Hacker News Reader

Comment by _petronius | Hacker News Reader

Except that we already know that some (if not most) of the attackers in France were French nationals, so that argument doesn't really hold up.

I also think it is alienating (and rather offensive, to be terribly blunt) of you to argue that "they are used to violence" as if that means it somehow affects the population of cities like Beirut, the sense of loss felt by the families of victims, or any of the other human emotional elements.

Beirut is as much a large, cosmopolitan, vibrant city as any in Europe. It is no war zone. And it would do everyone good to remember that the very real and visceral trauma that the Paris attacks constitute is something many people feel on a weekly (or more frequent) basis, and that doesn't diminish the subjective horror of it.

View on HN

I don't think you understand what drives the violence in Lebanon. It isn't a handful of radical citizens. It is national level political parties that draw strong support from the population. If you can find any French political party or ruling faction that had a hand in the attacks then I would agree with you but I doubt that is the case.

I'm also not arguing that they are used to violence there for it is alright. I'm saying that they support violence or at least the use of it by their politicians to achieve their political goals there for they get what they promote.

I think you're shifting your argument, but whatever: the horror of fearing you might die walking to the supermarket every time you do it isn't any less palpable just because the structures that incentivize the violence are different.

All this article is trying to get people to recognize is that a) the Paris attacks are awful, but b) as awful as that is, remember that this kind of horror is a more constant occurrence for many people, and that we should reflect on that more often as we participate in the politics of our own countries.

> If you can find any French political party or ruling faction that had a hand in the attacks then I would agree with you but I doubt that is the case.

You know, I'm not sure that the far-right nationalist racists like the Front National, or the ban on the burqa, or the other efforts at systematic alienation of France's minorities don't play a roll in all of this. People don't open fire into crowds they feel they have friends in, or attack societies they feel they are a part of, and Europe's attitude that assimilation is a one-way street, and the casual racism of many people here doesn't exactly create a welcoming atmosphere, either for recent immigrants or second- and third-generation ones.

Firstly, these attacks were not perpetrated by any national level political party. Your line of thought, as the article puts it, portrays "a busy civilian, residential and commercial district as a justifiable military target."

However, the more important point is that it is always a radical fringe. Saying it is otherwise is terribly offensive and suggests a fundamental lack of understanding.

I haven't looked into this specific incident but historically an example is Hezbollah who participates in the Lebanese government and is known to have supported any number of similar incidents in the past. They are a national level political party in Lebanon, and while radical by American standards I'm skeptical they are viewed as "fringe" in Lebanon.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Lebanon#Cedar_Revol...

This incident has been linked to ISIS, so none of that is especially relevant in this context.

It's relevant to why people don't bat an eye when yet another thing explodes in Lebanon. Even if this time was different in the details.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com