Al-Shabaab Video Threat Means Heightened Security at Mall of America 241
Reuters and other news outlets carry the news that the Minnesota's gigantic Mall of America is under heightened security after a video threat posted online by terrorist group Al-Shabaab. Also at CNN and CBS News. According to Reuters' version of the story: The U.S. homeland security chief said on Sunday he takes seriously a threat made by Somali-based Islamist militants against shopping malls, including the Mall of America in Minnesota, and urged people going there to be careful.
Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson was reacting to a video released by al Shabaab appearing to call for attacks on Western shopping areas, specifically mentioning Mall of America, the West Edmonton Mall in Canada and London's Oxford Street. ... Mall officials issued a statement about the threat made by the group, saying they are monitoring events with the help of federal, state and local law enforcement agencies.
"Mall of America has implemented extra security precautions, some may be noticeable to guests, and others won’t be," the officials said.
It looks like (Score:2, Troll)
Where are all the "moderate" Muslims? (Score:3)
I hear that such folks exist, but they seem to be as rare as a transsexual US Navy SEAL riding a unicorn at the front of a 4th of July parade. Muslims will not listen to goddamned Methodists from Ohio. They will only listen to other Muslims.
Unless other Muslims take to the streets and condemn these threats and actions from the Islamic State . . . ain't nothing gonna happen!
So, if you are Muslim, will you tolerate these extremists in you Mosque . . . ? As long as that problem isn't solved, the rest of
there is no reason any more for them to go to MOA (Score:2)
because they would not renew the lease of Famous Dave's BBQ. thus, it's no longer a destination
Re: (Score:2)
Re:It looks like (Score:5, Insightful)
Mentioned on Slashdot?
Seriously, I think it's all about being as shitty as possible. It's like 8chan with religious self-justification.
Don't listen to them (Score:2)
If ISIS really planned to attack the MOA, why would they give the authorities advance notice? Their primary weapon is FEAR, and they want to use FEAR to prevent people going to the MALL to spend money, thus affecting commerce and the economy. Their rallying cry is "death to America". You don't accomplish that by blowing up America one mall at a time. That would never be effective.
The 9-11 attack was not on a tourist location. it was on the WTC, which is a center of commerce. They don't need t
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Al-Shabab is not ISIS, last we heard, they claimed to be al-Qaeda...unless I've missed the memo switching their allegiance. One thing I think we need to keep in mind is the Mid-East, North Africa, and S. Asia capacity for talking out of their ass..."We gonna kill y'all with 1000 deaths!!!"...maybe they're from Texas. Most likely this is simply a call for attention, their mothers dropped them on their heads during their formative years and now Western hand-ringers are supposed to let them know they are still
Re:It looks like (Score:4, Insightful)
> what the hell are they going to get by attacking a mall for god sakes!
To terrorize, an extreme form of intimidation.
Remember "Apocalypse Now" : "Horror and moral terror are your friends. If they are not, then they are enemies to be feared."
The idea is to make people afraid of ever offending Islam. To be afraid of getting on an airplane, or shopping at the mall, or drawing a carton, or expressing an opinion. After a while, it because easier to submit to Islam than to live in constant fear.
And it works. It works like all hell. There are 57 Muslim nations, practically all taken by force. There are about 1.5 billion Muslims. No other ideology has grown so fast.
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Re: It looks like (Score:4, Insightful)
Because attacking the Army directly would lead to instant loss. Attacking civilians is a much more successful strategy.
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and their goal is to bring about Armageddon.
Their strategy of bringing about armageddon ?
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This article [theatlantic.com] describes it well.
They want to lure the western powers into a giant war in Syria because their religion tells them that this will lead to the End Times.
Re:It looks like (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh come on. Even during the Blitz, Britons made jokes about the Germans. Humor is how people cope with stressful situations, and it is a hell of a lot better a way to deal with terrorist threats than running around screaming your fool head off, or worse, in some ways, become a hyper-serious worry wort believing at any moment you're going to die in some terrorist bomber's explosion.
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C'mon dude this whole Islamic Caliphate isn't anything...
