The editors of the Economist put in their two cents on the “horror in Paris” going from the sublime:
A broader question will be what, if anything, Europe can do to reduce the risk of such attacks becoming a recurring horror. A more concerted attempt to end the war in Syria and destroy the IS caliphate might help reduce the flow of refugees but it is not likely to eradicate the threat. Indeed, IS might become much more focused on taking the fight to the “far enemyâ€.
to the ridiculous:
One major concern must be the easy availability of automatic weapons in Europe (although not, mercifully, in Britain with its strict gun laws) and the way in which they can be moved from one country to another. If large-scale terrorist attacks start to take place more or less anywhere that people gather in large numbers, from sports stadia to rail stations to entertainment venues and political events, will it mean introducing Israeli-style security screening and checks across Europe’s cities? That would seem politically inconceivable and economically disastrous, the clearest manifestation that the terrorists had won.
The editorial is mostly notable for the infographic on Islamist terrorist attacks in Europe which I’ve helpfully sampled above.
Amazing how quickly the crazies can come out after a serious and tragic incident like Paris. Bloomberg and The Economist hand wringing over gun control. A certain author over at OTB drawing moral equivalence by noting that a Christian wearing a cross around the neck glorifies death and execution, and reminding one of events some 800 years ago.
Dave asked how France will respond. When you can have such warped thinking as just noted the honest answer has to be who the hell knows!? When you have the US president, for political purposes, declaring ISIS the J-V team or “contained,” who the hell knows? When ISIS is thought of as a “nuisance,” who the hell knows?
I’ll note that they don’t include the attacks on the Moscow theater or the Beslan school massacre in their info-graphic.
#RussianLivesDontMatter
A certain author over at OTB drawing moral equivalence by noting that a Christian wearing a cross around the neck glorifies death and execution, and reminding one of events some 800 years ago.
Let me guess, while stating that all religions are the same he is stating that all Muslims are not the same? And that every place except Israel (and Marin county, of course) should take more of those poor dears in?
Goddamn, what is up with my tags this morning?
Gotta say, though, that it is really funny , in the grimmest way possible, to see the hand-wringing going on about how the NRA is responsible for these attacks while the leaders of the ‘free’ world do everything they can to not mention the ‘I’ word.
And ass predicted last night, the protesters in Mizzou are saying “Fuck Paris.”
Well, at least I’m not blind or plagued by harpies….
It’s ironic, because one of the thoughts running through my head yesterday was how the Paris tragedy would inject some perspective into the news, as to what it really tragic versus what is not — the Mizzou demonstrations being one of the current best example of the latter. Then, right on cue, there were the sputtering twitter comments from students decrying how their grievances, or 15 minutes of fame, were being preempted and displaced by the acts of terror and life lost in France.
Sigh……
1) The article says automatic weapons. I know you are not a gun guy Drew, but you do realize we heavily regulate automatic weapons (think machine gun). If they are readily available in Europe, that is a concern.
2) IS was the j-v when Obama said that. They signed up Saddam’s old military leaders and they became major leaguers. You diminish yourself by ignoring that both IS and our response to it have changed. Or, I guess I can just keep using old quotes from your team to show how they were incompetent in their assessments. WMDs anyone?
Steve
Actually, my favorite famous fiction writer displays his true self. To be honest, I knew he had it in him all along. I do not have a problem with nuking a city – Muslim majority or otherwise. As long as they are not a US ally, and a US ally has a signed treaty. (A US ally without a signed treaty is a client, and they can pay for the privilege of not being nuked.)
The way to fight non-state terrorists is the same as fighting a superpower. You do it through espionage, covert, and clandestine methods, and you use proxies for actual warfare. In 2004 – 2005, the Bush Administration has assembled a number of anti-terrorist programs.
Because of these programs, terrorists had to be right 100% of the time. If a stray phone conversation was captured, either somebody died, or another cell was identified. Money transactions, meetings, transportation, and purchases were tracked among multiple countries, including France and hostile Muslim ones.
The biggest missing piece was human intel, and this is due to squeamishness. There are three ways to obtain human intel. You plant an asset. This is the most reliable, but if the asset is caught, they have the most intel to give up. You can flip somebody, but they could always be a double agent. Finally, you can interrogate captured enemies. This works, but you need initial intel to “prime the pump”. It is also time consuming and haphazard.
Human intelligence is a dirty business, and it is not conducted on the battlefield. As a matter of fact, good luck gather intelligence once you have blown up, killed, and scattered almost everything you are trying to find. The first rule is not to alert anybody and just become part of the scenery.
