I can't believe we're just gonna casually
watch someone get murdered.
What is this, Detroit?
--The Final Girls (2015)
Money talks very loudly
You'd be surprised the friends you can buy
with small change
--Money Talks,
J. J. Cale
He was a man who had read everything,
and understood nothing
--John Cleese
________________________
The
media are calling the recent Paris attacks an act of war. French
President Hollande says the nation's response will be "pitiless".
Unfortunately, these killings were simply another primitive terror incident carried out by non-state players, with simple explosives and individual weapons. It was a terror attack because the perpetrators did not have more sophisticated assets. If they did they would have used them.
Terror is the tool of the weak in a world of militarily powerful nation states.
Terrorism is not warfare. It is criminal activity. If it were warfare, then the players would be covered as legitimate combatants under the Geneva Conventions; they are not. They are consistently misrepresented as "militia" along with all the other related emotion-laden appellations.
Yet the fact remains: they are simple criminals unworthy of the title "combatant". Terrorism is not warfare, nor is warfare, terrorism. Just because we call terrorism "an act of war" does not make it so. We are not Captain Jean-Luc Picard.
[Cross-posted @ RangerAgainstWar.]
Unfortunately, these killings were simply another primitive terror incident carried out by non-state players, with simple explosives and individual weapons. It was a terror attack because the perpetrators did not have more sophisticated assets. If they did they would have used them.
Terror is the tool of the weak in a world of militarily powerful nation states.
Terrorism is not warfare. It is criminal activity. If it were warfare, then the players would be covered as legitimate combatants under the Geneva Conventions; they are not. They are consistently misrepresented as "militia" along with all the other related emotion-laden appellations.
Yet the fact remains: they are simple criminals unworthy of the title "combatant". Terrorism is not warfare, nor is warfare, terrorism. Just because we call terrorism "an act of war" does not make it so. We are not Captain Jean-Luc Picard.
[Cross-posted @ RangerAgainstWar.]
Daesh is not monolothic.
ReplyDelete- loudmouth supporters far from warzones
- errorists far from warzones
- zealot civil war troops (some of them are the "beheading" types)
- mercenary civil war troops (not "Islamic" at all)
- leaders (those who exploit the idiots)
This is too complicated for almost all Western news media reports, of course.
Aux armes citoyens !
ReplyDeleteThis is not a call; French citizens are already heavily armed (hunters, sport shooters…); a French ‘National Guard’ (Territorial Defence) already enlisted.
I appreciate your feminization of the French national anthem!
In French, the plural (which is sexist at times) is masculine when we take into account both (or all) genders.
Your writing is the most correct denomination for all anthems.
Women are the mothers that give birth to us.
Marianne is the national symbol of the French Republic. The iconic representation of ‘the Mother of the Nation’.
Mamayev Kurgan…
France has chosen a path in history (free, democratic, multi ethnic society…).
It will never collapse like USSR, Yugoslavia or Czechoslovakia.
Some other worthy blogs have rightly pointed that (t)errorism is not the first cause of death in France (or other societies). That is correct. And heavy information campaigns against tobacco, alcohol, fat, salt, sugar or other drug addictions are already in place (and evolving).
The above mentioned cartoon is sadly a representation of some dark aspects of our souls.
Fortunately, anthropology, psychology and philosophy demonstrate that Humanity is not that dark, quite the opposite.
Now, I dissent.
(t)Errorism is warfare.
It is just one aspect of the multidimensional spectrum of the Special War (that existed during the Cold War or other wars).
It might be perpetrated by ISIS, and credited on someone else’s account, that wishes to see France on its knees.
France sends a clear message to the World:
‘… to our Friends and Enemies alike; there is no bargaining when it comes to the very existence of the French Nation and Its Territorial Integrity’.
Flowers always grow from the blood of the fallen innocents.
Anon,
ReplyDeleteSince you reference the spectrum of war lets use that to descibe Terrorism.
Terrorism is a level 1 threat which equates to a activity just right above organized criminality.This used to be US Army doctrine before we became war crazed.
This means that it's just below or low in the low intensity conflict theory.
Do we bomb Italy because we have mafia in NYC?
Thanks for expressing your position.
jim
Thank you for your reply.
ReplyDeleteTo answer your question: of course not.
Mafia is organized crime of any nationality; it is not specifically Italian in nature.
And one could easily say that mafias (e.g. Mexican drug war) with their large spectrum of activities, is more damageable to a society than terrorist attacks.
All citizens cannot be hold responsible for the action of a minority.
I meant that we are talking the same things since 9/11:
Special War (theory/doctrine)
It used to be called like that during the ‘Cold War’.
