Terrorists bomb Paris

[Kheldarson]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...shootings.html

I have no real words. If anybody here is from France or has friends or family there, my thoughts and prayers go out to you.

When does the hate stop?

[protege]

Even before the word "terrorist" was mentioned on CNBC, I kinda knew that the people involved weren't French. They're not exactly known for firing guns

But seriously, I don't mean to make light of the situation. I remember hearing "Paris" and "bombings," and just couldn't believe it.

I think that things over there are going to get a LOT worse. How do I know this? I remember the paranoia and hatred in the US after 9/11. I remember the reports of cars being pulled over on the highway...because someone at a rest stop heard the occupants speaking in a language that wasn't English. I remember being searched at the airport over bomb and knife fears. I remember reports of anyone with olive skin being harassed or attacked on the street.

I have a feeling that the fear will turn to anger, and French citizens will be calling for retaliation. We've all seen that before. 9/11 has been used to justify multiple wars, increased security (including the TSA "security theater"), increased paranoia, and hatred.

[Greenday]

ISIS has been hitting countries besides Iraq and Syria but because those countries are in the Middle East, no one gives a crap. People want to believe it's a Middle East problem and that if we leave them alone, they'll leave us alone. Well guess what? They won't! They hate every last one of us. This is not a war that ends by withdrawing troops from overseas. If you don't like the war, too bad, you're a part of it whether you like it or not. It doesn't matter what country you are from, you are not 100% safe from it.

Maybe people will start realizing this is a problem that can't be dealt with by ignoring it as so many want to believe.

[Gravekeeper]

I have a feeling that the fear will turn to anger, and French citizens will be calling for retaliation. We've all seen that before. 9/11 has been used to justify multiple wars, increased security (including the TSA "security theater"), increased paranoia, and hatred.

I'm worried about that myself. France already had a bad anti-Muslim streak going on. Which of course was likely half the point in this attack.

I also have to admit the cynical part of my mind, upon hearing the news, thought that this will be viewed as a huge tragedy in the west and we'll hear about it for weeks or months. But in the middle east this is basically "Tuesday" and no one cares beyond a byline somewhere.

[Canarr]

So far, IS hasn't claimed responsibility. Nor did anyone else.

[Hyena Dandy]

Give it some time. You don't do a terrorism and then not try to prove a point with it.

Aside from that my thoughts and prayers are with all those in the City of Lights tonight, I can't really say anything beyond that. I just hope that as many people pull through as possible.

[Canarr]

And now, apparently, they have. Didn't expect that.

EDIT: although as usual, they haven't shared any relevant information about the attacks.

[Gravekeeper]

And now, apparently, they have. Didn't expect that.

ISIS will claim responsibility for everything even if they had little or nothing to do with it. Sort of their thing, really. Anything to get their name in the papers. The question here is more going to be was this foreign ( ISIS actually had a real hand in it ) or domestic ( Natural born citizens + ISIS on Twitter like usual ).

[Canarr]

Well, IS made some allegations about the targets: Hollander being at one location that was attacked, a "perverse party" at the concert hall. But those seem pretty thin to me, honestly. Apparently, they've also claimed to have brought down the plane over the Sinai Peninsula, but have offered no further details on that feat, either.

Personally, I'm inclined to agree: someone else did it and IS is just taking the credit. Then again, this was a fairly large and well-coordinated attack, so the question remains: who did it? And why?

[Greenday]

So because ISIS is taking credit but they haven't broken their attacks to every single detail revealing how they operate, it's not ISIS?

The logic there blows my mind.

[Canarr]

The logic is: what does IS have to gain by such an attack? Killing people in Paris doesn't bring them any closer to their caliphate.

[Greenday]

The logic is: what does IS have to gain by such an attack? Killing people in Paris doesn't bring them any closer to their caliphate.

France has had a history of Islamophobia. They've always been a big supporter of the War on Terrorism. That makes them an enemy of ISIS. If they have the ability to easily recruit malcontents in other countries and get them to commit acts of terror, why wouldn't they do it?

[s_stabeler]

Greenday, what people mean is that it's a bad idea to assume ISIS are necessarily telling the truth about if they conducted the attacks or not, for a couple of reasons. 1. things are actually far worse for ISIS in iraq and syria that many people seem to realise. ( ISIS's main supply line to Mosul is under threat by the Kurds, and in Syria, opponents of ISS have managed to push to within 30 miles of Raqqa, the ISIS capital, for want of a better word. In short, ISIS is more likely to be concentrating on not getting wiped out. 2. ISIS has always done a LOT of work through other organisations. (most of the gains in Iraq were actually made by allied organizations, not ISIS itself. it's estimated that only a small fraction of territory generally considered to be under ISIS control is actually actively controlled by ISIS themselves.) in short, it's quite likely that even IF ISIS are involved, then they are involved only in the sense that they got someone else to do it- whch is far from the same thig as them being able to conduct an attack completely on their rown in France.

[protege]

The logic is: what does IS have to gain by such an attack? Killing people in Paris doesn't bring them any closer to their caliphate.

No, but it will stir up fear, hatred...and possibly bring new recruits to their cause. Look at what happened in the US after 9/11. After that event, the media had us running wild--we were paranoid that "terrorists" were hiding in every shadow and around every corner. Everyone that appeared even remotely "Muslim" was now an enemy of the state. They want to get Parisians chasing shadows; to rile them up; to fuck with their daily routines and make them feel unsafe. That is how they win. The carnage is just a bonus.

With that said, ISIS will attempt to claim credit for all the attacks that they can. It will give them the appearance of being more powerful and more widespread than they really are. What better way to fuck with an enemy's mind if you can get them to think that they're in their own backyard...and that they're lying in wait to strike?

[Gravekeeper]

The logic is: what does IS have to gain by such an attack? Killing people in Paris doesn't bring them any closer to their caliphate.

Brand recognition. Same reason they claim responsibility for basically any attack regardless of their level of involvement. ISIS more so than any other group has caught on to effectiveness of social media. Causing any sort of shit in other countries in a post 9/11 landscape is much more difficult. If you can recruit or incite domestic terrorism it saves you a lot of trouble so to speak and drums up advertising for more recruits.

I mean, 9/11 was effectively a one time deal and it served its purpose. No one will ever be able to pull off that scale of an attack again with western paranoia on high alert. But no one has to because Bin Laden got exactly what he wanted: A "holy" war with invading foreigners on Muslim soil and a disrupted America doing more harm to itself than good due to paranoia.