wow that's some excellent security europe.
and the republicans over here want to use that to deny refugees as if these days we treat security as blasé as europe.
News Thread 2015
y va marquer wrote:Irish gunner wrote:Mocking is fun, and can be constructive and informative.
when innocent people are dying due to these distortions of religion.
B-b-but if Islam is the religion of peace, surely Muslim extremists would just be extremely peaceful?
IG do you think this kind of na na na post is actually contributing something to the discussion?
It's contributing to my amusement, and you've repeatedly told me to not take tolly discussions too seriously, so I'm not.
damn ive lost +4 rating, im not sure what ive said thats so controversial.
how am i ever going to get to +69 at this rate?
Anonymous have closed down around 10,000 ISIS Twitter accounts and are spamming ISIS members with "Never Gonna Give You Up". 
Who says the state didn't know about their movements? The older Kouachi brother was in jail for 18 months prior to the Hebdo attacks for funneling fighters to Iraq. Immediately after the attack French authorities knew about their involvement but for some reason they were unable to prevent him from amassing shotguns, RPGs and assault rifles in the build up to the attacks. As a side note they also immediately knew that their 18 year old brother-in-law was driving the getaway car despite dozens of classmates seeing him in school during the shooting.
Why get rid of your Kouachis and Salahs if you can use them to full effect later on?
Irish gunner wrote:y va marquer wrote:IG do you think this kind of na na na post is actually contributing something to the discussion?
It's contributing to my amusement, and you've repeatedly told me to not take tolly discussions too seriously, so I'm not.
Poor judgement, very poor.
Not so keen on seeing how things that I have said are twisted or to see a lack of basic cop on being shown in a thread that's quite fraught at the moment.
jones wrote:Why get rid of your Kouachis and Salahs if you can use them to full effect later on?
Don't you think it's a bit irresponsible to float theories like that without more to substantiate them?
With IS actively seeking the same kulturkampf as right wing Europeans, the latter have no need to conspire in terrorism.
It's a reality that these militant groupuscules are very hard to police. As that Schneier article pointed out, the suspects go on a very long watchlist, and very few of them accrue enough reasons to merit arrest before it's too late.
jones wrote:arsedoc md wrote:Beg to differ. Lived with Hindus, muslims, christians and buddhists. Nobody initiates violence just because of religion. Stating such things callously only offends peaceful people who go about their daily but have an important place for religion in their heart and lives.
The violence comes mostly when there is powerplay in the picture. Fucked up leaders fuel it.
Mocking religion in such a context is frankly pretty juvenile at this time when innocent people are dying due to these distortions of religion.Pretty much the essence of the essays I've been typing out on the last few pages. Agree especially with the mocking part; since when has it ever been a good idea to mock anyone?
It's not a person that's being mocked, it's an idea. This is exactly the problem - many religious types think that their ideas are extremely special because they involve a deity and consider criticism of those ideas to be some kind of personal attack. Why can we mock silly communist and fascist ideas but not religious ones? Perhaps people have an important place for those ideas "in their heart and lives" as well.
Religious sensitivities should not be a reason for restricting freedom of speech, because quite frankly you never know what someone may find offensive for completely irrational reasons. Consider that the Catholic Church found Galileo's heliocentrism to be extremely offensive.
Hard to imagine anyone who's serious about anything coming out of a dialogue would resort to mocking. Difference between constructive dialogue and silly mocking- it's what juveniles do in school to score cheap points. Why mock communists or fascists either if that'll only lead them to be angry and loss of lives, when there could be other ways of speech and communication?
Invoking freedom of speech, - it's so very selective in the first world itself, - just so people can have cheap thrills out of mocking someone's faith...not sure very productive. If A says religious sensitivities shouldn't be a reason to restrict FOS, and B says that it should why should we listen to only A? That ain't democracy, is it now? Especially when B is clearly in the world majority.
Mocking by definition is to evoke fun and inferiority in the 'mockee'--strange to call it can be constructive and informative. Like saying terrorism could lead to great advances in security and safety
More crap in Mali unfolding. http://www.cnn.com/2015/11/20/africa/mali-shooting/index.html
mdgoonah41 wrote:damn ive lost +4 rating, im not sure what ive said thats so controversial.
how am i ever going to get to +69 at this rate?
Go (micro)soft on their asses. (i'm bad at puns, sorry)
Burnwinter wrote:jones wrote:Why get rid of your Kouachis and Salahs if you can use them to full effect later on?
Don't you think it's a bit irresponsible to float theories like that without more to substantiate them?
With IS actively seeking the same kulturkampf as right wing Europeans, the latter have no need to conspire in terrorism.
