I have to ask, and please excuse my ignorance here, but what are we supposed to do?
If men, armed with guns and explosives, kill scores of civilians and injure hundreds more in the name of a particular ideology what are we supposed to actually do? When I hear the thought that "responding with knee-jerk Islamophobia" is exactly what they want it begs the question: should we do nothing? Any response is going to be deemed Islamophobic because the response is going to single out Muslims. Is that really a crazy thing though? The shooters sure weren't Shinto.
If we do literally nothing then what? We wait for another deadly, and possibly more spectacular attack. Are we supposed to do nothing then too? At what point are we supposed to act? I feel very torn on this because I have at times thought that as crazy as some may be Islamist extremists sometimes have a point about Western interference in the Middle East. However, I cannot get behind the idea that when they gun down civilians at restaurants and concerts that the response should be anything but severe.
I also take issue with people who label Western aggression in response to terrorism "Islamophobic." We in the West are not the ones making it about Islam. The terrorists are. They are the ones showing up with guns screaming about their God. They are the ones using their religion to recruit and justify their actions. And so when governments go after them then YES, they are going after Muslims. That is the bed they made and unfortunately we all have to sleep in it.
How about first stopping with what we know makes things worse - NOT provoking them by for example interfering the way CIA have staged coups for decades, causing internal animosity, bombing carelessly (see the US bomb that hit Doctors Without Borders recently), etc...
All these countries are being careless and heavy handed, and the origins of most of the high profile terrorists of today can be traced back to actions taken by western countries. So many rebel groups armed by western agencies later turned into terrorists and guerillas once the agencies left, so many times, over and over. So many aided coup makers just defected and kept their power for themselves.
The most effective way to get rid of terrorists is to take away their recruitment base, by not giving people more reasons to attack. Yes, it will take long until all the current terrorists are gone. But the current methods are only making things worse.
1. Take their arguments away from them. Stop invading countries trying to bring democracy, ultimately making things worse. Stop torturing and so on.
2. Take their people away from them. Like other forms of extremists, they need young male identiy-seeking misfits, who have nothing going on for them and want easy answers, somebody who gives them orders and to be part of something bigger.
3. Prosecute them like other criminals, too (with police forces).
It's about avoiding useless acts of anger. Why hating peaceful population of a certain faith ? what will this do ? I just saw a documentary about day to day "life" in Iraq, these people are just like me and you, victims. Victims of what ? that's the question. Some are fanatics, some are clinical psychopath that want to kill, some are gullible lost souls believing in evil/good and rallying ISIS thinking it's the good (lots of westerners), etc etc Now include the hidden political ties behind all this, because we ~know all States have helped to trigger the fever since the last 40 years (ISIS gets money selling oil, who buys it ? weapons from other States, including past help from westerners, who keeps helping them growing aggression power ?). Now answer this ? what is "the" cause ? how to stop it without creating more problems ?
So far nobody really knows, nobody talks about viable solutions except typical PR/Medias speeches. It seems a really nasty mess involving lots of nations, populations, ethnic and religious groups.
> If men, armed with guns and explosives, kill scores of civilians and injure hundreds more in the name of a particular ideology what are we supposed to actually do?
Like an invading army?
Reminds of the Iraqi expat I met, who made a burger for me. He asked where I came from; I'm from the US. He clenched as he quietly strangled out how Bush crushed Iraq.
Always bizarre to see how oblivious "my people" and our sympathizers are, like the racist, cartoonish "Islamist" in our heads. We're fundamentalists indoctrinated in state ideologies like capitalism and imperialism. I mean, what do people think it'd be like if the reigning global superpower (let's pretend China) sent legions of uniformed killers, bombs and drones across the world at us?
(Come to think of it, a common theme in literature where catastrophe ends the US government, is fascist militias carving up the country... No surprise where ISIS came from.)
One rational response is that we know plenty of terrorist plots are foiled by intelligence agencies and police, so giving them more resources to act could be a logical thing to do. Similarly, improving communication between agencies and between countries might be helpful.
Most of that would not be publicly noticeable, so to the general public it might seem like "nothing is being done." But that wouldn't be the case.
What might not be rational is to change public policies, like foreign policy or domestic policy or immigration policy. Those might serve the role of theater, making the public feel that something is being done. But you also run the risk of being led along by the terrorists - the attacks might have been a provocation intended to elicit that response (do they want France to stop attacking them in Syria? Or to attack them more so they can more easily radicalize their followers? who knows). Instead, if we react rationally, it doesn't matter what they intended.
Follow the money. It might be uncomfortable to find out that much of it originates at home but would it be all that surprising? Money is our god and the West continually turns a blind eye when we can also turn a profit.
