paris

Coordinated terror attacks in multiple locations in Paris last night took the lives of at least 127 people and injured at least 180 others, making the attacks the most violent act France has faced since World War II and the deadliest attack in Europe since the 2004 Madrid bombings.

Authorities have stepped up security, with additional police deployed all around New York City as well as at airports and at the Hudson bridges and tunnels. ISIS, in claiming responsibility for the attacks, referred to them as the “first of the storm.”

The U.S. responded with support and solidarity for the people in Paris. An Eiffel tower peace symbol quickly went viral last night all over social media in response to the Paris attacks.

36 replies on “New Jersey, New York On Alert After Paris Attacks”

  1. To all my french friends in NYC and Montclair, my heart goes out to you. Hope your loved ones are safe.

  2. No doubt the Republicans will line up tonight and explain how senseless acts of horribleness committed by French nationals with Syrian passports is all Obama’s fault. Hell, nothing horrible like this has ever happened until that guy took over.

  6. yougottalovehim: How can you not blame Obama. If any world Leader is responsible for the rise of ISIS it is Obama.
    What Democrat is going to point to the Death Cult that is Islam.
    Fortunately most Muslims are much happier killing other Muslims.
    Keep voting Democratic, you get what you deserve.

  7. “How can you not blame Obama. If any world Leader is responsible for the rise of ISIS it is Obama.”

    Really ? You need to go back and read your history.

  9. elcamino : quick question –

    Whose administration was it that negotiated the deal for withdrawal of US troops from Iraq ?

    Hint : sounds like “W”

  10. France just bombed a command center. Obama has been bombing ISIS for over a year, How is there still a command ctr?

  11. Bush spawned ISIS by invading Iraq. Obama enabled ISIS by withdrawing ALL troops from Iraq.

    Given that most ISIS commanders are Baathists from Saddam’s former regime, ISIS was well on the way to being “enabled” long before Obama removed the troops.

    Fortunately most Muslims are much happier killing other Muslims.
    That’s quite a statement. Are you a mind reader? But if we pretend you have a point, maybe its a good idea to think about consequences of removing a secular counterweight to the largest sponsor of muslim terrorism, no matter how bad he is or whether he attempted to “kill your daddy.”

    Keep voting Democratic, you get what you deserve.

    And what will we get if we start voting Republican? So far all I see from the debates is wishful thinking, incoherence, or the promise of endless war.

    France just bombed a command center. Obama has been bombing ISIS for over a year, How is there still a command ctr?

    Perhaps there’s more than one?

  12. “Whose administration was it that negotiated the deal for withdrawal of US troops from Iraq ?

    Hint : sounds like “W”

    Which president refused to renegotiate the status of forces agreement against advice of many general and advisers (including, I think, Hilary)?

    Hint: Thanks Obama!

    mike91: Muslims kill each other in huge numbers: Shiites vs. Sunnis, Taliban vs. Mujahadeen. I don’t know if they “enjoy” it, but they a lot of it.

  13. “Keep voting Democratic, you get what you deserve.
    And what will we get if we start voting Republican? So far all I see from the debates is wishful thinking, incoherence, or the promise of endless war.

    Of all of those that I know that are politically, economically and socially well informed, not one identifies as either a republican or a democrat. Thats refreshing, wish that was the case for the rest of the country. Only then would we have decent candidates to choose from.

    Instead we have Hillary Clinton vs Pick your favorite republican clown.

  14. The key tenant of attacks like this (and Obama mentioned this earlier today) is folks who (in obamas words) “dont mind dying” That is inextricably linked to religion. That said I understand the goal of not recognizing the religious aspect of ISIS in an effort to not legitimize its purpose and recruiting efforts.

    Hopefully many more countries get smart on the issues here and join the fight.

  15. ,…Which president refused to renegotiate the status of forces agreement against advice of many general and advisers (including, I think, Hilary)?…”

    Nice try – the fact is that Maliki ( who was by then an Iranian proxy, thanks to W ) and the Iraqi parliament did not want the US to remain. Would you have been OK with US troops being subject to local sharia laws ? I doubt it.

  16. Your wrong.
    From Politifact:https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2015/may/18/jeb-bush/obama-refused-sign-plan-place-leave-10000-troops-i/

    “Austin Long, a Columbia University international and public affairs professor, said al-Maliki allegedly supported the residual force and may have signed a new plan, but the Iraqi parliament would not. Facing the prospect of a weak agreement that didn’t protect remaining troops the way the United States wanted, when neither Baghdad nor Washington wanted to leave them there, negotiations broke down. No new agreement was reached, and no residual force was formed. There has been plenty of debate whether it was Washington or Baghdad that was more intractable on a new agreement.”

