Likes: 
Faceplams: http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-n...attack-7605045
Explosions in the Zaventem airport and in the metro.
I wonder if it's any sort or retaliation for the capture of Paris attack suspects? (Which happened just recently in Brussels)
Administrator
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-n...attack-7605045
Explosions in the Zaventem airport and in the metro.
I wonder if it's any sort or retaliation for the capture of Paris attack suspects? (Which happened just recently in Brussels)
Last edited by fillow; 03-22-2016 at 04:37 AM.
reznorwaver
Just read it in my newsfeed and I guess you're right about the terrorist thing...fucked up world. My wife is waiting for a call of a friend who visited a concert yesterday...and we thought about going there too.
My thoughts are with the families who lost a loved one, because some assholes feel the urge to kill for a non existing god.
Last edited by reznovka; 03-22-2016 at 04:41 AM.
Stubby Member
Death toll is climbing (over 20 now). Fucked up. This is becoming the new normal.
reznorwaver
Sad to say, but you're right.Originally Posted by Nyx
tempus est umbra in mente
I can't even process it anymore. I don't even know why they're doing this, or what message they're trying to spread. OK, you have my attention, what is the fucking reason you're murdering innocent people?! WHY?!
Administrator
I think I was at the site of metro attack (at the street though, not inside) a few years back when I was in Belgium. We came to a festival there in 2013 (NIN were playing) and spent few days in Brussels, and walked a lot around Euro Parliament buildings and nearby streets. Beautiful place. (We came through different airport though).
Hoping our fellow ETSers from Belgium are okay. Condolences to the victims and families.
Active Member
Just woke up to this news. Glued to the TV but gotta get to work. This is so sad. It's becoming extremely difficult to put efforts into trying to understand what's the deal with these people.
Captain Rustleboots
I'm so sick and tired of religion and i'm sick and tired of people willing to die and take other peoples lives for it.
Active Member
I don't know if this is cynicism or naivety on my part, but I don't think anybody's killing anyone in the name of god. It's about power, pressure, blackmail, revenge, payback... Whether there is a god or not, in this case he is reduced to a convenient narrative, carrot and stick.
The guys in the Bataclan said it was payback for Syria, for instance.
Edit : Also I'm getting extremely tired to hear the same old "those guys aren't real believers, this isn't islam".
Look, there is one standard measure to what a religion is and isn't. Islam, Catholicism, Judaism, all provide a pretty clear and undeniable definition of what they are, and it's written black on white in their respective books. Whatever your religion is, it comes with a clear user manual. That's what your religion is. If that manual says to stone homosexuals to death, if it says to murder the unbeliever, if it says to burn the adulterous, this is also what your religion is. If you start to nitpick, then you're not a "true" believer any more than the psycho next door is, and he is no less a "true" believer than you are.
You want your religion to be "not that" ? Write a new manual.
Last edited by Khrz; 03-22-2016 at 07:55 AM.
Active Member
And this will be yet another crisis, which will show how utterly powerless the EU is, when it comes to taking any kind of action. Same old story until it happens again in ~6 months. I just hope Facebook will be all the smarter and skip the "change your profile picture" clown-movement. Not only it was ridiculous the first time around, Turkey has been on the end of these attacks for the last few months yet they got barely any mentions.
Anyway, I hope every prime ministers in the EU will tell the Belgian people in the coming hours and days that they are really devastated by this totally unexpected, out of the blue attack. If we have this useless pile of shit political machine which is the EU, might as well go all the way again to be pretentious dicks.
As for religion, don't act like Christianity and their God were not the reason for hundreds of wars, slaughtering people left and right "in the name of God." Open up a history book about Europe and chances are high that you will read about a rivalry, war, dethroning, etc. because of religious reasons. Anyway, back to my Facebook feed, reading about how we should snipe all the migrants approaching our border. What a time to be alive!
Active Member
It's not so much a political machine as an economic one. Of course it's going to be politically inept : it's not wired that way, and nobody wants it to be anyway. It's there to facilitate commercial exchanges in Europe, it's not a socio-political federation. It's nothing like the US government, it's a continental TTIP.
