BREAKING NEWS: Large Scale Terrorist Attack in France -- Multiple Explosions, Gunfire! Death toll at - Polidicks

[QUOTE=Te Great Skeeve;49119575]A religious debate seems perfectly reasonable in this instance, since it is the root cause of the event.[/QUOTE] a religous debate is fine. I was remarking how on many sites people instead just spew hate on muslims. Just here on my campus some girl (athiest) bought coffee from starbucks hot, and went and dumped it on some random muslim girl unprovoked yesterday. I am trying to say there is a difference between criticism and hate speech.

[QUOTE=da space core;49119584]a religous debate is fine. I was remarking how on many sites people instead just spew hate on muslims. Just here on my campus some girl (athiest) bought coffee from starbucks hot, and went and dumped it on some random muslim girl unprovoked yesterday. I am trying to say there is a difference between criticism and hate speech.[/QUOTE] Holy fuck I hope that some girl gets prosecuted for that. Hot coffee can leave some serious burns on a person.

[QUOTE=da space core;49119558]The problem with people criticizing islam is that often they insult muslims (the people themselves) instead of the actual religion. I am not trying to start a religious debate here, but we can all agree that every religion has its own valid issues. The problem that I see a lot (particularly on facebook, youtube comments, /pol/, etc) is that instead of actually saying anything about islam itself, people say "Muslims are terrorists, Muslims are bad" etc etc. You go and directly offend a lot of people. there is a difference between criticizing Islam and insulting its followers, and its really sickening that many people don't see a difference [editline]15th November 2015[/editline] hate to use anecdotal evidence but I know many, many people who are islamic and are not like this, some from my own family. Heck my roommate is muslim and is gay himself. its also funny how you guys fall back on a handful of cherrypicked videos to "proof" that "all muslims cant X"[/QUOTE] Believe it or not you are actually the one cherry picking. Go look up official statistics on Muslims that support strict sharia law, implementing archaic capital punishment, or view favorably/neutrally the actions of radical groups. The amount of neutral inaction and not condemning such practices in 2015 is still a concern people should have. Also let's be real here, having a whole conference room of people raising their hands in support for stoning at a Norwegian University is surprising even if anecdotal. They should be the most exposed to western culture and thus should have shown what true moderate Islam is in the modern society. Obviously there are nice muslims, but they are outliers that have joined mainstream customs and learned how to adapt.

[QUOTE=da space core;49119558] hate to use anecdotal evidence but I know many, many people who are islamic and are not like this, some from my own family. Heck my roommate is muslim and is gay himself. its also funny how you guys fall back on a handful of cherrypicked videos to "proof" that "all muslims cant X"[/QUOTE] [URL="http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2013/04/daily-chart-20?fsrc=scn/tw/te/dc/Shariadolikeit"]It's not anecdotal for the most part. [/URL] it would be an anecdote if the video represented a minority of muslims.

Holy fuck, no wonder so many of my Instagram feed is #PrayForFrance this situation is fucked

[QUOTE=Te Great Skeeve;49118500]While researching, I found this [URL]http://www.spiegel.de/international/the-future-of-terrorism-what-al-qaida-really-wants-a-369448.html[/URL] Skip to "An Islamic Caliphate in Seven Easy Steps" Then note the date. Obviously not going to happen, but... geez[/QUOTE] I predict that Total Confrontation will probably come in the form of riots amongst refugee camps because of awful conditions when there is no more room to support them properly. Take a few extremist inside Europe and they'll rile up the refugees, creating a civil war. In any case, however it will happen, the sixth phase will be inevitable. ISIS cannot be destroyed without a war happening. As for the seventh phase, that is as of yet written in the stars. Personally, I think it will never happen, because they have barely even touched the US or Russia with their actions, and given the Sixth phase occurs, they will surely be swiftly destroyed.

