Paris Attacks

April 2024 Forums General discussion Paris Attacks

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  • #84282
    alanjjohnstone
    Keymaster

    I recall that the important world issue on making poverty history and the G-8 Gleneagles summit was completely derailed by the bombings in London in 2005. 

    Isis (and i think it or sympathisers of them were complicit in the murders in Paris) have now threatened to put at risk reasonable rational debate about some things close to my heart…

    The  refugee crisis and the right of people to flee to safety, rather than offering increased urgency to this, the closing of the French borders will be an excuse to tighten all borders  even though i have a feeling that the culprits will be home-based terrorists and not anybody smuggled into France via the refugees

    I think now there will also be a call for increased action, perhaps even by NATO itself as a member is deemed to have been attacked, in Syria which is probably what ISIS hopes for as a recruitment aid. The media may have been cockahoop about the death of Jihadi John but i feel more like him will emerge if ISIS succeeds in declaring intervention against it, as a war upon Islam itself. The anti-war movement will find itself on the defensive.  

    The upcoming protests in Paris against climate change, just a couple of weeks away will be conducted under this dark shadow and the strictest of security. 

    Already i have read on a discussion list some sort of apology for this dispicable crime and even suggesting it was a false flag intelligence operation, by a 9/11 conspiracist and it perhaps it is at this lower level of interaction we can have something of an influence, challenging those political fantasists. 

    We have to also offer unity that the same sick twisted individuals that conduct or incite such attacks in Paris are the same people who have done the same murderous acts in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Kenya, Nigeria, Indonesia and many other countries. Paris should not be treated as the exception, singled out for extra grief because they are European. 

    I'm sure many on this ist have different thoughts they wish to express. 

    #115136
    ALB
    Keymaster

    What's wrong with these nutters? Anyway, I'm not going to Paris for the climate change demonstrations there on 1 December. Not sure about going to the one in central London on 30 November either. And some people think fascism is still the main threat to rational civilisation.

    #115137
    robbo203
    Participant
    ALB wrote:
    What's wrong with these nutters? Anyway, I'm not going to Paris for the climate change demonstrations there on 1 December. Not sure about going to the one in central London on 30 November either. And some people think fascism is still the main threat to rational civilisation.

     These scum seem to have lost the power of reasoning altogether.  Even in terms of their own sick agenda, this is stupidity in a grand scale.  What could they have possibly hoped to have achieved by it? It will lead to a redoubling of efforts to crush ISIS militarily if indeed this atrocity was carried out by ISIS returnees as seems likely.  It will also, I think, likely push most Muslims in the direction of  much more vigorously disowning what is being done in their name as a way of dealing with the fallout and backlash  of a rising tide of anti Muslim sentiment which may well mean the potential support base for ISIS and co, steadily shrinking. These morons cant seem to see that what they have done makes their fascist dystopia an even  more improbable and unfeasible option than it was to begin with. Thanks ISIS –  with a single stroke youve made the task of revolutionary socialists that much more difficult in a world in which a cowed and insecure  population will accede even more willingly to the authoritarian edicts of governments – those same governments whose military adventurism in the Middle East is what gave birth to this Frankenstein monster that is ISIS, in the first place

    #115138
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    I don't think 'Nutters' can explain this;  let's not forget other 'nutters' that give rise to more 'nutters' Paris is horrific but it is not the first.. Just another chapter in the horrors of capitalism. Palestinian, Afghan and Itaqi  citizens are butchered daily by 'nutters' 

    #115139
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    Have to admit tho, just because the French state has butchered millions of innocent people abroad – that doesn't justify the killing innocent French citizens.  Always the workers who suffer. 

