11/13 Paris Terror Attacks

At least 18 are dead after a series of explosions and shootings. There have been at least 4 separate, but coordinated incidents.

CNN live stream:
http://go.cnn.com/?stream=cnn

CNN also just announced that there are also 60 hostages being held in a theater.

Update: More than 128 dead. We got a new rating. Basically, everything went fucky.

 

[*Asterisk*]

The problem at hand is that islam isn't secular like christianity, so even if the motivation is based on politics, it's still an issue involving the religion, even if it's just used as a tool.
It's vengeance for french involvement in the syrian war that sparked this attack, but it's not completely disconnected from a barbaric philosophy which at least claims to be based on fundamental islam.
What I'm trying to say, when someone blows himself and a few dozen people up after yelling "Allahu Ackbar", it's hard to ignore the religious aspects.

You hit the nail on the head. Not to mention that the Muslim world's main exposure to "secularism" has come at the hands of horrible crooks and thugs like Yasser Arafat, Saddam Hussein, Hosni Mumbarak, Sapramurat Niyazof, the al-Assad Dynasty, and countless other hateful gangsters. It's generated little love for western values, and all too much love for even worse gangsters who pose as reformers.

While agree with what you said before that, this part I can't agree to. Dunno if Hollande is incompetent or a wuss, I'd rather say it shows how useless the attempts of politicians to exchange freedom/civil rights for safety are.

I hate having to admit @WhatNemesisMeans is right as well, but he is. The trampling of liberal values in the name of liberal values is always wrong.

 

[BT 075]

You hit the nail on the head. Not to mention that the Muslim world's main exposure to "secularism" has come at the hands of horrible crooks and thugs like Yasser Arafat, Saddam Hussein, Hosni Mumbarak, Sapramurat Niyazof, the al-Assad Dynasty, and countless other hateful gangsters. It's generated little love for western values, and all too much love for even worse gangsters who pose as reformers.

And then the Western world thinks it is their duty to remove these people, the countries become completely disorganized and everything goes to shit. Then they hold elections, and a Muslim Brotherhood like party wins making matters far worse. Now if you have a dictator who is at least mildly secular and open to reason when it is presented with the promise of financial gain, this is infinitely better for both the Middle East and the Western world.

Back in the day, Gadaffi had a deal with Silvio Berlusconi of Italy. Gadaffi stopped the refugees from getting on the boats, Berlusconi made it worth his while. Had Gadaffi remained in place, I am willing to bet there would not have been a refugee crisis. But we (America, France, UK) think "democracy" is the be all, end all. It isn't. These are countries where tribal loyalties are everything, and the need for strong leadership is practically ingrained in these people's DNA. The sheikh or village elder who would settle disputes is what works for them.

They crave strong leadership. The ones who demonstrate are either religious fanatics or university students who want freedom of speech. The silent majority is fine with the status quo, even if the status quo means being ruled by crooks, provided the crooks are somewhat capable of doing their jobs. The current crisis is a crisis of Europe's own making.

We have to get rid of the idea that the same systems that work for America and Europe, will work everywhere else in the world regardless of culture or religion. They don't.

 

[Stud2Stud]

Will this be a wake up call for Europe?
Or the pc crowd is going to bury it on "not all Muslims are evil" bullshit and we forget about this next week until there is another attack?
They condemned eastern Europe for barring entrance to refugees,I'm not seeing any major attacks there.
They should allow only women and children to enter,males should be rounded up and investigated before being cleared to enter,sounds harsh,but I don't see any other way to end this.

1) This attack wasn't done by refugees. Full stop.
Edit: Looks like there was one guy who entered Europe as a refugee. Point still stands, this is mainly the work of people who've been living in Europe for quite some time.
2) Apparently, one of the attackers was a woman.
3) You don't see any major attacks in eastern europe. Fine. Do you see any in Germany, Sweden or Austria?

And then the Western world thinks it is their duty to remove these people, the countries becomes completely disorganized and everything goes to shit. Then they hold elections, and a Muslim Brotherhood like party wins making matters far worse. Now if you have a dictator who is at least mildly secular and open to reason when it is presented with the promise of financial gain, this is infinitely better for both the Middle East and the Western world.

Back in the day, Gadaffi had a deal with Silvio Berlusconi of Italy. Gadaffi stopped the refugees from getting on the boats, Berlusconi made it worth his while. Had Gadaffi remained in place, I am willing to bet there would not have been a refugee crisis. But we (America, France, UK) think "democracy" is the be all, end all. It isn't. These are countries where tribal loyalties are everything, and the need for strong leadership is practically ingrained in these people's DNA. The sheikh or village elder who would settle disputes is what works for them.

