Looks like another Fundamentalist Muslim attack, this time in Paris.

[Mike Sheehy]

It is a pity certain clowns are so weak in their criticisms before these atrocities and yet so strong in their condemnation once the act is perpetrated. It simply does not ring true.

[Maguire01]

"@realDonaldTrump: If the people so violently shot down in Paris had guns, at least they would have had a fighting chance."

The problem according to Donald Trump is the magazine staff weren't packing heat

I assume the two police officers who were killed were armed.

[macdanger2]

Terrible stuff

[lynchbhoy]

There is already a backlash to that financial times article

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/01/07/financial-times-charlie-hebdo-stupid-muslim-baiting_n_6430242.html

Apparently he has already edited the online article. Originally called the journalists stupid for "provoking" Muslims

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B6wUsmCIUAA1QxO.png:large

more reaction here...

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/9f90f482-9672-11e4-a40b-00144feabdc0.html#ixzz3O9fN9QVY

I encourage everybody to not take articles posted by Seafoid at face value.  Don't assume that just because it is from the financial times that there isn't an underlying ideological bias.

By the same token - according to that ft article , we Irish would be now justified for conducting attacks on England because of our colonisation !!
( not the same as the occupation of the six counties by the way)
That's horseshit.
If anyone like us begrudging fcukers can get over it...

As for provocation - that's balls too

The attempt to force people to adhere to islams ( or any ethnic/religious/cultural) dictat is just plain wrong - esp if it's in a diff fecking country!

I know I'd think that some of these cartoons and commentary cross the boundary of bad manners - but not so bad that any punishment except boycott is possibly acceptse - but not fecking death



This however will encourage more yanks to 'pack heat' - maybe French, English too

It will empower the French giv and right wings to enforce the dilution of rights for religious sects esp Muslims in France !
Eg - that right to wear the burka - if it comes up again anytime soon - will be shredded

Pity the decent Muslims around the place in the west. They will get dogs abuse now

[Maguire01]

"@realDonaldTrump: If the people so violently shot down in Paris had guns, at least they would have had a fighting chance."

The problem according to Donald Trump is the magazine staff weren't packing heat

Did the two police officers not have guns?

[moysider]

"@realDonaldTrump: If the people so violently shot down in Paris had guns, at least they would have had a fighting chance."

The problem according to Donald Trump is the magazine staff weren't packing heat

Did the two police officers not have guns?

The policeman shot dead was just in the area because he d been there on other business. It depends what type of policeman he was. Some local municipal police do not carry firearms. That video would suggest he did not. He was still functional enough to use a weapon before he took the killer shot. But a sidearm is not much use anyway against lads with AK47s that know what they are doing. Unfortunately Trump may have a point. Especially if you are drawing cartoons of some prophet that a lot of people take seriously.
This is no surprise. These guys were dead men walking.
The Hawks in US loving this. Al Q, Janjaweed, Isis, Taliban, Boko Haram Hamas all seem to be behind this.
The reality could be a few lads operating alone as part of a much bigger picture of course.
Looks like they have 2 alive. Maybe we ll learn something.

[seafoid]

"@realDonaldTrump: If the people so violently shot down in Paris had guns, at least they would have had a fighting chance."

The problem according to Donald Trump is the magazine staff weren't packing heat

Did the two police officers not have guns?

The policeman shot dead was just in the area because he d been there on other business. It depends what type of policeman he was. Some local municipal police do not carry firearms. That video would suggest he did not. He was still functional enough to use a weapon before he took the killer shot. But a sidearm is not much use anyway against lads with AK47s that know what they are doing. Unfortunately Trump may have a point. Especially if you are drawing cartoons of some prophet that a lot of people take seriously.
This is no surprise. These guys were dead men walking.
The Hawks in US loving this. Al Q, Janjaweed, Isis, Taliban, Boko Haram Hamas all seem to be behind this.
The reality could be a few lads operating alone as part of a much bigger picture of course.
Looks like they have 2 alive. Maybe we ll learn something.

The Yanks and their guns. A 2 year old shot dead his mother last week.
ISIS and the hawks are on the same side.  War is the only  acceptable deficit spending.

[omaghjoe]

Shocking stuff. I fully expect to be educated any time now on how it's the West's fault.

It's not my Little pony in Iraq, Puckoon
Looks like ISIS and they emerged from Iraq

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2014/sep/25/iraq-outlaw-state/

"Even by the standards of Iraq's turbulent history, its past few decades have been unusually relentless. Just since 1980 Iraqis have experienced three major wars that wrecked the country's physical infrastructure and left perhaps half a million dead; an attempt at genocide that permanently alienated Iraq's five million Kurds; a ten-year siege under the UN's "Oil-for-Food" program that devastated the economy, ruined the middle class, and forced the most talented into exile; an American invasion that shattered national pride and stoked bitter divisions; and a civil war that displaced as many as 4.7 million Iraqis from their homes and has driven a deep, perhaps irreparable chasm of mistrust between Iraq's 60 percent Shia Arab majority and the once-dominant 20 percent Sunni Arab minority. Excepting perhaps the Russians from 1914 to 1953, few modern nations have been so cursed by ill luck for such an extended period."

throw in the Saudis for funding and it's a mess.