It's a reality that these militant groupuscules are very hard to police. As that Schneier article pointed out, the suspects go on a very long watchlist, and very few of them accrue enough reasons to merit arrest before it's too late.
From my point of view it's as reasonable a theory as the official version that saw them identified within minutes of the killings taking place. Especially the teenage boy who according to the police was the driver; if that doesn't scream foul play I don't know what does.
As you know the truth behind large, paradigm shifting incidents like these often don't surface until many months, years or decades later; I'm not saying I know the actual events any better than anyone else but that it's sensible to stay critical of any reports coming from any of the parties involved.
Another example of this was how immediately after the Bataclan murders there were reports of the attackers screaming Allahuakbar and "This is for Syria", which were shortly afterwards refuted by every single witness of the attacks.
You're right in that the IS seeks the same clash of cultures that the right wing in the West is fanning the flames for, but that does not necessarily mean the latter will rely on the former to exacerbate the current toxic climate. The Soviets as an example were not exactly fond of the NATO member nations, but that didn't keep US generals from concocting deeply inhumane plans like Operation Northwoods either.
Regarding your last point; it is certainly true that these watchlists are very inefficient but at the same time the police in any Western country post-9/11 have never been hesitant to arrest anyone for the most miniscule of reasons if they were somewhat terror-related. I was 13 years old when I was arrested by the SEK for leaving a mosque which was suspected of housing Osama Bin Laden in 2003. After sitting with two broken ribs in a cell for four hours I was let go with no charges against me, in the aftermath I learned that an anonymous phone call was enough for the police to raid the mosque with tracking dogs and arrest fourteen people with no charges. Needless to say that Bin Laden never even left the Hindu Kush, let alone hid in a mosque in central Europe.
And that's comparatively innocuous compared to the hundreds of innocent men who were and are to this day detained in places like Guantanamo Bay, for ridiculous reasons like being related to combatants in the Middle East or similar. Again, not to say every state knows every movement of any subversive element in its own ranks, but more often than not there's more than enough reason to doubt the official version of events.
The French police were slow to release information regarding the attackers, two remain unidentified.
The early reports from the Bataclan were unofficial.
The truth behind this is more likely to be that the murderers were known to police, but were not being specifically tracked or under surveillance in the run up to the attack.
The suggestion that the security forces had any inkling that these men were plotting a killing spree and allowed them free rein to do so is pretty unbelievable.
The official version of events is not always the absolute truth but my instinct with regard to the Paris attacks is that intelligence and security were a good few steps behind the cell who went on the rampage last Friday.
I go by experience, not instinct. There have been cases sounding far less likely than the scenario outlined above, involving states actively encouraging and perpetrating terrorism against their own population.
People doubting authority reports on all sorts of events usually are ridiculed in the immediate aftermath, several years later when the story has been lived down you will still read about the actual plots in the background on wikipedia. I find it unbelievable how people can certainly rule out any scenario in a time where wikileaks release cables that refute official versions pretty much every week.
I'm not one for buying conspiracy theories in the aftermath of mass murders perpetrated by the morally bankrupt.
The suggestion that the attacks in Paris were actively encouraged by the French state sounds paranoid in the extreme to me.
I wasn't trying to convince you with my opinion, feel free to believe whatever you want.
I have to say though, for someone who complains about the rough tone some posts here have you sure don't pull no punches yourself. I'd appreciate you refraining from calling me paranoid, unbelievable and similar just because I happen to disagree with you.
I didn't personalise my post Jones,there is no "you" in there, no accusations.
I said the suggestion sounded paranoid, I believe it to be the case.
If I said "only an idiot would believe the official story" that would be an accusation without any "you" in it as well. If I believed that to be the case I still wouldn't include it in my posts because it's not helpful to the discussion.
Referring to a suggestion as paranoid is not the equivalent of implying somebody is an idiot.
This exchange is not doing this thread any good, I suggest we leave it here.
If you feel aggrieved Jones would you PM one of the other mods please and we'll see how they want to deal with this.
It's semantics and little else. A suggestion cannot be paranoid, people who make them are.
I don't feel aggrieved. I made a suggestion on how to improve the earlier discussion before it drifted off into this non-matter. Given the negative response I agree we should leave it here.
@[deleted]
When we talk about conspiracy we move from the structuring tendencies of society and the state to the analytics of risk and reward for individuals or for small cadres within the "deep state" …
In the case of prejudiced, heavy-handed policing in a racially polarised community there is little or no risk, which is why these behaviours become systematic, and why Darren Wilson becomes a millionaire cause célèbre rather than a pariah after shooting Mike Brown to death.
