Mr. Cohen, I don't understand why an educated and worldly man like you automatically condemns recent Muslim immigrants (your veiled reference to "North African immigrants" not withstanding) as hostile to the ideals of France. At best it is foolish, at worst it is racist.
Paris and France will endure. Its people have the strength and idealism to welcome and assimilate the immigrants. I can't say that American is doing any better than France.
Paris and France will endure. Its people have the strength and idealism to welcome and assimilate the immigrants. I can't say that American is doing any better than France.
5
Cohen's response has been tried. If fact, one could say it has been the U.S.'s and the West's primary response of the last 14 years. How well has it worked?
".the estimated number of deaths in the Afghanistan conflict since the U.S. invaded following September 11 is around 110,000. Another 110,000 deaths are documented in Iraq, but the estimates of total deaths range from 650,000 to more than one million. Another 700,000 Afghanis have been displaced from their homes. In Iraq, more than three million have been displaced internally, while a similar number have fled. Those displacements and the actions in Afghanistan and Iraq helped unsettle neighboring countries, turning the constant simmer of a group of nations artificially created along lines that ignored traditional boundaries up to a full boil. They triggered a domino effect, just as the war hawks had predicted, only those falling dominoes didn’t throw up flowers and parades. They threw up … Daesh, dozens of other groups, and millions of displaced refugees.
Oh, and in achieving temporary military control of these regions, 4,279 U.S. military personal have been killed in combat.
If our efforts in Iraq or Afghanistan had led to long-term stability, then perhaps they would be worth the lives and the $6 trillion outlay. But take a look at the chart. That’s not what’s happening. Look at it again before you agree to any action in Syria..." http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2015/11/22/1451755/-Thirty-five-years-of...
".the estimated number of deaths in the Afghanistan conflict since the U.S. invaded following September 11 is around 110,000. Another 110,000 deaths are documented in Iraq, but the estimates of total deaths range from 650,000 to more than one million. Another 700,000 Afghanis have been displaced from their homes. In Iraq, more than three million have been displaced internally, while a similar number have fled. Those displacements and the actions in Afghanistan and Iraq helped unsettle neighboring countries, turning the constant simmer of a group of nations artificially created along lines that ignored traditional boundaries up to a full boil. They triggered a domino effect, just as the war hawks had predicted, only those falling dominoes didn’t throw up flowers and parades. They threw up … Daesh, dozens of other groups, and millions of displaced refugees.
Oh, and in achieving temporary military control of these regions, 4,279 U.S. military personal have been killed in combat.
If our efforts in Iraq or Afghanistan had led to long-term stability, then perhaps they would be worth the lives and the $6 trillion outlay. But take a look at the chart. That’s not what’s happening. Look at it again before you agree to any action in Syria..." http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2015/11/22/1451755/-Thirty-five-years-of...
2
Mr. Cohen has been traumatized by the events in Paris and should, I think, write for a while about something else. I also watched him on Charlie Rose--his depression was palpable. "after Afghanistan, after Iraq — the greatest democracy of all, the United States, has the capacity to rouse itself to a convincing military response against the Islamic State. For Paris, as well as New York, it must." This is the kind of urging we don't need. We know very well how to do "convincing military response." We do it all the time--it is all we know how to do. We even make big money doing it, which is perhaps the feedback loop that prevents us from doing anything else. How has that turned out Mr. Cohen? Have you nothing more to offer? Until you do, please choose another topic--you're not thinking straight. Otherwise you might as well just become another presidential candidate for the Republican party.
6
Patrick Cockburn has a tremendous article in today's independent. http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/commentators/war-with-isis-to-defeat...
He argues that the west should act deliberately against Daesh; not be bounced into inappropriate response by the recent atrocity in Paris.
He also mentions that there is no safe place in Iraq for Sunnis. Defeating Daesh will come from eroding their support amongst Sunnis. That in turn requires that they have a safe territory of their own.
I am not an expert, so may I pose the genuine question - is it not time that Iraq be federalised ? It could be composed of states on ethnic lines - one for the Sunnis, Kurds and Shia; with oil divided between them ?
He argues that the west should act deliberately against Daesh; not be bounced into inappropriate response by the recent atrocity in Paris.
He also mentions that there is no safe place in Iraq for Sunnis. Defeating Daesh will come from eroding their support amongst Sunnis. That in turn requires that they have a safe territory of their own.
I am not an expert, so may I pose the genuine question - is it not time that Iraq be federalised ? It could be composed of states on ethnic lines - one for the Sunnis, Kurds and Shia; with oil divided between them ?
3
Mr Cohen,
We threw just about everything we could at the Afghan Taliban after 9/11. It was ferocious but not at all "convincing." Consider this from none other than Voice of America, 2014
"Since 2001 the Taliban have regrouped, mostly in sanctuaries in Pakistan, and have launched an intensifying insurgency in Afghanistan.
"It’s unclear how many Taliban have been killed over the past 13 years but estimates vary from 20,000 to 35,000.
"Just over a decade ago in the early years of the insurgency, the Taliban were a hit-and-run force of about 2,000 foot soldiers but as much as efforts to kill them have intensified so have their regenerating capacity, experts say.
"In 2014, the core Taliban force is estimated at over 60,000, according to Matt Waldman, a Fellow at Harvard's Kennedy School and an Associate Fellow at Chatham House.
“Afghan security forces have inflicted heavy casualties on the Taliban," said Waldman adding that the heavy death toll had not weakened the insurgency." [end quote] http://www.voanews.com/content/despite-massive-taliban-death-toll-no-dro...
This is not the time to replay our military attack on Taliban terrorists. We have to rethink the problem, and fast. What now, what next?
We threw just about everything we could at the Afghan Taliban after 9/11. It was ferocious but not at all "convincing." Consider this from none other than Voice of America, 2014
"Since 2001 the Taliban have regrouped, mostly in sanctuaries in Pakistan, and have launched an intensifying insurgency in Afghanistan.
"It’s unclear how many Taliban have been killed over the past 13 years but estimates vary from 20,000 to 35,000.
"Just over a decade ago in the early years of the insurgency, the Taliban were a hit-and-run force of about 2,000 foot soldiers but as much as efforts to kill them have intensified so have their regenerating capacity, experts say.
"In 2014, the core Taliban force is estimated at over 60,000, according to Matt Waldman, a Fellow at Harvard's Kennedy School and an Associate Fellow at Chatham House.
“Afghan security forces have inflicted heavy casualties on the Taliban," said Waldman adding that the heavy death toll had not weakened the insurgency." [end quote] http://www.voanews.com/content/despite-massive-taliban-death-toll-no-dro...
This is not the time to replay our military attack on Taliban terrorists. We have to rethink the problem, and fast. What now, what next?
2
Mr. Cohen is delusional. He can be forgiven though: he loves Paris. So do I, for all the romantic reasons Mr. Cohen writes about in his article. But I've always been an honest lover. Mr. Cohen isn't. He marvels at an Indian who makes French crepes for a Greek. But notice there's not a Muslim in that gorgeous mosaic. And that's the problem. The French owned whole countries during the bad old colonial days. For example, Mali, Algeria and, with the Sykes-Picot agreement in 1916, the countries that would later be known as Syria and Lebanon. Sound familiar? Eventually, and often messily, they relinquished control of those populations and, maybe out of a sense of guilt and restitution, they opened the doors to Muslims in a way no other European country has. Today, there are over 6 million Muslims in France, 10% of the population. Greater Metro Paris is nearly 15% Muslim. For many reasons, a large portion of that population is disaffected and dangerously alienated from the charm of a dreamlike stroll along the Seine, aka Mr. Cohen's Paris. The French have a lot of work to do to win the hearts and minds of these mostly young men. Mr. Cohen's piece is a postcard to himself. One might as well read Hemingway's "A Moveable Feast" considering how cliche and beside the point his words are. Don't anesthetize yourself on Mr. Cohen's croissants and cafe au lait this morning. Read real. You can start with a piece George Packer recently wrote for The New Yorker, "The Other France."
6
" I asked an old friend, Goran Tocilovac, a Serbian writer who long ago adopted Paris, what he thought of Moïsi’s question about the motives for the attack. “I think it’s above all what we do in Mali or Syria,” he said. "
.... and in Iraq, and in Palestine, and in Libya, and in Afghanistan and in Iran, and in Guantanamo, ............. the list is endless.
.... and in Iraq, and in Palestine, and in Libya, and in Afghanistan and in Iran, and in Guantanamo, ............. the list is endless.
One thing is for sure. These attacks will continue in Europe, and once it's Europe's ox being gored, there'll be less sanctimonious lecturing of Israel's response to terror. In fact, Europe's security people are already flocking there to learn how it is that Israel maintains a high level of security while it remains a multicultural democracy under siege, threats, and actual atrocities far greater than this. Already neo-Fascist parties are strengthening in Europe, The US incarcerated the entire population of Japanese-Americans in WWII in detention camps. Israel grants citizenship, free speech and political freedom to the 20% of its population that is Muslim Arab (Israel's Arabs have more freedom and liberty than in ANY Arab country) some of whom do openly support acts committed by Israel's enemies. We'll see how Europe responds over time when the level of terror reaches that experience by Israelis over the last 70 years. And how the US responds, for that matter. One prominent presidential candidate is already calling for surveillance of all American Muslims ... and there hasn't even been mass waves of suicide bombings, bombings of restaurants, machine gunning school busses, or stabbings yet.. If history is a guide, just ask the remaining octogenarians and nonagenarians living in Berlin, Dresden, Hamburg, Tokyo, Hiroshima and Nagasaki for a clue. Then we'll see what the new definition of "over-reacting" or "disproportionate force" to glibly used against Israel becomes.
4
I was 22 when I frst fell in love with Paris, working there for 6 months as a young architect, enrolled in the Ecole des Beaux Arts for a student lunch card, and living in a maid's room at the top of Rue Bonaparte. In those days, the bar Le Chameleon provided a glass of tea and warmth of a winter's night.
My wife and I just returned from our rented apartment on Ile St Louis on Saturday after the attacks, one of our many visits to our City of Light, our Beguiling City. Le Chameleon is still open, the tea hot; I am now 77.
This is our Paris...resilient, eternal, always beguiling...we will be back.
Edw & Els
My wife and I just returned from our rented apartment on Ile St Louis on Saturday after the attacks, one of our many visits to our City of Light, our Beguiling City. Le Chameleon is still open, the tea hot; I am now 77.
This is our Paris...resilient, eternal, always beguiling...we will be back.
Edw & Els
17
It is truly sad that a way of life that countless people, including the French citizens have enjoyed immensely for the past 50 years will come to an end based on the realities of potential effects from terrorists now. That is the impact of a horrific crime - people don't want to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, which is understandable. Sadly too, the honorable French response to the Charlie Hebdo massacre will be lost now, or criticized as naïve.
But more beating of the drum from Cohen or its thinly veiled chastisement of Obama does not discount the political realities posed in last Friday's piece in the Times, which carefully plotted the motives of all the factions in the Middle East. The dizzying array of allies (or enemies) depending on those motives, as explained re the Kurds, Turks, Iraqi Sunnis and Shias, Iranian Shias, Hezbollah, Syria, Jordan, rich Arab states and their financial support of terror, and the amorphous "land grabs without borders" of ISIS presents a Gordian knot of gigantic proportions that the West cannot possibly untie.
While Obama and Kerry seem to know more about what's possible, it's relatively easy for those aware of the long standing conflicts to predict a violent stalemate in the region for some time to come, because no one party can obtain what they truly desire. Any avenues towards disarmament or relative peace will need to carefully weigh what's possible, without advocating guns blazing in all directions.
But more beating of the drum from Cohen or its thinly veiled chastisement of Obama does not discount the political realities posed in last Friday's piece in the Times, which carefully plotted the motives of all the factions in the Middle East. The dizzying array of allies (or enemies) depending on those motives, as explained re the Kurds, Turks, Iraqi Sunnis and Shias, Iranian Shias, Hezbollah, Syria, Jordan, rich Arab states and their financial support of terror, and the amorphous "land grabs without borders" of ISIS presents a Gordian knot of gigantic proportions that the West cannot possibly untie.
While Obama and Kerry seem to know more about what's possible, it's relatively easy for those aware of the long standing conflicts to predict a violent stalemate in the region for some time to come, because no one party can obtain what they truly desire. Any avenues towards disarmament or relative peace will need to carefully weigh what's possible, without advocating guns blazing in all directions.
11
Astonishing! After every attack, there are the questions: " why us? what did we do to provoke them?" When will you learn that there is no justification for evil, no underlying cause for the violence? "It was the Iraq war! No it wasn't. The World Trade Center was bombed, twice, before then. There has been terror and terrorists for thousands of years. Their entire existence is predicated at creating strife and disorder where there is order and civilization. The solution(s)? Order and more order. Freedom and assimilation, accompanied by responsibility. No more far flung war involvement or deposition of tyrannical leaders. We neither understand nor have the patience for nation building, as has been clear in Iraq, Libya and Afghanistan.
1
Inside the soul of Parisians, as we all are , is the sacred ideal of Liberte . I would remind all of the moment in Berlin when JFK spoke "Ich bin ein Berliner" to frame the outrage of the West at the depravity of Soviet policy. Now is the moment Parisians should be ever wary but assert their right to Liberte.
1
This was a beautiful article. Thank you.
2
I spent a summer in Paris while writing my book. My first experience was getting into a cab at Gare du Nord and having the driver refuse to take me to Rue de Belleville. At the time I didn't understand why. In contrast, I was welcomed like family by my Algerian, Egyptian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi and Chinese neighbors in the 19th. I believe ISIS is a death cult that must be stopped and I was in New York on 9/11, but I also believe the French are the most racist people I've ever met.
2
I have been a subscriber to the NYT for many years and have been often tempted to write a comment on Extraordinary, enlightening, bad or even funny articles I have read. I have never done so before today.
I have ready Roger Cohen with interest and delight for many years, one of the reasons being our shared love of France and Paris in particular.
I began reading this article with the usual anticipation of the usual insights, humanism and nuance especially during the current environment. Imagine my profound disappointment at his conflation of the arrival of Afican immigrants and their settlement in Saint-Denis and its environs with the terrorist attackers holed up there when by all accounts the vast majority of perpetrators were Begian and French citizens.
I expect better from Mr. Cohen, the Editors and the New York Times.
I have ready Roger Cohen with interest and delight for many years, one of the reasons being our shared love of France and Paris in particular.
I began reading this article with the usual anticipation of the usual insights, humanism and nuance especially during the current environment. Imagine my profound disappointment at his conflation of the arrival of Afican immigrants and their settlement in Saint-Denis and its environs with the terrorist attackers holed up there when by all accounts the vast majority of perpetrators were Begian and French citizens.
I expect better from Mr. Cohen, the Editors and the New York Times.
4
This quote seems to encapsulate both the indulgent nonsense Mr Cohen has been dishing out:
"That answer consoled me somewhat. Democracies are slow to anger but formidable when aroused. I’m not sure if — after Afghanistan, after Iraq — the greatest democracy of all, the United States, has the capacity to rouse itself to a convincing military response against the Islamic State. For Paris, as well as New York, it must."
"Consoled me somewhat"? Oh thank goodness!
"Convincing military response"? What, how and where? Cohen has nothing to contribute there. It is always this elitist melodrama mixed with nostalgia for the clarities of WW2.
"That answer consoled me somewhat. Democracies are slow to anger but formidable when aroused. I’m not sure if — after Afghanistan, after Iraq — the greatest democracy of all, the United States, has the capacity to rouse itself to a convincing military response against the Islamic State. For Paris, as well as New York, it must."
