Terrorist attack in Paris: 12 dead, 7 injured

[Flankerl]

The jihadist in the Kosher grocery store and his accomplice who the police is also looking for.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

From Haaretz:

How Arab world media responded to Charlie Hebdo attack​

From rage at perpetrators to fear that deadly attack will boost racism in France, Arab journalists present stances that Western media neglects.

By Zvi Bar'el | Jan. 9, 2015 | 7:30 AM

A sharpened pencil forced into the twisted barrel of a Kalashnikov rifle — that is the image with which Lebanese cartoonist Armand Homsi of the Al-Nahar daily expressed his rage over the murders at the offices of the Charlie Hebdo magazine in Paris.

Al-Nahar’s founding editor-in-chief, Gebran Tueni, and its star columnist, Samir Kassir, were assassinated in 2005 by Syrian agents.

In its editorial on Thursday the newspaper said: “All the murdered journalists are a torch lighting the way for other journalists. No matter how hard they try to silence the media, the written word will remain a ticking bomb that will one day blow up in the faces of terrorism and the terrorists.”

More than 60 journalists were killed while on the job in 2014, some on the battlefield and others slaughtered by the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL. While dying in a war zone is accepted as an occupational hazard, murder by Islamist organizations is seen as part of radical Islam’s culture war with the West.

“What happened in Paris is a French attack on France,” Lebanese columnist Amar Mohsen tried to explain the murder cause. The murderers are French citizens who grew up in a culture that couldn’t contain them and excluded them. It is not necessary to agree with this explanation, although one of the suspects, Cherif Kouachi, was sentenced to three years in prison in France in 2008 for his part in sending volunteer combatants to Iraq. He was released after 18 months and two years later he was arrested again on suspicion of smuggling the Algerian Islamist Ismail Belkacem out of prison. Belkacem was serving a life term for his part in attacking a Paris Metro station in 1995.

Kouachi and his brother Said should have been under the watchful eye of the French intelligence services all along. Now they are symbols of a radical Islam that foments what used to be called “global jihad,” as though it were a divine force, unlike the “ordinary” terror organizations that spring up in every state.

The global jihad theory failed to generate an effective response strategy. The war in Afghanistan and then the occupation of Iraq produced hundreds of militias and organizations that ostensibly sought to avenge the West’s attacks but mainly killed tens of thousands of Muslim and Arab civilians. Even the fear that these organizations will export terror to the West has not been realized. Most of the attacks in European states were carried out by their own citizens.

If these organizations exported anything to Europe it was the hundreds of thousands of Muslim refugees who fled from the horrors of the terrorists’ attacks in their own countries. But unlike the European states’ indifference to the attacks and killing of Muslim civilians in Muslim states, every attack on a European civilian, abroad or at home, immediately produces a Pavlovian response against “Islam.”

Muslims killing Muslims is normal. Muslims killing Europeans is “a clash of civilizations.” Islamic movements, like Christian and Jewish movements, have generated terror organizations and terror regimes. But nobody in Europe sees Ratko Mladic, who was responsible for the massacre of some 8,000 Muslims in Bosnia, as representing Christians or Christianity. It is just as wrong to see the two French terrorists, even if they are Muslim, as representatives of Islam.

“This murder is the most precious gift that terror has given racism in France,” Moroccan columnist Hamid Zid wrote Thursday. “Those murders killed not only the journalists, but the millions of Muslims who live in France, and have also justified Islam’s murderous image. They have plunged a knife into the heart of Islam and Muslims worldwide.”

Liberal, secular and religious Muslims again find themselves on the defense, as though they were responsible for creating an environment inducive to terror. Their voices usually go unheard. They do not appear on talk shows, and television series on Islam are not interested in them. They represent that which is self-evident and allow their homelands, in Europe or the Middle East, to boast of multiculturalism.

We’d rather have two-bit interpreters of religious law who shout “death to the West” or preachers encouraging the killing of infidels are preferable. No “ordinary” Muslims can create a storm that could match the decapitations carried out by Islamic State, but they are the overwhelming majority of Muslims both in Europe and in Muslim-majority states.

