The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age

    Closing the Borders

    By moat on Sat, 11/14/2015 - 7:01pm |

    President Hollande has closed the borders of France. The attack has been acknowledged as an act of war. What France does in the near future may not be a continuation of the politics of the Euro Zone that it has bound itself to in the past.

    Comments

    Interesting article in Paris Match from September 2015.  use Bing to translate if you can't read French.

    A seasoned French anti-terror expert says France is destined to be at the mercy of Muslim terrorists and will not be able to prevent attacks. This was less than 2 months ago. He says it takes 25 officers to monitor 24/7 one radical suspect living in France.

    Muslim radicals on Jihad over Iraq/Syria/Libya wars, local and imported across open EU borders, are increasingly too adept with plans and communication to be detected by anti-terror police. They are living in isolated non-assimilated Muslim communities.  Even with law changes, more terror judges, or even a lock 'em up Gitmo type operation...nothing will work to stop all attacks.

    This points up the serious fallacy in Merkel inviting all comers to Germany, and from there they can get anywhere in the EU. They have walked out of German shelters and then go where they please, as the Germans do not want 'wire fenced compounds' or any forced compulsion that would upset the migrants.

    See also :The End of a Liberal Borderless Europe ?, UK Telegraph


    by NCD on Sat, 11/14/2015 - 8:15pm

    I do not know if what has happened came about because of decisions Merkel made. Hollande may not treat the matter as one concerning a broad demographic. 

    When a nation says that an act of war has happened, they usually start fighting soon afterwards.


    by moat on Sat, 11/14/2015 - 9:05pm

    Merkel didn't create open borders - the EU did. They've gotten a bit more closed since the refugee crisis - caused in a large part by us supplying weapons and encouraging violent regime change that hasn't quite happened. Merkel is not inviting all comers to Germany - she has asked other countries to do their part but Germany remains most desirable and richest destination for refugees. Merkel is setting up rules to send back or elsewhere those who don't qualify. But Paris was caused by France's own disgruntled Algerian population - many radicalized in Muslim ghettos in Paris' outskirts. "ISIS" is a convenient but unnecessary connection - it's Kalishnakovs and a couple bombs that did little - not rocket science. We don't need to blame Merkel for this.

    by PeraclesPlease on Sun, 11/15/2015 - 2:34am

    See: 'Paris changes everything': Angela Merkel's allies are pressuring her to reverse Germany's 'open-door' refugee policy

    OPEN DOOR. Repeat OPEN DOOR. = OPEN BORDER.

    Borders will be closing in this crisis one nation at a time, in taking in refugees from Turkey/Greece.

    And Germany is the big one, they are taking all comers. Other nations are passing them on to Germany.

    Can you cite one report of one single 'refugee' denied entry at the border of Germany?

    Merkel said send them all to Germany, Germans cheered, now pepper spray has sold out as women get it to defend themselves from rape.

    She has failed to get other EU nations to take 'their share' as determined by her. Poland just refused to take any. Merkel wants to be the ultimate liberal European to make up for the past.

    ISIS is using the refugee stream as a Trojan Horse. Even the Muslims in Sweden and Germany are reported to not want any more as many are living in tents.

    Once in Germany, they can go anywhere they want in the EU. No one locks them up, except Orban in Hungary.

    Doing so or restraining them and where they go would require fences, locks or walls,  and would be 'like WW2 concentration camps'.

    It's a fiasco, and Merkel was #1 on setting it off. Once there in these numbers, they will not assimilate, many cannot read or write in their own language, they will live in isolated ghettos breeding grounds for disgruntled Muslim males.

    As is abundantly clear to anyone who had followed the crisis. It's why Germany expects a million from the Syria/Turkey region and no one other EU country except Sweden gets into 6 figures, if they take any at all.


    by NCD on Sun, 11/15/2015 - 10:15am

    NOOOOOOOOOOOO.  OPEN BORDER is the European Schengen Agreement, which has been adjusted lately due to the stream of refugees and the need to have other European countries handle refugees as well.

    The Merkel Open Door policy is specifically for Syrian and Iraqi refugees from the Civil Wars, as it states here.Economic refugees are to be deported faster. Merkel is pressuring other European countries to share in handling the problem. Sweden just made it clear it's not closing its borders, and expects to receive 190,000 refugees or more.

    Once in Germany, they're not going anywhere else, because there are strict controls on work permits, and who wants to go where they can't work vs. where they can? Even in Germany they'll likely be restricted to the state in which they reside (e.g. Bavaria or Saxony) as asilants without permission to move to another, unless those rules have changed lately.

