French Terrorist Attacks

[muppet]

This is from a few years ago but.........

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/33047176/ns/politics-more_politics/t/candidate-raffles-ak--campaign-rally/#.VkeIIYSHZFg

GREENVILLE, S.C. — A candidate to be South Carolina's next National Guard leader skipped the fiery speeches for firepower, launching his campaign with what he called a "machine-gun social."

The Greenville News reports some 500 people came out to a shooting range Saturday for Republican Dean Allen's political rally. He wants to be the next adjutant general, the person who leads the state's National Guard.

Attendees paid $25 for barbecue, a clip of bullets for target practice and the chance to win a semiautomatic AK-47. Whoever wins the rifle will have to undergo a background check.

Allen says he is an Army veteran who wanted to celebrate Second Amendment rights. South Carolina is the only state that elects its adjutant general.

[moysider]

The guys blowing themselves up are the frontline soldiers. It might not be a conventional army and blowing oneself up is not a conventional tactic but it is an effective one when taking on a vastly superior military might.
They won t take over much but will do a lot of damage trying if they are not stopped.

They are terrorists. They do enough damage as it is.

But claiming they want to rule the world is simply helping them spread their terror.

They control an area bigger than Britain and are taking their ambition beyond their homeland. Dismissing them as a bunch of psychopaths is not helpful imo. It is a religious state with carefully considered beliefs. Via the internet it can spread its influence  and it doesn t need many followers in places like France, Spain, Britain etc to cause mayhem. IS sees itself as going to have a major say and need to be taken on and not contained. Their ideology rejects peace as a matter of principal. It embraces conflict and genocide. Losing a few frontline soldiers is small fry to them.
To stop them means they will have to be hunted down. Also if the bombers were French born or immigrants is neither here nor there. They are just IS. The state is global.

Hunt down ISIS and destroy them and then the next wave of lunatics will then pop-up.

Then what?

Short term and long term strategies.

IS must be dealt with immediately. This is religion driven and no point getting distracted now with history, environmental and economic issues. There needs to be long term strategies put in place to manage North Africa and Middle East in the future. Right now the threat of IS must be eliminated imo.

At a basic level it's religion-driven but to consider the environmental and economic issues as distractions means you ignore why young Muslim men choose to join something like IS. And ignoring that means you have zero hope of defeating IS

I wouldn t be ignoring anything but right now I think IS atrocities are the priority. Not just attacks abroad but the genocide in Syria/Iraq and the wanton destruction of antiquities. The latter is beneath contempt and enough cause for their defeat alone imo.
It should also be remembered that young muslim men and girls have left well off countries like Britain and France to join IS. Jihadi John attended university and had an hons. degree. He had a good job.
I honestly think this movement is religiously motivated and the upheaval in Syria, Iraq and other areas has given these opportunists a window to get a foothold. Their uninhibited bloodthirstiness and access to modern weapons saw them become very successful very quickly as the west stalled. I expect things will now change.

Turkey and Saudi are very ambivalent about IS. Blair's adventure in Iraq means the Brits are very wary of getting involved.
The rape of Syria proceeds more or less without any interruption.

IS will run out of steam eventually because it's too gory for locals, IMO.   
Very few westerners have gone to IS really- a couple of thousand, under misapprehensions, especially the ladies.
Then you have a structural problem with Islam. Anyone can say any kind of shite and claim to be Islamic.

I don't think there is much France can do either. The Legion isn't great at fighting modern terrorism which is so vague.

They are on the ground in Syria/Iraq. I expect that they will go after Baghdadi and others with special forces.

[JPGJOHNNYG]

So one of the lads passed through Greece less than a month ago cough cough. Nevermind nothing to see here.

[moysider]

So one of the lads passed through Greece less than a month ago cough cough. Nevermind nothing to see here.

As recently as Oct. 3rd if reports are accurate.
If anything makes it even more urgent that an international coalition goes in and stabilise the region so that the out migration stops. It was bound to happen that groups like IS would use the desperate migrants as cover to sneak some soldiers into Europe. It was too good an opportunity to miss. A no-brainer. 

[Rossfan]

So one of the lads passed through Greece less than a month ago cough cough. Nevermind nothing to see here.

And made sure he'd have his passport with him when he launched his attack

[seafoid]

So one of the lads passed through Greece less than a month ago cough cough. Nevermind nothing to see here.

As recently as Oct. 3rd if reports are accurate.
If anything makes it even more urgent that an international coalition goes in and stabilise the region so that the out migration stops. It was bound to happen that groups like IS would use the desperate migrants as cover to sneak some soldiers into Europe. It was too good an opportunity to miss. A no-brainer.

when half the population of Syria has been displaced stopping migration is a fantasy.

