Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

 Orlanth wrote:
Actually installing these precautions would be a victory for terrorism, and they would just switch attack method anyway. Those heavy concentre barriers will contain blast waves making a grenade in a crowd deadlier. You defeat terrorists with alert security services, and counter-propaganda, not walls.

Having precautions is always a good idea, I don't think it will necessarily be a victory for terrorism. These kinds of barriers can double to create pedestrian areas and lessen traffic and exhaust in cities. Nevertheless I think doing it because of this specific instance might be going too far in the other direction. I agree with your second part.

 Orlanth wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:

 godardc wrote:
Not truck proofing all the cities, but the events, like this one.

This only moves the issue, what if they do it on any other weekday plowing through a busy shopping street outside of events. As long as you have road acces to groups of people this seemingly new truck method will always have some effect.

The nasty thing is the shopping centre which terrorists will target need large scale supply by heavy lorries.
You need to actively stop the driver not passively stop the lorry.

True, but if this kind of attack wil become a trend than barriers to stop a truck leading to a heavily trafficked pedestrian area might be a good idea in the first place.

I'm not going to get into the topic of this thread too deep, because some here (if not all of OT's regulars) know my opinions regarding the issues surrounding Islam in general, fundamentalist Islam in particular, and the way the West is approaching the problem. I'm just going to say that my thoughts and prayers will go to the victims and their families. I wish them well, and would encourage them to muster the resolve to get through this trying time.

 godardc wrote:
There are guards who control the entrances of the shops.
This kind of event is a big target. You don't even need to be controled or to go in and shoot: you just have to drive a truck, and noone can stop you. It is way easier.

Ok, maybe a terrorist could try to shoot all these poor people, but I think there would be less dead.

Still, it's horrible. Families, children... During Christmas !

You dont want armed guards at shopping centres.

Besides the next plot will be to infiltrate the armed security personnel of an shopping centre then go postal.
How will you stop that, stop all Moslems from applying?

I have a question for the rest of the Europeans out here.

Our public news station used to take over control of one of our public channel with a live / looping broadcast of the incident when something serious happened nearby. This changed today. Today the news station did not take over one of the public channels and no improvised emergency broadcast was made. Today is apparently the fay that incidents like these have become business as usual for the news station and the incident was just an other news item.

Did this also happen in your countries ?

 Disciple of Fate wrote:

 Orlanth wrote:
Actually installing these precautions would be a victory for terrorism, and they would just switch attack method anyway. Those heavy concentre barriers will contain blast waves making a grenade in a crowd deadlier. You defeat terrorists with alert security services, and counter-propaganda, not walls.

Having precautions is always a good idea, I don't think it will necessarily be a victory for terrorism. These kinds of barriers can double to create pedestrian areas and lessen traffic and exhaust in cities. Nevertheless I think doing it because of this specific instance might be going too far in the other direction. I agree with your second part.

If you deliberately restrict heavy supply traffic into urban centres you abolish urban centres. The logistics of supply for a metropolis is enormous. How many heavy duty lorries are needed to feed Berlin and keep it supplied with everything from milk to lavatory paper to office supplies etc. The situation is less bad than it looks, the scum have to find a dupe ready to do his suicide mision, they then have to get him a lorry (the easy part) and crash the lorry. If this was as easy as it sounds they would be doing this all the time, after all they want to. Europe's security services are not asleep.

 Orlanth wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:

 godardc wrote:
Not truck proofing all the cities, but the events, like this one.

This only moves the issue, what if they do it on any other weekday plowing through a busy shopping street outside of events. As long as you have road acces to groups of people this seemingly new truck method will always have some effect.

The nasty thing is the shopping centre which terrorists will target need large scale supply by heavy lorries.
You need to actively stop the driver not passively stop the lorry.

True, but if this kind of attack will become a trend than barriers to stop a truck leading to a heavily trafficked pedestrian area might be a good idea in the first place.

 oldzoggy wrote:
I have a question for the rest of the Europeans out here.

Our public news station used to take over control of one of our public channel with a live / looping broadcast of the incident when something serious happened nearby. This changed today. Today the news station did not take over one of the public channels and no improvised emergency broadcast was made. Today is apparently the fay that incidents like these have become business as usual for the news station and the incident was just an other news item.