(_)
( _)>-
(_) ...to lose your head over.
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lol, I guess I've never fucking tried "ASCSI" characters here before.
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According to what some captives who later escaped overheard, they don't talk much about strategy, politics or theology. More like "let's go rape some children, yay!"
I want a picture (Score:2)
Of one of those mall cop Segways newly equipped with ordnance mount points.
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Can they mount Linux partitions on these mount points?
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Yes, they can, but it is limited to ReiserFS.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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So the best way to frustrate them is to aggressively take down every video and communique they post. Lowers the audience they can reach to recruit, and reduces the incentive for them to do more and more extreme acts "to get attention" if it doesn't work.
Now some people will get up in arms about freedom of speech - however, i would point out that the people making these posts are non-citizens, and they certainly don't believe in freedom of speech (or other freedoms).
Re:visibility doesnt matter. (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is that our own government seems to WANT us to be terrified of the "terrorists".
Which is why spokespeople for our government are making sure that as many of our people are aware of the "threats" as possible.
The government should be posting videos of its own MOCKING them. And re-editing their videos.
And taking down the worst ones WITHOUT TELLING EVERYONE THAT YOU ARE TAKING THEM DOWN BECAUSE THEY ARE SO BAD AND HERE IS WHY THEY ARE SO BAD.
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Perhaps it has something to do with the difficulty, particularly in Western countries with as strong a set of protections of free expression as the First Amendment, of actively censoring anyone. I personally refuse to watch ISIS videos of people being beheaded or burned alive, and I have a dim view of those that do, but I'm not sure I like the idea of anything other than a voluntary take down of these awful videos.
Beyond that, of course, is the sheer impracticality of ever hoping to take down any more than
Re:visibility doesnt matter. (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is that our own government seems to WANT us to be terrified of the "terrorists".
Of course it does - they want people to give them more money and power.
You're eight times more likely to be killed this year by a cop than a terrorist, and that's including 9/11 (and let's not even discuss swimming pools and motor vehicles or the flu).
But do you see Obama scare monger mongering about any of that? Of course not - there's no play for more power on those. There's no campaign coffer to fill with deposits from the military industrial complex from those.
Understand the motivations and then the actions make perfect sense.
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You don't understand our government, it isn't they want us to be terrified, it is that they are terrified of a terrorist incident on their watch. It tends to get pols de-elected and agency heads demoted. The government generally hasn't said squat about terrorism other than answer questions posed by the Press. Hell, Obama cannot even utter the words Islamic Terrorism.
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No, the best way of frustrating an enemy like that is simply ignoring them. The technique works on pretty much any type of fundamentalism. You can see the effectiveness by ignoring a fundy Christian (eg. a family member) whenever they start talking about the end-of-days or whatever.
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There will be an end of days. Once the sun has expanded and engulfed earth, both sides of Earth will be illuminated. So no more days or nights.
This is only a hypothesis, but it's not a bad one given all the evidence in the sky.
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And you can't stop an idiot from being an idiot. If they don't join ISIS, they'll join the military, your local police force or a mall security detail. If they join ISIS at least they have a higher chance of being taken out of the reproductive pool.
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You mean if they join Daesh AND go to Syria to be with the rest of that smelly lot. If they were instead to join Daesh and remain here and decide to act out their fantasies, then it very much becomes our problem.
Re:visibility doesnt matter. (Score:4, Informative)
Personally I think everyone's overreacting. I was curious so I did searches for "largest mall in America" and "Largest mall in Canada" and the two North American malls were the first hits. This is reminicent of the joke from the first Die Hard movie, where Alan Rickman's Hans Gruber is listing terrorist groups that he wants freed in exchange for releasing hostages; one of his mooks questions one of the groups and he quietly replies, "I read about them in Time Magazine." This seems more like someone looked up what the biggest malls are, and made a list, more than having significant targets.
London's Oxford Street is also listed as the largest shopping area in Europe, so I expect that it was similarly found through some kind of search. Granted, if terrorists are operating out of the Middle East then it's probably a little easier to get to London than it is North America, but even still, after The Troubles, the UK has a lot of experience dealing with terrorism even in its own borders, so I doubt that it's any more of a credible threat than the other two.
