Alive in Paris

 

Screen Shot 2015-11-14 at 10.19.05I’m alive and so is my family. I’m not “reporting live,” however, because I saw none of this and haven’t left the apartment since my brother called to tell me what had happened.

Here’s what I know. It’s probably close what you know. At least 127 dead. Eight terrorists dead, of whom seven blew themselves up. A state of emergency has been decreed. I’m trying to figure out what this means. Among other things, it seems — although I’m not an expert in French jurisprudence — that the state now has the authority to toss what we’d consider First and Fourth Amendment rights into the toilet:

Le décret déclarant ou la loi prorogeant l’état d’urgence peuvent, par une disposition expresse :

1° Conférer aux autorités administratives visées à l’article 8 le pouvoir d’ordonner des perquisitions à domicile de jour et de nuit ;

2° Habiliter les mêmes autorités à prendre toutes mesures pour assurer le contrôle de la presse et des publications de toute nature ainsi que celui des émissions radiophoniques, des projections ciné-matographiques et des représentations théâtrales.

My translation:

1. Gives the administrative authorities referred to in Article 8 the power to order house searches day and night;

2. Empowers the same authorities to take all measures to ensure control of the press and publications of all kinds as well as radio broadcasts, cinema projections, and theatrical performances.

After 12 days of this, parliament must agree to it; but for now, the executive has more power than one would wish, ideally, in a democracy. Then again, these are not scenes I would wish to see, ideally, in a democracy, either: particularly in  my neighborhood:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vToc7N6r5pI

Most of my friends have checked in and are okay, physically. It seems  78-79 of the dead were at the Bataclan, about six minutes away from my apartment. I assume that a much greater number have been maimed, mutilated, and traumatized permanently.

ISIS has officially taken credit for the attack, although they would, wouldn’t they? That said, my instinct says it’s so. (Fred, not kick you when you’re down, but today might not be the best day to argue with me about threat inflation: We’ll have to come back to that when I’ve got a bit of distance from this; I’m very literally too close to be fully rational about it.)

We’re still advised to stay indoors, apparently. But it’s just advice; we’re not forbidden to go out. Schools, museums, libraries, gyms, pools, and open-air markets are indefinitely closed. Demonstrations have been cancelled, city halls are closed except for the permanences État Civil and Mariage.

Many metro stations are closed on lines 3, 4, 5, 8, 9, and 11, but traffic is normal on the other ones. That’s good because it means I can visit my father, although when I spoke to him he said the thing we could do to most make him feel better is stay home. (Of course he said that. He’s my father. I’ll wait for more news before figuring out what to do.)

The authorities say the situation should be under control from now on, but they don’t know the exact number of assailants or their movements, so nothing’s ruled out, either. In other words, “Take the chance if you want, but we’re making no promises.”

This part confuses me: I’m not sure whether we’re in “plan blan” (the white plan) or “plan rouge alpha,” but I think for hospitals, it’s now Red alpha plan:

Le plan « rouge alpha » est le niveau de réponse à une série d’événements dramatiques simultanés. Il est différent du « plan blanc » qui concerne les hôpitaux, le « plan rouge » se concentrant sur la coordination des soins sur le terrain, donc autour de la protection civile, de la Croix-Rouge, ou des ambulanciers.

Dans le secteur hospitalier, c’est un plan blanc qui a été activé au niveau de l’Assistance publique-Hôpitaux de Paris. Il organise le secteur hospitalier, et permet la réquisition de personnels, de lits et de blocs opératoires.

My translation:

“Red alpha” is the level of response to a series of concurrent emergency events. It is different from the White Plan. For hospitals, the “red plan” focuses on care coordination in the field, that’s to say on civilian protection, be it through the Red Cross or the ambulance service.

In the hospital sector, the white plan was activated at the Public Assistance Hospitals in Paris. It allows the requisitioning of staff, beds and operating theaters.

I don’t think this should affect my father. When I called, no one was requisitioning his staff or bed, which is good.

I haven’t quite had the emotional reaction to this you’d expect. It’s not because I’m a psychopath; it’s just that physiologically I don’t have it in me. Human bodies can’t stay in a state of constant stress; they go back to equilibrium, and I used up all my ability to be terrorized these past few days worrying about my father. I pretty much only have the bandwidth right now to be grateful that he got through that surgery.

