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PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   501 thread views

Transnational Thursday for June 5, 2025

Transnational Thursday is a thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or international relations history. Feel free as well to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.

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Frankly I suspect European authorities might be straight up lying about the identities of suspects now. I’ve clocked two suspiciously terrorist-like attacks on the last few weeks (a vehicle ram attack in the UK and a mass stabbing in Germany) where the authorities immediately announced that it was committed by a white European. I can’t confirm the Germany one but the on the scene video of the UK attack was ambiguous, the guy looked like he could potentially be English, but I wouldn’t be surprised to find out he was Syrian or Egyptian either.

I don't have a particularly high opinion of British police, but, per Bounded Distrust, I'm not enough of a conspiracy theorist to think they would frame an innocent man for a terror attack just because the real perpetrator was of the wrong ethnicity. It invites the question of why this wasn't done for any of the high-profile public acts of violence committed by non-white non-natives in the recent past (Southport, 7/7, the murder of David Amess, Reading, London Bridge X2 etc.).

They don’t necessarily have to frame anyone though. Just announce a fictitious perpetrator.

The guy who allegedly did the Liverpool attack has been remanded in custody.

Do we know for sure that the recent Liverpool one was an “attack”? Is there a known or accused motive? I admittedly have not paid much attention to the story but my first impression when it happened was that he might’ve just been very drunk.

My understanding is that he intentionally drove into a crowd of pedestrians, but it wasn't political or a nihilistic mass murder: he was just on a lot of drugs. It doesn't appear to have been an accident.

If they actually did this, it probably would have been by declaring a European ODC the real culprit.

I am highly suspicious of such a thing in a country with jury trials, but that’s how you’d go about it.

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