I was watching CNN Friday evening when the news of the Paris attacks broke. Everything was pandemonium in the news reporting; however over the weekend the details have settled out. What we’re learning now is more about the background of the suspects and the support network that enabled them to carry out this attack. I’m not going to beat the drum of “carry you guns” because anyone reading this blog at this point should already know to carry your damn gun. I’m also not going to tell you to “die on your feet” for the exact same reason.
What I do want to talk about is something that has not been mentioned much in the mainstream media, and is actually the part of these terrorists attacks that I find the most concerning. I’ve seen the recent Paris attacks compared to two different events, the Charlie Hebdo attacks and the Mumbai attacks. The Charlie Hebdo comparison is obvious, because both attacks took place in Paris, however it’s not really accurate. The CH attack was a small group of individuals attacking a single soft target. A better comparison in terms of execution are the attacks in Mumbai, where a group of determined attackers hit multiple targets over the course of multiple days. However, even that comparison is somewhat lacking, because of the nature of the nations that were attacked. Which leads me to the point I’m looking to make, and the reason why I find the Paris attacks far more disturbing than any events in recent memory.
When a bomb goes off in Lebanon, or India, or even Turkey, there’s a tendency to shrug because those nations aren’t as sophisticated as “the west.” Although at least in the case of Turkey, that’s probably not true from a military standpoint. So a coordinated attack in India seems to the casual observer to be “easier” than a similar attack in a western nation. But the Paris attacks were a complex, well executed, operation with multiple actors that would require extensive logistics, planning, and other support operations. These attacks were carried out against a first world westernized nation that possesses a sophisticated intelligence apparatus, and in fact was aware of at least one, if not more of the attackers. Yet the attacks were still successful.
As a citizen of a first world, westernized nation with a sophisticated intelligence apparatus I find that extremely concerning. This wasn’t just some asshole with an AK running into a public market yelling ALOHASNACKBAR before getting smoked by the one-time. What this demonstrates is a level of organization competence that you really haven’t seen since the Troubles, when the IRA was engaged honest to god warfare against the British state. To dismiss the Paris attacks as mere terrorism is to underestimate the resolve of a determined enemy. This was, to borrow a phrase from a friend, an act of war by a nascent nation-state and should be responded to in kind.
Thankfully, ISIS has done the west the favor of actually drawing lines on their maps saying “here is the ISIS/ISIL Caliphate.” They even have a “capitol” city in Al-Raqqa in Syria, which I’m pleased to read the French have already begun bombing. Good. But that brings me to the “response” portion of this post. To avoid typing the same thing twice, I’m going to copy/paste something I wrote on FB on Sunday:
I’ve been thinking about the attacks in France now since last night. Mostly, I’ve been thinking about the solution, how to stop this sort of thing from happening. My left wing friends say that answering extremism with violence only creates more extremism, and they’re correct…to a point. Answering extremism with the sort of casual, half-assed violence that seems to be all we have the stomach for these days does create more extremism, because it doesn’t finish the job.
But history has shown us time and again that when dealing with truly extreme ideologies and the people behind them, a nation and its people must be willing to commit to a level of wholesale violence that we’ve not ourselves touched since 1945. There are parallels to the war against Imperial Japan, not just in the extremism of the country but in how we fought the war. We firebombed Tokyo. We completely destroyed two cities with nuclear weapons.
Nowadays our weapons are more precise, so glassing ISIL stronghold cities probably isn’t necessary. But that level of commitment to eradicating the heart of the enemy is what the West has lost. We fought Japan until we had inflicted such horrible losses that we broke their will to fight, and it’s precisely that sort of war that we’d have to wage if we really wanted to “stamp out terrorism.” You kill badguys until every military aged male in the AO says “you know what? Fuck it. This isn’t worth dying over.” You make it a fact that if you support extremism, you die. Simple.
The west lacks the stomach for this sort of thing. Our enemies? Clearly they have it.
The longer I’ve had to think about this response, the more I’ve come to believe it. We broke the back of not one but two major, industrial nations in the 1940s, and we did it by visiting such an amount of violence on them that, at least in the case of Japan, an entire warrior-culture decided to swear off war for the next 60 years. In fact, there is still a huge culture of pacifism in Japan as a direct result of what happen in 1945. But that is the level of violence we have to be willing to engage in if we really want to combat ISIS in a meaningful way. As a nation, as a culture, we have to be willing to go to where they are, and stack up the bodies of military aged males until the next guy that looks at an AK decides “nope, this crap isn’t worth dying for, because these western devils will f***ing smoke me.”
But we don’t posses that will. Which is sad, because as a nation we have no lack of young (and older) men who are willing to sign on the dotted line to do exactly that. Despite the PC attempts to destroy it, there is still a warrior culture in America, and there is still steel in her spine. Whether or not that steel extends to our leadership is a topic for another post, and another time.
I want to wrap this post up on a happy note, but I don’t think I’ll be able to. The west was attacked in what should be considered an act of war by a self-declared nation-state. So I’m going to go back on my word from the beginning of the post. Carry your guns. This kind of thing absolutely could happen here. Yes, the odds are low, and yes you’re more likely to get killed by heart disease or in a car crash. But if it does happen? Fight.
Great!, I’m never going to get “ALOHASNACKBAR” out of my head now!
