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Ok, so we have a decent crowd here of seemingly bright people, from all kinds of backgrounds, im sick of reading about this the last few days. The question is an obvious one. Instead of blathering about all sorts of crazy things, and making travelling a LIVING HELL for the future, what can we realistically do about the whole blowing up planes thing?

I dont want any of the far right lot starting up with something that is clearly unworkable like, banning muslims from flying, killing or torturing people or banning planes from going anywhere. Lets have a few decent workable ideas?

Id say that the security checks themselves should be targeted. It's obvious to everyone where the threat comes from but the media and the government would rather expose the lives of innocent passengers rather than concentrate their efforts on the ethnic groups responsible and risk offending their sensibilities. ie. Do not worry about stopping 1000 white people and asian grandmothers if you have stopped 1000 18-30 year old Islamic males.

Also forget about political correctness when compiling a watch list. This terrorist in question should have been caught long before boarding.

A closer working relationship within the EU, the Commonwealth and the America's. (the 3 prime targets) So we actually swap info on current High Value Targets.

Possible Financial rewards for family members "ratting out" known terrorists (the Father of the guy arrested over this had warned his local embassy apparently)

Tougher Sentances for Attempts of Terrorism (dare i say, the Death Penalty? It seems pretty clear cut if you get jumped on by ten guys on a crowded plane right?)

Increasing security worldwide is vastly expensive and causes great inconvenience to all. The root cause is that these young men are causing havoc in the name of Islam. To murder on a huge scale in the name of religion is not acceptable and must be denounced and eradicated by both the Islamic and Political Leaders. ie No more pussy footing around Religions. Any of them.

And thats it off the top of my head. Im tired of reading about this already. I think that all of the ideas would help, and all they would do is slightly annoy a portion of the populous. I for one am sick of being searched, and not one single white guy from Middlesbrough has ever been connected to Islamic Terrorism. Rather than start strip searching all of us, should we not just start being a little tougher with the perps?

I think it is painfully obvious that political correctness is hampering all of our efforts and something must be done toprevent further attacks, and yet i do not want to engage in any very intrusive methods, right wing agendas or witch hunts. So, ive started, what IS a decent COA for the future?

Ignore it, it's incredibly rare in attempt and even moreso in success. It's not exactly a new thing. When you act against a shadow thats been there the entire time you just stomp on something you can't hurt. Wait for the sun to move or get a tan, it'll be ok.

Yeah i think ill just stay here, you sure we can ignore it though? I mean, im pretty left leaning for a military chap. I dont buy into the whole us vs them or armageddon thing, but.. i dunno.. if we totally ignore it, then surely something bad will happen. I figure they only need to get lucky once right?

How would the threat of the Death Penalty impact someone planning to die as an integral part of their mission?

You treat terrorism like a crime at your peril.

I'm pretty sure that there's no question when registering for your flight that asks for your religious background.

So how do you sort out Islamics from everyone else? Especially when not everyone Islamic follower is a Middle Eastern male, 18-30 years of age. They've captured quite a few Caucasian folks, and then you've got the Pacific Islander Islamic relationship, etc. There's literally no real profile for an "Islamic member".

The guy who was recently arrested, his father and family were worried because of the fact that his son was suddenly involved with extremist views. That's not always the case, especially if the family involved was already leaning towards extremist views. It doesn't matter how much of a monetary reward you offer--some things are not for sale.

The watch list is ineffective if the persons in question board a flight in a piss-poor country where bribery and corruption are rampant. Ex: what happened in this case. By the time the tip came in, the son was already out of the country with no records of having left, from what I remember.

There's really not that much that CAN be done in this regard other than wiping out Muslims. And I'm 99.999% sure that's not actually an option.

The hijack the planes and security went way up.
Guy makes bombs out of his shoes, and now you have to take shoes off in the airport.
Guys make bombs out of their sports drinks, and now liquids are banned.
How long until some terrorist mastermind starts to wonder what would happen if they made underwear into a bomb?