Not only “Western civilization” is mobilizing against Islamic terror organizations. The “Islamic civilization” is doing the same, viewing extreme terrorism as a danger to its culture and its reputation.

 

[MD]

Sounds a bit like a stormfront billboard.

Except Islamic fundamentalism isn't a race and I am of Middle Eastern heritage so your post is an epic fail.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

Except Islamic fundamentalism isn't a race and I am of Middle Eastern heritage so your post is an epic fail.

Zenophobic diatribe isn't restricted to race and Middle Eastern heritage is does not inoculate one against vitriolic bigotry.

 

[Rick O'Shez]

i have heard one of the cartoonists say in France that 'the will continue on with their cartoons' or words to that effect.

And it hasn't occurred to you that suppression of free speech is exactly what these murderous religious fascists are trying to achieve?

 

[sandandfoam]

And it hasn't occurred to you that suppression of free speech is exactly what these murderous religious fascists are trying to achieve?

I'm not sure that speech in much of Europe is that free.
Holocaust denial is rightly illegal. Hate speech is illegal. Ireland has Blasphemy laws. In one Irish case a radio journalist was recently censured because he expressed support for gay marriage.

 

[MD]

Zenophobic diatribe isn't restricted to race and Middle Eastern heritage is does not inoculate one against vitriolic bigotry.

Says the guy who prolly has never lived in the Middle East nor comes from a country where Islamic fundamentalism reigns and is much more ignorant than he thinks.

Go back to your letter writing campaigns.

 

[ShivaFan]

The police and emergency and other first responders need to be aware that often the tactcs are that once they draw them in close enough, then they set off a bomb or other to kill as many as possible.

That female (probably Algerian) had crap all over the internet, twitter etc., her picture (with a head cover) matching her exactly, showed up but stuff is disappearing as we speak.

But someone probably will have some of this activity....

 

[Rick O'Shez]

I'm not sure that speech in much of Europe is that free.

A good reason for defending it, surely?

 

[MD]

So fight extremism by becoming the ultimate extremist? No, sounds like a really bad idea to me. It is exactly the kind of thinking that created this problem in the first place.

Typical liberal cowardice

 

[Wirey]

A good reason for defending it, surely?

If you're going to keep making sense, change your damn avatar!

 

[Rick O'Shez]

Says the guy who prolly has never lived in the Middle East nor comes from a country where Islamic fundamentalism reigns and is much more ignorant than he thinks.

And who has probably never narrowly avoided being blown up.

 

[Rick O'Shez]

change your damn avatar

I will need to check with the "boss" first though.

 

[sandandfoam]

A good reason for defending it, surely?

Just so. However, given the context that speech in Europe may not be that free and regarding the murders in Paris - I am not sure that the killers are attacking something as obscure as 'free speech'. Is it reasonable to consider them as anything other than irrational murderous headbangers? I'm not sure that it is useful to attribute the motive of something as loosely rational as an attack on free speech to them.

 

[Rick O'Shez]

Reports of further siege in Paris. Ongoing situation. Armed police out in force.

Special forces deployed north of Paris.

Suggestions of co-ordinated Al-Qaeda style attack.

 

[oldbadger]

I'm not sure that speech in much of Europe is that free.
Holocaust denial is rightly illegal. Hate speech is illegal. Ireland has Blasphemy laws. In one Irish case a radio journalist was recently censured because he expressed support for gay marriage.

I did not know about the Blasphemy laws !!

 

[oldbadger]

I will need to check with the "boss" first though.

What is your Avatar? I can't place it and this is really irritating me!

 

[oldbadger]

Further siege in Paris. Ongoing situation. Armed police out in force.

Special forces deployed north of Paris.

I begin to wonder whether other incidents may start 'kicking-off' around France........

 

[Flankerl]

Something happened in Paris, the Metro won't stop at Trocadero Centre.

 

[Rick O'Shez]

I can't place it and this is really irritating me!

Doctor Evil, my boss.