That's from a CBS News article, "ISIS claims 'blessed invasion' of Paris." Obviously, "blessed invasion" is inflated propaganda from ISIS, but I want to question the characterizations we're seeing from our own politicians and journalists. I keep seeing expressions of respect for the sophistication of the Paris attacks, and I want to question it, because there is a temptation to say, when attacked, that the enemy must be very smart and strong and determined.
But was it really so difficult to send a bunch of men out all on the same day to hit soft targets — 4 restaurants, a concert hall, and a stadium? There are so many restaurants, completely unguarded and accessible, predictably full of people. Men with guns/explosives hit 4 restaurants in one city, not 100, not 1000.
The concert venue was another soft target, and the scene was chaotic. Many escaped. If the building were sealed up before anyone knew they were under attack, it would have been sophisticated, or if the entire building were demolished, killing everyone. But it was only men with guns rushing in, causing what damage they could, with (apparently) absolutely no plan for their own escape.
The stadium was the big target. The president, François Hollande, was in attendance. The attackers got nowhere near him. In fact, the attackers apparently scuttled whatever big plan they might have had, blowing themselves up at the gates. The huge crowd didn't even know there was an attack. Hollande slipped out and the crowd watched the game to the end.
What's scary isn't that the attacks are sophisticated, but how easy it is to hit a bunch of soft targets in one city, and how big a deal it is even when it's sloppily done and mostly unsuccessful. That's how it looks to me.
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Agree with the Professor (who is on quite the roll right now).
Meanwhile, from Reuters:
"The Obama administration is moving to increase and accelerate the number of Syrian refugees who might be admitted into the United States by opening new screening outposts in Iraq and Lebanon, administration officials told Reuters on Friday."
We are that confident that there is not ONE potential terrorist in this group?
Because otherwise there will be blood on Obama's hands.
Even the media will not be able to wash it away.
It takes just one.
I am Laslo.
John F Kennedy once said It's easy to kill me if the attacker doesn't care if he survives. That was 1962.
The difference now is that there are lots of potential attackers who don't care if they survive. The Paris terrorists has suicide belts on already.
I doubt they will attack Obama as he seems to be on their side, at least in spirit. Somebody here will get attacked, though.
The attacks were notable by their lack of sophistication yet success.
The press is mixing success with sophistication but the only planning appears to have been on timing.
The suicide bombers were amazingly unsuccessful considering they were in a packed arena.
Same for the restaurants.
And as disgusting as it may sound the bataclan death count was only as low as it was because they were just firing randomly in a crowd
I agree. The scariest thing though is the continuing failure of most of our political class, with the exception of the fringe, to even try to be serious and truthful.
I think you're missing the point. It wasn't that four targets are a lot or that the targets were well defended. It's that 20-30 French citizens and refugees moved around, cooked up the explosive, received smuggled assault rifles and plotted for weeks or months.
The sophistication was the operational security.
"how big a deal it is even when it's sloppily done and mostly unsuccessful."
The "big deal" is all the success they need.
This has to take some kind of award for chutzpah. Not "killing your parents and pleading for charity because you're an orphan", but more like "killing someone else's parents and offering to be sadz with them."
"Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany gave an emotional national address on Saturday pledging solidarity with the French government and people, and calling on all Europeans to stand together in defiance of an attack on the liberties the Continent represents.
“We, your German friends, we are so close with you,” said Ms. Merkel, dressed in black. “We are crying with you. Together with you, we will fight against those who have carried out such an unfathomable act against you.”
Gee, thanks, lady. Maybe if you hadn't let them in in the first place.
It takes effort and practice to coordinate the timing of the attacks to that degree.
If you thought the Paris attacks were easy, you can only imagine how easy it was to kidnap 200 children, lay them out on the ground, and then slaughter them as they pleaded and cried for mercy. Of course, those children weren't in Paris, so no one seems to have noticed. But, we probably will notice when it is our children. And unless someone in a position of leadership finds the balls to take the battle to the ISIS at its source, it will be our children eventually.
Certain aspect required very little coordination. Yes, how difficult can it be to synchronize iPhone clocks and agree to attack at certain locations.
The difficulty comes in training and long-term planning, i.e., developing the commitment within each attacker to carry out a suicide mission. You want the big splash that comes from multiple simultaneous attacks. You need to trust that everyone else really is going to do their job. That takes ideological indoctrination, constant discussions over tea, reassurances that their loved ones will be cares for, etc., and it could all come crashing down if there are doubts among the men and they start to peel off. It's not just about losing control of the operation. The dissidents have enormous leverage and could go to the police.
In other words, the execution was no great feat. But getting there was impressive.
"Even the media will not be able to wash it away."
Laslo,
You underestimate the capabilities of the media. We should be discussing its sophistication ability to cover for Democrats and get people to vote the way the media wants them to. They've already made Rev Wright, Libya, the abandonment of Iraq, and the increasing level of chaos in Afghanistan disappear. Terrorist acts by Syrian refugees will be child's play.
Well, let's talk about sophistication then. What do you mean by the term? Perhaps an invading army using the lastest tech and weapons? And if that is successful, is it sophisticated? If it is considered a failure is that unsophisticated? Perhaps several men armed with rifles, if successful IS sophisticated?
"Well-coordinated series of terrorist attacks by radical Muslims "
Let's not omit who is doing the attacking. There's a lot of appeasers and enablers who, although they grieve for France, are unable or unwilling to call out who the Terrorists are - radical Muslims.
Thank you Professor. An insightful and trenchant analysis.
This would never happen in Texas or Florida. Too many of these soft targets would be packing heat. The French attacks depended in part in the action of the French state in ensuring the intended victims would be disarmed.
There is a large scale for "Sophistication".
In comparison to say, the Texas Draw Mohhammed attempt, the Paris attacks were fucking D-Day. You have to arrange for travel across multiple borders for multiple people, supply them with money, arms, explosives and commo. You have to coordinate the hits to happen at the same time, which isn't as easy as it sounds. And you have to do it all without the (admittedly incompetent) western intelligence agencies getting a whiff of it.
In terms of terrorist attacks, these were fairly sophisticated. Compared to actual military operations, this is kiddie-pool stuff.
@ jaydub I thought that video was proved to be faked.
I agree with Althouse. If they had actually managed how to figure out how to get inside the stadium, it's a completely different ballgame, so to speak. The fact that they couldn't manage and had to crudely improvise shows a lack of sophistication, which might be even more terrifying. It's as if we're all Israel now.
After all, the Palestinians are not known for sophistication either, but they get the job done.
Operations security is simpler for terrorist organizations than for others, "If you rat us out or fail to attempt your mission we will torture and kill your Mother and Father and siblings" can be a great motivator.
For the most part, I agree with you Ann. However, this attack brings some things to light that will be a challenge for all of this in the coming days.
