Spengler: why the French will do nothing

The New Neo Posted on by

I had notes for a piece that would explore France’s options in fighting the terrorists within. I saw two possible models: their own campaign against Algerian terrorists in the 50s (which I had mentioned in one of my first posts in response to the Paris attack), which was marked by torture and brutality; and the Israeli reaction to the Second Intifada. The first was quite successful but used abominable methods. The second, although distorted and libeled by the press, was painstaking in its care to avoid such excesses, and relatively successful.

I didn’t think France was going to do either; I don’t think they have the will or the ability.

But now I don’t have to write that post, because that is the basic premise of this excellent article by Spengler. An excerpt:

An Algerian War against France’s homebred Muslim radicals isn’t an option. France can no longer find monsters like Generals Raoul Salan and Maurice Challe, the commanders in Algeria during the 1950s who earlier had served the puppet regime of Marshall Petain during the Second World War. There is no-one left to clip on the electrodes. At the same time, France considers Israel’s occupation of Judea and Samaria so abhorrent that it has sponsored a resolution at the UN Security Council to impose a mandatory two-year deadline for the creation of a Palestinian State and Israel’s withdrawal from the West Bank. That leaves France in a pickle. If it can’t use the old French counter-terrorism model and abhors the Israeli counter-terrorism model, what can France do? The answer is: nothing. And that is just what France will do in response to last Friday’s attacks.

Please read the whole thing.

It is a terrible irony that France was instrumental (as Spengler notes) in the propaganda war to convince the world that Israel was at fault both in its methods and in its goals. Now France faces its own problem, long ignored and allowed to grow and flourish.

The Paris attacks won’t make Obama blink: full steam ahead

The New Neo Posted on by

Take a look at the news roundup website Memeorandum today. The headlines and blurbs tell a story.

At the very top we have “Islamic State threatens attack on Washington, other countries”:

Islamic State warned in a new video on Monday that countries taking part in air strikes against Syria would suffer the same fate as France, and threatened to attack in Washington.

Directly below that we have “Obama adviser: refugee plan proceeding despite Paris attacks:

President Obama still plans to allow 10,000 Syrian refugees into the country over the next year, despite terrorist attacks in Paris, at top aide said Sunday. ”” “We’re still planning on taking in Syrian refugees,”…

Next we have “GOP governors reject Syrian refugees”:

At least nine Republican governors are moving to block Syrian refugees from entering their states after Friday’s terrorist attacks in Paris that killed at least 130 people and wounded hundreds more.

After that, “Cruz: ”˜No meaningful risk’ of Christians committing terrorism”:

Sen. Ted Cruz Sunday continued to call for Muslim refugees from Syria to be barred from entering the United States but opening the borders to displaced Christians, arguing there is not a “meaningful risk” that Christians will commit terrorist acts.

Then, “Obama rejects calls for change in anti-ISIL strategy”:

President Barack Obama on Monday pushed back against calls for a dramatic rethink in the operation against the Islamic State, ruling out U.S. ground troops despite the “terrible and sickening setback” of last week’s terrorist attacks in Paris.

Then another article on the governors’ refusal, then three in a row on Obama “scolding” or “slamming” Republicans for calling for a “religious test” of Syrian refugees, calling it “a betrayal of our values.”

I guess it isn’t Christian of us. We’re not allowed to pay attention and adjust accordingly. In this, Obama is clearly in line with Merkel and those Western European elites who continue to defy the needs of their countries and their people.

Isn’t it funny; I always thought that among our values were the simple ones of protecting our own country and people, as well as applying common sense to a problem. Obama seems fully on board with the European/leftist “solution,” which is to refuse to do either in the name of (at the very best) PC tolerance.

But make no mistake about it—ISIS has no such investment or interest in tolerance; you might say it has no tolerance for tolerance. And that just might be the understatement of the century.

Bombs over Raqqa, Syria

The New Neo Posted on by

France responds.

Why on earth was this not done earlier? Was it because everyone was hoping the crocodile would eat them last?:

The operation, carried out in coordination with U.S. forces, struck a command centre, recruitment centre for jihadists, a munitions depot and a training camp for fighters, it said. Activists inside Syria have suggested that no civilian casualties have been sustained in the Raqqa bombings.

