Since its been a few hours since the last post, and I’m sure the insomniacs and night owls could use it, here’s a fresh thread to follow up on the events in Paris or anything else you wish to remark on.
Reader Interactions
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Wag
An interesting read
http://theweek.com/articles/588466/why-arent-conservative-intellectuals-disgusted-gop
the Conster
As one of the commenters on TV just said re Syrian refugees as the reason or cause, this is the kind of daily horror they’re escaping. I also note that French reporting is so much better than our own.
Trentrunner
What should be trivial: Obama saying earlier today in ABC interview that “We have contained ISIS.”
I wonder if the GOP will make hay of this…
Davis X. Machina
Paris is a big city; France isn’t a police state.
There’s what, a hundred similar situations?
The remarkable thing is that there aren’t more concurrences like this.
So many people; so many grievances, so many guns.
sharl
@Trentrunner: Oh, that ship was leaving the dock even before the Paris attacks. After those attacks, the S.S. Wingnut gunned its engines before leaving the harbor, smashing boats and piers in its wake.
Check out the URLs near the top of the list of search results on [Obama AND {“we have contained ISIS”}]. Ayup, right near the top is Jim Hoft aka “The Gateway Pundit”, and the dumbest wingnut on the internet (at least until the Rage Furby is back in circulation).
NotMax
Been hoping Ms Cracker might show up, but gonna throw this out for any other Floridians.
Long story short, Mom (87) is going to go to Florida later on (Palm Beach area) to meet her older sister, who will be coming up from Brazil to visit a friend there over the Xmas/New Year’s holidays. The two of them also want to take a side trip to see someone else in Naples (and back to West Palm Beach), but Mom doesn’t want to rent a car and drive on unfamiliar roads. Aunt doesn’t drive at all and is getting more fragile so far as being fully ambulatory on some days.
What would be the best alternative? Is there a convenient bus or train or shuttle or even puddle jumper flight between the two points? Internet has been a bit confusing on this so far.
sharl
@sharl: Forgot to include a link to the actual interview of President Obama by ABC’s George Stephanopoulos.
Peale
@sharl: meh. He pretty much deserves whatever knocks come his way for that. He was being weasely. Even without the attack tonight, it will turn out that Jihadi John wasn’t killed today and while the Kurds took one town, tomorrow they might lose it again and we’ll be back listening to breathless reports of the ISIS takeover of da world.
magurakurin
@Peale: It wasn’t just one town that the Kurds took. It was the main town on the major highway between Raqqa and Mosul. And they aren’t going to lose it again tomorrow. There are at least 7500 Kurdish fighters there now and Juan Cole estimated there might be as many as 20,000. They came in force under the cover of heavy air cover from the US and allies. Even Warthog attack aircraft. Sinjar had a contingent of 600 Daesh fighters. They aren’t taking it back anytime soon.
The attack in Paris, as horrible as it is, is an act of desperation. An attack on unarmed civilians is a far cry from set piece battles against other armies. In the big picture, what Obama said is true. Unfortunately, few people look at the big picture. And if your loved one just got shot in Paris, the big picture offers little solace, I’m sure.
Omnes Omnibus
@Peale: Who is the “he” in your comment? If it is Obama, please offer your evidence that what happened in Paris done by ISIS. We don’t know who did it. Or do you have access to intel that the rest of us don’t have?
sharl
@Peale: I would agree that Obama is in a no-win situation where Syria is concerned. But I’ll be damned if I can see how he could handle things better though in the current situation: reporters are gonna ask about it, and he has to say something.
I still wonder if he would have committed US forces in an even more substantial way earlier, had the British Parliament not said no thanks, we’ll pass on this adventure. The Brits may well have done us a favor, if that decision stopped the White House from deciding to go in even harder. I have doubts that we should be there at all, but that decision would likely have had its own blow-back.
TaMara (BHF)
In weird and unexpected news tonight, an area cop seems to have shot himself in the chest and blamed it on a 50-yr old hipster dude. He’s under arrest for false reporting.
I cannot wait to hear the backstory on this.