Violence is like a terminal virus, propagating it doesn't bring a cure, it just ruins more peoples lives.
Nothing so far that wouldn't compromise principles modern society lies on.
If people who do these acts have a mindset that they have nothing to lose and that their activities are righteous, then you have to think in a way that would undermine either their belief in that or put their activities at causing them more harm then their own life. KGB did something along those lines, where when soviet officials were abducted. What KGB did was effective, but it is not compatible with modern western society: http://articles.latimes.com/1986-01-07/news/mn-13892_1_sovie... Could you imagine a modern country like France abducting and mutilating and executing all of relatives of attackers? I cannot. I can imagine Russia doing so, or even Mossad. Not France.
Personally, I do not think either way is a way forward. I'm jus answering your question - what can we do? There were several approaches, of which KGB's one was proven to be effective.
> I also take issue with people who label Western aggression in response to terrorism "Islamophobic." We in the West are not the ones making it about Islam. The terrorists are. They are the ones showing up with guns screaming about their God. They are the ones using their religion to recruit and justify their actions. And so when governments go after them then YES, they are going after Muslims. That is the bed they made and unfortunately we all have to sleep in it.
However, our anti-terrorist policies almost always seem to wind up targeting innocent Islamic people (and people who look like they might be Islamic).
The very best response imo - not that this will ever happen, France just bombed Raqqa - is to do absolutely nothing. To deny them a platform and to very quietly concentrate on the ringleaders and the process of radicalization. This will take a lot more guts than what we collectively have because it would certainly lead to more attacks as the counterparty gets more and more desperate why their ploy isn't working but the Achilles heel of ISIS as far as I can see is their ability to recruit. If they are judged to be unable to move the needle in any meaningful way (either negative or positive) then they will lose. On another note, kick out each and every Imam that preaches hate to their flock rather than compassion and balance. Those guys are definitely part of the problem and they should not be aided and abetted because they are effectively part of the recruitment arm of ISIS. On a more positive note, this seems to be changing and these characters seem to be much less welcome than they were in the past. Yet another note: joining ISIS by westerners should be a one-way ticket, once radicalized and gone to fight there there is no way back. This would require quite a bit of legal hassle.
If IS takes the pain to fund and coordinate something like this, it is surely because they want to obtain something. If the attack would not change status quo in any way, there would be no reason to invest time and resources in carrying it out.
According to those Western scholars who study IS ideology, it is clear that they adhere to an apocalyptic interpretation of islam where they envisage some kind of final battle against "the armies of Rome".
Whether the attack was intended to serve a strategic or ideologic purpose, or just to make a point, it is clear that the last thing they want is for it to change nothing.
So, in a purely rational world, the best reaction would be to change nothing. Not scale up military presence in Syria, certainly not scale it down, not change any policy, keep on carrying out business as usual, and on the emotional level, mourn, but not fear. Of course, we do not live in a purely rational world, so whether this route is even possible to follow, I don't know. But I really believe that if we were able to react (or rather non-react) in this way, it would be the very least the attackers wanted. It would reduce their "heroic deed" to just the meaningless slaugher that it was.
As a semi-analogy: After the right-wing extremist Anders Breivik killed some eighty people at a youth camp a few years ago, the Norwegian government more or less handled him as a regular criminal (albeit a high-profile one). Now he spends his day alone in a prison cell, occasionally whining in the media about not having the latest X-Box or something similar, pretty much revealing to everyone with a working brain what a small character he truly is. If he had been executed (not possible in Norway, I know....) he could surely have ended up being seen as a martyr by some.
> If men, armed with guns and explosives, kill scores of civilians and injure hundreds more in the name of a particular ideology what are we supposed to actually do?
What we're supposed to do is distinguish them from non-violent people claiming the same named ideology and focus response and condemnation on the murderers, not the community claiming the ideology that the terrorists are trying to target and recruit from with the idea that an apocalyptic existential struggle is in progress between the named ideology and the rest of the world.
Because when you do conflate the terrorists with the named ideology that hundreds of millions of people who aren't terrorists claim and target your response against that community rather than distinguishing the terrorists from that community and targeting the terrorists, you validate the terrorist propaganda, and make the people that the terrorists want to be your enemies into your enemies.
The west only needs to dump their old good friend, the Saudis. This corrupted family morally and financially support and endorse extreme and barbaric version of Islam, Salafism.
But unfortunately, economics (e.g. massive sales of arms) and geopolitics don't allow the west to do the right thing!
To myself, a good start would be to ask what the social and economic costs of allowing 5 million Muslims into France has been?