Baedeker Blitz (Score:2)
Made me think of this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Terry Gilliam is a prophet. (Score:2, Insightful)
We are living in Brazil [imdb.com].
The movie is dated but poignant. I recommend it to everyone over the age of 12.
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Malala Yousafzai (Score:3)
legitimate terrorist attacks have no source, no warnings, are unpredictable and incur large-scale casualties.
There are few things which irritate me more than the geek who thinks he has won his argument by quoting from a dictionary of his own invention or an etiquette guide like Emily Post.
That is what makes "legitimate" the key word here.
In real life, terrorists often telegraph their attacks, make a point of being easily identifiable by their victims. and choose targets both great and small.
Malala: The girl who was shot for going to school [bbc.com]
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legitimate terrorist attacks have no source, no warnings, are unpredictable and incur large-scale casualties.
No, legitimate terrorist attacks are an attempt to force political change by use of intimidation or force (and a threat is intimidation). This doesn't work if the targets don't know the attacker or what the attacker wants.
This won't end well (Score:3)
All delivery vehicle drivers will have to have be fingerprinted and pass federal background checks.
The TSA will be at all entrances doing bag checks.
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The TSA will be at all entrances doing bag checks.
Getting into the mall will become such a hassle that almost nobody will go there; instead people will do most of their shopping on line and the rest at non-mall locations.
Actually, that doesn't sound too bad.
Re:This won't end well (Score:4)
Now it is nothing but clothing stores and bad restaurants.
What else has there ever been at a mall?
Even back in the 80s when I was a kid, almost all the stores were clothes stores and fast-food restaurants ("food court"). The few exceptions were things like bookstores (like Waldenbooks), software/game stores (Electronics Boutique), arcades, Radio Shack, music/video stores, and tobacco stores. Book stores are mostly gone now, with Barnes and Noble being the sole survivor (besides odd little used book stores) (B&N sometimes does have mall locations though), most malls still have a game store (GameStop), some malls do have an arcade, Radio Shack just recently went under, music/video stores are mostly gone thanks to Netflix and Amazon and iTunes, and tobacco stores were forced out of malls ages ago.
But the point is, I can't remember a time when malls weren't mostly clothing stores and bad restaurants.
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Yes, but now that the several things you named are gon, it is nothing but clothing stores and bad restaurants. Like OP said.
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Not true, as I said in my comment. Most malls still have a game store (GameStop), and other stores remain. The mall nearest me has an arcade, and even a music/video store (I have no idea how they stay in business, but they do have a large shop). There's even a small celtic shop with all kinds of weird stuff. There's also a Radio Shack, but it closed in the last few weeks, unsurprisingly.
In a nutshell, things haven't changed much in 25 years. I'd say the biggest difference is that no one smokes inside m
The US gets back what it seeded (Score:2, Insightful)
So the US thinks it can bomb the shit out of civilians (only "collateral damage" in US terms) in many countries and support oppressive regimes without someday getting it back? Think again. When you vote for the bombing criminals, you become a legitimate target.
However, these people help the US government just fine in getting support for the US government to control and repress their own population even more.
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Obama - Syria, Libya
Bush II - Iraq, Afghanistan
Clinton - Somalia, Iraq, Sudan, Kosovo
Bush I - Iraq
Continue as far back as you choose. And then fold in France, Britain, Germany, etc, etc, etc.
You really think this is a US only, and recent US only, issue? GMAFB.
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You forgot Iraq and Afghanistan for Obama.
Or did you think we'd stopped bombing them back in 2009?
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Also missing are Yemen, Somalia, and Pakistan: http://www.cnn.com/2014/09/23/... [cnn.com]
Clearly his Peace Prize protects him from condemnation.
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"You really think this is a US only, and recent US only, issue?"
No, of course not. Terrorist attacks are common in Iraq, some African countries, Pakistan and the middle east. But since the US is the country that with by far the most foreign aggression, it has to live with the fact that it becomes a high-profile target.
