French Magazine Attacked by Terrorists

[eyeball]

Fine, it was a war.

[bush_cheney2004]

Fine, it was a war.

Sure was...do you think Hollywood could make war story action flicks that Canadians love to watch if all the U.S. did was to extradite Bin Laden ? Is there a big blockbuster movie about Marc Emory earning $75 million opening weekend ? Nope....

[eyeball]

No but there was that movie Dune about evil empires, dictators and desert dwelling underdogs. Sort of a timeless theme I guess.

[Derek 2.0]

Sure was...do you think Hollywood could make war story action flicks that Canadians love to watch if all the U.S. did was to extradite Bin Laden ? Is there a big blockbuster movie about Marc Emory earning $75 million opening weekend ? Nope....

Speaking of that, add Canadian war flicks centering around a US led war ........coming this fall:

I expect, like American Sniper, actual patriotism will trump what is typical among the "liberal arts" formula......I can't think of the last actual Canadian made movie I looked forward to.......coming this fall....just in time for the election

[Argus]

What do you think the war in Iraq was about? Cabbage?

Defense, ultimately. If it was about aggression we'd be importing free Iraqi oil about now, and would have put in place a reliable strongman who would do our bidding and crush all dissent.

[Argus]

I can't help noticing that the rest of your history lesson seems to omit a number of crucial facts:

the oil is under their lands...so shouldn't they have the sovereign right to decide how much to produce and who to sell it to?

None of them developed it. None of them know anything about how to operate it. These are religious barbarians, and even today none of them knows how to operate a hammer or saw, much less operate ANY of their oil facilities. We found it, we developed it, and we operate it. It's certainly fair they get a big cut, but if they want to try and blackmail us then the story changes.

It's not like the West could simply do without oil, for example, any more than it can do without food or water. If someone refuses to sell you water unless you lick his feet I bet you'd soon start thinking about just taking the water.

[Argus]

In other words the Hebdo shootings had nothing to do with religion - the root causes are France's unacknowledged racism and it's equally unacknowledged colonial past, which it still carries on by proxy today trying to protect its economic interests in Africa.

If racism were to cause such things how come Black Americans never shot up newspaper offices?

It is fatuous nonsense to try to deduct the influence of Islam from such violence.

Islam is the world's most intolerant religion, especially as practiced and preached by the Saudis and the ilk they have inspired like ISIS. It inspires fanatics everywhere, without regard to social conditions in which they live. Else we'd not have other 'home grown' terrorists in Canada the US and UK. You're simply looking for a way to excuse the terrorism and blame the White people, as is the usual methodology from the desperate apologists of the Left.

[Michael Hardner]

No I didn't. I pointed out examples of recent savage attacks by Jewish and Christian interests based on insults of their prophets.

I don't think the sarcasm helps others who are trying to follow this example.

You are cherry picking different events across cultures (Jesus Christ Superstar on Broadway vs. terrorist response to religious images) to try provide some kind of evidence I think. It's just flimsy, there's no such thing as an objective "better" in this case.

[Michael Hardner]

If racism were to cause such things how come Black Americans never shot up newspaper offices?

Are you saying racism doesn't lead to violence ?

[Argus]

What year, exactly, did Christianity become "enlightened"... are we supposed to bring slavery days, crusades, into it ? If I bring examples of Christians behaving poorly in the 20th century is that too long ago ?

We're not talking about the misbehavior of kings and presidents here. We're speaking about a religion which has remained unchanged for 1400 years in its appreciation of the value of individuality and freedom. Which is to say it refuse to accept any individuality or freedom. This is not a temporary act of banditry or bad policy. Islam and its social and political requirements have always been the antithesis of what the western world has struggled to achieve since the days of the Renaissance.

[Argus]

Are you saying racism doesn't lead to violence ?

I'm saying it's very easy to blame it, especially if you're a lefty who is looking for excuses to forgive non-White violence and blame it on White people.

Bin Laden was outraged that Christians were even allowed to set foot in what he regarded as Muslim soil. Has any lefty ever pointed out that this attitude makes your average KKK leader seem enlightened? Nope, because the narrative is always that the poor, misguided brown man is simply responding to the evil, greedy, heartless depredations of White people.

[Argus]

I don't think the sarcasm helps others who are trying to follow this example.

You are cherry picking different events across cultures (Jesus Christ Superstar on Broadway vs. terrorist response to religious images) to try provide some kind of evidence I think. It's just flimsy, there's no such thing as an objective "better" in this case.