As far as I've been able to uncover, when you put all the politically-correct rederick away, the driver of this has been the fact that Europeans have not been having enough children to economically replace and support all the people that are now retiring... Basically, there needs to be more tax-payers to cover everything and to balance the books.
So is this working out?
Are Muslims as a group embracing European values and becoming individuals / or are they maintaining their group and forming a parallel society, which is largely unskilled, xenophobic, closed-minded, and predominantly seeks welfare from the state?
Considering that the Muslim population in France (and other European countries) overall negatively impacts every single metric of social-ills, and with a grim European economic outlook (manual labor is no longer needed, gainful employment requires skills, those jobs are few, etc), I think that whatever this is, it has failed.
The first step to the solution is to drop the white-guilt act and call a spade a spade. This will open the door to actual debate instead of shutting it down with words like "racist" and "bigot" for simply not being politically-correct.
The second step is to stop importing "other cultures" into Europe. The human race has been based on groups/collectives since its inception, with each group producing, collecting, and evolving individuals of similar attributes and behaviors. Put two groups together that are too different, you'll likely get violence.
The third step is trying out a program similar to Sweden's to try to integrate the existing Muslim population with special targeted resources. But only to a point - not ongoing forever. And designed to grow European values, not to preserve or maintain a parallel society.
The forth step is likely some type of a guaranteed minimum income based on negative income tax across the entire EU system (as proposed by Milton Friedman).
How about we put the terrorists we can find in jail (after a fair trial), help the refugees who flee the conflict zone and convince the various "powers" covertly involved in the conflict to stop putting more fuel on the fire?
We can have greater involvement in the war in Syria, or we can have less. Either way we have to deal with the consequences. But right now we are in a war with Isis and navel gazing about religiosity is hardly going to help.
The key thing to understand is that ISIS is first and foremost a criminal and terrorist organization, not a religious group. They use religion (or rather a perverted interpretation of it) to construct a unifying framework, a story for its members, something that they use to silence their members' potential critical thinking.
Don't think for one second that the higher-ups in ISIS and the ones who planned this recent attack are religious people or drink their own ideology kool-aid. ISIS leaders are criminals and do whatever it takes to advance their "careers".
(N.B.: I am not saying that use of force againt ISIS or other terrorist organizations should not be used - I am only suggesting something to do _in addition_ to a military/intelligence program to target the threat)
Firstly you stop using the words like Muslim and terrorist together, the word terrorist is pretty much self-explanatory
noun (plural terrorists)
A person, group, or organization that uses violent action, or the threat of violent action, to further political goals. See not religious," political" goals.
Same with islamophobia, these words are overused on the internet without people understanding them like the word inception(most people on the internet think it means a thing within a thing within a thing, its not that's recursion) also like hashtag#, people started using hashtag everywhere, without knowing it's use.
Second of all you can learn a little about different religions , but search using keywords like "is Islam a religion of Peace", " what are the basic teachings of Islam" do not start by searching " is the prophet of Islam a pedophile" the keywords you use directly impact the results. So always look for legitimate information.
Next you can learn a little about psychology and learn why people do what they do. Now I'm not a expert on psychology, all I know about psychology comes from American TV shows(like criminal minds, law and order etc), one can question their accuracy and methods but its hard to miss the point. People do henious crimes coz of certain things that can scientifically explained. Regarding our current situation you can look into how Cults are formed and their inner working and ideology. A cult leader is some with leadership qualities, has brainwashing skills, Is very charming and motivational. The leaders just brainwash psycopaths, orphans, impressionable kids.
Osama bin laden never wore a suicide west, he just coordinated and planned the attacks, his followers follow him blindly and there are reasons for that, well documented and researchered for you to read. Do you think that ISIS leaders actually go to ground zero to fight ?? They probably sit inside bunkers surrounded by all the things "haram" in Islam.
Next thing you can do is start questioning...
Question how such a remote and cut off place is getting hi-tech western guns and ammunitions.
How are these guys getting funded.
How come Afghanistan is the largest producer of heroin, how they can snuggle heroin in US(biggest consumer of heroin) without the help of americans.
Then you can ask why do these terrorist plan for years to coordinate something like 9/11 when they can burn oil wells in their own country and actually cripple western countries in a matter of days.
Don't sleep on it, educate yourself on how modern society works , how money and power are so important and root cause of all evil.
Not religion, Islam was founded in the middle East to fight evil like all other religions.
All religions are practically the same ..they all preach the same things with minute differces.
Just educate yourself more on current world affairs and remember there's nothing wrong with any religion or country.
It's all political propaganda for power and money.
Every such act is based on profit of the cult group and for the people funding them.
