At least 120 people killed in violent Paris attacks

CBS News – Last Updated Nov 14, 2015 12:32 AM EST

PARIS — A series of unprecedented attacks on popular night spots killed at least 120 people in the deadliest violence to strike France since World War II, officials said. President Francois Hollande condemned it as a terrorist attack and pledged that France would stand firm against its foes.

The worst bloodshed was at a concert hall hosting an American rock band, where scores of people were held hostage and attackers hurled explosives at their captives. Police who stormed the building, killing three attackers, encountered a bloody scene of horror inside.

I just republished an article from the American Philosopher, published on 11-6-2012. It recounts the history of Islamic Fundamentalist attacks on the West, starting with the origins of the conflict with Abraham, Sarah and Hagar. The conflict is the oldest in human history and continues to this day.

The attacks in Paris serve to underscore several things that we need to understand if we are to find a solution to the conflict:

1. It continues unabated from the time of Abraham to this day.

2. It is global in nature, territorial in objective and violent beyond anything we have seen in history.

3. It does not respond to suggestion, discussion, treaty or compromise. It is unilateral in concept and cares nothing for the right of others to exist.

4. It does not honor opposing views, rights or understanding. It is determined to conquer and destroy in the wake of that determination.

5. It is not a religion as we have come to understand it. It is a geo-political franchise of power that has little if anything to do with the world of the spiritual. It exists in the secular world of power and conflict and has nothing to do with those tenants of faith, charity, love, peace and hope. It is as far removed from our usual concepts of religion as water is from oil.

6. It is not a nation-state as we have come to understand political structures. It is a state without boundaries, a movement without a standing army, so to speak, and a cause without reason. Reason is the ability to consider all facts from all sources and to make a judgement decision based on those facts. This radical cause rejects facts or any input, clinging to centuries old passions and anger as the fuel for violence and destruction. Until we rethink our categories of Islam Radicalism as a religious faith, we will miss the point and continue the conflict without a defense.

7. This is guerilla warfare at its worst, or finest, depending on your perspective. It has little visual organizational structure. The adherents are free to pursue the goals without meeting, formation into military units or any of the usual structures of an army attached and administered by a nation.

8. We are powerless to stop it as long as we reject any connection between the historical profile of violence and its continued attacks. As long as we are committed to dealing with it as an enemy army or as a religious philosophy to be argued, we lose.

The size and scope of this challenge, this war, will need someone strong enough to rethink our historic view of warfare, or the sovereign nation-state and of violence in general.

Let us hope that leader is on the horizon – soon!