They crave strong leadership. The ones who demonstrate are either religious fanatics or university students who want freedom of speech. The silent majority is fine with the status quo, even if the status quo means being ruled by crooks, provided the crooks are somewhat capable of doing their jobs. The current crisis is a crisis of Europe's own making.

We have to get rid of the idea that the same systems that work for America and Europe, will work everywhere else in the world regardless of culture or religion. They don't.

This. So fucking much this.
It's hard for europeans or americans to accept, but a stable dictatorship is more desirable than an unstable democracy.
"We" think we can waltz into Iraq or Afghanistan, kill some asshole, hand out leaflets about freedom of speech and democracy and suddenly everyone just dances along to the tunes of western ideas. Fact is: Afghanistan was ruled by warlords for a reason. As already mentioned, these countries don't have much in the way of infrastructure. Local warlords often are the next best thing to a governmental structure. And like it or not, these people that kill innocents for kneeling the wrong way during prayer still are the same people that prevent the whole region from spiraling out of control.
Removing them creates a vacuum of power that is filled with even worse people.

Of course this is terrible, and of course this might change over time. But just superimposing western ideas and hoping they will bear fruit instantly is not going to work.

 

[*Asterisk*]

And then the Western world thinks it is their duty to remove these people, the countries becomes completely disorganized and everything goes to shit. Then they hold elections, and a Muslim Brotherhood like party wins making matters far worse. Now if you have a dictator who is at least mildly secular and open to reason when it is presented with the promise of financial gain, this is infinitely better for both the Middle East and the Western world.

Back in the day, Gadaffi had a deal with Silvio Berlusconi of Italy. Gadaffi stopped the refugees from getting on the boats, Berlusconi made it worth his while. Had Gadaffi remained in place, I am willing to bet there would not have been a refugee crisis. But we (America, France, UK) think "democracy" is the be all, end all. It isn't. These are countries where tribal loyalties are everything, and strong leadership is practically ingrained in these people's DNA.

They crave strong leadership. The ones who demonstrate are either religious fanatics or university students who want freedom of speech. The silent majority is fine with the status quo, even if the status quo means being ruled by crooks, provided the crooks are somewhat capable of doing their jobs. The current crisis is a crisis of Europe's own making.

We have to get rid of the idea that the same systems that work for America and Europe, will work everywhere else in the world regardless of culture or religion. They don't.

This is fantasy, cynical, and downright evil.

Supporting Ba'athists to stop Islamofascists is just as wrong and futile as supporting fascists to stop communists was. The only solution for the Mid-East is aggressively fought for and guarded liberal secularism which actually respects the values of human rights. The freedom of speech, freedom of religion, the freedom of the press, the freedom to dissent, the right to due process and a fair trial, the right to privacy, and all the other things that make American life worth living.

The Mid-East has tried for decades to sacrifice the above to protect against Islamism, and it has failed every time. Let that shit be on your head, Satan.

 

[Male Idiot]

1) This attack wasn't done by refugees. Full stop.
2) Apparently, one of the attackers was a woman.
3) You don't see any major attacks in eastern europe. Fine. Do you see any in Germany, Sweden or Austria?

Eastern Europe is a transit zone. They don't want to be there. Most of the refugees that went through it were very muscled young men, actual families are around 10% of the migrating people. I saw that with my own eyes, and you don't want to know how they eyed the local women.

Germany and Sweden had trouble recently too. Rape in Germany, and a priest was almost beheaded in Sweden.

Please, if you don't live in Europe and see things with your eyes, don't make any binding statements, for you only have second hand information that your media has filtered for you. I'm sorry if I offended you.

My deepest condolescences to all those affected by the cowardly attack in Paris.

This is fantasy, cynical, and downright evil.

Supporting Ba'athists to stop Islamofascists is just as wrong and futile as supporting fascists to stop communists was. The only solution for the Mid-East is aggressively fought for and guarded liberal secularism which actually respects the values of human rights. The freedom of speech, freedom of religion, the freedom of the press, the freedom to dissent, the right to due process and a fair trial, the right to privacy, and all the other things that make American life worth living.

The Mid-East has tried for decades to sacrifice the above to protect against Islamism, and it has failed every time. Let that shit be on your head, Satan.