The reality is that this act was a complete and total victory for the terrorists. It was not a military or political victory, but a psychological one. It has dominated the media, social media and conversation for the past few days and will continue to do so for the near future. Images of Parisians sobbing about "feeling scared in their own home", crowds fleeing for their lives and our predictable reactions to these images were the objectives here, not the murders themselves.
Soon, the conversation will shift to "how we can stop this from ever happening again" and then to what laws can we pass to make it look like we are doing something. Both will be ineffective and will affect us law abiding citizens more than the terrorists.
Meanwhile, an open border Europe and the importation of uneducated, military age males into an already flooded U.S. labor market will spread the cancer. A demand for cultural changes in the receiving countries will be accommodated by guilt ridden social reformers who we have voted into office.
A very successful, coordinated plan indeed.
Do you think Americans are mad or sad over Paris?
I see little anger and I think people should be insanely angry at Barack. He pulled out of Iraq. He did nothing against ISIS for months. The incredibly stupid “JV” comment. Beheadings of Americans and golf for Barack. And then pin prick responses.
A leader president would have crushed ISIS before it grew to become strong.
ISIS is Barack’s fault. ISIS was an avoidable error.
I can’t believe more people don’t share my view.
"the action of the French state in ensuring the intended victims would be disarmed."
At least the police are now armed. At the Charlie Hebdo attack, the police guards were unarmed and one was executed as he lay wounded on the sidewalk.
US big cities, like New York, Chicago and LA are all gun control cities with high murder rates. They won't attack Texas or Florida.
You can't just go down to Jihad R Us and buy a half-dozen suicide vests, and you can't make them using fuel oil and fertilizer, and you can't even go buy semi-automatic rifles (much less full-auto.)in France very easily. So a bunch of crazy kids looking to cause mayhem won't be able to source and fabricate the materials used. They have to have connections and the operational security to keep them secure, and the connections have to think the operators are professional enough to take the risks involved in dealing with them.
A lot has to go right for these guys before they can even strap on their equipment, never mind the execution of the plan.
Suddenly, it All Makes Sense!
BERNIE SANDERS: "Absolutely. In fact, climate change is directly related to the growth of terrorism. . . Well, in fact, I would argue that the disastrous invasion of Iraq, has unraveled the region completely. And led to the rise of Al Qaeda-- and to-- ISIS."
So, Climate Change caused ISIS; W. caused ISIS
GEORGE BUSH IS CLIMATE CHANGE ! ! ! !
No Wonder the democrats want to Stop Climate Change!
We want to be believe that the authorities we have empowered and the systems we have in place can protect us and keep us safe, but nobody really knows how effective these measure are.
It's like the skier's airbag. He didn't really know before he fell if it would help or not, but it was something proactive he could do at a reasonable cost. And if he hadn't worn it and was injured he'd always have to wonder if he could've saved himself the pain.
After the fall he still doesn't really know how much the air bag contributed to his miraculous survival without injury, but I bet he'll never be without one again.
Ebola.
Agreed. Soft targets are easy and I often wonder how it is we manage to escape a similar attack.
I would add how incredible it is to watch our pathetic easily manipulated hack media continent to out-suck itself. The media are a pack of soft-brained incurious losers who look like they were educated at a "safe-space" university.
continent = continue.
It's so surprising that attacks like this don't happen more frequently. It seems easy to find a bunch of people in one place and do something to kill a couple hundred of them. There is no security on Washington State ferries; every time I ride one I think about how easy it would be to drive a car with a trunk full of explosives onto a crowded commuter run. Some of the larger vessels carry 2500 walk-ons and a couple hundred cars. The water in Puget Sound in January is 40 degrees and it takes what, five minutes for hypothermia to set in. Like Birches said, we're all Israelis now, except the motivated terrorists are just so few in number.
I don't think we should be rewarding these brutes who don't even value their own lives with a big pat on the back about what an amazing attack they put together. I think we should be reviling them. But there is empathy for the victims, and that may drive some of the inflation of the grandeur of the attacks. But in the long run, looking at our interests, I don't think we should be giving the enemy that satisfaction. Even if I were into propaganda, I wouldn't do it this way. But I recommend accurate reporting and accurate thinking about what happen and what else might happen. That's the way of the free society... the free society that also presents soft targets to the brutes who attack this way.
There is another aspect of this to some coverage -- deflection.
Instead of focusing on the essential point of Islamic terrorism, a bunch of people are going off on some tangent to argue over stupid things like whether to call the attacks "coordinated," "well-coordinated," or "sophisticated."
"It's so surprising that attacks like this don't happen more frequently. It seems easy to find a bunch of people in one place and do something to kill a couple hundred of them."
I know. And after 9/11, I thought the answer was that cheap crap like that hurts the brand. Something big and glorious and amazing is needed to further the cause. I thought that the easiest way to spread terror was to have one day where one guy in each of one thousand cities went into a movie theater and blew himself up. But that never happened. Why? The answer could be that it's so easy it's just cheap. It's a decline after 9/11. But now, with Paris, there's danger that we of the West think that cheap approach -- do a lot of little crap on one day -- is actually sophisticated and amazing and world-stopping. We are empowering them.
Lets reward the brutes by voting for Hillary, yeah. She can continue Obama's containment of ISIS.
AA, if you think it's so easy I'd like to see YOU try it!
"Sophistication" would be what: helicopter gunships; A-10's; armored HumVees; tanks? There were nine (?) targets? Most were attacked with reasonable coordination and skill. That more weren't killed is a blessing not a sign of lack of sophistication. Perhaps a little more training in small arms combat would have resulted in more terrorist efficiency. (Make sure that is added to the training schedule!)
What Ann is saying seems to me like the grade schooler saying to the bully that the bully wasn't vicious enough because he only gave him one black eye and one tooth knocked out. Try harder next time!
"What's scary isn't that the attacks are sophisticated, but how easy it is to hit a bunch of soft targets in one city, and how big a deal it is even when it's sloppily done and mostly unsuccessful. That's how it looks to me."
Agreed. They just did what I thought they might do in the US after 9/11. There has been some of it but at a low level. It's harder for them to do it here, but surely not impossible.
Lazlo is getting serious about this.
Althouse, you have it exactly right in the last paragraph. If the two big venues had better security at the entrances, all of them could have been thwarted to some extent.Calling it sophisticated and such gives more power to the enemies.
We had Iraq won but Obama and Hillary couldn't be bothered to even leave some US Troops there to maintain the victory and so now we have a surging ISIS.
@ David Begley
I think most people understand that our weak leadership is to blame, but it's bad form to go too hard on it right now while the graves are still fresh. I didn't appreciate it back when the Blue Team did it after 9/11, I don't appreciate it when the Bloomberg Idiots do it after a school shooting, and I don't appreciate it now.
