RUTHFULLY YOURS

Before the massacres in Orlando and Nice, Daryl McCann considered the ramifications and likely response of the White House’s next occupant to the slaughter of another 14 innocents by an Islamist couple in San Bernardino. As France reels yet again, his insights are no less relevant.
On December 2, 2015, Syed Farook, an American-born citizen of Pakistani descent, and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, a Pakistani-born lawful resident of the United States, armed with semi-automatic pistols and rifles, murdered fourteen people in San Bernardino, California, and seriously wounded another twenty-two. The victims of this jihadist atrocity were attending a work-based Christmas—sorry, holiday—party/luncheon. The San Bernardino massacre and the proximate response to it by key public figures, from Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton to the Republican front-runner Donald Trump, may have shaped the 2016 presidential campaign as much as any other single event.

In the immediate aftermath of the shooting, Hillary Clinton adopted the default position of the progressive-leftist narrative about mass shootings per se in America: “I refuse to accept this as normal. We must take action to stop gun violence now.” Fellow Democratic candidate Martin O’Malley also took pains to omit any reference to radical Islamic jihadism: “Enough is enough. It’s time to stand up to the National Rifle Association and enact meaningful gun safety laws.” Bernie Sanders had a similar message: “We need to significantly expand and improve background checks.” Clinton would later pillory Sanders in a television debate for voting against the Brady Handgun Violence Protection Act to establish a national criminal background check system.

However, scrutiny of the criminal or mental health record of the jihadist husband-and-wife hit team would not in itself have found anything amiss. There is some talk of Syed Farook experiencing a “troubled” childhood, but the twenty-eight-year-old municipal health inspector was characterised by colleagues and neighbours as a mostly polite and equable fellow. In travels abroad he met and wed twenty-seven-year-old Tashfeen Malik, a pharmacology graduate from an upper-middle-class family in Pakistan. The PC-compliant authorities vetted Malik on her arrival in America and—finding everything to be in order—granted her Green Card status in 2014; a baby daughter was born in mid-2015. One of the few times the “very quiet” Farook brought attention to himself was on the occasion that he argued a little too vociferously with a work colleague that Islam was “a peaceful religion”.

Either France and the rest of us can continue on as we have, with every day Ground Hog Day in Guernica and no response better than an impotent snivel, or Western civilisation can summon the righteous anger necessary to win, not merely endure.

After the next-to-last Islamist massacre in France, Premier Mike Baird fittingly ordered that the Opera House be lit in the Tricolour. It was a moving tribute and our family went down to Circular Quay to see it, and I dutifully posted a picture of it on my Facebook page, as we do these days.

To post that picture today would, I think, only mock the 80 Bastille Day dead.

The head of France’s security and intelligence service has warned of waves of such attacks and that the Fifth Republic is itself at risk (what could be the marginal cost in version 6.0?). President Hollande said after the last atrocity that France was at war, and he has now abandoned the White House’s pointlessly nebulous ‘violent non-state actors’ charade – are there any sentient souls left on the planet who doubt what this is about? — and is calling it a spade.

But other than a few, highly publicised bombing sorties to blow up some sand dunes, there hasn’t been much evidence of that war except for the slaughter of more innocents.

In his essay, “Inside the Whale,” George Orwell referred to Aldous Huxley’s “Dream of Phillip the Second,” in which Huxley wrote that the people in El Greco’s pictures always look as though they were in the bellies of whales:

For the fact is that being inside a whale is a very comfortable, cosy, homelike thought. The historical Jonah, if he can be so called, was glad enough to escape, but in imagination, in day-dream, countless people have envied him. It is, of course, quite obvious why. The whale’s belly is simply a womb big enough for an adult. There you are, in the dark, cushioned space that exactly fits you, with yards of blubber between yourself and reality, able to keep up an attitude of the completest indifference, no matter what happens… Short of being dead, it is the final, unsurpassable stage of irresponsibility.

Either France and the rest of us can continue on as we have, Jonah-like, where every day is Ground Hog Day in Guernica, or Western civilisation can start getting all Sonny Corleone about it and summon the righteous anger necessary to win, not merely endure.

ISTANBUL—Turkey’s elected government moved to reassert control Saturday morning after an attempted coup by factions of the military rocked the country and killed dozens late Friday, with officials saying the situation was now largely under control.

Ninety people were killed and more than 1,000 were injured in the events surrounding the coup attempt, the state-run Anadolu news agency reported. A total of 1,374 military personnel were detained across Turkey as part of an investigation into the coup attempt, the agency said.

The head of Turkey’s national police told Anadolu that police were in control of Istanbul, but that the situation in Ankara, where gunfire was still heard on live television Saturday morning, was still challenging. Helicopters and airplane hangars had been bombed, said Celalettin Lekesiz, the head of police.

Istanbul, where troops had blocked two bridges over the Bosphorus and tanks appeared at the main Atatürk Airport on Friday night, was calm Saturday morning. The bridges were functioning normally, television footage showed. Turkish Airlines, the country’s flag carrier, said it was operating normally on the request of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/islamic-state-claims-responsibility-for-attack-in-nice-france-1468659227?mod=BNM

Islamic State on Saturday claimed responsibility for the attack in Nice, France on Thursday that killed 84 people.

French investigators have been trying to establish whether a Tunisian resident of this city was acting as part of a wider network when he used a rented truck to mow through 8 crowds lining the seaside promenade to celebrate France’s national holiday.

Authorities have identified the driver as Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel, a 31-year-old Tunisian who was shot dead by police after carrying out the rampage.

Originally published under the title “French Lessons.”

The Bastille Day attack in Nice, France last night should cause the Democrats to reconsider their gun control approach to counterterrorism. After San Bernardino and then Orlando, Obama, Chuck Schumer and others have been citing jihadi terror attacks to support their domestic legislation agenda.

France is about as close to a national gun-free zone as you can get. Lesson number one from France is that gun laws will not stop jihad terror.

There are no gun show loopholes in France, because there are no gun shows. There are no mandatory waiting periods, and there is no debate about gun control. Everybody agrees that guns are bad, so only the police have them. Or at least that was the plan. But of course the people who don’t obey laws have guns. They are called criminals. Lately a lot of them happen to be Jihadis.

Lesson #1 from France: gun laws will not stop jihad terror.

Remember the touching father and son scene last November, after a jihad attack in France, where Parisians were consoling themselves in the modern fashion with flowers, stuffed animals and candles? A conversation between a reporter, a young father and his little boy was captured on French television and “went viral.” The boy was worried about all of the bad guys with guns. His father told him not to worry “They’ve got guns but we have flowers.” Lesson number two from France is when your enemy has guns, flowers will not suffice.

So another jihadi has used guns to kill French citizens. This one was also prepared to use grenades (also illegal in France). But he also used a truck, reminiscent of Mohammed Reza Taheri-azar who in 2006 drove his SUV into a crowd of people on the campus of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill injuring nine.

Lesson #2 from France: when your enemy has guns, flowers will not suffice.

Banning firearms did not prevent the Nice, France attacker from finding and using firearms. It did not prevent the Bataclan killers, or the killers at the Charlie Hebdo offices, or the killer at the Hyper Kasher Deli, or the killer at the Jewish school in Toulouse. Nor did it prevent the Moroccan jihadi on the train in Paris, who would have done much more damage had it not been for the valiant efforts of three type-A, gung ho Americans with nerves of steel. While the crew of the French train ran away from the shooter, Spencer Stone, Alek Skarlatos and Anthony Sadler ran towards the gunfire and subdued him. Lesson number three from France is that only by fighting back can you survive.