Did this also happen in your countries ?

This is not necessarily the case, there was an extra broadcast at 11 on our (the Dutch) state channel. It might have to do with the relatively 'light' body count (as tragic as it is) from this attack or the time of day, but I certainly don't think they treat it like business as usual.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Two people make sense, a lone attacker is more likely to bottle it.

Yes it is common for cities to be supplied at night, this has little if anything to do with terrorism though and everything to do with logistics and congestion. After all buses and coaches run in urban centres by day, and you can do exactly the same damage with a stolen coach as you can with a lorry.

Some highly senstive areas have retractable bollards and that has a lot to do with terrorism. But that covers key areas like government buildings. You also might need to retract the bollards to let fire engines or ambulances in at short notice, so the bollards are normally left down and raised if there is an alert, not the other way around. Though near something like a parliamentary building bollards might stay up and a policeman checks traffic through and lowers bollards as needed.

 Orlanth wrote:
Two people make sense, a lone attacker is more likely to bottle it.

Yes it is common for cities to be supplied at night, this has little if anything to do with terrorism though and everything to do with logistics and congestion. After all buses and coaches run in urban centres by day, and you can do exactly the same damage with a stolen coach as you can with a lorry.

Some highly senstive areas have retractable bollards and that has a lot to do with terrorism. But that covers key areas like government buildings. You also might need to retract the bollards to let fire engines or ambulances in at short notice, so the bollards are normally left down and raised if there is an alert, not the other way around. Though near something like a parliamentary building bollards might stay up and a policeman checks traffic through and lowers bollards as needed.

With curious I meant more as in that it might be locals instead of immigrants, as they would have either come together to Germany (certainly possible) or have gotten to known each other relatively recently. I might be totally wrong of course, but it seems more likely because of the duo that they might be nationals, going by past events.

I realize the supply part has nothing to do with terrorism, even here it is an older pre-2001 development. However stealing a bus in broad daylight already inside the barriers is somewhat more difficult than stealing a truck at night from a gas station rest stop. I don't know for the UK of course, but here the retractable barriers usually stay up at all times unless someone has to pass, but some cities choose not to have them raised here too (meaning the pre 2001 barriers), although that seems to defeat the purpose of installing them but I'm not a politician

 Orlanth wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:

 Orlanth wrote:
Actually installing these precautions would be a victory for terrorism, and they would just switch attack method anyway. Those heavy concentre barriers will contain blast waves making a grenade in a crowd deadlier. You defeat terrorists with alert security services, and counter-propaganda, not walls.

Having precautions is always a good idea, I don't think it will necessarily be a victory for terrorism. These kinds of barriers can double to create pedestrian areas and lessen traffic and exhaust in cities. Nevertheless I think doing it because of this specific instance might be going too far in the other direction. I agree with your second part.

If you deliberately restrict heavy supply traffic into urban centres you abolish urban centres. The logistics of supply for a metropolis is enormous. How many heavy duty lorries are needed to feed Berlin and keep it supplied with everything from milk to lavatory paper to office supplies etc. The situation is less bad than it looks, the scum have to find a dupe ready to do his suicide mision, they then have to get him a lorry (the easy part) and crash the lorry. If this was as easy as it sounds they would be doing this all the time, after all they want to. Europe's security services are not asleep.

 Orlanth wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:

 godardc wrote:
Not truck proofing all the cities, but the events, like this one.

This only moves the issue, what if they do it on any other weekday plowing through a busy shopping street outside of events. As long as you have road acces to groups of people this seemingly new truck method will always have some effect.

The nasty thing is the shopping centre which terrorists will target need large scale supply by heavy lorries.
You need to actively stop the driver not passively stop the lorry.

True, but if this kind of attack will become a trend than barriers to stop a truck leading to a heavily trafficked pedestrian area might be a good idea in the first place.

