Situation in Paris

[Lonestar]

Is that a typical response for something like this? To put an entire nation in a state of emergency and close the borders?

Edit: I just hope this is short-lived, and does not become an excuse to, for example, permanently close the borders to refugees.

Crown's wrong, it is typically, especially regarding very large attacks that are traced to the outside terrorist groups. The US grounded all aircraft and closed the borders immediately after 9/11, for instance.

[cosmicalstorm]

They want their attack to be a spark that ingnites racist terror going back against Islam and Muslims.
They want a big religious/race war that will force anyone easily identified as a Muslim to gather at their side for protection.

Just like OBL wanted America to send it's troops deep into Muslim land to be attacked. He got his wish fulfilled that time.

[The Romulan Republic]

Well, my apologies to President Hollande if I misjudged him, then.

I hope, however, that these measures are lifted soon. Terrorism, however horrifying, should not be allowed to unduly disrupt the functioning of a country. If it does, it has to some extent succeeded.

[Borgholio]

I'm avoiding social media tonight due the inevitable deluge of blaming Islam / immigrants / non-whites for this tragedy.

[Broomstick]

The wave of hatred (including outright advocating genocide on a scale surpassing any other in history) I've seen across much of the internet following the attacks in Paris is sickening.

Even sadder, that is probably the exact reaction the asstards behind the attacks want. They want war. It's not a mindset I understand.

[Zaune]

Even sadder, that is probably the exact reaction the asstards behind the attacks want. They want war. It's not a mindset I understand.

It's got a certain twisted logic to it. The more they make narrow-minded gullible white people scared and resentful of Muslims, the more Muslims will develop the kind of chips on their shoulders that makes ISIS look like an attractive career choice.

[Broomstick]

Actually, I don't recall weather America declared a national state of emergency or closed its borders after 911. I know planes were grounded though (quite reasonably).

The situations aren't quite the same - on 9/11 the threat was from airplanes-turned-cruise-missiles rather than groups of armed men and explosions. Planes weren't just grounded overnight, and those outside US airspace were not allowed entry (thank you again, Canada, for putting up and feeding thousands on such short notice). It was weeks before normal operations resumed. So in that sense, yes, the US border closed down. This time, France is apparently allowing flights but closed the ground borders.

Keep in mind, too, that grounding ALL air traffic in the US was entirely unprecedented and had never been foreseen as necessary. There were no rules or procedures for it and it was seen as quite heavy-handed at the time. Long distance travel in the US is much more dependent on air traffic than it is in Europe. The US has ground borders with only two countries, France has ground borders with several.

Meanwhile, even without an official Federal edict, cities and states instituted their own measures. Chicago's downtown district pretty much emptied out by noon of that day, with mass transit being used in a sort of evacuation. When I left my office in Chicago that day they were sending out the trains as fast as they loaded and damn the normal schedules. Local authorities beefed up security on their own and in the various states governors activated their national guard units to provide extra security at airports and wherever else it was deemed necessary.

Authority in France is much more centralized than in the US, and always has been.

France isn't going to shut the borders forever, but I'm not going to quibble with them doing so tonight. None of us here have all the information, and I suspect the French government doesn't either but they may well know more than we do (I certainly hope so). If nothing else, measures like that and a curfew may prevent angry, bloody-minded civilians from taking "revenge" on hapless bystanders who happen to share an ethnicity with the perpetrators but had nothing to do with this.

[Broomstick]

Can we please stop framing this as "white people against brown people"? Because that's not what it is. It's a religious war. Muslims come in all colors. Black and brown Americans (and other nationalities) fear being victims of these assholes. It's not a race war, it's a culture war.

[Zaune]

They want their attack to be a spark that ingnites racist terror going back against Islam and Muslims.

Well, unfortunately for them it's moderately difficult to be European and not interact with actual Muslims frequently enough to have a sense of proportion, so it's unlikely the French will do anything really stupid.

[The Romulan Republic]

There's some truth to the idea that its a cultural rather than a racial conflict, and certainly Islam is not a race.

However, the way you describe the conflict suggests that it is a war between Muslims and non-Muslims, which is not an acceptable interpretation either. And there's also no denying that Islamophobia is often intertwined with racism. I'll wager that when the average Islamophobe thinks of a Muslim, they picture a brown person.

The war with Islamic terrorism is actually much more complex than a two sided struggle, as I'm sure you are aware.

[cosmicalstorm]

Hopefully it won't go too far. But the possibility for a self reinforcing feedback-loop of violence is very real. The soil seems fertile in Europe right now.

Everyone used to know Jews in 1915.

[Metahive]

Everyone used to know Jews in 1915.

Yeah, remember the great jewish pogroms of 1915? In the midst of World War I? O wait, that war actually saw jewish soldiers fighting on behalf of their homecountries and getting medals for their service even, including Germany. Man, even if you go for low-hanging fruit you still manage to slip and firmly plant your face in the mud.

[Edi]

I've moved the social media related discussion from Venting to this thread, because it is relevant here.

