Why did Paris and San Bernardino affect people so deeply?
Why indeed? After all, 9/11 was far, far worse. There were many more victims. The attacks themselves during 9/11 were far more high-tech and fiendishly clever, as well.
And perhaps that’s one clue. 9/11 was so spectacular, so creative in a near-diabolical way, that it seemed almost otherworldly or like science fiction.
Paris and San Bernardino were relatively pedestrian, as evil inspiration goes. They involved the sort of places we go to every day: random cafes and restaurants, a stadium, a concert hall, a business meeting and holiday party. Places to relax and enjoy, the sort of places nearly all urban people go to on a regular basis, or at least on occasion. It took very little imagination to put ourselves in the place of the unlucky (and mostly young) people who lost their lives there.
John Kerry was his usual flatfooted, offensive self when he seemed to offer a distinction between two Paris attacks: the Charlie Hebdo murders and the recent Friday the 13th massacres:
There’s something different about what happened from Charlie Hebdo, and I think everybody would feel that. There was a sort of particularized focus and perhaps even a legitimacy in terms of — not a legitimacy, but a rationale that you could attach yourself to somehow and say, ‘OK, they’re really angry because of this and that,'” Kerry said during remarks at the U.S. Embassy in Paris.
“This Friday was absolutely indiscriminate. It wasn’t to aggrieve one particular sense of wrong. It was to terrorize people. It was to attack everything that we do stand for. That’s not an exaggeration,” Kerry added.
“Legitimacy” sounds like an apology—a rationale, if you will—for attacks that are unforgivable. But, without excusing Kerry in the least, I have to say that he has put his finger, albeit clumsily, on an important distinction that explains why people seem more deeply upset by the recent attacks. It’s not just the ordinariness of the venues— it’s their randomness.
The Charlie Hebdo murders were many things, but “random” was not one of them. The victims were targeted for their behavior, and although it was behavior that Western societies defend as free speech, it still was behavior that was very different than attendance at any one of thousands of restaurants in Paris or going to a workplace. It was something most people could avoid without putting much of a crimp in their lifestyles. Not so with the Friday the 13th victims, or those in San Bernardino.
There are other reasons those later attacks struck more deeply at the heart and soul of Europe and America and the West. Prior to 9/11, if you were to quiz 100 people on the street, perhaps only one or two would have heard of Al Qaeda or would know anything about it. But by the time of the Friday the 13th attacks and of San Bernardino, the vast majority of people in the West had come to know much more about ISIS and exactly how bloodthirsty and savage its members could be. ISIS coming to Europe and America was something greatly feared because of this knowledge.
In addition, not long before these attacks occurred, the West had been rocked by a massive influx of so-called “refugees” from Syria—home of ISIS—and the concomitant fears about who they were and why they were on the move from the relative safety of their refugee camps in Turkey and other Muslim countries. Europeans and Americans feel helpless in the face of their leaders’ failure to protect them, or to even acknowledge there might be something wrong with accepting all these refugees at this point.
In short, they—and we—feel vulnerable, unacknowledged, not listened to, betrayed, and literally disarmed in the face of a hidden enemy that has been revealed to have been as ruthless and bloodthirsty as the villains in a terrible nightmare. Only this nightmare is real.
“Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times, it’s enemy action.”
Ian Fleming, Goldfinger (1959)
In order to effect political change, disaster must be personal.
Why do you belive the lying press?
I did not see anyone talk about these events the way they did others in the past, the big thing is the press manufacturing a gun crisis when the stats say the opposite is going on… other than the lefts crisis that they more they talk about getting rid of them the more we buy
however, daily news has been running lots of stuf, and today its george soros think tank day, where soros group has put out a paper for people in state (like the CT man who will use executive orders like the president to make state law!!), to use states to make gun control laws
i wonder if they actually realize that whatevre they do to bypass the constitution, is also going to bypass later “lesser: rights like abortion..
