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The nature of this war: Our view
The Editorial Board5:49 p.m. EST November 14, 2015
Paris attacks highlight conflict between modernity, barbarity.
Comments 58
French President Francois Hollande called Friday’s terrorist attacks in Paris “an act of war.” And they were, much as the Sept. 11 attacks were an act of war against the United States.
But what, exactly, is the nature of this conflict?
“War on terror” has always been something of a misnomer. Terror is a tactic, not an enemy. This is a war against religious fanatics — Islamic extremists associated on 9/11/01 with Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda network and on 11/13/15 with the Islamic State, which promptly claimed credit for the Paris attacks.
It is a war against just a tiny fraction, perhaps only thousands, of the world’s approximately 1 billion Muslims. But as 9/11 and the subsequent attacks have shown, even small groups of people can inflict horrific damage and instill even wider fear.
From the extremists’ perspective, this is a war aimed at reestablishing an Islamic caliphate, a war against the infidels, including other Muslims, who dare to hold different beliefs. After the Charlie Hebdo attacks in Paris earlier this year, a radical Muslim preacher in London wrote on these pages that, in effect, the cartoonists got what they deserved because of their blasphemy against the prophet Muhammad. That was a warped and chilling rationale, and the perpetrators of the Friday night attacks had equally hollow excuses for slaughtering innocents — concertgoers at a music hall, diners at a cafe, fans outside a soccer game.
This is a war in which it is impossible to defend every “soft target,” so the international community must take the fight to the enemy, which has established strongholds in Syria and Iraq.
It is a war that, if we are not careful, threatens to undermine civil liberties, compassion for refugees, religious freedom and other values that define Western society.
It is a war that is likely to be long, and it will be hard to know when it is won. Surrender won’t come at a courthouse or on a battleship.
It is a war in which there is nothing to negotiate. There are no territorial demands to discuss, no acceptable political compromises. The enemy must be destroyed, using the full array of military, economic and intelligence means.
It is a war in which successes — this week’s recapture of Sinjar in Iraq, the apparent killing of the psychopathic Islamic State fighter known as Jihadi John — are followed by tragedies such as Friday’s attacks in Paris.
It is a war of modernity against medievalism, of civilization against barbarity.
USA TODAY's editorial opinions are decided by its Editorial Board, separate from the news staff. Most editorials are coupled with an opposing view — a unique USA TODAY feature.
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http://www.illawarramercury.com.au/story/3492794/a-death-cult-declares-war-on-the-west/?cs=298
Opinion
A death cult declares war on the West
By Janet Daley
Nov. 15, 2015, 2:30 p.m.
•Rolling coverage of Paris terror attacks
Whatever this is, it is not a clash of civilisations. The concept of "civilisation" scarcely comes into it. Nor is it a struggle between competing sets of values, or a religious war, or a battle with an alien culture. There is no debate here – as there was in the Cold War – about how it is best for men to live: the enemy has stated explicitly that it does not revere life at all. On the contrary, it is in love with self-inflicted death, which it sees as the highest moral achievement.
Civilians are not collateral damage in this campaign: their deaths are the whole point.
This is not even war in any comprehensible sense. Where are the demands, the negotiable limits, or the intelligible objectives?
It is not the modern world versus medievalism, or the secular enlightenment trying to deal with fundamentalist religion. It isn't anything that can be encompassed in the vocabulary of coherent, systematic thought in which we are now accustomed to describe the world. This is just insanity.
There is no point now arguing about the historical or theological roots, about correct or incorrect interpretations of the Koran or even the social role of Islamic leadership. When the lucid try to impose logic on behaviour that is pathological, they will be driven into a dead end – or waste time coming to blows among themselves on matters that are no longer relevant.
What we are faced with is a virulent and highly contagious madness, a hysterical death cult which has, almost by accident, fallen on the fertile ground of global circumstances: chaos in the Middle East, confusion and lack of resolve in the West and the awakening of a ruthless, opportunistic power base in the East.
But there is no time any more for international recriminations or parochial introspection. The old enmities and suspicions – between the West and Russia, Turkey and the Kurds – are going to have to be put aside in the name of one unified, relentless effort to stamp out an epidemic of murderous lunacy.
Civilians are not collateral damage in this campaign: their deaths are the whole point. This time there isn't even the "logic" of the Charlie Hebdo attacks whose pretext was the blasphemous depiction of the Prophet. Just the slaughter of random innocents, many of whom may have been Muslims themselves, carried out for the sheer nihilistic thrill of it. It is that thrill – the brief absolute power of anarchic terror – that is going to have to be forcibly suppressed with all the weapons at our disposal.