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When stupid crap happens, and various countries beg for steel rain...who do they ask?
Whatever. You can rail against the US govt, and/or the US voters for electing them.
The exact same thing happens elsewhere. But many people seem to want to put the onus on the US and only the US.
Re:The US gets back what it seeded (Score:4, Interesting)
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From the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli.
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Islamic history that they don't teach at Harvard:
When American colonists rebelled against British rule in 1776, American merchant ships lost British Royal Navy protection. With no American Navy for protection, American ships were attacked and their Christian crews enslaved by Muslim pirates operating under the control of the "Dey of Algiers"--an Islamist warlord ruling Algeria. . . . In 1805, American Marines marched across the desert from Egypt into Tripolitania, forcing the surrender of Tripoli and the freeing of all American slaves
I know I'll probably be moderated into the dark depths for being a troll, but there is a certain irony in this history.
Re:The US gets back what it seeded (Score:4, Informative)
Why didn't they land a bit closer? Seems Americans' awesome knowledge of geography isn't a new phenomenon.
Because if you read First Barbary War [wikipedia.org] you learn that the expeditionary force consisted of 8 Marines and 500 local mercenaries. Given that the US navy was only about 7 years old at the time, I doubt that they had the ships available to transport all those people.
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" Jefferson and Adams asked the Dey's ambassador why Muslims held so much hostility towards America"
The most honest answer would probably have been that they were just pirates and attacked any ship they thought they could win from without serious retalliation.
True. Religion is a convenient excuse, for some, to do whatever they want to do in order to get rich or gain power. In the case of the Dey, he underestimated the willingness of the United States to take action.
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Culture Jamming (Score:5, Interesting)
These terrorist groups have slowly realized that the the biggest damage is not from bombs or airplanes, it is the self-inflicted damage that results. The DHS apparatus, multiple foreign wars and entanglements, loss of liberties, police militarization, "papieren, bitte" and a collective nervous breakdown are draining away the treasure and economic and social vitality of the USA. This is achieved at no cost beyond posting a video on the internet, and beheading any Americans who are stupid enough to visit them.
This is as asymmetric as warfare can get. You may say things are ok in America, but in reality it could have been much, much better..
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Mod parent up. The terrorists are Bugs Bunny and we are Yosemite Sam.
Can this be fixed with technology? (Score:5, Interesting)
I've seen a joke, maybe on a t-shirt, along the lines of "Every day a vegan skips meat, I'll eat three extra burgers." It's interesting because it exposes the question of whether the vegan is really trying to minimize animal deaths, or just seeks personal sanctity.
I wonder if a similar thing could be made with a Koran-burning machine. The machine is configured so that every time the internet has a new message from Islamicists, the machine automatically dips a Koran in pig blood, burns it, posts the video on YouTube, and sends a Tweet giving credit to the Islamicists who triggered that action.
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I wonder if a similar thing could be made with a Koran-burning machine. The machine is configured so that every time the internet has a new message from Islamicists, the machine automatically dips a Koran in pig blood, burns it, posts the video on YouTube, and sends a Tweet giving credit to the Islamicists who triggered that action.
So your solution to extremists boasting about what they dream they could do, is to do something tangible that will piss off said extremists and give them grounds to point the finger at the west and say "See, they are a bunch of infidels that deserve what they get!". Which will do no less more than to push more people into extremism.
Have you ever heard of a positive feedback loop? Because that is what you are suggesting for "solving" the problem of terrorists.
Re:Can this be fixed with technology? (Score:5, Insightful)
Eating pork, drinking alcohol, not praying to Allah five times a day and allowing my wife to drive and not cover her face head while I draw a cartoon about Jesus, Moses and Mohammed walking into a bar is plenty enough reason for them already.
When you are dealing with hyper-sensitive people you have two choices:
1) Change your entire lifestyle so as to walk around on egg shells and hope and pray they don't get offended, or
2) Live your life normally and require them to develop a thicker skin.
