Before the Paris attacks, Americans were complaining about Starbucks coffee cups, Donald Trump, and Nickleback. In Beirut, suicide bombers exploded their vests, obliterating life anywhere near them. This attack was hardly noticed by Americans who were safe at home, lamenting the “War on Christmas,” political correctness, and our petty differences. Then terrorism stuck Paris.
This
tragedy grabbed the world’s attention, and held us in its grip for days. It was an eye opener, because Islamic State
of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) or simply Islamic State (IS) was not just
isolated to the treacherous middle eastern countries. They moved like a human plague into Europe,
and not just anywhere in Europe – Paris!
Then we carelessly disregard the attacks in Beirut, Baghdad, and all the
attacks in Syria. Why?
The
aftershock of the blazing bombs left burning questions:
1.
Why is Paris getting all the attention?
2.
Why did the terrorists attack Paris?
3.
Why is the United States accepting 10,000 Syrian
refugees?
4.
Why are Americans loving or phobic of Syrian refugees?
Before answering these questions, it’s
important to go over the incidents in order: Syria, Beirut, Baghdad, and
Paris. Since the first three are not
getting nearly as much coverage as the last, I will do my share in spreading
knowledge about them. Each section
describes the incident, the reactions to the incident, and an abbreviated list
of previous violence their country endured.
This article starts with Syria and ends with Syrians. They’ve come a long way, and it’s important
to know where they’re coming from.
Syria – March and August 2015
On
March 16 and March 31, helicopters dropped chlorine barrel bombs over the
northern Syrian town of Sarmin in the province of Idlib. Sarmin townspeople heard the sound of
helicopters, and then a thunderous noise without an explosion. Six people died; three of them were children,
and 206 others were affected by the gas.
The chlorine poison caused liquid to accumulate in the lungs, making
breathing very difficult.
Only
government forces possessed helicopters, putting Bashar al-Assad’s regime under
accusation. The Syrian government
heavily denied committing the acts. Only
ten days before the first gas bombing, the United Nations Security Council
passed a resolution condemning the use of chlorine, as reported by Al-Jazeera.
On
August 21 of this year, there was another attack, and this time mustard gas was
used. Islamic State of Iraq and Levant
(ISIL) committed the gassing. They
attacked the town of Marea while they were in combat with Syrian rebels. The symptoms included large, painful blisters
and burns. One child died, and a whole
family had breathing difficulties and blistering.
These
incidents happened in March and August of this year, but the attacks this blog
is focusing on are in November. One
might ask why I included a section on Syria.
There have been over 60 documented incidents of chemical attacks on
Syria, and millions of refugees are roaming the world, looking for a place to
live. It’s a political issue that is
affecting everyone. It’s important to
understand what they were running from in the first place, and why returning
would not be a safe option.
Reactions
The
United Nations and the New York based Human Rights Watch reacted by
investigating to reveal information on who the true culprit was for the March
gas attacks. Despite the repeated denial
of the Syrian government, the UN believes Assad’s regime is liable considering
their chemical based attacks in the past years.
The United States, Great Britain, and France also believe Assad to be
responsible. The UN Security Council was
tearful as they watched the videos of doctors struggling to save children’s
lives.
Previous violence
1.
Four Year Civil War
·
War between government forces and Syrian rebels
who are fighting the secular regime of Bashar al-Assad.
·
The Syrian government started chemical based
attacks in 2012, which included chlorine.
The target was the Syrian rebels opposing Assad.
·
On August 21, 2013, the Syrian government
dropped Sarin gas on two suburban districts in Damascus, killing hundreds of
innocent civilians. Their target was the
rebels.
2.
Syrian Refugee Crisis
·
Over 7 million Syrian refugees fled.
·
1 million fled to Lebanon.
·
800,000 fled to Europe.
·
Others fled to Jordan, Iraq, and Turkey.
3.
ISIL attacks
Beirut, Lebanon – November 12, 2015
Two
suicide bombings killed 43 people and wounded over 200 in the Burj al-Barajneh
section of Beirut. The first jihadist
detonated outside a Shia mosque, and the second detonated outside a bakery
fairly closeby. There was a third
suicide bomber, but he died in the second blast before he could set off his
bomb vest.