(Can I just say though, what you relate about your own experiences is a disgrace to the authorities.)
By contrast, if preparations for the horrific attacks in Paris were in any way known of, and allowed to progress by any French official it would be enough to tear careers apart and generate long jail terms and enormous public fear and loathing. The risks are very high.
Given what was in the balance for anyone in the position to enact such a criminal conspiracy, unless there's more substantial evidence, I think we'd be better off accepting in this case that jet fuel can melt steel beams.
Another example of this was how immediately after the Bataclan murders there were reports of the attackers screaming Allahuakbar and "This is for Syria", which were shortly afterwards refuted by every single witness of the attacks.
This sort of critique I agree with—along with the instant skepticism about claims the attackers had entered France posing as refugees—but this is a case of embellishment by sociopathically racist journalists, rather than anything to do with plans made before the fact. In any case, as it turns out, if the attackers did not truly yell "God is great!" they might as well have done, since they were religious fanatics.
I think it more likely that the scenarios that could potentially involve the authorities hiding the truth are those which involve the crackdown on suspected terrorists.
In relation to the shootout in St.Denis: there have already been two official versions of how Boulachen died.
In the first she was reported as having detonated her suicide vest, in the second we are now told that she died when Abaaoud detonated his.
As of now the third body has yet to be identified.
The question as to whether the deaths of all three could have been avoided has yet to be asked, the notion that they could have been arrested and taken alive does not seemed to have been considered (maybe it was impossible, I don't know, but the reports of what happened are confusing).
I don't know at what level of the organisation Boulachen was working, I don't know if she was armed, I don't know if she'd tried to give herself up.
There have been stories that she called for help but it's difficult to establish where this news originated, therefore it only feeds uncertainty as to what happened during the police raid on that apartment.
The police and the state have to be scrutinised, challenged and held accountable for loss of life in the course of their campaign to weed out terrorists.
It should not be accepted that the outcome of police raids follows the pattern of events in St. Denis.
Security threat in Brussels now raised to level 4, apparently because they want to take out Salah today. Never mind that he's been in the city for a week now. Belgium is such a joke
He should surrender.
Just seen this interview with one of the policemen involved in the shootout at the apartment in St. Denis.
"She pretended to want to give herself up"
Pause.
Maybe she did want to give herself up?
It's not quite a conspiracy when the police report favourably on their own operations, so much as the public at large becoming aware that this is what they always do.
"In fair Verona, where we lay our scene"
Burnwinter wrote:It's not quite a conspiracy when the police report favourably on their own operations, so much as the public at large becoming aware that this is what they always do.
I didn't say it was a conspiracy.
The point I was making was that they are liable to do more than "report favourably" if they're not held to account for loss of life in circumstances like those in St.Denis.
N Burnsy didn't say you did
German interior minister pointing out one of the elephants in the room.
What did he say Banduan?
"Report favourably on" was an elegant understatement for "lie through their teeth about" to be honest. When they kill someone and they're in the wrong, they don't file it that way.
Such lovely people.
Google the EDL on Youtube and you won't find anything more comforting.
All cut from the same aggressive, dysfunctional, violent cloth.
All happy to latch on to a reason to lash out and inflict pain on whatever random innocent is unlucky enough to get in their way.
Burnwinter wrote:Google the EDL on Youtube and you won't find anything more comforting.
The fact that there's a different extreme doesn't make either acceptable.
y va marquer wrote:What did he say Banduan?
Sorry thought you guys were more on the ball with this than me. I'm still half in pain.
Burnwinter wrote:@[deleted]
When we talk about conspiracy we move from the structuring tendencies of society and the state to the analytics of risk and reward for individuals or for small cadres within the "deep state" …
In the case of prejudiced, heavy-handed policing in a racially polarised community there is little or no risk, which is why these behaviours become systematic, and why Darren Wilson becomes a millionaire cause célèbre rather than a pariah after shooting Mike Brown to death.
(Can I just say though, what you relate about your own experiences is a disgrace to the authorities.)
By contrast, if preparations for the horrific attacks in Paris were in any way known of, and allowed to progress by any French official it would be enough to tear careers apart and generate long jail terms and enormous public fear and loathing. The risks are very high.
Given what was in the balance for anyone in the position to enact such a criminal conspiracy, unless there's more substantial evidence, I think we'd be better off accepting in this case that jet fuel can melt steel beams.
I appreciate the gesture.
I agree that the risks are much lower when it comes to "heavy-handed policing" (in other words legalised murder) than with events of this magnitude. And I also think it is a real possibility that the preparation for the attacks have gone completely unnoticed.
