Slashdot Mirror
Attackers Tweet As They Assault UN Development Program Compound
Koreantoast writes "In another interesting example of the increasing use and sophistication of social media by non-governmental organizations, the Somali-based Islamic insurgency al-Shabab live tweeted their latest attack, a suicide assault against a United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) facility in Mogadishu which left 15 dead. During the event, they denounced UNDP, tweeting during the attack that the UN is 'a merchant of death & a satanic force of evil, has a long inglorious record of spreading nothing but poverty, dependency & disbelief' and proceeded to mock newly appointed UN Representative Nicholas Kay who is to arrive in Somalia later this month. Also of note is their initiation of communications with various press entities including the AP, BBC and IHS Janes through Twitter. Hat tip to Foreign Policy magazine for the story."
I have to say, I can understand how they would view the UN in such a way. The UN's policies are pretty firm in their pushing of dependence, which is unsurprising given the way the wealthier and more influential nations are able to control it.
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
I am pretty sure that tweeting that you are suicide bombing a 'merchant of death' requires the OED to make a new notation on the irony page.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
starting 2 attack un compound lol #somaliinsurgency
just killed another 1! he wont go home 2 his family 2nite lol
guns empty, got 2 reload in the middle of fight #thirdworldproblems
bullet just smashed through bffs skull! wtf assholes #thirdworldproblems
just collected friends brain matter from wall, going 2 sell on ebay lol
just took bullet 2 arm lol eww feel blood running down past elbow
going in for suicide attack lol! brb
The people engaging in these attacks represent a minority of the people who live there.
And the people who live there aren't doing a fucking thing about it are they? Do you think they don't know who it is?
Why is it they I'm guilty for standing aside and watching a crime against humanity, but they are absolved?
If they had such a problem against it, they'd do something about it. They do not. They are only slightly different than the ones actually perform the bombings.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
But I agree with the Anon Coward. The majority that live there want peace? Let them fix their own house then. Maybe some support but enough with trying to police the world. Quarantine the problem areas and let the supposedly peaceful majority take control then we can negotiate with them. You can't negotiate with people who are perfectly content to blow up 100 of their own people to kill a few infidels.
I'll bet clicking on that Twitter link put me on some kind of list, and I needed to fly somewhere later this month!
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
I assume they're already being followed by @ObamaDrone.
Please RT
I'm sure some of them try do something, although I'm sure some of them are dead now. Do we abandon them?
Of course, most people just go with the flow. Do you condemn them for being human?
Despite this setback conditions in Somalia are improving. Pretty good for the most lawless place in the world.
This is exactly my thoughts. If the people do want the help then they should help themselves first by trying to eliminate these radical elements of society. Of course, you can crow all day about "innocent bystanders" and "the extremists are the minority" but the real question should be: Are they really? Are the majority of the people so in favor of aid that they would do something if it would help? I think the clear and resounding answer to that is "no". No they wouldn't, won't, and will not help because they simply don't care.
I got here through a series of tubes
237 users +1 LIKE your Planned Embassy Raid
If the New World Order is trying to keep sub-Saharan Africa down, they're doing it wrong.
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
I should add to that, I don't believe in going to destroy their country in a big invasion. I believe we should just leave them alone and let them kill themselves instead of trying to 'save them'.
These sort of problems resolve themselves fairly quickly without outside support. Evolution is a bitch.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
The Germans involved in the Holocaust were a minority of the overall German population. But we bombed the crap out of the entire country anyways.
sudo make me a sandwich
"UN is 'a merchant of death & a satanic force of evil"
so we kill them all, muwahahaha.
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
Yes, but not to protect foreign interests, only to limit American rights.
Do I hear sirens?
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
Whoever runs this Twitter account has better grammar and spelling than 99% of Americans.
sudo make me a sandwich
Yes. we bombed the shit out of berlin for days on end. Why? because that was the only way to stop the evil people. you had to kill others to get the evil people.
Why dont the UN just fire up gatling guns and mow down the whole frigging crowd attacking?
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
That is absolutely absurd.
For example when you talk about "they" who do you mean? All of them?
Take, for example, drug-dealing in the West... now drug dealers have to conduct business in public and with the public, Al-Shabab do not and can remain relatively hidden during their planning and operations. What percentage of the population of Western Towns and cities do you think could accurately identify or name over 50% of their local drug dealers? I'm guessing it's in the region of a few percent - the other ninety-odd percent of people know little or nothing about it.
Your comments are actually harmful to this discourse, you haven't thought them through, and are labelling an entire population when it is, in fact, a minority.
Germany, early 20th century. Not very many madmen, initially. Yet they acquired power and then they managed to keep population in fear, didn't they? Many more examples before and after.
