France has every right to bomb the shit out of whoever is responsible

[bluestateguy]

If they can find them, and if they have training camps, bases, hideouts, or whatever installation, the French have right to bomb them into the stone age.

And I believe they will too.

[Wilms]

1. Works every time.

Feels good too.

[TeddyR]

3. you prefer some other approach?

[Alittleliberal]

6. Maybe one that doesn't increase terrorist recruiting?

It's not that we don't think the people responsible for these acts deserve justice. It's just that we've read this story before. Spoiler alert, it end's badly.

[tammywammy]

18. What can people do that doesn't increase terrorism?

No retaliation and just France's continued existence would still help terrorist recruitment.

No matter what anyone does, there will still be asshole terrorists.

[tishaLA]

23. it's an impossible double bind

fighting an enemy that wants to do, but if you kill them, it creates more people willing to die.

it's a hell of a pickle we're in.

[tammywammy]

31. Agreed.

No matter what these asshole scum will still be there wanting to murder innocent people in the name of their jihad.

[Chan790]

139. I've been suggesting a response more in line with Mossad's response to the Munich attacks.

Bombing and warfare might feel good and like a response...but the lifeblood of Daesh is funding and equipment. If you cut off the money and the guns, they're just angry people with no means of effecting their desires. So...rather than bombing them and creating more people willing to die for them...find the people giving them money, providing them with logistical or material support, doing business with them, buying stolen art and oil and drugs from them, selling them weapons...etc. More than that, I suspect that we know who these people are.

Find them and kill them. See how well Daesh does when they have no guns, bullets or trucks and the people who were giving them money are now in hiding in fear of Mossad, CIA and DGSE kill-teams. ISIS with sticks isn't much of a challenge for Kurdish Peshmerga or Syrian Army or a now-probably-inevitable UN force.

[Tipperary]

146. I think you are right.

[Alittleliberal]

24. So what does the bombing accomplish?

We can't just bomb to make people feel better. There has to be a reason other then eye for an eye because ,well, you know. What's the end game?

I don't think the right answer is to do nothing. I don't know what to do. Like at all.

[tammywammy]

27. I'm not promoting bombing necessarily

But I don't think there's anything anyone can do that would not somehow be a terrorist recruiting tool.

[regnaD kciN]

110. But it feels SO GOOD!!!

[cherokeeprogressive]

29. Left to its own devices, do you believe "terrorist recruiting" will just wither on the vine?

[Alittleliberal]

43. No.

I'm not naive. I just don't think Islamic Fundamentalism can be bombed away. Starting new bombing campaigns every few months just increases radicalization. So does doing nothing. Doing nothing also probably increase attacks due to increased fervor from fundamentalists who want to provoke. So that leaves us with 2 viable options to end this. Go through the long process of helping to modernize the ME(Which I have no idea what this would entail.) or bomb them into oblivion. I'm not too keen on the second one.

I guess my point is really that no one knows how to solve the massive problem of the ME and the liquid gold this shitshow is on top of. I just think we should take a deep breath and try to come up with a different idea, Because what we did after 9/11 failed spectacularly.

[RKP5637]

71. It's a complete Catch 22, damn if you do, damn if you don't. It's a double-bind situation

and solutions are nearly impossible. Also, of course, it's not by a country, but rather by bands of people, so, often impossible to identify who is who. I'm not a history expert, but I think this might be the first time this has been encountered over eons in mankind's' history at this scale. Then, there will be hatred by those who think someone is bad simply because of their nationality, looks, etc. It is just a horrible situation.

The presidential hopefuls must be quite busy now on how they will spin this one for what would they do. Then, there is of course the profiteers from wars and conflicts. I often feel we are sinking into a bottomless pit with this sh**.

[Wilms]

8. Yeah. I do.

The more we sow the more we reap. You haven't noticed that?

[randome]

10. So that doesn't work the other way around, then?

Funny how none of these monsters ever mention the historical arc some think is so obvious.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]Aspire to inspire.[/center][/font][hr]

[Wilms]

16. Of course it does...

...if I'm following what you are saying.

