Catching terrorists

[pchang]

Does anyone else think the UK has been much more effective at catching terrorists than the US and Spain (or anybody else for that matter)?

If so, why/how do you think that is?

Clearly, having a lot of CCTVs monitoring public areas was helpful, but I think the real reasons lie deeper than that.

[Drake Tungsten]

Does anyone else think the UK has been much more effective at catching terrorists than the US and Spain (or anybody else for that matter)?

I don't.

[lightblue]

Well the only ones that attacked the US died, so that's quite a hard one to catch. Spain arrested a few people after the Madrid bombing as well as there being a firefight and some of the terorists dying iirc.

The UK police got lucky because the 21/7 attacks failed. Once they found the one they probably put a lot of pressure on him to reveal details about the others (name, family etc), and then they could get to the others. That and them living in the UK means that once identified they have a huge paper trail (and as the bombers wanted to die they probably did not hide things like phone records all that well).

[Az]

Once they found the one they probably put a lot of pressure on him

what kind of pressure?

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Az

Once they found the one they probably put a lot of pressure on him

what kind of pressure?

A threatened tryst with David Blunkett.

[lightblue]

Dunno, maybe they threatened to ship him off to Guantanamo.

[child of Thor]

Well things have moved very swiftly, then britain(london in particular) has been one of the most watched countries in the west for years.

Still it is disturbing that we are also the breeding ground for these people's ideology. That is the next thing we need to really sort out.
And the best way to do that(but probably not the direction our current Prime Minister will go), is for those people who claim they have no-idea why these terrorists are doing what they do to go and ask the young angry people in these communities what they think.
Once they have the answer they can work out what to do to stop it happening(I have offered to give Mr.Blair advice on this if he wants it, but i dont think he will be getting back to me on this one).

Simple really. Not that i'm suggesting that everyone will be happy with the outcome of such action, but we would stop atleast getting blown up and stuff like that.

[chequita guevara]

The U.S. has been quite good at catching people who may or may not be terrorists, like the Lakawana Six, but also people like Jose Padilla.

[Pekka]

Az, that caught my eye also.. I'd assume there's no fish and chips, afternoon tea and little monty python marathons to expect. Somehow the english police image, in general, is one of gentleman and politness but we all know that's just a stereotype, granted it must come from somewhere, just like bad stereotypes.

But in case of terrorists, and one who might be the key to counter and even prevent future strikes... I think it's not even a question every measure will be taken. Every single measure no matter what. Stick a needle in the eye and saw the leg off. But.. there's this one inch of tissue in my brain that tries to tell me he might not be in drowning and hot sand already, but more like psychological pressure... which unfortunately IMO in this case would fail at the end. Let the beatings begin if you ask me. I don't believe in torture or DP, but there are ... hypocritical exceptions, such as this. I still condemn it, but I would be rather surprised if there was no .. harsh treatment.

[lightblue]

I doubt they go breaking any conventions, but such things that fit in as sleep deprivation, solitary confinement, stress positions and the like might well have been used. Usual good cop/bad cop stuff as well i guess. But don't doubt that military interrogators will have been involved.

[General Ludd]

Originally posted by Az

Once they found the one they probably put a lot of pressure on him

what kind of pressure?

Testicular.

[BlackCat]

I don't think that they need much pressure beyond common interrogation if any.

They are soft common people that have lived in a peaceful environment - that is they are not used to checkpoints, snipers, tanks, airstrikes etc that could harden them.

Their religious belief could maybe help them - hard belivers can be pretty stubborn - but I'm not that sure they can get much from that. After all, they failed miserably in something that they were convinced that their god would guarantee success.

[pchang]

It took the US a lot longer than the UK to identify and make any arrests on the mastermind types. I don't recall that Spain every ID'ed or arrested any mastermind types. Am I wrong?

[Provost Harrison]

Originally posted by Pekka
Az, that caught my eye also.. I'd assume there's no fish and chips, afternoon tea and little monty python marathons to expect. Somehow the english police image, in general, is one of gentleman and politness but we all know that's just a stereotype, granted it must come from somewhere, just like bad stereotypes.

But in case of terrorists, and one who might be the key to counter and even prevent future strikes... I think it's not even a question every measure will be taken. Every single measure no matter what. Stick a needle in the eye and saw the leg off. But.. there's this one inch of tissue in my brain that tries to tell me he might not be in drowning and hot sand already, but more like psychological pressure... which unfortunately IMO in this case would fail at the end. Let the beatings begin if you ask me. I don't believe in torture or DP, but there are ... hypocritical exceptions, such as this. I still condemn it, but I would be rather surprised if there was no .. harsh treatment.

It's not uncommon for these people to 'fall down the stairs'

[Whoha]

Originally posted by pchang
It took the US a lot longer than the UK to identify and make any arrests on the mastermind types. I don't recall that Spain every ID'ed or arrested any mastermind types. Am I wrong?

Yes, apparently we wanted to arrest the head guy for the first bombing about a month or so before the bombing and Britain turned us down.