    Germany already is 3.7% Turkish - they're doing fine. No need to panic.

    Merkel is an admirable stirring lone voice in this mess - but in the end usually gets what she wants, as one writer notes. The EU can't continue without a conscience, and it can't ignore the ring of Muslim countries. It bolloxed a response to the Arab Spring, having no good welcoming message of peaceful assistance for the budding protesters, and worse, Italy and France turned it into regime change for perceived easy oil, with the UK and US' help. Syria we tossed in weapons as well, hoping the overthrow would be simpler than similar failures in Yugoslavia, Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan. Instead, we managed to help revive Iraq's Civil War and breath breath into the new fuckers, ISIS. Brilliant, guys. So maybe the EU's hope-and-a-prayer policy on regime change can turn into help-and-a-prayer on refugees. Count me as a "for".


    by PeraclesPlease on Sun, 11/15/2015 - 11:15am

    Merkel will either go or have to change, the final crunch may come sometime next year.

    Germany cannot give apartments, free health care, food and education to every Muslim in the anarchic Muslim world with a fake Syrian passport.

    German police already had a job before a million non-German speaking non-German culture migrants arrived, mostly males, who want to bring more in later, and like Muslims everywhere, have a cultural tradition of large families.

    Molenbeek, the impoverished immigrant Brussels neighborhood replete with radical Islamists, will be repeated in Germany, it's inevitable.

    Just in former French Minister on the Germans, the Holocaust and the migrant tsunami:

    "They took our Jews, and gave us Arabs"

    (he later excused it as 'jest')
     


    by NCD on Sun, 11/15/2015 - 12:43pm

    Don't forget to panic. I imagine Germans will detect forged passports, and I imagine there will be a new initiative to settle Syrian civil war

    by PeraclesPlease on Sun, 11/15/2015 - 12:53pm

    On Muslim assimilation and terrorism, and cooperation with vocal anti-terrorist Muslims, you might check this link, on a French Muslim with a movement, 'end the silence' who says he has received death threats and little or no support from French Muslim leadership.

    Our initiative was attacked or ridiculed by many in the French Muslim community and we were soon branded apostates by Islamic State (my picture appeared along with death threats in their French language propaganda magazine Dar al Islam).

    Not a single Muslim leader came to our defence in France when that happened, and barely a thousand of our fellow Muslims manifested their support for our initiative.


    by NCD on Sun, 11/15/2015 - 1:12pm

    I'm sympathetic, but he became a believer 20 months ago - not a natural to lead this cause

    by PeraclesPlease on Sun, 11/15/2015 - 2:21pm

    Yes of course, I thought the same thing when reading the link. But why isn't there already a meaningful and substantial movement by the moderates that I'm told are the majority of Muslims for this new believer to join?


    by ocean-kat on Sun, 11/15/2015 - 2:50pm

    He was not natural enough? To be singled out for execution and to aid assassins, have his picture published by ISIS news outlets?

    The reality of the ISIS response to him and his movement would indicate he was taken very seriously indeed.

    Is it natural that more British Muslims are fighting for Islamist Jihadist organizations than are in the British Armed Forces?

    Why? By and large they tolerate British values as a necessary and profitable convenience, not due to any secular or cultural conviction in their belief system, which frankly, I don't think any of us here can fully plumb the depths of.


    by NCD on Sun, 11/15/2015 - 4:47pm

    From your link: "

    His major complaint — which echoed the complaints of many of the foreigners who had come to these battlefields — was that of boredom. Weeks turned into months, and he and many of his fellow fighters had yet to wage jihad. Many manned roadblocks or checkpoints; others performed menial tasks. Ifthekar, whose father owned a takeout restaurant, had traveled to Syria, at considerable risk, to be drafted as a chef.

    Then, in December 2013, seven months after he arrived, Ifthekar was finally sent into battle in the eastern province of Deir Ezzor.

    He was killed almost immediately."

    I think they should get a free plane ticket if they want to go. Just renounce their citizenship first.


    by ocean-kat on Sun, 11/15/2015 - 5:00pm

    Absolutely agree. LaPen is talking deportation of Islamist dual nationals in France. It may happen at some point.

    In Britain and France due to their high numbers Muslim families routinely live in cultural enclaves, where Islamic value systems predominate. Youth may seek out their 'true Islamic culture' by going to Syria/ISIS as they feel like foreigners in Britain, France etc.

