Paris terrorist attacks

[studiodekadent]

We all know of the event by now.

A true tragedy. And no, I'm not presently interested in levelheaded discussion. I'm interested in sorrow-drowning.

My recommendation to all OL members is to drink a whole bottle of Champagne (real champagne of course) whilst listening to anti-Islamic death metal (there's tons on youtube... a good example is this song here:

). Eat some pork rinds as well, just to round out the "haram" trifecta.

Vive Le France. Je Suis Charlie.

Obama's speech wasn't absolutely perfect in terms of what it DIDN'T say (i.e. he didn't explicitly name Islamic fundamentalism) but it was on-the-money in terms of what it DID say.

The psychos attacked many different communities, including the metal community. This, I think, will be a turning point; counterculturalists will start hating fundamentalist Islam as much as they hate fundamentalist Christianity. And I consider this a positive development.

Let us raise our 'horns' (you know the hand gesture) in solidarity with the murdered metalheads. Only in a free society can counterculture flourish.

Please, for great justice... listen to anti-God music. Let us reward artists who attack the Abrahamic delusion. And not JUST its Christian variant.

[moralist]

decadent writes:

Let us raise our 'horns'

Islamists raise the same horns. They're your buddies.

They hate Judeo Christian values as much as you do!

Greg

[william.scherk]

decadent writes:

Let us raise our 'horns'

Islamists raise the same horns. They're your buddies.

What a stupid thing to say.

[Brant Gaede]

Their only "buddies" are their targets.

They need targets.

--Bam! Bam!

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I love Andrew and I am trying, I really am...

But not that music...

I can't go there...

Michael

[moralist]

You are witnessing the consequences of the secular left's love affair with Islam.

They are betrayed by their own love of lies.

Greg

[Brant Gaede]

They don't love Islam for Islam brings them out into the open for what they really are. These are two competing fascisms. The leftists want to rule Europe (and the USA), not Iraq or Iran (or China). They know in the gut a right-wing fascism might rise up in response to this crap and displace them while smashing the Jihadists.

--Brant

my speculation

[moralist]

Pretty astute speculation, Brant.

Secular leftists are the Islamist's useful idiots because they don't believe that their politically correct affinity for Islam reveals them for what they are. That affinity is rooted in a common antipathy towards America. Heck, most won't even admit to being leftists, fantasizing themselves to be objectively in the center of the political spectrum.

America has been fundamentally transformed into a secular leftist nation, and now is as impotent as Europe.

(NYTimes)

Mr. Obama has raised the number of Syrian refugees who will be offered legal status to at least 10,000 this fiscal year.

Greg

[william.scherk]

I am still boggled by Greg's witless comment regarding Andrew. Greg thinks Andrew is 'buddies' with the Islamic State or other end-times fanatics? Fuck me Jesus.

How do you get to that point of saying nothing useful?

-- several wise commenters have noted that the only thing we can be sure of after the Paris massacres is escalation. Who's afraid of the Big Bad Wolf? Today, everyone in the rich and multicultural West is a little bit more scared for their personal safety and security. All countries currently in the air above Syria and Iraq are obviously seen as a front-line of the ISIS terror war, as the maniacs will use every goad to escalation, including massacring civilian air travelers.

Having been most attendant to the Syrian conflict, I have seen scores, thousands of shock and horror images from terror bombings and vicious slaughter from various maniacs. I am shocked but not surprised by the massacres. I haven't been as shocked since Anders Breivik coldly slaughtered in Oslo or since the chemical massacre of August 21, 2013. I haven't been filled with the same sense of horror since London's own suicide massacres.

It is horrible to think that our security will be accompanied only by a 'crackdown' ... while France lives through a state of emergency, throwing all resources into investigation as well as a show of force, and as the mourning sets in, and while anger is still ripe and fresh, I hope rational people will not lose sight of the igniting force of this terror, the state-terror regime headed by Assad.

There will be no stand-down from the West and no lull in terror until the Syrian conflict comes to an end. If it lasts five more years or longer (as in Lebanon, with its triple civil wars) then hateful maniacs in the theatre will cross borders to explode themselves and commit massacres.

I have only about one percent hope that the Syrian conflict will end in the next five years or so. That's a span of years for a new Republican White House, and the same span of years for the Democrats. It is the life of the present Canadian government.