You can also help human beings who are suffering, its the best thing you can do, help anyone and everyone it's the only things in your control , for things out of your control you cannot do anything, but you can always educate yourself and fight ignorance.
PS:English is not my first language.
PS:I'm a kid so please refrain from blunt/harsh comments.
ISIS attacked because their key financiers in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and elsewhere aren't dead yet. Western intelligence knows who many of these people are.
This is spot on. I can't fathom how people can still pretend that more of the terrible, stupid, catastrophic policy that has been practiced since 2001 could be the response.
ISIS is desperate. It needs a victory, a vivid show of force to bolster the morale of its supporters, attract new volunteers, and with luck, intimidate its foes. [...]
This is why the response to ISIS is such a critical matter. A knee-jerk Islamophobic response that accuses Islam of violence will help ISIS by alienating Muslims and reinforcing the notion that the Islamic world is under siege and needs to be defended. Similarly, policies that will restrict Syrian refugees—themselves victims of ISIS—will only enhance the anti-Muslim image of the West. And military action might make matters worse, much worse.
There are many points in this article with which I disagree. To treat an enemy as though it is not an enemy is folly. To suggest that violent ideology, dogma, and history have no bearing on the actions of individuals that adhere to that ideology/dogma, and then claim that somehow we (assuming the Western world) have more control over the responses of the Islamic world is foolishness.
First we must ask who is our enemy? My enemy is anyone who uses violence as a tool to gain power. I am not represented by the military actions of Western governments. When I see the Muslim hashtag #notinmyname I feel it applies to me too but in relation to all that has gone on in North Africa and the Middle East in recent times. When I see my cousin join the Marines to go fight in Afghanistan I see the same thing as what I see when I see young angry Islamic men shooting up a concert in Paris, that is misguided, brainwashed and exploited young men doing the bidding of power hungry assholes.
An off-topic aside: It's interesting watching the up/down votes on my post. As much as Hacker News likes to think of itself as self monitoring the substantiveness of comments, often times it degrades itself to simply trying to silence opposing opinions. How cheap. How little.
My comments might not bear much currency, but the contrarian article that I link is substantive even if you disagree with it. While I don't think you are obliged to upvote my comments if you disagree with them, to down vote them because you oppose me is to merely to attempt to silence discussion rather than ensure that it is a quality discussion.
I am not convinced ISIS is really the problem in Paris. It sure is the problem in the regions under its control in the middle east. But re Paris, it appears that all the terrorists identified so far were French (or from Belgium). In fact all the previous terrorist attempts in France were made by French nationals or residents. I hear people claiming it is still ISIS because they have been trained and armed by ISIS in Syria. That may be the case but they haven't gone to Syria to do some innocent tourism and came back terrorists. We are talking about home grown radicalised activists here. If there wouldn't be ISIS there would probably be another cause.
> In the case of the Paris attacks it appears to be ISIS’ own demoralized supporters and the French public who could easily be whipped up into enthusiasm for a military attack on ISIS
Er, France has carried a large number of airstrikes against ISIS targets already. If he means boots on the ground, I don't think that's going to happen unless restricted to a small number of spec ops personnel, which for all I know is already happening.
Fatal error: Allowed memory size of 67108864 bytes exhausted (tried to allocate 64 bytes) in /home/content/83/12119383/html/wp-includes/plugin.php on line 193
Nice. 60MiB of RAM needed to show a single article.
Now the Syrians dodging French bombs have turned around and bombed the French. News reports say the bombers contained Syrians, and ISIS's statement makes the reason very clear - about the French's "strikes against Muslims in the land of the Caliphate with their jets".
France's bullying and killing of Syrians didn't get much press...if it did it was celebrated. Of course, the corporate media doesn't mention at all that the French have been bombing the Syrians for a month - only that some Syrians finally retaliated.
Insofar as ISIS being beyond the pale and such...ho-hum...US and EU leaders were saying that about Syria's secular leader over the past few years, that he was a monster gassing his own people. They've been trying to undermine his government for the past years (thus helping cause this over and above the bombings).
It looks like the imperialist powers have finally found some people with the courage to bomb the bombers.
When Syria was a French colony, Syrians marched in the streets at the end of World War II in 1945 to show their desire for independence. The French army shot into the crowds (as they did in Algeria etc.)
That the French have been bombing the people who just bombed them is probably unknown to 99% of people, since the corporate press never mentions it. So anything I hear is just some Orwellian Two Minute Hate.
