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Paris Shootings and Explosions Kill Over 100, Police Say

nytimes.com

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

#581

Post by jules »

plonh wrote: post #378
jules wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You really think that the sincere belief that you will spend an eternity in heaven and secure a place in heaven for 70 family members of your choosing and earn the love of God has nothing to do with it? It's hard for people who are not religious fundamentalists to understand that some people really believe this with as much certainty as you and I believe that the sun will rise tomorrow. This belief is precisely why s…

Quite a fraction of suicide attackers were blackmailed into the act.

Do you have a reference for this?

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

#582

Post by briandear »

toyg wrote: post #54
Cthulhu_ wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a major problem is that even they can't know who among them - in the big groups of refugees making the journey - is an isis member or supporter, and even if they're not, there's no telling who is going to radicalise in the future. The attacks earlier this year in paris weren't done by someone that came from that area, iirc.

Refugees carry little more than their shirts in their travels. Those guns and grenades didn't come with refugees. End of story.

You have no idea what you're talking about. Within probably 3 hours, one could arrange the purchase of AK-47s. The "bad guys" aren't coming to France with weapons in their checked luggage. This is supported by networks. The foot soldiers aren't the smugglers. You flood 10,000 people, among those you have your "bad guys," then, once they're in country, they link up with their networks.

This isn't "end of story." These ISIS guys aren't just buying tickets to CDG airport. How are they getting into Europe? What's the easiest way to get into Europe if your from Syria? It isn't going through traditional entry routes, it's blending in with refugees.

Why are so many people attempting to vindicate the refugees? If the bad guys are from Syria and 38% of the hundreds of thousands of refugees are Syrian, then wouldn't it follow that some percentage of those refugees could logically be nefarious actors? To think otherwise is to be incredible naive and perhaps blinding by an ideological desire for these refugees to not be part of the problem.

Sure there's tragedy in Syria, however, I'm unwilling to open my home if that exposes my family to any risk. There's no upside for me. There are plenty of poor people here in France that could use my help -- my capacity to care deeply about every single person in every single war zone is limited.

Let's export 50,000 Syrian refugees and dump them in the Mission District in San Fran and see how opinions change.

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

#583

Post by gozo »

warsheep wrote: post #526
gozo wrote: post #511

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's "pure scapegoating". It's very much a relevant part to understand the mechanics behind thing like this. The French ban on anti-Isreali demonstrations might very well have helped radicalization and recruitment of young people with non-french backgrounds. So might the last years worsening conflict in Palestine. It shouldn't be a particularly controversial statement to say that there are things that I…

A lot of "may" and "might" in your reply, and absolutely no facts. The facts are that on ISIS' agenda, fighting Palestinian groups such as Hamas has a higher priority than fighting Israel [1][2], yet people in this thread still manage to "lightly" blame the Israelis, the US, basically anyone except those responsible, as if these people are incapable of independent thought. [1] http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/25/world/…

People who have historically done these kinds of act don't care about IS nor are they devote Muslims. They care about support for Israel because it is seen as a further proof of the west mistreating Muslims. It's not about blaming Israel, it's about western governments doing things like the french did and first celebrating free speech after Charlie Hebdo, just to ban anti-Israeli demonstrations. That's a great recruiting tool to use on young person in a suburb already feeling mistreated by the government.

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

#584

Post by [deleted] »

ordinary wrote: post #557
jacquesm wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since the end of the war in former Yugoslavia and the fall of the former USSR Europe is awash with arms of all shapes and sizes. Automatic weapons caches are uncovered with scary regularity and it is not hard to imagine at all that groups with sufficient money can gain access to assault weapons in relatively large numbers.

I have never heard of this, which is scary in itself. Or maybe it isn't, I don't really know. Do you know of any further reading for me?

[deleted]

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

#585

Post by qb45 »

Kankuro wrote: post #577
qb45 wrote: post #554

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apparently, armed citizens can help in some cases. Three armed people stopped a nuthead shooting in train in France: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/aug/21/amsterdam-paris...

These three persons were not armed. My feeling (being a European) is that I would feel much more threatened by the fact than people I can see in the street can have a gun than I would feel safer because some random strangers could protect me with their guns. From time to time there are some news that someone get stabbed because for having allegedly had a bad look on someone else. With guns, you don't even have the op…

Admittedly, I didn't know all the details of this story. It seems that they indeed stopped the attacker with bare hands when his gun jammed. Just shows how much luck they had.

There are civilians lawfully carrying guns in Europe, just not many of them, so be free to already feel threatened. I'm not saying we should give guns to every kid out there, but if 1% of citizens were armed, shooting up 100 people wouldn't be such an easy endeavor.

