Shootings in Paris: I'm from Paris and I don't freak out, so why should you?

[Monsieur OUXX]

Everything's in the title: I'm from Paris and I don't freak out, so why should you?

Let's just hope nobody has forgotten the lesson of 9/11, the "war on terrorism" and all that bullshit.

[Snarky]

Glad you're OK, man. It's a terrible thing.

[Mouth for war]

Yeah I'm glad you're fine man! I'm really getting sick of these assholes doing their terrorist bullshit everywhere

[selmiak]

Yeah, I'm also glad you are okay! Have you been out somewhere on friday? Why can't the violence stop everywhere?

[Mandle]

Glad to hear you are safe. Stay that way, man!

Mouth for war said it best!

I would like to see the whole of ISIS dumped on an island somewhere with all their guns and ammo and only one cache of food and water hidden somewhere. And there's only enough for three people. See how their solidarity holds up then...

[Ali]

Glad to hear you're okay. It's funny, it almost seems selfish to be worried about friends after attacks like these.

I would like to see the whole of ISIS dumped on an island somewhere with all their guns and ammo and only one cache of food and water hidden somewhere. And there's only enough for three people. See how their solidarity holds up then...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3HrDhTZOrw

If you would like to see the 1941 version of this, watch the underrated British war film "49th Parrallel" aka "The Invaders". It was a film designed to encourage US support for joining the second world war, but the plot is quite unusual. A German submarine founders off the coast of Canada (currently in the war) and a small troop of Nazi soldiers have to make their way through Canada to the USA for sanctuary. What is remarkable about the film is that the thing which tears the soldiers apart is the cancer of Nazi philosophy. Those obsessed with a perverse notion of 'purity' eventually turn on each another.

I find it somewhat reassuring to think that these fanatical, murderous cults are ultimately self destructive. Powell & Pressburger were also remarkable in that their war films always made a clear distinction between a German and a Nazi. I think that's so important, at a time when our newspapers and politicians are deliberately conflating IS terrorists and refugees fleeing IS terror.

[sketchess]

Just the tip of the iceberg, folks. The very tiny tip.
I really don't know, if I shall rofl down the holeway or crying out loud, thinking of all beginnings. No surprises on my side. Sadly that the trick still works.

But happy to see ya OUXX.

[Retro Wolf]

Glad you're OK mate!

[Monsieur OUXX]

What I would like to see is France, the US and the UK to stop being in the top 5 arms dealers in the world.
What I would like to see is Saudi Arabia to stop being the #1 customer of France in the weapons business.
What I would like to see is France to stop bombing random Arab countries (continuing on the US/british trend). We've already been at war with Mali, Syria, Lybia and Afghanistan.
What I would like to see is NATO (including France) blocking financial circuits (straight from the stock exchange into Daesh's pockets, transitting through Qatar), instead of immediately choosing military solutions to please each country's military-industrial lobby (which is another way to say: "to please the stock holders").
What I would like to see is people to stop agreeing on the vague "we need more security" statement, without realizing that it only means "we will install more spys in your cell phones and more access to your private life" and certainly does not mean: "We will unlock sufficent funds for the police, the justice and more genrally the public service to work properly and stop being a pile of arbitrary, hasty and stress-inducing decisions".

I would like to see all this.

[Cassiebsg]

We can all dream of Utopia...

[Monsieur OUXX]

We can all dream of Utopia...

Are you kidding me? I didn't write "I want everyone to be friends, and all wars to stop". Instead I wrote a very accurate, practical roadmap, that requires a strong political stand on a handful of  critical topics.

[Cassiebsg]

No, not kidding, am I afraid.
That's actually how much respect, trust and believe that our government will do right by us and the values we care for.

I wish it was as simple as wishing it.

[SilverSpook]

Monsieur OUXX:  What I would like to see is people to stop agreeing on the vague "we need more security" statement, without realizing that it only means "we will install more spys in your cell phones and more access to your private life" and certainly does not mean: "We will unlock sufficent funds for the police, the justice and more genrally the public service to work properly and stop being a pile of arbitrary, hasty and stress-inducing decisions".

