Je Suis Charlie

Sorry, George, I forgot to thank you for your kind thoughts.

Dear FrenchNaim,

The problem is that humour [or an attempt at it, in the face of something truly tragic for your Nation] can fail miserably on the internet. Few of us know each other well enough for this to work.

When faced with something this horrible, it is paradoxically not unusual to attempt humour, and this does nothing to diminish the appreciation of the tragedy or indicate disrespect. It is a sort of escape route ...

My best wishes from George

Truly tragic? Well yes, especially for those involved, but let's keep some perspective here. Some nut-jobs killing 12 people like this (thus far) is incredibly rare in the vast majority of the world. This is why it currently dominates the press. But the true risk associated with an incident like this is minuscule in the scheme of things. Tragedies are occurring everyday all over the world by way of preventable deaths. Guarding against (the incredibly rare) acts that are deliberately perpetrated is extremely costly in terms of our attention and resources.

Radical Islam is the bogeyman. We perhaps feel powerless against it, partly because we perceive that some sort of political correctness is preventing us from directly confronting it (see Haim's cartoon).

Organised religion of all sorts should of course continue to be ridiculed at every opportunity (as should homeopathy, fortune telling, astrology, haruspicy, feng shui and all other forms of whoo), without undue concern for "offence" taken, and without fear of repercussions. The real tragedy is that our resolve to do this will be lessened following an incident like this.

Well, the perpetrators are now dead. The French Police seem to have done a good job in releasing the hostage/s as well. No lengthy trials and extensive media coverage for these two. Maybe we can learn a lesson from the French. 

Sadly four hostages have dies during the exercise though. It has been incredible to watch the situation develop on Sky News this afternoon

Brilliantly put Kevin..

Trapped with no where to excape they came out with guns blazing,

and after a 30 second gun battle it was the end for:

Butch Kouachi and the Rapdance Kid 

je suis Charlie

maybe you could now have the humility to apologise 

So it ended at a printers.  Oh the sweet irony if they'd been printing the million copies of Charlie Hebdo.

G

CNN reported that the older brother called a French affiliate to confirm that they were trained and financed by AQAP in Yemen. The police have also confirmed links between him and the terrorist who murdered the police officer and then took the Kosher food market hostage (and whose accomplice and girl friend remains at large).

While my heart breaks at news of these horrible events, I have to admire the mobilization effort of the French police and intelligence services. I also very much admire the French people's steadfast defense of freedom of speech.

Hook

What would that lesson be?

The idea of a loving and forgiving god allowing the idea of ex-communication is bizarre.

The promise of virgins by a religion seems like a good enough reason to not follow that religion.

I don't have a theory and you can't show that I have. I have not looked at all the evidence yet. I don't make up my mind about anything until I know the facts. This outrage may well have been perpetrated by radical Muslims (although not necessarily for purely religious reasons). Time will tell. Maybe. 

For what? everything I wrote is true, is it not? 

+1

Well, taken individually, all your facts are indeed correct. Although of course the gunmen have since been identified, and have made statements on television as to their motivations (they could be lying however but this seems unlikely as AQ Yemen has confirmed what they said).

I think what most people here who object to what you've said actually take issue with your juxtaposition of two seemingly unrelated sets of facts, and the implications which go with that juxtaposition.

There is absolutely reason to mention the French Lower House's recognition of Palestine and Israel's resulting fury in the same paragraph as the events of Wednesday - unless of course you wanted to imply that there was some sort of link between the two - a causal link maybe?

Which would be a bit of a bonkers (and rather predictable, if you're familiar with the "Mossad-CiA are to blame for everything" school of conspiracy narrative) theory, as most rational people know who was responsible, and why.

You are perfectly entitled to come up with such guff if you want to, and indeed express it, but I would warn you that you may face a certain amount of opprobrium and ridicule.

Absolutely Hook.

This contrasts with the mealy-mouthed handwringing and equivocation of much of the UK press (I'm ashamed to say) - particularly that from the self-styled champion of transparency and liberal freedom, The Guardian.

What I find "interesting" (for lack of a better term) is that every month dozens of innocent civilians are murdered by US drone attacks, and there is no reporting nor outrage about it.  It's treated as part of the "cost of doing business."  Or that sanitized military term; "collateral damage."

