Manchester Attack

[Ferdinand]

An attack on the most vulnerable by party or parties currently unknown.

 

Not good, and I am thinking about people who have still not found their families, friends and relatives. And for those whose role it is to help.
 

My hope is that - since to me this seems to be an attempt to cause disruption to our life during an Election - our response will be what it usually is. That is, a pause for respect and acknowledgement of the victims, and then a continuing of normal, daily life.  And of course a hunt for the perpetrators, whoever they are.

 

Ferdinand

[jamiehamy]

Words are fail me tbh. The worst part is, I believe there is only a finite amount authorities can do to prevent this type of incident happening. 

[Nickfromwales]

Terrible, terrible news. ?

[jamiehamy]

The news is just going to get worse (if possible) when we know who the victims are. A bomb attack is one thing, a bomb attack at a concert for mainly young people is another. 

[ToughButterCup]

The cowardice of attacking a group of young people -the softest of targets- takes my breath away. 

[SteamyTea]

It is always difficult knowing what to say after something like this.  There will be a lot of hand wringing and recriminations (has already started on Radio 4).

 

The security services are hard pushed to deal with these sorts of attacks and will probably ask for more powers to try and pre-empt this sorts of attacks.  I don't think this is the same sort of thing that happened on Westminster bridge and the Houses of Parliament. That was a troubled man, not a terrorist.

Having said that, when they identify the person that caused this (Radio reporting it was a man), it will be interesting to see if he was known to the security services.

 

[Crofter]

Horrible new to wake up to. Thoughts are with everybody involved.

[ProDave]

One can only wonder what goes on in someone's mind to make them hate others (and themself) so much to do such things.  Only when we can begin to understand WHY they do it will we ever have hope of changing that behavior

[jamiehamy]

51 minutes ago, ProDave said:

One can only wonder what goes on in someone's mind to make them hate others (and themself) so much to do such things.  Only when we can begin to understand WHY they do it will we ever have hope of changing that behavior

That's the real question and issue that frankly, no-one is confronting. The truth is too awkward - but a bit too early to go into that just now I think. 

[Jeremy Harris]

Looked at from the mindset of a twisted individual whose belief's include outrage at young girls who are immodestly (in his eyes) dressed, then the target makes perfect sense.

 

When it comes to preventative action, then I think that technically we're already doing as much as is reasonably practical to find people who are making IEDs.  We have 50 years of experience of doing this, and, having seen a little of the data correlation techniques, I'm convinced it's pretty good. 

 

This incident is unusual, because the device seems to have been pretty sophisticated, which implies access to both reliable information and the materials needed to make the device.  In the past, extremist IED used here in the UK have been pretty poorly designed and made, and nowhere near as sophisticated as, for example, many of the IRA devices.  The fact that the perpetrator has been identified quickly, seems to indicate that he may well have been known.  The obvious question then is how did he obtain the knowledge and material to make the IED?

 

 

 

[SteamyTea]

9 hours ago, JSHarris said:

When it comes to preventative action

May is putting armed troops on the ground now, a bad move in my opinion as we have not had that on the mainland since the civil war (actually might be wrong there, but generally right, we have used them for disaster relief and as firemen).

 

Didn't Roger Moore pick a bad day to pass away.  Now there is a security man I could respect

[Stones]

Didn't they deploy armed troops in armoured vehicles around Heathrow a few years ago? 

[SteamyTea]

Not sure.  They did in Northern Ireland, was not a great success.

Edited May 23, 2017 by SteamyTea

[Stones]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/2749659.stm

[daiking]

There's an election on, one must be seen to be doing something. But if I were Brazilian, I'd keep my head down for a few weeks. 

 

Dont think I'm planning on heading to town for about 3 weeks, anyway.

[PeterW]

I'll be in town tomorrow as planned - no point in making people think they have won. 

 

Whilst we haven't deployed overtly in this way for a while there has been a significant increase in plain clothes and other security across London in the past 6 months. 

[Ferdinand]

7 hours ago, Stones said:

Didn't they deploy armed troops in armoured vehicles around Heathrow a few years ago? 

 

Yes, that was Mr Blair in 2003.

 

This being the UK, I seem to recall the media taking the P and his being accused of grandstanding, however there seems to have been a serious report behind it:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1422243/Blair-sent-in-tanks-after-chilling-threat.html

 

TBH I always viewed it as posturing, but it seems I was wrong.

 

Ferdinand

 

[Jeremy Harris]

Increasing the threat level doesn't surprise me, I don't think there was any realistic alternative.  As I mentioned above, this IED doesn't seem to have been the sort of crude , fairly low yield and unreliable, device that we've seen used by Islamic extremists here in the UK before.  It has all the hallmarks of being a fairly sophisticated IED, not something that some loner has assembled in his shed.  Making compact high explosives with the power of this device, and more importantly, making a reliable and effective detonator and initiation system, is not that easy.  Also, developing such an effective home-made device would almost certainly need some trials, to test each element in the device, and it would not be easy to do such trials here, without being detected.  That implies connections with others, to acquire the detailed knowledge and materials, others that have already done the development work, and tested and proved all the component parts, most probably in another country.  In turn, that suggests that those same others may well be planning other attacks. 

