JCC Explosions at Brussels Airport

Well solojones would probably be happy that you killed me for starts.

 

Are you seriously saying there is no difference between killing 2 people and killing 20 people, Ender? And that a government doesn't have a responsibility to try to keep such things to a minimum?

After all, you agree that guns shouldn't be for sale as they are in America. Presumably a big part of your motivation is that guns make it really easy for determined murderers to kill larger numbers of people. Sure, they can still kill some people with a knife or machete, but they won't be able to kill nearly as many people. And it's the government's job to try to minimize the danger to the public from murdering whack-jobs.

How is this any different? There's a threat, it's going to be carried out no matter what, but it can also be lessened by using some common-sense security tactics.

Please stop telling me my views are based on counter-terrorism TV shows and movies, when I have not in any way intimated that whatsoever. My views are based in the reality of how people work. Yes, they will kill people no matter what. But they'll kill a lot more people if you put few barriers in their way.

 

SJ, you're not talking about deterrents, then.

A deterrent works off the assumption sufficient reason exists to enable a person who has made a risk v reward decision to reassess the risk and rewards based an additional mitigating factor.

For example; let's take bike theft, a common issue.

If a bike rack area was subject to several security cameras and signs, indicating how surveiled the area was and linking theft to criminal prosecution, would be thieves would conclude the risk of getting caught outweighs the reward of stealing a bike. And as a result, they wouldn't.

What you are doing is saying I have a very expensive Porsche bicycle, and you have just a random one from Walmart. If they're going to steal one, it's better they steal yours because it's cheaper to replace. That's not a deterrent, it's rationalisation.

In the security camera example, you only have a deterrent if the would-be thieves care about getting caught. I think it's safe to conclude that in the event that you've decided you're willing to detonate yourself for a cause, you're really not the kind of person who does a rational risk v reward assessment.

So for the avoidance of doubt: the second someone resolves to become a suicide bomber is almost too late; but the point at which you wear explosives or whatever the comparable point with a firearm is definitely too late. Deterrents don't work because you're no longer operating on a rational level. You aren't dissuaded the way rational people are.

So any arguments about "how people work" might as well be based on what was seen on 24 or Homeland or something, because they're equally distant from how radicals work and think.

You seem to think a suicide bomber might throw on a vest, see some cops and rethink their lives. It simply, factually, does not happen.

 

lol... Ender Sigh... suicide bomber expert.

 

Yeah, if anyone here has any expertise in counter-terrorism, it's not Ender Si...

Oh.

 

What?

 

I really, really don't and have never said so. In fact I said the opposite. I said it might prevent them from getting into their intended target, and might mitigate loss of life. That's the kind of deterrent I mean. I specifically do not mean the "well if I do that I'll go to prison and I don't want to be in prison so I should rethink my choices" type of deterrent (which rarely works, and certainly not against jihadists).

I specifically noted, for instance, that had there been a visible security presence stopping them from getting into the airport or a dog barking at them at the entrance when it smells explosives, it surely wouldn't stop them from blowing themselves up, but it would force them to blow themselves up on a sidewalk. Where there are fewer people. Which is what happened at Stade de France.

And I also think you can deter people away from certain important strategic or symbolic targets, like public transport or government buildings. Again, as I said earlier, they'll probably choose a new target and go about their horrible business, but you can still help keep them away from some of the places that would cause the most havoc and loss of life.

I definitely did not mean to suggest you can make them go home and rethink their lives. That's nonsense. This would do nothing to root out the actual causes of terrorism... it just seems like a way the government can help mitigate the physical losses from terrorism.

Otherwise, why have any security at airports?

 

Well you seem to be shoehorning yourself in to make a dig in response to the notion I might have some insights to a topic that I spent a decade building expertise on.

Since you felt compelled to make that comment, what are your thoughts harps? I'd like to hear all your thoughts on the attack. Were the targets symbolic? Did Belgian security fail? Was the arrest of Salah Abdelslam a trigger or was it just coincidental timing? What should Belgium do about its radical Muslim contingent?

 

Look, dude... I'll post whatever the **** I want. I was reading the thread and decided to comment. There was no "shoehorn" involved. This is not your thread, it's sj's, and it's on a public forum, so bite me.

 

OK sj, then you're using terminology incorrectly. You're talking ways in which harm minimisation and risk mitigation is used by security officials. They aren't deterring anything; they're disrupting and limiting.

So do we both agree that if someone wants to blow themselves to hell they will. Good.

What you're saying though is basically setting the security services up to fail, yeah? Because let's use the Stade de France example. Less people died, but people died. So instead of saying "yes but we saved more lives" you're left with "but you didn't save everyone, why is this a good thing?"

If terrorists intend to terrorise, they'll find a way and they keep finding ways. They beat the electronic surveillance of Echelon, they circumvent intercepts, they kill. We don't disagree here. And having a guard at, say, Stade de France just means they don't kill there. They kill elsewhere. Same as if Gare du Nord was full of GIGN in full kit, being a major hub for European rail into and out of Paris... they hit Gare du Lyon, which is a major hub for French railways.