There was a time in this country where #2 was actually the norm, alas people like you however keep trying to push us harder and harder towards #1.
But then, it's easy for me to say that... I am an adult, I simply do not get offended regardless of what someone says about me or something that I care about. It's part of being an adult.
Know what we call people who freak out at every little thing?
Children... and Democrats... but mostly children.
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As a vegan myself I just accept that bought food sources will kill so maybe that argument doesn't hold and moral and ideas are subjective.
So I don't accept the notation that "this is good and that is bad" as a scientific / complete truth.
However I don't feel responsible for whatever stupid others participate in and I won't take responsibility for whatever someone else do regardless of what they claim was the reason for it and I'm claimed to be it.
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On the other hand, there are lots of people that are only nominally religious until the religion that they only barely believe in and participate with is visibly threatened or demeaned, then they go off the deep end in its defense.
You do
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Kind of ...
But more like the non-crazies suddenly have to explain WHY the crazies are wrong when we are doing exactly what the crazies are claiming. So the crazies get louder while everyone else gets quieter.
As in the GP post. And it is sad that it was mod'ed to +5.
Pigs are NOT ma
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Syrian refugees (Score:2)
Meanwhile, President Obama and the State Department are trying to bring Syrian refugees into the US. Some US lawmakers and government officials are concerned [foxnews.com] that members of ISIS might slip into the US, along with genuine refugees. For example,
"You have to have information to vet,” FBI Assistant Director Michael Steinbach, said in a Feb. 11 House homeland security hearing. “Databases don't [have] the information on those individuals, and that's the concern.”
Why hasn't it happened already? (Score:3)
I wonder why it hasn't happened already. Despite the panopticon and run of the mill police misbehavior, America still seems like a place where you can move around pretty freely without many obstacles.
Obtaining weapons isn't hard and I doubt there is a terror group out there worth their jihad who wouldn't also know how to convert a semi-automatic-only assault rifle into full auto capable fire, either via either illegal trigger group replacement or modification.
Crowd events are frequent and places like malls are often crowded, providing ample targets for assaults on civilians. Many significant industrial sites like oil refineries or power plants aren't well guarded (nuclear plants may be an exception) and even if a handful of key infrastructures like bridges and tunnels are well guarded, many aren't.
It just doesn't seem like there would be many barriers, require that much skill or planning to do what they have threatened. In terms of terror, the payoff seems immense.
So why hasn't it happened? Is the panopticon that good? Are they just burying all the stories of thwarted attempts?
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The payoff isn't immense, however. If they do blow up a mall, then you risk getting the Wrath of the Great Military Industrial Complex upon your head. We can stomp ISIS into the ground should we be so inclined - but we're not so inclined.
If ISIS just rattles scimitars it's a no-cost way to get effective propaganda. Blowing things up entails real risks of escalations. Just ask Japan how well Pearl Harbor worked out for them in the long run.
Re:Why hasn't it happened already? (Score:4, Insightful)
We can stomp ISIS into the ground should we be so inclined - but we're not so inclined.
No, we can't. We have no such capability.
The problem is that ISIS is not a uniformed, traditional military force. It's supported by the cities it rules over. It's one and the same with the local population of Sunnis. The only way you're going to stomp ISIS into the ground is to level Sunni cities, and kill ALL the people living in them. The west is not willing to do that.
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"Yes we can!" to borrow an phrase from our freckless leader. I am not saying we should do that but we could stomp out ISIS if we wanted.
What we should do and I think would be a far far better approach would be to END our efforts in the middle east and implement real effective boarder security; where by persons DO NOT illegally enter the country successfully. Additionally implement intensified screenings with background checks and the closing of visa loop holes for people who wish to visit and for American
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I am not saying we should do that but we could stomp out ISIS if we wanted.
No, we can't. There is no way in hell western voters would stand for genocide. Even if it were really necessary. We just don't have the stomach for that. Voters now get upset any time there's civilian casualties, and demand surgically precise military operations.
a far far better approach would be to END our efforts in the middle east and implement real effective boarder security; where by persons DO NOT illegally enter the count
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Two problems: we need the oil the ME provides
No. We really don't. The Middle East is not nearly as significant as it was in the early '70s.
