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The West’s Response to Mass Murder: Pretty Lights
On the BBC today I heard an interview with a Belgian member of the EU parliament. (She had the wavery, unearthly voice of the Talosians who imprisoned Captain Pike.) Her prescription for a unified response going forward to deal with the repercussions of the emanating penumbras of the unpleasantness at the airport: coordination. The police services are coordinated now, but they must be coordinated more. Barriers that prevent coordination must be addressed, and uncoordinated situations must be solved, and this can be done with a concerted effort to coordinate. The host was somewhat exasperated, and noted that Belgium had a large population of individuals who had gone to ISIS-land and come back. What about them?
The MP had a ready answer. Why, the EU Parliament had passed strong measures that permitted them to follow these individuals. It permitted the police to look at them.
That was her term. I’m sure she meant “investigate,” but even so, why would this take a special act? Because automatic scrutiny of bad actors might be seen as discriminatory, marginalizing, alienating? The idea of revoking citizenship of anyone who larks off to Syria to join the Bloody-Moon Army seems simple enough. As does incarceration and deportation for any non-citizen who’s even remotely connected to a terrorist attack. Well your honor I knew he was up to something with all the meetings and the wires and the mysterious men who kept dropping by, and after the attack he asked me to hide him and go to the man who had the passports, and yes I did that. But you have to understand —
GAVEL BANG Five years. Next case.
Never happen. I’ve no doubt there are serious hard-cases in European law-enforcement and counter-terrorism who would love to go weapons-free, so to speak, on the threat — and do so without caring whether it abrades the sensibilities of the technocratic stratum whose moral preening over the virtues of the post-national multi-cultural European identity got everyone in this fix. But that’s not enough.
See, here’s the odd thing. ISIS claimed responsibility, right?
Don’t we know where ISIS is? Don’t you think we have a reasonable idea where their C&C HQs are in those cities?
I’m not talking about a cruise missile response, but a MOAB over an ISIS stronghold. It won’t make them stop, but that’s not the point. It would make them pay, which you might consider an adequate short-term response. Next time? Two MOABs, two cities. The collateral damage would be horrific. No doubt it would renew their enthusiasm. So next time they get three.
It’s brutal, yes, but there are precedents set by much-beloved Democratic presidents.
Eventually the point has to sink in: you pay. Even if it doesn’t, there’s less ISIS, which would seem to be a good thing in the long run.
Such responses, however, seem unlikely these days. Outre; too . . . Russian. Would you approve? Would you consider it descending to their level? Or is it best to absorb and mourn, coordinate and look, and be prepared for the next attack. By which I mean: they’d better have the Eiffel Tower programmed for all the European countries’ colors. You’d hate to have 400 people killed in a Swedish airport and not be able to call up the flag-profile file that night. I mean, people would think you didn’t care.
Published in General
Lynch used that phrase in another anti-free-speech context. I think part of the commenter’s purpose was to mock her for it, as we should all do as opportunity permits.
I want to kill them all. This is not about niceties, this about the brutal and bloody business of kill or be killed. These people cannot be negotiated with, nor are they sub-human. ISIS and their ilk are smart, strong and committed. They just cannot coexist with a modern world, nor do they intend to. They will bend us to their will or die trying, because their god commands it so, and has promised that they win either way. We can have bloodshed for generations, killing millions. Or we can inflict intense brutality on them now, killing 100s of thousands of them and their supporters. Those are the choices: A new Hundred Years War, or Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
One of the many benefits of the Iraq War was that it was a gigantic honey-trap for every me-too, would-be jihadi. We sucked many of them into a country far away from us and killed them. Had we stayed in Iraq, a la South Korea or Germany, the world would be a very different (less bloody) place now. But the wise O saw fit to piss on the graves and sacrifices of our fighting men, in order to lie his way to re-election. Elections have consequences, and the Americans who voted for Obama have this Brussels blood on their hands every bit as much as does Obama.
MWA, go ahead. Draw your flimsy parallel. Show me I’m wrong.
This picture really says it all about the sickness at the heart of the media/political class of the West: the Eurocrat walking obliviously through the carnage around him, ignoring his fallen, bloody compatriot on the floor. But Hey, he’ll tweet a clever CompassionMeme later.
[emphasis added]
It’s as if Game of Thrones were a reality show. Winter is coming!
Perhaps he was late for the Adele concert.