You are simply defending the two-standards point of view. I.e., there is one standard for White people, and another for Brown people. White people are civilized, so OF COURSE they're not going to riot when someone mocks their religion. Duh! (eyes rolling). But one has to accept that 'brown' people are not civilized and endeavor wherever possible to step delicately lest we inspire them to murderous violence by our lack of sensitivity to their quaint religious beliefs. And if we do so, well, it's OUR fault, after all, not theirs. What else is a barbarian to do, after all, when one feels his religion is being mocked, but commit murder?

Edited January 25, 2015 by Argus

[Michael Hardner]

We're not talking about the misbehavior of kings and presidents here. We're speaking about a religion which has remained unchanged for 1400 years in its appreciation of the value of individuality and freedom.

...since the days of the Renaissance.

Again, you're looking for reasons, criteria after the fact to rationalize Islam as worse than Christianity. The 1400-year threshold isn't a magic number, and has not much to do with anything. You can find similar years, thresholds and factoids to throw out about Christianity.

I'm saying it's very easy to blame it...

Racism is involved then, from these examples. Ok.

You are simply defending the two-standards point of view. I.e., there is one standard for White people, and another for Brown people.

Nope. I didn't put that forward. JBG posted something and I commented on that, that's all.

[Topaz]

There are some who are questioning what really did happen and who were the terrorists behind the masks. The following video kinda makes one questions of the new reports. I'm not say true or false, just interesting in your view on the video. http://www.globalresearch.ca/charlie-hebdo-mystery-surrounding-death-of-french-policeman/5424739

[Michael Hardner]

The following video kinda makes one questions of the new reports. I'm not say true or false, just interesting in your view on the video.

I'll say... it's false. From their homepage:

"Since 9/11, the imperial playbook has consisted of time-tested tactic: the false flag operation. Carry out or facilitate a spectacular atrocity. Blame it on the enemy of choice. Issue a lie-infested official narrative, and have the corporate media repeat the lie"

If you're not saying it's true or false, is it because you don't know ? If I thought something was false, I wouldn't post it on here. If I wasn't sure, I'd research it a bit.

[Rue]

Defining whether something is an act of war, terror, insurgency, civil war, is not easy, I appreciate that and I appreciate some people consider the differences moot since they all may kill civlians and engage in violence .

However trying to restate terrorism as an act of war because you believe terrorists are responding to "colonialism" is a politically partisan exercise but its not how the law defines war nor does the application of the law of war justify or approve or condone any actions. LAws of war define how to conduct one self during war. Politicians and historians after the fact engage in the exercise of debating whether the war in question was justified.

The laws of war were created to define acceptable conduct during war.

Terrorists do not believe in or conform to war conventions or any code of conduct or behaviour..

Now to answer Wilbur's question and Wilbur you will notice lol I actually agreed with Ghost on something, when the US as faced with the situation in Afghanistan it found itself enforcing the laws of the Afghani sovereign state on behalf of the Afghani government.

Technically it should have turned over any terrorists to that government. That was the legally appropriate thing to do Or if you want to argue it was an act of war which it was not because the terrorists were not members of a sovereign tate's armed forces, if you wanted to ignore that and consent none the less to treat them as people engaged in war, then the legally appropriate method for dealing ith them would be to put them in prisoner of war camps until the war was over, but then they would have to be released unless they could be tried and convicted for war crimes, i.e., violations against the Geneva Conventions.

The problem was the Geneva convention never contemplated coming up with rules of conduct for terrorists and the US new that and realized treating terrorists as POW's would enable them to violate all the Geneva rules but then get protected by them too.

They also politically didn't want to do the actual appropriate legal thing which was turn over the terrorists to the Afghani state officials because they feared they would be released or protected or escape.

So Bush tried to create a new category of law to treat terrorists by removing them from Afghanistan and placing them in Guantanamo Bay. It was a hybrid attempt to treat them sort of like pow's but also as criminals, a two in 1 type approach.

The problem with that was the US Supreme Court ruled 4 times that the procedure created by the US to create a military tribunal system for terrorists was unconstitutional and violated basic principles of law.

I am not hear to criticize anyone. I appreciate Wilbur that whatever the US did with terrorists there were huge problems. If they treated them as pows, they would have to have bee released after the conflict subsided. If they were handed over to the Afghanis they would have been tortured, killed, or let go. If they were put in Guantanamo Bay, the US was trying to create a new type of laws that violated basic criminal law and in particular, the right of the accused to full disclosure of their charges.

When terrorists went in front of the tribunals, they were not entitled to full disclosure of the evidence being used against them because of military security reasons and that doomed the legal process of these tribunals in violation of the US constitution.

