Is Terrorism That Big A Problem?

[Mule]

This quote from a French Pelican could lead us to believe we are over reacting. Maybe france has a better approach. Read this column from Daniel Pipes.

Originally Posted by RPKESQ

Don't forget to tell ALL the history. We did not declare war on Japan or Germany first. They both declared war on America first. We lost ships and men to German sub and surface raiders, all without entering into a war with Germany.

Just how big a threat is terrorism?

Top causes of death in America:
(1) Diseases of the heart heart attack (mainly) 28.5%
(2) Malignant neoplasms cancer 22.8%
(3) Cerebrovascular disease stroke 6.7%
(4) Chronic lower respiratory disease emphysema, chronic bronchitis 5.1%
(5) Unintentional injuries accidents 4.4%
(6) Diabetes mellitus diabetes 3.0%
(7) Influenza and pneumonia flu & pneumonia 2.7%
(8) Alzheimer's Disease Alzheimer's senility 2.4%
(9) Nephritis and Nephrosis kidney disease 1.7%
(10) Septicemia systemic infection 1.4%
(11) Intentional self-harm suicide 1.3%
(12) Chronic Liver/Cirrhosis liver disease 1.1%
(13) Essential Hypertension

Terrorism doesn’t even rate in the top 2 dozen. We need to get our priorities straight. And Iraq is not where we should be concerned. Iraq is a complete fubar of an idea and execution.

Terrorism sounds really bad and is scary to much of middle America, but how much of a threat is it really? Consider that Hammas has launched over 900 rockets into Israel from the start of the year. Result? 1 Israeli death.
So what is the real threat to us? If you say 9/11 attackers, then what does that have to do with Iraq? They were not involved at all.

We loose people every day, that’s not a reason to go to war alone. And yes we were wrong (and so were the Germans, English, French, etc). about WWI, there was no “right” in that war.

The 751 No-Go Zones of France

by Daniel Pipes
Weblog
November 14, 2006

They go by the euphemistic term Zones Urbaines Sensibles, or Sensitive Urban Zones, with the even more antiseptic acronym ZUS, and there are 751 of them as of last count. They are convienently listed on one long webpage, complete with street demarcations and map delineations.

What are they? Those places in France that the French state does not control. They range from two zones in the medieval town of Carcassone to twelve in the heavily Muslim town of Marseilles, with hardly a town in France lacking in its ZUS. The ZUS came into existence in late 1996 and according to a 2004 estimate, nearly 5 million people live in them.

Comment: A more precise name for these zones would be Dar al-Islam, the place where Muslims rule. (November 14, 2006)

Nov. 28, 2006 update: For an insight into how bad things are, the police in Lyons demonstrated on Nov. 9, denouncing "violence against the forces of order." Things have reached a pretty sad state when the police have to demonstrate in the streets against the criminals.

Jan. 5, 2008 update: In a remarkable statement, Michael Nazir-Ali, the Pakistani-born bishop of Rochester, writes in the Daily Telegraph about the situation in Great Britain:

there has been a worldwide resurgence of the ideology of Islamic extremism. One of the results of this has been to further alienate the young from the nation in which they were growing up and also to turn already separate communities into "no-go" areas where adherence to this ideology has become a mark of acceptability. Those of a different faith or race may find it difficult to live or work there because of hostility to them.

Jan. 16, 2008 update: Paul Belien of Brussels Journal provides an update on the ZUS, connecting them to organized crime in a way that helps explain police reluctance to intervene:

In May [2007], the French voters elected Mr. [Nicolas] Sarkozy as president because he had promised to restore the authority of the Republic over France's 751 no-go areas, the so-called zones urbaines sensibles (ZUS, sensitive urban areas), where 5 million people - 8 percent of the population - live. During his first months in office he has been too busy with other activities, such as selling nuclear plants to Libya and getting divorced. While the French media publish nude pictures of the future (third) Mrs. Sarkozy, the situation in the ZUS has remained as "sensitive" as before.

People get mugged, even murdered, in the ZUS, but the media prefer not to write about it. When large-scale rioting erupts and officers and firemen are attacked, the behavior of the thugs is condoned with references to their "poverty" and to the "racism" of the indigenous French. The French media never devote their attention to the bleak situation of intimidation and lawlessness in which 8 percent of the population, including many poor indigenous French, are forced to live. Muslim racism toward the "infidels" is never mentioned.

Xavier Raufer, a former French intelligence officer who heads the department on organized crime and terrorism at the Institute of Criminology of the University of Paris II, thinks that organized crime has a lot to do with the indifference of the French establishment.

