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Paris Shootings and Explosions Kill Over 100, Police Say

nytimes.com

221–230 of 672 posts

Re: Paris Shootings and Explosions Kill Over 100, Police Say

#221

Right now we don't know who these people are, where they came from and what their aims were (besides terror). Of course terror is exactly this, you don't know, you imagine the worst, and everyone reacts, often pointlessly. I wonder why France?

We know exactly who they are: islamists. We have video recordings where you can hear them yelling "allahu Akbar" while shooting.

42% of young Muslims in France believe suicide bombings are justified (35% overall).

http://www.pewresearch.org/files/old-assets/pdf/muslim-ameri...

Re: Paris Shootings and Explosions Kill Over 100, Police Say

#222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Terrorism is usually a rational act. It is terrible, but it has political goals. This, for instance, may be aimed at ending the European involvement in Syria and their taking in refugees.

A lot of the time, terrorism is carried out by irrational people, but orchestrated by slightly more rational people. The people willing to risk their lives are not the same people that are convincing others to risk their lives. After all, if people like Sayyid Qutb actually risked his life, he wouldn't be able to convince other idiots to die.

Egyptian here, actually Qutb risked his life and lost it for his "cause" and there's a lot of controversy surrounding this issue and it's a recurrent hot topic in political discussions here that his unlawful detention by the military authorities and the subsequent execution might have resulted in his radicalization and him espousing more extremist views of jihadism and political violence to effect social change in the nation because he was very aware of the fact at the time that he would be executed at any point so he had maybe a "fuck it" moment and decided to screw the world he would depart involuntarily by leaving his vile and despicable writing behind as a vendetta

Re: Paris Shootings and Explosions Kill Over 100, Police Say

#223
post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Terrorism is usually a rational act. It is terrible, but it has political goals. This, for instance, may be aimed at ending the European involvement in Syria and their taking in refugees.

I think it is actually the opposite. They are trying to provoke a christian involvement in Syria so that they can claim it is a cruisade and recruit more fighters in the muslim world. It is usually how terrorism work. IRA or ETA were doing exactly the same.

I think you are correct. And any kind of extra reaction is bonus and will help to further split the French society indirectly enabling further recruitment as well.

Re: Paris Shootings and Explosions Kill Over 100, Police Say

#224
post #212
post #208

I don't understand how can you talk about ISIS, Nazis and Communists in the same sentence? Communism has nothing to do with violence compared to ISIS and Nazis... Edit: Why downvotes? Idea of communism does not propose violence, Nazis and ISIS on the other hand do.

I think he might be talking about Stalinism. Or at the very least, just Stalin.

So you think Stalin was as bad as ISIS and Nazis?

edit: Why downvotes? I've asked a question, I wonder how western people see Stalin in history. I as Russian see him as the one who was involved in defeating Nazis

Re: Paris Shootings and Explosions Kill Over 100, Police Say

#225
post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Terrorism is usually a rational act. It is terrible, but it has political goals. This, for instance, may be aimed at ending the European involvement in Syria and their taking in refugees.

The data on terrorist attacks does not support this conclusion. Terrorism is rarely effective in its political goals and studies have concluded that it is not a rational or cost effective strategy.

Citation needed. The US and Israel are 2 rather successful examples of countries born out of terrorism.

Re: Paris Shootings and Explosions Kill Over 100, Police Say

#226
post #208

I don't understand how can you talk about ISIS, Nazis and Communists in the same sentence? Communism has nothing to do with violence compared to ISIS and Nazis... Edit: Why downvotes? Idea of communism does not propose violence, Nazis and ISIS on the other hand do.

There has been plenty of communist-inspired violent terrorism. Germany's RAF, Italy's Red Brigade, Japan's United Red Army, Peru's Shining Path, Columbia's FARC, Sri Lanka's Tamil Tigers, etc. etc. Saying these are not real communists is just a No True Scotsman. As soon as people start believing in utopias there's a danger that they will cross a line.

Re: Paris Shootings and Explosions Kill Over 100, Police Say

#228
post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> aimed at ending the European involvement in Syria I would be quite surprised if the EU decided against further intervention by this. If anything, I would expect them to intervene more.

The EU does not have a common defense policy. A conventional union always has a common defense policy, but may have internally divergent economic policies, so the "U" in EU is misleading in that regard. Currently France and Britain are the only EU countries engaged in the conflict, with Turkey being a loose EU affiliate also in the conflict.

NL is involved as well but on a smaller scale.

Re: Paris Shootings and Explosions Kill Over 100, Police Say

#229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The OP meant that this is the first time since WWII that France has closed its borders, which is true. For those curious about 2005 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_French_riots#State_of_eme... Edit: I was wrong, the President said the borders were closed, but then clarified that they weren't.

The borders are not closed, it's just a restoration of border controls.

[deleted]

Re: Paris Shootings and Explosions Kill Over 100, Police Say

#230
post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about those who do harm in your name?

That's their choice not mine. As much as I'm able to claim, I'd never advocate such.

And there stems the entire problem with islam from. A lot of people killing "in its name"; more often than not, where that is just abused as an ideology to rally more marginalized people to the cause.

We'll never be able to stop those that abuse religions and causes for political gain, but we can starve their number of "soldiers" by not giving impressionable people more reasons to hate a country.

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