So what I’ve seen over the past few days hasn’t given me any insight into the news you’ve all heard about. But I’ve learned so much more about cardiac surgery in France. So I’ll report what I’ve seen, since it’s all I’ve got to report.

For those of you uninterested in French cardiac surgery, you can stop now.

***

The year 2015 is lamentable in many ways, but there’s never been a better time in human history to have cardiac surgery. Paris is one of the best places in the world to have it. Did you know the first surgery on the aortic valve was conducted in 1912 by Theodore Tuffier in Paris? The most important surgery on the aortic valve was recently conducted by Stéphane Aubert in Paris. That’s the one that saved my father’s life.

The French tradition of cardiovascular surgery is a magnificent one. The French surgeon Alexis Carrel was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1912 for pioneering vascular suturing techniques. He invented the first perfusion pump, too, along with Charles A. Lindbergh. He was the first surgeon to take a direct operative approach to bypassing diseased segments of coronary arteries. In 1910, he performed the world’s first aorto-coronary bypass graft, on a dog. (May God bless the animals who have unwillingly given their lives for this research, including the pig whose arterial valve is now part of my father’s beating heart. In its merger with a human heart, it became completely kosher, by the way.)

So what should one think about the year 2015? We live in a time when it’s so routine for suicide bombers and men with AKs and grenades to kill hundreds of people in an evening that it’s only news because it happened again, not because they’ve used a novel, pioneering technique in mass murder.

Yet 2015 is a time when it’s so routine to replace a diseased human aortic valve with that of a pig that his odds of the human surviving this procedure are outstanding. In 1936, there was no known surgical treatment for congenital or valvular heart disease. In the beginning of 1952, there was no open cardiac surgery. In 1959, there were no satisfactory prosthetic valves, nor implantable pacemakers, nor even closed chest massage. My father, whom I love so much, would have died of his illness within a year.

But here we are in 2015. We’re now routinely slaughtered by terrorists. We’re just as routinely able to render a 73-year-old man totally insensate, cleave his chest from his neck to his belly, separate his breastplate, attach tubes into his heart and blood vessels to mechanically circulate and oxygenate his blood, shut off his heart and lungs without killing him (usually), cool his heart, stop his heartbeat, remove his diseased aortic valve, replace it with the chemically-treated valve of the heart of a pig — and these even come off-the-shelf, in standardized sizes, like shoes — suture the pig’s valve to his human heart, take a few healthy vessels taken from his leg, arm, chest or abdomen and connect them to the other arteries in his heart, restart his heart using a series of electric shocks, sew him back up, then reanimate him — and this is so normal that it doesn’t even make the news. They do four or five of these a day, said the wonderfully reassuring nurse at the clinic, “and we never get it wrong.” Ne vous inquietez pas.

Having seen what they did to my father, I might have said, “Astonishing though this may be, it is still a barbaric procedure,” but I’m not going to use the word “barbaric” lightly on a day like this. It’s painful and horrible and brutal. But no, it’s not barbaric. The difference is obvious: The doctors did it to save his life. It’s unfortunate that humanity hasn’t yet figured out how to do that in a gentler way, but barbaric, no.

I never want to go near a hospital again.

Back to Carrel. I’m so grateful for the research he did that it seems almost churlish to bring it up, but he was an enthusiastic eugenicist, and while his relationship with the Nazis is unclear, it doesn’t sound good:

Because of his relationship with Nazi-supported Vichy, as well as certain distinctly undemocratic statements he had made during the late 1930s, Carrel was widely regarded by his countrymen as a Nazi collaborator. After the liberation of France in 1944, he was relieved of all duties related to his institute and was placed under surveillance. An investigation began to evaluate the extent of his collaboration with the Nazis and the Vichy government, but no conclusions were reached. Unremitting attacks by the press left Carrel deeply saddened, embittered, and depressed. He was a broken man when he died on November 5, 1944.

At any event, France has a glorious tradition of cardiac surgery. It still does. It has an inglorious tradition of political violence, and still does.

A complicated country.

By the way, if anyone’s wondering whether medical innovation can happen in a country with socialized medicine, I assure you it most  certainly happens in France, although whether medicine here is truly socialized is another subject. Alain Carpentier, for example, is the father of modern mitral valve repair; French surgeons recently performed a ground-breaking artificial heart implant. Didier F. Loulmet, Carpentier’s collaborator, performed the world’s first robotic mitral valve repair with  in Paris in May 1998, and the world’s first closed-chest robotic coronary artery bypass grafting in June 1998.