Look, on Friday I was pretty busy and didn't get on a computer for most of the afternoon. I went to go pick my kids up from school and when the classic rock station broke through with a snippet of Obama's remarks I knew something bad had happened. So I found NPR and was listening when my carpool got in the van. My 9 year old was sitting up front with me listening, and asked, "Do you like Barack Obama?" I said, "No, not really, especially when we're talking about how he deals with other countries and terrorism. I think a different president would have done a better job." And that's the most direct criticism he's going to get from me publicly. But you'd better believe it affects whom I will support next year and that most fair minded people are doing the same.
No one is saying this is amazing, but successfully carrying off this type of action is difficult to do, and those of us who understand that aren't pooh-poohing what the terrorists did. It's very likely that there have been a relatively large number of attacks of similar potential that have been defeated by intelligence organizations. The ones that have been reported are probably just the tip of the iceberg. TO not acknowledge the difficulty that is involved for one of these to succeed is to underestimate the enemy, which is something that we keep doing (note Pres Obama's "ISIS is contained" comment Friday morning), and something that will bite us big time in the future.
This was also similar to Mumbai attack in 2009. They have a blueprint. I think the way to thwart such soft target attacks is to stop it before it happens. For a country with such gun control measures, how are these bad guys getting away with stocking up on weapons like they do?
"What's scary isn't that the attacks are sophisticated, but how easy it is to hit a bunch of soft targets in one city, and how big a deal it is even when it's sloppily done and mostly unsuccessful. That's how it looks to me."
What is scary to me is that one of those whose incompetence brought about this mess is about to be rewarded by getting elected as our president.
" the operational security to keep them secure,"
The Germans actually stopped a guy who may have been part of the plot. It was last week and should have been a warning.
In southern Germany, the Bavarian state premier, Horst Seehofer, said there was “reason to believe” that a man arrested last week during a routine motorway check with “many machine guns, revolvers and explosives” in his car might “possibly be linked” to the attacks.
Isis said it had dispatched eight jihadi – leaving open the possibility that one may still be on the run – wearing suicide bomb belts and carrying machine guns, across the French capital on Friday night in a “blessed attack on ... crusader France”.
The German may have been part of this operation.
A 51-year-old Montenegrin man is in custody in Bavaria in southern Germany on suspicion of trying to supply arms and explosives to the Paris attackers, authorities in Munich have said.
The man was stopped in a Volkswagen Golf with Montenegrin plates near Germany’s border with Austria on 5 November. Officials found a pistol under the bonnet, prompting them to take the car apart. In doing so, they uncovered a sophisticated smuggling operation, with automatic weapons, 200 grammes of dynamite, hand grenades and ammunition concealed in the car’s bodywork, according to Bavarian public radio.
Examination of the suspect’s mobile phone and the car’s GPS system indicated the detainee was en route to Paris.
Bavarian investigators alerted the French authorities immediately after the man was arrested, the report said.
They were warned. This was a major operation and indicates serious sophistication. It was not a "known wolf" attack.
Ann at 10:05
ISIS has changed tactics. Check this out.
http://nypost.com/2015/11/15/the-jihadis-master-plan-to-break-us/
"Sophistication" seems equal parts defensive police spin and media buildup of the threat. There is a common thread between the mass shootings by loners in the USA and these ISIS attacks: a sick relationship with the mass media as deliverer of the ultimate reward: fame or general terror.
Before the rise of international 24/7 media networks giving round-the-clock coverage, a story like this (much less a school shooting in Oregon) would've been mostly of local interest. Now, it drives huge ratings for news channels all around the world, effectively terrorizing that world on the cheap. ISIS doesn't need the sophistication to pull off a 9/11, because CNN, FOX and Universal leverage every shootout of a shopping mall into a 9/11.
Birches.
If Paris would have happened in Lincoln on a game day, more Americans would have my view.
I think Obama is protected by the media and much of it is due to his race.
I agree.
What surprises me is that the huge and fast condemnation of the attack from the legions of resident French Muslims is not receiving more press. As usual it is loud and it is insistent that the ROP opposes and in fact is ready to fight against this atrocity committed in the name of Allah. And not just the French Muslims. But Muslims worldwide.
Don't want to give anyone any ideas, but if people wanted to actually hurt us, not just shock us, it's incredibly easy and you don't need people willing to commit suicide or explosives.
Three rental cars in Manhattan. Drive them side-by-side into the Holland Tunnel at the beginning of rush hour. Get out of two of the cars in the two lanes, pile into the third car, drive away. Result: an incredible traffic jam inside the tunnel.
Do it every day for a month, in different tunnels and bridges, and you kill Manhattan.
You don't need extremely committed fanatics. You can probably find some Muslim college kids who hate the West and will do it once for fun. Other kids the next day. Someone else rents the cars so you won't even be able to identify them. I'm not even sure what the crime is.
"dreams said...
"What's scary isn't that the attacks are sophisticated, but how easy it is to hit a bunch of soft targets in one city, and how big a deal it is even when it's sloppily done and mostly unsuccessful. That's how it looks to me."
What is scary to me is that one of those whose incompetence brought about this mess is about to be rewarded by getting elected as our president."
Yes, but she is pro choice and gay friendly. And that matters most.
Ten years ago I was contacted by a salesman who showed me some studies indicating attacks by marauding elephants were on the rise and he suggested I sign up for the service his company provided. For a small annual fee, every month a uniformed technician would show up in a truck and apply Elephant Repellent to my lawn. I thought, why take a chance.
They did this for ten years and never saw a single elephant in all that time. I was a satisfied customer until one day I came out of the house and there was fucking elephant on my lawn. It wasn't marauding, but still...
So I dug up the phone number and I called these Elephant Repellent guys and I said your product doesn't work, there's an elephant in my yard right now! So they pulled up my records and they said basically, "One elephant in ten years? That's pretty good. Better than our competitors. However we do offer a premium service. It costs a little more, but it sounds like you need it. It's new, its the latest breakthrough. You're in an area where we highly recommend this additional step to all our customers. We can upgrade you right now and the first 3 months will be free."
So far it seems to be working.
"I think most people understand that our weak leadership is to blame, but it's bad form to go too hard on it right now while the graves are still fresh."
ISIS doesn't concern itself with bad form. And I don't think most people understand that it was caused by weak leadership by Obama and Hillary or she wouldn't be a viable presidential candidate. Do you think Althouse understands it? Do you think any of the Dems understand?
The greater the sophistication and coordination, the greater chance of detection, and the Jihadis who tend to be recruited for these types of actions are by definition complete knuckle-dragging morons. So this is they type of attack that is most likely to "succeed." There is nothing stopping this type of attack from happening in the U.S. So, knock on wood, why hasn't one happened? Maybe the terrorists really do not want the Dems to lose the next election. I know that's cynical, but what's the best alternative explanation? I thought the U.S. would have experienced a Paris-type attack by now.
