There is no question to which the answer is to wander round killing people. It takes a few words or keystrokes for any right thinking person to condemn the killings in Paris today. But that really doesn’t take us very far.
It is impossible to stop evil from happening. Simple low tech attacks by individuals, a kind of DIY terrorism, cannot always be pre-empted. If you try to do so universally, you will end up even further down the line we have gone down in the UK, where people are continually arrested and harassed who have no connection to terrorism at all, often for bragging on websites. These non-existent foiled terrorist plots are a risible feature of British politics nowadays. Every now and then one hits the headlines, like the arrests just before Remembrance Day. Their defining characteristic is that none of those arrested have any means of terrorism – 99% of those arrested for terrorism in the UK in the last decade – possessed no weapon and no viable explosive device.
In fact the only terrorist in the last year convicted in the UK, who possessed an actual bomb – a very viable explosive device indeed, was not charged with terrorism. He was a fascist named Ryan McGee who had a swastika on his wall and hated Muslims. Hundreds of Muslims with no weapons are locked up for terrorism. A fanatical anti-Muslim with a bomb is by definition not a terrorist.
I am assuming that the narrative that Charlie Hebdo was attacked by Islamists is correct, though that remains to be proved. For argument, let us assume the official narrative is true and the killings were by Muslims outraged at the magazine’s depictions of the Prophet Mohammed.
It is essential to free speech that it includes the freedom to offend. That must include the freedom to offend religious belief. Without such freedoms, the values of societies would freeze. Much social progress has caused real anguish and offence to some people. To have stopped Charlie Hebdo by law would have been wrong. To stop them by bullets is beyond any mitigation.
But that doesn’t make the unfortunate deceased heroes, and President Hollande was wrong to characterise them as such. Being murdered does not make you a hero. And being offensive is not necessarily noble. People who are persistently and vociferously offensive are often neither noble nor well-motivated. Much of Charlie Hebdo‘s taunting of Muslims was really unpleasant. That they also had Christian and other targets did not make this any better. It is not Private Eye – it is a magazine with a much nastier edge. I defend the right of Charlie Hebdo to publish whatever it wants. But once the shock dies off, I do hope a more realistic assessment of whether Charlie Hebdo was entirely admirable or not may be possible. This in no way excuses the dreadful murders.
The ability to say things that offend is an important attribute of a free society. Richard Dawkins may offend believers. Peter Tatchell may offend homophobes. Pussy Riot offended Putin and the Orthodox Church. This must not be stopped.
But that must cut both ways. Abu Qatada broke no British laws in his lengthy stay in the UK, but was demonised for things he said (or even things newspapers invented he had said). Most of the French who are today in solidarity for freedom of expression, are against people being able to express themselves freely in what they wear. The security industry who are all over TV today want to respond to this attack on freedom of expression by more controls on the internet!
I condemn, you condemn, we all condemn, and so we should. But the amount of nuanced thought in the mainstream media is almost non-existent. What will now happen is that conservative commentators will rip individual phrases from this article and tweet them to show I support terrorism. The lack of nuanced thought is a reflection of a general atmosphere of anti-intellectualism which has poisoned public life in modern western society.
Those who call themselves ‘Jihad Mary’ on Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/jihad.mary
will be rather annoyed to hear their name being misappropriated by Jemand.
As usual he utters a few nasty insults and sweeps off. Getting to be a habit!
~~~
Definition of the word JIHAD
‘Jihad is an important religious duty for Muslims. A minority among the Sunni scholars sometimes refer to this duty as the sixth pillar of Islam, though it occupies no such official status.’
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jihad
Pity Paul Craig Roberts doesn’t know Latin. That should be “Cui bono?” Double dative.
While on definitions – Arabists will know how one describes those engaged in jihad http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Mojahedin – remember them?
Having murdered 12 people, they paused to pick up the DNA evidence that would have set them apart from the two Algerian who will be found dead soon, no panic at all – the reason for making sure the Muslim policemen was dead is he would have said it wasnt the two Algerians (soon to be found dead), he may even have recognised the false flaggers.
