Mastermind behind Paris attack is dead

tech30528 said:

Interesting that we have been bombing Syria for a year, and yet France finds all of the attackers and bombs ISIS HQ in the first couple of days. If we were really targeting ISIS, why was that HQ still there?

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I can think of various plausible reasons we would sit on a target instead of bombing it immediately. First is intelligence collection. We want to see who all comes and goes in order to identify even more targets. Second is we are expecting more high level targets to show up there and are waiting until we can get the most bang for our buck, so to speak. After the Paris bombing they probably figured the PR gained from going ahead and attacking outweighed any benefits they were hoping to get by waiting.

While those are possible reasons I have no idea if that was the case here.

OrphanSlug said:

If true, that is a frightening number.

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Even if it were only .1% it is a frightening number of Islamic extremist "masterminds" or team/cell leaders. It is astonishing to me that so many state that if we (non-Muslim majority nations) ignore it (and let the locals deal with "their" problem) it will eventually just go away. As you noted, even a small percentage of such a large group is a big problem.

tres borrachos said:

Good question.

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Guess who gave the French the locations of the targets they bombed. That's right. The U.S. That's a pretty clear indication that what Obama says and what Obama actually does are two entirely different things, and it's why I tired of hearing his BS a long, long time ago. The man is a liar on a very, very fundamental level.

MaggieD said:

Of course, you're right. I posted his photo to remind all of us that looks are deceiving. Looks like "the kid next door."

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So do almost all criminals and, for that matter, soldiers. What we must decide is whether terrorists are criminals or soldiers. In other words - do we continue to bring individuals to justice or declare war on nations that harbor large numbers of those that have declared war (Jihad?) on us?

donsutherland1 said:

I don't disagree. However, such an option wasn't available given what took place when the police launched their operation.

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No. Quite. I certainly wasn't making any point that the police had been heavy-handed. I think it was remarkable that given how heavily the jihadis were armed and how murderous their intent that so many of them should have survived at all. I'm sure they will give up quite a lot of useful intel.