Here's one point: They attack the west because the west has been attacking them.

We attack them because they (oversimplified) have oil.

[randome]

30. When did they claim to attack us out of a sense of revenge? Never.

Are they seeking revenge when they enslave women and behead their own for whatever ridiculous reason they can come up with?

And what did Paris have to do with any of it? Answer: not a damned thing.

If I punch you in the face, are you going to walk across the street and punch someone else because that person is easier to get to?
[hr][font color="blue"][center]Aspire to inspire.[/center][/font][hr]

[Wilms]

38. I never said you did. You got the right poster?

And France? Nothing to do with the ME?

[randome]

58. Paris' involvement in the Iraq war or other misadventures is, at best, minor.

This mass killing of random strangers and children has nothing whatsoever to do with Iraq or any other involvement in the middle east by Western nations.

It's about disaffected splinter groups who think bumping up the body counts somehow serves their lust for power and control over others. At least we don't enslave and mutilate women to obtain power. If oil has been an historical concern of the West, that's a much more benign act of greed than the barbarity that these splinter groups hold to.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]Aspire to inspire.[/center][/font][hr]

[Wilms]

76. Thanks! I did not know that.

The west has been been screwing with and bombing the middle East and propping up bad guys and on and on. But it's not about that. No. It's about a "disaffected splinter groups who think bumping up the body counts somehow serves their lust for power and control over others".

Agreed. Let's bomb the shit out of...somethInG!1!

[gwheezie]

103. France was very active in Libya.

France has been killing Muslims in the mid east and northern Africa. It's not like they've been pacifists
Or neutral

[randome]

135. And yet none of the terrorists mention Libya. I wonder why not.

[hr][font color="blue"][center]"The whole world is a circus if you know how to look at it."
Tony Randall, 7 Faces of Dr. Lao (1964)[/center][/font][hr]

[KingCharlemagne]

142. And before that there was la guerre sale in Algeria and variations in other erstwhile

Possessions.

[randome]

145. Makes sense. You want revenge on America, you take it out on the French.

Wait. That doesn't make sense. Their first statement was that the attack was because Paris was "a capital of prostitution and obscenity". They can't even get their propaganda straight.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]"The whole world is a circus if you know how to look at it."
Tony Randall, 7 Faces of Dr. Lao (1964)[/center][/font][hr]

[JanMichael]

99. algerians might well see it as revenge.

hell in 2012 the french govt finally acknowledged a early 60's massacre by the police of dozens of algerians.

yep could be revenge and not served all that cold either.

[KingCharlemagne]

143. +Infinity - nt

[Aerows]

113. Dang it

I find myself agreeing with you *again*

[randome]

136. I can't take much more of this, Aerows.

WHAT'S THE WORLD COMING TO????
[hr][font color="blue"][center]"The whole world is a circus if you know how to look at it."
Tony Randall, 7 Faces of Dr. Lao (1964)[/center][/font][hr]

[plus5mace]

57. Salafist Islam will not accept peace so long as anyone else is still alive.

I'm aware of the history that created this ideology but that doesn't negate that it is a death cult. Iraq was a choice, and one badly made, but we must deal with this reality.

[Wilms]

67. And here's the reality.

Guess how this trend line got supported.

[plus5mace]

84. It's been rising steadily since 1988 until 2010, when it jumped.

Either due to the ill advised attacks on Libya/Syria, the collapse of Iraq, or the general implosion of the region. I'm not sure what this proves. I didn't like any of those wars, since neither Ghadaffi, Assad, nor Hussein had attacked us. We would have been better off not wiping out regional forces capable of keeping these areas relatively peaceful. But the vacuum has been filled with a force intent on creating a world war, and here we are.

They've proven they can do this once, what will stop them from doing it again and again? This doesn't require them seizing control of an airplane, where tight security can be maintained. They just have to sneak across the border with the tools they already have - AK47s and grenades. A few dozen (at most - this is still evolving) killed 150+. There are thousands of ISIS allied fighters in Syria. I don't see how we are going to resolve this peacefully.

