Terrorists kill 12 at satirical French magazine Charlie Hebdo
This was no lone wolf attack; three gunmen were involved. As you might imagine, they appear to have been Islamicist terrorists enraged at satire focusing on Islam and the Prophet Mohammed. The killings were organized and focused, and successfully targeted most of the publication’s cartoonists, who were at a weekly meeting of the staff.
It was not the first time the magazine had come under attack—there had been a firebombing in 2011 when the building was empty, and the editor had been under police guard for some time due to death threats. But this was not just a threat. It was a lethal attack, and the bodyguard was helpless against the force of the assault (as usual, the British papers seem to have a lot more detail than US coverage):
…[A witness] said the men ‘spoke French perfectly’ and ‘claimed they were ‘Al Qaeda terrorists’.
Gunmen reportedly told another witness: ‘You say to the media, it was Al Qaeda in Yemen.’
They are said to have sought out staff ‘by name’, according to a police source, adding that Charbonnier, known as Charb, a cartoonist responsible for an anti-Islam front page, was among those killed…
French journalist, Stefan De Vries, told Sky News: “There was protection at the door but they killed the police officers, they executed them and they started shooting in the offices.”
The following quote is an example of a man who’s seriously out of touch:
Charlie Hebdo’s editor-in-chief Gerard Biard escaped the massacre because he was in London.
He told France Inter: ‘I am shocked that people can have attacked a newspaper in France, a secular republic. I don’t understand it.
‘I don’t understand how people can attack a newspaper with heavy weapons. A newspaper is not a weapon of war.’
Does the man not understand Islamist terrorism and its goals? Where has he been all these years?
[NOTE: This article gives the background of the magazine, with illustrations:
The BBC’s Hugh Schofield in Paris says Charlie Hebdo is part of a venerable tradition in French journalism going back to the scandal sheets that denounced Marie-Antoinette in the run-up to the French Revolution.
The tradition combines left-wing radicalism with a provocative scurrility that often borders on the obscene, he says.
Back in the 18th Century, the target was the royal family, and the rumour-mongers wrought havoc with tales – often illustrated – of sexual antics and corruption at the court at Versailles.
Nowadays there are new dragons to slay: politicians, the police, bankers and religion. Satire, rather than outright fabrication, is the weapon of choice.]
[ADDENDUM: This was how the gunman gained access to the magazine’s offices:
A young mother and cartoonist, known as ‘Coco’, who survived the massacre told how she had let the suspected Al Qaeda killers into the office.
Corrine Rey said she had returned from picking up her daughter from a nursery when she was confronted by two armed men wearing balaclavas.
‘I had gone to pick up my daughter at day care, arriving in front of the building, where two masked and armed men brutally threatened us,’ said Ms Rey.
‘They said they wanted to go up to the offices, so I tapped in the code,’ said Ms Rey, referring to the digi-code security system on the interphone.
Ms Rey and her daughter hid under a desk, from where they saw two other cartoonists being executed.]
Dear, Dear Neo. I am sure your use of the journalistic weasel word “Islamcist” in describing the Paris murderers was just a slip of the keyboard (you later do a bit better, using the word “Islamist). I sincerely believe we can call them (and call them out for) what they are — Islamic terrorists — without “insulting” Islam. It seems, at this stage of the game, the burden of proof should be on Islamic believers themselves to show why or how the term could be invalid.
Many of us in the west are under the spell of political correctness, and refuse to admit that islam is at war with us even if we are not at war with islam.
I’ve known about Charlie Hebdo for years. I was married to a woman who grew up in Avignon and Marseille, and at one point we were looking at houses in the area and I was halfway ready to move over to Avignon.
Nobody’s mentioning that Michel Houellebecq’s new novel is featured on the cover of the latest issue of Charlie Hebdo. Houellebecq already has a fatwa out on him. (This novel has not yet been published in English, though it will. SUBMISSION, imagining a France a few years in the future which has been taken over by Islam.)
The Arab “youths” I saw traveled in packs, and got a charge out of the fear they inspired, becoming especially “outgoing” whenever they saw young females.
I don’t want to go on. I could say a lot about the French. Hollande is a very weak person to be in charge. It’s going to get worse. But it sort of has to.