I have never understood why there haven't been more attacks here. Several people from Minneapolis have been arrested going to Syria to join the terrorists. When all they had to do was go to the Mall of America with a semi-automatic. This time of year such an attack would devastate holiday shopping at malls around the country. A major hit on the economy.
What's scary isn't that the attacks are sophisticated, but how easy it is to hit a bunch of soft targets in one city, and how big a deal it is even when it's sloppily done and mostly unsuccessful. That's how it looks to me.
I don't think the attacks were particularly sophisticated. Any Hollywood script writer for the past couple decades could have come up with a plan to get the bombers into the stadium and within grenade-throwing distance of Hollande. As it was the bomb blasts didn't even cause the players on the field to stop and look up. Here in the United States individuals have managed to carry out successful suicide attacks on the military, for Pete's sake! Yes, we're all vulnerable and yes, it's scary.
Paris, London, Boston, Mumbai, Kenya, the D.C. sniper, Ft. Hood, etc. ... it's happening. It's happening at irregular intervals, "little crap," but it's happening. War is upon us. The world vs. Islam.
@steve uhr, have you forgotten Nidal Hassan and Fort Hood? It happened just six years ago. Score was one Muslim trained (by us!) in the use of firearms in prison under a death sentence, twelve soldiers (including two field grade officers) dead, one elderly civilian shot trying to charge the shooter, one female officer permanently disabled and twenty-nine other soldier wounded but survived. Have you forgotten the attacks on military recruiting offices in 2009 and earlier this year?
"sophisticated attacks"? How much sophistication does it take to machine gun unarmed people in an enclosed space? Any of the school shooters in the US described as sophisticated?
Big Mike -- those were targeted attacks on our military, not random attacks on citizens just going about their business.
ISIS is Barack’s fault. ISIS was an avoidable error. I can’t believe more people don’t share my view
Wait awhile. It may happen.
Obama had hoped to leave it to the next POTUS to try to deal with and clean up the mess Obama has made of our foreign policy. But it looks like ISIS is not going to cooperate with Obama’s timetable. Reality is intruding very, very rudely on the boys and girls in the Whitehouse.
Myth: That our ME allies will fight wars that we want them to fight without the American military leading the way. Sizeable portions of both the right AND the left political spectrum are under this particular delusion.
Other Muslims are not going to kick the ISIS Muslims out of the region. The only way ISIS will be dealt with effectively is with American troops in the forefront. Period.
Also: Side issues about the sophistication of the attacks or lack of it are irrelevant. A coordinated attack was carried out in Paris. It succeeded with many innocents dying. That’s what ISIS was trying to do and that’s what ISIS did. These are facts. Face them.
I hate to say it, but in the interest of the truth, there was a brief clip of video of the terrorists shooting at the police in Paris. The police hightailed, with a single exception. Our guys don't do that. Hell, in Texas, our civilians don't do that, and many of them are armed.
False Grackle
Laslo: Because otherwise there will be blood on Obama's hands.
Even the media will not be able to wash it away.
It takes just one.
To echo exhelodrvr1, nonsense. The guv (and it's not just Obama, or the Dems, or just the U.S. guv) does not care. They've got a project, and it's full speed ahead with the project, no matter what. Suppose some of the Syrian refugees that Obama and the State Department are so hot to bring over here pulled a Paris. (And if the Republicans were in office, they'd be hauling 'em in just as enthusiastically.) What would happen?
We already know what would happen: 1) The same pointless, mawkish speechifying and empty displays that we're seeing in Paris and across Europe right now, and see every time there is a terrorist attack; 2) the same crude and stupid propaganda railing against those far more serious dangers - "xenophobia", "the far right", "lack of enthusiasm for diversity" - that we're hearing from Paris and Europe right now, and hear every time there is a terrorist attack. (Really, just a more frantic, louder version of the stuff that's belched out of the telescreens 24/7 on ordinary days); 3) ramping up of programs to bring in more refugees.
It's the same all over the West, the spigot must be kept open, because it must, it must, it just must. This is always pushed with the exactly the same indignant tone, the same propaganda, even the specific vocabulary is shared and re-used over and over.
Here's Jean-Claude Juncker today:
Jean-Claude Juncker's remarks come as many will start to ask what can be done to secure countries against a threat that is growing and constantly changing.
Mr Juncker said there was "no need to review the European refugee model", adding that there was no "amalgamation" of refugees and terrorists. It comes after Poland used the attack as a pre-text to announce it would not take relocated refugees.
"Those who organised these attacks and those who perpetrated them are exactly those refugees flee from," he said. "These are criminals and not refugees or asylum seekers. I would like to invite those in Europe who are trying to change the migration agenda we have adopted – I would like to invite them to be serious about this and not to give in to these basic reactions. I don't like it."
See, same old, same old. "Amalgamation", but of course. ("Amalgam" and "amalgamation" haven't made it into the U.S. yet, but they appear to belong to the class of droningly over-used shitlib terms of which we have many equivalents, used like our familiar "not all x are y you racist!".) "Basic reactions", check. ("Your healthy instincts of self-preservation are troglodytic".) And "serious". "Serious" must be the word of the month among the globo-libs. All the wrong-thinkers lately are "not serious".
All this after, I believe, one of the attackers was found to be a recent "refugee". They don't care. Not matter what happens, they don't care. The non-stop migration into the West must continue. Because, well, because.
"I've been successful through terror."
His 21st century acolytes are simply following his example and his instructions until the whole world submits.
Check the action at 00:49
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3318903/Terrifying-firefight-police-terrorist-gunman-outside-Bataclan-concert-hall-80-people-died-caught-video.html
FG
Expanding terror threat numbers.
Interesting threat map of ISIS-linked terror plots in the United States.
http://inhomelandsecurity.com/preparing-for-the-next-terrorist-attack-in-america/
It's a big deal because it gets ratings.
It's a business arrangement between media and terrorists.
They get ratings, the terrorists get political effect.
It's been going on since early Iraq. Democrats free-riding on it back then.
Grackle -- I watched the clip. I think you are being a little hard on the police. Backing off - temporarily- to regroup in the fact of machine gun fire shows intelligence not cowardness.
The radio news just now says that the attacks were premeditated.
THey were well coordinated in that they occurred at the same time. However, you're right, they were carried out by a bunch of lone wolves. It didn't require SPECTRE level plans of world domination.
But that's the point. Our society is made up of a bunch of soft targets, that are not well guarded, and a bunch of guys with guns and bombs strapped to them can go in and completely disrupt society.
You don't need high level coordination for terrorism to work.
