Paris deaths

Parent Cafe
101

I am beginning to understand why the college students at Mizzou, Yale, Amherst, Claremont etc. are so analytically challenged and disjointed. It is because they have examples, such as Rick Steves, who write things that have no shred of analytical consistency. You do have to be lost to write this:

Ok, cool. You believe this. But then you write this:

If isolated, why are there other examples?

Oh, I get it now. It is isolated if it happens in different countries. So Europe is no longer Europe, but a group of isolated countries and what happens in one is not representative of a larger fight against Europe, as a whole - even though the terrorists have clearly stated this is a war against Europe and the West, not just one or two countries.

Head in the sand, and not even listening to what the Islamic terrorists are saying.

This is just plum. Do people get what he is equating?

OK, Steves is equating the 20,000 who kill themselves via suicide with a gun to the killing of random peace-loving people in a concert hall and restaurants. You get that? A suicidal person hurts no one but himself, but that is morally equivalent to murder by another, according to Steves, for it is all just gun violence - zero distinction of intent, purpose, or motive. Pretty much as baseline thinking as you can get. No wonder college kids are so illogical, if this is represents their lesson is logic.

Steves is also equating the the 8,000 killed in gang and drug-related shootings with walking into a venue and randomly killing people. Does he and others not get that gang warfare is a goal-directed war, not a random event designed to kill innocents? To Steves and others all killings involving a gun is the guns’ fault. Clueless is the term I think of.

Overall, what Steves is saying is it is the method of killing that is to blame, not the terrorists. All people who die from being shot are all the same - all just victims of gun violence where reasoning, motive, and intent do not enter into the equation. Absolute stupidity.

102

The other ‘blame the West’ comments I’ve heard last night and this morning are “Europe should take in more refugees because they are just trying to get away from this same sort of violence”. The commentators completely overlook that with the numbers coming, individuals cannot be checked for terrorist ties. They have fake passports so officials don’t know who they really are. France has closed its borders. One wonders how soon the others will follow.

103

So, zoosermom, if you were in charge, what would you do?

104

As zoosermom said: An Islamist* is not a Muslim.
Islamists are totalitarian wanabes who hide behind the name of Islam.
This is to be understood as an act of war, as President Hollande justly said, from
one group that considers the concepts of liberty and equality offensive to their worldview,
and they consider their worldview to be dictated by God, therefore France is an abomination
against God. (Anything they say, like “because of Syria”, is just a pretext.)
God, here, as usual, has not been speaking. God is just a convenient way to justify
slavery and rape (yup, Daesh includes both as part of God’s mandate. Which is
anathema to actual Muslims.)

The next target may be anywhere.
I understand Rick Steeves’ comment as this: you don’t risk getting killed in Paris if you go next week, any more than if you go to Coppenhagen or Madrid or New York City.

Since 9/11, I consider this is the world we live in, where civilians are targeted to cause terror, and I refuse to let them win by either letting them dictate the terms or decide what I do. I know they’re there and I’m not letting fear change my life.

The comparison to a drug cartel is apt, actually.
All in all, these people are not Muslim. They just say they are to confuse us.

  • note: the term isn't Islamic, which is just an adjective, but Islamist, which means 'person who claims to be muslim for political reasons and subscribes to a totalitarian worldview".
105

MYOS, it doesn’t matter what works for you in terms of anything but how you get through the day. You don’t get to speak for anyone but yourself. I was in Manhattan on 9/11. My husband is on the first responder registry, so please think before you attempt to preach to me.

And that little gem about letting them win is spectacularly juvenile. They do not care if you are offended by my acknowledging their religion, they don’t care if CardinalFang travels. They want to count bodies and accumulate territory. The fact that you think they care about nonsense is why they laugh at people like you and why they know that they are serious and you aren’t.

106

Fireandrain, I honestly don’t know. The size of the force that Russia has in Syria terrifies me. We should have taken ISIS seriously and we should have kept Iraq stable, but we can’t Unring those bells. We need a serious, strong,leader and there isn’t one in the world right now, unless you count Putin who is certainly strong and serious about his own interests. But what we can’t do is pretend at any level that the option to live in peace is in our hands because it isn’t.

107

^I’m not trying to preach to you. Really. I was actually agreeing with you, but disagreeing with awcnt.

I do believe that stopping to visit NYC after 9/11 would have made no sense, just as stopping to visit Madrid, or Paris.

108

They are Muslims. But that is irrelevant to our societal survival.

109

@zoosermom, I think you’re saying that because Islamic terrorists are Islamic, rather than some other non-religious kind of terrorist, we are fighting them differently. But I think we agree that the vast majority of Muslims in the world are not terrorists and don’t agree with the terrorists’ aims or tactics. That nice Muslim down the street doesn’t want to blow up soccer stadiums and is just as appalled as the rest of us at the carnage. And I think you agree that the relevant fact about Islamic terrorists is that they’re terrorists, not that they’re Islamic. Anyone who is Islamic but not a terrorist = fine; anyone who is a terrorist, whether Islamic or not = bad.

So then what would we be doing differently, in your view, if the Islamic terrorists were terrorists in the name of an ethnic group or some other cause, rather than a religion?

110

It’s always going to be easy to kill some people if you don’t care whether you survive. Anyone on this list could do it… Steely-eyed resolve and bombing countries isn’t going to change that fact. And to the extent that steely-eyed resolve and bombing countries create more people who want to commit murder-suicide, that’s not a successful strategy.