[ray245]

There's some truth to the idea that its a cultural rather than a racial conflict, and certainly Islam is not a race.

However, the way you describe the conflict suggests that it is a war between Muslims and non-Muslims, which is not an acceptable interpretation either. And there's also no denying that Islamophobia is often intertwined with racism. I'll wager that when the average Islamophobe thinks of a Muslim, they picture a brown person.

The war with Islamic terrorism is actually much more complex than a two sided struggle, as I'm sure you are aware.

Well, most of those terrorist people see on the news often had origins from the Middle East as opposed to regions like South East Asia. That had a massive role in people's perception of the average Muslim terrorist, even if there are many other terrorists with very varied ethnic background.

[cosmicalstorm]

This is their main strategy.

Quote from Twitter
These outrageous attacks are the same strategy that ISIS's predecessor, Al Qaeda in Iraq, used to trigger civil war between Sunnis & Shias.

Everyone used to know Jews in 1915.

Yeah, remember the great jewish pogroms of 1915? In the midst of World War I? O wait, that war actually saw jewish soldiers fighting on behalf of their homecountries and getting medals for their service even, including Germany. Man, even if you go for low-hanging fruit you still manage to slip and firmly plant your face in the mud.

I just picked an arbitrary number. You forgot to add that witty nickname for me, comicalali?

[Broomstick]

There's some truth to the idea that its a cultural rather than a racial conflict, and certainly Islam is not a race.

However, the way you describe the conflict suggests that it is a war between Muslims and non-Muslims, which is not an acceptable interpretation either. And there's also no denying that Islamophobia is often intertwined with racism. I'll wager that when the average Islamophobe thinks of a Muslim, they picture a brown person.

The war with Islamic terrorism is actually much more complex than a two sided struggle, as I'm sure you are aware.

Well, most of those terrorist people see on the news often had origins from the Middle East as opposed to regions like South East Asia. That had a massive role in people's perception of the average Muslim terrorist, even if there are many other terrorists with very varied ethnic background.

On the other hand, in the US our Muslim bad guys have ranged from folks commonly referred as black like the the DC sniper through various shades of brown to folks definitely referred to as "white" such as John Walker Lindh who ran off to Afghanistan to join the Taliban. Which makes some sense, because American Muslims are going to reflect the demographics of the US at least somewhat, although at present American Muslims are about 60% of African descent. Ask an American to picture a Muslim they're as likely to think "Malcom X" or "Muhammad Ali" as a person of Arab/brown features. The downside of that, of course, is the injection of racial issues in the US.

The US Arab population is also 60% Christian, some of them being at least somewhat prominent in one area or another, so while there is an association between Arabs and Muslims "everybody" knows Arab Christians as well as Muslims of one stripe or another.

There are some pretty significant differences between Muslims in the US vs. Muslims in Europe, whether you're talking refugees or people who have been here several generations.

[Broomstick]

This is their main strategy.

Quote from Twitter
These outrageous attacks are the same strategy that ISIS's predecessor, Al Qaeda in Iraq, used to trigger civil war between Sunnis & Shias.

That "strategy" includes the assumption that "Muslims in the West" are somehow systematically oppressed by the "kuffar". The fact that in the Middle East there are Muslims that oppose ISIS and cousins in open warfare implies that even a lot of Muslims in the most conservative regions of Islam don't like these guys. The notion that Muslims living in peace and happy to be in a nation like, say, the US or Britain, despite some religion-related issues, are going to suddenly run to ISIS with open arms is bullshit. Even folks who aren't particularly thrilled with "the west" may well prefer living there to living in ISIS-controlled territory because, to be honest, ISIS et al are a bunch of assholes and bullies who enjoy violence and killing. Once the infidels are killed off (and maybe even before that) they'll start butchering those they don't think are Muslim enough. That's no place to raise a family.

[Purple]

Well they sort of are if you look at it from the right perspective. You need to look at it from the perspective of the person who wrote that quote. Someone who has grown up in a fundamentalist minded society and thinks in terms of fundamentalism. For them the fact that European Muslims are forced to condone things such as premarital sex, alcohol consumption, their children potentially not wanting to remain Muslim, women going around uncovered etc. are all seriously horrible things. That person is probably sitting thinking "If I had to live under such oppression I'd die!" and continues with "and than I'd be sent to hell!"

[Broomstick]

Except, of course, all the members of such societies who emigrate to such places and adjust. They don't, in fact, have to condone such practices, they can disapprove all they want... they just can't go around killing people who engage in such practices.

[Purple]

Except, of course, all the members of such societies who emigrate to such places and adjust. They don't, in fact, have to condone such practices, they can disapprove all they want... they just can't go around killing people who engage in such practices.

Which in the mind of the fundamentalist might as well be the same thing.

[Crown]

Is that a typical response for something like this? To put an entire nation in a state of emergency and close the borders?

Edit: I just hope this is short-lived, and does not become an excuse to, for example, permanently close the borders to refugees.

