The Difficult Conversation has to start.

greenline

I recommend people read this article about IS, explains it's aims and apocalyptic world view. It's from 2015 but still relevant -
What ISIS Really Wants

If we want to combat IS and it's ilk then we have to understand how they are interpreting the Koran (I've read most of it, as I've done with a lot of religious texts).

Pacifico

Armed cops stop a guy & open his backpack...
www.liveleak.com/view?i=23f_1496701934

moriah

And how often does that happen?.

In most terrorist attacks they go after soft targets to cause the most death and injury, they dont seek out the one guy with a gun.

Sonic67

Police revealed the name of the two terrorist that attack on London Bridge.
London Bridge attack latest: Terrorists named as police say they were not under surveillance as they posed 'low risk'

Jezza99

I fear you are correct. Despite TM announcing "enough is enough", I don't see anything changing. I don't think we have reached a tipping point yet, but if these maniacs ever get there hands on assault rifles rather than vans and knives, it will get really ugly.

Pacifico

But you are missing the point. If the argument is that armed poice can stop terrorist attacks, which they obviously can, then all the Police should be armed.

However if your argument is that armed Police are a source of weapons for terrorists then none of them should be armed.

The last 2 terrorist attacks in London were stopped by armed Police after the terrorists had already killed and injured unarmed Police - perhaps its time to remove the unarmed prescence.

Sonic67

No the point is armed police were targeted to get their weapon to then carry out more carnage with that weapon.

Once they attacked they were then stopped by armed police from elsewhere. Either near the scene or further away.

Either we have armed police but in groups too large for the attackers to deal with at once.

Or we keep to unarmed police but armed police to deal with them once they have shown their hand. As you say...

Two armed guys could have been dealt with by three men armed with a vehicle and knives as they had surprise on their side until the attack started.

Derder6000

The difficult question regarding western actions in the middle east need to be asked too. Signing off arms deals to one of the largest exporters of terrorist ideology, causing havoc in Afghanistan, Libya Syria etc in conflicts based on lies to promote aggressive American led neo-imperialist foreign policy aren't exactly exemplary methods of defeating global terrorism. There is no excuse for terrorism, but economics dictated by blood don't really help. It's a difficult conversation which the british establishment doesn't want to admit to, but unfortunately until people are put before state profit and lucrative arms deals, I dont think we can get to the bottom of it. It makes no sense to me that weapons/arms should be sold to states so ideologically, and culturally abhorrent to what most would consider 'western values.'

I agree that in theory, those leaving to fight for ISIS should have passports rescinded, but if they want to do harm, they will find a way unfortunately. People slip through the net, especially when it is considered the level of funding that ISIS have. They have had huge financial gains through oil fields in Iraq etc. There is also the question of the legality of such actions of restricting their personal freedoms based on their perceived threat. I imagine proving their ties to ISIS is quite difficult even when they are travelling to conflict zones. What about those who have fought for western led proxy fighting squads against the regimes they wanted to topple? Differentiating presumably takes significant levels of intelligence on each individual, which may not be available sadly.

It's a very sad state of affairs, but highly a highly predictable narrative.

IronGiant

After reviewing the thread it's been decided that Palestine versus Israel is not going to help this already tricky subject.

z5461313

Indeed.

In the middle of last year there were about 240k police in France.

This is up from 220k in 2012.

Yet they have had more terrorist incidents than we have. With another one today.

Which seems to go against the narrative that the recent uk attacks are due to cuts.

(Not to mention the cuts didn't stop UK crime falling by a third since 2010)