Attacks in Paris

[peterb]

Religion for sure, but not all religions are as disturbing as Islam. In it's core non Muslims are second class citizens. The more our mainstream governments push the "Islam is tolerant" message, the more they will push voters to the extremes of politics.

Liberalism is destroying Europe, the more people tolerate, the intolerant religion that is Islam, the more we sign our own death warrant. Germany are letting in over 800,000 Muslims a year, how many of those will want to harm innocents, and carry out an attack?

I live in Barcelona (Cornellá de Llobregat), and witnessed a failed Daesh attack 9 days ago, It didn't even make the news in Spain. Just the local news papers, and websites published some sanitized stories with half truths to keep the people from reacting angrily.

Religion might be the excuse, but the reason is political power, and builds on basic tribalism.

The danger is that by reacting with more violence, it pushes more disaffected people into the arms of the radicalisers, which in effect 'rewards' those who plan these attacks.

[TheAnimus]

What if you created a doctrine that specifically advanced things like this? Because that's often how Wahabism is used.

[The Hand]

RIP to those innocent lives lost. This could spell the end the of Schengen area, it was already fracturing from the immigration crisis and this terrible attack maybe enough to send it into terminal decline.

[directhex]

It will be interesting to see whether the groups behind these acts achieve their long-term goals or not. Replies by folk like barca-loner suggest yes, those by Splash suggest not.

[directhex]

Liberalism is destroying Europe, the more people tolerate, the intolerant religion that is Islam, the more we sign our own death warrant. Germany are letting in over 800,000 Muslims a year, how many of those will want to harm innocents, and carry out an attack?

Are you capable of distinguishing between the KKK or Westboro Baptist Church, and your local church?

[TeePee]

Are you capable of distinguishing between the KKK or Westboro Baptist Church, and your local church?

In my immediate radius I have a Catholic Church, A Baptist Church, an Assemblies of God and a Mormon Temple.

So that's a No. Welcome to the USA.

[TheAnimus]

It will be interesting to see whether the groups behind these acts achieve their long-term goals or not. Replies by folk like barca-loner suggest yes, those by Splash suggest not.

It depends on which goals you are thinking of.

"Useful Idiots" in the words of Trotsky jump to mind, but these are not a single united front, part of IS goal is to purge all non believers, this is an advanced form of the Wahhabist ideals of a global, united and total caliphate. You can not do that with people who are not true Muslims.

Some want to push a war, this will not ever happen. We will never attack Saudi, so yeah, it's not going to happen. You could argue that some 'moderate' Muslims will be radicalised by a backlash against their religion but that's a bit absurd, people are not radicalised because someone is a bit racist towards them, rather I don't see any evidence they are. In fact quite the contrary, as first generation, who normally suffer the worst of the racist attacks do not have such radicalised members as the second and third generations do.

I've been watching the social media reaction to this. You've got the classic idealistic lefties who are so shocked by this it's all they can do to take to the comment pages of the Guardian to remind people not to be racist. Meanwhile, France has closed it's borders, Poland has followed suit too, and for the first time in my life I was stopped at the airport as part of the enhanced security. This is because it turns out at least one of the suicide attackers may have been travelling on Syrian documents. These Guardianistas want to shout down ideas that mass immigration might not result in good cultural integration. They are the useful idiots too. They will result in further right than should be gaining power.

[Knoxville]

I was working from eleven last night until five this morning so I saw a lot of the updates as they were coming in and there were some horrifying tales coming from survivors and bystanders. One account in particular about a woman that had hidden under the bodies of those around her, terrified to move until rescuers found her was really harrowing stuff and my heart goes out to all involved.

Unfortunately it also seems to be bringing out the worst in some though. I've seen people on social media championing everything from closing our borders and deporting all Muslims from the UK to burning down Mosques or engaging in an all out war... You would think that when you're talking about using fear and violence to effect change because of a group of wretched individuals did exactly that the night before in another country and posting quotes from Putin of all people as a way to make your point alarm bells should start ringing but apparently that isn't the case for a worringly large part of the population.

[kalniel]

Unfortunately it also seems to be bringing out the worst in some though. I've seen people on social media championing everything from closing our borders and deporting all Muslims from the UK to burning down Mosques or engaging in an all out war... You would think that when you're talking about using fear and violence to effect change because of a group of wretched individuals did exactly that the night before in another country and posting quotes from Putin of all people as a way to make your point alarm bells should start ringing but apparently that isn't the case for a worringly large part of the population.

Indeed. And that's the effect the terrorists are ultimately trying to achieve.

[BobF64]

Religion might be the excuse

And, due to the unnecessary protections often afforded, rarely gets discussed without someone shouting that its "offensive" or "discriminatory".

The sad truth is that we, as humans, aren't very good at seeing things outside of our self imposed "groups", hence why the extensive lies of statistics are popular.

[kalniel]

The sad truth is that we, as humans, aren't very good at seeing things outside of our self imposed "groups", hence why the extensive lies of statistics are popular.

And that's presumably why we have laws against discrimination in the first place.

[The Hand]

I just heard on the radio that NATO may enact "article 5" and jointly declare war on Islamic State this coming week. This could be just the beginning..

[ik9000]

I just heard on the radio that NATO may enact "article 5" and jointly declare war on Islamic State this coming week. This could be just be the beginning..

I hope so. the only good way to deal with cancer is to kill it off. It's never pretty doing so, and good cells get killed with the bad ones, but cancer is cancer and the sooner you act the better.

[kalniel]

I just heard on the radio that NATO may enact "article 5" and jointly declare war on Islamic State this coming week. This could be just the beginning..

Indeed - attack on one country treated as an an attack on all. It's this kind of collective action that might help prevent retaliation targeting any single country too.

[gni2]

Very sad this happened

[The Hand]

Things are understandably still very jumpy in Paris, I was just watching Matt Frei on Channel 4 news and there was a big scare hundreds of people running live on TV.. watching now apparently it's on going..

Might be worth re-watching on Channel 4+1 after 6.35pm GMT to see what was going on.

Being covered by other news channels now - Paris, Place de la Republique

All clear has been given for now.

Witness the power of panic caused by the fear of terrorism:

http://www.channel4.com/news/

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/channel-4-news