This is why treating it like a law enforcement problem is always going to lead to these kind of massacres, followed by us scratching our heads saying "WHY?!?" or "how did this happen?"
Terrorism is effective because you can do massive damage while still being low tech.
ANd if you want to treat it like a law enforcement issue, then you better have REALLY good intel and surveillance programs which would actually detect this type of thing. So Rand Paul is basically out. He doesn't want us to engage militarily, and he has a problem with us treating it like law enforcement issue.
THe dems are not even in the same ballpark since apparently they want to discuss global warming at senate intel committees.
WE need a neo con, frankly.
(cont) and by neo con I mean a hawk. Neo con is just the sneering response from libs to hawks because they dont' really have any thing other than sneers to deal with terrorism. But if that's the epithet liberals want to use because they think its effective, I'll take it.
This last attack was far more horrific and bloody than the last Charlie Hebdo attack. That gives it the impression of forward momentum. There's no reason to believe that the next attack won't be bloodier still. The ISIS people have succeeded in raising the level of anxiety and paranoia........As noted, the execution of these plans doesn't take a high level of sophistication, but there does seem to be an underlying intelligence to their strategy. I don think it was an accident that all of the hijackers were Saudis. I don't think it was an accident that one of the Paris attackers was carrying a Syrian passport and came here as a refugee. That sort of thing sows distrust and confusion about the proper response.........In this country, the Islamic attacks have been against soldiers, cartoonists, and Jews. They have not aimed at gays, feminists, and Christians as they do in Islamic countries. There is a reason for this.
@David Begley
"I can’t believe more people don’t share my view."
Well, David, we all share this same disbelief.
Yes, definitely sophisticated!!!
The attackers were well-armed (very), and were wearing identically manufactured explosive vests.
This speaks to a dispersed but organized and well-coordinated infrastructure of supply that escaped surveillance. The plan was sophisticated - these were staggered attacks designed to draw troops (there were already troops deployed around Paris) and police off to other sites so that a weaker point could be created. For the main kill.
Due to the very intensive French monitoring, it is likely that most of this had to be done outside France, but then they managed to get in with the goods and congregate to start their journey to heaven, with perhaps a fourth team getting delayed and turning back.
Timeline:
http://news.yahoo.com/timeline-paris-attacks-according-public-prosecutor-190609047.html;_ylt=A0LEVjUQwUhWAlcAgPknnIlQ;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--
The attack on the stadium did fail - it seemed that the first one was supposed to start a panic and a flood out, and then the others were supposed to infiltrate the exit crowd and detonate at intervals. French security prevented a large body count here.
And then the stream of restaurant attacks were supposed to draw police off so that the Bataclan attackers would have a soft target and a high body count.
If you look at this from the standpoint of the French authorities, all their measures used to prevent successful large-scale attacks failed abysmally. That's why the borders are closed. They've deployed troops all over the country; they've gone to extreme security measures; they've failed.
"the Jihadis who tend to be recruited for these types of actions are by definition complete knuckle-dragging morons."
No, the muscle guys on the 9/11 planes were morons but the leaders and pilots were not.
Much of the present generation of jihadis are sophisticated Muslims who hate the backwardness of their own society and, like Yale students, blame white men and western civilization for their own failures. Mohammed Atta was a graduate student. An attack at Edinburgh airport last year was by a physician. The leaders of many terrorist groups are, like George Habash, also physicians.
The leaders of ISIS, I believe, are Iraqi generals who sought refuge in Syria after the US invasion. They ran much of the insurgency in the Sunni areas until we stopped it with the "Anbar Awakening"
The Guardian story shows how sophisticated this attack was.
Officials found a pistol under the bonnet, prompting them to take the car apart. In doing so, they uncovered a sophisticated smuggling operation, with automatic weapons, 200 grammes of dynamite, hand grenades and ammunition concealed in the car’s bodywork, according to Bavarian public radio.
That's not a "lone wolf attack."
If the two big venues had better security at the entrances
How much is "better" or "enough"? Bunkers at each gate with machine guns?
I went to an NFL game 3 years ago. There were police everywhere...standing around, shooting the shit with each other, not paying attention to the crowd at all. I thought then, "3 or 4 guys with semi-autos could pick one gate, gun down the 4 or 5 police there before they knew what hit them...then be inside a stadium with over 60,000 people."
It's coming to the US...very, very sad to say...
@ robother @ 10:23
Agree wholeheartedly.
Abdul Abulbul Amir said...
"This would never happen in Texas..."
NEVER (except the two times it happened at Ft. Hood. And the JFK assassination.)!
Michael K said...
" the operational security to keep them secure,"
The Germans actually stopped a guy who may have been part of the plot. It was last week and should have been a warning.
Assuming that this was part of it, those weapons could have been for more operators. In that's true the terrorists had the sense to go ahead with it without the full group and all the weapons. Move before the enemy connects the dots.
The history of terrorism is that it takes a long time to die out once established. It's devilishly hard to kill.
Char Char Binks--Ft. Hood, a military base, was a gun free zone. The killer knew that. The Kennedy killing was an assination with a long range rifle. Different situation.
Terrorists in a theatre would have been under fire from a Texas audience in a few seconds.
Something worth repeating:
"jaydub said...
If you thought the Paris attacks were easy, you can only imagine how easy it was to kidnap 200 children, lay them out on the ground, and then slaughter them as they pleaded and cried for mercy. Of course, those children weren't in Paris, so no one seems to have noticed. But, we probably will notice when it is our children. And unless someone in a position of leadership finds the balls to take the battle to the ISIS at its source, it will be our children eventually."
What's scary isn't that the attacks are sophisticated, but how easy it is to hit a bunch of soft targets in one city,
Let's end the incuriosity about those AK 47s, shall we? Isn't Paris supposed to be bathing in the protection of The Strictist anti-gun laws of France? Why is there no discussion of the ease of arming every Charlie Hebdo style terrorist with Mr. Kalashnikov's grim invention?
And why no consideration of disarmed citizens suffering mandatory victim status in such events, while just a few armed ones with fighting knowhow in the theater might have cut that death toll down from 80 to far less?
@ Steve Uhr - I did not say they were cowards and I do not believe that. I do believe they lack the training and experience. Many of our law enforcement people have served in combat arms in shooting wars. Not so the French.
False Grackle
At Char Char Binks - Draw Mohammamed Rally - Texas 2, Isis 0
False Fucking Grackle
Grackle said...
"At Char Char Binks - Draw Mohammamed Rally - Texas 2, Isis 0
False Fucking Grackle"
True, and I applaud that, but it doesn't negate Ft. Hood.
I remember being in Rome Da Vinci Airport not long after the Abu Nidal terror attacks in 1985.
There were cops and army guys with machine guns everywhere. I expect to see that again in Europe.