Craig; “I don’t see that as a contradiction. I do not think opinions should be banned. People who want to have holocaust denial websites should be permitted to do so. But I don’t have to have them on my personal blog. Just as I think Charlie Hebdo should be allowed to do what they do, but I would not want much of their material on my blog. As for Pussy Riot I find them extremely decorative and think there should be more of them everywhere”
That appears rather like a case of an acute case of cognitive dissonance; you think that people should have the right to Free Speech, but just not on your Blog ?!! Reminds me a bit of the increasing criminalization of online speech, in that only place Muslims can really now safely express outrage against crimes against other Muslims in their own heads !
As you are such a fan, and are always looking to have a dig at Russians, perhaps you can invite Pussy Riot over to your place for a live performance, but not so sure if Nadira will approve though.
“Cognitive dissonance”? Not at all. Like he said, there is no contradiction at all. Making something illegal through legislation is not the same thing as making a personal decision to ban something on ones own website.
These people weren’t making jokes and cartoons for their friends and family, nor making a quip about religion in the course of their general conversation. They were doing it so a publishing company could make money and pay them. They did the same thing, day after day on the same subjects.
Good point Clark. But why don’t Craig Murray and the other enlightened people who uphold the right to insult anyone for either pleasure or proft not campaign for my right to make a buck engaging in holocaust denial — this is simply a matter of basic justice, equality before the law, etc. (Not that I have any particular opinion about the holocaust, but I bet there’s money to be made in denying it provided one’s activities are not deemed illegal, which of course they would be under the present liberal New World Order ideology that dominates Europe.) I ask you this question, Clark, since Craig Murray will, obviously, not answer it for himself.
“Cognitive dissonance”? Not at all.
The contradiction is saying YOU believe in something, but YOU not allowing it to be practised !
Yes Tim
From your link
mu·ja·hid
n. pl. mu·ja·hi·deen
2. One of the Muslim guerrilla warriors that resisted the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in the 1980s with the support of the United States and Pakistan.
These were extremely evil attacks. I hope that anybody found guilty of conspiring with the murderers, to commit these attacks, is guillotined.
It occurred to me that there is a similarity to the mass murders of Ander Breivik in Norway three years ago since, in both cases, mass murders were carried out by fanatics who could not tolerate diversity. What they did is so illogical and irrational that one wonders if they had been brainwashed beforehand. So I googled on “Breivik” and came up with this article from the Guardian.
“Norway didn’t give in to Islamophobia, nor should France”
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jan/08/charlie-hebdo-norway-islamophobia-france-anders-breivik
We should not attribute the actions of a very few nasty fanatics to broader elements in society. We can stop these criminals through efficient policing and intelligence work within the laws that exist today. If we develop a Torquemada and an Inquisition to do so – then they will have won.
Speaking of Russia, it’s interesting that in Russia, where they have long experience of living with Muslims and where the state treats Islam with the same respect it accords the Orthodox church, the Muslims seem to be totally loyal to the state, e.g., the entire Chechen armed forces pledging allegiance to Mother Russia.
In contrast, the only Muslims loyal to the Western states that consider Islam to be rubbish, are liver-eating cannibals and head choppers who fight for the West under the alQaeda or IS brand.
Seems it’s not just in France that you can be arrested for wearing the wrong clothes &/or exercising your freedom of speech ! ;
http://thestandard.org.nz/australian-activist-arrested-for-wearing-im-with-stupid-t-shirt/
Tarpley’s take on things. Always interesting. Loads of detail. Connections etc.
Keeping France on board, apparently.
http://tarpley.net/
It occurred to me that there is a similarity to the mass murders of Ander Breivik in Norway three years ago since, in both cases, mass murders were carried out by fanatics who could not tolerate diversity.
Breivic was a Zionist and Zionists, it seems, hate the idea of living in a multi-cultural and multi-racial society. So Are suggesting that Mossad was behind both attacks?
Probably not, but it’s an interesting theory, isn’t it. The Swedish governing party youth who were gunned down supposedly by Breivic (or Breivic’s double or maybe several doubles as some witnesses testified) had, as I recall, just endorsed a “boycott Israel” campaign, whereas in France, the government has just backed the UN resolution recognizing Palestinian statehood.
