Explosions at Zaventem Airport (Brussels airport)/Brussels metro

[Zanza]

Impossible to say without seeing the original studies and not just an editorial article from a well-known ideological website. The origin of the article makes me at least cautious and sceptical.

I can only hope you are as critical of the propaganda being spew by leftist websites...

As you would probably consider the mainstream media that I read "leftist" whereas I trust them more than breitbart, I am probably de facto less sceptical of other sources than I am of breitbart. As for websites that I would consider "leftist" - I would not read those just like I usually don't read breitbart. Selective reading here.
But I still consider myself sceptical of most statistics, no matter where I read them, even in mainstream media or the research institutions directly.

[CountDeMoney]

A little perspective for the more panicky of our fellow 'Muricans--

Is America Next?
I'll make no guarantees, but there's a reason these terror attacks keep happening in Europe.
By Daniel Benjamin
Politico.com
March 22, 2016

When a bomb goes off in Europe, Americans shudder as if rocked by the blast. Whatever the geographical reality, post-industrial Old Europe—in Donald Rumsfeld's deathless phrase—is, emotionally speaking, our nearest neighbor and closest peer. So if an explosion propels shattered glass and broken bodies in a Brussels airport, we instinctively expect it to happen here next.

We shouldn't. While the jihadist threat is genuinely global, it is by no means equally distributed. There is, of course, no such thing as perfect security, and as we saw as recently as the San Bernardino shootings in December of last year, there are individuals in the United States who are prepared to commit violence against other Americans. But the European context underlying the attacks at Brussels Airport and the downtown Maelbeek subway station—one of alienated, underemployed and ghettoized Muslims as well as subpar security differs dramatically from anything found in the United States.

To begin with, consider the Muslim minority communities of North America and Europe. In the United States, Muslim communities are mostly comprised of reasonably well-off families from numerous Muslim majority countries. Income and education levels are roughly those of average Americans—the only sizable asterisk on that statement is the impoverished refugees who have come from Somalia.

By contrast, Europe's Muslim communities were seeded by poor peasants who came as guest workers for the burgeoning industries of the postwar period. They were expected to return home. Instead, they stayed even as their industries faded—think of Britain's rust belt in the Midlands—and grew in numbers due to family unification and comparatively high fertility.

They came poor and, to a large extent, have stayed poor, with little access to higher education and much higher unemployment rates than the non-Muslim populations. And this is in countries already plagued by high unemployment. They tend to be concentrated in rundown urban neighborhoods that look more like the places they and their forbears hail from—with their satellite dishes and drying laundry—than the surrounding neighborhoods.

Although the overwhelming majority of European Muslims want nothing to do with extremism and, as polls show, are often as patriotic or more so than their non-Muslim fellow citizens, there are more extremists in their midst than in the United States. In Belgium, the numbers are particularly high. According a Soufan Group report from December, for example, 470 Belgian Muslims have gone to fight in Syria or Iraq out of a population of about 660,000—in terms of rate of recruitment, it is the top supplier of militants in Western Europe.

By contrast, an estimated 250 American Muslims have gone to the region out of a population five or more times larger. (Demographics on the U.S. Muslim community are problematic; Pew puts its estimate at 3.3 million Muslims.) Overall, Western European Muslims are three times likelier to end up in ISIStan than their American co-religionists. As an indicator of radicalization levels, this is pretty definitive.

For another barometer though, consider this: Since 9/11, the four largest attacks in Europe—Madrid (2004), London (2005), Paris (2015) and Brussels (2016) have claimed at least 426 lives. In the United States, even with the Fort Hood shooting, the Boston Marathon bombing and San Bernadino, the total is 45. Add in a passel of smaller attacks over the years in Europe, and the difference with the United States is a factor of ten.

One big reason why the chances of a Brussels or Paris-like attack are lower here is that we've been working flat out to reduce the threat for almost 15 years, since 9/11. With one of the worst extremism problems in the West, Britain has gone hard at this as well. But the same cannot be said for our Continental cousins. The United States has spent upwards of $650 billion on homeland security since 9/11. No comparable European statistic exists, but judging by law enforcement, border security and other agency budgets, the overall figures are much lower. The numerous French government foul-ups in the run-up and aftermath of the Paris attacks tell the story.