[SereneG]

119. What do you know.

Educate me about Salafis, your views i.e.

Btw, it's majority Shia fighting and fu $!%ng up the Mid East.

[plus5mace]

137. I know ISIS is a Sunni organization, funded by Sunni countries like Saudi Arabia.

I know ISIS wants to kill or forcibly convert Shia Muslims. And Al Qaeda has the same stance. It's not hard for me to figure out who I side with.

[hardcover]

61. If that were true, we would occupy and take the oil instead of paying them money for it.

[Wilms]

69. That was part of how they were going to pay for the war, as I recall.

Remember, just because the Bush Admin was criminal doesn't mean they were competent at it.

[yeoman6987]

64. Has France done anything to provoke? They pretty much stay out of it

[Wilms]

70. I know I have more reading to do.

But they go back a ways, let's say.

[yeoman6987]

73. Oh maybe. I need more reading too.

[plus5mace]

94. For what it's worth France was quite gung ho about outting Assad and Gaddafi.

You'd think ISIS would be grateful for the chaos, but France does occasionally launch air strikes at ISIS positions. France has the typical Western position - ISIS is bad but Assad is the real problem. I regret this prioritization, but maybe things have changed now. Probably not.

[blitzen]

126. These were French terrorists targeting France....

a legacy of the 2005 riots

[TeddyR]

13. I prefer to bomb the shit

Out of folks who'd attack someone at a cafe on a Friday night, or who'd shoot and blow up young kids at a concert, and then walk around and execute survivors. But if you think we should take a different approach that will reform the terrorist/killers/murderers/assholes, I'm willing to listen.

[Wilms]

17. I say we stop doing what we've been doing there.

Our history there is the major source of this trouble.

[jberryhill]

53. Those folks appear to have been killed

What you are saying is that you want to bomb people who are by some measure likely to do these things.

The people who did these things are dead. There is no bombing them. So the problem becomes one of whom, among various candidates, one decides to "bomb the shit out of".

[merrily]

93. That worked out well for us in Afghanistan. And we don't even know how much hate we created there.

[jberryhill]

56. I would like an estimate on this approach

Approximately how many people, in your estimation, need to be killed, and at what point is the job deemed complete?

[hifiguy]

19. Unfortunately, one can not reason

with maniacs, especially religulous maniacs. They are light years beyond any possible appeal to reason. It's like trying to reason with Charles Manson, but with hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of Charlies.

That doesn't leave many alternatives.

[Wilms]

25. Then all the more reason we weren't to incite them.

Meanwhile, an Iraqi family could argue that the US elected the Manson family...twice. And look what happened.

[hifiguy]

33. Unfortunately, to people who are jacked up on batshit insane religion

the mere existence of western civilization is enough of a reason to start butchering people. They have made that abundantly clear.

[Wilms]

41. Let's just forget the last 70 years or so and, sure. n/t

[hifiguy]

44. That is a part of it, to be sure.

It is hardly the sole reason, however.

[Wilms]

50. How do you think radicalization took place?

In fact, we DIRECTLY sponsored that too, back when it was useful against the Soviets.

[hifiguy]

59. Muslim radicalism began in the 1920s in its modern form.

The Muslim Brotherhood, then Sayyid Qutb and the export of Wahhabist insanity all contributed.

[Wilms]

72. And we threw gas on the fire.

What? Because there are bad guys in the world it's OK for us to help them?

Do you think we could be doing a better job?

[hifiguy]

74. I can't argue with that, not one bit,

but this particular medieval madness has been a long time a-brewing.

[Wilms]

77. There's always weirdos. It's the human race.

We lit a fuse.

[hifiguy]

79. We are so much like our chimp cousins.

Just look at the way we behave - we are territorial, greedy, tribal and violent. Just like our chimp cousins. And unlike chimps we invent reasons out of nothing to kill each other, like invisible men in the sky, and devices for doing so more efficiently and on large scales and at long distances. And nothing is going to change that save evolution and the acquisition of the sort of true reason and genuine wisdom which does not come from made-up external skydaddies. We will gave to become more like Vulcans in order to survive.

