The Paris Attack Debate Thread

[LaCroix]

I guess you showed me.

yeah, that was rude of me. but really, i just spent more time than i'd like in that earlier thread a few weeks ago trying to argue how that point is bunk.

[Martinus]

I've yet to see a workable answer. When a country like Sweden has seen attempted terrorist attacks (the Iraqi who tried to kill people--but failed, who bombed Stockholm being an example) the "dovish" response clearly doesn't make this stuff not happen. I mean of the various countries in Europe, France has certainly been involved in some campaigns against Islamic terrorists, but it isn't a big supporter of Israel, it doesn't have any boots on the ground in the Middle East, its first airstrikes against ISIS were just in September of this year--and they'd already suffered the Charlie Hebdo attacks and other acts of Islamic terror before that. Plus, I don't even buy into these attacks being necessarily related to our (the West's) behavior in the Middle East anymore. That may have inspired 9/11, but I think we're entering a stage now where it's the domestic Muslims who simply dislike the Western societies they've found themselves in who are going to be the ones carrying out attacks on us. Not the ones mad we're killing Jihadi John, but the ones who don't like a society where women have equal rights to men, or where I'm allowed to draw a picture of Muhammad without being put to death.

In some ways that scares me more than the al-Qaeda attacks on the United States--that was an attack largely as a response to the American geopolitical behavior in the Middle East. I'm not saying I'm okay with 9/11, obviously, but I'm saying we can always make decisions about our Foreign Policy pretty easily. We can decide if it's worth it to be involved in the Middle East or not, for example.

But when you have growing domestic Muslim populations, and a percentage are enthralled by jihadist social media, videos etc, and then a portion of those are willing to kill--that's a problem. Those people are there now, they aren't leaving, they aren't going anywhere. They don't disappear just because we stop bombing ISIS.

As an American I don't feel a lot of personal fear, to be honest America is so big, with its population still well into the positive growth territory, and we also have a long history of " leave people's religion alone" in terms of government that I actually think our Muslim population just isn't a big problem. We're so far from the Middle East we'll never see the influx of Muslims Europe is, and we are also much bigger than any European country and can more easily absorb the small numbers we get. Some of these tiny European countries, with aging and declining secular/native European populations who are seeing huge amounts of Muslim immigration and then seeing those immigrants maintain astronomical reproduction rates--that would really scare me as a European. These aren't Mexicans (who America honestly has been living with ever since the Louisiana Purchase days) looking for work. In a free society that reflects the will of its people, what happens to secular, liberal Europe when a country's population is 30% Muslim, 40? 50?

I don't have answers or ideas, I don't know that there are any easy answers.

The one thing I will say is this--jihadist recruitment should not be protected speech, Lincoln didn't let Confederate recruiters operate with impunity in the Northern States. We need to force social media and streaming providers to 100% ban any jihadist recruitment activities from their platforms. We need our national police forces to shut down independent sites that run this stuff, and we need strong criminal laws prohibiting advocating going on jihad or etc. Recruiting for the enemy has never been protected activity in the United States. I don't know about in Europe--but it shouldn't be if it is.

The first and obvious response to this is "but you can't regulate the entire internet." Of course you can't, but you can regulate the huge forums and social media services that jihadists are recruiting on. ISIS has literally spoken with prospective  jihadists over Facebook. That can't be happening. What happens when you clamp down is this shit goes underground. I have no illusions you can get it off the internet, but I also think of the hundreds of thousands of disaffected teenage Muslims living in the West the number who have a Facebook account is way higher than the number who know how to download and run the Tor browser. We can't stop child pornography from being distributed on the internet, but we have certainly made it more difficult to distribute it openly. That's what needs to happen with jihadist recruitment efforts, there are going to be a large percentage of people that will not be engaging with this extremism to the same degree if it involves having to slink around unknown corners of the internet, install specialty software and etc. Again--some will always be willing to take those steps, but not all, and any reduction in open recruitment to jihadism is a good thing.

