British Police Foil Alleged Mall Massacre Copycat Plot 292
An anonymous reader writes "The Washington Post reports, "British law enforcement agencies averted a plot to orchestrate a large-scale terror attack similar to the assault on Kenya's Westgate mall, an official said Monday. Police were questioning four men in their 20s on suspicion of terrorism after they were detained Sunday in pre-planned, intelligence-led raids. A British security official said the men were planning a shooting spree akin to the Westgate attack in Nairobi, in which at least 67 people died. ... in a series of statements, the force said the men were all British nationals between the ages of 25 and 29, with roots in Turkey, Pakistan, Algeria and Azerbaijan. ... the London police firearms unit took part in the arrests. British police rarely carry weapons and their involvement suggested concern that men might have been armed." — The Sydney Morning Herald has video. Prime Minister Cameron recently expressed concern regarding such a possibility."
DOUBLEPLUS (Score:2, Insightful)
Fake.
Just like the "terrorists" the FBI keeps "catching".
Re:British police rarely carry weapons (Score:5, Insightful)
I suspect they would have a lot less problem with terrorists and ne'er-do-wells.
Nope, there'd simply be a lot more people getting shot.
Re:DOUBLEPLUS (Score:3, Insightful)
It's terrible that my first impression on news like this is "ya, right...", especially after the Kenyan incident.
Re:A religion of peace (Score:3, Insightful)
There are no "religions of peace". What happened to them is that they got wiped out a few thousand years ago by the other religions. Religions are very much subject to evolution. (Which is hysterical, come to think of it.) Today, there are just some that use "peace" as camouflage, but all religion can safely be assumed to be dangerous if the sufferer is deeply infected ("fundamentalist" or "fanatic"). BTW, in this sense, political orientations can qualify as "religion".
Re:DOUBLEPLUS (Score:3, Insightful)
It was barely a year ago where I easily dismissed my conspiracy-minded friends saying this stuff. today it makes more sense than any official story I've heard in months.
Re:British police rarely carry weapons (Score:2, Insightful)
No, the reason these chaps get caught so easily in the UK is because it's pretty much impossible to get your hands on a gun, let alone an assault rifle and enough ammo to carry out something like this.
If anyone wanted to do this in the US, their steps would involve "getting a gun" and "shooting people". Neither of which is a particularly challenging task and, in case you've not been watching the news recently, is something so simple that children can do it, and they frequently do.
"Humm, guns keep killing people and every time we add more guns nothing changes. Hey how about more guns? Awesome lets try that"
Re:DOUBLEPLUS (Score:5, Insightful)
It will not. Terrorism is not a relevant threat to anything. It is a cheap way to scare people though. This stupid argument (scare them so they do not think clearly) has been used time and again. But it is only one thing: Manipulative. It has no connection to reality other than that. For real threats to your life, limb and well-being: Cars, cancer, heart disease, and governments that mess it up. In the US, add guns.
Re:British police rarely carry weapons (Score:5, Insightful)
Really for most of my lifetime the terrorist problem in the United Kingdom was expatiated by the U.S.A. harbouring convicted terrorists and refusing to extradite them back to the U.K. while all the time allowing said terrorist groups to raise money. In that respect 9/11 was a huge boon because all of a sudden the U.S.A. realized that it could no longer support such terrorist activities.
Re:DOUBLEPLUS (Score:4, Insightful)
Yep, because the "the deadliest non-school shooting rampage in American history [wikipedia.org]" didn't occur in Texas.
Considering a lot of these guys commit suicide after they're done, what makes you think that their victims being armed or not is a particularly big concern?
Re:DOUBLEPLUS (Score:5, Insightful)
Since you keep making these claims, you must have some evidence. Can you present it? Or is this just a crank theory of yours?
Were the 7/7 London attacks [bbc.co.uk] "fake" too? Including the 52 dead bodies?
Are the convictions that the police are getting "fake" too?