Francois Holland declared that France would provide "a merciless response to [these] ISIL barbarians". But the question remains: how do you respond to unreason? All the things that make an enemy – however evil and malign – predictable, analysable, and intelligible are missing here. The actions make no sense in any terms that are within common understanding.
When the news started to come in from Paris, my husband and I began emailing our friends and contacts there. Are you OK? Are you and yours safe? They all replied immediately, even though they must have been preoccupied with the unfolding ever-more horrendous events, sometimes taking place outside their own windows.
It reminded me horribly of 9/11, and of trying desperately to reach friends in New York. All the phone lines were down so communications were agonisingly slow. It took days in some cases to learn whether people we knew were still alive.
After the Paris atrocity, Europe will have, paradoxically, to be both more united and less convergent. If the Schengen agreement – the sacred principle of "open borders" – was already in question because of the flood of migrants from precisely the region which is spawning this movement, it must now be regarded as outrageously dangerous.
The prospect of free, unchecked movement between EU countries was one of the great attractions of those thousands of people who arrived at the un-policed external borders. Once having set foot on European soil it is possible to move from one end of the Schengen zone to another, to become effectively untraceable, seeking out the most favourable circumstances in any country at any moment.
It is an economic migrant's dream, which may be no bad thing, but it is also an open field for terrorists – a thought which obviously occurred to Hollande when, on Friday night, he closed the French borders, presumably indefinitely. The wire services are reporting as I write that a Syrian passport was found on the body of one of the terrorists. If this turns out to be true, it is going to raise fresh controversy about the EU policy on migration – even about the accommodation of Syrian refugees who had been considered one of the most unambiguously deserving categories of asylum-seekers in the current wave.
France and its attitude towards Islam are already being analysed and dissected for all they are worth. Is it the willingness of the country to become involved in action in the regions claimed by Islamic State that has incited this terrible vindictiveness? Or the enforced secularism of the society in which such a large Muslim minority lives in alienation from national civic norms?
Was it the French military intervention in Libya, or the banning of the burka that was responsible for this havoc? Maybe none – or all – of the above. But none of this speculation is to the point. France has the honourable and consistent foreign policy that it has. It is a proudly secular republic which made the decision to separate civil life from religious observance several centuries ago for what it believed then – and believes now – to be historically sound reasons.
And what is the alternative that is being demanded? Sharia law? The subjection of women? An end to liberal democracy? Are any of these things even within the bounds of consideration? What could be accomplished by national self-doubt or criticism at this point, when there is not even a reasonable basis for discussion with the enemy?
If there is any need to argue about these matters, it should come at some other time. This debate cannot be conducted at the point of a gun held by a madman. Whatever the attitudes of France's authorities, whatever mistakes might have been made in the assimilation of North African or Middle Eastern minorities, the French people did not deserve this, just as Americans did not deserve 9/11.
It is wicked and irresponsible to suggest otherwise. The indiscriminate mass murder of civilians must put an end to that. The sane people of the world – even when their ultimate objectives differ or conflict – will need to join together now to stamp out, by whatever means are necessary, a threat to all varieties of civilised life.
Janet Daley is a columnist with The Sunday Telegraph, London.
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http://time.com/4113324/paris-attacks-veterans/
Ideas Paris Attacks
Iraq Vet: What Real War With ISIS Would Mean
Elliot Ackerman @elliotackerman
Nov. 14, 2015
Video
News from Paris came as veterans celebrated a wedding—will some of us be heading back to war?
The news alert for the Paris attacks came across my phone as I was about to officiate the marriage of my friend Sean, a veteran of multiple tours in Iraq whom I’d fought alongside in Afghanistan. We had just finished the last rehearsals and Sean’s small wedding party began to gather. The groomsmen, a rank of veterans in rented tuxedos, arrayed themselves on the crest of a bluff overlooking the evergreen studded ridge lines surrounding Carmel Valley, Calif. Nobody wore a uniform. We were civilians now, and ready to be. After the exchange of vows and recessional we gathered at a few outside cocktail tables. I could see people checking the headlines between toasts, but nobody spoke openly about the attacks. We didn’t want the war to cast a shadow over the day. This wedding was a celebration of love but also a celebration of Sean’s moving on. Away from wars.