But if a dozen people in Paris get killed, it is a tragedy.  (And I agree 100% that it  is, but why not the other?)  And intent means nothing, because innocent people die needlessly in both cases.

You're so right Mark.

It's nothing sinister, just simple human nature.

Because - at least here in Blighty - Paris is just across the channel. France is a long-term ally, with whom we share many common cultural and social links, not least of which is a commitment (a discussion of how deep that commitment might be is another debate) to Enlightenment values. We are both members of the EU. And so on.

The numbers of people killed aren't always important. Proximity and links matter more, on the whole.  This is why we're more interested in a car accident in our street - that kills just one person - than in a coach crash 150 miles away which kills 50.

This is why yesterday's attacks in Nigeria by the Islamist group Boko Haram - which may have seen up to 2,000 men, women and children murdered - wasn't as high up the news agenda as the 17 people killed in Paris.

Or to put it another way, to use that old quote (perhaps apocryphal) attributed to Stalin: "One one person dies it is a tragedy; one million, it's a statistic."

It's also worth noting here Doc, that Muslims have been the biggest killers of Muslims, dwarfing Yankee drone attacks and bodged invasions and meddling by the West. The reason why casualties of US drone attacks aren't widely reported is not that there is a conspiracy of silence, it's that those casulaties are a long way away, and part of the background noise of a war that nobody really understands. Those strikes will be reported very closely around the Muslim world, of course.

Kevin:

Were the deaths being caused by something other than US military aggression I might be more inclined to agree with you.  Obviously a local news channel here will report on an apartment fire in Charlotte, but if one were to happen in London, it would have to be something stupendous to get any air-time here.  And vice-versa.

But Paris is nearly as far away from the US as Baghdad, practically speaking.  And most Americans couldn't come close to finding either on a map anyway.  (Nor Boise, Idaho, for that matter.)

But the fact that Bush, Cheney, Blair, Obama, and a cadre of others should be tried for crimes against humanity does speak to something, if not "sinister", incredibly complicit, in keeping the charade going that the USA is justified in what it does. 

The press here in the USA is anything but "free."  It puts out the narrative desired by the powers that be.  And the average Boobus Americanus is incredibly ignorant as to how much killing is going on by their so-called leaders.  Killing that they pay for, I might add.  But he can tell you everything about the last Kim Kardashian butt shot sighting.

Case in point: the revelations that the US used torture should be huge news in the West with repercussions for those who did it to the highest level.  But the press here has done an admirably mawkish job of sweeping it all under the carpet as quickly as possible.  And no difference in that whether it be "left" or "right" news.

But can you imagine the hue & cry if it were revealed that Putin's government had done the same thing to the same exact degree?  It would have been on 24/7 news cycle, being screamed from the rooftops.

Now that kind of torture is either wrong and a war crime and crime against humanity, or it isn't.  I happen to think it is, and irrespective of who performs such atrocities.  But a gas-bag like Cheney can not only get away with it, but call the perpetrators "heroes"...even though study after study shows these sorts of "enhanced interrogation" techniques don't produce quality intelligence.  After a while the victim will tell you anything you want to hear to get you to stop.

While it in no way justifies it, how can no one see this Paris incident as blow back for decades of meddling and murder in the Middle east?  Sure there are sectarian differences in Islam, and have been for centuries, but why do the Saudis get a pass on almost everything they do (like beheading for practicing witchcraft) while others are demonized?  And I reject the claim that more death has been inflicted by inter-Islamic activity: the Iraq war alone records somewhere between 60,000 to as many as 150,000 civilian deaths.  And that is just Iraq.  Not Yemen, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Syria, etc.  We kill sh*tloads of people, and many of them are just simple civilians that have nothing to do with anything about the USA or the West.

I abhor terrorism, but if some nation routinely bombed my area and killed my mother or wife or child, I might just rethink my stance on that.  And that is without being a radical religionist.  Can't say for sure without walking in those sandals, but I can see how it would do more to increase jihadist recruitment than we are led to believe.

How is it possible to pass a moral judgement without considering intent (and the reason behind it)?