I could go on at length about the French cardiac surgery tradition. It’s remarkable. It was the last thing I wanted to learn so much about, but when you find out your father needs surgery soon or he’ll die (maybe: the imminence of mortality given his condition wasn’t entirely clear from the literature) — you do read the literature closely.

So my father was alive when I saw him yesterday evening. I don’t have enough emotion left in me to be anything but grateful for that. I saw nothing unusual on my way home from the hospital. When I got home, I fell deep asleep: I’ve been exhausted for days. My brother woke me up to ask if I was safely at home. From his voice I knew something was wrong, but God help me, when he assured me that nothing was seriously wrong — there had just been a massive terrorist attacks all over Paris, that was all — I was relieved. I know that’s not a normal response, but I won’t lie; that’s what I felt.

My father thanks all of you who sent your good will and your prayers. I spoke to him this morning. He is doing even better today. He was well enough to be angry and depressed, and well enough to find the word that best describes what happened in Paris: disgusting.

As for immigration and France, let me pre-empt the comments I expect. This is too complex for slogans. A good third or perhaps half of the surgical and nursing team taking care of my father were immigrants. I wasn’t counting them or asking where they were from; obviously, my mind was elsewhere, but I could tell because they looked like it.

Whatever your feelings about immigration, I haven’t much patience for unkind words about Muslim immigrants in France today. I’m sure you’ll appreciate why. I have immigrant friends here. I’m an immigrant myself — now of a kind that no one fears, but I’m the grandchild of the kind whose children are now nothing more than the plaque you saw in this photo. I just spoke to one of my friends. She was Algerian. Now she is French. I called to check that she and her family were okay. She told me to be strong and not to cry. “We’ve seen worse,” she said, speaking of both herself and of me. She’s right.

President Hollande, who convened a special security meeting this morning, vowed to be “pitiless” with the nation’s enemies. “We know where these attacks come from,” Hollande said, without naming anyone. “There are indeed good reasons to be afraid.”

The newspaper headlines say, “This time it’s war.”

There are good reasons to be afraid; but I don’t have it in me. I am all for being pitiless on this nation’s enemies. Kill them all, and do not dither. Do it soon, and do it right.

But if anyone mistakes my formerly-Algerian friend for an enemy of France, it would be quite a mistake. I don’t say this out of bravado, I just say it because she is my friend — a victim as much as anyone in Paris who wasn’t killed or close to someone who was.

My father is so fond of her. He’s gone through enough as it is. His heart doesn’t need to be even more broken. Let there be no persecution of innocent immigrants. This country needs no more shame.

ag-hme-mdls-04

Published in Foreign Policy, General
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  1. Bryan G. Stephens Thatcher
    Bryan G. Stephens
    @BryanGStephens

    Thank you for this update on top of all you have to bear at the moment. Staff safe, and focus on family.

    • #1
  2. Kozak Member
    Kozak
    @Kozak

    Claire Berlinski, Ed.: ISIS has officially taken credit for the attack, although they would, wouldn’t they. That said, my instinct says it’s so.

    A talking head on MSNBC was going on and on yesterday about “not jumping to conclusions, ISIS will claim credit, but we mustn’t judge” yada yada…

    Who cares? If they claim credit, give it to them.  Good and hard. Start by turning the capital of the Caliphate into a nice big parking lot.  If someone else turns out to be responsible, they can be next up.

    Watch out for delayed reaction to this as your stress over your dad resolves.

    Stay safe.

    • #2
  3. Front Seat Cat Member
    Front Seat Cat
    @FrontSeatCat

    Claire, I saw a headline that hundreds of refugees have disappeared from camps in Europe – which lead to another story about, as part of the UN Agenda 2030,  have asked a biometric ID company to fast track in light of the the refugee crisis.

    http://www.christiantoday.com/article/german.terror.fears.mount.as.thousands.of.muslim.migrants.disappear.from.camps/69256.htm

    Turn off the sound – this link runs too many ads – story also on WND.

    Glad you and family and cats are ok!

    • #3
  4. Jamal Rudert Inactive
    Jamal Rudert
    @JasonRudert

    I love you, Claire.

    • #4
  5. Nick Stuart Inactive
    Nick Stuart
    @NickStuart

    Over the next week we’re going to see which media and government types are serious, and which are not.

    Probably the same serious:non-serious ratio we see in the headlines above 1:16, where exactly one paper headlines Cette fois, c’est la guerre (this time, it’s war).