ie. you make a farce of the founders rights, your going to make a farce of the ones added later with more contortion than the founders
its OBVIOUS they have a control timeline and these guns are messing that up big time (as is trump. Cruz is using a company to analyze facebook information to tune his campaign to trick people that he matches them better)
every argument for gun control is a farce…
making them illegal will make em as rare as illegal drugs and expand the drug trade into weapons, which then opens the door to things like grenade launchers, fully automatic weapons and hand grenades a favorite of the south americans
many of their reasons for things have to do with the idea that they dont do it, so its ok to forbid others… so they want limits on ammo, but a round of trap is 100 shots… to practice 10 games is to shoot 1000 rounds… i knew someone that was olympic level and practiced every day… had his shells hand loaded in his basement at night for the next day, and had the supplies delivered on palattes given the quantity of shot, powder, etc. (Though their guns were about a quarter million for each weapon!!!)
here is one that is that expensive for those that say no way
F.lli Rizzini R-1 410 ga $250,000
[i do not know what they had – i dont remember]
Beretta SO-9 is about 100k, madonna bought some
you see. this is about rich, who get to play, and go on land they are taking away… and we dont get to do that as we are the slaves…
i know that, my work makes me slave without gain, and ruined my life to keep exploiting me. great reviews, no raises, no one will hire me as they think something is wrong given the salary and time and title…
cant wait for the end..
I have despised John Kerry since his testimony about Vietnam atrocities, in the 1970s. Yet, when he was excoriated for his comments about the two Paris attacks, I thought he was inarticulately making an important point: That with second attack, the terrorists grievance was that they hated non-Muslim Westerners. It’s hard to appease that grievance.
Well, you know it is legal to earn money without being an “employee” don’t you?
Seems like giving that strategy a try might be better than wishing to die.
Maybe also because we’ve been lectured for 14 years now that Islam is the “religion of peace”
and that embracing diversity (as we have done since 9/11) will make them love us?
These attacks pierced the narrative that terrorism won’t happen again here, which is why Obama had refused to acknowledge all Islamic terror attacks under his watch. “Bin Laden is dead, AQ is on the run, nothing to see, move along” with each recent terror attack.
This was reality hitting back, good and hard.
The Paris attacks were happening literally at the same day/time that I was purchasing plane tickets to send my 22-year-old daughter to Europe for the upcoming spring semester. She will basically be spending three months riding trains and hanging out in just the sort of soft targets that were the focus of the recent attacks.
The San Bernadino attack was a familiar setting (meeting/office party) that the vast majority of Americans can relate to. And then to find out that the perpetrators were a homegrown terrorist (who was well-liked enough that his coworkers threw him a baby shower!) and his mail order terrorist bride (who walked into this country without any type of apparent vetting)….
It all seemed like a perfect storm of worst fears within the space of a few weeks. And even though intellectually I know that the odds of personally experiencing a terrorist attack are low, it doesn’t feel that way. Meanwhile, the flow of refugees into Europe and the US continues unabated. That flies in the face of common sense.
I’m actually more angry than fearful, but definitely both.
The Paris and San Bernardino attacks were not complex plans to take out targets of economic/political value. They were random attacks aimed at everyday people. In a free society that sort of attack is very hard to stop. And we all know it. I have wondered fro some time when the jihadis would move to this type of target. I expected, after 9/11, to see suitcase bombs placed in shopping malls, suicide bombers lining up in TSA inspection lines and detonating their vests just as they reach the screening area, coordinated suicide attacks on malls during peak shopping times, truck bombs exploded on minor, but important, bridges, school attacks like Beslan where there are many hostages, etc. Up until now this sort of attack, much easier to carry off than the hi-jacking of airplanes or bombing of major buildings, has not been used because the al Qaeda planners wanted to do only big things. ISIS has decided to do lots of things rather than a few spectacular things. That makes us all less secure.
To see how many attacks they have carried out worldwide read this timeline of ISIS attacks since they declared their Caliphate.
http://www.aina.org/news/20151114200018.htm
J.J.:
I agree with you, but I would add that until now they didn’t want many of these smaller attacks because they were just a little bit afraid of the reaction of America and the West. But with Obama, they truly believe there will be no reaction of any consequence, and the same for Europe. They figure they have at least a year left of Obama and they want to take advantage of the opportunity.
