The ISIS threat to Europe

[foreveryoung]

On 18/11/2015, 20:38:11, AshVilla said:

 

Edit

Edited November 20, 2015 by foreveryoung
Quoting playing up still!

[foreveryoung]

4 hours ago, YLN said:

I certainly don't. My lifestyle is entirely dependent on the people in the third world having very very little. And sure if that means I run the lottery of being killed in a terrorist attack from time to time, then fine. Rather that than not getting delicious thai food delivered and playing xbox one and having the fastest broadband available. And certainly a lot of children will die due to their poverty, but that's how it's always been. Every time I spent €60 on a night out instead of giving that money to a charity, I am blinding children. So if you want to improve the quality of life of those less fortunate, it can be left up to those who have so much more than me. It is harder for a rich man to get into heaven than a camel through the eye of a needle. This now makes sense, when you consider the death and misery on genocide proportions that billionaires are indirectly responsible for through their greed. 

Or I don't know, whatever. 

Not sure if serious?

But if you are, fair play, cause this is one of the truthest (is that a word?) posts spoken in this thread, an for that sir I respect you.

[snowychap]

12 hours ago, snowychap said:

13 hours ago, OutByEaster? said:

I see Donald Trump is continuing his common sense approach to dealing with this delicate situation - following on from his claim that the Paris situation would not have happened if the French adopted common sense gun laws that let everyone carry one all the time, he's now suggesting setting up a database of all muslims living in the US, or even ID cards, so that they can be clearly identified and monitored.

Donald, if you're looking for something more practical, perhaps you could just stick a yellow star on them?

 

To be fair to him (which is probably more than he deserves), I think the reported stuff is from a Yahoo News interview with him and this was where the database thing came from:

That wouldn't rule out him saying that he came up with the idea if/when he does moot it as policy.

There's a clip on the Grauniad's website that suggests it may now be his policy.

[VILLAMARV]

So in Belgium they've cancelled all football matches this weekend. Troops out in the streets of Brussels. Metro shut down. Just closed 2 shopping centres.

EDIT: all matches in Brussels

Edited November 21, 2015 by VILLAMARV

[StefanAVFC]

12 hours ago, foreveryoung said:

Not sure if serious?

But if you are, fair play, cause this is one of the truthest (is that a word?) posts spoken in this thread, an for that sir I respect you.

truthful.

[Keyblade]

Truest :D

[blandy]

20 hours ago, YLN said:

Poor people are miserable. We also understand you have pretty much no education. You know why you're miserable? It's because the West have taken everything. That's why they can afford to spend so much money in these hotels and you have nothing. It's because they've taken everything. Are you angry about that? Let me justify that anger, by telling you that God wants you to exact retribution against them. How does that sound? Here's a gun.

Terrorism is a direct consequence of us having lived for so relatively well for so long, and people in the Third World living so poorly.

No, I profoundly disagree. The situation you describe is a contributory factor, but not the cause. And Bicks is on the right lines when he talks about "The current wave" of terrorism - because it's more of factor, perhaps.

I just really don't think that the terrorism going on around the world - the suicide bombings at the peace rally in Turkey, the regular atrocities in Syria and Iraq, the Russian airliner being downed by a bomb - these are not " a direct consequence of us having lived for so relatively well for so long..".

That's a massively simplistic and inaccurate verdict, I think. There are multiple factors at work. There is for example religionist idiocy. There is the Bush/Blair calamitous idocy (that's too mild a name for it, but I can't think of the right words). There is the greed and lust for power of some of the people at the head of AQ and Daesh an all the other nutjob groups. When the ISIS attacked, murdered, raped those Yatzidis - that wasn't because the west has iPods and fast internet and cars and shops, was it?

And it's the same group that attacked the Russian airliner and the Yatzidis and Paris. It's the same group trying to take over Syria. It's the same group that did genocide in the Christian enclave of Syria.

The west has done many ill advised, grossly wrong, appalling things, yes. But still the terrorism isn't the direct consequence of that.

And one other side note: When I say the West, I mean the Governments of some of the western nations - I don't mean us as in all of us who live there. We're no more responsible than is the normal peaceful Muslim population of (wherever you choose to name) for the terror.

[PompeyVillan]

IS was born out of a power vacuum, civil war and sectarianism.

The West has had its hand in the spread of Wahabism, but it is not directly responsible.