“French President François Hollande discussed the options for lifting sanctions on Russia, ruled out unilateral military action in Libya and addressed Greece’s looming snap election in a wide-ranging interview Monday on France Inter radio.”
http://www.france24.com/en/20150105-france-hollande-russia-sanctions-putin-ukraine-libya-intervention-greece-syriza/
Dershowitz said of France:
“They’ve never been part of the international campaign against terrorism. They are part of the problem, not part of the solution.”
“”I hate to pile on when they’re suffering like this, but you have to understand how bad France has been historically in the war against terrorism,” he said.”
“Dershowitz said that the attack should come as no surprise, given Europe’s history of tolerating Islamic terrorism.”
http://www.newsmax.com/Newsmax-Tv/paris-attack-charlie-hebdo-muslims/2015/01/07/id/617102/
Now you know.
The longer the assassins evade capture, the more one is compelled to think of the possibility that they were assisted somehow in their crime, especially since, although they were apparently under surveillance, they were able to commit the crime. It is very difficult for me to understand how they were able to get out of Paris, in a known car, after such a spectacular crime, in broad daylight on a weekday, committed in the very center of as big a city as Paris.
In passing, wonder where that angel of peace, Tony Blair, is bestowing his wisdom next week? I’ll tell you anyway. A *retreat* for the US Republican Party. Very spiritual, Tony.
http://www.politico.com/story/2015/01/jay-leno-to-headline-gop-retreat-114023.html
Not getting top billing any more, though.
Operation Galdio was exposed years after the Bologna train station explosions. However those bent on sowing mendacity and divisions using the same recipe over and again.
Dresden march of eighteen thousands, the day before Paris; is the only way forward, evidently!
Who is watching the watchers?
Macky 6:18pm
That cartoon that you promoted was clearly a forgery – the signature is noticeably different from Coco’s (Corinne Ray) usual signature on her cartoons and the artwork is no where near her normal standard. We have to remember that the islamofacists and their sympathisers (such as Macky) put out similar derogatory cartoons depicting Mohammed after their attacks on the Danish cartoons – all of which demonstrates that their real intention is not to show any respect to Mohammed but to stir up hatred against their usual targets.
Of course Medialens or MAcky do not even bother with the most basic checks before peddling their usual garbage – and of course none of the eminences here did either instead they prattle on about false flags and worse. Macky clearly cannot be trusted in anything he says in the future – I’m afraid his game has been well and truly rumbled – should we call him False Flag Macky in the future? Other suggestions are very welcome.
I recommend the article that CanSpeccy linked to (assuming it’s the same one)
I am NOT Charlie
By The Saker
Which includes this piece about a stupid ‘dare’ cartoon Charlie Hebdo published
“I would even argue that that his how Charlie Hebdo made it’s money, daring the “Muslim train” to run them over. You think I am exaggerating? Check out the caricature which one of the folks who got murdered yesterday had just posted. The text reads: “Still no terrorist attacks in France – Wait, we have until the end of January to send you are [our] best wishes”. The crazy person shown in the drawing is packing a Kalashnikov and wearing an Afghan “Pakol” – the typical “crazy Muslim” in Charlie Hebdo’s world. Talk about a stupid dare…”
(illustration included)
Some people on Twitter were posting pictures of front pages in the ‘west’ after the Paris attack, talking about wonderful courageous journalism. There’s nothing courageous about them spouting their own Govt’s lines, or waffling about freedom of speech. I don’t think gratuitous insults (in national newspapers or magazines) qualify as “freedom of speech” and I think the Saker has a point when he talks about “spitting in people’s souls”. Not to mention that there is feck-all courageous journalism going on in the ‘west’ for a long time – with the exception of a couple of people like John Pilger.
Isn’t it ironic that Scottish Police recently posted this on Twitter
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/01/06/police-increasingly-monitoring-criminalizing-online-speech/
Glenn Greenwald writes at the link above
“Criminal cases for online political speech are now commonplace in the UK, notorious for its hostility to basic free speech and press rights. As The Independent‘s James Bloodworth reported last week, “around 20,000 people in Britain have been investigated in the past three years for comments made online”.”
“But the persecution is by no means viewpoint-neutral. It instead is overwhelmingly directed at the country’s Muslims for expressing political opinions critical of the state’s actions.”
