It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
^ Back to Top
The MI6 Community is unofficial and in no way associated or linked with EON Productions, MGM, Sony Pictures, Activision or Ian Fleming Publications. Any views expressed on this website are of the individual members and do not necessarily reflect those of the Community owners. Any video or images displayed in topics on MI6 Community are embedded by users from third party sites and as such MI6 Community and its owners take no responsibility for this material.
James Bond News • James Bond Articles • James Bond Magazine
Comments
But it's too "easy" to understand then. And since the world is complex, "it can't be true" :) Maybe when left wing extremits shot some CEOs 30 years ago here in France in order to avenge the proletariat, the motivation was actually religious ?
I'm only half making this up : for the first sentences, you can read some people here. And for the last ones, left wing theoricians wanting to explain the extremists had nothing to do with left wing talked about a kind of religious experience for the terrorists !
All this is the kind of the intellectual version of being a conspiracy nuts, IMO : the average man in the street can't be right - there has to be something he doesn't understand.
The simplest explanation is not always the correct one. It can be, but not always.
The only thing that matters is the facts. All the facts. Not just the ones that are convenient or that are disseminated by the corporate media. Rather the facts after all investigation and hard questioning is done.
Who benefits? Who suffers? What policy changes are effected as a result? Who is capitalizing on the tragedy and how? Which politicians in particular?
These are the questions.
I will, thanks. This aspect has always fascinated me.
Religion, like science, has a purpose. It's a different purpose and certainly not one we all desire. But when I have a bad day, I consume a lot of caffeine and blame "the system"; when my grandmother has a bad day, she talks to God and all is well. I fear death, for I realise that my body is a collection of cells that will decompose after death; I consider my mind to be a complex structure of electric and magnetic fields, equally dead in the absence of its biological vessel. But fear of death makes me restless, at times very unhappy. Yet I know people who don't fear death, because they believe in an afterlife. Because in matters of life after death I tend to be more secular, I also think I'm a bit less happy in life.
When practised in solitude, religion isn't necessarily a bad thing. The problem is that far too many people forget to separate their deeper, inner feelings from the literal contents of certain books and preaches. They claim moral superiority over others, refuse to accept scientific evidence (often because they lack the proper education), and they have others tell them what to say, what to think and what to do.
The most radical types are the ones who commit atrocities. To demonstrate exactly how crazy religious fundamentalists are: they are too blinded to see that their leaders have a different agenda than to spread the word of the deity they worship. I respect and love a few people but if they asked me to blow myself up on a bus, I'd only need one word: no.
I know there is an afterlife, but it has nothing to do with religion.
How do you fight this? Countries spend valuable resources tracking, trying to prevent, and trying to fight it the best they can but one will never totally wipe out these guys. they are like insects, mosquitos or gnats. We can never eradicate them all. They kill some of us, we kill them and the cycle continues. All average Jane Does and Joe Average can do is just hope and pray that we are not at a movie theater or a market place when a bomb or some gunman decides to launch an attack. Israelis live under this cloud every day of their lives.
How did this crap start? I daresay it was in 1990 when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait and our sitting President made the decision to land troops in Saudi Arabia. this drove fanatics crazy and led to terror attacks all around the world. Finally culminating in the events of 9/11. OurIn 2001/03 our new president decides to invade a pair of Moslem countries and occupy them and the cycle has been going on ever since.
Its a mad house, a dance of fools so to speak.
An concrete examples of these atheists afraid of "the unknown"?
You need to go where the evidence is, not lead the evidence. In the current case, the motivation is well known, it has been shouted by the terrorists and these questions are pretty much non sequitur: the heinous terrorist attack against Charlie Hebdo was an act of nihilistic religious devotion. The terrorists did not care of who benefited from them, or rather they thought a man dead a few centuries ago, a man they revered as a prophet, was vindicated against some insult. He was the intended beneficiary, I guess. I am sure some of their fellow Islamists wish they could capitalize on the tragedy and muzzle up free press... I didn't work so well.