You can't force liberal secularism on a people who are so deeply culturally opposed to it, it just won't work. It is you who are a little bit too optimistic.

 

[RV 229]

The biggest problem of Islam right now is its lack of "head" or organisation. Literally any imam could preach whatever he wants and there's nobody who could really step and say "this is not the way" like the pope and question its dogma. Hell if anything if there's a head of organisation it'd be in Saudi Arabia and those guys are FAR from the friendliest.

What would a pope-like figure actually accomplish? The only religion I can think of that has anything like that is the Catholics, and even then the pope holds no water for protestant christians. And yet, you don't see too many terrorists shouting "Praise Jesus" before killing people these days.

Nah, the problem is that they come from countries that let their religion get out of hand, and didn't nip faith-based killings in the bud.

 

[AN/ALR56]

1) This attack wasn't done by refugees.
2)apparently one of the attackers was a woman.
3)
You don't see any major attacks in eastern europe. Fine. Do you see any in Germany, Sweden or Austria?


.

1. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...assport-body-suicide-bomber-Stade-France.html
   
2. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...st-minister-warns-david-cameron-10501249.html
   
3. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Stockholm_bombings

http://gatesofvienna.net/2015/10/austrians-are-buying-guns/
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...rs-massive-influx-migrants-dealers-claim.html

http://www.jewishpress.com/news/bre...to-attack-swedish-school-children/2015/10/22/

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...-dead-after-Berlin-attack-on-policewoman.html

 

[*Asterisk*]

You can't force liberal secularism on a people who are so deeply culturally opposed to it, it just won't work. It is you who are a little bit too optimistic.

We did just that to Germany, Italy, and Japan, and they were many times more powerful than these Islamofascist fucks.

 

[Lorento]

The Mid-East has tried for decades to sacrifice the above to protect against Islamism, and it has failed every time. Let that shit be on your head, Satan.

I shall throw in my own two cents on this matter, though it will likely be rambling bullshit.

To impose a political system upon a country almost always fails, I'm afraid. We imposed democracy in Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as effectively winning the Libyan war against Gaddafi. Look at what it turned into. Afghanistan requires US aid to keep it's democracy alive (Though it has been the most successful of our Middle Eastern adventures) Iraq quickly tumbled into revolt the moment we left and Libya exists in name only.

Don't get me wrong, Assad, Gaddafi and Saddam are and were terrible people. Some of them were put in power by the colonial powers to prevent the spread of communism or to secure oil (UK slowly raises a shamed hand). But invading and then forcing our values on them is not going to make anyone happy, it merely leads to those who will not accept it to take up arms and fight. Arguably the only country to come out of the Arab Spring well was Tunisia, which had no outside interference from the West. Egypt has also remained relatively stable, though its democracy was crushed somewhat by the military.

This is not an Arab thing, this has happened constantly throughout history. The Peloponnesian War ended with Sparta crushing Athenian democracy and imposing the Thirty Tyrants on them. Within a few years Athens deposed them and the democracy had returned. World War One, Germany was defeated and had a democracy forced upon it. The result, Germany became fractured and filled with extremists, similar to any country in civil strife today.

I'm confident that in time democracy will flourish throughout the Islamic world. ISIS is one last attempt by the reactionaries to turn back the inevitable flow towards secularism that democracy will bring and it cannot win, not with so many rejecting its hateful ideals.

 

[Strelok]

We did just that to Germany, Italy, and Japan, and they were many times more powerful than these Islamofascist fucks.

All of which were countries with functioning infrastructure, lack of cultural warlordism, and history of intact government control. None of that exists in the Middle East. You can't sprinkle magic America dust on the middle east and all of a sudden happy, fun loving peaceful people will emerge. The region is completely and utterly fucked. And we've proven time and time again any attempt to rebuild the region is wasted effort. You think you can get terrorists to sign a fucking treaty like the ww2 governments and lay down arms, and turn around and assist you in building a democracy? Becuase that's what's needed for such a plan to work, and it ain't gonna fucking happen.

 

[AnOminous]

You can't force liberal secularism on a people who are so deeply culturally opposed to it, it just won't work. It is you who are a little bit too optimistic.

Kemal Ataturk did it.

 

[Zarkov]

The region is completely and utterly fucked.

I think that's going a bit too far, but I do agree that there's a massive culture clash and that superimposing our society on these countries is pointless. I know it sounds selfish, but these people fare better under warlords anyway. It's been said before, they crave strong leaderships. While putting a tyrant in charge and agreeing to look the other way as long as he keeps the terrorists in check sounds pretty horrible, it's a solution that works.