It's interesting to note that many commentators are suggesting that religion plays a less significant part in radicalisation than many think. Indeed, I don't remember who, but a recent group of young converts heading to Syria bought a copy of Islam for Dummies before they went. Certainly not Zealots.

In our country it's about lack of integration, disenfranchised youth and insular communities. People that relate more closely to the borderless cause of IS, their wider Islamic family, than the country of their birth.

[maqroll]

Brussels on lockdown this morning, tense times.

[YGabbana]

47 minutes ago, AshVilla said:

The media do not care about Nigeria though

Not a big enough country to warrant getting on the front page of a western tabloid

Not picking on you or your post, yours is just the latest similar thing I've seen on here or on social media and I just don't think its right. Or at least I don't think it signifies the things people are suggesting.

Have the attacks in Paris got more media coverage than recent events across the Middle East? Yes absolutely but I just don't buy the accusation that their is a deep rooted hypocrisy at work, that people think lives have different values or its evidence of deep rooted racism. 

Think back to 2013 and the Westgate Mall attack in Kenya, it was all over the news and social media. Or the kidnapping of the girls, or the school massacre by Boko Haram.... there are other examples.

The sad truth is that lives don't have different values but stories do have different values to media outlets. The more shocking the event the more coverage, its what sells, what gets viewers that gets the coverage. Oh and it helps it its an hour and half from Fleet Street getting that coverage.

In terms of the public, I'm afraid its a sad reflection on the world that some events are simply more shocking than others. And yes, a series of co-ordinated attacks in Paris just down the other end of the tunnel is more shocking than events in places in the world where these things happen more frequently.

Its tragic that these things happen anywhere, its even more tragic that in some places they are so 'the norm' that they get little coverage but I just don't buy it that that is hypocrisy, that is shows underlying racism or betrays peoples views that some lives are worth more than others.

Actually, some racists probably do think that but they are few and far between and not betrayed by the odd French flag image on FB.

Rant over and as I say not directed at you, more at the ether.

At my place of work, there was a minutes silence for the Paris victims, the national anthem was also played.

Same day we found out that 262 Russians were murderd by ISIS (plane bomb), the day before that 200 people injured and 50 dead in Lebanon.

So i asked the management at work why would we not be doing a minutes silence for them? The answer was they knew very little about those attacks and Paris is 'close to home'.

So yes, hypocrasy is in play mainly by the media who refuse to show us in depth what is going in in the world, certain countries lives arent valued as much im afraid.

Also spoke to a friend who is Yemeni and he told me there are hundreds of civillians being murderd daily in yemen by saudis bombing campaign, i barely see anything about that either.

[Xela]

Apologies, I may have read this wrong but you only found out about the Russian plane crash/bomb the same day as the Paris bombings? Where do you live, Narnia? 

In answer to your question, I think its because the Paris atrocity hits home for us westerners more because its in our own back yard. The Russian plane attack was in Egypt, the Middle East is 'over there' and even the Brits killed in Tunisia, as horrible as it was, was in North Africa and I don't know whether people could rationalise it by saying, its happened in a Muslim country therefore if we don't go there we will be ok. Paris could have been London or New York or Birmingham. It resonates with us because we can see ourselves in a bar on a Friday night or at a gig like the victims. 

 

[snowychap]

2 hours ago, Xela said:

I think its because the Paris atrocity hits home for us westerners more because its in our own back yard.

Though I understand and agree with this (that effects can be, and are, magnified by proximity) that also holds true for things other than physical proximity such as cultural, 'religious' or historical proximity.

I can fully understand why some people who feel an affinity with places where other things occur (for those reasons described above) can get the impression, when people (even innocently) group westerners together as a homogeneous 'us', that they will struggle to belong to or be accepted by that group.

[NoelVilla]

Belgian police urges people not to tweet where they see them and reports now of shots fired.

[Demitri_C]

And as we feared some of these IS people came as "refugees" we all knew this was going to happen. might have been kind taking them in but all those innocent lives lost

[TrentVilla]

On 22/11/2015, 08:44:09, YGabbana said:

 

At my place of work, there was a minutes silence for the Paris victims, the national anthem was also played.

 

Same day we found out that 262 Russians were murderd by ISIS (plane bomb), the day before that 200 people injured and 50 dead in Lebanon.

