How is Germany not a failed state? How was it possible for the security services not to be able to make impossible such terror attacks like the one in Magdeburg? What’s the purpose of deploying countless security forces (because you’ll see them everywhere in December, for instance in Stuttgart) if they can only seize the perpetrator after the facts, but they cannot prevent the facts from happening?

Car ramming attacks should be preventable. The neighboring streets can be closed with cars. Further access to a square can be obstructed with heavy blocks of something (stone, metal). What the fuck is wrong with an entire country of 84M people that they cannot find the required expertise and common sense?!

Given the federalism principle in Germany, this Olaf guy is not entirely responsible for such failures, but how could the authorities be so inept one more time? Are they really trying to push people into massively voting AfD?

If you look at the list of the vehicle-ramming attacks, you’ll have some of them listed both as terrorist and non-terrorist. Most are actually not terrorist in the classic sense, i.e. they’re not politically motivated. Take for instance the 2024 Zhuhai car attack: the driver was angry over his divorce settlement, and 35 people had to die because of that! But don’t try to ask any LLM AI engine about the mentally insane people who are free to walk (and drive): you’ll be reprimanded with a politically correct nonsense à la “it’s crucial to note that the term insane is outdated and stigmatizing. It’s more appropriate to discuss mental health conditions or psychological distress.” Yeah, the fuck it is. One people in six is crazier than a shithouse rat, yet we have to protect the sensibilities of such lunatics.

I could never understand a thing. In the WWII, the Nazi troops went around the Maginot line, which was close to inexpugnable, by invading France from Belgium. But the same thing happened in WWI, when France was also invaded through Belgium! How was it possible for the French to not have learned the lesson? But now I see the same pattern in Germany: they failed to learn from past judgment failures!

In application of the Directive 2016/343/EU on the strengthening of certain aspects of the presumption of innocence, which led to news reports using terms like “suspect” even when the guilt is obvious, because the presumption of innocence applies until a court delivers a final verdict, here’s how Euronews has presented the case:

  • A car drove into a crowd …
  • The driver was arrested at the scene …
  • The suspect is a 50-year-old Saudi doctor who moved to Germany in 2006 …

For fuck’s sake! Why couldn’t they say “the perpetrator” or “the attacker”? Then, suppose the police shot him. Since he wasn’t convicted in a court of law, killing a “suspect” literally means that they might have killed an innocent person, right? This is utterly ridiculous. Thirdly, even more ridiculous is that even when the arrested person publicly admits guilt, they’re still presumed innocent, and the same term of “suspect” must be used in public. The criminals have more rights than the victims in 21st century Europe.

Of course, a few news outlets have used a more neutral way of reporting: “The driver of the car was subsequently arrested.” But most news outlets used the politically correct lingo.

OK, I got it. Until conviction in court, no one can legally be labeled the perpetrator, even if caught red-handed. And the media must follow this legal framework to avoid influencing public opinion, ensuring the accused’s right to a fair trial. “Tried and sentenced by the media” is to be avoided, but can the authorities censor when the public says on social networks? They can my ass!

Note that there is a difference between “not guilty” as in “he wasn’t the person who did that,” “not guilty” as in “he did it, but he’s not criminally liable for that” (for various reasons, such as self-defense, coercion, or diminished judgment), and “not guilty” as in “the facts were not as described, so there’s no crime and no case.” But “the perpetrator” or “the attacker” or even “the driver of the car that caused harm” should be usable as long as the person was caught red-handed, as it doesn’t automatically imply guilt from a legal standpoint. However, even if these terms do not legally assert guilt (since a perpetrator could later be deemed non-criminally liable), they may give the appearance of presuming guilt, which can bias public opinion. Therefore, apparently, journalists are bound to avoid such phrasings. “The person arrested at the scene” seems to be acceptable. “The person who carried out the act” is borderline, I’d say.

Fortunately, the German-language press and the social networks used the proper term: der Täter. That means the perpetrator, the culprit, the offender. But that’s only according to the dictionaries. There’s a nuance here, though: In German, Täter doesn’t necessarily carry the same immediate assumption of legal guilt that it does in English. It can be used instead of suspect too, when there is reasonable evidence linking someone to the act. Red-handed? Täter! In German, reasonable grounds + observable actions = Täter. This is a fact-based approach to language, distinguishing between legal innocence and factual actions. So maybe there is still some common sense in Germany, after all.

Or maybe not. Cautious journalists still wrote der Tatverdächtige: the suspect! Sigh.