So it was damned if you do and damned if you don't.

To this day Wilbur we have no international laws or treaties that contemplate or even attempt to contemplate and have states sign on to agree to a code of how to treat terrorists.

Right now its left in limbo.

I understand your point Wilbur. I do not think for a second you believe terrorists should be protected by anyone let alone a war convention but on the other hand I appreciate and totally agree with you that civilian criminal trials for terrorists is not a good fit either.

I guess that is why Bush tried to find a mix of both military and civilian law with terrorists only that did not work.

So Wilbur Ghost is right for now, in the sense that in the absence of international conventions states sign on to, the only laws that apply to terrorists at this time, are domestic criminal laws and so terrorists are subject to the criminal laws of the state they are in and when a state is broken down and in a state of anarchy like Yemen, Somalia, Iraq, or where Iran or the US or any state fund terrorists for their own political interests, its very hard to police it.

The most unforgiveable thing Obama did was to deliberately recruit and train Muslim extremists with Erdogan. His political interest was to dispose of Ghaddafi then head on to dispose of Assad. He was warned not to do this by Germany, Israel, Egypt, Jordan, and he ignored them. He had many warnings not to fund any Muslim extremists and not to think he could ally with them. Obama stated, he was allied with the Muslim Brotherhood, they were good people to be trusted and he worked with the Muslim Brotherhood to recruit and train what is now ISIL which turned rogue on him right after Ghaddafi was disposed of.

Obama remains pro Muslim Brotherhood. It is why he can not call any extremist the word Muslim extremist. His father and step father were Muslim Brotherhood members and his half brother is the no.1 source of financing he Sudanese regime's genocide of Christians in Sudan. This is why he remained silent as Morsi of Egypt, openly called on his citizens to attack and kill Coptic Christians and his continuing link to the Muslim Brotherhood in Kenya prevents him from openly condemning what is going on in Nigeria for fear of insulting them.

Look how quiet Obama is on Yemen.

The fact is Wilbur we need to create a new set of laws that states sign on to that police terrorists. Its not going to happen in the corrupt UN.

Ideally we need a global police force against terrorists but you know how difficult if not impossible that would be and so-I hate to say it Wilbur but without a unified global approach to terrorists we will see sovereign states creating temporary alliances to fight terrorists that then break up when that terrorist source is believed addressed and we will see this rise and fall of continuing alliances.

Its a mess Wilbur and I have to be honest with you Wilbur I sometimes believe we should simply use the firing squad on terrorists. We won't. We claim we are better or more civil than they are.

The practical reality though is there is no negotiation with them. Giving them trials makes us feel morally superior but its a joke to them. I know them. I sat across from them, terrorists. Life is nothing to them. Nothing. Laws, rules, mean nothing.

Its hard to say but all they understand is a bullet to the head. Civil people who believe law must encourage us to stay above that kind of brutal behaviour say we can't just put the bullet in their head so you have people like me Wilbur who regret it very much that we can't just put a bullet in their head but if we don't follow law, we are them, we become them, terrorists.

That is precisely why I commend soldiers. They follow law, They follow a code of honour. They are our last resort in the face of terrorists. They work when our laws fail and our society is in danger. Those are the professionals, them and the police and say we efer to them both to do their job with the laws we have until we can make the laws better

For the sake and honour of our military and police who die or our rules and laws, I will not break those laws or rules. They die to defend the laws against terrorists, I will obey those laws in their name.

So I say we work with the laws we have until we can make better ones and some days I regret certain things Wilbur, but then I know sometimes we have to bite the lip.

Edited January 25, 2015 by Rue

[Rue]

In direct answer to Hardner the statement "racism leads to violence" is a generalization.

It is a defective statement precisely because it is a gross generalization.

Clearly not all people react with violence to discrimination.

Some do, some do not. Why some do and some do not is complex.

Your attempt to pose it as an all or nothing concept, either you do act with violence or you don't is illogical.

You also know the answer to your question.

No of course not all acts or racism or any ism or hatred results in violent reaction as Ghandi and Luther King and many others have shown.

No Michael Hardner people who are targets of hateful acts do not always react with violence let alone react at all.

Your all or nothing question infers violence must happen if one expresses racist or hateful thoughts. No it does not. Common sense would tell you that.

Terrorism is not a justifiable reaction to hatred and neither is violence.

Even if you could prove someone reacted violently because of a hateful action against them, it might go to explaining motive, but it does not justify the motive. Explaining motive and justifying motive are two different concepts.

[Michael Hardner]

In direct answer to Hardner the statement "racism leads to violence" is a generalization.

