Paris Terror Attacks

[rkim291968]

Why are the media all over with these terrorists names?   They should refrain from using their names.  No need to make them heroes, or invite their wannabes to do the same.   Unless a guy is still out on the loose, and revealing name will help capture the guy, I say to media that don't mention their names.  

[RandallT]

Just thought this was an interesting juxtaposition.

Mid-October:

http://www.thelocal.fr/20151016/hollande-lambasts-refugee-scaremongers

Quote

French President Francois Hollande has tried to put the record straight insisting that France is not being invaded by refugees as the far right would have people believe.

Hollande blasted those trying to kid the population into believing they will soon be overrun by refugees.

During a speech in Brussels, where EU leaders had gathered Hollande said: “In terms of numbers, today, France is not subject to an influx of refugees and those who argue that we are being invaded are manipulators and falsifiers, who do this only for political reasons, to scare.”

 

Mid-November:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/hollande-attacks-borders-curfew_56467d29e4b045bf3def3699

Quote

"It is horrifying," Hollande said in a brief statement on television, adding that a cabinet meeting had been called. 

"A state of emergency will be declared," he said. "The second measure will be the closure of national borders," he added.

"We must ensure that no one comes in to commit any act whatsoever, and at the same time make sure that those who have committed these crimes should be arrested if they try to leave the country," he added.

 

[nevets88]

You probably already heard the pregnant woman hanging out the window was rescued and made it out safely as did her rescuer. Here are the tweets of her asking (via a friend's account) to thank him. She did.

I was thinking about how I'd pull her up. She's got nothing to get any footing on. I guess I'd pull her up w/both hands so she could grab on to those rails, ask her to hold the rails and then pull her up via hooking arms under her armpits. I'm guessing that they separated just tells you how chaotic it was.

 

[turtleback]

On 11/13/2015, 10:01:05, newtogolf said:

 

We need to lock down our borders and Obama needs to stop pretending ISIS isn't a threat.

But, but, but, just a few ours before he said ISIS was contained.

 

On 11/14/2015, 5:20:42, nevets88 said:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/14/paris-attacks-what-we-know-so-far

http://theweek.com/speedreads/446139/france-says-name-isis-offensive-call-daesh-instead

 

On 11/14/2015, 6:17:22, jbishop15 said:

Does David Koresh represent all Christians? Does Joseph Stalin represent all atheists? 

Remind me again, were Christians dancing in the streets after WACO?

 

On 11/15/2015, 6:24:28, Lihu said:

“Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster... for when you gaze long into the abyss. The abyss gazes also into you.”

― Friedrich Nietzsche

I wish the Germans had ignored him and fought the monster THEY were faced with back in the 30s.  Just because a philosopher says something does not make it wisdom.  All that it takes for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing.

 

On 11/16/2015, 6:59:43, RussUK said:

Very true. There were 7 major "Holy" Crusades carried out in the name of God and christianity. So for anyone say Islam is the most dangerous threat is so far wide of the mark. Look, at the Siege of Acre in in 1191 King Richard the 1st executed 2000 men, women and children in front od Saladin's Muslim army simply because he wouldnt pay the ransom quick enough. Every major religion has done terrible things so to blame islam for the actions of a small number of fanatics is unfair.

I dont think we will se another 9/11 as it has been shown to only strengthen the resolve of a nation. Bad news is a i think we should be prepared for more attacks like Paris. US and UK have helped France before and we need to do so again.

You DO know that it is now the 21st century, right?

Why is it that if someone says "American patriot" no one thinks that is claiming that each and every American is a patriot, but every time someone says "Muslim terrorist" they are attacked for calling all Muslims terrorist?

The vast majority of Muslims are not terrorists.

The vast majority of terrorists (now, not in 1191) are Muslims.

The second fact is not negated by the first, no matter how much the left wished it was.  And there is no real question that it is specifically their (version of) the Muslim faith that is the motivating factor, IOW we have true causality here, not mere correlation.

What I do not believe is a fact is the statement made by someone that the vast majority of Muslims despise ISIS.  I've seen no evidence to support this whatsoever.  And lots to the contrary, as their attacks are applauded.  And the poll in France where 42% of Islamic youth always approve of suicide bombing, the 1.5 million Muslims in England who say they support ISIS, etc.

 

[mvmac]

http://usuncut.com/world/top-eu-official-claims-identified-paris-attackers-eu-nationals-far/

Quote

At least one top EU official is claiming every one of the radicals identified so far in Friday’s terrorist attacks in Paris are European Union nationals, as serious doubts have been cast on the authenticity of a Syrian passport discovered in proximity to one of the attackers killed at the scene.

“Let me underline—the profile of the terrorists so far identified tells us this is an internal threat. It is all EU citizens so far. This can change with the hours, but so far it is quite clear it is an issue of internal domestic security,” High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy/Vice-President of the European Commission Federica Mogherini stated, following a gathering of EU foreign ministers.

 

[dkolo]

26 minutes ago, turtleback said:

The vast majority of Muslims are not terrorists.