I could barely believe it when I read it, then I googled it. Cool! It almost makes me forgive the Conservative Party for Nadine Dorries, the UK's dumbest Christian (after maybe Ann Widdecombe).
Then ask yourself why all your theories seems coherent to you when you discuss them a macro-level, but fail to explain anything when considering each fact one by one :) When you explain that terrorists come from the lowest part of societies, but you're faced with mid-class or high-class terrorists sponsored by very rich people, while no terrorists come from the really low classes (like Romany people in France), you then explain "well, they identify themselves with the lowest part of societies in other countries". This way, one is never wrong, but it's quite lazy... Have you ever look at history of psychoanalysis, first they made the theories, and then they adapted the facts, it's IMO really a lot like wanting to explain everything with economics since the 80s.
"Whom benefits from the crime" is, well, about crime. Terrorism is a totally different matter. You can correlate crime and wealth, I think. With terrorism, if the correlation exists, it's the other way around, I guess. You seem to think there's a kind of continuum between crime and terrorism. IMO there's not at all. One thing is sure : the terrorists who are dead now did not benefit from their murders... Does it mean they didn't do it, really ?
If you're talking about muslim crimes in the name of Islam broadly speaking, then you seem to have a point of view that murders in the name of Islam are not economic, except that they are committed by the wealthy and not the poor. That's your view. My view is it's religious, economic, cultural and societal. I have explained at length in this thread and I can assure I'm not going to get into it with you again. You can keep focusing on economic and saying it's not committed due to economic all you want if it makes you feel better. We're past that. I have said it's economic and other factors.
If on the other hand you are talking about CH in particular, then I have made no judgements or opinions on this specific case (and if it seemed like I did, I did not mean to). I don't have all the facts. The specific CH murders are still a work in progress. A few nuts have done it in the name of Islam. Was there a wider plan? Was there a bigger objective? Was this an opening salvo? Were the Jewish murders preplanned or an add-on to capitalize on CH? We don't know that. We may never know that.
Regarding who benefits? My point is that it is important not to take everything at face value. Question more and be skeptical. People took the initial 'fact' that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction at face value. Those people look like complete idiots now. Other people took the initial 'fact' that the Benghazi murders were committed by people angry about a Jewish made anti-Islam video. Those people also look like idiots now.
If 911 and its aftermath have taught us one thing - don't trust the government to give you all the facts. Half the time they are protecting their rear ends. Reporters have to do a better job of digging and getting to the answers. Why were these terrorists in the CH case on a US terror watchlist? Why was this information not properly synched with the French authorities? Or was it? Where were the gaps in counter-terrorism intelligence and how can these be patched? Is it necessary to enact a Patriot Act for France now, or is that overreach? These are the type of questions reporters should be asking.
Even today, if a terrorist wanted to, he can infiltrate the United States through any one of the shipping ports and commit a weapon of mass destruction attack. No one focuses on this. It has not happened yet, but that's not because it can't be done.
Yet hundreds of thousands have died in the middle east since 911 in the so called war on terror. All that's happening because of this is more of these so called Islamic terrorists are being created, both there and at home. Expect more of these attacks while this misguided bombing policy continues. One is in the name of religion. The other is not. The results are the same. Deaths of innocents.
While we're futzing around, China's making deals in Africa, Latin America & Asia and slowing getting stronger.
Actually, no. "People" did not take this at face value, you are making a very broad generalization. And it was not a fact, it was a claim. The Bush administration made this claim and many, many people, in the US and elsewhere, questioned these claims and many Western countries refused to go to war because they considered the claims had not met their burden of proof.
When it comes to the terrorist attack on CH, all the evidence leads to a religious motivation. Not economy, CH was not exactly the incarnation of capitalist exploitation. Not colonialism, which CH had nothing to do with it. If you think the evidence leads somewhere else, please present your argument.