Five years of further horror? I haven't faith in anyone's plan to fix what is hideously broken in Syria and Iraq. What brave commander will be assigned to lead the final battles against the Islamic State? Will the Arab states finally get their shit together and use their militaries instead of proxies and foreign air forces?

Wolf is probably just a millimetre more cynical than I, but I do disagree with assigning a 'single actor theory' to American failures. Who has a taste to lead troops into battle for the final showdown?

Syria strikes me as a million wet sores, sorted by depravity of each infliction. Some have suggested a theoretical iron fist to extirpate ISIS without regard to civilians living hostage under its totalitarian reign, among those suggesting a Senator and candidate for President. That frightens me.

I don't want America to be led by emotion. I don't want to fear massacres in Europe. I don't want the already suffering to be punished for the actions of a deadly cult. I don't want injustice. I don't want wanton slaughter. I want to be proud of the West, of my country, to stand proud of our acts. I want to feel proud of France through the present darkness and through the next five years.

Who has read the Islamic 'state' announcing its reasoning for the massacres? The sickness. The depravity. The disgusting hijacking of Islamic tradition. The most horrified and disgusted from my daily round of opinion are Muslim. They are sick to heart with anger and revulsion.

In the coming seven weeks Canada will settle 25,000 Syrian refugees. My city will take the most in British Columbia -- our local communities are being revved up for reception. It seems like such a pitiful drop in the bucket compared to the millions displaced and homeless.

I want our refugees to feel secure and at least on the road to becoming Canadian. I understand those who would shut borders cold, expel and deport, even detain under war measures, but I want to balance decency with liberty and with vigilance. At least in my country, I want there to be a continuing refuge. If my country were to pull down iron doors to, say, Muslims from Syria, I would hate it. I don't want to fear an incoming refugee, so I have volunteered as an adult English helper in the local drive. I want to know the refugees in my community, and I can't think of a better way to suss them out than face to face.

The foregoing is almost all blather. I will be back to savagely edit it down.

Edited November 16, 2015 by william.scherk

[Wolf DeVoon]

I think what's best about William's post above, which I encourage others to read and consider, is his individual decision to act in the matter of refugee asylum in his country. It would be ideal if all public policies were privatized, exclusively the responsibility of NGOs and individual actors, a free market solution. Health care, roads, police, national defense.

Most of the world's ills are caused by governments, especially (though not exclusively) by Western governments. How would ISIL have arisen as a threat without covert CIA support, American invasion and destruction of Iraq, a lavish and pointless charade of training and equipping an Iraqi Army who ran away and abandoned their weapons, and Saudi-Qatari-Kuwaiti funding of radical jihadis? Roll the clock back two decades and you'll see us schmoozing and supporting Assad, providing battlefield chemical weapons to Saddam, enriching and excusing Wahhabi dictatorships. Britain and France were colonial powers in the Levant, Palestine, Egypt and Arabia. I don't think we'll get anywhere blaming China or Russia for ISIL, or al-Qaeda, or freelance UK, French and Belgian second-generation naturalized citizen jihadis. The Tsarnaev brothers were Chechens with a beef about what? -- their neighbors having too much fun.

Why have such people among us? and worse: why pay them to do nothing except nurse resentments?

Altruism always kills. Far better undertaken by private individuals and NGOs. Limit the damage.

In a contemporaneous thread about US higher ed, we're outraged that blacks and liberals are power crazy -- and winning all of their demands. End welfare, grants and admission quotas. Problem solved. It really is that simple. Government causes this shit -- all of it. End government. Start closing it down.

[moralist]

William writes:

In the coming seven weeks Canada will settle 25,000 Syrian refugees.

My city will take the most in British Columbia

You haven't noticed that you're doing exactly what Europe is doing,

and you dumb suckers haven't even noticed the consequences!

Greg

[Backlighting]

William writes:

In the coming seven weeks Canada will settle 25,000 Syrian refugees.

My city will take the most in British Columbia

You haven't noticed that you're doing exactly what Europe is doing,

and you dumb suckers haven't even noticed the consequences!

Greg

Yes, Greg

Brings to mind what AR said: "You can avoid reality, but you can not the consequences of evading reality"

Reality will bite them hard.