Kanlu, i asked for some sensible ideas mate, not a rebuttal of all the ones i threw out there. gak, its easy to do that, hence the Question! Its kinda a tough one isnt it?

Frazz, same goes for you, i wasnt asking for a witty retort to some of the stuff i banged out, i was asking for sensible workable ideas.

In reply i would say that many of the people involved in Terrorism are not intending to die. Indeed, only the biggest idiots get radicallized and then sent on their merry way to be martyred. The quarter masters, the loggies, tacticians, go betweens and trainers do not blow themselves up. None of the high rankers do. Death is a threat to them. And harsh penalty DOES reduce crime.

mattyrm wrote:
Also forget about political correctness when compiling a watch list. This terrorist in question should have been caught long before boarding.

I don't know how it works in the UK, but in the US the criteria for surveillance is closely associated with religious belief, and ethnic heritage. It has very little to do with being politically correct.

mattyrm wrote:
A closer working relationship within the EU, the Commonwealth and the America's. (the 3 prime targets) So we actually swap info on current High Value Targets.

This most likely happens already. The trouble is getting the various nations in question to agree on priority. Someone who's a danger to the UK isn't necessarily a problem for the US.

mattyrm wrote:
Tougher Sentances for Attempts of Terrorism (dare i say, the Death Penalty? It seems pretty clear cut if you get jumped on by ten guys on a crowded plane right?)

How would the death sentence deter someone who is likely to be a suicide bomber?

mattyrm wrote:
To murder on a huge scale in the name of religion is not acceptable and must be denounced and eradicated by both the Islamic and Political Leaders. ie No more pussy footing around Religions. Any of them.

Unless you plan on fighting a war or two, this won't help anything other than public catharsis.

mattyrm wrote:
I think it is painfully obvious that political correctness is hampering all of our efforts and something must be done toprevent further attacks, and yet i do not want to engage in any very intrusive methods, right wing agendas or witch hunts. So, ive started, what IS a decent COA for the future?

If all you want to do is stop the searches, you could advocate that people develop a thicker skin with respect to terrorist bombings. If no one cares about the deaths of the 300 random people, then there isn't much of a reason to prevent them.

More realistically: terrorism can be prevented by developing the competitive faculties of the nations from which most terrorists originate. Since that's not going to be feasible from a geopolitical standpoint, the best we can hope for is the minimization of successful attempts.

mattyrm wrote:Yeah i think ill just stay here, you sure we can ignore it though? I mean, im pretty left leaning for a military chap. I dont buy into the whole us vs them or armageddon thing, but.. i dunno.. if we totally ignore it, then surely something bad will happen. I figure they only need to get lucky once right?

We don't totally ignore it, if you remember the guy was caught. As have been many others. Airports have plenty of security already, and while not perfect it works as well as any human system can. We don't need additional "protection" as looking at the world today excessively being proactive about protecting yourself or your interests against terrorism does nothing but make it worse and waste a tonne of money. Post 9/11 the U.S. went into flight safety shock, wasting an immense amount of money for negligible gains. More people die form bee stings than from terrorism. People just get to get the hell over it.

Ummm.. not be paranoid wackjobs? Seriously. I was trying to board a plane last summer to go with my family to see my brother in Florida. My
carryon, a drawstring bag was taken, emptied out, and the contents searched for ten minutes. What was in the bag you might ask?

Chapstick, three paperback books, an MP3, and my notebook with a pen.

Yup. Those right there could be used to make a nuke.

Congrats Newark Airport: Your paranoid security officers have earned my undying rage.

Yeah Dog see above regarding suicide bombers, none of the upper echelons of the big terrorist groups blow themselves up. The idiots that get themselves arrested whilst flailing around an airport on fire are not the upper ranks of terrorist agencies. And those people can be frightened.

ShumaGorath wrote:

mattyrm wrote:Yeah i think ill just stay here, you sure we can ignore it though? I mean, im pretty left leaning for a military chap. I dont buy into the whole us vs them or armageddon thing, but.. i dunno.. if we totally ignore it, then surely something bad will happen. I figure they only need to get lucky once right?

