Who's Behind The Charlie Hebdo Attacks?

By Jeralyn, Section War on Terror
Posted on Wed Jan 07, 2015 at 08:57:52 PM EST
Tags: Charlie Hebdo (all tags)

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What a sad day in Paris with 12 dead in a terror attack at the Charlie Hebdo newspaper. The BBC has good ongoing coverage.

French police published the photos above of two of the three suspects, Said and Cherif Kouachi, 32 and 34, French brothers reportedly of Algerian descent who were born and raised in Paris.

It looks like police named the wrong guy for the third and youngest suspect. Hamyd Mourad, 18, has surrendered to police. His classmates tweeted he was in class at the time of the attack. There are other reports he has a credible alibi and has been released. If so, It's a good thing he surrendered. He probably would have been shot if police found him first. [More...]

So who is behind this attack? Did the three (or as some reports claim five) attackers act on their own? The attackers appear to have training and the attack seems to have been planned. Unlike suicide attacks, they fled the scene in a vehicle. The gunmen appear to be wearing tactical and bulletproof vests, and carrying AK assault rifles. Via Memlik Pasha:

They demonstrate good fire discipline, single or double-tap targets, conserve ammo, use hand signals, move calmly, methodically.

It sounds more like along the lines of a Mumbai attack than a lone wolf attack.

Was it ISIS? While its supporters undoubtedly approve, and it may be the brothers trained in Syria, I doubt it. It doesn't seem like their MO. It may have been AQAP and Yemen inspired.

One of the police officials said they were linked to a Yemeni terrorist network, and Cedric Le Bechec, a witness who encountered the escaping gunmen, quoted the attackers as saying: "You can tell the media that it's al-Qaida in Yemen."

The editor was reportedly on this AQAP hit list (third row, second down.)

What are ISIS supporters saying on Twitter? Mostly, that people should be know you can't insult the Prophet. I see a lot of comments like this one:

Why don't people learn from history? Insulting Prophet Muhammad is a line that MUST not be crossed.

Do the Charlie Hebdo cartoons go too far? Were they too provocative, even for satire? It doesn't matter. Killing for retribution and revenge is vigilante justice. It's wrong no matter who does it. It's not justice at all.

If you comment, please do not make negative comments about Islam, Muslims or the Prophet. Personal insults and attacks on anyone are not allowed here. These killings are not grounds for an exception.

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Who's Behind The Charlie Hebdo Attacks? | 73 comments (73 topical)

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I don't think they deserve (5.00 / 3) (#2)
by CaptHowdy on Wed Jan 07, 2015 at 09:23:56 PM EST

to be called terrorists. They are murderers.

this was also the reaction (none / 0) (#33)
by The Addams Family on Thu Jan 08, 2015 at 03:56:12 PM EST

from a close friend of mine

i don't understand it -- & that's not even to mention my puzzlement about what it means to "deserve" to be "called terrorists"

???


According to their own mythology (none / 0) (#40)
by CaptHowdy on Thu Jan 08, 2015 at 05:48:39 PM EST

a "terrorist", should they die on the process especially, is a martyr to Islam. With all the related perks. If we call them terrorists we are paying them a compliment.

Not into complimenting their twisted savage depravity by promoting the promise a sexual paradise for their trouble.

They are murderers.


thank you for your perspective (none / 0) (#43)
by The Addams Family on Thu Jan 08, 2015 at 06:39:27 PM EST

that is pretty much how my friend explained it, too

for me, this argument boils down to a decision not to call this atrocity what it clearly was -- an act of Islamist (as opposed to Islamic) terrorism, and a direct attack on the liberal values of free speech and freedom of the press -- in order to spite the perpetrators, as if they were paying any attention to what we think, & as if they cared in any case

what is effective in dealing with a two-year-old's tantrum is perhaps not the wisest response to homicidal religious extremists, acting as individuals or as the assets of well-funded Islamist networks


A perfectly valid point of view (none / 0) (#44)
by CaptHowdy on Thu Jan 08, 2015 at 06:51:36 PM EST

my criticism was directed more at the media. Clearly these guys want to be famous terrorists. And undeniably they fit the description. And I can see your point which I believe to be well taken. And I basically agree with you.

I think I will still call them murders.


: Can't they be both? (none / 0) (#46)
by Slado on Fri Jan 09, 2015 at 12:26:21 AM EST

These guys carried out a penalty against the cartoonists that they feel a literal translation of Islamic law justifies.
Their "law" or interpretation of it is not the recognized law of France so their actions makes them murderers.
I can't decide which was a more important motive. The revenge or application of their religious laws or the fear and terror that inevitably would follow.

The New York Times (5.00 / 1) (#3)
by lentinel on Wed Jan 07, 2015 at 09:38:57 PM EST

has on its front page, as of 10:30 PM EST,

Hamyd Mourad, 18, suspected in an assault on the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, walked into a police station northeast of Paris and gave himself up.