It is a defective statement precisely because it is a gross generalization.

Clearly not all people react with violence to discrimination.

Some do, some do not. Why some do and some do not is complex.

Your attempt to pose it as an all or nothing concept, either you do act with violence or you don't is illogical.

You also know the answer to your question.

The question is "Does it lead to violence ?". So, even qualifying that as "sometimes", the answer is "yes". The point is that racism has to be considered a factor, at least until somebody can qualify how much of an effect it is. Just as it is with Islam and the "many" acts of violence that are attributed to it by people here, it can't be discounted.

Again, we're talking meta here... talking about talking about it... what can be considered in the discussion or not... and nothing new.

Terrorism is not a justifiable reaction to hatred and neither is violence.

No, but it's perhaps easier to relate to ? I'm not sure but there is something different about it, or you wouldn't have scenes in so many movies where the racist is killed to the delight of the audience. Not so many scenes where unbelievers are killed to the delight of the audience, although that would be an interesting idea for a movie too...

Explaining motive and justifying motive are two different concepts.

Of course I agree.

[WIP]

This to me is another example of starting out with the conclusion (ie. "they" are wrong) and then working backwards using varibles (semi-quantified terms like "few" "many", variable time frames etc.) to make it appear that one is following a principle.

What year, exactly, did Christianity become "enlightened"... are we supposed to bring slavery days, crusades, into it ? If I bring examples of Christians behaving poorly in the 20th century is that too long ago ?

The only principle I see in these exercises is to make sure everybody agrees that the others are worse than we are, and to therefore continue to feel superior.

I am wondering if some combination of capitalism becoming increasingly ruthless and new personal devices increasing narcissism, are combining together to make internal and external conflicts more common and more dangerous....we still have thousands of nuclear warheads out there as best I recall!

What I'm noticing is that every international issue is viewed almost solely from our vantage point - i.e. how does it affect us or allies' interests? I don't care if it's about the civil war in Ukraine, or the Hebdo Shootings in France, Israel/Palestine, the rise of ISIS, the growing international tide of refugees traveling by land and by sea.....whatever the issue is, it's all about ME.

If I am to believe today's rightwing...almost fascist propaganda, I have to believe that some races of people (blacks, Arabs and others tagged as enemies) are different than us, at some core level, and are intrinsically barbaric, stupid, violent etc., and all that can be done is to ethnically cleanse them out, or kill them, build walls, imprison them in a system of mass incarceration etc., but all the rightwingers do is leave a trail of breadcrumbs to try to lead others to their chosen conclusion. They never come right out and say what's on their mind.....at least not in public!

The other big failing I see, besides a complete unwillingness to try to understand how others might see the world and view various issues, is a total lack of comprehension or interest in history! Because in this specific case - France, they have a long history of being an imperial power, and then trying to preserve their colonial powers through subterfuge - proxy dictators in Africa, and in the case of Algeria, it took a long, bloody war that killed millions before they would give up that colony. And yet their policy for dealing with the Algerian population that moved to France during the colonial era and the many more who came afterwards, has been to just ignore the issue and pretend that it never happened!

There is no way that the writers and cartoonists at Charlie Hebdo, or any other new atheists, can legitimately ignore history, ignore the legacy effects of economic inequality, and pretend that it's all about their religion!

According to present day anti-Islam revisionist history, Christendom is better than Islam....which has no worth...so 1.5 Muslim adherents either have to be killed or deconverted before the world is a safe place in this new mythology. Nevermind that real history informs us that religious persecutions, fundamentalisms and reform eras come and go in cycles, mostly dependent on external events. The revisionists have no explanation for how and why the Moor kingdom of Andalusia was the most advanced and progressive region in Europe back in the Middle Ages. It was multi-ethnic, multicultural, and very prosperous, until the Catholic autocrats took over and made the kingdom of Spain a theocratic tyranny. They killed any Moors or Muslims who fell behind their lines, and demanded that Jews remaining, convert to Catholicism or be similarly executed. But, when the Inquisition really got rolling, they didn't trust their Jewish Conversos anyway, and started killing them off also just in case they were secretly practicing Judaism or possibly returning to it at a later date.

In the more recent examples cited of purges of Christians, Jews and different minority sects in Muslim nations; the question is never asked: how did those minority religious groups live there for so long, and why are they being killed or forced out today....if the story begins and ends with Islamic theology?