The same species that gave us Plato, Mozart, Shakespeare, Einstein, the Buddha and Nelson Mandela has also given us Chinghiz Khan, Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, and the Bush family. We are, taken as a species, a very mixed bag.

"Someday we'll live on Venus, men will walk on Mars
But we will still be monkeys down deep inside"

David Byrne "The Facts of Life

[Wilms]

80. I hear that!

[merrily]

90. yuck

[smirkymonkey]

102. They will never stop as long as we exist.

No matter what we do, our mere existence is an offense to them. There is nothing we can do to appease them.

[Aerows]

115. You said it!

When whack-a-doodle-do freaks get their God on, you cannot reason with them. They outright murdered over a hundred people.

That is not sane by any sense of the word.

[Alittleliberal]

28. You're talking about genocide

[hifiguy]

36. Not at all.

Not even close. But wiping ISIS from the face of the earth - one would hope the Russians would do it - would be a definite net gain for the human species and perhaps serve as an object lesson.

[Alittleliberal]

49. I have no disagreement there.

I just don't know if it's possible to do without leaving a new generation of radicals that will pop up in another 10 years under a new name.

[hifiguy]

54. It would take an effort like the US put into rebuilding

Germany and Japan and uprooting the prewar militarism of those nations after WW II. And even then it may not work as German/Japanese militarism was not based in the fairy tales of religion but in secular philosophies of national superiority.

It would have to be a world project.

[Generic Brad]

82. Wiping out ISIS is an impossibility

They are not a country. They do not have cities. They do not have a standing army. They are like a virus within our species - constantly mutating and difficult to isolate.

I understand the desire to draw blood in retaliation, but terrorist cells cannot be easily identified and targeted. That leaves extracting revenge by bombing somebody - anybody. Innocent people would be blamed and killed. That is too high a price to pay in my opinion.

[merrily]

91. Afghanistan

[FLPanhandle]

2. The problem is those camps, bases, or whatever are in France

They don't have to travel far to find the problem. Those aren't the only ones in Paris. More are there already.

[joshcryer]

4. The Arab quarters are almost certainly going to be razed.

They couldn't do it after Charlie Hebdo, but this should allow it. Expect door to door weapon searches, mass arrests, and rioting.

[Kilgore]

34. It's begun

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/calais-migrant-camp-on-fire-6830330

[Texasgal]

5. I've been curious as to what people

here think the proper response should be.

Thank you for starting this thread. I'm going to follow it.

[regnaD kciN]

111. Well, I can tell you what the proper response shouldn't be...

...and that's: invade a country that had nothing to do with the attack and which is ruled by a secular government that is the extremists' worst enemy...

[WillyT]

7. Maybe... And Then Maybe WE Can "Mistakenly" Bomb Weddings And Grandmas Out In The Field...

And create a thousand more newly minted terrorists.

R U F*CKING KIDDING ???

[randome]

11. Did any of them shout, "This is for grandma!" Your assertion is ridiculous.

[hr][font color="blue"][center]Aspire to inspire.[/center][/font][hr]

[Wilms]

20. The victim's families understand.

Since their loved ones weren't targets, but merely collateral damage, everything is cool between us.

[randome]

37. Uh no, the dead in Paris were deliberately targeted because they were in groups.

And Paris has exactly zero to do with our misadventures in the middle east.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]Aspire to inspire.[/center][/font][hr]

[Wilms]

45. Well, there is circumstance.

If they had drones at their disposal I'm sure they'd handle things the way we do. No?

[randome]

52. They would never use drones because drones don't cause enough of a body count.

It's much more effective to personally kill as many random strangers and children using 'hands-on' methods.

The body count is what they're after. Not revenge.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]Aspire to inspire.[/center][/font][hr]

[Wilms]

55. Well then, it's settled.

And whatever we do, including the same thing over and over, is OK.

That was easy. Thanks for your help!