[QUOTE=proboardslol;49118924]I think all Abrahamic religions are fucked up. They statutorily teach all kinds of shit that's bad like stoning people to death and owning slavery. The difference is that Islamic cultures is like 500 years behind the culture of christian countries. Christians committed the same crimes against humanity that Islam did, but they did it 500 years ago (or less). I think all religion is bad, really. You can call me "edgy" or whatever, but I'm an atheist so what would you expect me to say? Christians think Atheism is wrong, so Atheists likewise think religion is wrong. But I still don't believe that Islam is the root cause. Secular dictatorships in backward-ass countries repress the kind of sectarian differences that could be solved through democratic discourse, so the pressure swells until the only solution to these contradictions is violence. I don't know what our short term strategy should be, but building up infrastructure in tribal areas and having heavier policing may be our long term goal. The US is actually good at keeping the peace once we've toppled a regime (takes like, a couple months to actually do so). The issue is the money and political capital runs out and when we leave we've not really put in a better system than the one that was there after we toppled to capital. Problem is that building infrastructure is extremely expensive (worked in Korea, though!). If we needed Syria or Iraq or Afghanistan as buffer states that we could place anti-ICBM installations in, perhaps there'd be more funding to building the infrastructure of these countries but until then the only feasible solution is to essentially colonize these countries and keep American peace-keeping troops there indefinitely.[/QUOTE] "can you tip that fedora any harder?" I'm totally agnostic, it's hard to believe in any religion that disregards nonbelievers. But I hate how it's so looked down upon to be against religions, and more specifically the extremists. Conservative christians get shat on all the time for their retarded opinions on abortion, lgbt rights, etc. I don't understand why islam gets a free pass on being much more harmful for basic human decency.

[QUOTE=EcksDee;49119734][URL="http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2013/04/daily-chart-20?fsrc=scn/tw/te/dc/Shariadolikeit"]It's not anecdotal for the most part. [/URL] it would be an anecdote if the video represented a minority of muslims.[/QUOTE] its interesting how the highest percentages are all in politically unstable countries riddled with problems like terrorism, broken economies, etc [url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_by_country[/url] the first 5 countries on your source of sharia law support make up less than ~15 percent of the worlds population of muslims. the entire chart about ~30 percent (im doing mental math at 3 AM here, but I feel my numbers are in a good ballpark) My original argument stands. I firmly believe that it is the political turmoil in these countries after so much fighting for political power, oil, and war that lead the rise of extremism. As the education systems in many of these countries collapsed, its no surprise that extremism easily came to flourish. Extremists took Islam and are using it to further their own goals (read: ISIS, Alqueda, or any terrorist organization). The point is any other religion would have ended up like this were they in the same circumstances. Heck you don't even need religion, Nazism gave rise from strong nationalism and from poor conditions in Germany. I am simply restating the arguments made before on this thread. The best way to deal with these issues is to turn those third world countries into first world countries. Civil rights is such an foreign idea in those countries (that are yes, predominantly muslim but not representative of muslims worldwide) that we ended up with the results that you posted.

i sometimes wonder if full occupation of the area could be done in a way that is constructive for everyone involved. it seemed to do japan well after WW2 and while i know those are two different situations it really seems like the middle east is in a pickle that it won't be able to get out of on its own

If you people really are serious about increasing western military presence in the middle east because of this attack then good job the terrorists won. Considering that is exactly what ISIS want.

[QUOTE=RainbowStalin;49119877]If you people really are serious about increasing western military presence in the middle east because of this attack then good job the terrorists won. Considering that is exactly what ISIS want.[/QUOTE] Not exactly, what ISIS wants is for us to become more islamaphobic so that we turn more people to their cause of fighting the west. Going into the east and being there purely to cleanse of it ISIS and other extremist organizations is not "letting the terrorists win". We can do that without becoming islamophobic to an extreme degree. Its a complex situation though, as many tenets of Islam need to be modernized or ignored for it to work in the western world. I don't really understand enough of the whole situation to pass a judgement any one way, tbh.

[QUOTE=RainbowStalin;49119877]If you people really are serious about increasing western military presence in the middle east because of this attack then good job the terrorists won. Considering that is exactly what ISIS want.[/QUOTE] As opposed to sitting on our asses for the most part and doing jack like we did the past year, allowing them to grow in power.

