In the wake of the Paris attacks, the NY Times Editorial Board jumps in to the fray, as should be expected
On Saturday morning, after an evening of incomprehensible barbarism against a free and civilized society by armed terrorists, President François Hollande of France declared the attacks an act of war. More than 125 people were slaughtered in multiple venues in Paris — in a concert hall, at several restaurants, near a sports stadium, on the street. Mr. Hollande declared a nationwide state of emergency, imposed checks at all of France’s borders, and called in the army to protect the city.
The Islamic State terrorist group has claimed responsibility, and vowed that this was “only the beginning of the storm†to punish France for its airstrikes against the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq.
The rest is mostly a review of what happened, and what a few leaders have said, leading up to the last line
This attack will harden the resolve of the French against the savagery of the Islamic State, as it must the world’s.
But, will it? So far, the brutality of ISIS has only briefly outraged Leftist news outlets like the NY Times and Left leaning politicians and political wonks. How many have been beheaded by ISIS? How many historic sites have been destroyed? How many women have they raped and killed (a mass grave of Yazidi women was just found in Iraq, in an area that was controlled previously by ISIS). How long did that outrage last, and transform into the resolve to destroy ISIS?
Why is it that, suddenly, we need resolve against ISIS when Paris was attacked? Why did the other atrocities not register?
How can there be resolve when outlets like the NY Times cannot even note what ISIS stands for and who they are? The closest they come is in using the name Islamic State, but, to them, it is seemingly just a name. Is it just ISIS the NY Times is considering, or will they acknowledge the overall threat to western society from hardcore Islamists, including those who are not the fighters, but use our own laws and societal mores against the West?
How do we fight them when Democrats want to let them in the United States? At the Democrat debate, all three presidential candidates (Clinton, Sanders, and O’Malley) said we should still let all the Syrian “refugees” (who are primarily young men, the prime recruits for not just ISIS, but radical Islam), into the country. They can’t even say “radical Islam”, much less point a finger at who Islam has long become radicalized, and has an agenda. Bernie Sanders claimed that ‘climate change’ was still the greatest national security threat, and, within a few days, politicians and other Warmists will put Paris behind them and bleat the same.
I’ve never understood why seemingly the majority of those who lean to the left politically refuse to acknowledge the danger from the Islamist movement. Certainly, there are some on the right who blame all of Islam. They are just as wrong as those on the Left who want to excuse all of Islam, calling any condemnation of the radicals “Islamophobia”. There is a big problem in Islam which has been around for a long, long time. No, it is not all. But there are more than enough who use parts of the Koran to foment violence, and are looking for a worldwide Caliphate, along with the aforementioned who use non-violent means to undermine Western society and move it to their brand of hardcore Islam.
Why can’t we call it Islamic, or Islamist, terrorism? They want a fight, and they will get it whether we respond or not. We need to acknowledge the problem to solve it. But, hey, by the time the climate change COP21 starts in a few weeks, this deadly attack will all have been forgotten. Till the next time.
Crossed at Right Wing News.
Our esteemed host wrote:
‘Twas only a small percentage of Germans who were Nazis, but the rest of the German people enabled the Nazis, gave them the support der Führer needed to carry out his plans. Fortunately, President Roosevelt, as liberal and progressive as Americans came in the 1940s, wasn’t as stupid as the left of today, and the Allied armed forces were as willing to kill the ordinary Germans as they were the card-carrying Nazis. When we bombed German factories and rail centers, we didn’t care whether the “good” German civilians, and their wives, and their children, might get killed; we were interested in reducing the capacity of Germany to make war. When we firebombed Tokyo and Yokohama, we weren’t concerned that women and children might get burned to death; we were trying to reduce the capability of the Japanese to resist the anticipated invasion of Honshu, so as to save the lives of American servicemen.
Let me be clear here: we will not be able to win any wars against the Islamists if we are unable to kill the Muslims around them, the ones who might not be terrorists, the ones who might shrink from violence, but who nevertheless provide the support Da’ish and the other Islamist groups need to survive and operate.