No such moving on has occurred for the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS). In a little over a month it has claimed credit for three major attacks: the Ankara bombing that killed 102 in Turkey, the Metrojet flight that killed 224 Russians, and now the Paris attack that has killed 129 in France. If the Islamic State were treated as an actual state, these attacks would be considered acts of war. But the Obama administration and other governments refuse to classify ISIL, or ISIS, or Daesh as anything other than a terrorist organization, the logic being that statehood status conveys a legitimacy not deserved. The attacks in Paris offer the West an opportunity to strike at the Islamic State’s greatest vulnerability: the very statehood it aspires to.
When it claimed nation status, the Islamic State forfeited the insurgent’s advantage: it gave itself form. We have done little to take advantage of our adversary’s new shape. We continue to refer to it as ISIS or ISIL, not embracing the idea that statehood does not legitimize this organization but rather makes it vulnerable to destruction in a way that its precursor, the shadowy al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia, never was.
On Saturday morning, when speaking to the Italian Bishop’s Conference, Pope Francis referred to the Paris attacks as being part of a “piecemeal Third World War.” By elevating the conflicts in Iraq and Syria into a world war, the Islamic State invites a coalition to form against it. Nations such as Turkey, France, Russia, and of course the U.S. possess unmatched capabilities to launch conventional military campaigns which could swiftly retake cities such as ar-Raqqah, Ramadi, and Mosul. To date, our strategy to counter the Islamic State has consisted of airstrikes combined with the use of surrogate forces, and the targeting of organizational leadership. It’s not working.
Targeted killings might serve as a standalone strategy when attacking a traditional terrorist organization, but they serve only a complimentary role when trying to degrade the capabilities of a state. Just before the Paris attacks the U.S. military reported the likely death of “Jihadi John,” the Islamic State’s infamous executioner, while simultaneously announcing the expansion of air strikes against oil production facilities. This announcement did nothing to deter the attack. Nor did the May 16 strike which killed Abu Sayyaf, the Islamic State’s chief administrator of oil production, do anything to degrade production capability. A strategy relying on the targeted killings without operations against its military forces is akin to trying to defeat the Germans in World War II by killing select generals instead of meeting their army on the battlefield. It won’t work.
Though analogies to World War II might seem anachronistic, they are unusually apt when considering a current diplomatic and military strategy. Until now, the air war has had no profound effect on the Islamic State, and the surrogates employed by the West, namely the Kurds and Iraqi Security Forces, have not proved themselves capable of retaking significant territory. Only a competent, modern, and highly trained force can accomplish this task. As reluctant as we all are to recommit significant numbers of ground troops into Iraq and Syria, attacks like those we’ve seen recently will continue until the Islamic State is dismantled.
They’ve offered us, if we so chose, the opportunity to assemble a coalition. As in World War II, a coalition will likely include partners—such as Iran and Russia—which have different long-term regional interests than ours. Regardless, the U.S. has historically shown sufficient leadership to negotiate these nuances when the broader fight is against a common adversary. We can show such leadership again.
Even if the Islamic State is defeated on the battlefield, its radical ideology will not vanish. A large-scale ground intervention in Iraq and Syria would include a post-conflict phase which, if not handled properly, could look much like the post-invasion Iraq of the last decade. Although we would enter into such a phase with certain advantages—a regional knowledge honed over the past decade of war, and the possibility of a stronger multi-national coalition—are we prepared for such a recommitment?
When I served with Sean in the Marines we had a saying: “Nothing is more dangerous than a gentle surgeon.” The Paris attacks illustrate that gentle measures—a limited commitment of ground troops, a refusal to work closely with the Iranians and Russians, respecting the border between Iraq and Syria while the Islamic State does not—will only prolong the conflict, ensuring we remain vulnerable.
Sitting down to dinner after the wedding, I struggled not to check the developing headlines on my phone. I wanted to celebrate my friend. Every veteran there that night, I know, wanted to be what we’d become: a professor at Stanford, a software engineer, a small business owner. Yet many of us, including Sean, still serve in the reserves. So we are also: a Marine Raider, a platoon sergeant, an infantry officer. For those of us who might return to active duty, what does Paris mean?
As the dancing wound down and the wedding cake was eaten I found Sean. He hadn’t stopped smiling the whole night. I told him that I was heading back to my hotel, and he gave me a hug. After thanking me for coming, he grasped my hand. “Love you, brother. Be safe.” This is what we used to say before heading out on a mission. Hearing it on his wedding night felt like a punch to my stomach. I guess Sean had checked the headlines.
Elliot Ackerman served five tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, received the Silver Star, the Bronze Star for Valor, and the Purple Heart, and is the author of Green on Blue.