It's not that difficult for people with agenda to establish control if they have access to weapons (as opposed to the rest od the population), don't hesitate to use violence and know how to use propaganda, religious or otherwise. Religious propaganda or any other based on superstition(s) has worked very well since eons until these days, in many countries, regardless of how much the country is "civilized". The advantage is that you don't have to prove anything. It's one of the best con tricks ever invented by man.
That's probably true, but killing peaceful workers probably isn't going to spread the message to the right people.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
I wonder what those tweets looked like.
You are welcome on my lawn.
You fight murderous forces with murderous forces, only a fool would try to do otherwise. Read the "art of war".
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
in Afghanistan, the world did nothing when a small group of religious troops start to take over, killing and controlling everything.
No one helped...they were just another group...
All other forces combined would defeat the talibans, but they all were broken apart with regional battles and war lords and one at time they were being defeated by the talibans. After some time the remaining war lords were too weak to defeat then.. and no one helped...
Internal resistance was getting weaker and weaker until most of the country was under their control and after that, none dare to even think about disagree with the talibans, they controled (almost) everyone... and again, no one helped...
With in "house" almost secure and several generations of people that only know how to fight and make war, they start to export their ideals and fight and a few years later you got the attack to the twin towers, the Madrid bombing, several bomb attacks in africa and asia and many radical Islamic movements all over the world... only then several countries decided to "help", in a war that still didn't end after all this years.
You know, helping in the right time might save a lot of trouble in the future. Not helping can make things even worst, as no one likes to feel abandoned.
In somalia there are external help and the Islamic radicals are losing ground... yet they use this suicide bombings as a way to try to regain power and force external public opinion to abandon the country. It also make everyone insecure and harder for any government to work/prevail , reducing the resistance to their attacks. Then any propaganda about the "good old islamic army", in a God send mission to save then is what local people want to ear and will increase their local support.
Finally, there is no need for local support to make terror attacks, and they can be easily hidden until is too late... just look at the Boston marathon bombing. No external support, 2 person attack, no one did anything until was too late. Take out the cameras and probably no one would know exactly who did that attack, opening the door for more attacks later.
Higuita
Of course the locals know that their neighbors are plotting to kill. The locals also know that if they stop their neighbor's plot, they'll be dead by the end of the week. They don't have body armor, helmets, tanks, bodyguards, or even so much as a solid front door. They are absolutely powerless against the people with guns, so we send in the UN troops. They're trained soldiers with all the equipment they need to do what the locals can't. That changes the game, and the locals now have to publicly pretend to hate the UN so they aren't seen as supporting the "invaders". Local chieftains are usually a more honest source of sentiment polls, because they have a bit more freedom to speak.
Of course, in turn the fear-fueled displays of animosity towards the UN troops reinforces the radicals' belief that they're acting on the will of the people, so their plots get bigger and deadlier, so the UN sends in more troops, continuing the cycle.
There is no easy answer. Removing the UN troops leaves the radicals still armed and murderous. Adding more UN troops increases the risk, but also increases the equipment cost to the radicals for each plot. The gamble is whether the radicals run out of resources before too many innocent people die.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
After looking at the feed for this group, it contains a bunch of reporters trying to speak to them. Only on twitter would you see a member of the associated press type a message like this:
@natemook @HSMPRESS1 So in ur idea of journalism u ONLY speak 2 peep who don't kill/respect human rts? How do u expect 2understandextremism?
It reads like a teenager talking to equally less caring friends. Why has twitter of all things become such a figurehead over these kinds of communications? It seems asinine.
You are guilty because some very well-meaning but strategically inept white people realised that the imperial powers that colonized Africa in the 19th century basically sold the entire continent guns without any attempt at training. Most of the time, they left afterwards.
And most of the time, these were not literally guns, but ideas: Christianity, capitalism, democracy, bureaucracy, self-determination... These are all very powerful tools that can be used to positive effect by a mind from the right culture, but at the time, no one realised that the cultural differences ran deeply enough that a generation or two of education and preaching was insufficient. The people who did draw the distinction were either so excited by science that they assumed the difference was fundamental (and so created Social Darwinism), quickly making the whole topic verboten. It was suppressed in the name of political correctness, which made it a little easier for highly motivated people to change their cultural makeup and succeed, but mostly did damage, as we were now ignorant of why everyone else continued to fail.
The key difference between the two cultures is an analytic mindset versus a holistic mindset; we break ideas down, they see them in context. There are advantages to both, although without any analytical skill whatsoever it becomes immensely hard to reason about whether or not you're being cheated on a deal or if it makes no sense that some random guy's arbitrary religious hate assertions are more reasonable than those of someone else. For most of human history, these kinds of reasoning simply haven't been necessary.