    #115140
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    Watching suit wearing arms dealers & world leaders who provide the weapons & the terrorists making fake hypocritical statements makes me puke 

    #115141
    alanjjohnstone
    Keymaster

    Is it too simplistic to  call ISIS scum and nutters?Will most people differentiate between ISIS and muslims? There is a good chance of a backlash…and it has been happening for some years now as islamophobia has grown  …Followers of Islam being tarred with the same brush. This alienates them and provides an increasing pool for ISIS to recruit from, not a shrinking one as Robbo believes…the rudimentary propaganda tools remain the same …my "people" right or wrong. Didn't we have exerience of this in Ireland…when internment created converts to the "cause". They are bringing the war home to many who didn't have a problem with French aircraft being involved in the Syrian Civil War and their financing of ISIS "moderate " rivals and who didn't give a toss about the bombing in Beirut that also killed scores of innocent people a few days previously in another tactic to widen the war in the region.But i don't think we will receive a very sympathetic audience by exposing the hypocrisy that exists which Vin refers to. We will be seen as apologists for ISIS and terrorism. Our fellow workrs will kill the messenger because it is a message they have no wish to hear. We are stuck between a stone and a hard place where we cannot express fully the socialist position that both sides are committing atrocities and that the cause is deeper than the superficial reason of religion…YMS has reduced ISIS to some degree to simply an international gang of criminals little different from the drug cartels. Is that a correct reading? All guerilla groups conduct crimes and terror to provide funds for weapons, from the IRA  to the Taleban, from the Bolsheviks (Stalin the bank robber) to the Shining Path of Peru. This is what we should be concentrating our brains upon …finding the best means of condemning ISIS and all the others involved , including our own government  while advocating socialism.Should we just ignore individual acts of terror and aim our response at all religions as a counter strategy?Hold a meeting promoting atheism and support the muslim apostates. Offer Maryam Namazie a platform?  Wouldn't this be an actual constructive response. Should we also invite representatives of the No Borders groups to explain the refugee crises and the causes and reasons behind it .ie Syria and Iraq and Western/Gulf military intervention. Let's not forget the Syrian civil war was not a war but part of the Arab Spring that anti- Baathist outsiders purposfully militarised.  I have no answer but i do know that we shouldn't be parroting our rulers propaganda. Our actions must be based upon political  independence. 

    #115142
    alanjjohnstone
    Keymaster

    Another Paris massacre that i am sure will receive no mention at all in the media(via Libcom)https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_massacre_of_1961

    #115143
    Anonymous
    Inactive
    alanjjohnstone wrote:
    Is it too simplistic to  call ISIS scum and nutters? 

    Yes.We are socialists! Did we call Hitler a 'nutter' for invading Poland? It explains nothing. Here is wahat another comrade posted elswhere:

    #115144
    robbo203
    Participant
    alanjjohnstone wrote:
     Will most people differentiate between ISIS and muslims? There is a good chance of a backlash…and it has been happening for some years now as islamophobia has grown  …Followers of Islam being tarred with the same brush. This alienates them and provides an increasing pool for ISIS to recruit from, not a shrinking one as Robbo believes…the rudimentary propaganda tools remain the same …my "people" right or wrong. Didn't we have experience of this in Ireland…when internment created converts to the "cause".  

     I am not sure that that is true in this case, Alan.  There are two conflicting tendencies at work here in response to Islamophobia. One is to alienate Muslims and provide , as you say, a larger pool of potential support for organisations like ISIS.  But there is another tendency at work  too which is a move to deflect Islamophobia by siding with the status quo in its attack on extremism.  This is exemplified by the approach adopted by bodies like the Muslim Council of Britain   http://www.mcb.org.uk/horrific-attacks-in-paris-muslim-council-of-britain-responds/ I would posit that the more dramatic the outrage the more likely is the second tendency to prevail.  In France since the Charlie Hebdo incident, attacks on Muslims have increased significantly.  I would imagine that most Muslims would  be extremely wary and fearful of the consequences of this latest outrage in Paris for themselves, their job prospects, their children and so on.  This is why I suggest a tipping point may have been reached and that we are likely now to see a decline in support for organisations like ISIS.  In other words what ISIS has done has been self defeating

