What would be a good response to the Paris attacks?

[Flying Pig]

Worryingly, I find myself agreeing with Frankie Boyle an awful lot these days. He's written an article for the Guardian (I can't link it directly thanks to the language, but search 'psychopathic autopilot'):

In times of crisis, we are made to feel we should scrutinise our government’s actions less closely, when surely that’s when we should pay closest attention. There’s a feeling that after an atrocity history and context become less relevant, when surely these are actually the worst times for a society to go on psychopathic autopilot. Our attitudes are fostered by a society built on ideas of dominance, where the solution to crises are force and action, rather than reflection and compromise.

If that sounds unbearably drippy, just humour me for a second and imagine a country where the response to Paris involved an urgent debate about how to make public spaces safer and marginalised groups less vulnerable to radicalisation. Do you honestly feel safer with a debate centred around when we can turn some desert town 3,000 miles away into a sheet of glass?

It’s not an insult to the dead to wonder why France, a $2tn economy, couldn’t make a better offer to its disenfranchised youth than a bunch of sick bullies grooming them on the internet. It’s not apologism to try to understand why something happened. When Syria’s drought kicked in, 25% of the population became unemployed. The vast majority of the country’s livestock has died over the past decade. A lot of Isis are farmers with nowhere to go, their entire industry destroyed – you’d think they’d have more sympathy for journalists. Those who think radicalising a youngster has nothing to do with climate – have you seen Tatooine?

For a list supporting the French government’s foray into bombing its former colony he chose Satie, a composer so questioning of state he put a question mark into La Marseillaise; Zola, a man so adamant about the function of a fair and full trial he may have been murdered for his beliefs; Rousseau – “Those who think themselves masters of others are greater slaves than they”; Ravel, who rejected all state honours; Gauguin, a passionate defender of indigenous peoples; and Camus, the great Algerian-born philosopher, who died in 1960, a year before he would’ve been thrown into the Seine at the orders of the Nazi head of the Parisian police.

Out of his list of peacenik, thoughtful, anti-government icons, one of the few who might have been in favour of bombing Syria was Sartre, and that’s only because he thought we were all dead anyway. Of course, we mustn’t forget Coco Chanel, who Neil threw on to the list in such a blatant “if we don’t include a woman we’ll get into trouble” rush, he didn’t notice a quick wiki would reveal her to be a Nazi spy. These are the people who made France great, because what they asked of France was to question, to look death in the eye, to commit to full trials and never resort to military force, to step away from government, away from indigenous lands, to never see themselves as superior, and most, most of all, for people to stop regurgitating rhetorical cliches and think for themselves.

 

[brennan]

Tch, stupid hippie. We need to get tough, bomb some people... that always works.

 

[classical_hero]

If as President Hollande said that the attacks were an act of war, then good response by the French at least would be to declare was on Islamic State and wipe them out.

 

[Agent327]

France was already bombing IS, so that statement was somewhat redundant.

 

[Kyriakos]

I couldnt find the other refugee thread, so posting here how Dutch people greeted the muslim refugees there now...:

(fence of the refugee camp)

WTH?

 

[Borachio]

France was already bombing IS, so that statement was somewhat redundant.

Well, quite. My feelings exactly.

On the other hand, bombing someone isn't an act of war, it's just... what do you call it?... being responsible, and obviously not targeting civilians in any way. It's just unfortunate how frequently they get in the way. The pesky people.

While blowing yourself up in the middle of a rock concert is an act of war. And is targeting plainly innocent civilians.

I'm surprised how many people don't appreciate the difference, tbh.

Moreover those responsible for blowing themselves up should be made to face the full force of judicial process, until they realize the error of their ways.

 

[Aleksey_aka_al]

"Making public places safer" each time == less and less individual freedom.

There will be times when they will check your anus in an airport and you'll be happy you're almost raped but "safe".

 

[Flying Pig]

Not necessarily. For example, there are plenty of places near me that are dangerous at night because they are dark. Putting lights in would actually increase individual freedom, because it would mean that more people could choose to go there. Urban architecture and planning also has a lot to do with public safety - is the space designed so that people are crammed together where they don't have to be? If everyone panics and tries to run away, does the space provide easy exits, or will there be bottlenecks where people are trampled?

 

[Aleksey_aka_al]

Not necessarily. For example, there are plenty of places near me that are dangerous at night because they are dark. Putting lights in would actually increase individual freedom, because it would mean that more people could choose to go there. Urban architecture and planning also has a lot to do with public safety - is the space designed so that people are crammed together where they don't have to be? If everyone panics and tries to run away, does the space provide easy exits, or will there be bottlenecks where people are trampled?

It is one thing to make a place safer, and quite another to secure everything.