“And perhaps that’s one clue. 9/11 was so spectacular, so creative in a near-diabolical way, that it seemed almost otherworldly or like science fiction.”
In Evan Hunter’s crime novel ‘A Matter of Conviction’, a prosecutor observes that a jury is more emotionally affected by a stabbing than a shooting…because everyone has cut himself accidentally at some point, whereas shooting are something that happens in the movies or on the news.
The Charlie Hebdo murders were many things, but “random” was not one of them. The victims were targeted for their behavior, and although it was behavior that Western societies defend as free speech, it still was behavior that was very different than attendance at any one of thousands of restaurants in Paris or going to a workplace.
But there were other attacks right after the Charlie Hebdo spree that were more “random” in nature:
1) A few hours later, a jogger was shot.
2) The next day, a policeman was shot and killed in a Paris suburb, and a street sweeper was wounded.
3) Two days following Charlie Hebdo, a kosher supermarket in east Paris was attacked and hostages were taken. Four people were killed (all Jews) and several others were wounded.
“Love” you? If American progressives give them enough opportunity they surely will.
Though the particular act is usually described very much less euphemistically, and more vulgarly, and in real life as opposed to progressive fantasy, often leads to the death of any particular object of Islam’s active affections.
The Other Gary:
Those attacks were either too small to get wide attention, or were on a “special” target (Jews, in other words). Attacks on Jews are not seen as random (especially in Israel-hating Western Europe), and not perceived as threatening the society at large. The Fri. 13th and San Bernardino attacks had far more victims (especially the Fri. 13th ones), and were more completely random.
It’s kind of like finding yourself shunted off the freeway and into ghetto side streets where the pavement is littered with broken glass, the corners populated with sullen morons, and you realize that you really, really should be carrying; concealed permit or no.
And as you stop for a traffic signal that any rational person would – and especially those medical and law enforcement personnel who are forced to frequent the area do – ignore, and you notice that all the other drivers are slouched low with their heads shielded by a door pillar for fear of being recognized or easily capped in the temple, it strikes home, as you sit awkardly strapped in the bucket seat with lap and shoulder belt fastened, just how stupid one is to genuflect before rules no one, especially the very liberals who’ve created the situation, would pay any attention to.
And then you ask yourself to what degree your own un-reciprocated principle of tolerance and civility toward the progressives you meet socially, has contributed to just, this, particular, goddamned, situation.
I can’t convince myself that the leaders who are hell bent on bringing as many of those “refugees” into Europe and the USA don’t know they are admitting thousands of ISIS operatives. They can’t be that stupid. They know exactly what will happen. The only logical explanation which I can think of is that they are committed to the Islamization of the West and don’t care how much common people are terrified, how many women are raped, or how many innocents are murdered in the process. The left are Nihilists who love mayhem and destruction.
DNW:
That happened to me twenty years ago, and I was a whitie in a white German car to boot. Makes you wish you had a pistol!
I agree with Alan F about John Kerry’s comment.
Also, i agree with Dennis but as i live in CA, with leftist fb friends, it’s eerily quiet on the pro refugee front. Besides Paul Ryan and Obama saying, “that’s not what we do”, i don’t see pro refugee people.
But then again i don’t see pro Trump people either. I only see anti Trump people.
What does it all mean?
Why can’t we shut down money for the refugee program?
One more point. The Republican governor actions made people research what in the world is going on. It became more personal and local of an issue.
DNW writes:
Who is John Galt?
. . . until now they didn’t want many of these smaller attacks because they were just a little bit afraid of the reaction of America and the West. But with Obama, they truly believe there will be no reaction of any consequence, and the same for Europe. They figure they have at least a year left of Obama and they want to take advantage of the opportunity.
Bingo.
