We Stand with France against Jihadist Terrorism

Two hooded attackers dressed in black sprayed gunfire inside the Paris offices of a satirical newspaper Wednesday, killing 12 people before escaping. It was France's deadliest terror attack in 40 years. French President Francois Hollande said the attack on the Charlie Hebdo weekly, which has frequently been condemned by Moslems, is "a terrorist attack, without a doubt," and said several other attacks had been thwarted in France "in recent weeks." Paris was put on the highest terrorist alert after the shootings. Hollande told journalists : “France is in a state of shock after this terrorist attack....An act of exceptional barbarity has been perpetrated against a newspaper, against liberty of expression, against journalists.” The attackers are on the run, he said, adding that all potential terrorist targets have been put under the highest protection. In addition, France raised its alert in the entire Parisian Ile de France to the highest level, and reinforced security at houses of worship, stores, media offices and transportation sites. Top government officials held emergency meetings and afterward the French Minister of the Interior said that all French departments (regional states) have been advised to protect train stations, cultural buildings and other possible attack targets in their territories. By hazard, President Hollande had been due to meet with the country's top religious officials later in the day. Paris prosecutor's spokeswoman Agnes Thibault-Lecuivre has confirmed 12 people were killed, 4 are in critical condition and at least 8 others are hospitalized. Luc Poignant, a police union official, said the attackers escaped in two vehicles, but later video shows that there were three terrorists, two who entered the offices armed with semi-automatic rifles to kill the journalists and one armed with a semi-automatic rifle who stayed near a black car left by the terrorists in the middle of the street. They all escaped in the car, crying "We killed Charlie Hebdo" and "We have avenged the prophet." The attack came minutes after Charlie Hebdo had tweeted a satirical cartoon of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi giving New Year's wishes and noting that France has not yet been attacked. Four famous French cartoonists who represented political ideas from left to right - Cabu, Charb, Wolinski and Tignous. - were killed in the attack. ~~~~~ French Moslem leaders -- including the imam of the Parisian region with a large Moslem population, the head of the largest Paris mosque, and the head of the French Council of Islam - were quick to condemn the attacks, calling them barbaric, having nothing to do with Islam but rather carried out by terrorist criminals, and rallying French Moslems to support the Republic. ~~~~~ The leaders of every French political party also took to television to denounce the attacks, express their horror at the barbaric attack on freedom of speech, and to join together with the Hollande government. "This is an attack on our democracy, which we must face together and without weakness," according to Nicolas Sarkozy, former French president and leader of the conservative UMP, the largest opposition party. ~~~~~ Charlie Hebdo has been repeatedly threatened for publishing caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed, among other controversial sketches, and its offices were firebombed in 2011 after an issue featuring a caricature of the Prophet Mohammed on its cover. A year later, the publication again published crude Mohammed caricatures, drawing denunciations around the Moslem world. Today's attack came the same day that Charlie Hebdo featured a famous French novelist who has just published a novel depicting France's election of its first Moslem president. In his sixth novel, "Submission," Michel Houellebecq plays on fears that western societies are being inundated by the influence of Islam. In the novel, Houellebecq has the imaginary “Moslem Fraternity” party winning a presidential election in France against the nationalist, anti-immigration National Front. Houellebecq’s book is set in France in 2022. It has the fictional Moslem Fraternity’s chief Mohammed Ben Abbes, beating the National Front's Le Pen, with Socialists, centrists, and Nicolas Sarkozy’s UMP party rallying behind him to block the National Front. Ben Abbes goes on to ban women in the workplace, advocates polygamy, pushes Islamic schools on the masses and imposes a conservative and religious vision of society. In the novel, the French widely accept the new environment, hence the book’s title. ~~~~~ Dear readers, attacking journalists is for the French people an attack at the very core of the Republic, an attack on freedom of expression that the French hold sacred.And while Charlie Hebdo often attacked politicians and the government, it does not matter. The press is off limits. As are the police, the famous gendarmes who are part of the French military and widely respected and admired. At least one gendarme was killed today. The fears that the novelist Houellebecq sees in western societies are especially apparent in Europe. Every European leader expressed solidarity with France and horror at the Paris attack. In Europe, the jihadist terrorism problem is especially critical because Moslems make up as much as 10% of the population in France and Germany, and are arriving both as illegal immigrants and to follow family members working in Europe. The EU permits the construction of many mosques, and often authorities are unable to prevent radical imams from preaching to young European members and turning them toward jihadist ideas. The fear in Europe is that the Moslem population is growing faster than the indigenous European population - in 2014 the most popular name chosen for boy babies in Britain was Mohamed. The fear is that European, Western, societies are being inundated by the influence of Islam, a worry that last weekend drew thousands in anti-Islamist protests in Germany. But, Europe still lives with the ghosts of World War II and is determined to prevent any effort to deal unfairly with or to demonize any minority as the Jews were in WWII. The problem is daily, real and growing. Today's attack in the center of Paris is both an affront to French and European democracy and a warning that uncontrolled radicalization of European Moslems, and the creeping moslemization of European society must be addressed. It is not an easy task -- America has been trying for 150 years to integrate its Black minority in the face of a tiny but influential Black minority that wants America to become more Black than their numbers warrant. The EU problem is compounded by the profound attachment of Europeans to Western-Christian civilization. It is an attachment 1,500 years old and its presence is evident in every city, town and village. The fear of losing this identity - which reaches beyond religion to civil and cultural axioms and norms - is visceral and makes the growing fear of moslemization acute. The face-to-face menace of ISIS and al-Qaida jihad against the West will begin in earnest not in America but in Europe and Europeans also fear that they may not be up to the challenge because of those very cultural norms that make them such welcoming hosts to immigrants and open societies willing to consider all ideas with intellectial honesty. Thus the warning today of the conservative Nicolas Sarkozy -- "This is an attack on our democracy, which we must face together and without weakness." Those words were chosen carefully and will ring true with many French and Europeans. ~~~ But today we must stand with France in her anguish and shock. Vive la France. Vive la Republique.