"Consoled me somewhat"? Oh thank goodness!
"Convincing military response"? What, how and where? Cohen has nothing to contribute there. It is always this elitist melodrama mixed with nostalgia for the clarities of WW2.
A few months after the Arab Spring uprising in Syria In 2011, Hillary Clinton claimed that Syria had "lost its legitimacy". From that moment on, the US State Dept. & the CIA in coordination began to fund, train & weaponize as well as supply Sunni anti-Assad rebels with rations & small Toyota pick-up trucks. In June 2012, the CIA began covert operations along the Turkish-Syrian border, vetting various Sunni rebel groups, including coordinating arms providers with terrorist groups, thus further legitimizing their violent operations. Agents also helped opposition forces develop supply routes & provided them with communications training. The CIA operatives distributed assault rifles, anti-tank rocket launchers & other ammunition to Syrian opposition. The State Department allocated $15 million for "civilian opposition" groups in Syria. The NGO, Syrian Support Group, which collected millions of dollars in private donations from Canada, US, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, & Turkey, was funneled to the Free Syrian Army which consisted of Sunni Wahhabist extremists found its way to radical Al Nusra Front rebels as well as Salafist religious extremists. In June, 2013, Obama doubled funding to the Supreme Military Council (SMC) & equipped with advanced weaponry. In Sept. 2013, the CIA stepped up small arms & anti tank weapons supplies. This is how ISIS spawned in Syria & Iraq. Now we're supposed to kill the beast that our coalition created. How ironic!
7
I always enjoy Mr. Cohen, and there's some beautiful passages here about Paris, the most beautiful city on earth. However, the following is so wrong: "I asked an old friend . . . what he thought of Moïsi’s question about the motives for the attack. 'I think it’s above all what we do in Mali or Syria,' he said. 'But that is the result of what we are. We are accustomed to loving certain liberties and we will defend them.'”
It cannot be said enough, or loudly enough, that our presence in the Middle East and the Muslim world has nothing to do with defending liberties. We are defending oil, and we are empowering and/or partnering with some of the worst elements in those countries. They don't hate us for our freedoms, they hate us for stealing their resources, destroying or abetting in the destruction of their societies, and killing their civilians.
I expect most readers are familiar with the opening of one of the most beautiful of the psalms, Psalm 137 (“By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept when we remembered Zion”). I expect few are familiar with the closing stanzas, which tell us exactly where we are today:
Daughter of Babylon, doomed to destruction
happy is the one who repays you according to what you have done to us.
Happy is the one who seizes your infants
and dashes them against the rocks
We in the West are too civilized to celebrate the deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians. We call it “collateral damage,” but it doesn’t make them any less dead.
It cannot be said enough, or loudly enough, that our presence in the Middle East and the Muslim world has nothing to do with defending liberties. We are defending oil, and we are empowering and/or partnering with some of the worst elements in those countries. They don't hate us for our freedoms, they hate us for stealing their resources, destroying or abetting in the destruction of their societies, and killing their civilians.
I expect most readers are familiar with the opening of one of the most beautiful of the psalms, Psalm 137 (“By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept when we remembered Zion”). I expect few are familiar with the closing stanzas, which tell us exactly where we are today:
Daughter of Babylon, doomed to destruction
happy is the one who repays you according to what you have done to us.
Happy is the one who seizes your infants
and dashes them against the rocks
We in the West are too civilized to celebrate the deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians. We call it “collateral damage,” but it doesn’t make them any less dead.
7
Finally, I suggest that Roger Cohen reread some of his old columns before he starts encouraging more mistakes out of the fear and anger about what happen in Paris on November 9.
1
Mr. Cohen - Your piece made me weep. As did the story on another page that reports likely falsification of assessments by CentCom regardingn ISIS. Praise be that Mr. Holland is fearless and resolute.
2
Thanks for commentary as a work of prose and almost poetry that noone does like you!
“We’ll always have Paris”
"Always" is now as tenuous as today's fresh baguette and unless we become as vicious fighting these barbarians as they are in attacking us- We are doomed to perpetual chaos!
“We’ll always have Paris”
"Always" is now as tenuous as today's fresh baguette and unless we become as vicious fighting these barbarians as they are in attacking us- We are doomed to perpetual chaos!
2
What pleasure bubble has Cohen been living in for the last 40?
"Then, abruptly, the model buckled with the arrival of millions of North African immigrants, many hostile to their former colonial overlords."
I could die laughing if this wasn't so pathetically uninformed. So much for the hundreds of North Africans murdered and dumped in the Seine in 1961. So much for the pattern of "ratonnades" (literally, rat-hunts) of which North Africans have been, and continue to be the victim. I witnessed my first ratonnade around 1955, by the way...
We now return you to your self-satisfied musings...
I could die laughing if this wasn't so pathetically uninformed. So much for the hundreds of North Africans murdered and dumped in the Seine in 1961. So much for the pattern of "ratonnades" (literally, rat-hunts) of which North Africans have been, and continue to be the victim. I witnessed my first ratonnade around 1955, by the way...
We now return you to your self-satisfied musings...
1
Mr. Cohen's love of Paris is commendable. I grew up in the 16th arrondissement, and I share his love of the city. But his suggestion that WE have to go to war to preserve its "romantic attraction" is somewhat ridiculous. Maybe Mr.Cohen has seen one too many re-runs of Casablanca.
I can think of many reasons why ISIS should be defeated. But the romanticized version of Mr. Bogart telling Ms. Bergman "We'll always have Paris" is not one of them.
I can think of many reasons why ISIS should be defeated. But the romanticized version of Mr. Bogart telling Ms. Bergman "We'll always have Paris" is not one of them.
3
The Paris attacks bring to my mind Kipiling's White Man's Burden:
Take up the White Man's burden And reap his old reward:
The blame of those ye better, The hate of those ye guard—
Not politically correct these days to quote Kipling, but so comforting!
Take up the White Man's burden And reap his old reward:
The blame of those ye better, The hate of those ye guard—
Not politically correct these days to quote Kipling, but so comforting!
2
Your musings on Paris are spot on. Paris is the most important city in the western world in so many ways. France is about the best example of what democracy can achieve. France is an idea and ideas are what most threaten the fundamentalist crazies in the middle east. The idea of democracy will eventually bring them down and they know it. But as if often said; you can't force democracy at the point of a gun.Military action might satisfy our instinct for revenge but it will never bring about the changes we hope for in these terrorist enclaves. An idea like France will.
1
My vision of a nation of airports relies on cultural neutrality inherent, knowing that all places infuse themselves regardless of that.
I'll never make it to Paris, but its artists, leaders of beauty and aspirational truth, a life of the mind unexcelled reaches me because I am a civilized man.
To me prayer is just another way to think.
I too want to claim territory, government in all governments, not government of governments. All of my citizens will have to be armed for our ports are the most delicate of roads.
Mohammad set such an example when robbing merchants, destroying the Silk Road.
Tanks take territory like no other war machines.
I'll never make it to Paris, but its artists, leaders of beauty and aspirational truth, a life of the mind unexcelled reaches me because I am a civilized man.
To me prayer is just another way to think.
I too want to claim territory, government in all governments, not government of governments. All of my citizens will have to be armed for our ports are the most delicate of roads.
Mohammad set such an example when robbing merchants, destroying the Silk Road.
Tanks take territory like no other war machines.
1
Yes, we all love Paris! Stipulated in tri-color! But gushing over it's beauty and charming shops and drawing a line from there to unspecific "bold" military action is not enlightening and not helpful. It is dangerous and reckless.
Roger Cohen's history of Paris conveniently starts circa 1970. Paris has a very long and often violent and ugly history. Revolution, the Guillotine and Napoleonic wars. The occupation, Vichy and a disturbingly large segment of the population who willingly collabarated to send French Jews to their death. More germane, Paris as seat of brutal colonial subjugation and the war in Algeria. The Paris that bows before the same Saudis who espouse a form of Islamic society not very different than ISIS. Not much betting on beauty there, I don't think.
It is true that a vile and dangerous strain has taken root in political Sunni Islam. It is also true that it must be robustly countered. Why this awful philosophy seems to be garnering followers has many reasons. Some are endemic to these ME societies but some are a direct result of disastrous "Western" policies.
To again make the banal declaration that "they hate us because of what we are and not what we do" is cherry picking of history to suit Mr. Cohen's narrative. It is facile justification for another round of the same utterly disastrous policies that have contributed to the current state of affairs. They will only succeed in perpetuating the next iteration of ISIS
Roger Cohen's history of Paris conveniently starts circa 1970. Paris has a very long and often violent and ugly history. Revolution, the Guillotine and Napoleonic wars. The occupation, Vichy and a disturbingly large segment of the population who willingly collabarated to send French Jews to their death. More germane, Paris as seat of brutal colonial subjugation and the war in Algeria. The Paris that bows before the same Saudis who espouse a form of Islamic society not very different than ISIS. Not much betting on beauty there, I don't think.
It is true that a vile and dangerous strain has taken root in political Sunni Islam. It is also true that it must be robustly countered. Why this awful philosophy seems to be garnering followers has many reasons. Some are endemic to these ME societies but some are a direct result of disastrous "Western" policies.
To again make the banal declaration that "they hate us because of what we are and not what we do" is cherry picking of history to suit Mr. Cohen's narrative. It is facile justification for another round of the same utterly disastrous policies that have contributed to the current state of affairs. They will only succeed in perpetuating the next iteration of ISIS
2
Cohen is advocating that France and the U.S. do exactly what ISIS and associated Salafist ideologues want them to do, e.g. rensert large number of Western military forces into Iraq and Syria where they can portray themselves as Holy Warriors defending Islam from Crusader invaders. Also, the economic and political cost, slowing economic growth and aggravating inequality, one of the consequences of the Cheney/Bush reaction to 9/11 and the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, was one of Bin Laden's goals, and is currently one of ISIS's goals. Cohen is advocating a stupid response that plays into ISIS hands and will inspire thousands of more to join it. http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2015/nov/16/paris-attacks-isis-stra...
1
Still not going to war again
4
The CRS slamming people looking like Algerians up against the wall outside the RER in St. Denis, but not me, who received the “Why don’t you move on? You’re not in this” looks from the CRS, the attacks on the cafes and the concert hall in the bicycle/telephone repair shop section of the Boulevard Voltaire that I frequented, BOTH need attention, urgent attention. I bought my fonio in St. Denis, I got my bicycle shirt and my Huawei telephone fixed around the Place de la Republique. Peace and mediation between the “terrorists” and the “anti-terrorists."
1
I loved this column. I too have many fond memories of this remarkable place, including research in its archives, walks along its sublime quais, and proposing marriage on a bridge near Notre Dame. Not three months ago, I was walking through the 10th arrondissement. I grieve for this city and its beleaguered, bleeding, and frightened people.
2
Mr. Cohen's Paris pieces -- this one included -- speak more to the danger of piling up one's chips in an opinion column about an event without first giving the event time to fully sink in. They do not persuade. There is at their heart a mismatch between action and reaction. Many have died, and I do mourn for them. But Paris is not lost or diminished, What's been sacrificed is Mr. Cohen's sense of perspective.
4
... aahh! the indulgences of the self-righteous privileged.
There is a war going on. We are killing thousands on foreign soil including many innocent bystanders. Hundreds of casualties on "our side," even thousands of innocents intentionally targeted, are to be expected. It is a price we can pay. Our values and principles of law are most important. We need to take a breath, get a handle on our fears, and take care to address the threat in a smart and resolute way that will make our grandchildren proud.
Oh, my god, could you please spare us the grandiosity, Mr. Cohen, for once, anyway? Surely you spend time in New York; surely you realize that cities CAN recover from much larger attacks than occurred in Paris? For the families touched, it is a bottomless well of tragedy, but the job of those of us less involved is to bring a little perspective, please.
There is, obviously, no literal/causal equivalence, but please remember: Many many Algerians, many, many Indochinese, died at the hands of the French, and we can be sure that not all of them died "justly." Evil things occur, and not only TO us. The ideology behind the Paris attacks is vile and, as far as I can see, unredeemable, but - again, to those of us who are in a position to take the long view - the actual damage done is not that great. Please don't repeat the US mistake, post 9/11, of mistaking our personal tragedy for the "BIGGEST tragedy in the world, EVER!" and proceeding to treat others with the concomitant disproportion. How about allowing the wound to start healing, instead of continually picking at it with your poetic, morose self-pity?
There is, obviously, no literal/causal equivalence, but please remember: Many many Algerians, many, many Indochinese, died at the hands of the French, and we can be sure that not all of them died "justly." Evil things occur, and not only TO us. The ideology behind the Paris attacks is vile and, as far as I can see, unredeemable, but - again, to those of us who are in a position to take the long view - the actual damage done is not that great. Please don't repeat the US mistake, post 9/11, of mistaking our personal tragedy for the "BIGGEST tragedy in the world, EVER!" and proceeding to treat others with the concomitant disproportion. How about allowing the wound to start healing, instead of continually picking at it with your poetic, morose self-pity?
8
Apparently, invading Afghanistan and Iraq, and bombing Syria are insufficient for Mr Cohen's rage. What does he think the next step should be? Revenge is not a good long term strategy. Why did this outrage not occur in Brussels? Maybe because they have not been bombing Syria? And I thought that the African immigration into France occurred when the French left Algeria and those that supported them came along because life in their native country would be impossible.
1
I appreciate your love of Paris , which runs through this op-ed like a thread.
As a New Yorker who always wanted to live in Paris and spent over 35 years
going back and forth on business to Paris, I retain my love for her as a
city of beauty , filled with a history of liberty and freedom. What has
happened there now is an obscenity. To think that anyone could consider hurting
Paris, a city that escaped destruction in WW11 because a German General
wouldn't heed orders from Hitler to Blow her up , and now we find Barbarians
at the edge of her bridges, ready to strike. We can only hope civilization will
prevail.
As a New Yorker who always wanted to live in Paris and spent over 35 years
going back and forth on business to Paris, I retain my love for her as a
city of beauty , filled with a history of liberty and freedom. What has
happened there now is an obscenity. To think that anyone could consider hurting
Paris, a city that escaped destruction in WW11 because a German General
wouldn't heed orders from Hitler to Blow her up , and now we find Barbarians
at the edge of her bridges, ready to strike. We can only hope civilization will
prevail.
This is just waffle. France was attacked because it is a democracy? It is the undemocratic forces that prevail in France that make it a target for these imbecilic jihadists. France - like the US - is not as strong as it thinks on either liberté or fraternité. Is it significant that the jihadists who attacked France were French?
As for the US being described as "the greatest democracy of all...."? When two of the leading contenders to become the Republican presidential candidate boast about forcing all Muslims to register with the state or likens Muslims to rabid dogs we have to question what Cohen means by "greatest democracy". It is just this kind of language that has become all too commonplace that is driving jihadists and empowering the ISIS message to Muslims. If Cohen really wants to win this "war" - as opposed to killing people that will fuel the next incarnation of this madness -- he'll need to be a lot smarter than suggesting more military action. We've got to the point where killing certain kinds of people is no longer a good way to get them to do what you want.
As for the US being described as "the greatest democracy of all...."? When two of the leading contenders to become the Republican presidential candidate boast about forcing all Muslims to register with the state or likens Muslims to rabid dogs we have to question what Cohen means by "greatest democracy". It is just this kind of language that has become all too commonplace that is driving jihadists and empowering the ISIS message to Muslims. If Cohen really wants to win this "war" - as opposed to killing people that will fuel the next incarnation of this madness -- he'll need to be a lot smarter than suggesting more military action. We've got to the point where killing certain kinds of people is no longer a good way to get them to do what you want.