    What about the last time though? Charlie Hebdo? The shootings in the deli? Riots and car burnings in the banlieues? Fort Hood? Stabbings on campus?

    Heck, yesterday President Obama said ISIS was contained, and later that the perpetrators would be brought to justice. We have his assurances, what else do we need?

    • #5
  6. Valiuth Member
    Valiuth
    @Valiuth

    I think here we can see the great danger that ISIS and its ideology poses to the world. Even beyond the physical fear for the safety of our bodies, their very existence and mode of operation make travel and open borders hard to maintain with any peace of mind. Yet, the open borders and society which we in the West have constructed throughout the Democratic World is the basis of our prosperity and quality of life. To be able to travel, work, and live throughout the world is central to an interconnected global economy, which produces our daily comforts.

    ISIS and their ilk despise this open pluralistic world as antithetical to their religious doctrines, and as a direct challenge to the piety of the Muslim world. They not only seek to establish a nation removed from the open Democratic Order, but also seek to destroy it lest its prosperity serve as a temptation to others to adopt its values and practices.

    Article 5 of the NATO treaty declares that an attack on one is an attack on all. This is not just a noble sentiment, for in the world today any massive terrorist act does not just include victims of the nation in which it occurs.  Americans were killed or wounded yesterday in Paris. ISIS recognizes no borders and they make no distinction between America and France. These attacks occurred in France, but make no mistake they were as much an attack on us as they were on the French.

    • #6
  7. Zafar Member
    Zafar
    @Zafar

    Valiuth:ISIS and their ilk despise this open pluralistic world as antithetical to their religious doctrines, and as a direct challenge to the piety of the Muslim world. They not only seek to establish a nation removed from the open Democratic Order, but also seek to destroy it lest its prosperity serve as a temptation to others to adopt its values and practices.

    ISIS defines the individual by his or her religion, and France refuses – in fact finds that uncivilised.  France is the antithesis of ISIS in this conflict.

    • #7
  8. HVTs Inactive
    HVTs
    @HVTs

    Godspeed for you and yours, Claire.

    As for immigration and France, let me pre-empt the comments I expect. This is too complex for slogans.

    Europe in the last 60 days or so has admitted God knows how many military-age Muslim men from Syria/elsewhere.  Mark Steyn is on FNC this morning talking about 250,000 Syrian refugees in Bavaria alone.  The question going forward, after two brutal Islam-inspired attacks in Paris in 10 months, I’m afraid does come down to a slogan: cultural suicide.  There is no precedent that I’m aware of for what European political and cultural elites are foisting upon their apparently docile citizens.  If we here in the US don’t stamp out the fashionable ideology that undergirds this sort of mass victimization at the hands of Islamic psychopaths, it’s a certainty that New York and other US cities will have more 9-11s, their own Charlie Hebdo’s (the original being perpetrated by 2nd-generation Algerian immigrants), their own Friday the 13ths.

    • #8
  9. She Member
    She
    @She

    So good to hear from you.  Be safe, you, your family, friends and France.

    I second your opinion of French health care.  It saved my brother’s life in 2006 when, going round a sharp curve in the road near Lille, he misjudged things, flew off the bike, and landed bent backwards over the guard rail.  The internal injuries very nearly killed him, one leg is pinned together with screws and plates and is a bit wobbly, but he’s OK.  He became quite chummy with an Algerian fellow who worked as an aide for the hospital.  They stayed in touch, I don’t know if they still do.

    The EMT response to my brother’s accident was another story, though.  They flew up a LifeFlight helicopter, dropped him while trying to put him in the bay, then discovered that he was too tall to fit, so they had to send him to the hospital in an ambulance after all.

    Thankfully, it looked as if they were a little more on their game last night.

    • #9
  10. Susan the Buju Contributor
    Susan the Buju
    @SusanQuinn

    Thank you for your update, Claire. I think many of us feel numb at the moment; I can’t imagine your state of mind. My great fear is that for many, when the numbness wears off, we will see verbal and violent attacks against all Muslims. After all, which of them are really the enemy? I think, instead, that this is a time to be discrete, intelligent, and wise, and not bow to broad attacks on “all of them.” I don’t know how we do that, since we truly don’t know who and where the enemy is. But we must try. Take care of yourself, in every way.

