Well at least the perp will be known. But such a tragedy. I can’t imagine the mindset of someone continually hitting people in this way. How does someone become so evil?
Christ.
Was out last night and pretty much collapsed in bed as soon as I got home, so a lot of this is new to me this morning.
What a horror.
Le conducteur du camion, auteur de l’attentat de Nice, jeudi 14 juillet, a été formellement identifié. Il s’agit de Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel, ressortissant tunisien de 31 ans.
Il était conducteur de poids lourd, et avait récemment été interpellé pour une bagarre à la suite d’un contentieux routier. Dans le camion ont été retrouvés un pistolet en plastique et deux armes longues en plastique, ainsi qu’une grenade dite “inactive” :
En savoir plus sur http://www.lemonde.fr/police-justice/live/2016/07/15/en-direct-plusieurs-morts-a-nice-apres-qu-un-camion-a-fonce-sur-la-foule_4969598_1653578.html#cyY6PqGDyXyzgMiH.99
His name is above, he was a truck driver. He had a plastic pistol and 2 other “longue armes en plastique”.
It attracts these types of guys who are what I call de-culturated and who never adjust to any society,
Maybe TPM could do a longer piece on Olivier Roy, who seems to at least have a clue as to what is going on? When the media is given to the clueless like Trump, we just end up debating a very silly view that ignores who these people are.
That is interesting. I have not heard that yet.
This compels action. There is no sitting back and hoping that it goes away.
The terrorists want to fight and are full of hate. They will keep provoking until they get what they want.
Why France? This I do not know but I do know that we have to be there for them and all that fight against terrorists and hate.
To Americans, France is a bastion of liberty and light. Sadly, to many around the world she was a symbol of colonialism and rapaciousness. And to too many Muslims France today is a land of little hope or opportunity.
The best way to minimize these attacks is for la belle France to become truly a land of liberte, egalite and fraternite.
Vive la France!
Thanks. That’s a challenging take on it: That it’s generically disenfranchised youth who claim “Islam,” rather than those acting from more specific grievances or religious belief.
Given that alternate view, if it’s right, what’s the short term strategy? Long term, we need to enfranchise everyone. But we won’t get to the long term if the only remotely plausible short-term methods are those proposed by the proto-fascists (le Pen, Trump, and yes when you look at her stance on Muslims, Prime Minister May).
I am so done with religion. All religions. If all they do is create psychotic hatred, count me out.
Although there are terrorists groups mounting coordinated attacks, we’re in an age (not just in the gun crazy US) where individuals have access to stuff that can kill large numbers of people . Not clear where you go from there, because the kind of authoritarianism you’d need to stop all crazy people is ultimately unsustainable.
Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.
Steven Weinberg (at the AAAS, 1999)
How did he manage to kill so many people with plastic guns . What am I missing here I realize he plowed the truck into people but was all the gunfire strictly from the police. I guess I need to read more on this but quite frankly I don’t even want to.
He ran them over with a truck!
I realize that but I must have misunderstood some f the reporting about the gunfire.
Nice sentiment, but let’s not kid ourselves. We don’t have an onslaught of Buddhist and Rastafarian extremists putting the world under the threat of new terrorist attacks with no end in sight. According to a recent report from the Institute for National Security Studies, 450 of 452 suicide attacks in 2015 were perpetrated by Muslim extremists. How many of the recent massacres, bombings or beheadings were done by similarly bloodthirsty Christians, Shintoists or Hindus? Ancient history aside, distribution of psychotic religious hatred throughout the modern world is now dominated by a single near-monopoly supplier. For those still tactfully wondering what this monopoly could be, here’s a hint: it ain’t Jainism either.
I spent 6 weeks in Nice almost 20 years ago now at a language school while in high school. I visited again while in college with my roommate during our semester abroad. It is a lovely city and the people have always been great. A man who ran a Tunisian restaurant was so interested in talking to us (this was 2005) that he gave us free tea for about an hour and a half after his restaurant closed. I never had any experiences there except good ones. I grieve for those who lost someone and I hope they continue to be as welcoming to outsiders as they were to me.
I’ve never cared for large, aggressive religions that seek to convert everyone to their beliefs. I don’t like religion meddling in politics or my life. I have no problem with lower profile religious organizations that quietly help others, but I do not trust the larger, Borg like religions. Obviously this problem we face is a lot more complex than an Islamic takeover of the world by converting or killing. However I now doubt that pulling back and disengaging will stop the terrorist attacks. I view all religious fundamentalism as a mental disorder of sorts. I’m not saying they’re crazy, but there is certainly something missing.
I would like to hear some of the regulars here ex[lain how to solve this problem of Islamic Terrorism.
France has been not only a prime target for Islamic State, but has seen more young Muslims head to join extremists than any other European nation. And Nice has been at the center of the movement, home to one of the most prolific creators of jihadi recruiting videos for the French-speaking world, a former petty drug dealer named Omar Omsen who is now fighting in Syria.
And why is this?
I’m getting the strong feeling that the Western World isn’t going to put up with this shit much longer. Wouldn’t surprise me that in the next year or so some hell is going to rain down and it will suck to be a Muslim in Europe and the Middle East is going to end up a wasteland.
Something is going to have to been done and the options are very few and none too pretty.
It’s too bad, and I hate to say it, but this shit has got to stop and there’s just no talking to these terrorist types. No negotiations, no deals, no way out. You can’t fix a large group of people hell bent on killing people, cutting heads off, rape and pillage other than to annihilate them. I wish there was, but there just isn’t. We’re going to see some big fireworks in the next few years.