Just how safe from terrorism are we in Germany?

This morning on CNN there was an article about the safety of US forces personnel stationed out here in Europe.

So far (touches wood) we have been spared from terrorism. I put it fown to Germany's low involvement in the GWOT.

But how long is it before they come here?

I am somewhat concerned.

The sky is falling!

I saw that show, and its all just hype and paranoia. I went to an American Base in Wüzrburg and had to be signed in by a Base person, and show my passport... so, I don't see what the problem is. Heck, 9/11 didn't happen here, it happened there!

What about the Kofferbomber last year?

You're a sheep. You still react just as they want you to: ZOMG the TAIRISTS AER GONNA GIT US!!1!1eleven1shiftone

By inducing fear they get you to watch their broadcasts and buy their papers, along with buying into the bullshit still being spouted by the White House and Number 10. You're much more likely to be hit by a tram on a Sunday night here than to be even injured by some terrorist act. The real terrorists are the ones holding elected offices. They're the ones instilling fear. And after six years you're still buying it. Sadly, you're not alone.

woof.

Well 9/11 may have happened "there"...but it was mostly planned here. I have been in Germany long enough to have seen when there were attacks on us. In France as well. Sure those were different groups, but it was still terrorism. Germany is ripe for some type of attack, as there are still involved in the war in Afghanistan. But I have always been a believer in the "big picture". There are many ways to die, and being a victim of terrorism is way down on the list as far as the odds go. Just to jump onto the soapbox for a second, Mcdonalds and other companies promoting deadly lifestyles are much more effective at killing than terrorists are at the moment.

Frankly, I'm more worried about getting side-swiped by a huge truck pulling a double trailer on a narrow curvy road. Just yesterday it almost happened yet again, and I was forced half off the road to avoid the bugger. All-wheel drive saved the day.

True Birdbrain. Aoart from the Mess Halls on some places, have you noticed how downright unhealthy the food is on them? Colters, Burger King, Taco Bell? Man, heart attack food huh?

I agree 100% with BadDoggie. The number of people who die _every_year_ as a consequence of traffic accidents and gun violence in the western world
is more than 50000! Not to mention deaths caused by deseases. That is more than ten times more than the number of people who were killed by "terrorist attacks" ever (roughly 4000 people and most of that was 9/11). So there is no need to stay at home and be worried. Present laws and police capabilities are sufficient to deal with the problem. "Terrorists" are simply organized criminals and should be prosecuted accordingly.

Center-to-right politicians are using the "terrorists" to push their agenda. They want you to be afraid such that you will agree when they take away your rights. There are also many monetary interests by the industrial-military-complex which help pushing.

It has all happened many times before. Most prominent example is maybe the fear of the communists prevalent in the german citizenry in the 1930s which enabled the Nazis to come to power and essentially abolish the fledgling democracy.

With it's increasing international involvement, Germany is following the footsteps of the US and therefore also increasingly becomes a target for terrorists. Probably because they are following US advisors, the german CDU is driving Germany down the same road as american presidents, last but not least Generalissimo el Busho and the people behind him, drove the US.

So if you like to be afraid, be afraid of your rights being taken away and of your governments making a mess of the middle east. The terrorists are nearly negligible in the bigger picture.

I say: no new laws, no changes in the military or police funding. Just let the executive branch of the government deal with it the legal way.

Security has actually been upped quite a bit around US bases. They are very strict about who they let on base (i.e. people without a military ID have to be signed in, before 9/11 they could just walk in, did not have to be with someone who would sign them in), cars get checked form bombs etc. In Heidelberg, they have closed some gates, built better fences etc.
Of course nowhere is 100% safe.

It is 7/7/7 on Saturday. I vote for widespread panic and last minute orgies.

Great idea, Sin, but last minute orgies are only good for those of us who can't last longer than a minute. Count me in.

Our biggest problem at the moment is that every forum and sub-forum is about to get it's very own adopt a white dog thread.