And no matter how well they protect Nord, Lyon will be seen as a failure. It's a false target, a false hope.

We cannot stop them from attacking past a certain point - on that we agree. So why not focus 100% on the pre-stage disruption and not how to funnel them to the least densely populated areas?

The more we suggest they failed to protect, the more security agencies will respond. Politicians, elected by a fearful electorate, will demand answers so they respond according to the demands. It's just a bad outcome for all.

EDIT: So harps, you basically just came into a grown up discussion to have a bit of a petulant "nyer" moment which is actually looking more and more illadvised and instead of offering anything substantial - don't want to break tradition, I get it, I do - you double down. Brilliant mate, top shelf. I'm in awe. And humbled too.

 

You don't come off an expert on really anything Ender.

 

Yeah but addressing those issues will take hundreds of years to finally resolve, if ever. What should be done for security in the mean time? Just suffer the attacks on the hope your great grandchildren won't deal with them?

 

Great way to perpetuate the cycle there General.

"But it's so far away and what about the children?"

Let me put it this way - what's killed more people, terrorism or guns?

 

I think you can do both and I don't think it will take hundreds of years either. At the moment, the focus is entirely on security and declaring war on the terrorists, which just plays into the hands of the terrorists and escalates the conflict. I'm not hearing anything about what is going to be done to address the underlying causes of radicalisation.

 

Well progress could be made sure, but just look at race relations in the US for things that happened hundreds of years ago, fixing long seated inequality and prejudices that lead to isolation and segregation take time, and I doubt we'll see any major change in our lifetime even if everyone worked hard for it. Not saying we shouldn't try and do it, just saying I don't imagine the West doing their utmost to address the causes of radicalism... and still not having these attacks every month. It'll be the next generations that we'll change and save, the ones we currently have... very unlikely we'll be able to change them.
I mean yeah your idea will absolutely be something we SHOULD and NEED to do to stop this from happening, it's just that's the long term solution. Doing that won't stop new attacks this year or even the next. So if that's our long term solution... what is the short term?

 

This isn't remotely comparable to the US, race relations in the US, or anything else in the US.

One specific minority population of a minority population in Europe, which is variously multicultural (the US isn't) or assimilationist (the US is), feels so absolutely marginalised by wider society. They do not feel like they have an identity and are easy targets for radical ideology which offers them a sense of identity and purpose. Their parents have embraced, in most cases, a European identity. So it's an inter-generational thing too.

You cannot compare this to America. At least not seriously.

 

Ok then. I'm not too hung up on the terminology as I was hoping the explanation of my position would get my point across, but sorry if I incorrectly used terminology that made my POV confusing. As I said, I'm not claiming to be an expert.

I don't think you have to sacrifice intelligence to have security. Would you at least agree that intelligence work and security work are related, but are not the same thing? It's not like if you assign some security forces and bomb sniffing dogs to major transport hubs, you are then required to subtract that many workers from intelligence gathering.

And just because we can't stop all bad things from happening doesn't mean we don't try to stop as much as we can. Again, like with the example of guns, the argument you're making is actually the one that the NRA makes. Essentially, "bad people will always find a way to kill, so taking away their guns is pointless". And yet you understand the sense in doing so, because at least if you take away their guns you make it harder for them to kill large numbers of people. To me, it's the same with trying to add security circumstantially to obvious soft targets.

Again, we don't just throw our hands in the air for instance and say, "well, if someone really wants to crash an airliner from on board they can probably do it, so why have airport security screenings to keep them from bringing in explosives, or lock cockpit doors?"

All I'm saying is that it's the duty of solely the security side of things to try to make it harder for terrorists to kill citizens out in public places. That's what they exist for, and I believe when you have good reason to think terrorists might imminently attack crowded public transport hubs (which not only kills people but also disrupts a key public service), if you're in the business of security you should at least try to mitigate the threat to some degree. That's one of the major reasons the police exist in the first place.

As I said, this should in no way diminish the responsibility and emphasis placed on intelligence-gathering. I definitely am not arguing that we just sit back and wait for the terrorists to attack, and just hope we can save some of their intended victims. I think the first line of defense should always be intelligence gathering.

But none of that should stop the police from also trying to prevent loss of life at places that are likely to be targeted.

I don't know... the intelligence agencies get blamed as much as security forces. You always hear discussions like, "How could they not have known about this" or "why did they question this person but let him go" or "why didn't someone report something to the authorities". The intelligence community is called into question for every failure, even though they may also have stopped other terrorist attacks that we'll never know about.

Going by your logic that they're just going to be blamed for inevitable failures and the public will demand more of them... why should intelligence services try hard to stop attacks? They're just going to happen anyway and then they'll be the ones blamed.

Of course that's a silly question. Likewise, I think it's also silly to ask "why should security forces try to save more people when inevitably some people will still die and they'll be blamed for not doing more."