This is at least as devastating as the actual guns, not to mention all of the diseases, in the colonization of other far-off lands. (Oh, and the slave trade. Let's not forget that even tiny little Easter frickin' Island had its people stolen by the Peruvians for slavery.)
So. You are guilty because, in an ironic twist of fate, the academics who are trying to help get this mess fixed have no idea of how to appeal to the reason of the people around them. They feel so bad about the interventionalism of the past that they don't want to accept that the solution lies in education—a little closer to the bad kind than most efforts—and would rather treat the symptoms, like stopping the LRA. If it's any consolation, most such activists are students who don't really know any better and are just victims of their own consciences.
Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
If they are, they're doing a piss poor job of being "aggressive".
We didn't bomb them to stop the Holocaust, we bombed them to win the war. Germans started it by bombing the crap of civilian areas all over Europe at the beginning of the war, sinking civilian ships etc etc. It was that kind of war.
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
I'm not defending the actions of the murderers, and I'm not defending the inaction of the bystanders who observe the crimes and do nothing. But, these reports might give you some understanding of their perspective and why they are mad. The UN has an absolutely terrible track record in Africa. They've been accused of widespread sexual abuse of children across multiple African countries by thousands of victims, across a number of years with virtually no action taken to stop the abuse. There are also numerous accusations of corruption and collusion with warlords. The UN as an organization has noble intentions, but the people on the ground are subject to some very human flaws when given too much power over the weak.
2002: http://www.upi.com/Business_News/Security-Industry/2002/05/06/Refugee-sex-scandal-triggers-UN-reforms/UPI-89771020662474/ - UN troops raped children in Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Guinea.
2006: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6195830.stm - Children have been subjected to rape and prostitution by United Nations peacekeepers in Haiti and Liberia, a BBC investigation has found
2007: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1538476/UN-staff-accused-of-raping-children-in-Sudan.html - The UN said today that it would launch an investigation after the Daily Telegraph reported allegations that UN personnel have abused children in southern Sudan.
2011: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/146874 - An AP investigation found that food meant for starving Somalis is being stolen and sold in markets. UN's World Food Program unfazed.
The elephant in the room is Islam. It is a different proposition to be opposing say a communist militia in your country and opposing an Islamist militia. People who are thought from childhood to believe that Koran is a literal word of God cannot reasonably oppose Jihadists who are fighting infidels for the glory of Islam, because that is what God clearly orders them to do! This is the power of religion. When you have people fanatical enough to torture and murder young children in front of their parents for making an innocent joke mentioning Mohammad's name (as happened the other day in Syria) it is a scary force to oppose for ordinary unarmed people. The only way forward is for the civilized world to demand secularization of the government in Islamic countries (Turkey style) and reform of Islam, which unfortunately will mean conflict with Islam for a long time.
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
The primary sources of news will become the beneficiaries of the revenue stream, cutting out MSM middlemen.
Unless NSA avoids it. Too bad for the UN or other contries, by the way, if they detected it, decided not to warn (or even promoted it).
I would argue that the presence of the Coptic church in Ethiopia prevented the Roman Catholics from doing the same damage they did elsewhere. The importation of Abrahamic religions to Africa in the modern era still did a lot of fresh damage, whether or not they were already there.
Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
You're drawing the wrong conclusion from your analogy. Most people don't personally know drug dealers. They don't need to. If an abandoned house in your neighborhood is being used by drug addicts, you know what you do? You call the cops and they clear it out. If the cops are interested (usually they're not, they'll just break up the "party" to placate the people who called them), they can find out who is selling drugs in that area. It's so trivial it's a joke. I'm guessing you're not from the US or you'd know that jails are full to bursting with drug dealers and drug users.
So the point is, 99.99% of the population of the city (let alone the country) didn't need to know about that house. The 100 people in the neighborhood knew about that house, and out of that 100, it took a handful to call it in and make enough noise that the cops would show up.
The UN is never going to convince these people that they are the good guys, because to them they're not the good guys. The UN should be trying to convince the rest of the world that they are the good guys. And that means killing the bad guys.
Yes, there was so much popular opposition to Communist militias executing people during the Cultural Revolution. After all, those people hadn't been raised to believe in the word of God, just in the word of some guy named Mao.
The power-hungry won't be stopped by something as simple as a secular government.
Everything is better with chainsaws.
Matthew Parris: As an atheist, I truly believe Africa needs God
Are Savages Noble?
The Effect of Cell Phone Coverage and Political Violence in Africa
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
So the nuts can use social networking too. Heck of a lot faster than mailing your insane manifesto to news organizations.
Would have been interesting if Twitter was around in the days of the Unabomber (and incredibly ironic if he used it).