It's kind of like 9/11...it was never mentioned the US had military bases in their puppet dictatorship "Saudi" Arabia for over a decade. Never mentioned most Arabians wanted them gone. Never mentioned that the US had armed and sent Osama bin Laden to Afghanistan, to overthrow a secular government, and replace it with an Islamic one. Even among the educated classes, everything that happened in history disappeared, just some people came out of the blue and decided to start bombing their cities.
How uneducated do you have to be to equate ISIS with the Syrian people? Yes, the bombings are taking place in Syria, but they are targeting ISIS, whose fighters are in large parts non-Syrian foreigners (many of them from Europe). This is one of the reasons that, of all the insurgent groups in Syria, ISIS has the least support from the local population. From what we know right now, most of the Paris attackers were not from Syria, many of them were born and raised in Europe.
It's also not the case that people do not know the history. US support for Bin Laden's faction against the soviets in Afhghanistan is well known. The same is true for Saudi Arabia.
What is your point though, where's the connection to the current conflict? What should the West do? Sit back and let ISIS take over more and more uncontrolled territory?
I may be crazy, but it may have something to do with us waging a war on them. What are they supposed to do, take the bombings sitting down, and never retaliate?
What the Kurds ever did to provoke them ? The Yezidi ? The Shi'a ? The Iranians ? Iraqi Christians ? Assyrians ? Alawites ? Druze ? The Lebanese ? Even if I can sort-of understand that Israel, Turkey and Jordan did do a few attacks, it did not justify the response at all.
I'm really struggling to see what's wrong with that …
Priority number one should be to find those responsible and put them on trial. The second priority (connected to the first one – the organizers are probably still posing some danger) should be excellent police work aimed at preventing attacks like this in the future (with the knowledge that absolute security will be impossible and as such any kind of anything goes surveillance would be a bad idea).
Looking at the wider context ending the conflict in Syria and Iraq should also be a goal, obviously, but that is not as simple as war, certainly not. That's and always will be a delicate operation, full of pitfalls and with no easy victories. I don't think you will be able to achieve anything there if you just view it as a war against Daesh.
Show the western intellectual tradition as superior. Once again become the beacon of civil liberties, human rights, and democracy. Most importantly, provide safe space for apostates.
Fatal error: Allowed memory size of 67108864 bytes exhausted (tried to allocate 261900 bytes) in /home/content/83/12119383/html/wp-includes/plugin.php on line 1247
[+] [-] dopamean|10 years ago|reply
If men, armed with guns and explosives, kill scores of civilians and injure hundreds more in the name of a particular ideology what are we supposed to actually do? When I hear the thought that "responding with knee-jerk Islamophobia" is exactly what they want it begs the question: should we do nothing? Any response is going to be deemed Islamophobic because the response is going to single out Muslims. Is that really a crazy thing though? The shooters sure weren't Shinto.
If we do literally nothing then what? We wait for another deadly, and possibly more spectacular attack. Are we supposed to do nothing then too? At what point are we supposed to act? I feel very torn on this because I have at times thought that as crazy as some may be Islamist extremists sometimes have a point about Western interference in the Middle East. However, I cannot get behind the idea that when they gun down civilians at restaurants and concerts that the response should be anything but severe.
I also take issue with people who label Western aggression in response to terrorism "Islamophobic." We in the West are not the ones making it about Islam. The terrorists are. They are the ones showing up with guns screaming about their God. They are the ones using their religion to recruit and justify their actions. And so when governments go after them then YES, they are going after Muslims. That is the bed they made and unfortunately we all have to sleep in it.
[+] [-] Natanael_L|10 years ago|reply
All these countries are being careless and heavy handed, and the origins of most of the high profile terrorists of today can be traced back to actions taken by western countries. So many rebel groups armed by western agencies later turned into terrorists and guerillas once the agencies left, so many times, over and over. So many aided coup makers just defected and kept their power for themselves.
The most effective way to get rid of terrorists is to take away their recruitment base, by not giving people more reasons to attack. Yes, it will take long until all the current terrorists are gone. But the current methods are only making things worse.
[+] [-] allendoerfer|10 years ago|reply
2. Take their people away from them. Like other forms of extremists, they need young male identiy-seeking misfits, who have nothing going on for them and want easy answers, somebody who gives them orders and to be part of something bigger.
3. Prosecute them like other criminals, too (with police forces).
[+] [-] agumonkey|10 years ago|reply
So far nobody really knows, nobody talks about viable solutions except typical PR/Medias speeches. It seems a really nasty mess involving lots of nations, populations, ethnic and religious groups.
[+] [-] calibraxis|10 years ago|reply
Like an invading army?
Reminds of the Iraqi expat I met, who made a burger for me. He asked where I came from; I'm from the US. He clenched as he quietly strangled out how Bush crushed Iraq.