Sadly the barriers cannot exist, if the cities are to be supplied. Also any barrier stopping a lorry will also stop a bus. Will you sacrifice urban services to combat the problem, you will need to.
The trick is not to get too upset when you find people like GCHQ or the German equivalent is reading everyones Facebook page and emails. The UK is not short of radical Islamists but they arent attacking here, and some even made comment that the UK is too hard a target. France is the main target because French security services are too complacent. The UK will be hit, but its high risk, and terrorists gravitate towards soft targets.

Germany is vulnerable because it has recently had a massive immigrant influx with a large number of Daesh terrorists over as Syrian refugees. Because of the sheer volume there are too many to vet at once. This reality is hard to stomach by the progressive consensus, but is a flat fact. Germans have decent efficient wary police an security services. Their wake up was Munich 1972, and they have been very professional since, but Merkel let too many crazies in at once, I guess they are stretched thin watching too many new faces over too much of Germany to keep a track on everyone.

...

My post

Yeah. Germanny is watching a what a million new faces.
They just cannot do it.

British is is by no means not got crazies, but our security services are highly deadicated, funded and trained to protect us.
Sometimes we need people willing to do shafowy things for the greater good.

Die Welt reports now (through a police spokesperson) that the passenger in the truck was Polish and further unconfirmed information the driver is Pakistani. Does not seem to be connected to Syrian refugees so far, so unless new information is brought up regarding a connection to Syria that angle seems closed off.

Pakistani or Afghan. This is most likely a terror attack. The driver was trying to run away and got caught by the police immediately. He asumeably killed the other man. The lorry was stolen/went missing this afternoon (4 pm according to the owning company). It looks very much like a planned attack. This is different to the happenings in Munich last summer which was not an attack against infidels/the western world.

Neither Police, BMI (Interior Ministry) nor Media here in Germany are saying anything about a Daesh attack nor that the Daesh declared it was an attack. And unless the BMI or the Police state anything else it is 'just' a tragic moment for the People in Berlin.

edit: ..and i now and can understand that people long for the lynch mob mentality, but until it's official - and i mean 'official' official via the Interior Ministry / Police etc. - our thoughts should go out to the victims and their families rather than the first
Facebook-esk news story we can find..

 EverlastingNewb wrote:
Neither Police, BMI (Interior Ministry) nor Media here in Germany are saying anything about a Daesh attack nor that the Daesh declared it was an attack. And unless the BMI or the Police state anything else it is 'just' a tragic moment for the People in Berlin.

But we have so many conclusions we can jump to, and really isn't that the important part?

 Ahtman wrote:

 EverlastingNewb wrote:
Neither Police, BMI (Interior Ministry) nor Media here in Germany are saying anything about a Daesh attack nor that the Daesh declared it was an attack. And unless the BMI or the Police state anything else it is 'just' a tragic moment for the People in Berlin.

But we have so many conclusions we can jump to, and really isn't that the important part?

We found the confidence to make that jump and fight PC to tackle the real issues in this thread

Berlin police is offering latest information here and still updating

https://mobile.twitter.com/polizeiberlin_e?lang=en

 Disciple of Fate wrote:

With curious I meant more as in that it might be locals instead of immigrants, as they would have either come together to Germany (certainly possible) or have gotten to known each other relatively recently. I might be totally wrong of course, but it seems more likely because of the duo that they might be nationals, going by past events.

Relevant only as a side issue for those who want to track down the terror net. It makes sense to utilise a home grown terrorist, as they would be harder to detect. This still places the recent mass influx of Moslem immigrants, with a proportion being fanatics as a diluting factor for security services. The attackers themselves do not need to be Syrian refugees for the need to investigate said refugees to be a crippling distraction to the system.

There is nothing new in this either the IRA realised that their main terrorists were so heavily monitored that that used fresh recruits from the Irish republic on a use-once basis to conduct attacks on the Uk mainland. It would stand to reason that any ISIS sympathiser who migrated to Germany as a refugee, and there will be some would be priority for monitoring, so it makes sense to use someone else, a home grown radical, a recent convert to Islam, or a refugee who didn't appear radicalised.

 Orlanth wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:

With curious I meant more as in that it might be locals instead of immigrants, as they would have either come together to Germany (certainly possible) or have gotten to known each other relatively recently. I might be totally wrong of course, but it seems more likely because of the duo that they might be nationals, going by past events.

