Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
First-Hand Account From The Terrorist Attack on Charlie Hebdo
If I sound incoherent, it’s because I am shaken. The reasons will be obvious.
I had no intention of reporting on this from the scene of the Charlie Hebdo massacre. I was walking up Boulevard Richard Lenoir to meet a friend who lives in the neighborhood. But the moment I saw what I did, I knew for sure what had happened. A decade in Turkey teaches you that. That many ambulances, that many cops, that many journalists, and those kinds of faces can mean only one thing: a massive terrorist attack.
I also knew from the location just who’d been attacked: Charlie Hebdo, the magazine known for many things, but, above all, for its fearlessness in publishing caricatures of Mohamed. They’d been firebombed for this in 2011, but their response — in effect — was the only one free men would ever consider: “As long as we’re alive, you’ll never shut us up.”
They are no longer alive. They managed to shut them up.
The only thing I didn’t immediately know was how many of them had died.
All of them, it seems, or close enough. So did two police officers who had been assigned to protect their offices. Twelve are dead for sure; I assume that number will rise; seven are seriously injured. It was at the time I was there unclear how many were wounded.
And the attackers are still at large.
Given that two police officers are dead, now doesn’t seem the time to say what comes to mind about the fact that the assailants escaped. It will say this much though: if they’re not dead before nightfall, I’ll say exactly what comes to mind, respect for the dead be damned.
I did what I could as a journalist but — since it wasn’t my plan to be one — I was there with neither a camera nor even a notebook. And it didn’t seem the time to ask the police to prioritize me. There were more than enough journalists on the scene and I doubt I’d have done better than they will.
What we know is this: at least two masked attackers. Kalashnikovs. Gunmen who shouted, “We have avenged the Prophet Muhammad.” Rumors of a rocket launcher, but I suspect we should wait for confirmation on that; eyewitnesses tend to get confused about these things, especially when unused to seeing them.
The latest tweet on Charlie Hebdo’s Twitter account was a cartoon of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi:
Meilleurs vœux, au fait. pic.twitter.com/a2JOhqJZJM
— Charlie Hebdo (@Charlie_Hebdo_) January 7, 2015
This was the worst Islamic terrorist attack in Europe since the London tube bombings of 2005, and the worst of any kind since Anders Breivik.* If I’m correct — I have not checked carefully — it was also the worst in France since the Nazis were running the place.
I was there only by luck: I had no desire to see this. Luck is probably not the right word. I wish I hadn’t seen it. But lucky, certainly is the right word to use in noting that I was running late, and thus there a few minutes after the fact. Had I not been running late, it’s fairly obvious what might have happened. They weren’t discriminate in their targets.
There wasn’t much for me to do. I didn’t even have a pen on me. I spoke to a cameraman from France 3, to make sure I understood the facts. I didn’t ask if I could quote him, so I won’t use his name. But his comment summed up the sentiment. “This is the kind of thing you expect in Pakistan. And now it’s coming here.”
While I didn’t get any photos, Buzzfeed is running a few. They are warning that the images are “disturbing.” I’m so sorry if you find them disturbing, readers, but take a good long look at them anyway: they’re nothing compared to what I saw, and what I saw wasn’t “disturbing images”; they were “people who until this morning were alive, but this afternoon are dead.”
They included figures not apt to be household names in America, but certainly household names here: Charbonnier, Cabu, Wolinski, Verlhac; all alive this morning, and all of them now dead.
President François Hollande said the trivial: “No barbaric act will ever extinguish the freedom of the press.” That the statement is self-falsifying seemed to bother him little: That barbaric act literally extinguished the press. Literally. They are dead. Their freedom is thus of little relevance.
That I’m shaken is of concern to no one; my emotions are not the point. The entire city is shaken. So much that even my cab driver — I had to catch one to get home; the streets were otherwise blocked off — didn’t even ask me to pay the fare. When I said I was a journalist, and in a rush to say what little I knew, his response was, “Forget about the money. Just hurry.”