 

Whether or not deploying troops on guard duty is an effective countermeasure I'm not at all sure, although in this case it is an automatic part of raising the threat level to critical, I believe.  I would hazard a guess that putting troops on the streets is primarily a way of reassuring the public that the threat is being taken seriously and that the government are taking action.  I doubt that military guards would deter a suicide bomber, given the constraints of their rules of engagement in such a scenario (they will be more constrained than armed police officers, I'm certain).

[jamiehamy]

The British mentality sometimes beggars belief, if social media is anything to go by. Soldiers patrolling key buildings and public spaces - "OTT, cancel the election, politically motivated, bla bla bla. "

 

Of course if they did nothing and something *did* happen - 'government did nothing, why were they so complacent, yawn yawn yawn.'

 

Why are we a country full of so many self haters? Why are we a country full of so many people who don't believe that governments might actually act in what they see as the best interests of the general population? I frankly don't care if it cannot be proven that soldiers will make us safer - if someone in a position of responsibility thinks its the right thing to do, it's no problem for me - I trust that decision. Better safe than sorry is fine with me. 

 

I just get rather down about why so many in our country love nothing than to berate our country no matter what. It's bonkers. 

[ToughButterCup]

5 minutes ago, jamiehamy said:

The British mentality sometimes beggars belief

[...]. 

I just get rather down about why so many in our country love nothing than to berate our country no matter what. It's bonkers. 

 

I can't answer your question @jamiehamy.

But I am grateful to social media - a mask behind which many think they can hide - for exposing what's behind the mask.  I read the same ugly, ill-informed diatribes on social media in German, French, Italian and Murican. It's not confined to the UK.

 

Many are unaware how they expose their Id with a few unfiltered taps of a mobile phone keyboard. After all POTUS does, so what's wrong with splurging the contents of that sump which passes for a brain?

[SteamyTea]

Ian

You have had experience of an oppressive police state.

Did all the controls forced upon the general public make them feel 'safe', or just a bit miffed that they are all potential enemies of the state?

[jack]

I remember reading a report like this a couple of months ago. These attacks are more or less inevitable. I suspect we'd all be surprised at how many attacks get stopped before we hear about them.

 

I (like everyone) struggle to understand the mentality. There were reports about chat on Isis social networks talking about the bombs that killed children in Mosul being returned to Britain.  So if it's wrong to kill innocent children in Mosul, surely it's wrong to kill innocent children in Britain?  

 

I'm not even sure that these people are evil in the true sense of the word.  I assume they're not psychopaths, but actually genuinely believe that what they are doing is right.  I'd be very interested to know the mental state of someone right before they did this. What are they thinking as they walk into a crowd of smiling, happy families, knowing they're about to end their own life and bring years of darkness and pain to the lives of so many others.  Do they feel stressed?  Excited?  Guilty?  

[Nickfromwales]

If the 'excessive' presence only serves to stop any 'momentum' with any like minded individuals, then it will be welcome and possibly life saving. There is no right way to fight or deter these deluded, despicable people, but any visible measure is obviously better than none, but how do you combat terrorism? 

I'd not like to be tasked with that responsibility, nor to receive the blame and ridicule when it still proves ineffective.

 

God speed to the organisations and individuals who do their utmost to keep us safe whilst we go about our business, and let's be grateful for the liberties we enjoy in this country as a result. 

 

My oldest daughter is 8, and I couldn't imagine waking up to that bed being empty. 

RIP. 

[ToughButterCup]

19 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

Ian

You have had experience of an oppressive police state.

Did all the controls forced upon the general public make them feel 'safe', or just a bit miffed that they are all potential enemies of the state?

 

Working  in East Berlin and behind the Iron Curtain for a few years made me acutely aware of the difference of non Party Otto Normal Burgher, (The Average Joe) and a Party member (of any rank at all). In contract negotiations,  it enabled Party Apparatchiks to say to me without a hint of shame '... We may be dealing with your company, but you are still a Class Enemy...' Otto Normal would never have said that. He might have thought it, but would not have shown it. If you haven't seen it, watch this film: it accords directly with my everyday experience. The Lives of Others. I even had a KGB minder - all of us who worked there did. Lovely jovial bloke; we went diving together on many occasions.

 

Relating this to the thread: The Average Joe  could ignore -had to- involvement with anything controversial, anything which might lead to Police involvement. I read that the person who carried out this bombing appears to have hinted at fringe behaviour 

'...But others had a different recollection. Mohammed Saeed, a senior figure of Didsbury Mosque and Islamic Centre, said Salman Abedi had looked at him “with hate” after he gave a sermon criticising Isis and Ansar al-Sharia in Libya...'.

(Guardian online May 2017)

 

In Germany (of the 1980s) such open (there, at that time '... hate-in-his-eyes...'  would have been 'open' ) behaviour and might well have lead to the start of covert surveillance. We now know how all-pervasive surveillance was at that time.

 

That'd be too much for today, for here. But ask 22 sets of parents, 22 families (apologies if I have the number wrong), all their friends and acquaintances. I really don't mind SIS or MI5 or the Police poking around in my Social Media. And I make myself change passwords fairly regularly, never open apparently pointless emails, let alone the attachments. That's all I can do.

 

To adapt  Timothy Leary : Switch On, Tune In, Think, Watch Out     is all I recon we Otto Normal folk can do.

[SteamyTea]

Well Robert McNamara said "never answer the question asked of you, only answer the question you wish you were asked".

 

So did the East Germans fells safer because they were being spied on by their own people, not did they feel they had to show willing