The Commentariat -- Nov. 15, 2015
Internal links & defunct video removed.
The Sydney Opera House. Buildings & other structures around the world took on the colors of the French flag.
David Nakamura of the Washington Post: "President Obama opened two days of talks with world leaders [in Antalya, Turkey,] Sunday by vowing to help France in 'hunting down the perpetrators' of the terrorist attacks in Paris, amid questions about how the United States and its allies will respond to the mass killings carried out by the Islamic State. Shortly after arriving, Obama met with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erogan, who is hosting the Group of 20 Summit here, and they presented a united front in a brief appearance before reporters after a discussion that lasted more than an hour." ...
... Anthony Faiola & Souad Mekhennet of the Washington Post: "French police took seven people in for questioning Sunday in connection with the deadly siege that killed at least 129 people on Friday night, expanding an international dragnet and investigation that now stretches from the Aegean Sea to the teeming Paris suburbs. The seven people taken into custody were relatives of Omar Ismail Mostefai, a 29-year old French national with a criminal record and one of seven assailants who died during Friday night's deadly siege...." ...
... Adam Nossiter, et al., of the New York Times: "Three teams of Islamic State attackers acting in unison carried out the terrorist assault in Paris on Friday night, officials said Saturday, including one assailant who may have traveled to Europe on a Syrian passport along with the flow of migrants." The Times' liveblog is here. ...
... The Washington Post's main story, by Anthony Faiola & others, is here. The Post's live updates are here. ...
... Joe Mozingo, et al., of the Los Angeles Times: "... authorities said evidence suggested at least some of the attackers had come from Syria and Iraq. Six of them detonated suicide vests and a seventh was shot to death by police.... Friday's operation apparently began with a small extremist cell around Brussels, where French authorities believe the attack was planned and financed, according to two U.S. law enforcement officials who have been advised about the French investigation. The French newspaper Le Monde reported the terrorists came from the Brussels suburb of Molenbeek.... French prosecutor Francois Molins said three teams of terrorists, carrying AK-47 assault rifles and wearing explosives vests with identical detonators, appeared to have carried out the attacks.... Authorities across Europe moved swiftly Saturday to identify possible accomplices to the seven attackers, with Belgian authorities announcing they had made several arrests." ...
Daniel Kreps of Rolling Stone: As hundreds of mourners gathered outside Paris' Bataclan venue, where a terror attack at an Eagles of Death Metal show resulted in the death of 118 people, an unknown musician set up a grand piano outside the concert hall and delivered a poignant, instrumental take on John Lennon's 'Imagine.'" ...
... CW: President Obama is getting a lot of grief for claiming, in an interview first aired hours before the Paris attacks, that ISIS has been "largely contained" in Iraq.:
... CW: BUT I think Obama was right. In fact, it's reasonable to assume that the reasons for the attack that killed 43 people in Beirut last week & the coordinated attacks in Paris are the result of that containment. Frustrated in their quest to maintain their "Islamic State" in Iraq, ISIS is reaching outward to further establish their creds as bloodthirsty nihilists & to recruit new soldiers. As Tobin Harshaw wrote in Bloomberg, "The euphoria after the taking of Mosul in June 2014 has faded, and the conquering of Falluja last summer has yielded no real strategic advantage. Indeed, it has begun to unite Islamic State's fractious enemies: the Iraqi military, Iranian-backed militias and Kurdish forces.... These developments may cut deeply into the narrative of scriptural inevitability that Islamic State uses to attract and keep its followers. The problem with a doomsday cult is that you have to keep your followers on edge, believing that the Apocalypse is just around the corner even though the sun keeps rising every day."
Eric Schmitt of the New York Times: "The United States has broadened its fight against the Islamic State, targeting the group's senior leader in Libya on Friday night, the Pentagon announced on Saturday. The airstrike against the Islamic State commander took place shortly after the attacks in Paris began, but had been in the works for several days and was not related to the events in France, American officials said. Western officials have been warning for months about a growing threat from militants in Libya aligned with the Islamic State." ...
... Update: Missy Ryan of the Washington Post: "U.S. airstrike is believed to have killed the leader of the Islamic State affiliate in Libya, Pentagon officials said on Saturday, in a mission that did not appear to be related to the terror attacks claimed by the group in Paris. Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook said the strike took place on Friday and targeted Wisam al Zubaidi, also known as Abu Nabil al-Anbari, who commands what is the Islamic State's strongest branch outside of Iraq and Syria, according to U.S. intelligence officials."