So, what we have today are "clash of civilization" Neocons, who want to fight against encroaching Islam, and sometimes claim they are just fighting the extremists - the 'Islamists,' and supposedly they are going to accomplish their goals by:

-giving aid and unqualified support to Israel, regardless of their ethnic cleansing operations

-sending troops throughout the Muslim World and usually taking sides of corrupt unpopular despots, who allow easy access to their oil.

-demanding that all Muslims in the west make continuous apologies every time there is a terrorist attack by self-proclaimed Muslims in the west or against western soldiers or officials in their lands.....without apologizing or acknowledging our governments' killings, war crimes and interference over there.

If Neocons of various types had any actual interest in reform within the branches of Islam, it sure as hell isn't going to happen by labeling all Muslims as irrational, violent, irredeemable, and telling them they have to accept U.S. and allies strategic and economic interests in Arab and other Muslim nations.

[WIP]

In other words you have a culture that glorifies killing and death.

I could say the same thing for the modern State of Israel.

[Topaz]

So let me ask this question, do you trust your government 100% to be honorable, truthful when it comes to foreign affairs especially.

[WIP]

All beginnings of racism, bigotry and misogyny are based on the principle that there is something wrong with "them" and I know because "I" am superior. The easiest way to feel superior is to demean all those around you.

Yep, racists never read anything written from the perspective of non-white minorities; and yes, misogynists have no interest in trying to understand a feminist perspective on such issues as rape, sexual harassment, abortion rights etc..

I can't go into details, but we have had to deal with sexual harassment issues of varying degrees of severity where I work. When the first female employees were coming in, they weren't talking about it...or at least not openly or making formal complaints and pressing charges in a few cases. It took a number of years before the threshold was reached where all of a sudden, everything started to boil over.

In the most serious cases, the guys are obvious sexual predators who were following a plan. But, in the cases of verbal harassment, it was mostly idiots who keep falling back to 'what they meant' or intended. No thought seems to be given to how others....such as a new female worker with low seniority might interpret those jokes....comments etc.. And, that is half the problem. If they are capable of developing that outsider perspective, then they can be reformed. If they only think of everything they say or do from their own perspective, they are likely unreformable. And, this could apply in so many other issues today, from personal interactions to global international events.

[WIP]

So let me ask this question, do you trust your government 100% to be honorable, truthful when it comes to foreign affairs especially.

If you asked 0% I could say yes.

[Michael Hardner]

If I am to believe today's rightwing...almost fascist propaganda, I have to believe that some races of people (blacks, Arabs and others tagged as enemies) are different than us, at some core level, and are intrinsically barbaric, stupid, violent etc., and all that can be done is to ethnically cleanse them out, or kill them, build walls, imprison them in a system of mass incarceration etc., but all the rightwingers do is leave a trail of breadcrumbs to try to lead others to their chosen conclusion. They never come right out and say what's on their mind.....at least not in public!

Right, but you have fallen into their trap by accusing them of racism without knowing if that's the motivation. They are just "asking questions" you see... although many of these questions are unanswerable, and lead nowhere anyway.

That's why I prefer my less accusatory supposition that "asking questions" without an end point just leads people to feel better. In fact, the use of fear and pride are key strategies in a largely emotive argument from what I can see.

The other big failing I see, besides a complete unwillingness to try to understand how others might see the world and view various issues, is a total lack of comprehension or interest in history!

Well, you again are falling into it, ie. Why do we have to look at the world from a terrorist viewpoint ? Unless you mean non-terrorists ... but the response will be to fill the room with strawmen, to group all people together and so on.

My question is about where we are going. Historically speaking, perpetual segregation of peoples isn't realistic or desireable by any ideology.

There is no way that the writers and cartoonists at Charlie Hebdo, or any other new atheists, can legitimately ignore history, ignore the legacy effects of economic inequality, and pretend that it's all about their religion!

Actually they can - it's just a cartoon, which is just a joke. It's just a silly story.

According to present day anti-Islam revisionist history, Christendom is better than Islam....which has no worth...so 1.5 Muslim adherents either have to be killed or deconverted before the world is a safe place in this new mythology.

I don't think anybody here is saying that, but then again they're not saying much about where this is all going.

They killed any Moors or Muslims who fell behind their lines, and demanded that Jews remaining, convert to Catholicism or be similarly executed.

I'm reluctant to look that far back in history, even to note the cycles of persecution.

[Guest]

All beginnings of racism, bigotry and misogyny are based on the principle that there is something wrong with "them" and I know because "I" am superior. The easiest way to feel superior is to demean all those around you.

That's certainly a good start in explaining some Muslim attitudes towards women and non-Muslims. It doesn't explain the whole cartoonist killing thing though.

Edited January 25, 2015 by bcsapper