Well, these days all you have to do is publish a cartoon of Mohammed and you get them into a right old frenzy. Don't need to be involved in the purification of Iraq atall.

By the way, if images of Mohammed are banned, how can the world be sure that the danish cartoons were not absolutely spot on? Who knows eh? Who knows.

I heard that we must be very careful and on the look out - the chatter is very high at the moment.

Those looking for orgies on Saturday, I can see our local swinger club is having a garden party for 7/7/7

http://www.swingerclub-laboum.de/garten.htm

Anyone else notice a bloke on the homepage that looks like Jimbo on a weekend trip back?

I'd feel less safe if I was in the UK at the moment the way thing have been there the past week. End of the day, no point panicking about it. None of us are really 100% safe anywhere

Don't you mean TWAT?

I hear they use expat forum to identify targets <--- I also wanted to use that.

Already going to happen here in Minneapolis. Prince concert!

Where will the orgies be?

In the mosh pit, I suspect.

On stage maybe?

Thats an old Cheech and Chong track

The War Against Terror.

I use the U3/6 a lot and the sight of those students rushing around with their ***ng rucksacks crammed with books strikes terror into me every time. Especially when they jump onto my carriage and swing the thing around into my face...life threatening stuff.

Seriously, we coped with Adams's lot, animal rights activists, Solihull Liberation Front etc etc, this is just another lot with a seriously warped sense of right and wrong. You just have to cross you fingers, pray to your God and step out of the house,

Gives another slant to the old Peter Sellers song "Oh Doctor I'm in trouble...godness gracious me...It goes Boom, Boody Boom...or in the Glasgow case, It didn't go boom.

Yeah, and when you step out of the house, make sure you're not run over by a car.

If it happens, it happens. Nothing I can do to prevent it, if it is how I am supposed to die.

Completely agree, but it makes me angry that they broadcast stuff like that, and that people fall for it. Like the woman at the beginning of the piece, suggesting that a van parked on the street might be a terrorist threat. Well, yes...but more than likely it's actually just a delivery van.

I was living in London during and after July 7th, unfortunately terrorism is part of the world we live in. You just have to get on with your life, be aware of what's going on around you, but don't let fear and paranoia rule you.

That's what everyone says but when it starts to get a bit too close to you then it gets scary.

I happened to see Sky news a couple of times after the London and Glasgow thingies and they don't help by being a bit over-dramatic 'Britain under attack'. Plus Sky news always irritates me as it is seems to cut from e.g. the weather or the headlines very suddenly and jumpily as if it is totally unplanned - doesn't seem very professional.

Munich and Holzkirchen are hardly particularly close to the danger though are they

Agree with you BR. They have that irritating noise they make when they cut to some "News Alert" which is some TUC press conference which is not shall we say, that exciting to see. And that "Breaking News" big letters in the background gets on my tits. That's why I prefer the more sober News24. I went of CNN long ago. Gues you can only have Peter Arnett commenting on the fireworks in Baghdad only once and be famous.

BR I was referring to a bomb attack where I used to live which was apparently the 2nd biggest terrosrist bomb in history after Oklahoma. The Khobar towers blast wave travelled at least 6km. I was out at the time but my neighbour felt a huge 
shake on his windows, and they were repairing the roof of my apartmen
t. All the roofing materials were blown off.

yeah I guess that could shake one up a bit...literally!

the most dangerous weapon of terrorism: FEAR.

terrorism is fear. its making you afraid. Its not an attack. Its the promise or fear of attack, life changing, etc.

I think the russian and arabian mafia and normal crime is more of a threat to most people in germany...or perhaps it's the reluctance of elected officials to really tackle anything head on.

That's intentional. It's very professional, designed to present a flying-by-the-seat-of-their-pants feeling because the news is so hot and so important that they'll jump cut to it continually "as further reports come in". This is SOP for anything Murdoch owns. Make no mistake, his "news" is always first and foremost "entertainment", designed specifically to get you to watch longer so he can sell more ads at higher cost. It's a fucking well-oiled propaganda machine.

woof.

