After watching yesterday’s events unfold, I’m trying to work out the answers to two questions: 1) Was this an effective act of terrorism – in other words, did it leave France terrified? and 2) Did the “martyrs” look heroic enough to inspire other disaffected young men to do the same thing?
It’s too early, and I don’t know enough about French history, culture or politics to answer the first question. But let me bat down one straw man that I heard from a semi-hysterical terrorism “expert” on SkyNews yesterday. He was listing off recent “terrorism” and lumped in last year’s shootings in Ottawa in an effort to show how effectively Al Qaeda or ISIS or whichever group is the Muslim bogeman of the day is sowing terror in populations around the world. That’s a crock of shit. From what I saw, that incident made Canadians sad about the waste of a good life, and proud of the way that a few brave individuals stopped someone who had a history of homelessness, mental illness and general confusion. Even with the Tories in charge–and we all know how dangerous it is to have conservatives in charge when calm, brave response to terrorism is required–the kind of over-reaction that terrorists hope to provoke simply hasn’t happened in Canada.
Obviously, the most recent act is quite different from a few minute shootout with one deranged person, but one similarity is that the police response was overwhelming and ultimately effective, and there was no heroic martyrdom in the end, just a brief volley of well-aimed gunfire. Watching the French response, which looked to this outsider like a well-planned and executed operation by overwhelming force, my only question was how many black vans full of paramilitary police do the French have? They seemed to be everywhere.
So if you’re a young man considering martyrdom as an end state, this is the first thing you have to consider: you may kill a few people in the first few minutes of your act, but your last breathing seconds will be in front of a line of cops shooting you down.
Then there’s the supposed heroism of the act of revenge killing itself. Even from the perspective of someone who thinks that insulting the prophet is a terrible act, it was clear that, while these guys could perhaps hold their guns steady, they were not the “highly-trained professionals” some anti-terrorism pants pissers would have us believe. Look at the record: First, they went to the wrong address. Then, they killed a Muslim janitor on his first day on the job. The only video that has been widely distributed shows them murdering another Muslim, a police officer who was already down and curled in a fetal position, begging for his life. That cowardly act is all over the Internet as the main evidence of what kind of “heroes” these assholes really are. Finally, when they called in the rest of their crew (one or two other guys) and had them stage a diversion, those guys killed 4 civilians whose only crime against the prophet was (perhaps) being Jewish and needing some groceries that day. The video of the end of that siege, by the way, shows another shithead stumbling blindly out the door of the grocery store and being shot multiple times by paramilitary police in Darth Vader hats. That’s not exactly a modern-day version of Braveheart.
Their messaging, insofar as they had any, was also laughably bad. When our extremist Butch and Sundance where holed up in a print shop and surrounded by Jacques Law, they were interviewed by a French TV station. In that interview, they maintained that they don’t kill innocent civilians. What was that janitor other than an innocent? I realize that Muslims living in France might have a lot of reasonable complaints–these guys didn’t even get that message out.
France woke up this morning to four dead young men who are almost universally despised, after a demonstration of overwhelming, coordinated response by the state. By the time this is over, millions will have gathered in demonstrations against their act. Perhaps a few more young men will be inspired by this, but if they are, it will be despite the bare facts of what happened yesterday, not because of it.
MattF
It’s been mentioned before, but a good place to start on understanding the domestic French political scene is Arthur Goldhammer’s blog:
http://artgoldhammer.blogspot.com
Davis X. Machina
Who remembers the 1995 Metro and commuter rail bombings in Paris?
This sort of thing has been going in and around France and among and between indigenous and immigrant Frenchmen on since forever — the Algerian War began in earnest in 1954…. then Algeria itself had something between 50,000 and 150,000 further killed in its own civil war 1990-2000 with the GIA and MIA, and the FIS, and the AIS, and the Algerian state, all doing stuff that would have made Al Qaeda-cum-ISIS proud, twenty years early. Bits and pieces of that lot in fact became Al Qaeda in the Mahgreb and other outfits.