Relevant only as a side issue for those who want to track down the terror net. It makes sense to utilise a home grown terrorist, as they would be harder to detect. This still places the recent mass influx of Moslem immigrants, with a proportion being fanatics as a diluting factor for security services. The attackers themselves do not need to be Syrian refugees for the need to investigate said refugees to be a crippling distraction to the system.

There is nothing new in this either the IRA realised that their main terrorists were so heavily monitored that that used fresh recruits from the Irish republic on a use-once basis to conduct attacks on the Uk mainland. It would stand to reason that any ISIS sympathiser who migrated to Germany as a refugee, and there will be some would be priority for monitoring, so it makes sense to use someone else, a home grown radical, a recent convert to Islam, or a refugee who didn't appear radicalised.

Still, I don't think we should overestimate the effect of migration on national security agencies, without having any clear idea of what effect it has. Certainly the US and France have shown that even with a significantly lower or insignificant amount of Syrian refugees they still had attacks, in some cases by people already known to the relevant agencies. I don't think refugees had much to do with a Pakistani asylum seeker (who would have been the crippling distraction you mention) and a Pole that currently seem to be implicated. The police seems to think the truck was already stolen in Poland, so either the refugee crossed the border to steal a truck and kidnapping the driver, which seems an unlikely way of going about this, or the Pole and Pakistani worked together.

 Disciple of Fate wrote:

Still, I don't think we should overestimate the effect of migration on national security agencies, without having any clear idea of what effect it has.

Obviously we wont know about any blind spots in our national security services; or read about them on Dakka.

We can only go with the logical. If you have mass immigration from an Islamic country over a short space or time, and this has already had social problems because of the rapes etc, it stands to reason that there is more policing to do. The press has mentioned before that it is known that ISIS has infiltrate refugees headed to Europe, so I take that at face value too. I dint know the figures for recent migration from Syria, know the UK took only children and chose them from refugee camps in Syria, and I think that putting a lid on radicalisation had a lot to do with that.

Germany took on large numbers of adult refugees. Hungary had so many it closed the borders and caused a problem with regards to EU law.

I think it is perfectly logical to speculate that the German security services and police have thier hands full, and a quiet terrorist can more easily slip through the system.



Now as to the new news, a Pakistani and a Pole. The 'Pole' could well be a white recent Islamic convert, white Polish lorry drivers don't raise suspicion, so its a good use for that radical from the point of view of his handlers. 'Pole' could just as easily mean someone from a middle-eastern ancestry with a Polish passport. We dont know right now.
Poland is not really known for Islamic terror, but its an open democracy so converting to Islam could easily happen there, and the Polish security services might not watch those who do.

We do know that converts to Islam are more easily radicalised than those born within that culture, so it all looks plausible.

Edit: We dont know if there were two in the lorry, I havent seen any sourcing on that. However the Polish driver is missing and hasnt been seen, and it was his truck. He may have been abducted by a terrorist.

A Berlin Police spokesman confirmed they had a suspect in custody.
“We’ve had a description of the driver, who was on the run at first. Because of this description, one suspect could be arrested,” he said.
“We are now investigating whether the arrested person is actually the driver of the truck. The suspect was arrested nearby, a few hundred metres away from the scene of the attack.”
The Polish owner of the lorry also confirmed his driver was missing. “We haven’t heard from him since this afternoon. We don’t know what happened to him. He’s my cousin, I’ve known him since I was a kid. I can vouch for him,” transport company owner Ariel Zurawski told AFP.

 Disciple of Fate wrote:

Certainly the US and France have shown that even with a significantly lower or insignificant amount of Syrian refugees they still had attacks, in some cases by people already known to the relevant agencies.

The French have the Algerian connection that can never be ignored. Most of their Islamic terror problems come from the Algerian community. IIRC France has the highest Moslem population in Europe, and has a lot of radicalisation. It also borders the Med. All in all France is an easier target.

 Disciple of Fate wrote:

I don't think refugees had much to do with a Pakistani asylum seeker (who would have been the crippling distraction you mention) and a Pole that currently seem to be implicated. The police seems to think the truck was already stolen in Poland, so either the refugee crossed the border to steal a truck and kidnapping the driver, which seems an unlikely way of going about this, or the Pole and Pakistani worked together.