At some point someone important is going to have to point out that Islam is incompatible with the practice of parliamentary democracy and freedom of expression. Wherever it exists, Islam has bloody borders.
Our president used the word terrorism today but not anything close to Islam.
Where did you get or how did you pick, your “screen name”?
I ask because a few months ago I was watching the bonus features on an El Cid DVD and every time I see your name it brings it to mind.
‘I don’t understand how people can attack a newspaper with heavy weapons. A newspaper is not a weapon of war.’
*Imbecile*: all communications media, certainly including dinosaur newspapers, are (potentially) weapons of war.
parker (at 2:53 pm) has it exactly right: “Many of us in the west . . . refuse to admit that islam is at war with us even if we are not at war with islam.”
. . . as does Mr. Frank (2:54 pm): “At some point someone important is going to have to point out that Islam is incompatible with the practice of parliamentary democracy and freedom of expression.”
Guess all of us jumping up and down and yelling and doing what we can to call attention to these things are not terribly “important”. Our leaders, like Boehner et al, are the important ones. Screw them.
We are done for.
I have a 21st Century Darwinian perspective on this threat to Western Civilization. Darwin titled a section of Origin of Species “Struggle For Life Most Severe Between Individuals and Varieties of Same Species”. Various struggles will always be with us. “Coexist” by The Comfortable naively advocates disastrous appeasement. I fear that 21 Century technology enables anarchists, terrorists, and lunatics to challenge liberal, democratic republics like never before It seems that only draconian, comprehensive policing can defeat these challenges. But, it seems that without things getting far worse, liberal democracies won’t choose draconian policing. I say this without personally advocating draconian policing. So, I encourage more hawkish policing, but still with respect for our Bill of Rights.
DNW–
Years ago I had a friend who managed a used record store and he would let me take home anything I wanted, and I got into a craze for movie soundtracks. It’s generally agreed out there in that specialized genre that the best soundtrack of all time is either Ben-Hur by Miklos Rosza or Cleopatra by Alex North. But Miklos Rosza also did Quo Vadis, El Cid, Sodom and Gomorrah and several others. I like that kind of sub-classical Eastern-flavored exotica that you find behind a kind of film we never see anymore — the biblical epic.
The soundtrack for Psycho by Bernard Herrmann is another good stand-alone, like a little symphony. But kitsch. That’s the only word that really fits. Miklos Rosza was great, and so I pay homage to him.
Of great moment after all such Islamic barbarism is the official sigh of relief that it nothing to do with Islam.
Who will be first? In a ten dollar pool I’d hope to draw Ophilia.
It seems no-one is more unaware, even than Gerard Biard, of the core, the nature, the rudimentary, foundational essentialism of Islam than the Muslim. For the one who yells Alahu Akbhar and blows to smithereens or smites with a blade the neck of those he is nurtured by his religion to hate we are assured THAT is not Islam. When a second, an Imam, preaches from the mosque and prays with the mosqueteers for as much, THAT is not Islam. When Muslim countries/governments warn of the existence of such Muslims and Islamic organizations* that support the ilk, they are admonished, and we assured, THAT is not Islam. It may be that the true Scotsman doesn’t exist – even the one found wrapped in haggis gut. And now – no true Muslim. Islam, apparently, is a notion as had never existed before in history, a notion that all adherents had entirely misunderstood.
By the by, had it ever been determined whether or not there were any true NAZIs or had that peaceful pathogen been hijacked also?
* recent headline: Obama admin trying to reverse UAE’s designation of CAIR** and MAS** as terror-related
**Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and the Muslim American Society (MAS)
1972 Munich, 2008 Mumbai, and 2013 Nairobi come to mind. Now, 2015 Paris. What are other instances of similar terrorist attacks?
George Pal,
See: http://www.lettertobaghdadi.com/
Moslem terrorists, quelle surprise. The editors and cartoonists all needed to be packing heat.
These mass murderers aren’t “executing” anyone, they’re murdering/slaughtering innocents.
And allah is not God.
So, you come upon Lena Dunham being dragged through the street kicking and screaming, as an Islamist warrior who clearly aims to decapitate her in a few moments, grasps a handful of her hair and jerks her along. Since this is Maryland and your concealed carry from Missouri is invalid there:
You immediately pick up your cell phone,
… and then shrug saying “why bother”?