 

So i asked the management at work why would we not be doing a minutes silence for them? The answer was they knew very little about those attacks and Paris is 'close to home'.

 

So yes, hypocrasy is in play mainly by the media who refuse to show us in depth what is going in in the world, certain countries lives arent valued as much im afraid.

 

Also spoke to a friend who is Yemeni and he told me there are hundreds of civillians being murderd daily in yemen by saudis bombing campaign, i barely see anything about that either.

Ignorance isn't hypocrisy.

I've already explained why I think the media coverage is different but you've either ignored it or chosen to disregard it. That's up to you but it doesn't make your assertion correct.

[blandy]

On 22 November 2015 at 08:44:09, YGabbana said:

... i asked the management at work why would we not be doing a minutes silence for them? The answer was they knew very little about those attacks and Paris is 'close to home'.

So yes, hypocrasy is in play mainly by the media who refuse to show us in depth what is going in in the world, certain countries lives arent valued as much im afraid.

Also spoke to a friend who is Yemeni and he told me there are hundreds of civillians being murderd daily in yemen by saudis bombing campaign, i barely see anything about that either.

It's inconsistency rather than hypocrisy, surely?  But you're right that death and destruction, in fact news in general, from some places gets less media interest and less reader/ viewer interest than news from other nations. It's true all over the world and the reasons are varied, but with some common traits and one of those traits is to do with how close is the country in question. If it's "local" then I think the media will feel more readers / viewers will know the place and will want to read or view the story. It's likely that the country will be an ally or friend. On a human level if my neighbour is arrested or robbed or has a child or dies this is of interest and news to me. If someone in London has a child or or is robbed or whatever, then though I may feel (if I were to read about it) some emotion, it's not going to be the same as for my neighbour.

Basically I don't think there's anything sinister in it. If there were to be a minutes silence for every time innocent people died from bombs and guns, no one would speak, no work would be done, so a combination of picking and choosing (inconsistently) and a kind of peer pressure ends up being the route followed for these silences. 

(This reply is about the silences. The stuff about Yemen, I think there's more to. From what we do know, there would seem to be an imbalance of media coverage for the level of horror going on)

[omariqy]

52 minutes ago, Demitri_C said:

And as we feared some of these IS people came as "refugees" we all knew this was going to happen. might have been kind taking them in but all those innocent lives lost

Unless I have missed something none of the suspects were refugees. They were either Belgian or French citizens.

[chrisp65]

In 2013 in the USA there was an average of 30 people per day shot dead. Every single day of the year. 1st January, 30 dead, 2nd January another 30, 3rd January another 30 right up through February, March, through the summer, past thanks giving, past Christmas. News Years Eve, another 30 people shot dead.

In between 2007 and 2014 the combined total of civilian deaths in Afghanistan and Iraq is estimated at something over 100,000. The number of drug gang related deaths in Mexico for the same period was over 150,000.

Mexican drug gangs might not be of interest to us though, right? After all, in 2014, we only lost 2,248 people to illegal drug deaths in the UK. What would our response be, if in 2016, 2,248 people died because of terrorists in the UK?

1,800 people died in road accidents in the UK in 2014. Can you imagine the outcry, if ISIS managed to kill 10% of that number of people on a motorway? We'd have new laws, new speed limits, more cameras, more police cars, stop and search at the services. 

I'm not trying to make any direct correlation. I'm just trying to grab a sense of perspective. We get the news we crave and the news that is 'fashionable' at any one time. Fear sells. Remember when dogs biting kids was a big problem? Well dogs haven't stopped biting kids. Cars haven't stopped hitting pedestrians, cocaine hasn't stopped killing dickheads.

The current story is terror and how it might directly impact 'us'. Paris fitted so well into the narrative. It looks more like our cities. We've been to Paris. The witnesses can speak english and give their testimony in english for us. It was always going to get more attention.

Whatever happened to the Ukraine? Did that one finish? 

[Demitri_C]

8 minutes ago, omariqy said:

Unless I have missed something none of the suspects were refugees. They were either Belgian or French citizens.

 on huffington post it states that it is believed that they came from Greece/Turkey posing as Syrian refugees

[Chindie]

9 minutes ago, omariqy said:

Unless I have missed something none of the suspects were refugees. They were either Belgian or French citizens.

One guy was yesterday identified as having traveled through Greece as a refugee in October, along with around 3 other men that they are now obviously interested in talking to.