Always bizarre to see how oblivious "my people" and our sympathizers are, like the racist, cartoonish "Islamist" in our heads. We're fundamentalists indoctrinated in state ideologies like capitalism and imperialism. I mean, what do people think it'd be like if the reigning global superpower (let's pretend China) sent legions of uniformed killers, bombs and drones across the world at us?
(Come to think of it, a common theme in literature where catastrophe ends the US government, is fascist militias carving up the country... No surprise where ISIS came from.)
[+] [-] azakai|10 years ago|reply
One rational response is that we know plenty of terrorist plots are foiled by intelligence agencies and police, so giving them more resources to act could be a logical thing to do. Similarly, improving communication between agencies and between countries might be helpful.
Most of that would not be publicly noticeable, so to the general public it might seem like "nothing is being done." But that wouldn't be the case.
What might not be rational is to change public policies, like foreign policy or domestic policy or immigration policy. Those might serve the role of theater, making the public feel that something is being done. But you also run the risk of being led along by the terrorists - the attacks might have been a provocation intended to elicit that response (do they want France to stop attacking them in Syria? Or to attack them more so they can more easily radicalize their followers? who knows). Instead, if we react rationally, it doesn't matter what they intended.
[+] [-] mjklin|10 years ago|reply
http://www.theonion.com/article/crazed-palestinian-gunman-an...
[+] [-] rorykoehler|10 years ago|reply
Violence is like a terminal virus, propagating it doesn't bring a cure, it just ruins more peoples lives.
[+] [-] Keyframe|10 years ago|reply
If people who do these acts have a mindset that they have nothing to lose and that their activities are righteous, then you have to think in a way that would undermine either their belief in that or put their activities at causing them more harm then their own life. KGB did something along those lines, where when soviet officials were abducted. What KGB did was effective, but it is not compatible with modern western society: http://articles.latimes.com/1986-01-07/news/mn-13892_1_sovie... Could you imagine a modern country like France abducting and mutilating and executing all of relatives of attackers? I cannot. I can imagine Russia doing so, or even Mossad. Not France.
Personally, I do not think either way is a way forward. I'm jus answering your question - what can we do? There were several approaches, of which KGB's one was proven to be effective.
[+] [-] PhasmaFelis|10 years ago|reply
However, our anti-terrorist policies almost always seem to wind up targeting innocent Islamic people (and people who look like they might be Islamic).
[+] [-] jacquesm|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Klapaucius|10 years ago|reply
According to those Western scholars who study IS ideology, it is clear that they adhere to an apocalyptic interpretation of islam where they envisage some kind of final battle against "the armies of Rome".
Whether the attack was intended to serve a strategic or ideologic purpose, or just to make a point, it is clear that the last thing they want is for it to change nothing.
So, in a purely rational world, the best reaction would be to change nothing. Not scale up military presence in Syria, certainly not scale it down, not change any policy, keep on carrying out business as usual, and on the emotional level, mourn, but not fear. Of course, we do not live in a purely rational world, so whether this route is even possible to follow, I don't know. But I really believe that if we were able to react (or rather non-react) in this way, it would be the very least the attackers wanted. It would reduce their "heroic deed" to just the meaningless slaugher that it was.
As a semi-analogy: After the right-wing extremist Anders Breivik killed some eighty people at a youth camp a few years ago, the Norwegian government more or less handled him as a regular criminal (albeit a high-profile one). Now he spends his day alone in a prison cell, occasionally whining in the media about not having the latest X-Box or something similar, pretty much revealing to everyone with a working brain what a small character he truly is. If he had been executed (not possible in Norway, I know....) he could surely have ended up being seen as a martyr by some.
[+] [-] dragonwriter|10 years ago|reply
What we're supposed to do is distinguish them from non-violent people claiming the same named ideology and focus response and condemnation on the murderers, not the community claiming the ideology that the terrorists are trying to target and recruit from with the idea that an apocalyptic existential struggle is in progress between the named ideology and the rest of the world.
Because when you do conflate the terrorists with the named ideology that hundreds of millions of people who aren't terrorists claim and target your response against that community rather than distinguishing the terrorists from that community and targeting the terrorists, you validate the terrorist propaganda, and make the people that the terrorists want to be your enemies into your enemies.
[+] [-] mpoloton|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] powertower|10 years ago|reply
As far as I've been able to uncover, when you put all the politically-correct rederick away, the driver of this has been the fact that Europeans have not been having enough children to economically replace and support all the people that are now retiring... Basically, there needs to be more tax-payers to cover everything and to balance the books.
So is this working out?
