Another terrorist attack - London Bridge

Vixen said:
That's a straw man as I never said, 'Christian terrorism can never happen again'.

It happened some 500 years in the past and it is silly to use Christianity as an example of 'religious terrorism', just because you hate all religions.
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Not familiar with the KKK in the US, are you? They are still hard at work here.
 
uke2se said:
It should be noted that domestic terrorism in the US is closely linked with the Christian Identity sect, and that Breivik in Norway thought he was fighting for Christian Europe.

So, yes, extremists Christians are just as prone to terror as Islamists.
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Let's take this at face value and say it's true.

This would imply there are about hundreds of dangerous Islamic extremists to each dangerous Christian extremist. Since Christians outnumber Muslims, this implies Islam is hundreds of times more likely to produce extremists than Christianity.

Can you explain why?

McHrozni
 
quadraginta said:
From the inception of the KKK to a shooting at a Planned Parenthood less than two years ago that left three dead and nine wounded the history of overt Christian terrorism is filled with examples. And that's just in the U.S., where it is arguably a far more immediate danger to innocent average citizens than Islamic terrorism has been in the last century and a half or so.
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The KKK killed about 26 people since 1945. That's a grand total, not per anything basis.

Islamic terrorists have averaged about 5 deadly attacks per day for the past 17 years. An average attack was around 10 killed, or about 50 dead per day, every day, for almost two decades straight.

Some perspective, please. Ignore the fact you're comparing 70 years to just 17, add a zero to the KKK and subtract a zero from Islamists and they're still worse by more than an order of magnitude.

McHrozni
 
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a_unique_person said:
Once again it appears that the culprits were already known to police and had been reported by the public including other Muslims. WTF is that about?
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It's about resources. No doubt thousands of people have been reported to the police and security services in some context but they need to prioritise their resources on those people and groups that present the biggest threat. I think I read somewhere that it takes at least 28 people to perform 24/7 surveillance on someone (plus the backroom and management resources to support those 28 operatives). That model isn't scaleable when you have thousands or even tens of thousands of people who are "known to the police".

Now if it turns out that not only were these people "known to the police" but they were also some of the police's (and security services') highest priority then that's a different matter and a long hard look needs to be taken but if they were just mentioned in chatter then I'm not sure what could have been done short turning the UK into some kind of police state with hundreds of thousands of security operatives.
 
The Don said:
It's about resources. No doubt thousands of people have been reported to the police and security services in some context but they need to prioritise their resources on those people and groups that present the biggest threat. I think I read somewhere that it takes at least 28 people to perform 24/7 surveillance on someone (plus the backroom and management resources to support those 28 operatives). That model isn't scaleable when you have thousands or even tens of thousands of people who are "known to the police".

Now if it turns out that not only were these people "known to the police" but they were also some of the police's (and security services') highest priority then that's a different matter and a long hard look needs to be taken but if they were just mentioned in chatter then I'm not sure what could have been done short turning the UK into some kind of police state with hundreds of thousands of security operatives.
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Yeah. This is why security efforts need to be secondary efforts to contain the plague while it is being fought by other means. They're necessary to reduce the impact and by all accounts Western security agencies are doing a splendid job - but a 99% success rate just isn't good enough, but more is not achievable without destroying the society.

McHrozni
 
McHrozni said:
Let's take this at face value and say it's true.

This would imply there are about hundreds of dangerous Islamic extremists to each dangerous Christian extremist. Since Christians outnumber Muslims, this implies Islam is hundreds of times more likely to produce extremists than Christianity.

Can you explain why?

McHrozni
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It's complicated.

A starting point may be to look at those people who have been successfully radicalised and the methods used to radicalise them. IMO the same sense of isolation, not belonging, lack of a future and so on which makes some poor, white, working class boys turn to white supremacism also leaves Muslim youths susceptible to radicalisation. Muslim communities are among the most deprived in the UK.

That's not the only factor. Some Muslims I have spoken to really do think that the West's military adventures in the Middle East (and the West's support for Israel) are also factors. That said, had the West not intervened in the Middle East, the West's lack of involvement would IMO be seen as evidence of not caring about Muslims.

I cannot even begin to scratch at the surface of the "why", much less offer any kind of solution.
 
The Don said:
It's complicated.
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I disagree. It's quite easy to see where the problem is coming from and it is easy to propose solutions to those problems. The complicated part is how to start implementing one of those solutions.

A starting point may be to look at those people who have been successfully radicalised and the methods used to radicalise them. IMO the same sense of isolation, not belonging, lack of a future and so on which makes some poor, white, working class boys turn to white supremacism also leaves Muslim youths susceptible to radicalisation. Muslim communities are among the most deprived in the UK.

That's not the only factor. Some Muslims I have spoken to really do think that the West's military adventures in the Middle East (and the West's support for Israel) are also factors. That said, had the West not intervened in the Middle East, the West's lack of involvement would IMO be seen as evidence of not caring about Muslims.

