Terrorism

[Matt Deckard]

5 years ago we lived different lives, yes we adapted, though nowadays you have to think heavily before taking a trip, you get searched when going to a ball game and you can't go a day without hearing how a car bombing or a demonstrator has killed blank number of soldiers in a bombing.

Terrorists have changed the way I think, what about you?

 

[Vladimir Berkov]

To me, it is more the government response to terrorism than the actual acts themselves which impact my life. The odds of myself being involved or even seeing an act of terrorism firsthand are exceedingly remote. Yet the odds of having to deal with heavy-handed government anti-terrorism efforts are high.

This is true especially if you live or work near New York City. Oddly enough, New York City now is pretty much how London used to be during the IRA era. I suppose we just had to "catch up."

 

[Matt Deckard]

By the by, see Michael Collins.

 

[Brad Bowers]

By the by, see Michael Collins.

The Apollo 11 astronaut? Or is this someone else?

Brad

 

[ITG]

I think he meant the movie starring Liam Neeson:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117039/

 

[Feraud]

Yet the odds of having to deal with heavy-handed government anti-terrorism efforts are high.

This is true especially if you live or work near New York City. Oddly enough, New York City now is pretty much how London used to be during the IRA era. I suppose we just had to "catch up."

I have yet to witness any heavy-handed anti-terrorist tactics in NYC.
Walk around NYC and notice how little security there really is! You are hard pressed to find military personel/armaments in the city.
NYC is not a terrorist hangout nor a battleground between Extremists and Infidels. If the cost of living were not so high, it could be a great place to live.

 

[Brad Bowers]

I think he meant the movie starring Liam Neeson:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117039/

Okay, Thanks. That makes more sense. I couldn't figure out what an astronaut had to do with terrorism.

Never heard of this movie though. It must not have made a splash.

Brad

 

[farnham54]

I know little of it too, Bob, but I think it's kind of like Ireland's Braveheart, fast forward about 800 years. Collins was a freedom activist in the '20s.

Terrorists have been around in some shape or form for years. Hundreds of years. All that has changed is a) the motivation and b) the scale that we see. In my mind, it has changed the way I think. i can not fathom why these terrorists do what they do--not for lack of motivation, but it is quite simply dumb.

What are they trying to do? Kill all infidels. Okay. That's most of the world's population, and they might have something to say about that.
How many are their number? Not high enough to take on billions of people!
What are they going to do with things if they accomplish their goal? Nothing they CAN do. They lack tactical forsight; unless they know they are doomed to fail, in which case why do it at all? It boggles my mind.

They will not win. They simply CAN NOT win. It is impossible.

Cheers
Craig

 

[Vladimir Berkov]

I have yet to witness any heavy-handed anti-terrorist tactics in NYC.
Walk around NYC and notice how little security there really is! You are hard pressed to find military personel/armaments in the city.
NYC is not a terrorist hangout nor a battleground between Extremists and Infidels. If the cost of living were not so high, it could be a great place to live.

Compared to how it used to be, NYC has changed quite a bit. You do see a military presence in the city, plus a much more visable NYPD guarding key sites along with road barriers. Many buildings have closed off entry to everyone except people who work there and have permits.

During the Republican convention, security was even higher, for obvious reasons.

 

[Luisiana Jones]

I really havent ever lived without terrorism, for the last 30 years ETA has bombed our cities, killed our citizens, and destroyed our security, and all because they want something, that they will never have, and they will never have it because, they dont deserve it, and because they have never ever been different to any other community of my country.

On March 11 Al Qaeda joined ETA in the list of terrorists in my country causing 200 deaths and thousands of injured people.

Terrorism... I lived in the US in a town very close to NYC for a year, I could see WTC from my window, and 1 month after I left those assholes shot down the twin towers causing thousands of deaths.

After that UK and USA along with other countries like Spain for a time (now we are very low in the international scale, I cant even say an adjective for what my new government did, but I would say coward goes very good) fought against it taking care of terrorists like Hussein, and others.

So with this I want to thank and give my support to those ppl dying in the middle east and fighting for what others just speak about and never act.

 

[Feraud]

Compared to how it used to be, NYC has changed quite a bit. You do see a military presence in the city, plus a much more visable NYPD guarding key sites along with road barriers. Many buildings have closed off entry to everyone except people who work there and have permits.

During the Republican convention, security was even higher, for obvious reasons.

Change is always happening in degrees of good and bad.
I agree that security was raised during the Republican Convention. Our local politicians did not want the representatives harmed in any way while carousing in the big city!

Office buildings that finally understand the concepts of basic security do not really count towards anti-terrorist measures. Heck, we have needed those kinds of security measure for years to prevent all the minor crimes and un-necessary visitors that occur in buildings. I have never worried about terrorists at work but thought many times about homeless guys trying to enter and use a bathroom!