3
French Jews, looking in the historical rear-view mirror, decided that the right wing was the anti-Semitic threat, and helped the French socialists import lots of Moroccan and Algerian Muslims, with groups like SOS Racisme vilifying anyone who opposed this as racist. The result now is that it is dangerous in France to be visibly Jewish, and the Jews of France are fleeing to Israel.
Always pay attention to the threats of today and tomorrow, not the problems of the past. Unassimilated minorities, angry about colonialism or past slights, can produce children and grandchildren who commit violent crime or even, as seen in Paris, terrorist acts.
Always pay attention to the threats of today and tomorrow, not the problems of the past. Unassimilated minorities, angry about colonialism or past slights, can produce children and grandchildren who commit violent crime or even, as seen in Paris, terrorist acts.
2
Now this is the Cohen I have come to know, not the one that recently blamed Obama for responding to the red line crossing with his prefrontal cortex rather than his limbic system that would have bombed an already heavily bombed country. But he ends an otherwise wonderful remembrance with another call for America's military to go in and destroy ISIS. What he really needs to do in a future column is ask why the surrounding Arab countries with their substantial armies do not take up the task. Is it because their repressive systems keep them safe as opposed to the open democracies, or because they know if they wait long enough another U.S. president will solve the problem for them. Even Hillary, it seems, is not averse to Iraq War, the sequel.
1
I have friends in Paris and grieve for the people of that city, but this "they hate us because we're beautiful" argument is illogical and ridiculous. No, ISIS attacked the French because the French attacked them with numerous bombing raids, and they've said so publicly. As Peter Beinart recently pointed out in an excellent article in The Atlantic, Costa Rica is also a free society but no one is attacking them. If you choose to wage war (and I think the war against ISIS is a just one), don't be surprised when your enemy chooses to attack you in return.
1
Roger -- I am not sure if you read comments to your columns, but I would urge you not to fall into the breathless rush to war that we saw advocated by David Brooks and Tom Friedman, both of whose reputations suffered enormously because of their support of the Iraq War. In this column, and in your recent appearances on TV, you have advocated that we lower our moral standards and engage in a ruthless, savage attack on ISIL to whip them out like vermin. It won't work. We need a prudent, smart approach that starts with a new Syrian government and a winning back of the towns that ISIL controls...not just by leveling them from the air. The attack on Paris, as horrifying as it was, is not the Nazi invasion of the city; it is not the siege at Stalingrad. It was a small group of young fanatics acting out of hate. Why give others like them more reason to bring more attacks? Please re-think your rush to war and be prudent with the influence you wield in the NYT...and with the reputation you have built up over a lifetime. It is on the verge of falling into the leagues of Carson and Trump.
5
Very nice column, Mr. Cohen, you have toned down the war mongering....it is, of course, still there but more in the background. Why don't you spend a day in the 93rd instead of your tourist laden haunts from your youth? Or, maybe wear a kippah and discover that you can walk around Paris and not be harassed at all, notwithstanding that absurd YouTube video that the Israelis put up to stampede out the French Jews to the "safety" of the West Bank settlements.
2
The last paragraph is masterful. And, yes, we will always have Paris.
1
"Or tout le monde est juif": Now all the world is Jewish. Yes, now the French and the West know (or ought to know) what it is like to be a constant target, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, every day of the year. It is a state of perpetual anxiety and flight. The West has sat numb and dumb, allowing Islam to fester and spread without any semblance of a plan. France in particular has coddled the Euro-Arab "dialogue" for fifty years, allowing unchecked immigration of precisely the people who are now blowing up its people and its infrastructure, through the questionable dealings of officials paid under the table. Eurabia, not some delusional "Illuminati" construct of a conspiratorial mind, is actually the New World Order. It is a bit late to recognize a fact that has been looking one in the face for five decades. But going on to coddle Iran, to pretend that "not Islam, but only jihadism" is the problem, and to open the door to hordes of Syrian refugees among whom there will be other enemies of the West, is a formula for the suicide of Western civilization.
A portion of Casablanca takes place in a France about to be occupied by Nazis. "We'll always have Paris" is aspirational, as the move was filmed in 1942, released in 1943.
The lesson of Casablanca is the lesson of sacrificial courage and heroic steadfastness against a ruthless enemy. Victor Lazslo is the epitome of those virtues. Is there a Lazslo on the scene today?
The lesson of Casablanca is the lesson of sacrificial courage and heroic steadfastness against a ruthless enemy. Victor Lazslo is the epitome of those virtues. Is there a Lazslo on the scene today?
A sad, beautifully written sketch of a wounded city. But not to worry, we have been here before and come through worse. ISIS will eventually make the same mistakes Imperial Germany, the Nazis, Imperial Japan and the Soviets made, with similar results. I just wish people would look at history and understand how quickly the terrible cost of the eventual solution rises as we delay the inevitable.
1
Me Cohen is a great Journalist . This piece so well written, he explains very well what it must be like to be in France and speak to locals. As for western Democracies, I believe we simply are not configured to deal well with an enemy. Prepearing to think things through, or even retaliate is a very time consuming process. Our commander in Chief has his own take on the issue, and seems indifferent, as in there is little we can do, so remain half heartedly engaged making an occasional appearance, with Rhetoric. Sad to come to grips with the west having us live in a police state.
2
A response to 'Islamic State' is needed, but how about some specificity, rather than a general call for a military response. How about a concerted, continued attempt to cut off their supplies of funding? Why does the US not wipe out their oil-production facilities, something that would not involve bombing of cities and towns, and would involve far fewer civilian casualties than a generalized campaign. We have incredibly detailed surveillance data, and undoubtedly have knowledge of where oil is being pumped out of the ground, where many pipelines lie, where there are roads to those sources of oil. Once the money dries up,
1
If you were in the Paris metropolitan area on the day of the attacks, your chances of getting hit were approximately 1/100,000. This attack had approximately 1/20th the casualties of 9/11.
The goal of terrorism is not to win by force, it is to inspire fear. At the end of the day, this was a very small event perpetrated by a very weak foe, and so much of the coverage is basically supporting the terrorist goal by promoting fear (I'm looking at you, CNN).
I'm sorry, but allowing this attack to paralyze you in the way this article describes is just foolish. Utterly foolish.
The goal of terrorism is not to win by force, it is to inspire fear. At the end of the day, this was a very small event perpetrated by a very weak foe, and so much of the coverage is basically supporting the terrorist goal by promoting fear (I'm looking at you, CNN).
I'm sorry, but allowing this attack to paralyze you in the way this article describes is just foolish. Utterly foolish.
5
Innocence and Insouciance both lost. Parisians wore their insouciance on their sleeve as a badge to protect themselves from being targeted the way that Americans wore the Atlantic and Pacific oceans as an insouciant badge on their sleeve before 9/11. The difference is the Parisians did it with such style, and yes, a beauty that can only be describe as a Parisian beauty.
2
Neocon poetry.
"They hate us for our freedom"
I thought we disposed of these simple ideas long ago. At least Roger Cohen confesses to the fallacy of "appealing to emotion" in his first paragraph. But after his confession, he just forges ahead with more of the same. Roger also supported the Bush's war in Iraq and, similarly, appealed to emotion.
Paris or Rome: ISIL says, in their own propaganda that Rome is the heart of Europe and their eventual goal. But, France's colonial and neo-colonial roots in Algeria, Syria and throughout North Africa coupled with France's recent aggressiveness in Syria, Libya, and Mali makes France, currently, an irresistible target.
Graeme Green's article "What ISIS Really Wants" (a must read), published in the Atlantic, makes it clear that ISIL has a particular hatred for the French and the article explains why -- using evidence, interviews, etc.. Mr. Green should be applauded for doing real journalism.
Roger raised the "The Declaration of the Rights of Man", but with no analysis about those rights: Article II's declaration of the natural right to resist oppression. The presumption of innocence under Article IX, Freedom of speech under Article XI.
Many Frenchmen believe these rights are being lost the chaos, and they believe this chaos is being created, in part, by the men who called for war in Iraq, Libya, and Syria and who continue to call for more of the same.
"They hate us for our freedom"
I thought we disposed of these simple ideas long ago. At least Roger Cohen confesses to the fallacy of "appealing to emotion" in his first paragraph. But after his confession, he just forges ahead with more of the same. Roger also supported the Bush's war in Iraq and, similarly, appealed to emotion.
Paris or Rome: ISIL says, in their own propaganda that Rome is the heart of Europe and their eventual goal. But, France's colonial and neo-colonial roots in Algeria, Syria and throughout North Africa coupled with France's recent aggressiveness in Syria, Libya, and Mali makes France, currently, an irresistible target.
Graeme Green's article "What ISIS Really Wants" (a must read), published in the Atlantic, makes it clear that ISIL has a particular hatred for the French and the article explains why -- using evidence, interviews, etc.. Mr. Green should be applauded for doing real journalism.
Roger raised the "The Declaration of the Rights of Man", but with no analysis about those rights: Article II's declaration of the natural right to resist oppression. The presumption of innocence under Article IX, Freedom of speech under Article XI.
Many Frenchmen believe these rights are being lost the chaos, and they believe this chaos is being created, in part, by the men who called for war in Iraq, Libya, and Syria and who continue to call for more of the same.
2
As an American Army vet who served in Germany among other places had the chance to visit Paris during the New Years Eve back in 2001. I was taken back by its breathtaken beauty and culture. The City of Lights has an eternal light that will never be extinguished by terrorism. The light has flickered in the past under the threat of Nazism. This eternal light has flickered under this recent tragic terrorist attack. Parisians must show the world and ISIS that the eternal light of Freedom will never dims or go out.
4
Roger says "I’m not sure if - after Afghanistan, after Iraq - the greatest democracy of all, the United States, has the capacity to rouse itself to a convincing military response ...".
Roger you have posed the wrong questions.
The question is if the will of the American people (ie. democracy) will become secondary to the will of the American arms industry and far-right hawks.
The question is also did the US not learn from its counterproductive "military responses" in Afghanistan and Iraq, with the the result being the birth of ISIL/ISIS.
Roger you have posed the wrong questions.
The question is if the will of the American people (ie. democracy) will become secondary to the will of the American arms industry and far-right hawks.
The question is also did the US not learn from its counterproductive "military responses" in Afghanistan and Iraq, with the the result being the birth of ISIL/ISIS.
3
The Paris of Humphrey Bogart died a long time ago. He said “We’ll always have Paris” in 1942! That was before the mass migration of Muslims to Europe, and France in particular. Now, the liberal news media want to open our doors to migrating Muslims. No thanks. Anyway, the worst Islamic terrorists were once cute babies.
"I’m not sure if — after Afghanistan, after Iraq — the greatest democracy of all, the United States, has the capacity to rouse itself to a convincing military response against the Islamic State. For Paris, as well as New York, it must."
Pardon me, Mr. Cohen, but you have already surpassed your quota of wars you have advocated that America fight for other countries. Besides, I believe it is Switzerland's turn to be World Cop.
Most pundits play into the hands of ISIS by exaggerating their power and spreading fear. ISIS is like a colony of ants, and France and Russia should crush it like a large boot stepping on ants.
"I’m not sure if — after Afghanistan, after Iraq — the greatest democracy of all, the United States, has the capacity to rouse itself to a convincing military response against the Islamic State. For Paris, as well as New York, it must."
Pardon me, Mr. Cohen, but you have already surpassed your quota of wars you have advocated that America fight for other countries. Besides, I believe it is Switzerland's turn to be World Cop.
Most pundits play into the hands of ISIS by exaggerating their power and spreading fear. ISIS is like a colony of ants, and France and Russia should crush it like a large boot stepping on ants.
5
"I’m not sure if — after Afghanistan, after Iraq — the greatest democracy of all, the United States, has the capacity to rouse itself to a convincing military response against the Islamic State."
OK, it's now time to get eloquent about this comment that you keep repeating in some simple code, What do you have in mind about "after Afghanistan, after Iraq" and what do you have in mind as a "convincing military response?" Repetition is boring and not useful. We read what you said the first time. The rest of your article is fluff to get at these points. It's time you explained what you think we accomplished and learned in Afghanistan and Iraq, and what a convincing military response would be in contrast to what we have been doing carefully, methodically, trying to figure out what can and cannot be accomplished, through what best means, and how to avoid the many counter-productive negative consequences we know can easily be produced. It's time for you to get real. What do you have in mind?
OK, it's now time to get eloquent about this comment that you keep repeating in some simple code, What do you have in mind about "after Afghanistan, after Iraq" and what do you have in mind as a "convincing military response?" Repetition is boring and not useful. We read what you said the first time. The rest of your article is fluff to get at these points. It's time you explained what you think we accomplished and learned in Afghanistan and Iraq, and what a convincing military response would be in contrast to what we have been doing carefully, methodically, trying to figure out what can and cannot be accomplished, through what best means, and how to avoid the many counter-productive negative consequences we know can easily be produced. It's time for you to get real. What do you have in mind?
2
Not clear why you refer to the United states as "the greatest democracy of all"
Many problems with that idea.
As oligarchy run by the ultra-rich who can buy the politicians of both parties, so many choices never appear to be voted on, with gerrymandering giving the lie to voting representation, and a very poor record on human rights, it is not clear what metric is being used to characterize the "greatness" of the US.
And while you are waxing sentimental about Paris, please remember that the US blunders and missteps in the Middle East over the last 20 years are largely responsible for the growth of the terrorist organizations we are now contending with.
Many problems with that idea.
As oligarchy run by the ultra-rich who can buy the politicians of both parties, so many choices never appear to be voted on, with gerrymandering giving the lie to voting representation, and a very poor record on human rights, it is not clear what metric is being used to characterize the "greatness" of the US.
And while you are waxing sentimental about Paris, please remember that the US blunders and missteps in the Middle East over the last 20 years are largely responsible for the growth of the terrorist organizations we are now contending with.
6
Mr. Cohen is forcing use to look in the mirror. He is challenging us to recognize the worst failings and frailties of mankind. We want to believe that laws, principles and culture are transferable, mobile, and universal. They are not.
There are two components to our existence, our biology and our thoughts. The two are separate and yet they are one. They exist apart and yet intertwine.
We are an intensely social species that has segregated ourselves into monocultures since the beginning of social organization. We are programmed to want to be with our own kind. We are programmed by nature to repel those that look or behave in a different fashion.
We want to believe that we can overcome these failings by how we construct our societies. The evidence to the contrary is everywhere. We are divided by rural and city, white and back, Shia and Sunni, rich and poor.
If Paris was truly the melting pot it wants to be, why do Muslims live in segregated, impoverished communities? Why do Muslims fill their jails. We can say the same of America about blacks.
On a deep, primal level, we don't want to be together, to accept each other and assimilate. No matter what our laws say, we are not one. This human failing is what drives terrorism.
Mr. Cohen wants to fight back. Many of us do. But what happens after the battle is won and the barbarians are eliminated? Will we become one or stay many?
There are two components to our existence, our biology and our thoughts. The two are separate and yet they are one. They exist apart and yet intertwine.
We are an intensely social species that has segregated ourselves into monocultures since the beginning of social organization. We are programmed to want to be with our own kind. We are programmed by nature to repel those that look or behave in a different fashion.
We want to believe that we can overcome these failings by how we construct our societies. The evidence to the contrary is everywhere. We are divided by rural and city, white and back, Shia and Sunni, rich and poor.
If Paris was truly the melting pot it wants to be, why do Muslims live in segregated, impoverished communities? Why do Muslims fill their jails. We can say the same of America about blacks.
On a deep, primal level, we don't want to be together, to accept each other and assimilate. No matter what our laws say, we are not one. This human failing is what drives terrorism.