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http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4725484,00.html
Opinion
Ron Ben-Yishai
Welcome to World War Three
Analysis: The Paris attack is directly tied to events in Syria and Iraq; this was not an intelligence failure but rather the failure of the West to see itself as in a total war vs. radical Islam.
Published: 11.14.15, 22:54 / Israel Opinion
It is time that we came to the realization: we are in the midst of World War III. A war that will differ from the others but will take place all over the globe, on land, air and sea. This is a war between jihadist Islam and Western civilization; a war between radical Islam and all those who refuse to surrender to its values and political demands.
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This war will, of course, have to be fought on the ground – with American, British and French divisions and tanks that will fight in Syria and Iraq, but also with security measures taken at border crossings and by special forces and intelligence agencies in Belgium, France and Germany as well as in the Philippines, China and Russia. This war will be conducted on the Mediterranean Sea as well as in the air with combat aircraft bombarding concentrations of ISIS and al-Qaeda fighters across Asia and Africa and security measures taken at airports and passenger aircraft worldwide. This is what the third world war will look like, which Israel has been a part of for a while now.
Indications from the Paris attack immediately pointed to Islamic State, and after they took responsibility for it – it is possible to discern the strategy set forth by the organization: Painful blows of terror at targets easy for them to operate in and which allow them to claim a mental victory with minimal effort and risk.
Paris terror attack
One can identify the beginning of the current offensive with the Russian plane explosion over Sinai three weeks ago. The Paris attack was directed according to the same strategy. It is likely that the attack had been planned over many months, but the background is the same as that of the plane attack: ISIS is now taking heavy blows in Syria and Iraq and is losing several of its important outposts in the heart of the Islamic caliphate it wants to establish.
Therefore ISIS is attacking its enemies’ rear and Europe, as usual, is the first to get hit. ISIS and al-Qaeda prefer striking in Europe because it is considered the cradle of Christianity and Islamic fundamentalist organizations still see it as the homeland of the Crusaders, who just as in the past, are at present waging a religious and cultural war on Islam. France and Paris were chosen as a target as France stood at the forefront of the cultural and religious struggle against radical Islam. It is also the easiest target to attack.
Why France?
France was the target of a combined assault of radical Islam not just because it has a tradition of human rights and freedom of movement, but because France and French culture symbolize everything that radical Islam is afraid of and is in an all-out war against. France enacted a ban on women to wear the hijab in public places, the Supreme Court allowed the magazine Charlie Hebdo to publish caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad and President Francois Hollande recently refused Iranian President Rouhani’s request to not have alcohol served at a dinner in his honor. All these are challenges to the jihadists that no one else in the West have yet dared emulate. So that is the primary reason that France mourns the murder of at least 129 people.
French headlines: "This time it's war", "War in central Paris"
The second reason is that France has the biggest and most established Muslim population in Europe that lives in large urban concentrations, mostly poor neighborhoods. These are ideal soil for the preaching of radical Islam in neighborhood mosques. The terrorists yesterday spoke French fluently and one can assume that at least some were French citizens of North African descent and other Muslim countries in Africa and Asia. They could thus assimilate into the population to choose destinations, collect information about them and flee from them after their attack.
It was not clear if all the terrorists were suicide bombers or whether some of them escaped. That is why the French government imposed a partial curfew and ordered troops into the streets in many cities, the same measures taken by Israel when the current wave of terrorism began. The aim is that the very presence of many security personnel can deter copycat attacks or the continuation of ongoing attacks.
The third reason is the fact that France is in the heart of Western Europe and it is surrounded by states with large Muslim immigrant communities. The freedom of movement between European countries as per the Schengen Agreement allows the jihadists to utilize these communities to both find terrorist fighters who have been through the baptism of fire in the Middle East and to smuggle weapons required to perform attacks.
One of the wounded in the Paris attack (Photo: Reuters)
Huge quantities of arms and ammunition arrive in Europe from Libya via Sicily, Malta, Greece and many other places. These Libyan weapons move like a deadly wave through Europe, are available to anyone interested in them and can be moved about without any difficulty, as we have seen in previous attacks, from state to state. The same is true with explosives, although terrorists are able to manufacture explosives from local products - acetone and hydrogen peroxide, for example. The information is available to everyone, and Hamas had already shown during the second intifada how to equip a terrorist with an explosive belt containing homemade explosives which are no less deadly. A similar process took place in Iraq, and now France is taking a hit from it.