I was on Pan Am 103 a week after the bomb destroyed the same flight over Scotland. The security was unbelievable. That was before the flight number was changed. Heathrow was like a war zone. The last few times I have been to Europe, the security was not nearly as tight.
It will be again but I doubt I will be going again.
In line with Anglelyne @11:00 AM -- In Paris Neighborhood Heavily Hit by Terrorists, Residents View Attackers as Victims -- the neighborhood is the 11th arrondissement, where most residents are called by the French " 'bobo,' bohemian and bourgeois, middle-class academics in their 30s and 40s with clearly leftist leanings":
“It’s very personal, what’s happened,” said Stephan Byatt, an actor who lives on a nearby street. He has a hard time finding the words to describe what he’s feeling. His friend, Bruno Michlaud, a graphic artist, tries to help out. “It’s a symbol of Paris, a symbol of life. They hurt us in the center of our lives and each of us could have been one of those killed.”
But they aren’t angry, at least not at the perpetrators. “They’re stupid, but they aren’t evil,” their friend Sabrina, an administrative worker in one of the theaters in the 11th arrondissement, said. “They are victims of a system that excluded them from society, that’s why they felt this doesn’t belong to them and they could attack. There are those who live here in alienation, and we are all to blame for this alienation.” ...
No one wanted to talk about Islamists or the Islamic State, even after it took responsibility for the attacks and French President Francois Hollande announced that the group was behind them. “Daesh is so dangerous to France,” said Johann Crispel, a business student at a college near one of the restaurants that was attacked, using the Arabic acronym for the Islamic State and wrinkling his nose as he enunciated it. “Perhaps it’s correct to bomb them in the name of democracy and freedom, but it brought the war in Syria to us in France. I don’t think it’s worth it.”
Very important: The stadium was the big target. The president, François Hollande, was in attendance. The attackers got nowhere near him. In fact, the attackers apparently scuttled whatever big plan they might have had, blowing themselves up at the gates.
The terrorist who came into Greece on Oct. 3 as a Syrian refugee was the first in line. His suicide vest was detected, and he blew himself up right there, killing one other person. His colleague, either 2 minutes later at 9:19 or 10 minutes later at 9:30 apparently did not attempt to get in and blew himself up also, killing nobody else.
The authorities did not tell anybody, hoping to prevent a stampede which could have killed hundreds, and maybe also in case there was another suicide bomber outside.
The Inspector Clouseau's were right that no suicide bomber had gotten into the stadium.
Was a stampede, or bombing the people who flee, part of the plan??
Another suicide bomber, after wandering around near the stadium for either 23 minutes after 9:30, or 34 minutes after 9:19, blew himself up at a nearby McDonald's at 9:53, killing three other people.
Anyway, the president of France was evacuated, maybe because of the other events.
The coaches were told right away, but the players only after he game was over. Word began to filter in to the crowd sometime after half time. After the game, the crowd was told to avoid certain exits, without further explanation. Many knew, and decided to remain longer in the stadium. Some hid in places inside the stadium. They didn't want to leave because the stadium was safer. The German players did not return to their hotel because there had been a bomb threat there early in the morning.
All of the attacks took place between about 9:20 and 9:45 when the attackers entered the music place. That one lasted a little over two hours, and it was another hour till everybody inside knew they were safe. The attackers were methodically killing people there.
A third group was shooting up eating places, and eventually all of them blew themselves up. There were either 7 or 8 in total.
All attackers had suicide vests on [what model and vintage?] and set themselves off, except for one, who may have been killed by police, or may have had his suicide vest accidently triggered by a bullet or a fall. One of the attackers was maybe 15 years old. One was an Egyptian. One was from Paris. One or maybe two had posed as refugees from Syria.
The people who rented the Belgian car used in the retaurant attacks, were stopped at the Belgian border. I would have expected anyone not intending to be killed to have left before it all began. This either means that the plan was accelerated somewhat and therefore parts were bungled, or it means that the people who supplied the car did not know what it was going to be used for, thinking it was for a bank robbery or gang warfare or something.
There was also a 51-year old man (apparently a Moslem, but maybe not actively so) from Montenegro stopped on November 5 at some kind of a checkpoint or maybe traffic violation tarvelling between Saltzburg Austria and Munich Germany whose satellite navigation had been set for Paris, where lots of guns were found in his car. Terrorist police were not alerted. They are now thinking this was probably connected.
Some of the old methods don't work anymore, as unbreakable encryption has become commn.
The easy solution, for me, is to close the border with Belgium, like we closed our border to Mexico. Have one or two gates they must pass through, and deport them in large numbers.
As far as I'm concerned, Belgium is too Islamic to be allowed free travel.
Remember, our American hero's, not just a few months ago tackled an islamist who got on the train in Belgium.
Actually I believe there is probably another plot in the works, most likely in Germany or in Great Britain. Maybe Italy but they may have caught the organizer the other day. They don't all go on the same tmetable in different countries, butin tghe same country or city there should be an attempt to make it all as nearly simulatneous as possible, so nothing more should be expected in Paris for some time.
The pseudo refugee would alsmot certainly not have traveled alone, but must have a had a handler and maybe a few colleagues. Somebody needs to find out who was tarvelling with him. At the same time. The stadium attack was such a failure for the terrorists that another attack on a soccer stadium should be expected.
Closing the border with Belguim (the probable central European headquarters of all this) is maybe an idea - sort of - but you don't want to contain ISIS in Belguim - you want to defeat it. It's probably connected to a criminal group.
In one newspaper story a witness said she thought the firing in the streets was a gang shooting.
???
MaxedOutMama said...
The plan was sophisticated - these were staggered attacks designed to draw troops (there were already troops deployed around Paris) and police off to other sites so that a weaker point could be created. For the main kill.
That was probably supposed to be the soccer stadium, which was not supposed to be first.
that the Bataclan attackers would have a soft target and a high body count.
That's what they had anyway.
Remember, the soccer attack started earlier than it was supposed to, because the suicide vest was detected.
No, it didn't take any sophistication. And I don't know why anyone is surprised. They have been telling us they plan to do this, and now they did it. And they tell us they plan to do a lot more of it, and they will do a lot more of it. And they tell us they want to do it in the USA, and they are coming here, right now, to do it in the USA. We are paying their air fare. We will put them on welfare, like the Tsarnaevs, so they can have time to plan their attacks. And they will plan their attacks, and carry them out. Get used to it. Lots more of us are going to be killed or maimed by Muzzie fascists. It will continue until we decide to put a stop to it. By then, it may be too late.
This is the world the Anti-Bush protesters wanted.
No military engagement with the radicals across the world. Just wonderful isolationism!
No military left behind in Iraq to maintain order (Didn't we do that in Germany/Japan and South Korea after we won those wars?).