I think all of those more or less underscore my point; to avoid doing more harm than good, there are a lot of deep cultural changes that need to be seen through to the end before simply throwing technology and ideas at a group of people. Science fiction belabours this point endlessly, although it rarely goes beyond the surface.
The idea of an atheist prescribing religion isn't really a new one, either; you can hardly look at history without realising that's why we developed religion in the first place. The hard part is in finding a sufficiently accessible teaching system; Europe experimented with all kinds of belief systems both before and after Christianity took root, and not all of them are compatible with the older generations of a hunter-gatherer society. Above all else, however, the work must be done thoroughly, otherwise we get tragedies like Nigerian witchdoctors telling men to rape children as a to cure to their AIDS, and hideous chimerical beasts like the LRA. Unfortunately this invasive process amounts to a great deal of lost cultural diversity.
Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
Everyone here needs to stop getting distracted by the religion-based parts of their statements and understand that while indiscriminate murder is wrong, these people have legitimate grievances having nothing to do with religion -- like the multi-century rape, enslavement, and occupation (both direct and in the form of aid to local dictators) of most of Africa and the Mid-East by western governments for centuries.
If I lived there, I'd probably be killing the U.N., too.
(Personal disclosure: I'm an atheist. I hate all religions, and find them all repugnant. But that's no excuse for not taking the time to research and comprehend the *full* situation here, including the actions and culpability of all involved parties.)
The indiscriminate justice you advocate...
What he is advocating is not justice, indiscriminate or otherwise. There are many peace loving islamic people and tarring them with the same brush as the extremists is just ignorant. If you are not convinced then think about another collective group: your country. Would you want to be held accountable for the actions of your government? Assuming you are in a democracy, you have far more control their actions that than a muslim has over the actions of other muslims.
The UN has already blamed the Jews.
Considering that the attacks were described as "suicidal", calling the perpetrators "cowards" seems gross misuse of the language. "Crazed" is plausible, but needs more evidence. 'Fanatic bigots" seems more justifiable.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
To be honest, Mao wasn't that bad. He wasn't any Stalin. He wasn't very friendly to the US, and he had some silly ideas, but he generally had good intentions. As authoritarian dictators go Mao was pretty decent. The real problem is centralized control. But as Somali proves, anarchy isn't all that good either. (Basically, anarchy is unstable against some group establishing a coercive power structure.)
And democracies and republics seem to drift towards authoritarian dictatorships. Britain is a bit of a miracle, caused by generations of Kings who didn't speak the native language, and ignored what the parliments were doing. But its looking a bit as if it's drifting towards an authoritarian society WITHOUT a dictator. I'm not real sure that's an improvement...though you could ask the modern chinese, except they don't have a decent basis for comparison. They've always lived with either an Emperor or an anarchistic mess of warlords until post-Mao, when they've drifted into a centralist authoritarian government without a dictator.
Possibly humans just can't be trusted with power.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
in Afghanistan, the world did nothing when a small group of religious troops start to take over, killing and controlling everything.
Not everyone sat by and did nothing. The US funded and helped foster the Taliban, according to Selig Harrison from the Woodrow Wilson International Centre :
The CIA made a historic mistake in encouraging Islamic groups from all over the world to come to Afghanistan. The U.S. provided $3 billion for building up these Islamic groups, and it accepted Pakistan's demand that they should decide how this money should be spent.
The old associations between the intelligence agencies continue. The CIA still has close links with the ISI (Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence).
Today that money and those weapons have helped build up the Taliban, Harrison said. The Taliban are not just recruits from 'madrassas' (Muslim theological schools) but are on the payroll of the ISI. The Taliban are now "making a living out of terrorism."
We don't see the world as it is, we see it as we are.
-- Anais Nin
This was not exactly a secret when it was going on. (I was in college at the time.) It was pretty much common knowledge that we were providing help to just about anybody who expressed an interest in going to Afghanistan and kicking some Commie butt on America's behalf.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
And the people who live there aren't doing a fucking thing about it are they? Do you think they don't know who it is?
Why is it they I'm guilty for standing aside and watching a crime against humanity, but they are absolved?
If they had such a problem against it, they'd do something about it. They do not. They are only slightly different than the ones actually perform the bombings.
You could be talking about the USA here just as easily.
blindly antisocialist = antisocial
That was during the cold war, after the URSS withdraw, the USA soon forgot about Afghanistan and is where most post start to tell the story.
Higuita
It seems pretty clear that not having a Second Amendment there is really hurting their ability to resist these lawless folks who have guns. Yay for gun control! Only the Police (TM) and criminals should have guns! Hurray!
"Someone needs to talk to the tree of liberty about its ghoulish drinking problem." by ohnocitizen