At Least 120 Dead in Paris Attacks

[innonimatu]

Can people please refrain from repeating the usual discussions about islam on this thread? Do a new one for that if you must. But keep in mind that France had two terrorist attacks this year, both apparently with foreign connections, while having millions of muslins living there. It's obvious that no "war of civilizations" is about to happen. Religious can coexist and fanatics are rare under normal political and social circumstances.

Perhaps it would be useful to examine who and what enabled the fanatics in those territories where they managed to become influential? Instead of arguing over the few who carry out attacks outside that area. Because the problem is the support and encouragement, both material and ideological, that they receive.

There are real political issues that can be discussed and are related to these attacks, but there are already threads for those: the ongoing wars around the world, the refugees issue, etc.

 

[Commodore]

The Greek government has announced one of the terrorist gunmen who had a part in killing over 120 in Paris on Friday evening entered Europe while masquerading as a refugee just six weeks ago.

Let the anti-refugee witch hunt begin!

Seriously, instead of this attack leading to a more reasonable refugee acceptance policy, I fear Europe is now going to go from one extreme (complete open borders for refugees) to the other (closed borders with possible internment/deportation of current refugees).

 

[civman110]

Can people please refrain from repeating the usual discussions about islam on this thread?

Sorry, but liberal censorship and political correctness caused this mess in the first place. The problem needs to be addressed. You can't just continue to keep doubling down on what are clearly failing policies for the sake of being PC.

Let the anti-refugee witch hunt begin!

So, we should ignore the blatantly obvious fact that there are terrorists among Muslim immigrants? That has ended in tragedy so far.

You sure you want to keep doubling down?

 

[Gucumatz]

Islam has always been just as imperialistic as the West, they just haven't been as successful at it because of the West.

In fact, the Islamists were far more brutal in comparison. For example, compare slavery in the Islamic world to slaverly in the West.

I fully agree that most of the Islamist world was historically as imperialistic as the west. However the statement that the Islamic world had more brutal slavery is a statement you can't really say because there were various types of slavery in both the Islamic and Christian worlds. Slavery in Islamic Africa for instance typically was far more lenient and more in the lines of slavery in say European Ragusa. Slavery in the Americas tended to be far more brutal, had far higher mortality rates, etc. than any type of slavery prior to it - including slavery in the Islamic world.

 

[Commodore]

So, we should ignore the blatantly obvious fact that there are terrorists among Muslim immigrants? That has ended in tragedy so far.

You sure you want to keep doubling down?

Read the rest of the post.

 

[civman110]

However the statement that the Islamic world had more brutal slavery is a statement you can't really say because there were various types of slavery in both the Islamic and Christian worlds.

I absolutely can say it. It is irrefutable. Legions more blacks died from Islamic slavery than Western slavery.

Read the rest of the post.

You edited your post after I already responded.

Seriously, instead of this attack leading to a more reasonable refugee acceptance policy, I fear Europe is now going to go from one extreme (complete open borders for refugees) to the other (closed borders with possible internment/deportation of current refugees).

So how exactly do you vet people with no documentation? It's not possible and they are all inside Europe already. They just walked across the border because Europeans are so PC.

 

[Gucumatz]

Except its not at all factually true and you know it. There is a reason slavery from Mozambique and the east coast of Africa made up less than 10% of total slavery in the total history of slavery in all time

Islamic slavery never even closely approached the over 50% mortality rate of slavery in the Americas [Remember the US only was a minor part of the story of slavery].

 

[Commodore]

Biometrics. We used it extensively in Iraq and Afghanistan and the US has even started using it at the Mexican border to stop criminals from coming in.

 

[chijohnaok]

By the way I just want to point out that in america there have been like 14 or something mass shootings and like I don't think any of them were done by muslims.

If we use the minimum of 4 killed to qualify for a "mass shooting", we would have the following instances of a mass shooting in the US done by Muslims:

7/18/1973 USA Washington, DC 8 killed 2 injured Nation of Islam members shoot seven members of a family to death in cold blood, including four children. A defendant in the case is later murdered in prison on orders from Elijah Muhammad.

10/3/2002 USA Montgomery County, MD 5 killed 0 injured Muslim snipers kill three men and two women in separate attacks over a 15-hour period.

11/5/2009 USA Ft. Hood, TX 13 killed 31 injured A Muslim psychiatrist guns down thirteen unarmed soldiers while yelling praises to Allah.

4/14/2010 USA Marquette Park, IL 5 killed 2 injured After quarrelling with his wife over Islamic dress, a Muslim convert shoots his family members to 'take them back to Allah' and out of the 'world of sinners'.

7/16/2015 USA Chattanooga 5 killed 2 injured A 'devout Muslim' stages a suicide attack on a recruiting center at a strip mall and a naval center which leaves five dead.

If you expand this to mass killings by means other than "shooting" you would have the following additional events:

2/26/1993 USA New York, NY 6 killed 1040 injured Islamic terrorists detonate a massive truck bomb under the World Trade Center, killing six people and injuring over 1,000 in an effort to collapse the towers.

9/11/2001 USA Shanksville, PA 40 killed 0 injured Forty passengers are killed after Islamic radicals hijack the plane in an attempt to steer it into the U.S. Capitol building.

9/11/2001 USA Washington, DC 184 killed 53 injured Nearly 200 people are killed when Islamic hijackers steer a plane full of people into the Pentagon.

