zlacker

According to iTele there are now 118 dead.

Edit: Now it's up to 140. What a sad day :(

>>po1nte+(OP)
140 latest report.

>>po1nte+(OP)
The Guardian is reporting at least 140 at this point. Unfortunately, the number will only rise.

>>po1nte+(OP)
Reworded to avoid offence (hopefully): deaths are not irrelevant, but their exact precise number is irrelevant. What matters is the scale of the security failure, compounded by the fact that they suffered a similar one less than a year ago and they were currently on high-alert (because they've only just started bombing Syria).

The knowledge that a network could carry out such a widespread and well-coordinated attack without being preempted, in a situation of maximum alert, will heavy on the minds of any French citizen regardless of whether victims were 118 or 119. Basically, the French security system has been revealed as completely ineffective. That is a huge problem.

>>po1nte+(OP)
118 inside the theater and 40 in other locations in and around Paris

>>toyg+v
No, the number of innocent killed people is never irrelevant. Every single dead person is one dead person too much. Full stop.

Edit: no need to further downvote as parent has changed his statement. Thanks parent poster.

>>toyg+v
Not all craziness is preventable by a security system.

>>toyg+v
It's relevant to the families and friends of those killed.

>>lnalx+I
itele says 118 total with around 80 in the bataclan

>>chinat+Q
Of course. But by the same reasoning, there is no difference if there were 1 or 118 victims, which is my point. It's not about keeping score.

>>toyg+v
You could probably phrase that first sentence a little better.

>>hyperl+R
You're right, but attacks that require supplies (especially supplies that aren't dual use, like guns) and coordination between many parties, are the types of attacks that the modern security apparatus is optimized for preventing.

>>toyg+v
> Basically, the French security system has been revealed as completely ineffective.

How can a country possibly prevent these things while still maintaining a free society?

>>hyperl+R
That might be the case, but this particular strain of craziness was well-publicised and even experienced less than a year ago in the same place. One would expect some antibodies would have been developed by now, especially considering that French foreign policy is not getting any softer.

>>sosbor+k1
> How can a country possibly prevent these things while still maintaining a free society?

You can't even prevent them when not being a free society. Its not like terrorism only occurs in free societies.

>>toyg+71
If you agree that the number is not irrelevant, it would be very kind of you to revoke that statement. It's an insult to the dead and to the families of the dead. Thank you.

Edit: no need to further downvote as parent has changed his statement. Thanks parent poster.

>>Keats+41
Watching iTele now too, numbers 40 or 80 aren't confirmed yet.

EDIT: 40 confirmed.

>>sosbor+k1
By making the secret services work for their money on real problems, instead of fretting about tapping media pirates and suchlike. By having a foreign policy that does not rely on military intervention at the drop of a hat. By not starting fires all over the place. The list is long and well-known.

>>toyg+v
> Basically, the French security system has been revealed as completely ineffective.

As an aside, strong suveillance laws were voted earlier this year.

https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&pr...

>>sosbor+k1
They can't; even the not free societies - think prisons - are not safe. People that want to do Bad Things will do them. Even if they didn't have guns or weapons, they could've - for example - get enough people into a dinner party or restaurant, have everyone grab a fork, and start stabbing people in the eye.

Terrorism doesn't need weaponry. The only deterrent would be to read people's minds, and you've probably watched Minority Report and other such dystopian scenarios. It's something that needs to be solved at the root, and TBF I don't believe it can be fixed.

>>toyg+v
> Basically, the French security system has been revealed as completely ineffective. That is what matters.

The attacks are horrible and a security system which effectively prevents them would be just as horrible.

This problem won't be fixed without a major shift in paradigm on either side. Perhaps not in our lifetime but oh how nice it would be...

>>electr+Z
Yes, I agree. Immense tragedy and I fear the numbers will go up before this is over.

>>espadr+T1
Exactly. Fat lot of good it did to them. Clearly the whole approach is simply wrong.

