Charlie Hebdo under terrorist attack

[The Once and Future King]

I feel sorry for the millions of moderate muslims. Every time something like this happens, they must be seriously face palming. Makes life harder for them, increases Islamophobia and puts them on the spotlight again and again. It's always embarrassing/frightening when extremists belonging to one's religion say something stupid or do something terrifying/bad.

I suspect this act will continue to inspire the kind of Islamophobia that is currently being seen in Germany with the huge rallies against muslims.

I feel sorry for the innocent people murdered in cold blood today, for their familys who are mourning, and for the mothers who are afraid to send their kids to school for fear of a radical muslim murdering them to make a point. But to each their own

[emoji60]

[Gabfest]

This is depressing news. :frown5:

What's shit too is that BOTH the far right and the Islamic extremists will benefit from this while innocents will only continue to suffer.

Being French and still living there, this is why it affects us so much and also because the liberty of the press was attacked. The climate here is really tense, given the far right votes rise and our large muslim community. I'm scared that our laic non gun control society after this event will change... No offense to US citizens, but I don't want to have in my country the racial violence that can be seen towards the Black community. I disregarded some comments that I found awful 'cause giving in to anger would be stupid. Except Joe Biden comment saying "they are martyrs of freedom". I found it awful and the opposite of what Charlie Hebdo stands for, The vice president of the US can't even do some research to avoid those kind of ignorant line. Anyway thanks to all for caring even if our countries are far away.

[Ulthosian Stark]

I feel sorry for the innocent people murdered in cold blood today, for their familys who are mourning, and for the mothers who are afraid to send their kids to school for fear of a radical muslim murdering them to make a point. But to each their own

[emoji60]

I feel sorry for the people who hate for the wrong reasons. If you do something that offends a whole large religious sect, no matter what it is, your going to get blowback. That's it. And it happened, years after putting out his first Mohammed cartoon, he was warned, he kept on which I don't blame him for.

Personally, I think the publisher felt like he HAD to keep making Mohammed cartoons as a symbolic "because I can!" Free speech action. If he didn't feel this way he probably wouldn't have put out so many over the years. Its not like he put one out and the slaughter was a result. He just shouldn't have cared and went on with his life. But he kept poking the metaphorical bear, which can be addictive, I honestly don't blame him but he should have been prepared for something like this. Which I blame him for, having a couple armed guards, or even arming himself and coworkers would have changed this situation quite a bit.

In this situation, everyone is at fault at different levels. The publisher vastly less so then the terrorist gunmen, of course. We can argue for years about the faults of Islam and the consequences of Free Speech (which I support, don't get me wrong, but you have to be prepared for blowback) bottom line is reformations in Islam must be made and are happening, and we as the West need to understand them better. Islam is so similar to Christianity its incredible, they are our crazy brother, doesn't need to be killed but needs a reality check/beating if deserved once in a while.

We are creating radicalization, Guantanamo bay is one of the biggest recruiting tools ever, the roots of ISIS and Al Qaeda are the mujahedeen WE the west helped fight the Soviets, rebuilding of Iraq and Afghanistan didn't work out well etc, . We armed them. We taught them how to fight in modern theater. Yes, we need to take care of the armed militants (which I am trying to help with) but we need to show to the moderate Muslims in our communities the respect a human being deserves.

[Suttree]

I feel sorry for the innocent people murdered in cold blood today, for their familys who are mourning, and for the mothers who are afraid to send their kids to school for fear of a radical muslim murdering them to make a point. But to each their own

[emoji60]

So to be clear, your issue is with Islam. It's you assertion that as a religion it's somehow uniquely violent?

The suspects they are after right now, last I read anyway, were born in Paris.

Which makes the statements you are responding to here even less coherent.

It's tptwp. Should we expect anything else at this point?

"Which Muslims? All of them!!!"

[A True Kaniggit]

The vice president of the US can't even do some research to avoid those kind of ignorant line. Anyway thanks to all for caring even if our countries are far away.

Two things. First, it is horrible what has happened in your country, and my deepest sympathies to everyone affected.

Second. Please ignore whatever our vice president says or does. We do.

[Ulthosian Stark]

It's tptwp. Should we expect anything else at this point?

"Which Muslims? All of them!!!"

Gah I hate that, as a student of history you learn how different the different sects (Sunni, Sufi, Shiite, etc) are. The most violent, from what I've read in history and modernly, are the Sunni extremists. Their own sane communities reject them so they group up, which spells danger for everyone. " Apostates" included.

[Rockroi]

Bill Donohue of the Catholic League - MUSLIMS ARE RIGHT TO BE ANGRY

Kind of disturbing that there's at least one quack in this thread with similar reasoning to that cretinous windbag.