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Well if you cut out ME oil, you're going to have to get oil from Russia. Europe gets most of its oil from the ME.
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Or Canada, or South America, or the U.S. or Norway, or.....
If it is a problem for Europe, let Europe spend the bux and deal with the heartburn. Most of Europe made it quite clear they don't want us involved anyway.
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The US's economy is strongly linked to Europe's. If Europe's economy goes down the tubes, so does ours.
Re:Why hasn't it happened already? (Score:4, Insightful)
Tell the Boston bombing victims that nothing like this has happened, or the victims at Fort Hood. This stuff happens in Europe all the time.
Some Muslim clergy talks some crazy into some such attack. Then the media, and the politicians, fall all over themselves to tell the public that the attack has nothing to do with Islam. Then the big story will be that Muslims fear a backlash - as if the Muslims are the victims, and not the aggressors.
We need to stop the PC bullshit. Pull our heads out of our asses, and see Islam for what it is.
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So why hasn't it happened? Is the panopticon that good? Are they just burying all the stories of thwarted attempts?
I'd go with another theory -- there are very, very few people inside the USA who want to be terrorists (and even fewer with the required combination of skills and ruthlessness to actually pull off a successful act of terrorism).
The reason why: If you're living in a hopelessly dysfunctional third-world hellhole, you don't have a lot to lose, so you may well just say "screw it" and throw in your lot with the local terrorist militia, in the hopes that shaking things up enough might somehow improve things. If
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It sounds reasonable, but I don't find it compelling. One of the biggest trends anymore is the "home grown" terrorist, the one who who commits act of violence in his home country.
I'm still puzzled why so many apparently soft targets haven't been hit, at least once.
It could just be that the "threat" is greatly overstated.
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I'd go with another theory -- there are very, very few people inside the USA who want to be terrorists (and even fewer with the required combination of skills and ruthlessness to actually pull off a successful act of terrorism).
With a few rather notable exceptions, performed by the religion of peace. As long as we completely ignore those, hey - you're 100 percent correct!
Meanwhile (Score:2)
Tiffany rumored to be forming a new flash mob group called "Al-Shama-lama-ding-dong"
Mall (Score:4, Funny)
the beginning of the end? (Score:2)
Bring it. (Score:2)
I'm going to the Mall today.
I'll be there from about 4pm until about 8.
See you there, bitches.
Good (Score:2)
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Show me that they get disproportionately attacked by terrorists and I'll take you seriously.
Re:From Mall of America visitor rules: (Score:5, Insightful)
Why are you limiting it to just terrorist attacks?
At last check, with the exception of the Gabrielle Giffords's shooting... every single mass shooting in this country since the 1950's where there have been more than 3 deaths have taken place at a location where people were not able to carry a firearm.
This applies not only to every single school K-12 shooting you can think of, but the Aurora theater prohibited firearms on their premises, Ft Hood only allowed MPs to consistently be armed, Virginia Tech prohibited students (even with CPLs) from carrying... the list goes on and on.
Let me turn that Q around for you... when in the history of a world has a person hell-bent on doing evil, walked up to a door that said "Gun Free Zone" and said "Damn, I guess I'll have to find another place to create carnage?"
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Why are you limiting it to just terrorist attacks?
At last check, with the exception of the Gabrielle Giffords's shooting... every single mass shooting in this country since the 1950's where there have been more than 3 deaths have taken place at a location where people were not able to carry a firearm.
Well at the Gabrielle Gifford shooting, there was a good guy with a gun, and he had enough sense not to use it, because by the time he got there, they had the bad guy under control and a good guy was holding his gun.
I don't see how that good guy scenario is supposed to play out. If the bad guy finds a crowd, he can get off 20 rounds, and kill a large number of people, before the good guy can do anything. So having good guys with guns can limit the damage to 10 victims. Unless the bad guy can get a bigger cl
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An automatic weapon is generally the one that is capable of firing bursts. Getting a full auto weapon in US legally is possible in some states, but prohibitively expensive (on the order of $15,000K for a Vietnam-era M16), and puts you under ATF scrutiny and on their registry. There was exactly one legal full auto gun used in a crime in the past several decades, and that one was by a cop.
