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© Copyright 2015 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Belgium police arrest 16; Paris fugitive still at large
By RAF CASERT and FRANK JORDANS BRUSSELS©2024 GPlusMedia Inc.
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SimondB
Brussels on a complete lockdown - makes you question sometimes who is winning the "war on terror".
JeffLee
The capital of the European Union in lockdown. Unbelievable. Soldiers and mechanized armor on every street corner, with a country at war with a certain segment of its own population.
The Europeans now need to ask themselves how they got to this point. But they probably won't. Too many policy-makers and others might come out as looking stupid, arrogant and gullible. All this is great news for the right-wing populist parties: they predicted all this.
CrazyJoe
It does seem like Europe's "open borders" are a thing of the past now, and that there will need to be serious tracking of those that go to Syria for "training" and return. And obviously, more attention paid to the so-called refugees for embedded terrorists in their ranks. It's not going to be pretty and I fear Europe is in for a long fight.
Sassenach
In another thread I stated that you can hype the average human a million times and he will never learn. I see by the negative reaction to my post that it still holds true. Incessant pushing of the panic button is one of the hypes governments love most. Keep falling for it.
WilliB
SimondB:
Trick question? Brussels is already 51% muslim and on track to become 100%.... the islamists are already bragging about it. Thanks to Angela Merkel, this demographic conquest has now turned into overdrive.
HonestDictator
sigh, should we say it now or later.... y'know, that "I told you so..." that has been on the back of our minds.
Sassenach
But 16 arrested. Riiiiiight.
Reminds me of the UFO poster-- I WANT to believe.
PTownsend
The link below says 25%. Please provide a link that verifies your %.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_in_Belgium
SenseNotSoCommon
Which one? There are 28 capitals in the EU
Possible in the US, DPRK or China, perhaps. Belgium doesn't have that big a military
A handful of extremists is hardly a segment
Truth and sensation are such uneasy bedfellows. Pity, that.
Madverts
willib,
Surely a self-professed expert on the hadiths and sundry texts from the Koran would have an idea on what to do with the massive Muslim population is Europe?
I'm not sure ranting daily on and English language website about Japan about how bad Islam is gets to the nub of the problem.
You're President WilliB of Europe for a day, let's see what your ideas are please. Thanks very much.
JeffLee
Belgium contributes more Jihadi fighters per capita to the Middle East than any other European country. Those are the foot soldiers. Many, like the suspects, stay at home to plot attacks or recruirt, while many girls and women and university students are ISIS supporters/sympathizers.
Molenbeek is called a "hotbed of Jihadism."
SenseNotSoCommon
Daesh rejoice when we distance ourselves from our 1.6 billion Muslim neighbours on this planet.
It may seem counterintuitive, but the only way to defeat them is to deny them this pleasure.
Let's not feed the trolls.
JeffLee
"Distance"? Molenbeek and elsewhere in Belgium have practiced the opposite approach as a policy: open-minded inclusion.
Molenbeek has had a mayor and municipal administraiton since the early 80s that has actively promoted refugees and immigrants from the Middle East, welcoming them with open arms and providing them a host of generous support and social services.
In return, Belgium gets....what? Hatred, violence and terror, directed right back at them.
SenseNotSoCommon
@JeffLee,
This sensationalism is answering ISIS's prayers. Think about it.
nath
It's almost impressive how a bunch of zealots living in a desert have managed to direct the thinking of so many people world-wide, without those people even realize their thinking has been directed by ISIS.
When all this is said and done, it will make for some great analysis on mind-control techniques.
Wc626
More "mumbo jumbo" . . . meanwhile UK lawmakers will decide if the UK will participate in airstrikes alongside the french at the request of the french president.
Why not add the iranians too. They could hit Mecca and Medina from the air. That would really P.O. ISIS.
PTownsend
I'm going to assume you understand that Iran is a Muslim country and that for Iranians Mecca and Medina are holy cities, the places where they - Iranian Shia and Sunni - go for the Hadj. Why would they bomb there? Islam, as far as I know, has no 'pope' type leader, no central Vatican-type headquarter location where worldwide Islam is led.
JeffLee
".....without those people even realize their thinking has been directed by ISIS."
Nice try. My "thinking" on this issue hasn't changed since before ISIS even existed.
But your state of denial is extraordinary. Clearly, it was a policy of welcoming and assisting immigrants and refugees from the ME and northern Africa that led to the creation of one ISIS's most important bases. If the security and vetting process was stricter, say, like, in the US, this security crisis clearly wouldn't exist. How many ISIS communities are there in the US?
UK and other countries with serious Islamist problems have also had accommodating policies, evidenced by the nearly 100 Sharia courts in the UK.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-29415165
SenseNotSoCommon
My "thinking" on this issue is shaped by the Daily Mail, a much less sophisticated form of mind-control.
An exaggeration fact-checked by the UK's Channel 4. Who found, for example:
And noted that:
http://blogs.channel4.com/factcheck/factcheck-qa-sharia-law-uk/18486
Then we have this gem of cognitive dissonance:
It must have been the Belgian hospitality that radicalised these young men and women. Was it the chocolate, the weird beers, or Mannekin Piss?
Can't have been anything else.
JeffLee
@SenseNotSoCommon
You should have sought out better sources. The BBC's Panorama investigative report called Britain's Sharia councils a "parallel legal system," and its reporters gained clear video evidence the imam judges often stepped beyond their purported purpose of dealing with family court issues. For example by ordering Muslim women not to go to the police in DV cases, (a violation of British law).
"Secrets of Britain's Sharia Councils" http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01rxfjt
"hospitality" err...right. The authorities' liberal, open immigration policy allowed the radicalism to continue unchecked for many years and the number of people susceptible to it to grow so large to the point where it is now seen as a "hotbed" of Jihadism by the police not just in Belgium but by intelligence services in France as well.
Is that the best you can do? Seriously?
SenseNotSoCommon
in a total geopolitical vacuum, right?
Your claim (of 100 Sharia courts) was a quantitative one, Jeff, not qualitative.
You can do much better than that, Jeff.
JeffLee
Yep, you misread my post. I said "nearly 100." 85 is rather close to 100. But if you're still huffy about that, let's say "nearly 90." Happy now?
SenseNotSoCommon
Jeff,
Use any number you want as a distraction. It's a dodo of a tactic, though.
Disputing Channel 4's quantitative conclusion (that '85 Sharia courts' is an exaggeration):
...with the qualitative findings in Panorama's documentary is like saying:
We all expect much better from you, Jeff.