-Joe

[Wolf DeVoon]

Now, this is positively pathetic. One guy maybe went to Syria -- no proof whatsoever.

"European intelligence officials said that the one attacker who they believed had gone to Syria was Ismaël Omar Mostefaï, a French citizen. He traveled to Turkey in 2012, and probably then slipped into Syria." [New York Times]

repeat: believed, probably, three years ago

No documented contact with ISIS by email or telephone by any of the eight French and Belgian citizen jihadis who built their own amateur suicide vests and bought weapons and rented cars in Belgium. The fake Syrian passport found at the concert hall could have been planted by police. It could have been carried by one of the victims. In any case, it was forged in Turkey. There are thousands of them on the black market. A Dutch journalist reported in September that he had bought a fake Syrian passport and ID card, both bearing the picture of the Dutch prime minister, for $825.

Hollande's instant, categorical "planned and executed by ISIS" story stinks.

--------------------------

It just keeps getting worse by the hour. Three got away.

PARIS (AP) -- Hours after the synchronized attacks that terrorized Paris, French police questioned and released the suspect who is now the focus of an international manhunt, officials told The Associated Press on Sunday. Saleh Abdelslam, 26, was one of three men in a getaway car, headed for France's border with Belgium, when police pulled them over after daybreak Saturday. The French president had already announced new border controls to prevent the perpetrators from escaping. Hours had passed since investigators identified Abdelslam as the renter of a Volkswagen Polo that carried hostage-takers to the Paris theater where almost three-quarters of the 129 victims were killed. It's not clear why the local French police, known as gendarmes, didn't take Abdelslam into custody. They checked his identification, but it's not known whether they had been informed of his apparent connection to the attacks. "It was a simple check. There was no lookout notice at the time of the traffic stop," a French police official told the AP.

[anthony]

Is this the old "Syria caused Isis" - "our actions in the area caused Isis" - "the existence of Israel caused Isis"?

Nonsense, or mostly so.

Isis and any terror gang tells us this, and we fall for it.

One way or other, an Isis or some other manifestation would have sprung up of its own accord.

"We" are not the problem.

[Wolf DeVoon]

"We" are not the problem.

I agree completely. South Africa did not invade Iraq.

[Wolf DeVoon]

French authorities identify suspected mastermind of Paris terror attacks
27-year-old Belgian Abdelhamid Abaaoud allegedly oversaw the attack and funded it

 

NYT profile http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/25/world/europe/belgium-confronts-the-jihadist-danger-within.html

 

 

Abaaoud may be in Syria or Greece, or dead, blamed for dozens of unrelated plots. No proof.

 

One hundred sixty-eight locations have been raided and 104 people have been placed under house arrest in the past 48 hours in France, the interior minister, Bernard Cazeneuve, said on Monday. ‘‘It’s just a start, these operations are going to continue, the response of the Republic will be huge, will be total,” he said. [NYT]

 

[anthony]

"We" are not the problem.

I agree completely. South Africa did not invade Iraq.

You understand I meant "the West".

(Mea Culpa, eh?)

As heard by a caller to a station today, America deliberately created Isis and could eradicate it any time. Nasty idiocy. Scratching around for explanations, excuses and false 'causation' transfers the blame - usually, a Lefty exercise to absolve responsibility and uphold their fond belief that circumstances create evil, not people. You think the terror planners aren't sophisticated enough to understand this and the West's logical flaws?

There's only one answer to all the immoralities, injustices and mistakes commited by one people or nation on another.

Get over it - get on with it.

There's not a person alive who can't claim ancestral anger and entitlement for what happened in the past to 'their people'. Me, I've got the Romans and Norsemen and MacDonalds and Spanish and Arabs to blame for what they did to my ancestors. Sheer determinist tribalism/ collectivism.

[Wolf DeVoon]

As heard by a caller to a station today, America deliberately created Isis and could eradicate it any time. Nasty idiocy. Scratching around for explanations, excuses and false 'causation' transfers the blame

There is a factual case for saying United States and its allies created ISIS http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2015/09/unmasking-isis.html#4

There is credible reporting on Benghazi you should look at http://dailycaller.com/2015/05/19/its-now-clear-the-stunning-negligence-that-led-up-to-chris-stevens-death-in-benghazi/

US military could have done more to hurt ISIS, especially it's export trade with Turkey, an ISIS ally.