[Logical]

106. Are you saying drones don't kill many people? Nt

[randome]

134. Drones are used to target as accurately as possible. It doesn't always work, to say the least.

But we don't send drones into the center of sporting and musical events to see how many we can kill.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]"The whole world is a circus if you know how to look at it."
Tony Randall, 7 Faces of Dr. Lao (1964)[/center][/font][hr]

[Logical]

138. We do send them to weddings. nt

[randome]

141. And has ISIS claimed any of this was in response to that? No.

They said they attacked Paris because it is "a capital of prostitution and obscenity". Much later they said it was about Iraq and Syria. They don't even have a coordinated strategy about propaganda. They look for any excuse to hold onto their 'dream' of a European-wide caliphate, where they can abuse all the women and children they want without being reminded of unsettling themes like 'democracy' and 'civil rights'.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]"The whole world is a circus if you know how to look at it."
Tony Randall, 7 Faces of Dr. Lao (1964)[/center][/font][hr]

[hifiguy]

21. If reason were a potential solution I would agree.

One could reason with, say, the USSR. in the last instance they had no more desire to actually initiate nuclear war than did the US, apart from the Jack D. Rippers on both sides. But the last thing in the world both Khrushchev and Kennedy wanted in 1962 was a nuclear holocaust. One cannot ever reason with religulous maniacs. Which brings the possible options down to one, unfortunately.

[KingCharlemagne]

147. and we must not ignore all the terrorists disguised

As children while were at it.

[SickOfTheOnePct]

12. That's because it isn't about Iraq

or Afghanistan or Syria. It's about a small minority of the Muslim religion that want to intimidate and terrorize anyone that doesn't agree with them and their own insane interpretation of Islam.

[melman]

39. Agreed

Blaming it on Iraq is way too easy.

[redstateblues]

60. ISIS wants to establish a new caliphate

The people in the Middle East need to learn how to fight for their survival. Somebody besides the Kurds need to fight these bastards. What's done is done- we can't control the world. It's a freaking mess.

[MFM008]

85. yeah but they never target the Saudis

or UAE or someplace they know they will get the same treatment they give. Beheading in the city square.

[independentpiney]

98. Targeting the Saudis would be biting the hand that funds them

Until Wahabbism is eradicated from Saudi Arabia, there will always be an ISIS/al-Quaeda

[hifiguy]

100. Bingo.

It always traces back to the asshole of the world, the KSA.

[Aerows]

116. Indeed it does. n/t

[w0nderer]

14. comment to keep eye on thread n/t

[Ken Burch]

15. We're all horrified and sickened about these acts, but "bombing the shit" out of Iraq caused them.

ISIL wants the West to do more bombings.

[hifiguy]

22. The French didn't bomb anyone, AFAIK.

[thereismore]

26. You are forgetting Libya. nt

[randome]

35. Sure, Libya. Again, funny why they never mention this urgent sense of revenge.

[hr][font color="blue"][center]Aspire to inspire.[/center][/font][hr]

[dsc]

123. No they didn't help with Iraq

France was part of old Europe who refused to help with Iraq.

[Cassiopeia]

124. You are correct.

Thanks

[drray23]

32. fortunately we french are not thoughless like bush and co.

The french will respond I am sure but it will be by actions that make sense. Not randomly bombing other countries like we did after 9/11 under Bush (I am french/american so I can say we for both..)

[restorefreedom]

47. thats it exactly.

we had the entire world behind us after 911 and no one begrudged us going after bin laden. but the devil himself, dick cheney, pissed all that goodwill away because he had a hard on for saddam and the oil. and then it all started.

forgive my graphic language..i can't speak rationally when it comes to that dark evil fucking bastard devil dick cheney.

(smoothing hair, composing self...)

[katsy]

40. Agree but 1 more step in this fight is essential.

The bank accounts of known terrorist orgs need to be confiscated. Shut down. cut off the $

[hifiguy]

48. Their bankers are in Riyadh and elsewhere in the Gulf.

Good luck with that.

[katsy]

63. Sanction me countries that bank terrorist money?

Idk how that would work. Just wondering why the UN can't enforce something on banks that hold these accounts.

[hifiguy]

68. The day any US President allows anyone to even say "boo"

to the KSA is the day pigs will fly and hell will freeze solid.