Water supplies and electricity have reportedly been cut as a result of the air strikes, with activists claiming there has been ‘panic’ inside the city.

If that’s true, once again I ask: why has this not been done before?

I understand the answer is “lack of leadership, lack of will.” But that doesn’t completely explain it, either. Perhaps the leaders of Europe (and Obama, naturally) were, among other things, deluded into thinking that ISIS hadn’t set its sights on the West and that the carnage would remain confined to the barbaric murder of a bunch of Arabs in Arab countries: Christians, but also Muslims who didn’t quite toe the proper ISIS line.

Paris, on Friday the 13th, may have convinced them otherwise. Not that this response is nearly enough, but perhaps it’s a start.

[NOTE: That article I linked to in the British press has, as is so often the case, the most comprehensive coverage of these events. What is it with the Brits?]

[ADDENDUM: Here’s a plus for security and then a big minus (also found in that British article):

Last night French intelligence officials were quizzing a man suspected of being a quartermaster to the Paris murder gang.

The suspect ”“ identified only as ‘Vlatko V’, 51 ”“ had driven 750 miles from Montenegro through Croatia, Slovenia and Austria, before he was stopped on an autobahn in Bavaria last Thursday.

Thursday, the day before the Paris attack.

Officers discovered eight loaded AK-47 assault rifles in secret compartments of his Volkswagen Golf.

Three handguns, two hand grenades, fuses, detonators and almost half a pound of TNT completed the mini arsenal.

Also found in the vehicle were several Parisian telephone numbers and other addresses.

The man, who is Muslim according to unconfirmed reports, has no apparent previous criminal record or specific links to radical Islamists.

But police believe he is linked to organised crime groups in Montenegro that may have agreed to supply weaponry to jihadi groups.

A German intelligence source said police officers blundered by not reporting the seizure to anti-terror specialists in Berlin, who may have alerted France.

It also emerged that French security police arrested a man in August on suspicion of plotting a terror attack on a concert venue.

The man was held just two months after he returned from a six-day trip to Raqqa, Syria.

According to reports, the suspect confessed that he was ordered by an IS leader to return to Europe or France to carry out an atrocity and suggested a busy concert hall as an ideal target.

Of course, “a concert hall” isn’t very specific. But still.]

Ted Cruz on the Paris attacks

The New Neo Posted on by

[NOTE: I’m adding this video of Ted Cruz speaking on the Paris attacks, which I hadn’t yet seen when I wrote yesterday’s posts. I think it deserves a post of its own.]

I don’t know about you, but this is the man I would trust most to lead this fight. That doesn’t mean I wouldn’t trust certain other Republican candidates, but no one holds a candle to Cruz in his combination of eloquence, firmness, intelligence, resolve, proven record of resolute action, and ability to understand concepts and state them with clarity. Cruz is an incredible combination of brains and character, and I fail to understand why he isn’t running away with the nomination in terms of support from conservatives:

[ADDENDUM: Looking at some of the comments, I want to add something I’ve been thinking about for quite some time: I find it astounding that many conservatives argue against Cruz (and for Trump) on the basis of “electability.” Many of those same people have been railing against the “electability” argument that they see many supporters of RINO/establishment candidates as having used for those candidates during past election cycles. I have read these criticisms for over a decade. Those same conservatives have argued that what they want is someone who can articulate consistent conservative principles, and that’s what matters to them. And yet many of those very same people refuse to support Cruz because of Trump’s theoretical “electability.”

By the way, if you look at the polls, there’s nothing whatsoever to support the notion that Trump is most electable. In fact, according to polls, he’s nearly the least electable of a not-so-very-electable bunch (Cruz is not on that particular chart, but he’s here, and his figures are somewhat similar to Trump’s).

Now, you can say that polls don’t matter, and certainly not at this point. And I would agree to a certain extent; right now Hillary has the advantage of huge name recognition and of being the obvious nominee of the Democrats. But if polls don’t tell the whole story, they certainly offer no support for an argument that Trump is most electable. I expect polls to change as the race narrows down and as time passes and unpredictable events occur, but as of now if you want an electable candidate in terms of the polls, go for Carson.

Oh, that’s right, a lot of you didn’t care about “electability.”