Hey France, this happened to the US after 911.  It was called the Patriot Act, the Iraq War, the War on Terror, etc.  Cost multi-trillion dollars, thousands of lives, destroyed civil liberties, started a Golden Age of white collar / financial crime, and was generally a waste, a travesty and a shame.

Feel free to repeat our historical mistakes though.  That's cool too.  We've always been close after pissing off Britain and tearing down authoritarian states, building freedom democracy and equality.  Maybe it's only fitting that the US and France should be the leaders in dismantling egalite, liberte, and fraternite, and all those best parts of the Enlightenment, reinstating overreaching dictators.  Dark Ages II, here we come!

[selmiak]

Dark Ages? You mean with witchhunts and burning books and all that crazy shit? Cool!

With tragedies like this I'm always curious how and in what frequency the news in different countries report about different thing.
Some german news report this:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-11-14/german-police-arrested-man-with-suspected-ties-to-paris-attacks
in some years this will be food for how could they not stop it when knowing this-conspiracies and so on. for now it looks like a giant fail on international cooperation, too busy reading private persons emails...

[Snarky]

Dark Ages? You mean with witchhunts and burning books and all that crazy shit? Cool!

Sorry to go off-topic, but neither of those things were really features of the Dark Ages. People hadn't yet got all worked up about witches, and there weren't a lot of book burnings because there were hardly any books (that's what makes the Dark Ages dark). It's only in the early Modern period, after the Reformation, that witchhunts and book burnings became somewhat common (both had a lot to do with religious fanaticism and hysteria driven by the new religious divisions).

[sketchess]

Do you guys know what the worst part is? No?
To know what's coming and not beeing able to stop it. Just beeing able to wait for it.

[Snarky]

What I would like to see is France, the US and the UK to stop being in the top 5 arms dealers in the world.
What I would like to see is Saudi Arabia to stop being the #1 customer of France in the weapons business.
What I would like to see is France to stop bombing random Arab countries (continuing on the US/british trend). We've already been at war with Mali, Syria, Lybia and Afghanistan.
What I would like to see is NATO (including France) blocking financial circuits (straight from the stock exchange into Daesh's pockets, transitting through Qatar), instead of immediately choosing military solutions to please each country's military-industrial lobby (which is another way to say: "to please the stock holders").
What I would like to see is people to stop agreeing on the vague "we need more security" statement, without realizing that it only means "we will install more spys in your cell phones and more access to your private life" and certainly does not mean: "We will unlock sufficent funds for the police, the justice and more genrally the public service to work properly and stop being a pile of arbitrary, hasty and stress-inducing decisions".

I would like to see all this.

I don't entirely share your opposition to military intervention ("bombing random Arab countries"), and I think you're wrong to suggest that it's driven by the weapons industry: if Europe and the US had intervened more forcefully in Syria in the early stages of the conflict, could some of the chaos and misery of the last few years in Syria have been prevented? Hard to say, but I think it's at least possible. (Though Libya provides a good example of how helping to overthrow a dictator and averting genocide is not enough, if you're not committed to stabilize the country in the long run.)

For the other things you mention: Absolutely.

[Misj']

... and I think you're wrong to suggest that it's driven by the weapons industry: if Europe and the US had intervened more forcefully in Syria in the early stages of the conflict, could some of the chaos and misery of the last few years in Syria have been prevented? Hard to say, but I think it's at least possible.

Isn't that an argument in favor of a 'weapons industry driven conflict'? - I mean...if chaos and misery would have been prevented by ending the war quickly and early...then the only people not profiting are the weapons industries. So if we do a simple TV cop show analysis ('follow the money') of how western countries handle conflicts, then the most likely suspect is the ones making the most money from these (lasting) armed conflicts: the people selling weapons.



ps. I'm not saying they are the culprit here, I'm just arguing why I think your argumentation is (or at least can be used) in favor of pointing them out as such.

pps. I'm not saying the people in the weapons industry want continuous everlasting war. But as an industry that is where the money is at. Similarly the people working in the pharmaceutical industry don't want everyone to have chronic diseases; but that doesn't mean it's not their core business, that would go away if everyone were healthy.

ppps. I don't think the weapons industry are the ONLY people profiting (either in money or in power) from this conflict. So my argument is more of a 'what if?' than a statement of fact.

