Western reactions to the ISIS Paris attacks

And so we have to, each of us, do our part [for the refugee crisis]. And the United States has to step up and do its part. And when I hear folks say that, well, maybe we should just admit the Christians but not the Muslims; when I hear political leaders suggesting that there would be a religious test for which a person who’s fleeing from a war-torn country is admitted, when some of those folks themselves come from families who benefitted from protection when they were fleeing political persecution -- that’s shameful. That’s not American. That’s not who we are. We don’t have religious tests to our compassion. 


-President Obama


https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2015/11/16/press-conference-president-obama-antalya-turkey


http://www.thetakeaway.org/story/congress-fights-over-refugees-isis-strategy/


The predictable right wing knee-jerk reaction to the Paris attacks is still upsetting. Increase gov't surveillance powers, shut down mosques, close Schengen borders, block Muslims and/or Syrians from getting refugee status. And then there's all the discussion about how to crush ISIS.


Let's remember that MOST of the attackers from 11/13 were already on European security watch lists, because they went to the Middle East (allegedly to fight for ISIS) and then returned to Europe. That should have been a red flag, like "Bin Laden determined to strike the US." But like with 9/11, info was not shared effectively across nations and agencies. So while we do have to blame the attackers, we also shouldn't forget that the security infrastructure that was supposed to protect the French seemed to fail. They don't need extra powers and fewer Muslims, they just need to better monitor the high-risk persons that have already been flagged by normal methods.


Even "liberal" Senator Feinstein and others have called for tech companies to give the gov't backdoor keys into their encrypted systems. I thought Snowden convinced us that such access will not make us safer - many false positives and civil rights violation risks, and no evidence that attacks were prevented. Also, if the gov't warehouses backdoors into all major web services, then that is a huge gold mine for hackers to focus on (and the gov't doesn't have a great track record of preventing thefts). If we need a police-security state in order to be/feel "safe", then maybe we have to question whether this is the right society to live in.


But the worst reaction relates to the demonizing of refugees, IMO. Just because one major attack occurred directly from the Syrian and Iraq conflicts (which have gone on for over 10 years combined), now all of a sudden the refugees are the problem? The US has settled about 2K Syrian refugees in total. Even if they were all bad apples and killed 10 Americans each, that would still be less that the yearly pre-existing gun violence in America (or auto deaths). Where is the furor and urgency over the gun and car makers (and their lax regulators) - the real mass murderers?


So after one Paris attack (assuming other major attacks are not imminent or fairly mature in their planning), now the refugees are public enemy #1? But that is the bogeyman politics of xenophobia and intolerance. And let's remember that while the casualties in Paris were horrific, that number of people die at the hands of ISIS about every day in Iraq-Syria. Yet our outrage and hysteria are more muted (or nonexistent) when it's Mideast towns getting bombed and Muslims getting senselessly murdered.


Lastly, ISIS attacked Russian and French targets partly because those nations attacked them first. I'm fairly sure that Russian and NATO air strikes killed some ISIS "innocents" who were not combatants too (maybe the families of ISIS fighters, locals who unfortunately live in ISIS territory, or whatnot). ISIS is not attacking Burma or Chile. While we can't let them intimidate us into isolationism and denial of their threat, we have to acknowledge that if we choose to wage war on them, they will not appreciate that and try to hurt us back. If our societies don't want to pay that price, then we shouldn't get involved. Or do we expect that just because we're the "good guys" that we should be able to easily wipe our our enemies abroad and not incur any pains in the process?


Maybe since the Iranian Revolution, this "clash of civilizations" between "Jihadists and Crusaders" feels more and more like an irrational blood feud than a traditional strategic geopolitical conflict. As as we know from history, blood feuds are messier, protracted, and with more senseless losses on both sides.