France under attack!

[Richie B.]

There was a terrorist attack more like multiply attacks forcing the France government to close down there borders.

There are explosions and fire fights in Paris, there is a stadium that was captured and have hostages. More information has yet to come, but for now no one can leave or enter France for the time until they can find and take down the terrorist.

 

[Lavi]

Over 100 confirmed dead. A captured attacker claims he is from ISIS and is also a Syrian. The attackers were armed with "AK-47's" (taking with a grain of salt right now because the media is notoriously bad at identifying guns) and grenades.

 

[Richie B.]

The hostage situation is over, kill count is over 140 now. Paris is under curfew and now the border is closed. Also the refugee camp is being burned down right now, most likely by citizens.

 

[Lavi]

I've heard conflicting things on whether the refugee camps are actually being burned or not. I'm weary of the sources regarding this.

 

[Richie B.]

Well if it is I wouldn't be surprised but hopefully it ends soon so we can learn what is happening

 

[Eccles]

Do we have any members in Paris?

Stuff like this proofs that ordinary folks like you and me shouldn't bitch about a possible personal lack of privacy in regards to intelligence agencies. Let's hope the western world keeps offering aid to refugees and does not put this on the open borders.

My thoughts are with the many families.

 

[Loco]

Last night the death toll was at least 150, but this morning it's back down to 128. That's pretty normal for the way France reports things. I expect we'll get back up well past 150 as we get through the weekend. Many of the hundred plus wounded are listed as critical.

My bet yesterday was that most of the attackers will turn out to be french nationals or at least permanent residents- so far at least one of them is confirmed as such. ISIS also claimed responsibilty, which was where my money was. Attacks like this take months and months of planning, so it's unlikely to be related to any recent specific events and there are much easier ways to get into France than as a refugee. They've probably been working on this since Charlie Hebdo to one up AQ.

It was a long day for all military and law enforcement in major cities around the world yesterday. It's going to be a long weekend and a long week. FML. I was supposed to be coasting along until my vacation.

Je suis Français

 

[Livgardist]

I'm going to copy and past from my facebook here. I hope you guys don't mind, as I'm trying to spread a certain message.

The organization (ISIS), its real name, the only name we should refer to it by, is Da'esh. To call them ISIS - The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria - is to give them a legitimacy that they have no claim to.

I quote Wikipedia:
"The name Da'ish is often used by ISIL's Arabic-speaking detractors. It is based on the Arabic letters Dāl, alif, ʻayn, and shīn, which form the acronym (داعش) of ISIL's Arabic name al-Dawlah al-Islamīyah fī al-ʻIrāq wa-al-Shām.[56][57] There are many spellings of this acronym, with "Daesh" gaining acceptance. ISIL considers the name Da'ish derogatory, because it sounds similar to the Arabic words Daes, "one who crushes something underfoot", and Dahes, "one who sows discord".[30][58] ISIL reportedly uses flogging as a punishment for those who use the name in ISIL-controlled areas.[59][60] In 2015, over 120 British parliamentarians asked the BBC to use the name Daesh, following the example of John Kerry and Laurent Fabius.[30][61]"

You learn something new every day. Today's lesson: There is no ISIS, ISIL or IS. There is only Da'esh. Spread, and reinforce this message.

https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=http..._of_Iraq_and_the_Levant#Etymology&h=0AQF_Hh8e

End quote.

I will also say... I have never seen the Tricolor on Facebook before. Now, it's all I see. It's beautiful how humanity comes together when we are attacked by these animals.

 

[Flying Dutchman]

" Freedom and Solidarity will persevere over Cruelty and Terror." - My King, Willem-Alexander

I live merely 8 hours from Paris, I could reach the french border in 2. The attacks are all over the news. There have been 7 confirmed attacks last night. One of them involved a football game between France and Germany, in which president Hollande was involved. The biggest death toll came from a massacre at theatre Bataclat. Most attacks were surrounding Place de la Republique, a big square east from the Louvre. Sadly, the infamous Charlie Hebdo is situated merely 200 metres (600 feet) from this square.

Of course my thoughts are with the relatives of the victims and those who are still fighting for their lives. Pray for Paris.

Mon coeur et l'âme sont en vous. Je suis Français.

 

[Brandon Rhea]

I will also say... I have never seen the Tricolor on Facebook before. Now, it's all I see. It's beautiful how humanity comes together when we are attacked by these animals.

Too bad it only happens when western countries are attacked. 41 people were killed in Beirut and 19 were killed in Baghdad. Where's the western solidarity there?

 

[Livgardist]

This is absolutely true, and incredibly sad.

 

[Brandon Rhea]

This is absolutely true, and incredibly sad.

This is not what I expected your response to be. Glad I was wrong.

 

[BLADE]

Stuff like this proofs that ordinary folks like you and me shouldn't bitch about a possible personal lack of privacy in regards to intelligence agencies.

Fascist drivel.

As far as the refugee issue, this will give European countries the excuses some needed to continue cracking down. The SPD in Germany had already suggested "transfer centres" (read: concentration camps) for children who pose such a security threat. One needn't mention Hungary or other even less "enlightened" countries to get a sense of the --let us say-- Spirit of 1933 overcoming the continent.

Cold anger arises at those who bedight themselves in a symbol of genocide and violence (the Tricolor has no glorious history) or who offers the empty treacle of "standing" with someone. Across the ocean. Through a screen. Never there.

But then one must be fair to many people who are sincere in their own way about human solidarity (and don't forget the tragedy in Lebanon of course as terrible and as lachrymose as this one). Certainly we can excuse at least some of this spectacle on the grounds that it is a deeply human impulse to reach out.