ISIL
immediately claimed responsibility for the attack. In their statement they said, “After the
apostates gathered in the area, one of the knights of martyrdom detonated his
explosive belt in the midst of them.” ISIL
referred their so-called, “knights of martyrdom,” as “Soldiers of the
Caliphate,” and referred the Shiite residents as apostates, which is a grave
insult in Islam. Apostasy is the act of
leaving a religion, and it’s punishable by the death penalty in some Islamic
nations. To say Shia Islam is turning
one’s back on Islam, asserts a sense of invalidation of Shia, and assumes that
Sunni is more true and pure. It’s
analogous to calling Catholicism the same as Atheism, and saying that
Protestant Christianity is the true religion.
Regardless
of ISIL’s ice cold perception of the Shiites, there was a hero who needs to be
remembered. Right when the bombs
exploded, Zein al-Abideen Khaddam carried four bodies while fleeing the
blasts. They were three women and a male
friend.
Reactions
The
White House and Iran condemned the attacks.
The United States would stand by Lebanon and reinforce security
measures. Iran supports Hezbollah, the
Lebanon based militia/terrorist organization that is in opposition to
Al-Qaeda. Though Hezbollah and Al-Qaeda
have one thing in common – they hate ISIL.
Hezbollah labeled ISIL’s attacks as Satanic.
BBC
News reported that the Beirut bombings were the deadliest since the end of the
Lebanon Civil War in 1990.
Previous violence
- Civil war (1975-1990)
- Israeli airstrikes (2006), leveling apartment blocks.
- Series of bombings for the past 18 months (May 2014-Present), by Sunni militants in retaliation Hezbollah’s intervention with Syria.
- Other struggles: Political assassinations, street conflicts, warfare. (Undated)
Baghdad, Iraq – November 13, 2015
In the Hay
al-Amil section of Baghdad, a funeral was disrupted by a suicide bombing,
killing 18 and injuring 41 people.
Shiites were targeted in the Al-Ashara al-Mubashareen mosque.
Suicide
bombings were a common tactic among Sunni extremists and ISIL. The claim for the attack was not immediate,
but it hardly surprised anyone that ISIL was behind the attack. ISIL released a statement, including that
their motive was to target “a rejectionist Hashid group.” Hashid describes a Shiite militia that is in
opposition to ISIL.
The
funeral was honoring a volunteer paramilitary member of Hashid Shaabi. Although the ISIL militants believed they
were just attacking their enemy, they were ambushing someone’s funeral. In the United States, military funerals were
disturbed by Westboro Baptist Church picketers.
The picketing was emotionally cruel, but a bombing is far more
disrespectful and lethal. What is considered
disrespectful to rational people is seen as a tactic to terrorists in getting
what they want – to kill Shiites caught off guard in a one-sided battle.
Sadly,
people can not honor the dead without fearing their own death in Baghdad.
Reactions
After
reading articles, and specifically researching the reactions, I could not find
any. There was no mention of countries
condemning the Baghdad funeral bombing.
No opinions were voiced, not that I could find. Only journalists were kind enough to record
the attacks. It is their job to write
their articles, but at least the incident will be documented and not forgotten.
Previous violence
- The Iraq War
- Persian Gulf War
- More examples that would make this blog article too long
Paris, France – November 13, 2015
Eight terrorists
attacked six sites, killing 129 people and wounding 352. Ninety-nine were critically injured. Seven attackers committed suicide and one was
shot dead by police. There is suspicion
of a ninth attacker who has been recently detained for questioning.
The attack sites included a concert
hall, a stadium, and four restaurants and bars.
The names of those targeted sites were the following: Bataclan, La Belle Equipe, Le Carillon, Le
Petit Cambodge, La Casa Nostra, and Stade de France.
The
Bataclan was hosting a rock concert for Eagles of Death Metal. Four gunmen rushed inside, shooting people
and soon claiming 20 hostages. Police
forces arrived, three gunmen discharged their suicide vests, and one gunman was
shot dead by police. Over the entire
ordeal, the suicide bombing gunmen killed 89 people within the building. Omar Ismael Mostefai, the leader, severed his
thumb to evade fingerprinting, however the police still recovered the thumb.
