What would be a good response to the Paris attacks?

[civvver]

I think we have to fight smarter. Cut off the money supply.

It's obvious that invasion will stomp them out for a while but you can't stay forever and they'll just come back stronger.

It's obvious that completely rebuilding their infrastructure into a modern economy would stop terrorist recruiting as well, but who has the balls to do that now? This isn't like the end of WWII, when the US needed to build up the entire world basically so it had someone to buy cars and other manufactured goods from them. At the end of WWII the US was basically the only country with factories still and they needed customers. It's a different time now.

I think we need to seize assets, get intelligence that implicates foreign governments who support terrorism and then cut off their assets as well. We just unfroze billions of Iran's money, some of it probably made its way to ISIS. How hard is it really, in this day and age, to track transactions back to these people and then make that info public and cut them off? These middle eastern economies would collapse without buyers for their oil, and eventually ISIS would die off without sponsors to buy weapons and other stuff. It can't be cheap getting terrorists planted in other countries.

 

[Yeekim]

Of course they'd say that. They haaaate that Muslims are fleeing them to the West. It's embarrassing to them as the self proclaimed sanctuary for Muslims.

Claiming this also has the effect of promoting fear and divisions between refugees and the West and fueling the Islam vs West black and white conflict that they desire as a strategic environment. You've gotta remember that ISIS will claim just about anything as part of the propaganda war. Good on red-tops like the Express for continuing to be ISIS's useful idiots.

There's honestly probably a few sympathisers among the nearly a milliom people, but actual militants/terrorists are probably more likely to do stuff like fake or buy Syrian passports in Europe in order to *pretend* to have come directly from Syria, rather than to attempt the dangerous literal journey with the uncertainty and risk that brings.

Of course they'd say that, for all the reasons you mentioned. But would you elaborate on why they also wouldn't do that? "Dangerous literal journey with the uncertainty and risks"? For someone who is both sufficiently financed and willing to blow himself up? Hardly convincing.

2) Harangue Muslims to "reform Islam"

Haranguing ordinary Muslims is obviously not helping, but Muslim clergy needs to step up their efforts. Interpreting and explaining their religion is their bloody job, after all, one they've picked themselves, and I doubt they have more important challenges within this field. If the extremists have found enough recruits to establish a damn state, they've been doing poorly. Need more this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatwa_on_Terrorism

 

[Tee Kay]

Haranguing ordinary Muslims is obviously not helping, but Muslim clergy needs to step up their efforts. Interpreting and explaining their religion is their bloody job, after all, one they've picked themselves, and I doubt they have more important challenges within this field. If the extremists have found enough recruits to establish a damn state, they've been doing poorly. Need more this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatwa_on_Terrorism

The radicalised are young rebellious teenagers, 12 - 25 year olds. This demographic isn't good at listening to their elders.

The clerics - almost invariably stuffy stern old men from another age and, in the case of those in Western countries, often grew up outside the West in a completely different culture to those of second or third generation young Muslims - can issue all the fatwas they want, but they'll never be cool.

Young people would very much rather listen to the jihadist clerics, with their edgy "watch the world burn" attitude.

Deradicalisation through "working with community leaders" when it means telling restless young people "be quiet and behave!" is a bankrupt strategy. You need to provide constructive outlets for young people's energy as opposed to suppressing it.

 

[Yeekim]

Legalize...no, subsidize! cannabis and prostitution?

 

[Borachio]

(Not read the whole thread)

I think a good response is to keep calm and carry on. And to recognize that the number of deaths, although deplorable, is far fewer than deaths which are pretty much taken for granted and largely ignored. For example, road traffic accidents. (Maybe. I'm really not sure.) And to keep a sense of proportion about the whole threat. And to recognize that ordinary Muslims are in no way responsible for the actions of an extreme and disappearingly small minority.

I think a poor response is what France is doing: upping the airstrikes on IS in Syria. This, imo, is playing into the IS narrative. And is precisely what they want France to do.

Instead a good response would be to engage IS in dialogue. (Not going to happen, I know.)

 

[Tee Kay]

Interesting proposal, but what's the difference between "the West knows best" and "helping local entrepreneurs and reformers"? They sound similar, at least from the perspective of the occupied people.

The occupied people must not be made to feel that they are being occupied.