NYT reports that United States warplanes for the first time attacked hundreds of trucks on Monday that the extremist group has been using to smuggle the crude oil it has been producing in Syria, American officials said. The airstrikes were carried out by four A-10 attack planes and two AC-130 gunships based in Turkey ... American officials have long been frustrated by the Islamic State’s ability to generate as much as $40 million a month by producing and exporting oil... Until Monday, the United States had refrained from striking the fleet used to transport oil, believed to include more than 1,000 tanker trucks... [Zero Hedge]

Until recently, Obama's policy was to take down Assad, not ISIS https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/checkpoint-washington/post/obama-syrian-president-assad-must-step-down/2011/08/18/gIQAM75UNJ_blog.html http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/video/president-obama-draws-red-line-syria-2012-20117362 - http://www.latimes.com/world/la-fg-obama-un-address-20150928-story.html

[anthony]

Most that I read is "led to's", sub-texts and misjudged, misinformed strategies, Wolf. A lot of not comprehending the nature of the enemy, none of whom should have been dealt with - no matter who is momentarily and outwardly 'better' than another. The enemy of my enemy is often my enemy, over there. Underneath too, I guess, was some US altruism. It has taken Iraq, Libya, Syria, Egypt and Afghanistan for the realization to sink in for the West, that the majorities in Arab countries prefer the security of living under an iron fist, to have a Strong Man in charge; whether dictator, monarch, cleric or general. One can see why. Mostly and so far, Democracy can't be introduced there after the top dog is ousted, it seems. For those minorities who want and deserve better lives, I feel sorry. But before the Syrian war began, it's not as though tens of thousands of migrants were then fleeing Assad's loathsome regime.

The overwhelming, primary text is the hatred from several quarters around that region for the liberty and values of the West, and that it is one's religious duty to combat them. That's what has to be kept in mind, above all - I think.

If "we" (who share Western values wherever we are) are going to be hated anyway, far better to be hated for the right reasons.

[Brant Gaede]

Anyone on this forum, myself included, can imagine many wrong and right things to do about what we consider the problem to be, but if any were actually involved with implementing war policies, no matter how expert, many of the wrong things would turn out to be right and right wrong. That's the nature of war. War is a series of mistakes called "costs" and the "winners" are the last men standing.

--Brant

the basics are something else plus some strategies--but even as a combat veteran I'm still to far from the game in time and space to authoritatively talk real tactics although it hasn't stopped me from an occasional indulgence

how about a nice game of "Vietnam"?

[Selene]

I prefer a game of Dresden...

[Brant Gaede]

I have not read any justification for Dresden.

Pure horror.

Unlike the bombings of Japanese cities.

We even spared Kyoto.

--Brant

[Wolf DeVoon]

... It has taken Iraq, Libya, Syria, Egypt and Afghanistan for the realization to sink in for the West, that the majorities in Arab countries prefer the security of living under an iron fist, to have a Strong Man in charge; whether dictator, monarch, cleric or general...

...hatred from several quarters around that region for the liberty and values of the West...

Describes all of Africa including SA, most of Central and South America, Russia, FSU, China, Indonesia, Pakistan.

I disbelieve that majorities anywhere "prefer the security of living under an iron fist." Puts me in mind of John Winthrop, autocratic leader of New England, proponent of slavery, opponent of liberty, religious zealot who investigated private thought and punished heresy. The early history of America was no different than today's rival Islamic sects who despise each other for relatively trivial disputes of theology. No one in early American colonial history saw negroes or indigenous peoples as anything but inferior savages, incapable of legal, political, or property rights.

The history of Europe was worse. Within living memory Germany, Italy and Spain were ruled by dictators.

[moralist]

Adam writes:

I prefer a game of Dresden...

That'll come later on. People are just now barely waking up to the objective reality of World War III.

There will always be collateral damage when seemingly "innocent" people choose to live among scum with rotten values.

Greg

[Brant Gaede]

Wolf, my ancestor Mary Dyer had her proselytizing Quaker ass hanged in Boston for not keeping out of the colony.

--Brant