[YoungDemCA]

87. I think that the financing comes from all over the world

I also think that it goes through multiple locations and facilitators before reaching the terrorists, and that the original donors in some (but certainly not all) cases are unaware of exactly who their money is going to.

And even though the money disproportionately comes from wealthy donors from the Gulf states, I doubt that they are wholly or even mostly reliant on their own countries' financial institutions these days for financing terrorism and extremism.

[backscatter712]

81. We're pretty much going to have to put a choke-chain on Saudi Arabia.

They're the ones who've been bankrolling all the Wahhabi batshit that's created the Taliban, Al Qaeda and ISIS.

After this, we need to send a message that no amount of money will protect them if they continue to feed this beast.

Wahhabism needs to be potty-trained.

[YoungDemCA]

89. Unfortunately, the Saudi regime's basis for domestic support is Wahhabism

If (or when) it collapses, who's to say that any number of jihadist/terrorist groups won't take control of the entire Arabian Peninsula?

[RufusTFirefly]

62. Fuckin' A! Yea bombing!! Yea payback!!! F-R-A! F-R-A!!

Worked great for the Homeland (TM) in Afghanistan! France should totally do it!!

A special shout out to Curtis LeMay for starting this thread! You go, General!

Stone Age, here we come!

[randome]

66. Kind of difficult to turn the other cheek when there's a bullet hole in it.

Didn't one of the attackers say this was for ISIS? A group that wants to establish their own little caliphate, where they can abuse one another from now to eternity.

Maybe we can just pretend that nothing happened and they'll go away.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]Aspire to inspire.[/center][/font][hr]

[jberryhill]

75. One extreme or the other. Is that all?

Can you provide me with your best estimate of the number of people who need to be killed to complete the objective of "bombing the shit out of them". How many of them do you expect are required to be put down?

[randome]

131. I would not have a problem with international outlawing of ISIS. Or Daesh, or whatever.

Anyone who, by word or deed, claims affiliation with this death cult should be imprisoned or killed. Period.

Of course even that would be a complicated matter since there are some women -normally enslaved and brutalized by ISIS- who would still support them while claiming otherwise.

All told, I don't know the answer to your question.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]"The whole world is a circus if you know how to look at it."
Tony Randall, 7 Faces of Dr. Lao (1964)[/center][/font][hr]

[LiberalElite]

65. I could be wrong but it seems to me that

bombing the shit out of people is what got us all to this metastasizing clusterfuck in the first place. (And No, I have no ideas what else to do.)

[BeyondGeography]

78. Francois Hollande agrees with you

He said tonight, "Nous allons mener le combat. Il sera impitoyable." That means we're going to take up the fight; it will be ruthless.

[Rex]

83. Who said they did not have the right?

Nations do shit? What?

[Truprogressive85]

86. I am puzzled

Who are they going to bomb and where ?

Syria ?
Iraq ?

[Hekate]

88. Fascinating thread, I must say. So, all of you who are sickened by this barbarism....

.... and who are now either endorsing or second guessing the president of France, how does the current circumstance impact your second guessing of the current POTUS?

For a change, I would be really interested in how your thoughts would evolve if you were actually elected president of a nation, such as France or the US. I understand the spiritual pov, turn the other cheek, first do no harm and all that.

But on the whole that stance is personal. To be the leader of a nation is to be plunged into a historical river, especially vis a vis all other nations and tribes. They each have their own pov, and sometimes that is diametrically opposed to your personal one and/or your nation's.

You think our BushCheney-begotten 15 year war is unique and hard to get out of? The Troubles in Ireland officially went on for 35 years, and it's still not totally over. Or if you listen my mother, the Irish troubles actually go back 800 years. Europe had a Thirty Years War. Hell, they even had a Hundred Years War! Show me one place on Earth that has not displayed this kind of innate stupidity.

Now tell me how Europe and the US get out of the mess in the Middle East, which has been going on one way or another since the Crusades.

Please.

[BlueCheese]

92. I honestly don't know what France, or other western countries should do...

... in the face of Islamic terrorism. It's far too complicated an issue to simply treat it as a domestic policing problem, or as an international military problem. There don't seem to be any good options.