The evils of religion should be resisted in all its forms. When complete windbags like Bill Donohue side with Terrorists, I'm glad I am on the other side; you can see how the religiously zealous find and are attracted to their own.

But those who are trying to excuse religion from this debate; give them a pass, well, sorry, you are part of the problem.

When the Ayatollah offers money to suborn murder of an author for writing a work of fiction, and we say "Islam is suborning murder" we are told "Those are the wrong Muslims."

When an explosion kills American sailors in the USS Cole, and we identify that as an act of Islamic terrorism, we are told "Those are the wrong Muslims."

When two car bombs blow up in two US Embassies killing over 200 people, and we say "This is an act of Islamic Terrorism" we are told, "Those are the wrong Muslims."

When four airplanes are hijacked by 19 men working for al Qaeda and kill 3,000 Americans, and we say "This was done in the name of Islam" we are told "Those are wrong Muslims."

When Danish newspapers print cartoons lampooning the Prophet and it "sparks" protests in many nations killing well over 100 people, and we say "This is what the intolerance of Islam can do" we are told "Those are the wrong Muslims."

When lunatics blow up trains in London and we say "Islam strikes again" we are told "Those are the wrong Muslims."

And the censorship to South Park and the inhumanity done to women, genital mutilation, the murder of Theo van Ghoh, and now we are told today, yet again, that the murders done today in Paris are not the result of Islam? All all of it, we are told were done to us by the wrong Muslims.

And maybe they are right. But go ask ISIS who the "wrong Muslims" are; go ask the originator of the Fatwa on Rushdie; go ask Kalied Sheik Muhammad; go ask Osama bin Laden; the Islamic Brotherhood; Hezbollah; ask Hamas- go ask all of them who the "wrong Muslims" are- you will get a much different answer, AND THOSE PEOPLE have just as much right and authority (which is to say "none") to define what "the right" Muslim is as anyone else and they get their authority from the same place everyone else does- the Quran and the Hadeith. And their explanations are just as fanciful, just as misguided and just as "reasonable" as anyone else because they are all based on the fabricated, untrue and largely plagiarized views of Dark Ages nonsense.

So here is what I am suggesting- Let's get together then and isolate who these "wrong Muslims" are - the ones who have imposed upon us this culture of violence, hatred, censorship, fear and lets get rid of them and have an honest discussion about religion, freedom, speech, and the ideas worth having.

And the ball would be in the court of "moderate" Muslims to do that. For so long as they do not - so long as "moderate" Muslims through whatever auspices allow this cruelty and barbarism to continue - "radical" Muslims are empowered by the numbers of "moderates" to feel free to act on behalf of the whole, and Moderates can point to the "radicals" and say "See? Those are 'the wrong Muslims' We are not that bad... but really... The Prophet should not be lampooned ... and women should not be allowed to drive.... and you must respect our beliefs, so 'please' don't do these things... otherwise YOU HAVE INSULTED 1.2 BILLION MUSLIMS!!! And we don't want anything to happen should you insult these 1.2 Billion people. So, please, pretty-please, change your behavior in order to respect ours."

And the followers of the Prophet - that is to say the "radicals" - continue to act in barbaric ways and there is no authority that is getting them to stop. How come? How come the Ayatollah can get a fatwa on Rusdie, but no Muslim authority can get the fucking Hezbollah to take down its support of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion - a 19th Century Christian/Fascist Fabrication that is one of the warrants of the Nazi exterminations- from their web page? Certainly that is a subject for Moderate Muslims. It doesn't happen; look on their Web page- ITS STILL THERE! And the religion itself cannot seem to throw it off.

And with that radical Muslims can continue to do these wicked things in the name of Allah, the Prophet and Islam. And nobody- literally nobody - is in any position of authority to argue.

[Gabfest]

Two things. First, it is horrible what has happened in your country, and my deepest sympathies to everyone affected.

Second. Please ignore whatever our vice president says or does. We do.

Thanks for these words and making me smile about Joe Biden. I read a lot of American and British press and watch the Daily Show so don't worry I know how stupid he can be and his own compatriots know he is.

[Suttree]

The evils of religion should be resisted in all its forms.

Again the veil is slipping. Funny how you say this and only give examples of Islamic extremists. No mention of the NLFT, or the Lord's Resistance Army, or the Army of God, or the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, or the Buddhist nationalists or....

When they say "wrong Muslims" they are absolutely correct because the majority of Muslims the world over have repeatedly condemned the actions of these extremists.

The issue is fundamentalism and that is not unique to Islam.