Mr. Cohen wants to fight back. Many of us do. But what happens after the battle is won and the barbarians are eliminated? Will we become one or stay many?
3
What happened in Paris, horrible though it was, was just another bad day in many parts of the world. We in the West have had it pretty good for half a century, and so now we get this kind of hand-wringing, really a kind a romanticization of the terrible. Don't we suffer! The truth is that suffering is everywhere, not just "here", and it's always good to look first at the woe of others, as in Syria for instance. Would you rather live in Paris or Aleppo?
7
"a convincing military response"- is this the only tool in our box? Because we've been doing this over and over. It doesn't seem to be working.
7
Roger,
YOU and everyone else in Paris should be vigilant and keep an eye on Public Announcements by the Authorities 24/7.
AS what Europe and other countries should do following the recent atrocities, here are some suggestions:
I. Bring ALL Mosques and their Leadership/Imams under State Umbrella and AUDIT ALL the Mosques/Congregations and their Leadership/Imams Personally going back to FY2000.
II. OUTLAW ANY MONEY FLOW from the Wahhabis/Salafis et al and make the Islamic Centers "Self-Sustaining By their Membership".
III. Review ALL Materials being thought and impose heavy penalties for Hate Speech, Illegal Funds and Hateful Teachings.
IV. Persuade the Moderate Muslims to get Active and "Defend Their Faith" against the Wahhabis.
HERE is an alarming report by Deutsche Welle:
http://www.dw.com/en/brussels-great-mosque-could-be-a-salafist-hotbed/a-...
KEEP SAFE!
YOU and everyone else in Paris should be vigilant and keep an eye on Public Announcements by the Authorities 24/7.
AS what Europe and other countries should do following the recent atrocities, here are some suggestions:
I. Bring ALL Mosques and their Leadership/Imams under State Umbrella and AUDIT ALL the Mosques/Congregations and their Leadership/Imams Personally going back to FY2000.
II. OUTLAW ANY MONEY FLOW from the Wahhabis/Salafis et al and make the Islamic Centers "Self-Sustaining By their Membership".
III. Review ALL Materials being thought and impose heavy penalties for Hate Speech, Illegal Funds and Hateful Teachings.
IV. Persuade the Moderate Muslims to get Active and "Defend Their Faith" against the Wahhabis.
HERE is an alarming report by Deutsche Welle:
http://www.dw.com/en/brussels-great-mosque-could-be-a-salafist-hotbed/a-...
KEEP SAFE!
1
Beautiful. This Francophile thanks you.
1
Roger, you keep urging the US and others to go into Syria and iraq and other places and crush ISIS. Use all that mighty military power to kill them all, extinguish them so they no longer threaten the beautiful places like Paris.
And you think that will work?
And what should we do to the Saudis, our allies, who are largely responsible for funding the madrasas which educate and brainwash the children, creating more and more suicide bombers?
Do you now want to hold hands with Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld and bomb all the enemies you can find?
Which country is next, which enemy? Russia? China?
How many people are you ready to kill to save Paris?
And you think that will work?
And what should we do to the Saudis, our allies, who are largely responsible for funding the madrasas which educate and brainwash the children, creating more and more suicide bombers?
Do you now want to hold hands with Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld and bomb all the enemies you can find?
Which country is next, which enemy? Russia? China?
How many people are you ready to kill to save Paris?
4
Thank you Roger Cohen for this ode to Paris. A beautiful answer to those deadly
attacks bruising the french capital has been a craze for the posthumous memoir by Ernest Hemingway, Paris is a moveable feast. Its title in french is Paris
est une fête - or "Paris is a party". The book is finding new readers and
it's also being left as a tribute to those who lost their lives one a week ago.
Here is one of the line who speak to my heart : " If you are lucky enough
to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest
of you life it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast".
attacks bruising the french capital has been a craze for the posthumous memoir by Ernest Hemingway, Paris is a moveable feast. Its title in french is Paris
est une fête - or "Paris is a party". The book is finding new readers and
it's also being left as a tribute to those who lost their lives one a week ago.
Here is one of the line who speak to my heart : " If you are lucky enough
to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest
of you life it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast".
If you truly reject everything Daish, then reject everything Daesh. Don't address them as " Islamic State" as they like to be addressed. Get over your love affair with Saudis who share the same ideology as Daesh, as Taliban, as al Qaida. How can the West on one hand brag about the greatness of "western civilization" (when asked to comment on it, Gandhi replied, it would be a great idea) and day after Paris attack provide $1.2 billion worth of smart bombs to Saudis knowing they will use it on the dirt poor Yemini people for having the audacity to remove their saudi backed dictator. How is it that the West is always bombing people of M-E or providing bombs and logistic support to leaders of middle. It behooves you to count the dead by Daesh to dead from your wars or your militants trained to bring down regimes not protecting your petrodollars trade. There's really no comparison.
2
Roger Cohen appears to have made a mistake: Never bring up Casablanca unless you are prepared to talk about only Casablanca. Roger Cohen: “We’ll always have Paris” — Humphrey Bogart’s comment to Ingrid Bergman in “Casablanca” — is one of the most famous movie lines. Yet her desperate question that precedes it is sometimes forgotten: “But what about us?” Bogart is telling Bergman to leave him and be with her husband so that the Paris of their brief but eternal affair can be preserved. He is telling her that Paris — their Paris, the Paris of so many dreams — is a delicate and infinitely precious thing whose survival requires painful, courageous decisions such as his."
My reading of this situation in Casablanca is quite different, and perhaps mistaken. I recollect--it was years ago I saw the film--that Bogart became heroic because somebody had to make the sacrifice: It was either he step forward and claim Ingrid Bergman or leave her to her husband. And he had to leave her because although she had an affair with him and loved him she loved her husband as well. He had to let her go. Her husband I recollect was a hero of some sort (French resistance?) and there was never any doubt Bergman loved him--she just happened to love Bogart too. So it came down to the place on the airplane and Bogart made the decision--didn't leave it up to her because he loved her and couldn't ask her to choose between him and her husband. Somebody had to step back, and thus "We will always have Paris".
My reading of this situation in Casablanca is quite different, and perhaps mistaken. I recollect--it was years ago I saw the film--that Bogart became heroic because somebody had to make the sacrifice: It was either he step forward and claim Ingrid Bergman or leave her to her husband. And he had to leave her because although she had an affair with him and loved him she loved her husband as well. He had to let her go. Her husband I recollect was a hero of some sort (French resistance?) and there was never any doubt Bergman loved him--she just happened to love Bogart too. So it came down to the place on the airplane and Bogart made the decision--didn't leave it up to her because he loved her and couldn't ask her to choose between him and her husband. Somebody had to step back, and thus "We will always have Paris".
1
Yes, yes, a thousand times yes. As usual, I'm on the same wavelength as Cohen. I share the reluctance of many about getting involved in yet another ground war, but I know my reluctance comes from the fiasco in Iraq. The difference is that the Iraq war was a hoax perpetrated on both the American and the Iraqi people by the real axis of evil, Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld, and if you add Condee Rice you have the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.
Destroying ISIS is a real cause, a true and just cause, like the fight against the Third Reich once was. There is no question in my mind that ISIS, this death cult posing as a religion, will bring its apocalyptic worldview deeper and deeper into the West, and they will not stop until they have a WMD --- even if it's "just" a dirty bomb --- that they will set off in a great European or American city or in Israel. And then we have a true WWIII.
Stop them now. At almost any cost. And yes, I have military in the family, so it hits me personally and I don't want them to go unless absolutely necessary. I was staunchly opposed to the invasion of Iraq. I am staunchly in favor of a massive effort against ISIS. Jihadism is the great conflict of our time.
Destroying ISIS is a real cause, a true and just cause, like the fight against the Third Reich once was. There is no question in my mind that ISIS, this death cult posing as a religion, will bring its apocalyptic worldview deeper and deeper into the West, and they will not stop until they have a WMD --- even if it's "just" a dirty bomb --- that they will set off in a great European or American city or in Israel. And then we have a true WWIII.
Stop them now. At almost any cost. And yes, I have military in the family, so it hits me personally and I don't want them to go unless absolutely necessary. I was staunchly opposed to the invasion of Iraq. I am staunchly in favor of a massive effort against ISIS. Jihadism is the great conflict of our time.
2
As the article by Mr. Daoud, "Saudi Arabia, an ISIS that has made it", points out, the root cause is constant Islamist propaganda and education, financed by Saudi Arabia with Fox "News" style misinformation. The solution is not a "convincing military response"--we did that in Iraq, and it made matters worse, not better.
6
The second largest stockholder in Rupert Murdoch's empire is a Saudi Prince. So it may not be just an accident that with all the criticisms of Muslims that Fox generates and propagates, there is very little criticism of Kingdom or its role in creating DAESH and Al Qaida as part of both an Anti-Shia and an Anti-Middle Eastern Christian campaign. Mr. Cohen's demand that the U.S. take Damascus and Al-Reqqah also ignores this elephant in the room. As Steven Coll asks about such an intervention, then what? "...If President Obama ordered the Marines into urgent action, they could be waving flags of liberation in Raqqa by New Year’s. But, after taking the region, killing scores of isis commanders as well as Syrian civilians, and flushing surviving fighters and international recruits into the broken, ungoverned cities of Syria and Iraq’s Sunni heartland, then what?..." http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/11/30/isis-after-paris
This statement in the article stood out to me:
"Saving Paris from the Islamic State will take ruthlessness — but save it we must."
The same thought must be going through the minds of citizens of Brussels. Where will it lead? One cannot help but wonder.
"Saving Paris from the Islamic State will take ruthlessness — but save it we must."
The same thought must be going through the minds of citizens of Brussels. Where will it lead? One cannot help but wonder.
2
If Roger Cohen lives here (in Paris) as I do then he didn't get out much this weekend. The bars and cafes were fuller than ever. It still took me a half an hour to drive 5km and the main metro line, the line 1 that goes from La Defense (the fiancial district) all the way through the heart of Paris was packed. If you got to any pub or sports bar after 5:30 to watch the Classico (soccer match between Real Madrid and Barcelona) which started at 6:15 then you were watching the match standing up. People are still on edge, but nothing is going to bring this city down. Ici c'est Paris!
1
Islam needs to clean house and not only separate itself from terrorists, but literally fight against those that falsely use Islam to commit acts of terrorism.
If the West is fighting terrorists, so should ALL those living in France, in the West including those who are Islamic, Christian, Jew or non-Believer. If not there is no room for them as refugees. Allegiance belongs to there country that chose to allow people to come live there and create a better life for themselves.
If the West is fighting terrorists, so should ALL those living in France, in the West including those who are Islamic, Christian, Jew or non-Believer. If not there is no room for them as refugees. Allegiance belongs to there country that chose to allow people to come live there and create a better life for themselves.
2
Non-believers do have responsibilities, as your comment suggests. Standing apart from deities and the devils that promote them is a privilege of the Western humane inheritance. It is treasure that we need to cherish and defend.
1
Sounds like the Shrub and 'They hate us for our freedoms.' Tocilovac's insight was better than yours. It is what the State does in Mali or Syria, that makes the difference, not what the nation is. We don't see any terrorism in Brazil or Argentina, do we? Countries that are left in peace are not throwing their weight around in parts of the world where it doesn't belong.
As for the tolerance of which you speak, it doesn't go very far in the direction of St. Denis and other French neighborhoods with Muslim populations.
As for the tolerance of which you speak, it doesn't go very far in the direction of St. Denis and other French neighborhoods with Muslim populations.
1
"Saving Paris from the Islamic State will take ruthlessness — but save it we must."
More ruthlessness, Mr. Cohen?
After your applause for the ruthless invasion of Iraq 12 1/2 years ago, one could have thought your appetite for ruthlessness was sated. It was the invasion of Iraq that spawned ISIS.
Is there ever a time for us to look in the mirror, to contemplate how at our own actions gave rise to other people's ruthlessness, in your worldview?
More ruthlessness, Mr. Cohen?
After your applause for the ruthless invasion of Iraq 12 1/2 years ago, one could have thought your appetite for ruthlessness was sated. It was the invasion of Iraq that spawned ISIS.
Is there ever a time for us to look in the mirror, to contemplate how at our own actions gave rise to other people's ruthlessness, in your worldview?
8
ISIL is only the very latest among numberless anti social viruses that have come onto the scene and then disappeared in the past hundred years. Paris, on the other hand, is eternal.
2
Paris like all great cities changes with time but the soul remains . Terror will not defeat any of these cities , their greatness is what the terrorists do not comprehend. Issis is destroying cities in Syria and Iraq because their souls were not of value . They only have memories of their ancient roots and little greatness in todays world ...
Rouse your neighbors in the EU and Gulf states, Mr. Cohen, and secure an ironclad agreement from them to put SIGNIFICANT numbers of THEIR troops in combat zones before you talk about rousing the US public. Because military intervention, in our eyes, always seems to end up being a huge force of AMERICAN soldiers with a handful of token troops from our so-called "NATO forces". Been there, done that--many times.
Because you see, Mr, Cohen, the war-weary realists among us are well aware that YOU were all FOR the invasion of IRAQ and that that invasion beget ISIS. So save your misty eyed speeches for the NEOCONS and the Neophytes.
Because you see, Mr, Cohen, the war-weary realists among us are well aware that YOU were all FOR the invasion of IRAQ and that that invasion beget ISIS. So save your misty eyed speeches for the NEOCONS and the Neophytes.
24
"Do they attack us for what we do or do they attack us for what we are?”
I don't know.
One thing's for sure, though--if you are going to attack them, you'd better be sure you finish the job
I don't know.
One thing's for sure, though--if you are going to attack them, you'd better be sure you finish the job
2
Ultimately, in war as in the rest of life, the side that wants it more, that is more committed, will win. ISIS is psychopathic but they at least know what they want and how to go about getting it. The US and France, for all of our power and wealth, lack the national will to go all out against ISIS to allow ourselves to win. So we won't.
1
I think your reactions are understandable, given that you are in Paris and the trauma is so recent. You've appeared on Charlie Rose and other venues, and you still look quite shaken. But like NY after 9/11, things will return to normal. There was no massive exodus from NYC, no one was barred from living here, people still walk the streets and go to restaurants, churches mosques, synagogues and concerts. Is the threat there higher now? Perhaps, but many Muslim residents there are just as appalled as you for what took place, and fear being lumped into being jihadists. I saw local Imams at the terrorist sites condemning these attacks. The beauty and spirit will remain in Paris, just like here. With time and distance, I think your perspective will change. Come back to NYC, the site of the worst terror attacks in modern times, and relax a bit.
1
Roger Cohen and Henri-Bernard Levy, two self-appointed representatives of France and US have been demanding war all week on Charlie Rose and elsewhere.
6
Military might ultimately defeated Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan by taking their home territory, and their leaders had nowhere else to go. ISIS is a cellular movement with no home territory, it merely occupies someone else's. Beat it down in Syria and Iraq, and no doubt some of its suicidally-minded followers will kill themselves and take down whatever opposing forces and innocents as they can, but the network will go underground and surface elsewhere. Do we invade and occupy an ever-widening area of territory?
Nobody has an easy solution - not the President, not his would-be successors, not our blowhard members of Congress, not Roger Cohen and his fellow writers, and certainly not one of us who comments here. But we could start by thinking of consequences before impulsively invading territory. I would have thought we learned that after 2003.
Nobody has an easy solution - not the President, not his would-be successors, not our blowhard members of Congress, not Roger Cohen and his fellow writers, and certainly not one of us who comments here. But we could start by thinking of consequences before impulsively invading territory. I would have thought we learned that after 2003.
