Incident in Manchester UK

[stui magpie]

Yes, truly heartbreaking.

Surprised to have read a report this morning from a concert goer saying there was no security, just checked tickets & that's it. In this day & age (unfortunately) any large gathering should have security & bag checks.

(Sorry, can't remember where I read it)

From my understanding the bomb was exploded in the public area outside the foyer when the crowd was exiting the venue.

At the MCG they check the bags but nothing is stopping individuals from doing whatever in the walkways surrounding the MCG.

After a game that attracts a big crowd at the MCG there are quite a few bottlenecks around the venue and at Richmond station that make us all very vulnerable to this type of attack.

I'm leaving all the other circle jerking alone, this is an interesting point.

Firstly, the bag checks are cursory at best, designed more IMHO to catch an absolute amateur dickhead and/or provide the illusion of safety to patrons.

The metal detectors, if they're turned on, are set to low and would be lucky to pick up anything much smaller than a handgun.

Now, I'm not complaining mind you. it's a risk management and logistics exercise. if you want to be able to get 60,000 plus through the gates in an orderly fashion and allow people to go in and out at breaks, USA airport level security just would not work to get people in and out in a timely fashion.

fact is, if someone wanted to smuggle guns, ammo and/or explosives into the G it wouldn't be hard.

I've noticed that they have strategically placed water filled barriers around the ground which would prevent some dick in an average sedan being able to go road rage on the crowd, but there's not a lot preventing someone planting an explosive device.

if I wanted to cause some mayhem at the G (and please note ASIO, I don't, I have no inclination, this is just a case study) it would be simple.

Pick 3 locations near the main gates. Let's say gates 1, 2 and 3.

Insert three people each carrying in their bag a 1.5 litre metal thermos containing a mix of explosives and shrapnel.

Set up 3 people outside the gates to spike some of the rubbish bins in the vicinity of the gates with larger versions of the same. If the bins are full, just sit it on the ground next to the bin in a maccas takeaway bag. No one would bat an eyelid.

synchronise the explosions inside, 5-10 seconds apart to kill and maim a few but cause maximum panic. People stream outside and as they run into the proximity of the bin explosives, remotely detonate those.

Bingo. maybe 50 dead, hundreds wounded, thousands traumatised.

[Mugwump]

Well if it matters so much to you why haven't you posted about it then???

I'm almost certain you've missed my point.

No I have not!

I do understand that there is not the media or public interest in the diabolical situation in Yemen or the famine in South Sudan ( and that ain't getting any sympathy in Melbourne atm that's for sure!) etc etc etc. I'm also convinced that the Ebola breakout would have attracted little interest if there was not an uneasy fear it might spread to the West!

But I also understand that this atrocity happened in a city like ours and we can identify with that more readily.

You can care about more than one thing at a time you know and given the topic title it seems pretty reasonable for people to post their feelings about the Manchester atrocity in the Manchester thread!

Quite, Morrigu. I'd add that it is not just that we can identify with this more directly because of common mindsets and milieus : it is undoubtedly true that if this happens in Manchester, it is more likely to happen in Melbourne. It is not a cholera outbreak - it is an ideologically-driven mass murder directed against Western societies, and we are all more at risk (especially our children) as this spreads.

Secondly, the fact that you enumerated only Islamic societies in your post, MM, rather than African societies where things like cholera etc are far more prevalent, suggests a slightly different agenda. It is not the case that the problems of the Islamic world are of "our" making, and this malicious fiction needs to be called out, as it is the myth that underpins the unbearable nihilism of Manchester yesterday evening.

[Skids]

https://youtu.be/o9W3vaM2SUc

We keep letting them in.... then they breed like rabbits, one of their charming offspring, who've been brainwashed since birth, carry out a terrorist attack... and you wanna call them a homegrown national?

Sorry, I just don't buy that line.