Within this picture, Belgium has been an especially sad case. Deeply riven by political conflicts between its Flemings and Walloons over political reform, the country was distracted by a domestic political crisis that ran on and off from 2007 to 2011. During much of this time, there was only a caretaker government, and the Belgians' inability to improve their counterterrorism capabilities was a running frustration for U.S. officials. At one point, I observed to a senior Belgian official that his country was competing with Iraq for taking the longest time to form a government. "The comparison is not welcome," he replied drily. In the end, the Belgians took more than twice as long—541 days—to form a government; their authorities were stuck with flat budgets and little room for new programs.

There are other reasons why Europe is—and will be—more bedevilled by jihadist terrorism for some years to come. The United States still has the blessing of geography—two oceans that mean that outside extremists will need to fly to get here. As we found on Christmas Day 2009, when Umar Farouk Abdulmuttalab tried to detonate his underwear on a flight bound for Detroit, our aviation security, no-fly lists and intelligence needs constant updating. But we have made major strides. By contrast, Europe, with its weak external borders, non-existent internal borders and a migrant crisis that has brought close to million and a half migrants into its borders, faces multiplying perils.

America's advantages are no reason for complacency, even if they do suggest that panic isn't justified. Much could still go wrong. Donald Trump's effort to outrage American Muslims, who are the first line of defense against extremism—and whose trust in U.S. law enforcement is invaluable—will likely continue for months to come. And if the violence in Europe spreads, we still face a major challenge—a fire next door with unpredictable consequences.

Ambassador Daniel Benjamin is Director of the John Sloan Dickey Center for International Understanding at Dartmouth College and served as Coordinator for Counterterrorism at the State Department 2009-2012.

[Tonitrus]

A little perspective for the more panicky of our fellow 'Muricans--

Our perspective?

A bad month on the streets of Baltimore.

[Josquius]

Are these statistics fake?

No reason to believe so.
The wouldn't report a terror attack one is worrying however I wouldn't get too concerned about the having sympathy for terrorists one. That's such a vague question. You can have sympathy for someone and still think they're wrong. I have sympathy for those kids running away to Syria to join isis- how could they get so Fucked up in the head?
When they have a similar background to you I'd imagine this feeling rises.
Also the young /old split....
Well, the young growing up in shittier conditions is part. But I think it's also true that poor kids tend to be more right wing in general. Theyre more ignorant of the world at large, never really meet people who are different.  Many barely ever leave their town. That just comes with age.

While I do have some difficultly in articulating exactly what values are different between Europe and Anglo-America, I think it's fairly obvious that we tend to be more inclusive than Europe (even though obviously we have had a long history of not always living up to our values

The right most commonly say the opposite is true and that it is a problem. That europe is too inclusive

[Josquius]

Well that's. ....interesting.
I'm at the airport right now and I notice all flights to Brussels this morning are cancelled.
The entire place is still shut down? They think there could be a follow up?
Must be crushing for the economy. ..

[jimmy olsen]

Does poverty breed terrorism? I am not so sure. I know the 9/11 guys were from privileged backgrounds were they not? Are the poor over-represented in ISIS or other groups?

Silly Texan.  We all know the cause is global warming.

Syrian civil war was caused by famine which was caused by drought which was caused by global warming. So all the combat, attrocities, refugees and terrorist attacks that have occured as a result of that conflict all can be traced to global warming.

[Crazy_Ivan80]

Well that's. ....interesting.
I'm at the airport right now and I notice all flights to Brussels this morning are cancelled.
The entire place is still shut down? They think there could be a follow up?
Must be crushing for the economy. ..

yes, Zaventem is still closed and normally will stay closed until the end of the week.
just so you know.

-----------
deathtoll for now stands at 35: one wounded perished this night.
during searches in, iirc, Schaarbeek (another part of Brussel, jihadi-capital of Europe) one/two  (not sure) more bomb(s) (nailbomb too) was/were found. The house was flagged due to a tip from a taxi-driver/company. Seems the scumbags asked for a bigger taxi and couldn't get one. Small favours again I guess.