Another reason for choosing France is that it is considered the center of and the pinnacle of European culture and it is to a great extent a world city of the first order. Therefore the attack there has the greatest effect on people’s consciousness. Horror is effectively spread. It appears that the attackers were equipped with the pages of messages that declared so that those victims who survive would be able to cite to a media thirsty for every detail. "You bomb us in Syria and we bomb you in Paris,” was heard.
Terror victim in Paris attack (Photo: Reuters)
They also were dressed in frightening clothing, right out of a Hollywood horror movie, but the weapons and explosives were real. ISIS mixes the virtual world with the real world fluidly and this is the secret of its success and its appeal to young Muslims in the West.
A change of perception needed
To carry out terrorist attacks in seven different locations requires lots of time and elaborate organization. One has to plan, to stockpile weapons and explosives, choose targets, collect information about the targets ahead of the attack, recruit attackers some of whom are willing to die in suicide attacks and tour the scene of the attack and prepare nearby before the actual attack. Therefore, it is reasonable to estimate that the attack was planned and prepared months ago and was kept on hold for a strategically opportune moment.
We need to prepare for further attacks not only in France, but throughout Europe. To this end, Europe will need to resume full control its borders and will having to boldly deal with the dilemma of protecting human and individual rights versus the need to provide security. So far EU countries have preferred, and they can’t be condemned for it, the individual liberty of citizens over the defense against terrorism. Now Europe and especially France will have to reach the conclusion that the most important individual right is the right to life.
There's no specific intelligence failure here but rather a total failure of perception that requires rethinking. The West will have to establish a joint intelligence apparatus that will perform assessments and issue immediate alerts - and this concerns not only France and Western Europe but also Russia, China and other countries. European countries will have to establish special forces and station them in large, as well as medium and small, urban concentrations to be able to react quickly to any warning or intelligence information.
The way Israel manages to gather intelligence and act on it quickly with the Border Police counter-terrorism unit and Shin Bet’s operational unit must serve as a model. It is clear that European bureaucrats, EU officials, will at first oppose the adoption of this model - but reality will probably force it upon them. They also will have to enact legislation to enable the mechanisms set up for intelligence gathering and rapid reaction to decisively prevent attacks before they occur and handle them quickly if they have already started to take place.
The world war between murderous fundamentalist Islam and Western civilization - and basically anyone and anything not Muslim – will have to be waged without compromise and without half-steps on land, air and sea. Brussels may not like it - but we're all in the same boat. And no, the current wave of terrorism has nothing to do with the "occupation of Palestine."
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http://www.nationalreview.com/article/427064/paris-terror-attacks-long-war-continues
National Review
The War That Hasn’t Ended
By Andrew C. McCarthy — November 13, 2015
Comments 1234
There is always the chance that the next attack will knock the scales from our eyes. Always the chance that we will realize the enemy is at war with us, even as we foolishly believe we can end the war by not fighting it, by surrendering.
As this is written, the death count in Paris is 158. That number will grow higher, and very many more will be counted among the wounded and terrorized.
“Allahu Akbar!” cried the jihadists as they killed innocent after French innocent. The commentators told us it means “God is great.” But it doesn’t. It means “Allah is greater!” It is a comparative, a cry of combative aggression: “Our God is mightier than yours.” It is central to a construction of Islam, mainstream in the Middle East, that sees itself at war with the West.
It is what animates our enemies.
Barack Obama tells us — harangues us — that he is the president who came to end wars. Is that noble? Reflective of an America that honors “our values”? No, it is juvenile.
In the real world, the world of aggression — not “micro-aggression” — you don’t get to end wars by pronouncing them over, or mistaken, or contrary to “our values.”
You end them by winning them . . . or losing them.
If you demonstrate that you are willing to lose, then you lose. If you sympathize with the enemy’s critique of the West on the lunatic theory that this will appease the enemy, you invite more attacks, more mass murder.
France is hoping the night’s bloodshed is done as it counts its dead. And perhaps it is for now. But the atrocities are not over, not even close.
In Paris, it has been but the blink of an eye since the Charlie Hebdo massacre, after which Western nations joined together in supposed solidarity, supporting the fundamental right to free expression.
That lasted about five minutes.
Intelligentsia on both sides of the Atlantic rationalized that, while we of course (ahem) champion free expression — “Je suis Charlie!” and all that — columnists and cartoonists who dare lampoon a totalitarian ideology are bringing the jihad on themselves.
It was a familiar story. In 2012, jihadists attacked an American compound in Benghazi, killing our ambassador and three other officials. The president responded by . . . condemning an anti-Muslim video that had nothing to do with the attack, and by proclaiming that “the future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam.”