Dunno what point yer trying to make but heres a few
Congo
Somalia
Haiti
Afghanistan
Cambodia
Uganda

[omaghjoe]

I am a Catholic and havent gone to church as much as I should like, but I see religion as a massive stumbling part in bringing the world together in harmony. Balladmaker makes an excellent point in why do these people see the mocking of the prophet a cause to kill? But as history shows, religion has caused the most deaths throughout the years than any political/historical feud. The people who mock these prophets by writing/drawing Muhammad in a satirical manner, fan the flames.

Hmmm well I've been to mass quite a bit lately and the message that I get seems to involve the following, mercy, humility, repentance, courage, love, patience, tolerance, hope. All virtues that are essential for individuals to be happy and for mankind to live together and for society to grow harmoniously. All the world's religions teach pretty much the same thing.

"Religion causes wars" is an oft quoted phrase but tribalism ( in the form nationalism, race, ethnicity) causes far more wars that religion. Religion is often a way of identify with another tribe but if people were true to the teachings of their religion they would let it the differences pass.
NI is a good example, religion is not the cause of the problems in NI it is only a way of identifying people from the other tribe, the religions do not promote hatred of the other side, that's caused by fear and intolerance something religions try to eradicate.

We could go back to what it was like before there was any religion, times where so much better then....

[gallsman]

"@realDonaldTrump: If the people so violently shot down in Paris had guns, at least they would have had a fighting chance."

The problem according to Donald Trump is the magazine staff weren't packing heat

Did the two police officers not have guns?

The policeman shot dead was just in the area because he d been there on other business. It depends what type of policeman he was. Some local municipal police do not carry firearms. That video would suggest he did not. He was still functional enough to use a weapon before he took the killer shot. But a sidearm is not much use anyway against lads with AK47s that know what they are doing. Unfortunately Trump may have a point. Especially if you are drawing cartoons of some prophet that a lot of people take seriously.
This is no surprise. These guys were dead men walking.
The Hawks in US loving this. Al Q, Janjaweed, Isis, Taliban, Boko Haram Hamas all seem to be behind this.
The reality could be a few lads operating alone as part of a much bigger picture of course.
Looks like they have 2 alive. Maybe we ll learn something.

Trump has no point whatsoever. The fact anyone would consider every employee being armed in the workplace a solution to acts of violence is terrifying.

[seafoid]

The big question is how to sideline  ISIS. There has to be a regional solution and it has to be political, not just military.


http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/08669916-4412-11e4-baa7-00144feabdc0.html

"The Isis threat is greater than al-Qaeda, which spawned it. This breed of jihadis has set no limits to its violence, with calculated atrocities intended as a deliberate affront to everyone in its way. Isis is gorging on revanchist despair, mainly of Syria's Sunni majority, which has seen its rebellion drowned in blood by Bashar al-Assad's regime as the west stood by, and Iraq's Sunni minority, dispossessed by the US-led invasion of 2003, which brought sectarian leaders from the Shia majority to power.
Supporters of Isis are Sunni supremacists, exploiting the region-wide conflict between Sunni and Shia to accelerate the spiral of violence, and spread it into fragile neighbouring states such as Lebanon and Jordan, even Turkey and Saudi Arabia. A statement by the group this week gloated at the prospect of drawing the US and its allies into its lair.
Isis, moreover, is the first modern jihadi group successfully to spearhead a mass movement. Beyond the grievances of Sunni in Iraq and Syria, Isis is trying to spark underclass animosity among – and give identity to – the high proportion of Arabs who have been excluded by closed and corrupt systems. The heart of its narrative is that the Arab world is a collection of failed and rotting states.
As well as robust military action, therefore, any chance of success against Isis needs to find political formulas to short-circuit the hard-wiring of sectarianism and offer at least a glimmer of hope to dispel despair.

Militarily, air and missile strikes can at most hope to contain Isis, which is regrouping in its strongholds in eastern Syria and western Iraq. Dislodging these ranks will require local Sunni fighters on the ground, persuaded there is a real alternative to the jihadi juggernaut.

In the countries riven by ethno-sectarian faultlines, the need is for credible federal institutions resting on assured devolved power. Only institutionalised local power can create proxies for the sectarian and tribal laagers into which these societies have retreated. Equitable sharing of resources such as oil and gas might then have a chance of gluing central and devolved government together.
Detente between Sunni Saudi Arabia and Shia Iran (whose foreign ministers met this week) is essential to start drawing the lethal sting of sectarianism. The Saudis and their allies need to look hard at the Wahhabi bigotry the kingdom still spews out, identical to the Isis message in essentials such as doctrinal anathemas against the Shia."

Saudi is a huge part of the problem.

[AZOffaly]

Another shooting this morning in a metro station. Appears to be less clinical, but the shooter hada jacket and an automatic rifle again, so it's a bit of a coincidence if it's not related.

[orangeman]

Going to work won't be easy for them police etc etc.

Did a German newspaper print on the front page and back page cartoons in defiance of those who killed the cartoonists yesterday ?

[armaghniac]

They've spotted these guys at a petrol station north of Paris. Lets hope they don't shoot more people before the Gendarmes get hold of them.

[AZOffaly]

Which guys? Yesterdays suspects, or todays? Or are they the same guys?