Are Muslims as a group embracing European values and becoming individuals / or are they maintaining their group and forming a parallel society, which is largely unskilled, xenophobic, closed-minded, and predominantly seeks welfare from the state?
Considering that the Muslim population in France (and other European countries) overall negatively impacts every single metric of social-ills, and with a grim European economic outlook (manual labor is no longer needed, gainful employment requires skills, those jobs are few, etc), I think that whatever this is, it has failed.
The first step to the solution is to drop the white-guilt act and call a spade a spade. This will open the door to actual debate instead of shutting it down with words like "racist" and "bigot" for simply not being politically-correct.
The second step is to stop importing "other cultures" into Europe. The human race has been based on groups/collectives since its inception, with each group producing, collecting, and evolving individuals of similar attributes and behaviors. Put two groups together that are too different, you'll likely get violence.
The third step is trying out a program similar to Sweden's to try to integrate the existing Muslim population with special targeted resources. But only to a point - not ongoing forever. And designed to grow European values, not to preserve or maintain a parallel society.
The forth step is likely some type of a guaranteed minimum income based on negative income tax across the entire EU system (as proposed by Milton Friedman).
[+] [-] m_eiman|10 years ago|reply
How about we put the terrorists we can find in jail (after a fair trial), help the refugees who flee the conflict zone and convince the various "powers" covertly involved in the conflict to stop putting more fuel on the fire?
[+] [-] 7952|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rsp1984|10 years ago|reply
Don't think for one second that the higher-ups in ISIS and the ones who planned this recent attack are religious people or drink their own ideology kool-aid. ISIS leaders are criminals and do whatever it takes to advance their "careers".
[+] [-] Pamar|10 years ago|reply
(N.B.: I am not saying that use of force againt ISIS or other terrorist organizations should not be used - I am only suggesting something to do _in addition_ to a military/intelligence program to target the threat)
[+] [-] unknown|10 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] Mr_Robot183|10 years ago|reply
Firstly you stop using the words like Muslim and terrorist together, the word terrorist is pretty much self-explanatory noun (plural terrorists) A person, group, or organization that uses violent action, or the threat of violent action, to further political goals. See not religious," political" goals. Same with islamophobia, these words are overused on the internet without people understanding them like the word inception(most people on the internet think it means a thing within a thing within a thing, its not that's recursion) also like hashtag#, people started using hashtag everywhere, without knowing it's use.
Second of all you can learn a little about different religions , but search using keywords like "is Islam a religion of Peace", " what are the basic teachings of Islam" do not start by searching " is the prophet of Islam a pedophile" the keywords you use directly impact the results. So always look for legitimate information.
Next you can learn a little about psychology and learn why people do what they do. Now I'm not a expert on psychology, all I know about psychology comes from American TV shows(like criminal minds, law and order etc), one can question their accuracy and methods but its hard to miss the point. People do henious crimes coz of certain things that can scientifically explained. Regarding our current situation you can look into how Cults are formed and their inner working and ideology. A cult leader is some with leadership qualities, has brainwashing skills, Is very charming and motivational. The leaders just brainwash psycopaths, orphans, impressionable kids. Osama bin laden never wore a suicide west, he just coordinated and planned the attacks, his followers follow him blindly and there are reasons for that, well documented and researchered for you to read. Do you think that ISIS leaders actually go to ground zero to fight ?? They probably sit inside bunkers surrounded by all the things "haram" in Islam.
Next thing you can do is start questioning... Question how such a remote and cut off place is getting hi-tech western guns and ammunitions. How are these guys getting funded. How come Afghanistan is the largest producer of heroin, how they can snuggle heroin in US(biggest consumer of heroin) without the help of americans. Then you can ask why do these terrorist plan for years to coordinate something like 9/11 when they can burn oil wells in their own country and actually cripple western countries in a matter of days.
Don't sleep on it, educate yourself on how modern society works , how money and power are so important and root cause of all evil. Not religion, Islam was founded in the middle East to fight evil like all other religions. All religions are practically the same ..they all preach the same things with minute differces.
Just educate yourself more on current world affairs and remember there's nothing wrong with any religion or country. It's all political propaganda for power and money. Every such act is based on profit of the cult group and for the people funding them.
You can also help human beings who are suffering, its the best thing you can do, help anyone and everyone it's the only things in your control , for things out of your control you cannot do anything, but you can always educate yourself and fight ignorance.
PS:English is not my first language. PS:I'm a kid so please refrain from blunt/harsh comments.
[+] [-] Mr_Robot183|10 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] rrggrr|10 years ago|reply
eg. http://www.treasury.gov/press-center/press-releases/Pages/jl...