Cruel
chaos surrounded the Bataclan epicenter.
Southeast of the concert hall, 19 people were shot dead at the La Belle
Equipe bar. Directly north of the
Bataclan, five more people were murdered in La Casa Nostra. A short distance northward in two restaurants
on the same street, Le Petit Cambodge restaurant and Le Carillon bar, endured
30-second streams of bullets, killing 12.
The
only good fortune that fell upon Paris that day was that no one was killed by
the three suicide bombers at Stade de France.
Only the terrorists died from their own self-destruction.
The
next day, Saturday, ISIL sent a video, taking full accountability for the
attacks. They stated, “Indeed, this is
just the beginning.”
Investigation
President
Francois Hollande declared a state of emergency, and locked down all of
Paris. Then police forces started
detaining the IS attackers’ family members for questioning. The two rented cars including the Volkswagen
Polo had Belgium license plates, making tracing their identities and families
easier. The coordination of the attacks
went undetected by security forces and there was no use of electronic
communication. This was easily done
since three of the terrorists lived in the same neighborhood in Brussels. All they had to do was visit one another and
talk quietly in person.
Iraqi
intelligence informed that some of the attackers trained in Syria with ISIL and
later joined a sleeper cell in Europe.
They were trained operatives, not inspired sympathizers. The one leading the Bataclan attack, Mostefai,
had spent the Winter (2013-14) in Syria.
He was on a terrorist watch list for radical Islam since 2010, so
authorities were not oblivious. During
2004-2010, he committed eight petty crimes, but was never incarcerated.
Reactions
President
Barack Obama condemned the Paris attacks.
The Vatican condemned them too.
The whole world condemned the tragedy!
Poland
tightened its borders unless there were “guarantees of security.”
Germany
also renewed border checks, but President Angela Merkel would not restrict the
number of refugees entering.
France
initially restored border controls and renewed border checks. In addition to arresting those with familial
ties to the perpetrators, “any person whose activity is dangerous is to be put
under house arrest,” according to President Hollande’s statement in the French
Diplomatie. Hollande dispatched ten
fighter jets from French bases in Jordan and the United Arab Emirates, and dropped
20 bombs on the ISIL headquarters in Raqqa, Syria.
Syrian
refugees were frightened that they would be accused of being potential
terrorists. Anti-Islam protesters held
flares and a banner that read, “Expel the Islamists!” The tension in Paris had reached a peak.
President
Hollande changed his mind for reasons you will see in the Second Why. He is allowing 30,000 Syrian refugees into
France. A fear induced decision to close
the French borders would be playing into ISIL’s hands.
Previous violence
Three days of mass shootings in (January
2015)
·
Targets included Charlie Hebdo magazine office,
and a Jewish supermarket.
·
The motive was to retaliate for explicit comics
made with Prophet Mohammed’s image.
·
18 people were killed.
The Paris attacks were considered
the deadliest in French history since World War II when the Nazis invaded. In European history as a whole, it was the
deadliest attack since the Madrid Bombings in 2004.
The Four Whys?
1. Why is Paris
getting all the attention?
National
monuments all over the planet lit up in French flag coloring. News stations covered the Paris attacks for
days. World leaders orated in sympathy
on behalf of the French. Safety Check
was enabled so anyone could check if their family, friends, and loved ones were
unharmed. Facebook was visually flooded
with articles, memes, and #PrayersforParis.
There was even a French flag filter that you could apply to your profile
picture. Anne Barnard from the New York
Times pointed out that there was no Lebanese flag filter on Facebook. Why does the world play favorites with
countries?
Paris
is known for its art, culture, the Eiffel tower, fashion, an exquisite
language, and its history. This city is
more than two thousand years old! Middle
Eastern countries are older, but the global attention goes to the city with the
Louvre and the Arc de Triomphe. Moreover,
Paris was thought to be a peaceful nation that has been safe from warfare since
WWII. When Paris was attacked last week and
481 people were dead or injured, it was a shock to France, to Europe, and to
the world, because the city is perceived to be safe and who would want to bomb
and cause massacres in such a beautiful place?