No you didn't know it at the time ,you just tried to exploit a sad situation based on speculation at the time of your posting. You've been busy on the net to back up your speculation. You should be ashamed of yourself being so brazenly opportunistic trying to score base political points resulting from the shocking deaths of so many. Disgusting & piss weak Skids - even for your standards.

The issue is not me Skids, the issue is your cheap opportunism.

The ABC are now reporting that the perpetrator is from an area highly populated by 'new arrivals' .

And no, I haven't been 'busy on the net'. I've been bustin' my arse at work!

You don't seem to be able to accept the facts too well WPT.
Sure, I speculated and it now appears that my speculation was on the money!

Islam is evil and I struggle to see what will make you leftist apologists, once and for all, pull your heads out of your pompous arseholes.

[watt price tully]

https://youtu.be/o9W3vaM2SUc

We keep letting them in.... then they breed like rabbits, one of their charming offspring, who've been brainwashed since birth, carry out a terrorist attack... and you wanna call them a homegrown national?

Sorry, I just don't buy that line.

No you didn't know it at the time ,you just tried to exploit a sad situation based on speculation at the time of your posting. You've been busy on the net to back up your speculation. You should be ashamed of yourself being so brazenly opportunistic trying to score base political points resulting from the shocking deaths of so many. Disgusting & piss weak Skids - even for your standards.

The issue is not me Skids, the issue is your cheap opportunism.

The ABC are now reporting that the perpetrator is from an area highly populated by 'new arrivals' .

And no, I haven't been 'busy on the net'. I've been bustin' my arse at work!

You don't seem to be able to accept the facts too well WPT.
Sure, I speculated and it now appears that my speculation was on the money!

Islam is evil and I struggle to see what will make you leftist apologists, once and for all, pull your heads out of your pompous arseholes.

Stop being a total & utter dill Skids:

Deal with a few errors that you & no one else made here:

1. Before the police knew who were the perpetrators were you made claim you did.

2. Before the bodies were cold you wanted to score political points - nasty base opportunism - simply disgusting - based on an assumption. That is, you had NFI who the perpetrators were at the time of your posting but felt you could blame others when no facts were known & capitalise for your own grandstanding by your claims that were xenophobic posturing.

BBC news are saying police are saying the perpetrator likely British born etc - however that doesn't matter.

Get it through your head it doesn't matter who did it at the time of your posting you had NFI, you posted it when no one knew police or otherwise to make a cheap political point when the bodies weren't even cold. That is my issue with your post.

I don't excuse anyone from committing crimes let alone major terrorist ones but you missed the point.

[watt price tully]

Arrest & UK PM notes that the Police believe they know the identity of the suicide murderer:

http://www.skynews.com.au/news/top-stor ... ncert.html

[David]

It seems so brutal and senseless. What are the primary goals of an attack like this?

[Morrigu]

And so it goes on

"Known to police "

" Out on bail"

ENOUGH already !! When do us plebs just going about our lives get the " their human rights" argument!!!

[watt price tully]

It seems so brutal and senseless. What are the primary goals of an attack like this?

Well without being glib:

1. Terror
2. A show of power in the face of perceived powerlessness
3. Revenge in the face of perceived of terror / injustice being committed against muslims (see MM's point)

Amongst other things

[swoop42]

Unfortunately if people with this kind of mindset slip through the sophisticated net of surveillance there is little to stop them performing attacks on soft targets such as this.

Thankfully we in Australia are more able to control who enters our country but are not immune to homegrown acts of terrorism.

Unfortunately for the UK and the rest of Europe it's far harder to control the borders and it's a worry many ISIS fighters can and already have slipped back inside.

Sadly I feel this is just a sign of more to come, it may well escalate in the short term and the mind wanders to what other atrocities some will be willing to entertain.

One hopes that while lone wolf attackers are extremely hard to identify and stop any terrorist cells operating can be as the death toll from multiple attackers would be even more frightening.

I just hope we don't see schools being targeted which has happened in the Islamic world.

[Mugwump]

I'd say it is just a matter of time, Swoop.