Of course economical decisions are going to bleed through into political and social territories, money is the blood of the world we live in. But beyond economical concerns, they have absolutely no power to enforce or direct political decisions in the EU. They can argue, threaten, advise and babble, that's all.
reznorwaver
I may have used the wrongs words. I meant to say "for power, money, out of stupidity and under the name of a (in my opinion) non existing god".
But you still got the point
PS: I still have some hope for the EU and even if I may be blind for the truth I hope we can manage the refugee situation and stick together in times of terror.
Last edited by reznovka; 03-22-2016 at 09:14 AM. Reason: typos...a shitload of typos.
Active Member
Is this how you see it? Being from France, it might be unimagineable for you that the EU is trying to force your government to do anything, no one would dare to do that, but my country for example has been the center of constant EU threats and sanctions ever since our new government formed in 2010. I'm far from being a supporter of said government, but it was ridiculous when the EU was riding the "Hungary is oppressing the freedom of speech, hurr-durr!!". Or the migrant question: EU was constantly mocking us for our goverment's migrant politics, then when it was their time to prove how it's supposed to be done they crashed and burned and still not come up with a reasonable solution to the crisis. EU is great if you are France or Germany because you can push every smaller countries around, and you get to enjoy the best of double-standards. While economically it might be beneficial for smaller countries like mine (though recent years have made the average citizen wanting to get out of the EU more and more, seeing their shenanigans) there is always a price.
Let's face it, the EU absolutely failed to protect their borders then absolutely failed to come up with a working plan to integrate the migrants, whom they first welcomed with open hands, then got second thoughts, but the political pressure was too much by then. Hell, the EU has failed every single time a crisis arised. It's not much more useful than the one we had before WW2 happened. Their only luck is that this time they are choking the smaller countries and not one like Germany, and that we live in a different world. Europe is getting eaten alive from the inside, and the only unsatisfied country which holds any weight compared to France and Germany is the UK, and hopefully they will leave this sunking ship ASAP. Before that happens, it is very unlikely that any smaller country would dare to be the first. It wouldn't even achieve anything. "Oh no, Slovenia left the EU! Help!"
In a perfect world, European countries should solve their national problems alone, without any other country barking into how to do it, and in case a crisis which affects more European countries, let alone Europe in its entirety, then the EU should step on their heels and solve it asap and by all means necessary. Right now, we are in 2016, where months after it was known that Brussels was planned to be attacked, and a day after the alarms were raised, something like this could happen. A shame. Right now, as a European citizen, you have two choice: 1. keep voting these weakling people into office, so at least you can get to choose who will talk (just talk) about fighting terrorism, or 2. vote for the radical right wing, who might solve the current issues, but are so out of their minds they would create a hundred more, and I don't even see them capable of leading a country in a healthy way.
I just turned on my TV. Our prime minister said we must fight terrorism and he raised the terror-alert level for now. Maybe it's like in Captain Planet. If every prime ministers in the EU will say the same thing just a bit rephrased, we will summon Captain Anti-Terrorism who will do our job instead of us.
Meh, I know the Iraqian war got a lot of criticism and I'm not saying we should do something like that, but please, for a second, I'd like to know what it feels like to have a quasi big brother who doesn't let anyone to fuck around with his family. But no, all we get is the European Hunger Games. Can't wait for the Eastern-Europe edition! Feeling a bit left out...
Last edited by Volband; 03-22-2016 at 10:06 AM.
Active Member
Because it's not its job.
And yeah, there will be economical pressures over political decisions, I don't deny that. All I'm saying is that the EU isn't a political apparatus, and isn't built to face that kind of crisis. Everyone's trying to make it so, which is like trying to nail planks together by hammering them with a power drill. Sure, that's one way to do it, a very inefficient one.
And the UK can afford to leave the EU because it has always kept a foot out of the door from the beginning. They have a lot less to lose than any other nation involved, Germany and France included.
I agree, there are nations, like mine, who try to strong arms recent, "smaller" member nations into submission. But in the end, every country remained sovereign, and their policies are theirs to decide and enforce.
Throbbing Member
Just when the right wing was starting to slightly crumble this happens. They're going to abuse the shit out of this.
reznorwaver
I see your point and as a german I have to admit that Merkel is playing boss in the EU, but at least she tries to save human lives and won't let them starve outside the EU, unlike a lot of other countries.