The survivors of the Lebanon bombings just one day before perceived their
own attack to be a validation of an ever present fear for future violence.
In some
people’s eyes, Beirut is still considered an “active war zone,” and since
Hezbollah controls all security measures within Lebanon, the nation’s capital
has been labeled a “justifiable military target.” How would you like to live in a “justifiable
military target?” Because the Middle
East has a warlike climate, people don’t give the violence as much attention. Even if the funeral bombing in Baghdad
received the same level of coverage as Paris, people outside the Middle East
would just sigh and think, “Not again.”
Articles about all the attacks are
available, but the attention comes from how strongly the news is received. People reacted more to Paris, a beloved
vacation spot. Just one day before the
Paris attacks, 43 people died in Beirut.
Beyond the middle eastern region, people hardly batted an eye, let alone
shed a tear. When children’s lungs were
filling with fluid from the chlorine gassing in Syria, no memorial images went
viral on social media. The Western
hemisphere did not mourn the deaths of funeral goers in Baghdad. These countries are on the other side of the
planet! Though, France is across an
ocean for me – and millions more, and yet we all cared for Paris.
The apparent lack of grief for
Beirut, Baghdad, Syria, and countless assaults in the region once again gave
the Middle Eastern people the impression that Westerners think “Arab lives
matter less,” since carnage is normalized for them. This is not the first time these people have
felt this way, as I have learned from watching various documentaries on Middle
Eastern struggles. I have heard people
interviewed say about the United States, “They think our blood is worth less
than their blood.” The information about their pain, their wars, et cetera is out there,
but it’s not advertised as significant.
Maybe more people would feel sympathy if they were aware, and aware of
how important these people are, because they are human. We are all human, equally human.
On
Thursday, November 12, 2015, while Beirut was enduring infernal blasts,
Americans were still complaining about red cups not having “Merry Christmas” on
them! While Americans fight an imaginary
war on a Pagan holiday hijacked by Christianity centuries ago, Middle Eastern
people face real wars. Then on the fatal
Friday, when four gunmen stormed the Bataclan and some restaurant diners didn’t
even get a last meal, Americans dropped their wordless coffee cups, speechless. European eyes widened across their
continent. Even Australia knew what
happened. Distance didn’t matter. What mattered to ISIL was the reaction. They got the world’s attention in Paris, not
from Beirut.
2. Why did the
terrorists attack Paris?
The
nearly routine violence in the Middle East was not gaining the attention that
ISIL demanded. Attacking Paris achieved
global awareness. That is only one
reason why ISIL targeted the French capital.
The primary reason why ISIL attacked Paris
was to retaliate against President Hollande’s airstrikes in Syria. In the Bataclan, terrorists were yelling
about Hollande’s decision to target ISIL in Syria. One attacker told a captive, “It’s the fault
of Hollande. It’s the fault of your
president. He should not have intervened
in Syria.” In the video released the
next day, ISIL confirmed that their attacks were in response to the airstrikes
in Syria, and that France would remain the “key target” for future assaults
because of Hollande’s actions.
Another
cause for the Paris attacks was a strategic means of motivating Syrian refugees
to return to their homeland and be recruited into ISIL. With a fear rippling to other European
nations, it was plausible for their borders to reject refugees. The refugees would then have limited options
of where to go, and ISIL would then hope they would return and be
recruited. President Hollande would not
play into that fear, and not let more refugees come back as ISIL operatives. In the video, ISIL urged French Muslims to
relocate to IS territories before the European borders closed. Thus, ISIL was aware of border restrictions resulting
from their plot.
3. Why is the
United States accepting 10,000 Syrian refugees?