The people that you are dealing with are scum, but you are playing by their rules. Most people find this distasteful, and few people understand the rules.
When Obama was calling ISIS if, his own advisers were telling Congress the opposite, as I recall. Publicly. Possibly I’m misrembering.
When he said that they had attacked Fallujah, and mostly taken it over. However, Fallujah has always been a problem for the Iraqi Shia govt. We were just beginning to appreciate that Saddam’s old officers had joined with ISIS. Until then, they were a bunch of head choppers. With Saddam’s guys, they had artillery, armor and logistics capabilities. A real army.
Steve
I do when it accomplishes the opposite of whatever objective you might be trying to achieve. I thought of reacting to his comment but thought better of it.
Given his scenario, what would you do if you were in al-Baghdadi’s shoes? I know what I’d do. I’d bus thousands of civilians (civilians I wanted to get rid of) into Raqqah, make sure they stayed put, and then boogy out. Then I’d make hay about the U. S. murdering thousands of innocent civilians, having been delivered from destruction through Allah’s grace, etc. That way the U. S. would accomplish nothing except showing how blood-thirsty we are.
Dave–Agreed. It might work against state actors, but not against groups like these. For the most part, they are not afraid to die.
Steve
A saved Christian isn’t afraid to die either so Onward Christian Soldiers! and Allahu Akkbar! and lets all get it on.
Nuclear weapons seem to have mythical powers. There are conventional bombs that can cause as much damage as tactical nuclear weapons, and the biggest advantage of nuclear is the size per destructive power.
At some point, the urge to nuke Mecca or Medina will become great. How great will depend upon how large a successful attack the terrorists will be able to achieve. I expect that the loudest voices will be European. Americans are made out to be blood thirsty, but Europeans have it in their DNA.
I would not fight Islamist terrorists by nuking Muslim cities anymore than I would fight racism by blowing up NASCAR events, but if NASCAR supporters were causing as much death and destruction as Islamist terrorists, I would not necessarily have a problem with it.
To reiterate, you fight a clandestine war with mostly clandestine means. It is not as hopeless as it seems. The more people that join the terrorists are more weak links to be exploited. The newest members will be the weakest, and with overwhelming numbers of new members, they cannot control the process.
With the proper intelligence and espionage network, a sudden influx of 100,000 new recruits would be a gift from heaven. There would be at least 100 who would flap their jaws, and you could flip them. Arrest their families, and send the family to a Saudi, Egyptian, or wherever prison. One of my favorites is to threaten to make them look like an informant.
As far as getting into a brawl with Muslim countries, they do not produce their own munitions or armaments. It is simply a matter of attrition, and they can never win.
(By the way, this is why you do not outsource your entire f*cking manufacturing sector. Cheap consumer goods are worthless when you need to purchase your goods from your enemy.)
steve:
There are any number of reasons the Economist’s anti-firearms pitch is fatuous. First and foremost: every European country already has a ban on private ownership of automatic weapons except Switzerland where it’s more complicated. There’s an automatic weapon in many homes in Switzerland because Switzerland has compulsory universal military service. EU countries also require permits, have mandatory background checks, and enforce their laws. Where’s the laxity?
Another reason is that neither France nor Germany are relatively small islands. Even a confiscation program would be impossible under the circumstances. Also importantly: automatic weapons are commonplace in the Middle East and North Africa and if you can’t prevent drug trafficking or human trafficking how the heck are you going to prevent firearms trafficking? The Schengen provisions mean that once you’ve entered any EU country you won’t be examined again.
Basically, the Economist editors are just being anti-Continental twits. Why can’t the Europeans be more like us?
Other than the symbolic value (which I suspect would be counter-productive) it would probably be more effective to to nuke Riyadh or some water treatment plants.
Well, at least it’s good to know automatic weapons laws in Europe would prevent ISIS from obtaining them, steve. Must admit, though, that’s a JV squad that’s been practicing hard to accomplish what they did with pea shooters. And they are contained to boot.
It’s not your team / my team, steve, although you seem stuck in that mode. The mistakes of the Bush administration are well documented and acknowledged. What you don’t seem to be able to come to grips with is Obama’s impotent and careless policies. That’s intellectual dishonesty.
At least it’s France that was attacked so he doesn’t have to publicly humiliate himself with bizarre proclamations about YouTube videos.