… call home to make sure your wife and kids are ok.
… take a video selfie where you cry into the lens, over the brutality you have been forced to witness.
… capture a video for posting to World Star Hip Hop.
I guess I am in general wondering whether the editor of Charlie Hebdo had a weapon available for himself. He had been receiving death threats after all.
And if one were allowed to him in principle, if he would have availed himself of it in any event.
Perhaps he had a gun and simply did not have a chance to use it. His bodyguard didn’t do much good, it appears.
I notice from the images on-line, the offices had rather thick impact and shatter resistant window glass. That’s good. But of course the killers were let in.
The really important thing here is that we not condemn many for the actions of a few. And that when we describe this incident, we use plenty of adverbs and adjectives expressing our feelings of indignation, outrage and hurt.
It will help us to share each others’ pain, increase feelings of solidarity, and make us feel so much better in general … about being the enablers of our own slaughter.
Unofficially, three suspects have been identified. They are 34, 32 and 18 years old, with “telling” foreign names, but apparently they grew up in France.
Allegedly they screamed “Allahu akbar, le Prophé¨te a été vengé” during the attack.
MJR,
We are not done for but the final cost will be far more blood and treasure than would have been necessary if we had nipped this malignant bud in November 1979. IMO there should have been no negotiations to free our Tehran embassy hostages nor any half assed rescue mission. Instead an ultimatum should have been delivered, release all hostages within 24 hours or Qom and all shia ‘holy’ sites anywhere on the planet will become glass parking lots.
If we are the great satan lets show them what the great satan can rain down on their heads. Otherwise, its so much pissing up a rope. Its sad to think that we were once willing to carpet bomb and fire bomb Tokyo and Dresden and we now whine about proportional response.
I will be interested to see how the French respond to this. It is their ox that has been gored, after all.
And there’s an interesting metaphor in Corrine Rey, who let the murderers into the building. Yes, the French have a murderous ideology in their midst… but they voluntarily let that in to their country, did they not?
There’s a war on, to be sure. It remains to be seen who, in the West, will fire the West’s first shot.
– – – – –
In my humble opinion — worth every cent you paid for it — the three Islamic butchers should be caught and interrogated. Then a video should be made, Photoshopped as necessary, in which the three cheerfully profess their love for all things French and their sophomoric disdain for Islam and for Islam’s Prophet. Once that video has gone viral, the three can be released, preferably in Yemen.
parker,
Or Jimmy Carter should have said, “This is an act of war” (which it was) and he should have declared war upon Iran in return. I know there was fudging around about “the students” who were allegedly under no one’s direct control but that looked very shifty from the start.
Also, had Carter acted decisively and swiftly the debate would not have descended into the kind of obviously weak and will-less fearfulness about whether any hostages were going to be “harmed.”
Eric,
Just so I’ll know when it happens, how many endorsers and facebook likers does it take to make a Muslim spring? A Reformation? An Enlightenment?
Very good. Thanks.
If you can pick up Fahrenheit 451 in a remainder bin somewhere, you would no doubt enjoy the bonus materials [probably included on most issues] outlining Hermann’s career and his work on that film.
I’m not a film buff, nor a big fan of romantic “But kitsch” music in particular, but I have been scarfing up DVD’s of old movies the last couple years, in part for my elderly parents. I generally look at the commentaries and so forth myself.
Two soundtracks that took me aback by moments of unexpected but obvious technical quality were the intro to One Eyed Jacks, and, of all things, movements from the John Wayne flick, Operation Pacific … where the early island rescue scenes have a score bizarrely rich or romantic for a movie of that kind.
You could loop part of it and get the same buzz as comes from listening to Glass’, A Gentleman’s Honor,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=HKdUMNdUHBo#t=1834
Sort of like the shock of hearing the famous jazz standard Stella by Starlight, as part of an old horror movie.
I guess there is a lot you don’t notice as a kid, while sitting in front of a 19″ black and white, or 25″ color television screen.
Over at PJMedia, “Zombie” is calling for all bloggers, and everyone who has a website to which they could post, to put up the Danish cartoons, or any other images which might inflame the fanatics. Zombie supplies links to a large collection of the images, and has released all rights to their use.
