Reporting from France
The fog of war is operating in France right now, but reports are that the Charlie Hebdo killers have themselves been killed in a shoot-out with police, and the hostage they took has been freed.
However, a related French terrorist/hostage situation seems to have not ended so well:
The police also killed another hostage-taker, described as an associate of the brothers, in a separate assault on a kosher supermarket in Paris.
Three hostages were killed and five injured at the market, although it was not immediately clear how many of those may have been shot in the final assault. Five hostages were reported to have been freed unharmed, a senior French police official said.
Some news outlets are reporting that four hostages were killed at the market. At this point all of this information is subject to change, although the death of the Kouachi brothers and freeing of their hostage seems to have been confirmed by a police spokesman, who said:
The special counterterrorism forces located where the terrorists are and broke down the door. They took them by surprise. It lasted a matter of minutes.
The Jews of Paris have been leaving for years, as the climate there becomes more and more hostile to them. These recent incidents are a sign as to how right they were to do so, and I wouldn’t be surprised if emigration from France goes up a notch once again.
There are many questions remaining about these attacks that may never be answered, but here are a few that seem important:
(1) How on earth did the Kouachi brothers evade surveillance long enough to plan and execute these killings? They were well known to authorities. The gap here must have been the size of the Grand Canyon.
(2) How on earth was security lax enough at Charlie Hebdo for them to succeed? The fact that the periodical was a huge target was well known to authorities.
(3) How did the woman perpetrator at the kosher supermarket escape, if the site was ringed by police?
And above all is the overriding question: what on earth will it take for the West to wake up?
‘In the middle of the 20th century, there were virtually no Muslims in Western Europe,” Weekly Standard senior editor Christ Caldwell pointed out in his 2009 book on Islamic immigration, “Reflections on the Revolution in Europe.” “At the turn of the 21st, there were between 15 and 17 million Muslims in Western Europe, including 5 million in France, 4 million in Germany and 2 million in Britain.”
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“Only 19% of Europeans think immigration has been good for their countries,” Caldwell points out. “73% of French people think their country has too many immigrants … Even before September 11” the French were “three times as likely to complain of ‘too many Arabs’ in the country than of too many of anyone else.”
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Welcome to Eurabia…
It seems to me with each passing terrorist incident involving muslims, the left digs their heels in deeper and deeper and deeper. Sally Kohn was the poster girl for this phenomena during this go around. I can see it in my own little world. I sent a text message to my sister and nieces on our never ending text chain about how the Paris situation was horrible. CRICKETS. They have ignored me all day. Why? Because they sense in my sympathy with Paris, I am pointing out the muslim angle and therefore, I am being racist and they really hate it when Aunt Jane is racist because, except for her inexplicable conservative tendencies, she is a good gal. This whole Paris incident has disheartened me terribly. It feels like we are lambs to the slaughter. And it will have to get much, much worse and even then, I am not sure they will relinquish their liberal high ground.
Corrine Rey said she had returned from picking up her young daughter from a kindergarten when she was confronted by two heavily armed men wearing balaclavas.
‘I had gone to pick up my daughter at day care, arriving in front of the magazine building, where two masked and armed men brutally threatened us,’ said Ms Rey, who draws under the name ‘Coco’.
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 inter-phone.
Miss Rey and her daughter hid under a desk, from where they saw two other cartoonists being executed.
Years ago there was a story about an Israeli security guard who grappled a suicide bomber outside a supermarket where they both blew up. It is doubtful the guard did it for his salary; nobody dies for a pittance. It is doubtful that he even knew what he was going to do until he did it.