We don't totally ignore it, if you remember the guy was caught. As have been many others. Airports have plenty of security already, and while not perfect it works as well as any human system can. We don't need additional "protection" as looking at the world today excessively being proactive about protecting yourself or your interests against terrorism does nothing but make it worse and waste a tonne of money. Post 9/11 the U.S. went into flight safety shock, wasting an immense amount of money for negligible gains. More people die form bee stings than from terrorism. People just get to get the hell over it.

Er, he wasn't caught, the bomb effectively misfired. Thats the point.
The Fort Hood guy wasn't caught either.


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Personally anyone on a Flight TO Detroit needs to be immediately put on a no fly list as being clearly deranged. Who wants to go TO Detroit?

There's nothing wrong with rebutting ideas which won't work.

Let's not set up "political correctness" as some kind of previously OK but now dangerous lefty idea. You need to read up about the problems of false positives in testing. Also we don't need to give Muslims extra reasons to be angry with us.

I agree with Shumagorath. Security cannot be 100% effective without the cost of totally crippling air travel. Suppose that bombers get the idea of swallowing bombs like drug mules swallow bundles of narcotics? Someone already did that in Egypt a few months ago.

Dont they have some sort of Total Recal style scanner thing currently being tested in Manchester that xrays under your clothes?

I read that was being shelved due to a lack of privacy. I am more than happy for people to look at my balls if it means i wait half as long in the airport.

Talk about a job you don't want to have...

mattyrm wrote:Yeah Dog see above regarding suicide bombers, none of the upper echelons of the big terrorist groups blow themselves up. The idiots that get themselves arrested whilst flailing around an airport on fire are not the upper ranks of terrorist agencies. And those people can be frightened.

They also aren't the people who will generally be caught in the act. See the 9/11 conspirators for reference. They didn't get treated with kid gloves when they were caught, and many prefer the death penalty (read: martyrdom) to life imprisonment (see British treatment of the IRA for evidence of that).

Fear isn't generally an issue for a terrorist. It isn't as though they expect to strike their targets and avoid all reprisal. They know that, if they get caught, it's likely to be the end of the line in some sense.

To me this is a clear indication that the security measures put in place need to be increased. People that find that an inconvenience just dont seem to get it. It was extremely fortunate the bomb did not go off and if it had things would definitely change.

G

Frazzled wrote:Talk about a job you don't want to have...

I have to agree with Frazz there.. people are living longer and obesity is on the rise. Thats gonna be alot of fat saggy asses to watch!

Here's my solution:

Stop watching 24 hour news.

avantgarde wrote:Here's my solution:

Stop watching 24 hour news.

We would all be better for it.

I think most of the fear is overblown. How many planes went down in the past year? And how many of those were from terrorist attacks? It's not a physical deathtoll great enough to cause such paralysing fear. It is purely a psychological attack. In that respect it works, even if it fails.

Let's alarm people a bit further, shall we? Most people who have finished a chem degree, or at least an organic one, can make exploding underwear. I have a hunch it wouldn't be enough to take the plane down (and if you buggered it up may not be enough to kill you in a hurry) but it could take out a few passengers, cause the plane to be diverted and would definitely cause as much panic as the death of all on board. Notice how the fear is about people getting onto the plane, not what happened in the air? The only way to avoid all risk is to strip search everyone and manacle them to their chair the entire flight. In which case they might start bringing back direct travel ocean liners and luxury blimps. It takes 18 hrs in the air to get to the UK from Aus, and things like this honestly make me doubt it is worth it, if I can't do anything but sit with my hands folded in my lap and shiver. I'm also wondering why limiting people in the last hour of a flight actually has a point; it doesn't make a difference when you trigger a bomb, if the wheels are off the tarmac it is going to work anyway. And if you want it to hit a target, you need to physically take over the craft.