7
Anyone who ever connected to Paris, would appreciate this heartfelt column and the tragedy it reveals. Roger Cohen must be praised for a deeply human and personal column.
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8
Much as I admire Roger Cohen, this piece does little justice to the historical resilience of Paris and French ideals. I suggest he read the poem published in the same nytimes issue by Duffus following the Nazi invasion. The map of Paris is still intact.
10
Paris is the world capital of heterosexual romance, so of course the Islamists hate it.
7
What, to you, Richard Cohen, would constitute "a convincing military response against the Islamic State"?
7
I've wondered about that. After all we've had such great success in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Paris sounds like NYC just after 9/11 bombings. In fact, hyper vigilance probably made both these cities quite safe in aftermath of attacks.
8
ISIL is an apocalyptic cult and they attack anyone who opposes their objectives; these objectives are ultimately a hastening of nothing less than a global apocalypse. In other words they seek the End Of Days. So please, lets stop with the academic hand wringing. This is not political in any substantive way, as any notions of creating a caliphate are only intermediate steps to that end. ISIL is grounded in a mystical, fatalistic and yes - romantic belief in their own absolute righteousness.
22
"Do they attack us for what we do or do they attack us for what we are?"
No, they attack you because they can. They attack you because you have allowed an infrastructure of terror to be built and to thrive for decades. They attack you because until recently, after attacks against specific ethnic or religious groups, you did very little to prevent such attacks in the future.
No, they attack you because they can. They attack you because you have allowed an infrastructure of terror to be built and to thrive for decades. They attack you because until recently, after attacks against specific ethnic or religious groups, you did very little to prevent such attacks in the future.
36
Yet another self-dramatizing voice telling us to be fearful rather than courageous, to abandon our principles & ideals in order to save them. The murders were appalling, but this is not the Blitz. This is not the siege of Leningrad. ISIS's victims are overwhelmingly in Muslim countries. In America, right-wing & Christian terrorism is a bigger problem than Islamic terrorism. Keep your head on straight.
79
Roger, I have never been to Paris, but it must be something wonderful, because not only do you speak highly of it, but, also, the rich and famous do. I'm in the middle of a cornfield trying to figure out how and why young men, who should be enjoying Paris, end up in ISIS, threatening innocents? Do you suppose they at some point lost all hope for a better life? A "Paris" of their own?
50
corn fed, Iowa bred
best comment I've read
best comment I've read
“Do they attack us for what we do or do they attack us for what we are?” Dominique Moïsi, a political scientist, asked me, wondering if France was a target because of its far-flung military campaigns against armed Islamist zealots or because it is a free and democratic country that has banished God from the political sphere."
Please tell Dominique that France maybe the most recent western nation to be targeted. If its any consolation, here's a partial list:
2008 November, Mumbai in seige
2013 Westgate shopping Mall in Nairobi (Al-Shabaab)
2014 School girls kidnapped in Nigeria (Boko Haram)
These did not make headline news because these countries are not in the west. But people died, you know human beings.
Please tell Dominique that France maybe the most recent western nation to be targeted. If its any consolation, here's a partial list:
2008 November, Mumbai in seige
2013 Westgate shopping Mall in Nairobi (Al-Shabaab)
2014 School girls kidnapped in Nigeria (Boko Haram)
These did not make headline news because these countries are not in the west. But people died, you know human beings.
12
I don't know what papers you read or what TV channels you have but certainly in my little town all three of those attacks made headline news and were in the papers and on TV for days thereafter.
2
Beautiful Paris. How we grieve for your loss without mentioning the slaughter that ISIS/ Al Queda has inflicted on many other innocent victims in the world. But I know Paris is something special unlike the recent deaths in Mali.
Conclusion: If only ISIS could be so reasonable and tranquil, all the problems would be solved. Best we direct ISIS to re-runs of Casablanca. Roger, you have lost it.
This is your attempt to be achingly beautiful. If you hadn't written your last column it might have worked.
5
Paris is our shinning city on the hill, our Jerusalem, for all the secular people of the world. We must some how defeat ISIS and save Paris and all other cities around the world who emulate Paris.
4
This is a beautiful piece, befitting of Paris itself. Thank you, Roger Cohen!!
4
Mr Cohen, please explain, what is "a convincing military response against the Islamic State"?
9
Saving Paris, saving any place, requires us to say that places are different, and some more appealing than others. And that part of that difference is who lives there and what they understand of others.
Much has been written about island civilizations, like Japan. About places where layer upon layer of custom is developed as a way for many people to live peacefully in a crowded place without much privacy.
Paris is Paris because of Parisians, and those who find them, or at least their way of life, admirable.
Much has been written about island civilizations, like Japan. About places where layer upon layer of custom is developed as a way for many people to live peacefully in a crowded place without much privacy.
Paris is Paris because of Parisians, and those who find them, or at least their way of life, admirable.
7
Leave the ME. What has happened there in our names (citizens of the west) is unconscientable. It is time to cut off the fundings of war and the support of an energy supply that we should be running from, not to. Paris will then be safe again, as will much of the world. Fighting would then be focussed on what the Saudi's are willing to continue to fund. Let it be the business of the ME to return to some sort of peace. Neoliberal policies and the instigation of skirmishes world wide to support them, need to outed, exposed, and stopped.
35
A beautiful love letter, written with an aching heart. Nothing is resolved now, but the heart leads the way.
3
The motives of Jihadists will continue to elude us, as long as we think and formulate our responses in secular categories, instead of the religious and apocalyptic worldview of the Jihadists. And the current French and Western inability to think in religious terms is most curious and surprising. Half of Hobbes' Leviathan is about religion, Locke's "Toleration" is full of biblical references. Indeed, all the makers of the modern West Descartes, Spinoza, Voltaire, Rousseau, Hegel, and the American Founding Fathers knew their Bible and Christianity very well. That is why they were able to resolve the religious wars and crisis of their time. The battle against Jihadist Islam is going to be long and ideologically it can only be won, if the West comes up with a compelling counter-religious narrative, one that addresses the Islamic moral criticism of Western liberalism.
1
Spell out, Mr. Cohen, exactly what you think Americans should do. Then, let us discuss.
Red O. Greene, Albuquerque, NM, USA
Red O. Greene, Albuquerque, NM, USA
6
"No man ever steps in the same river twice"--Heraclitus
Change is continual and inevitable. This is true everywhere, including Paris.
Change is continual and inevitable. This is true everywhere, including Paris.
I think that where we are at in world history, I hope, is that we see a few years or quickly how bad decisions are made, including by the British trying to remake the middle East, by American's idea that sending money to corrupt dictators in Africa has fueled civil wars and atrocities, and wev'e learned that bravado and stupidity can fuel the opposite affect in Iraq, and we learned that not using judgement and throwing money at Iraq almost two years ago, and ignoring the takeover of Iraq because the Iraq military couldn't do it, and didn't want to fight Isis could cause horrific deaths to those inside Syria, Iraq, and Europe! We learned that Turkey allowed the men to filter through and back, and we didn't care . We have learned that words are not intelligence nor do they make foreign policy!
2
These days the danger is betting on Western civilization, with a US president too feckless to defend it and a liberal elite establishment too multi-culturally correct to even value it. Today, a NYT headline calls it a war against "extremism." And I guess WW II was a war against "over-zealousness." If you lack the courage to value and defend your own civilation you are lost. A part of this courage is to be able to name the menace of Islamic fundamentalism.
11
I think you missed something. Back in 2011 we were attacked and we had a president whose response was to attack a country that had nothing to do with that attack while running away from those who actually bombed us. We set in motion what is now ISIS; it is our baby no matter what you think. No question, Obama is not doing a great job here. But he did not create this war. Crusader Rabbit: your name is so accurate and you just can't face the reality that a war that we started against a country that had nothing to do with 9-11 and was pursued by torturers and fabulists had no chance of accomplishing anything positive. So go back into your rabbit hole and remember that rabbits are among the dumbest of all mammals. Their strategy for survival is procreation not the use of their brain matter.
Agree, but I would change "Islamic fundamentalism" to "religious fundamentalism," "extreme nationalism," and "reality denialism." Suddenly the problems seem a lot closer to home.
1
Declaring Paris an "open city" probably won't work this time around.
Roger, Thank you. You are getting better all the time. Don't pay attention to all these small heads (rosh katan) commentators. Most of them are provincial wanna be's, without much feelings for the old continental culture.
Keep on getting angry and indignant - it makes you a better writer.
Keep on getting angry and indignant - it makes you a better writer.
Another great column, Mr. Cohen. Keep in mind that the Jihadists who committed these barbaric acts in Paris are not human. We must try to not allow them to take our humanity from us. That is: the ability to laugh, love, have fun and, as the French say, demonstrate our joi de vivre. If we allow them to take that away from us, then we will have surrendered our humanity--our very souls.
http://thetruthoncommonsense.com
http://thetruthoncommonsense.com
1
I think by calling other humans "not human" you have already surrendered some of your humanity.
Mr. Cohen, we all love Paris, but Europe's homegrown terrorist problems cannot be solved with a ground war in Syria.
112
I suggest you pull back from the civilize dogma, and open up the can of worms that is Algeria and Haiti and so on and so on, and then really let the chips fall where they may. We all like to think our culture is truly democratic, but it never has been. It is a fantasy. We are humans. And we kill for freedom and gold. After we get the freedom and the gold, we become civilized, and we tell this to everyone, and we and others believe it.
25
“Do they attack us for what we do or do they attack us for what we are?” Dominique Moïsi, a political scientist, asked me, wondering if France was a target because of its far-flung military campaigns against armed Islamist zealots or because it is a free and democratic country that has banished God from the political sphere. I think France is attacked above all for what it is. That in turn is terrifying."
The two countries ISIS recently targeted - France and Russia - are countries currently conducting military operations in Syria. No one is getting inspired to terrorism from the abstract freedoms of their neighbors. They're motivated by what they perceive their neighbors as doing to them.
"They hate us for our freedoms" is a comfortable, convenient, self-satisfied lie that we need to get past if we want to understand and address terrorism.
The two countries ISIS recently targeted - France and Russia - are countries currently conducting military operations in Syria. No one is getting inspired to terrorism from the abstract freedoms of their neighbors. They're motivated by what they perceive their neighbors as doing to them.
"They hate us for our freedoms" is a comfortable, convenient, self-satisfied lie that we need to get past if we want to understand and address terrorism.
68
"What they perceive their neighbors as doing to them" is not being Muslim. If you look at a map of the world you will see violence wherever Islam interacts with its non-Islamic neighbors. The historian Samuel Huntington named it "Islam's Bloody Borders" and the concept is depressingly, alarmingly reliable.
Everyone who has lived in Paris has memories of their Paris. My memories of the city begins during World War II when the French police were rounding-up The Jews that lived in that very 11th arrondisment that the massacre happened. But that's not the point. I also remember living in Paris after the war as a child and being puzzled by how the Parisians were treating North Africans. This made sense when I came to live in New York in the fifties and saw how the African Americans and Puerto Ricans were being treated. It looked to me like Paris and the Algerians and Morrocans. France has had a problem for years including minorities. This is not to belittle the great suffering they're undergoing right now. However they have let a great sore fester for a long time without really trying to solve it. We are not doing much better.
1
This article is a little silly. Paris survived Nazi occupation, Prussian sieges, the revolution and the Reign of Terror, foreign occupation in the Hundred Years War, the Black Death, sacking by the Vikings and countless other disasters. And it can't survive this?
161
Most of the attackers were young Muslims born in France or Belgiium. That is the tragedy here. ISIS is just the criminal organization which used them in its well-oiled propaganda efforts. It couldn't care less about the Infidel lifestyle of the French. It is not even sure that its top brass wanted this to happen. There is a possibility that ISIS does not control perfectly its foreign recruits. It is not so stupid that it couldn't predict that the retaliation might be the beginning of its end. Then again, the top brass may not care at all. They have made their money and they will just leave their 'useful idiots' to pay the bills.
18
Beautiful article, wonderfully written, genuinely felt.
10
the smartest piece I've read since the attacks on Paris.
Why is the United States "the greatest democracy of all"?
47
Its survived the longest, has the strongest military, absorbed the most people from the most places, its creed is to always "create a more perfect union" ( what nation admits that it must strive to better because it knows its imperfect?) and it has been faithful to that creed. But to be cold and analytical: if the US doesn't lead, the world order cracks and the sh&^%t hits the fan. Someone will call the shots. Do you want the Russians? Chinese? Think of it this way:
If you don't think much about the US, its history, its creed, its potential then resign yourself to it being the best of the rest.
If you don't think much about the US, its history, its creed, its potential then resign yourself to it being the best of the rest.
I usually admire and agree heartily with Mr. Cohen's arguments. He now seems to feel about Paris much as I felt about New York after 9-11. I feel his pain. But his calls for rage in his last column and then today for "a convincing military response" are both beneath his usual insight and clarity.
Rage is useful in exacting revenge, but revenge alone is a pitiful and temporary goal. Rage is by no means the same as determination. The primary effect of rage would be to circumscribe the intelligence and long-term thinking required to deal effectively with radical Islam.
A "convincing military response?" Convincing to whom and in exactly what way? If you're going to call for this, Mr. Cohen, spell out the specifics. Do you suggest an assault against ISIS by many divisions of U.S. ground troops? Do you think (surely not) that U.S. air strikes alone will fulfill our duties in response to ISIS, much less with political Islam as a whole? How about carpet bombing of ISIS held areas and all the "collateral damage" and unforeseen consequences that would entail? Or do you think the President, the CIA, and special ops forces can do what must be done out of the public eye? If not one of these, then what exactly do you think would comprise a "convincing military response?
If you're going to call for immediate action, the time to be specific is now.
Spell out rationale and consequences. Otherwise you, having no real responsibility for the lives of others, are just whining.
Rage is useful in exacting revenge, but revenge alone is a pitiful and temporary goal. Rage is by no means the same as determination. The primary effect of rage would be to circumscribe the intelligence and long-term thinking required to deal effectively with radical Islam.
A "convincing military response?" Convincing to whom and in exactly what way? If you're going to call for this, Mr. Cohen, spell out the specifics. Do you suggest an assault against ISIS by many divisions of U.S. ground troops? Do you think (surely not) that U.S. air strikes alone will fulfill our duties in response to ISIS, much less with political Islam as a whole? How about carpet bombing of ISIS held areas and all the "collateral damage" and unforeseen consequences that would entail? Or do you think the President, the CIA, and special ops forces can do what must be done out of the public eye? If not one of these, then what exactly do you think would comprise a "convincing military response?
If you're going to call for immediate action, the time to be specific is now.
Spell out rationale and consequences. Otherwise you, having no real responsibility for the lives of others, are just whining.
114
Thank you for your response to Mr. Cohen's piece. I, to, have been greatly disturbed by his columns about the Paris attacks. His eloquent and heartbreaking keening is totally understood. We mourn and hurt with him. But column after column on this matter, asking for a military response, specifically trying to goad the US to lead in war again, is very disturbing for all the reasons you detail. It's taunting Obama directly when he is trying to not give in to the knee jerk US response which clearly failed, and most likely was directly responsible for where things stand now 15 years after 9/11 and the Iraq war.
1
.. but even Obama now realizes and as he stated today, we have to defeat ISIS and take back the territory it holds as well as counter its preying on the vulnerable in Paris, Brussels, Beirut and Detroit, to name a few. We have no choice, the threat is real, powerfully destructive and existential with respect to our way of life. Vive Paris!
1
This column reminds me of the touching exchange between a French father and his young son, that what they have are flowers and candles, while "the bad guys" have guns. That is, the choice between beauty, life and light over instruments of death. The question is, why do just enough people find God and meaningful life in the latter, not the former?. It should be a no-brainer.
