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Belgian Raid Kills 2, Said To Avert "Major Terrorist Attacks"
As reported by CNN, Reuters, and other outlets, a raid in the Belgian city of Verviers -- one of several counter-terrorism actions in the country today -- ended in the death of two men, and the capture of a third, who are said to have been planning imminent acts of violence akin to the ones earlier this month in France. From Reuters' coverage:
Coming a week after Islamist gunmen killed 17 people in Paris, the incident heightened fears across Europe of young local Muslims returning radicalised from Syria. But prosecutors' spokesman Eric Van Der Sypt said the Belgian probe had been under way before the Jan. 7 attack on French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo. ... Describing events in the quiet provincial town just after dark, he said: "The suspects immediately and for several minutes opened fire with military weaponry and handguns on the special units of the federal police before they were neutralised." ... Earlier in the day, prosecutors said they had detained a man in southern Belgium whom they suspected of supplying weaponry to Amedy Coulibaly, killer of four people at a Paris Jewish grocery after the Charlie Hebdo attack. After the violence in Verviers, La Meuse newspaper quoted an unidentified police officer saying: "We've averted a Belgian Charlie Hebdo."
Did you not notice the part where the third wasn't killed?
They'll keep doing it till they're kept so busy at home that they don't have time for this foreign adventurism.
By "kept so busy at home" you mean "engaging in productive trade", right?
Because it certainly wouldn't make any sense to suggest that bombing them, for example, is "keeping them busy" in any materially useful sense, since we have overwhelming empirical data that bombing and any other form of military assault has the primary result of engendering resistance.
Furthermore, "at home" is Belgium for the people involved in this action, and "at home" was France for the blasphemophobes who murdered the blasphemers of Charlie Hebdo.
You are right that this is an asymmetric war, but you don't seem aware that that requires tactics very different from bombing or other military action in many cases. Limited military assaults can serve definite purposes, as the case of ISIS shows, but the real war won't be won on the battlefield any more than the war against the Soviets was won on the battlefield.
In fact, there not being a battlefield in any conventional sense was a requirement for winning against the Soviets. Even setting aside the problem of nuclear weapons, if we had met the Soviets on the battlefield we can say with near certainty that the population would have rallied 'round the commisars, and the Soviet Empire would have never fallen.
As such, our tactical response to Islamists should be primarily--but not exclusively--non-military. It should be economic, political, satirical, even poetical: http://www.tjradcliffe.com/?p=...
It took hundreds of years for Christians to let go of blasphemophobia. It may take as long for Muslims to let go of theirs. We should be in this for the long haul, and while we should be willing to kill and die now and then, if anyone suggests those should be the primary activities involved, they are simply expressing a profound ignorance of humans, and history, and warfare (both its costs and its effectiveness, which bellicose emotionalists often get wrong.)
Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
2015
IT''S 2015.
2015
Think about it. In this age of information, there's a specific religion that murders others out of what they call "blasphemy". In 2015. I can't say Christians were justified in their murders, but holy shit it's far less wrong than doing it now with all the knowledge we have of the universe and our complex societies based on freedom of speech and religion. And you're really equating them to Christians hundreds of years ago. There's not even the slightest probability of Islam reforming, you know why? Because they MURDER reformists. The sects that already exist are there for good. Christianity, while they also had this issue, it devolved really quickly into what we have today: a bunch of fringe denominations that ignore half the bible and only cherrypicks the good things. And let's not forget the very especial parts where they outline God's law and MAN's law (Romans 13:1-7 for instance). All in all, Christianity is far more easy to fit in with civil society. It's the perfect book to cherry pick quotes from since there are so many contradictions.
Also, while I'm at it, I'll just leave this here. Take it with a grain of salt though.
From wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muslim_attitudes_towards_terrorism):
In a 2007 Pew Research poll in response to a question on whether suicide bombing and other forms of violence against civilian targets to defend Islam could be justified, ( http://pewresearch.org/files/old-assets/pdf/muslim-americans.pdf#page=97 ) in Europe:
64% of Muslims in France believed it could never be justified, 19% believed it could be justified rarely, 10% sometimes, and 6% thought it could be justified often.
70% of Muslims in Britain believed it could never be justified, 9% believed it could be justified rarely, 12% sometimes, and 3% thought it could be justified often.
83% of Muslims in Germany believed it could never be justified, 6% believed it could be justified rarely, 6% sometimes, and 1% thought it could be justified often.
69% of Muslims in Spain believed it could never be justified, 9% believed it could be justified rarely, 10 % sometimes, and 6% thought it could be justified often.
In mainly Muslim countries:
45% of Muslims in Egypt believed it could never be justified, 25% believed it could be justified rarely, 20% sometimes, and 8% thought it could be justified often.
61% of Muslims in Turkey believed it could never be justified, 9% believed it could be justified rarely, 14% sometimes, and 3% thought it could be justified often.
43% of Muslims in Jordan believed it could never be justified, 28% believed it could be justified rarely, 24% sometimes, and 5% thought it could be justified often.
28% of Muslims in Nigeria believed it could never be justified, 23% believed it could be justified rarely, 38% sometimes, and 8% thought it could be justified often.
69% of Muslims in Pakistan believed it could never be justified, 8% believed it could be justified rarely, 7% sometimes, and 7% thought it could be justified often.
71% of Muslims in Indonesia believed it could never be justified, 18% believed it could be justified rarely, 8% sometimes, and 2% thought it could be justified often.
And to give you an example you might understand, last week, Islamists killed 2,000 people in Nigeria.
Remind me, how many people has the Westboro Baptist Church killed?
One thing I don't get - why is the West - Europe and Americas - allowing anybody to come in from ISIS lands, like Iraq or Syria? I don't have a problem w/ wannabe Jihadis taking the next flight to Baghdad, and then making their way to the frontlines in Raqqa. Let them go there, fight or do whatever ISIS asks them to do, and leave it to them.
Only thing - when they do leave for that region, take down their names and make sure that their trip is just one way. Impound their passports, cancel their citizenship/visas and make it impossible for them to legally re-enter the West. After all, they either are or embraced Islam, and decided that jihad is what they want to do. Fair enough - so let them go to the battlegrounds in Iraq or Syria where they can fight for their dear caliphate, or do whatever their Arab bosses ask them to do. If they wanna kill other Muslims b'cos they are not the same type as them, that's their problem. Let them all slug it out and determine who represents the true Islam.
Just prevent them from ever returning, and you won't have the issue of jihad terror in the West.