[seafoid]

So one of the lads passed through Greece less than a month ago cough cough. Nevermind nothing to see here.

And made sure he'd have his passport with him when he launched his attack

so coincidental

[Cunny Funt]

Trump opens rally in Texas by noting Paris has tough gun laws: "If they had guns... It would have been a much, much different situation."

Who are 'they'? The people at the concert? The fans at the match?

Is the man completely insane?

This is the man Stew called a Democrat BTW, so we have to assume Trump is a moderate. God help us.

Not sure who is the bigger gobshite, Trump or the person that will buy his BS and will vote him?

[bennydorano]

I don't think there are solutions that are cost effective in a recessionary global economy.
We'll get sticking plaster answers.

Sunni vs Shia is the equivalent of the Thirty Years' War in Europe in the 1500s between Catholics and Protestants.
Throw in climate change, population growth and the end of the model of Arab dictators and it's really complex.

This is an interesting point. If it is the end, and you are probably right, what comes next?

Had a discussion about this exact topic a few months back, it's been going increasingly pear shaped since Saddam got the deadner, the promise of the Arab Spring has long since gone and it's failure is having catastrophic repercussions with prolonged mayhem throughout  Europe a real possibility.

The starting point has to be Russia, the US and Europe all singing from the same hymn sheet politically & militarily and the chances of that happening are slim.

[moysider]

So one of the lads passed through Greece less than a month ago cough cough. Nevermind nothing to see here.

As recently as Oct. 3rd if reports are accurate.
If anything makes it even more urgent that an international coalition goes in and stabilise the region so that the out migration stops. It was bound to happen that groups like IS would use the desperate migrants as cover to sneak some soldiers into Europe. It was too good an opportunity to miss. A no-brainer.

when half the population of Syria has been displaced stopping migration is a fantasy.

So what do you think should happen? Let Syria just burn itself out. By the time that happens Jordan, Lebanon and others will be in the hands of fanatics as well. The situation has to be addressed now. Military intervention asap. Migration on such as scale not sustainable.

[moysider]

So one of the lads passed through Greece less than a month ago cough cough. Nevermind nothing to see here.

And made sure he'd have his passport with him when he launched his attack

Did you consider that they wanted to be known? They were not hooded, they were not trying to escape, they had no reason to hide their identity. They wanted to be known imo.
If I was going to make the ultimate sacrifice for a cause I d like it that my name would be known, wouldn t you?
I would want it known where I came from as well. Surely not a surprise an IS member came from Syria! Not that it matters where they were from. IS is a multinational group and will have to be taken on globally as well.
These guys have nothing to hide. The passports are part of the statement they are making. Makes sense to me that they would have their passports with them. They were not going to return. They were going to be blown to bits and they wanted their identity known.

[moysider]

So one of the lads passed through Greece less than a month ago cough cough. Nevermind nothing to see here.

As recently as Oct. 3rd if reports are accurate.
If anything makes it even more urgent that an international coalition goes in and stabilise the region so that the out migration stops. It was bound to happen that groups like IS would use the desperate migrants as cover to sneak some soldiers into Europe. It was too good an opportunity to miss. A no-brainer.

Could well be the case that one of the suicide bombers in Paris indeed used the cover of the refugee crises in mainland Europe. It could also be the case that the passport in question had been lost or stolen beyond Greece and that the bomber in question is not the man in the passport but carried it on his body during the attack to try and create a false flag. There's also a possibility that it could be a forgery that either got past the Greek authorities (Syrian passports don't have security features like biometrics on them) or that identify theft has taken place. Given the disfigurement & dismemberment of suicide bombers bodies, positively identifying him and checking that he is the person on the passport may not be an easy task. Until more evidence is available, reaching a firm conclusion either way is unreliable.

Of course things are still unclear.
But I was a bit taken aback here with hints that some people thought that Syrian passports were 'found' as an excuse to take the fight to Syria.
No need for an excuse surely. This is about IS. IS has a foothold in Syria and unless they are eliminated there, they will continue to exercise their influence elsewhere. Take them out in Syria and the lesser cells outside the core will be quickly mopped up.

[ONeill]

How did this happen if a few of the killers were known by the authorities?

Even if we're talking about 1000 suspects, surely every move they make is monitored.

Are we talking about tens of thousands?

[Minder]

How did this happen if a few of the killers were known by the authorities?

Even if we're talking about 1000 suspects, surely every move they make is monitored.

Are we talking about tens of thousands?

I remember reading that the French government reckoned there were 3000 jihadists in France earlier this year

[ONeill]

Did I hear something about a lack of CCTV in Paris? A freedom of movement idea. Maybe I misheard it.