London terror bomb plot: the four terrorists [telegraph.co.uk]
Four men pleaded guilty to plotting a Christmas bomb attack on the London Stock Exchange and causing a 'Mumbai-style' atrocity.
Fertiliser bomb plot: The story [bbc.co.uk]
Five men have been convicted of plotting to build a bomb which police say could have killed hundreds of British people. The men were caught after police and MI5 launched a massive surveillance operation.
Since you're Canadian, perhaps you could comment on this plot. Was it "fake" too?
Canada jails Toronto truck bomb plotter Zakaria Amara [bbc.co.uk]
One of the key figures in a conspiracy to set off three truck bombs in Canada has been sentenced to life imprisonment. Zakaria Amara, 24, pleaded guilty in October to co-leading the Islamist militant group dubbed the Toronto 18. The group's targets included the city's stock exchange and a military base.
These sorts of attacks are consistent with the announced intention of terrorist groups around the world. I think you need to present some evidence rather than simply make proclamations.
Re:British police rarely carry weapons (Score:2, Insightful)
Nope, there'd simply be a lot more people getting shot.
That is very, very true. In US and Canada there is a perception that if police has guns, they only use it as a last resort. In many cases that is not that case.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/toronto/another-fatal-shooting-on-an-empty-toronto-bus-16-years-earlier/article13494159/ [theglobeandmail.com]
Re:Firearms unit (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:More info (Score:2, Insightful)
So you see no difference between a planned massacre and that nonsense? No difference between mass murder and pamphleteering?
Re:DOUBLEPLUS (Score:5, Insightful)
Would I live in a police state? If the police were beholden to the people and there wasn't this mutual fear (police fear citizens, citizens fear police), then yes. Let people who are trained and know what they are doing (and the ramifications of their actions) enforce things. A society needs laws (and enforcement) to function, but on the other hand, the laws have to be made so they don't breed contempt (like the "war on drugs" crap.)
That would not be a police state. That would be a state where the police serve the people and the people work with and assist the police. Neither of those are true in the United States.
Re:British police rarely carry weapons (Score:5, Insightful)
Good call. We have hundreds of millions of guns here in the US and we have the lowest incarceration costs in the world... oh wait.
Well at least we never have armed gunmen attack public forums... crap, that's not quite it either.
Re:DOUBLEPLUS (Score:2, Insightful)
If you prevent a crime from happening it's never clear that you prevented anything.
Maybe they wouldn't have gone through with it.
Maybe they would have been struck by lightning.
Maybe a message from god would have shown them the error of their ways.
Re:DOUBLEPLUS (Score:3, Insightful)
Guns, by themselves, are not a threat to your well-being.
If you mean "criminals with guns", if you live outside of areas of chronic poverty where gang violence is common, and if you're neither a violent criminal nor and an associate of violent criminals, "criminals with guns" are not much of a threat to your well-being compared to "cars, cancer, heart disease, and governments that mess it up". No more so than in comparable nations.
The problem is that, thanks to racism and economic injustice, we have more areas of chronic poverty where gang violence is common than comparable nations.
Re:DOUBLEPLUS (Score:3, Insightful)
So if a strange man car-jacks me, I shouldn't shoot him because he probably only wants a ride to the airport and definitely doesn't want to murder me and dump me on a back country road, so I should just cooperate?
We have taught our children to submit quietly to criminals for too long. It is time we start teaching them to defend themselves.
Re:DOUBLEPLUS (Score:4, Insightful)
Here is a question for you. Why is it you and the "conspiracy-minded friends" you describe all find it plausible that the government is engaging in conspiracies, but apparently dismiss the possibility that there are terrorists engaging in conspiracies to commit murder and mayhem? It isn't like there isn't a history of plots, attacks, arrests, and convictions of actual and would be terrorists. Why do you, and they, dismiss that evidence? Are we heading down the road of everything being a "false flag".... the plague of Slashdot discussions for so many years in which nothing is what it is? Or is there some other reason? Is there any level of proof that would sway either you or them?