Then it was reformulated… fantasized.
Special war in itself is a war of aggression, which consists of a large array of organized complex activities on the ideological, cultural, research, economical, psychological, propaganda, diplomatic, political, intelligence, subversive and military fields; that is used against a society, with the intention of conquering or submitting that society/nation.
Subversive and (t)errorist activities (theory/doctrine)
Mass murder, kidnapping, mail and telephone threats, poisoning …
Is only one of the many components of the Special War (we were used to during the Cold War). It intends to establish fear and insecurity among the population and the institutions.
But those activists/(t)errorists are (self) conscious that such acts ‘cannot radically change the politics in a society, nor a society.’
So, those operatives tend to spread fear among the population and they try to shake the state institutions which seem to be unable to ‘protect their citizens against subversive/(t)errorist attacks’.
That type of warfare was (or is still) used in the recent Ukrainian conflict.
But it is correct; we could just substitute the word ‘terrorism’ with ‘mafia’.
Do drones, smart bombs or cruise missiles are legally employed within a (legal) framework?
The cartoon above suggests that the two forms of killing are, ceteris paribus, the same.
That is why millions of people are left homeless.
The emotional reactions after the Paris attacks have even prompted a few obscurantist reactions inspired by the ‘Lausanne Peace Treaty VI. Convention Concerning the Exchange of Greek and Turkish Populations Signed at Lausanne, January 30, 1923. ’
Best regards,
S.
Not sure I'd draw such a bright line, Jim. Certainly these urban masscal events are more like crime than war...but haven't armies used terror? Think Genghis and his pyramid of skulls, Sherman's bummers...Curtis LeMay said that if the Allies had lost he fully expected to be hanged as a criminal for the fire raids. What were Rotterdam and Dresden if not "terror"?
ReplyDeleteOn the other side of the fence...weren't SOE and the OSS soldiers? But they used terror techniques. The IRA were terrorists in the Oughts and Teens before the Easter Rising but formed the core of the Irish Army of the Civil War. The Tamil Tigers were terrorists with an air force and a navy!
So while I agree the the "war" rhetoric is a flag of convenience to justify French air war over Syria and that this crime was just that...I think the larger question of "what is war and what is crime/terror" is more complicated and less black-white than you've pictured it...
And speaking of war...suddenly control of the Dardanelles is as important in 2015 as it was in 1915;
ReplyDeletehttp://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a39974/turkey-russia-fighter-plane/
Chief,
ReplyDeleteYou are correct, but when state armies use terror then we have laws for that also.
Remember war crimes and crimes against humanity?
I fear that this craziness is gonna get outta control.
jim
I'm not sure if it's a case of things "getting" out of control, jim. I think what's going on is that the notion of making "terrorism" into "war" is a useful construct for governments that would like to have some authoritarian powers but are notionally constrained. Or, sometimes, it's a matter of wanting to "do something" to impress the proles that something is being done but knowing perfectly well that there really ISN'T anything useful to BE "done".
DeleteThe other thing is that the 24/7 infotainment industry makes it difficult to escape these spectacles and blows them way the hell out of proportion. Think of it this way;
The murder rate in the US averages out to about 40-some murders a day. So the entire body count in Paris comes out to about three-and-a-half days regular busywork here in the US. In 2008 Frenchmen killed 839 other Frenchmen, or about 2.5 dead Frenchies per day, so the toll for Paris would have taken ther fellow Frenchmen about two months to equal. On the other hand, more than 3,000 French people were nailed on the highway, making the IS crew's harvest no more than a couple of weeks on the autoroute...
So regardless of WHAT you call this stuff, getting our panties in a twist about it is about as sensible as being paranoid about the risks of commercial air travel. The reality is that driving to and from the airport is something like 1,000 times deadlier than flying in or out of it. But we don't think that way, because, frankly, we tend to overestimate the risk of unlikely but spectacular hazards and underestimate those of familiar hazards...
Chief,
ReplyDeleteYou are correct, but when state armies use terror then we have laws for that also.
Remember war crimes and crimes against humanity?
I fear that this craziness is gonna get outta control.
jim
I think Jim has the right of it...the Paris attacks, broadly laid out, were still for the most part so much like the earlier late 60's, 70s, early 80's Bader meinhoff, Red-Brigade, et al.
ReplyDeleteAs an aside, giving a lot of press to these guys also happens to elevate ISIS amongst inactive/unmotivated Islamist...however that works, I have no idea, but for some strange reason it does.
If we treat them like criminals perhaps we can lower the charm-appeal, and keep the arm-chair Jihadist inactive/unmotivated.
