Oh my god cannot believe what has happened in Paris

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www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-34814203

What do we do now?

"Ive always known of terrible things happening in the middle east etc but it's so far away I've felt removed from it but these attacks are at my doorstep"

That is exactly why they are doing these terror attacks. It is easy for Western nations to support their governments' military operations overseas because they are so far away. By bringing the war to Europe, they are forcing us to live the consequences our military action in their country.

But didn't the bloke at the Stade De France blow himself up? How did a paper passport survive? Remember 9/11 dozens and dozens of people vaporised yet they find one of the hijackers' passports amid the rubble of two enormous skyscrapers.

itsmine beating your chest and declaring that you're going to destroy the terrorists is pretty mich the equivalent of hoping ISIS just goes away. It doesn't work, because (a) wars against guerrilla groups can't be won (as the soviets and the Americans discovered on more than one occasion) and (b) you can't destroy an ideology by killing people - you tend to reinforce it (that's why the July 7th bombers, the Charlie hebdo killers and at least one of the Paris terrorists were home-grown).

Of course I'm not advocating doing nothing, but calls for all-out war don't get anyone anywhere.

My point is that whilst were engaged in regime change and still funding the radical groups to oust Assad, they'll be no crushing of Isis and increasing the risks of things like the outrage in Paris last night, happening more often.

Its common knowledge that France is the most prominent backer of Syria's armed opposition and is now directly funding groups around Aleppo...So I'm extremely vexed to say the same old adage applies here - if you want to stop terrorism? Stop engaging in it!

We, that's us the Americans and the French (among others) have been so actively engaged in throwing over secular govt's in the ME. Our leaders are to blame here for creating these groups of depraved bastards. It was Saddam, Gaddafi and now we're trying to overthrow Assad by violence as well. By funding and training these murdering nut jobs who've turned on us.

Completely agree with batshit. By interfering in these countries and removing leaders we helped create a vacuum that allowed these zealots to to gain a foothold. Awful as leaders like Gaddafi, Saddam etc were we should have recognised that they served a purpose.

I think the European security services need to improve because it is happening too often. If that means employing 10 x more people and spying on people 24/7 they think could potentially cause a problem in the future then so be it. They knew one of these terrorists had been radicalised. He was not under surveillance. There is now even talk that some got away as they have failed to trace a car. As for the Human Rights of those being spied on, tough shit I say. I they respected the country they live in more they wouldn't need to be watched.

They should never spy on people who aren't suspected of involvement in terrorism. Believe it or not my right to privacy IS as important as your right yo life - neither takes precedence. It's not a case of rights putting one before the other. We defend BOTH rights or we don't defend either. We don't selectively defend rights.

Sorry but I strongly disagree that the best course of action is now to stay out of that region all together. I agree that we have helped contribute to this awful mess and the Iraq invasion was a grotesque perversion of "justifiable invasion." I personally wish Bush and Blair et al, were facing a war crimes tribunal for that.

Whatever the causes however, this region is in crisis and we are seeing millions of displaced people making their way to Europe or worse yet, stuck in the region. If we had sat by and done nothing when WW2 was occurring (and goodness knows we did sit on the sidelines too long as Germany decimated other European nations,) what would Europe look like today? I don't like warmongering but to do nothing while this death cult runs rampage throughout an entire region is cowardly imo. All countries who are able should now step up and contribute to a UN and Nato initiative to intervene in Syria/Iraq.

We should leave that region alone, we have done enough damage to it already. Defend our own country, no one ele

Dont -we partially broke it, we are responsible to help fix it.

The only thing we can do to even begin to fix this is to find a resolution to the Israel/Palestine problem. Until that happens everything else is futile.

"we partially broke it, we are responsible to help fix it."

I think that our involvement in that region in the past has proven that when we try to "fix" things we only make them worse. Trying to fix it again may make it even worse, and if it's a choice between leaving it damaged or damaging it further, the former is preferable.

Yes but Dont, he was known to security services. They knew he had been radicalised. They didn't think he was worth watching. They clearly
made an error. I'm not talking about watching every Tom, Dick and Harry, just those that have raised enough suspicion to have hit the radar. I would hate to think the 300 British Citizens who have been to Syria in the last few years but have now returned have just disappeared from the radar. I suspect they won't have.

