• Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.

Bomb attacks in Dresden

theprestige said:
Maybe this attack *is* the passionate response. It's not reasonable to demand that people always be at their best in the face of an ongoing Islamic terror campaign.
Click to expand...


'not be at their best' == bombing?? weird standard :cool:

Let me put it another way: It surely is reasonable to say its always unacceptable to terror bomb civilians?
 
mifune said:
Let me put it another way: It surely is reasonable to say its always unacceptable to terror bomb civilians?
Click to expand...

Certainly. However, no one was hurt, and by the looks of it, the attackers planned the attack in a way to ensure no one was in any danger. Surely it is reasonable to say an attack that is aimed at only property damage and harms no one is far, far from the worst one can do?

The damage is minor and mostly cosmetic. A front door might need replacement, overall the damage is measured in hundreds of Euros.

http://edition.cnn.com/2016/09/27/europe/bombs-attacks-germany/

Unacceptable, but worth fussing over? That's another question entirely. The police is clearly on top of it and has increased security.

McHrozni
 
Last edited:
A'isha said:
I don't like it when the "other side" responds to a terrorist attack with smug glee when they think it confirms their pet prejudices, and I'm rather hoping that "my side" can refrain from the same when thinking that this attack confirms ours.

If I had to guess, I'd say that whoever the perpetrator was, they were probably acting alone - there were only two bombs, and they went off nearly thirty minutes apart. I think the bombings themselves are connected, in that they were both planted by the same perpetrator, but whoever that perpetrator was did this all by himself. They don't appear to be sophisticated devices from the description, and the way the bombs went off and their short distance from each other (maybe a mile and a half, per the map here) suggests to me that one person cobbled them together, planted one, then went and planted the other without the use of any kind of elaborate timing mechanism or bomb design. I'm pretty sure, at this point, it wasn't any kind of organized PEGIDA strike or whatever, despite the speculations based on Dresden's history with that group.

Of course, I could be totally wrong about all of this. I'm just glad no one was killed or even apparently hurt this time, and I hope whoever did this is caught soon.
Click to expand...

The explosive quantity seem to have been very low too. It barely knocked a door out.
 
McHrozni said:
Certainly. However, no one was hurt, and by the looks of it, the attackers planned the attack in a way to ensure no one was in any danger. Surely it is reasonable to say an attack that is aimed at only property damage and harms no one is far, far from the worst one can do?

The damage is minor and mostly cosmetic. A front door might need replacement, overall the damage is measured in hundreds of Euros.

http://edition.cnn.com/2016/09/27/europe/bombs-attacks-germany/

Unacceptable, but worth fussing over? That's another question entirely. The police is clearly on top of it and has increased security.

McHrozni
Click to expand...



The damage is cosmetic , but this may be due to inability or inexperience rather than by design.
 
Aepervius said:
The damage is cosmetic , but this may be due to inability or inexperience rather than by design.
Click to expand...

This might work with the attack on the Mosque, but not the congress center, that was directed against an empty platform at the entrance. If you wanted to hit the center in a way to make it to the news but not hurt anyone, that would be the way to go.

Interestingly, the said International Congress Center is not affiliated with Islam and wasn't hosting anything remotely Islamic or otherwise foreign in nature at the time - it was due to hold celebrations on German reunification. This makes it very questionable whether the attack was directed against Muslims at all. It could be these were two random acts of juvenile delinquency that happened to target a Mosque.

McHrozni
 
Last edited:
Aepervius said:
The explosive quantity seem to have been very low too. It barely knocked a door out.
Click to expand...

The lack of visible shrapnel and amount of soot lead me to believe is was a Molotov cocktail or a similar improvised firebomb.

McHrozni
 
A'isha said:
I don't think "random dude without any support or organization acting on his own in furtherance of an ideology or agenda but in a way completely different and more extreme than the larger movements inspiring him" (which is what I take "random nutter" to mean, and not an assessment of actual diagnosable mental illness or anything) is incompatible with that.
Click to expand...

It depends a bit on what you mean with "larger groups", but sub-groups of radical right-wing nationalists stocking high explosives is not unheard of; the explosives being used is more rare. But I guess they usually want to stage the equivalent of a Reichstag Fire, so whatever plans they have seldom come to fruition; the plans ended up too complicated, the time wasn't right, people chicken out...

In a case like this, though? Random nutter. I fear that an organized terror attack by right-wing extremist groups would be far, far more destructive.
 
TubbaBlubba said:
It depends a bit on what you mean with "larger groups", but sub-groups of radical right-wing nationalists stocking high explosives is not unheard of; the explosives being used is more rare. But I guess they usually want to stage the equivalent of a Reichstag Fire, so whatever plans they have seldom come to fruition; the plans ended up too complicated, the time wasn't right, people chicken out...