[QUOTE=da space core;49119804][B]its interesting how the highest percentages are all in politically unstable countries riddled with problems like terrorism, broken economies, etc [/B] [URL]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_by_country[/URL] the first 5 countries on your source of sharia law support make up less than ~15 percent of the worlds population of muslims. the entire chart about ~30 percent (im doing mental math at 3 AM here, but I feel my numbers are in a good ballpark) My original argument stands. I firmly believe that it is the political turmoil in these countries after so much fighting for political power, oil, and war that lead the rise of extremism. As the education systems in many of these countries collapsed, its no surprise that extremism easily came to flourish. Extremists took Islam and are using it to further their own goals (read: ISIS, Alqueda, or any terrorist organization). The point is any other religion would have ended up like this were they in the same circumstances. Heck you don't even need religion, Nazism gave rise from strong nationalism and from poor conditions in Germany. I am simply restating the arguments made before on this thread. The best way to deal with these issues is to turn those third world countries into first world countries. Civil rights is such an foreign idea in those countries (that are yes, predominantly muslim but not representative of muslims worldwide) that we ended up with the results that you posted.[/QUOTE] You also kinda missed the point. The study isn't supposed to be a comprehensive research paper of every predominantly muslim country. It's to show trends. And the very clear trend is that the more a country is muslim, the larger a percentage of its inhabitants believe in the literal application of Sharia law. I mean honestly, do you think that places like Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria and India are gonna be liberal bastions of "Don't ever jihad" just because they're not represented in the [URL="http://www.pewforum.org/2013/04/30/the-worlds-muslims-religion-politics-society-overview/"]original report?[/URL]

in retrospect i'm not sure what people were supposed to expect when your only presence in an area comes in air strikes. while the idea of having soldiers on the ground is difficult to swallow, it does go quite a lot farther towards winning the ideological battle than blowing up enemy troops that the civillians in the area will either never hear about or will be (mis)represented as attacks on innocents in a propaganda move. it doesn't seem like it would be that difficult to appear as the good guys as compared to ISIS if what i've heard what they do to civillian populations is true.

[QUOTE=lordofdafood;49118104]So this petition has sky rocketed in signatures since all this kicked off [url]https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/107516[/url] - will be interesting to see the outcome of this[/QUOTE] okay I understand the blocking of refugees( not saying dis/agree with it) but closing down the border would be fucking dump [editline]15th November 2015[/editline] [QUOTE=lordofdafood;49118104]So this petition has sky rocketed in signatures since all this kicked off [url]https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/107516[/url] - will be interesting to see the outcome of this[/QUOTE] okay I understand the blocking of refugees( not saying dis/agree with it) but closing down the border would be fucking dump

[QUOTE=da space core;49119804]My original argument stands. I firmly believe that it is the political turmoil in these countries after so much fighting for political power, oil, and war that lead the rise of extremism. As the education systems in many of these countries collapsed, its no surprise that extremism easily came to flourish. Extremists took Islam and are using it to further their own goals (read: ISIS, Alqueda, or any terrorist organization). The point is any other religion would have ended up like this were they in the same circumstances. Heck you don't even need religion, Nazism gave rise from strong nationalism and from poor conditions in Germany. [/QUOTE] Your attempt to draw comparisons between those who hold extremist views now and the Nazism is flawed. The Nazis did not film the mass murders and distribute that film in a manner most everyone would have access to, or widely publicize in any other way the mass killings. Further, there is a vast difference between living in a nation that is performing atrocities and agreeing with/supporting them (not to mention the Nazis came to power with only around a third of vote, then abolished the election process in 1934). When, in this "information age" you have people who support killing anyone who wants to change their religion, that has absolutely nothing to do with economic issues or political turmoil as neither of those things turn people into mindless idiots. People do resort to crime and violence out of necessity; that has no equation to supporting the killing of people who make cartoons or insult a religion in some way. Also, note the word supporting. A desperate person may very well join ISIS, or another terror group, to make enough money to get by. That is very distinct from supporting the actions ISIS takes. When you have surveys showing support for these things (even in western countries), there's a problem deeper than economic status or political stability. Though, I do agree that education is a key problem, in the sense that young impressionable people are being "educated" in the ways of extremism. People don't just think of radical religious extremism on their own; removing the influence of the existing extremist who are indoctrinating people would be a step forward even without introducing alternative education. The problem is, such a prospect is quite hard given the internet (though, that does go both ways).