Adam L Silverman
@NotMax: I can’t speak for Betty C, but there’s not going to be really any good way to do this if a car isn’t involved. There is not, as far as I know/recall, East-West train service in Florida. We do have Amtrak, but it runs North-South and isn’t available everywhere. There is probably Greyhound Bus service, but its likely to be uncomfortable and unpleasant. You might be able to catch a shuttle flight between either Ft. Lauderdale or Miami and Sarasota, but you’ll still need a car or some sort of vehicle to get the rest of the way to Naples.
Betty C may have more thoughts for you, but if you can find someone with a car, who is willing to drive them, that’s going to be your best option.
Chris
@magurakurin:
Not sure it’s an act of desperation so much as an unconnected one, especially as it’s still not clear that this was Daesh. Gains against one bunch of jihadists in the Middle East aren’t going to prevent another bunch of jihadists in Paris (or Madrid or London not so long ago) from doing their thing.
tmflibrarian
@NotMax: Try rome2rio.com. They tend to find routes when even Google claims they don’t really exist.
Adam L Silverman
@sharl: Its not that Parliament saved us. The Obama Administration has twice requested an Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) from the US Congress to deal with the Syrian situation. Without one there is only so much he can do under his own authority.
However, should a NATO member be attacked, as was the case yesterday in France, Article 10 of the NATO Treaty clearly states that an attack on one is considered and attack on all. This would provide a way around a lack of an AUMF if it can be demonstrated that the attack was tied to ISIS or some other element in Syria.
sharl
Damn, tonight twitter is a cesspool of orgasmic neocons, keyboard kommandos, and armchair warriors. Gonna go read something else, or sleep. Yeah, sleep sounds good.
Omnes Omnibus
@sharl: You have a bad feed. To the extent that orgasmic neocons, keyboard kommandos, and armchair warriors entered mine, it was to slap them down or mock them.
Cervantes
@Adam L Silverman:
Leaving aside for now your two premises — that Naxalite tactics were used in the Mumbai bombings; and that the Jammu/Kashmir separatists needed any training in those tactics — it has certainly been alleged that Pakistan’s ISI has aided and abetted both the separatists and the Naxalites (the latter since roughly 2005).
If there is a direct and purposeful connection between the two latter groups, it’s not difficult to imagine the ISI as sponsor. And such a connection, too, has certainly been alleged: flows of money from the separatists to the Naxalites have been outlined by Indian security agencies; and cooperation between the two groups was described in some detail in Stratfor’s “Global Intelligence” files (as you may have seen courtesy of Wikileaks in 2012).
This is not a clean answer to your question, of course; nor do I have one: reliable evidence is difficult to come by (to put it mildly).
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Adam L Silverman: Good point.
Tim Kaine had been trying to get a Senate vote on actions in Syria. I wouldn’t be surprised if this causes some action on that front as well.
I don’t think Obama wants bootsontheground in Syria the way too many people think of it – several divisions with tanks and so forth. But I do think he wants buy-in from the rest of the government on his policy of supporting a broad coalition to contain Daesh, to pressure Assad to stop slaughtering his people, and to lessen the humanitarian crises in the region to lessen pressure on Europe and other countries in the region from the vast migrations in progress. That probably means more small US military teams in Syria and the region.
It was a horrible night in Paris. Condolences to everyone affected. I hope Hollande and his government are smart and careful in their response. They should learn from our mistakes in the early 2000s…
Cheers,
Scott.
Omnes Omnibus
Cole can close down the website when he chooses and I wouldn’t blame him if he did, but a political site that craps out every few minutes during a major international political event isn’t really an upgrade, is it? ** Not a complaint about comments or format**
sharl
@Adam L Silverman: Well, that’s our good ol’ Congress, shirking their Constitutional responsibility and sticking the White House with the warfare decisions, then razzing from the sidelines.
My Heroes! {/snark}
O.O. – I’m actually reading those same kind of responses from folks I like on Twitter, so that’s good, but it has the feel of a hazmat team stretched to its limits. Or maybe just my mood, dunno…
Nite all!
Cervantes
@Omnes Omnibus:
The answer to that question is … not self-evident.
Fair Economist
Mr. Cole, if you’re reading this, I love your website and am not having any trouble with the upgrade. Thanks for all your work. Oh, and same to the programming team!