[Initech]

109. The an$wer is right under our no$e$.

It's all about the money!!!! We take away their money, we stop them for good. We keep bombing them, they keep getting money and these horrific attacks still continue. I will repeat: We take away their money, we stop them for good.

Even the press themselves said that the attack appeared to be, and I quote, "very well funded". Take away their god damn funding!!! We stop the money flow, we stop them.

[magical thyme]

95. they bombed the shit out of them in September. Today was retaliation.

(CNN)—The French military has carried out its first airstrikes against ISIS in Syria, according to a statement from the office of France's presidency.

The country had announced earlier this month that it would expand its aerial campaign against ISIS in Iraq -- which it began a year ago -- to include the militant group's positions in Syria.



The French president's office said that the strikes in Syria, which began Sunday, were based on intelligence gathered from air surveillance operations conducted over Syria during the past two weeks.

"Our country confirms its firm commitment to the fight against the terrorist threat Daesh," the statement said, using the Arabic acronym for ISIS. "We will strike whenever our national security is at stake."

http://www.cnn.com/2015/09/27/middleeast/syria-france-isis-bombing/

[merrily]

97. So the answer from this thread is to double down on what led to today's attack/

Also, tell me how bombing Syria gets only members of Isis.

"Airstrikes" not "bombing"

enhanced interrogation, not torture

Who comes up with this stuff to sooth us--and who tells/pays them to do it?

[davidpdx]

96. As much as the attacks on France sadden me

Murder for murder is not right. This is how we got into the situation in the first place. GW Bush decided he was going to bomb the hell out of Afghanistan and Iraq in 2001 and 2003 respectively. Half the Middle Eastern governments are unstable at this point and the other half are run by loons (Israel, Syria, and Iran included). The area has been a tender box for years and is on fire. Strangely the best hope is Iran if we can get them on a more friendly footing.

Since the end of the Cold War and 9/11 things have changed drastically. The ones doing this aren't a government, they are a group of people. The days of being able to target a specific country are waning (North Korea is one of the few examples of that).

I read somewhere (I can't remember where) that the complete dismantling of ISIS and ISL would take 10-12 years. Let's assume that is correct and take the average, 11. That would put us at 2026, and important anniversary. At that point it will have been 25 years since the 9/11 attacks. Look back at history and find a time where we fought a 25 year war. There isn't one.

We have to proceed carefully what ever we choose to do. If we make the wrong choice we could end up in a war that is much longer than we already will probably be in.

[dflprincess]

101. However France responds,

I just hope it doesn't decide to invade an uninvolved third country like the U.S. did.

[eridani]

104. The odds ae high that they don't have any of those things

Though I can understand the sentiment.

[Ex Lurker]

105. Hollande: "We are going to lead a war that will be pitiless."

Watch "The Battle of Algiers," for an example of how the French conduct war when they are serious. Pitiless, indeed.

[CJCRANE]

107. The French may have more sense than you give them credit for.

The last 14 years of bombing stuff doesn't seem to have helped much.

[Initech]

108. Why don't they just bankrupt them?

We can bomb the shit out of them all we want, doesn't take away their money. We take away their money, we stop them at the source. That's what it takes.

[Aerows]

112. As ugly as it could possibly be

I agree with you and I hope they bomb the stew out of the responsible parties.

People have some odd idea that the French are pacifists or cowards. I've never understood that. Militarily, messing with France is a humongous error. They have plenty of artillery and people to deploy it.

[coyote]

114. Yep that will work

More bombs against an invisible enemy. The military complex dream come true. As they say, "never waste a good opportunity."

[Flying Squirrel]

117. An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.

- Ghandi

How about treating this as a worldwide law enforcement issue instead?

[malaise]

118. Think about what you wrote because if that is true

then so do the Iraqis - I want out of this planet

[SoCalDem]

120. the people who did it are dead

This one thing is why terrorism/guerrilla warfare/insurgency "works"..

