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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, Interesting) by looorg on Sunday June 04 2017, @10:10PM (8 children)
The first problem seems to be that our leaders don't even dare to acknowledge there is a problem or a common factor. Until they dare to do that nothing will happen. There is just so much lovey dovey and "we can't give in to hate cause then the terrorists win" bullshit people can swallow. Eventually someone will do something about it and most of us won't give a shit if they burn down every mosque in Europe and everyone that pray there.
Go back in time some 30 years or so. The US had 100's of military outposts all over the globe, the house of Saud was firmly in control of Saudi Arabia, "western imperialism" was choking the world left right and center as we have been since well forever more or less, or as long as it has been relevant. Sure there was terrorism in Europe back then to, mostly political leftist (RAF), rightwingers and various national liberation movements (IRA, ETA ...). They detonated some bombs, they killed a few people, they robed a few banks etc. But it was mostly an internal and domestic problem. There was the odd nutjob now and then that managed to cobble together some manifesto and kill a few people. Then came all these arabs and muslims and started to hijacking planes. At least the IRA had the decency to call before they decided to blow up a few buildings instead of blowing up some kids music show with a suicidebomber.
So what changed since then? The flood of "refugees" for one thing. Clearly importing millions of people from incompatible cultures over the last few decades wasn't a good thing. I'm sure there are good people in there but we can't tell the good from the bad so why should we take the risk? Really? I know I'm a horrible vile racist but things used to be better, when Europe was almost all white. Our continent was fucked up once, we fixed it -- ok it took hundreds of years and a couple of world wars and a genocide or two. We didn't fix it so strangers could come here and take advantage of it. They can fix their own lands. We can help them (but they don't seem to want that), helping the refugees in the area is a lot better and cheaper then having them travel here. If we are to take in refugees only take women and small children. Deport them again when it's "safe" or they are old enough to take care of themselves. But what is going on now is beyond crap and things will need to change. If they fuck up while they are here it should be instant deportation.
Even if the west left the middle east tomorrow they would only take that as a victory and keep it up. They'll always have something to be pissed-off about. They appear to come from a culture that likes to blame others for their woes instead of personal responsibility.
Perhaps the question should be when does "kill 'em all" become the viable option? It starting to sound more and more tempting for each passing attack. If they want a war and they want to meet Allah in person -- perhaps we should do the christian thing and just indulge them and their desire.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday June 04 2017, @10:55PM (4 children)
Oh, come on, the Cubans were hijacking planes long before the Arabs and Muslims.
Today's Europe reminds me of Spain's Moorish invasion. I don't know why EU leadership volunteered to be invaded like this, but it has happened, and unless deportation is an option, there's going to be a ethnographic shift across Europe just like Spain had with the Moors. Will Europeans with at least one white ancestor start calling themselves royalty next?
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 04 2017, @11:56PM
The Cubans were largely non-violent when they hijacked a plane. They'd have whatever weapons and they'd demand that the plane be flown to Cuba and at that point everybody would disembark the plane and ultimately wind up back in the US. Apart from being inconvenienced it wasn't really that big of a deal. The Cubans weren't known for blowing up entire planes full of people and more.
And that's a large part of why the 9/11 attacks were successful. Nobody on those first 3 planes thought to conclude that they'd be part of a kamikaze mission to blow up entire buildings full of people.
The reason why Islamic extremism has been such a huge problem is that they by and large don't have the military forces and were trained and armed by the CIA to go after groups that we were worried about at the time. If we stop interfering in the region it's going to get increasingly hard for them to recruit. But, every time we go in there and murder innocent civilians it just makes it that much easier for them to radicalize and recruit.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday June 05 2017, @02:22AM
Well, if you're going to be honest, the Cuban hijackings help to verify what Original stated. The US took over a sizeable chunk of Cuba, to establish a military base, then the US decided that it didn't like the Cuban government, etc ad nauseum, Bay of Pigs, etc, etc.
The US has a history of establishing Banana Republics throughout the Caribbean, as well as South and Central America. Cuba decided that it didn't want to be a Banana Republic.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Monday June 05 2017, @11:06AM (1 child)
The population of the EU is 500 million people. The entire Middle East, including Egypt, is 200 million. Even if the entire Middle East were to move to Europe, they would still be heavily outnumbered by white people. White genocide is not a possibility even if the Middle Eastern folk tried with all their might and every man, woman, and child.
The numbers of Muslims worldwide don't start to tip that balance vis-a-vis white Europeans until you throw countries like Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Indonesia into the mix. None of those places is trying to flood Europe with immigrants.
If European society is so fragile that a 1% change in their population, with those newcomers being penniless and desperate, can destabilize them and throw them into anarchy, then they ain't the great shakes they make themselves out to be. Hell, they ought to be grateful to have a group of people who don't mind keeping their delis open on Sundays and Christian holidays when the rest of the Germans have knocked off but damn aunt Helga forgot the sour cream for the Kartoffeln again can somebody please run out to the store and get some?
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday June 05 2017, @01:02PM
Europe hasn't dealt with penniless and desperate in a long time... they will need to adjust a few things to keep the 1% from doing damage equivalent to 10% of the population being soccer hooligans and welfare punks.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 04 2017, @11:02PM (2 children)
Most of the globe's refugees are fleeing USA's wars of aggression
The reason for the instability of their homelands is attempts at hegemony by USA.gov.
N.B. USA.gov hasn't fought a defensive action since January 1815 (The Battle of New Orleans--which happened 2 weeks after the war was over).
...and let's not forget to throw in USA's (failed) War on Drugs and the resulting violence and instability from that.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 05 2017, @12:00AM (1 child)
That's an exaggeration. There's huge numbers of people in Africa being displaced by wars there that have nothing to do with the US. The US never really had colonies in Africa. Liberia is the closest that I can think of and that's a pretty small country and ultimately gained independence without any sort of war.
The ones your thinking about are mostly in the middle east and the violence is as much because of what the US has done as the tensions between the various factions and ethnic groups.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Monday June 05 2017, @11:46AM
Yes, it's fashionable now to make everything all America's fault, no matter what, no matter where. But in modern history there was already a lot of tension from Ottoman rule (that's what Lawrence of Arabia was all about), and then post-WWI colonization by France and Britain; France, which took Lebanon and Syria, and Britain, which took Palestine and Jordan (names and exact boundaries have changed, but that's roughly it in current terms). Then before that you have the tensions caused by Byzantine rule, the Crusades, Roman oppression, Macedonian hegemony, Persian rule, Hittite invasion, Babylonian attrocity, and those total fuckers, the Chaldeans. There are many more interstitial empires and oppressors in that timespan, but that should suffice to remind everyone on the "Hate on America" train that that region has never been anything but a clusterfuck.
It also ought to persuade anyone, even the most ardent hippie, that even another thousand years would not bring civilization and peace to a region that has stubbornly refused them for 7,000 years (at least). There is a saying that is apt here: "If they do not know by now, it is because they refuse to learn."
Washington DC delenda est.