If you protested against Bush, the blood of Paris is on your hands.
JSF,
In Germany and Japan, US forces were occupying defeated nations. Those nations had been economically successful and politically unified before their governments were taken over by aggressive nationalists. By defeating those fascist governments, and installing democracies in their place, the US made it possible for them to regain their former unity and economic strength, without the aggression. At least thus far.
The situation in the Middle East is completely different. The Arab Muslims are a collection of failed peoples, occupying a cluster of failed states. They are unified only in their devotion to a totalitarian gangster ideology that calls itself a religion. Like scorpions in a bottle, they are doomed, as is anyone foolish enough to involve himself in their struggles. The Europeans may come to their senses in time to avoid extinction, but they have already clasped the viper to their breasts, and they face generations of horrific violence as a result. Friday's attacks were but a taste of what lies ahead. And we are only a little ways behind them on that road paved with good intentions. Our only hope is to recognize Islam for what it is, and realize that our Constitutional and cultural respect for religious freedom, when applied to Islam, is suicidal. Religious toleration only works for tolerant religions. It took hundreds of years of bloodshed before Christian sects learned tolerance. Extending religious tolerance to Islam is like extending legal toleration to the Mafia. They will certainly accept it, but they cannot understand it, except as weakness and degeneracy. They will not reciprocate.
I hate to say it, but in the interest of the truth, there was a brief clip of video of the terrorists shooting at the police in Paris. The police hightailed, with a single exception. Our guys don't do that. Hell, in Texas, our civilians don't do that, and many of them are armed.
grackle somewhat agrees with the other Grackle with this caveat:
I’ll give more leeway to the police if it was a case of cop handguns against terrorists wielding military grade automatic weapons. A retreat to find cover from such withering fire is simply common sense. To do otherwise is suicide. You cannot do anything about the events taking place if you are dead.
But the commentor’s other point is well taken in that it never hurts to have an armed civilian populace around. Someone might be able to get off a few rounds, always from cover, from an unexpected direction and at least divert the terrorists’ attention for a bit.
Also, a concert crowd in Texas is guaranteed to have a few guns in attendance. Someone shooting back amid a sea of faces and bloody bodies might be hard to spot and I would add that what’s true in Texas is also true in many other areas of the USA.
I think “False Grackle” is too harsh for a handle. How about “Grackle2?” “The Other Grackle?”
grackles of the world unite! Gather us now unto our gracklehood. Together we will form grackleNation.
Hence the use of military force in Iraq and Afghanistan to keep Iran in check.
The Anti-Bush Liberals protested any almost WWII style tactic that was done. If 50,000 troops were left behind in Iraq (and the bases kept open), would ISIS have grown and the taliban returned?
The protesters never thought other then "How dare a Republican try to make Iraq better? Protest him!"
I listened to Pacifica during this time (and today). My G-d, President Bush wanted Iraqi's to have votes! For Parliament offices and local ones too! Same in Afghanistan. None of the protesters supported that.
I believe that Humans want to be free (see slavery in America, serfs in Russia and people living under the USSR around eastern Europe). Germany never had any Democratic Government till weimar and then it held together after WWII. Japan did not have a Parliament until after WWII. These places were looked down as well.
The anti-Bush protesters did not care about the human condition, just about winning a goddamn election.
With due respect to Althouse, I doubt she knows very much about the complexities of planning things like the terrorist attacks in Paris. According to news reports, the attacks were planned in Belgium over several months. The police have arrested several Belgians and Frenchmen, so there appears to be something behind the reports. The attacks aren't equivalent to holding up a convenience store on Saturday night. The French police and intelligence services spend a lot of time monitoring people with ties to terrorist goups, communications, etc.
I see others made my point far better than I did.
What surprises me about this attack is its timing.
It's coming during our Presidential Primary season.
If they just shut up for another year, they'll get some weak President like Obama back in the drivers seat for another 4 years. They'll get Bernie or Hillary! or who knows, some other wuss.
But if they keep this up, they're going to end up getting Donald Trump. Or someone who starts talking really tough like Donald (And therefore setting high expectations among the people for tougher security).
This makes me think they're not that sophisticated. That they don't have the information that we have. That they don't have American Jihadists advising them on our politics. That they can see the hand in front of their face (Let's kill and maim and injure and destroy!) but they can't see past that. They are missing the forest for the trees.
That's a good thing. Unless you think they really do see the forest for the trees, and their plan is for States like the United States to become fascist countries and you think the way for that to happen is to have someone like Donald Trump double down on the Patriot Act.
If you believe that, though, you might also believe we never landed on the moon.
buster said...
"According to news reports, the attacks were planned in Belgium over several months. The police have arrested several Belgians and Frenchmen...".
Belgians and Frenchmen, hey? Do they by any chance have those thick, black beards for which Belgians and Frenchmen are so well-known?
Lydia:
A truly depressing excerpt (your Haaretz bit above). I feel as though I have a deep appreciation for French history and culture; it is frustrating beyond words to see how little regard it is held in by some of the French. The same could be said, of course, about certain Westerners in any Western country. It shouldn't surprise me that the sort of dozy bints who would inhabit a boho theater district would mouth these sort of limp-wristed anodyne platitudes. I see this sort of crap all over Facebook today, as though the sheer power of Our Sadness will somehow ennoble us and bring victory.
I hope that's fairly coherent – just put away a bottle of Alsatian Cremant.
Speaking of anti-Bush leftists, the guy the Germans caught a week ago isn't talking. How may lives could have been saved if he had been waterboarded ?
The French are now interviewing him, or trying to. His car was professionally modified to carry guns and explosives.
The police also found several Parisian telephone numbers and addresses in the car. It is now assumed that the Montenegrin was delivering weapons to the terrorists who carried out Friday’s attacks, or to other Islamic terrorists likely associated with them. The man, identified only as Vlatko, is said to be a Muslim, but that is really irrelevant. He may simply be an arms dealer, or a courier for an arms dealer. The salient point is that the danger he posed was obvious, and if he had been aggressively interrogated–using waterboarding, for example–he might have provided information that could have disrupted the attacks.
I've had my carry permit, seldom had the need. Mostly convenience. Easier to by ammo, more guns, etc. But. These muslims, only know how to terrorize to control, and attain power. Terrorism is by deffinition, attacking soft targets, that have nothing but the population they desire to control. Trains, buses, restaurants, concerts, sporting events. A lot of those places, are no gun zones.
Today, I break the rules, I know longer obey no gun zones. This is a problem for me, because I pride myself in respecting the wishes of others, not causing problems....following the rules. No more. I will not be prevented from moving as a free person, doing as I wish, attending public events. I also will not be prevented from protecting myself, family and fellow citizens. It is not only my right, but more important, the only responsible thing to do in a free society.