    • #10
  11. Z in MT Member
    Z in MT
    @ZinMT

    For some reason I also can’t muster much emotion, but it is not stress in my case. We keep thinking that these attacks will wake up Europe to the existential danger they are in, but while the attacks keep coming (particularly in France) the resolve to approach the problem head on seems to fade too quickly. This attack is certainly the most consequential and dramatic, so maybe this will be the tipping point.

    • #11
  12. Marion Evans Inactive
    Marion Evans
    @MarionEvans

    La guerre!

    ISIS can be history in a few weeks if NATO gets serious about erasing them. Note that these attacks took place as ISIS is losing ground in Iraq, as if timed to change the headline from “ISIS loses Sinjar” to “ISIS attacks Paris”.

    • #12
  13. HVTs Inactive
    HVTs
    @HVTs

    Susan the Buju:My great fear is that for many, when the numbness wears off, we will see verbal and violent attacks against all Muslims. After all, which of them are really the enemy? I think, instead, that this is a time to be discrete, intelligent, and wise, and not bow to broad attacks on “all of them.”

    After what you just witnessed from afar happening in Paris, you’re “great fear” has nothing to do with being victimized by Islam-inspired 20-somethings firing Kalashnikov rifles and tossing hand grenades at unarmed civilians in theaters and  restaurants?  I pray that your response is in a margin-of-error level minority.

    BTW – when have you ever–EVER!–seen or heard an ‘attack ALL of them’ response from a modern, industrialized democracy?

    • #13
  14. BrentB67 Inactive
    BrentB67
    @BrentB67

    Thank you Claire. Please don’t feel you owe us anything or any undue pressure to correspond from the scene. Heal your family and yourself. Ricochet will always be here for you.

    • #14
  15. BrentB67 Inactive
    BrentB67
    @BrentB67

    Z in MT:For some reason I also can’t muster much emotion, but it is not stress in my case. We keep thinking that these attacks will wake up Europe to the existential danger they are in, but while the attacks keep coming (particularly in France) the resolve to approach the problem head on seems to fade too quickly. This attack is certainly the most consequential and dramatic, so maybe this will be the tipping point.

    Exactly Z. It is hard to get worked up over the situation for this very reason.

    Of course we are doing the same here and have done so since 1993.

    I am embarrassingly melancholy about this ordeal. It is a big yawn.

    I got up, put on my handgun, grabbed my backpack with the blowout kit attached, and got coffee and junk food on the way to the office. The exact same as every Saturday, always prepared, always vigilant. I included the victims in prayers, but that is the only thing different from any other Saturday morning.

    Hit me up when the rest of the world including the leaders in Europe and America wake up to the real threat and then let us encourage each other not to say “I told you so”.

    • #15
  16. starnescl Inactive
    starnescl
    @starnescl

    It’s good to hear you are okay. I’m glad you’re able to be there for your father, and that his surgery was successful.

    Be safe and be well.

    • #16
  17. BrentB67 Inactive
    BrentB67
    @BrentB67

    Marion Evans:La guerre!

    ISIS can be history in a few weeks if NATO gets serious about erasing them. Note that these attacks took place as ISIS is losing ground in Iraq, as if timed to change the headline from “ISIS loses Sinjar” to “ISIS attacks Paris”.

    ME – If NATO gets serious as you recommend how do we know when we’ve completed the mission? Where does ISIS end? How do we know when we get there?

    • #17
  18. EJHill Podcaster
    EJHill
    @EJHill

    Claire Berlinski, Ed.: Let there be no persecution of innocent immigrants. This country needs no more shame.

    There will be persecution until Islam finds a leader that civilizes this brutal ideology.

    The world spirals out of control when people start conflating the words justice and revenge. Justice is meted out under the rule of law, revenge through mobs, brutality and war.

    We’ve seen this too many times. The French Revolution, the World Wars of the 20th Century, and now Islam at war with Christianity, Judaism and itself. And, the rumbles of it are reverberating on America’s campuses as disparate groups gin up hatred against “patriarchy,” “white privilege” and whatever other phantom enemies that they can imagine. It’s hard to believe but the 21st Century is bathing in eau de Revenge, setting us up for another worldwide conflagration.

    Europe has disarmed its citizens and invited the enemies into the gates. America has paid the academy to radicalize its youth. I fear that bloodshed and horror will dominate our future.

    • #18
  19. MarciN Member
    MarciN
    @MarciN

    The memory that sticks in my head from the Boston Marathon bombing is that of the anger I saw in the doctors who treated the wounded. Anger. One of them stood outside Mass General in a press conference and said, “This is not Boston. We heal people.”

