Explosions and Gunfire Reported At Three Locations In Paris

[Lord Jim]

Just watched this guy being interviewed on Fareed Zakari's show; interesting fellow:

Maajid Usman Nawaz (Urdu: ماجد نواز‎, [ˈmaːdʒɪd̪ naːwa:z], born 2 November 1978) is a British activist, author, columnist and politician. He was the Liberal Democrat parliamentary candidate for London's Hampstead and Kilburn constituency in the 2015 General Election.[1] He is also the co-founder and chairman of Quilliam, a counter-extremism think tank that seeks to challenge the narratives of Islamist extremists.[2



Nawaz is a former member of the radical Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir. This association led to his arrest in Egypt in December 2001, where he remained imprisoned until 2006. Reading books on human rights and interacting with Amnesty International, which adopted him as a prisoner of conscience, resulted in a change of heart. This led Nawaz to leave Hizb-ut-Tahrir in 2007, renounce his Islamist past and call for a "Secular Islam".[3]

After his turnaround, Nawaz co-founded Quilliam with former radical Islamists, including Ed Husain.[4] He documented his life story in his Amazon bestselling autobiography Radical (2012).[5][6] Since then, he has risen to become a prominent critic of Islamism in the United Kingdom. He is a regular op-ed contributor, debater and public commenter, and has spoken from various international platforms including the TED conference.[7] He presented his views on radicalisation in front of US Senate Committee and UK Home Affairs Committee in their respective inquiries on the roots of radical extremism.[8][9][10]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maajid_Nawaz

[Big RR]

found it noteworthy (and I was very happy to see it) that the biggest cheering and applause of the night at last week's GOP debate came when Rubio smacked Paul down on this...

And then when Paul came back with his usual defeatist "we can't afford to spend any more money, blah blah blah..." his comments were met with absolute silence...

Paul got it half right; perhaps we can afford it, but we just won't raise taxes to pay for it.

[Econoline]

New essay from Jim Wright on Stonekettle Station: "The Price of Civilization". Here's part of it:

[ ... ] I will bet you whatever sum of money you like, because I used to do this for a living, that right now the war machine is spinning up. The sabers are rattling, the ships are preparing to sail, the bombers are fueling up, and the trumpets are sounding To Arms, To Arms! As they must for the barbarians are at the gate and now? Now we have no choices at all.

But...

But what comes after?

We’ll rush in, like the fools we are, heedless yet again. Our own children will march off to war to the sounds of cheering crowds and they’ll come home in bags, hidden away from public view. We’ll speak the solemn words, sacrifice, patriotism, duty, honor, courage. We’ll bomb another country to ruin, kill thousands, millions. Oh, we’ll win the war, don’t you fear, of course we will, we always do. We’re good at it.

But…

But meanwhile, what comes after?

What’s the plan this time?

What have we learned? What have we learned from all those lives? From all that blood? From all that destruction?

What have we learned from terror?

Terrorism grows like bacteria in warm agar, among the destruction and ruin of war. Terrorism grows in the gaps between civilization. And so what is the plan for after the war? After we’ve blown up the world yet again?

What comes after?

It does you no good to kill cockroaches if you don’t clean up the rot and mess and the filth they live on, if you leave chaos and darkness for them to breed in. More will always come in an unending tide.

So what’s the plan for after?

Paris was caused by Iraq. By Syria. By Afghanistan. By chaos and destruction and because the terrorists had nothing better, literally nothing better, to do with their miserable lives.

Unless we do something about that, then Paris isn’t the end, it’s just the beginning.

Read the whole essay here: http://www.stonekettle.com/2015/11/the- ... ation.html

[Big RR]

Thanks for posting this econo; as I've said many times--post WW2 America (Or USA Meade) can and has won many wars, but we suck at winning the peace, something we've shown again and again.

[Lord Jim]

I don't think the defeatist naval gazers are going to prevail at this time.

[Big RR]

And I don't think the jingoistic patriots are going to do much better than get a load of people killed and return to the status quo--whoever is in the white house (or congress for that matter). We just never learn.

[BoSoxGal]

Hang on, didn't we follow policies post-WWII that created strong and vibrant allies in Germany and Japan?

