Terror Attack: 130 Dead in Paris

[Papewaio]

Another shoot out, grenade attack and reports of hostages.
18+ dead

http://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2015-1...eports/6940722

[Strike For The South]

And we were so close to getting that Steve jobs

[Hooahguy]

According to the AP its now 26 dead, and the military is now deployed in Paris, this looks like a major terrorist attack.

Hopefully the death toll will not go higher.

[Papewaio]

And we were so close to getting that Steve jobs

Arafat was an engineer. Genius/high intelligence doesn't equal good outcomes. It is still dependent on home life. My point was that genes aren't as important as social raising.

[a completely inoffensive name]

And there is only one thing that has nothing to do with this.

[rvg]

Wake up, Europe.

[Hooahguy]

I'm predicting that the anti-immigration parties will be winning more often than not in the coming election cycles. Just look at Poland.

Edit: something very interesting I came across, from a decade ago: http://www.spiegel.de/international/...-a-369448.html

[rvg]

I'm predicting that the anti-immigration parties will be winning more often than not in the coming election cycles. Just look at Poland.

Edit: something very interesting I came across, from a decade ago: http://www.spiegel.de/international/...-a-369448.html

Remove kebab before kebab removes you.

[Fragony]

looks really bad

[Don Corleone]

No politics or 2nd guessing on this one for me tonight fellas. Just an awful lot of sadness. Louis and the rest of my French friends, my heart bleeds for you tonight. Be safe. God bless you and hold you close. You are in my prayers.

[Fragony]

Seems to have been really well organised, they must have been preparing this for months. I'll also refrain from comment at the moment this is really horrible.

[wooly_mammoth]

It's been less than an year since the Charlie Hebdo shooting and indeed, this wasn't some random Ahmed suddenly feeling the urge to do the will of the Prophet, but a very well-organized attack. Looks like a proverbial case of incompetence on the side of the French intelligence.

[a completely inoffensive name]

We should have never allowed the secular tyrants to be overthrown. I understand the wisdom of it all now.

[a completely inoffensive name]

...

[a completely inoffensive name]

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[Montmorency]

We need to retool our military to fight borderless wars. Invest in more special forces that move throughout hostile areas and exterminate local/regional ISIS leadership at the same time we bomb strongholds where leaders reside.

And what would that achieve?

Create a propaganda division to stem the tide of radicalization through the promotion of moderate Islamic ideas.

All evidence points against this working, both in the specific case of Islam and for "moderate" propaganda more generally.

[a completely inoffensive name]

...

[Montmorency]

Think of it as trimming the hedges with the added benefit of no one knowing who did it.

Well, it will be obvious who did it - the same operators as usual, no? The value isn't really in "trimming the hedges", but in comforting the electorates and in martial posturing between world powers. Better than throwing around nukes, I suppose, but still pretty wasteful.

As for propoganda, the West has simply been doing it wrong. I'm still reading on the matter but again, the goal imo is not about destroying Islamists but preventing the idea from spreading. We must push a successful propoganda message or we are fighting an endless stream of young Muslims.

As it comes to "my fantasy", I maintain that encouragement from the West will not have much impact on Islamism either way; it must deflate itself through fraternal bloodshed.

[a completely inoffensive name]

Well, it will be obvious who did it - the same operators as usual, no? The value isn't really in "trimming the hedges", but in comforting the electorates and in martial posturing between world powers. Better than throwing around nukes, I suppose, but still pretty wasteful.

This is what I am talking about Monty. http://www.theguardian.com/world/201...whistleblowers

When you send special forces in the middle of the night, people in the neighborhood will get woken up. When you drop a bomb from a drone, the entire city hears it. Minimize the exposure, change our tactics because our current strategy simply plays into the Islamist propaganda machine. This is what I am talking about when I say that the US simply does propaganda in the middle east wrong. No message you send out will resonate when they hear American bombs going off every day.