More pervasive media seems about the only difference….
dedc79
I would think the French jewish community is probably pretty terrified by now. And with good reason.
And I’d bet there are a lot of completely innocent, moderate muslims in france who are terrified that they are going to be punished for someone else’s crime.
JPL
Someone on France 24 mentioned that if they want to be viewed as martyrs, why were they wearing bullet proof vests during the attack on the newspaper office.
Poopyman
Agreed in toto. However,
Recent history has shown that there will be plenty of losers who fit this description.
Poopyman
@Davis X. Machina: Ah yes, I was going to point out that the French have had plenty of experience due to the Algerian situation. Not quite the cheese-eating surrender monkees our macho chairborne contingent want to imagine.
Davis X. Machina
@Poopyman: Exactly. The Saint Michel RER train bombing actually killed more people than this quarteron of losers did yesterday.
Somehow, France survived. Didn’t generate thousands of recruits for jihad either.
max
Perhaps a few more young men will be inspired by this, but if they are, it will be despite the bare facts of what happened yesterday, not because of it.
The trick with terrorism is not that they inspire other Muslims to commit gory acts of suicide – it’s to provoke the enemy (typically the government of a foreign county) into launching a crackdown. The crackdown is supposed to be oppressive enough against Muslims that more Muslims are alienated and driven to desperation – the kind of desperation that involves gory, murderous martyrdom.
Osama bin Laden was not happy about the outcome of events in Afghanistan (the US was too quickly successful in routing the Taliban) but was deeeee-lighted that the US invaded Iraq, tortured a bunch of people and threatened to invade more countries.
max
[‘They want the opponent to do the hard work of recruitment for them.’]
beltane
@max: Yes, the terrorist attacks themselves inspire no one. The autoimmune response they provoke can be quite destructive.
Howard Beale IV
@max: bin Laden was actually more happy that the GOP went into debt funding vs. the Democrat’s usual cash-and-carry mode of funding wars.
Renie
IMHO I do think these acts envoke fear in society even if that is not one of the terrorists’ ‘goals’. The US is a perfect example of this and some of our politicians’ are still capitalizing on it. Does a society live in fear because of what we are told about terrorism; or do people live in fear based just on the act? IDK but that fear appears to me to always be part of the outcome. As far as inspiring others to act, there are always people in this world who will look for any reason to justify what they do and hatred and anger are usually involved.
Felonius Monk
This could lead to a whole raft of new books on the subject, e.g. America’s Right Wing: The Chickenshit Generation or perhaps, How I Talked Big While Pissing My Pants by Lindsey Graham.
OTOH, given the recent child-like tantrums being thrown by the NYPD, does anyone have any confidence that they could have responded to such a crisis in the same professional manner that the French did?
Gavin
Maddow’s piece on this is excellent.
The 2 who did the Hebdo attack and the 1 guy who took hostages in the Jewish store were arrested previously and held by French police for their role in other terrorism. Those 3 and their women formed a “family cell.”
While in prison, they met and befriended an Al-Qaeda facilitator who was imprisoned for his role in earlier French plots.
Once everybody was released, they planned these attacks.
Just for fun, Hezbollah has condemned these attacks… because Hezbollah fights Isis and Al-Qaeda in Syria.
kindness
The exposure they got…that’s what they really must have wanted. Stuff like this, probably happened a lot less frequently in pre-radio/tv/intertube days. Sad that modern communication system facilitates the crazies. In the old days their impact was only local. Couldn’t generate what it does now. Too bad. Fanaticism sucks.
BGinCHI
A discussion of terrorism in France (and pretty much anywhere else) that does not include a discussion of the long history of Colonialism and its aftermath is missing the most key ingredient.
I was stunned that Rachel Maddow presented a “history lesson” about terror acts in France without any discussion of the roots of the French Colonial project and what came after.