In a case like this, though? Random nutter. I fear that an organized terror attack by right-wing extremist groups would be far, far more destructive.
Click to expand...

By "larger groups" I mean specifically PEGIDA and the whole general vague-ish anti-immigrant and xenophobe movement. It's certainly possible that these attacks were carried out by a small sub-group of radical right-wing nationalists rather than a single individual, but I'm pretty sure either way that it's not a harbinger of a continuing bombing campaign from either of the two larger groups.
 
A'isha said:
By "larger groups" I mean specifically PEGIDA and the whole general vague-ish anti-immigrant and xenophobe movement. It's certainly possible that these attacks were carried out by a small sub-group of radical right-wing nationalists rather than a single individual, but I'm pretty sure either way that it's not a harbinger of a continuing bombing campaign from either of the two larger groups.
Click to expand...

Agreed.
 
A'isha said:
By "larger groups" I mean specifically PEGIDA and the whole general vague-ish anti-immigrant and xenophobe movement. It's certainly possible that these attacks were carried out by a small sub-group of radical right-wing nationalists rather than a single individual, but I'm pretty sure either way that it's not a harbinger of a continuing bombing campaign from either of the two larger groups.
Click to expand...
There are small, violent groups of Neo-Nazis in several German cities. It's certainly not the whole Pegida movement; that has collapsed anyway. But there were some Pegida leaders who were more extreme than vague-ish anti-immigrant; I remember one who outed himself with a Youtube video where he glued on a moustache and did a Hitler imitation. And in the organization of their marches, there were always these Neo-Nazi groups who happily volunteered to play marshall and at the same time harass, both orally and physically, attending journalists.

ETA: also, the NPD has always had relative high votes in Dresden and has had (or still has) MPs in the Saxony state parliament. The city is a relative hotbed of extreme right-wingers.

So, I wouldn't rule out that these attacks were organized by a local Neo-Nazi group. Though I agree that the choice of the conference center baffles me and speaks against Neo-Nazis.
 
Last edited:
Cleon said:
Odd the lack of comments here. I wonder if the target had been a shopping mall or church if this wouldn't generate a more passionate response.
Click to expand...

You don't think the lack of comments could be because it wasn't in the US and there were no injuries. 40 people can die in a terrorist bombing in Afghanistan or Pakistan and there might not be a thread let alone posts.
 
Last edited:
Cleon, I suspect that the lack of comments has to do with the lack of casualties. Just a guess.
 
Darth Rotor said:
Cleon, I suspect that the lack of comments has to do with the lack of casualties. Just a guess.
Click to expand...

When I first saw the damage, I was shocked by how much attention this was receiving in the media. I daresay that this was not perpetrated by any right-winger.
 
mifune said:
Let me put it another way: It surely is reasonable to say its always unacceptable to terror bomb civilians?
Click to expand...


If you are referring to Bomber Command's efforts during WWII, you should perhaps take a closer look at the economic effects which resulted from the bombing.
 
theprestige said:
Unacceptable? Yes.

Understandable? You tell me. What are the causes of Islamist violence?
Click to expand...


Perhaps islamic terrorists are inspired by the words in the quran? Seems likely there are at least some other issues too, but for the sake of argument lets say thats it. The thing is that the quran only seems to inspire a tiny amount of muslims to commit terror acts, most are naturally appalled by such actions.

So what do you propose? That because of the actions of a few its understandable to hate all muslims? I don't agree. Collective guilt is not a good principle. But its illogical anyway, they are not responsible.

And for what its worth, I am not a fan of Islam, even in its moderate form I think it a patriarchal repressive religion which all too easily lends its power to demagogues and rogues. But most muslims are just civilians getting by day to day who don't ponder the inherent stupidity of the theology, and they no more support the terrorists than you do. This seems obviously true, think of somewhere like Pakistan, where there is something like a major bombing every month and iirc approx 3000 deaths/year for the last 10 years. You think the population of Pakistan (one of the most non secular muslim states in the world) thinks nice thoughts about islamic terrorists?? They hate them more than we do, how can they be responsible?
 
Corsair 115 said:
If you are referring to Bomber Command's efforts during WWII, you should perhaps take a closer look at the economic effects which resulted from the bombing.
Click to expand...


Lol, funny because I did specifically think about how to word it so as to exclude wartime bombing... obv I didn't think hard enough!

I was trying to say something like 'surely it is always unreasonable unacceptable to commit terrorist acts against civilians?'. (Where 'terrorist act' excludes military operations.)
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom