Moderators: Alyrium Denryle, Edi, K. A. Pital
It's my time to waste any way I see fitThe Romulan Republic wrote:Don't look for reason in the ramblings of Nazi apologists.
Distancing ourselves won't change anything.
In my opinion, it is sad that we Muslims are now busy distancing ourselves or explaining that Islam demands a peaceful togetherness. I think it is also sad, when native Germans have to be ashamed of their identity after a right-wing attack.
Not All Muslims Are Terrorists
I think that now more than ever, our society is aware that neither all Muslims are terrorists nor all native Germans are Nazis. To me, the impact of distancing ourselves from the problem will be that nobody feels responsible for anything.
If we call out to PEGIDA that they aren't the people or if we proclaim after every terrorist attack that the perpetrators aren't Muslims, it won't solve the problem.
It does nothing to eliminate the problem nor does it change the fact that it is our problem. It doesn't change the fact that the culprits blow themselves up and wildly shoot into groups of innocent people. It doesn't change the fact that refugees (who have nothing to do with this) are attacked in their sleep.
Terrorism Is Our Problem
I'll say it again: we are not part of them, but unfortunately, these brutes are part of us. They are part of society. Our society. They don't come from Mars. They have been among us. Always. It is our problem and we as a society are responsible for solving this problem.
It is our responsibility to encourage young people to cooperate peacefully and to equip them with the values of democracy and freedom. It is our responsibility to educate people and -- as simple as it may sound -- to cultivate encounters and meeting places. Even though I am really desperate, I can't allow myself to become tired.
Let us create a space together: a space for honesty, for fear, for respect and for education. A space for meeting.
This post first appeared on HuffPost Germany. It has been translated into English and edited for clarity.
French President François Hollande has asked legislators for a three-month extension of a state of emergency following the Paris attacks that killed 129 people on Friday.
In a rare speech to both chambers of the French parliament on Monday, Hollande said: "France is at war."
He said a bill to extend the state of emergency will be presented to parliament on Wednesday.
Hollande also said he wants to meet with U.S. President Barack Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin to discuss pooling their efforts to fight Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).
Hollande said he wanted the talks "to unify our strength and achieve a result that has been too long in coming." Hollande called for "a union of all who can fight this terrorist army in a single coalition."
The French president also said 5,000 more police officers will be hired over the next two years, along with 1,000 more border officials. He said there will be no reduction in the country's military strength until 2019.
Belgian Abdelhamid Abaaoud identified as presumed mastermind
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Earlier Monday. French police raided 168 locations across the country and detained nearly two dozen people as authorities identified more members of a sleeper cell said to be behind the Paris attacks.
French and Belgian jihadis — and at least one potential Syrian member — were being implicated Monday in what was the worst attack on French soil since the Second World War. The mastermind is said to be a Belgian national linked to thwarted earlier attacks on a train and a French church.
With France under a state of emergency that gives police special powers, the hunt continued for members of the cell that carried out last Friday's gun and bomb attacks.
French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said police arrested 23 people and recovered a Kalashnikov and other weapons during the overnight raids.
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Paris moment of silence4:13
Heavily armed Belgian police staged a major operation in the Molenbeek neighbourhood of Brussels, which authorities consider to be a focal point for extremists and fighters going to Syria from Belgium. The operation took three hours, but it was unclear if any major arrests were made.
Belgium's federal prosecutor's office said that five of the seven people who were detained over the weekend because of possible links to the Paris attacks have been released.
Two others have been charged with being part of a terror group and links to a terror attack, the office said in a statement.
Across France and throughout Europe, people paused for a minute's silence at noon French time in memory of the victims.
Overnight, France launched its heaviest airstrikes yet on the Islamic State group's de-facto capital in Syria, Prime Minister Manuel Valls said "we are at war" against terrorism.
French authorities say Sunday night's airstrikes destroyed a jihadi training camp and a munitions dump in the city of Raqqa, where Iraqi intelligence officials say the attacks on Paris were planned.