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Omnes Omnibus: My interpretation of Alain’s and Tommy’s comments about the site is that it has been running on an old version of WordPress with a bunch of old plugins that are no-longer maintained and can’t be upgraded. They’re in the process of migrating the site to new software that will be on a new server and doing it in a way that preserves the history here. So there are teething problems, and they’re going to continue for a little while until the work is complete.
The work had to be done. B-J will be much, much better when the transition is complete. But there may be some pain along the way.
It’s better to do it now than in, say, Feb-March 2016, amirite? :-)
Corrections welcome.
Cheers,
Scott.
BillinGlendaleCA
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: No pain, no gain! Alain and Tommy are waiting on the server hosting company to upgrade their servers. The “server farts” have been annoying, and I agree Omnes especially tonight. I’m going though my own upgrades tonight, the new computer arrived this evening.
Adam L Silverman
@Cervantes: I’m tracking and those are both good points. As for whether they were Naxalite tactics or tactics used, by among others, the Naxalites is, also, I think an interesting rabbit hole to potentially go down…
Of course not too much of it is going to help us make sense of what happened in Paris yesterday.
Adam L Silverman
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: Scott, one of the bigger problems, as has been reported, is that the anti-ISIS coalition involved in actually doing anything seems to basically be us. None of the other states are really doing much. The Jordanians and Qataris are not flying sorties, so its basically the US Air Force.
magurakurin
@efgoldman: yeah, after Kobani it seemed pretty obvious that the Kurds are the hardest people on the planet right now. Hard as frickin’ nails. Depending how it shakes out here, they might be sporting some nice new French weapons and air cover of Mirage jets. Ugliness is on the menu, I reckon.
BillinGlendaleCA
@efgoldman: Probably more of how far our Turkish “allies” let them go.
magurakurin
@BillinGlendaleCA: The Turks and the Saudis are like the shittiest “allies” ever. Time to reconsider those arrangements.
seaboogie
Such a sad day. This story is too familiar even for outrage.
So instead of getting bent about the pundits jumping on this to pump their narrative, this is what I am doing:
I just dusted and cleaned my little, very old and sweet Chinese altar table. Same with the reclining Buddha who is flanked behind him with two Quan Yin (Goddess of Compassion) statues. I am going to light some tealights in my glassybaby candle holders. I have others, but these two glassybabys have names attached to them that are meaningful to me. The yellow one is “Fearless”, and the blue one is “Compassion”. Then I am going to light some incense and meditate on fearlessness and compassion – and do my little bit to send that energy out into the wider world. Even to Judith Miller.
‘Night all – I am off to my cushion….
Adam L Silverman
@efgoldman: On the Iraqi side, where they were able to establish a forward presence in 2013, before the big ISIS push/pushback, is basically where they see their border being established. The real problem is going to be that if/when they get an independent Kurdistan, the internal Kurdish factions will then go after each other for control.
Betty Cracker
@NotMax: Wish I knew of a solution that didn’t involve a car, but I think Adam at #13 is right. Maybe there’s a local shuttle or something, but I’m not aware of one. Best of luck to the two ladies!
NotMax
Thanks for all the responses about the Florida conundrum.
Looks as if the best bet for an 87- and a 92-year-old is gonna be a Tri Rail train from West Palm Beach to Ft. Lauderdale, then a Florida Express bus to just outside Naples and a taxi from there into Naples proper.
Ruckus
@Adam L Silverman:
Do you think that there will ever be a time when the internal fractions of the middle east players can be put aside for the bigger picture? If the Kurds win this one and then decide to keep going till the last man standing (rinse/repeat) how will this ever be over?
Actually my first question could be for our country as well, although it seems like the republicans are going to have to wake up to ever see even a bit of the big picture.
NotMax
@Ruckus
Although mostly united against outside incursions, there remain deep divisions among the two main political factions of Kurds in Iraq, only temporarily subsumed by more pressing events.
Ruckus
@NotMax:
I realize this.
What I’m asking Adam is does he think it’s possible for the Kurds, if they succeed to maybe put aside their differences and understand that they might be better off together rather than now kill each other. After all they seem to be working together to eliminate a common enemy. Do they have enough in common other than an enemy to get past the decades/centuries of hate and mistrust and killing?
Satby
@NotMax: Would it make sense for them to hire a car service? Expensive, I know, but there are a lot of them there for seniors who don’t drive.