I assumed, hoped, that he was in fact one of the perpetrators and could lead to the arrest of the others.

Jeralyn is far ahead of the Times, and prints the information above, that he turned himself in because he had been named as one of the conspirators, but in fact was not.

How could the Times, the newspaper of record, and just about everyone else, be so far behind and print a story that gives a completely wrong impression of reality?

I have felt for some time, that when there is an event that provokes a strong emotion, a circle the wagons emotion, the facts that we get are among the first casualties.

It's not very reassuring.

"Worth 1000 Words: (5.00 / 5) (#5)
by Mr Natural on Wed Jan 07, 2015 at 09:51:49 PM EST

Cartoonists Draw for Slain Colleagues.""

: Thank You (none / 0) (#31)
by mogal on Thu Jan 08, 2015 at 11:07:32 AM EST

for posting this link.

Donald quoted Charles (5.00 / 1) (#8)
by CaptHowdy on Wed Jan 07, 2015 at 10:37:42 PM EST

in another thread. I was reading him earlier on this-

Great Day in the morning, Senator Huckleberry J. Butchmeup's fainting couch has room for "us" all.

When asked by Bash whether this attack could be the work of the Islamic State terror organization, Graham, a member of the Senate armed services committee, responded, "I would be shocked if it's not at least inspired." "Whether or not it's command and control, I don't know," said Graham, noting that there will be a briefing later. "The question is what can we learn from this. I think Secretary [of State John] Kerry spoke very eloquently about the people who died and they are martyrs for the right causes. But people in your business need to be concerned. You're soft targets and they hate the idea of [the media] being able to tell a story."
It is entirely possibly that Huckleberry finally has passed into The Land Beyond Facts, never to return.

72 hours (5.00 / 1) (#9)
by Slado on Thu Jan 08, 2015 at 12:13:28 AM EST

That is about how long we can wait until we can believe anything coming out of our media. This is just like Boston all over again.

NBC blows it.

Then today for about 3 hours CNN threw around a theory between "experts" that these guys must have been hired hit men or mercenaries because they were so well trained.

Well trained was a common theme across all the networks based on the video showing these guys could shoot their weapons straight. Only CNN as far as I could see jumped to hired hit men.

So my advice is to wait a little while longer before we trust anything we watch or read as factual.

I saw some of the "well trained" (5.00 / 2) (#13)
by Militarytracy on Thu Jan 08, 2015 at 01:34:42 AM EST

Spiel, but when my husband came home that wasn't what he saw. Police car was completely shot up that was shown. The standard French police officer was simply outgunned. The shooters did not take cover as someone who was well trained would have. They yelled at each other in the street, no " hand signals", and witnesses said they spoke fluent French. That's an awful lot of talking for the "well trained hand signaling" scary assassins.

They had great immediate firepower that is hard to control if you are too heavy handed on the trigger for no reason. So fie about their "training to conserve ammo".


It was ridiculous (5.00 / 1) (#15)
by Slado on Thu Jan 08, 2015 at 01:43:57 AM EST

You could grab a couple guys from the local gun club and get just as good of shooting, if not better.

I bet they were trained in some way but once that talking point got going it was just ridiculous how certain everyone got about it based on a short video.


I have insomnia tonight :) (5.00 / 1) (#17)
by Militarytracy on Thu Jan 08, 2015 at 02:26:15 AM EST

So find myself wondering if and when it is known that those involved didn't have tremendous training, will those who wanted to amp the fear and/or viewership today be made embarrassed by their jiffy viewer seeking assessments? Or will we carry on as if those hours and expert speculations did not happen?


: They will have acheived the equivalent... (none / 0) (#75)
by unitron on Sat Jan 10, 2015 at 04:39:07 AM EST

...of the latter (shove it down the memory hole) by having moved on to a missing blonde or airliner. or missing airliner full of blondes, or Golden Globes or Oscars or SuperBowl buzz, or the latest celebrity spat, or...well, I'm sure you get the idea.

I give them determined (none / 0) (#16)
by Militarytracy on Thu Jan 08, 2015 at 01:51:00 AM EST

And aggressive, and that's it. Because the weapons they had are uncommon in France, sadly the police officers that initially arrived were most likely blamelessly clueless as to what they had stepped into and were up against.


72 hrs.. (none / 0) (#38)
by jondee on Thu Jan 08, 2015 at 04:48:32 PM EST

Well, that the Free Market and the "meritocracy" of competition working in, or infecting, the media..

They all want to report first and out scoop each other.


: Correct (5.00 / 1) (#47)
by Slado on Fri Jan 09, 2015 at 12:28:51 AM EST

And we as the consumer can turn it off and demand better quality or keep running it in the background in the hopes that an actual piece of Journalism falls out.