Don't make the mistake of looking at this in isolation. Security investigations and big and often utilise the resources of multiple jurisdictions. The recent mass immigration will haav been a factor as to why these two attackers were not detected. Intelligence budgets are not limitless, trained intelligence personnel are likely overstretched. You cant watch everything, you cant be everywhere.

 Orlanth wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:

Still, I don't think we should overestimate the effect of migration on national security agencies, without having any clear idea of what effect it has.

Obviously we wont know about any blind spots in our national security services; or read about them on Dakka.

We can only go with the logical. If you have mass immigration from an Islamic country over a short space or time, and this has already had social problems because of the rapes etc, it stands to reason that there is more policing to do. The press has mentioned before that it is known that ISIS has infiltrate refugees headed to Europe, so I take that at face value too. I dint know the figures for recent migration from Syria, know the UK took only children and chose them from refugee camps in Syria, and I think that putting a lid on radicalisation had a lot to do with that.

Germany took on large numbers of adult refugees. Hungary had so many it closed the borders and caused a problem with regards to EU law.

I think it is perfectly logical to speculate that the German security services and police have thier hands full, and a quiet terrorist can more easily slip through the system.



Now as to the new news, a Pakistani and a Pole. The 'Pole' could well be a white recent Islamic convert, white Polish lorry drivers don't raise suspicion, so its a good use for that radical from the point of view of his handlers. 'Pole' could just as easily mean someone from a middle-eastern ancestry with a Polish passport. We dont know right now.
Poland is not really known for Islamic terror, but its an open democracy so converting to Islam could easily happen there, and the Polish security services might not watch those who do.

We do know that converts to Islam are more easily radicalised than those born within that culture, so it all looks plausible.

 Disciple of Fate wrote:

Certainly the US and France have shown that even with a significantly lower or insignificant amount of Syrian refugees they still had attacks, in some cases by people already known to the relevant agencies.

The French have the Algerian connection that can never be ignored. Most of their Islamic terror problems come from the Algerian community. IIRC France has the highest Moslem population in Europe, and has a lot of radicalisation. It also borders the Med. All in all France is an easier target.

Yet the Paris attacks were masterminded by two Belgian nationals of Moroccan descent. While France has the highest Muslim population overall it isn't significantly higher than other European countries. The bigger threat is from nationals going to fight abroad and preying upon refugees that get ignored by the system. This is certainly more of a domestic than refugee problem. Even if refugees play a role, the US demonstrates that refugees aren't always the problem. Lets not forget Germany used to have a domestic terror problem a few times bigger than the current terror problem. In perspective the million or so refugees have not proven more dangerous than ethnic Germans in that regard.

 Orlanth wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:

I don't think refugees had much to do with a Pakistani asylum seeker (who would have been the crippling distraction you mention) and a Pole that currently seem to be implicated. The police seems to think the truck was already stolen in Poland, so either the refugee crossed the border to steal a truck and kidnapping the driver, which seems an unlikely way of going about this, or the Pole and Pakistani worked together.

Don't make the mistake of looking at this in isolation. Security investigations and big and often utilise the resources of multiple jurisdictions. The recent mass immigration will haav been a factor as to why these two attackers were not detected. Intelligence budgets are not limitless, trained intelligence personnel are likely overstretched. You cant watch everything, you cant be everywhere.

That is correct but the issue is that contribution is unknown, so it is hard to speculate what kind of influence refugees have on the system. They already had problems monitoring returnees fighting abroad before the refugee explosion.

Radicals traveling to join ISI are scum, but they are detectable scum. They already have passports, a lot of them like their Facebook and Twitter according to press reports.

I guess that keeping tabs on them is relatively easy, Besides Russian airstrikes deal with enough of them anyway. What a pity.

Terrorists hiding in vast population influxes are the problem, as you dont know who they are and must find out. They need not act to be effective. Europe, including Germany, has no choice but to direct intelligence agencies onto risk assessing vast numbers of people and watching those deemed dodgy.

