The Paris Attack Debate Thread

[Malthus]

"when the day comes" 

Hey, you are already ruled by Barack Hussein Obama. Can that day be far off? 

[KRonn]

Very strong moves, but smart moves, given the enormity of the problem in France. I'm seeing reports of large numbers of extremists in Paris that the intel agencies are just now realizing. Any truth to that or is it over the top reporting?

What figures do you have?

This morning on TV news it was said that French authorities said about 11k people just in Paris. That seems like way too many but given the level of security reaction in France there might be something to it. There are reports of a hundred or more raids every day.

[mongers]

Nothing, Isis is fucking awesome. She puts her husband-brother back together and then conveniently couldn't find his penis. Then she crafts her own gold penis in order to impregnate herself.

Just from this thread, that's an extra three of you on an NSA/GCHQ watch-list. 

[Malthus]

Nothing, Isis is fucking awesome. She puts her husband-brother back together and then conveniently couldn't find his penis. Then she crafts her own gold penis in order to impregnate herself.

Just from this thread, that's an extra three of you on an NSA/GCHQ watch-list. 

Posting on Languish gets us there automatically. 

[Crazy_Ivan80]

Nothing, Isis is fucking awesome. She puts her husband-brother back together and then conveniently couldn't find his penis. Then she crafts her own gold penis in order to impregnate herself.

Just from this thread, that's an extra three of you on an NSA/GCHQ watch-list. 

Posting on Languish gets us there automatically. 

maybe they have ranks or levels...

[Martinus]

But I guess this is from the same crowd who think 16% of Frenchmen are pro-ISIS.

14% of Frenchmen are pro-Mithra.

Ah that might have been the cause of the problem. 16% of Frenchmen are actually pro-Isis. Frankly I am disturbed it is not higher. What is wrong with Isis? Certainly preferable to Set.

Of the Isis-Apophis-Osiris trio, Isis is definitely the most agreeable. Osiris is hottest, though.

[Savonarola]

Posting on Languish gets us there automatically. 

maybe they have ranks or levels...

They do.  In fact they're listed right below your name

[Tonitrus]

But I guess this is from the same crowd who think 16% of Frenchmen are pro-ISIS.

14% of Frenchmen are pro-Mithra.

Ah that might have been the cause of the problem. 16% of Frenchmen are actually pro-Isis. Frankly I am disturbed it is not higher. What is wrong with Isis? Certainly preferable to Set.

Of the Isis-Apophis-Osiris trio, Isis is definitely the most agreeable. Osiris is hottest, though.

I prefer Bastet.

[Savonarola]

Analysis from the BEEB:

Paris attacks: Why IS will eventually fail
By Owen Bennett-Jones
BBC News

With each attack come millions of words. Politicians, journalists and witnesses express their shock and their determination to hold tight to the values of openness, tolerance and democracy.
But soon after these initial reactions, bewilderment sets in. What do the jihadists want? Why are they so brutal, as they were in Paris? How can they be stopped? How long can they endure?


The West's dilemmas are acute. But the jihadists also have things to worry about.

Brutality alienates

The mass movement of Syrian refugees tells its own story. While a few thousand alienated young men and women have headed east to Syria, hundreds of thousands of Syrians have headed west to Europe.

In the months that followed the fall of Mosul, there were signs the so-called Islamic State (IS) had learnt an important lesson about how to govern.

It knew the Taliban administrations in Afghanistan and small pockets of Pakistan had failed to sustain popular support.
In both countries, people had hoped the Taliban could offer an alternative to the existing, corrupt political order.
But when they gained power, the Taliban's brutality alienated its support base.

Take the issue of administering justice. Exasperated by the dysfunctional state judicial system, people wanted to believe in the Taliban's promises of speedy justice. But as often as not, the new religious courts consisted of ill-educated clerics handing down capricious verdicts.

There were signs when Islamic State started taking territory in Syria, it tried to avoid such mistakes. Local level administrators reassured traders they would be able to run their businesses in a safe and secure environment.

But, while first-hand accounts are few and far between, the evidence suggests IS has failed to follow through on such promises.
Furthermore, its leaders are so ill-educated, they will never be able to govern well enough to provide people with jobs.

When the Iraqi town of Sinjar was recently retaken by Western-backed Kurdish forces, there was no-one living there. Having killed or terrified Sinjar's residents, IS had ended up running a ghost town.

Flee or keep your head down

There are other reasons to believe IS will eventually fail.

Its central idea - those who do not agree with its religious ideas are worthy of death - is rejected by virtually everyone, including most Muslims.

For members of a minority seeing IS forces heading in their direction, it means the only option is to flee. For Sunni Muslims, it is a case of keeping your head down, attending prayers and obeying all the IS rules regarding dress, beards and other customs.
But right now, the victories just keep coming at an astonishing rate. Before 9/11, advocates of jihadist violence were little-known, irrelevant figures: misfits on the margin, rejected by their own societies and ignored by the West. How different it looks today.

The Americans have been humbled in Iraq and Afghanistan. The caliphate has been established. Al-Shabab in Somalia and Boko Haram in Nigeria have attracted tens of thousands of fighters. And all the while, the West looks on, transfixed, unsure what is coming next.