I Thought Every Major Media Outlet... (5.00 / 2) (#30)
by ScottW714 on Thu Jan 08, 2015 at 10:30:37 AM EST

...worldwide should have ran those cartoon yesterday.

I mean seriously, this is like some radicals shooting up the Onion or Hustler because someone clowned on jesus.

It's satire and if they don't like it, they should stop reading it, but it seems like the media is happy to report the murders, but few have actually printed the underlying 'cause', which IMO is as much a part of this news story as the dead people.

I don't find the cartoons funny, they are seriously offensive, but damn, you know you have lost your mind when you think whatever god you worship wants you to kill people who publish cartoons.

All this accomplished is killing innocent people and fuel the growing anti-Islam wave sweeping Europe & the US. These Muslims are turning the world against Islam for what I would call complete non-sense. They, like some radical Christians, want the world to burn, and for the rest of that really sucks.

In a world of 7 billion people, everyone is going to get offended from time to time, it's time they start acting like human beings, and deal with it like the rest of us.

Letting our own narrow (5.00 / 1) (#63)
by jondee on Fri Jan 09, 2015 at 01:29:51 PM EST

tribalist, nationalistic instincts and reflexes control what we think and write is as counterproductive as letting our fear of the violent reactions of control what we think and write.

: ..our fear of the violent (none / 0) (#66)
by jondee on Fri Jan 09, 2015 at 01:38:29 PM EST

reactions of others.

Exactly what I am saying (5.00 / 1) (#80)
by FlJoe on Sat Jan 10, 2015 at 08:38:37 AM EST

And you cannot show a single comment by me saying that Sharpton can't say what he wants. I do disagree with him and have often said so and pointed out what he is contributing to.

Let me point out how I disagree with Charlie.
There age two fronts in this war on terror:
A. Kill them over there before they kill us over here.
B. Win the hearts and minds of moderate Muslims everywhere.
By publishing those cartoons Charlie was :
A Helping Jihadists recruiters swell their ranks.
B. Pissing off Moderate Muslims .
Their foolish use of freedom helped the enemy, why must you lionize them?

"Don't offend the radical islamists because they will kill you. Better to just go along and self censure, which will please them."

Self censorship is the flip side of freedom of speech that all to many people ignore. Wise people always think before they speak. Charlie's actions DID get people killed, they bravely gave their lives exercising their freedom. What about the innocents caught up in this? What about their freedoms?

This is not about making fun of or pleasing the jihadists. Charlie mocked an entire religion for the sake of a few laughs (and sales) and in the process made the world a more dangerous place. Freedom, like religion, used unwisely can be a dangerous thing.

: Pissing off moderate Muslims? Really? (none / 0) (#81)
by Militarytracy on Sat Jan 10, 2015 at 09:41:54 AM EST

Because after the horrors in France I have finally witnessed moderate Muslims pissed at extremists.

Crocodile tears for "separation ... (5.00 / 1) (#85)
by Yman on Sat Jan 10, 2015 at 02:15:31 PM EST

... of church and state". It's funny how conservatives and Islamaphobes suddenly become concerned about "separation of church and state" when accomodations are made for Muslim students. If we stopped school breaks for Christmas and Easter, these same people are the ones screaming about a "War on Christmas". They're also the first ones to cry about requiring the phrase "under g0d" in the Pledge, prayer in public schools, and religious displays on public property.

No surprise.

Been hearing a lot (none / 0) (#4)
by CaptHowdy on Wed Jan 07, 2015 at 09:41:37 PM EST

about the fact that France is in at least some ways higher on the hit list than the U.S. with these guys. And why that is. It's an interesting thing. Some say there is a lot of persecution of Muslims in France. I wonder how much of that I personally would consider a low tolerance for any kind of theocratic tyranny? And that Islam is just a riper and more prickly target? And that the French have if anything a greater love of liberty and freedom of all kinds than we do? As much as we like to tell ourselves we, the U.S., is the freedom capital of the world, the presidents mistress doesn't usually attend state dinners.
The French laugh at our provincialism. je suis charlie.

The French laugh at our provincialism. (none / 0) (#6)
by jimakaPPJ on Wed Jan 07, 2015 at 10:21:27 PM EST

And they can do that because we defeated Nazis and the Communists.


Jim, old buddy, (5.00 / 4) (#10)
by NYShooter on Thu Jan 08, 2015 at 12:14:23 AM EST

You said:

"The French laugh at our provincialism.....And they can do that because we defeated Nazis and the Communists."

Just a couple of points here, Jim: First, I know you were just kidding, being the military and history scholar that you've shown yourself to be. You know that, "Laughing at our provincialism," has nothing to do with our involvement with the Nazis and/or Communists. Those two were (violent) Political movements. Our provincialism stands on its own, uh, something ..... alone. My guess is that, after a couple of years of the Wacky Wing of the Republican Party being in charge, what's left of the American voter will realize the terrible mistake they made, and, will come to appreciate that that the legacy, and, roadmap to the middle class that FDR gave us was a pretty good deal after all.