Unfortunately it is also the ally of the weakest politicians.

'how I am supposed to die'? Is this written down somewhere? Can I see it?

yeah I would understand that if they cut to something important, or just something new, but usually the hiccup like cut is from the weather to a Qatar Airways advert, or the same 4 headlines that they've been mentioning for the last few hours

You can find out here

And the media.

Murdoch is the current day version of Hearst. Perhaps we need a current day version of Orson Welles to take him down...

Murdoch also has rescued a few german start ups from going bust like Jamba, now the biggest mobile phone content provider in the world and producer of annoying ads.

Murdoch also owns Myspace, which if you dont read TOS carefully, you are not the owner of anything you may put on your site...myspace has the exclusive rights to any content.

Not sure about that, I was working at Liverpool Street on July 7th and we were pretty much caught up in the whole thing...I couldn't reach family because mobile networks were busy and it was all very surreal. What I did notice though, was that particularly here in London - people have become very used to it. Actually the days following it were less full of fear and more full of a feeling of comraderie with all the other people around than I've ever experienced. People were making a strong point of NOT being scared.

How are we doing on the orgy front? I've been a bit out of touch doing that horrible work thing. Is there an orgy tomorrow, and if the World doesn't end, do we do it all over again next week... just in case the World is going to end then instead?

"Will this wind be so mighty as to lay low the mountains of the Earth?"

"Of course it won't you silly fool. That's why we came up the mountain in the first place"

Eeek! It says I will die in a terrorist attack! I'm going undercover in some rural retreat well away from airports and 4x4's

hopefully theyll start using SMARTs to transport those bombs after Live Earth. 4x4s have a ridiculous fuel consumption rate. same with planes. electric smoke free car bombs are the wave of the future!

Why can't people just see through this bullshit...

They are lying to us...

There are no other words to describe it...

There are "terrorists" and they wear suits and drive big fuck off cars and set policy designed to remove your rights.

There are bunch of other guys called "terrorists" also that were fewer in number until a certain group of countries started bombing the shit out of innocent people. Now their numbers are growing and maybe one day there will actually be something real to fear apart from the corporations and politicians eating up our planet in their own personal greedy orgy.

P.S. - There is nothing to fear...

Hmm, blowing up 4x4's; attacking airports; have the Police considered there might be an extreme radical wing of Greenpeace developing?

Pleb those "Tairists" who are blowing themselves up are instructed to do so by these imams who are angy with the West and with good reason. If you look at Middle East history you will see that it is our approach to our foreign policy which has stirred and stirred the pot so much that it eventually boiled over.

Give you a fact. The first King of Saudi Arabia Abdul Aziz asked a certain family from the Hadramawt in Yemen to come and build his palace for him. If you see the amazing skyscrapers in Yemen you'll know how certain families were able to build them based upon their wealth from the Frankincense trail there. That family was the bin Laden family. Its connectionds to the Royal House go back a very very long way. It is now a huge company. Indeed Osama b.L. himself undertook big construction projects in Sudan and I think Afghanistan. In the 1980s he went to Afghanistan to fight the Soviets. When in 1991 Iraq invaded Kuwait he offered to fight for King Fahd. But Fahd turned him down in favour of letting Merkans on what many muslims saw as holy land. Following that in the decade between 1991 and 2001 he built up his following and sposored attacks within the Middle East, one of which, Khobar Towers, I experienced. His name was well known to all familiar with the Middle East long before the Twin Towers attack. In fact President Clinton atttacked in 1998 training camps in Sudan and Afghanistan. So you will appreciate some of the history behind the present situation. It didn't suddenly appear out of nowhere, just because it was breaking news on 9/11.

Only by:

1. Reducing our reliance on the black stuff coming put of Ras Tanura refinery (which is probably the most important refinery in the world). Action: energy conservation. Turn the bloody lights off!