As it comes to "my fantasy", I maintain that encouragement from the West will not have much impact on Islamism either way; it must deflate itself through fraternal bloodshed.

What I am saying is that we can have an impact on Islamism by moving towards energy self-reliance, which will weaken the Arab governments in the region. We know that elements of the House of Saud are funding ISIS, but that is not the reason that ISIS chooses to avoid war with Saudi Arabia. ISIS is currently focused on the two destabilized areas of Syria and Iraq which are weak in comparison to their neighbors. Once the West (and China) remove their dependence on Middle East oil, Saudi Arabia and other oil exporting states become vulnerable. The goal of ISIS is to create a single Islamic Caliphate (if we take them at their word), and thus eventually they will try to control the cities that are most valuable to the Islamic faith. When ISIS takes the step to challenge the Arab governments, you will get your Islamist showdown.

[Kagemusha]

My prediction is that inside couple months we are going to see mainly European and Russian land troops at Syria. France is lobbying around Europe in order to free some of its land components from Africa additional to forces being deployed from France. Russian Duma has today approved the use of land forces at Syria. As act of solidarity i think other EU nations are going to either send smaller detachments to Syria or replace French troops at their current deployments. Hopefully some Arab countries like Jordan will join the forces. Im not sure what US is going to do, but i think we will know rather soon when next week Hollande will visit Washington. It seems behind the curtains US and Russia are working hard in order to get an cease fire at Syria between rebels and Assad.

I dont think this land operation will be very large scale as Isis has less then 50k fighters. Basically we need enough boots on the ground to draw Isis out to fight by attacking their area directly and then they can be destroyed from the air. Thats the easy part. What comes after that is a complete mystery.

[Husar]

When you send special forces in the middle of the night, people in the neighborhood will get woken up. When you drop a bomb from a drone, the entire city hears it.

When you lase someone from space in the middle of the night, only his wife smells it. When you poison someone's water or deliver a pill into his mouth via micro-drone, no one will know anything. Where are the movie/game assassins when you need them? Why not send ninjas? They won't even wake up the neighborhood. Why not exchange his Quran with one that looks the same but has only peaceful messages?

[Rhyfelwyr]

What I am saying is that we can have an impact on Islamism by moving towards energy self-reliance, which will weaken the Arab governments in the region. We know that elements of the House of Saud are funding ISIS, but that is not the reason that ISIS chooses to avoid war with Saudi Arabia. ISIS is currently focused on the two destabilized areas of Syria and Iraq which are weak in comparison to their neighbors. Once the West (and China) remove their dependence on Middle East oil, Saudi Arabia and other oil exporting states become vulnerable. The goal of ISIS is to create a single Islamic Caliphate (if we take them at their word), and thus eventually they will try to control the cities that are most valuable to the Islamic faith. When ISIS takes the step to challenge the Arab governments, you will get your Islamist showdown.

Will ISIS ever be that strong? The impression I got is that they are starting to be forced back a bit now, for all their pretensions of being a state they're still a pretty lightly-armed army in the tens of thousands. Could they really fight a conventional war against a rival state?

[a completely inoffensive name]

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[a completely inoffensive name]

Of course it's obvious to ISIS but with special forces exposure to the public is minimized, risk of civilian death is lower than drone strikes. My impression is that the US is associated with drones in the air raining bombs and soldiers storming into urban areas, that's what the Islamic community expects to see from the West (as that has been our policy for 15 years).

[a completely inoffensive name]

My favorite Muppet has always been the Swedish Chef.

[a completely inoffensive name]

From my recollection, we armed Syrian rebels to undermine Assad, and Iran has been doing the same to us in Yemen. Also, the Syrian civil war was in large part driven by climate change causing a devastating drought from 2006 to 2009. You can't say that Assad screwed everything up by itself.

[AE Bravo]

You can be honest, you know most mulims oppose these things. That is fine, a man is entitiled to his opinion. It is simply not the way the west is trending.