And, now, since we're good friends, and, good friends can rib each other without it being reduced to "snark" and/or meanness, let me give you a little piece of friendly advice; "Don't get your history lessons from John Wayne."

While the U.S. certainly helped win the war, first, through the actions of the Lend-Lease Program, which helped keep Great Britain afloat prior to putting our own "boots on the ground" (D-Day.) Then, by also sending tons of equipment, and, armaments to the Soviet Union, and, (finally) in the last year of the War (1944) opening up a critical (Western) "Second Front," relieving the Russians of the great burden they had been carrying, almost alone, up till then.

The figures speak for themselves, Jim: The Soviet Union, alone, suffered about 25 million casualties (military & civilian.) The United States, less than half a million.

Having said that, I don't want to, in any way, downplay America's critical role in winning WW2. Our "Arsenal of Democracy" was a very key component in winning The War, both, before our military involvement, and, then, when we really got rolling, guaranteeing that the "Thousand Year Reich," and, "The Empire of Hirohito/Tojo," were smashed into oblivion some 990 years sooner than expected.

Finally, I'm surprised you didn't "get" the joke the French were telling about the "Mighty" Americans. They weren't laughing at our military/political Power; they were laughing at our, obviously, out-of-date, out-of-sync, in need of adjustment, sphincter Power.


Good points (5.00 / 1) (#14)
by Slado on Thu Jan 08, 2015 at 01:39:59 AM EST

I would contend that both the Soviet Union and US needed each other because both had something the other needed. The Red Army needed our equipment and we needed the troops the Soviets could produce.

One must remember however how bad at fighting the Germans the Soviet generals were and in particular how the political structure of the Soviet Union led to incompetence and needless body counts.

You simply can't brush over how much our equipment helped stabilize the Eastern Front and allow the Red Army to use its superior numbers to bleed the Germans to death.

but many would argue it was Stalingrad that turned the Eastern front in the Soviet Unions favor and they did that without our help in terms of blood.

Once together we both brought an end to the 1000 year rule and its to me an argument over percentages.


It wasn't just incompetent generalship, Slado, ... (5.00 / 2) (#18)
by Donald from Hawaii on Thu Jan 08, 2015 at 02:46:51 AM EST

... although that played a big part in the first six months of the conflict. The war between the Russians and Germans was in fact a true race war. The Nazis considered the Russians to be inferior peoples, and they conducted military operations on the eastern front with a ruthless genocidal efficiency.

Whole towns and villages in Russia were simply obliterated, along with their inhabitants during the first six months of the German invasion. An estimated 8 million died as a direst result of that initial onslaught between June 1941 and January 1942.

Consider also that less than two out of every five Red Army soldiers taken prisoner on the eastern front survived captivity. And considering that by the Germans' own meticulous records, they took 5.7 million Soviet prisoners, that means ten times as many of them -- 3.3 million -- died in captivity alone, as the United States lost in combat in both Europe and the Pacific together!

The Germans treated Anglo-American POWs with far more civility than they did the Russians, who were subjected to horrific barbarity. Many were pressed into slave labor in German factories to free up men for the Nazi war effort. Untold thousands of them were killed as a result of Allied air raids on German industry.

The population of the Soviet Union prior to the German invasion was 197 million people. When the was over four years later, that number was reduced to 171 million. That's about 14% of the country's population, a staggering figure which underscores the enormity of the Russian tragedy in the Second World War.

I realize that we've gotten seriously off-track from Jeralyn's topic, which is the Paris terrorist attack, but it must be said in response to Jim's French-bashing and pretensions of American exceptionalism that the United States hardly won the Second World War single-handedly. We have always needed allies and friends, and the 21st century is no different.

Aloha.


Well, Slado (5.00 / 1) (#35)
by jondee on Thu Jan 08, 2015 at 04:28:52 PM EST

it sounds like you just made a powerful argument for interdependence and against the mythos that any nation or anyone accomplishes anything of value completely "by themselves".


: It takes a village (none / 0) (#39)
by Slado on Thu Jan 08, 2015 at 05:24:18 PM EST

To win a world war. :)

if this conversation does not relate to the Paris (none / 0) (#22)
by Jeralyn on Thu Jan 08, 2015 at 04:42:22 AM EST

events, can you pleas meet each other in the open thread to discuss? thanks.


I love you bro! (1.33 / 3) (#27)
by jimakaPPJ on Thu Jan 08, 2015 at 09:29:25 AM EST

But before you decide to give history lessons you need to do some brushing up on your studies.