Joshua Keating of Slate: "A day after the attacks in Paris underlined the global danger posed by the continuing violence in Syria, Russia, the United States, and governments in Europe and the Middle East agreed at talks in Vienna to a road map for ending the devastating and destabilizing war. The proposal, which appears to draw heavily from a Russian peace plan circulated before the talks, sets Jan. 1 as a deadline for the start of negotiations between Bashar al-Assad's government and opposition groups. Within six months, they would be required to create an 'inclusive and non-sectarian' transitional government that would set a schedule for holding new, internationally supervised elections within 18 months."
"Because It's 2015." Derrick Clifton of the Daily Dot, republished in Salon: "When announcing the selection of his new cabinet, made up of 15 men and 15 women (a 50-50 split), one reporter asked [Canadian PM Justin] Trudeau why he felt it was important to build his team with gender equity in mind. His short, sweet response urged everyone to get comfortable with a new reality: 'Because, it's 2015.' Those three words took a life of their own on Twitter, where his quick, off-cuff response set off a number of inspired hashtags like #BecauseIts2015, affirming the need for governments to ensure that the people in power represent the population they've sworn to serve. The move was simple, but the impact was profound -- and it sends a message to other countries, including the United States, about an easy way to address gender disparities in government, starting at the highest executive levels."
Anu Narayanswamy of the Washington Post: "Black Americans are more than twice as likely as white Americans to experience nonfatal force or the threat of force from police, according to a new Justice Department study. The study, which was released Saturday, found that an annual average of 44 million U.S. residents older than 16 had at least one face-to-face contact with police between 2002 and 2011. About 75 percent of those who had encountered force from the police perceived the force to be excessive."
** Philip Galanes of the New York Times has a conversation with Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg & Gloria Steinam. CW: If you or someone you know is a woman younger than they are, read the transcript. Many young women have no idea what life was like for women who are now of a certain age.
Presidential Race
We haven't come up with an exact number yet, but it will not be as high as the number under Dwight D. Eisenhower, which was 90 percent. I'm not that much of a socialist compared to Eisenhower. -- Bernie Sanders, on the top tax bracket ...
... David Fahrenthold of the Washington Post: "Former secretary of state Hillary Rodham Clinton faced sharp attacks -- about her closeness to Wall Street, and her vote for the Iraq War -- from two more aggressive rivals, in the second Democratic presidential debate Saturday night." ...
... Over at Politico's Daily Racing Form, Katie Glueck picks out the key moments of the debate. ...
... Ben Kamisar of the Hill: "Hillary Clinton broke with President Obama during Saturday's Democratic primary debate when she said that the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria can't just be 'contained,' a phrase Obama used in a Friday interview that aired just hours before the Paris terror attacks. 'We have to look at ISIS as a leading threat of an international terror network, it cannot be contained, it must be defeated,' the former secretary of State said during CBS's debate." With video. ...
... Amber Phillips of the Washington Post elaborates. ...
... Katherine Krueger of TPM: "Asked if Sanders still believes climate change greatest is the gravest national security threat, as he did in the first Democratic debate, he responded 'absolutely.' 'In fact, climate change is directly related to the growth of terrorism. And if we do not get our act together and listen to what the scientists say, you're going to see counties all over the world ... they're going to be struggling over limited amounts of water, limited amounts of land to grow their crops, and you're going to see all kinds of international conflict,' Sanders said." With video. ...
... Rebecca Traister of New York: "... these candidates' bona fides and infinite superiority to any of the Republicans in contention were established during the first debate. What was notable tonight was that it laid everything bare -- not just the good, but the bad of what the Democratic party and its contenders for the presidency have to offer.... The contrast between [Sanders & Clinton] wasn't flattering to either: one candidate appeared out of his depth, the other in way too deep." Traister also is amazed that in both debates, the issue of reproductive rights did not come up. (Traister writes extensively on women's rights.) "It was almost as though women's rights to control their reproduction and family size were not fundamental to their economic, social, professional and political equality. Democrats' failure to make issues of comprehensive reproductive justice central to their primary is also strategically stupid, since now is the time when the Republicans are trying to out-do each other with insane litmus tests over which one of them would more effectively force rape and incest survivors to carry their unwanted pregnancies to term." ...
... Amy Davidson of the New Yorker: "Clinton ... managed, in a couple of sentences, to simultaneously open herself up to the charge that she sees ISIS as someone else's war and that she rushed into wars too readily. Those notions feel paradoxical, and yet they both feed into a critique of Clinton as someone who does not always embrace responsibility." Davidson details other Clinton missteps. ...