The vast majority of terrorists (now, not in 1191) are Muslims.

The second fact is not negated by the first, no matter how much the left wished it was.  And there is no real question that it is specifically their (version of) the Muslim faith that is the motivating factor, IOW we have true causality here, not mere correlation.

Because it isn't helpful. They're terrorists. What their specific cause is or that they want to use their religion to justify it doesn't really make a difference. 

[Silent]

Terror alarm now in Hannover, Germany. One hour before the football match Germany - Holland the game got cancelled and everybody got evacuated. The warning was issued for the whole city, players of bith teams went to a secret location. Press conference soon, rumours are they found a van or ambulance filled with explosives.

[phillyk]

43 minutes ago, turtleback said:

But, but, but, just a few ours before he said ISIS was contained.

Yeah, it's contained.  So, we can send all those refugees home now. It's all clear, right?

[Silent]

25 minutes ago, Silent said:

Terror alarm now in Hannover, Germany. One hour before the football match Germany - Holland the game got cancelled and everybody got evacuated. The warning was issued for the whole city, players of bith teams went to a secret location. Press conference soon, rumours are they found a van or ambulance filled with explosives.

The Hannover police chief just confirmed the plan was to detonate a bomb inside the stadium during the match. Damn...

 

edit: conflicting reports about this, so for now still rumours.

Edited November 17, 2015 by Silent

[rkim291968]

The match was canceled, looks like.  

No to accepting Syrian/Iraqi or other Muslim refugees.   Vast majority of them are seeking to improve their life in US but some of them will turn to ISIS and cause harm to us.  We have too many of ISIS supporters already in US.  Why add more?  

[Lihu]

2 hours ago, turtleback said:

I wish the Germans had ignored him and fought the monster THEY were faced with back in the 30s.  Just because a philosopher says something does not make it wisdom.  All that it takes for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing.

Specifically an Austrian. . .

It still holds true, though. Soldiers are young aggressive men sent to battle the wars of old men. Let's hope we don't ever react.

I think Winston Churchill said something like the second bold statement?

[Silent]

official report is no explosions were found. They received a number of serious threats and warnings.

[Golfingdad]

In regards to the topic of allowing/not allowing Syrian refugees come over, here are a couple of interesting pre WWII images from this article:

and

and this snippet:

Quote

As WorldViews detailed earlier this year, most Western countries regarded the plight of Jewish refugees with skepticism or unveiled bigotry (and sympathy followed only wider knowledge of the monstrous slaughters of the Holocaust):

No matter the alarming rhetoric of [Adolf] Hitler's fascist state — and the growing acts of violence against Jews and others — popular sentiment in Western Europe and the United States was largely indifferent to the plight of German Jews.

"Of all the groups in the 20th century," write the authors of the 1999 book "Refugees in an Age of Genocide," "refugees from Nazism are now widely and popularly perceived as 'genuine,' but at the time German, Austrian and Czechoslovakian Jews were treated with ambivalence and outright hostility as well as sympathy."

It's worth remembering this mood when thinking about the current moment, in which the United States is once more in the throes of a debate over letting in refugees. Ever since Friday's terror attacks in Paris, the Republicans, led by their presidential candidates, have sounded the alarm over the threat of jihadist infiltration from Syria — even though it now appears that every single identified assailant in the Paris siege was a European national.

 

[RandallT]

Thought this first link funny:

https://www.facebook.com/faisalsalmutar/posts/906729506085781

Quote

 

This was long and philosophical and thought-provoking regarding thinking the unthinkable about going to war (from a French person)

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/thinking-the-unthinkable-this-is-war/article27284617/

(very long, and this is just the excerpts I thought pertinent)

Quote

Bernard-Henri Lévy is a French author, philosopher and activist. His next book, to be released in 2016, is Le Génie du Judaïsme. This commentary was translated by Steven B. Kennedy.

So it’s war.

A new kind of war. A war with and without borders, with and without states, a war doubly new because it blends the non-territorial model of al-Qaeda with the old territorial paradigm to which Islamic State has returned.

But a war all the same.

And, faced with this war unwanted by the United States, Egypt, Lebanon, Turkey, and now France, only one question is worth asking: What should we do? How, when a war like this is forced upon you, do you respond and win?

Principle number 1: Do not play with words. Call things by their right names. Dare to utter the terrible word “war,” a word that the democracies try to push out of the range of hearing, beyond the bounds of their imagination, their symbolic system, and their reality. This aversion to war is their mission, their distinguishing trait, and their crowning glory, but it is also their weakness.

....

That is where we stand today. Thinking the unthinkable: war. Accepting the oxymoron of a modern republic required to wage war to save itself.

...

France’s government, including the President, understands this. French political leaders across the spectrum have voiced their unanimous support. That leaves you, me and society, both collectively and individually. Each of us, this time, is a target, a front line, a soldier without knowing it, a cell of resistance, a locus of mobilization and of biopolitical fragility. The idea is heartbreaking and appalling, but it is a fact that we must face.