The assailants are as yet at liberty. I hope they’ll be dead by the time you read this. But if not: You want me too? Come get me. Because nothing short of killing me — and many more of my kind — will ever shut us up.
And if you don’t believe that now, you’ll believe it very soon. Because there are more of us willing to die for that freedom than those of you eager to take it from us. And soon you will find out that those of us willing to die for that freedom are also much better at killing than you.
So come and get me. Je suis Charlie.
And have a good long look at the cartoon below. Because you may have been able to kill its authors, but you sure didn’t kill what they created. And nor will we ever let you.
There are things I’m not allowed to say on Ricochet. But if I were allowed to say them, this is what I’d say—though I’d add a few other words.
Go ahead. Make my day. Because you’ve got no idea what we’re capable of when we are pushed too far. And you are more than pushing your luck.
Cover image credit: By Thierry Caro (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0], via Wikimedia Commons
** To join the conversation on posts like this — and to support Ricochet’s ability to continue providing them for you — please become a Ricochet member today. Memberships are available for as little as $5 a month.**
* Editor’s note: The original version of the post neglected mention of Anders Breivik; the correction was provided and requested by the author.
Published in General
Merci Claire –
Maintenant dans Le Figaro. The following lead would stand the title and op’ed pages of the Post and the Times in good stead:
‘Alexis Brézet : Quand la guerre est là, il faut la gagner’. Mis à jour le 07/01/2015 à 22:19.
‘… Depuis hier, les euphémismes ne sont plus de mise: c’est une guerre, une vraie guerre, qui nous a été déclarée: la guerre du fanatisme islamiste contre l’Occident, l’Europe et les valeurs de la démocratie.’
…
‘Face à la guerre, le premier devoir est de s’unir.’
New York. London. Paris. Il ne suffit pas?
Can we all please, splash some cold water on our faces, sober and straighten up, accept the gauntlet without fear, unite, think, plan, act and deliver. It is time. Let’s put on a jolly good show. And yes, this will require proper, cool leadership from the Land of the Free.
Merci. Vielen Dank. Tänan.
Claire, thanks for this. When the dust settles, do, please, write another piece about the manner in which Hollande and company have handled this. It calls for action of a sort that the French in, say, 1965 would have been capable of. But I suspect it will produce only a wringing of hands. Do the French have the political will to clean house? There are in France a host of neighborhoods that the police do not enter. Will the French now re-establish their sovereignty over their own territory?
Neither can I. What a really ignorant person.
In french for new year wishes we say ‘bonne année et surtout bonne santée’ (good year and especialy good health)
so in the cartoon al bagdadhi say ‘and good health’. Horribly ironic
Gerard
Thank you, Claire. I will pray for you.
The prevailing winds still blow to the left and the left supports the Islamists OR AT LEAST they stand in the way of right thinking people. Nothing long term will come from this. Not. One. Thing.
Dr. Rahe,
I think your line of reasoning is on point. Here is the first French response that I know of.
FRENCH POLICE LAUNCH ANTI-TERRORISM RAID IN REIMS
Now comes the next most obvious question. Will the death penalty be applied to the Jihadists? Why waste time and money holding these monsters in prison? This is an opportunity for apologist fools to concoct the never ending narrative of the mistreatment of Jihadist murderers in prison.
I can think of no one more deserving of the final justice of the death penalty than Jihadists who have taken totally innocent lives in cold premeditated merciless attacks.
As a side note, Ron Paul is lucky because his position as the World’s biggest fool has been upended by Howard Dean.
Wouldn’t it be interesting if the news cycle didn’t get tired of this story in 3 days and finally people were ready to take action to end this horror show. At least we can dream.
Regards,
Jim
OK, I see now; and oh my, Claire can cuss like a drill instructor. You go girlfriend! And thanks to you too billy.
I’m glad you’re safe Claire. What do you think outsiders can do that would help at this point?
Simon #99 – Well not like MY drill sargent, but good for a civilian.
To quote the Army saying, “Kill them all and let God sort it out.”