>>espadr+T1
If you see and hear everything, you will know nothing.

>>toyg+P1
I don't think any secret service could prevent any isolated individual to make at home, say, Molotov cocktails, and throw them by car in a crowd.

>>chinat+Q
This kind of thinking led to the War on Terror, which led to a rise in extreme Islam which led to...

>>po1nte+(OP)
158 deaths in total, so terrible

>>toyg+o1
The problem is that the 'foreign' policy is irrelevant. The 'foreign' policy is made to appear the state is 'doing something' while MOST of the problem has been in the country for many, many years. Most of the problem is that the youngsters of immigrant stock have not been integrated, and have nothing else to do than turn to crime and/or religion, so are just RIPE for radicalism...

And there's little the state can do about THAT. they can't send war planes to the banlieus -- it's a lot easier to play tough and send warplanes somewhere else, ignoring the local problem of the ghethos.

And I don't have a proposal to make it all better either. It was an unsolvable problem already in france when I grew up there, and there's very little that can be done that hasn't been tried already.

>>S4M+D3
But these weren't isolated individuals. This was an organised network with grenades and assault rifles and the training to handle them.

This is not a Breivik, or a "Shoe Bomber" Reid; this is '70s-style, organised, cross-border terrorism -- the sort of which "we" were supposed to be good at handling by now.

>>buserr+o4
Of course craziness can explode in many ways, but denying that foreign policy is a huge trigger is just disingenuous. How many suicide bombers have you seen in Canada or Sweden? And they have a huge migrant population, larger than France in percentage terms, with various degrees of (non-)integration. But they don't set other countries on fire nor they usually bomb anyone, so they don't get hit by paramilitary networks.

>>toyg+o1
It took Israel security services around 3 years, to stop most bombing and rifle attacks. They are better funded and staffed (forced conscription larger in scope than in France) and that didn't help either . Eventually a massive wall was built (ideologically neither party supported, which gave rise to opportunistic and most corrupt politicians) and as enough of the voters didnt approve with the results the army got approval for countless ground and air raids. The end result was a young generation filled with hatered torwards Israel, now finding other ways to attack.

My point is that to expect security forces to stop such attacks is reasonable up to a point. Escelation on one side builds escelation on the other and eventually its becomes an established norm. The problem Europe has is real, and difficult, tragic.

My heart is with those in Paris, France and Europe . I cannot sleep.

>>toyg+D5
Fair enough; I think I should have said that it's not 'only' foreign policy that matters, it's part fo the factors of course. You can play with thought policies when you are not already crowded with a population of people who feel they are being dealt (rightly, or wrongly, or perceived, or real) the wrong hand.

The real sad thing is that it puts a lot of other people in the wrong sort of focus, all the people who ARE integrated, who made the efforts, who overcame the hurdles of segregation and racism; these are the 'visible' people who'll get in trouble in the next few weeks/months in the daily lives, and perhaps make them wonder if it was such a good idea to identify and 'join' a population that is just angry and looking for a soft target.

>>Cthulh+l2
I'm a bit more optimistic, I think it can be fixed but it will take many years (decades).

>>toyg+v
They already failed to prevent 600 common murders each year. You could call that completely ineffective or you could call it diminishing returns on investment in security. You can't prevent all of them without an unacceptable number of false positives or harsh restrictions on freedom.

Anyone who's upset by this and doesn't have a personal connection to the victims is not being rational. They should be upset by all other killings - the vast majority which don't get into the international news, let along HN. Those are far more prevalent, and perhaps easier to prevent because they're done by amatures.

>>electr+Z
Why? Is the death of a loved one any more, or less, tragic because it is one among a hundred?

>>Cthulh+l2

  Terrorism doesn't need weaponry. 

Indeed. Even if you deem well-coordinated attacks with just edged weapons (like the fictional ones in "The Following") unlikely, note that the Multiple-Victim public homicide with the most fatalities in US history used not a single firearm.

(and I'm not talking about 9/11, although it could count as such as well)