Seems like we do know how to win the peace, if we just treated the ME the same as we treated post-WWII Europe?

[Big RR]

You are correct, I should have said post marshall plan.

[BoSoxGal]

Best response I've seen to the Paris terror attacks:

http://i100.independent.co.uk/article/h ... Z1ZZbO3VYx

Those who love. Those who love life. In the end, they're always the ones who are rewarded.

[BoSoxGal]

You are correct, I should have said post marshall plan.

Big RR, why do you think we aren't taking that approach to deal with the ME? Is it logistically impossible? Is it the huge cultural barrier - the argument that Germany was easy to rebuild because of the history of democracy? Japan didn't have that, and was culturally very different from the U.S., too.

Would it be possible to channel our tax dollars away from war profiteers ad instead into NGOs and other organizations that could help create a ME where young people have opportunity for a good life without being drawn to suicide missions like those in Paris?

Or are the war profiteers too greedy and too powerful?

[Big RR]

Personally, I think it is because we just bluster headlong into fight after fight without looking at what we want to achieve and how we will achieve it. We take out Saddam without any real thought as to what would happen afterwards; ditto for Vietnam; ditto for Korea; the only thing I think we had some thought about was in the first gulf war--Bush just wanted the Iraqis out of Kuwait and left when that was done. Of course some tried to foment people to rise up, and then we just left, leaving a lot of pissed off people.

The real reason is that I think we'd much rather fight than deal with the reality of peace; look at Jim's post calling the raising of those questions defeatist naval gazing. We want to be John Wayne and go in with guns blazing, not having to worry about the aftermath. Couple that with a refusal to even conceive that people would not prefer our way to their own, and we wind up with the mess we have.

Face it, in the current climate, people who negotiate are seen as weak, while those who rush in with no plan are seen as men of action. Any concession, or even recognition of the validity of some points of the other side, is seen as weakness--and we can't be seen as weak. It's not going to change, just get worse.

[Econoline]

found it noteworthy (and I was very happy to see it) that the biggest cheering and applause of the night at last week's GOP debate came when Rubio smacked Paul down on this...

And then when Paul came back with his usual defeatist "we can't afford to spend any more money, blah blah blah..." his comments were met with absolute silence...

Paul got it half right; perhaps we can afford it, but we just won't raise taxes to pay for it.

Jim, would you support raising taxes enough to pay for not only a full-scale war on ISIS but also a Marshall Plan style rebuilding of the area to prevent it from happening again?




ETA:

• WW1 -> Treaty of Versailles -> WW2
  
  WW2 -> Marshall Plan -> €€€€+¥¥¥¥

[Econoline]

• French senator: Bomber entered Europe with Syrian passport issued in Greece
  [ ... ]

  http://www.cnn.com/2015/11/15/europe/pa ... index.html
  
  ETA:
  
  Wasn't there somebody around here (Econo maybe) insisting that this wouldn't happen, that any terrorist who tried to infiltrate in this fashion would be outed by the other refugees?

Syrian passports found at Paris attacks scene were fakes made in Turkey
EU commission chief says EU does not need to review migration policy in light of fears that militants posing as refugees launched attacks

Syrian passports found near the bodies of two of the suspected Paris attackers were fakes that were likely made in Turkey, police sources in France told Channel 4 News on Sunday.

Greek officials had said on Saturday that one of the two passports was held by someone who had registered as a refugee on the Greek island of Leros on 3 October.

Officials denied, though, that a second attacker had taken a similar route, telling the Guardian there was “no indication whatsoever” that the assailant had entered Europe through Greece. The comments came amid widening investigations into the attacks that killed 132 people in the French capital on Friday.

Authorities across Europe continue to probe the identity of seven assailants amid questions over how they managed to co-ordinate multiple attacks, which have since been claimed by the Islamic State group, without attracting the attention of security services.

Only one of the attackers has as yet been publicly named, amid ongoing attempts to identify the victims - French Prime Minister Manuel Valls said on Sunday that the bodies of up to 30 people killed in the assaults have yet to be identified.