“The mistakes of the Bush administration are well documented and acknowledged.”
..and, that is what’s sorely missing on the left/liberal side of analysis — being able to discuss and admit, when applicable, the good, the bad and the ugly of your party’s leadership/policies and overall agenda. There has been lots of Bush Criticism from republicans. In stark contrast, though, it’s mainly crickets or defensive comments from democrats — especially those who voted for him.
Dave- Nope. In Switzerland if they decide to keep their weapon at home, it must be a semi-automatic. Again, if automatic weapons really are moving easily around Europe, that is a big deal. What is wrong with the Economist suggesting an attempt to stop it? This is not gun control where they are coming to take some one’s plinking .22. Basically, they are just asking for the same controls we have here in the US. You are saying they are smuggling them in so why even try to stop it.
Drew- “It’s not your team / my team, steve, although you seem stuck in that mode. ”
Me? With your constant silly, I mean really silly comments about the jv that were made in early 2014 when ISIS had accomplished essentially nothing. If you read the comments about containment you know they meant in Syria and Iraq, but you are such a partisan the facts don’t matter. What you don’t seem to be able to come to grips with is that this is late 2015 and no one is claiming they are not a problem. That and you guys have actually not, contrary to your assertion, come to grips with with the Bush mistakes. In your wee little minds the 4 dead in Benghazi is exactly the same as the mistake made by invading Iraq and the thousands of lives lost and trillions of dollars spent. Really, the large bulk of your party believes Iraq was a success and they want to repeat it. Obama’s foreign policies may not have been great, but we really cannot afford to let your guys back in charge again for a repeat.
Steve
No. What I’m saying is that they already have gun control laws tougher than ours and are enforcing them better. What the Economist’s editors are saying is that they want European countries to have England’s laws and enforcement.
@Dave Schuler
… the symbolic value (which I suspect would be counter-productive) …
Knocking off Gaddafi and turning Libya into a terrorist Disneyland was symbolic, but that did not stop the “do something, even if it’s wrong” crew. They thought it was such a good plan, they want to redo it in Syria.
The original Iraq plan involved “draining the swamp” theory. They believed they could transform the Middle East. They may prove to be ahead of their time, or they may just be batshit crazy. I am not arguing either way, but it made a lot more sense than arming one set of terrorists to topple a dictator and hope they can defeat another set of terrorists.
It is like the War on Drugs. What they are doing is obviously not working, but the people who back it scream bloody murder if any of the tactics are changed. You can end the War on Drugs without legalizing drugs on the state and local levels, but it is about symbolism not results.
If you want results, Gaddafi, Assad, Mubarak, Musharraf, etc. are the people you want alive. Otherwise, it is just a lot of symbolism.
For my part, I just assumed that “automatic weapons” meant semi-automatics, because American newspaper writers certainly don’t seem to know the difference. This morning, I am reading “assault weapons” at the CNN website. Not sure what difference it makes, given the nature of the attack.
I found this quote searching around: “The attackers seemed disciplined, the Vials said, and never switched their weapons to automatic — always on semi-automatic.” Maybe because there was no switch.
Other than the symbolic value (which I suspect would be counter-productive) it would probably be more effective to to nuke Riyadh or some water treatment plants.
Symbolic value you would be everything in a war against True Believers. I’ve heard Muslims state that Mecca could not be nuked because Allah and his prophet would come down from Heaven to prevent it. So let’s test it. If we nuke Mecca and nothing happens to Mecca, we’ll all know to convert to Islam, wrap our women up like Christmas presents, and mutilate their genitals while the men can take up child molesting.
On the other hand, if we turn Mecca into glass, it will be a simple PR campaign to state, “Islam is false. Their god won’t even prevent the destruction of his holiest of places.”
And let’s not fuck around with modern bomb designs. Let’s get the older, dirtier, BIGGER bomb designs out. I’m sure the Castle Bravo bomb plans are sitting around somewhere….
I keep hearing about how well co-ordinated the attacks were. All they really needed were some brief scouting of locations (and with GPS, not even that), watches and maps. To me the attacks themselves seem pretty straightforward. The logistics behind getting the weapons, particularly the explosives, seems harder, but not impossible.
It all looks like straightforward attacks on soft targets. What am I missing?
…
Also, this has something for everyone. The attackers included at least one Syrian refugee, and one native born French Muslim. Possibly someone with a fake Turkish passport, as well. So, no to refugees now, the idea of assimilation will fix all problems is false, and letting a large non-European Muslim population travel about freely in the Shengen zone has major problems as well. Anti-immigration trifecta!