David Begley said...
Do you think Americans are mad or sad over Paris?
I see little anger and I think people should be insanely angry at Barack. He pulled out of Iraq.
But I have thge assurances of some of the finest minds on this blog that Iraq matters not at all.
Blogger Ann Althouse said...
I don't think we should be rewarding these brutes who don't even value their own lives with a big pat on the back about what an amazing attack they put together. I think we should be reviling them.
We can still revile them, but it woud be foolish no to admit that the attacks were carried out with precision and were successful in murdering as many unbelievers as they coud before they themselves were killed, The object was to kill as many kafir as they could, In this they were wildly successful.
"If they just shut up for another year, they'll get some weak President like Obama back in the drivers seat for another 4 years. They'll get Bernie or Hillary! or who knows, some other wuss."
If you think Hillary--of whom I am no fan or partisan, so I don't say this as praise--would be a wuss and not reveal herself as the hawk she has always been, you misread her as badly as those who still think, against all evidence, that Obama is a socialist.
They just don't care about our domestic electoral activities as much as we do, (well, some of us, at least).
Good column on this:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/richardminiter/2015/11/14/8-after-shocks-of-the-paris-attacks/
More standard FBI tactics would be telling him that he's captured, and he will go to jail, they've got him dead to rights, but that if he co-operates he will be taken to more pleasant place for interrogation and his sentence will be lower, and they'll give him a lawyer to vouch for and cement the deal, and protect him also in prison and out, but if he does nothing, and anything happens that he could now still prevent, and people get killed, we will know he's connected, and his sentence will be higher and he could get the death penalty.
Except that they don't have a death penalty in Europe now.
They probably thought he was just an ordinary criminal anyway.
I didn't know that he had Parisian telephone numbers and addresses in the car, as well having his satellite navigation set to Paris.
NBC says four of the terrorists were from Belguim. That would make one from Syria, one from Egypt, one from France and four from Belgium. All the suicide vests were identical, and had nails.
Waterboarding is a Communist Chinese torture to get people to say things. It was chosen because the United states had done this to its own soldiers (to build resistance) and so it had been evaluated as non-life threatening.
In 1980, the Iranians realized too late that they were maybe electing Reagan.
Rusty on 11/15/15, @ 6:49 PM
The object was to kill as many kafir as they could, In this they were wildly successful.
The attack on the stadium crowd was completely bungled.
So for those opposed to any enhanced interrogation - had they caught one of the terrorists early on Friday, would it have been OK with you to use torture to find out more information on the rest of the attackers, targets, etc?
The plan was sophisticated because guns, suicide vests and 19 people willing to die but also willing to follow a plan were brought together without the intelligence agencies finding out.
But it was also clumsy and unlike the movies. It would be wrong have a TV series in which a series of terrorist plans are organized and carried out by the cast of The Office and it's all just one long series of inept maneuvers and goofs till the moment the shooting starts. But I bet that that is more what like what lies behind these events than some slick James Bond story.
But Europeans are still going to change their political attitudes because the people attacked are people with whom anyone can identify - utterly harmless young people listening to music and sitting outdoors in Paris in bistros by the Seine drinking wine. It wasn't like attacking the military. I wonder why that was thought to be a smart move?
The Miniter column is very good and will be shown to be prescient.
French security services want information that only live prisoners can provide (including plans for future attacks, locations of safe houses, whereabouts of other terror teams).
The Germans would not waterboard the captive Montenegrin. The French will pull out his fingernails if they get him.
France has now effectively closed its borders. It may not re-open them to migrants for a very long time. Other European nations may well follow.
Trump will be benefit but so will Orban the Hungarian PM.
for the first time since the early 1970s, when an economic crisis pushed large numbers of Turkish and Arab immigrants into the unemployment lines. The German and Swedish prime ministers could suffer most, since they openly championed the idea of settling large numbers of Syrian migrants in Europe. To many Europeans, that humanitarian position now looks reckless and foolish.
Sweden is under siege right now.
By now, every one realizes that ISIS was re-born in the power vacuum made by America’s exit. Seen from the bloody floor of a Paris concert hall that was hosting an American death-metal band, Obama’s 2011 decision to withdraw virtually all U.S. forces from Iraq and his 2012 decision to renege on his “red line” threat to take action in Syria if chemical weapons were used, looks poorly considered.
If American boots were still on the ground in Iraq, there might well be fewer bodies on the ground in France. Today, the Bush-era slogan–“Fight them over there, not over here”—seems far more sensible. Expect political paralysis as the parties re-fight the Iraq War. Also expect that a more robust pro-intervention wing will emerge among GOP presidential contenders.
Yes and the pro-immigration candidates like Bush and Rubio are toast.
The Forbes article,
http://www.forbes.com/sites/richardminiter/2015/11/14/8-after-shocks-of-the-paris-attacks
(referring basically only to the attack on the Bataclan concert hall) says that was very planned.
1) They entered at multiple points, not all at the same place.
2) They didn’t fumble to reload their AK-47s and had spare magazines ready - all indicating they had trained in the use of the weapon.
3) They coolly executed trapped concert fans without hesitation, indicating some kind of instruction.
I think now they think those were not the same terrorists who shot restaurants on the street.
There must also have been a lot of work trying to make it all simultaneous or perhaps unfolding in a certain order. They weren't all in he same place so travel time etc, had to be worked out. They may have failed to accomplish this quite as planned.
@exhelodrvr1
In the end, you can only get accurate information, if it given voluntarily. So you've got to make it in the captured person's perceived interest to tell the truth.
You can try a few other things, but they are less likely to help you.
What's bad in not interrogating them at all and giving them Miranda warnings - which Obama actually will not do in an emergency situation, but it is limited to that. But they never capture anybody alive.
The French are looking for up to 50 members of the operation, This was not an amateur operation.
We will see them here soon.
So for those opposed to any enhanced interrogation - had they caught one of the terrorists early on Friday, would it have been OK with you to use torture to find out more information on the rest of the attackers, targets, etc?
Depends. The Robert Cook crowd would say "no, not under any circumstance"
Unless their own families were at risk, then: Fen's Law
Sammy Finkelman said...
Rusty on 11/15/15, @ 6:49 PM
The object was to kill as many kafir as they could, In this they were wildly successful.
The attack on the stadium crowd was completely bungled.
They attacked the stadium. All of Europe is in fear of islamic terrorists. They succeeded.
We know where the threat Not radical Islam- Islam. And the Romans had the solution thousands of years ago. Any nation wants to solve the Islamic terrorism problem within its borders, first go to step 1- Decimation. Line up all the Muslims, men, women, children and babes in arms, and shoot every 10th one. If they don't learn, proceed to step 2- Annihilation, kill all of them. If the threat is external- again, Step 1 followed by step 2.
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