... Fred Kaplan of Slate: "The question of the evening -- of our time -- is how to defeat ISIS, but Clinton, the candidate with the deepest résumé on foreign policy, never said what she would do beyond what President Obama is already doing." ...
... Jamelle Bouie of Slate: "... thanks to sharp questioning from my colleague John Dickerson -- we can see weaknesses that weren't apparent before. The discussions went at the heart of each candidacy. And Hillary Clinton, who is running for the general election as much as she is the primary, needs to improve her game." ...
... The Guardian's liveblog of the debate is here. ...
... Annie Karni of Politico: "In a conference call with all three campaigns hours after the attacks in Paris, executives with CBS ... suggested changing the format of the forum to carve out more time to discuss the suddenly-imperative issue of keeping the violence in Europe from lapping over to U.S. cities, campaign sources said. But [Bernie] Sanders' team forcefully opposed any changes -- and, to the amazement of the network and the other Democrats who decried his tone-deafness, crowed publicly about limiting the foreign policy component to spend more time discussing economic inequality and other issues central to the Vermont senator's candidacy." ...
... Bill Curry of Salon: "I still don't see establishment media types grappling with the seeming mystery of how a 74-year-old socialist outperforms a centrist front-runner in those general election match-ups. Here's a hint: the Democrats' real opponents are anger, apathy and fear. With just three months till Iowa, Bernie Sanders is still the only candidate addressing anger, fear and apathy in a responsible, effective way.... Voters agree so strongly [with Sanders' economic message] even Republicans cry 'crony capitalism,' but they're just kidding. Clinton still doesn't get it. Raising billions from big business and floating boatloads of new programs is a bad strategy. Voters look at government and see a car with a cracked engine block. Until it's fixed they won't let anybody drive it."
Patrick Healy of the New York Times: "A dark portrait of America -- impotent against Islamic State militants, vulnerable against shadowy, undocumented refugees, and isolated in a world of fraying alliances -- emerged from the Republican presidential field on Saturday as candidates seized on the Paris attacks to try to elevate terrorism into a defining issue in the 2016 election. Leading Republicans like Donald J. Trump, Ben Carson and Senator Ted Cruz of Texas called on the Obama administration to halt plans to accept 10,000 Syrian refugees next year. Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, warning that the Islamic State would leverage the Paris attacks to add recruits and raise money, said the United States needed to move immediately to assemble a stronger coalition to fight the militants." ...
... Katie Zezima of the Washington Post: "In the wake of the Paris terrorist attacks, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) said President Obama is not interested in protecting the United States. 'I recognize that Barack Obama does not wish to defend this country,' Cruz said on 'Fox and Friends' 'He may have been tired of war, but our enemies are not tired of killing us. And they’re getting stronger.'" ...
... AP: Speaking at a campaign rally in Beaumont, Texas, "... Donald Trump says the terror attacks in Paris would have been 'a much, much different situation' had the victims been armed with guns. And he says the United States is 'insane' to accept any refugees from Syria in the wake of the attacks.... He began the event with a moment of silence in honor of the victims of the attacks."
Beyond the Beltway
Alice Ollstein of Think Progress: "On Friday morning, Alabama and the federal Justice Department reached an agreement to bring the state in compliance with the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA), a law passed in 1993 requiring states to make it easier and more convenient for residents to register to vote ... [by] giving residents who visited the state's DMVs the opportunity to register.... The new agreement, however, does not force the state to reopen the more than two dozen DMVs in majority-black counties that recently shut down...."
News Ledes
New York Times: "At least 15 Sudanese migrants trying to cross from Egypt into Israel were shot and killed at the border early Sunday, possibly by Egyptian police officers, according to security officials and news reports. The death toll, if confirmed, would be one of the highest in years for migrants and asylum seekers making the treacherous journey across the Sinai Peninsula into Israel. People coming from Sudan, Eritrea and other countries in East Africa have been tortured by traffickers, beaten or shot by the Egyptian security services and have faced open-ended detention by the Israeli authorities, according to human rights groups."
Washington Post: "The Pentagon transferred five Yemeni detainees who had been held for more than a decade at the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to the United Arab Emirates, U.S. officials announced Sunday."
New York Times: "The Japanese economy deteriorated more severely than expected in the third quarter, government data released on Monday showed, extending a downturn into a second consecutive three-month period and putting the country in technical recession."