Anyone who reads this blog knows what I think of Trump. But right now I’m just speaking pragmatically about electability. I do care at least somewhat about electability, and I’ve yet to see any indication of Trump’s; au contraire. That’s hardly the only reason I’m against him, of course. But it’s one reason I find the electability argument of his supporters especially odd.]

At war with (fill in the blank)

The New Neo Posted on by

Meanwhile, the candidates of the left stick to the “see no Islam, hear no Islam, speak no Islam” line with regard to terrorists. Hillary Clinton did a mighty convoluted dance during the debate last night:

When moderator John Dickerson asked Clinton whether she agreed with Sen. Marco Rubio’s (R., Fla.) statement that the Paris attacks show “that we are at war with Radical Islam,” Clinton said she would use a term other than “Radical Islam.”

“I don’t think we’re at war with Islam,” she said Saturday. “I don’t think we’re at war with all Muslims. I think we’re at war with jihadists.”

“He didn’t say all Muslims,” Dickerson said. “He said, ”˜Radical Islam.’ Is that a phrase you don’t [use]?”

“I think you can talk about Islamists who clearly are also jihadists,” she said. “But I think it’s not particularly helpful.”

Sanders did her one better by blaming terrorism on climate change. How does he manage to unite such disparate elements? Easy-peasy:

Climate change is directly related to the growth of terrorism. If we do not get our act together and listen to what the scientists say, you’re going to see countries all over the world, and this is what the CIA says, they are going to be struggling over limited amounts of water, limited amounts of land to grow their crops, and you are going to see all sorts of international conflict.

That this particular conflict goes back over a thousand years, and that a country such as Israel, faced with the same challenges as the Arab countries in terms of climate, manages to keep its clothed and fed citizens from strapping on suicide belts in Paris, is conveniently ignored for the sake of the left-pleasing narrative that Sanders (not a stupid man) is only too happy to mouth.

Hillary Clinton—also not stupid–does something more, to put a phrase on it, nuanced. Let’s take a closer look at what she does here (and a small kudo to moderator John Dickerson, who attempted to call her on it). First she tried approach number one, distort what the opposition actually said and then object to that rather than to what they actually said (this, by the way, is a very favorite ploy of Obama’s, and relies on believing the electorate is too stupid to follow what you’re doing):

JOHN DICKERSON:

Secretary Clinton, you mentioned radical jihadists.

HILLARY CLINTON:

Yes.

JOHN DICKERSON:

Marco Rubio, also running for president, said that this attack showed– in– the attack in Paris showed that we are at war with radical Islam. Do you agree with that characterization, radical Islam?

HILLARY CLINTON:

I don’t think we’re at war with Islam. I don’t think we at war with all Muslims. I think we’re at war with jihadists who have–

Dickerson, to have everlasting credit, nips that in the bud:

JOHN DICKERSON:

Just to interrupt, he– he didn’t say all Muslims. He just said radical Islam. Is that a phrase you don’t–

Clinton is a little disfluent here—perhaps she didn’t expect to be called on it by a member of the MSM. But here’s where the nuance comes in:

I– I think that you can– you can talk about Islamists who– clearly are also jihadists. But I think it’s– it– it’s not particularly helpful to make the case that– Senator Sanders was just making that I agree with that we’ve gotta reach out to Muslim countries. We’ve gotta have them be part of our coalition.

If they hear people running for– president who basically shortcut it to say we are somehow against Islam– that was one of the real contributions– despite all the other problems that George W. Bush made after 9/11 when he basically said after going to a mosque in Washington, “We are not at war with Islam or Muslims.

By using the word “jihadists,” Hillary is using a word that many Americans don’t understand and that has become synonymous with “terrorist” in their minds. It represents a middle line that she thinks will not offend her base (that’s one of the things she means by “helpful”) and yet will represent toughness on terrorism to the moderates she also hope to attract. However, she’s making no sense about appealing to the Muslim world as allies, because “jihadi” is a term they understand in a more generic way and “jihad” is a mostly positive and generic concept in Islam that means “the act of striving to serve the purposes of God on this earth.”

What’s more, those potential allies know full well that what they are fighting is a radical wing of Islam that encourages and supports terrorism. They have been the victims of it, too. Note also how she manages to sneak in that idea that someone is trying to say we’re at war with Islam itself (something no Republican candidate is saying).

