Comment by embedding-shape
1 day ago
Yeah, not sure why not at least being upfront about the possibility is so hard. In Spain we've had train derailments, flocks of people being directed on social media to force themselves across borders, subterfuge deluxe everywhere and what not, yet the government is mostly silent and claim it's all unrelated, but it's hard to not also see the parallels across the continent and reach your own conclusions. But then also, don't wanna fall into some conspiracy theory trap either...
Russia isn't the only group interested in doing terrorism in The Netherlands. Recently the Farmers Defense Force and Extinction Rebellion have caused far greater disruption.
Could it be Russia? Obviously. But in my opinion the odds are less than a coin flip.
> Recently the Farmers Defense Force and Extinction Rebellion
Why derail trains though, especially in regards to the latter? Given it's one of the most environmental ways for transportation. Besides, groups like that tend to want to take responsibility, the whole point is to get attention to their groups.
You're assuming rational goals instead of thinking in radical acts of terrorism.
Throwing paint at a painting does not help the environment, but it does create radical flank effects.
Blocking the highways does not help agriculture, but it does bring their problems in other people's home / discourse.
5 replies →
Stop, not derail. The saboteurs aren't physically damaging the railways: they are shorting the rails together, causing a fake train to be detected.
But indeed, XR is the least likely subject. They have stopped trains before, but that was a human barricade, and it was a coal train.
Groups such as Extinction Rebellion are easy to steer off course by the state into taking meaningless actions such as gluing themselves to London Underground trains.
Perhaps this is just as well. If Extinction Rebellion really wanted to take down the entire transport network, they could do so by 'accidentally' touring the big stations with a leaky rucksack filled with lead paint fragments or ground up asbestos tiles, to then tip off the press. This would probably reveal an unfortunate truth, that there was plenty of aforementioned toxins already on the network, from brake pads and paint of yesteryear. Nonetheless, some closure for the guys in hazmat suits would be needed.