Paris attacks 128 dead at Batclan reported, 99 in criticsl.

Doesn't that say more about the lack of action being taken rather than the need to disregard due process though?

By that i mean if someone has broken a law shouldn't we be acting on that, I'm all for arresting, prosecuting and if found guilty locking up the bad guys, but we shouldn't throw away that due process as without it we are (imo) no better than IS.

EDIT: Take these recent attacks as an example, if these guys were known to the intelligence services why were they not arrested when they got their hand on automatic weapons and hand grenades, something that AFAIK would be considered an arrestable offense in France, why were they not arrested and/or questioned when returning from Syria/Iraq/Lebanon.

Without looking into more details i would guess these guys broke many laws before they carried out these atrocities so why were they not arrested and put before a judge & jury?

 

Looks like Paris are now fighting back taking down attackers using their fighter jets..

 

I think we have different definitions of being 'known' to intelligence services.

My definition would be that they have knowingly communicated over the darkweb, or through another covert network with allies in IS, to talk about the possibility of something like Bataclan being organised.
Now this may be an arrestable offence, but the law would only give them a negligible jail sentence, if any. Can't deport them as most were French citizens. The only option is to give them a token sentence, then release them. They can't be effectively shadowed, law enforcement just don't have the resources to do that with every potential terrorist.

What Law Enforcement SHOULD be able to do is indefinitely jail these individuals on the basis that they pose an undeniable risk to the safety and security of their nation and the surrounding countries.

Once weapons come into the equation, then background checks will easily detail their affiliations and they should be sent to the cells for life, as it's evident their loyalties to killing 'in the name of Allah' will only cease once they themselves are dead.

The downsides to this solution is that numerous human rights organisations would be up in arms at the shadowed nature of it. This, unfortunately, is the only way to fight IS. In the shadows. A full scale assault would undoubtedly end up in Iraq/Afghan 2.0. A bloody streetwar where no-one wins and IS still exists.

Another option, one which I've zero experience or background in, is to de-programme these individuals. They were radicalised somewhere and somehow, I find it hard to believe the psychologists somewhere have not tried to reverse the process. The evidence that these people will kill themselves so willingly smacks of extremely suggestible personalities. If they can be turned into killing machines by other religious fanatics, then surely a professionally trained individual can turn them back.

 

I didn't know (no pun intended) there were different types of known.

Yea that's the same known i know.

While i would disagree with condemning someone based solely on their use of the darkweb, or through another covert network, i do agree with the talking about organising an attack, in a similar fashion as the killers of Lee Rigby were know to the intelligence services, in the way that they talked about what they wanted to do on their Facebook accounts 6 months before the act and years after returning from training camps in Africa.

While i agree that your a-typical bad guy may only get a token sentence isn't that a good thing, it prevents them from carrying out their attack and allows a chance to intervene in their radicalisation.

The not enough resources argument just doesn't hold water I'm afraid, especially when the governments plans for the snoopers charter is going to cost according to the governments own figures £180m a year, people say a more realistic cost would be around £250m a year, added to that Mr Cameron recently announced resources have magically become available for an extra 1,900 security and intelligence staff, a 15% increase in staffing.

If the evidence supports that then i would agree, but again we're back to that annoying thing of due process and not locking people up indefinitely based on nothing more than suspicions or rumors, otherwise what's to stop the state locking you or I up indefinitely without a shred of evidence, isn't that what despot dictators do?

And if the evidence supports that you would no argument from me, we would treat it/them in a similar fashion as we treat attempted murder, to convict someone of that it has to be proved they were more than merely preparing to commit an unlawful killing, it also has to be proven they had a specific intention to commit an unlawful killing.

In the case of the bad guys we're talking about, the preparation would/could be traveling to Syria et al, and the intention would be provable when they take ownership of the means to carry out their preparations.

And rightly so, it's next to impossible to argue the moral high ground if we result to the same means as those we stand in judgment of, heck even after the atrocities of WWII we held a trail, not because we didn't know they were guilty but because justices has to been seen to be done, because if we just condemned them to death without trail we would've been no better than them.

And that's were due process comes in again, if they've been found guilty and locked up it gives time to de-radicalise them, to asses if there safe to be released, to lock them backup instantly if they break the terms of their parole.

 

You can't stop IS. It's merely a label for a means of ruling people. As long as there are people that subscribe to the idea you will have IS.