There must be places where there is no light, where you can do things covertly and where something bad may happen. You will probably disagree, but I will state that crime (its possibility) is part of freedom. Being out of control or under a loosened control is part of freedom.

When I was a kid, living in a city, I often (as most people here I guess) went to where I was not supposed to, running away from my grandmother who was wathcing me or supposed to do so, walking, wandering, exploring places with other kids or alone, some of which were dangerous for a kid to be, doing stuff which could harm me or sometimes others. So what?

Now, a green spot thickly covered with trees and other plants around some stinky brook, where we had so many adventures and enough of small injuries, is "improved" and made into a eye-candy good-smelling park, with scarce trees, cloyingly fine roads, arbours, barbecue points, where a healthy boy of this age has nothing to do at all but to sit calmly on a bench with his parents or grandma or walk obediently while they watch, which is exactly nothing.

Now, there are less and less places in this city you can do boy stuff without being watched.

Now, if you are a parent they can deprive you of your child for not keeping him under uninterrupted control.

Now, some parents themselves are so crazy they use gps to track their children, going panic when their calls are not anwsered, etc.

Now, if you are eleven years old, if your dad has a car and you are unfortunate enough to have a reason to be in it, they will punish your dad for not putting you in a restraint chair and he will punish you for not using it. Eleven years old, it's when ejaculation starts, it's when Mongols put their off-spring on horses with a bow, and you're sitting in a restraint chair like a baby, or handicapped, or prisoner while being with your own family.

This is wrong.

This is wrong, when you have to go through a metal detector every time entering a subway, or when metro stuff can perform a random check of your personal belongings.

This is wrong, when cameras are everywhere.

This is wrong, when a tiny problem is so exaggerated. Goong back to terrorism – it is wrong, when a tiny risk of death or injury of a few individuals leads to measures which make everyday life for every individual less easy and less free.

There are places, such as Israel (still arguable) where such measures may be appropriate. But Europe, Russia or USA are not among those places.

Terrorism is not a big deal.

If it is to bomb some place somewhere, where it comes from, bomb it. But don't slip to this excess control.

Of course, if it is not what puppeteers behind terror acts are trying to achieve (among other goals): less freedom, more control.

 

[Ironsided]

Another good column on this today. This time by Jürgen Todenhöfer who spent time with and interviewed ISIS first hand.

“In 2001 there were roughly a couple of hundred terrorists in the mountains of the Hindu Kush who posed a threat to the international community. Now, after the war on terror has claimed what some estimate to be as many as one million Iraqi lives, we are facing some 100,000 terrorists.”

“How can it be that leading politicians learned nothing from 14 years of counterproductive anti-terror wars? “

“France is currently bombing everything that looks like camps or barracks: small factories, communal buildings, hospitals. The majority of the Arab world has seen photos of dead children in Raqqa – Isis is doing everything it can to spread them. And for every murdered child, there will be new terrorists.”

Linkage


…and this cartoon, also from today, is pretty spot on.

 

[REDY]

...

Everything is just fine

http://webm.land/media/001W.webm

 

[Borachio]

“How can it be that leading politicians learned nothing from 14 years of counterproductive anti-terror wars? “

Why change the habit of several centuries?

 

[Thorgalaeg]

WTH?

I can safely say that is not a good response to Paris attacks.

 

[brennan]

If there is a good response it won't be what happens.

 

[classical_hero]

This is a good response by the French, but I don't think it goes far enough.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/paris-terror-attacks-france-shuts-down-three-mosques-in-security-crackdown-a6757596.html

Last week two mosques, one in Lyon and one in the Paris suburb of Gennevilliers, were shut down, the first to be closed “on grounds of radicalisation,” Cazeneuve said.

He added that police have raided 2,235 homes and buildings, taken 232 people into custody, and seized 334 weapons – 34 of which were war-grade - since the brutal attacks on 13 November that saw 130 people killed in the French capital.

"In 15 days we have seized one-third of the quantity of war-grade weapons that are normally seized in a year," Cazeneuve said.

War grade weapons.

 

[JollyRoger]

Did the French invade Appalachia?

 

[classical_hero]

http://www.english.rfi.fr/economy/20151208-paris-attacks-cost-french-economy-500-million-euros

The 13 November Paris attacks cost France's economy about 500 million euros, reducing the rate of growth by a quarter, the Bank of France said Tuesday. The losses were mainly in the tourism sector, with Air France putting the effect on its income as 50 million euros.

The Bank of France has revised its forecast of French growth for the fourth quarter of 2015 from 0.4 per cent to 0.3 per cent because of the effect of the terror attacks.

That means about 500 million euros, according to French Treasury estimates.

Interesting.

 

[El_Machinae]

By letting the terrorists affect our behaviour, we effectively let them win.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

Overlaying the French flag on your facebook avatar (in answer to the thread title).