Just to clarify: jihadi terrorists are Muslims. They follow certain Islamic precepts and Koranic verses and interpret them in such a way that it justifies and even dictates what they are doing. There are many Muslims and Muslim clerics who disagree and condemn them, but there are many who fully agree and support them, even to the point of inspiring and guiding them. There are mosques known for this; these are real Muslim mosques, and these are real Muslim clerics. There is no question whatsoever that this represents a sizable wing of the Muslim religion, and that another sizable segment of Muslims not actively involved in it nevertheless applaud and justify these activities.

This has been crystal clear for a long time. This represents a disagreement within Islam, but it is wholly within Islam and of Islam. And the people to whom it doesn’t seem “helpful” to say so are, for example, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, because their constituents will not allow it and they are happy to oblige them.

[NOTE: Please compare to the statements of the Republican candidates on the Paris attacks. I’m adding this video of Ted Cruz, which I hadn’t yet seen yesterday but is very impressive.]

More candidate reactions to the Paris attacks

The New Neo Posted on by

Earlier today I wrote a post that featured powerful responses from Ben Carson and Ted Cruz to yesterday’s terrorist attacks in Paris. At the time, Trump had only responded very briefly to say that his prayers are with the victims.

I’m still awaiting a longer statement from Trump to compare with those from Cruz and Carson. The only additional thing I’ve seen from him so far is his observation (which I share, by the way) that if more Parisians were allowed concealed carry, there probably would have been less bloodshed. Then he asked for a moment of silence. He also briefly criticized Obama for having said ISIS is shrinking. But there’s been no comprehensive statement with any depth in it from him so far.

Carly Fiorina tweeted: “I mourn with you. I pray with you. I stand with you. America must lead in the world. We must wage & win this fight against Islamic terrorism.” Take note of the last two words, those of you who keep asserting none of the candidates other than Trump ever use that phrase.

This is Marco Rubio’s very clear statement of a war between radical Islam and Western civilization:

Jeb Bush says much the same thing without quite as much detail:

I’ll try to add to this as more reactions come in.

The sort of experience one doesn’t easily forget or get over

The New Neo Posted on by

In the thick of a nightmare that’s unfortunately real, time seems to telescope or expand:

Anthony, another survivor [of the concert shooting], said the fact that he was at the back of the room saved his life.

The moving crowd knocked him to the floor.

When he lifted his head, after a moment that lasted “between 30 seconds and 20 minutes…”, he saw “a bearded guy, no mask, a gun in his hand,” who was shooting methodically.

“I was waiting for the fatal shot,” said Anthony.

“And then somebody yelled that they (attackers) were gone, everybody wanted to get out. I slipped in a pool of thick blood. We crawled, we climbed over people.”

The terror to come

The New Neo Posted on by

The ghouls of ISIS are celebrating the attacks and threatening more to come: “American blood is best and we will taste it soon.”

Which brings up the topic of why we haven’t had a large scale terrorist attack in this country since 9/11.

When Bush was president, his response to 9/11 was such that I figured it acted as somewhat of a deterrent to organized terrorism and large-scale attacks on our soil. Why stir the American beast any more, when there were other Western targets without a cowboy like Bush as leader? Once Obama came to power, though, all bets were off.

And yet till recently there have still been no large-scale attacks of the 9/11 or Paris bombings type in this country (perhaps because it took organized terrorism a while to regroup after Afghanistan and Iraq?). I’ve been expecting one or more large attacks here for quite some time, and although I fervently hope I’m wrong in that regard, I continue to fully expect such an attack to happen, now more than ever.

It’s hard to know what our security and intelligence consist of at this point. I can only hope they are better than France’s, but I see no reason to think so. France is a smaller and less diverse country in general, so it should be easier to police, not harder.

At any rate, Obama’s weakness acts as a magnet for this sort of thing, both abroad and here. Terrorists have no fear of systemic and meaningful retaliation. Drone strikes make jihadi martyrs of the leaders (inspiring others), and those leaders can be replaced.

[NOTE: I watched Peggy Noonan speaking on Fox and Friends this morning, and she was both forthright and eloquent on the subject of Obama’s lack of leadership on fighting Islamic terrorism, and how Europe is going to ignore him. If anyone has a link, I’d appreciate it.]