A slight tangent, but two things really annoy me — well, more than two, but tomorrow is another day:
1. The argument that, statistically speaking, death in a bathtub is more likely than death in a jihadi attack. This argument assumes that people are concerned only for their own or their loved ones’ safety and have no interest in the type of country the US is going to be.
2. The argument that good old red-blooded ruggedly individualistic ‘Murrican gun-nut violence has killed more Americans than jihadi attacks “since 9/11.” The body count would change dramatically if the proponents of this argument were to start the clock on, say, 1/1/2001, if not before.
Every time I go through a TSA screening where I, along with all the other passengers, get treated like possible terrorists, my blood boils. We have put up with this crap for 14 years and no end is in sight. That, alone, is a major continuing victory for the jihadis. Has anyone thought about this? We are living in a continuing defensive mode because some backward savages believe they have been commanded by their deity to kill all unbelievers. We are nothing more than targets to them and our leaders believe this is acceptable. We really are sheeple. We and our leaders have decided we cannot stand up for ourselves because……….religious freedom and Geneva Conventions. When, oh when, will we regain our confidence and accept that we have the right (and the duty) to do whatever is necessary to eliminate this threat.
When they finally hit us with a WMD attack, will we finally decide to fight back or will we just surrender?
JJ,
Once again, you point to why it’s necessary to re-litigate OIF in order to set the record straight and discredit the false narrative of OIF (and its false narrators).
Setting the record straight is not a time machine that can save post-Surge Iraq restore it as a valuable circa-2010 “strategic partner” (State Dept). It’s not only about correcting the historical record for academic purposes or rehabilitating President Bush’s image for political purposes.
It’s also about de-stigmatizing and re-normalizing the urgently needed paradigm of strong-horse American leadership of the free world and concomitant range of action in order to re-seize the initiative in the contest.
In fact, the mocked early Obama positive assessments about the War on Terror were more-or-less correct, based on the counter-terrorism progress inherited from Bush. But Obama squandered the hard-earned gains and upper hand he inherited from his predecessor in an accelerated manner with the ‘lead from behind’ approach to the Arab Spring, disengagement from Iraq, and general weak-horse stance that have opened great gaps for the terrorists.
De-stigmatizing, re-normalizing the paradigm of OIF is the way to re-trace our steps to Bush’s approach, when we were last doing it correctly. It’s not rote, of course. That was 7 years ago. We must improve on Bush’s approach, but that’s the baseline we need to return to in order to re-acquire the correct course.
In order to effect political change, disaster must be personal.
I hate saying it, but you are 100% right. Things will only change when a member of the elite is personally effected by one of these attacks.
Lizzy:
“Maybe also because we’ve been lectured for 14 years now that Islam is the “religion of peace”
and that embracing diversity (as we have done since 9/11) will make them love us?”
“Make them love us” is an exaggeration but the rest of the formula can work, contingent on our competitive status as the strong horse in the arena with the dominance to build the peace on our preferred terms – no greater friend, no worse enemy writ large.
If we’re a weak horse, though, the formula becomes corrupted and falls short. Then we’re in the enemy’s frame.
The bugbear of all liberal nightmares and the fictional character who they delusionally imagine all libertarian leaning persons have set up as an idol.
As such, the progressives, their antennae always twitching, have worked hard to proactively ensure that no such recussant scenario ever becomes possible: by pushing always and everywhere for a totalizing system of social management that makes peaceful opting out – as we see with the left-fascist Obamacare “individual shared responsibility mandate” – practically impossible.
The left needs access to the life-energies of conservatives in order to live. Conservatives forget or ignore it. Liberals in their dependency never do nor can; therefore they are always working to make sure that no one – even if no one is actually planning it at the time – can ever “go Galt” without violence.
They will have you, or die. Because they need from you what you neither need nor want from them; and they insist on using the government to get it.
That is what they are. And “liberal” and progressive” and “totalitarian” and sometimes “fascist” are just labels we place on human organisms that employ that life strategy.