Police are seen on the streets but their presence waxes and wanes with political whim.
I still do not agree with the idea that there is a military presence in NYC. This from a person who commutes to work on the subway every day and visits museums, the Empire State building(last week) and all the other cool stuff this city has to offer.

The city is not as bad as it is made out to be.

Personally, my gripe is the need to enforce "quality of life" issues in the city. That would make a huge improvement in the big picture.

 

[Vladimir Berkov]

I am not exactly sure whether the soldiers I saw were national guard or regular army. I would assume they were national guard.

 

[The Mad Hatter]

When I was 18, I traveled to England. While I was there, the IRA bombed the Tower of London. I visited it a week after the attack.

That was more than 30 years ago.

There is nothing new about this and people should calm down.

 

[swinggal]

True. I am 35 and can remember terrorist acts being on the news even when I was a kid in the 70s. They never stopped but now are just becoming bolder and on a larger scale. I was in Paris a week after a train station was bombed in the early 90s and went to Egypt last year...I will never stop travelling because of terrorism. If you do stop - they have achieved their goal.

I just hope Australia isn't next as we seem to be the only country that is fighting in Iraq that's shores have yet to be touched by terrorism (touch wood). Around 80 Aussies were killed in Bali and around 25 in 911 and that is the closest it has come.

It's a difficult subject because we as westerners don't like being told what to do but we in turn are do the same thing in many foreign countries around the globe. I don't know what the answer is. But terrorism is an evil act will never break the resolve of westerners. Extremism never prevails.

 

[Slicksuit]

It's a fact that the incidence of worldwide terrorist acts has not significantly increased per year over the last several decades. What has increased, particularly since 9-11, is the media coverage and public attention to such acts.

Why do terrorists do what they do, despite the odds being stacked against them? Perceived agregious injustice and having nothing to lose are big parts of it. Much like how the Mafia, the IRA, and insurgents in Iraq have found recruits among the male youth living in the slums and improvished areas in their countries of activity, terrorist organisations find their members. Like the old adage "I'm going to win, or die trying", it is something honorable to die for certain causes (and rewarding for particular extremist religions).

Being the only people left on the planet is not usually the goal of such terrorists - getting attention and changing the status quo is. Media coverage and public panic over their activities is exactly what they want. Wall-to-wall news coverage of their activities isn't the best way to go about it, either (and research bears this out).

What are the best weapons against terrorism? Swift military action is good if the organisation is identifable and action is swift (otherwise, it just sparks a never ending cycle of counter-terrorism). Public vigilance. Economic opportunity. Having boots on the ground and making NYC a security-state is too costly, and wouldn't make much of a difference. The enemy is a knapsack with a remote-detonated bomb in it, or a suicide bomber - not a tank.

 

[swinggal]

Yes, which is why I refuse to let the threat of terrorism deter me from travelling the globe. When we stop doing the things we have always done - they have won and that is what they want more than anything - to disrupt our way of life.

I know people that refuse to even get on a plane anymore. Just crazy and only harming the economy in the long run when it happens en-masse. I'm more likely to be run over by a car jumping the curb somewhere or from food poisoning at the local kebab joint.

I travel overseas every year and fly to different parts of Australia at least twice a year and (even though I don't like Bali as a place to visit) it is why Australians flooded back to Bali after the bombing - they are defiant and won't let these ******* take away our freedoms!

 

[ITG]

There is nothing new about this and people should calm down.

Hmmm, when a mass of innocent people lose their lives due to selfishness of terrorists, I find that to be something hard to be calm about.

 

[jamespowers]

Putting in my two cents here. Terrorism really has not changed my life a lot. I have seen Europe and the like. It won't prevent me from going there but all that they have to offer I can find right here in the US. I confine my travels to the US now. It just makes sense to me.
If the terrorists want to come here and try to pull something they had better bring their lunch. They will be here for a while----in jail or dead. What frightens them the most in the US is one factor they do not have to deal with in a great majority of the world and it is what kept the Russians from trying to invade us in the Cold War. We are individually armed here. They have no idea who they might encounter that just might end their lives on the spot. Vigilance in this country not only involves the police and military. It involves all of us who are willing to keep an eye out for our families and our neighbors. You might not see a police presence or a military presence but you do see people and they could be something the terrorists never expected----prepared.

Regards to all,

J

 

[BellyTank]

I have seen Europe and the like. It won't prevent me from going there but all that they have to offer I can find right here in the US.
J

'Europe and the like'? ...can find it in the US, Huh?
B
T

 

[scotrace]

Why Sure!

Sure, BT - just up the pike from me is "The Little Switzerland of Ohio."

I think you can only be emersed in the wonderful culture of Europe by going there. I'll go again, and no pissant in a black hood is going to stop me.