I mean like "boots on the ground on D Day." Maybe you could do some movie watching and discover that we were involved in places like North Africa, Sicily, Italy, the Philippines, China, the North Atlantic, the Philippines and not to mention Hawaii long before D Day and the invasion of Europe. Oh, did I forget the battle of Midway??

And then there's the matter of reading comprehension and making things up. I mean really. No place did I say anything about England or the Soviets. And why, I ask, does the attitude of modern day France..... want some Freedom Fries??? have to do with France in WWII?

Of course since you're so hep on history I'm sure you know that some historians believe that WWII was just an extension of WWI and was caused by WWI's surrender terms that prevented Germany from getting back on its feet. Those terms, BTW, were mostly pushed by the French.

And before someone accuses me of being cold hearted towards the heroes who were killed and wounded by the radical Islamists for .....gasp!..... insulting the Prophet and other unforgivable sins let me say I have great sympathy for their friends and families. And admiration for publishing material that our own press was too frightened to publish.

Hopefully this dastardly act of terrorism will result in a change of government in France in the near future. Us?? We still have months and months to go.

BTW - Howdy was most correct that our President's mistress doesn't attend state dinners. But at least one has been known to hang out with him while "not having sex....."

But mostly I think you were so eager to instruct your most willing and obedient student that you didn't read Howdy's comment and place my response in context. I blame nested comments on that. It's easy to turn things into IM when it really isn't IM. So my forgiveness is almost total. I mean not knowing what "Sides" meant on a menu in Nashville must have been a terrible experience.


The French can also do it (none / 0) (#36)
by jondee on Thu Jan 08, 2015 at 04:31:37 PM EST

because they faced down the Romans, bled and died at Waterloo, the Somme and Verdun while the U.S elects Presidents who can't speak proper English and know things in their "guts".


An Attempt to Polarize French Population (none / 0) (#11)
by Mr Natural on Thu Jan 08, 2015 at 12:45:11 AM EST

- writes Juan Cole.

"Sharpening the contradictions" is the strategy of sociopaths and totalitarians, aimed at unmooring people from their ordinary insouciance and preying on them, mobilizing their energies and wealth for the perverted purposes of a self-styled great leader.
The only effective response to this manipulative strategy (as Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani tried to tell the Iraqi Shiites a decade ago) is to resist the impulse to blame an entire group for the actions of a few and to refuse to carry out identity-politics reprisals.

So in short this is (none / 0) (#12)
by Slado on Thu Jan 08, 2015 at 01:06:48 AM EST

Classic terrorism.

"The use of violence or and threats to intimidate or coerce, especially for political purposes."

Dictionary.Reference.c$m


I think that trying to reduce terrorism (none / 0) (#26)
by Mordiggian 88 on Thu Jan 08, 2015 at 08:56:59 AM EST

To a mere dictionary definition misses the interactions of attack, reaction vs. overreaction, and the goals involved when talking about the subject.


Those (none / 0) (#28)
by jimakaPPJ on Thu Jan 08, 2015 at 09:31:51 AM EST

are words of wisdom and of rhyme that can mean anything at anytime.

Of course it was an act of terrorism.

Gesh!


The whole terroism/ (5.00 / 1) (#56)
by FlJoe on Fri Jan 09, 2015 at 11:05:15 AM EST

argument is just a semantic game. In reality there are no "acts of terrorism". These are crimes pure and simple. Like any crime there is usually a motive and when that motive has to do with political, religious or other ideological reasons we slap the word terrorist on them.Murder is a murderer whether it is a crime of passion, greed or politics. To worry about what kind of label to slap on these criminal is kind of missing the point. I think all decent people are outraged at these acts but to argue that someone is not outraged enough to slap the "correct" label on them is ridiculous.


Homicide is killing and may or may not be a crime (none / 0) (#61)
by jimakaPPJ on Fri Jan 09, 2015 at 01:19:12 PM EST

of various degrees. Murder is a crime of homicide. Terrorism is just a description to describe homicide murder as Slado provided.

It is important in these matters that we use the correct words in defining these acts.

As Lewis Carroll wrote in "Thru the Looking Glass."

But "glory" doesn't mean "a nice knock-down argument,"' Alice objected.
`When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, `it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less.'
`The question is,' said Alice, `whether you can make words mean so many different things.'
`The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, `which is to be master - - that's all.'

: Yadda-yadda-yadda (none / 0) (#62)
by Mordiggian 88 on Fri Jan 09, 2015 at 01:28:22 PM EST

Nope, never said that (none / 0) (#29)
by Mordiggian 88 on Thu Jan 08, 2015 at 10:19:59 AM EST

what happened in France wasn't terrorism, just limiting the. discussion to the dictionary definition of terrorism isn't productive.

By that definition, the cyber-attack on Sony wasn't terrorism, as only data and reputations were the casualties of that attack, nobody and nothing was physically harmed by it.