Crown's wrong, it is typically, especially regarding very large attacks that are traced to the outside terrorist groups. The US grounded all aircraft and closed the borders immediately after 9/11, for instance.

I'm not 'wrong', a state of emergency in France gives the President extraordinary powers and it also gives the French state powers of search, seizure and arrest without warrant or warning. This is the first time since 1962 that France has had this state of emergency across the entire country since the Algerian War in the late 50s early 60s and during the mass riots in (2006 I believe) the State of Emergency wasn't nation wide (IIRC).

They didn't do this for the Charlie Hebdo attacks for a more recent example.

[Abacus]

Those two absolutes are ridiculous and completely disregard the truth of the people living as Muslims within Europe...or pretty much anywhere in the world. Islamic State, or the Daish (as they are known by anti ISIS fighters), are extremists that are hijacking a religion for their own twisted reasons. Religion by itself is symptomatic to helping a few people control many. So to imagine that the Daish somehow are representatives of anything other than their own sick, twisted ideology would be a mistake. The Daish do not represent Islam and the majority of world citizens know this to be true. Sadly, a large majority of the idiots who support a right-wing, anti-Islamic, anti-integration world view happily paint the Daish and all other Muslims with the same brush -- publicly and on television.

Concerning the events in Paris, I am terribly saddened and horrified. I'm under no illusions as to the crimes and violations against common humanity that these beasts (I won't dignify them by saying that they are *men*) are capable, but I am saddened it happened and horrified that they managed to so successfully get away with it. I can only imagine what the French intelligence community is going through at the moment, wracked by guilt and many probably looking for somewhere to conveniently hide while waving index fingers go hunting for a scapegoat.

At this juncture, with the knowledge that the attack was carried out by the Daish and the fact that the President Hollande himself denounced this event as an "attack," I am firmly in favor of the French president invoking Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

The U.N. failed three years ago to effectively act and allow a concerted effort to intervene in the Syrian Civil War. Russia would have stopped any such intervention anyway via their Security Council vote.

However, a concerted military effort made on the part of NATO would be the ideal alternative. With the furor over this despicable attack, a united armed intervention with the FULL backing of NATO allies would put an end to the conflict. In concert with Free Syrian Rebels, Kurdish forces, the Gulf States, and NATO -- the conflict could be taken to a whole new level. An Allied Army, much like the one that landed upon the beaches of Normandy all those years ago, could sweep from the coast of Syria to it's heartland, to be the hammer that crushes the Daish against an anvil push by US and Iraqi forces. Part of this effort would need to include, at the request of NATO High Command, UN observers and volunteer groups such as the Red Cross and the Red Crescent.

A concerted effort on the half of all these groups could ignore any protestations that might be raised by Putin. He's happy to play power games with the US alone, but if you involve NATO, whose intervention will have backing from citizens the world over, he will be forced to back down -- likely putting pressure on the UN or in other ways to request an end to the conflict; which would be bullshit on his part, since Russia invaded Chechnya several times over terrorists acts throughout the 90's and early 2000's. Al-Bashar would be removed from power and likely sent to the Hague for war crimes against humanity, since he authorized the use of biological weapons and gas attacks on his own people. A new Syrian government could be formed from those rebel groups that are proven to be innocent of war crimes; if no such groups can be found, then speak directly to the Syrian people and ask that they form a referendum with UN support, allowing a legitimate government to be formed by the Syrian people.



That is, of course, an ideal outcome to this situation. It's what I believe, based on my knowledge of world politics and political science, would allow for a decent outcome.

Of course, if I really had my way, I'd have my Iron Man armor on and go take care of things myself.

[Crown]

This is from The Guardian, but looks like a Syrian passport has been found on the body of one of the suicide bombers;

Syrian passport 'found on body of attacker'

Two French police officials say a Syrian passport was found on the body of one of the suicide bombers at the Stade de France, where a friendly match was being played between France and Germany, according to Associated Press and French television.

[Joun_Lord]

The notion that Muslims living in peace and happy to be in a nation like, say, the US or Britain, despite some religion-related issues, are going to suddenly run to ISIS with open arms is bullshit. Even folks who aren't particularly thrilled with "the west" may well prefer living there to living in ISIS-controlled territory because, to be honest, ISIS et al are a bunch of assholes and bullies who enjoy violence and killing. Once the infidels are killed off (and maybe even before that) they'll start butchering those they don't think are Muslim enough. That's no place to raise a family.

The thing is there are Muslims in the West doing exactly that. Now its mostly young idiots but plenty of people in America and the UK have or have tried to go join ISIS. People born here, people with loving families, educated people, people who could see the horrors committed by ISIS and yet they are trying to hop on a plane and go join the Jihad. Just do a goggle search for "teen joining ISIS" and you will find multiple stories of kids doing or attempting to do just that.

[Flagg]

Wow, this is some bad, serious shit. My condolences for Parisians and the French in general.

Hopefully their "Merciless Response" against ISIS will make matters better and not worse in the long run for those suffering under those barbaric fanatical cunts, though that is rarely the case, sadly.