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except that the number of women that will do this is much much lower than the number of men that would.
even military wont admit what goes on. remember the split between the news of jessica lynch and what lynch said she did?
anotehr thing is that if a guy doesnt do it, his life is ruined by those who face him… if a woman doesnt, she gets a free ticket…
all one has to do is remember the white feather…
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as far as what happened… its barely news.
the news will chatter for a while,
the statists will try to lock down all of society in a bid not to focus on the issue
the masses will not be deported, or affected by it
the jews will flee to israel (oops, they have already started exodus 22)
christians will not be celebrated for their tolerance, and wonder why its not ok they go in and do similar to people that insult their faith, and get a pass for it
ultimately… its not even a speedbump on the road
and everyone knows that a speed bump is nothing if you go over it fast enough…
A trip to the fever swamp that is the “Democratic Underground” revealed what might be a Leftist sea change, because the denialists were rather marginalized, if not wagon encircled.
But among Leftist icon and the usual talking heads? US intellectuals on French TV and the rest are in full-on flying surrender monkey mode.
Take Howard Dean
“You know, this is a chronic problem,” Dean said. “I stopped calling these people Muslim terrorists. They’re about as Muslim as I am. I mean, they have no respect for whatever anybody else’s life. That’s not what the Koran says. You know, Europe has an enormous radical problem. I think ISIS is a cult, not an Islamist cult. I think it’s a cult. I think you got to deal with these people.”
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I suspect that howard dean knows what in the koran the same way that pelosi knows whats in the bible given her “catholicism”.
The Quran contains at least 109 verses that call Muslims to war with nonbelievers for the sake of Islamic rule.
Quran (2:191-193) – “And kill them wherever you find them, and turn them out from where they have turned you out. And Al-Fitnah is worse than killing…
Quran (2:216) – “Fighting is prescribed for you, and ye dislike it. But it is possible that ye dislike a thing which is good for you, and that ye love a thing which is bad for you. But Allah knoweth, and ye know not.”
Quran (3:151) – “Soon shall We cast terror into the hearts of the Unbelievers, for that they joined companions with Allah, for which He had sent no authority”.
Quran (4:89) – “They but wish that ye should reject Faith, as they do, and thus be on the same footing (as they): But take not friends from their ranks until they flee in the way of Allah (From what is forbidden). But if they turn renegades, seize them and slay them wherever ye find them; and (in any case) take no friends or helpers from their ranks.”
Quran (5:33) – “The punishment of those who wage war against Allah and His messenger and strive to make mischief in the land is only this, that they should be murdered or crucified or their hands and their feet should be cut off on opposite sides or they should be imprisoned; this shall be as a disgrace for them in this world, and in the hereafter they shall have a grievous chastisement”
Quran (8:12) – “I will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve. Therefore strike off their heads and strike off every fingertip of them”
Quran (8:15) – “O ye who believe! When ye meet those who disbelieve in battle, turn not your backs to them. Whoso on that day turneth his back to them, unless maneuvering for battle or intent to join a company, he truly hath incurred wrath from Allah, and his habitation will be hell, a hapless journey’s end.”
Quran (8:39) – “And fight with them until there is no more fitna and religion should be only for Allah”
Quran (8:57) – “If thou comest on them in the war, deal with them so as to strike fear in those who are behind them, that haply they may remember.”
Quran (8:67) – “It is not for a Prophet that he should have prisoners of war until he had made a great slaughter in the land…”
Quran (9:5) – “So when the sacred months have passed away, then slay the idolaters wherever you find them, and take them captive and besiege them and lie in wait for them in every ambush, then if they repent and keep up prayer and pay the poor-rate, leave their way free to them.”
Quran (9:30) – “And the Jews say: Ezra is the son of Allah; and the Christians say: The Messiah is the son of Allah; these are the words of their mouths; they imitate the saying of those who disbelieved before; may Allah destroy them; how they are turned away!”
Quran (9:123) – “O you who believe! fight those of the unbelievers who are near to you and let them find in you hardness.”
Quran (33:60-62) – “If the hypocrites, and those in whose hearts is a disease, and the alarmists in the city do not cease, We verily shall urge thee on against them, then they will be your neighbors in it but a little while. Accursed, they will be seized wherever found and slain with a (fierce) slaughter.”
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what version of the Koran has Dean read?
or others?