I think that one must also consider ... (none / 0) (#19)
by Donald from Hawaii on Thu Jan 08, 2015 at 03:01:35 AM EST

Jeralyn: "Do the Charlie Hebdo cartoons go too far? Were they too provocative, even for satire? It doesn't matter. Killing for retribution and revenge is vigilante justice. It's wrong no matter who does it. It's not justice at all."

... the fact that the French have been conducting extensive military operations in Africa for nearly two years now, in direct response to the growing threat posed by Islamic militants to feeble governments in places like Mali, Chad, Mauritania and the Central African Republic. They have a long history of military intervention in their former colonial holdings throughout west and central Africa.

So it's not just about offensive cartoons. In many respects, given their own history in the region, the French are even more hated by the jihadist movement than are the Americans.

Aloha.

France was singled out in several of the (none / 0) (#20)
by Mr Natural on Thu Jan 08, 2015 at 03:41:17 AM EST

ISIS videos and agitprop that Jeralyn commented on here. Much of France's Muslim population came from former French colonies.


: About 8-9% of the French population is Muslim. (none / 0) (#23)
by Donald from Hawaii on Thu Jan 08, 2015 at 06:19:32 AM EST

And about one-third of that total are from two countries, Algeria and Morocco, which are both former French territories.
(From 1848 until the country achieved its independence in 1962 following a brutal eight-year guerilla war, the entire Mediterranean coast of Algeria was governed as an integral part of France itself, because it had a large French population although they were never the majority. The ethnic French were expelled and repatriated to the mother country after 1962.)
Surprisingly, according to a 2010 survey, about one-third of all French Muslims said that they were practicing. Most are secular and not at all fervent in their observance and practice.
Aloha.

The BBC (none / 0) (#24)
by lentinel on Thu Jan 08, 2015 at 06:19:35 AM EST

featured an interview with a person whose name escapes me, but who pointed out that this is not purely a freedom of expression issue.

France allows and defends the right to publish cartoons which may be deeply offensive to one segment of its population, but bans garments that members of that same segment choose to wear that express their religious beliefs - because the wearing of those garments are offensive to a different, and as it happens, a more politically powerful segment of the population.

So this is an issue of murder.

The police officer who was horribly killed as he lay wounded was not killed because he had any link to Charlie Hebbo.

So, yes. I am Charlie. But I am also that policeman.

a possible sighting (none / 0) (#25)
by Mr Natural on Thu Jan 08, 2015 at 08:42:57 AM EST

CREPY-EN-VALOIS, France -- Police officers, vehicles and helicopters descended on an area 50 miles northeast of Paris Thursday after a possible sighting of two suspects wanted in connection with the Charlie Hebdo massacre.
A gas station was robbed by two masked attackers carrying machine guns near Villers-Cotterêt. The incident was being treated as "the last known sighting" of the suspects who attacked the satirical magazine's offices on Wednesday, a police spokesman told NBC News. Officers searched nearby towns including Crepy-en-Valois and Longpont.
About 70 police officers with automatic weapons arrived in Crepy-en-Valois in at least a dozen vans, a witness told NBC News. Helicopters circled overhead with gunners pointing out the doors. At 8:50 a.m ET, NBC News spotted at least eight police cars racing through the town blaring their sirens as well as an armored vehicle.

PARIS -- The French police officer (none / 0) (#34)
by sarcastic unnamed one on Thu Jan 08, 2015 at 03:58:12 PM EST

PARIS -- The French police officer whose point-blank murder by suspected Islamist extremists on a Paris street was caught on video was a Muslim

: #JeSuisAhmed (none / 0) (#41)
by CaptHowdy on Thu Jan 08, 2015 at 06:35:07 PM EST

reminds us a French Muslim died protecting free speech

Pope Francis (none / 0) (#42)
by CaptHowdy on Thu Jan 08, 2015 at 06:38:16 PM EST

honors Hebdo victims

Particularly nice, since the Charlie Hebdo (5.00 / 2) (#45)
by Peter G on Thu Jan 08, 2015 at 09:21:39 PM EST

paper also mocked traditional Catholicism as sharply as it did radical Islam, according to what I heard on the news.


: He's a superior Pope (none / 0) (#48)
by Militarytracy on Fri Jan 09, 2015 at 07:32:42 AM EST

Almost worth converting for :)

: Which is probably why... (none / 0) (#78)
by unitron on Sat Jan 10, 2015 at 05:12:38 AM EST

...Bill Donohue seems to have found a teaspoon or two of common ground with the Muslim murderers in their disdain for the magazine and its employees.

In case you missed Bill Maber (none / 0) (#49)
by jimakaPPJ on Fri Jan 09, 2015 at 08:39:38 AM EST

on the Tonight show commenting on the actions of the radical islamist terrorist in Paris.