Twelve aircraft including 10 fighter jets dropped a total of 20 bombs in the biggest air strikes since France extended its bombing campaign against the extremist group to Syria in September, a Defence Ministry statement said. The jets launched from sites in Jordan and the Persian Gulf, in coordination with U.S. forces.
Three teams of attackers including seven suicide bombers attacked the national stadium, the concert hall and nearby nightspots Friday. In addition to those killed, the attacks wounded 350 people, 99 of them seriously.
Suspected mastermind ID'd
French authorities have identified several suspected attackers, most with links to France or Belgium.
France Paris Attacks
This undated image made available in the Islamic State's English-language magazine Dabiq, shows Abdelhamid Abaaoud. He was identified by French authorities on Monday as the presumed mastermind of the terror attacks last Friday in Paris that killed over a hundred people and injured hundreds more (Militant photo via Associated Press)
A French official identified the suspected mastermind as Belgian Abdelhamid Abaaoud, who is said to be linked to the thwarted attacks on a Paris-bound high-speed train and a Paris area church earlier this year. The official has direct knowledge of the investigation but is not authorized to be publicly identified as speaking about the probe.
As efforts were being made to capture those behind the attacks, more details have emerged of those who carried them out.
The Paris prosecutor's office said Monday one of the suicide bombers who blew himself up in the Bataclan music hall Friday night was Samy Amimour, a 28-year-old Frenchman charged in a terrorism investigation in 2012. Amimour was placed under judicial supervision, but dropped off authorities' radar in 2013 and an international arrest warrant was issued.
An attacker who blew himself up outside the national soccer stadium was said to have been found with a Syrian passport with the name Ahmad Al Mohammad, a 25-year-old born in Idlib. The prosecutor's office said fingerprints from the attacker match those of someone who passed through Greece in October.
Another, said to have been identified by the print on a recovered finger, was 29-year-old Frenchman Ismael Mostefai, who had a record of petty crime and had been flagged in 2010 for ties to Islamic radicalism.
A judicial official said police have also identified two other suicide bombers, both French nationals who'd been living in Belgium: 20-year-old Bilal Hadfi, who detonated himself outside the Stade de France; and 31-year-old Brahim Abdeslam, who blew himself up on the Boulevard Voltaire.
At least one key suspect is on the loose. The arrest warrant for 26-year-old Salah Abdeslam — brother of bomber Brahim — describes him as very dangerous and warns people not to intervene if they see him.
France Paris Attacks
This undated file photo provided by French police shows Salah Abdeslam, who is wanted by police in connection with recent terror attacks in Paris. (Police Nationale/Associated Press)
French officials revealed to The Associated Press that police already had him in their grasp early Saturday, when they stopped a car carrying three men near the Belgian border. By then, hours had passed since authorities identified Abdeslam as the renter of a Volkswagen Polo that carried hostage takers to the Paris theater where so many died.
Three French police officials and a top French security official confirmed that officers let Abdeslam go after checking his ID. They spoke on condition of anonymity, lacking authorization to publicly disclose such details.
The Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for the attacks. Its statement mocked France's air attacks on suspected ISIS targets in Syria and Iraq, and called Paris "the capital of prostitution and obscenity."
Tantalizing clues about the extent of the plot have emerged from Baghdad, where senior Iraqi officials told the AP that France and other countries had been warned on Thursday of an imminent attack.
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An Iraqi intelligence dispatch warned that Islamic State group leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi had ordered his followers to immediately launch gun and bomb attacks and take hostages inside the countries of the coalition fighting them in Iraq and Syria.
The Iraqi dispatch, which was obtained by the AP, provided no details on when or where the attack would take place, and a senior French security official told the AP that French intelligence gets these kinds of warnings "all the time" and "every day."
However, Iraqi intelligence officials told the AP that they also warned France about specific details: Among them, that the attackers were trained for this operation and were sent back to France from Raqqa, the Islamic State's de-facto capital.
