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from the is-there-a-solution-that-is-less-bad-than-the-problem? dept.
If it seems like every week, there's another terrorist attack – well, you're not wrong. According to one crowdsourcing map, there have been over 500 attacks around the world since the start of 2017, with over 3,500 fatalities. For a period in 2016, ISIS-initiated attacks were occurring, on average, every 84 hours.
Despite improvements in methods and coordination among law enforcement agencies over the past 25 years, they're still hamstrung in a number of ways. With large public gatherings of people becoming more attractive targets for terrorists, what are the best strategies moving forward?
[...] But despite huge budgets and the presence of thousands of added security personnel, it's virtually impossible to prevent a determined terrorist, or guarantee absolute safety. While security efforts for events like the Olympic Games have escalated, terrorists today no longer wait for major events that draw global interest.
[...] The odds are in favor of terrorists. All they have to do is succeed once, no matter how many times they try. For public safety professionals to be fully successful, they have to prevent 100 percent of the terror attempts. It's a number to aspire to, but even the most experienced countries fighting terror – such as Israel and the U.K. – can't measure up to this standard.
[...] These days, it's necessary to consider any place where crowds congregate as vulnerable "soft targets" for the attackers. To better prepare for securing soft targets (and this isn't to say threats against "hard targets," like planes, buildings and infrastructure, have diminished) law enforcement agencies must improve coordination among one another, whether it's via intelligence, information sharing and training. And then there's the need for deconfliction, which refers to avoiding self-defeating behavior – from interagency rivalries and poor communication to insufficient coordination – by people who are on the same side.
[...] Given that there is no way to guarantee complete safety, and that the threat assessment expects more attacks, there are two more elements that ought to receive more attention: community resilience and community policing.
https://theconversation.com/how-can-we-better-protect-crowds-from-terrorism-78443
[Related]:
1996 Atlanta Olympic Games: https://www.britannica.com/event/Atlanta-Olympic-Games-bombing-of-1996
Secure Airport Design: https://skift.com/2016/07/04/how-smart-airport-design-can-make-spaces-more-secure/
Do you agree with this assessment of the security situation ? What do you think could be done to mitigate the effects of such asymmetric warfare ?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 04 2017, @09:11PM (15 children)
Compulsory military service.
Training in self-defense.
A proactive mindset rather than a victim mindset.
We all need to be ready to defend ourselves. Depending on the government to defend you is the strategy of
a naive fool. Why ? Because when seconds count, the police are only MINUTES away.
Always have a plan and be ready to defend yourself. It's better to have a plan and not need it than it is to
have no idea what to do when the shit hits the fan.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 04 2017, @10:46PM (8 children)
Israel's anti-terrorism people are former military officers.
To become a military officer requires a college diploma.
In contrast, most of the folks doing this stuff in USA barely got out of high school.
(Your average cop is NOT a paragon of high intellect or knowledge--in fact, there's the infamous case of the guy they wouldn't let be a cop because he was too smart.)
Compulsory military service.
...because already having the largest, most expensive military on the planet isn't enough.
(...and let's mention here that USA is currently 16 years into its longest military engagement.)
...and using the military to deal with law enforcement matters has to be the stupidest idea ever.
That just results in more pissed-off people.
If somebody has committed a crime, call law enforcement personnel--not somebody with a bazooka.
A proactive mindset rather than a victim mindset
IOW, duplicate what the Brits did during the time the IRA was setting off pipe bombs.
Most things have solutions that already worked.
What we need more of is not soldiers/aggressors but Historians.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday June 05 2017, @02:03AM (7 children)
Yours is the typical victim response. "Oh, we can't do that!"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 05 2017, @02:11AM (6 children)
You've avoided the issue of who deployed the first bombs.
Hint: It's the country whose major industry is that of producing weapons.
As the saying goes: Payback is a bitch.
Don't want to be bombed?
Stop dropping bombs on others.
Even better: Never start that aggression.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday June 05 2017, @02:56AM (5 children)
The horse has left the barn. But, it's not like the mideast was a peaceful place before the US came along. You might want to talk to the Assyrians about that.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday June 05 2017, @03:12AM (4 children)
The current shitstorm with the Wahhabists is from the 1800s though, isn't it? Anglo (and later Anglo-American) meddling with the middle east for the last 200 or so years has lead to this.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Monday June 05 2017, @10:54AM (3 children)
It goes back so much further than that, to the beginning of recorded history in that region. It will go on until no more humans live there. Their tribal identities and hatreds are bred in the bone. It's tough to get past that even when you're actively trying to forge a new identity without the historical baggage. Take Spain: the Basques are not on board with the Spanish identity and they've been at it for, what, 500 years? The Catalans are trying to move in the opposite direction. The Galicians, Andalusians, and Aragonians, too.
In the Middle East, they don't have any interest in unity or kumbaya. The closest they've had in a while is a shared hatred of Israel.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 05 2017, @03:49PM (2 children)
So completely false.
The shia/sunni enmity is the result of westerners pitting them against each other and venal demagogues making hay of that interference [aljazeera.com] over the last half century or so.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday June 05 2017, @07:26PM
Oh, FFS, that is so far outside of reality . . . how do people even come up with that kind of nonsense? In your version of Earth History, every single evil that has ever happened in this world, was the result of western civilization meddling? Mmmmm - yeah.