    As it says, it’s not entirely clear why no bargain was struck, but I think Obama’s heart was not in it. He ran on ending wars and bringing troops home; residuals forces contradict that. And in his defense, ISIS was not a thing when he was bargaining. It just came a thing when we withdrew in entirety.

    I think Bush and Obama share some blame for ISIS, as in, 2/3 1/3. If you hold Obama entirely blameless they you’re suffering partisan blindness.

  17. First of all, it’ is “you’re” ‘ and not “your” ….

    Secondly, do you realize that the very source you cite as proof of Obama’s so called “refusal” rates the claim as mostly false ?

  18. ISIS was not a thing when he was bargaining. It just came a thing when we withdrew in entirety….”

    Again,not true.

    The origins of ISIS go back a good several years, starting with the the dismantling of the Iraqi Army and the rise of Al Qaeda in Iraq.

  19. mike91: Muslims kill each other in huge numbers: Shiites vs. Sunnis, Taliban vs. Mujahadeen. I don’t know if they “enjoy” it, but they a lot of it.

    And Christians don’t? There’s a few world wars that happned between “christian” countries that I would remind you of. Those killed a hell of a lot more people than “taliban vs. Mujaddeen,” which I don’t even know where to start.

    I think Bush and Obama share some blame for ISIS, as in, 2/3 1/3. If you hold Obama entirely blameless they you’re suffering partisan blindness.

    This also assumes that 10,000 troops, stationed in bases back in Iraq could have prevented ISIS from forming in Syria, where we had no troops. The Iraqi army was unprepared to defend Iraq, and 10,000 American troops would not have made a difference.

  20. “I think Bush and Obama share some blame for ISIS, as in, 2/3 1/3. If you hold Obama entirely blameless they you’re suffering partisan blindness….”

    Nope, not blind, I’d assign blame as follows :

    Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld 99.999% , Obama, the remaining percentage.

  21. johnqp, by not a “thing” i meant not a big threat but thanks anyway for your recitation of commonly known facts and punctuation tips. I was trying to give your man Obama an excuse for failing to keep residual force but I guess you are saying he failed to recognize ISIS threat then, just as he did when he called them JVs and just as he did when he said on day of Paris attacks Isis was “contained.” Anyway, good to have you on my team. With those punctuation skills and stray facts of yours, we’re unstoppable.

    Mike91: WW I and II were not religious wars. Christians obviously have kill christian in past but I we were discussing killing and religious wars today. Where today are Christians killing each other on scale as large as Shiite and Sunni?

    Of Mike91, your are really struggling. The point is that we will never know if 10,000 troops in Iraq would have helped b/c Obama did not succeed in leaving them there. Would 10,000 matter? Hard to say for sure, but the 2007 Surge started with 20,000 and the consensus is that it turned the Iraq War around. Finally, ISIS was created and started its attacks in Iraq (see johnqp above). They also started small. I personally have little doubt that 10,000 highly trained and equipped U.S troops could have smashed the then ragtag army and kept it from moving to Syria, Libya, Yemen,…and Paris.

    Thanks Obama!

  22. Debating who is to blame is childish. You sound like dems and repubs.

    How about a discussion around how to solve the problem at hand?

  25. Of Mike91, your are really struggling. The point is that we will never know if 10,000 troops in Iraq would have helped b/c Obama did not succeed in leaving them there. Would 10,000 matter? Hard to say for sure, but the 2007 Surge started with 20,000 and the consensus is that it turned the Iraq War around. Finally, ISIS was created and started its attacks in Iraq (see johnqp above). They also started small. I personally have little doubt that 10,000 highly trained and equipped U.S troops could have smashed the then ragtag army and kept it from moving to Syria, Libya, Yemen,…and Paris.

    ISIS is a acronym for the Islamic State of Iraq in Syria, and started as opposition to the Assad regime. It’s early commanders and fighters were Iraqi, but it started in Syria. Of course, one of the reasons the US did not intervene in any meaningful way early in the Syrian civil war is the fact that much of the opposition (like ISIS) were truly bad guys that we did not want to give weapons. Anyone following events at all closely would know this.