I cannot even begin to scratch at the surface of the "why", much less offer any kind of solution.
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I don't doubt those two are factors, but they're only auxiliary factors which perhaps strengthen the response that would be present regardless. I say this because there are far more potentially dangerous white radicals in the West, but they do far less damage than Muslims proportional to their population.

Furthermore, if foreign policy and support for Israel was a decisive factor, you'd see Argentinian terrorist attacks in UK as well. Argentinian POV of Falklands islands is no different to Arab views of Israel, but UK is seen as merely an ally of Israel while it is the perpetrator in the Falklands (note: that's Argentinian POV with which I disagree).

No, there is another factor which really isn't that hard to see, Islamic holy texts that just beg to be 'interpreted' in the terrorist way.
Solutions for that are readily apparent:

1. Muslims change their holy texts to exclude the problematic parts.
2. Muslims make it patently obvious (orders of magnitude more energetically than they already do) they don't believe in those parts of those holy texts because of reasons.
3. You-Know-What happens.

Solution 2. is the only one which is both palatable and anywhere near achievable.

McHrozni
 
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McHrozni said:
I disagree. It's quite easy to see where the problem is coming from and it is easy to propose solutions to those problems. The complicated part is how to start implementing one of those solutions.



I don't doubt those two are factors, but they're only auxiliary factors which perhaps strengthen the response that would be present regardless. I say this because there are far more potentially dangerous white radicals in the West, but they do far less damage than Muslims proportional to their population.

Furthermore, if foreign policy and support for Israel was a decisive factor, you'd see Argentinian terrorist attacks in UK as well. Argentinian POV of Falklands islands is no different to Arab views of Israel, but UK is seen as merely an ally of Israel while it is the perpetrator in the Falklands (note: that's Argentinian POV with which I disagree).

No, there is another factor which really isn't that hard to see, Islamic holy texts that just beg to be 'interpreted' in the terrorist way.
Solutions for that are readily apparent:

1. Muslims change their holy texts to exclude the problematic parts.
2. Muslims make it patently obvious (orders of magnitude more energetically than they already do) they don't believe in those parts of those holy texts because of reasons.
3. You-Know-What happens.

Solution 2. is the only one which is both palatable and anywhere near achievable.

McHrozni
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Many Muslims, including the British Council have done exactly what you suggest BUT somehow a small number of people have been persuaded to kill themselves whilst carrying out terrorist attacks. Suicide attacks are not unique to Muslim terrorists/freedom fighters. My first recollection of suicide bombers were Tamils sometime early in the 1980s. I presumed that there must be some sense of hopelessness to force people to so such things but perhaps I have it completely wrong and instead it's away of showing complete commitment to the cause.
 
It seems that the police response was exceptional. Taking out the murdering terrorists within 8 minutes of the attacks starting. Good show.

I now await vehement criticism of Met cops......
 
The Don said:
Many Muslims, including the British Council have done exactly what you suggest BUT somehow a small number of people have been persuaded to kill themselves whilst carrying out terrorist attacks.
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Which is why I added the part: "orders of magnitude more energetically than they already do". The current effort is welcome, but insufficient. It will be sufficient when those attacks will not be instantly connected to Muslims and Islam as they are now, with good reason.

Suicide attacks are not unique to Muslim terrorists/freedom fighters.
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In 2015 there were 452 recorded terrorist suicide attacks. 450 were Islamic terrorists. The other two were Kurdish nationalists and left-wing extremists in Turkey - both of Muslim faith, but not Islamists.

If we take your word literately you'd be wrong for the year when we have a study done. If you say Islamist instead of Muslim you're correct in that Islamists were to blame for "only" 99.5% of suicide attacks in 2015. That's hardly a good thing to say about them.

http://www.timesofisrael.com/450-of...n-2015-were-by-muslim-extremists-study-shows/

My first recollection of suicide bombers were Tamils sometime early in the 1980s. I presumed that there must be some sense of hopelessness to force people to so such things but perhaps I have it completely wrong and instead it's away of showing complete commitment to the cause.
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The sense of hopelessness and being powerless is unconvincing given the fact a large number of Islamic terrorists come from well to do families. It can explain a portion of Palestinian terrorism, especially with their government paying bounties to families of successful terrorists, but that's an exception and not the norm.

It is historically true several other cultures also produced suicide attackers. You could add the Japanese Kamikaze in the mix as well. Those were orders of magnitude worse, almost four thousand Japanese gave their lives in less than a year in that way, out of a population of only 50 million - and that's not counting other suicide weapons fielded by the Empire of Japan, which had the potential to be even worse, had the Allies invaded the Japanese home islands. Needless to say here, of course, is how that was resolved in the end - from Atomic bombs to evisceration of traditional Japanese warrior culture.