Zealots who are willing to die, can do a lot of damage..and even when a "parent company" claims responsibility, it's not always the truth..

Random (or "precision&quot revenge bombing probably misses anyone who may have had a hand in it, and will surely kill innocents .

What should happen, is for the west to just get out of the war business...entirely..

When there are religious/clan fights somewhere in the world, we just need to tell them they will no longer get visas to come here, and when they have shed all the blood they can afford, and want to rejoin civilization, they can call us..

[lostnfound]

121. How do you attack many-headed hydras?

I don't know. We cut off one and six more grow. And these creatures multiply, like spider plants, growing whole new plants from dropped off runners.

In the movie The Lightning Thief I think the hydra got frozen, didn't it?

If it was a single country attacking, let loose!. But terrorism is no longer so localized or so governmental. Our world's corporate institutions transcend borders, and so do the terrorist organizations.

This thread has so many comments that ring true:

"Disaffected splinter groups that think bumping up their body counts somehow serves their lust for power and control over others"
"A death cult"
"I would like an estimate on this approach. Approximately how many people, in your estimation, need to be killed, and at what point is the job complete?"
"People jacked up on batshit insane religion"
"And we threw gas on the fire"
"Wiping out Isis is an impossibility. They are not a country. They do not have cities. They do not have a standing army. They are like a virus within our species, constantly mutating and difficult to isolate."
"Metastasizing clusterfuck"

[B Calm]

122. Kill, Kill, Kill

[blitzen]

125. They'll have to bomb the shit out of themselves, then...

Because these were French terrorists. French-born, French-speaking, French-citizens.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

127. Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. Isaac Asimov

[bullwinkle428]

133. If these guys all came from neighborhoods around Paris, is this where the

bombing would occur?

[roamer65]

140. The French should bomb the Saudi Royal Palace in Riyadh. N/t

[HuckleB]

144. ISIS' reason for existence is to send us all to the stone age.

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/03/what-isis-really-wants/384980/

[Comrade Grumpy]

149. I guess they will be bombing the Paris suburbs.

[Fairgo]

150. Simple solutions for wicked problems

Don't work.

What we are talking about is the ultimate wicked problem. Stepping back we are looking at the whole of civilisation as the frame, and the modern history as the creation narrative for humanities own world wide death machine whose engine is eternal war and endless profit, whose product is a distillation of wealth and power, whose waste material is human suffering and gaiacide.

There are no solutions to this problem that do not start at the root causes. There is no cure for a global sickness that mistakes surface symptoms for the disease. Nothing in our arsenal will defend us, much less win the war...because the language of war precludes all peace, and because the discourse that began with "us vs them" negates the community upon which any answer must be built.

In complex systems, you have self-organising algorithms that move forward in space and time. Shock and Awe broke a dam and the cascade of terror breaches the shores and borders of France. The tipping point of climate change came and went with a slowly building rumble of calving ice fields. All we can do now is stop digging our own graves. There will be no easy answers. Simpler minds mistake this complex etho/ecosystem for an angry god or the devil on the loose. But the tribulations are just the backwash of our own moral filth and rejection of our better nature for insanely selfish designs.

The only path out begins with reckoning and atonement. Put down the tools of the death machine, and search for the tools of peace. They are rusty and forgotten, but still available to us. Feed the hungry, house the homeless, make sure everyone has a place at the table and make the table a worthy place to be. I am not a religious person but to paraphrase Micah, Seek justice, love mercy, and walk humbly. If you know who Micah was talking to, it will make even more sense. There will be hell to pay for years to come, but the misery that is visited upon us is just the echo of the misery we create with our voracious and mindless consumption. If we stop making misery now, we will eventually see less of it later. Reckoning and atonement...we can talk "baby steps" later. We have to wake up from this colonial fever dream of capitalism first - and soon.

[GeorgeGist]

151. Geez where have we heard this logic before?

[Quixote1818]

152. So are you suggesting they bomb George Bush and Dick Cheney?

After all it was the destabilization of Iraq that lead to the rise of ISIS and probably some extra support from the CIA.

[B Calm]

153. How many of the terrorists got away?