    There simply is no way for good people to comprehend terrorism. It goes against literally every fiber of their being.

    • #19
  20. barbara lydick Inactive
    barbara lydick
    @barbaralydick

    Thank you so much for your update – on both your father’s recovery and the situation in Paris.  No one can ever imagine your state of mind at this point, but if writing helps, please do continue.  On any subject.  Be well.  Be safe.  Prayers for your father and for the families of the victims of those brutal, vicious, and senseless massacres.

    • #20
  21. HVTs Inactive
    HVTs
    @HVTs

    BrentB67:

    Marion Evans:La guerre!

    ISIS can be history in a few weeks if NATO gets serious about erasing them. Note that these attacks took place as ISIS is losing ground in Iraq, as if timed to change the headline from “ISIS loses Sinjar” to “ISIS attacks Paris”.

    ME – If NATO gets serious as you recommend how do we know when we’ve completed the mission? Where does ISIS end? How do we know when we get there?

    Also, what level of unintended civilian deaths caused by NATO forces are you willing accept?  ISIS is nestled deep within the civilian infrastructure.  If you can’t stomach Dresden-style bombing, then you are arguing for several hundreds of thousands of troops on the ground.  And that means lots of NATO casualties.

    • #21
  22. MarciN Member
    MarciN
    @MarciN

    By the way, if I were on the Ricochet desk, I would mark this podcast and post from yesterday with an “everyone should read this” sticker. I did not listen to the podcast, but I read most of the article it discusses. It is hard to read because it confirms that as of 2015, the Palestinians are no further along in their thinking than they were twenty years ago. It is hard to believe there has been no growth in these people. Nor does it look like there will be any time soon.

    The article answered a lot of questions I have had about what is going in the Middle East, why it is yet again exploding.

    • #22
  23. Marion Evans Inactive
    Marion Evans
    @MarionEvans

    BrentB67:

    Marion Evans:La guerre!

    ISIS can be history in a few weeks if NATO gets serious about erasing them. Note that these attacks took place as ISIS is losing ground in Iraq, as if timed to change the headline from “ISIS loses Sinjar” to “ISIS attacks Paris”.

    ME – If NATO gets serious as you recommend how do we know when we’ve completed the mission? Where does ISIS end? How do we know when we get there?

    You will know when you have taken over the territory with 50,000 NATO troops (say 15,000 from US and 35,000 from Europe). There can be no state, Islamic or otherwise, without territory. You redo what we did in Iraq but with the lessons we learned. Hold elections and give each Iraqi adult 100 shares in the national oil company. You’ll be amazed how quickly things will stabilize. It won’t be Switzerland, but a big improvement compared to now.

    • #23
  24. Marion Evans Inactive
    Marion Evans
    @MarionEvans

    HVTs:

    BrentB67:

    Marion Evans:La guerre!

    ISIS can be history in a few weeks if NATO gets serious about erasing them. Note that these attacks took place as ISIS is losing ground in Iraq, as if timed to change the headline from “ISIS loses Sinjar” to “ISIS attacks Paris”.

    ME – If NATO gets serious as you recommend how do we know when we’ve completed the mission? Where does ISIS end? How do we know when we get there?

    Also, what level of unintended civilian deaths caused by NATO forces are you willing accept? ISIS is nestled deep within the civilian infrastructure. If you can’t stomach Dresden-style bombing, then you are arguing for several hundreds of thousands of troops on the ground. And that means lots of NATO casualties.

    I doubt it. ISIS has at most 50,000 and no air force. And half of them will run when the fighting starts.

    • #24
  25. BrentB67 Inactive
    BrentB67
    @BrentB67

    Marion Evans:

    BrentB67:

    Marion Evans:La guerre!

    ISIS can be history in a few weeks if NATO gets serious about erasing them. Note that these attacks took place as ISIS is losing ground in Iraq, as if timed to change the headline from “ISIS loses Sinjar” to “ISIS attacks Paris”.

    ME – If NATO gets serious as you recommend how do we know when we’ve completed the mission? Where does ISIS end? How do we know when we get there?

    You will know when you have taken over the territory with 50,000 NATO troops (say 15,000 from US and 35,000 from Europe). There can be no state, Islamic or otherwise, without territory. You redo what we did in Iraq but with the lessons we learned. Hold elections and give each Iraqi adult 100 shares in the national oil company. You’ll be amazed how quickly things will stabilize. It won’t be Switzerland, but a big improvement compared to now.