The officials also said a sleeper cell in France then met with the attackers after their training and helped them to execute the plan. There were 24 people involved in the operation, they said: 19 attackers and five others in charge of logistics and planning.
None of these details have been corroborated by officials of France or other Western intelligence agencies.
All these French and Iraqi security and intelligence officials spoke with the AP on condition of anonymity, citing the ongoing investigation.
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People pay respects prior to going to work Monday at the site of the attack at the Cafe Belle Equipe on rue de Charonne. France prepared to fall silent at noon on Monday to mourn the victims of Friday's attacks. (Kenzo Tribouillard/AFP/Getty Images)
The identification of several French suspects stoked fears of homegrown terrorism in France, which has exported more jihadis than any other in Europe, and seen many return from the fight. All three gunmen in the January attacks on the Charlie Hebdo newspaper and a kosher supermarket in Paris were French.
In the worst of Friday's attacks, gunmen stormed the Bataclan theater during a rock concert, taking the audience hostage and firing on them repeatedly. Eighty-nine people were killed and many more wounded.
Refugees fleeing war by the tens of thousands fear the Paris attacks could prompt Europe to close its doors, especially after police said a Syrian passport found next to one attacker's body suggested its owner passed through Greece into the European Union and on through Macedonia and Serbia last month.
Paris remains on edge amid three days of official mourning. French troops have deployed by the thousands and tourist sites remain shuttered in one of the most visited cities on Earth. Panic ensued Sunday night as police abruptly cleared hundreds of mourners from the famed Place de la Republique square, where police said firecrackers sparked a false alarm.
"Whoever starts running starts everyone else running," said Alice Carton, city council member who was at the square. "It's a very weird atmosphere. The sirens and screaming are a source of fear."
Yes. And those men will likely be the first in if France decides to put ground troops in action, which will likely happen. Hopefully hopefully the US has the balls to actually back their ally up this time.The Romulan Republic wrote:I don't know. France is no pushover militarily. Wasn't it in the news a while back that they had ground troops fighting Boko Haram in Africa?
Hollande said he wanted French law to allow dual nationals to be stripped of their French citizenship if they were convicted of terrorism and called for the French constitution to be rewritten.
Just quoting two snippets of a very long thing.France to limit events around Paris climate summit
The French prime minister, Manuel Valls, said on Monday that France will limit the events to core negotiations and will cancel planned marches and concerts in the wake of the attacks.
This despite the fact that no foreign leaders had asked France to postpone the 30 November-11 December summit, which would amount to “abdicating to the terrorists”, Valls said.
Environmental activists are due to meet later on Monday, Reuters reports, to rethink plans for a march on 29 November, the eve of the summit, that they had hoped would attract perhaps 200,000 people to put pressure on governments to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
Mainstream groups say they will respect any bans, decreed under emergency powers in France after the attacks on Friday that France blamed on Islamic State.
Yes, to some extent I think you still are. France has just been attacked, and they are, apparently, intending to go to a full-out war status. Increased powers for the executive is not an unreasonable request under the circumstances. Check back in three months from now and we can look at this again.The Romulan Republic wrote:Apparently Hollande has asked to have the state of emergency (which gives the police more powers) extended for three months. I am not at all confident that it won't be extended further after that.
People still think I was being alarmist about this being a step towards authoritarianism?
Yes.The Romulan Republic wrote:I don't know. France is no pushover militarily. Wasn't it in the news a while back that they had ground troops fighting Boko Haram in Africa?
Apparently Putin and Obama took advantage of the G20 meeting to discuss coordinating better in Syria. I think Turkey was in on it, took. I hope that means the various nations involved will be better coordinated.The Romulan Republic wrote:I wouldn't be so gung ho about going into Syria unless we can be sure that Russia isn't going to flip out and escalate things over it.