But it looks like it’s working out fine on that end. Not a problem to the extent that there can be no middle ground. Yes, it’s not Islamic. Who says they can’t coexist? US broke this barrier, Turkey sort of, and believe it or not the Gulf (locals and Filipinos mostly). Muslims aren’t alien to homosexuality. I don't see Russia getting this much flak.

Integration in Europe is deteriorating and its the fault of both parties.

That's all there is to say about it really.

It was a tragedy before we got involved

Yeah I bet everything is a tragedy when you're at the beacon of civilization. Please. Things were fine before you came along.

If you believe this then you're part of the problem. I'm certain not all Muslims believe this, unless all Muslims are liars.

The fact that you can't grasp this is proof of your total ignorance of these places. Shia and Sunni brothers in arms broken apart by a clueless governor who bent over to Iranian hegemony. The Persia-ification of Iraq. Arrogant power after arrogant power, only Iranians are much smarter than all the west combined.

We aren't saints but we'll still be interested in helping you after all your oil is gone, we'll probably be even nicer than we are now.

Bullshit. http://www.ecfr.eu/page/-/Responding...rtive_Gulf.pdf

I can see it now.

Arabs: "So remember when we bailed you out that time?"
Europe: "Fix your human rights issues, chump"

Never gets old. Oh and I can see China dropping Africa like a "lump of lead."

If anything the Assad regime just made things worse by firing on unarmed protesters and sparking the civil war.

After Islamists were armed by about 40 countries and planted shooters in between the crowds. Opposition in the Arab world is dirty dirty dirty.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Yeah I bet everything is a tragedy when you're at the beacon of civilization. Please. Things were fine before you came along.

Your assumption that we don't care because we aren't constantly wringing our hands is faulty.

You missed all the arguments about this a few years ago - at this point it's like watching a car crash repeatedly in very slow motions. As terrible as it is there's no point constantly saying "oh woe, oh that the world was kinder to man".

The fact that you can't grasp this is proof of your total ignorance of these places. Shia and Sunni brothers in arms broken apart by a clueless governor who bent over to Iranian hegemony. The Persia-ification of Iraq. Arrogant power after arrogant power, only Iranians are much smarter than all the west combined.

So Arabs hate all non Arabs? Your argument here is, at best, confused.

Bullshit. http://www.ecfr.eu/page/-/Responding...rtive_Gulf.pdf

I can see it now.

Arabs: "So remember when we bailed you out that time?"
Europe: "Fix your human rights issues, chump"

Never gets old. Oh and I can see China dropping Africa like a "lump of lead."

Errr.

Yes, fix your human rights issues - we'll be happy to help.

Of course, you'd rather continue to live the good life using Indians as slave labour and Texans to drill your oil - if you have any mines I assume you use the Cornish to dig those.

China will drop Africa as soon as Africa has nothing to offer in materials, they are really only developing Africa's infrastructure to extract those materials, the average African miner isn't better off - he might be worse off because the mines are taking bigger and bigger risks.

Russia started TWO wars with Ukraine using proxies just because of paranoia and China is worse, they lock people up and send them to forced labour camps just for having an unsanctioned religion. China itself is a mess, anyway, there are numerous examples of poorly built Chinese infrastructure breaking down and people dying.

[Greyblades]

China itself is a mess, anyway, there are numerous examples of poorly built Chinese infrastructure breaking down and people dying.

Their products aren't that much better; Chinese swivel chairs occasionally explode when sat on.

I'm not even joking, the elevation mechanism under the seat uses trapped air to maintain height and with domestic Chinese quality control being what it is the seals are known to fail at high pressure. The lucky ones just lose a chair, occasionally they fail in such a way that metal is driven upwards through the seat.

[Husar]

Not to forget the iPhones, couldn't think of a bigger failure of a product. Several people have already died trying to take selfies with them, horrible safety record.