Principle number 2: The enemy. To utter the word “war” is to evoke an enemy. As Carl Schmitt taught, we must deal with the enemy as enemy, viewing him as someone to be tricked, outmanoeuvred, tangled up in negotiations, or struck silently, depending on the tactics adopted, but in no case appeased. But, following Saint Augustine, Saint Thomas Aquinas and every other theoretician of just war, we must also call the enemy by his true name.

That name is not “terrorism.” It is not a dispersed collection of “lone wolves” or “lunatics.”

And, as for the relentless culture of excuses that persists in portraying these death squads as oppressed and excluded individuals pushed to the edge by an unjust society and forced by poverty to execute young people whose only crime is to like rock music, soccer, or a cool autumn night at a sidewalk cafe, that is an insult to the world’s poor as well as to the dead.

No. These ignorant men who level their guns at the gift of life and at the freedom of movement and expression of the world’s great cities; who detest the urban spirit as much as they do the underlying spirit of laws, rights and peaceful autonomy of people freed from ancient subjections; who could benefit, if only the words were not so utterly foreign to them, from Victor Hugo’s protest in response to the massacres of the Commune: that attacking Paris is worse than attacking France because it destroys the world – these men should rightfully be labelled fascists.

...

Of course, this does not mean that Islam, any more than other systems of thought, has any special affinity for the worst. It does not. And the urgency of the fight forced upon us must not distract us from that other vital battle, the battle for the other Islam, for enlightened Islam, for the Islam of the heirs of Afghanistan’s Massoud, Bosnia’s Izetbegovic, Bangladesh’s Mujibur Rahman, the Kurdish nationalists, and the Sultan of Morocco who, against orders from the Vichy government, made the heroic decision to save the Jews of his realm.

...

This was the situation two decades ago in Sarajevo, when putative experts raised the spectre of the hundreds of thousands of ground troops that would have to be deployed to prevent ethnic cleansing from reaching its grisly apogee. Yet it turned out that a handful of special forces, backed by strikes, was sufficient. I am convinced that the IS hordes are much braver when blowing the heads off defenceless young Parisians than when facing real soldiers of freedom. Similarly, I believe that the international community possesses all of the means necessary to defeat the threat it faces, should it choose to do so.

What holds us back? Why have we been so stinting in assisting our Kurdish allies?

What is it about this war that the America of Barack Obama, at least for the moment, seems not to really want to win? I do not know the answer. But I know where the key lies.

And I know the alternative to using the key: No boots on their ground means more blood on ours.

 

[Mr. Desmond]

2 hours ago, phillyk said:

Yeah, it's contained.  So, we can send all those refugees home now. It's all clear, right?

I think he meant "contain" in this instance, meaning they are no longer expanding their territory.

Word is they are finally going after their oil transport -- 110 tankers were taken out over the weekend. Why this hasn't occurred previously, who knows? It's too slow. Don't know why they haven't blown up the oil fields that are the source of their income.

More recently, the Kurds, with assistance, are taking back territory and control of major highways that threaten the enemy.

When you have a cancer like this, you've got to snuff it early before it gains momentum. Not recognizing the threat was a huge blunder. And remember, you don't need territory to terrorize, just a handful of guys willing to blow themselves and others -- up. 

i think what these terrorist acts mean is that the enemy is feeling threatened and somewhat pinched -- so they are striking out with new tactics. The only way to snuff it out is what they are doing now -- massive pressure.

It's tough to find a rationalization for ground troops - was reading an article the other day where they were sorting out all the factions and opposing goals of groups that are supposedly fighting with us. It's a miracle if we can lead anyone anywhere with all the factions and opposing goals. Why send troops into that cauldron?

As to refugees, they need to end that war and should set up settlement areas in nearby Jordan and Turkey, etc. so people can return after the war. They need a Syrian ceasefire so people stop leaving and start returning.

I think Obama is correct about one thing ... if the political situation in the ME is not resolved, another enemy will soon appear after this one is snuffed out.

Just some reflections...

Edited November 17, 2015 by Mr. Desmond

[nevets88]

This guy has ninja Dad skills.

 

[rkim291968]

In response to the article @Golfingdad posted above:

 

Boston bomber, and many EU terrorists were children of refugees, and/or their next generations.    It's the next generations (albeit a tiny fraction) who would get disillusioned by EU & American econo/socio system and would turn to ISIS.   This is already happening with a Muslim population in EU & US.   A large number of those kids have gone to fight for ISIS and some have came back already.  

However, I understand there are others who get converted to extreme Islam and join ISIS from EU & US.  But there isn't much we can do about that.   The issue at hand is, knowing that Syrian/Iraqi refugees comes with future issues, do we accept them?   I say no.   I'd rather accept Catholic Mexicans as refugees (from poverty) than Muslim Syrians whose children some day will pose threat to our way of life.  Unfortunately, Islam is a religion that can be interpreted to create ISIS, Al Qaeda, etc..    Less is better in this case.

[Golfingdad]