I doubt they’d respond that rationally, Ellipsis.
Here’s what I think would happen. The Saud family would be toast. Do you know who would replace them? The guys who are financing DAESH.
And a lot of Muslims who have been content to sit at home and watch their televisions would be signing up for suicide bomb duty.
Ellipses, I think it depends somewhat on whether the President was a potential assassination target, but I think the gist would be that coordinating multiple attacks in the same timeframe would require advance planning. The significance of this might suggest the degree to which the plot(s) were domestic or foreign, sound like it might end up being a mix. Also, personally I find it interesting that the French conducted their first airstrike against ISIS on September 27, 2015, which ISIS appears to claim is the reason for retaliation. That is 47 days between.
@Icepick
A lot of the experts act as if these incidents were Seal Team-Six pulling off an operation. A high school flash mob to loot the local mall is a coordinated attack, but I would not call it professional.
They would need some training, but I suspect it was not as flawless as it is made out to be.
Suicide bombers are expensive weapons, and more is not necessarily better. Each one requires at least one minder, and they must be kept under constant supervision and in constant seclusion. If you are going to have an army of suicide bombers, you will need to have the facilities to house them, and you will need to tie up a large number of personnel.
A terrorist army hidden among the enemy is also costly. For maximum protection, they need to be independent cells. There can be little shared logistics because if one cell is compromised, it will take down the whole network.
As long as a country does not pretend they do not exist, being a terrorist is hard. You need to be right 100% of the time. If one of the French terrorists had been arrested, a few head dunks later could have avoided the whole thing. If one of the suicide bombers changed their mind and slipped away, it could have changed the whole plan.
The truth is that there are probably many terrorist plots that collapse because of incompetence, but we never hear about them. They can never win. Even were the US to do the minimum, they could never win. They do not have the resources. Their greatest weapon is terror, but that weapon resides in the minds of their enemy.
At one time Israel did not allow their enemies to terrorize them. At one time, Israeli security forces would hunt down and kill any terrorist who harmed Israeli citizens. They played by the terrorists’ rules – anywhere, anytime. The Israelis were also doing more to stop or setback the Iranian nuclear program than any negotiations could.
Unfortunately, most people will have to learn the hard way. In five or ten years, or if I am around in twenty, I will tell you, “I told you so.”
And a lot of Muslims who have been content to sit at home and watch their televisions would be signing up for suicide bomb duty.
For each terror attack in a Western city, nuke a Muslim city.
There’s much talk of asymmetric warfare, and how it favors the weaker side. It only favors the weaker side if the stronger side isn’t willing to go all the way. Let’s see, we’ve had seven major attacks on (loosely) Western nations that I can think of off the top of my head.
That’s Mecca, Medina, Riyahd, Cairo, Tehran, Damascus & Baghdad. If they’re so stupid that they cannot learn, or so hardline that they will not learn, then they need to be exterminated. The direction of modern science, technology & engineering is such that the terrorists will only get more powerful over time, not less. Do we really need a couple of billion towel-headed death commandos running around looking for a chance for murder and mayhem?
ISIS/ISIL/DAESH/Muslim-killer-cult-of-the-month claims they will flood Europe with 500,000 terrorists embedded in the waves of refugees. That number sounds ridiculous. So let’s pare it down. What if it’s only 500 terrorists?
At this point, it appears that ONE refugee was involved in the 11/13 attack. It seems the rest were domestic recruits. But let’s go all out and say that all of them were refugees, and that their support network was all refugee as well. Call it 20 people.
So that 500 terrorist number could lead to 25 such attacks. The numbers get worse as ISIS sends more, or as they recruit more Muslims already amongst Europe’s population.
How long is that going to last? The idea that Europeans can’t go out and enjoy themselves, or simply go about their business, as they see fit, because some camel fuckers aren’t content with mutilating their own women and molesting their own children? How long can that last? The terrorism is reaching a level where people are starting to notice.
The Europeans were very recently the most successful warriors on the planet, the best the planet has ever seen. They had invented all new methods of slaughter and conquest, applied those methods to the old wisdom, and conquered the world. We Americans are their children, and let’s be honest, we’re not as fierce as our parents. (Our strengths lie elsewhere.)
Maybe, MAYBE, the Europeans finally bred that out of themselves with out-migration and slaughter, but I imagine the spark is still there. If Europe remembers what they were not that long ago, the Mohammedans may well wish that my nuke-a-city method would have been used instead.
