The Attack in Nice, France
W.J. Astore
In Nice, France, 84 people were killed by a maniac who drove a truck into a crowd on Bastille Day (French Independence Day). The driver, identified as Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel, was a French-Tunisian with a criminal record but with no known terrorist links.
Much remains unknown about this attack. Was the driver acting alone? Was he "radicalized," killing for a political/religious purpose? Was he working with a terrorist sect, or perhaps he sympathized with one? We should be careful not to jump to conclusions.
I want to make one rather obvious point: It's easy to politicize such horrendous attacks. It's easy to say things like: "It's all the fault of radical Islam! The West is at war with radical Islam! Muslim immigrants are to blame!" And so on. Before reaching any conclusions, let's gather all the evidence.
There's a natural tendency to resort to the rhetoric of warfare here. Politicians are especially prone to this. And if you don't agree with them, they dismiss you as naive or delusional -- or worse.
The problem with warfare rhetoric is that it answers questions before they're even asked. It imposes solutions before you even fully understand the problem. For example, if it's a "war," the inevitable solution is more militarization. More surveillance. More police. More weapons. Perhaps more military strikes as well.
But what if more military strikes actually aggravate the problem? What if more police, more surveillance, more raids combine to abridge the freedoms that France fought for, the very freedoms which the French celebrate each year on Bastille Day?
Liberty, equality, and fraternity are noble goals. They need always to be nourished and protected, not just from terrorists and other criminals, but from those in authority who may overreact in the name of protecting the people.