Smoke/Explosions in Brussels

[Milefest]

[video=youtube;qdjArlHB8k8]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdjArlHB8k8[/video]

 

[medhead]

Been in touch with a colleague in Belgium. They're ok.

Exactly, telling them that heaven includes 100 virgins or whatever nonsense and diatribe they sprout. I do like it when they are killed, as I'm sure they find out for themselves that what they were sprouting is a load of bull droppings.

There was an excellent doco on discovery channel or Nat Geo where a guy analysed the basis for the virgins thing and concluded it was a mistranslation. The key difference being that the accepted translation assumes (one language) but the text itself is much old so that it should have been translated from (another closely related language). I can't remember the names of the languages, but that's not important. The punchline is they actually get a bunch of grapes (from which they're supposed to make wine).

Swmbo wants to know what the female martyrs get. Surely their reward isn't having to suffer 1000s of inexperienced men.

Dare I say - Educating the Women?

Educating all of them. The vast majority have the philosophical educational level of the average peasant in the middle ages. listen to the priest and don't question them. The point was recently made that an islamic reformation began in the late 18th century. Drawing a parallel with the Christian reformation this stuff is going to continue for a long time yet.

In fact they probably need some education on relations with the opposite gender. virgins are the worst option eva.

Is there a more credible source for this story than CM?

It wouldn't make much sense - they had so much planning and they didn't consider getting a taxi that would be too small? And if they did get a taxi too small, why wouldn't they book a another/second one? They had the finances to pay for it and it would be even more suspicious leaving some of your bags behind..

If that story is true, many of the survivors around the blast might not have been so lucky.

The version of that story I read included the taxi driver saying they'd ordered a bigger taxi and were angry when he turned up. Seems a credible possibility. Not sure why they didn't wait for a new taxi. Perhaps because they had to make the news cycle.

 

[QF WP]

There was an excellent doco on discovery channel or Nat Geo where a guy analysed the basis for the virgins thing and concluded it was a mistranslation. The key difference being that the accepted translation assumes (one language) but the text itself is much old so that it should have been translated from (another closely related language). I can't remember the names of the languages, but that's not important. The punchline is they actually get a bunch of grapes (from which they're supposed to make wine).

Swmbo wants to know what the female martyrs get. Surely their reward isn't having to suffer 1000s of inexperienced men.
SWMBO has also decided that if they are videoing people with certain expertise then I need a cyanide tooth to do the right thing and prevent divulging the location of the family.

I really must research that more thoroughly - but martyrdom and the promises of what they're told Allah has waiting for them must be a powerful pull. Then again, for every young male that dies, it reduces the capacity to procreate and spread the evil further.

The version of that story I read included the taxi driver saying they'd ordered a bigger taxi and were angry when he turned up. Seems a credible possibility. Not sure why they didn't wait for a new taxi. Perhaps because they had to make the news cycle.

Seems this is the back story...
Taxi driver leads police to hideout
Belgium police have recovered nail bombs, chemicals and an Islamic State flag after a taxi driver recognised suspects in police photos and led investigators to where he picked up his fare. Belgium media is reporting that the taxi driver who took the suspected suicide bombers to Brussels airport said he remembered them as they had refused to allow him to help with their luggage. The driver has taken police to an address in Schaerbeek where they searched several houses.
https://twitter.com/HLN_BE/status/712393984950206464

 

[Foreigner]

That cab driver should be commended.

 

[QF WP]

Looks like the wanted person is the one quoted in this story (Najim Laachraoui): https://au.news.yahoo.com/a/3116713...ic-state-bombers-in-brussels-attacks/?cmp=ydn

 

[scaredeycat]

Excuse my political incorrectness but surely our civilisation is dealing with a small number of very dangerous people who want to kill as many of us as possible. If caught plotting acts of mass murder by the police and found guilty, shouldn't they be executed? I do understand the arguments against the death penalty and that there are many examples of condemned prisoners being exonerated by new evidence: I also understand the debate regarding cruel and unusual punishment. I was outraged by some of the appalling excesses of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay but these people conspiring to destroy our very way of life are not just criminals - they are soldiers fighting a war. They should be shot.

 

[irv]

I don't believe this is the forum to address how these situations are dealt with, having said that the countries under attack and those as a potential knows where the Caliphate is located because they have told us. Leave it at that.