Maybe it's because I lived a while in Northern Ireland at the time of the troubles, but assuming that all bombers are going to be young male muslims of a middle eastern appearance is both a joke and somewhat dangerous. Profile too closely and they'll go for ones that don't fit. And I'm probably remembering bombers being white christian anglo-saxon males and having my stuffed toy taken away because it may have had a bomb in it too clearly (my grampa complained. It was returned but only if it could be in hold luggage. I discovered that even if your parents don't understand gaelic, the guard might, and little girls shouldn't pay attention to their grampa swearing at a broken car. The whole situation is probably why I remember it.)

I think it was Ben Franklin the one that say that when you trade liberty for security you lose both.

So here we are in a world with secret watch lists that apparently nobody watches because this guy was in one according to the news; intrusive searches that are pointless e.g. me being skipped while my wife was searched because there was no male personnel on duty to frisk me... and now the great idea that will solve new terrorist attacks is to forbid passengers to leave their seats before landing and not to bring hand luggage on the plane. So what if I want to blow up the plane during take off or at any other time? What if I make some kind of explosive clothing or shallow a bomb.

This is the latest bunch of crap designed to show that our governments are managing things when as shown they don´t have the slightest idea of how to deal with the real problem.

M.

mattyrm wrote:Frazz, same goes for you, i wasnt asking for a witty retort to some of the stuff i banged out, i was asking for sensible workable ideas.

Damn... I had an awesome one, too...

Seriously, we need to focus more on intent detection. It is cheap, effective, and doesn't discriminate based on age, race, gender or religion...


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mattyrm wrote:Dont they have some sort of Total Recal style scanner thing currently being tested in Manchester that xrays under your clothes?

I read that was being shelved due to a lack of privacy. I am more than happy for people to look at my balls if it means i wait half as long in the airport.

They have these at SFO (San Francisco). Yes, people do complain about privacy.
I don't mind if some random guy I will never meet sees my junk in an effort to save the lives of hundreds.
People that think modesty is more important that Homeland Security are selfish, misguided people that shouldn't fly at all.

Improve drastically our intelligence services. Expertly train infiltration officers.

Become far far more aggressive at dropping special services into areas and murdering the gak out of these 'training camps' and 'brainwashing centres'. Kick seven shades out of them using precise intelligence.

So, restructuring the MI5, CIA etc away from old design for combating the Soviets and into dedicated anti terrorist organisations.

AND GO PROACTIVE. Stop reacting all the bloody time, if there are training camps in the Yemen and North Africa and so on, get over there and stamp them out, retrieve information and when whatever tinpot government allowing the terrorists to train start crying about it, just shrug, deny all knowledge and remind them about economic sanctions and the penalties of behaving like it's the dark ages.

Martyr these gakkers in their own beds.

MeanGreenStompa wrote:Improve drastically our intelligence services. Expertly train infiltration officers.

Become far far more aggressive at dropping special services into areas and murdering the gak out of these 'training camps' and 'brainwashing centres'. Kick seven shades out of them using precise intelligence.

So, restructuring the MI5, CIA etc away from old design for combating the Soviets and into dedicated anti terrorist organisations.

AND GO PROACTIVE. Stop reacting all the bloody time, if there are training camps in the Yemen and North Africa and so on, get over there and stamp them out, retrieve information and when whatever tinpot government allowing the terrorists to train start crying about it, just shrug, deny all knowledge and remind them about economic sanctions and the penalties of behaving like it's the dark ages.

Martyr these gakkers in their own beds.

How are you going to do that when the current agencies are now running scared because "No compelling legal authority" Holder has been given the green light to go after them?

How are you going to push intel, when the first thing you do is lawyer up the terrorist? Thats not fighting a a war thats prosecuting jaywalking.

Frazzled wrote:

MeanGreenStompa wrote:Improve drastically our intelligence services. Expertly train infiltration officers.

Become far far more aggressive at dropping special services into areas and murdering the gak out of these 'training camps' and 'brainwashing centres'. Kick seven shades out of them using precise intelligence.

So, restructuring the MI5, CIA etc away from old design for combating the Soviets and into dedicated anti terrorist organisations.