“How on earth was security lax enough at Charlie Hebdo for them to succeed?”
I am not sure that is a fair question. They had policemen. They had a cipher-lock security door. This would be enough to stop a knife-wielding attacker such as the one who killed Theo Van Gogh. I am not sure anything that leaves a vestige of normal life would be enough to stop two trained killers armed with military weaponry.
I’d be interested in hearing how the bad guys got their weapons. That might expose some interesting Muslim gun runners operating in Europe.
Yesterday I read an editorial in The Daily Barometer, the newspaper for Oregon State University praising free speech in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo incident that included the obligatory admonition that it shouldnt paint all Muslims with the same brush for the actions of the few. This, the editorial says, would be like painting all Christians as extremists with the same brush as the homophobic Westboro Baptist Church cretins.
I replied in the comment section that there isnt an equivalence here in that 1: There arent whole comparable Christian extremist organizations; no Al Qeada, not Boko Harum, no Hamas and no ISIS drawing converts from around the world. 2: The WBC hasnt killed anyone, least the tens and hundreds of victims at a time consistent with Muslim extremists.
The day prior they ran an extensive story with “man on the street” type interviews of students about whether or not Sony should have cancelled the movie “The Interview”. I suggested they do the same thing with their sizable Muslim student population, asking whether or not showing respect for mohammed trumps respect for host nation free speech traditions. I felt they might be surprised at what they found.
The comment section requires administer approval before publishing. I guess my comment didnt make the grade. So much for the column praising free speech I guess.
Or maybe we can simply look to sources in the former Soviet Union as the gun suppliers:
Semi-automatic and automatic firearms are banned [in France], but that hasn’t stopped drug dealers and terrorists from acquiring them in increasing numbers, according to the National Observatory for Delinquency, a state body created in 2003 by then-Interior Minister and later President Nicolas Sarkozy. The numbers of illegal weapons in France have increased by double digits for years, the body says.
“The French black market for weapons has been inundated with eastern European war artillery and arms,” said Philippe Capon, the head of UNSA police union. “They are everywhere in France.” AK-47s sell for 1,000 euros ($1,181) to 1,500 euros on the black market, he said.
Glen H:
If they expected only terrorists armed with knives they were woefully unprepared.
The security door seemed to have had no way of keying in an alarm if someone was under duress. I have read that this is standard operating procedure for security doors in a situation like that. It is also unclear how well-armed the guards were, and how many there were. It also appears to me that the staff at Charlie Hebdo had regular habits, such as this woman picking up her child at a certain time and bringing her to the office, and the regular Wednesday meetings of the entire staff at the same time/place each week.
(1) How on earth did the Kouachi brothers evade surveillance long enough to plan and execute these killings? They were well known to authorities.
Neo, I’d like you to explain this further if possible because it doesn’t make sense to me, and one of us is living in a dreamworld.
True, Cherif Kouachi was definitely on the radar screen of France’s anti-terrorist forces–along with hundreds or thousands of other suspects. Given his actions, Cherif Kouachi might have made it to the top 100 potential terrorists in France.
Then what? Do you imagine there is enough manpower to continuously surveil all of the top 100 all the time–while simultaneously keeping an eye on the next several hundred or thousand high-priority suspects? How does this work?
Mr Frank raised a good question about how they got their weapons. If French authorities had been more astute, they might have known about the gun-running and caught the Kouachi brothers when they arranged to get the guns. But they didn’t. France has a long coastline and long borders. It cannot prevent all importation of weaponry at all times.
Neo said, “It also appears to me that the staff at Charlie Hebdo had regular habits, such as this woman picking up her child at a certain time and bringing her to the office . . . ”
I was just going to say that the terrorists must have staked out the office and noted the time when this woman and her child routinely arrived. It could not have been just their good luck to arrive at the very moment when a target was there who knew the code and who they could be fairly sure would not resist. No matter how brave a woman might be on her own account, I doubt there are many mothers out there who could sacrifice a child under such circumstances.
