call me cynical, alas that's the way I see it so far since last year.