2. focussing our attention on alternative energy such as biofuels will we get ourselves out of the present mess we are in. Action: promote the alternative energy industry. Wife told me last night of a certain solar energy company whose shares were worth in 2003 10,000 Euros. They are now 15 million.

3. Showing respect for other ways of life vastly different to our Western system such as Confucianism (China) and Islam (almost the entire Middle East) will we ever begin to heal the rift the policies unleashed following 9/11 caused, and to repair the damage done to Britain and America overseas. Our name is now mud thanks to Bush and patsy Blair. Action Keep that global village idiot in power until the next US election - he can't make things any worse but hold that had of his away from the Iranian nuclear button. Elect a Hilary or an Obama then immediately try Bush and Cheney for the crimes they have committed. Immediately shut down Gunatanamo Bay and all those camps. Reinterpret the Geneva convention to make sure that any people we take from "their side" are treated well in order that anyone they take from "our side" is accortded similar treatment.

That's it. *climbs off soapbox, remembering of course to chop it up for firewoord!*

Sure Americans may be attractive targets to terrorists. But if they do become targets I don't think a few more guards and fences will make much difference. Why do so many people not see that this fear is exactly what the terrorists want, this is their victory. I'm not English, but I was so proud of the Londoners who were out on the streets drinking beer outside their pubs a few days after the bombs a few years ago. They were the winners, enjoying life, unlike those murdering pathetic losers who carried out the bombings.

Yeah, understandable, but nothing like this has actually happened on a military base in Germany, and sometimes I do wonder why because their security is not always that great (even now). A friend of mine lives in Benjamin Franklin Village and she says how they have all this security, but the Autobahn goes right along/over BFV...
If terrorists wanted to attack a military base in Germany, I am sure they could. There is no such thing as definite security.


Exactly. Terrorism is actually not even about killing as many people as possible but about interrupting as many people as possible in their lives, installing fear in your lives, essentially ruining lives and the foundation of society. And often it does not even matter if a terrorist attack was "successful" or not, just the mere thought that it could have been makes enough people afraid. Fear paralyzes and that is what they want in the long run... weaken our society, not just kill a few individuals, because in the long run even 3000 people out of 300 million is not really a lot. The killing is merely an effective means to reach this goal.


It's just my belief, you don't have to believe it, but even then if you look at statistics, the probability of you dying in a terrorist attack is not anywhere near the top of common causes of death. Of course even if just one person out of a million dies in a terrorist attack, and that one person happens to be you, then it doesn't help you that 999,999 people did not die in it (but then you're dead and you cannot care anymore either). So I am not going to let fear rule/ruin my life, it happens when it happens. I do in a way believe in fate. If you don't that's fine with me too. I just know what I believe and I don't mind if others believe differently.

good one!

To find out the correct date for the end-of-the-world orgies, you'll need to consult Nostradamus. But I've heard there's a whole crowd of virgins up in paradise who are currently out of a job, since the clients they were recruited for failed to show up due to technical problems at Glasgow airport and the Tiger Tiger club. So you just need to cut a deal with the man up there (PBUH) and head off with the redundant virgins to your UDBS-filled bunker in the Liechtenstein mountains. Even if the world does end, you'll be too busy to notice.

A 'few days'??? 45 minutes after being evacuated from a station, and finding the bus service had been halted, my little brother and his mate had made it to a third mate's flat, avoided contacting work (or anybody else), and had retired to the sofa, beer and spliff in hand ready to watch a porno DVD.

No, if you really want to bring abject terror to London you are going to need a snow machine that can deposit at least 2mm on the streets. This is when the World really ends.


Spoke to Mr. Damus on the phone. He says virgins are overrated. Place has gone downhill since all the frizzled and smoking Arabs arrived. Downstairs has a lot more going for it.

Besides, what stupid religion believes that there are virgins waiting for you? A proper religion would have experienced ladies of a kinky persuasion, dressed in latex and flailing whips and...

...Oh!