Explosions at Brussels' Zaventem airport and Maelbeek metro station

[Sanji Himura]

In that case I'd suggest that you adjust your sense of proportion. The US matched those figures in a single year with mass shootings, by population (300 million to the Middle East's 150 million).

Define what is a Mass Shooting. Not even experts here in the US can get that definition straight. Also, despite what our government says, there were plenty of terror attacks (see the Fort Hood incident) that were classified as a mass shooting when in reality it was a terror attack.

 

[TenEightyOne]

Define what is a Mass Shooting. Not even experts here in the US can get that definition straight. Also, despite what our government says, there were plenty of terror attacks (see the Fort Hood incident) that were classified as a mass shooting when in reality it was a terror attack.

I don't need to because it's irrelevant to my reply. I'm happy to say "in mass shootings or terrorist incidents in the US".

 

[Sanji Himura]

I don't need to because it's irrelevant to my reply. I'm happy to say "in mass shootings or terrorist incidents in the US".

No, the point is that we have a clueless *** in the White House who rather than hop on Air Force One and be in talks with the Belgian Prime Minister about how to hunt down the people who are ultimately responsible (who are alive) for this tragedy, he goes out and enjoys a baseball game in Cuba. I don't think not calling a shooting a terrorist attack, especially one on religious grounds, is outside the realm of possibility for this bozo that we have as a president. Obama needs to do HIS job and actually be a world leader in the face of adversity for once instead of a celebrity.

BREAKING NEWS: According to the US Embassy in Brussels, there is an ongoing police raid going on in the neighborhood of Schaerbeek. US Citizens are advised to avoid the area.

 

[Johnnypenso]

In that case I'd suggest that you adjust your sense of proportion. The US matched those figures in a single year with mass shootings, by population (300 million to the Middle East's 150 million).

So what? It still doesn't make the problem with ISIS small or tiny. 1280 people are dead through ISIS terrorism outside of the war zone. Comparing it to a completely different problem doesn't make it small either or change it in any way.

 

[Dennisch]

Obama needs to do HIS job and actually be a world leader in the face of adversity for once instead of a celebrity.

Polishing up that tarnished bond with Cuba is also his job. Brussel, or better said, Europe needs to show that it can handle **** like this without running to the USA for help. They act like a Mighty United Europe, they should start acting like a Mighty United Europe.

Instead we get politicians who have their tragedy speeches all synced and memorised. At least Obama isn't afraid to send a couple of bombs to answer the call of terror. It took 2 attacks for France to finally wake up and start acting. The rest of Europe talked. And that was it.

I'll say it again. The time for a Schengen agreement is over. I, and probably plenty of others, am willing to surrender my convenient no passport travelling for border security.

 

[Dotini]

How do we become secure?

Pluralism and inclusivity is the key, they say.

Brussels is the most cosmopolitan city in Europe. Half the people there are from somewhere else.

The government of Belgium can't get it's act together. That's why the intelligence and police functions are in trouble.

"Maelbeek", or however you say it, needs help.

 

[N0t_L3fty]

The terrorist doesn't really care who he kills including himself. The only way to fight them is to treat them like rats & eliminate the nest. The current attempts to control them isn't working. Europe is at war & no one bothered to warn them. The latest invaders were welcomed with flowers.

 

[dxm8975]

Jesus, This is so sickening and discouraging to hear and read as usual, that an alike bombings to those happened in Paris last November could arise again in Europe - especially at the Brussels which is the capital of Belgium and where lots of immigrants with different cultural backgrounds / homelands reside altogether nearby, and is one of the popular destinations for the graduation trip for lots of university students in Japan around this time of the year during their winter break along with the neighbouring France and Germany. Although we already had similar bombing attacks tons of times in Turkey and Syria for months, I got a huge turn at these news regarding bombing attacks in Europe, farther from those two countries and tends to be considered as being "safer" in general by comparison.

As there is a Iseshima summit conference in Mie prefecture this May we just can't turn a blind eye to what is gonna possibly happen in my country in months to come, and to those retards who have no other options but resort to their violence as showing off the sign of their "power".

I read some of the news articles of the Brussels bombings, and this time it seemed like there were two Japanese men who got embroiled in the explosions at the Maelbeek station...(one of them being in serious condition and the other being injured "slightly", I can translate the articles written in Japanese if you are interested) I just hope they and all of the injured people would recover as soon as possible, and all the condolences to those perished in those two attacks.

