In this horrible incident 12 people were killed. On the roads in Germany, around 3,500 people are killed every year. Let's keep things in proportion and not do exactly what the terrorists want.
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Lorry ploughs into German market in Berlin
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In this horrible incident 12 people were killed. On the roads in Germany, around 3,500 people are killed every year. Let's keep things in proportion and not do exactly what the terrorists want.
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RichmondCommu
Established Member
All German police officers are armed.
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However I think its fair to say that almost all of those 3,500 people will not have been killed on purpose, let alone as a result of terrorist action.
What difference does that make? If you're dead, you're dead.
RichmondCommu
Established Member
Pardon? So are you suggesting that being killed by a terrorist should be treated the same as a car accident which is nothing more than an accident?
Try telling that to the families of the victims of the 7th July bombings.
61653 HTAFC
Veteran Member
On armed police, I knew they used to be, but wasn't sure if they still were- I wondered if some might now carry tasers instead. In this case, it would be certainly understandable if an arresting officer had used his weapon under the impression that the suspect may be wearing a bomb vest.
On the attack as a whole, it makes no sense to blame or punish all immigrants/refugees (or indeed those who advocate for them). If you do that, the terrorists have won. Likewise the Köln NYE sex assaults whilst horrible were not the actions of every immigrant. To assume that a group of white European men could never behave in such a way would be, sadly, a false impression much like the assumption that child molesters have "a certain look" about them.
I don't follow your logic and I'm not sure what your point is. I'm saying that, while horrible, we need to keep these "terrorist" (*) attacks in proportion. When we don't, we end up doing something really stupid like invading Iraq, which makes the situation far worse and is exactly what the "terrorists" want. The truth is that these attacks are not a significant threat to our society or our way of life - or at least they are far less of a threat than many things we regard as every day events such as death and maiming on the roads.
As much as I hate the phrase, "keep calm and carry on" is the best advice, not "go apes*** crazy, hate your neighbours and bomb the s*** out of far away countries".
(*) I'm not an admirer of Margaret Thatcher, but she did something which we could all learn from right now. She never referred to what we would now call terrorists as "terrorists". She called them "murderers" or "criminals".
WelshBluebird
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And you have evidence that the evil individual (or group of individuals) responsible for this attack come from Syria / the surrounding area? Even the guy they initially arrested was from Pakistan and not Syria / Iraq etc.
It is important to remember that a lot of the stuff we have seen recently has been carried out by home grown terrorists. Something which closing up your borders won't solve!
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RichmondCommu
Established Member
My point is that when someone is killed, either by accident or deliberately the state needs to do all it can to ensure that the same awful events are not repeated. And in this case that involves hunting down those responsible and ensuring that other terrorists are prevented from carrying out similar acts in the future. Those terrible events of last night cannot simply be dismissed as oh well, if you die you die. I've not heard or seen anyone suggest that we should start invading countries or start promoting hate crime because of what last night.
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RichmondCommu
Established Member
However as we saw with the Paris bombings its far too easy for terrorists to move around with impunity crossing borders as they please.
RichmondCommu
Established Member
I absolutely concur but it beggars belief that Christmas markets are not being protected with basic concrete blocks.
Well I don't disagree but we have to keep things in proportion. If you're not worried about out of proportion, counterproductive responses you simply haven't been paying attention for the last one to two decades.
What do you suggest? Road blocks every ten kilometers and shutting down the rail network?
Please let's keep things in proportion! We would save many many more lives by e.g. banning cars but I haven't seen anyone calling for that.
RichmondCommu
Established Member
Oh I have been paying plenty of attention for the last two decades. And I've neither seen or heard anything to suggest that any countries are going to be bombed indiscriminately because of what happened last night.
RichmondCommu
Established Member
No but you start protecting soft targets with concrete blocks, just like we have been doing here in the UK. Take a walk around the centre of London and they are every where.
If you are killed by a car it is almost certainly an accident. Last night was no accident and concrete blocks would have gone a long way to saving those poor souls.
61653 HTAFC
Veteran Member
I don't think Anme was saying that had been suggested by anyone in power though I'd put money on someone, somewhere having suggested a swift and violent reaction against Saudi Arabia or against Da'esh/ISIS/ISIL/So-called Islamic State/whatever we're supposed to call that ragtag bunch of psychopaths this week . More that when that has been the response to terrorism in the past, it hasn't always ended well.