1
What do they want, these slaughterers? The want to destroy everything in the world that can threaten their belief systems by luring people from a way of life that glorifies death, the subjugation of women and all thought of forward social movement. What better places to start than with the West’s great cities, Paris, London, New York? And these are desperate men, because even among Muslims, they are a small minority and those who would tempt them to put aside the blade and the suicide vest are many and their blandishments powerful.
But there is no reason to regard the placing of chips on beauty as dangerous, so long as you realize that such desperate men abound in the world, always have, and that you have an obligation to defend beauty by not placing ALL your chips on it. France, just as other European societies, will need to reassess their priorities, because to effectively defend themselves will require that they spend more on guns, intelligence, security and police forces, and correspondingly less on social welfare – and that will be very difficult to do given the expectations that have been built up among the people.
It also wouldn’t hurt to be part of a global alliance whose substance necessarily would need to be provided by America, dedicated initially to the eradication of ISIS and Boko Haram, but strategically to the containment of ANY force that emerged to threaten civilization, threaten beauty.
But there is no reason to regard the placing of chips on beauty as dangerous, so long as you realize that such desperate men abound in the world, always have, and that you have an obligation to defend beauty by not placing ALL your chips on it. France, just as other European societies, will need to reassess their priorities, because to effectively defend themselves will require that they spend more on guns, intelligence, security and police forces, and correspondingly less on social welfare – and that will be very difficult to do given the expectations that have been built up among the people.
It also wouldn’t hurt to be part of a global alliance whose substance necessarily would need to be provided by America, dedicated initially to the eradication of ISIS and Boko Haram, but strategically to the containment of ANY force that emerged to threaten civilization, threaten beauty.
3
“Slaughterers,” yes. But Muslims? You call these adult thugs, abused as children, these children abusing, Muslims? They are criminals. Down with the criminals, leave the Muslims alone.
2
It is interesting how we all see ourselves or aren't able to see ourselves.
2
Everything Cohen writes seems like an attempt to write off a vacation. Presumably it's not, but what are readers supposed to make of gems like "They will endure. Still, they are shaken"?
2
"A convincing military response." Several trillion dollars and deaths in the tens of thousands in Iraq and Afghanistan is hardly small change--and this time it will be different? The last "convincing response" created the Islamic State, and now we want to somehow bomb a failed state into something resembling a state? How many times would you have to bomb a house to make it habitable again? Europe longs for the good old days of Bush, who would cowboy-up on the slightest pretext with token support from Paris and Berlin. And while Europeans loathe President Obama for not doing likewise, he knows only too well that they secretly revile him for his lethal drone policy. A convincing military response would mean killing people, a hard pill to swallow for statesmen who consider the death penalty for murderers as more murder. Frau Merkel and Scandinavia would feel morally compromised if they had to adopt a shoot-to-kill policy. Iraq, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, also, are only too willing to have the US Cavalry do the dirty work. Strangely, Mr. Cohen seems hardly aware that they exist. Why, the President may wonder, should Americans die while Egyptian, Iraqi, Saudi, Turk or German young men sit in cafes' sipping coffee and rail at the American crusader. The President has deftly deflected Third World rage from America to Europe with enormous dividends for America. Often the best response is to do nothing. The tempest will blow itself out.
23
Paris and France are nowhere near as "delicate" as this overheated exercise in sentimentality likes, for whatever reason, to imagine.
The city was occupied by the Nazis. It has been the site of riots and revolutions, communes, mass violence, and beheadings by guillotine, etc. etc.
What kind of weird amnesia has divorced it from this violent history?
The city was occupied by the Nazis. It has been the site of riots and revolutions, communes, mass violence, and beheadings by guillotine, etc. etc.
What kind of weird amnesia has divorced it from this violent history?
79
Roger, I find your thoughts best where you simply write about Paris and its people and places as you know them and as those people now speak. Thanks to SVT's (Swedish Public TV) extensive coverage I get to hear so very many residents speaking directly to us at length and every day.
I learn from listening (text in Swedish beneath) both about beauty-the spoken language at its best-and about a determination not to be overwhelmed by fear
even though each person interviewed has every reason to fear a next attack.
You lose me, however, when I reach these words of yours: "(does)...the greatest democracy of all, the United States, has (have) the capacity to rouse itself to a convincing military response against the Islamic State."
My country of birth is not showing itself at all to be, right now, the greatest democracy of all, but rather once again to be a country perfused with a fear of muslims, a country where as you put it, a need to rouse itself to military response is an "only solution". It is showing itself to be so paralyzed by fear that it closes its doors before hardly any Syrians have even been allowed to approach those doors. By contrast, little Sweden (pop 9.6 million) has been taking in 10,000 per week, and yet with a people not displaying anything like the fear evident among my fellow Americans who apparently have never met a Syrian.
So Roger, read the comments and re-think your call for war.
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
Dual citizen-USA-SE
201511220831
I learn from listening (text in Swedish beneath) both about beauty-the spoken language at its best-and about a determination not to be overwhelmed by fear
even though each person interviewed has every reason to fear a next attack.
You lose me, however, when I reach these words of yours: "(does)...the greatest democracy of all, the United States, has (have) the capacity to rouse itself to a convincing military response against the Islamic State."
My country of birth is not showing itself at all to be, right now, the greatest democracy of all, but rather once again to be a country perfused with a fear of muslims, a country where as you put it, a need to rouse itself to military response is an "only solution". It is showing itself to be so paralyzed by fear that it closes its doors before hardly any Syrians have even been allowed to approach those doors. By contrast, little Sweden (pop 9.6 million) has been taking in 10,000 per week, and yet with a people not displaying anything like the fear evident among my fellow Americans who apparently have never met a Syrian.
So Roger, read the comments and re-think your call for war.
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
Dual citizen-USA-SE
201511220831
13
From someone who loves Paris as much as Mr Cohen does, I found this article sad but true. However, I am surprised that Mr Cohen has not heard of Citizens United which explains why he calls the US, the greatest democracy of all. It is not.
14
Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya. Western military intervention has worked so well so perhaps we should try yet again in Syria?? Surely there must be another way beside yet more military, more killing. Military intervention by the West has proven to be a disaster. I truly doubt that doing yet more of it will help. Perhaps some consideration of the University of Abu Ghraib and what we have done might help rather than knee jerk reaction that we must bomb yet again.
33
Mr. Cohen, you're a writer's writer . . . poetic prose evoking Paris of the Belle Epoque, of Ernest Hemingway's "moveable feast" and of the present. Your quintessentially French cry to the barricades, directed at the United States of America -- child of France -- will hopefully reach the ears of those capable of the passion, organization and wherewithal necessary to eradicate a perverted religious movement that not only maligns the peace of Islam, but mistakenly attracts the suspicion of its fellow Good of the world, whether Christian, Buddhist, Taoist, or principled agnostic and atheist.
Although religion has been an oft disastrous and, hopefully, fading step in the development of Humankind, the triumph of culture, incarnate in France, is the best of the present and torch on the global path to a working, desirable future.
Bravo Mr. Cohen.
Although religion has been an oft disastrous and, hopefully, fading step in the development of Humankind, the triumph of culture, incarnate in France, is the best of the present and torch on the global path to a working, desirable future.
Bravo Mr. Cohen.
How elegant, how intelligent.
All efforts to convert politics into poetry culminate in one outcome: war.
All efforts to convert politics into poetry culminate in one outcome: war.
The U.S. is not a democracy. It is an oligarchy.
59
Most touching reminiscences of Mr. Cohen about his life in Paris and the Parisians' reactions to the recent wave of massacres. Rue Mouffetard is a lovely neighborhood, also figuring in one of the short novels by George Simenon.
"Saving Paris from the Islamic State will take ruthlessness — but save it we must". -- How very true! After all the occupations of Paris by parties in the internal and external wars over the centuries, the city is still there and blossoms, despite some architecturally questionable constructions. Such as the facade of the Centre Pompidou, the Colonnes de Buren, and the Louvre Pyramid (in my view, the latter should have been placed in an open space, in a public park).
"Saving Paris from the Islamic State will take ruthlessness — but save it we must". -- How very true! After all the occupations of Paris by parties in the internal and external wars over the centuries, the city is still there and blossoms, despite some architecturally questionable constructions. Such as the facade of the Centre Pompidou, the Colonnes de Buren, and the Louvre Pyramid (in my view, the latter should have been placed in an open space, in a public park).
1
I would be in aggreement about the Centre Pompidou - but fortunately Piano has redeemed himself with his recent re-make of the Whitney Museum in New York. The clash of architetcural form in Pei's Pyramid at the Louvre and the smaller scale pyramids between the East Wing and the West Wing of the Natioanal Gallery is striking. I missed the Palais Royal work the Colonnes de Buren. Sorry, I must have been shopping or heading toward the Metro off the Avenue de l'Opera.
The sad truth is that most people in Paris, from wherever, are good and decent. As are most people around the globe. They are looking for a rationale that gives some sanity to the insanity of barbarians. But, there is none.
2
Paris is my second home and always will be. Or, maybe my third, since my family lived so many different places while growing up. But, I own it, even if you say I cannot, even if you say it is a selfish conceit to imagine ownership of such an international and often universal place, even if you say she she possesses a beauty, a something, that no man can own but may, with luck, pass through, pausing long and longingly along the way.
She has been ugly to me and very kind, too, but the greatest kindness, perhaps, was just to let me wander there and imagine I lived there, even though not even for a full year. In a sense, I never left, though most of my adult years have been spent in and around our nation's capital.
Surely, the monsters who killed so many also took away something from Paris, and from all of us, too. Do not over emphasize, however. What they take away that is most precious is the idea of safety, the idea of going out and about without fear and, in the place of calmness, they plant a jittery nervousness about ordinary existence and its daily pleasures.
This attack is not likely to be repeated, though smaller, imitation efforts are very likely. They are trying to draw us deeper into their nightmares, to punish us for trying to halt their murderous regime in Syria and Iraq. They can only succeed if we insist on making them larger than what they are, crazed, death loving people who are digging their own graves because of the pressured insanity in which they live.
She has been ugly to me and very kind, too, but the greatest kindness, perhaps, was just to let me wander there and imagine I lived there, even though not even for a full year. In a sense, I never left, though most of my adult years have been spent in and around our nation's capital.
Surely, the monsters who killed so many also took away something from Paris, and from all of us, too. Do not over emphasize, however. What they take away that is most precious is the idea of safety, the idea of going out and about without fear and, in the place of calmness, they plant a jittery nervousness about ordinary existence and its daily pleasures.
This attack is not likely to be repeated, though smaller, imitation efforts are very likely. They are trying to draw us deeper into their nightmares, to punish us for trying to halt their murderous regime in Syria and Iraq. They can only succeed if we insist on making them larger than what they are, crazed, death loving people who are digging their own graves because of the pressured insanity in which they live.
5
It is all very sad. Putting the horror to the side for the moment, something in society, the things that brought joy, has been lost or at least been diminished.
Human hate and intolerance is getting a firm foothold.
As one of your acquaintances remarked, we have lived our lives, what does this mean for our children?
Human hate and intolerance is getting a firm foothold.
As one of your acquaintances remarked, we have lived our lives, what does this mean for our children?
1
"Then, abruptly, the [social welfare] model buckled with the arrival of millions of North African immigrants, many hostile to their former colonial overlords..."
Only a tiny, tiny fraction of the immigrants Cohen blames here have picked up arms against France. Many more have been at the receiving end of hostility and prejudice by the residents of the country they now call home. The real problem is that France has done terribly at providing opportunities for education, work and social acceptance for these newer non-European immigrants.
Only a tiny, tiny fraction of the immigrants Cohen blames here have picked up arms against France. Many more have been at the receiving end of hostility and prejudice by the residents of the country they now call home. The real problem is that France has done terribly at providing opportunities for education, work and social acceptance for these newer non-European immigrants.
77
How will dumping a lot of extra available workers into a market where there's already an excess of labor make it easier to 'provide opportunities for education, work and social acceptance'? Wouldn't it make it more difficult?
3
Such an evocative essay, conjuring up places and spaces I remember well from my visit two years ago. Paris is one of those cities that belongs to everyone, whether or not they've been there, because of its life in music, film, literature, and history. If any city is larger than life, it's Paris.
So, yes, the barbarians at the gates last week were after the quintessential symbol of western culture. Of course, it didn't hurt that the city and country they chose to attack was so full of resentful immigrants, cast off by the very same colonialists who'd oppressed their parents and grandparents.
But ISIS is, if nothing else, a movement of symbols, which is why they take such perverse pleasure in dismantling the glories of civilization at home and abroad. Paris, not Rome, not London, had to be the site for their atrocities.
If beauty itself is perceived as a threat, why not pick one of the most beautiful cities on earth, in every sense--physical, metaphysical, historical, and cultural? So, yes, Roger, America may beckon as the ultimate prize, it doesn't hold the same allure as Paris to the nihilists of Raqqa.
When everything you do is inspired by an innate ugliness, doesn't it stand to reason that beauty itself is the ultimate threat? From covering women from head to toe, to desecrating architectural glories, ISIS stands for darkness, covertness, torture, and destruction. The polar opposite of beauty that must be gazed upon in order to shine.
So, yes, the barbarians at the gates last week were after the quintessential symbol of western culture. Of course, it didn't hurt that the city and country they chose to attack was so full of resentful immigrants, cast off by the very same colonialists who'd oppressed their parents and grandparents.
But ISIS is, if nothing else, a movement of symbols, which is why they take such perverse pleasure in dismantling the glories of civilization at home and abroad. Paris, not Rome, not London, had to be the site for their atrocities.
If beauty itself is perceived as a threat, why not pick one of the most beautiful cities on earth, in every sense--physical, metaphysical, historical, and cultural? So, yes, Roger, America may beckon as the ultimate prize, it doesn't hold the same allure as Paris to the nihilists of Raqqa.
When everything you do is inspired by an innate ugliness, doesn't it stand to reason that beauty itself is the ultimate threat? From covering women from head to toe, to desecrating architectural glories, ISIS stands for darkness, covertness, torture, and destruction. The polar opposite of beauty that must be gazed upon in order to shine.
2
Mr. Cohen: You were doing pretty well in your small essay before you trivialized it with a trite analogy to a film. There is more complexity to the story than memories- starting with the ascendancy of Marine Le Pen and her xenophobic fascism. That grim fallout from the Paris Massacre is even more dangerous to the City than the lurking terrorist threat. A similar ugly xenophobia has become almost mainstream in the US as well.
Two great nations willing to sell their birthright of freedom for an illusory security.
Two great nations willing to sell their birthright of freedom for an illusory security.
4
Mr Cohen wants to play an angry game. President Obama wants to play a smart game.
During the Civil War, the cabinet unanimously voted against one strategy, the president came out in favor of another strategy. Lincoln famously said of adopting his decision, "Looks like the 'Ayes' have it."
At the end of the day, the American people are going to be the beneficiaries of their president's measured wisdom.
During the Civil War, the cabinet unanimously voted against one strategy, the president came out in favor of another strategy. Lincoln famously said of adopting his decision, "Looks like the 'Ayes' have it."
At the end of the day, the American people are going to be the beneficiaries of their president's measured wisdom.
10
For all the verbiage, Cohen gets down his simplistic bellicosity again: "a convincing military response." For all his nuanced and dewy eyed recollection of the beauty of Paris, and the truly touching pathos of its citizens, he's got basically nothing to suggest but bombs, bullets, and our son's and daughter's bodies. Oh how blithely he demands violence from someone else's hands and without even so much as a second sentence on the consequence of it.