I doubt it. An attack like this takes a lot of planning. What I do expect is that Abdeslam and his friends were expected to play a role in today's attacks, a la Paris, by shooting at people. Last week the police found a lot of guns at his previous hiding place.

Yeah I think so too - since I saw in today's news in the morning that the local policemen detected a couple of additional bombs in both the Maelbeek subway station and the Brussels airport which are both of the spots where those two suicide bombings took place - which clearly means that it has to take them a longer period of time to launch a attack like this, independent of the arrest of Salah Abdeslam which by any chance could be the prompt.

 

[Dotini]

This madness must be stopped,
and I will stop it.

It's time to get tough.

- Donald J Trump

 

[Sanji Himura]

Polishing up that tarnished bond with Cuba is also his job. Brussel, or better said, Europe needs to show that it can handle **** like this without running to the USA for help. They act like a Mighty United Europe, they should start acting like a Mighty United Europe.

Instead we get politicians who have their tragedy speeches all synced and memorised. At least Obama isn't afraid to send a couple of bombs to answer the call of terror. It took 2 attacks for France to finally wake up and start acting. The rest of Europe talked. And that was it.

I'll say it again. The time for a Schengen agreement is over. I, and probably plenty of others, am willing to surrender my convenient no passport travelling for border security.

My, frankly, pointed statement was more along to the fact that he had the audacity to attend the Baseball game instead of actually doing something presidential. Neither of the Castro brothers were at the game, according to some reports[EDIT: I did see some video, and Raul was at the game], AND instead of having the kindness to actually spend that time productively, as would any head of state...

That is neither here or there, to be honest. The fact remains, and that is something that I am willing to leave to the America thread, is that Obama really had no business in being down there to begin with. Our standing with Cuba was perfectly fine for 53 years, so what is the real reason for the push for normalization?

 

[N0t_L3fty]

Well unless asked for help I can't see what the US can do. The Donald is just flapping his gums because he knows it isn't on us. This is a problem the EU has to deal with on their own. Well they could drag us into it by claiming it is a NATO issue. Are they going to let us bomb the slums where thess critters hide & plan their attacks? Not likely. I've been flipping channels, all the the political hacks are out there making sure they don't let a crisis go unused.

 

[Johnnypenso]

Apparently an ad was created a couple of months ago openly mocking the idea of terrorism in the city.

http://www.mediaite.com/tv/brussels...hs-ago/#ooid=93a3c4MjE6kzLFSRxzTBt969bFWNxy2L

 

[prisonermonkeys]

Polishing up that tarnished bond with Cuba is also his job.

I found Ted Cruz's response to be particularly appalling, implying that Obama had some knowledge of an imminent attack in Europe and disregarded it for the sake of getting chummy with Anerica's enemies.

 

[Soundtrack]

Two out of three of the Zaventem airport kamikazes have been presumably identified, they where suspected of having provided logistic help in the Paris attacks and the police was closing on them . The advances of the investigation may well have precipitated yesterday disaster.

 

[Rage Racer]

 

[DCP]

Very well said.

 

[mister dog]

Terrorists identified as brothers Bakraoui, and the guy that escaped from the Vorst apartment last week.
1 brother Bakraoui was sentenced to 9 years in prison in 2010 for a violent armed robbery, the other one was sentenced to 5 years in prison in 2011 for a bunch of carjackings.

http://newsmonkey.be/article/65005

That's the Belgian justice system for ya! They were already released on the streets and could go and do as they pleased... Major fail once again. So it pretty much comes down to these being the guys that were hiding out together with Abdeslam and escaped that Vorst appartement last week, and Belgian intelligence weren't able to catch them in time.

 

[HKS racer]

European Union at its "prime".

 

[Soundtrack]

Because it's that easy…

 

[mister dog]

Because it's that easy…

View attachment 529382

Point being that you catch them before they actually reach the airport...

 

[prisonermonkeys]

Point being that you catch them before they actually reach the airport...

If only it were as easy as you make it out to be, I'm sure Belgium would have thwarted the attack.

 

[Soundtrack]

Radicalisation inside prison environment doesn't look like a Belgian exclusive… Complexity is complex...

 

[TenEightyOne]

Point being that you catch them before they actually reach the airport...

We should employ more psychic judges and police officers. We should, as additional protection, give life imprisonment for all crimes "just in case". That's the only way to stop all robberies, murders, any crime for that matter.

EDIT: Meanwhile, Najim Laachraoui has been arrested. BBC.

EDIT II: No, he hasn't, a suspect was "misidentified".