It's hard to see how we treat Greece and other countries and that we are now making deals with Erdogan, just to keep the refugees outside.
The EU isn't what I hoped it might bring in times of crisis, but it's better than a Europe where every country has to stand on ist own.
But I am still afraid of what the future might bring.
Throbbing Member
.....................
Last edited by Your Name Here; 07-25-2016 at 12:35 PM.
Active Member
As much as I'm overall a pro-migrant, there has to be a line. Saving human lives does not mean much when the same human lives sexually assault your own people. The big question is who are those who are actually in crisis, and who are those who are just opportunistic. The solution hsould not be to let everyone in and let them fuck your country up, and in response, let the right wing side have a free ticket in abusing it. You let in the women, the children and the elderly. They are tameable and they won't try to assault (sexually or otherwise) anyone. You obviously seperate women and women with children, as the former would be the only ones who might cause some trouble.
Then you can start checking the backgrounds of husbands whose wife and children were taken into the EU, and if the search comes up showing that they are worthy of asylum, then you let the husband in, if not, show him the way back home - the mother and child(ren) would have the option to remain. Then lastly, you'd check into the young males, knowing 90%+ of them will be sent back. Hell, maybe even fabricate evidence that they are not worthy of asylum when they actually are - there is a limit to what a continent which has always had trouble with nationalities can accept in. I'm making a wild guess that even if you'd only let the women and children in, you would already go over your limit. But as I said, you can integrate them, opposed to the 20 something males.I could respect Merkel (or any other European leader) if she was practical instead of trying to put up a facade. Merkel could choose between Black and Grey, but no, she aimed at the Nobel Peace Prize and she went with the unaccaptable White.
I remember visiting our capital city back then. Migrants everywhere, couldn't even move. I didn't know better, so I choose the subway route to the train station, and to my horror, migrants after migrants after migrants... a huge, big, living mass of people, nothing I have ever seen before. And I was walking through the narrow little way they left open while drinking my Coke from McDonald's with a visible stuffed backpack on me. I was the very definition of "free kill." Migrants rioted in their shelter camps and many Hungarian people were quite agitated, and given how we have a strong right wing presence, it would not have neded well for anyone involved. My prime minister went with option Black, booting out everyone, men, women, children. I wasn't a fan of that, I'm still advocating for Grey, but since then, our cities have been freed up, and I'm just reading the news about which country had its fellow woman or little girl sexually assaulted this time. "The Advanced West" or so they say.
Merkel was weak, and her only strength was to stubbornly keep on fighting for the utopia, whch is the equivalent of me saying something stupid, and instead of admitting it, I'd just try to brute force it through. I guess 1+1=3 if you really put your mind to it. The only reason I am somewhat pitying her, is that these terror actions are always blamed on the migrants by the public which is not really fair, or at all. And as I said, everyone knew Brussel was planned to be attacked, so regardless of the question by whom, failing to protect the city paints a grim, grim future for Western-Europe.
I mean, basically we just silently agreed now that it's not the EUs job to solve this. Then we are back to square nothing, checking our favorite news feeds to see whether it's today that another W-European country got attacked. And while we wait, there is the migrant crisis to keep us entertained; less flashy than explosions, but our grandchildren will totally dig the fact that we can tell them about how we had seen through the slow, silent collapse of Europe! Not as cool as our grandparents war stories, but it is something.
It really seems like it's up to the USA or Russia to save Europe, because our politicians clearly not give any fucks about what's been happening in recent years. They are just trying to win the popularity contest.
Last edited by Volband; 03-22-2016 at 11:21 AM.
Active Member
I'm way more scared of terrorists, to be honest. If anything (and that's my opinion, not an objective analysis), Trump is some sort of Nixon 2.0. That's not good, but that's not WWIII material. On the other hand, all the major terrorist organizations have been actively trying to get their hands on NBC material to up the ante.
Trump doesn't want to blow up the world, he wants to isolate the US. Meanwhile, the terrorists are trying very hard to find ways to nuke everyone.
Throbbing Member
................
Last edited by Your Name Here; 07-25-2016 at 12:35 PM.
Throbbing Member
Terrible...but I was not shocked when i read this headline this morning.
