Terrorist Attacks in Paris

This news is fresh, but it looks like a major terrorist has stuck the city of Paris. A shooting, a hostage situation, and a explosion has taken place with another shooting at Place de la Republique being reported.

Here is the live reddit thread about what is going on.

[live] Shooting and Explosions in Paris

Do we have any TFPers in france? I'm racking my brain to think of anyone.

There is a lot of wild news reports being throw around but anywhere from 60-100 people reported being held hostage in a concert hall.

(Mods: Take this down if this is to early to talk about it)

 

There was a TFPer that lived around paris or a major town near it. I remember talking to him in chat a lot. I swear he had a number or a "D" in his name. Blue avatar icon?

His name is slipping past me.

Found a live stream of the view outside the theater.

Stephane Hannache on Periscope: "Paris's incident Bataclan live"

 

How skewed is our take on all this?

A city in the west is attacked and we all wring our hands and change our Facebook pages to show solidarity.

Cities in Asia and the Middle East are attacked and... Crickets. Refugees flee these countries and we close our borders.


I'm not saying we shouldn't commiserate with France. We should. I am just seeing how one-sided our hand wringing and gnashing of teeth is.

 

I get that, and yet the bombs of Lebannon, shortly before l, generate no outrage.

There are no calls for solidarity with Syrian refugees in other cities we know.


This is a war with no clear venue. Our western sympathies are understandable, but blinkered. We need to take wider view of things.

 

now I see where ISIS is taking responsibility for the attacks

 

My parents were in Paris on Wednesday, and they will be flying back through next Wednesday. They aren't in the middle of nowhere in Spain, so I'm guessing they have heard about it by now.

It will be interesting to see if Canada changes it's mind on fighting ISIS after this. And I wonder if the COP21 and G20 meetings will get a lot more press now. Basically how do you handle and fight this, along with getting off fossil fuels that allow Saudi Arabia and Iran to fund civil war and terrorist groups in a proxy war.

 

We heard from our XBIL/still a friend. He was at home yesterday, about 300 miles away from Paris, and everybody he knows in France is safe.

These attacks should tell the world that no city in any country is safe from terrorism. These were not "it might work" attacks, they were very well coordinated.

 

ISIS claims that they have embedded thousands of jihadists in with the refugees and this is just the beginning.

I hope that the response is swift and decisive.

 

I think Daesh is trying to make life as difficult as possible for the refugees.
It makes it possible for them to gather supporters and keeps them from being able to integrate into the countries they are in.
By saying there are embedded members in refugees it's a great way to ratchet up the misery.

 

When I get the news it always makes me sad, I also wonder, we can pinpoint a target with satellite technology and we allow this terrorism to continue.

 

And what should the response be?

More killing? More loss of personal liberty? More invasions?

I really want to know, because it seems to me we've been doing all these things and all it does is make it worse.

Invading Afghanistan hasn't stopped the Taliban. It hasn't destroyed Al Qaida. They are both still capable of doing some pretty nasty things in Pakistan, Afghanistan and many other parts of the world. Iraq, whatever you think the reason for invading was, destabilized the region and left a vacuum filled by Daesh.

Is the answer to do more of the same but bigger and badder? Does that just make the blow back bigger and badder.

Violence just seems to beget more violence. Is this what we want?

When do we know we've won? How do we know?

Is this vicious cycle of escalating violence just what we have to get used to?

 

I'm opposed to unilateral action from the US. We're not the world's police force and we suck at nation building.

Seems ISIS is doing their best to piss off the world's powers. If France and Russia decide to take action, I'd be willing to help.

 

What should the response be?

It's not politically correct, but here it goes. Go after Islam and the problems with it. Promote the right way to be a Muslim, or go a step further and expose the fraud that organized religion is. We need a more secular world that is modern and advanced. Religion just sorts people and families based on their old 'tribes' and for some reason they have never been able to deal with past problems. We dropped two A-bombs on Japan, and you don't see the grandkids of those attacks blowing themselves up in American cities. But the Sunni, Shia, Jewish, Christians, and a whole lot of smaller sects have been going at it for over a thousand years with no end in sight. Families brainwash the kids and the cycle continues.

That is the next part. There are way too many kids being born in the middle of civil war and termoil over there. Along with being born into poverty. The same can be said about here and elsewhere in the world too. Religions don't care if their followers are really poor, nations don't care either. Especially if the numbers will make it hard to invade and take over. But, something has to happen or mother nature will correct the problem for us.

Then we will have to support France, Italy, and Russia making puppet states in Syria and Kurdistan in what is now Northern Iraq. Controlled by the laws and militaries of those countries. Along with western values and culture. Russia will have to deal with Iran, and the US will have to deal with Saudi Arabia keeping them in their corners instead of fueling proxy wars. The refugees in Europe will need to be trained, adapt to western values, get some education, and expected to rebuild. The Assad's and other dictators of the region will have to live by similar rules as western leaders do in dealing with dissent and power. If not, I don't care if Putin is put in charge of a winter getaway that is now South Russia in former Syria.

 

The bitch of it all is that Boko Haram is every bit as dangerous as Daesh, kills as many if not more people, controls more territory, but doesn't have the social media presence or operate where there is oil.
We don't hear the politicians crying out for a solution to Boko Haram.