As far as terrorist attacks with firearms go, notice how it happened in France first - a place that's presumably pretty ti
Re:From Mall of America visitor rules: (Score:4, Informative)
Do armed Americans factor into terror planning? (Score:2)
I'm not asking the question whether armed civilians thwart crime generally; that's a different debate with evidence posited on both sides.
I'm wondering if the people who might plan an attack similar to the one at the Kenyan mall or the hotel in India and consider such an assault in the US take into consideration any risks associated with armed Americans, either carry permit holders or even those who carry illegally.
There's the risk of the assault being cut short or otherwise failing because the attackers th
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a terrorist event could be considered a "success" just from emptying an AK magazine into a crowd at a mall, even if the attacker(s) were killed immediately after opening fire.
Denmark:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new... [dailymail.co.uk]
Such fucking stupidity it's allowed into Europe.
In the case of France as I've understood it there was no escape plan. Of course there will be others with similar ideas who will still think it was a success and good.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-... [bbc.com]
Don't understand why we have to destroy our countries. Guess the good part which can come from it is that more of them actually like the freedom and rather than the agenda they want to pull that "west is struggling to uphol
Re:From Mall of America visitor rules: (Score:5, Insightful)
How about removing that rule as a first step? 'Gun free zones' are instant targets.
You might possibly have had a point if we were considering an armed robbery of the mall, although the fact that countries with strict gun control laws have murder rates [wikipedia.org] that are a tiny fraction of the US suggests that the downsides far, far outweigh any small benefit.
However I really don't understand how a civilian armed with a gun will stop a terrorist bomb. Having armed civilians wandering around a shopping mall shooting anyone with a backpack, bag or briefcase who looks "suspicious" frankly sounds like a far more terrifying prospect than a terrorist with a bomb and one likely to result in far more deaths. What we need is a plan to stop them from causing "terror", not one where you do it for them
Re: From Mall of America visitor rules: (Score:2, Informative)
Even the own article you mentions
"This chart does not use the very latest data due to differences in how intentional homicide is defined and calculated for each country."
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate#By_country
When you pull out the wars it drops
Another al-Shabaab mall attack... (Score:2)
The Westgate mall attack [wikipedia.org] wasn't a bomb. It was armed gunmen, and 67 people ended up dead with over 175 wounded.
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Wouldn't it be useful to see if and how the murder rate in the US is distributed... and see if perhaps in a country of more than 300 million there might be pockets which are the source of a disproportionate murder rate to?
Or do you want to ignore the fact of the low murder rate in easy to legally get a gun Plano, Texas (.4 per 100,000) and the high murder rate in the hard to legally get a gun city of Detroit (54.6 per 100,000)? The numbers are striking: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L... [wikipedia.org]
In fact, oddly enough
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Having armed civilians wandering around a shopping mall shooting anyone with a backpack, bag or briefcase who looks "suspicious" frankly sounds like a far more terrifying prospect than a terrorist with a bomb and one likely to result in far more deaths.
How do you tell a gang of terrorists from a gang of good guys?
What happens when three or four guys wearing keffeyas and carrying military rifles march into a shopping center? What if they don't wear keffeyas? What if they disguise themselves as good guys by wearing American flag and NRA patches?
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It's almost like America is a country where violence is PG-13, but nudity is NC-17.
Oh wait.
Seriously though, the main problem in America seems to be a culture of glorifying violent actions in one way or another. From the classic examples of how geeks and nerds get treated in school by the 'cool' jocks to the frothing "MY GUN OR MY LIFE!" mentality some people exhibit I can only sit here and quietly shake my head at the world-leading super-power who wants to tell everyone else how to do things.
To be quite ho
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Are the dead Americans and dead Germans on the cost or benefit side of that equation?
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Is that you Gecko45 [lonelymachines.org]?