So were the front pages of UK papers engaging in this “courageous journalism” that was remarked all over Twitter? Supporting Charlie Hebdo?
———-
Meanwhile, Craig wishes there were more of these:
“Universally admired, Pussy Riot (or PR for short) have been promoted as superstars. But what are they? A rock or punk group they are not. A British journalist marvelled: they produce no music, no song, no painting, nada, rien, nothing. How can they be described as “artists”? This was a severe test for their supporters, but they passed it with flying honours: that famous lover-of-art, the US State Department, paid for their first ever single being produced by The Guardian out of some images and sounds …
“Hell-bent on publicity, but artistically challenged, three young women from Russia decided – well, it sounds like a limerick. They stole a frozen chicken from a supermarket and used it as dildo; they filmed the act, called it “art” and placed it on the web. (It is still there.) Their other artistic achievements were an orgy in a museum and a crude presentation of an erect prick.
http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/08/23/the-secret-history-of-pussy-riot/
Sad that you find that ‘decorative’, Craig. I think it’s three young women demeaning themselves in a mad effort to get publicity – and attack Putin while they’re doing it. All paid for by the US State Dept. (More than one source for that.)
Mods
You may wish to look at parts of Mack’s post at 6:18pm – I doubt whether Craig would want to publish links to such blatant forgeries.
I have entered the mind of Bernard-Henri Lévy, the West’s most visible war-on-Libya advocate and incestuous lobbyist.
Lévy, the hairy heir to a slave owners’ fortune bashed the Palestinians in frequent TV appearances before the French parliament was due to vote on recognition of a Palestinian state.
An assault on Hamas was the fork of Lévy’s poisonous tongue that spat venum at a state in which he cackled, “half of the government denies another (Israel) state’s right to exist.”
Lévy recently invoked a world-wide rise of jihadism charging Hamas with stroking the backs of the so called hit and run perpetrators…
Inside his head lurks a hateful meme that the Palestinian leadership oscillates between accepting Israel as a fact and rejecting any Jewish presence on Arab land.
The energy that fires the Lévy synapses is a perpetually immutable demand for the revocation of a Hamas charter that in his words, “drips with hate for Jews and contempt for international law.”
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article36927.htm
I released the mind meld before psychosis choked me.
“The contradiction is saying YOU believe in something, but YOU not allowing it to be practised.”
No, that’s not a contradiction. He’s saying he personally believes in the unconditional right of people to express themselves but reserves the right to have certain things censored on his own website. I disagree with him in as much as I think there ARE grounds for banning certain opinions like Holocaust denial, for example, but that’s another issue.
That aside, here’s an interesting article by Gilad Atzmon:
“French people should be asking what led members of their society to commit such cold blood murders against their fellow citizens.
France should ask itself why it has been dropping bombs on Muslims. Who enthusiastically advocated these ‘interventionist’ wars? What was the role of Bernard-Henri Lévy, the prime advocate of the war against Libya for instance?
What was all this French fuss about the burka? Who led this war on Muslims at the heart of Europe? Was it really in the name of tolerance?
Freedom and laughter are precious indeed, but isn’t it the French ‘socialist’ government that has been harassing and banning the best and most successful comedian in France, Dieudonné M’bala M’bala, because he satirized the Holocaust religion? Who pushed the French government to take such harsh actions against an artist; wasn’t it the Jewish lobby group CRIF?
If Europe wants to live in peace, it might consider letting other nations live in peace. By following the whims of The Lobby we have destined Paris to the fate of Aleppo, God forbidden.
But there is an alternative narrative that turns our perception of this disastrous Paris massacre on its head.
This morning 18-year-old Hamyd Mourad, suspected to be one of the three terrorists involved in yesterday’s attack, handed himself in to the police in Charleville-Mezieres. He reportedly surrendered peacefully after hearing his name on the news. And he claims that he had nothing to do with yesterday’s event. Bizarre isn’t it? Not really.