Of course, the jihadists have had setbacks. Osama Bin Laden was killed. Some drone strikes have found their mark. The West's proxy forces in Iraq and Syria have on a few occasions forced IS to relinquish territory.
But for the most part, the defeats have been Western ones. A single week can now bring hundreds of deaths.
'Us or them?'

To maintain the flow of recruits in the long term, the jihadists need to make Muslims feel more vulnerable and alienated in Western societies.

And in countries such as the UK, this objective is being achieved.

Largely unnoticed by the national media, inter-communal tensions are deepening at the local level. Where once the BNP stood alone, there are now a plethora of British - or more often English - nationalist groups resorting to street power.

Each protest makes it easier for the jihadist recruiters to press home the question: "Who are you with - us or them?"
The jihadists have another, more important, objective: to draw Western armies back to the Middle East.

Only then, will they be able to rally mainstream Arab support by portraying foreign troops as imperialists determined to occupy Muslim lands. Western governments will then be faced with the choice so concisely described by an al-Qaeda magazine headline in 2009: "Disastrous occupation or humiliating withdrawal?"

While this does make some good points, I don't think it makes a great case why ISIS will fail.  The Taliban didn't collapse because of judges delivering capricious sentences, it failed because of the force of western arms.  It does make about the best case for Barack's continued "Containment" strategy but, once again, what happens when ISIS does fail?  Who is going to replace it?

[KRonn]

what happens when ISIS does fail?  Who is going to replace it?

Probably the next iteration of radicals, since there are so many groups that have been around for a long time. Unless the nations in the area can properly pick up the pieces. Syria will be going through some significant change. Even if Assad steps down under Russian and other national pressure and with peace guarantees and agreements, there's no guarantee that the winner of the first elections won't be a radical group as those groups usually have the most organization, at first anyway. Libya seems like it'll be a mess for a long time, and that's not even being talked about. The West destabilized that nation, tossed out Ghadaffi who was actually quite tame and working with the West/US on anti-terrorism.

[Duque de Bragança]

Very strong moves, but smart moves, given the enormity of the problem in France. I'm seeing reports of large numbers of extremists in Paris that the intel agencies are just now realizing. Any truth to that or is it over the top reporting?

What figures do you have?

This morning on TV news it was said that French authorities said about 11k people just in Paris. That seems like way too many but given the level of security reaction in France there might be something to it. There are reports of a hundred or more raids every day.

11K makes sense as a number of listed Fiche S (S Profiles), but not necessarily closely watched ahem, radicals (danger for the security of the State) for all France.
For Paris, even counting suburbs, that seems too much.

http://www.lepoint.fr/societe/plus-de-10-000-personnes-objets-de-fiches-s-de-renseignement-16-11-2015-1982062_23.php

[KRonn]

There was mention of S Profiles in another news cast which might be what the 11k was in reference to. Probably the news stations are still getting information, figuring thing out and working to put it all together.

[grumbler]

(snip)

While this does make some good points, I don't think it makes a great case why ISIS will fail.  The Taliban didn't collapse because of judges delivering capricious sentences, it failed because of the force of western arms.  It does make about the best case for Barack's continued "Containment" strategy but, once again, what happens when ISIS does fail?  Who is going to replace it?

I agree that the article makes a few good points, but badly misses the point about when and how Islamist groups came to the forefront.  Not sure whether it was just that the narrative that the US has been "humbled' that required the author to pretend that jihadi movements didn't exist before 9/11, or whether the author just figured that, if he didn't hear of them before 9/11, no one else did either, but this movement goes back to at least the late 1970s when the communists began to crack down on all non-communist groups in Afghanistan.

I agree with you that the Taliban, though some of their specific acts were highly unpopular, would have held power for quite a while in Afghanistan barring western intervention.  Brutal as they were, they at least offered some hope of effective government.

The concept of ISIS containment has always been a silly idea, in my opinion.  It's merely a method by which an anxious president avoids committing himself to a war that could mar what he sees as his legacy.  He wants to spend his money on efforts to dodge bullets, not eliminate those firing the bullets.  I agree with Obama on a lot of things, but am starting to thing that all of his virtues can't compensate for his innate desire to avoid making the hard decisions.

One thing seems sure:  neither the Sunnis nor the Shiites are willing to live under the rule of the other any more.  That means re-drawing borders.  That wouldn't be such a big problem if it weren't for the Kurds.  Kurdish Iraq can't be given to Turkey when Iraq is eliminated, but if it is made independent it will surely result in a situation pretty much identical to that of AH and Serbia before 1914.  Is it possible to do a Turkish breakup like Czechs and Slovaks did in 1993?

[Valmy]

I don't know if we have been "humbled" but rather our strategy was not working. And that Iraqi government we set up told us to go away. There is only so much blood and treasure you want to sink into policies going nowhere. I think everybody in the US would be fine if the plan was 'steam roll Daesh' (or ISIS or whatever) so long as somebody else was going to step in seize control when we are done.

[Crazy_Ivan80]

  Is it possible to do a Turkish breakup like Czechs and Slovaks did in 1993?

only if you nuke them into submission. The Turks aren't going to let one square cm of their ground go and as it looks now they're unlikely to at least accept that Kurds are not Mountain Turks and dislike being seen as such. So the conflict will go on and on and on...