[Rockroi]

Again the veil is slipping. Funny how you say this and only give examples of Islamic extremists.

1. Funny how Charlie was not shot up by the Amish, Buddhist Monks, Catholic nuns or Jews. I can't IMAGINE why I mentioned Muslims. Or why you were unable to refute this.

2. I could have SWORN that I started my comments by quoting that Catholic ding-bat, Bill Donohue (who, I may add, at his worst, has not killed anyone).

[Suttree]

1. Funny how Charlei was not shot up by the Amish, Catholic nuns or Jews.

Dude, you're sounding more unhinged by the post.

Funny how Muslims aren't slaughtering people in North East India, funny how they didn't kill George Tiller, funny how they didn't massacre people in Oslo. So your point is? Basically the issue is Islam in your opinion? Just drop the veil completelyy(while conveniently ignoring the examples from other religions), why keep the facade going? Let your bigot flag fly.

[Rockroi]

I brought up Islam because Muslims shot up Charlie.

Its sad that I have to tell you that and that me pointing this out is somehow - to you- not relevant. That when they tell out "God is great; the Prophet is avenged" that YOU cannot take their word for it. That they did it because they felt their religion compelled them to and then they SAY SO, and you say "Nope! It has nothing to do with religion." Amazing.

And because all else has failed you, you resort to the only card left to you: claim I am bigoted and hope it is enough.

Cross your fingers. Its all you got.

[S John]

I feel like at this point we should be able to acknowledge that Western countries do not have clean hands in all of this while still recognizing that there is a big problem within Islam. There is a problem and we are going to be dealing with it for generations. The question is what is the appropriate way to proceed from here.

[NestorMakhnosLovechild]

1. Funny how Charlie was not shot up by the Amish, Buddhist Monks, Catholic nuns or Jews. I can't IMAGINE why I mentioned Muslims. Or why you were unable to refute this.

2. I could have SWORN that I started my comments by quoting that Catholic ding-bat, Bill Donohue (who, I may add, at his worst, has not killed anyone).

I'm not even sure what you think there is to "refute." Post #150 is nothing more than an extended monologue that has virtually no relationship to anything that anyone else has actually said in the thread. At best, it's an incoherent mishmash of overheated rhetoric and a pretty basic failure to understand the idea of a religion with a decentralized religious hierarchy. At worst, it's just sound and fury, signifying nothing.

[Rockroi]

Look, if you think I am NOT being critical enough of Christianity today, its literally, only because Christians did not shoot up this newspaper. Had they, I would be here explaining how religion gets people do do wicked things; how Christianity, specifically, has been a scourge on people for hundreds of years. I would say it about Christians who kill doctors, Jews who perform genital mutilations, and so on.

Religion, all religion can kill people because religion gets otherwise rational people to act wholly irrationally.

I just honestly look at Islam and say that for a variety of reasons, it- again either by design or defect - seems to be the cause for more young men to do a lot of wicked things.

[Dicer]

And the ball would be in the court of "moderate" Muslims to do that. For so long as they do not - so long as "moderate" Muslims through whatever auspices allow this cruelty and barbarism to continue - "radical" Muslims are empowered by the numbers of "moderates" to feel free to act on behalf of the whole, and Moderates can point to the "radicals" and say "See? Those are 'the wrong Muslims' We are not that bad... but really... The Prophet should not be lampooned ... and women should not be allowed to drive.... and you must respect our beliefs, so 'please' don't do these things... otherwise YOU HAVE INSULTED 1.2 BILLION MUSLIMS!!! And we don't want anything to happen should you insult these 1.2 Billion people. So, please, pretty-please, change your behavior in order to respect ours."

Why don't moderate Christians ask Ireland to relax their strict abortion laws?

The husband of an Indian woman who died after being denied an abortion at an Irish hospital broke down in tears on Monday as he described how they pleaded that as Hindus they were not morally opposed to a termination that could have saved her life.

Praveen Halappanavar repeated his claim that a doctor, named at the inquest in Galway as Dr Katherine Astbury, told him that a termination could not be performed because "this is a Catholic country".

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/apr/08/abortion-refusal-death-ireland-hindu-woman

Why do moderate Christians do nothing about Catholic policies with respect to birth control which has been partly responsible for the spread of aids and poverty in poor African nations?

Why do moderate jews do nothing when Israel occupies stolen land, practices apartheid, slaughters children and treats Israeli muslims as second class citizens?

Why do moderate Hindus do nothing when extremist Hindu mobs burned and killed their way through muslims in Gujarat?

I just honestly look at Islam and say that for a variety of reasons, it- again either by design or defect - seems to be the cause for more young men to do a lot of wicked things.