“Nuke the Kaaba”
Imagine that someone figured out a way to destroy completely, and without nuclear devices or loss of life this centerpiece of Islam.
And suppose just for the sake of argument, that such an act would (though it is unlikely) demoralize Muslim believers to the point they wholesale abandoned their religion.
Consider the price we now pay for co-existing with this totalitarian ideology and its manic adherents.
Now consider how political progressives respond if presented with that hypothetical as a real life option.
“When they finally hit us with a WMD attack, will we finally decide to fight back or will we just surrender?”
Depends when it happens. Thomas Sowell has predicted that Obama might surrender to Iran. Seriously frightening.
“. . . might surrender to Iran”
Although Dr. Sowell is manifestly wise on many subjects, here it appears he falls a beat or two behind the leader of the band: for if one considers what fighting Iran would look like (see the work of Michael Ledeen, for instance) it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that President VettBitterClingers has already surrendered.
You’re just doing your thing, somebody you know walks in, and tries to kill everybody.
Paris and Berdoo could happen anywhere, anytime.
“The Fri. 13th and San Bernardino attacks had far more victims (especially the Fri. 13th ones), and were more completely random.”
Except that the S.B. attack was NOT random. Not at all:
For the lovely couple was out to teach that loud-mouthed, Zionist Jew (OK, he was a Jew for Jesus, but don’t expect the apostles of the religion of peace to make too fine a distinction) a thing or too about expressing certain undesirable opinions—and in an insulting manner, to boot (just ask the Daily News).
That another several dozen or so people had to be killed and wounded just shows us all just how much one (and especially Jews?) ought to respect the religion peace and its adherents.
And that one ought to keep one’s mouth (and brain) shut when it comes to that particular topic.
Capiche?
At least one could say that this particularly spiritual and striving couple had a sense of humor:
California Department of Public Health, indeed….
One can stay away from national landmarks…
How can you stay away from Muslim co-workers who seemed totally normal at 10:00 AM and then come back at 1:00 PM with pipe bombs, body armor and jihad on their lips?
How can you stay away from ordinary prosaic live music — and the dating scene ?
There’s a tendency to forget that Paris was not just the main massacre.
The REAL main massacre was supposed to be the soccer pitch — doubling as the assassination of President Hollande.
Further, Paris also means that just walking in front of a coffee shop — can be a jihad event.
BUT, that was the WHOLE POINT.
This is economic sabotage as warfare. Mohammed’s specialty.
Economic warfare is why the Russian Airbus was blown up. It, the attack, has simply devastated Cairo… which was their primary target.
El Sisi is ripping ISIS in the Sinai to pieces. They are engage in a full on dirty war.
This is the war that has caused Jerusalem to rapidly and massively extend their Negev frontier super wall southward with alacrity.
If you recall, the first attack there was out of the Sinai, by the fanatics, to shoot up Israeli tourists — transiting from the Red Sea (Eilat) to Tel Aviv. Such travel was stopped.
Some twenty fanatics were part of that assault. It was shortly after that atrocity that el Sisi really turned up the heat. For this was not much removed from assassination attempts against the el Sisi administration — and his own head of internal security. ( equivalent to our Attorney General.)
Car bombs have been blowing up all over the Nile delta, the Sinai and Cairo — but not given much press by Barry and his MSM minions.
I am not sure what you mean by your title…I think people were very moved and very frightened by 9/11. Much more so than they are now after Paris and San Bernardino. I remember weeks on end of American flags everywhere…hanging from bridges and buildings and windows. And I also remember the country had a very high opinion of Bush…somewhere around 85% (can’t remember exactly).
This is not the same today. People do not feel like the government has this under control or will change any policy to help. Therefore, the reaction is different. Instead of banding together as a society and announcing our pride and love for America, we are buying more guns to compensate for the lack of action.
K-E, I always feel like I know what she means. She’s written tons of articles on her change and the impacts of 9/11.
Remember this – There is an entire group of people from 18 – 32 who can vote now who were not of voting age during 9/11.