 

[prisonermonkeys]

We should employ more psychic judges and police officers. We should, as additional protection, give life imprisonment for all crimes "just in case". That's the only way to stop all robberies, murders, any crime for that matter.

The problem is that people assume that because terrorists are violent and barbaric, they're also stupid, which is why we get comments like "you just catch them before they carry out the attack". But we already know that they are intelligent - after all, they realised that large, co-ordinated attacks were relatively easy for the authorities to monitor, and so turned to the lone wolf style, which has been considerably more successful.

In war, one of the worst things that you can do is under-estimate your opponent. And ISIL are ready-made to be under-estimated because they adhere to an ideology that we don't understand and readily dismiss as madness.

 

[mister dog]

For starters, 9 years + 2010 = 2019, 5 years + 2011 = 2016. One would have still been behind bars, and the other would only have been released this year so there's a good chance they wouldn't have been able to perform their attacks if their sentences were served in the first place. But in Belgium everyone gets paroled at about half the time of their sentence currently.

Then i'd figure that when this kind of scum is released, they would still be followed up for a while afterwards to see if they behave. One already shot at police officers with a Kalashnikov for god's sake.

But that is these cases in particular. We know most of them are hiding in the outskirts of Brussels, it's just that the police doesn't have enough means to go there and track them down effectively, as illustrated by Salah Abdeslam being able to hide right under their noses for 4 months, probably being protected by part of the community there.

IMO this whole situation is one big fail by our politicians and justice system. They did nothing for the last 20 years which created these no go migrant neighborhoods that serve as a hotbed for potential terrorists, then they are far to easy going with criminals because our justice system is more focused on protecting the rights of the criminals than the victims. And last but not least they are only able to implement half arsed measures in light of a serious crisis as the focus is more on being political correct, and to not 'provoke' the migrant communities, than to actually go in there and clean out this mess.

My 2 cents of course as a Belgian.

 

[Liquid]

I think Belgium has a multitude of problems with its immigrants stemming from a colonial legacy it has failed to address under modern scrutiny.

There are statues, schools and all sorts named after Leopold II and I can fully accept that the Congolese and wider French-speaking immigrant community in Belgium feel quite bitter about that.

Much like the UK, it's arrogant to have spent 150 years plundering a foreign land and imposing imperialism on "barbaric savages" and then palming those people off when they look to move to the supposed mother country. You cannot have it both ways and a failure to balance these problems results in cross-community tension.

Even then, from what I understand at least some of these terrorists were born and raised in Belgium. It's not just people coming in who are "causing trouble".

 

[TenEightyOne]

Naajim Laachraoui has not been arrested, a suspect was "misidentified". Whether this was a genuine error or a deliberate red herring is unknown.

 

[mister dog]

I think Belgium has a multitude of problems with its immigrants stemming from a colonial legacy it has failed to address under modern scrutiny.

There are statues, schools and all sorts named after Leopold II and I can fully accept that the Congolese and wider French-speaking immigrant community in Belgium feel quite bitter about that.

Much like the UK, it's arrogant to have spent 150 years plundering a foreign land and imposing imperialism on "barbaric savages" and then palming those people off when they look to move to the supposed mother country. You cannot have it both ways and a failure to balance these problems results in cross-community tension.

Even then, from what I understand at least some of these terrorists were born and raised in Belgium. It's not just people coming in who are "causing trouble".

Congo was our colony. Molenbeek is mostly Moroccan/Algerian territory. It's not Congolese people setting off bombs right now.

There is no excuse for terrorism, ancient history or colonial legacies should not matter in the slightest bit.

 

[Liquid]

Congo was our colony. Molenbeek is mostly Moroccan/Algerian territory. It's not Congolese people setting off bombs right now.

There is no excuse for terrorism, ancient history or colonial legacies should not matter in the slightest bit.

I was approaching the topic more broadly.

 

[Johnnypenso]

I was approaching the topic more broadly.

Sounded to me like you were making excuses for terrorism and blaming events from a century or more ago when no one alive today was around.

I found Ted Cruz's response to be particularly appalling, implying that Obama had some knowledge of an imminent attack in Europe and disregarded it for the sake of getting chummy with Anerica's enemies.

Have a link to that?

If only it were as easy as you make it out to be, I'm sure Belgium would have thwarted the attack.

No one said it was easy. When was the last time you heard of a major terror attack on an Israeli airport or plane? Israel has the biggest target in the world on their collective backs but the best safety record.