Share Article
Reader Comments (10)
Perhaps it's because I just saw the latest Bond movie and I'm rocking some thoughts of precision marksmanship, but I'd love to take a few Annie Oakley style shots at the dead squirrel on Trump's head. In the interests of my 2nd amendment rights of course, as well in solidarity with fashionistas everywhere (and the squirrels who have given their lives).
Didn't take long for the putrid bloviating fool to spew forth his idiot ravings after the Paris killings; if only the victims had been armed........
"GS:[Gloria Steinam] It’s important to say that the women’s movement was disproportionately pioneered by black women. These are not two different movements; they are profoundly connected. If you are going to continue racism, you have to control reproduction. And that means controlling women. A group called Feminist.com made these baby bead bracelets. On one, they spell “Imagine,” and on the other, they asked us to write what we want. I went with “Imagine” and “We are linked, not ranked.”
And in Paris a musician drags his piano onto the streets and plays, beautifully, "Imagine."
Good things happen sometimes.
So now the Republicans, who have just re-discovered that civilization is always struggling against barbarism and certainly haven't noticed that their own behavior often borders on or crosses into the territory of the barbaric, are blaming all Syrians for ISIS' horrors, and therefore do not want the US to accept any Syrian refugees.
No doubt that would solve the problem.
More evidence the Right's fulminations here and abroad in the wake of the Paris attacks will likely offer nothing to deal with the mind-boggling reality presented by the number of Syrians who have already been displaced by the Syrian conflict.
The most recent count as of Nov. 3, 2015:
12 million Syrians have fled their homes because of conflict; half are children.
4 million Syrians are refugees; most are in Turkey, Lebanon, and Jordan.
More than 700,000 Syrian refugees and other migrants risked their lives this year to travel to Europe.
- See more at: http://www.worldvision.org/news-stories-videos/syria-war-refugee-crisis#sthash.YSuQZf1G.dpuf
These numbers are the equivalent of the population of either Pennsylvania or Ohio, all refugees, most essentially homeless.
I admit to being overwhelmed by the sheer numbers, and understand why when faced by enormity we seek simple solutions, but for the life of me I don't understand why we don't at least acknowledge the nature and extent of the problem before dismissing it.....of course, that would make dismissing it more difficult...
.....which leads me to categorize the emerging Nationalist wing of the Republican party Deniers as dangerous as their fossil fuel protectors and apologists.
On the subject of ISIS, only a Party of Deniers could split into either Thump 'Em or Ignore 'Em camps.
Simpletons!
The Atlantic magazine has a long article, "What ISIS Wants" that is worthy of reading after Paris. Their beliefs are barely comprehensible, but terrifying in the implications for the future. If true, worthy of a global program of extermination.
Another article, in The Nation, an interview of a captured ISIS terrorist gives a picture of the idiots recruited by the fanatics. Discomfitting to the republican idiots as the prime recruiter is daily life in the destroyed society of a 'liberated' Iraq.
It's quite frightening how the GOP mirrors Islamic extremists in their view of women, "others" with beliefs outside their set of restrictive ideals, as well as the fantasy that fuels their beliefs. Martyrism rewarded by a cadre of willing virgins, wholesale slaughter of innocents and the State as a religious ruling entity seem frighteningly close to the GOP obsessions with controlling women's reproductive functions, the belief that more weapons is a viable answer to the murders of innocents and the hysteria to unite church and state.
Following are links to the articles that Cochiwan's Opinion references:
The Atlantic - "What ISIS Really Wants"
The Nation - "What I Discovered From Interviewing Imprisoned ISIS Fighters"
@Unwashed: Thanks for the links.
Where possible, I ask everyone to please provide links to items you recommend or refer to. It's as easy as copying & pasting. That is, it takes all of two clicks.
I realize that sometimes you are working from a mobile phone where I take it copying & pasting is less easy, but do provide links when you're working on a more accommodating device.
Thank you.
Marie
@Diane: I agree. I was thinking last night -- when John Dickerson was insisting that the Democratic candidates "declare themselves" on the term "Islamic extremists" -- that the Kim Davises & Ben Carsons, et al., wouldn't like it too much if Democrats referred to them as "Christian extremists."
Marie
@CW,
No thanks needed but they are appreciated.
I was actually being somewhat selfish. At that time I knew I wanted to read the articles but wasn't able to at the moment. It was a shortcut for me to find them later while on my mobile when I was away from my other device with keyboard and mouse.
Thanks to YOU for providing instruction on how to imbed links within comments to make it easy for everyone regardless of which type of device they're using.