There is a more complete story here and it is vital.
dedc79
@Gavin:
Also, Hezbollah is a Shiite organization, and they don’t follow the Sunni prohibition regarding images of Muhammad.
gmann
Accidentally Like a Martyr. Zevon at his finest.
JordanRules
@BGinCHI: This here!
QFT
Villago Delenda Est
@max: The deserting coward and the Dark Lord did exactly what Osama bin Laden wanted them to do.
Smart guys, those two.
MomSense
@Davis X. Machina:
I’m personally hoping that the French say “Pfft” to these murderous connards and go about their daily lives as usual. The worst thing that could happen is if Le Pen gains support as a result.
Howard Beale IV
Let’s not forget that Shia is more Catholic and Sunni (especially the Whahabi’s) is more Fundamentalist Protestant.
And when it comes to the Whahabi’s, there is no difference between the state and the belief system-they are one and the same.
Villago Delenda Est
@gmann: Well, I don’t know if it’s possible for us to make that distinction, because Zevon’s finest includes a very great percentage of his work. For personal reasons, “Lawyers Guns and Money” is my absolute fave, but I’ve been known to sing “Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner” in the shower, too.
Villago Delenda Est
@Howard Beale IV: Which is why our domestic Taliban is so fucking jealous of Saudi Arabia…that’s their idea of how things should be, with of course their own particular set of bizarre rituals praising the invisible sky asshole.
Ruckus
@JordanRules:
There usually isn’t an effect without a cause.
It may not be an understandable cause but there will be one. Colonialism is an understandable one, unless you are the one doing the coloianizing, at which point all bets are off about any understanding. “Those ungrateful people didn’t understand that we were there to help them and make them more like us while we stole their resources.”
ETA Actually some of them did understand.
raven
@Villago Delenda Est: Add in the fact that he was a fucking scumbag and you have a real trick bag goin.
Peale
Seems to me to be a lot of nothing. This is just Madrid’s subway attack. What are the Spaniards up to these days? Franco II back in power with his boot on the Muslim throat?
A few dozen people who these goon fucks friended on facebook are going to be detained and some of them arrested. If the french right wing wins some elections, it will be easy to point to this event, but so?
Amir Khalid
@Howard Beale IV:
Your comparison is so meaningless, it’s not even wrong.
Steve from Antioch
I think the main lesson to wannabe terrorists here is not to leave your identification papers behind in the abandoned getaway car. (Assuming there is any truth to the reports that that is how the suspects were ID’d)
mainmati
All the news media I have seen yesterday and today are still saying three terrorists were killed not four. The Kouachi brothers and Coulibaly killed. Hayat Boumedienne, the woman, is still at large not dead.
SRW1
There’s a wave of islamophobia arising in Europe. To the people organizing that wave this attack was a godsend: UKIP in the UK, Front National in France, Pegida/AfD in Germany, Lega Nord in Italy, etc.
All one needs to do is to have a look at the comment pages of newspapers in those countries.
Mike G
By that standard, almost any act of terrorism is effective on Republicans, who piss their pants at any violent action by those scary furriners (but not by violent right-wing nutjobs who are Real Murkan Patriots) and their party and media mouthpieces actively encourage a climate of fear.
Professor
Funny that everybody has forgotten about the Roman Catholic terrorism in Great Britain from time immemorial. I find it odd that the Irish Catholics on Fox have forgotten about the atrocities of the IRA in Britain, especially congressman Peter King.
Villago Delenda Est
@Professor: That’s wasn’t terrorism. That was freedom fighting!
FlipYrWhig
@Professor: I see no reason why gunpowder treason should ever be forgot.
Hawes
There is an interesting theory that the absence of a persuasive radical ideology – after the fall of Marxist-Leninist thought – left a void that “radical Islamism” has filled.