ISIS already made stated claim to having infiltrated the refugee column from Syria. Once this was taken seriously the vast numbers of people becomes a logjam for security.

So meanwhile someone else comes in from Morocco or Pakistan. The system is overstretched so they arent monitored enough to determine if they are a terror threat.

 Orlanth wrote:
Radicals traveling to join ISI are scum, but they are detectable scum. They already have passports, a lot of them like their Facebook and Twitter according to press reports.

I guess that keeping tabs on them is relatively easy, Besides Russian airstrikes deal with enough of them anyway. What a pity.

Terrorists hiding in vast population influxes are the problem, as you dont know who they are and must find out. They need not act to be effective. Europe, including Germany, has no choice but to direct intelligence agencies onto risk assessing vast numbers of people and watching those deemed dodgy.

ISIS already made stated claim to having infiltrated the refugee column from Syria. Once this was taken seriously the vast numbers of people becomes a logjam for security.

So meanwhile someone else comes in from Morocco or Pakistan. The system is overstretched so they arent monitored enough to determine if they are a terror threat.

But just look at the attacks in France, both Charlie Hebdo and the later Paris attacks had nationals serving as foreign fighters in either Yemen or Syria and known to the authorities. The fact that they were able to commit these acts show a lack of oversight into their activities. The same goes for the Nice attack, the individuals inspiring the attacker were known to the authorities, but yet again managed to plan an attack. A further issue is that you need hard evidence that these people fought there to convict them, something intelligence agencies are frequently unwilling to give up to put these individuals on trial. There is a reasonable assumption that there are thousands of Europeans who have or are fighting for IS, yet how many trials against them have you heard of? If the reports are true than the Pakistani had requested political asylum, while in the case of the Paris attackers the few non nationals had used fake passports to get in with the help of the nationals. The real terrorists wont apply for anything but will most likely go underground, the real risk is from those radicalized nationals that have the network to get there accomplices in amongst the refugees or can turn desperate refugees. The refugees aren't the problem, it is the inadequate ability to process tens of thousands of people on tiny islands and part of that is because Europe is unwilling to spend more money to do so. The terrorists are part of another problem of illegal activities and if a country of 80 million people can't monitor 1.5 mil extra, I doubt they were adequately monitoring the other 80 mil in the first place.

 Orlanth wrote:
Terrorists hiding in vast population influxes are the problem, as you dont know who they are and must find out. They need not act to be effective. Europe, including Germany, has no choice but to direct intelligence agencies onto risk assessing vast numbers of people and watching those deemed dodgy.

ISIS already made stated claim to having infiltrated the refugee column from Syria. Once this was taken seriously the vast numbers of people becomes a logjam for security.

This is why those European countries need to stop taking in more of those refugees. They're practically inviting radical Muslim terrorists into their countries where they can then run amok. If Germany had just said no to those refugees, 12 people would likely still be alive today. Countries need to screen immigrants better to weed out the donkey-caves (not just terrorists, but drug dealers and other criminal types as well), and it's impossible to do that when you're taking in so many you can't open the gates wide enough. Also, notice these particular immigrants don't mingle with the population at all and in fact want to practice Sharia law in their communities, despite the law of the land contradicting Sharia law on most issues. And the authorities just let them do it, because if you restrict them from it you must be a hateful bigot. If a person legitimately wants to emigrate to another country, they should join the population of that country, and that includes its culture and respecting its native citizens. It doesn't mean turning their local community into a smaller version of their old country.

Put it another way: Would you let some people live in your house if you know that they hate you, they hate everything about you, and some of them might be plotting to kill you? And they also don't respect the rules in your house, wanting to live by their own rules instead for vague, possibly religiously-motivated, reasons. Should you really continue to let them live with you, given the above conditions?

I'd let people stay in my house if their old neighbors wanted to decapitate them.

Germany got hit because they're taking refugees, yeah - because if they stop taking refugees, then some truly evil people can keep preying on them. My heart goes out to everyone affected by this attack, but to swing around and blame it on the poor souls trying to escape horrific acts of violence is exactly what those maniacs want you to do.

 Spinner wrote:
I'd let people stay in my house if their old neighbors wanted to decapitate them.