I just don’t see how many more Friday nights or Tuesday mornings will be interrupted with slaughter before Europeans have had enough.
In the last two attacks (Friday and previous), they had planned escape routes. These are not suicide terrorists. They want to stay alive, and they are going to do things that people who want to stay alive will do. Furthermore, the reports of the dissatisfied new recruits complaining about living conditions does not bode well for them.
Another tactic is to get inside their head. You capture mid-level people, and you put them into “protective custody” as if they flipped. You then act on intelligence you have been sitting on, but it seems as if it came from them. Now, you begin to introduce mistrust into the network.
The problem is that it is a dirty business, and there is no place for safe spaces. Luckily, there is no micro-aggression. The aggression is macro-aggression, maximumly applied, and the triggers are easy to identify.
Here’s some frustration from an official of the French government:
Chartres was the home of one of the attackers. That’s from a NYTs article, BTW.
@Tastybits: suicide is forbidden in Islam:
“Whoso commits aggression against you, do you commit aggression against him like as he has committed against you, and fear you God, and know that God is with the godfearing. And expend in the way of God; and cast not yourselves by your own hands into destruction, but be good-doers; God loves the good-doers.” (Quran 2:193-194)
The jihadist seeks to die in battle, but is denied this honor and the rewards that go with it because there is no just Muslim government, and even if there were the enemies of Islam are two numerous and powerful for their small numbers. Beginning in the early 1990s, radical Muslims began justifying a loophole for what had been understood for over a thousand years to be clearly prohibited by the holy text. According to this view, a martyrdom operation is not suicide if the acts are not committed out of despair or weakness, even though the likelihood of death is almost certain. Sometimes there are stories of miracles that protected the holy warrior from almost certain death. They really don’t want to be captured either because they wish to die as martyrs.
So, there is some amount of misdirection involved. The jihadists want to create fear through the example of their own self-sacrifice, but they want to avoid the characteristics of suicide. They want to mimic the bravery of the Prophet’s warriors somehow in the context of what would otherwise be an impotent act. They can still be suicide terrorists with an escape route, why else strap detonable explosives to their bodies?
These are not good Muslims though and God doesn’t love them, and the Prophet would be embarrassed by such a political and military legacy.
@PD Shaw
It is not a semantic or a religious distinction. There were suicide bombers, but there were others who were not. They are two different types of actor, and they have different weaknesses.
Suicide bombers are smart bombs, but they are costly. If you program them properly, they will self destruct without revealing any intel, but they are a one use weapon. On the other hand, somebody who is trying to escape can be caught, and they can be pumped for intel.
It indicates to me that the quality of terrorist is not very good, and that means they are vulnerable. They are more susceptible to being influenced if caught.
During the Bush years al-Qaeda was going strong, but the Bush Administration quickly got up to speed and started fighting back. I have picked up a lot of what was going on from open sources, and I have filled in the blanks with what I know from dealing with criminals.
The lack of terrorist attacks was not due to military action in Iraq and Afghanistan. It was due to intelligence gathering, but human intelligence was missing. They relied on electronic methods, mostly.
I guess I have just had different experiences than most people.
In the US, the first step would be to admit the source of the problem. Until the FBI admitted that the Mafia existed, the Mafia could never be eradicated, but as soon as law enforcement decided to do something about organized crime, the Mafia was taken apart.
Terrorist networks have the same vulnerabilities as criminal networks and organizations. Because the terrorists are operating internationally and under quasi-state sponsorship, you do not treat it as a criminal matter. It is espionage, and you deal with them as such.
If people became terrorists for the reasons continuously cited, the US gangs would be 100 times as large as they are. Every black person who felt slighted by any racism would be joining the Crips, Bloods, or any local black gang, and Donald Trump would have increased the members of MS-13.
@Tastybits, ah I understand now that you are focussing on those who were not suicide bombers. Is it the guy on the run? I’m not completely aware of the operational details of the attacks, and part of me doesn’t want to be until there has been more time to gather evidence. But the attackers that blew themselves up, killing nobody but themselves, struck me as odd. Perhaps they thought others were near them, but failed, but killing oneself to avoid capture does not seem to be traditional. Palestinians (for whom clerics essentially created the suicide loophole) are captured by Israeli forces all the time. Maybe this indicates poor quality as well, either because they were unable to successfully kill others in the process of dying or they were not trained to resist interrogation, so were trained to self-destruct.