David, one presumes that the goal is the usual aim of political and religious extremists throughout history : to express their rage and hatred for alternatives in which people seem happier, freer and kinder than they would be under the power of the extremists. At the individual level, it is presumably to cleanse some deep-rooted sense of personal inadequacy or unworthiness - dissolving the dilemmas and choices which are part of being an independent human being, by merging the self within a "cause".

The superficial rationale is to dissuade Western governments from seeking to influence the Islamic world. I suspect this is because Islam, a cultural, economic, military and scientific failure since at least the 18th Century (and in most senses well before that), has to find something outside itself to blame for its own feebleness and ignorance, or admit that Allah is not great. What better than to blame the civilisation which shows, by its success and luminosity, how retrograde Islam is, and has been ?

To which one can only say, what kind of God is made great by murdering little girls ?

Finally, it now seems clear that the perpetrator is a native-born British Muslim, as in most other terrorist attacks in the U.K. As this attack clearly owes something to Islam, so too it owes something to the deep diseases of British society. No doubt one's diagnosis of that illness will depend upon the bias of one's stethoscope, but history tells us that this does not have to be so - we just chose to make it that way.

[Skids]

Scoring political points??!

Yeah rite, who keeps the tally of those in the VPT?

[watt price tully]

What we know so far about the perpetrator:

1. UK born of parents from Libya;
2. Raised, lived and went to Uni in Manchester;
3. Has recently returned from Libya (about a week or so ago);
4. It is presumed he was trained in Libya
5. Apparently there is a South Manchester Libyan Jihadi nexus with some jailed already - including converts re trying to get others to go to Syria etc
6. Apparently not known to police.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/05 ... jihadists/

[Member 7167]

Arrest & UK PM notes that the Police believe they know the identity of the suicide murderer:

http://www.skynews.com.au/news/top-stor ... ncert.html

Let's be honest WPT. Irrespective of any of our viewpoints, recent history would put weight on the chances that the person responsible for this atrocity was someone associated in some way with the Muslim faith.

This is not a viewpoint born out of prejudice but historical events in recent years. I would suggest that Skids had a better than 80% chance of being right when considering the nature of the event.

If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck I would put my money on it being a duck.

[watt price tully]

Arrest & UK PM notes that the Police believe they know the identity of the suicide murderer:

http://www.skynews.com.au/news/top-stor ... ncert.html

Let's be honest WPT. Irrespective of any of our viewpoints, recent history would put weight on the chances that the person responsible for this atrocity was someone associated in some way with the Muslim faith.

This is not a viewpoint born out of prejudice but historical events in recent years. I would suggest that Skids had a better than 80% chance of being right when considering the nature of the event.

If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck I would put my money on it being a duck.

Lets be honest Member; my primary issue with Skids's post was it's timing:

1. The bodies weren't even cold as I've explained ad nauseam & he sought to use this opportunistically.

2. However lets continue this further because you seemed to have not only missed this but missed his actual comment "we keep letting them in", that was his quote meaning muslim immigrants.

3. He knew f*uck all as the police did not know & agreed he speculated. You state he had an 80% chance and he said he doesn't buy the homegrown idea which I put as one of the possibilities. I did not say it wasn't muslim terrorists anywhere or at anytime just let the facts be known first.

4. The facts as sufficient time has elapsed is that we have a homegrown son of an immigrant family (so Skids's idea we keep letting them in does not apply to the perpetrator as he is British to his bootstraps more than Skids is as he was born there.

5. Later Skids charmingly notes that "they breed like rabbits". Who Irish Catholics? Religious Jews?, Exclusive Brethren?

Lets be honest here Member, Skids through his posting (not the person) didn't have the decency to wait till the facts were known to post his xenophobic ideas (from extreme right wing nutter websites I'd guess).

[Pies4shaw]

The question for me is why second-generation British/French/whoever citizens do this. Apart from the obvious anger and aggression (and it's particular cultural manifestation), one can really only wonder how people become so thoroughly alienated from their own society that this strikes them as a tolerable option.