Zinsky
While I grieve with our French brothers and sisters, I hope the media says as little about this incident as possible. Publicity is what the vile barbarians who did this want. I have noticed that some blogs that I read (e.g. Hullabaloo) haven’t even mentioned it. I’m sure CNN will cover it 24/7 until the next mass killing. I fear what will happen if another large-scale terrorist attack occurs on American soil. That could mean permanent martial law and the end of what little freedoms we still have.
raven
@Zinsky: Oh yea, we hardly have any “freedoms”.
Satby
@Zinsky: As much as I know the GOP will cynically use this to their own ends, I think “permanent martial law” is a bit overwrought.
Matt McIrvin
Ted Cruz says the problem is our “zero tolerance for civilian casualties”:
http://thinkprogress.org/world/2015/11/13/3722243/in-response-to-paris-ted-cruz-calls-for-airstrikes-with-more-tolerance-for-civilian-casualties/
This is where it goes, straight to demands for more innocent blood to match the brutality of the bad guys.
Pogonip
@Fair Economist: Hi, Mrs. Cole! How are your other kids doing?
debbie
@NotMax:
Uber?
Zinsky
@Satby: Don’t be so sure – the infrastructure for a police state is already in place. One nuke going off in an American city would very likely be the end of this 240 year old experiment in democracy.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Adam L Silverman:
It is a problem, but it’s not a new problem and not unexpected. Australia fought in Vietnam with the US, but the US was the overwhelming actor. These days, simply having permission to use air-space and airports in Turkey is a huge deal and big difference from W’s Mess-o-potamia.
We spend the most and have the most capable military in the world, and the largest economy (still by some measures). The region is full of countries that are either poor (Jordan, Lebanon, etc.) or are reeling under low oil prices, or have other reasons why they aren’t flying missions against IS at the moment. It is indeed a problem, but not unexpected.
On the bigger issue of whether we should be involved to such an extent when neighbors aren’t – I do think we need to be involved in the security of the world. Not as the world’s policeman, but to help keep things from spiraling out of control. We can’t prevent every slaughter, or every genocide, and we won’t always titrate our response accurately. We’ve also shown that we will get it wrong more often than we should. But we have to try. The US is no longer an island. Standing by when we can help makes us less secure, damages our standing in the world, and makes us poorer (economically, morally, emotionally).
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
Frito Pendejo
Sigh.
A pointless diversion – a rare Double Crazification Factor:
PaulW
@NotMax:
My immediate response is “I-75 through the Everglades” but given they don’t want to drive you’re going to need to find a bus service. I went to Greyhound and did a search for a West Palm to Naples service and it’s looking like $44 round trip give or take. It’s also a 4-hour ride, which eats up a lot of the day.
PaulW
@Zinsky:
If we’re gonna mention it, we’re gonna mention the victims, their families, and we’re gonna mention the French people being decent and kind people whose overwhelming response to the attacks were to take care of each other.
Cervantes
@Adam L Silverman:
No, I suppose not. I was just trying to address the question you raised.
Cervantes
@Adam L Silverman:
That may be a real problem but, if so, wouldn’t it be their real problem?
D58826
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: Seems to me its a lose-lose situation for-the West. We have to respond, probably militarily, which simply gives ISIS another ‘I told you so’ moment. That then radicalizes more Muslims to take up arms. There might only be 100k or so (for example) terrorists in the Muslim world but they can make life uncomfortable for the rest of us for a long long time.
Listening to one expert on MSNBC and he is talking about how the long term solution is to defeat the ideology. All far and good but how do you do that and WHO does it. I really don’t think a bunch of western Christians are going to make much of an impact in the Muslim world (or the Hindu world if it was a Hindu problem). The solutions have to come from within these societies, which at the moment are totally dysfunctional. Many of the divisions in these societies go back centuries Again this isn’t unique to the middle east. I remember during the mid 90’s and the bloodshed
was in the Balkans reading two articles about the history of the region. One was written by a Serb and the other a Croatian. They were recounting slights and atrocities that went back 800 years. In fact you could have reversed the names of the the two writers and the articles would still have made sense.
Cervantes
@NotMax:
Try these people.