People were in deed shocked. Everyone I knew thought that 9/11 changed everything. Yes there are liberals who seem to talk as if they don’t get it.
What is different is this.
The people who flew those planes could not look into those people’s eyes. It was a building. Yes – full of people but a building.
These terrorists who are slitting throats with knives, pulling the trigger on coworkers of five years have such a higher purpose just like Fort Hood but now in a civilian setting. It’s NOT a mental disease. It’s pure hatred and evil.
I’d go as far as saying this renews people’s sense that Islam has a radical element of evil that overcomes everything.
Barry Meislin:
That is a theory, but I don’t buy it. They apparently were planning the attack for a long time, killed many many more people in addition to that one person, and planned attacks on other random targets. It was apparently going to be something like the Paris attack if they had been able to complete it.
The business meeting/party was a target of opportunity. They knew the layout, they knew the situation. They killed not just that one person but lots of other people, randomly.
If you want to argue that it’s possible that single person was purposely targeted, I certainly think that’s a possibility. But when there’s a targeted killing like that, people ordinarily don’t kill a whole bunch of other random people, too.
Baklava; K-E:
My point was not that people were not moved by 9/11.
The point I was trying to make was that, after 9/11 and fourteen more years of jihadi attacks, many with much greater loss of life than these latest ones, why did these recent ones spark so much deep anger and fear? It is partly because we know more about the evil of these groups, partly because the attacks were so random (compared to Charlie Hebdo, for example, and even compared to the major symbols attacked on 9/11), and partly because we realize that our current government is not trying to protect us.
“There was a sort of particularized focus and perhaps even a legitimacy in terms of – not a legitimacy, but a rationale that you could attach yourself to somehow and say, ‘OK, they’re really angry because of this and that,’”
So sue me but I think Kerry was correct. No, it doesnt LEGITIMIZE it, but as he said, it was a reaoson one can understand. Now, it may be a red herring — what it implies they were upset at may be simply an excuse, not an actual reason — but it wasn’t random and that’s all he meant.
People are upset because it keeps happening, like a nightmare, and is random, and BECAUSE is is a small number of people. It’s awfully hard to imagine 3000+ people. You can imagine an office party, or a person sitting next to you at a restaurant. It’s easier to imagine and so seems more real in an a visceral way.
Killing as at Bataclan isn’t random because smallish numbers of people (compared to the whole French population), but non-random. i.e. aimed at the whole of the French Republic, because smallish numbers of anyone present were killed. So everyone being French could presume themselves among the potential slain when taken from the point of view of the killers. Being French is a particular thing, in other words.
sdferr:
Well, I didn’t mean they were utterly and totally random. It’s hard to see how ANY attack could be that.
Apologies neo-neocon, I hadn’t read far enough up-thread to see your statement there, but was addressing the last paragraph of Gail’s post. I see where you’re coming from though, sure.
Apart from this, I think it worth mentioning in regard to the Hebdo office attack that in the days immediately after that attack and as eye-witness testimony and other details emerged, a female clerical worker said that as the killers moved past her toward the editorial meeting where the predominant slaying was done one of the killers said to her (I gist) “you needn’t fear us, for we don’t kill women”. They then went into the editorial meeting and killed among the men there also the sole woman present. She was a Jew. I think the killers knew this.
As the Left likes to say, the chickens are coming home to roost. What goes around, comes around.
The Left just thought the victims would all be white males and or patriotic Americans/Republicans/political enemies.
They probably msicalculated on that part.
As the Left likes to say, the chickens are coming home to roost. What goes around, comes around.
The Left just thought the victims would all be white males and or patriotic Americans/Republicans/political enemies.
They probably miscalculated on that part.
* * *
Interesting point.
However, once you unleash Chaos on your enemies, unlike the Destroying Angel passing over the Hebrew homes marked with the Sign, it does not (cannot, by its nature) pass you by.
DNW Says:
December 16th, 2015 at 7:16 pm
* * * *
Your comment was not only highly relevant and evocative of the crisis we are facing, it was also aesthetically moving.
Well said.