magnumpi

That's a good idea Trish, but won't help the subway victims unfortunately

Maybe the only way to stop future attacks is to do what sharks says, round up the families of them involved and punish them? Harsh tho :@(

I am guess his idea is that they would have known and kept it a secret in suport of the action.

Juggernaut1064

Unfortunately the west is bound by conventions etc that mean we cannot behave the same way that IS does, In war unfortunately civilians die, Europe knows this all too well, cities obliterated, populations routed. Certain peoples where systematically rounded up and murdered in an attempt to wipe them out.
There is only one answer to this level of violence and that answer is a greater level of violence ! The pacifists have yet to stop a violent group from committing violence as Neville Chamberlain tried and failed to do.
With hind sight going to the middle east was possibly a mistake BUT we where asked to go by a country that was over run by Iraqi, It could be debated till hell freezes over whether certain actions brought this on us but the situation is here, IS wants a war then i think we should give it to them with every piece of military hardware we can muster and obliterate this threat to the west once and for all and then leave these despot dictators in power as they do seem to do a good job of keeping the peace over there.
Just my opinion.

mikelincs

The problem with that idea is that it will lead to large queues outside the terminal, causing yet another target for these sort of people.

scrubbedexpat091

And beinf these attacks were suicide bombers checkpoints would not so much, as you point out people in line will become the targets.

Hard to stop a bomber who straps the bomb to their body and blow themselves uo as well.

Oakvillian

There are several theories of military strategy concerned with this kind of situation - variously bundled under the banners of counter-terrorism, low-intensity operations, asymmetric warfare - but what they all have in common is that the civil power absolutely cannot descend to the level of violence perpetrated by the terrorists/insurgents. Frank Kitson, a British general who wrote the definitive early work "Low Intensity Operations" in 1971 - a bit dated now, drawing as it did primarily on his experiences in Kenya and the Malay peninsula, but still worth a read. The only effect such an escalatory approach would have is to add fuel to the fire of radicalization, providing a huge influs of recruits to the cause, inflaming the conflict, causing more incidents and much higher casualty figures. If that's what you want to see happen, by all means promote the Wicked Witch of the West line: go get them and their little dog too. Thankfully, most people in a position to actually make such decisions understand that "give it to them with every piece of military hardware we can muster" is not actually a helpful or sensible suggestion.

Juggernaut1064

Well i guess we just sit here and let them bomb and shoot us till they get bored then and we do nothing ? As i said its my opinion but i guess that you dont agree with it that im not allowed an opinion ?

JamesM

Bit of an overreaction dont you think?

Western Militaries kill comfortably more innocent bystanders every day than this with bombings across a small handful of countries.

We see a bomb attack every few months spread across many countries.

Keep calm and carry on.

Juggernaut1064

My opinion and thats it ! I suppose you would have the same reaction if it where your wife/son/daughter who was blown to bits ?
Only good terrorist is a dead one !

magnumpi

I wonder if ISIS are at all concerned that Trump maybe their new enemy soon

Pizzawheel

That's true enough, the problem is isolating them, since by their very definition they're effectively civilians. Total military supremacy creates asymmetric warfare.

We could always go back to the concentration camps to tidy things up. That was a successful* British invention (*brought the boer war to a close. And led to a very partisan pro-afrikaan/ anti-english country when things developed later).

I think ISIS would be licking their lips at the thought of that- only problem is logistics with all the new recruits, and when to start the Hispanic/ catholic wing.

dave_j

I could imagine an Iraqi or Syrian stating exactly the same as he looks at his house that's now reduced to rubble with his family dead inside it as he gazes up at the US drone or Russian aircraft that's flying safely away leaving yet another IS recruit behind.
The only surprise is that there are so few bombs exploding in western cities. The Belgian dead were as innocent as is the 'collateral damage' that flows so easily from western TV screens.
We sit safely in our armchairs, watching news broadcasts. 'US drone strike kills 20', 'Russian attack flattens hospital'; should we really be surprised when we hear about outrages such as those that happened in Bruxelles?
'Ahh', I hear you say, 'you can't compare the two, they're terrorists and our actions are legal'. This is the argument of the mentally bankrupt, of those who fail to understand the root causes of these actions. Like the Irish conflict, these events have centuries of emnity that have led to yesterday's events and like the Irish conflict each side has god on it's side and think mistakenly that they can win.

magnumpi

The comparison is more like IS are wanting to kill innocent westerners and the US gang kill them by accident as the terrorists are cowards and hide amongst the innocent

bats

Isis have killed more innocent Muslims than they have innocent westerners. They don't really like anybody.

dave_j

We have to accept that when a bomb falls on a neighbourhood to 'take out' a target then a decision has been made that the death of innocents is an acceptable outcome. This is not an accident but the inevitable result of a military decision making process. A decision for which we are all responsible by virtue of the democratic process.
I suspect that a similar process exists within the IS mindset. Create havoc, chaos and fear and achieve this by disrupting normal activity and killing people. However misguided is their outlook, a willingness to blow yourself up in achieving this aim is not my idea of cowardice and I think it's this aspect of IS behaviour that is so frightening since it's so alien to what is considered normal.

BristolUK

One wonders what's in store for when they inevitably split into two factions; the new one going their own way because the other faction is too moderate.