[Sloper]

Reports are that there's at least 12 dead.  Genuinely shocking.

Early reports are that it is 'islamic' terroirsts (although that's hardly surprising), let's hope that the FN and the other far right movements in Europe don't make mischief from this tragic crime.

[jwi]

 

[petejh]

Horrific, and sadly inevitable. The freedom to use parody, and to satirise, ridicule and mock ridiculous bullying people with ridiculous limiting views - proponents of extremist versions of Islam/Catholicism/Jewish/Protestant/Scientology/Buddhist religions - is the only sane response to lunatics. Better than sending in armies.

[Sloper]

One of the things that fuels this is the deference to the more moderate lunatics (i.e. the ones that protest about the satantic verses etc but don't engage in terrorism) provides the space for the terrorists to flourish, one of the terrible legacies of right on fuckwits.

[tomtom]

And it provides fuel for fuckwits like Farage (just been on C4 news) to push for tighter controls on migration etc..

[Sloper]

Yes absolutely, this is manna from heaven for the far right cvnts (see my original post) and could lead to real and lasting damage to society.

[Oldmanmatt]

Yes absolutely, this is manna from heaven for the far right cvnts (see my original post) and could lead to real and lasting damage to society.

That is the ultimate objective of the puppet masters behind such attacks.
The polarisation and subsequent petty racism that springs from it, pushes ever more hormonal teens and idiot dreamers into the wings of the theatre.

Punch and Judy.

Always the baby that gets hurt.

[dave]

What amazes me is that they can walk into an office in broad daylight, in a capital city, in the middle of the day, with umpteen people watching and filming it, and yet they basically manage to drive offand get away (at the moment) scot free. You'd think there'd be system in place to put the entire area on lockdown, roadblocks, armed response teams surrounding the joint before you could say Kalashnikov.

[Sloper]

What amazes me is that they can walk into an office in broad daylight, in a capital city, in the middle of the day, with umpteen people watching and filming it, and yet they basically manage to drive offand get away (at the moment) scot free. You'd think there'd be system in place to put the entire area on lockdown, roadblocks, armed response teams surrounding the joint before you could say Kalashnikov.

They were armed with automatic weapons, to properly respond would require what 30 men with appropriate weapons, I doubt if that response ( as opposed to having the unit mooching around the area fully geared up) would be available anywhere with a response time of <3 minutes

[Oldmanmatt]

Interesting commentary.

http://www.juancole.com/2015/01/sharpening-contradictions-satirists.html


And Dave, sounds great, but if we actually did live in that world, we'd be more afraid of the Uniforms than the Balaclavas...

[fried]

Missus has just told me that there's been shooting in a suburb just SW of Paris, the man escaped in the metro system. I have no other info, nothing yet in the press.

[north_country_boy]

Missus has just told me that there's been shooting in a suburb just SW of Paris, the man escaped in the metro system. I have no other info, nothing yet in the press.

From BBC live feed:

"07:49
There has been shooting this morning south of Paris, with one police officer injured. Police say there is no link to the Charlie Hebdo attack."

[Palomides]

This seems to be everywhere today here (this one is on our office door)

[dave]

Interesting commentary.

http://www.juancole.com/2015/01/sharpening-contradictions-satirists.html


And Dave, sounds great, but if we actually did live in that world, we'd be more afraid of the Uniforms than the Balaclavas...

Bollocks we would. Rapid response to events like this, in a capital city, when you're in a country with a significant recent history of attacks does not equal a police state. It's just a prudent precaution. I thought Paris was on terrorism defcon3 already. And anyway, we largely exist in that world already. There's probably other similarly innocuous looking streets in Paris where they wouldn't have got 200yards away before being busted, or at least found a road blocked by a police car.

Given they have today announced the names of the gunmen you'd assume they had some fairly good intelligence on them in the run-up to this.

What's interesting is in contrast to the traditional jihadist attacks in the 2000s these guys have tried to get away. Back in the day you'd think they would have blown themselves up, fast track to rubber dinghy rapids.

[Johnny Brown]

I think you're vastly underestimating the logistical reality of providing anything like that level of response. All you could hope to do would be to automatically lock down the building, which would in practice probably be impractical   to implement and counter-productive in action.

[GraemeA]

Given they have today announced the names of the gunmen you'd assume they had some fairly good intelligence on them in the run-up to this.

Or the murderers left their ID cards in the escape car

[dave]

Given they have today announced the names of the gunmen you'd assume they had some fairly good intelligence on them in the run-up to this.