"Yes but Dont, he was known to security services. They knew he had been radicalised. They didn't think he was worth watching."

I don't object to such people being monitored though. I object to this whole "we need powers to see everyones internet history/read their emails" because they don't. Targeted methods work better than dragnets in preventing terrorism.

"I would hate to think the 300 British Citizens who have been to Syria in the last few years but have now returned have just disappeared from the radar. I suspect they won't have."

There's a difference between flagging their emails for review, and physically watching them 24 hours a day. And it's not like their internet activity would really give any clues away about the attack, they will already have codewords established where an email saying the word "green" means to carry out the attack at a designated time. And by the time that's intercepted and reviewed, it's not going to do any good.

Dont - Well I'll have to agree to strongly disagree with you. Military intervention is an awful prospect but doing nothing will simply allow mass atrocities to continue happening. I'm not able to simply forget about these people, not to mention entire ethnic groups (Yazadis) being tortured, raped and killed because we have "war fatigue" after all the conflicts we have exacerbated in the last decade.

"I disagree, 'right to life' is more important than 'right to privacy' . the former takes precendet Imo."

Rights shouldn't be "ranked" imo. If we are serious about everyone having rights we defend them all, and none of this "my right to life overrides your right to privacy". That statement assumes that my right to privacy will negatively affect your right to life, it won't. GCHQ's inability to see my emails doesn't magically stop you from breathing does it? Just like you're ability to be alive doesn't affect my right to privacy. And even if we COULD prevent a terrorist attack like this if we got rid of privacy altogether, I don't think it would be worth it. Because we'd have removed all our freedoms in the name of protecting our freedoms from these terrorists. "The terrorists will never take our freedoms...because we already got rid of our freedoms in the fight"

"'m not able to simply forget about these people, not to mention entire ethnic groups (Yazadis) being tortured, raped and killed"

Fine, go over and fight ISIS yourself, quite a few Brits who feel strongly about fighting ISIS have done so. I always believe that people who are in favour of war should go fight in it themselves and see if they still feel strongly about it. ISIS say that their atrocities are direct retaliation for our bombing of Syria, so to me the answer is quite simple; We stop bombing Syria. ISIS will pick other people to attack then, and while that's not good, our governments first priority is protecting our people, not others. They have to protect themselves.

I would hate to think the 300 British Citizens who have been to Syria in the last few years but have now returned have just disappeared from the radar. I suspect they won't have."

Does anyone have any idea how we can keep tabs on the 20,000 'refugees' planning to be let into the UK, any one of which could be a trained terrorist with ambitions of martyrdom.

itsmine in this situation there may be some argument for military action (I'd like to hear a good argument for it first though) but in recent European history, negotiated settlements have been far more effective in combatting terrorism than military action (Ireland, basque separatists).

I live in France and one of my Paris-based friends, who is originally from Belfast, was pondering how weird it is that her Belfast-based friends are now calling her to check that she's not been hurt in a terrorist attack.

What can we do?
ask your MP to request that the cuts to the police are halted / slowed down. Also same with the ambulance service. If there is a terrorist incident in London I want to know we have the paramedics, nurses and police to deal. At the moment given the state of the ambulance service I fear we do not.

brioche - its an accident waiting to happen long term

Rainbunny It's got f* all to do with "war fatigue". Do you suppose when there's a strategic, long-term economic incentive of our gov't to overthrow any other gov't, ME or wherever else, we'd ever shy away and say 'we're fed up with funding and fighting wars, we can't be bothered'?

"Doing nothing", let's take a look what our 'doing something' or interventions has got us. A hell on earth in Libya, vast sways of Afghanistan and Iraq. Now you propose we create more of the same - in Syria?

Without the crime we committed, that of aggressive war against Iraq, which has left more than a million innocent people dead, there'd be no ISIS and no Al Qaeda in Iraq. Without Saudi and Western funding and arming of extremist Sunni groups across the Middle East, we use as proxies to strike at Iran and its allies, there would be no ISIS either.

It's our leaders we ought to be holding to account for this sickness. Those doctrine-addled, testosterone-blinded morons in Paris who volunteered to kill themselves along with as many innocent people as possible, are just the rash it's all come out in.