The policies of George W. Bush, Obama and Netanyahu have killed more innocent people. None of them are muslim. 2200 muslims were killed in Gaza this summer. Children as young as two had their heads torn off by bombs. That was not done to them by muslims.

[Free Northman Reborn]

The frustrating part is that the anti-religious bias of most liberals in the West actually helps Islam, in that these liberals insist on equating all religions as equally good or bad. This while it is patently clear that Islam of today is a far greater blight on the world than Christianity of today.

These liberals would equally defend the Aztec religion, if it was to still exist today, and insist that it is merely the "fundamentalists" among the worshippers of Quetzalcoatl who are sacrificing humans on the tops of pyramids.

The reality is that Christian fundamentalists are the biggest grouping of Christians in America today. Something like 25% of the population, according to an article I read recently. Yet funny enough you don't see them flying planes into buildings or shooting up newspaper offices, or beheading people en masse. So it is not religious fundamentalism that is the problem. It is the religious fundamentalism of certain religions. Islam being the biggest and baddest of the religions falling into that category.

But the blinkers will not be taken off. These wannabe do-gooders in the West, worshipping the religion of "tolerance and humanism" are just too stubbornly set in their ways.

So the threat will just keep growing, until all out conflict breaks out.

[Suttree]

Yet funny enough you don't see them flying planes into buildings or shooting up newspaper offices, or beheading people en masse. So it is not religious fundamentalism that is the problem.

This is just inane. Are you seriously trying to assert that we don't see violence done in the name of Christianity in both the U.S. and around the world today? I don't even know how to respond to that. It's like claiming an apple is an orange.

The policies of George W. Bush,

Looks like some people may need me to copy the George Bush quote from up thread again. He thought with "the invasion of Iraq, "Biblical prophesies are being fulfilled" and that the war was "willed by God." This was the President of the United States.

[Dicer]

Yet funny enough you don't see them flying planes into buildings or shooting up newspaper offices, or beheading people en masse. So it is not religious fundamentalism that is the problem. It is the religious fundamentalism of certain religions. Islam being the biggest and baddest of the religions falling into that category.

And this is part of the problem with folks singling out Islam. Osama bin Laden was not an Islamic fundamentalist who came up with the 9/11 plan because the US insulted the prophet or anything. As he himself explained, he targeted the US because US foreign policy killed his people.

Before I begin, I say to you that security is an indispensable pillar of human life and that free men do not forfeit their security, contrary to Bush's claim that we hate freedom.

If so, then let him explain to us why we don't strike for example - Sweden? And we know that freedom-haters don't possess defiant spirits like those of the 19 - may Allah have mercy on them.

No, we fight because we are free men who don't sleep under oppression. We want to restore freedom to our nation, just as you lay waste to our nation. So shall we lay waste to yours.

The events that affected my soul in a direct way started in 1982 when America permitted the Israelis to invade Lebanon and the American Sixth Fleet helped them in that. This bombardment began and many were killed and injured and others were terrorised and displaced.

I couldn't forget those moving scenes, blood and severed limbs, women and children sprawled everywhere. Houses destroyed along with their occupants and high rises demolished over their residents, rockets raining down on our home without mercy.

I say to you, Allah knows that it had never occurred to us to strike the towers. But after it became unbearable and we witnessed the oppression and tyranny of the American/Israeli coalition against our people in Palestine and Lebanon, it came to my mind

From bin Laden's speech.

http://www.aljazeera.com/archive/2004/11/200849163336457223.html

That was not religious fundamentalism. That was revenge.

And I personally feel more sad for the little children killed by Israel in their desire for an ethnocratic jewish state than journalists getting beheaded. Whole families just wiped out, houses destroyed. Of course, both are awful, but I notice how the west and people like yourself only single out the beheading of journalists and ignore the beheading of children by people belonging to a different faith.

So, no. Islam is not the baddest of religions. ALL religions are bad.

[Solmyr]

I am deeply disturbed by an attack of this nature, not just because of the tragedy of lost lives, but because of the potentially even greater tragedy of loss of freedom of speech. This is the aim of the attackers - to make other journalists afraid of speaking out and expressing their opinions to the public. The fact that there was debate about this in this very thread, with proponents of the "shutting up" strategy, bespeaks that the attack was at least somewhat successful - a pity.

I haven't been able to follow much of the official news around the tragedy, but this morning I heard a random piece of a news segment wherein they quoted [i think] a French journalist, who said something along the lines of "I do not accept to live like a rat and fear of speaking up my mind". That gave me hope that there will be a peaceful, yet powerful backlash against the attack.