Germany got hit because they're taking refugees, yeah - because if they stop taking refugees, then some truly evil people can keep preying on them. My heart goes out to everyone affected by this attack, but to swing around and blame it on the poor souls trying to escape horrific acts of violence is exactly what those maniacs want you to do.

A typical Anglo-American response. Cause major problems in a region, withdraw then make value judgements on the people stuggling with the consequences of your own actions. The mess that is the middle east is on the US and the UK, now both seem to want to escalate and antagonise Russia. Europe is entirely better off with less influence from either of them.

 ZergSmasher wrote:
If a person legitimately wants to emigrate to another country, they should join the population of that country, and that includes its culture and respecting its native citizens. It doesn't mean turning their local community into a smaller version of their old country.

I see you have a US flag by your name, could you clarify which native american tribe you have joined and adopted the cultural practices of?

 Peregrine wrote:

 ZergSmasher wrote:
If a person legitimately wants to emigrate to another country, they should join the population of that country, and that includes its culture and respecting its native citizens. It doesn't mean turning their local community into a smaller version of their old country.

I see you have a US flag by your name, could you clarify which native american tribe you have joined and adopted the cultural practices of?

Now that's silly.

Beside... most of the Indians were conquered.

 MarsNZ wrote:

 Spinner wrote:
I'd let people stay in my house if their old neighbors wanted to decapitate them.

Germany got hit because they're taking refugees, yeah - because if they stop taking refugees, then some truly evil people can keep preying on them. My heart goes out to everyone affected by this attack, but to swing around and blame it on the poor souls trying to escape horrific acts of violence is exactly what those maniacs want you to do.

A typical Anglo-American response. Cause major problems in a region, withdraw then make value judgements on the people stuggling with the consequences of your own actions. The mess that is the middle east is on the US and the UK, now both seem to want to escalate and antagonise Russia. Europe is entirely better off with less influence from either of them.

What an interesting thing to tell someone that you don't know the political positions of.

Who am I antagonizing, apart from the people who point and scream 'the refugees are at fault!' every time there's a terrorist attack, and then I t turns out they were radicalized nationals or immigrated years ago...

 Peregrine wrote:

 ZergSmasher wrote:
If a person legitimately wants to emigrate to another country, they should join the population of that country, and that includes its culture and respecting its native citizens. It doesn't mean turning their local community into a smaller version of their old country.

I see you have a US flag by your name, could you clarify which native american tribe you have joined and adopted the cultural practices of?

I was born and raised in the US, therefore technically I am native to America. Now, I'm not descended from the original inhabitants (the ones we think of as Native Americans), that's certainly true. But I am an American, I didn't move here from another country. If I did move to another country, I would attempt to fit into that country's culture. For instance, if I moved to England, I'd probably start drinking more tea and saying "God save the Queen!" (as a slightly facetious example, not trying to make fun of British people).

 ZergSmasher wrote:
I was born and raised in the US, therefore technically I am native to America. Now, I'm not descended from the original inhabitants (the ones we think of as Native Americans), that's certainly true. But I am an American, I didn't move here from another country. If I did move to another country, I would attempt to fit into that country's culture. For instance, if I moved to England, I'd probably start drinking more tea and saying "God save the Queen!" (as a slightly facetious example, not trying to make fun of British people).

I see, so once immigrants refuse to adopt the culture of the country they're immigrating to their descendants have no obligation to do so? It's ok to have isolated groups carrying over the culture of their countries of origin as long as they've been doing it long enough to have kids? Somehow I don't think you'd be making the same argument about a Muslim child of immigrants advocating Sharia law, yelling "America is evil", etc.

 Frazzled wrote:
Yes, but why make the attack? At least the old anarchist bombers had a point.

They didn't really. Blowing up a government post office was never going to cause anyone to suddenly understand all that anarchist nonsense, and certainly not believe it.

Same for the various communist groups, most of which faded away decades ago (there are still some Maoists in India, incredibly enough).

This isn't to dismiss anyone who's ever wanted to take up arms for a cause. Some of them are viable, and just occasionally they actually win. But almost all of them are their own self-contained little delusions.