111

^ @CardinalFang: because words matter: Islamic applies to things (such as art, or architecture, or history); the people we’re talking about are called “islamist” (adj) or “islamists” (noun). Islamic art is not islamist art. Daesh is islamist but not islamic (and pretty antithetical to islamic since they love destroying artistic and historical achievements.)

Three days ago French TV discussed a thwarted bombing, target: a military base in the South. The French Intelligence thwarted it because they have extensive rights to open any form of communication from any person with an S-form (fiche S), they opened a package and took action. However they also indicated it was impossible to follow every single “S-Form” person.

At that time, we learned of 14 other terrorist attacks that had been thwarted. They also mentioned that an attack on “soft targets” was expected but it was impossible to know where/when. It wasn’t an if, it was just “when/where”. Friday was the last day before border controls due to the Climate Conference (COP21). The controls do NOT aim at stopping people from entering and have nothing to do with refugees, but with the Blackblok, a violentgroup that loves disrupting international meetings by rampaging in European cities. There have also been issues recently with another violent group called Noborders, which agitates in Calais, encouraging fights and confrontation with police, leading to major troubles earlier this week.

I don’t think we’re fighting Daesh differently than, say, the Taliban, or Malian rebels. However, because our ruinous action into Iraq and the many lives lost there (and the chaos resulting from the botched 2003 military campaign) it’s very difficult to commit American lives for Syria. We are sending bombers and drones, and on the ground we’re helping specific groups (although some of these ended up getting bombed by Russian bombers, hence the hullabaloo two weeks ago.)
We must also recognize that this force has an endless supply of fighters, some of whom are drawn from European youth (Britain, France, and Germany as main targets). The youth are drawn by idealism - they’re shown images of massacred children and told they’ll help make life better for traumatized kids and families. They’re targeted at an age when they’re both distrustful of adult authority and lacking in sufficient critical thinking skills to see through the propaganda, ie., 14-16. This is a different areaof the war where we have to fight, because reaching these kids before they commit their lives to areas controled by Daesh is essential and extremely complicated.

112

“Rick Steves’ advice is not meant to be political advice.”

Really. This is the same Rick Steves who wrote in “Travel as a Political Act” that displaying the American flag on car antennas “creates a fearful, schizophrenic dynamic that may stoke today’s terrorism and tomorrow’s international conflicts.”

So today he states, “About the right response to terrorism, I believe we owe it to the victims of this act not to let the terrorist win by being terrorized.”

Carry on with your travel plans … everything will be OK. Just don’t display the American flag, even when you are actually in the US. We certainly don’t want to provoke the terrorists.

Read his bio and you will see he is a very political guy … as demonstrated by him using this as an opportunity to comment on gun control in the US.

BTW, I travel to Europe about 4-6 times a year on business. I have had many great experiences there and have never been legitimately concerned about safety. But I will say, horrible events like the tragic terrorist attack yesterday lead people to have natural heightened feelings of uncertainty.

113

I meant that Steves’ advice was not political in that he is not speaking of a governmental policy response to the attacks. He may have some beliefs about the right policy, but the excerpt supplied was advice to individual people about whether to respond to the attacks by changes in one’s travel plans. He says not to do this.

But at a larger level, suppose all potential American tourists decided not to go to Europe out of fear of Islamic terrorism there. Would that advance ISIS’s goals, or retard them? I’d say, it would advance them, because it would mean their terrorist tactics have succeeded in making us change what we do.

What should I personally do in response to Islamic terrorism? The answer to that question can’t be, bomb Syria. I personally can’t bomb Syria; I don’t have warplanes. However good the policy of bombing Syria, it’s not a policy I as an individual can adopt.

114

Listening to CNN now. Bombers apparently used an explosive easily obtainable from readily available products. It is very dangerous stuff that is easy to detonate.

A Cal State Long Beach exchange student is among the dead.

115

^^TATP. Same stuff some terrorists were using in Spain when the cops showed up and they blew themselves up.

116

@ Cardinal Fang

I agree with you on the point that one should not change travel plans to Europe. I’m going in a couple weeks.

I was trying to point out what I perceive to be significant hypocrisy in his comments. Keep traveling - don’t let the terrorists change our way of life. But don’t display the flag - change your way of life.

As far as how we can all personally respond to the terror threat facing our country? I agree we fight to maintain our way of life - one of the great messages of the response to 9/11. And I suppose we all try to select and influence our leaders to follow a course of action we personally believe is best to deal with this threat to our national security.

117

I’ve been given the US Government’s overseas Anti-Terrorism briefing and training for a few decades, and one of the things they always emphasize is to blend in with the local environment. Showing the US flag overseas (in non-official circumstances) is always something we’re advised not to do to draw attention to ourselves. One of the old jokes was to put Canadian flags all over our stuff (like real Canadians do) to blend in with all the Canadians.

118

NoVADad, isolating it in the form that would not go off on its own is tricky. It has been a staple in terrorists’ cookbooks for years.

http://pubs.acs.org/#/doi/abs/10.1021/cen-v083n030.p011

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@NoVaDadd99

The comment I was referring to was his suggestion to not fly it on your car. Assuming you are not driving to Europe, I think he meant here, in the US.

BTW, not that I am an expert at getting around there, but you learn fairly quickly how to adapt. I do see many, many, many US tourists in London that aren’t wearing American flags but might as well be as they clearly demonstrate they are tourists through their actions.

120

Not flying an American flag on one’s car while in the US is supposed to be a response to Islamic terrorism? I don’t get it. Does Rick Steves say this?