I don't get why Hollande called the attacks an "act of war" when France is already at war with ISIS. Seems like a very weird thing to say.

[QUOTE=Kljunas;49120504]I don't get why Hollande called the attacks an "act of war" when France is already at war with ISIS. Seems like a very weird thing to say.[/QUOTE] I'd say that he didn't take it seriously up until now. Or as serious as he should have.

Muslim extremists kill hundreds of innocent civilians in a bloodthirsty massacre. But remember, these people are being oppressed by bigoted cartoons. And it doesn't [B]have[/B] to be [B]all[/B] Muslims, either. That's such a ridiculous statement to make, and it's only there to destroy any talk about this. The Religion of Peace, everybody. Free speech isn't free speech when it criticizes my religion. Especially when that religion tells me to kill you if you don't stop disagreeing with me.

People are being evacuated from "Place de la République". Looks like they heard gunshots, or explosion, it's a big mess right now...

Yeah, I was just watching a live news report and they were told to shut down and move away.

yep.

Looks like a false alert. Phew.

Watching BBC it still looks like everyone is in confusion.

Russian news reported one man injured and unconfirmed rumours about initia gunshot sounds - reporter on site could only notice people hiding and running from square. Mass Panic?

I think from what I am gathering from flicking between the major news outlets is that someone saw a gun on a plain clothes police officer, they probably panicked which everyone else in turn did. Edit: Was caused by firecrackers apparently.

[QUOTE=gman003-main;49118767][url=http://www.cracked.com/blog/6-ways-to-keep-terrorists-from-ruining-world/]I think a lot of people posting here could benefit from reading this[/url]. It made a lot of the points I've been trying to make, in a much better expressed way.[/QUOTE] I don't get this at all. The author's entire argument is that ISIS is some Saturday morning cartoon villain whose goal is to make people fight. Not something reasonable like seize power for themselves, or even counter-intuitive but logical and supportable like incite backlash from the West to fulfill the Qur'an's apocalypse predictions (which will require ISIS to get almost wiped out before Jesus appears to lead them to victory), but that their real goal is to incite violence and as long as people are fighting, they win. Then the flipside is that if we turn the other cheek and come together and sing Kumbaya, we win. Seriously? I don't know where to begin to describe how utterly stupid it is to seriously assert, without any evidence or logical support, that the goal of terrorists is some kind of Faustian temptation to make people commit violence. The author casually brushes it off with 'many of you are going to disagree with me but whatever', then makes six arguments pretty much based on the idea that fighting = bad and killing ISIS = ISIS wins. And more than that, the idea that we should turn our cheek and be the better man is not only never properly argued as the morally justified course of action, there's no argument whatsoever as to how it will actually solve the problem of religious extremism. All he's offering is the same kind of condescending moralizing that I [url=https://facepunch.com/showthread.php?t=1493581&p=49115855&viewfull=1#post49115855]talked about in a previous post[/url]. We'll keep score because the score is the lives lost to unprovoked attacks. We'll get even because it's the only way to stop the attacks from reoccurring. I am not one of those 'NUKE THE SAVAGES' people. I don't call for violence because I have a personal grudge and want to get even. Frankly, I feel sorry for the thousands of ordinary people caught up in a cause that has manipulated them into violence. But I'm saying military action is inevitable, because nothing else will stop the leadership that drives the movement. They have no demands we can meet, no conditions that will result in peace, because their breed of extremism leaves no room for cooperation or co-existence with our way of life. The only way we will reach peace in this scenario is if ISIS is nullified as a credible threat- not wiped out to the last man, not rounded up and slaughtered in the streets, but their leaders killed or imprisoned and their statehood dissolved. And so far nobody has presented a way to do that that doesn't involve boots on the ground, be they ours or allies supplied by us (like the Kurds). Si vis pacem, para bellum. If you want peace, prepare for war. I come to this conclusion very reluctantly because war is so extraordinarily expensive and damaging to any nation that participates, but I don't see any other way- and no amount of self-righteous moral grandstanding from spectators changes that.