But when Hezbollah thinks you’re an asshole, there’s not much room left on the radical fringe.
scottinnj
I’m less sure this is about terrorism and more about the ‘angry young male at the world’. IANA Psychologist but if you look at the history of events, like, Columbine, Virginia Tech, Sandy Hook you find disaffected youth that are angry about their inability to fit into a wider society. Here you seem to have disaffected men that hard a hard time fitting into society. Remember many of the leaders/hijackers on 9-11 were also disaffected young men who had a hard time fitting into European society.
I know I am over simplifying a bit but I still believe the similarities between Columbines etc and Charlies are more important than the differences.
BruceJ
Juan Cole has a good take on this at his invaluable Informed Comment site.
The point of these kinds of acts, including the 9-11 attacks, is not to make martyrs or to inspire others to acts of terror, it’s to cause a disproportionate response on the part of the attacked society. It’s as it the terrorists are triggers for autoimmune reaction in the society.
Like the 1918 flu, it wasn’t the *flu* that killed people, it was the hyper-reaction of the body’s immune system…this is why the young and healthy succumbed the most rapidly.
We’ve done vastly more harm to ourselves reacting to Al Queda than they ever have directly. This is precisely, PRECISELY what Bin Laden said he was going to do. It worked. He’d seen it happen with the USSR and Afghanistan.
worn
@Villago Delenda Est: This one is also pretty damn great.
Elizabelle
@Steve from Antioch:
Yeah, I was wondering a bit about that factoid myself. How convenient.
Sherparick
Louise Richardson wrote a book that Charles Pierce referenced yesterday. “What Terrorists Want.” Ultimately, terrorists, whether IRA, the Norwegian Crusader, or these four dorks in France want “revenge and renown,” according to Louise Richardson (one of the reason I try not to give any names). http://www.fsmitha.com/review/richardson.htm They also serve the interests of the State, and political factions within the State that claim the mantle of national champions and state security (hence Republicans using this week’s events in France to attack President Obama even though last time I looked France was not part of the Union. Also, Faux News, which shares a black and white view of the world and feeling of victimization with the terrorists of the world, had a doofus on this morning going on about France’s “appeasement” such as having good relations with Iran (a nation, the majority of which are Shia Muslims that had nothing to do with this week’s events, and is detested by Sunni extremists in Al Qaida and ISIS). Roger Ailes does not let an opportunity pass to root for a good war.
Lavocat
Let me answer your question with the ending of the lyric you began:
The hurt gets worse
And the heart gets harder.
Ah, humanity.
Major Major Major Major
@dedc79: that’s not a great list. Maybe half are hate crimes, another quarter shouldn’t even be illegal (e.g. nazi saluting a temple), and one of them is recognizing Palestine as a state?
SuzieC
@Davis X. Machina:
I’m reading Martin Walker’s latest novel The Children of War. It’s eerily timely. It’s about the radicalization of French muslim youth, specifically those with Algerian heritage. There is a lot of grim detail about the history of French colonialism in Algeria and its gruesome aftermath.
Mnemosyne
@Major Major Major Major:
The European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) did a survey recently of Jewish people in the EU (PDF here). Some of the responses are broken down country-by-country, and France is towards the top of the scale on a lot of the harassment.
Interestingly, French Jews seem to feel that the problem is that they’re being shit on by everyone around them, not just French Muslims. In the most serious (physical) attacks, 27% of them believed the attackers were Muslims, but people with left-wing ideologies were close behind at 22%. (There were 16 possible categories and people could pick more than one category, so the numbers are a bit odd.) When asked what the number one contributor to the problem was, 90 percent of them said “the media.”
Cervantes
@Major Major Major Major:
Not entirely reliable, I agree.
heckblazer
The National Gendarmie, one of the two national police forces in France, is an actual part of the military.
Sasha
Anyone ever read WASP?
agorabum
@Davis X. Machina: Oh, I remember the 1995 metro bombings. Was in Paris around that time; recall that all the Metro garbage cans were locked too prevent folks from dropping bombs into them. But that’s it. And i still visited.
France has been involved with this type of stuff a long time – and generally doesn’t over-react. The Euros just deal with terrorism better; with more sang froid.