No one will. We’re all too scared. Besides, Obama and Hillary put producers of movies that “insult” the prophet behind bars.
Zombie shames us with his or her courage.
“Does the man not understand Islamist terrorism and its goals? Where has he been all these years? ”
Perhaps, as a man from the left, he has trouble comprehending is that the leftist/Muslim hudna does not cover those who insult Muhammad. The left, like Faust, havemade a pact with the Devil and now the Devil has come for their souls. Unlike Faust they have no path to salvation.
If the left still imagine they can harness the brutality and power of Islam, they have to either convert to Islam or else they must be careful to follow the rules of Sharia like all good dhimmis.
parker,
Strong horse/weak horse. The COIN “Surge” with Sunni Awakening in Iraq was a clear point of dominance won in direct competition that established us as the strong horse and the terrorists as the weak horse. But Obama gave it away and reversed the statuses.
Once a generation, the West looks on in horror at the carnage caused by intervention. Once a generation, the West looks on in horror at the carnage allowed by failing to intervene.
There are some people who look at carnage and never feel horror.
A few years ago saw a documentary on Charlie Hebdo defending itself in court over publishing the Mohammed cartoons called “It’s hard Being Loved by Jerks” (have never been able to find a copy of it on dvd or vod since). These guys were true blue believers in, and happy warriors for, freedom of speech. Not unlike the South Park guys, they believed that no one is above being mocked, and it was one of their biggest targets at the time who came to their defense & helped them win against the wannabe Islamic censors. And they continued to not exempt Mohammed and Muslims from their satire even after their offices were bombed. IIRC, the very next issue (published by other French news orgs in solidarity) was guest edited by Mohammed. I don’t know if Gerard Biard is really as naive as his comments indicated, or if he was just in shock that it really (finally) happened.
This is a sad day not only for the victims and their families, but for the western ideal of freedom of speech. Seems that most news organizations claiming that this is not yet a confirmed terrorist attack are simultaneously scrubbing any instances of the Mohammed cartoons from the websites just to be sure they’re not attacked next. Yep, they’re doing this out of respect, not fear.
So very sad.
Sometimes, I can’t believe that the US has gone so long without a major terror attack. Consider what the Bush administration confronted. Think about defending everyone, everywhere, 24/7, and the costs involved in hardening every potential target. Then consider the resources it would consume and multiply that exponentially by the lost opportunity costs. No one has the wealth to sustain that indefinitely. In the USA, 9 million sq miles, 300+ million soft targets, 100s of thousands of public places, tens of thousands of infrastructure targets(bridges, reservoirs, transportation hubs), thousands of entry points, and multiple means of attack (dirty bombs, biological threats, poison gas, planes, IEDs) to bring death and destruction OR economic disruption. Then besides the human cost, think what 9/11 cost the American economy.
That’s why smart people take the battle to the enemy.
The survivor’s story is suspicious.
Exasperated, I think the Boston Marathon bombing could be considered major, even if it didn’t have the body count of 9/11.
Lizzy: True, I was thinking in terms of body count but Boston was sure high profile compounded by it occurring at an international event.
It’s going to get much worse. “FBI: 100 Percent Chance of WMD Attack”
The West’s appeasement ensures that eventuality but the ultimate outcome will not favor Islam. They can do horrific damage but they lack the logistical and intellectual resources to permanently dominate the West.
The Left and Islam are in a temporary marriage of convenience, as they both rightly perceive the American conservative right to be a far greater obstacle to their agenda.
The people at the leftist satirical French magazine Charlie Hebdo crossed the line and broke the unwritten agreement between Islam and the Left. Though brave words of resistance may be spoken by some on the left, it won’t happen again, as the message was undeniable. If “a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully” so too does the consequence of fatal reprisal remove all pretense at denial.
It’s worth reading President Bush’s speech to the nation on September 20, 2001 to remind ourselves (which we shouldn’t have to do) of the nature of the contest:
http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2001/09/20010920-8.html
CapnRusty Says:
January 7th, 2015 at 4:45 pm
I agree with zombie. Every website and media outlet should post those cartoons as an act of defiance, to let the muzzies know that we will not be cowed.