[QUOTE=catbarf;49121734]I don't get this at all. The author's entire argument is that ISIS is some Saturday morning cartoon villain whose goal is to make people fight. Not something reasonable like seize power for themselves, or even counter-intuitive but logical and supportable like incite backlash from the West to fulfill the Qur'an's apocalypse predictions (which will require ISIS to get almost wiped out before Jesus appears to lead them to victory), but that their real goal is to incite violence and as long as people are fighting, they win. Then the flipside is that if we turn the other cheek and come together and sing Kumbaya, we win. Seriously? I don't know where to begin to describe how utterly stupid it is to seriously assert, without any evidence or logical support, that the goal of terrorists is some kind of Faustian temptation to make people commit violence. The author casually brushes it off with 'many of you are going to disagree with me but whatever', then makes six arguments pretty much based on the idea that fighting = bad and killing ISIS = ISIS wins. And more than that, the idea that we should turn our cheek and be the better man is not only never properly argued as the morally justified course of action, there's no argument whatsoever as to how it will actually solve the problem of religious extremism.[/QUOTE] You seem to have mistaken the intent of that article. It was an argument against the knee-jerk kill-the-bastards reaction that literally everyone has to terrorist attacks, and 90%+ don't even think about going past. In other words, violence is not the solution. Violence may be [I]part[/I] of the solution, but if your "planning" is simply figuring out the best way to inflict violence, all you're doing is perpetuating the cycle. "They" kill some of "us", so "we" go kill some of "them". Do you think a man in Aleppo whose son was killed by a drone strike is going to think "oh, they were just enacting justice for that time some other people shot up their concert"? No, he's going to have that same knee-jerk "they killed my people, let's make them pay" reaction that we're going through right now. Even if that son actually [I]was[/I] in ISIS, it's just inviting further reprisal, unless you're doing other things to dampen the positive-feedback loop of vengeance. [QUOTE=catbarf;49121734]All he's offering is the same kind of condescending moralizing that I [url=https://facepunch.com/showthread.php?t=1493581&p=49115855&viewfull=1#post49115855]talked about in a previous post[/url]. We'll keep score because the score is the lives lost to unprovoked attacks. We'll get even because it's the only way to stop the attacks from reoccurring.[/QUOTE] The point you clearly failed to see was that [I]it will not stop the attacks from reoccurring[/I]. Terrorism is far too easy to commit with modern technology. Three hundred years ago, a pair of gunmen shooting up civilians would have been able to get off two shots before it devolved into melee. Now you can empty a magazine in seconds and, in a target-rich environment, kill dozens. As long as there is an urge to do so, it [I]will[/I] happen, and you can't kill our way out of the cycle of vengeance. [QUOTE=catbarf;49121734]I am not one of those 'NUKE THE SAVAGES' people. I don't call for violence because I have a personal grudge and want to get even. Frankly, I feel sorry for the thousands of ordinary people caught up in a cause that has manipulated them into violence. But I'm saying military action is inevitable, because nothing else will stop the leadership that drives the movement. They have no demands we can meet, no conditions that will result in peace, because their breed of extremism leaves no room for cooperation or co-existence with our way of life.[/QUOTE] Except we have seen quite clearly that killing the leadership does not stop them. How many times did we kill al-Quaeda's second-in-command over the past decade? It doesn't take much training to lead a terrorist movement - if you can manage a McDonald's franchise, you're probably qualified to lead ISIS. [QUOTE=catbarf;49121734]Si vis pacem, para bellum. If you want peace, prepare for war. I come to this conclusion very reluctantly because war is so extraordinarily expensive and damaging to any nation that participates, but I don't see any other way- and no amount of self-righteous moral grandstanding from spectators changes that.[/QUOTE] If war and [I]war alone[/I] is the only option you can think of, you have stopped thinking too quickly. Both because it will not actually work, and because there are actual other options that will, given time.

You can't really diplomacy your way out of a fight with a terrorist nation so I don't see how that's an answer other than an idealogically flawed one.

[QUOTE=HumanAbyss;49122032]You can't really diplomacy your way out of a fight with a terrorist nation so I don't see how that's an answer other than an idealogically flawed one.[/QUOTE] Diplomacy is a method to create peace. You cant directly call for diplomacy for a group that's sole existence and purpose is violence.