AND GO PROACTIVE. Stop reacting all the bloody time, if there are training camps in the Yemen and North Africa and so on, get over there and stamp them out, retrieve information and when whatever tinpot government allowing the terrorists to train start crying about it, just shrug, deny all knowledge and remind them about economic sanctions and the penalties of behaving like it's the dark ages.

Martyr these gakkers in their own beds.

How are you going to do that when the current agencies are now running scared because "No compelling legal authority" Holder has been given the green light to go after them?

How are you going to push intel, when the first thing you do is lawyer up the terrorist? Thats not fighting a a war thats prosecuting jaywalking.

Whilst I don't want to pour cold water on an otherwise excellent scheme, isn't that exactly what we have been doing for the past 6+ years in Afghanistan and Iraq? Haven't we kept many hundreds of Islamic guys in Guantanamo and other places without the benefit of habeus corpus, etc?

You don't need terrorist paramilitary training to make a fertiliser bomb. I did it when I was 12 years old using basic chemistry knowledge.

-The two primary leaders of the Yemen AlQaeda movement were former inmates of Gitmo and released (under the Bushies).

-You can't be serious about terrorism if you lawyer up the terrorists (aka don't interrogate them to find out what they know), and treat terrorism as an occasional crime.

-But yea the bureaucracies aren't working. Why is anyone on the larger watchlist allowed to fly in the first place/ Air travel is not a right. feth them.

-The US borders are still wide open (same inversely for the Canadian side).

Frazzled wrote:How are you going to do that when the current agencies are now running scared because "No compelling legal authority" Holder has been given the green light to go after them?

How are you going to push intel, when the first thing you do is lawyer up the terrorist? Thats not fighting a a war thats prosecuting jaywalking.

Not in any cells in the US to be released, not left thereby with the opportunity to exact legal revenge via the framework of the democracy they want to burn down. Attack the training camps, infiltrate the local governments of small hostile nations.

Kilkrazy wrote: Whilst I don't want to pour cold water on an otherwise excellent scheme, isn't that exactly what we have been doing for the past 6+ years in Afghanistan and Iraq? Haven't we kept many hundreds of Islamic guys in Guantanamo and other places without the benefit of habeus corpus, etc?

You don't need terrorist paramilitary training to make a fertiliser bomb. I did it when I was 12 years old using basic chemistry knowledge.

Not full military occupations nor mass imprisonments, hit and runs, assassinations, kidnap interrogations, bombings... our own terrorism, bring them fear and sow mistrust amongst them, turn the different organisations against one another. Vast swathes of Northern Pakistan, Afghanistan, African nations, Arabic nations harbour these organisations, standard land armies will not be effective, small strike forces of terror troops and high tech equipment and support will be...

There are madrasas in Pakistan training tiny kids to embrace militancy and desire to become a soldier of Allah. Camps in the Lebanon and Yemen and around the world and we know about them but leave them there?

The West is failing to meet this threat because it is trying to fight on open ground with an enemy that is using different rules. Instead of pouring feth-knows how much into the Euro fighter, we should be beefing the SAS to a terrifying capacity and cutting the head off this monster with special forces and infiltration and destruction of thier powerbases. Bring them understanding of a terror of their own. Not fuel their fire with carpet bombing by air forces and expending massive amounts with occupation/holding.

Less sledgehammer, more scalpel.

If you recollect we wanted to do that in Afghanistan. The Taliban said no. So it was war.

I agree we should do much more of that special forces stuff. Primary attacks regardless of borders. I am very down with that.

But we have to treat these guys as terrorists and not criminals. They don't have rights.

Frazzled wrote:If you recollect we wanted to do that in Afghanistan. The Taliban said no. So it was war.

I agree we should do much more of that special forces stuff. Primary attacks regardless of borders. I am very down with that.

But we have to treat these guys as terrorists and not criminals. They don't have rights.

You don't ask the taliban, you just send in helicopters and murder the murderers.

This isn't working because we've gone to war, we declared the state of war and used our army. They always are at war, they send individuals, they intend to cause massed civilian casualties and spread fear and misery.

We should adapt, respond in the language they understand. We need to stop feeding their anger and start bringing them real fear.