However given the fact we have no way to examine/confirm any statements coming from the state because the suspects are all conveniently dead I think it sensible to remain critical. I guess it might be a personal thing as well, but even leaving that aside over the years I've read up on a lot of information of state sanctioned and even sponsored terror, and these cases are not just in third world countries.
I'm not sure how much information is available about the NSU terror cell in English to give a very recent example, I've waded through hundreds of pages of publicly available documents to understand who supported and allowed a Neo-Nazi organisation to murder and bomb people all over Germany for about 15 years without anyone noticing anything. What little I found out is basically a concession of a deep state; right wing extremists working for the security agency, KKK members as state policemen, witnesses allegedly committing suicide left and right and thousands of documents "accidentally" destroyed for no reason, and that's just the tip of the iceberg. Honestly, when I first got into the case I considered emigrating asap.
Sure, this case might be completely unrelated, my point however is more that these events have been proven beyond doubt; had anyone claimed they happened just four years ago however they also would have been ridiculed to no end because of lack of evidence. Back in 2006 the bereaved families were even told by the police that the murder victims were very likely to be involved with organised crime, despite evidence of the true culprits being in the hands of the state for a good while already. I could go on for days about this case, but I'll leave it here to not completely go off on a tangent.
My point is I don't see a reason why France wouldn't be capable of these same crimes. My grandfather who lived most of his life in Paris often talked about how he saw French policemen killing more than 200 Algerians and their French supporters in 1961 by tying their hands and throwing them in the Seine, with some of the bodies drifting on the river for weeks. Back in the 1990s there was no way to verify his story until the French government acknowledged it in 1998. For the last two examples the state didn't even have a real reason of committing those atrocities, for that reason I think it's not unlikely and definitely not impossible they would do similar when there are real political interests behind them happening.
Burnwinter wrote:In any case, as it turns out, if the attackers did not truly yell "God is great!" they might as well have done, since they were religious fanatics.
But were they?
Anyone managed to see this?
@[deleted]
Fair play to your rejoinder about the euphemistic phrase "heavy-handed policing" when it does run the gamut from racialised stop-and-search through to legal murder.
Of course any observer should remain sharply critical of, and skeptical of official accounts, among other things because law enforcement almost inevitably lies or embellishes its reports. But we should retain a corresponding skepticism about resistant accounts, and conspiracy theories which don't yet have much evidence to support them.
I believe in a "deep state" in the sense that individuals and groups make undocumented decisions to further interests which are somewhat carefully kept secret from the public. Then there's a softer category of little acknowledged bureaucratic influence, within which a concern like the Eurogroup exists, and many other unelected committees and groups that don't even have a name, each of which has its own interests, its own stakeholders and sources of funding.
There are also whole industries and governmental complexes which stand to increase their influence by the renewal of conflict. Weapons manufacturers, intelligence departments, NATO, and Frontex are all examples. So there is motive to amplify European anxiety and xenophobia regarding Islamic State and the Middle East, much as IS has its own motives to amplify that fear and loathing.
Historically there are many examples of implausible covert operations with an enormous scope. Once you learn about Operation Gladio, official reality becomes treacherous.
Although I didn't know anything about the NSU terror cell previously, I'd draw a similar distinction between what I've now read and the Paris attacks as I did when I compared them to racist policing. The NSU, a German neo-Nazi group attacked and killed non-white immigrants, but the Paris attackers killed indiscriminately from the metropolitan French population and in great numbers. Horrific as their actions were, no one will ever start a military campaign because Nazis murder Turkish migrants in Germany.
The relatively enormous risk is what makes it harder for me to believe that a deep state interest aiming at geopolitical provocation knew of, and condoned the Paris attacks. That doesn't mean ruling out foul play, but for me it does mean focusing suspicion elsewhere.
For me the fishiest locus in the broader geopolitical narrative is that around the transition in Syria—the Free Syrian Army, the militarised "moderate opposition" which seems to be an elaborate CIA confection. Since the Paris attacks precipitated a sudden thawing of relations between the US and Russia over Syria, the political base of the FSA is now implicitly being questioned even in conservative publications like the Washington Post.
banduan wrote:But were they?
Most of them have died, which marks them as fanatics willing to die, and their actions have been claimed by a group that calls itself religious. So far I believe they were religious, even if the Islamic mainstream disavows them—much as the Branch Davidians were religious even though my Catholic relatives wouldn't have called them Christians.
If you're saying maybe they were ops, well my response is more or less what I've written in response to Jones.
Loylz wrote:Anyone managed to see this?
Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has a phd in Islamic studies from the University of Islamic studies in Baghdad. I doubt he's ignorant on this issue. There's also the ridiculous conspiracy theory combined with anti-Semitism in this tweet.