Finally I'll just note that generally what I actually hear after a terrorist attack or (in the US) mass shooting where security elements intervened is not, "why didn't they stop anyone from dying" but usually more along the lines of, "thank God this person was there! People died and that's terrible, but the police prevented even more people from being killed." Maybe that kind of sentiment doesn't happen in Europe, though.

 

No I'm saying right now what you probably have post 11 September is the most saturated coverage you can. We cannot realistically move units from one area to another without something else being a bit exposed. We have, in other words, taken passive enforcement as far as it can reasonably go and even if we doubled the physical presence of guards and dogs we still wouldn't be able to stop attacks from happening. Imagine if you will a fortress that's incredibly well guarded, yet someone moving quickly and quietly could slip in. That's a broad metaphor for where we are.

The problem and limit with democracy is that, as you see in coverage (I love how Rolling Stone's gone with "Will this affect the election?" as a good fear inducing headline), people get scared. And they want comfort. So they yell at elected officials and threaten to vote for the toughest sounding politician. So the incumbent also gets tough and blah blah blah, now we have to divert resources from HUMIT gathering enterprises to frontline troops.

Because seeing someone visibly standing there with an SMG reassures us and the only cure for our instant, manufactured outrage and fear these days is a calming, assuring lotion. Highly visibly, but unrewarding, police presence etc.

The Belgian attacks, basically are a thing that was always going to happen. Where and how many is the question; where there's a will, there's a way and their will is a firmer iron than ours.

Asking could there be more security? Aspect of fear talking, though you don't realise it. Partially because you figure if you're in that situation, you would want to know it couldnt' happen again and partially because you think that'll somehow make a difference.

I've not even touched on, because I hoped you or someone else would, what effect more militarised security has on future radicalisation.

The best thing we can do is change nothing visibly. Redouble the clandestine work, and be unaltered in public.

 

That's not really an either/or thing there Ender. And it's a lot easier to define a gun - related death - they got shot, which killed them - than it is to define terrorism. Which wars do we count? What methods? Variously, the American colonists, the IRA, the Chechnyan fighters, the Taliban, Hamas, etc etc have been described as freedom fighters or terrorists, sometimes by the same people.

My intent in suggesting the Israeli methods was because they work, are less costly and intrusive than our current methods, and should decrease time lost in transit. It was not something to fix the underpinnings, hence the second half of my post. We have to heal that too, but there's no reason not to do both.

 

They don't work though. They in fact very much contribute to the underlying causes of terrorism with a commitment that's frankly admirable.

If a people can be relied upon to dehumanise opponents and perpetuate a cycle of misery, it'll be Israel.

 

So only you realize my intentions, but I don't? I'm not personally afraid of any terror attacks, because I understand probability. Honestly, police don't make me feel more safe. Sometimes the opposite. But they can serve a purpose. And as far as caving to ISIS "changing appearances"... well, perhaps my perspective on this is somewhat American, because bomb-sniffing dogs are commonly seen at American airports. So they don't actually seem reactionary at all, but rather proactive. And they're certainly not a scary sign that the terrorists are winning.

You know what I genuinely think when I see bomb dogs? "Awww a dog! I wish I could pet it but it's working ". It's no different than seeing a guide dog. It's just a dog to me, not a reassurance that I shouldn't be afraid or something.

 

On the issue of terminology, Ender Sai, interesting that you cite an article from a publication that, by your standards, are also a bunch of "drivelling idiots".

 

You mean this?

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/mar/22/islamic-state-brussels-jihadis

Islamic State can’t win in Brussels – we are fighting hate with love

Bleri Lleshi
People are afraid here, that is normal. But the way to show that the jihadis are wrong is through solidarity and support
Bleri Lleshi is a Brussels-based political philosopher, author and youth worker. He blogs here

Sorry, I'm sure you had a point here?

 

Yeah because look what your first response was. Innately you went for the idea that not enough was done to prevent this physically. Security, you said, was not good enough. Your instinctive reaction was not towards defiant solidarity; it was "with more cops and sniffer dogs this wouldn't have happened."

To be fair, the reason I said you're unaware is that I don't think many of you realise how much the US just thrives off a climate of fear. People on both sides of the gun debate, for example, take it as a given that guns provide a measure of personal protection in the home. There's no evidence for this, but you accept it - the provision that there's something to be afraid of, and something else can bring comfort from that fear.

If you want to see why I say this, have a look at the reactions of your compatriots - and they run a spectrum, for sure - to this. Politicians, posters on the JC, Facebook friends. Then look at how Europeans and Belgians respond. Tell me the responses are cut from the same cloth?

I mean people there in the US fret about the threat from Daesh. You guys have literally the least to worry about, because your Muslim diaspora is not subject to the same challenges the diasporas here or in Europe are. And there's less evidence of American Muslims going to fight for Daesh, or coming back from that fight, or spreading pro-Daesh imagery and messages and trying to incite domestic attacks. But the conventional wisdom is their ultimate target is the US.

Have you considered why that is, and if it's even actually true?

I'm reasonably sure you'd be one of the few people solojones to actually take a step back here and go "huh..." when the realisation hits...