 

[Male Idiot]

Kemal Ataturk did it.

He did manage it. He is famous for it, and Turkey have always been one of the more secular states. But Turkey did not have the same level of fanaticism in his time either, and the conditions in Turkey were better to begin with, thus the population had less reason to be rowdy. Turkey has also suffered under terrorist attack recently.

 

[kuniqs]

Maybe if various do-gooders stopped 'helping' Middle East by arming 'rebels' in Libya & Syria or putting a 10 year embargo on Iraq after the Gulf War, those people could solve their problems on their own?

 

[Linako 2.0]

Why don't we just form a new crusade, and we expand La Reconquista to all the Islams?

 

[JU 199]

They should allow only women and children to enter

Then what's stopping ISIS from training women and children?

males should be rounded up and investigated before being cleared to enter,sounds harsh,but I don't see any other way to end this.

That plan (checking everyone before they cross) Could have been a possibility if the west didn't ignore the initial surge a few years back. Some pre-coordination of resources and infrastructure could have used for mass processing. We really shouldn't have ignored it.

1) This attack wasn't done by refugees. Full stop.

Apparently one of them was.

 

[millais]

For all his disgusting war crimes and flagrant human rights violations, Bashar is no Gaddafi. He doesn't send terrorists to the West under the cover of diplomatic immunity to murder Westerners. He fights Islamist extremists in his own backyard for years in spite of international pariah status. It's time for USA and Europe to start supporting the Syrian faction best poised to eliminate the Wahabbist Sunni Caliphate and stop sending guns and training to useless FSA that will be captured and co-opted by ISIS or Al-Nusra anyway.

 

[Linako 2.0]

It's time for USA to start supporting the Syrian faction

We can't do anything until they Attack US soil. if we just declared war that will just mean we've forgotten the ways of neutrality like America once was.

 

[Android raptor]

1) This attack wasn't done by refugees. Full stop.
2) Apparently, one of the attackers was a woman.
3) You don't see any major attacks in eastern europe. Fine. Do you see any in Germany, Sweden or Austria?


This. So fucking much this.
It's hard for europeans or americans to accept, but a stable dictatorship is more desirable than an unstable democracy.
"We" think we can waltz into Iraq or Afghanistan, kill some asshole, hand out leaflets about freedom of speech and democracy and suddenly everyone just dances along to the tunes of western ideas. Fact is: Afghanistan was ruled by warlords for a reason. As already mentioned, these countries don't have much in the way of infrastructure. Local warlords often are the next best thing to a governmental structure. And like it or not, these people that kill innocents for kneeling the wrong way during prayer still are the same people that prevent the whole region from spiraling out of control.
Removing them creates a vacuum of power that is filled with even worse people.

Of course this is terrible, and of course this might change over time. But just superimposing western ideas and hoping they will bear fruit instantly is not going to work.

I know someone once told me that Russians and other cultures in that general area of the world tend to prefer stability to personal liberty. So it makes sense why people would support radical assholes despite them being awful, because at least they're promising them some form of stable government.

As for why people become suicide bombers, etc, someone else explained to me that a lot of these people basically have nothing to loose, the way they see it. Their lives have sucked, and they've been lead to the belief that if they pull this shit they can at least have a happy afterlife. It doesn't make it right, just that shits a bit more complex than the evil mooslims hate freedom just cause.

I don't know shit about history, but I guarenfuckingtee a huge chunk of middle East problems originate in the decline and fall of the Ottoman empire and the resulting scrambles to fill power vaccums and shit, since that all went down relatively recently in history. Plus, of course, imperialistic dickey the US and other western superpowers have been doing in the region for the last century.

 

[millais]

We can't do anything until they Attack US soil. if we just declared war that will just mean we've forgotten the ways of neutrality like America once was.

USA's Congress hasn't issued a proper declaration of war since 1941. Courtesy of the War Powers Resolution law, USA President can commit military forces overseas so long as he gives the Congress 48 hours notice. From that point on, USA President technically can only keep the military forces in the field for 60 days, but in practice, he just keeps indefinitely extending it by 30 day intervals for as long as he likes.

And I'm not saying USA should send ground troops to Syria to prop up Bashar. They just need to start supporting the side that has the best chance to defeat IS in detail with arms, humanitarian/military aid, and diplomatic backing.