    Cultural assimilation is very often seen as prohibited by the tenets of Islam.

    But they like the west's financial benefits, the lifestyle perks, the freedom (to do stuff they cannot do in Muslim nations without, say - 400 lashes in Saudi Arabia for alcohol use) and they particularly like the  lack of repression like 'back home'.

    That's why the 50 or so Saudi Princes, from the last King's 20+ wives, are always cavorting around casinos, LA, the coast of France etc doing stuff not allowed in The Kingdom.


    by NCD on Sun, 11/15/2015 - 5:24pm

    Every immimgrant community in the world in whatever tends to have a significant portion of its population in "cultural enclaves".

    The situation of Algerians in France is significantly different from Pakistanis and Mideasterners in England due to Algeria being part of France until 1961, not just a colony, the close proximity, and the larger influx and overall lack of opportunity. The Algerians are much more secular than Pakistanis or even Turks in Germany, but the discrimination rate is probably higher and the job situation much worse.

    The Saudi princes have little to contribute to this discussion aside from stereotypes.


    by PeraclesPlease on Mon, 11/16/2015 - 1:23am

    In addition to border closings, curfews are going to be maintained through local authorities
    From Hollande saying:

    “It is an act of war prepared and planned outside, with complicity from within the country,” he said. “It is an act of absolute barbarism. France will be ruthless in its response.”

    it has become clear that some of that response is going to happen in France. What is yet to be seen is how aggressive the attacks on ISIS held territories will be. More bombing seems very likely. Will France began to push for boots on the ground?


    by moat on Sun, 11/15/2015 - 12:50pm

    There is talk on the Sunday news programs of France invoking NATO's Article 5 which states that an attack against one NATO country is an attack against all. The question than is how will the NATO countries respond to that. Are the news programs just hyping this for ratings or is this in the pipeline? If so it opens up a whole new level of response to the situation.


    by ocean-kat on Sun, 11/15/2015 - 1:47pm

    It would make sense to invoke the collective defense clause; especially since so much of the EC has similar issues regarding terrorism . On the other hand, France has had a spot of bother with NATO in the past and only recently rejoined it. It seems likely that any NATO effort would have to work differently than those operations in the past that have been directly controlled by the U.S.


    by moat on Sun, 11/15/2015 - 3:22pm

    For the time being, it looks like Hollande will be pushing for boots on the ground but not through NATO. He has called for a common defense on the following basis: 

    Rather than article 222 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, which requires assistance when a member state is "the object of a terrorist attack", France chose to trigger article 42.7 of the Treaty on European Union.

    The Guardian explains how the never used article differs from from 222:

    The latter sentence means that the neutrality of countries such as Ireland, Austria, and Sweden cannot be impugned, while the emphasis on help from “member states” means that the defense arrangements are agreed between national governments in the EU without the involvement of the institutions in Brussels such as the European commission or the European parliament. This leaves France free to strike deals with other governments without any interference from Brussels.

    The expressed desire to stay away from a central command structure combined with Hollande's plan to secure a UN Resolution to strike Daesh suggests France is not inclined to invoke NATO article 5.


    by moat on Thu, 11/19/2015 - 9:01am

    Fr0m Juan Cole”

    At another point in the debate, moderator John Dickerson quoted Sen. Mario Rubio that the Paris attacks show that the US is at war with “radical Islam.”

    Sec. Clinton declined to use that formulation, because it has “Islam” in it and she wanted to avoid labeling a whole religion:

    “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 

    Thank you Hillary.

    Since my daughter has many Muslim friends I would not be able explain to her why I had not at least pointed out that no Muslim seems to have commented above. And encouraged anyone who wants to take a position here to also check out  Cole's views.

    For example his comment today  

    for many Muslims the term ‘jihad’ has a positive connotation, of giving one’s all for the faith. It is therefore better not to give the word away to radicals.

     

     

     


    by Flavius on Sun, 11/15/2015 - 10:57pm

    The word's already given away to radicals - for some 20-30 years already - they should read the papers more.


    by PeraclesPlease on Mon, 11/16/2015 - 1:18am

    I think instead of "given" that "assigned" would be a more accurate word.  


    by A Guy Called LULU on Mon, 11/16/2015 - 1:46am

     

     

    The word's already given away to radicals
     
    By our commentariat of course. If you didn't have a TV you could look it up and be correct.

    by Flavius on Mon, 11/16/2015 - 9:04am