While every anti terror expert has agreed that the attack on Charlie Hebdo yesterday was a professional job, it seems pretty amateurish for a ‘highly trained terrorist’ to leave his ID behind. And since when does a terrorist take his ID on an operation? One possible explanation is that the so-called terrorists needed a few extra hours to leave France or disappear. They had to fool the French police and intelligence into searching the wrong places and the wrong people. Is it possible that they simply planted a stolen or forged ID card in the car they left behind?
If this was the scenario, it is possible that the attack yesterday had nothing to do with ‘Jihadi terrorism.’ It is quite probable that this was another false flag operation. Who could be behind it? Use your imagination…”
http://www.gilad.co.uk/writings/2015/1/8/amidst-a-religious-war-in-europe-is-it-possibly-a-false-flag-operation
And here’s another by The Saker:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article40651.htm
@Resident Dissident,
Oh dear, you must have got terribly excited, all for nothing, and now you should apologise:
http://gawker.com/what-is-charlie-hebdo-and-why-a-mostly-complete-histo-1677959168
Daniel; “No, that’s not a contradiction. He’s saying he personally believes in the unconditional right of people to express themselves but reserves the right to have certain things censored on his own website”
Err, he is censoring free speech on his Blog, but saying that he belives in free speech anywhere else !!
A “contradiction” is the mildest term for this irrationality !!
This report in Le Parisien from a few minutes ago makes it sound as if the search has basically been shut down for the night: Attentat à Charlie Hebdo : la traque des terroristes réduite pour la nuit: La traque des terroristes présumés de l’attentat dans les locaux de «Charlie Hebdo» n’a donné lieu à aucune interpellation. Le dispositif de recherche, appuyé par des hélicoptères, a été allégé dans l’Aisne jeudi soir.
“Yes, Giyane, and the bombings, beheadings, suicide attacks, massacres of schoolchildren, etc, we hear about on a daily basis are pretty evenly distributed amongst adherents of the world’s major religions, aren’t they. One looks at the newspapers and reads about yet another senseless terrorist attack and it’s really anyone’s guess who was responsible, isn’t it. “Krishna is Great!”, they often cry before detonating themselves, not to put any unfair emphasis on the Hindu element, which of course makes up a quarter of such attacks. No, there is no particular violent and intolerent tendency within Islam at all.”
Do you really believe that Muslims are behind ALL these atrocities? Have you not heard the likes of Raymond Davis a CIA operative, one out of many hundreds operating in the Middle East and South Asia, caught with bomb making equipment and maps of religious sites in Pakistan OR British mercenaries caught with explosives and Arab disguises in Iraq trying to plant bombs in markets and mosques only to be caught red handed, thrown in jail and then rescued by the SAS in a daring raid. The Danish diplomat caught with carrying a bomb in his car by Pakistani security personnel in the diplomatic enclave of Islamabad. Marriot was bombed soon after. He claimed in defense that he was testing their security! Story now wiped out from public domain)
Raymond CIA Davis was such a liable asset that John Kerry flew to Pakistan to try and negotiate for his release.
If you are referring to the recent school massacre in Pakistan, then you need to analyse the involvement of India’s NSA Ajit Doval and connections to various Hindutva extremist groups, Isis (Daeesh), Pakistan Taliban and criminal factions.
Ajit Doval
Hemant Karkare, chief of the Mumbai Anti-Terrorist Squad was killed by ‘unknown terrorists’ in the 2008 Mumbai attacks, days before he was to provide definitive evidence to prove that bomb blasts and terrorist activities in India were the work of extremist Hindu groups (RSS) alliance with Mossad. He led the investigation into the 2008 Malegaon blasts which were falsely attributed to Muslims.
“Krishna is great” is not far off from slogans Hindu extremists used when they massacred thousands of Muslims in Gujarat, India 2002. The extremist Hindu groups have their own version of the ‘ISIS’ flag.
Daniel; “I disagree with him in as much as I think there ARE grounds for banning certain opinions like Holocaust denial, for example, but that’s another issue”
Funny enough, I’ve just seen this, which I mostly agree with;
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/brendanoneill2/100254824/holocaust-denial-is-despicable-but-its-wrong-to-ban-it/
10 things the media won’t be talking about after the Paris terror attack
http://wtfrly.com/2015/01/07/10-things-the-media-wont-be-talking-about-after-the-paris-terror-attack/#.VK8gHCusUhY