 

[lovetravellingoz]

Excuse my political incorrectness but surely our civilisation is dealing with a small number of very dangerous people who want to kill as many of us as possible. If caught plotting acts of mass murder by the police and found guilty, shouldn't they be executed? I do understand the arguments against the death penalty and that there are many examples of condemned prisoners being exonerated by new evidence: I also understand the debate regarding cruel and unusual punishment. I was outraged by some of the appalling excesses of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay but these people conspiring to destroy our very way of life are not just criminals - they are soldiers fighting a war. They should be shot.

If it is one thing they are not, it is soldiers.

After WW2 a psychologist interviewed the war criminals there on trial. What he identified in all of them was a complete lack of empathy. This is what we have here. Butchers who believe that anyone and everyone is expendable to their wants and desires. Some may well masquerade as being religious, but they are not. They are evil brutes who relish being butchers and feed on misery and fear. They enjoy dominating through mass murder, rape and torture. Zealotry is just a mask to allow them to run riot.

 

[medhead]

Excuse my political incorrectness but surely our civilisation is dealing with a small number of very dangerous people who want to kill as many of us as possible. If caught plotting acts of mass murder by the police and found guilty, shouldn't they be executed? I do understand the arguments against the death penalty and that there are many examples of condemned prisoners being exonerated by new evidence: I also understand the debate regarding cruel and unusual punishment. I was outraged by some of the appalling excesses of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay but these people conspiring to destroy our very way of life are not just criminals - they are soldiers fighting a war. They should be shot.

I think we need a more sophisticated way to deal with these people. It is a battle of ideals that needs to be won, not physical prowess. The west will always win the physical battle. but it is very rare that such overwhelming power will win the war, possibly never if we look back over the post war world 2 period. Malaya being one exception, possibly because of a different approach to applying power. But that's another discussion.

The battle of ideals is won by consistently applying your values, that means you don't selectively decide to execution one mob of bad people and not others. If I was going to accept that argument then I'd be torturing, slowly and painfully, to death pedos and all those people who bash toddlers long before I'd execute these clowns. We should be consistently treating these people according to the civilian crimes they commit, that is the strength of our society and the weakness of their beliefs. We certainly shouldn't treat them as soldiers fighting a war.

A fine point I've heard a number of times is that we also need to get more focused in our language. Move away from "Islam" and "Muslims" to focus on these people who all follow Wahhabism, apparently. Identify the true enemy.

Also claiming these people are soldiers fighting a war does not support a call to execute them. Recognised soldiers are specifically protected from arbitrary execution.

 

[dajop]

If caught plotting acts of mass murder by the police and found guilty, shouldn't they be executed?

Not withstanding the fact that the ringleaders are most definitely not putting themselves in harms way, many of the perpetrators (on the ground in the countries of such attacks) are intent on martyrdom and suicide. It would seem that death penalty might not be a deterrent for this group.

 

[moa999]

I unfortunately think Europe will now drift right... And would not be surprised to see Israel style policies against terrorists

 

[Duffa]

In the early 1980's, a prominent UK psychiatrist interviewed a number of IRA men, who had been convicted of murder during "The Troubles". He then went to England and interviewed an equal number of convicted murderers, serving similar sentences.
Amongst the Irish cohort, he found the incidence of psychopathy, or other pathology, to be negligible.
Amongst the control group, the figure was close to 100%

Just sayin"

 

[JessicaTam]

[mod hat]
Post to the topic or don't post at all
[/mod hat]

 

[Foreigner]

Travelling through major European gateways may mean more security checks, queues, time. More time to be allowed for check in and being at departure gate.

 

[legroom]

Travelling through major European gateways may mean more security checks, queues, time. More time to be allowed for check in and being at departure gate.

Come to think of those security checks, the reports from the "home countries" of Iraq, Afghanistan.... suggests that the 100-virgin chasers would be just as happy to shout "Allahu Akbar" at crowded market places.

We would be forever chasing our tails in this manner given that their moral compass is not aligned with 'norms'.

Could we screen people boarding a crowded bus ?

The bus queue itself ?

The queue at the museums in certain European cities is not exactly sparse.

Until the silent majority starts to actively engage their twisted pseudo-religious mythology with actionable intelligence, we would continue to fight this using the rear view mirror.

 

[Foreigner]

It's a difficult challenge dealing with the types of threat we have recently seen.

 

[clifford]

see Israel style policies against terrorists

I don't think so, Europe (at least the Western part) is not that one-eyed, or ultra right wing.

BTW, I decided to change my travel plans for 23 March, when I was booked to fly MAN-CRL-CPH. Didn't have to, but also didn't want to get caught up with what was happening in Belgium that day. Changed my trip to LHR-OSL-CPH. Quite pleasant and uneventful as it turned out.