I don't think Western Europe treats jihadist recruitment as protected speech - quite the contrary. To me, the problem is Saudi funding for wahhabist clerics in Europe. I think we should crack down on those first - send undercover cops to larger mosques and muslim schools in the countries like France or the UK (if someone thinks this is racial profiling, fuck you) - and brutally, with extreme prejudice, deal those who call to violence or attack our fundamental laws. Make these places self police - if they invite a hate-preaching cleric, they get closed down - after the first offense, for 3 to 6 months, after the second offense permanently.

But also deal in the same manner with right wing criminals who attack immigrants or preach violence against them.

I posted an article by Zizek few months ago - he had a good idea and it still stands, imo. We need to start enforcing the principles of Western liberal democracy that grew out of the Enlightenment and refuse to tolerate its enemies.

[Martinus]

What changes if they are not Muslim psychos?

Probably a lot.  If it's connected to guys coming from ISIS then it could result in military action.  Hitting Russia in one week and the French is not a the way to ensure a long and uneventful life.  If it turns out that it was the work of the Riddler there probably will be no military action.

Besides, if it is orchestrated by ISIS, I would say it qualifies as an Article 5 event.

[Martinus]

So this Paris attack and others such as slaughtering a Jordanian pilot on video, killing Egyptian Copts on video, plus the downing of the Russian airliner, would seem to charge up opposition and you'd think ISIS wouldn't want to keep making so many enemies and bring down so much resistance on their heads. But that's looking at it from another point of view and not theirs. So what is ISIS looking to gain by goading various nations, western and Islamic, into being a lot more active in striking back? Yeah, an ideology isn't easy to break with military action but military force could take out ISIS territory and remove their fledgling Caliphate. Puts them back to square one. That can work against them as it did in Anbar province where Iraqi Sunnis became so fed up with their Al-Qaeda friends and worked with the US/coalition and new Iraqi army during the surge to oust AQ. That was so successful with Iraqi Muslims fighting them that AQ leaders sent out messages to followers to not send any more fighters, that they were done in Iraq. ISIS would know that they can be seriously hurt in their physical lands and be badly set back. So why are they so intent on keeping stirring up the hornet's nest?

Well, they are not exactly rational to begin with, but I guess they are counting on no response or weak response and employing a type of salami tactics. What they gain is, essentially, radicalization of their followers, which helps in recruitment.

By the way, when they burned the Jordanian pilot, there was a big talk of Jordanian army essentially wiping ISIS off the planet, with the king leading the charge and whatnot. What happened to that?

[Martinus]

Here's a link to the full article by Zizek (http://www.lrb.co.uk/2015/09/09/slavoj-zizek/the-non-existence-of-norway), and below are his four points, with which I, broadly speaking, agree, especially no. 2:

First, in the present moment, Europe must reassert its commitment to provide for the dignified treatment of the refugees. There should be no compromise here: large migrations are our future, and the only alternative to such a commitment is renewed barbarism (what some call a 'clash of civilisations').

Second, as a necessary consequence of this commitment, Europe should impose clear rules and regulations. Control of the stream of refugees should be enforced through an administrative network encompassing all of the members of the European Union (to prevent local barbarisms like those of the authorities in Hungary or Slovakia). Refugees should be assured of their safety, but it should also be made clear to them that they must accept the destination allocated to them by European authorities, and that they will have to respect the laws and social norms of European states: no tolerance of religious, sexist or ethnic violence; no right to impose on others one's own religion or way of life; respect for every individual's freedom to abandon his or her communal customs, etc. If a woman chooses to cover her face, her choice must be respected; if she chooses not to cover her face, her freedom not to do so must be guaranteed. Such rules privilege the Western European way of life, but that is the price to be paid for European hospitality. These rules should be clearly stated and enforced, by repressive measures – against foreign fundamentalists as well as against our own racists – where necessary.

Third, a new kind of international military and economic intervention will have to be invented – a kind of intervention that avoids the neocolonial traps of the recent past. The cases of Iraq, Syria and Libya demonstrate how the wrong sort of intervention (in Iraq and Libya) as well as non-intervention (in Syria, where, beneath the appearance of non-intervention, external powers such as Russia and Saudi Arabia are deeply involved) end up in the same deadlock.

