"France ‘Suppressed Reports of Gruesome Torture’ at Bataclan Massacre"

Heat Street:   A French government committee has heard testimony, suppressed by the French government at the time and not published online until this week, that the killers in the Bataclan appear to have tortured their victims on the second floor of the club.

The chief police witness in Parliament testified that on the night of the attacks, an investigating officer, tears streaming down his face, rushed out of the Bataclan and vomited in front of him just after seeing the disfigured bodies.

The 14-hour testimony about the November attacks took place March 21st.

According to this testimony, Wahhabist killers reportedly gouged out eyes, castrated victims, and shoved their testicles in their mouths. They may also have disemboweled some poor souls. Women were reportedly stabbed in the genitals – and the torture was, victims told police, filmed for Daesh or Islamic State propaganda. For that reason, medics did not release the bodies of torture victims to the families, investigators said.

Maybe Newt is right.

"'Hijab Day' at Paris university divides opinion"

Students at an elite Paris university sparked fierce debate Wednesday by inviting classmates to wear the Muslim veil for a day in a bid to "demystify" a practice that is highly divisive in France.

Facebook page said that those agreeing to put on the veil would "experience the stigmatisation experienced by veiled women in France".

A dozen students handed out flyers at the university by a table covered in colourful headscarves with a sign reading: "France got 99 problems but Hijab ain't one", adapted from a hit by US rapper Jay Z.

"It is to raise awareness, open the debate and give the floor to women who are often debated on in public but rarely heard," said Laetitia, one of the organisers.

Another student, Imen, said she wore a veil for the first time Wednesday morning on the metro and felt "stares" in her direction. (read the whole thing)

Paris 'Charlie Hebdo' attack anniversary

Paris police shoot dead knife-wielding man on 'Charlie Hebdo' anniversary https://t.co/gugPVWvCv8 pic.twitter.com/Jg1WFk661y

— Eyewitness News (@ewnupdates) January 7, 2016

"In Paris attack, nurse discovers the man he tried to save was bomber"

"In the chaos of the explosion at the Comptoir Voltaire cafe, one of several targets hit in the Nov. 13 Paris attacks, nurse David instinctively sought to help the wounded."

Among them was a man lying amid overturned chairs and tables...

When he tore open the man's t-shirt, David quickly realized that what he initially thought was a gas explosion at the cafe close to the Bataclan music hall where gunmen killed 89, was actually something far worse.

"There were wires; one white, one black, one red and one orange. Four different colors," he told Reuters. "I knew then he was a suicide bomber."...

"The first wire I saw was red. I think that was the detonator," David said. "There was something at the end."

As soon as he realized the person he was trying to save had just tried to kill him, David says the fire services arrived. Among them was a fireman he knew. He told him what he had just seen. "He looked at me and started shouting for everyone to evacuate," he said.

The Paris Attack Mastermind Is Dead...

...according to this German language news source. This is apparently old news but I've been out of the loop for a day. I'll leave it to you to find the equivalent English language story.

One interesting aspect I can't help but point out is the German language word for "mastermind." The word is "Drahtzieher" which, literally translated, means "string puller" as in the puppet/marionette metaphor.

Taranto: "Kerry rationalizes the assassination of journalists"

Why the Bicyclists?

“There’s something different about what happened from Charlie Hebdo, and I think everybody would feel that. There was a sort of particularized focus and perhaps even a legitimacy in terms of—not a legitimacy, but a rationale that you could attach yourself to somehow and say, OK, they’re really angry because of this and that. This Friday was absolutely indiscriminate. It wasn’t to aggrieve one particular sense of wrong. It was to terrorize people.”

Those words were spoken yesterday by Secretary of State John Kerry. The reference to “legitimacy” calls to mind the remark that ended the political career of Todd Akin. But although Kerry’s statement was every bit as stupid as Akin’s, it was far more evil. Not only does he rationalize the mass murder of journalists; that rationalization is a fallback from his initial, impulsive though impolitic position that those murders had “legitimacy.”

The most charitable way to sum up Kerry’s view is that he believes discrimination is a mitigating factor when it comes to terrorist attacks—that murder isn’t as bad when the victim is someone who has publicly espoused views the killer finds abhorrent. The word for a murder carried out with this sort of extreme prejudice is assassination, and it is ordinarily considered even worse than murdering at random.

The attack on Charlie Hebdo, no less than the attacks last week, were intended “to terrorize people.” But the Charlie Hebdo attacks were also intended to terrorize people into silence. It was an attack on free speech as well as on freedom and Western civilization more generally. Kerry’s rationalizing of it is arguably the most un-American thing he has ever said in public—and that’s saying a lot, given that he made a name for himself slandering American military servicemen.

Facebook post: Who do we have to KILL to get out of this... predicament?

Faisal Saeed Al Mutar  November 15 at 4:27pm ·

It must be incredibly frustrating as an Islamic terrorist not to have your views and motives taken seriously by the societies you terrorize, even after you have explicitly and repeatedly stated them. Even worse, those on the regressive left, in their endless capacity for masochism and self-loathing, have attempted to shift blame inwardly on themselves, denying the terrorists even the satisfaction of claiming responsibility.

It's like a bad Monty Python sketch:

"We did this because our holy texts exhort us to to do it."

"No you didn't."

"Wait, what? Yes we did..."

"No, this has nothing to do with religion. You guys are just using religion as a front for social and geopolitical reasons."

"WHAT!? Did you even read our official statement? We give explicit Quranic justification. This is jihad, a holy crusade against pagans, blasphemers, and disbelievers."

"No, this is definitely not a Muslim thing. You guys are not true Muslims, and you defame a great religion by saying so."

"Huh!? Who are you to tell us we're not true Muslims!? Islam is literally at the core of everything we do, and we have implemented the truest most literal and honest interpretation of its founding texts. It is our very reason for being."