I agree this WILL become the new normal. I think the biggest problem is Kalashnikovs and Semtex being smuggled through Europe from the Middle East.
The Schengen agreement will be totally dead by years end.
Last month British intelligence intercepted 30 Kalashnikov rifles in Czech Republic which were headed for the U.K.
The UK is fast becoming like Israel...in terms of surveillance....boarder security is immense now.
I really see the EU collapsing...
I dread this summers Football tournament Euro 2016 in France. Security will be so tight.
Active Member
security theatre strikes again, yet that's what will be increased.
The airport security points creates a huge backlog of people. Anyone can walk up with a giant suitcase.
That's exactly what happened at the airport:
reznorwaver
But for Germany it's hard to draw a line, because of our history and I am absolutely pro migrant and even I know that there will be people stealing, raping and murdering people, but who can say who will do such things and who won't?
In Germany we have a saying:"You just can take a look on the head, not inside." and as stupid as it may sound, it's still true.
A lot of refugees come without identity cards or passports, some lost it and other threw it away to be able to say that they are from Syria, but it's hard to tell.
I don't have a solution for the problem, but I still believe that open borders are better than closed ones.
I may be wrong, but at this moment I feel this way.
FYI: there is a school with approx. 300 refugees about 200 meters away from my house and I see them every day when I go to work and walk my dog. Nothing happened in my town so far and I think 99% of the people who left their country won't do any harm. They left because of people like the ones who bombed Brussels today. At least that's my opinion.
tempus est umbra in mente
Oh yeah, Christianity WAS responsible for a lot of horrible shit. In the past. Now it's (for the most part) quaint and adorable. The worst thing Christianty does nowadays is convince the most ardent extremists to support Ted Cruz.
I'm NOT saying Islam is to blame here, but let's not draw false equivalencies between religions. That's just as simplistic as pointing the finger at a religion and just pinning the blame there.
EDIT: *not saying
Last edited by Jinsai; 03-22-2016 at 04:09 PM. Reason: ugh, I typed the exact opposite of what I meant to type
reznorwaver
They use the Islam as a reason but I think they are just poorly educated people who need a world view that's simpler and a religion with those books full of stories which were written by people thousand years ago, with the wish to control people and explain a complex world without science, is a great start for that.
Christianity had its crusades, witch burnings and supporting Hitler and now the suppress the LGBTQ scene and act against condoms, so AIDS keeps on spreading.
I'm living in the part of Germany where a lot of foreigners came to work after WWII and stayed and now we have a multi cultural society here. I work with people from Marokko, Turkey, Egypt, Italy and Croatia and all the muslims hate the IS and all the other terrorists. It's not the religion itself, but stupid arseholes who use this religion as an excuse for their hate and stupidity. They could've chosen Christianity as well.
Active Member
That's just anecdotal evidence. A collateral damage is happening to Europe and it is undenyable. Also, killing, raping, physically abusing our, well, YOUR citizens is just one of the side effects. In my story, did I get knifed or robbed? No. Did I feel safe? No. And that is the bottom line. There are situations where you need to be selfish. If you lead a nation, then you better be biased towards your own citizen. Me not feeling safe is simply not acceptable in a modern European country. Compared to W-Europe, I'm getting a shitty salary, my workplace safety is close to non-existent, and my own government trying to lock me up in this shithole. The least they can do is that if I arrive to our capital city I don't immidietly look for alternate routes so I don't have to crawl through the hungry, unsatisfied herd of people who do not understand a single word I speak and vice versa. And no, in this case, I don't care what happens with Assaf, 23 years old, coming here for some stellar jobs and the promise of having a nice house and what not.
And that is so not true that we can't go ahead of these atrocities. Why couldn't we?! We let in:
Elders: They can't even do anything. In the old times they would have been the last to be granted allowance anywhere, but it's the 21st century, so we let them in and grant them their graceful last years. I doubht there are that much elders though.
Children: A 3 years old won't knock you out cold in a dark alley, that's for sure. You can also streamline them into your customs, your traditions. There are countries, like ours, where the low birth rates are actually quite alarming, so, free babies? Yes please!