Overall it is true that Islamism is not the only historic ideology to produce suicide attackers. What of it? It's by far the most prolific and the most productive right now and the only one which, according to many, deserves to survive. Why is that? We agree today Japanese warrior culture didn't deserve to survive, why should that right be extended to any other problematic culture?

McHrozni
 
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Blue Mountain said:
Can you cite a source for these numbers?
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The site Religion of peace has a running tally. Here's the 2016 list:

https://www.thereligionofpeace.com/attacks/attacks.aspx?Yr=2016

Loonwatch made a study of their accuracy back in 2012 and found 15 attacks out of 203 were objectionable (but 188 were not), seven of whom were honor killings which the site counts as terrorist attacks but Loonwatch doesn't - this is indeed disputable. Two objections were over Afghan Taliban attacking NATO soldiers while screaming praises to Allah (it is Islamic, but not necessarily terrorism). Two attacks were accidentally counted and later removed when the error was found (one before the Loonwatch study, one after it), the other objections were somewhat loony. It is important to note they found no fake attacks, the only two indisputably erroneous attacks were carried out by Pakistani hard-line Communists of Muslim faith.

Overall their false positive rate is around 5-10%, not more. In the meantime false negative (when an attack was not added even though there was one) was about 50% for one month when BBC made a similar study. BBC found three times as many attacks and twice as many deaths as the site did for the month of November 2014.

https://www.thereligionofpeace.com/pages/articles/loonwatch-list.aspx
https://www.thereligionofpeace.com/pages/site/the-list.aspx

As a result I'm comfortable using their numbers as a ballpark figure. They'd have to be off by more than a factor of 10 for any other religion to compete, and I'm sure they don't overdo it to that amount.

McHrozni
 
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McHrozni said:
The site Religion of peace has a running tally. Here's the 2016 list:

https://www.thereligionofpeace.com/attacks/attacks.aspx?Yr=2016

Loonwatch made a study of their accuracy back in 2012 and found 15 attacks out of 203 were objectionable (but 188 were not), seven of whom were honor killings which the site counts as terrorist attacks but Loonwatch doesn't - this is indeed disputable. Two objections were over Afghan Taliban attacking NATO soldiers while screaming praises to Allah (it is Islamic, but not necessarily terrorism). One attack was accidentally counted as an error and later removed, the other objections were somewhat loony.

Overall their false positive rate is around 5-10%, not more. In the meantime false negative (when an attack was not added even though there was one) was about 50% for one month when BBC made a similar study. BBC found three times as many attacks and twice as many deaths as the site did for the month of November 2014.

https://www.thereligionofpeace.com/pages/articles/loonwatch-list.aspx
https://www.thereligionofpeace.com/pages/site/the-list.aspx

As a result I'm comfortable using their numbers as a ballpark figure. They'd have to be off by more than a factor of 10 for any other religion to compete, and I'm sure they don't overdo it to that amount.

McHrozni
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Your average looked slightly low to me although as I recall I used a shorter timescale when calculating. Another point to bear in mind is that these are terrorist attacks in the strictest sense, not simply killings inspired by Islam (e.g. the daily killings of homosexuals, apostates, infidels, blasphemers, adulterers by IS and IS-like groups, and also by governments). For example, do those figures include the time where IS crammed 250 children into an industrial dough-kneeder and crushed them to death? Maybe the KKK do this type of thing in the US although from what I recall they just stand around in clearings wearing home-made robes and drinking cheap beer.
 
baron said:
Your average looked slightly low to me although as I recall I used a shorter timescale when calculating. Another point to bear in mind is that these are terrorist attacks in the strictest sense, not simply killings inspired by Islam (e.g. the daily killings of homosexuals, apostates, infidels, blasphemers, adulterers by IS and IS-like groups, and also by governments). For example, do those figures include the time where IS crammed 250 children into an industrial dough-kneeder and crushed them to death? Maybe the KKK do this type of thing in the US although from what I recall they just stand around in clearings wearing home-made robes and drinking cheap beer.
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They usually do count such incidents under their running total. It is disputable if they really are terrorist attacks or "just" hate crimes inspired by Islam. Eliminating them from the list can reduce the average number of deaths by ~10%.
Doing so requires, of course, to draw up another list of hate crimes inspired by Islam. A lot of noise is made by hate crimes inspired by Christianity, but Islam doesn't seem to receive anywhere near as much scrutiny.

McHrozni
 
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lionking said:
It seems that the police response was exceptional. Taking out the murdering terrorists within 8 minutes of the attacks starting. Good show.
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Now just imagine if Labour had been in term with Corbyn and Abbott at the helm. It's genuinely shocking to contemplate. No MI5, no security services, no armed police, no terrorist database, no Prevent strategy, no control orders, no TPIM restrictions. We would literally be at war and these incidents would be a weekly occurrence.
 
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