"Nope. We created you. We installed a social and economic system that alienates and disenfranchises you, and that's why you did this. We're sorry."

"What? Why are you apologizing? We just slaughtered you mercilessly in the streets. We targeted unwitting civilians - disenfranchisement doesn't even enter into it!"

"Listen, it's our fault. We don't blame you for feeling unwelcome and lashing out."

"Seriously, stop taking credit for this! We worked really hard to pull this off, and we're not going to let you take it away from us."

"No, we nourished your extremism. We accept full blame."

"OMG, how many people do we have to kill around here to finally get our message across?" 

14k Likes1.2k Comments12k Shares

Here is a sample of what we are talking about...

This kid understand the danger better than his caretaker.

My strategy...what's yours?

"On the ground these days, ISIS is engaged in a war of inches that will likely test its capacity to the limits, like its (lack of) ability to manage and operate supply lines, for example. The poor training and quality of its fighters will also now matter more. And the absence of dramatic victories, indeed the reality of setbacks and retreats, will reduce the enthusiasm and undercut the morale of current fighters, to say nothing of the impact on potential recruits.

This may be one reason why ISIS has apparently shifted to prioritize attacks like the Paris horror. It likely needs the acts of drama and violence to replace the revolutionary theater that its military advances once gave it. Running wild through the streets, gunning down the crowds in a night club: This is fantasy violence, video games brought into the real world. ISIS is again the coolest of jihadi brands, the cutting edge of the war against the real. The intent is not so much to terrorize the West as to galvanize the faithful.

Understanding ISIS’ methods can help us counter its aims. One key for us: to step up the grim war of attrition against ISIS on the ground. Life for the average ISIS fighter has to become a miserable affair of holing up, getting shot, running out of food, and putting up with bad medical care and low supplies even as the higher-ups live it up in the ruins of Raqqa. That word needs to filter out across the jihadi grapevine. To cut the flow of recruits and funds to ISIS, we must make ISIS look unattractive and weak—drab. If at the same time we work aggressively to reduce its ability to repeat the Paris attacks, ISIS will continue to fade."

http://www.the-american-interest.com/2015/11/16/how-to-beat-isis-the-president-is-partly-right/

"While the U.S. and France have ramped up airstrikes against Islamic State targets, both countries have ruled out deploying ground troops in Syria in the midst of a civil war."

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-11-16/france-widens-crackdown-at-home-as-bombs-rain-on-islamic-state

------------------

I think this is the way to go. We've lost enough soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. Besides, The Muslims do better at crazed savagery than us. Let us do supplies and air support and let the Shia and Sunni take it to the mat. If Russia wants in on the ground fight, more power to them.

WSJ: Paris Stadium Attacker Got to Europe Using Fake Syrian Passport

Mystery deepened over a Paris attacker who traveled to Europe via Greece and the Balkans, after French officials said Monday that the Syrian passport he had used was indeed a fake.

Authorities in France and Greece have said that fingerprints taken from the remains of a suicide bomber outside France’s national sports stadium, the Stade de France, match the prints of a man who entered Europe via the Aegean island of Leros on Oct. 3.

Police on Leros registered the man under the identity in the passport he showed them: Ahmad AlMohammad, 25, from Syria. The same passport was found near the man’s body outside the stadium on Friday night.

Whoever the man was, he posed as one of the many refugees fleeing Syria’s war—including the violence of Islamic State—to enter Europe through its lightly controlled frontier in the Aegean Sea. (read more)

"Trump Calls for ‘Study’ of Mosques After Paris Terror Attacks"

“You’re going to have to watch and study the mosques because a lot of talk is going on at the mosques,” Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump says on MSNBC when asked what should be done to protect U.S. citizens.

“From what I heard, in the old days, meaning a while ago, we had great surveillance going on in and around mosques in New York City and I understand our mayor totally cut that out”

Asked about possibility of France shutting mosques with radical ties and whether he’d do same as U.S. president, Trump says, “I would hate to do it, but it’s something that you’re going to have to strongly consider because some of the ideas and some of the hatred, the absolute hatred, is coming from these areas”

Agree or disagree, at least Trump is willing to discuss things that no insider politician would.

Mass Panic in Paris while laying down flowers for victims of terror attack

A YouTube comment said...

Someone lighted firecrackers with banging noise so people naturally thought it's gunfire again.

What Socialists In Germany Are Saying About Paris...

The Socialist party domestic policy spokesman, Burkhard Lischka, sharply criticized political opponents: 'Those who blame the refugees or hold them even indirectly responsible ignore (or hide) that they are escaping precisely the sort of barbarism now experienced in Paris' Lischka told the Stuttgarter Zeitung. 'Also, attacks could not be prevented by the closure of borders: Terror is everywhere, in countries with open borders, in countries with elaborate border controls and even in countries under authoritarian rule.'  Link to original (in German)

I get Lischka's first point -- however, and in view of my previous post, who exactly is escaping and who is staying behind?  Why is the majority of refugees young and male?

As to his second point, when was the last terrorist strike in North Korean? China? Maybe we just don't hear about it.

Madonna: Only love will change the world

Obama moved to 'increase and accelerate' admission of Syrian refugees

"The Obama administration is moving to increase and accelerate the number of Syrian refugees who might be admitted into the United States by opening new screening outposts in Iraq and Lebanon, administration officials told Reuters on Friday."

The move comes after President Barack Obama pledged in September to admit an additional 10,000 Syrian refugees in 2016, torn by four years of civil war and disorder.

We are going in the wrong direction. Hope and pray is not too late.

These tweets are saying Rome, London, DC are next. pic.twitter.com/UffdSm8m5Q

— olliander (@ollieblog) November 14, 2015