Reporting from Brussels -- Like many spy tales in fiction and reality, "Background to Danger" begins in a train station... Fast-forward six decades into a transformed landscape. Europe has erased internal borders. Instead of fighting Nazis or communists, spy agencies use satellites and wiretaps to track Islamic terrorists who conspire on the Internet. But one thing has not changed much. Trains, stations and the gritty neighborhoods that surround them are often the backdrop to danger. Rail passengers were slaughtered in terrorist bombings in Paris in 1995 and Madrid nine years later. On a foggy Tuscan morning in 2003, a police ID check in a second-class compartment set off a point-blank shootout with a Red Brigades militant, the author of a manifesto proclaiming a leftist-Islamic militant alliance. Her companion and a police officer died. And it was aboard a train to Paris that a Moroccan Belgian informant decided on a risky gambit after departing the Gare du Midi station here in the Belgian capital: Fearing betrayal by a handler, he surrendered to police and announced that he was a spy. After his French and Belgian spymasters reconciled with him, they sent him on an undercover mission to Al Qaeda's Afghan camps, according to his book, "Inside the Jihad," written under the alias Omar Nasiri. Spies, terrorists, smugglers and other stealthy types use trains in Western Europe because they are fast, cheap and efficient. Unlike airports, rail travel also offers anonymity: Authorities don't routinely check papers, search luggage or use metal detectors.
Fast-forward six decades into a transformed landscape. Europe has erased internal borders. Instead of fighting Nazis or communists, spy agencies use satellites and wiretaps to track Islamic terrorists who conspire on the Internet.
But one thing has not changed much. Trains, stations and the gritty neighborhoods that surround them are often the backdrop to danger.
Rail passengers were slaughtered in terrorist bombings in Paris in 1995 and Madrid nine years later. On a foggy Tuscan morning in 2003, a police ID check in a second-class compartment set off a point-blank shootout with a Red Brigades militant, the author of a manifesto proclaiming a leftist-Islamic militant alliance. Her companion and a police officer died.
And it was aboard a train to Paris that a Moroccan Belgian informant decided on a risky gambit after departing the Gare du Midi station here in the Belgian capital: Fearing betrayal by a handler, he surrendered to police and announced that he was a spy. After his French and Belgian spymasters reconciled with him, they sent him on an undercover mission to Al Qaeda's Afghan camps, according to his book, "Inside the Jihad," written under the alias Omar Nasiri.
Spies, terrorists, smugglers and other stealthy types use trains in Western Europe because they are fast, cheap and efficient. Unlike airports, rail travel also offers anonymity: Authorities don't routinely check papers, search luggage or use metal detectors.
Message to Americans: be grateful you don't have "fast, cheap and efficient" passenger trains like Western Europeans have... because of trains and the "gritty neighborhoods that surround" train stations — Europe is Doomed™.
Trains, stations and the gritty neighborhoods that surround them are often the backdrop to danger. Rail passengers were slaughtered in terrorist bombings in Paris in 1995 and Madrid nine years later.
Trains, stations and the gritty neighborhoods that surround them are often the backdrop to danger.
Rail passengers were slaughtered in terrorist bombings in Paris in 1995 and Madrid nine years later.
Has the person writing this actually seen a train station? And I'm not talking about European ones (though that weould help) but, say, Los Angeles Union Station?
This is wankery of the highest order, especially coming from the LA Times. A man of words and not of deeds is like a garden full of weeds; a man of deeds and not of words is like a garden full of turds — Anonymous
But, you know, they should fear criminals and terrorists in train stations.
He's probably seen NY's Penn Station...
But guess which is more persuasive?
This article plays right into that. The good news is that this shrill white-flight attitude has been fading for several years now and thankfully that era is coming to an end.