UPDATE 8:31: Commenter “Harold” has kindly responded to my request:

It is now reported that one of the Paris terrorists was a recent arrival with a Syrian passport

The New Neo Posted on by

It’s been crystal clear to anyone who cares to think about it for even a moment that the recent influx of “Syrian refugees” would contain terrorists, and most likely ISIS terrorists. There really was never any question about it; their arrival was now made easy as pie, and their ability to travel around Europe has been facilitated as well.

I wrote this morning that I didn’t think in the case of yesterday’s Paris attacks that the perpetrators were likely to have been among these newer refugees, mainly because of time constraints and because there were fewer in France than in a country like Germany or in Scandinavia. Nevertheless, the almost-certain presence of a significant number of terrorists has long been one of my arguments against allowing and welcoming the “refugees,” and legions of Europeans and Americans agree with me.

It’s not rocket science. It’s common sense, and common sense is common. It’s not commonly demonstrated among our “leaders” today, however (I’m getting tired of putting so many words in quotes).

Now we get this announcement:

A Greek official in charge of police forces said the Syrian passport holder whose ID was found on the body of one of the terrorists in Paris landed in Greece last month on a boat from Syria. (It is not clear if the terrorist and the passport holder are the same person yet.) “We announce that the passport holder had passed from Leros on Oct. 3. where he was identified based on EU rules,” Citizen Protection Minister Nikos Toskas said. “We do not know if the passport was checked by other countries through which the holder likely passed.

Notice the arrival was very recent; last month. So it didn’t take long for him to hook up with the others, or for the plan to become operational. Of course, there are two caveats. The first is that early information is often incorrect. The second is that we don’t know whether the ID on the body was from someone else (or fake), or whether it was the true identity of the terrorist.

More here:

Belgian police arrested ‘a number’ of people in Brussels believed to be connected to the Paris attacks.

Officers launched raids in the Molenbeek district of the Belgian capital, after a car with Belgian licence plates was spotted outside the Bataclan last night.

If I were running a newspaper, I’d leave out the “car with Belgian plates” part. Do we—and the terrorists—need to know exactly how these people were traced? Next time there won’t be any car with Belgian plates.

More:

It has emerged that one of the terrorists had a match ticket and tried to get into the France v Germany game armed with a suicide vest when he was turned away by the security guard…

The terrorist fled and detonated his vest.

A second terrorist exploded approximately three minutes later while a third blew up outside a nearby McDonalds.

That’s a case of effective security at the entry to the venue, rather than effective intelligence. But at least it’s something.

Three terrorists have been identified, two by passports (one with an Eyptian passport) that may or may not have been clues to their real identities, and one a more long-term resident of France (the article does not say a citizen of France, however). The possible citizen was ID’d by fingerprints, so authorities are fairly sure who he was, and guess what?:

[He] was from the neighbourhood of Courcouronnes, about 20 miles south of Paris.

French reports say that the man, who was around 30 years old, was already known to French anti-terrorist authorities prior to last night’s attacks.

This is the pattern with the terrorists who’ve been here longer; they are known to authorities, but authorities and the government allow them to continue to reside and function as free men in their host countries. A report from the concert massacre survivors is that two of the terrorists there spoke perfect French. In addition:

Local residents suspect that the terrorists came from within the community, and are very suspicious of the mosque.

‘They targeted the most popular cafes with young people, and they knew the local area in detail, even the one way system,’ said Natalie Augier, a historian and terrorism expert who lives nearby.

‘They had kids on the corners with mobile phones to warn them if the police were coming. They had so much local knowledge, and they just melted away afterwards.

So my tentative conclusion so far is that most of the perpetrators have probably been in France for a while, fueled by the addition of some recent “refugee” arrivals. Some in the first group may have been citizens, but there’s really no information on that and it’s difficult to say.

So, remind me: why is it that Europe and the US has been taking in people from Arab and other Muslim countries in such remarkable numbers? Is some sort of vague and perhaps phony economic advantage in terms of cheap labor worth it, for the legal arrivals? And do the humanitarian arguments for accepting the “refugees” mean we must commit collective suicide? And furthermore (and I’ve been wondering this since 9/11): why allow people from countries such as Syria (and many others of that ilk) to come here temporarily to study or to travel? Why? I can think of no compelling reason, and yet it’s been continuing to happen since 9/11 with virtually no interruption.