    Secondly, the surge, which was an additional 20,000 troops, is not a good analogy. A better analogy would be the 34,000 troops we recently left in Afghanistan, which failed to stop the recent Taliban resurgence. And that was from within the country.

  26. “. With those punctuation skills and stray facts of yours, we’re unstoppable….”

    Yep, that, combined with your grasp of historical events, and we could rule the universe, eh ? In the meantime, how about some oats to go with those blinders ?

  27. I know surge was addition (hence the name). The fact it was on top of >100,000 is irrelevant. This is all marginal analysis: would 10,000 extra troops have mattered. The fact that 20,000 extra troops mattered a lot in Iraq suggested it might have.

    Everyone knows why we didn’t intervene in big way is because of “can’t tell bad guys from good guys” I thought we were discussing whether 10,000 troops in Iraq might have mattered vis-à-vis ISIS. The #4,000 in Afganistans is good point, although I don’t know how much fighting they are doing. Aren’t the leaving things to Afgan. army?

    BTW, still waiting to hear from you about all those Christian against Christian wars that are raging now.

    johnqp: What Blinders? I said bush was 2/3 responsible for isis. What’s your number?

  28. You said “Muslims enjoy killing Muslims”. Putting aside the obvious issues with knowing what millions of people think, my comment was only to point out that Christians seem to enjoy killing Christians as well, although maybe not for religious reasons.

    But nice misdirection. You still haven’t acknowledged that ISIS started in Syria and not Iraq, therefore any hypothetical force there would have done little to check its spread.

  29. Re-read the thread; I wasn’t the one that said muslims enjoy killing muslims, I said they did it in large numbers for religious reasons. Its disingenous to point to christians killing christians in ww’s as counterpoint because those were obviously not religious wars. You might have done better pointing to catholic protesant troubles as counterpoint.

    You got me: the seconds S in ISIS stands for syria. But your logic is flawed; even if our troops that obama withdraw could not confront them there,they could have fought them and contained them in Iraq where they have a very large presence. That would have deprived them of a lot of oil and extortion revenue. That is no small thing.

  30. El Camino : Charitably speaking, W gets 50% responsibility. Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and Feith can fight it out between themselves for the other remaining 50%.

    There probably would never have been DAESH in Iraq in the first place, had the Bush administration not purposely invaded a country that had NOTHING to do with 9/11.

    President Obama was handed a steaming pile of s**t from the previous Administration…… no, make that MANY, MANY steaming piles of s**t.

  31. And I don’t buy Muslims killing Muslims ….. Scumbag fanatics killing Muslims, yes, but not Muslims.

    I am not going to tar an entire belief system. Doesn’t add up.

  32. “I am not going to tar an entire belief system. Doesn’t add up.”

    Don’t be naive. I can understand not calling terrorism “radical islam” for the purposes of not legitimizing the ISIS campaign (I get that) but dude come on.

    Do you really believe that these folks are strapping bombs to their chests and taking their own lives solely for the purpose of advancing / creating a violent caliphate??? Doesn’t it make more sense that they do so simultaneously believing that they are doing the work of a greater being whose existance (albeit twisted in interpretation) stems for Islam?

    I think without the latter you have a different campaign and you don’t see nearly the level of suicide bombing that we see today.

    Why are you so afraid to call a spade a spade?

    – guy who for the record believes that religion (in any form) survives only through the weak

  33. “Why are you so afraid to call a spade a spade?”

    Very simple. I don’t consider DAESH to be Muslims. Kinda like calling Fred Phelps a Christian.

  35. johnqp, so you are holding Obama entirely blameless for spread of ISIS? So that implies you either believe that leaving troops in Iraq would not have helped, and/or Obama could not affect that outcome by, e.g. bargaining harder. Which is it?

  36. It’s both. The plain truth is that the Iraqi people wanted the US. out of Iraq ASAP. In fact, Maliki originally wanted all troops out of the country BEFORE 2011. In the end, however, it was the Iraqi parliament that closed the door on allowing US forces to remain. Look it up, the article that you posted earlier states as much. Read it more carefully this time.

    So no, leaving a residual force in Iraq under those type of conditions would have been disastrous for our troops.

    If the US at it’s occupational height in Iraq (125,000 plus ) could not completely secure the peace, what magical thinking is it that makes you believe that 20,000 remaining US troops would have fared any better ?

    That’s all – good night, Chet.

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