London Bridge/Borough Market Terror Incidents

[UKMikey]

I missed the second link, my mistake. But as I said above, the implication is crystal clear.

To you perhaps. @DLR_Mysterion said Khan was wrong to argue that terror attacks were part and parcel of living in cities because he could think of a few cities in which they didn't happen. That's why it's important to note the distinction. I'm pretty sure that it's possible for big cities and especially capitals all over the world to be prepared for terror attacks without being in a constant state of terror themselves.

 

[Vegard]

Be more scared of fear, than terrorists.

In the long run, for the average citizen, more is lost through fear of terrorist acts than is lost through terrorist acts.

 

[Johnnypenso]

The reason this discussion came up in here and in the Manchester thread was because of people who said, or were asking whether we should be fearful of being a victim of terrorism. Fear of something is, logically, governed by the chances of it happening to you. The statistics of these events underpin this whole debate.

Emotions and logic are often unrelated. People are afraid of all sorts of things that can't hurt them at all. We don't live in a world where we are governed by logic.

 

[MeanElf]

Be more scared of fear than terrorists.

In the long run, for the average citizen, more is lost through fear of terrorist acts than is lost through terrorist acts.

Indeed, this is the point of acts of terror. Conventional warfare has a different aim but terror units are designed to strike disproportionate levels of fear into the lives of the people they oppose, who think they are safe outside the warzone.

 

[homeforsummer]

It doesn't mean cowering behind the curtains but should be used to to heighten awareness and have personal precautions in certain situations.

Yet statistically the risk is still low. Why (and how?) would you be any more prepared for terrorism than you would be for any other potentially dangerous situation in a city, like crossing the road or walking down a dark alley?

Arguably, there's very little that some of those killed on Saturday could have done differently to not be killed. London is absolutely full of white vans and any one of them could career onto the pavement at any second and kill dozens of people. Sometimes it's a lorry, rather than a van. It's a situation that's difficult to mitigate without going nowhere near a road.

Terrorism makes this particular scenario more likely, admittedly, but given that the risk remains so low and given we spend most of our lives within a certain proximity of white vans, it shouldn't really warrant a significant change in behaviour.

 

[ryzno]

“part and parcel of living in a great, global city is you’ve got to be prepared for these things, you’ve got to be vigilant, you’ve got to support the police”

You shouldn't have to be prepared for "these things". They shouldn't happen in the first place. If officials did their job and rounded them up for their actions/crimes/link to groups, we wouldn't have this problem. But noooo, god forbid you infringe on the rights of a group of murderers...

 

[homeforsummer]

You shouldn't have to be prepared for "these things". They shouldn't happen in the first place. If officials did their job and rounded them up for their actions/crimes/link to groups, we wouldn't have this problem. But noooo, god forbid you infringe on the rights of a group of murderers...

That's more than a little simplistic.

Police cuts haven't helped. Struggling to keep track of groups online without impinging even more on the privacy of the general public doesn't help either. Stopping one or two individuals hiring a van and buying some big knives and doing what happened on Saturday is very difficult indeed, because such things probably require very little planning or communication before they're carried out - and intelligence relies on being able to predict movements based on the planning and communication of others. Something like the Manchester bombing might have had a chance of being stopped, but a couple of indoctrinated nutters with a van? Bit more difficult.

And I doubt "Infringing on the rights of a group of murderers" is really a thing given all involved were shot and killed by police within minutes of the first pedestrian being hit.

 

[Scaff]

You shouldn't have to be prepared for "these things". They shouldn't happen in the first place. If officials did their job and rounded them up for their actions/crimes/link to groups, we wouldn't have this problem.

Umm that statement can be applied to any form of crime, and that aside do you honestly thing its possible to stop all form of terrorism in its entirely? As that would be the only way for you not to need to be prepared for it.

But noooo, god forbid you infringe on the rights of a group of murderers...

It doesn't even come close to saying that at all, quite the opposite.

How on earth do you get from being prepared to fight terrorism by remaining vigilant and working with the police to that?