Click here.

: I love how conservatives ... (5.00 / 1) (#52)
by Yman on Fri Jan 09, 2015 at 09:34:28 AM EST

... jump on the Maher bandwagon when he makes one of his anti- Islam statements as though his opinions are somehow evidence of anything, but run fleeing in the other direction and attack Maher the other 99% of the time. Like the order in the same appearance where he stated "There are no great religions. They're ALL stupid and dangerous."

: I know....he's in trouble again :) (none / 0) (#51)
by Militarytracy on Fri Jan 09, 2015 at 09:17:08 AM EST

For being factual :)

Excellent question (none / 0) (#57)
by FlJoe on Fri Jan 09, 2015 at 12:33:00 PM EST

Do the Charlie Hebdo cartoons go too far?

Sometimes we detach responsibilities from freedom.
Many people like to argue the efficacy of our policies regarding the GWT, as in "are we creating more terrorists then we are killing with the drone program?". Shouldn't we be asking the same thing in this case? How many terrorists did these cartoons create? What greater good did these cartoons do?

The drone program supporters like to say "we need to kill them over there before they kill us over here". I do not buy that argument but it does make certain logical sense. Charlie published cartoons that they knew were bound to inflame religious hot heads everywhere. The arguments seem to boil down to "we must insult them everywhere before they take away our right to satire here". I am a firm believer in freedom of speech but I also realize that with that freedom comes a very large responsibility. With the rise of Islamic jihadism and the growing Muslim populations around the globe, publishing inflammatory cartoons just might be akin to shouting fire in a crowded theatre. Freedom must always be balanced with wisdom or the whole edifice will collapse.

What logic (none / 0) (#58)
by jimakaPPJ on Fri Jan 09, 2015 at 12:57:48 PM EST

What you have just written is justification for allowing radical islamists to control what we write.

Congratulations.

BTW - One of the terrorists claimed that pictures of Abu Ghraib radicalized him.

Per your logic we can blame the NYTimes and other media outlets for these killings because they publicized it and printed pictures.


I am not saying (none / 0) (#68)
by FlJoe on Fri Jan 09, 2015 at 02:30:16 PM EST

we should allow anybody, let alone terrorists, dictate what we write. I am saying everyone should allow their own judgement to dictate such things. Terrorism is by nature designed to evoke strong emotions (fear primarily). Writing or printing something just to provoke an emotion (outrage in the case of these cartoons ) is not that much different. Sure the Abu-Ghraib pictures caused a lot of radicalization but they were real events. I would argue that they were justifiable because they were meant to shine a light on the abuses being carried out by our own government. If they helped stop the abuses that were happening then they did serve a higher purpose. The only purpose I could see for these cartoons was to sell papers.
No we should NEVER let fear dictate what we should do or say, but we should always allow WISDOM to set the limits.


Sorry but that is exactly what you wrote (none / 0) (#70)
by jimakaPPJ on Fri Jan 09, 2015 at 03:58:40 PM EST

I am a firm believer in freedom of speech but I also realize that with that freedom comes a very large responsibility. With the rise of Islamic jihadism and the growing Muslim populations around the globe, publishing inflammatory cartoons just might be akin to shouting fire in a crowded theatre. Freedom must always be balanced with wisdom or the whole edifice will collapse.

We cannot quibble or hedge. We cannot be afraid to condemn radical islamists and their actions no matter how many times the PC crowd want to dither and worry about islamicphobics.


: Once again you miss the point (5.00 / 1) (#73)
by FlJoe on Fri Jan 09, 2015 at 04:51:38 PM EST

Of course this was a despicable crime. These terrorists are vermin in my book. I have never questioned Charlie's right to publish I am just questioning the wisdom of it. It's ironic that you seemed so upset with Sharpton spouting off and now you are the great champion of free speech.

: enough Jim (none / 0) (#87)
by Jeralyn on Sat Jan 10, 2015 at 02:52:12 PM EST

Move on. Don't hijack the thread into a personal fight with another commenter.
Comment spats between you and Mordigan have been deleted. I suggest you both refrain from responding to each other as you are both close to going into time out.
And don't blog-clog. There is no need for you to respond to every comment by repeating your same point over and over. If you have nothing new to add your last comment, just wait until you do.

No, we should not ever be afraid (none / 0) (#67)
by Militarytracy on Fri Jan 09, 2015 at 01:42:27 PM EST

To demand and defend freedom of speech. If it's speech...expression...you can't create terrorists, only choose to be one.


So how do they choose ? (none / 0) (#71)
by FlJoe on Fri Jan 09, 2015 at 04:27:13 PM EST

Do they just wake up one morning and decide to kill infidels? Or are they propagandized and recruited?
What is this propaganda they use?
The west hates Islam. The west wants to destroy us. The west mocks our prophet. Lies and propaganda of course, but when all they have to do is point to Parisian news stands to prove their point you might as well be posting ISIS recruitment posters. Freedom is sacred to me, but like religion, freedom used unwisely can be a very dangerous thing.