The ZUS are centers of drug trafficking. According to a recent report of the French government's Interdepartmental Commission to Combat Drug Traffic and Addiction (MILDT) 550,000 people in France consume cannabis on a daily basis and 1.2 million on a regular basis. The annual cannabis consumption amounts to 208 tons for a market value of 832 million euros ($1.2 billion in U.S. dollars). MILDT estimates that there are between 6,000 and 13,000 small "entrepreneurs" and between 700 and 1,400 wholesalers who make a living out of dealing cannabis. The wholesalers earn up to 550,000 euros ($820,000) per year. Since they operate from within the ZUS the drug dealers are beyond the reach of the French authorities.

The ZUS exist not only because Muslims wish to live in their own areas according to their own culture and their own Shariah laws, but also because organized crime wants to operate without the judicial and fiscal interference of the French state. In France, Shariah law and mafia rule have become almost identical.

Mar. 8, 2008 update: Britain has "ethnic" no-go areas for military personnel in uniform, the Times (London) reports today at "Military uniforms in public ‘risk offending minorities'."

Certain areas in Britain will still have to remain off-limits for servicemen and women in military gear, despite the Government's desire for a nationwide uniform free-for-all, senior RAF sources acknowledged yesterday. … one senior air force source said that military commanders had to be aware of potential problems of personnel wearing combat and other military clothes in the street. "We're aware of the sensitivities, for example, in some ethnic minority communities which is why we need to have a dialogue with local authorities and police if we don't want to cause a problem."

Mar. 16, 2008 update: John Cornwell, a leading historian and commentator on religion, is generally skeptical of Nazir-Ali's no-go areas but finds that if anyplace fits the profile, it's Bury Park in Luton:

Luton, like other enclaves, has experienced a spate of incidents that look all too like attempts to make Bury Park a no-go area to non-Muslims. Between November of last year and last month there were 18 attacks – all registered by the police – on five non-Muslim homes in the area. One couple, Mr and Mrs Harrop, white residents in their eighties, have had bricks hurled through their windows. The home of Mrs Palmer, a widow of West Indian origin, aged 70, has been attacked four times; on one occasion a metal beer keg crashed through her bay window while she was watching TV.

Such attacks are not typical of the activities of the sort of radicals who preach a global Islamic state, or potential terrorists, who, according to one of my MI5 informants, merge into a background of "innocent normalcy" till the last minute. DCI Ian Middleton of Bedfordshire police says: "It's the perception of the victims that their Muslim neighbours are to blame, and we have to respect that. But we have our doubts." Middleton suspects, as does Margaret Moran, MP for Luton South, that the attacks could be the work of small groups of white or Muslim extremists, stirring up racial and inter-religious hatred for its own sake.

I was to come across comparable "no-go" incidents in other parts of Britain, such as threats against Muslim converts to Christianity, and attacks on visiting social workers and Salvation Army facilities.

This item is available on the DanielPipes.org website, at http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/709

[Joeaksa]

I was in Paris last year during part of the riots by the members of "the religion of peace" and it was a difficult time. Nothing like a molotov cocktail to get your attention and the police simply could not control them the first few days.

Can we pls send crazy chic there to live? She would fit in and be happy with her brothers in the "religion of peace" over there in france.

[Superman]

This is just the first question. Is terrorism really a problem?

But even if you answer "yes," then the next question is how do we secure ourselves against this threat? Dubya thought it would be cute to make a splashy mess in Iraq. Even though he should have noticed that terrorism is a "hate" problem. It is a PR problem. When someone is accused of a crime and brought to trial, do they draw as much attention to themselves as possible? No. Dubya had the opportunity to define this as a military problem or a propaganda problem. Al Queda has continued to pursue this as a propaganda problem while Dubya has pretended it is a military problem. In the international game of "chess," Dubya has been defeated. America will be the loser.

Those of you who think our Iraq adventure will make America more secure......are incorrect. It will fuel the hatred fire.

Imagine. Imagine if we had focused all that energy on actual national security. Imagine if we had minded our own business and protected ourselves with intelligence and diplomacy.

Instead, we have made ourselves into the Perfect Target. Dubya has spent billions and thousands of American lives to achieve the goal of making America more vulnerable. Thanks a lot.....Idiot.

[Mule]

Amazing. You managed to miss the point completely!

[widebody911]

Originally Posted by Mule

Amazing. You managed to miss the point completely!

Person A list the leading causes of death - terrorism notably absent; you cut-and-pasted some rambling diatribe about 'no go zones' - who really missed the point here?

[Mule]

Amazing. You managed to miss the point completely too!