9/11/2001 USA New York, NY 2752 killed 251 injured Islamic hijackers steer two planes packed with fuel and passengers into the World Trade Center, killing hundreds on impact and eventually killing thousands when the towers collapsed. At least 200 are seriously injured.

[The Boston Marathon bombing of 4/15/2013 doesn't make the list because it only had 3 killed and 264 inured]

 

[Akka]

Well, migrants were already a pretty huge deal causing a lot of frictions, so the consequences should be, as they say, "interesting".

 

[civman110]

Except its not at all factually true and you know it.

What I said is completely true.

 

[civman110]

Biometrics. We used it extensively in Iraq and Afghanistan and the US has even started using it at the Mexican border to stop criminals from coming in.

You realise that biometrics only work if you can match up that person's face with documentation right? and that doesn't solve the problem of the millions that just walked across the border into Europe already.

Looks like the end of liberalism, they lit their own hut on fire being stupid and reckless. Now we all have to watch it burn.

 

[Gucumatz]

So are you just going to blatantly deny mortality figures? You are a denialist about many things but denying universally accepted facts doesn't help your image

 

[Akka]

As an aside, your discussion over slavery at some other time in some other place is just annoying.

 

[Commodore]

You realise that biometrics only work if you can match up that persons face with documentation right? and that doesn't solve the problem of the millions that just walked across the border into Europe already. Looks like the end of liberalism, they lit their own hut on fire being stupid and reckless.

True. There's nothing that can be done about the refugees that are currently there, but that doesn't mean a more sensible policy can be put in place for future refugees. Part of that policy can be that if you don't have documentation then you will be held at the border until your identity can be verified.

 

[Commodore]

By the way I just want to point out that in america there have been like 14 or something mass shootings and like I don't think any of them were done by muslims.

Why limit it to only mass shootings? Mass shootings are just one type of terrorist attack. Also limiting your analysis to only mass shootings conveniently excludes the worst terrorist attack in US history, which was carried out by Muslims.

 

[Gary Childress]

Sorry, but liberal censorship and political correctness caused this mess in the first place. The problem needs to be addressed. You can't just continue to keep doubling down on what are clearly failing policies for the sake of being PC.



So, we should ignore the blatantly obvious fact that there are terrorists among Muslim immigrants? That has ended in tragedy so far.

You sure you want to keep doubling down?

IMO the best first step would be to get a grip on ourselves and realize that the cause of the Paris attacks involves a very long and complicated history of interaction between cultures. I sort of doubt that "liberal censorship" and "political correctness" are somehow pivotal in the events of yesterday. What was done yesterday was done by some very desperate people possessed of evil intentions but there is evil on both sides of the equation. Getting a grip and nursing wounds is probably most on order. There are of course tendencies in us to try to take advantage of the tragedy to stir up as much hate as possible. But that's what we must avoid as much as possible; hatred. It's not easy to calm the hatred that gets stirred up by events out of our control but propagating violence with more violence is a GUARANTEED way to keep the violence going.

 

[Mouthwash]

Can people please refrain from repeating the usual discussions about islam on this thread? Do a new one for that if you must. But keep in mind that France had two terrorist attacks this year, both apparently with foreign connections, while having millions of muslins living there. It's obvious that no "war of civilizations" is about to happen. Religious can coexist and fanatics are rare under normal political and social circumstances.

It only takes a few dozen trained jihadis with a support network to bring ordinary life to a stop in a major city.

Perhaps it would be useful to examine who and what enabled the fanatics in those territories where they managed to become influential? Instead of arguing over the few who carry out attacks outside that area. Because the problem is the support and encouragement, both material and ideological, that they receive.

There are real political issues that can be discussed and are related to these attacks, but there are already threads for those: the ongoing wars around the world, the refugees issue, etc.

Almost ten percent of the population of France is Muslim. Let's say only 1% are radicalized enough to support or provide assistance to terrorist organizations. This is forty to sixty thousand people that France has to identify and keep from carrying out attacks. This is not counting the fact that the French state is losing control over Muslim suburbs entirely.

Do I think it was possible, in some counterfactual world, for Muslims to have integrated peacefully into European society? Absolutely. But it's not going to happen, so I don't intend to delude myself.

 

[Quintillus]

One of the reasons I've kept coming back to this forum over the last 7 or so years is that it always seemed like a good place for intelligent discussion on the things going on in the world. It's really upsetting to see so much Islamophobia here. To really say that this is all as simple as "Oh, they read a holy book and now they are violent." is just ignorant. There is at least nearly 100 years of history that has gone into creating Islamic extremism. If it was really the norm for Islam all this time, then I don't understand how Muslims could have ever built thriving civilizations in places such as India or Turkey.I think all this extremism was actually born as a reaction against Western Imperialism in the 20th century.

While you're correct, when the Islamic State claims responsibility for the attacks, a lot of people will naturally feel repulsion for Islam. While ISIS doesn't represent most Muslims, it does claim responsibility for representing Islam, it represents some Muslims, people who don't know much about the Islamic world may well give ISIS more credit for representing Islam than is due.

And even for someone who does know that ISIS doesn't represent most of Islam, there's still the emotional response to something like this of indignation and feeling Islam is more violent than previously thought. You may know that it's only a fringe of Islam that ISIS represents, but there's still anger at the Islamic State.

 

[AdrienIer]

Thanks for making me laugh Mouthwash. According to that link I live in a no-go zone that is "largely off-limits to non-muslims". LOL