    Good response, but respectfully disagree.

    50,000 troops and the occupied land will define the boundary of the portion of conquered territory. I don’t think it will define the end of ISIS.

    • #25
  26. Marion Evans Inactive
    Marion Evans
    @MarionEvans

    EJHill:

    Claire Berlinski, Ed.: Let there be no persecution of innocent immigrants. This country needs no more shame.

    There will be persecution until Islam finds a leader that civilizes this brutal ideology.

    There is a strange disconnect here. French soldiers now having to risk their lives fighting ISIS while able-bodied Syrian men are taking refuge in Europe. Years ago, there were no twenty-something or thirty-something male refugees. They were fighting back their tormentors. The moderate muslim has to wage war on the extremists, not just proclaim his moderation while others do the fighting. Am I missing something?

    • #26
  27. ParisParamus Inactive
    ParisParamus
    @ParisParamus

    Obama is correct. ISIS is contained–contained in France, contained in Britain, and soon, the US?

    Why hasn’t there been a similar attack in the US, ideas? Any one of hundreds of malls, transit centers or multiplex cinemas seems like an easy target. Ideas?

    • #27
  28. BrentB67 Inactive
    BrentB67
    @BrentB67

    Marion Evans:

    EJHill:

    Claire Berlinski, Ed.: Let there be no persecution of innocent immigrants. This country needs no more shame.

    There will be persecution until Islam finds a leader that civilizes this brutal ideology.

    There is a strange disconnect here. French soldiers now having to risk their lives fighting ISIS while able-bodied Syrian men are taking refuge in Europe. Years ago, there were no twenty-something or thirty-something male refugees. They were fighting back their tormentors. The moderate muslim has to wage war on the extremists, not just proclaim his moderation while others do the fighting. Am I missing something?

    20-30 something men (heck any age man) is not a refugee, they are cowards at best and Trojan horse invasion at worst.

    The events of Friday night favor the latter.

    • #28
  29. BrentB67 Inactive
    BrentB67
    @BrentB67

    ParisParamus:Obama is correct. ISIS is contained–contained in France, contained in Britain, and soon, the US?

    Why hasn’t there been a similar attack in the US, ideas? Any one of hundreds of malls, transit centers or multiplex cinemas seems like an easy target. Ideas?

    There has been. Garland Texas.

    Please recall that this isn’t the first attack of its kind in France or Europe, just the largest distributed Mumbai style attack on the continent to date.

    Terrorists are like sharks, they are smart, and they learn.

    The targets are always soft and terrorists watch the reaction. I am confident that when they attacked the French magazine there were observers on the streets blocks away timing how long it took police to respond, from what direction, where the medical care came from, how soon, what direction. How did civilians react, where did they run, etc.

    The same occurred last night. They take notes. Next attack the police and ambulances will rush to the scene only to be ambushed in a hail of gunfire because their reaction is predictable.

    The attacks get more sophisticated, but still easy to carry out because we refuse to isolate and target the most likely perpetrators.

    • #29
  30. HVTs Inactive
    HVTs
    @HVTs

    MarciN:There simply is no way for good people to comprehend terrorism. It goes against literally every fiber of their being.

    Actually, good people might have no problem with committing terrorist attacks.

    We say things like “war on terror” but there is no such thing.  “Terrorism” is a tactic.  It is often the tactic used by militarily weak forces to defeat militarily strong forces.  By way of example, after Pearl Harbor we went to war against Imperial Japan, not the tactic it employed (carrier-based naval strike operations).

    No tactic is impermissible if the goal is sufficiently laudable and available options sufficiently limited.  Although I couldn’t possibly be inspired to do so under current conditions, if ISIS succeeds at installing a caliphate across North America and no other tactics could plausibly bring victory, I would certainly engage in terrorism against the ruling clerics.  If you wouldn’t, then liberty does not mean as much to you as you might think it does.

    BTW – what the Minute Men did to the Red Coats was terrorism for its day.  They had the audacity to hide behind trees and conduct ambushes, rather than stand in a line and let the British shoot them.  Shocking!

    Even if we don’t admit it, it’s the goal which the terrorists seek to promote that outrages us.  Up to now, the Islamic fascists in France have been more committed to their goals then the rest of the citizenry.  Perhaps this will change after Bataclan.

    • #30
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