Mothers: If you take in the children you should take in their mothers as well, everyone wins by this. If they only arrived by their father, then take the fathers. They might not be the best work force, but they have a reason to sit put and don't stirr trouble. If you and your children gets an easy job, free meals and a free house, you won't seek trouble risking it all.
Women: I don't think there are much single women among the migrants, but you can't lose much by letting them in. They are a capable wrok force, might settle down with someone from your country, but most importantly, low risk factor.
As for the majority of the migrants, which are men in their 20s, you make a very strict quota for each country and let them in accordingly. You don't let in gangs, and groups of 20 friends, you deliberately separate them from each other to be as isolated as they can be. You send them to basic, monotone factory work, and those who are serious about being integrated, will eventually have the chance to move forwards, those who thought they will live here for free get an easy ticket back to where they came from. The rest can either turn back, and make impressions of the walkers from The Walking Dead alongside of the fence. It's starting to get hot, and humans can't take dehydration too long. If the world has a problem with that, then the rich Arabian countries, Turkey, Russia and the USA are more than welcome to chip in and show us how humanity is done. But if they can only talk then yes, watch as they drop dead. As sad it is, nothing can be more important for an individual than their lives, and nothing can be more important to a nation than their integrity. To the doubters, once again, history books.
Now, could any political party pull it through? I don't know, as soon as someone would even hypothetically say that yes guys, if we value our own nations, we might have to let some of these poor souls die if other, non-European countries won't help, he or she would get ass-blasted from all angle. But at least Merkel showed us, that going the complete opposite way is just as disastrous, it just needed time to catch fire.
And we did not even talk about one thing. Well, we partially talked about it, mentioning the radical right wing, but every single political fraction are trying to use the migrant crisis to get ahead. To them, it's just politics, but if herds the sheep around. In my country there is (well, was, now it settled down a bit, but after these events, it'll surely start again) a propaganda, money by the government which airs 0-24 that we are not letting the EU take away our country and force us to give up our jobs to migrants, etc. Now, you can shake your head, but that is what people want to hear, that is how you reach out to the sheeps. We had an incident where a 100% Hungarian girl (university student) was beaten by Hungarian boys, because she was walking with her boyfriend who happened to be colored. The boyfriend was not a migrant, he was Hungarian actually. It's funny, but don't think it won't happen anywhere. People did not need a reason to hate others to begin with, but after the happenings of the last 365 days, such incident will be everywhere if you let even more refugees in. And spoiler alert: YOU will let more refugees in.
Yeah, I just thought it was a bit funny that people wonder how a religion can be so damn evil, when a few hundred years ago we were doing the same. We reached the seemingly pinnacle of modern civilization with ancient religions being as accepted and even encouraged as they are today. Don't act surprised when you suddenly need to somehow eradicate a religion, and you hit a million brick walls. We are eating what we cooked - and that's not just for the religion part.
Active Member
Exactly. If I wanted to get a mental breakdown I'd visit a christian group where they are discussing the evil nature of Islam. I can already see myself shaking uncontrollably, while trying to hold back talking about when we had more popes at once, when we locked one away, when christianity split apart, when we waged holy wars, when Henry VIII made his own freaking religion (that guy was a badass though, he totally ridiculued everything religion stood for, but could sell it to his people as real), when we were burning witches and actual scientists who were ahead of their time, when we were.... ugh. I love European history, but if it taught me anything, then it's that Hitler has nothing on christianity.
(edit: Imagine if I could press the edit button instead of reply. I blame the migrants, obviously.)
Active Member
Ahahahah, I don't know about Hungary, but no. That's part of the problem, it's that we got the catholics to just do their thing in the comfort of their own home and just shut the fuck up otherwise for 50 years now. Which is why we are a little be taken aback when suddenly religious people are making demands. We're really not used to this. So we treated them just like we treated the other ones : we laughed at their face.
They didn't like it one bit though.
Active Member
I kinda meant that it's treated perfectly normal that some dude just put you in here (the same dude who was fine with the atacks in Paris and Brussels btw), but if you follow let's say Scientology then you are a madman who fell for a scam.
Oh, and we are absolutely blindfounded that exists a religion which totally hates on christianity. Like, how dare they? Jesus Christ >>> Muhammad, fite me irl!!
reznorwaver
The priests blessed the soldiers and that's way too much for a peaceful religion.
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