I have not utilized their services but I’ve seen them on the road.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@D58826:
Yup. If the West does nothing, or what is perceived as too little, then it’s taken as the West being weak and IS being a major player in the world with victory just around the corner. If the West only attacks with air power and drones and the like, then it’s taken as the West being cowardly and being unwilling to “fight like men”. If the West goes in full-force and spends billions and kills and wounds thousands (or more) in response, then IS can claim that it’s a battle of against the infidels and true Muslims must come and help and also act in their home countries in response. Innocents will become enraged and fuel even more hostility towards us.
No matter what the West does or doesn’t do, it can be spun as a propaganda victory by IS. Were we in their shoes, we would do the same thing – it’s human nature to try to find every advantage.
We need to think carefully about how we respond militarily and do our best to get it right when we do pick a military option.
But we also, and I agree ultimately more importantly, need to find ways to fight destructive memes in foreign affairs just as we need to do in domestic politics. It’s the memes that come first.
The Brain with David Eagleman seems to be a good show that talks about how that big lump of cholesterol and other things inside our heads can enable us to do wonderful things as well as massacre our neighbors. (I’ve only seen snippets thus far, but what I’ve seen I’ve enjoyed.)
Cheers,
Scott.
cermet
So terribly sad – this too, bush wack and bloody hands cheney caused by creating Daesh in the first place. In Paris just a little over a month ago so it saddens me they too will over react and hurt their own freedoms for a false trade off with “safety”. The bush/cheney wars – the gift that just keeps creating blood flow.
Adam L Silverman
@Ruckus: Yes, but… Or perhaps a better start would be: Maybe, but… As I’ve written here and in a number of other places before, what we’re seeing – regardless of what kicked things off (drought, authoritarian crackdown, what have you, etc) – is state and societal formation. This is a long and often/usually violent process that determines who gets to be part of the in group, or tolerate enough to fake it (passing) and who either gets run out/flees or gets discriminated against. It was a very long process in Western Europe, and a very bloody one, before we even got to the Enlightenment and the attempts it inspired to do something about it. What we’re seeing in large swaths of the Middle East and Arab North Africa is this long delayed process finally taking place. Or being recompeted, so to speak, as earlier results are no longer considered to have had acceptable outcomes.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
The whole thing does make drive one to despair – I mean we Americans complain about random idiots doing mass shootings, and there is a group of them in a country that by Americans standards is a near police state. (anyone else notice that “State of Emergency” the French President declared after the attacks and him deploying the French army in Paris?) Also, aren’t French police pretty heavily armed?
Adam L Silverman
@Cervantes: I got it and appreciate that. The reason I think answering it isn’t going to help much is that despite significant theological/doctrinal driven ideological differences between al Qaeda and ISIS and other more locally concerned/focused Islamic separatist or nationalist or extremist or terrorist groups, enough individuals who have fought for/with al Qaeda have drifted into ISIS that I expect to see a mishmash of tactics, techniques, and procedures.
Just as the ISIS ideology is a bricolage/pastiche/mix of several related ideas and concepts stuck onto a base of radical, violently enforced tawheed, their operational approach is going to be equally a mix and match type of affair. As I’ve previously written here, the ISIS guys that really worry me are the one to two thousand hardened Chechen fighters that have joined up. They are, in terms of operational experience and competence, the most effective that ISIS has. And, because they’re European, they can travel to places and draw less suspicion than other ISIS adherents – both objective and subjective followers. Finally, they have extensive experience with urban operations from their fight against the Russians.
Adam L Silverman
@Cervantes: If it were to stay contained. And if we don’t see the horrors of the atrocities they would inflict on each other on the news. And if, we haven’t made specific promises we feel obligated to make good on to one faction over another.
Adam L Silverman
@D58826: And yet the fight was really over which of the leaders would control the North-South and East-West transit ways for smuggling licit goods, narcotics, weapons, and women for the sex trade. The recounting of thousand year old slights was used to effectively motivate people to go after their neighbors, and in some cases relatives, in the other ethnic and sectarian groups. Because if I ask you all to kill all the people in the next town so I can make a profit running blonde women to Asia for the sex trade, you’re going to, if I’m lucky, just tell me to go to hell. But if I tell you we finally have a chance to get even for the people in the next town for pissing on our god and destroying our church, that’s a different matter.
Cervantes
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
There are a number of police forces. Some are armed, some rather heavily. The local (municipal) ones are mostly not armed.