[Crazy_Ivan80]

OTOH, saying that the West will win, as opposed to "we will win"--I am somewhat hesitant to lump western Europe in with the US and Canada here.  While since WWII, western Europe and the US have been politically aligned, and our political and cultural values are closer to each other than to those of any other area or group, I'm not sure that our values are as similar as might commonly be assumed.  I'm not sure that Europe will win, and partly that's because I think that they hold certain values that make them both less likely to succeed against Islamic fundamentalism, and on a certain level, less deserving of succeeding.  While I do have some difficultly in articulating exactly what values are different between Europe and Anglo-America, I think it's fairly obvious that we tend to be more inclusive than Europe (even though obviously we have had a long history of not always living up to our values).  I think one way this shows up is in our reaction to terrorist attacks when carried out by someone in the country they actually grew up in.  When it happens here, we're shocked, and our reaction is along the lines of "But they're Americans, how could they become radicalized like this?" whereas in Europe, the European reaction is more along the lines of "Well of course they're terrorists--they're dirty stinking Musselmen".

this seems to more or less ignore the concept that a significant amount of muslim immigrants may not want to integrate at all. Rather the reverse. And so much easier now that modern communication allows islamic trash-ideology to be broadcasted directly into their homes, regardless of location.

Especially considering that the Italians, Spaniards, Portuguese, Greeks, Hungarians, Poles, Russians, etc (combination depending on point in 20th century, and destination-country) did integrate and often did come in the same period of guestworkership (a program that ended in 1974, for Belgium at least, when a general migrationstop was enacted. didn't work of course, cause closing the main gate doesn't work if you leave open the backdoor and windows)

[Archy]

Well that's. ....interesting.
I'm at the airport right now and I notice all flights to Brussels this morning are cancelled.
The entire place is still shut down? They think there could be a follow up?
Must be crushing for the economy. ..

yes, Zaventem is still closed and normally will stay closed until the end of the week.
just so you know.

-----------
deathtoll for now stands at 35: one wounded perished this night.
during searches in, iirc, Schaarbeek (another part of Brussel, jihadi-capital of Europe) one/two  (not sure) more bomb(s) (nailbomb too) was/were found. The house was flagged due to a tip from a taxi-driver/company. Seems the scumbags asked for a bigger taxi and couldn't get one. Small favours again I guess.

fyi this morning the inquiry by the parquet still hadn't ended and at the moment there's such a structural damage to the building they need a couple of days to stabilize it and clean up the debris. Currently only empty flights. From this night is expected cargo flights to arrive.

[Solmyr]

A little anecdote from my boss who flew back from Paris a few days ago. Bags were being checked very thoroughly, they were emptying them and going through everything. Funnily, all the airport security personnel were Muslim, and all the travelers were white.

[Martinus]

A little anecdote from today - I was meeting a client - French guy in his mid-30s working for an international French corporation, big on diversity, political correctness etc., the guy himself highly educated, well travelled. We started talking about Brussels and how likely such attack is elsewhere - someone mentioned if Warsaw is a likely target.

The French guy just shrugged and said "you have nothing to worry about - you don't have banlieus where terrorists can hide and plan their attacks for months".

Made me wonder what an average working class Frenchman would respond if this guy was so frank about it.

[Martinus]

A little anecdote from my boss who flew back from Paris a few days ago. Bags were being checked very thoroughly, they were emptying them and going through everything. Funnily, all the airport security personnel were Muslim, and all the travelers were white.

So are you saying the security at Paris airports is not to be trusted?

[Archy]

Over here at the cargoside business back as usual. The strange thing is the eerily quietness since no planes landing or taking off.
Also our office is above the train tunnel to the airline and normally when we have a train there's a small sound, which also misses.
For tomorrow no shipments expected to arrive for us. The shipments from yesterday morning are handled today. On friday first diverted freight from AMS/FRA/CDG will arrive.
Only time we had this before was the 24h strike of Belgian air control.

[Solmyr]

A little anecdote from my boss who flew back from Paris a few days ago. Bags were being checked very thoroughly, they were emptying them and going through everything. Funnily, all the airport security personnel were Muslim, and all the travelers were white.

So are you saying the security at Paris airports is not to be trusted?

I'm saying it's funny when people scream for more monitoring of Muslims, when Muslims would probably be doing a large part of the monitoring.

[derspiess]

Does poverty breed terrorism? I am not so sure. I know the 9/11 guys were from privileged backgrounds were they not? Are the poor over-represented in ISIS or other groups?

Silly Texan.  We all know the cause is global warming.

Syrian civil war was caused by famine which was caused by drought which was caused by global warming. So all the combat, attrocities, refugees and terrorist attacks that have occured as a result of that conflict all can be traced to global warming.

  I knew it!  It was global warming all along!