Here we go, indeed. The French people I have talked to are very anxious about their very Francophile identity and culture getting irreversably diluted.

Juan Cole has a worthy post at The Nation which theorizes that the intent of the horrible attacks was exactly to force the French government to crack-down on Muslims and thereby to reinvigorate, and possibly radicalize, the substantial and mostly secularized Muslim population there. If so, then these sorts of "War on..." approaches are exactly what the Terrorists were hoping for.

@2: It doesn't have reading comprehension!
Seattleblues, you ignorant son of a sow, it is time to rack your brains for all that your college degree has left you with and actually read what is written. The 9/11 attacks are not being compared in this article to the Charlie Hebdo/kosher market attacks; rather, the respective authorities' RESPONSES are being compared.
Next time you want to critique someone's writing, try reading it first. I can't understand how someone as monumentally thickheaded as you manages to work a computer.

So France is going to bomb Greenpeace again.

He finds a value to secularism? Holy smokes! I see the concern.

@4

Oh good! Kid VL has something stupid to say! Children like you make me wonder what's become of higher education, little fella.

See, a worthwhile education would have given the little guy some help here. The actual policy of more than a decade and spanning presidencies of both parties is a tiny bit more weighty than political pronouncements in the wake of tragedy. Which you'd understand if you'd had a good education...

@4

Fyi- calling my mother a pig is vulgar and pointless. I get that you're a callow boy with little experience and less intuitive understanding of the world. But try insulting someones mother over politics in some Chicago bar and you'll see what I mean, kiddo.

@8

Maybe he'll do that after you've vocalized your views on gays inside a Castro District leather bar first. Tell us how that goes when you have done it.

@7: I like how when you get BTFO for commenting without reading, your response is to raise a completely different issue and pretend it's what we were talking about all along. Allow me to summarize:

You: Brendan Kiley is wrong to compare 9/11 and the Charlie Hebdo attack, because many more people died in the first than in the other and it is therefore a more terrible tragedy.
Me: Brendan Kiley wasn't comparing the attacks; he was comparing the governments' responses to the attacks.
You: But it's been over a decade since the 9/11 attacks and the Charlie Hebdo attacks were just now!

REALLY, DID YOU THINK NOBODY WOULD NOTICE THE ABRUPT CHANGE OF SUBJECT? You give the Rabbi of Chelm a run for his money!
Also, you insult the victims of 9/11 by saying that only 2500 died, when there were actually 2977 victims. Whatever happened to "never forget"?

@8: What makes you think I discuss politics in bars? I only DRINK with people that I LIKE, and I wouldn't even have a Keystone with the likes of you. Also, what seatackled said in post #9? DO IT FAGGOT.

One can always depend on Subhumanblues to double down on the stupid.

@9
There's some chance an ignorant kid would spout his ignorance in a neighborhood watering hole. There's no chance I'll ever drink in a fag bar.

@10
Oh geez. Try to follow this, boy. In no set of particulars, from political response to severity of incident, are 911 and a murder spree comparable. A real reporter would never have made that claim.
More yhan that, had a conservative insinuated the comparison as Kiley did, you and your fellows of the weak minded left would have jumped all over him or her.

Clear enough, chucklehead?

@11

You drink Keystone? Can't say I'm surprised.

@9

What views? That adults willing to accept consequences ought to be allowed lifestyle choices? Yep. Pretty inflammatory. Or that violence against people on the basis of homosexual lifestyles is never excusable?

See, pal, my objections aren't based on your mental illness but on your insistence that others treat your sickness as health. Want to practice an unhealthy sexuality with consenting adults? Not my business. Want to destroy marriage and family and healthy sexuality just because you don't wish tem in your life? Yeah, that's a problem.

@14: THE WHOLE POINT THAT I MADE, YOU NINNY-HAMMER, IS THAT MR. KILEY DID NOT IN FACT MAKE ANY COMPARISON BETWEEN THE TWO. Read on closely, for I shall tell you things of great wonder and middling importance!

The 9/11 attacks and the Charlie Hebdo attacks were on completely different scales, both in terms of planning and in terms of death toll. The RESPONSES to those attacks, however, had strong elements in common! In both cases, the relevant authorities declared a War on Terror (or similar) and enacted emergency measures to prevent repeat attacks, all the while facing questions about how the perpetrators had, being known to intelligence agencies, been able to stage such an attack undetected. While only time will tell if France goes on to invade two countries in retaliation despite only one of them having anything to do with the attacks, the response to the Charlie Hebdo attacks thus far has been quite similar to the wake of 9/11/01.

Here's another example: US-South Korea joint military exercises and the Russian invasion of Crimea. While those two events are as different as chalk and cheese, the RESPONSES to them were similar. When America and South Korea engaged in joint military exercises, North Korea called it a warlike provocation and threatened dire consequences (because North Korea is psycho nuts). When Russia sent shock troops and irregular forces into Ukraine to seize and annex part of its neighbor in flagrant violation of international law, NATO members and others called it a warlike provocation and threatened dire consequences.
See, two events can be completely different and yet be responded to in similar ways! Do you understand?