Islamic supremacism killed Americans, and America’s president validated Islamic supremacism.
How did the French and the rest of the West react when jihadists attacked Charlie Hebdo in Paris?
After a fleeting pro-Western pose, they condemned . . . themselves.
What happened when American commentators who had spent years studying Islamic-supremacist ideology warned that mainstream Muslim doctrine was fueling jihad against the West?
The Obama administration — the president and his secretary of state, Hillary Clinton — reacted by targeting the messengers, not the aggressors.
Jihadist terror would be obfuscated by euphemisms like “violent extremism” and “workplace violence.” The critics of jihadist terror would be smeared as racist “Islamophobes.” Mrs. Clinton led the administration’s effort to portray examination of Islamic doctrine as hate speech, to brand commentary about radical Islam as illegal incitement.
Wouldn’t that be a betrayal of First Amendment free expression? If so, Mrs. Clinton declared, the government had other ways to suppress it. The administration, she said, would resort to extra-legal extortion: “old fashioned techniques of peer pressure and shaming.”
American government intimidation, not against the jihad but against opponents of the jihad. Could we tell the enemy any more clearly that we don’t think we are worth defending? Could we tell the enemy any more clearly that we are ripe for the taking?
Hard experience has taught us that when jihadists have safe haven, they attack the United States and our Western allies. But as ISIS and al Qaeda expand their safe haven in Syria and Iraq, we tell the world it is everyone else’s problem — the Kurds have to do the fighting, or the Yazidis, the Iraqis, the “rebels,” anyone but us.
As hundreds of thousands of refugees flee the region — many of them young, fighting-fit men whose potential terrorist ties cannot possibly be vetted — we encourage Europe to open its arms and borders to them, promising to open our own as well.
After all, to do otherwise would be to concede that the war is against us — and Obama is the president who “ends” war.
The enemy is not impressed. What Obama calls “ending” war the enemy sees as surrender, as the lack of a will to fight, much less to prevail.
So, as night follows day, the enemy attacked Paris tonight, yet again. Jihadists brazenly proclaimed that they were from Syria, spreading their jihad to France.
Obama responded by soft-peddling the atrocity as a “tragedy,” the acts of war as a “crime.”
A “crime” that tonight killed 158 people (and counting). A “crime” by “criminals” who vow more jihadist acts of war against Paris, Rome, London, Tel Aviv, and New York.
We did not ask for a war with jihadists. Years ago, they commenced a war of aggression against us. Pace Obama, you can’t end such a war by withdrawing, or by pretending it is just a crime. You end it by winning it or losing it.
The enemy senses that we are willing to lose it. Tonight, they pressed their advantage. It won’t be the last time.
— Andrew C. McCarthy is a policy fellow at the National Review Institute. His latest book is Faithless Execution: Building the Political Case for Obama’s Impeachment.
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http://www.thecommentator.com/article/6136/instant_view_paris_attacks_west_s_ambiguity_on_jihad
INSTANT VIEW: Paris attacks, West's ambiguity on Jihad
The tragic terror attacks in Paris were all too predictable. The West has an ambiguous approach to the jihad, as we see over Israel, and a broad denial about what it is we are at war with
the commentator
On 13 November 2015 23:03
Comments 31
For the second time this year, the global jihad has come to Paris. Dozens have been slaughtered, and it may not be over yet. First thoughts, of course, go to the families.
As night turns into morning, there will be people in the French capital who still do not know if their loved ones are alive or dead.
But we must also turn our attention to the perpetrators. During and after the Charlie Hebdo attacks in January, France and much of the wider West descended into denial. Incredibly, political leaders and many journalists in the mainstream media described the events as "an attack on Islam".
The BBC was reluctant to even mention the Islamic motivations of the attackers.
We are at war. And if we frightened to name our enemies, it is a war we are going to lose.
Let us also recall that Western policy towards terrorism has been ambiguous, and nowhere has that ambiguity been more apparent than over the State of Israel, the front-line Western country in a decades-long struggle against the jihad.
Far too often -- and we have seen it in the recent (and ongoing) "knife intifada" -- mainstream media and political and societal leaders have drawn an equivalence between dead Israeli civilians and their murderous, Islamist killers.
Obviously, no-one should blame Muslims in general. Many thousands have themselves been killed by the Islamists. But Islamism is an outcrop of Islam and it is borderline insane to deny it.
Expect quite a lot of insanity from the mainstream West in the days and weeks to come.