The candidates and the Paris attacks

The New Neo Posted on by

This is the sort of reasoning we get regularly from Trump supporters:

Events in Paris today show once again why we need Trump, Trumps wall and Trump’s willingness to act. Carson can pray for them but I want my president to KILL them, stop them, eliminate them (the terrorists).

So, Carson is the one who prays and Trump will talk tough. In actuality, here’s all that Trump has written or said so far in response to the Paris attacks:

My prayers are with the victims and hostages in the horrible Paris attacks. May God be with you all.

Compare and contrast with Ben Carson’s statements:

Ben Carson brought his trademark soft-spoken resolve to Orlando, Florida on Friday, telling reporters after a speech at a Republican Party event that if he were president he would ‘destroy’ the ‘global jihadist movement’ behind the still-developing mass killings in Paris.

‘There are those out there who have a thirst for innocent blood, in an attempt to spread their philosophy and their will across this globe,’ Carson said during a brief press conference…

Asked how he would handle the threat of violent Islamists if he were elected president, Carson became even more soft-spoken than normal.

‘I think America’s involvement should be trying to eliminate them completely,’ he said. ‘Destroy them!’

Carson’s press conference came shortly after his chief Republican rival, billionaire Donald Trump, abruptly canceled his own press conference, leaving reporters in the same room scratching their heads.

Both men spoke at the ‘Sunshine Summit,’ a cattle-call for GOP White House Hopefuls organized by the Republican Party of Florida.

DailyMail.com asked Carson how he would persuade Americans that if a Paris-style attack were to hit the United States, his calm, low-volume style wouldn’t hold him back from mounting a vigorous and energetic response.

‘I would say strength is not determined by the number of decibels in your voice,’ Carson responded.

And if he held the Oval Office, he predicted, ‘I think that will be very apparent to people very quickly.’…

Carson’s response was more detailed, and possessed of a hushed intensity voters seldom see from the medical legend.

He launched into a litany of pledges, representing his willingness to commit American resources wherever Muslim radicals strike.

‘Think about this on a global level,’ he urged.

‘I would be working with our allies using every source known to man ”“ in terms of economic resources, in terms of covert resources, overt resources, military resources, things-that-they-don’t-know-about resources, in an attempt not to contain them, but to eliminate them before they eliminate us.’

‘You have to recognize,’ he lectured softly, ‘that the global jihadist movement is an existential threat which is very different than anything that we’ve faced previously.’

Asked whether he would consider committing the U.S. military in what amounts to a religious war, Carson said he would.

‘Boots on the ground would probably be important,’ he explained…

Carson also broke with Obama on the thorny question of accepting refugees from war-torn Syria, parrying a question about whether he would send them back to the Middle East if he wins the White House.

‘I would not allow them to come in the first place,’ he said.

‘If we’re going to be bringing 200,000 people over here from that region,’ Carson mused: ‘If I were one of the leaders of the global jihadist movement, and I didn’t infiltrate that group of people with my people, that would be almost malpractice. Of course they’re going to infiltrate them.’

In another post, I’ve already linked to Ted Cruz’s excellent statement, but here’s the link again.

Of the three, I have no idea why anyone would think it’s only Trump who understands, and only Trump who will act. Carson and Cruz understand full well, and state it powerfully. There is no foundation for the idea that only Trump gets it, and yet I see that repeated over and over all around the blogosphere from people who support Trump. It’s become a cult of personality, pure and simple.

[NOTE: I assume that other candidates will issue statements soon. I also assume we’ll be hearing more from Trump on it.]

ADDENDUM at 8:00 PM 11/14: I’m still awaiting a statement from Trump. The only thing I’ve seen is his observation (which I share, by the way) that if more Parisians were allowed concealed carry, there probably would have been less bloodshed. Then he asked for a moment of silence.

Carly Fiorina tweeted earlier today: “I mourn with you. I pray with you. I stand with you. America must lead in the world. We must wage & win this fight against Islamic terrorism.” Take note of the last two words, those of you who keep asserting none of the candidates other than Trump ever use that phrase.

This is Marco Rubio’s very clear statement of a war between radical Islam and Western civilzation:

Jeb Bush says much the same thing without quite as much detail:

]