Fourth, most important and most difficult of all, there is a need for radical economic change which would abolish the conditions that create refugees. Without a transformation in the workings of global capitalism, non-European refugees will soon be joined by migrants from Greece and other countries within the Union. When I was young, such an organised attempt at regulation was called communism. Maybe we should reinvent it. Maybe this is, in the long term, the only solution.

[Zanza]

Some of these tiny European countries, with aging and declining secular/native European populations who are seeing huge amounts of Muslim immigration and then seeing those immigrants maintain astronomical reproduction rates--that would really scare me as a European. [...] In a free society that reflects the will of its people, what happens to secular, liberal Europe when a country's population is 30% Muslim, 40? 50?

I can't speak for other countries, but in Germany second generation migrants have a fertility rate barely above non-migrants, both way below replacement. There is also a net emigration of e.g. Turks, our biggest group of notional Muslims. And in the last census only 1.9% self-identified as Muslims, not the 5-7% you read about elsewhere. Based on this and anecdotal evidence from the people with a supposed Muslim background that I know, my impression is that fears of "Eurabia" are vastly exaggerated.

The one thing I will say is this--jihadist recruitment should not be protected speech, Lincoln didn't let Confederate recruiters operate with impunity in the Northern States. We need to force social media and streaming providers to 100% ban any jihadist recruitment activities from their platforms.

The German government has big problems to get Facebook to ban hate speech (both Nazi and Islamist). They are very unhelpful there. Germany has very limited recourse over Facebook as it is opersting beyond Germany's jurisdiction. But at least they quickly delete pictures that show a naked boob. 

[celedhring]

Jihadi speech is certainly not protected speech in Spain. But yeah, there's trouble to get the big social networks to collaborate.

At least I hope they are more diligent when feeding that info to the NSA.

[Zanza]

Here's a link to the full article by Zizek (http://www.lrb.co.uk/2015/09/09/slavoj-zizek/the-non-existence-of-norway), and below are his four points, with which I, broadly speaking, agree, especially no. 2:

You broadly speaking agree with the reinvention of communism? 

[Martinus]

It's Zizek. He likes hyperbole but probably means the global Tobin tax.

[The Brain]

We need to start enforcing the principles of Western liberal democracy that grew out of the Enlightenment and refuse to tolerate its enemies.

This would be racist.

[Martinus]

Reading posts on Facebook, it all sadly falls into one of two camps of idiocy.

On the one hand you have right wingers - who also in Poland happen to be Catholic fundamentalists more often than not - who basically equate all immigrants and refugees with islamic terrorists, without realising that their own contempt for liberal Western values is what makes them quite similar to islamists

On the other hand you have left wingers - who refuse to acknowledge there is any link between terrorism and Islam in the first place.

It's all very frustrating...

[Liep]

Reading posts on Facebook, it all sadly falls into one of two camps of idiocy.

On the one hand you have right wingers - who also in Poland happen to be Catholic fundamentalists more often than not - who basically equate all immigrants and refugees with islamic terrorists, without realising that their own contempt for liberal Western values is what makes them quite similar to islamists

On the other hand you have left wingers - who refuse to acknowledge there is any link between terrorism and Islam in the first place.

It's all very frustrating...

It is indeed. Worst line of my feed: "stop blaming a religion because of 8 crazy idiots".

[Liep]

The Danish foreign minister already used the attack for political campaigning in the upcoming EU judicial membership vote. I have never seen so much backlash against a politician as over this though, Twitter hates him.

[Josquius]

Reasonable Muslims at some point have to realize that there is too much about their religion that is fucked up, say to world that some things Mohammed said were retarded, that some of the Koran is bullshit, and either chuck it altogether or pick out some parts that are worth saving and invent a new religion.

They pretty much do don't they?
Not in that same way  but certainly in a "these violent picks aren't real Muslims. Their interpretation is dumb" way.

[Liep]

Reasonable Muslims at some point have to realize that there is too much about their religion that is fucked up, say to world that some things Mohammed said were retarded, that some of the Koran is bullshit, and either chuck it altogether or pick out some parts that are worth saving and invent a new religion.

They pretty much do don't they?
Not in that same way  but certainly in a "these violent picks aren't real Muslims. Their interpretation is dumb" way.

Is that enough? Isn't it time to call for a reformation?