Going beyond the Newspeak and coming to the attacker. A 50-year-old Saudi Arabian citizen who came to Germany in 2006 and worked as a doctor. Not an Islamist, but the opposite of one. Florian Flade, national security reporter for WRD and SZ, posted on X that the suspect “was not previously known to security authorities as an Islamist. On the contrary, he was recognized as a political refugee who had renounced Islam and turned his back on the Saudi Arabian royal family. He worked as a doctor in Saxony-Anhalt.”

What kind of doctor, might you ask? A psychiatrist: “a specialist in psychiatry and psychotherapy.” Since March 2000, he worked in the correctional system in Bernburg (Saxony-Anhalt) with addicted criminals. For fuck’s sake, this is surreal!

German terrorism expert Peter Neumann remarked on the unusual profile of the suspect:

“After 25 years in this ‘business’, you think nothing could surprise you anymore. But a 50-year-old Saudi ex-Muslim living in East Germany, loves the AfD and wants to punish Germany for its tolerance towards Islamists — that wasn’t on my radar,” said Neumann, director of the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence at King’s College in London.

Huh. According to BBC, “Taleb reportedly left Saudi Arabia to escape the country’s restrictions, finding it impossible to express his atheist views openly in a nation where Islam is the sole legally recognised religion.” A fundamentalist atheist, you mean?!

The failure of Germany can be seen in another shocking revelation. Frederik Schindler from Welt wrote on X:

Four months ago today, on August 21, 2024, the Magdeburg perpetrator posted: “Is there a way to justice in Germany without blowing up a German embassy or indiscriminately massacring German citizens? I have been looking for this peaceful way since January 2019 and have not found it.”

In this post, he also claimed “crimes that Germany is committing against Saudi refugees”.

And then you wonder that Elon Musk, that trepanned former genius and current ass-in-chief, openly supports the AfD, publicly declaring it “the only solution for Germany”?

Fuck, fuck, fuck. But thank you, Mutti Merkel.

Oh, wait. Educational measures alone are insufficient to prevent radicalization, says counter-terrorism consultant Rebecca Schönenbach. Writing on X, she asserted: “Education does not prevent radicalization; organized terrorists often attended universities, mostly medical, technical or scientific. Courses of study. Whatever else comes out about Magdeburg is not the surprising part.” She further explained:

Highly educated individuals are often found in organized terrorist groups. For example, the Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir, banned in Germany, has historically advertised themselves at universities.

Radical left-wing organizations, such as the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), which is designated as a terrorist group by the EU, also recruit within student communities. This has been seen at German universities, especially since 7 October 2023.

These examples demonstrate that education does not automatically prevent radicalization. Therefore, while education is important, it cannot be the sole preventative measure.

Ouch. So is all hope lost? She’s most likely right. In Romania, even many highly educated individuals voted for Călin Georgescu.

In the case of Taleb A., it has become clear that he had been spreading Islamophobic views online for years and showed support for the Alternative for Germany (AfD). He expressed a desire to establish an academy for ex-Muslims in collaboration with the AfD and, according to several media reports, stated: “Who else is fighting Islam in Germany?”

Local media reports also indicate that German authorities had already received warnings from Saudi Arabia about Taleb A.

Taleb A. was primarily active on X (formerly Twitter), where he called for retaliation against the German state, saying, “I assure you that revenge will come 100 per cent soon. Even if it costs me my life.”

He accused the German state of Islamisation and also posted in June: “We need AfD to protect the police from themselves.”

Euronews asked Rebecca Schönenbach how she views the radicalisation of older people on social media.

“The potential for online radicalisation is not limited to Twitter; older individuals are also targeted on other social platforms. In general, people over 50 are more likely to share fake news, as they tend to have more difficulty recognising it compared to younger online users. In the case of the Magdeburg perpetrator, however, several factors come into play. His activity on X demonstrates a radical attitude, but whether his radicalisation occurred solely online is questionable.” she explained.

Kinda makes sense. But then:

According to information from the news magazine Der Spiegel, a complaint was filed against Taleb A. in December 2023. The complaint referred to X posts by A. in which he claimed that Germany would “pay a price” for allegedly persecuting Saudi Arabian refugees. The Saxony-Anhalt State Criminal Police Office (LKA) investigated the complaint, and their assessment revealed that no specific threat had emerged from his posts.

This so much looks like former failures, including those of France. “No threats detected.”

Yeah, sure. There was never any threat ever. Not even from that mustachioed gentleman in Munich one hundred years ago.