[Snarky]

Isn't that an argument in favor of a 'weapons industry driven conflict'? - I mean...if chaos and misery would have been prevented by ending the war quickly and early...then the only people not profiting are the weapons industries. So if we do a simple TV cop show analysis ('follow the money') of how western countries handle conflicts, then the most likely suspect is the ones making the most money from these (lasting) armed conflicts: the people selling weapons.

I wouldn't say so. In various Middle Eastern and North African conflicts involving jihadist groups in recent years, the "West" has taken (at different times) a number of quite different military approaches (combined with various diplomatic and economic efforts), from sending in ground troops, to bombing campaigns, to drone warfare, to enforcing no-fly zones, to a hands-off approach of providing support (non-lethal aid or weapons supplies) to forces deemed the most friendly, to in some cases minimal involvement. It's not obvious that any of these different strategies have had a notably better outcome than the others, or would have worked better in other situations.

I think that points to the explanation that these are devilishly difficult problems. Not only would it be almost impossible for an outright malevolent weapons industry to know which policies to promote to prolong the conflicts, it also seems unnecessary given that the violence seems to continue almost regardless. I think it's more reasonable to say that politicians and military leaders are forced to decide among an array of bad options in a situation with a huge amount of uncertainty, under very tough constraints (budgets, domestic politics and public opinion, prior history, UN diplomacy, a focus on other conflicts â€" e.g. the war in Ukraine, touchy relationships with various nations: Russia, Iran, Israel, Saudi Arabia...), which vary in each case.

I certainly won't try to defend all the choices that have been made, many of which have no doubt been short-sighted, cynical and/or miscalculated, but I think it's most reasonable to accept that the primary motivations for the interventions have been to stop jihadist groups from coming to power and potentially pose a threat against the West (or destabilize the region even more) and to try to achieve some degree of peace. After all, US and European leaders would have to be pretty dumb to think war in the Middle East is in their own national interest, given recent (and really all historical) experiences.

Perhaps it is foolish to think you can impose peace with bombs or drones or mercenaries, but I think it's also foolish to think that fanatical thugs slaughtering their way across half the world will be defeated without any armed fighting, just by... prayers? flowers? schools? Facebook posts? financial regulations? The alternative to military intervention is not peace, it's leaving the fighting to others (Putin, Assad, El-Sisi...) who won't be any more humane about it, and leaving civilians to die. Maybe that is better in the long run when we don't really have a solution â€" I honestly don't know â€" but let's be honest about the tradeoffs.

[Misj']

Not only would it be almost impossible for an outright malevolent weapons industry to know which policies to promote to prolong the conflicts, it also seems unnecessary given that the violence seems to continue almost regardless.

This argument I don't understand. I would say that this would be the easiest thing, not an almost impossible one. Just sell everyone weapons, and watch the unrest and chaos spread. If your only goal is instability you don't have to worry about policies, supporting single sides, or who is going to win. Yes, I know, this is a caricature Hydra-like description...but fact is war is easy and (to some) profitable. So the question is: is the continuation 'regardless' or 'because of'

Let me be clear, I do not think 'their' actions are excusable just because others provide them with weapons. I also don't believe in some shadow government that controls the world (if it does exist they never consulted with me on the terrible job they're doing...that much I know). But then again, I don't think you need some 'higher power' to create chaos and conflict.

Of course maybe I'm just biased towards the weapons industry...then again, they make for much more fun action movies


EDIT: I don't want this thread to derail, and I certainly don't want to turn it in a conspiracy theory. We've had enough of those