But you know what will happen in real life? Only conservative and patriotic sites will put up the cartoons. The left will not do it; because they either fancy themselves as “tolerant”, and also because they are cowards.
That will have the effect of making conservative sites targets for retaliation.
You know what I’d rather see? I want conservative and freedom-loving hackers to hack left-wing sites and media organs, and post the cartoons there..
…AND, as usual, His Infantile Majesty condemned the “terrorism” without attaching “Islamist” to it. Manly…That’s what he is,’Yo.
There are going to be a dozens of Beslans and Bombays happening simultaneously in the United States of America soon.
They will overwhelm the mentality of a country where even the most perceptive refuse to say islam.
There is no time as gloriously better for the dozens of Beslans/Bombays than obama time.
I hope I am wrong.
What seems obviously easy and totally destructive to me might be my lack of proportion.
There are going to be a dozens of Beslans and Bombays happening simultaneously in the United States of America soon.
No. There will be one event so destructive and disruptive that martial law will be the result. It will happen with the implicit blessing of Obama, perhaps his complicity.
Why are jihadist never recognized by liberals as being Islamic, but they never mention the crusaders of ten centuries ago without pointing out they were devout Christians?
I want to let the jihad towel rapped to tight moslems and the moslems who remain silent to know, without a shadow of doubt, that they and their children for generations to come will be rubbed out with no mercy until no one dares walk around that radioactive rock at mecca. Let a million korans be covered in bacon grease and torched everyday until they bow down to my grandchildren.
Eric,
That may be the most underrated speech by an American President in the past century. It’s clarity, conciseness and comprehensiveness puts to shame any speech that Obama has ever given.
That said, IMO the following is profoundly mistaken; “The terrorists practice a fringe form of Islamic extremism that has been rejected by Muslim scholars and the vast majority of Muslim clerics — a fringe movement that perverts the peaceful teachings of Islam. Its teachings are good and peaceful, and those who commit evil in the name of Allah blaspheme the name of Allah. The terrorists are traitors to their own faith, trying, in effect, to hijack Islam itself.” Pres. Bush
Andrew McCarthy refutes that assertion; “Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State did not make up sharia law. Islam did. We can keep our heads tucked snug in the sand, or we can recognize the source of the problem.
… the literalist construction of sharia that Islamic supremacists seek to enforce is “literal” precisely because it comes from Islamic scripture, not from some purportedly “extremist” fabrication of Islam. Moreover, this “classical sharia” is enthusiastically endorsed in principle by several of the most influential institutions in the Islamic Middle East, which explains why it is routinely put into practice when Islamists are given – or seize – the opportunity to rule over a territory.”
Tonawanda,
There are many in this country who have and are publicly identifying Islam itself as the source of Islamic terrorism.
Chuck,
Obama’s complicity is intentional, of this there is no doubt.
SteveH,
David Horowitz provides the answer to your (perhaps rhetorical) question. “For the left, it’s never about the ‘issue’, it’s always about the revolution.”
This one has hit me hard. Maybe because I’m a writer, I am not sure. I have felt a deep sadness the entire day and a shock – though, certainly it is not entirely unexpected. I also am so upset seeing how so many people I know, again on social media, just are not paying attention. Or, they even make excuses for the violence (“the French are anti-Islam”) or — state they are worried about growing “Islamophobia”. This when 12 people, one a Muslim (the police officer) were killed in cold blood! OK, I obviously need to make different friends! These are mostly FB friends and most I don’t know that well, but I guess it’s the usual complaint. I feel surrounded by madness.
We are in for more. It feels like living in pre-Nazi Germany, if I can imagine how that felt. And people around you say “not to worry” or — somehow don’t believe the Nazis are that bad… or… make excuses… I just can’t believe it.
I hope the chick that let the monsters in knows that she has blood on her hands.
“If we are the great satan lets show them what the great satan can rain down on their heads.”
If only. I dream of a radioactive Mecca and Medina, and I particularly wish to see the Dome of the Rock reduced to dust. Were it made known, and proven, that a “holy” city would disappear for every innocent Western life taken by these sub-humans, I expect the results would be rather remarkable.
We fight this to their end, or they will to ours.