Ideally you don't want to have an occupation at all, or if you must it should be as unobtrusive as can be, and the objectives of the occupation should be clearly outlined from the outset, and communicated honestly to the populace in a way that doesn't talk down to them.

With Iraq and Syria, there also needs to be an acknowledgement that each of the warring factions have valid perspectives and concerns that needs to be addressed. There also needs to be an acknowledgement that both countries can, at best, be reconstituted only as a loose confederation for the foreseeable future.

 

[BornInCantaloup]

Reminder :
All of the suicide bombers identified in the Paris' attacks were French citizens.

Another one had a Syrian passport but has not, yet, been identified.

Aerial bombing abroad is unlikely to make desperate young French feel any better.
ISIS isn't as much the problem as the lack of perspectives that the French youth is offered.

Besides, children are born everyday in war zones.
What happens 20 years later to these children ? What do they know about the world ? What are their expectations ?
Can we expect from them that they'll be peaceful, consumerist, liberal capitalists ?
War zones feed wars over generations.
The ISIS generation in the Middle East has been raised in decades of constant warring.

 

[Lillefix]

The "mastermind" was Belgian wasn't he?

(your point still stands, I just wanted to point out the error)

 

[Thorgalaeg]

Since it seems terrorist were all french citizens, what about taking represalies against terrorist's family? Like israel does. I doubt that is possible in any civilised society but would it do something to make the terrorists think it twice before blowing themselves off?

 

[Tee Kay]

Since it seems terrorist were all french citizens, what about taking represalies against terrorist's family? Like israel does. I doubt that is possible in any civilised society but would it do something to make the terrorists think it twice before blowing themselves off?

It sure didn't work for Israel. Neither did airstrikes of civilian areas or other punitive measures.

What worked for Israel was integration. Some might criticise Israel's treatment of the 20% of its citizens who are Palestinians, but you'll note that those Palestinians who are citizens of Israel rarely cause trouble, while those who don't enjoy the same rights are the ones who opted for violence from stone-throwing to full-blown jihadism, and it gets worse the more they come under increasingly harsh security measures and reprisals.

 

[GoodSarmatian]

Collective punishment doesn't work, it just helps the enemy's recruitment.
If you start punishing individuals for something they didn't do, more people will start doing what they're being punished for anyway.

 

[Thorgalaeg]

Probably, OTOH families might be more vigilant.

 

[REDY]

Legalize...no, subsidize! cannabis and prostitution?

France has increasing gap between number of muslims and islamisation of country. The same problem had prewar Lebanon. For better coesxistence is only solution: quick introduction and strict enforcement of sharia law.

 

[JohnRM]

Collective punishment doesn't work, it just helps the enemy's recruitment.
If you start punishing individuals for something they didn't do, more people will start doing what they're being punished for anyway.

Good, then we can weed out those with a weak constitution and deal with them. I like it; good idea.

 

[GoodSarmatian]

Good, then we can weed out those with a weak constitution and deal with them. I like it; good idea.

OK, so you don't really care if it works or not. You just want people to die.

 

[civvver]

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world...-belgium-amid-manhunt-for-suspects/ar-BBn41xp

They may have been citizens but most of them were on the watch list. Like I said we need to get smarter. It looks like many were suspects but France and Europe simply lost track of them.

 

[Leoreth]

I don't know if smarter is the right word here. Watch lists tend to be long, and services are probably too understaffed to keep track of everyone on them.

 

[GoodEnoughForMe]

Since the other thread is an RD thread meant to focus only on the incident itself, this is a thread where you can discuss the political implications of the attack and of contemporary terrorism as a whole.

To start off, what do you think is a good national or collective response to the attacks? A poll has been included. I meant to include a poll, but somehow it didn't work, so here are some options:

1) Close borders to immigrants and refugees from Africa and the Middle East.

Well, unsurprisingly, a number of Republican governors seek to do exactly this, as they have signed acts to prevent any Syrian refugees from entering their state. So bravo for us giving free propaganda to IS.

 

[Berzerker]

I take it now is not the time for a no fly zone

stupid politicians

 

[Phrossack]

I don't know if smarter is the right word here. Watch lists tend to be long, and services are probably too understaffed to keep track of everyone on them.

It might be a good idea, then, to invest as needed to make sure they're staffed properly. After a crisis, a lot of people (not you, mind, just people in general) want new laws passed and new actions taken, when existing laws simply aren't enforced enough.