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So we shouldn't take extra precautions.
Countries should continue to let people in unchecked.
Do you not understand why border controls were ever thought necessary?
No-one's been killed in a DOO incident but the rail transportation system in the south of England is in turmoil because of perceived dangers. To quote you, "let's keep things in proportion".
It's not the death, it's how it occurred.
Wow, everywhere I look you're attacking car drivers!
And Germany is a bloody big place, so while this may now force further action, it was a valid statement that there are LOADS of soft targets. Crikey, you could just go down any road and mount the pavement to kill the same number of people as in Berlin - so are we going to put up barriers along every single pavement?
If every possible target was protected, that's likely what would happen.
It's no different to doing security checks at entrances for people with suicide bombs. If someone has one, they'll detonate there - and likely cause carnage if there's a queue of people, just as getting into a venue would.
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Ah, we have a liberal in our midst. Who mentioned race or nationality - I didn't.
Your liberal beliefs lies uneasily with the numbers of people from east of Instanbul who flooded into Germany after Merkel's invitation. Are you refusing to acknowledge that just some of them might be of doubtful character?
Perhaps the same also applies to Sweden - a country rapidly becoming the rape capital of Europe which like Merkel's Germany invited people from east of Instanbul in to the country.
And there you have the elephant in the room. What a situation we have got when we have to protect ourselves with WWII style concrete blocks from people that we welcome here and then try to kill us such is their hatred for us. We're lucky that they're in such a minority. I said that WE'RE LUCKY THAT THEY'RE IN SUCH A MINORITY.
You are right. The problem isn't that all muslims are bad, as they aren't, but rather that the ones that came over by whatever means are perhaps more likely to be dodgy. Even if only 0.1% are, do the maths.
And while we had that fuss about children being unfairly accused of being adults, that's exactly what has happened in Sweden for some time and clearly happened in the UK this year. Maybe not every single person, but Sweden has had people in their 30s and perhaps even in their 40s claim to be children - and get housed with REAL children.
Rapes, at least one murder (I believe actually more than one) and child abuse are all issues in Sweden, as well as a series of fires and other incidents caused by refugees who have been upset at where they've been placed.
But on the flip side, many have had to suffer abuse from a growing number of right-wing supporters, who have - like elsewhere - been given a sense of purpose and acceptance because of the liberal attitudes that have swept problems under the carpet and not allowed open discussion.
Look how that's worked out for us with Brexit, Trump and quite possibly some shock election results in Europe in the coming years.
I'm sure all those photos/videos of people in the jungle in Calais last year, as well as the video of people having been found in lorries in the UK (we had a lorry with people found just a few roads away), influenced the EU referendum. Even if us not being part of Schengen actually meant it makes little difference if we're in the EU or not.
So I see the usual depressing talk about closing borders without any evidence, and totally ignoring much larger threats. UKIP and Trump have been very successful. 
Which borders exactly do you want to close?
What do you think the "terrorists" want us to do next? We should keep this in mind, so we can avoid doing it.
Which borders exactly do you want to close?
What do you think the "terrorists" want us to do next? We should keep this in mind, so we can avoid doing it.
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Closing borders without any evidence? Can you explain what you mean by that?
We've never had open borders. We've always been shielded, and yet I suspect a lot of people voted leave to stop free movement - associating the recent migration crisis as somehow connected to EU citizens coming here legally, mostly to work. Not that many will admit that, preferring to say they didn't like EU laws or whatever.
We hear about the genuine crisis in Syria, yet most people coming aren't from Syria. Many that say they are, aren't. They destroy their passport and assume a new, fake, identity. They lie about their age to avoid being sent back, although with no passport that's unlikely to happen anyway.
We should be concerned and not welcoming everyone with open arms. Especially those willing to suffer in a makeshift camp to get into the UK, when they could have sought asylum in any other member state. Being in Calais didn't put them in danger and they weren't forced to be there.
It doesn't mean we don't seek to help people, but last year there was almost a desire by Germany and Sweden to take as many people as possible to show compassion, without considering the risks, and almost compete with each other. There have been many, many crimes as a result due to cultural differences. Again, not the majority but you can't pretend these problems didn't and aren't happening.