As for Sophie’s Choice, I doubt if a more unbearably painful scene has ever been written into a movie. My children were about the same age as those in the movie when I saw it, and it haunted my nightmares long afterward.
Gary,
I don’t think it would take an inordinate amount of manpower, especially with electronic types of surveillance. This guy would have been a high target.
Of course, one of the problems is that there are so many such people who have already been let into the country and let out of prison that the task does become more and more difficult. But I would guess this guy, with his history, should have been very very much on the radar screen.
If drugs and people can be smuggled across loose borders; guns, rpgs, semtex, etc. can just as easily be smuggled across borders. Italy and France have tens of thousands of from North Africa and the ME illegally entering their territories annually, many of them seeking to cross the channel to the UK or travel north to the Scandinavian countries. As the ME and North Africa continue to unravel Europe can expect more of the same.
France and the UK have been welcoming citizens from former colonies under the guise of promoting the PC holy grail of multiculturalism. This policy came about because of guilt and to bring in workers to support the cradle to grave welfare progams for an aging population. Now the unintended consequences have arrived with an AK-47 in hand.
“The Jews of Paris have been leaving for years, as the climate there becomes more and more hostile to them. These recent incidents are a sign as to how right they were to do so…”
Where will the Jews go? The USA is following the French example of multiculturalism as fast as the left can facilitate the transport of entire Muslim communities here. Very soon these same things will happen on a routine basis here and Jews will be endangered here just as much as there.
The Muslims hope that most of the World’s Jews end up in Israel so they can gather them up to kill more easily. How many atomic bombs would it take to destroy Israel and kill millions of Jews all at one fell swoop?
Neo wrote:
I don’t think it would take an inordinate amount of manpower, especially with electronic types of surveillance. This guy would have been a high target.
Granted, Cherif Kouachi should have been “a high target.”
But what about his older brother or some other person in their network? All they’d need to do is make sure someone other than Cherif did the risky legwork–like obtaining the guns and carefully watching the Charlie Hebdo office to note patterns and weaknesses.
If the people doing this preparation were not already high-priority suspects (eg the 18 year old driver?), electronic surveillance would not have helped: GPS trackers, cell phone monitoring, facial recognition, etc all require you to specify the target in advance (except for mass monitoring of cell phones; but that can be thwarted by using coded language, or not using cell phones at all).
After the fact, people always say the authorities should have known. At that point, everything seems obvious, but that’s not how it looks before the fact. Prior to an event like this, the authorities are looking for a needle in 50 haystacks, not knowing who will do what, when, where and how–day after day after day when nothing happens.
To me, the question is not how something like this can happen. Rather, the question is why it doesn’t happen more often. Sorry to be such a downer.
History abounds in sad irony:
The brothers were of Algerian descent.
The “Charlie” in Charlie Hebdo came from the Charlie Brown character in Peanuts and is also a reference to Charles de Gaulle. Charlie Hebdo’s immediate predecessor magazine was banned for mocking the death of de Gaulle.
De Gaulle was not gentle in response to a bloody insurrection in Sétif in French Algeria in 1945.
“And above all is the overriding question: what on earth will it take for the West to wake up?”
Put me in mind of this: “… wake up, time to die… (Blade Runner). We can hope that the result will be as prompt as that in the movie.
“And above all is the overriding question: what on earth will it take for the West to wake up?”
Many of us are already aware. You, Neo, simply by asking that question (QED) and your numerous comments also most, if not all, of the commenters here for the same reason.
The problem is not the West waking up, but expunging a dysfunctional (progressive) political elite. It matters not how aware the workers are. As long as the inept boss’s son is in charge the company is going down the tubes.
The Germans were never able to wake up the great patriotic German body of the vaterland and patriotism, even though they tried to kill the Nazi cancer more than once.
Will America follow the same way? Will American Imperialism finally dawn on the world, except began by Leftists desiring a slave empire?