I've got an idea! Why don't you read up on the Muslim split? http://old.seattletimes.com/html/books/2009888664_br18prophet.html [seattletimes.com] The story epitomizes the tribal mentality.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday June 05 2017, @07:50PM
Better reading here: http://origins.osu.edu/article/tradition-vs-charisma-sunni-shii-divide-muslim-world/page/0/0 [osu.edu]
The Sunni were massacreing the Shia long before there was a United States. Before there was even a British empire, actually. Let me double check that - the term "empire" wasn't used until the late 1500's. You may legitimately claim that England wanted an empire before then, but it was no empire. Sunni-Shia killings began very soon after Moe's death, around 680. But, you go ahead and blame it all on England, or Great Britain, or the United Kingdom, or western civilization in general. Don't let facts get in your way.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 04 2017, @10:51PM
Yet you appear to be advocating for compulsory military service. What is that if not reliance on the government? It's also in complete opposition to individual liberty, making it intolerable even if it did miraculously increase safety somehow.
(Score: 2) by leftover on Sunday June 04 2017, @11:09PM (4 children)
This, exactly.
We do not (all) need to carry around automatic weapons, often not even firearms.
The best weapon is a combination of competence and awareness.
Given those, a pointy or edged something would be mighty nice to have close!
The off-duty policeman in London who resorted to tackling a knife-wielding thug
deserves credit for bravery. He is also in critical condition. Another policeman
had only his baton but did the best he could, he is is serious condition. Their
equipment and training has not kept pace with the threats.
I would much prefer these gents to have training in unarmed fighting and stick fighting.
They could likely fashion a usable pointy stick on the spot and employ it
more selectively than a firearm.
However, in some situations the very best solution is a good guy with a gun and
the training to use it with precision. Here in Ohio, this Spring at The Ohio State University,
we had an incident where a Muslim immigrant turned Islamist drove his car into a crowd
outside a building. He then proceeded to attack people with knives until a campus policeman
arrived and shot him. One of my kids was in the building next door. She was never in
any real danger but I would still probably favor machine gun nests on campus buildings,
manned by Dads of current students. (Mothers are too ferocious!)
Bent, folded, spindled, and mutilated.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 04 2017, @11:55PM (3 children)
London [...] policeman had only his baton
There are so many non-lethal weapons currently deployed by cops, it angers me when a cop's first move is to pull a gun.
Tasers and pepper spray are VERY effective.
A stick will cover most situations.
Some PDs have discovered that nunchucks [google.com] are far more versatile.
...and I quite like the way the UK PD has special firearm officers.
I also like the way Bobbies are a -national- service.
Their equipment and training has not kept pace with the threats
Amen. Accent on "training". See "nunchucks", above.
a pointy or edged something
Disagree strongly.
Most situations can be defused via non-lethal weapons.
.
...and, as with another commenter in this (meta)thread, I question the wisdom of your use of hard linebreaks in the middle of sentences.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday June 05 2017, @02:09AM
You're talking more sensibly here. US cops, especially, do resort to firearms far to readily. (That would change if they knew for a fact that all adult males were armed!) But, guns or not, everyone should be armed.
Armed men and women don't make very good victims.
"Most situations can be defused via non-lethal weapons."
That's what martial arts teachers teach. "If you run around killing people, you're an idiot, but THIS is how you kill people!" BTW, you do realize than nunchucks are a lethal weapon? In the hands of a trained person, a ball point pen is a lethal weapon. The well trained soldier or cop is the most lethal weapon in the world, stop concentrating on which tools they use.
(Score: 2) by leftover on Monday June 05 2017, @02:17AM (1 child)
Mostly agree. Regarding nunchucks, I usually associate them with two user groups:
One is the Bruce Lee group (population 1) who can play multiple simultaneous games of ping-pong with them.
The other is people who hit themselves in the face with them (population huge). A stick is much simpler to
make and to use. Also, by 'precision' I was referring to disabling without killing. Jihadists want to die, why give them that?
For myself, I am in denial about being 'old' but aware it is close. For me to be effective in a fracas I will need some leverage.
My solution is a replacement sledge hammer handle, about a yard long, with a six inch (less tang) pointy bit on the end
and short arms to trap an attackers blade. Some mud and plant stains make it a credible landscaping tool.
And regarding line breaks: I don't want to make people scroll sideways, it seems rude somehow.
Bent, folded, spindled, and mutilated.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 05 2017, @03:05AM
A stick is much simpler to make and to use
I already used the word "versatile".
You can hold both ends in 1 hand and have a stick.
You can also use it like a nutcracker to apply pressure to a forearm and get instant compliance.
The fact that is suddenly becomes twice as long when 1 end is released is for those situations that call for that.
I don't think you've seen a proper demonstration of the multitude of proper uses by police.
regarding line breaks: I don't want to make people scroll sideways
I don't think that you understand how HTML works at all.
No one else does what you do, yet their text appears normally.
Whitespace at/near the end of the line will allow for automatic linefeeds that make the text flow.
The only way to get what you described is to PURPOSELY put non-breaking spaces between all your words.
...or to make a string of unbroken text (no spaces) that is longer than the viewer's window is (e.g. a heinously-long URL).
...and the way this site's stylesheet works, even that last thing is dealt with to avoid scrollbars.
What you are doing is absolutely unnecessary.
...and, as I said to the other guy, making assumptions about what other folks have for a system configuration is bound to not work for everyone anyway.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]