That I find a bit more disturbing....The Romulan Republic wrote:But seriously, fuck Hollande. While I obviously have no sympathy for terrorists, I am of the opinion that citizenship should not be something revokable, and as a duel citizen myself, I have nothing but contempt for the idea that duel citizenship is somehow less permanent, less valid.
Well... the call it the "Fifth Republic" for a reason. Here is a list of the governments France has gone through in the same time period the US has had but one constitution and one government. So France changing it's constitution isn't quite the unheard of thing that it would be for, example, the US.Also, "...called for the... constitution to be rewritten." is an ominous thing to hear.
Arguably, yes. However, Holland is not an absolute dictator. He can ask for whatever he wants, whether or not he gets it is another question.That its about a post-911-style power grab and crackdown on dissent.
Not really. They truncated their destroyer and frigate buys and now they are down to one carrier that has had severe technical problems since launch and which is about to go into a several year overhaul where it will be completely unavailable. They have the same problem the UK does in building ships "for but not with" major weapon systems that translates to "we won't have them when we need them, and if prompted to install them we will have them after we need them." They are down to six SSNs, which basically means they can't have more than two on long distance patrol at a time under normal circumstances. Their fleet's land attack cruise missile strike capability is effectively zero, so aircraft is all they have to go with.Their amphibious picture is a bit more bright but due to having new gear in for form of Mistral-class LHDs, not a lot of it.Elheru Aran wrote:France isn't a pushover, but the fact is *nobody* but Russia and China have military strengths similar to the US. Bear in mind also that the majority of countries don't keep up a very large standing army thanks to mutual defense treaties with the big dogs on the block. France is in a situation where it's got a pretty decent, well equipped and trained (and now very motivated) military, but it's just not that big (comparatively speaking). France does have a decent navy (IIRC) but again, not a really big one. That's really the norm for Europe, though. Since NATO and the collapse of overseas colonial empires they haven't had much reason to man large militaries.
How about I put it this way: I don't know enough about the specific president and nation to have a firm opinion either way. However, it's pretty rare for a western democracy to flip over into a dictatorship.The Romulan Republic wrote:Do you really think he won't get it under the circumstances?
Why would that happen if NATO attacked ISIS? Daesh is an enemy of of Assad, too, and the strongest. This would only save work for Russia, and I doubt they would be unhappy to see the western powers spend their military power in Afghanistan II.The Romulan Republic wrote:Which is a nicely euphemistic way of saying that if NATO does so, we probably fight World War III with Russia.
This is about strategy. Al Quaida wanted to get rid of local arab regimes, but didn't have the strength for it. So they tried to lure western powers into doing that by using terrorist attacks. Spoiler alert: that worked perfectly. We shouldn't repeat that error.Purple wrote:It's not about fear. It's the principal. You don't let someone beat up on you even if the odds of being seriously hurt are really low. What you do is you grab the bully by the balls so hard they start to bleed than you break his face in.
And in the case of ISIS this means coordinate with the Russians to exterminate them and bring peace to the region. I would personally be quite fine with leaving Assad in power if thats what it takes.
We all miss Al Quaida. Those were good times.Channel72 wrote:. It's also interesting that most of their attacks are less sophisticated than what Al-Qaeda used to do, in the sense that ISIL terror attacks are usually just a bunch of rampaging gunmen shooting at innocent civilians, rather than the traditional MacGyver-esque Al-Qaeda attacks, which are more about "clever", singular, deadly explosions targeting key infrastructure (like the WTC, Madrid train station, etc.)
There are several problems with those. I'll start with the easy one. We ain't alone in this. Even if the entire western world and Russia were to retreat from the middle east completely and newer intervene again that still leaves the local powers like Iran and Saudi Arabia. Thus unless you plan to force them to back down as well you won't achieve nothing by retreating.The Romulan Republic wrote:It seems to me that their are at least two options besides "Prop up vicious dictator" and "Overthrow vicious dictator". One is to simply not be involved at all, but I don't think that's really a viable choice now. The other is to encourage internal reform/peaceful transition without something so drastic as regime change via military force.