Authorities on Sunday named the attacker as Omar Ismail Mostefai, a 29-year-old Frenchman born and raised in Paris but with family connections to Algeria.

Mostefai’s recent movements have not yet been made public, although British intelligence officials have said the attackers were part of a cell that recently returned from fighting in Syria.

Fake Syrian passports have become a valuable commodity in recent months and are freely traded on the black market, as they can help ease the path for non-Syrians to get protection as refugees in Europe.

A Dutch journalist reported in September that he had bought a fake Syrian passport and ID card, both bearing the picture of the Dutch prime minister, for $825.

Fake Syrian passports are also bought by Syrians who have not been able to get documents due to the war.

Chris Doyle, head of the Council for Arab-British Understanding, said there is great demand for fake passports because many Syrians living outside government-controlled areas are rendered effectively stateless by the difficulty of obtaining documents.

In the wake of the slaughter in Paris, many commenters have questioned why the perpetrators would carry passports with them during the highly co-ordinated attacks.
[Yeah, that question had occurred to me, too...]
Simon Kuper, a columnist with the Financial Times and Paris resident, said the move could be part of a strategy by IS to “discredit” refugees and force Europe to close its borders.

An undated video released by IS on Saturday, featuring fighters appearing to burn French passports and pledge allegiance to the group’s leader, urged French Muslims to “emigrate” to areas controlled by IS before Europe’s borders are closed.

In addition to the Syrian documents discovered at the scene of the Paris assaults, media reports suggested that an Egyptian passport discovered near the Stade de France - which was targeted by two suicide bombers on Friday - belonged to one of the attackers.

However, it emerged on Sunday that the passport was held by an Egyptian football fan who was severely injured by an attack that struck during a friendly between France and Germany.

Egypt's ambassador to France, Ihab Badawi, told Egyptian media that no charges had been levelled against Walid Abdel Razzaq.

The fan, Abdel Razzaq, has had three operations since sustaining grave injuries, his brother told Egyptian news channel al-Hayat on Sunday, and still has shrapnel in his body from the blast.

“He was like any other young guy who goes to watch the football,” Wael Abdel Razzaq told the show’s host.

Friday’s attack prompted authorities in Europe to act swiftly to tighten border controls, with French President Francois Hollande immediately announcing renewed border checks. The president of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, however, said on Sunday that Europe did not need to review its overall policies concerning refugees in the wake of the events.

“Those who organised [and perpetrated] the attacks are the very same people who the refugees are fleeing and not the opposite,” Juncker told reporters in Turkey as he prepared to attend a G20 summit, which in light of the Paris attacks that came a day after large attacks in Beirut and Baghdad is expected to focus on security.

“There is no need for an overall review of the European policy on refugees," Junker added.

But a wider political backlash is feared. Poland’s incoming European affairs minister said on Saturday that Warsaw would refuse to accept its EU quota of more than 9,500 refugees, arguing that it would be politically impossible to take such a step in light of the “tragic” events in Paris.

http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/syrian-passports-found-scene-paris-attacks-fakes-made-turkey-police-520642631#sthash.l0yCla3H.dpuf

[Guinevere]

http://thinkprogress.org/world/2015/11/ ... -official/

All the attackers from Friday’s massacre in Paris so far have been identified as European Union nationals, according to a top EU official. The announcement further casts doubt on the validity of a Syrian passport found near the bodies of a slain attacker.
“Let me underline, the profile of the terrorists so far identified tells us this is an internal threat,” Federica Mogherini, the High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy/Vice-President of the European Commission, said after a meeting with EU foreign ministers. “It is all EU citizens so far. This can change with the hours, but so far it is quite clear it is an issue of internal domestic security.”

[wesw]

...and 6 have been confirmed to have returned from Syria, right?

[BoSoxGal]

[Guinevere]

That's what I posted in the other thread - it translates to: they have guns (or arms), but too bad, we have champagne.

I love that Charlie Hebdo is uncowed and unafraid to live in the world as they believe it should be. We should all have such spirit and joy.

[Big RR]

Absolutely!

[RayThom]

[MajGenl.Meade]

"too bad"? How about, "it's crap!"