Bin Laden ended up using his face as a bullet catcher but what did that really result in? You only have to look at the Charlie Hebdo attack to see that Al Qaeda are still out there and still capable of terrorism and that's after countless billions spent invading Afghanistan.

The idea that arresting people, killing known IS leaders, bombing other countries actually does anything beyond short term distruption is naive to say the least. No more than killing westerners or their leaders would stop democracy or the western way of life.

You want to stop ideas like IS? Then stop trying to manipulate unstable countries to your own ends. You educate the population and you grow their economies.

Maybe when the oil runs out in the middle east the west will stop messing about over there and they can be left to develop themselves.

 

Which have exactly zero to do with these attacks. These attacks were carried out by descendants of immigrants from arab states, who already had French or Belgian citizenship, who didn't live in unstable countries and bad economies. They just had bad lifes, criminal background; and instead of blaming themselves, they decided that it was fault of the french society and not their own.

 

Who radicalised the terrorists then? You don't make the leap from disgruntled criminal to suicide bomber for a cause without a bit of coaching.

Don't get me wrong though, the fact that people growing up in western countries find that murdering innocent people and blowing themselves up is a viable career path shows some complete failings within western society as well.

 

Al Qaeda are clearly driven by the western "invasion" of their lands, but Isis' primary motivation is the formation of a Caliphate, and eventually expanding it worldwide. Basically, they fancy their chances at succeeding where the British, the Romans, the French and (at the risk of Godwinning the thread) the Nazis ultimately failed.

They do seem to be limiting their aggression to targets who may be restricted in the depth of their retaliation though - I haven't noticed them shooting up nightclubs in Moscow, so they clearly don't feel they're quite ready to poke the bear. More than one of the above came a cropper when trying that.

 

They know that if they do poke Ivan, Poutin will probably send a full scale invasion. The same goes with the Americans.

 

I think France will convince America and England to launch a full scale invasion in truth.

 

hmmm I have heard of extra activity at Istres - and given the nature of the aircraft based there is a worry.

 

Its not impossible but I doubt it. I think France will continue bombing and perhaps launch special forces type missions on the ground (if they weren't doing that already), which may involve other countries. But given what a pointless endeavour invading Afghanistan was I just don't see it happening in Syria. But who knows.

 

Exactly.

Why do people become terrorists, kill random civilians and blow themselves up? Because they hate the society they live in and have nothing to live for.

Want to prevent radicalisation? Enable young people to feel connected to society and give them something to live for; a place to belong, an ideology to live by, a source of self-esteem.

Again: exactly. There are vast numbers of young people who feel disenfranchised, discounted and inadequate. They have a grudge against society, their inner life is empty and they need a sense of belonging, a purpose and an identity that gives them self-worth.

Along comes an ideology that delivers on all that: a justification for their grudge against society, a strong ideology to live by, a group to belong to, a purpose which aligns neatly with acting out on their anger and a positively valued identity to boot. How can they resist?

And we fermented that ideology in Afghanistan since 1979.


"Some believe it is only great power that can hold evil in check, but that is not what I have found. It is the small everyday deeds of ordinary folk that keep the darkness at bay. Small acts of kindness and love." --J.R.R. Tolkien

 

Someone told me that my compassion toward the Paris victims was invalidated by my lack of compassion toward the Beirut victims. As an individual, I cannot cry for every sad events that happens everyday, I concentrate my energies on stuff on which I can relate the most. I'll always cry for family and friends before crying for strangers, the french folks are our cousins while the Lebaneses folk are strangers.

 

Don't get their logic. Just because you express compassion towards the French victims does not mean you don't feel compassion for those in Beirut. It's not mutually exclusive or something.

 

The key is to get all your enemies to fight each other (e.g Al Qaeda vs ISIS, rebels vs Syria).

Unfortunately, it's ISIS that is doing it, and superbly. Russia and USA are dick swinging, and after the Paris attacks the entire UK is turning on each other, whether it be whites attacking Asians or old racists slinging childish insults at 20-somethings condemning racism.

Meanwhile the public demand their governments to 'do something', leading to a fake show of power and using up time and resources.

 

Isn't that exactly what we have been doing? while they all fight each other over sectarian differences, big industry pops in and says hello, makes a profit? oil drilling to grease the palms of the powerful, and arms/munitions to the lesser factions....

 

That shield though...

 

That's the police shield from the Bataclan assault?

 

It is.