Nice, France - Terror Attack

[joeactor]

NICE, France — A truck drove on to the sidewalk and plowed through a crowd of Bastille Day revelers who'd gathered to watch fireworks in the French resort city of Nice late Thursday in what some officials and eyewitnesses described as a deliberate attack. The president of the Nice region said at least 60 people were killed.

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2016/07/14/nice-france-truck_n_11001224.html

[Icarus]

At 10 PM this evening US EST  the fatalities are at 77. Many others injured, some critically. The gendarme shot and killed the driver of the truck who was clearly a terrorist. There were explosives and ammunition in the truck that plowed into the innocent Bastille day revelers.

I am sorry that I posted a notice of the anniversary of Bastille day in our history thread, a few hours ago. Will this barbaric madness ever stop ??? 

[Dave]

Will this barbaric madness ever stop ???

Only when there are no barbaric mad people left.

No psychos,, no religious fundamentalists.

Only draconian measures can really guard against such attacks and those would seriously affect the quality of life of the innocent as well. No immigration from any Muslim country would be the least measure to relieve this problem. But what of those of immigrant origin already legally resident?

I would guess those of obvious Near/Middle Eastern, or even South Asian, appearance are now being viewed with a degree of fear and dislike. Mob action is not impossible even in "civilised" countries.

The result of any draconian legal approach could rival Nazi controlled Europe in terms of restrictive law enforcement.

Later: the above is, of course, one of Daesh's strategies. Sow fear and hatred between Muslims and all others, force those constrictive and "fortress" measures etc. How one can win this battle, short of forced repatriation of even long term immigrant families and a total ban on new immigrants, is beyond me.

The total assymetry could damage the West's still developing values of how to fight wars with minimum civilian casualties.. Yes, there are such values in war these days, believe it or not.

[Ecurb Noselrub]

I read that he was French Tunisian.  When I was in France Tunisian bakeries were my favorite.  I'll never think of them the same again.  I've walked that promenade where it happened. So sad.  So evil.

[Asmodean]

Yes, you see, the civilized world is doing it wrong. If you ARE to mess with those Muslim-places with which we regularly DO mess, carpet bomb the fuck out of the area, then fire-bomb it until it turns into a sheet of glass. Otherwise, you just fertilize the soil out of which terrorism and religious extremism grow with the blood of the would-be terrorists' families, communities or percieved co-tribesmen.

There is also a solution which does not involve war crimes - just let them slaughter each other and get your damned oil some place else. A little too late for that though, I think. Nope... Kill them all. I'm back to that. Well, perhaps not all of them. Small children and good kebab-cooks may live. But then, the kebab cooks will need someone to buy from them, so perhaps we should spare the plumbers and the car repairmen too. And the doctors to treat kebab-related injuries. Them too. Aw, fuck it! They can all live, but only as long as they stay out of my way.

/end xenophobic rant

When will it end, you ask? When people are no longer able to hide behind religion and/or other authority to justify their deeds. When externalization of blame is frowned upon as much as fucking dead babies. When humanity dies, or is replaced by some better beings. I don't see "it" ending before at least some of those conditions are satisfied.

Keep doing what you're doing, France. You have what little support I can give in not letting terrorists win.

[Dave]

Tend to agree with some bits of your rhetoric/polemic, Asmo!

Especially in terms of letting them sort their sectarian stuff out themselves, in their own time honoured, well practiced, way. Ring fence the whole region (dificult unfortunately) and pull all non--NGO functions out. Innocents will suffer, but that will happen whatever the rest of the world does anyway.

As usual the imperial powers, especially in the persons of Mr Sykes and M. Picot, can take a lot of the blame but hidtory tells us this is still, basically, a culture of "warlords" and "strong men" ; clan chiefs, tribal rulers and
paramount kings. Mostly holding their posts by strict laws and/or violence. A 15thC mindset with a thin 21stC veneer.

But then we come to Daesh which, though currently on a bit of a back foot, has an ambition for a global caliphate. So, the fact that they are not doing quite so well in Syria and Iraq as they would like could mean that last night's action - so dificult to predict, so easy to execute - could become far more commonplace, simply in order to disrupt and occupy Western intelligence and security forces and keep ordinary people in a state of fear and caution.

As implied, the exclusion of every single possible suspect, like every Muslim, would be one of the few measures that would even come close to a solution.

Draconian.

[Asmodean]

A 15thC mindset with a thin 21stC veneer.

...And some fully functional 20th century weapons of mass misery.

But then we come to Daesh which, though currently on a bit of a back foot, has an ambition for a global caliphate. So, the fact that they are not doing quite so well in Syria and Iraq as they would like could mean that last night's action - so dificult to predict, so easy to execute - could become far more commonplace, simply in order to disrupt and occupy Western intelligence and security forces and keep ordinary people in a state of fear and caution.

Oh, yes, I absolutely agree with you. That's why I ranted about it being too late to try and solve this problem for the civilized world's sake without said civilized world committing a war crime or five... Or five million. Could we live with ourselves? I think so, actually. Would we want to..? A completely different question, that one, and harder to answer.

In any case, we sort of made IS our problem. In many quite significant ways, it's our baby and now it's in its teens and full of rage and crappy music... So what the fuck are we to do? They blow something up over here - or run people over by a truck - we drop a few bombs over there. They take out 100 people, we take out 1000 (trouble is, they kind of have ten births for every one of ours, so in the long run... Who's to say). They burn an embassy, we burn a town. Back and forth and forth and back ad... Yes, what? Infinitum?

As implied, the exclusion of every single possible suspect, like every Muslim, would be one of the few measures that would even come close to a solution.

Draconian.

Yep. Kill them all. Except the kebab cooks, of course... And the doctors and the plumbers and the small children... It's a weird ethical circle, this... In my head, at least. I'm down with fencing off the entire neighbourhood and letting them fight it out. Let's hire Donald Trump to build us a wall around the Middle East, yes? Get them Saudis to pay for it.