Or the murderers left their ID cards in the escape car

If that's true then it's more like Four Lions than I thought. Amazed they didn't go in doing an IRA voice.

[tomtom]

Given they have today announced the names of the gunmen you'd assume they had some fairly good intelligence on them in the run-up to this.

Or the murderers left their ID cards in the escape car

If that's true then it's more like Four Lions than I thought. Amazed they didn't go in doing an IRA voice.

Apparently yes... Though it could all be a cunning ruse. I suspect this will not end peacefully...

[petejh]

Bollocks we would. Rapid response to events like this, in a capital city, when you're in a country with a significant recent history of attacks does not equal a police state. It's just a prudent precaution. I thought Paris was on terrorism defcon3 already. And anyway, we largely exist in that world already. There's probably other similarly innocuous looking streets in Paris where they wouldn't have got 200yards away before being busted, or at least found a road blocked by a police car.

Reports suggest the attackers did kill two policeman - presumably armed - who were tasked with guarding the building? If so, you can't get much more immediate response than having two police on the scene before the killers arrived. Pretty difficult to prevent and/or then catch determind lunatics aremd with assualt rifles no matter how well prepared you are.

[ghisino]

What amazes me is that they can walk into an office in broad daylight, in a capital city, in the middle of the day, with umpteen people watching and filming it, and yet they basically manage to drive offand get away (at the moment) scot free. You'd think there'd be system in place to put the entire area on lockdown, roadblocks, armed response teams surrounding the joint before you could say Kalashnikov.

They were armed with automatic weapons, to properly respond would require what 30 men with appropriate weapons, I doubt if that response ( as opposed to having the unit mooching around the area fully geared up) would be available anywhere with a response time of <3 minutes

military police holding automatic rifles is an everyday sight in some paris metro and railway stations (which doesn't mean they are everywhere at any time)

a closer comparison: a recent theft at a Cartier jewelery, done by two men holding AK47's, ended up with the two men, driving a two wheel vehicle, being followed by police for a few km's and then arrested.

[galpinos]

If that's true then it's more like Four Lions than I thought. Amazed they didn't go in doing an IRA voice.

That bit might seem a bit four lions but the efficiency, the fact that they were aware there were armed police but were neither deterred nor stopped, the apparent competence with their weapons (no automatic fire) and the fact they are still at large would suggest they seem a bit more professional.

Hopefully I'm wrong.

[galpinos]

military police holding automatic rifles is an everyday sight in some paris metro and railway stations (which doesn't mean they are everywhere at any time)

There used to always be a few vans full of tooled up CRS mooching round the less salubrious areas of the city but not necessarily where needed yesterday. Two armed cops in the local metro would not necessarily have been able to stop them, the armed police protection in the building didn’t.

a closer comparison: a recent theft at a Cartier jewelery, done by two men holding AK47's, ended up with the two men, driving a two wheel vehicle, being followed by police for a few km's and then arrested.

But how long were the perpetrators in the jewellery shop? An alarm hardwired to the local-ish armed police as soon as the robbery commenced might have bought the police enough time to respond. Time is of the essence.

[Oldmanmatt]

I think you're vastly underestimating the logistical reality of providing anything like that level of response. All you could hope to do would be to automatically lock down the building, which would in practice probably be impractical   to implement and counter-productive in action.

This is very much my point.

Assuming only a front and rear exit from the building (likely there are more), this immediately presents four (or more, should the building sit at a cross roads) possible escape avenues. As you expand out, with each junction, in each direction, this number expands exponentially.

Such a lock down would require a huge number of personnel, prior planning and propositioning for each possible target.

Any Police force, capable of locking down an entire city district (let alone an entire city), would be a de facto Police state; simply because the numbers of policemen required would be such that they would form a significant portion of the population.
Ergo their uniforms would be ubiquitous...

And scary.

[tomtom]

The Charlie Hebdo building was secure - they forced a receptionist/person to open the door at gunpoint...

Very hard to protect against stuff like that... two folks AK47's, well trained, ruthless, no fear for their own lives...

Endgame is going to be messy ~ and the other shooting is a scary escalation too.

[ghisino]

a closer comparison: a recent theft at a Cartier jewelery, done by two men holding AK47's, ended up with the two men, driving a two wheel vehicle, being followed by police for a few km's and then arrested.

But how long were the perpetrators in the jewellery shop? An alarm hardwired to the local-ish armed police as soon as the robbery commenced might have bought the police enough time to respond. Time is of the essence.

true