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

#586

Post by jules »

coldtea wrote: post #329
jules wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You really think that the sincere belief that you will spend an eternity in heaven and secure a place in heaven for 70 family members of your choosing and earn the love of God has nothing to do with it? It's hard for people who are not religious fundamentalists to understand that some people really believe this with as much certainty as you and I believe that the sun will rise tomorrow. This belief is precisely why s…

> You really think that the sincere belief that you will spend an eternity in heaven and secure a place in heaven for 70 family members of your choosing and earn the love of God has nothing to do with it? (...) and makes you blind to an important and maybe even the most important strategy against religious terrorism: education that sheds doubt on the literal interpretation of holy books. That's a caricature. A lot of…

> That's a caricature. A lot of the perpetrators, like in 9/11, are highly educated and even westernized people, not some backwater goat herders believing such BS.

I am fully aware of this, I said so in other comment. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10564189 The mistake you are making here is the idea that otherwise intelligent and educated people cannot believe crazy things. Just look at the Christian nutjobs.

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

#587

Post by return0 »

neuro_imager wrote: post #504
cryptica wrote: post #137

This soils the reputation of islam. I know some good people (muslims) who suffer from prejudice on a daily basis because of attacks like these. Being a muslim in a foreign country is an increasingly difficult and isolating experience.

There's no question that the ideology of islam - or at least the ideology of several of its sects is a critical element in these attacks. Claiming otherwise is leftist PC nonsense. Sure there are many good muslims, most of whom you will find adhere to a secular ideology and western value system despite labelling themselves "muslim".

I think the focus in Islam itself is misleading. The Ottoman empire was muslim for hundreds of years yet christians and muslims did not fight against each other on religious grounds, and there was definitely no such fringe fanaticism. My grandmother remembered that people were sad when muslims had to leave the balkans due to national population exchanges back in the beginning of the last century.

The terrorists you see today would become terrorists in the name of Christ just as well. Having said that, it's true that certain groups can be identified as "bad" and labeled so, and it seems that the one unifying characteristic is their islamic faith, although there are other national characteristics as well. Saying that we need to defend against "Islam" would be too broad a target, and the terrorists use that to their advantage. In Europe, we need to stop treating muslim populations as minorities, start treating them as european citizens, and demand that their religious leaders contribute to public safety. They need to actively engage in the expulsion of radicalized people from their religious communities and preach against the sentiment that justifies the attacks. Laisez-faire comes at a price to everyone, and muslims are not excluded from it.The terrorists have been bastardizing the meaning of Islam for 4-5 decades now. Maybe Islam should be having it's own velvet revolution.

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

#588

Post by [deleted] »

da1 wrote: post #199
djfm wrote: post #76

I live in Paris and was spending the night in the middle of the hot zone. I was a few hundred meters from the Bataclan but fortunately the area I was in was spared. I tried to get a Uber but they were unavailable, "State of emergency, please stay home", the app said. I took a city bike home, rode about 10kms and barely saw anyone in the streets all the way home. It was really, really weird. I'm awfully sad that peopl…

> Please stop this pointless killing. I think by definition this anything but pointless.

[deleted]

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

#589

Post by da1 »

anardil wrote: post #446
da1 wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Please stop this pointless killing. I think by definition this anything but pointless.

What do you mean by this?

Because it's very clear that whoever did this had a point, an objective. Therefore it's not pointless.

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

#590

Post by gozo »

bjourne wrote: post #571
Fluid_Mechanics wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we didn't need to secure their oil by supporting/deposing despots in the region, and didn't want to provide the Israelis with military/political/financial support then we would not be dealing with any of this carnage. Their attempts to fight back will only escalate the situation, and the carnage will continue. Edit: I'm not advocating that we not support Israel. I'm simply stating a hard truth regarding "why they…

We had a suicide bomber in Sweden who blew himself up because he was angry that the government didn't arrest Lars Vilks, an artist who had made some drawings of Muhammed which he thought was offensive ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lars_Vilks_Muhammad_drawings_c... ). Swedish Muslim terrorists also tried to create a massacre at Jyllandsposten because of their drawings ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jyllands-Posten_…

Sweden hasn't been as affected as other countries. Instability will always spill over from conflicts, there's nothing special about this era. RAF occupied the West German embassy in Stockholm in 1975 and planned to kidnap a Swedish politician. To some extent it's the same for France, they didn't invade Iraq, created Guantanamo or other things to escalate the conflict yet they are targeted. Maybe because they have a lot of dealings in the Middle East or to please IS supporters or it's just convenient. I'm sure people will speculate a lot about this in the coming months.
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