: Then in the words of Benjamin Franklin (5.00 / 1) (#72)
by Militarytracy on Fri Jan 09, 2015 at 04:32:36 PM EST

You don't deserve freedom. If you would cash in freedom for protection, you deserve neither.

Please stay on topic (none / 0) (#69)
by Jeralyn on Fri Jan 09, 2015 at 03:56:24 PM EST

And keep them related to the Charlie Hebdo attacks. While what Bill Maher said may be related, your personal views of Maher based on unrelated matters are not.

And please don't post links to the Hebdo cartoons here. They are readily available for anyone who wants to view them.

That's assuming... (none / 0) (#76)
by unitron on Sat Jan 10, 2015 at 04:48:57 AM EST

...that the actions against Sony were taken by the North Korean government and not by someone else who framed them.

If you think about it, wouldn't NK have had a better chance at bending Sony to their will and desires by informing them privately of what they had acquired by penetrating Sony's networks (embarrassing emails, contract details, personal ID theft-enabling information, etc.) and threatening public release unless Sony complied with their demands? You know, standard blackmail/extortion?

Once you carry out a threat, you likely no longer have the leverage that the threat to carry out the threat gave you.

: I tend to think that NK (none / 0) (#79)
by Mordiggian 88 on Sat Jan 10, 2015 at 06:39:57 AM EST

Wasn't behind it because of the extortion demand initially, as ISPs are easy enought to spoof. Pirate Bay tried to spoof that they were using a NK ISP to handle their traffic a while back, but it turned out that they really weren't doing that.

: this is off topic (none / 0) (#88)
by Jeralyn on Sat Jan 10, 2015 at 02:53:16 PM EST

Sony and N Korea have nothing to do with the topic I wrote about. Take discussions of other matters to open threads please.

By that line of reasoning... (none / 0) (#77)
by unitron on Sat Jan 10, 2015 at 05:05:51 AM EST

...all capital punishment is an act of terrorism, being that (supposedly) it seeks to combine punishment of the one for their actions with deterring others from such actions in the future.

If the attack was part of a campaign of intimidation by organized crime to force the magazine to pay "protection money", would it not have been just as heinous a crime, even without the political overtones to the motive?

While most are still in a state of shock over occurrences such as what just happened in France, it seems some are most concerned with who can rush to the microphones and utter the T word (or words*) first, so as to be able to imply "something" about those who are more concerned with capturing or otherwise neutralizing the perpetrators and aiding and comforting the affected who still live than they are in swiftly being "politically correct" in their description of the barbarous atrocities.

*If you call it terrorism, they condemn you for not having condemned it as an act of terror, but if you call it an act of terror, they condemn you for not having condemned it as terrorism. They don't have fixed notions of what the right term is so much as a fixed notion that it's not the one the other person chose to use.

of course (none / 0) (#83)
by FlJoe on Sat Jan 10, 2015 at 11:50:44 AM EST

The world is, has been and always will be a dangerous place. Get use to that fact.

but is it not the duty of all decent people to try to reduce that danger? Should we poke the hornet's just because it is our right? If you poked the nest alone in the woods I would call you a fool. If you poked the nest at a children's picnic I would call you a cad. I guess in your perfect world the hornets would just take you to court.

We are not in the woods or at a picnic. (1.00 / 1) (#84)
by jimakaPPJ on Sat Jan 10, 2015 at 01:01:50 PM EST

And the duty of all decent people is to protect the rights given by democracies that insure freedom of speech and actions limited only by democratically elected government's constitutions.

Your continuing desire to fulfill the radical islamists goal of controlling freedom of speech by self censor is illustrative.

At what point would you push back?


: Why must (5.00 / 2) (#89)
by FlJoe on Sun Jan 11, 2015 at 08:14:57 AM EST

You always take my metaphors literally ? These deadly vermin exist us among Jim. If words I speak would in any way encourage or assist them or in in any way cause the massacres of real people I would zip my lip unless those words were very important for the greater good, a concept you seem
to always ignore.
Like all vermin the pushback should be constant and ruthless until they are exterminated. Sure I want to live in a world where silly cartoons do not have deadly consequences. That's not the world we live in Jim. So go ahead and gratuitously mock their precious Prophet as is your right. Just remember these vermin feed off this stuff.
PS:
Our first amendment rights only applies government limits on our speech. It is the right and more importantly the duty of decent people everywhere to shout down any and all vile/hateful/dangerous speech. I vehemently condemn that speech from the jihadists. I do not condemn Charlie but I do question the wisdom of their actions. That is my right Jim and by excercising that right I am not giving in an inch to the jihadists.