Five things Caleb 1; The majority of the people are willing to do what is needed,the Progressive/Liberals and government are not. 2; 10,000 ‘Syrians’ have just been plunked into Louisiana (mostly fighting age men). 3; Daesh(isis) have never before taken on an armed society(especially a society that is willing to run toward gun fire and help LEO’s) . 4 ; Many of these fanatic barbarians are already here. 5 ; islam has but one purpose ,that is to kill off everything on this planet that is not islam.So unfortunately if you leave a ‘few’ alive they will just wait until they replenish their numbers and try this again in another Eon.
I’m not really down with genocide.
Me either Caleb , especially ours .
There’s a few problems with the whole “kill all the Muslims” thing. It isn’t possible, as there’s just too many in the world. Even nukes would be rather counter productive. So, instead let say we try to kill off just the ones in the USA- or just deport them. Guess what- Goodbye Constitution! You think we can have our government deliberately exterminate (or exile) one group of people based on their religion, and not have them turn that machinery on others they don’t like? “But, they’re supposed to only go after terrorist!” Yep, and you know they want to call the NRA a terrorist organization. “But Islam isn’t a real religion!” And that is supposed to protect your own religious beliefs- or lack thereof? Now you want the government to get into what is and isn’t a true religion?
The big threat is not Aloha Snackbars at the local Mall. The big threat is people giving away liberty to get security, and getting neither.
Who here said “kill all the Muslims”?
After 15 yrs in uniform, I can tell you the second to last paragraph answers it. We are more than willing to end this shit through the violence required. We just need leadership to take the cuffs off, shut up, and get out of the way. I fully understand the military can’t be the answer to everything, but in this case it’s the only answer. You can’t reason or resolve this through diplomatic means. It’s a kill or be killed mentality on their side; it’s time we adopt the same.
If you haven’t read this article about ISIS, you should: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/03/what-isis-really-wants/384980/
The good thing about them is that they need to hold territory to hold any kind of legitimacy according to their ideological framework; this means that territory can be taken from them using conventional means. They can’t just go underground like Al-Qaeda et al like to do. Which is good, because while we’ve had our challenges w/ counterinsurgency, the US military is really, REALLY good at conventional warfare.
That said, the only surefire way to eradicate the threat of radical Islam is to bring prosperity to the Middle East (for everyone, not just a few sheiks with oil fields). People join terrorist groups for the same reason they join street gangs: they don’t think that they have a future in civilized society, so they turn to a criminal alternative. I’m convinced that 99.9% of the world population will go with the flow and enjoy a comfortable, law-abiding life if that option is available to them; the remaining .1% can be corrected through ballistic therapy.
I view ISIS and their associated fanatical organizations as vermin. The only way to be rid of vermin, and prevent growing infestation, is through EXTERMINATION. Q.E.D.
Joe in PNG is correct. Like it or not, Islam and Muslims are now part of the Western culture, and they won’t voluntarily leave. You can’t kill, jail, or deport people because of what their co-religionists do. It would be akin to killing, jailing, or deporting all blacks or all Hispanics because black and Hispanic street gangs sell drugs and commit murder. (And yes, I know that in Islam, “peace” means “when the whole world is Muslim.” You can’t hurt people for what they think, only for what they do.)
You have to identify the members of terrorist groups, then take appropriate action against them, whether it’s prosecution or deportation. (Preemptive detention, while it sounds good, is illegal, for good reasons.)
And what constitutes a terrorist group depends on who’s doing the constituting. We can all agree on ISIS and AQ, but is Black Lives Matter a terrorist organization? The Black Gangster Disciples? The NRA or the Second Amendment Foundation?
Terrorism has a legal definition, just like burglary does. Racism, sexism, or any other ism, real or imagined, does not equal terrorism. We have to be very careful in how we manage this.
I’m still trying to figure out who here suggested we kill/deport all the Muslims.
I believe Tom did, at the top of the comments, albeit maybe not directly.
“So unfortunately if you leave a ‘few’ alive they will just wait until they replenish their numbers and try this again in another Eon.”
Yeah. No need to kill all the Muslims, but we’ve imported two million of them into the USA since 9/11. Might be a good idea to quit doing that. NOBODY has a “right” to come here.
One of the reasons we defeated those two industrial nations 70 years ago is because we didn’t accept any Japanese or German “refuges” during WWII
Yeah, that’s right. We turned away those damn Jewish German refugees! Good job, us!
I agree calib, no one said anything about wholesale Muslim killing. Just jihadis. That being said, I think the most appropriate response us letters of Marque and Reprisal. Open up the front to individuals who can pull trigger, and hack computers. This nation is full of people who would do that on their own dime. But make it clear that there is no calvary when you do that. Armies and Navies are to protect the homeland against invading formally instituted forces. That’s a third gen war. We are in the middle of a fourth gen war. That’s a difference that you have yet to address. The goal is the same, but the demoralizing actions are different.
Most migrant patterns are heavily made up of adult males. The practice of sending money made in the place with more opportunity has been a thing for a long time. Especially with paid migration (either because the nation they are going to requires money, or those that will smuggle you in require money), those with the highest earning potential end up going.
That one seemed to be worth replying to. The rest…well, likely not a lot of point in talking to you about that.