    #115145
    alanjjohnstone
    Keymaster

    Sunni V ShiiteI think i even fell into the trap of generalising Muslims as one."The time is not far off in the Middle East, Richard, when it will be literally 'God help the Shia'. More than a billion Sunnis have simply had enough of them." Said Prince Bandar bin Sultan, one-time Saudi ambassador in Washington and ex-head of Saudi intelligence said to MI6 head, Sir Richard Dearlove.There is no doubt about the accuracy of the quote by Prince Bandar, secretary-general of the Saudi National Security Council from 2005 and head of General Intelligence between 2012 and 2014, the crucial two years when al-Qa'ida-type jihadis took over the Sunni-armed opposition in Iraq and Syria. Speaking at the Royal United Services Institute, Dearlove, emphasised the significance of Prince Bandar's words, saying that they constituted "a chilling comment that I remember very well indeed".Dearlove does not doubt that substantial and sustained funding from private donors in Saudi Arabia and Qatar, to which the authorities may have turned a blind eye, has played a central role in the Isis surge into Sunni areas of Iraq. He said: "Such things simply do not happen spontaneously." This sounds realistic since the tribal and communal leadership in Sunni majority provinces is much beholden to Saudi and Gulf paymasters, and would be unlikely to cooperate with Isis without their consent.What the Saudi’s are experiencing now is what the USA experienced – blowback – from their proxies. http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/iraq-crisis-how-saudi-arabia-helped-isis-take-over-the-north-of-the-country-9602312.htmlThe Beirut attack was an attack upon a Shiite neighbourhoodIt has been predominantly muslim upon muslim violence even as far away as in Pakistan

    #115146
    LBird
    Participant
    robbo203 wrote:
    These scum seem to have lost the power of reasoning altogether.  Even in terms of their own sick agenda, this is stupidity in a grand scale.

    I think that you're wrong here, robbo.These are pretty much 'standard guerilla tactics'.They know that, no matter how many innocents they murder, the response of The Real Terrorists in our world will be to murder even more of those from whom the 'guerillas' originate. Since that potentially supportive population will have already experienced much worse violence and many more deaths from murderous policies of The Real Terrorists, than happened in Paris, they will have little sympathy for those murdered in Paris.From this perspective, from that of the world proletariat, they are not any more 'scum' than are the French ruling class, their 'reasoning' is as sound as that of the French ruling class, and 'sick agendas' and 'grand scale stupidity' describe nothing more than capitalism itself.Capitalism is recruiting for a war. Calling only one side 'scum' is dangerous, and shows a bias to the ruling class.

    #115147
    alanjjohnstone
    Keymaster

    We could go on offering our views on this atrocity, just one of so many happening around the world and not at all unique except in the sense that it is on our doorstep in a neighbouring country in a city many have visited.  Here in Thailand four died in a bomb attack just the other day in the south where there is a civil war between muslims and buddhists if we wish to simplify it into religion. What i am have difficulty in doing is formulating a socialist response that resonates with people. I can easily demonstrate the hypocrisy of many who are condemning the attacks but that doesn't help communicate to fellow workers or relate to their genuine feelings of horror. I can easily show that ISIS is a small minority of muslims but the media headline is still that it was a muslim attack and it is muslims now being hunted as the guilty culprits I can provide all the history links to put this attack intp a bigger picture and that it was simply an event in a long train of events…(which reminds me of the Spanish train attack some years back that i think so many forget)I have made one suggestion – offering token support for muslim apostates by hosting a public meeting but was this a religious attack or simply revenge for Hollande and the French air attacks as one terrorist in the theatre declared it was. But surely we should now be discussing what our reply and answer is and this thread isn't being particularly helpful in offering me any inkling of what wwe should be saying.  Banish Gods from the Sky and Capitalists from the Earth – but in what style of message can we do it. 

    #115148
    LBird
    Participant

    Where these sort of events have led before:

    Quote:
    The Paris massacre of 1961 was a massacre in Paris on 17 October 1961, during the Algerian War (1954–62). Under orders from the head of the Parisian police, Maurice Papon, the French National Police attacked a forbidden demonstration of some 30,000 pro-National Liberation Front (FLN) Algerians. Two months before, the FLN had decided to increase its bombing in France and to resume the campaign against both pro-France Algerians and the rival Algerian nationalist organization, the Algerian National Movement in France. After 37 years of denial, in 1998 the French government acknowledged 40 deaths, although there are estimates of over 200.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_massacre_of_1961So, possibly the French police murdered 'over 200'. Puts the recent outrage into perspective.

    #115149
    alanjjohnstone
    Keymaster

    See Message #8, LBird, But when police over-react and murder, it is not terrorism and not to be remembered 

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