Yesterday France suffered so many deaths that hundreds of left-behind relatives will mourn for years. Exact death toll figures aren't available yet and probably never will be available, but it's reasonable to estimate 200 deaths attributed to a single avoidable cause in a single day.
This tragedy demands decisive political action. The despicable individuals who committed this massacre should be identified and hunted down, finally hit with the full force of the law for killing so many people.
This tragedy demands decisive political action. The despicable individuals who committed this massacre should be identified and hunted down, finally hit with the full force of the law for killing so many people.
I doubt any of them ever will. Big tobacco managers seem to get away with any kind of mass killing.
"Tobacco is the primary cause of cancer and avoidable death in France, with 73 000 deaths per year, i.e. 200 deaths per day. These deaths represent 22 % of male mortality and 5 % of female mortality. "
(EU)
The French allow this to happen, waving the white flag of disinterest and no action while they get decimated by a poisoning campaign that's killing almost ten times as many Frenchmen as did poison gas in all of the First World War!
Maybe that's because irrational people easily get distracted by troubles that are minuscule by comparison.
On another note, the news media didn't even take notice of the aforementioned mass killing in France.
S O
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Satire or not, it is probably too soon. But of course you are right.
ReplyDeleteA crucial difference here in that everyone can decide for himself wether he wants to jeorpadize his health (passive smoking is being dealth with for good reason.)
DeleteYou are, of course, correct in that the number of victims is minuscule compared to everyday deaths...then again, the interesting part here is not that a hundred people died, but that there are people out there that want to kill people ("us") randomly, and would surely kill and have killed a lot more if not for the precautions taken against them.
It's actually questionable whether CT efforts or what's being called CT efforts are really saving many lives. Ordinary law enforcement and others appear to do much of the work, and unlike the GWOT they don't provoke additional errorism.
DeleteCertainly, meddling in foreign countries will motivate such attackers rather than stop them. Preventing this kind of attack requires surveillance of known or suspected extremists and action against smugglers and arms traders to deprive them of their tools. Now considering the uncontrolled masses of refugees in the balkans and the known availability of firearms there, these are basically impossible with the current resources. Just for example, a man traversing germany to paris with several ak rifles was discovered purely by chance.
DeleteI do admit though that this kind of attack *could* have happened at any time in the past decade and your distrust of any further measures would be entirely justified.
Smokers or base jumpers make a deliberate decision for a dangerous life-style and pay on avarage a high price for this decision. The victims of terror attacks like the yesterday's ones do not make this decision.
ReplyDeleteTherefore, neither the comparison nor the satire a really good IMHO.
Ulenspiegel
The factor of addiction and addiction-provoking additives largely nullifies the difference, and the difference doesn't quite matter in regard to the political objective of health policies anyway.
DeleteBesides, we do hunt down and arrest heroin dealers despite the heroin addict's "decision" to consume heroin, don't we?
In the end, a given budget of attention, political capital and taxpayer money can be allocated to achieve almost nothing against errorists or to save ten thousands of lives by going after Big Tobacco.
Our prioritisation sucks.
"Besides, we do hunt down and arrest heroin dealers despite the heroin addict's "decision" to consume heroin, don't we?"
ReplyDeleteYes, and this is to a largen extend stupid considering that damage done by alcoholism is accepted. A legalization of many drugs would IMHO solve some underlying issues.
A better argument on your side would be passive smoking or dead people caused by car accidents with drunken drivers.
Ulenspiegel
http://defense-and-freedom.blogspot.de/2013/11/dangerous-bus-drivers-yet-again.html
DeletePoint being, we don't allocate or attention to the big problems nearly as much as to relatively minuscule ones. That's a mistake that kills MANY of us.
Comparing this to big tobacco - unfuc!#*^ believeable.
ReplyDelete‘This tragedy demands decisive political action.’ On the diplomatic level… for sure.
ReplyDeleteThose errorists massacred a lot of ‘children’ (young or less young adults), students…
and killed themselves (they were brainwashed to do so).
Police and special units did their job (they can do only so much), army was present; and intelligence failed this time; or did they?
France is living on ‘alerte attentat’, the ‘black’ level just above the ‘red’ on the Homeland Security Advisory System color chart.
No matter the name of the perpetrators of this massacre (Daesh, x, y or z), politics/diplomats have failed (or were misled) in determining the threat at some echelon; then, transmit to the intel, and transmit to the police.
A lot of info are exchanged at formal and informal ‘diplomatic’ meetings/contacts (e.g. names, passports… of foreign fighters involved in a conflict).
Errorist attacks is one kind of info that is regularly exchanged through diplomatic channels. Sometimes it is paid for, one way or the other (ca$h, intel or arms deliveries).
January 2015: Charlie Hebdo attack;
November 2015: again Paris attack just a few meters away (Charlie Hebdo x10).
In between, there were recently Turkey, Egypt (Russian airplane), Lebanon… attacks.
Is it related to Syria?
I don’t know. France has a lot of intel and allies in that region, even among ‘~’ (murky waters) groups.
Over Syria’s skies there is already a broad coalition of Russian/NATO forces against ???.
On the ground, it is the same.
Tobacco, alcohol, Marijuana and prostitution (in Holland), over-eating, over-exercising and practicing extreme sports, even occasionally, even if the doctor says it is not good, are legal, in a free and democratic society. Even suicide is not always a crime.
Mustard gas of WWI produced a small percentage of death?
Had it been as extensively used as artillery shells and machine gun ammunitions, I would probably not be writing these words.
It was nasty enough, that poison gas were not used extensively as a weapon in WWII (zyklon B). Then, came white phosphorus, napalm and the atomic bomb.
Are there forces that try to destabilize France as a bicentennial Nation?
A Free and Democratic Nation?
It seems that Atlantic-Mediterranean countries (France and Spain), because of their strategic positions, are more exposed to such disintegration attacks.
Above the ‘black’ level of threat on any color chart, there is only the ‘total darkness’: all citizens living in a cage, like monkeys in a zoo (1984, George Orwell).
That is a ‘Revolution Point’.
If France has come to a point where it cannot even trust its allies, we have a problem.
ICI C’EST PARIS!