As for the attack on the Jewish kosher market, it was a by product of the initial attack on CH as well as a manifestation of antisemitism... not unheard of with religious devouts of the other two Abrahamic faiths.
Perhaps we're having a communication problem so let me clear this up.
You're wrong regarding the fact that people did not take the Bush statements at face value. Many members of the US congress and senate did, as well as members of the US media and many of the public. I assume you do not live in the US, so you have a different point of view. I realize that the French and the Germans in particular were skeptical (and good for them - I respect that) and what happened in the US was 'Freedom fries' and 'Freedom toast' as a thank you to the French for their valid skepticism. The US public had been attacked. They were fearful. They elected strong leader Bush again in 2004 despite already being aware of the Iraq b/s already by that time, and a Bin Laden video appeared just before the election, interestingly, which further boosted their fear.
Regarding CH, as I said in my above post, I am not making any statements regarding the facts on this matter. I'm reserving judgement until the dust clears and more information comes out. As I mentioned in my earlier post, I'm not talking about an ecomonic motivation for the CH attack in particular. I've been clear. All the currently available evidence leads where you say it does. So did the evidence presented by Colin Powell at the UN at the time when it was presented. The French public has been attacked. They are fearful and angry. Just like the US public was in 2001. They are now very easy to manipulate as they are emotionally raw and angry. I'm watching to see how public opinion reacts over the next few years and what politicians are able to get away with now that the public has been mobilized. I'm curious to see if we get a similar approach in France to what happened in the US from the period of 2001 to 2008 (when fear finally was abolished and Obama was elected).
You may choose to believe your elected leaders. I'm reserving judgement as I've heard too much b/s over the years (but again, to be clear, am not suggesting this particular CH attack was economic).
But fortunately for France, it means France won't be attacked by terrorists then. Oh wait.
In the last months, the right wing leader was more popular than the president. After the attacks, the president is more popular than the right wing leader. The right wing leader refused to take part in the massive street rallies, and the former right wing leader (her father) called the French "stupid". He also explained these attacks were done to manipulate France (the real culprit is Israel for him).
If you were in the street rallies, I think you'd not have said French were "fearful and angry". But well, it seems you know more than me about France, you'll explain I can't judge because I'm too close I guess : I actually live in one of the "no-go zones" of Paris where you have to be a muslim to survive, according to Fox :)
Yes, Le Pen overplayed her hand.
Not for Iraq.....but wait. Libya. Oops. Wanting to have a go in Syria....but wait.....Mali.....
I'll be watching the French public over the next few years to see if they react like the US did, or whether they react like the British did. For my knowledge. Not in judgement. I have respect for the French, so it is of interest to me.
Of course you know more about France. Just don't go passing a Patriot Act now and I'll be happy. ;)
I read in the Daily Mail last week that Algerian intelligence warned France about an attack on Charlies Hebdoe the day before. Probably garbage, as it was in the Mail.
You are making a strange comparison between the Iraq war and the Charlie Hebdo attack. And a false equivalence: the evidence brought forward by Powell were deemed unconvincing by many. Maybe by Powell himself. The evidence about the motivations of the terrorists is overwhelming. And, if we don't know everything yet... Nothing can make us believe that pusillanimous, socialist Francois Hollande had anything to do with the origins of the attack and anything else is paranoid speculation.
When one has nothing to say about the new facts because they don't fit the old theory, there's always comparisons and predictions to continue to speak : this is really all the rhetorics of psychoanalysis in action here... He will never say he's wrong, he will say : "only time will tell if I'm wrong" - the time need to construct a new "hidden truth" version of the world where the theory will still work.
Btw, about the French allegedly living "in fear" right now :
Well, who is the person who seems to be not as free as the other one here ? :)
[and then, we might read an explanation about the fact that it's the French one, because she is so "emotional" and other "I know you better than you do" comments]