33
Poetic enough to make us stop, and control our emotions. Paris, with all its melancholy, and perhaps because of it, is a unique place, eternal, hence, like classical music, to be played over and over. Beauty may be in the eye of the beholder, but if we could ignore Haussmann's dubious 'improvements', the city of Paris is a beauty to behold, and makes it 'imperative' to want to return, recognize ourselves in all the truth, and beauty, it contains. For now, other that enjoy Paris in spite of the constraints imposed by security forces, and minimize a barbaric radical Islamist movement from taking over (by that I mean, taking it over by paralyzing its people), we must remain vigilant, and point fingers in the right direction: stop the flow of money that makes Jihadism possible, by destroying local sources (oil, drugs, taxes) as well the main culprits feeding it, the Saudis and Wahabism combined; and, of course, the maintenance of assassin-in- chief , Bashar al-Assad, whose support by Putin is unconcionable and, prolonging the exodus of refugees, is creating upheaval in the whole region. Who would have thought it all got aggravated by the disastrous invasion of Irak?
A friend of many years, my 'spiritual' one as I think of her, we were strolling this morning in New York, ready to enjoy a day in the country. She was discussing 'The Road less Traveled', her feeling that it was not only an exploration of the beauty of Nature, but that it carries a far more important message. We had it at school in Paris, I ventured, our English teacher was a nun. Born in China of missionaries, this tiny woman commanded the respect of over forty students.
Everything is open to interpretation, I added, perhaps it is about having a mind of one's own, although so many people appear to be taking this road, it must be a bit of a traffic jam.
Afghanistan, The Sudan, China, India, the many countries where she has been assigned, and now retired here Home Sweet Home. Another friend came in this evening. We had not spoken for the longest time, her years spent in 'The Field', her voice lowered when we spoke of her family in Africa. A bit of anxious laughter at what is happening in America on her part; my replying that I am getting angry about it all.
Mali, she mentioned. A way to show that not only our Capital Cities, New York, Paris and London, many other Countries are open to attack. One can send a pumpkin pie recipe to a friend in Paris and work on a life-saving project at the same time. A restoration of balance needed, while we stay in tune with each other.
I last saw my brother in the Métro and I wrote 'We will always have Paris'. Will we?
Everything is open to interpretation, I added, perhaps it is about having a mind of one's own, although so many people appear to be taking this road, it must be a bit of a traffic jam.
Afghanistan, The Sudan, China, India, the many countries where she has been assigned, and now retired here Home Sweet Home. Another friend came in this evening. We had not spoken for the longest time, her years spent in 'The Field', her voice lowered when we spoke of her family in Africa. A bit of anxious laughter at what is happening in America on her part; my replying that I am getting angry about it all.
Mali, she mentioned. A way to show that not only our Capital Cities, New York, Paris and London, many other Countries are open to attack. One can send a pumpkin pie recipe to a friend in Paris and work on a life-saving project at the same time. A restoration of balance needed, while we stay in tune with each other.
I last saw my brother in the Métro and I wrote 'We will always have Paris'. Will we?
1
Participating in another ground war confronts our civilization, while the simultaneous sabre-rhetoric mainly sickens me.
I cannot fathom sending-in USA ground troops, and since Obama has been already baited/called idiomatic slang cuss-bashed relentlessly, he's so used to being defecated upon/insulted, he'll not substantively escalate.
Knocking-out 150 oil tanker trucks, okay/fine/great, though nyet for intensive/extensive bombings falling inevitably upon helpless civilians, whom are probably being forcibly mixed with ISIS.
Ill place blame, and it's the rottenness of world politics, and victims are so many dead/disabled from Vietnam futility through Syria futility.
I cannot fathom sending-in USA ground troops, and since Obama has been already baited/called idiomatic slang cuss-bashed relentlessly, he's so used to being defecated upon/insulted, he'll not substantively escalate.
Knocking-out 150 oil tanker trucks, okay/fine/great, though nyet for intensive/extensive bombings falling inevitably upon helpless civilians, whom are probably being forcibly mixed with ISIS.
Ill place blame, and it's the rottenness of world politics, and victims are so many dead/disabled from Vietnam futility through Syria futility.
2
Thank you, Mr. Cohen, for a beautiful reflection on the character of a great City. Paris is unique but it is not alone. All liberty-loving societies are under threat from those whose mental states escape me. Our foes seek nothing less than to destroy our societies as brutally as possible, wherever it exists.
Since we're all potential victims we must tackle the scourge as brothers and sisters. True leadership calls for more nobility than slamming our doors shut to victims whose victimhood we helped create.
www.endthemadnessnow.org
Since we're all potential victims we must tackle the scourge as brothers and sisters. True leadership calls for more nobility than slamming our doors shut to victims whose victimhood we helped create.
www.endthemadnessnow.org
2
The feelings you identify are those of the undeserving victim; profound fear diffusely centered, stunned in a way that leads at least initially to bewilderment rather than rage. Most important is the utter and complete loss of the way life should be.
I spent the better part of my career as a probation officer. My favorite moment occurred in courtroom almost thirty years ago. A delinquent had plead "not guilty" to a charge of armed robbery. The couple he had held up were in their eighties. The thug had forced his way into their home and hit the husband in the side of his head with a .38 caliber. At that moment his wife staggered back feigning a heart attack. She fell to her couch and said "do that again sonny and you'll be singin' soprana.' Next she reached into her couch and put a round from her own .38 caliber into the middle of his abdomen. He was still wearing a colostomy bag when he appeared in court two months later. He thought himself to be the victim because his intentions were misunderstood.
My hope is that Paris can put herself in the position of that elderly lady. She was free of guilt, plugged a bad guy and made it possible for herself and her husband to go on with their lives.
The bad guys in Paris were not real Muslims.
The real Muslims I have known all have a deep respect for life. They weep or just feel miserable when a criminal uses the name of their faith when ordinary, lethal criminals use it to kill innocents of any faith.
I spent the better part of my career as a probation officer. My favorite moment occurred in courtroom almost thirty years ago. A delinquent had plead "not guilty" to a charge of armed robbery. The couple he had held up were in their eighties. The thug had forced his way into their home and hit the husband in the side of his head with a .38 caliber. At that moment his wife staggered back feigning a heart attack. She fell to her couch and said "do that again sonny and you'll be singin' soprana.' Next she reached into her couch and put a round from her own .38 caliber into the middle of his abdomen. He was still wearing a colostomy bag when he appeared in court two months later. He thought himself to be the victim because his intentions were misunderstood.
My hope is that Paris can put herself in the position of that elderly lady. She was free of guilt, plugged a bad guy and made it possible for herself and her husband to go on with their lives.
The bad guys in Paris were not real Muslims.
The real Muslims I have known all have a deep respect for life. They weep or just feel miserable when a criminal uses the name of their faith when ordinary, lethal criminals use it to kill innocents of any faith.
1
As if...violence were something new in the history of the world.
The immediacy of reporting violence from the other side of the world, may be a newer phenom, but this sort of violence has always been with us, always will be.
The leading cause of death in the world, year after year, is waterborne disease.
Yet, there is no war on waterborne disease.
Something else is driving the endless war on terror, the marketing miracle which has raised over 15 trillion from American taxpayers for the 14 years wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, with no explicit authorization anywhere from Congress for this obscene level of spending.
We will always have Paris, and we will always have violence, and hopefully, most of the time, these two eternal truths will be mostly separate.
And let's also hope common sense returns to deal with continuing violence in the world.
The immediacy of reporting violence from the other side of the world, may be a newer phenom, but this sort of violence has always been with us, always will be.
The leading cause of death in the world, year after year, is waterborne disease.
Yet, there is no war on waterborne disease.
Something else is driving the endless war on terror, the marketing miracle which has raised over 15 trillion from American taxpayers for the 14 years wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, with no explicit authorization anywhere from Congress for this obscene level of spending.
We will always have Paris, and we will always have violence, and hopefully, most of the time, these two eternal truths will be mostly separate.
And let's also hope common sense returns to deal with continuing violence in the world.
2
The Pope called it World War III but it's really a war of the worlds that has been waged for at least 500 years since Galileo. On one side is the command and control, top-down worldview where the group controls the individual and their lives. On the other is a focus on the individual (with all its challenges, failures and foibles) as the dominant perspective.
Paris is the world capital of culture but not of the arts, song and dance. But of the culture of individual freedom. Therefore, Paris, Washington and New York are the targets for the soldier pawns of the faltering command worldview.
Faltering because the dominant perspective of the controllers is weakness, fear and hate. And these, as we found with the Nazis, can't compete with the power, strength and creativity of love and freedom (and the beauty they create). Globally, the command culture is destined for the scrapheap of history.
However, this future history is not preordained and love must battle to win the war. Inequality of income and opportunity is one Achilles heel. Globally, too many intelligent young people divert their creativity to hate as we saw in Paris.
Children all over the world need to be protected from fear until love and freedom become their dominant mindset. We need to address inequality in income and opportunity so that successive generations of young men and women find far more individual opportunity in adding to the world's beauty, rather than in destroying it. This is the Paris challenge.
Paris is the world capital of culture but not of the arts, song and dance. But of the culture of individual freedom. Therefore, Paris, Washington and New York are the targets for the soldier pawns of the faltering command worldview.
Faltering because the dominant perspective of the controllers is weakness, fear and hate. And these, as we found with the Nazis, can't compete with the power, strength and creativity of love and freedom (and the beauty they create). Globally, the command culture is destined for the scrapheap of history.
However, this future history is not preordained and love must battle to win the war. Inequality of income and opportunity is one Achilles heel. Globally, too many intelligent young people divert their creativity to hate as we saw in Paris.
Children all over the world need to be protected from fear until love and freedom become their dominant mindset. We need to address inequality in income and opportunity so that successive generations of young men and women find far more individual opportunity in adding to the world's beauty, rather than in destroying it. This is the Paris challenge.
1
France can't hit back like our country. But, it makes a pretty, and relatively easy, target. Just as normal people take pleasure in walking through that beautiful city, and it truly is (was there in 87), these twisted psychopaths take "pleasure" in their cruelty. Can we understand the depth of their hatred?
1
"Can we understand the depth of their hatred?"..only if you understood how the peoples of the ME have been denied participation in the largess of their colonizers for many decades. And on top of that, their infrastructure, civil society and homes are totally destroyed.
8
I watched The Hunger Games yesterday. An unspeakably evil state, Panem, led by Snow, with 1984-style TVs that are always on, where everyone is forced to watch mandatory propaganda videos from the state, propaganda videos with better production values than those to which leaders of the Great Powers in the real world have access.
The rebels against Panem have hackers who can take control of those TVs and force everyone to watch THEIR propaganda videos. Every attack by the rebels is carefully considered for its propaganda value. And the rebel leader Coin has the technology and talent to produce propaganda videos that are even better than those produced by the state.
The Daesh (ISIS in English) have access to the best production equipment, including green screen technology. Their propaganda is every bit as sophisticated as that of Coin and her rebels in The Hunger Games. And, like the rebels in the Hunger Games, the Daesh selects every target for its propaganda value.
http://bill-purkayastha.blogspot.in/2015/11/the-marketing-of-isis-as-glo...
The rebels against Panem have hackers who can take control of those TVs and force everyone to watch THEIR propaganda videos. Every attack by the rebels is carefully considered for its propaganda value. And the rebel leader Coin has the technology and talent to produce propaganda videos that are even better than those produced by the state.
The Daesh (ISIS in English) have access to the best production equipment, including green screen technology. Their propaganda is every bit as sophisticated as that of Coin and her rebels in The Hunger Games. And, like the rebels in the Hunger Games, the Daesh selects every target for its propaganda value.
http://bill-purkayastha.blogspot.in/2015/11/the-marketing-of-isis-as-glo...
You love France so much that you retired in England, something that I could not understand while Englishmen are flocking the French countryside. In the old days they would travel South with the butler driving the Land Rover behind the Rolls or the Bentley. There they would relax for the first time of the year -and get loose in the process, wild. Boredom I guess brought you back to the US. I lived in those three countries and other part of the world like Brazil Africa and Asia and I am curious to hear your report on the cultural differences between those. For myself I think that the Americans just like the white Greeks that are in fact culturally speaking middle Eastern people are more French than British in many ways but food habits and bad taste. Like in France everything is being discussed in America and laid bare. It is not the case in England. And when the British travel which they do more readily than the French intelligentsia and sometimes lived in foreign countries for long period of time other civilizations do not affect them a bit, never rub on them like the more reluctant to travel Parisians who will eventually blend with the population in a foreign country and adopt their way of life. The British leave and come back unchanged with all their silverware and their tea pots , unmoved.
6
"The British leave and come back unchanged with all their silverware and their tea pots , unmoved." Saw a world map on FB with all of the countries in the world the British have invaded. There were only 22 nations that they did not invade. I love your last sentence..brilliant!
2
Cohen asks for a convincing military response from the USA, retribution for attacks on Paris. But what is the plan? What are the goals? What is the perspective for over a period longer than a few months?
Asking for more war is in my eyes the most primitive of reactions, it does not deal with the long and complex history of the Middle East as colony of the West, it does not deal with the underpriviliged in France or Belgium now, it deals with nothing of importance in this drama. Sentimentalism about the beauty of Paris and the force of democracy is no more than a tool for a 'no brains' attitude. How disappointing.
Asking for more war is in my eyes the most primitive of reactions, it does not deal with the long and complex history of the Middle East as colony of the West, it does not deal with the underpriviliged in France or Belgium now, it deals with nothing of importance in this drama. Sentimentalism about the beauty of Paris and the force of democracy is no more than a tool for a 'no brains' attitude. How disappointing.
6
I have to agree with Arun Gupta. Some perspective is needed. Roger Cohen, a columnist I normally have considerable time for, appears to be swept along with events instead of standing aside and reflecting on them. One could have written a similar column to this in July 2005 after 4 British citizens killed 52 people on the London transportation system. Undoubtedly, columns of this type were written. And yet, London and the UK showed resilience and responded to the terrorism, not always successfully and sometimes by going too far, with improved security and fortitude. Unless terrorists acquire nuclear weapons then they are not an existential threat to the west in the way that Nazi Germany or international communism were. We need to have more faith in liberal-democratic values in the face of such attacks instead of writing our societies off.
35
One reason the millions of North African immigrants have remained hostile is the French indifference to their own transgressions. The worst violence to afflict Paris in recent memory is probably not the slaughter of innocents last week. Rather it was the 1961 massacre of up to 200 peaceful Algerian protesters who were killed by the French police right in the center of the City of Light. Some were gunned down. Some were simply tossed in the Seine (which is certain death sentence). The French may have forgotten it, but believe me, even very good, law-abiding French of Algerian origins have not.
Thank you for piece. It has been a very hard week, and I grieve for this city where I now live fearing for my children, where I now struggle with panic attacks for the first time in my life. It would help if these beautiful, elegiac writings could somehow integrate the heartbreak France's second class citizens have endured for decades.
Thank you for piece. It has been a very hard week, and I grieve for this city where I now live fearing for my children, where I now struggle with panic attacks for the first time in my life. It would help if these beautiful, elegiac writings could somehow integrate the heartbreak France's second class citizens have endured for decades.
13
I essentially agree with Mark Thomason. ISIS would not have risked scarce resources to attack Paris simply because it represented a way of life its leaders detest. French and American military assets in the ME both offend and threaten these men, as it did Bin Laden before them. They have said as much, and we should take them seriously.
That said, both the values and economic interests of the West preclude any real possibility that we will abandon the region to the tender mercies of ISIS.