[charleskieffner]

no terroriszm isnt a problem at all.............................

i've been living with terrorizm(terrorism) since i was 14 YEARS OLD WHEN I WAS IN MUNICH GERMANY AT THE 1972 OLYMPICS WHEN THE %^&%* POO WENT DOWN!

no terrorizm isnt a problem until the person next to you blows the *&%&%^ out of themselves or the car /truck/plane your on or next BLOWS INTO A BAZZILLION ******* PIECES............

then i would have to say its a REAL $%^&$ GRIPPING ISSUE!

pay ME $100000 a year tax free,all expenses and i will gladly/joyfully go hunt terrorists in a HIGHLY UNETHICAL MANNER equal to their methods.


old west sheriffs always got their man.............THE MOSSAD ALWAYS GETS THEIR MAN!..........always!

[JavaBrewer]

Yes terrorism is a big problem...

You need to be more specific. Are you asking if Americans consider terrorism to be a big problem here in the states? While travelling abroad? What?

[Rodsrsr]

Poor Mule, he never gets out of Tennessee.

[sammyg2]

If france wants to completely give away their country one piece at a time, that's their choice. But for anyone to suggest that we should do the same thing by sticking our heads in the sand is not only misguided, it is dangerous thinking.


To say that the "religion of peace' is not a threat while it is taking over a country (and continent) to the point where it is too dangerous for the police to enter those areas is mind-boggling.

[Mule]

The point is that appeasement is a plan for takeover. Sorry some of you found it difficult.

[NICKG]

terrorism is not a problem..but is a control word to keep people in fear...so they can be stripped of their freedoms and told what to do.

[nostatic]

you're going to listen to Pipes?

He graduated from Harvard you know...

[Mule]

Is he making sense? He's not blaming his white grandmother!

[The Gaijin]

So you think this kind of stuff would never/could never happen here. From today's NY Post:

March 20, 2008 -- An assistant rabbi whose yarmulke was swiped by Arab men turned the tables on his tormentors, chasing one into a Brooklyn street where the thief was struck by a car and arrested, police said yesterday.

Uria Ohana, 25, a member of the Chabad Lubavitch movement, told The Post he entered a subway station alone at Fourth Avenue and Ninth Street in Park Slope at 6:20 p.m. Tuesday.

Ohana said he went through a turnstile and spotted a group of young Arabic men sitting on a bench.

"I wasn't afraid of anything. I didn't think anything would happen," he said.

But something did.

Ohana said he felt a hand grab his brown yarmulke off his head.

He then spun around and came face to face with one of the men, Ali Hussein, 18, police said.

"There were no words exchanged. I decided to chase him to get my yarmulke back," Ohana said.

Hussein's friends joined in the foot pursuit, screaming "Allah-hu Akbar," which means "God is great."

They ran outside and Hussein darted into the street, where he was hit by a blue Volvo and toppled to the ground, cops said.

"He couldn't move. He broke his leg. He was crying," said Ohana.

Hussein's friends then jumped into a suburban GMC and sped away.

Police arrested Hussein for alleged aggravated harassment as a hate crime.

http://www.nypost.com/seven/03202008/news/regionalnews/yarmulke_yahoos_best_not_mess_with_this__102740.ht m

[Mule]

He should have pulled a Dirty Harry & stood on his broken leg while he took his yarmulke back.

[JavaBrewer]

HOLY CRAP - I guy get's his hat stolen.... things are much worse than I thought... Where was the outrage when the 4 hispanic kids kicked my azz in middle school cause I was white?

Edit - ZUS areas in France. Pathetic. But I thought this thread was about terrorism.

[Superman]

Originally Posted by Mule

The point is that appeasement is a plan for takeover. Sorry some of you found it difficult.

American politics depends on lemmings just like you.

[widebody911]

Originally Posted by charleskieffner

pay ME $100000 a year tax free,all expenses and i will gladly/joyfully go hunt terrorists in a HIGHLY UNETHICAL MANNER equal to their methods.

If you have all the mad skillz you've claimed in previous posts, why aren't you already working for Blackwater?

[The Gaijin]

Originally Posted by dmoolenaar

HOLY CRAP - I guy get's his hat stolen.... things are much worse than I thought... Where was the outrage when the 4 hispanic kids kicked my azz in middle school cause I was white?

Edit - ZUS areas in France. Pathetic. But I thought this thread was about terrorism.

We have enough homegrown dirtbags thank you very much. This is assault. This POS should be deported. And US born and bred punks are not known for this:

"Hussein's friends joined in the foot pursuit, screaming "Allah-hu Akbar," which means "God is great." "

This is how it starts. Are we going to have "ZUS" areas in the USA one day???