I just finished listening to Howard Dean insist that these perps are no more terrorist than he is. Mr. Dean, it doesn’t matter what you think of these critters. THEY think they are Moslem, THEY think that they have acted out of Moslem motivations, and the fair percentage of supporters that they have in Moslem parts of the world probably do to.
Now here’s my take – Islamic terrorists are idolators. They take their anger, and ambition and fear and wad them into a big ball. They place this ball on an altar, call it Allah, and worship it most sincerely. Not a thought that would occur to a thoroughly secular mind, but one is really incapable of understanding any of this terrorism while leaving out the religious aspect. Duh. Je suis Charlie.
Correction , for “no more terrorist” above it should read “no more Moslem”. My bad.
Liberty Wolf: “This when 12 people, one a Muslim (the police officer) were killed in cold blood!”
The terrorists have killed many many Muslims in cold blood. Reports say the terrorists in Paris claimed credit for AQ in Yemen. Just the day before, a terrorist bombing killed 37 at a Yemeni police academy. Those victims, also policemen or police trainees, were presumably Muslim.
at some point the other side WILL act…
given how jews and christians are represented in the hard sciences and nobel prizes…
they will wreak havoc and call the eschaton…
I can show another difference between men and women!!!
…[A witness] said the men ‘spoke French perfectly’ and ‘claimed they were ‘Al Qaeda terrorists’.
yes. it was the woman who buzzed them into the place and watched them murder everyone…
men are more likely to refuse and die thus saving others
women are more likely to buzz them in and hope that by helping its someone else that gets zapped.
[i feel sorry for the police officer that died first. i saw the unedited clip of that, and if he just laid there and did not try to beg for his life from someone who shot him when standing, he may be alive rather than the guy run over and finish him off.
Playing dead, its not just for possums any more!]
Does the man not understand Islamist terrorism and its goals?
No… requirements of a secular condition is to believe 10 impossible things before breakfast…
examples include but are not limited to
men and women are the same
Everything that happens statistically unequally or is discrimination
thoughts are discrimination not just actions
all races have the exact same IQ
a marxist politician is a good guy unlike any other politician
im from the government and i am here to help
correcting the grammar of a black person is racism (others used to call it teaching)
perverts make better parents
if you love a bully he wont clock you
my rich billionaire is a good guy, yours is evil
[this could be fun listing them out]
Where has he been all these years?
in a ticky tacky box…
they learn about the world from people who tell them lies
then they grow up and act upon the lies
which explains where he has been
in a ticky tacky box… (called academia)
The woman who let them in had her very young daughter with her. Does anyone think it unlikely, that they threatened to kill her daughter first, if she didn’t key in the code?
“yes. it was the woman who buzzed them into the place and watched them murder everyone… ”
But of course, that explains everything. It marvels me that nobody has pointed out before this curious connection between the carnage and the fact that it was a WOMAN who tapped in the code. That act probably had little, if anything, to do with being threatened in the presence of her small child, experiencing extreme acute stress, and having very few seconds at her disposition to think or to act at all. In fact the whole scene must have evolved as follows:
The armed terrorists come and approach our Coco with a polite “Bonjour, Madame. Désolés de vous déranger. Est-ce que vous pourriez taper le code ?” Coco does not recognize the men and she inquires why should she do it. The terrorist gentlemen smile and oblige her by expressing their motives in brief: “C’est une petite surprise pour vos collé¨gues, en fait on va les tuer !” Coco finds that the idea a fine surprise indeed and decides that these fine armed gentlemen should be allowed in and that she would enjoy the spectacle. “Tré¨s bien, Messieurs” she says, as she is tapping in the code, “voilé !” The gentlemen smile, bow their heads briefly, “Merci, Madame, vous éªtes tré¨s gentille”, they add and off they go to shoot as Coco watches en toute tranquillité…
…
For the love of God, Artfldgr, they threatened her child. She succumbed to the pressure to buzz them in under extreme duress. Would you heroically have yourself executed in front of your small child or watch the said child murdered? And even if it was “only” about your life, can you tell with absolute certainty that, if you were put to such a test (God forbid), you would have the perfect courage and the perfect calm of mind to react differently and not to succumb to the same “low” instict of self-preservation? Framing the incident in terms of her despicable FEMALE character…