At least I think we can...to be honest, I'm not even sure anymore.
The world has gone crazy, and it just seems like we're B-lining it to WWIII.
Oy, sorry, sheerahkahn here.
DeleteCrazier than the Black Death, sheer? Crazier than the Albigensian Crusade, or the Mongol invasions of Europe? Crazier than the wave of death and civilization collapse that swept Africa after the 1800s and the Americas after 1492? Crazier than WW1, or WW2, or the Thirty Years' War?
DeleteLet me put it this way. Think about the average FDChief or sheerahkhan family in 1200AD. What were the sort of things that were likely to spoil their day?
Epidemic disease? Check or hold?
Check.
Famine? Check. Random rape or murder at the hands of outlaws or the neighboring feudal lord's men-at-arms on a raid? Check. Peonage? Check. Poverty? Check. Death from minor injuries or childbirth followed by fatal infection? Check. Massive infant mortality? Check. Powerlessness in a feudal society? Check.
Now look at us. Do we have problems and troubles? Check. Are they anything as horrible or threatening at those?
Hold.
No. Our world today is nothing like the frighteningly uncertain, dangerous, and unpredictable (to the ordinary person) world of the 13th Century. So the world hasn't actually "gone crazy". The troubles and problems the world has - outside the massive problem we've created for ourselves in the form of anthropogenic global warming, pollution, and extinction - are no different from those it has always had; wars and rumors of wars, bad government, sickness, natural disasters...
BUT...in 1200 we didn't know all of that stuff. We would be lucky if we had news from the nearest city. The "outside world" would have been vague rumors and tales from random travelers. Now we get all those various horrors beamed straight into our lives 24/7 by an infotainment industry that has every reason to make us as frightened and whacko as possible.
The raggedy jihadis of IS, the tattered armies of Syria, the unruly clans of Somalia and Mali...these aren't "WW3". They're the same old troubles the world has always had...just all thrown at us like they are some sort of huge cataclysm.
They're not, and we should really act like it.
sheer,
ReplyDeleteWe don't treat them as criminals.
THEY ARE CRIMINALS.
Name a crime that T's perpertrate that is not covered by the laws of all civilized societies.
jim hruska
sheer,
ReplyDeleteWe don't treat them as criminals.
THEY ARE CRIMINALS.
Name a crime that T's perpertrate that is not covered by the laws of all civilized societies.
jim hruska
Sheer,
ReplyDeletethere are many differences between the eurogroups and todays favor of the week.
the euro groups believed in the western concept of the state , and it's doubtful that the ISIL types have this same frame of reference.
also isil has never attempted to negotiate for anything. they strike and it's that simple.they don't negotiate.
the euro groups shared our values to a great extent, although we are reluctant to admit this.
jim hruska
I dunno, jim. I see some pretty critical similarities between the two.
DeleteThe Red underground groups were 1) often part of a loose ideological network - Communist rather than Islamic - similar to the jihadi groups of today, and 2) attacking the Western European states in hopes of both showing the weakness of the governments AND provoking crackdowns that they thought would radicalize workers and young people (in the case of the Reds and Middle Eastern/North African minorities (in the case of the jihadis).
And in the case of IS there's a very definite commitment to the Westphalian state - hell, they're CALLED the "Islamic State" - although they put it in terms of the early Muslim-period Caliphate rather than what we think of as a secular state. Some of the other jihadi groups are less about gaining and holding ground but the IS very definitely is.
And my memory may not serve me well here but I don't remember the Red terror groups "negotiating" for much of anything. Their criminal acts were pure terror theatre designed to push the governments and nations they struck towards the ends the Reds wanted. The jihadi groups are similar in intent, only their ends are different. They want to radicalize the domestic muslims in their target states AND they want to provoke a military reaction from those states in the Middle East so as to radicalize the local muslims there...
And I'd argue that the jihadis do share a good bit of "our" values...just not those of us libtards. Instead they share the xenophobic, theocratic, mysogynistic values of the Oath Keepers, of the Operation Rescue terrorists, of the Trump Silvershirts, of the militias. Between them they could have a lovely little auto-de-fe, roasting homos, uppity wimmens, black bucks on food stamps...the only place they'd disagree would be on WHICH heretics went to the fire...
Sheer,
ReplyDeletethere are many differences between the eurogroups and todays favor of the week.
the euro groups believed in the western concept of the state , and it's doubtful that the ISIL types have this same frame of reference.
also isil has never attempted to negotiate for anything. they strike and it's that simple.they don't negotiate.
the euro groups shared our values to a great extent, although we are reluctant to admit this.
jim hruska