And it is never the fault of the people for having only these putrid symbols to wave (to say nothing of how limited immediate concrete action might be.)

Nevertheless, for people who want to help in a way I suspect will be more meaningful: http://www.today.com/news/paris-attack-heres-how-you-can-help-victims-survivors-t56011

There are also good organizations like SOS RACISME (whose politics I don't agree with but on whom work can be done with) and so on as regards the inevitable reaction against the largely innocent refugees (reports are of a Syrian man who was admitted through Greece in September, but mathematically the odds of some terrorists being within the large refugee population are inevitable.) And of course the usual work of making politics a realm in which the main parties don't cake themselves in blood and gore in the Middle East (or any region for that matter) giving rise to monstrous entities like ISIS/ISIL/Daesh.

And that's my takeaway here. It's hard to write about something like this... ever. If you read enough and are awake enough this sort of thing is all too common to make you feel numb with a kind of white-hot fury. Fantasies of Calibanesque rage and justice as brutal as something the Greeks wrote about. And then the queasy feeling that your every word, spat out through clenched teeth is an unguent made of the blood of those who've died. Writer. Carrion-eater. It's all the same.

But as hard as it is, people need to think about what it is that's happened here. That's why I don't find it crass to urge, as I did above, a look at your parties and your preferred political vehicles' policies on that Unhappy Land of Absolutes --the Over There if you will. This is not a tragedy if only because it is not a liminal phenomenon with what came before. It is a growth arising recrudescent and inexorably from the system we all live in. It is, in the language of our times, a feature. Not a bug.

Can we unmake this barbarism? What way to honor the dead if not?

 

[Aleksandr]

Let's hope the western world keeps offering aid to refugees and does not put this on the open borders.

"Poland's future minister for European affairs said his government will not accept EU-mandate quotas for refugees following the terrorist attacks in France. Konrad Szymanski, who will take the office on Monday as part of the country's new conservative government, said his cabinet didn't agree with their predecessors' commitment to take a share in the refugee burden.

Now, "in the face of the tragic acts in Paris, we do not see the political possibilities to implement" the plan, he told the right-leaning news portal wPolityce.pl.

Poland joins a quartet of EU members that have defied Brussels' plan to redistribute the inflow of asylum seekers from the Middle East and North Africa among members of the union. Security concerns are high among the reasons touted by Hungary, Romania, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, which don't want to accept predominantly Muslim refugees on their soil."

https://www.rt.com/news/322051-poland-rejects-refugee-quota/

 

[Vulpes]

Interesting that they brought their tactics of mass confusion into this most recent attack on a Western nation. Typically the multiple, synchronized attacks are only successfully pulled off in less developed countries in the Middle-east and Africa, which is worrisome.

Also, to be that guy, this happens in a dozen other countries regularly, but I guess we'll put facebook filters on our photos now cause it's a predominantly white nation that was attacked. Not to disparage those who died or who have been terrorized by these events, as a life is a life, and a tragedy is a tragedy. And to the refugees who will suffer because of this, I feel mournful for as well. Attacks like this are intended to provoke those feelings that make us want to blame an entire group, and I've seen that effect all over facebook.

A really sad event all around, and I hope France doesn't suffer more at the hands of terrorism, with all the events that have happened there in the past year.

 

[Brandon Rhea]

Also, to be that guy, this happens in a dozen other countries regularly, but I guess we'll put facebook filters on our photos now cause it's a predominantly white nation that was attacked. Not to disparage those who died or who have been terrorized by these events, as a life is a life, and a tragedy is a tragedy. And to the refugees who will suffer because of this, I feel mournful for as well. Attacks like this are intended to provoke those feelings that make us want to blame an entire group, and I've seen that effect all over facebook.

That's not being "that guy." That's being honest.

 

[Eccles]

Fascist drivel.

Intelligence work is surprisingly not always fascist. I'll leave it at that.

I must say I'm surprised. Other forums would have been flooded with short messages of "stop refugees" or special condoleance threads, yet here's some real thought on the matter.

 

[Nor'baal]

The majority of people only seem to care when it happens to a western nation. After all it's easier to tweet about a place you know that "some place in the Middle East".

 

[Nor'baal]

Sorry for the double post.

But one thing this tragic event had shown is how fickle and quick to change people's political views can be. It won't be a secret to many that I'm a Conservative, and I support limited military action in Syria - but that isn't the point here.

But, what is interesting is how the socialist and left wing students at my University are now baying for blood, and demanding a full on invasion of the "Middle East" with ME telling them an invasion would be wrong!

For once I am the moderate liberal!

 

[Livgardist]

I think it's not so much that people don't care what happens to innocent people in Beirut or Baghdad. But unlike Paris, terrorism is a daily occurrence (so to speak) there. That means, the media doesn't report on that as much, and even then, they report on it to a degree that it becomes just another part of the "media blur" to the Average Joe. Unfortunately. I think we instinctively shut it out as well, because we don't want to know what a crappy place the world can be. Add to that the distance from where we ourselves live, and it's rather easy to stay detached from it, because it's so far away.

But it's hard to shut it out when it happens in your own backyard, and by then media blur isn't even a factor.

I think, however, that people are instinctively good, and while they may react more obviously to an attack in Paris than in Beirut, I think had it been as much in their face as Paris is, their reaction would have been similarly solidaric (Is that the right form of the word?).

Needless to say, all loss of life is tragic. And all loss of civilian life is a crime against humanity. I would echo Blade's sentiments slightly. My idol, Don Johnson, posted the famous Nietzsche quote about not turning into the monsters we hunt, yesterday, on his Facebook. They are monsters - we are not. It's important to remember that, especially in the next few weeks when we decide how to proceed with a response to this.