Breaking - explosions at Brussels Airport **Mod warning in post 1**

Ulysses Gaze wrote: »

Big problem in Iraq was caused by that f!!kwit Paul Bremer refusing to integrate former Baath Party members into the new Iraqi military or police. He was told that he needed to do this or else trouble would brew.

Being the arrogant arse that he was, he refused, leaving a lot of militarily trained men unable to get work, used to being big cheeses, and now with a chip on their shoulders.

These guys are the cornerstone of Daesh in Iraq.

There are a lot of tribal affiliations in these regions which influence things. Not to mentions religious affiliations.

That's what I mean though - It's naive and arrogant to assume that you even have a full understanding of something as complicated as that.

For example, if you went into NI having read several books on NI you could probably completely miss the subtleties of the situation and end up causing an absolute disaster and restarting the troubles.

There are a lot of awkward status quos and if you fiddle with them too much you can suddenly cause horrific issues with old scores being settled that could be across multiple centuries never mind what you think the geopolitical situation is.

The impression I get is that highly qualified advisors are meddling arrogantly and causing absolute mayhem as they don't understand the unintended consequences of what they are doing.

I also don't think that some US academics and politicians in particular fully understand the tie to the land notions that exist in older cultures as the US is 'new' and people are highly geographically mobile and come from generations of people who literally moved there and see nothing odd about just upping sticks and going somewhere newer / better / nicer / different.
There's been a lot of 'ah sure they can just move' approaches. You see that in the Israel - Palestine scenario. A lot of people I've spoken to in America could do with watching The Field to get a sense of just how deep those ties go and how people can feel about ancestral lands.

Even the current situation is insane. They're basically depopulating Syria as people flood out to escape the mess. How exactly is that country going to rebuild itself if its brightest and best are long gone to Germany or elsewhere?

The_Valeyard wrote: »

I would wonder with the links the IRA has around the globe and training camps, etc would we be an 'off limits' target. As in, some bizarre terrorist code of contact.

lol

Samaris wrote: »

I think it's UNLIKELY that Ireland would be a target. France, UK, Spain, USA, Germany, Brussels (as the de facto administrative "capital" of the EU). Ireland? I think it'd have to be a lone wolf that just happened to live here going nutty. -If it was going to happen- though, the Easter Rising celebrations would seem like a "fitting" time.

Overall though, no, I don't really see Dublin being anywhere -near- the top of the list.

Security here is a complete nonsense. Inevitably ISIS will target weak points such as ourselves when security is beefed up on the mainland. Let's face it right now any jerk with a suicide vest could walk onto the Luas and target many innocents. I travelled back on the green line from work today and I didn't see a single security guard or Gardaí. I'll agree at present it's unlikely but I think we as citizens need to be very vigilant from here on in.

Superhorse wrote: »

Security here is a complete nonsense. Inevitably ISIS will target weak points such as ourselves when security is beefed up on the mainland. Let's face it right now any jerk with a suicide vest could walk onto the Luas and target many innocents. I travelled back on the green line from work today and I didn't see a single security guard or Gardaí. I'll agree at present it's unlikely but I think we as citizens need to be very vigilant from here on in.

I think realistically you're going to have to see the creation of a Euro FBI and CIA to deal with this. I know we probably don't like the idea of federalising things and centralising those kinds of functions, but it's looking like its an inevitable requirement if we want to maintain our ability to move around the EU at will.

It's something we need to start debating and actually discussing rationally too. I don't think there's necessarily anything wrong with federalising certain things *if* they have the necessary democratic oversight in place and they're fully transparent.

I would be extremely uncomfortable with the idea of handing power over to the current setup as it's just not a functioning democracy and it lacks transparency.

There are a lot of things that smaller countries can't do effectively and those include things like intelligence led security for globalised terrorists.

I can assure you ISIS don't respect EU internal borders so which are really just 'Chinese walls' anyway.

We urgently need to redesign how the EU works as all of these crisis, including the European Financial Crisis are getting totally out of hand and it's all down to lack of democratic structures in place to deal with them as everyone's terrified of the "F" word. (Federal).

My view is that the EU is actually a good thing but that it's completely screwed up and has been expanding by function creep instead of a proper structure.

It neither has the mandate (legally or morally) nor the resources or budget to deal with the refugee crisis, nor border security, nor the terrorism issue nor with the European fiscal / financial / banking meltdown.

I mean, seriously why are we letting Greece get that screwed up? It's an absolute disgrace and a total indictment of the EU and make us look weak, disorganised and incapable of organising a pi$$ up in a brewery.

The_Valeyard wrote: »

Be embarrassed for yourself. Simple point I was putting out there, about links between different militant groups. So f*k your post. Stand by what I said.

So much rage. If you think ISIS give a hoot about the IRA or there is any unwritten code you know nothing about these head chopping animals. They hate all us all and won't stop until they bring about the caliphate... I'm not even going to bother as I said your post was embarrassing.

That muppet Donald Trump on twitter...

@realDonaldTrump
My heart & prayers go out to all of the victims of the terrible #Brussels tragedy. This madness must be stopped, and I will stop it

dav3 wrote: »

I'd say there's a far greater chance of being killed by some scumbag on the green line luas than being killed by some terrorist.

Oh that's okay then we'll just ignore the threat.