 

[ryzno]

Umm that statement can be applied to any form of crime

It can. And guess what, when they do gang raids here, you can get 5-10 years just for being affiliated with gang and never do anything criminal. They don't wait for something to happen before they go round people up. They should do it more often!

and that aside do you honestly thing its possible to stop all form of terrorism in its entirely? As that would be the only way for you not to need to be prepared for it.

Yes. Lock them all up and kill them. Saves tax money and innocent peoples lives.

 

[Famine]

And guess what, when they do gang raids here, you can get 5-10 years just for being affiliated with gang and never do anything criminal.

So you can get a criminal conviction without doing anything criminal? Or is being affiliated with a gang a crime?

Lock them all up and kill them.

Lock who up? Kill who? How do you know who's a terrorist until they've done some terrorism?

 

[ryzno]

Or is being affiliated with a gang a crime?

It is, in GA anyways. We have very strict gang laws. We also have anti-gang task force.

How do you know who's a terrorist until they've done some terrorism?

Well I don't know what they do, but the officials always say "we had them on our watch list"(obviously they weren't being watched good enough). So obviously they know they are at least communicating something suspicious.

 

[Famine]

It is, in GA anyways. We have very strict gang laws. We also have anti-gang task force.

So they are, in fact, doing something criminal.

Well I don't know what they do, but the officials always say "we had them on our watch list"(obviously they weren't being watched good enough). So obviously they know they are at least communicating something suspicious.

Being on a watch list is enough for you to say someone should be locked up and killed?

 

[ExigeEvan]

Yes. Lock them all up and kill them. Saves tax money and innocent peoples lives.

Saves how many innocent lives? How many innocent lives do you potentially take through miscarriage of justice?

 

[TRGTspecialist]

Emotions and logic are often unrelated. People are afraid of all sorts of things that can't hurt them at all. We don't live in a world where we are governed by logic.

Err......yeah?

Unless you're implying that this is fine, or a good thing, I don't know what your point is.

 

[MeanElf]

...Yes. Lock them all up and kill them. Saves tax money and innocent peoples lives.

Presumed guilty before trial got too many people hung in the UK and eventually was responsible for the death penalty being removed. The US and UK have very different approaches to law enforcement, as can be seen by how full your prisons are, even after a wave of mass pardons. Has having so many people in prison helped curb crimes in the US? Have your own security forces (FBI and HS) been able to identify and stop the terrorists who happen to be white from their mass shootings?

 

[DDastardly00]

You shouldn't have to be prepared for "these things". They shouldn't happen in the first place. If officials did their job and rounded them up for their actions/crimes/link to groups, we wouldn't have this problem. But noooo, god forbid you infringe on the rights of a group of murderers...

I couldn't agree with this more. Between Manchester and now this, there were obvious glaring deficiencies in intelligence gathering and monitoring of ISIS linked individuals. The agencies responsible for monitoring these individuals missed the Red Flags of the individuals that carried out these attacks, that can't even be argued at this point.

Now we can do 2 things, we can sit here and blame the budget cuts, May and other things (as some in this thread have already suggested) or we can expect accountability from the agencies involved, own the problem and move forward with solutions to fix these intelligence gaps. I would rather not play the blame game and instead would rather move forward with solutions to minimize these occurrences from happening.

 

[DLR_Mysterion]

No he said being prepared for attacks are part and parcel of living in a big city.

“part and parcel of living in a great, global city is you’ve got to be prepared for these things, you’ve got to be vigilant, you’ve got to support the police”

He did not say that terror attacks were, he said being prepared was, supporting the police was and being vigilant was.

For someone who has recently had a bit of a crusade about click-bait headlines, you seem to have walked right into one.

I'm so confused! It's normal we have to be prepared and vigilant and accept a hyper police presence for something that isn't going to happen because it is out of the ordinary?

How do these posts get so many likes!

 

[Scaff]

I'm so confused! It's normal we have to be prepared and vigilant and accept a hyper police presence for something that isn't going to happen because it is out of the ordinary?

How do these posts get so many likes!

I guess because others don't confuse easily.

What that has to do with you quoting thing inacuratly and out if context I have no idea about.

What you seem to be confused about is that it's normal for people in positions of authority to reassure the public at times like this.

What's not normal is to attempt to quote mine it for propaganda.

 

[polysmut]

I'm so confused! It's normal we have to be prepared and vigilant and accept a hyper police presence for something that isn't going to happen because it is out of the ordinary?

How do these posts get so many likes!

If we're prepared and vigilant then on those rare occasions that somebody wants to go on a killing spree they can be stopped either before they execute their plan or quickly after they attack. Hence the statistically low number of casualties from such acts.

 

[Scaff]

It can. And guess what, when they do gang raids here, you can get 5-10 years just for being affiliated with gang and never do anything criminal. They don't wait for something to happen before they go round people up. They should do it more often!

Yes. Lock them all up and kill them. Saves tax money and innocent peoples lives.

So the rule of law should just get thrown out.

For who exactly.

Oh and we tried internment during the troubles, that backfired. If you want a way to help radicalise even more people, locking them up indefinitely without trial works really well. I mean gitmo shut down all terrorist activities in the states didn't it?

 

[Famine]

I'm so confused! It's normal we have to be prepared and vigilant and accept a hyper police presence for something that isn't going to happen because it is out of the ordinary?

What's the confusion? Every developed country, every major city, every major public venue and most large buildings have emergency planning. It will cover everything from nuclear war and alien invasion (yes, really) for nations down to "In the event of fire...".

It is part and parcel of a large city to plan for terrorism, a plane crash or earthquakes, and to have action plans for these circumstances.

Airlines plan for crashes. They tell you about it before you take off. It's part of flying on an aeroplane.

Standing up and shouting "PLANES SHOULDN'T CRASH" at the flight attendants during the safety demonstration chronically misunderstands just about everything in every way possible.

 

[Tornado]

Some of us must have watched very different versions of Minority Report.

 

[ExigeEvan]

I'm so confused! It's normal we have to be prepared and vigilant and accept a hyper police presence for something that isn't going to happen because it is out of the ordinary?

How do these posts get so many likes!

To put it in a really simple form, fire drills.

Your house probably has a smoke alarm. Your school. Your workplace. The fire alarm is possibly tested weekly. You probably do a few fire drills a year.

But have you ever been in a building that actually caught fire? So is it wrong that we all maintain this level of constant vigilance?

 

[Touring Mars]

You shouldn't have to be prepared for "these things". They shouldn't happen in the first place. If officials did their job and rounded them up for their actions/crimes/link to groups, we wouldn't have this problem. But noooo, god forbid you infringe on the rights of a group of murderers...

I agree that more could be done to follow up on reports of extremist activity, but in order to actually detect specific activities that will culminate in a terrorist attack by anyone, we would need to go several steps further such as changing the law to allow far greater intrusion by the state/police, and therein running the risk of 'throwing the baby out with the bathwater' by creating a society/state where extremists define our laws and everyone loses their civil liberties.

As such, these extremists are not merely exploiting loopholes in the law - they are exploiting limitations of the law. And as has been said previously, we disregard or abolish these limitations at our peril - not least because in doing so, the extremists will have achieved one of their most sought-after aims... to change our society from a free and open one to something totally different, undesirable and dangerous. It is simply not feasible nor advisable to expand the power of the state or the security services to allow people to be held merely on the suspicion that they are about to commit a crime - the limit of the law is that we can and should only apprehend those who are breaking the law. In that regard, it becomes necessary to be able to gather intelligence (and use it) effectively without infringing on the hard-won civil liberties of the general public. The police and intelligence services already have the power to disrupt extremists in numerous ways, so for me it is more a question of ensuring they have adequate resources in order to do their jobs effectively.

 

[Scaff]

What's the confusion? Every developed country, every major city, every major public venue and most large buildings have emergency planning. It will cover everything from nuclear war and alien invasion (yes, really) for nations down to "In the event of fire...".

It is part and parcel of a large city to plan for terrorism, a plane crash or earthquakes, and to have action plans for these circumstances.

Airlines plan for crashes. They tell you about it before you take off. It's part of flying on an aeroplane.

Standing up and shouting "PLANES SHOULDN'T CRASH" at the flight attendants during the safety demonstration chronically misunderstands just about everything in every way possible.

When you've already drunk the kool-aid, logic and normality can look quite confusing and scary.

 

[ryzno]

Being on a watch list is enough for you to say someone should be locked up and killed?

They did something to get on the list...

How many innocent lives do you potentially take through miscarriage of justice?

None if they do their job right.

Presumed guilty before trial got too many people hung in the UK and eventually was responsible for the death penalty being removed.

As I've said, they did something to get on the list.

Has having so many people in prison helped curb crimes in the US?

Yes to an extent. They aren't on the streets anymore.

Have your own security forces (FBI and HS) been able to identify and stop the terrorists who happen to be white from their mass shootings?

Actually yes, but not at what I would consider an acceptable rate. And I think they should be dealt with too.

So the rule of law should just get thrown out.

For who exactly.

Yes. For any group that be considered a terrorist group, including street gangs. Look at it as a criminal purge.
They don't care about our laws... Then they get some lawyer would finds some loophole to get a murderer off the charges, so they can get released and continue doing what they do best, terrorizing the community.

When you've already drunk the kool-aid, logic and normality can look quite confusing and scary.

That comment can easily be twisted to fit both sides...

 

[Scaff]

Yes. For any group that be considered a terrorist group, including street gangs. Look at it as a criminal purge.
They don't care about our laws... Then they get some lawyer would finds some loophole to get a murderer off the charges, so they can get released and continue doing what they do best, terrorizing the community.

Define terrorist?

Or is it now anyone who breaks the law as determined by .........

That comment can easily be twisted to fit both sides...

Only one side is quote mining right now.

 

[DLR_Mysterion]

What's the confusion? Every developed country, every major city, every major public venue and most large buildings have emergency planning. It will cover everything from nuclear war and alien invasion (yes, really) for nations down to "In the event of fire...".

It is part and parcel of a large city to plan for terrorism, a plane crash or earthquakes, and to have action plans for these circumstances.

Airlines plan for crashes. They tell you about it before you take off. It's part of flying on an aeroplane.

Standing up and shouting "PLANES SHOULDN'T CRASH" at the flight attendants during the safety demonstration chronically misunderstands just about everything in every way possible.

There's a dissimilarity between the two. You acknowledge that it is for a large city to do this just as it is for an airline, but his statement was for the general public. I disagree with his assertion that, to quote:

“Part and parcel of living in a great global city is you’ve got to be prepared for these things, you’ve got to be vigilant, you’ve got to support the police doing an incredibly hard job."

Why should I have to be prepared? Why should terrorism be part of my life?

Are the people of Tokyo, Melbourne, Sydney, Budapest, Reykjavik thinking it's "part and parcel" of living in those cities to be vigilant for terrorism?

-----

Does anyone find it a tad ironic that the people "liking" the opposing argument are the same people who "liked" posts saying they didn't want to know more about the Manchester bomber and his histories.

Ignorance it seems, truly is bliss

 

[ryzno]

Define terrorist?

Or is it now anyone who breaks the law as determined by .........

All I'll say is my theory is open to more than actual terrorists like Dylan Roof.
Street gangs terrorize their communities everyday. We have a new trend of a few people waiting at gas stations ironically in stolen cars, waiting for unsuspecting people, to either steal something out of their car or the whole car. We just had a lady get run over by her own stolen car, not to long ago.
In my opinion the word terrorist can fit a number of groups. Terrorism comes in many forms.

I wish I could post The Von Haessler Doctorines Facebook Live pod cast here(he's a libertarian if you care). They touched on the subject of simply deporting/kicking people out on watch lists.

 

[polysmut]

They did something to get on the list...

Visiting certain countries for a friend's wedding could put you on a watch list. Depending on the criteria that are set. Is that heinous enough to get you locked up and killed?

None if they do their job right.

By doing something wacky like having a fair trial & convicting criminals who are proven guilty beyond reasonable doubt?

As I've said, they did something to get on the list.

I saw Goody Proctor with the devil.

Yes. For any group that be considered a terrorist group, including street gangs. Look at it as a criminal purge.
They don't care about our laws... Then they get some lawyer would finds some loophole to get a murderer off the charges, so they can get released and continue doing what they do best, terrorizing the community.

You should meet Mr. Kim.