Originally Posted by Swerv-o (Post 11798489)

Vladimir Putin seems to have reached this conclusion. Looks like he's now deploying Bears, Backfires and Blackjacks into the Syrian theatre. This is a lot more firepower than the original SU-34s were able to deliver.

S

Originally Posted by GarryP (Post 11798530)

It's one of the counterintuitive things about going overboard on the security theatre - there are so many false positives that people stop thinking they will ever find a real bad guy - so they don't. The effectiveness actually goes down, as the intrusiveness goes up.

Think about it, a minimum wage border guard. Say he sees 1 person every 30 seconds. That would be ~1000 people per day. 200,000 people per year. Suppose he stops only 1 in 100 of those people. That's still 2000 per year. And actually finding a terrorist in that lot is going to be less than 1 per year - so, say 1 in 10,000 chance on a 1 in 100 selection.

Is it any wonder they don't catch people? Hell the reviews of the TSA find they fail 95% of the time on tests (and those are going to be more obvious than someone actually trying to hide weapons, let alone someone on a fake passport).

From the point of view of the security theatre at borders, it by design fails most of the time. From the point of view of the terrorist, they have a pretty good chance (better than 1 in 30 probably) of not getting hassled getting weapons through the check, and probably a higher probability of getting themselves through.

As I've said, borders and lines really aren't that useful in this context.

Originally Posted by BadgeIsBack (Post 11800507)

I find the entire French and Russian perspective, and intervention, quite refreshing.

It's incredible that the US-Brit-Aus coalition hasn't done a great deal (apart from the contribution to the counter attack in Syria) and we haven't heard a lot recently on the news about successful strikes.

When the Russians stepped up I got the fact they were going after the rebels
but I figured that they, and now along with the French (who the Anglos take the piss out of) would have a lot to play in this, putting the US-Brit-Aus coalition on the backfoot. Real leadership essentially.



People forget that whilst computers do the checking (Beoz's point) the Mark 1 human is basically fallible, always has been. Human intelligence is one of those grey areas.

Whenever soldiers, intelligence agents get discussed people seem to think they are 'super-trained'. Special forces raids have moments of calamity verging on the chaotic with utter confusion.

We live in a world where your average punter has seen too many movies and played too many computer games. The reality is that people eff up. A lot has to happen in the right order for someone to be targeted and that's why things seem so clear after the event. But police and intelligence services also have lots of wins, as we know. Humint is a big industry and it works in very traditional ways, backed up with databases.

Originally Posted by Beoz (Post 11800519)

It also helps that the State of Emergency changes a lot of the rules in France. Before it, the government couldn't do sh8t. A left wing dream. Now they have all sorts of powers.

Originally Posted by Beoz (Post 11800519)

It also helps that the State of Emergency changes a lot of the rules in France. Before it, the government couldn't do sh8t. A left wing dream. Now they have all sorts of powers.

Originally Posted by GarryP (Post 11803451)

Yeah, all sorts of powers, couldn't be misused and make things worse, could they .....

France's state of emergency could lead to abuses, say human rights groups | World news | The Guardian

Originally Posted by Beoz (Post 11803454)

Oh dear. 130 innocent people get killed and the lefties start complaining about their rights.

Only the left could be so me me me.

Originally Posted by GarryP (Post 11803461)

:rolleyes:

As we already covered, making 'them brown people' all targets because of the actions of one or two is only going to make things much, much worse and result in more terrorist actions.

These indiscriminate aggressive actions are "giving aid and support to terrorists" and ought to result in the goons being jailed.

Originally Posted by ozzieeagle (Post 11796533)

Looks like the Germans have just stopped a massive van bomb against the Germany V Holland game.

Originally Posted by stevenglish1 (Post 11840868)

enough time has passed now that I can openly chuckle at the fact that there was a van bomb at a Holland game.....sorry, been holding that one in for a while