I think this one of those times when Claire’s excellent choice of words is an appropriate and ‘gentle’ response to the terrorists.
I thought of you today when I heard about this. We are all glad you are safe, and await your perspective and translation of these events.
Be safe and well.
Claire has a more….detailed….version of that comment on her Facebook page.
A little while ago Dana Loesch on her show Dana on Blaze TV read a little bit of this article. Dana mentioned that a friend of hers is a friend of Claire’s, and she mentioned that the article was published on Ricochet.com.
Thanks for the report. Your courage is admirable. Time to stiffen our backbones. Islamic terrorism will not prevail.
Even The Atlantic is linking to Claire’s work today.
Claire is a great writer. The simple italicized no in the last paragraph conveys more cold fury than the tweet reproduced on instapundit.
Je suis Charlie!
Thank God you were running late. Thanks for the eyewitness account, but I am so so sorry that you had to witness this barbarity. Take care Claire.
Ha! That didn’t take long.
NYT headline today: ‘Dangerous Moment’ for Europe, as Fear and Resentment Grow
By STEVEN ERLANGER and KATRIN BENNHOLD
Dangerous Moment! As in, perhaps NOW there will be some serious action against islam. This was not Christian zealots or Hindi zealots, or Shinto zealots. It was MUSLIM zealots. Apparently trained and skilled at this type of action.
There is no death penalty in France. If/when they are caught, these monsters will have the rest of their lives with a roof over their heads and three hots a day to recruit and create more monsters just like themselves. I think THAT is sick.
I’ll be interested in any information that anyone sees about the mechanics of the operation:
It seems to have been quite carefully done.
Based on what little I have heard, this was a military-style assault. The team moved with precision and a paucity of excess actions. They covered each other’s moves. They entered and apparently found and shot all their targets promptly and with little excessive fire. Fire was concentrated to the targets. A police car apparently has a nicely grouped set of bullet holes in the windshield. Their exit was unhurried, with no signs of stress of apprehension. There is a video apparently of the group stopping their vehicle, shooting and wounding a policeman, then hunting him down and executing him. These guys have done this before – or something like it.
Congratulations, Claire (although one would have hoped for a better occasion). You made Fox News.
Claire and All,
Officer shot in Paris terror attacks was Muslim, reports say.
Whether or not this is the case doesn’t matter. It very well could be the case. How then do we deal with this. Once again I refer to my own analysis of the priority of the concept of Jihad as the determinate factor.
The man pulling the trigger and mercilessly murdering a wounded unarmed man was a Jihadist Muslim. The unarmed wounded man who was begging for his life was a non-Jihadist Muslim. This non-Jihadist Muslim was a good citizen of France. He was protecting Charlie-Hebdo as best he could given France’s restrictive gun laws. By focusing on Jihad we can immediately see the non-Jihadist Muslim as an ally in the fight against the Jihadists. We can also see the ruthlessness of the Jihadist Muslim. He will not hesitate to kill non-Jihadist Muslims.
Regards,
Jim
‘Twas ever thus.
(editing problems – so comment removed for the next version)
Current BBC sub-head on their main page, under “French hunt focuses north of Paris” (8-Jan-2015; 1620 PST) (http://www.bbc.com/news/):
“Nice” use of weaselly wording; “gunmen” instead of “killers” and “attacked Charlie Hebdo magazine” instead of “killed Charlie Hebdo magazine staff.” (OK, using killers or killed once would suffice, but you get the idea).
Also, no mention of the “gunmen” as being of any particular type or affiliation, but the BBC is quick to point out in the article that,
just so you know who the real victims are.
Have been reported is not the same as have occurred. I’ll bet that these “attacks” are just the midnight fantasies of the MSM. If this were really happening it would be in the news 24/7 until the next white cop shoots another completely innocent black thug-for-life.
By the way, did they ever catch the guy(s) that poured lighter fluid/gas down the Mississippi teens throat before setting her on fire? For some reason the MSM seems to have lost all interest in that particular crime.
http://ricochet.com/19-year-old-white-girl-set-on-fire-in-mississippi/