We must prepare ourselves, consequently for further attacks. If we can endure these assaults without persecuting our Muslim citizens, or destroying our own freedoms, the regime's own internal contradictions, its dependence on an unstable fanaticism, may defeat it.
That may be a tall order. A passion for that will-o'-the-wisp, absolute security, may betray us without necessarily saving ISIS. Our ancestors knew that life was dangerous, that no one could guarantee safety. Our technological civilization has created unrealistic expectations and encouraged us to blame government for any breach in our illusions. A more sober appreciation of the risks posed by terrorists would both increase our resilience and stem the sense of panic triggered by their attacks. It might also save us from jettisoning our liberties in the name of greater security.
That said, both the values and economic interests of the West preclude any real possibility that we will abandon the region to the tender mercies of ISIS.
We must prepare ourselves, consequently for further attacks. If we can endure these assaults without persecuting our Muslim citizens, or destroying our own freedoms, the regime's own internal contradictions, its dependence on an unstable fanaticism, may defeat it.
That may be a tall order. A passion for that will-o'-the-wisp, absolute security, may betray us without necessarily saving ISIS. Our ancestors knew that life was dangerous, that no one could guarantee safety. Our technological civilization has created unrealistic expectations and encouraged us to blame government for any breach in our illusions. A more sober appreciation of the risks posed by terrorists would both increase our resilience and stem the sense of panic triggered by their attacks. It might also save us from jettisoning our liberties in the name of greater security.
9
Perhaps I am just a person who always knows that when there is light, there is also shadow. I take second place to no one in my love of Paris. But right from the moment I first saw her, riding from DeGaulle in my cousin's Jaguar, taking the Champs Elysees like a victor, I knew her history. I took French starting at 13 in junior high, and though it was never my major, it was always there for me. I also got to know many French boys in college. I liked their intellectual seriousness and the fact that one of them cooked really good dinners for me, using unfamiliar ingredients, like rabbit. My husband, however, with those cousins in Paris, was a Hungarian refugee. His Jewish uncle arrived there before the war.
How could I possibly see Paris as completely unstained by human tears? After all, you can find the scene of the last moments of German occupation, where resistance fighters died near and on the Pont Neuf. That was about a clash of civilizations too, unless one believes the French enjoyed being under German control.
Before the Haussmann improvements we all think of as typically Parisian, what about the Bartholomew massacre and the bubonic plague? Yet Notre Dame stood there as she does today during both. The barricades - the massacres of students manning them --- the bloody struggles in Parisian history, the Revolution itself, with its guillotine at what is today a posh part of town, Place de la Concorde - Paris never was just a symbol, a tourist attraction.
How could I possibly see Paris as completely unstained by human tears? After all, you can find the scene of the last moments of German occupation, where resistance fighters died near and on the Pont Neuf. That was about a clash of civilizations too, unless one believes the French enjoyed being under German control.
Before the Haussmann improvements we all think of as typically Parisian, what about the Bartholomew massacre and the bubonic plague? Yet Notre Dame stood there as she does today during both. The barricades - the massacres of students manning them --- the bloody struggles in Parisian history, the Revolution itself, with its guillotine at what is today a posh part of town, Place de la Concorde - Paris never was just a symbol, a tourist attraction.
16
Be careful what you wish for, Roger. Last week you talked about "spineless" decisions by the administration in Syria. This week you imply that " we'll never have Paris" again until the U.S. takes aggressive action.
Do you remember Iraq? Do you remember Vietnam? Both wars started with emotional responses to 9/11 and the Gulf of Tonkin incident but these were merely justifications to foregone conclusions by masters of war that the U.S. must intervene.
President Obama is right to be cautious to avoid the quagmires that we got ourselves into in Vietnam and Iraq.
Do you remember Iraq? Do you remember Vietnam? Both wars started with emotional responses to 9/11 and the Gulf of Tonkin incident but these were merely justifications to foregone conclusions by masters of war that the U.S. must intervene.
President Obama is right to be cautious to avoid the quagmires that we got ourselves into in Vietnam and Iraq.
131
On the other hand, the Islamic State needs us to have boots on the ground in the Middle East and be suspicious of Muslims in our own country, because these keep its recruiting drive productive and without recruits the islamic State will wither and shrink. With a military response we are gambling that we can beat our enemy at the game he prefers to play, and our record of doing this is not good at all.
What we really need to do is more difficult -- help the majority of Muslims develop an ideal that they can sell to disaffected, idealistic youngsters as something more practical and more ideal than the caliphate. This ideal, of course, will have to make us and our steadfast allies look nearly as stupid and evil as we have in fact been, and include some way of pressuring us to get our stuff together. So we will probably instead send some of our young men to die without any clear plan to make sure their death results in something better.
What we really need to do is more difficult -- help the majority of Muslims develop an ideal that they can sell to disaffected, idealistic youngsters as something more practical and more ideal than the caliphate. This ideal, of course, will have to make us and our steadfast allies look nearly as stupid and evil as we have in fact been, and include some way of pressuring us to get our stuff together. So we will probably instead send some of our young men to die without any clear plan to make sure their death results in something better.
37
Can this positive ideal come from anywhere but inside their own mosques? The future of Muslims in the Western world may be in the hands of the imams. Will they rise to occasion, or will they continue to allow their mosques to harbor cliques of murderous, alienated fanatics? We shall just have to wait and see.
2
India lives next door to 180 million Pakistanis, from whom the Lashkar-e-Taiba and other outfits regularly recruit; supported by the state - the state which survives on IMF, US, Saudi & Chinese alms; sent every now and then across the border to wreak murder and mayhem. Pakistan is nuclear-armed too, and does not have a 'no-first-strike policy' either, so Pakistan is an existential threat to India. One of the recent ones was Gurdaspur July 27, gunmen attacked a bus and a police station and also planted bombs on railway tracks, which were mercifully found and defused in time. That was just one of them, 7 dead and 15 injured in that one, it could have been much worse.
India has no way out -- neither the US nor China will let that terrorism-sponsoring state wither away. Even without that, India can't really act decisively against the nuclear-armed Pakistani state.
India itself has 180 million Muslims, from whom an occasional one falls and gets recruited by the jihadis; but that's by far the exception, not the rule. There is no doubt that they are Indians; perhaps unlike the "enemy within" France. Still, some Indians do wonder.
Even so, I have not seen the fear, angst and hand-wringing among the Indian population, that is on display here, in the US, in the New York Times, after an attack that wasn't even here, but across a rather wide ocean.
Time for Americans to grow up, perhaps?
India has no way out -- neither the US nor China will let that terrorism-sponsoring state wither away. Even without that, India can't really act decisively against the nuclear-armed Pakistani state.
India itself has 180 million Muslims, from whom an occasional one falls and gets recruited by the jihadis; but that's by far the exception, not the rule. There is no doubt that they are Indians; perhaps unlike the "enemy within" France. Still, some Indians do wonder.
Even so, I have not seen the fear, angst and hand-wringing among the Indian population, that is on display here, in the US, in the New York Times, after an attack that wasn't even here, but across a rather wide ocean.
Time for Americans to grow up, perhaps?
157
I'm actually quite mystified by this comment, by the barely thinly disguised contempt implicit in it - critical contempt towards Cohen, the NYT, NYC, the US and, yes, Paris and Europe. Generally towards the West, perhaps? Honestly, I fail to understand how an "apples-and-pears" comparative argument is in any way at all even remotely helpful or enlightning. India has a totally different history, culture and social structure than either the US or France.
As an American who gre up spending many years in Europe and now lived, married to a German, in Europe, for me also France, and especially Paris, has always had a very special, perhaps symbolic, place. And I'd warrant to say, as Cohen does, that, with its Revolution that ultimately for the first time freed the West from feudalism, with its existentialism that span the meaning of life into a newer, more modern direction, with its role as a heaven for artists, writers and wanderers, France, and especially Paris, has always had a very special and symbolic place for us all in the West.
And in no way is this something to apaologize for or be ashamed of.
As an American who gre up spending many years in Europe and now lived, married to a German, in Europe, for me also France, and especially Paris, has always had a very special, perhaps symbolic, place. And I'd warrant to say, as Cohen does, that, with its Revolution that ultimately for the first time freed the West from feudalism, with its existentialism that span the meaning of life into a newer, more modern direction, with its role as a heaven for artists, writers and wanderers, France, and especially Paris, has always had a very special and symbolic place for us all in the West.
And in no way is this something to apaologize for or be ashamed of.
3
Very interesting point of view. Not being Indian but having spent time there -- including in Mumbai, I might have to agree that there is less hand-wringing though the simmering conflict is hardly undetectable, even to a foreigner. Here is, I think, the difference. During the Cold War we all learned to live under a state of indeterminate threat but the threat was symmetrical. No doubt Pakistan would pay a dear price for nuclear aggression. Not so in the case of Paris.
1
Perhaps Indians are more fatalistic and accepting. Not sure. The U.S. has a 200+ year history of confronting challenges (mostly successfully), and perhaps all our hand-wringing these days is because we've been ill-served on the terrorist front by our last two ineffectual presidents, Bush & Obama.
I am very sad for those wonderful people killed in Paris. However, in our sorrow, nonsense does not help.
“Do they attack us for what we do or do they attack us for what we are?” . . . if France was a target because of its far-flung military campaigns against armed Islamist zealots or because it is a free and democratic country that has banished God from the political sphere. I think France is attacked above all for what it is."
That is the neocon lie, question and answer both.
I disagree. There are many countries that are free and democratic and not religious in any way that matters to these terrorists. They didn't get attacked. Only France.
What is the difference? France is loud and proud about far-flung military campaigns against armed Islamist zealots, but at the same time it is not as strong as all that talk. It is vulnerable without much real power to hit back. Ten planes with twenty bombs? That was the boast. A pinprick, and even that hurt mostly civilians also victims of ISIS. So ISIS calculated well to think hitting France was a big payoff with little risk to it of reply from France.
"Democracies are slow to anger but formidable when aroused." Nobody thinks France is going to be aroused that way. They are not going to mobilize an army and go to war in Syria and Iraq. They are not going to take back the territory claimed by ISIS.
They "declared war" because that allowed them to ask for help, from the EU, from NATO, and from the UN. That is what was aroused.
“Do they attack us for what we do or do they attack us for what we are?” . . . if France was a target because of its far-flung military campaigns against armed Islamist zealots or because it is a free and democratic country that has banished God from the political sphere. I think France is attacked above all for what it is."
That is the neocon lie, question and answer both.
I disagree. There are many countries that are free and democratic and not religious in any way that matters to these terrorists. They didn't get attacked. Only France.
What is the difference? France is loud and proud about far-flung military campaigns against armed Islamist zealots, but at the same time it is not as strong as all that talk. It is vulnerable without much real power to hit back. Ten planes with twenty bombs? That was the boast. A pinprick, and even that hurt mostly civilians also victims of ISIS. So ISIS calculated well to think hitting France was a big payoff with little risk to it of reply from France.
"Democracies are slow to anger but formidable when aroused." Nobody thinks France is going to be aroused that way. They are not going to mobilize an army and go to war in Syria and Iraq. They are not going to take back the territory claimed by ISIS.
They "declared war" because that allowed them to ask for help, from the EU, from NATO, and from the UN. That is what was aroused.
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Mark Thomason: That is the neocon lie, question and answer both."
How exactly is it a neocon lie to posit two reasonable hypotheses as to why France was attacked? What's the anti-neocon truth, question and answer both: why doesn't France simply see the bombings as just retribution for its sins towards disaffected psychopaths and sociopaths in its midst; that's just France.
How exactly is it a neocon lie to posit two reasonable hypotheses as to why France was attacked? What's the anti-neocon truth, question and answer both: why doesn't France simply see the bombings as just retribution for its sins towards disaffected psychopaths and sociopaths in its midst; that's just France.
2
France has the highest percentage Muslim population of Europe. And an especially disaffected Muslim population ... for a variety of reasons. That's a possible reason it was targeted. But, so have Madrid and London and New York and Istanbul and Mumbai etc been targeted .. so it's a moot point. The West's (especially the U.S.) policies have been ineffectual these past 2 decades. But letting Islamists have what they want unqualifiedly will just feed their appetite. Their demands, some of which might seem reasonable to some people, once accomodated (by capitulation), will feed newer demands.
7
Mark, Anyone in any country can get killed by a suicide-seeking assassin. As I thought when Al Quaeda attacked us in 2001, the way to defeat them is to refuse to let them change us. So, take the subway, the airplane, or whatever...your chance of death is a lot less than getting zapped in a car accident while driving to the grocery store. France's lack of the US's military muscle is irrelevant here - the heart of the matter is in our own hearts - A refusal to be changed by fear.
5
The state of nature is not a subtle state.
"Nuancing" why those who try to force others into the state of nature, whatever nuance means, is a fool's errand. Why? is irrelevant when antagonists are trying to force you into the state of nature. Spoiled people are so spoiled by centuries of protections against the state of nature, earned and leaned from living withstate of nature brutishness, they don't know the state of nature is a real place that can be brought about by other humans with little effort. Obama and his foreign policy team are some of those spoiled people. Meditators on why? are too.
Among modern american conservatives are a few good hearted people, many in the military, who think that what liberal means is someone too spoiled and too obtuse to know what the state of nature is about and what the response is to those who would sow that state. People so obtuse can never be trusted and the obtuse ultimately stand for nothing, aside from the extraordinarily rare true pacifist.
"Nuancing" why those who try to force others into the state of nature, whatever nuance means, is a fool's errand. Why? is irrelevant when antagonists are trying to force you into the state of nature. Spoiled people are so spoiled by centuries of protections against the state of nature, earned and leaned from living withstate of nature brutishness, they don't know the state of nature is a real place that can be brought about by other humans with little effort. Obama and his foreign policy team are some of those spoiled people. Meditators on why? are too.
Among modern american conservatives are a few good hearted people, many in the military, who think that what liberal means is someone too spoiled and too obtuse to know what the state of nature is about and what the response is to those who would sow that state. People so obtuse can never be trusted and the obtuse ultimately stand for nothing, aside from the extraordinarily rare true pacifist.
4
So you are appreciative of the true pacifist, but not those who wishes to transcend the base nature of human or animal behaviour? I find that interesting. So what, then, do we just go back to survival of the fittest? Aren't we just saying with market capitalism and democracy that it's still survival of the fittest but with less physical violence (internally at least)? There is no way out except to progress forward---we have a long way to go, but it needs to be done. Otherwise we become extinct sooner than later (which may happen anyway, precisely because of those who would rationalise violence).
2
"obtuse ultimately stand for nothing..." which is why they eventually destroy one another. I am recently reading about the university replacements of overpaid professors and admins. Too bad they have golden parachutes. I also have been reading about President Wilson, the Progressive's infamous "pacifist" at the turn of the 20th Century, and how his memory is now being purged from Princeton University because he was "a racist." LOL. Oh, and of course, it's ultimately amazing that now our overgrown children are also self-segregating on college campuses. Yes, the Left are truly a FORWARD (March!) bunch, aren't they? In lockstep.
1
O.K.---I get it: you are really angry. Nuance
And Subtlety---are you really up for having our military fire through human shields when the human shields are women and children?
And Subtlety---are you really up for having our military fire through human shields when the human shields are women and children?
1
Cohen is beating a war drum for new American war in Iraq and Syria out of panic and unreason. I don't think the disaffected frustrated youth of Europe and Americas, the raw material of what Eric Hoffer called "true believers" will be dissuaded from following the Jihadist path by an American occupation of Damascus, Al-Raqqah, and Fallujah, with months and years following of guerrilla war, IEDs, atrocities, and a steady stream of body bags and broken bodies.