To me, those on the left are as bad as those on the right. The left for helping give power to the right as people almost feel like they've no choice but to go to extremes to get anything done.
We've never had open borders. We've always been shielded, and yet I suspect a lot of people voted leave to stop free movement - associating the recent migration crisis as somehow connected to EU citizens coming here legally, mostly to work. Not that many will admit that, preferring to say they didn't like EU laws or whatever.
We hear about the genuine crisis in Syria, yet most people coming aren't from Syria. Many that say they are, aren't. They destroy their passport and assume a new, fake, identity. They lie about their age to avoid being sent back, although with no passport that's unlikely to happen anyway.
We should be concerned and not welcoming everyone with open arms. Especially those willing to suffer in a makeshift camp to get into the UK, when they could have sought asylum in any other member state. Being in Calais didn't put them in danger and they weren't forced to be there.
It doesn't mean we don't seek to help people, but last year there was almost a desire by Germany and Sweden to take as many people as possible to show compassion, without considering the risks, and almost compete with each other. There have been many, many crimes as a result due to cultural differences. Again, not the majority but you can't pretend these problems didn't and aren't happening.
To me, those on the left are as bad as those on the right. The left for helping give power to the right as people almost feel like they've no choice but to go to extremes to get anything done.
If it is proven, once the correct person has been found, that he was a refugee coming to Germany from Syria, it will be in spite of the open border policy, and not because of it. Although transit between European countries is a good deal easier, this man was radicalised at home and not because of a wildly misguided immigration policy.
So I see the usual depressing talk about closing borders without any evidence, and totally ignoring much larger threats. UKIP and Trump have been very successful.
Which borders exactly do you want to close?
What do you think the "terrorists" want us to do next? We should keep this in mind, so we can avoid doing it.
I can't imagine ISIS being too bothered about what we do with our borders. In fact, I'm sure they rather like the porous borders in Europe and thanks to the refugee crisis, they have nanaged to exploit that.
And said as much at the time by ISIS. I mean, why wouldn't you - as a terrorist group seeking to attack the west - take advantage?
I swear that years of liberal Governing has literally handed the right everything they want. People have a tendency to overreact, so when they got sick of seeing us being taken for a ride (not just this, but many other things) they swung hard to the right, who started to say what they wanted to hear. I expect that's precisely what happened in Germany pre-war.
Now we have the bizarre situation where many Labour voters have gone to support UKIP, while we can see just how dangerous things could be in the US.
I guess we'll see how dangerous it is when we watch what happens over the next four years in the US, of which I have no doubt we'll end up caught up in.
I am sure terrorists still want another 9/11 or 7/7 style attack, but besides that, it seems the random attacks are an excellent strategy. They can create real fear, and the security services and intelligence agencies will really struggle.
If you have loads of people you've let in who don't have a lot to lose, I am sure we're going to have to get used to random attacks in any city, at any time, in the future. I know we lived under the IRA, but I really don't think people who say that consider that I was quite glad when we stopped having to watch our backs - and at least, most of the time, they gave warnings before detonating bombs.
Tetchytyke
Veteran Member
Crossing borders within the Schengen zone isn't the same thing as "moving around with impunity", given the co-operation between police forces through Europol. Schengen isn't an open border, either.
If anything, closer ties within the EU gives us more protection because we have the shared knowledge of 28 police and intelligence forces, not just ours.
Tetchytyke
Veteran Member
There is no evidence that any of the terrorist attacks in recent times have been carried out by refugees.
In Paris, the ringleaders were Salah Abdesalam- born in Brussels, a French national- and Abdelhamid Abaaoud- born in Brussels, a Belgian national. Most of the others were Algerian or Moroccan, in France as French nationals or through rights inherited during the French colonial rule in those countries.
In Nice, the killer was Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel, a Tunisian who had French residency through rights inherited during the French colonial rule in that country.
Anyone who tries to blame Syrian refugees for this is lying. The question, of course, is why they are lying. I think we know why fash like Farage might lie.
OneOffDave
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Protecting mass gatherings with concrete blocks is useful not just because of the risks of deliberate attacks but the risks of incidents like the Glasgow bin lorry. It's good event safety practice to ensure HGVs and masses of pedestrians can't mix
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