Although
this political issue became suddenly more important after the Paris attacks,
the discussion to allow 10,000 Syrian refugees into the US took place last
September. Senator Richard J. Durbin
(D-IL) urged President Barack Obama to admit 65,000 Syrian refugees, and Jeff
Sessions (R-AL) wanted the US to assist in taking them back to Syria. Originally, the US was going to accept 5,000,
but after enough arguments and pressure, Obama accepted 10,000 for the next
fiscal year. This year, we’ve had 1,800
Syrian refugees immigrate to the US. The
following chart shows the increase in admitting Syrian refugees per year. The table specifies how many. The data was taken from CNN.
The
chart answers half of the next Why question, but the answer to this question
is: The
United States wants to help those in need while screening them properly to maintain
national security. The US has been
accepting refugees since 1979; 110,000 Vietnamese. Only after 9-11 under the Bush
administration, the borders were more restricted.
4. Why are
Americans loving or phobic of Syrian refugees?
The cut
between American views is deep on the subject of Syrian refugees entering the
US. The right wing wants to keep them
out, and the left wing wants to welcome them.
Some people jump to the conclusions that all are good or all are
evil. Conservatives think there could be
a wolf in sheep’s clothing among them.
All it takes is one extremist to commit an act, and people could
suffer. Liberals recognize that the
attacks in Paris were akin to the struggles the Syrian refugees were fleeing
from. As Christmas approaches, and the
Christian Right puts up nativity scenes in their front yards, Left Wing types
point out the irony that Joseph and Mary were a Middle Eastern couple seeking
refuge, too.
The Right Wing’s Fears
President
Obama wants to accept 10,000 Syrian refugees into the United States. Going from 1,800 to 10,000 refugees
within a two year period is a steep jump.
After the Paris attacks, there
was no scrutiny or reconsideration in the resettlement plans for the incoming
Syrian refugees. Some could be potential
terrorists, ISIL sympathizers, or ISIL operatives who are sly enough to slip
in.
House Representative Peter T. King
(R-NY) said, “Our enemy now is Islam terrorism, and these people are coming
from a country filled with Islamic terrorists.
We don’t want another Boston Marathon bombing situation.”
One of the Paris terrorists had a
Syrian passport. It turned out to be
fake made in Turkey, but some conservatives don’t want to believe that. Fake passports are being sold on the black
market, not just to terrorists but also to Syrian refugees who could not get
registered as refugees. Documentation
was harder to acquire during Syrian conflicts.
The terrorist who obtained the fake passport in Leros, a Greek island,
used it as a good cover to navigate Europe and gain sympathy. If counterfeit passports are easy to acquire,
then how easy would it be for a potential terrorist or ISIL sympathizer to get
one? How do we distinguish a terrorist
from an innocent refugee who desperately needed a fake passport?
What angers conservatives is that
the screening process and accommodations for the Syrian refugees will cost
American tax dollars. Whether or not
they agree with their president’s decision, they will be forced to pay for
it. Syrian refugees get to enjoy hotels
at a level of quality they hadn’t known in their lives before, but American
veterans are still homeless, jobless, and ignored. For war-supporting conservatives who always chanted,
“Support our Troops,” neglecting veterans is a source of anger for them.
The Left Wing’s
Acceptance
Liberal
Americans want to be open, loving, and Christ-like in accepting the
refugees. Rejecting them is consistent
with the Right Wing’s prejudice against Hispanic immigrants in the sense that
being different equals danger. Liberals
see anyone rejecting of the refugees as cowards, which is echoed in various memes
and links on social media. Thanksgiving
is in a few days, and people are reminded that the Native Americans allowed the
white pilgrims to take refuge in America after an exhausting voyage. Christmas follows with the idea that
innkeepers turned away a Middle Eastern couple seeking refuge before giving
birth to Christ.
Immigration
into the United States is not immediate.
Every refugee will undergo an intense background and medical check,
which takes between 18-24 months. The
screening will be done by the National Counter Terrorism Center and the FBI
Terrorist Screening Center.
The
Left Wing does not see the refugees as potential terrorists. They
see them as people running from the terrorists. If they wanted to join ISIL, they would have
stayed in Syria. All they want is a
place to live.
©2015 Caroline Friehs
Originally
posted: November 24, 2015
Last updated upon blog renovation completion.
Last updated upon blog renovation completion.
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