The mosques where operations are financed, recruiting done and plans laid are still standing.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/terrorism-in-the-uk/1...
Terrorism viewed as overhead by some countries, encourages more of the same.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/08/italian-intelli...
I imagine much lip service will be paid and funds expended further analyzing and discussing the problem.
[+] [-] cm2187|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wazoox|10 years ago|reply
ISIS is desperate. It needs a victory, a vivid show of force to bolster the morale of its supporters, attract new volunteers, and with luck, intimidate its foes. [...]
This is why the response to ISIS is such a critical matter. A knee-jerk Islamophobic response that accuses Islam of violence will help ISIS by alienating Muslims and reinforcing the notion that the Islamic world is under siege and needs to be defended. Similarly, policies that will restrict Syrian refugees—themselves victims of ISIS—will only enhance the anti-Muslim image of the West. And military action might make matters worse, much worse.
[+] [-] sbuttgereit|10 years ago|reply
Ayaan Hirsi Ali has a much more informed perspective. https://foreignpolicy.com/2015/11/09/islam-is-a-religion-of-...
[+] [-] rorykoehler|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sbuttgereit|10 years ago|reply
My comments might not bear much currency, but the contrarian article that I link is substantive even if you disagree with it. While I don't think you are obliged to upvote my comments if you disagree with them, to down vote them because you oppose me is to merely to attempt to silence discussion rather than ensure that it is a quality discussion.
[+] [-] brimtown|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cm2187|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] maxxxxx|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] elthran|10 years ago|reply
I suspect not much - but part of me does wonder why they're the main EU country involved in the conflict.
[+] [-] mercurial|10 years ago|reply
Er, France has carried a large number of airstrikes against ISIS targets already. If he means boots on the ground, I don't think that's going to happen unless restricted to a small number of spec ops personnel, which for all I know is already happening.
[+] [-] MarcScott|10 years ago|reply
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://...
[+] [-] peterwaller|10 years ago|reply
I know, I know, RAM is cheap...
[+] [-] task_queue|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rythie|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] obrero|10 years ago|reply
Now the Syrians dodging French bombs have turned around and bombed the French. News reports say the bombers contained Syrians, and ISIS's statement makes the reason very clear - about the French's "strikes against Muslims in the land of the Caliphate with their jets".
France's bullying and killing of Syrians didn't get much press...if it did it was celebrated. Of course, the corporate media doesn't mention at all that the French have been bombing the Syrians for a month - only that some Syrians finally retaliated.
Insofar as ISIS being beyond the pale and such...ho-hum...US and EU leaders were saying that about Syria's secular leader over the past few years, that he was a monster gassing his own people. They've been trying to undermine his government for the past years (thus helping cause this over and above the bombings).
It looks like the imperialist powers have finally found some people with the courage to bomb the bombers.
When Syria was a French colony, Syrians marched in the streets at the end of World War II in 1945 to show their desire for independence. The French army shot into the crowds (as they did in Algeria etc.)
That the French have been bombing the people who just bombed them is probably unknown to 99% of people, since the corporate press never mentions it. So anything I hear is just some Orwellian Two Minute Hate.
It's kind of like 9/11...it was never mentioned the US had military bases in their puppet dictatorship "Saudi" Arabia for over a decade. Never mentioned most Arabians wanted them gone. Never mentioned that the US had armed and sent Osama bin Laden to Afghanistan, to overthrow a secular government, and replace it with an Islamic one. Even among the educated classes, everything that happened in history disappeared, just some people came out of the blue and decided to start bombing their cities.
[+] [-] acv20|10 years ago|reply
It's also not the case that people do not know the history. US support for Bin Laden's faction against the soviets in Afhghanistan is well known. The same is true for Saudi Arabia.
What is your point though, where's the connection to the current conflict? What should the West do? Sit back and let ISIS take over more and more uncontrolled territory?
[+] [-] rdancer|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] iofj|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] arrrg|10 years ago|reply
Priority number one should be to find those responsible and put them on trial. The second priority (connected to the first one – the organizers are probably still posing some danger) should be excellent police work aimed at preventing attacks like this in the future (with the knowledge that absolute security will be impossible and as such any kind of anything goes surveillance would be a bad idea).
Looking at the wider context ending the conflict in Syria and Iraq should also be a goal, obviously, but that is not as simple as war, certainly not. That's and always will be a delicate operation, full of pitfalls and with no easy victories. I don't think you will be able to achieve anything there if you just view it as a war against Daesh.
[+] [-] d--b|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] UhUhUhUh|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ranjeethacker|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rdancer|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] NKCSS|10 years ago|reply