Get rekt.

@15: *headdesk* No, I don't drink Keystone. I said explicitly, in no uncertain terms, that I would NOT drink a Keystone with you. How did you interpret that to mean I drink Keystone?
(The joke, of course, is that I only drink with people I like, and Keystone is barely beer, and so I'd only drink Keystone with people I barely like. I guess that one got past ya.)

@17
Repeating a silly contention with more words doesn't make it less silly.

And write in English if you expect to be understood. Not speaking post adolescent hipster I haven't any idea what getting rekt would involve.

You're apology to my mother is accepte... Oh. You don't have the basic social graces to have made it, do you?

@18

Have a nice day boy. I'm headed to a party to watch the Hawks take the next step to repeating a Superbowl win. Enjoy watching your Bears- oh right, they're nowhere near that good.

@17: I'd be more worried about the mean things I've said to you if you weren't so cavalier about all the patently offensive opinions about gays you insist on passing off as fact in the face of all evidence.
So, what exactly makes you say that the response to 9/11 isn't comparable to the response to Charlie Hebdo? Apart from the difference in scale of the attacks, what exactly makes the initial government responses so damn different from each other? You're just saying that they're different and can't be compared, but you're not giving any reasons why other than that more people died in 9/11. Mr. Kiley actually explained the similarities.

@20: Seahawks: 39 seasons, 1 championship.
Bears: 94 seasons, 9 championships.
LOL

my, this thread devolved quickly.

@22

Probably because Seattleblues was able to wake up before noon today.

What was that awful noise I heard some months ago? Kind of like buildings crashing.

Oh yes -- that was the sound of marriage and families being destroyed!

Like a typical partisan, Seattleblues sees flaws where none exist. Your politics are one thing, but twisting words into things they are not is a whole other thing.
Just reading this thread made me forget what the whole post was even about.
Oh, that's right, France's president said some words and claimed he was going to do something.

Noting that the French Prime Minister is does not support legalizing marijuana is quite tangential considering Islamic law forbids intoxicants, and could conceivably get one beheaded.

@22 Every thread has become the same 5 or 6 motherfuckers just yelling at each other.

@26
Whereas in America, children have been encouraged to turn their parents over to the state for prosecution if they use intoxicants.

@29: I definitely see a lot of the xenophobia (and associated societal problems) in France today as a failure to learn from the whole Algeria thing.

#27 - quick rule of thumb: if a post has over 20 comments, it means seattleblues has posted and he and venomlash are yelling at each other. Get a room already, you two! Can't you see you're in love???

Seattle blues: your mothers a fat whore, @17 don't move to my home town and talk shit about the seahawks and then root for the fucking shitbears!

@26,

Imbibing intoxicants is not a death penalty offense even under the strictest regimes.

18 months of jail for helping terrorists is ridiculous. The US justice might have it's fault, but at least they don't give a slap on the wrist of terrorists.

Arguing with #2 is like voting for a republican. Totally a waste of time.

@20 What's this about you drinking yourself silly on Keystone? Oh, I forgot, you live in South Park...... Sorry

@39
Your prejudice against people in South Park is awesome. Long live Xenophobia!

@32: Or you could say...

Breaking: US President Barack Obama declares unconditional American surrender and capitulation in war on radical christianity.

@42: How many Keystones have you had today? GermanSausage was making a joke about France's immediate surrender to the Nazis in WWII. I can't figure out what the hell you're going on about.

@43: No, I believe he was making a joke by mocking the "hype" of the "war" on "militant Islam" - to which my similar joke in @42 is far more apt, and thus an appropriate retort.

Simple solution for France.Withdraw from the EU.Close its borders.Go back to passports and visas.Those in the country who are not French citizens can go to Germany.Its kinda like here with our 51st state to the south.

@44: ...OK. Well, you attempted to explain it. I appreciate the effort, I suppose.

@46 I think Phoebe is trying to point out that there is no difference between bat shit crazy whether it be Islamic or Christian. A conclusion perfectly consistent with a mainstream Protestant Eisenhower Republican. Except she didn't quite get there. Not sure why she didn't make it she often does.

@43 so, making a stupid right wing joke about the french is less worthy of comment than what Phoebe said?

@49 "French cowardice"?

Are your nutjob colors finally poking through?

Fundamentalists want to put a full veil on their women, are the French aren't giving it to them? No, you are.

@50: There's a long-standing stereotype, true or not, that the French surrender easily. THAT'S THE JOKE.
Banning women from wearing the veil is just as bad as forcing them to wear it.

@51 I don't know how any progressive could consider it a joke after the way it was used by warmongers in 2003 or previously for that matter. I mean, beside the callousness that the "joke" implies toward a nation at the crossroad of migratory fluxes in Europe.

The full veil law was implemented by the right wing to pander to National Front supporters when circumstances didn't warrant it. Yet, to ignore that women can be forced into becoming 2nd class citizens in your neighborhood doesn't make the problem go away.