Watch Adele Pay Tribute to Brussels With ‘Make You Feel My Love’ at London Concert
Well, I like Adele’s music, but I would never mistake her for a Warrior Queen. Boudica she ain’t.
There’s value in letting them go. They’ve self-identified as a jihadi and should be killed, over there. Let’s get one good thing out of Obama’s Syrian mess: a new honey-trap for the newest herd of would-be jihadis. Not trials, not prison. Death on the battlefield from an enemy they can’t even see. Yes, it’s fine to set up refugee camps, but over there.
Interesting: Brigitte Gabriel’s quick lesson in Islamic History and why it matters today:
Yep, they’re singing Imagine in Belgium:
I thought my parallel was obvious, and not flimsy. But what do I know, compared to you?
My point is that collateral damage is often unavoidable, and though regrettable, can not be allowed to get in the way of the mission.
On the other hand, targeted killing of civilians for no other reason than a family relation to combatants is murder. It is what ISIS recommends for the families of American servicemen. We shouldn’t do it. I won’t support anyone who thinks it’s a good idea.
This is the third time I’ve seen this picture.
Why such indifference? It is so disturbing.
[Of course, these days, we will find out later that the reason this happened is that the poor man walking by has a knife-like piece of glass in him and he is in shock. :) :) ]
Good.
I would like to call attention to Michelle Malkin’s column today, “Post-Jihad Gesture Theater: Je Suis Sick of It.” Along the lines of some of what Lileks has to say, and my sentiments exactly.
I would have expected Reddy Kilowatt to advocate the use of this thing.
From Mark Steyn’s America Alone:
Iowahawk has been writing typically trenchant tweets:
Well, it’s not that I want to. This is all wretched stuff.
Thanks to everyone for chewing over the post. The impetus wasn’t the pretty lights or the mealy-mouthed EU MP, but the reminder that the price ISIS pays for these actions seems to be about zero, and that seems remarkable.
It seems to me we’re neglecting the fact that ISIS considers itself a “state.” Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. It looks to me like they have a capital city in Raqqa and some guy named Mohammed something or other as their head of state. You can draw borders around the territory they’ve captured, right?
So, given San Bernardino, Brussels, Paris, etc, etc, aren’t we at war with ISIS? Doesn’t that legitimate us treating this as a war against ISIS under our own rules of engagement?
Terrorists have apparently read more Alinsky than western leaders. They never make the mistake of using our rules to bind their hands. They let us tie ourselves up.
Bomb ’em.
It would be amusing to hear Brussels start to bleat about the importance of national sovereignty.
As for dropping a big bomb on Brussels to jellify the troublemakers, of course, no. But it’s not as if other options don’t exist – they’re just ugly, illiberal, and bring back memories of that mustached shouter from the previous round of unpleasantness. They could, with help, round up, interrogate, imprison, intern, and / or expel everyone remotely connected with the problem. Plus, tighter borders. They won’t, though. Why? I’m sure they’d cite logistics, but if the number of people involved was a tenth, they’d still balk. It would violate their values.
I get that. So the occasional mass bombing is the price you pay for your values. The frequency of the bombing can be adjusted by the enemy however they like; they know the host state regards the preservation of a value system over the lives of a certain number of people, and that the value system is specifically designed to protect the group that’s doing the killing.
A peculiar situation.
Dr. Robert – You misunderstand my point. You and I are of one mind on this topic, I think.
Mr. Lileks,
Surely you jest. Isn’t it obvious where the MOAB should have been targeted.
Now that’s a target of opportunity.
Regards,
Jim
So, much better to snatch the ones coming back from their vacation with ISIS and drop them out of an airplane over the ocean. How do you say “los desaparecidos” in Flemish again?
Only to the bad actors, and not so much to them anymore.
OK, so here’s the “worse outcome”: Continued unrelenting terrorist attacks – by illegal enemy combatants emboldened by our lack of will to fight defensively in a manner commensurate with the mercilessness of the offensive strikes – eventually leading to WMD attacks on Western civilian targets.
Moral quandary solved. Unleash the MOABs.
Why does it have to be by US? Why not pay Putin a yuuuuuuuge sum of money and tell him to drop his super-Russian 4x-better MOAB? Then we can offer the standard Strongly Worded Statement in protest to appease the leftists.
Were they to carry through with this, then I would accept it as a suitable means of reprisal.
In what way is option #2 inconsistent with his war goal?
Ummmmnnn… babies?
RTL?
Send in the shock troops from Planned Parenthood. They’re the best!