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Why the Paris terror attacks demonstrate the weakness, not strength, of ISIS
Bill Tieleman’s 24 Hours
Vancouver / The Tyee
column
Tuesday November
17, 2015
By Bill Tieleman
"A walk
about Paris will provide lessons in history, beauty, and in the point of
life."
- Thomas
Jefferson, third U.S. president, 1743-1826
The Paris
terrorists will never win.
Their attack on
unarmed civilians in one of the world's most visited cities illustrates their
weakness, not their strength.
The Islamic State
of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) has claimed responsibility for killing 129 people and
wounding 352 in six coordinated attacks.
ISIS got what it
wanted through this slaughter -- to instantly dominate the news, sparking
enormous concern among people around the world.
I understand that
because I have family living in Paris -- my cousin, his wife and daughter --
all thankfully safe, though they live near the site of several attacks, the
Place de la Republique.
But
indiscriminately murdering innocent people in restaurants, clubs and concert
halls before killing themselves with suicide bombs demonstrates the terrorists'
inability to win in Iraq, Syria and the Middle East or anywhere else.
They cannot succeed
militarily, so they resort to cowardly attacks on "soft targets" --
civilians -- in foreign countries where the very liberty ISIS denies in the
small areas it controls in the Middle East makes such massacres possible.
The Paris attacks
are sadly echoed by the earlier deadly assaults on the magazine Charlie Hebdo
and other sites in that city in January.
But terrorists
have used the same approach for centuries, particularly in the recent past.
The infamous
Sept. 11, 2001 New York airliner hijackings, the 2002 Bali hotel bombing, the
2004 Madrid train station bombing, and countless others -- all unconscionable
massacres.
And yet, have
they changed the course of history in the way al-Qaida, ISIS or other
terrorists hoped? No.
'Should we fear
it? No'
Last week before
the Paris attacks, Canada's new Liberal Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan
commented about ISIS, with the worst possible timing.
"ISIS is a
threat, no doubt about that. Should we fear it? No," said Sajjan,
a former army lieutenant-colonel who served in Afghanistan. "The Canadian
population should have full confidence in all the security services to keep us
safe."
Sajjan is quite
correct -- ISIS is a threat, once again exhibiting the same ruthless brutality
it used to parade foreign hostages in front of cameras and later behead them.
And Sajjan is
also right that we should not fear it.
ISIS's goal with
these attacks is simple -- gain global publicity in order to
"terrorize" the public and presumably force governments to leave it
alone.
While people are
horrified, the terror hasn't worked to win its broader goals, nor will it.
ISIS and other
terrorist have additional goals: to damage the global economy; to devastate
tourism and travel around the world; and to stop aid to refugees fleeing from
terror in Syria and Iraq.
And ISIS is
fundamentally opposed to the basic tenets of democracy.
In addition to
committing barbaric acts of murder, it has blown up historic sites of antiquity
that have value to the entire world, such as the destruction of
the ancient Temple of Baalshamin in Palmyra, Syria, in August.
Similarly, in the
alleged ISIS claim of responsibility for the Paris massacres, the group says
the city was targeted because it is a "capital of prostitution and
obscenity."
As a regular
visitor to Paris, such views are both absurd and offensive. Paris has long been
a beacon of civilization, tolerance and culture.
As the late
actress Audrey Hepburn said: "Paris is always a good idea."
Keep on
travelling
That's why those
who value democracy, liberty and freedom around the world must not let ISIS
succeed.
Canada's
humanitarian effort to help 25,000 Syrian refugees find a better life here must
not become another victim of terrorism.
Yes, we must take
all appropriate security measures to ensure only legitimate refugees are
admitted, as we should with anyone coming to Canada.
But we must not
let terrorists frighten us into failing to do the right thing.
Early reports that
one of the terrorists had a Syrian refugee passport should not be taken as
gospel truth -- the facts will come out in the full investigation, and the
trade in stolen and fake passports is enormous.
What's more,
remember that those Syrian refugees are the victims of ISIS, not its
supporters.
Aaron Zelin, an
analyst of jihad, made this central point in response to the fear of some
refugees being future terrorists.
"For those
who want to blame the attacks on Paris on refugees, you might want to get your
facts straight. The reality is, (ISIS) loathes that individuals are fleeing
Syria for Europe. It undermines (ISIS's) message that its self-styled caliphate
is a refuge," Zelin wrote.
And we must
personally not allow ISIS to stop us from seeing the world and its wealth of
different cultures.
Add to what
Jefferson said above these words from
the great American travel guide Rick
Steves: "We owe it to the victims of
this act not to let the terrorist win by being terrorized.
That's exactly the
response they are hoping for... keep on travelling."
Exactly. Je
suis Paris.
.
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