Make CSI , not WW III;
Crimes, not acts of war
By Terry Maguire[1]
Nice, France – November 14, 2015 – We can be pretty sure this
morning that the deaths last night at several locations in Paris, the capital
of this country, were cold-blooded murders. The images that have been broadcast
and otherwise published leave little doubt.
The front page of Nice-Matin, the
city’s newspaper, this morning.
Beyond that,
we do not know – with certainty – much more.
This hand-drawn symbol emerged on
onine overnight.
That’s part
of why I think we need to take a quick, but deep, breath, and ask ourselves,
and our governments, whether the response should be to wage war or whether we
need the very best investigations of these presumed crimes in order to bring
the surviving perpetrators to the bar of justice. Some in France, notably
former French President Nicolas SARKOZY, have already concluded that we are at
war with the people he and others feel are responsible for these acts.
The French
government has spoken through its President, Prime Minister and the director of
law enforcement, announcing a vague state of emergency and new border
restrictions, while they also try to calm the understandably frazzled nerves of
so many people in what the French call their five-sided country. Others are
looking to one online posting, purportedly coming from the group known by so many
names including the “Islamic State” claiming responsibility, then assuming at
first blush its authenticity.
Meanwhile, I
sense that many people living in other parts of France, untouched directly by
last night’s incidents, are afraid. And I wondered as I walked the streets of
Nice this morning, what each person was thinking. I saw no one who looked
afraid, but I have no idea what may have been in their heads. That was
particularly true when I passed several veiled women and some men who may very
well have been Muslim. Were they more worried about the glances from the rest
of us than about the attacks?
All of this
comes at a particularly difficult time for France, as French voters prepare to
go to the polls next month to select a group of leaders for regions in France. (Imagine
that the US states were grouped into 5 regions of 10 states each; those are the
“regions” electing leaders here.) The contest for the region in which Nice
finds itself is particularly close and pertinent.
The party of
SARKOZY has picked the Mayor of Nice who is an attractive rags-to-riches, motor
cycle-riding and marathon-running candidate. His toughest opponent is the
attractive granddaughter of the founder of the legendary extreme right party,
called the National Front. It’s as though we are watching a US Republican
candidate run against a Tea Party leader.
Immigration
is a major issue in the campaign and I expect to see both candidates use last
night’s tragedy to convince us voters that he/she is the better qualified to
protect “us” from “them”. The “Liberté, Egalite, Fraternité” mentioned by President OBAMA last
night will get a run for its money in coming weeks. Don’t count on the campaign
to result in talk of the values of diversity, inclusion, or fairness.
In such a
tense environment, I think we need to look at last night as a series of heinous
criminal acts that demand the most professional investigation that French,
foreign and international law enforcement can muster. We have suffered awful acts
by people dead and alive this morning, who need to be found and/or
investigated. Those at large need to be captured. Those who died last night
need to be understood, if we can. And for any and all who may have aided the
assailants in preparing these attacks, we need to find them, too, and subject
them to fair and intense questioning, at a minimum.
This is the
very best way for us all to encourage our governments to act, and the way in
which we can do the most to avoid more atrocities.
If we allow
ourselves to view this as “war”, we risk scaring ourselves to death, and, more
significantly, we risk trampling over the rights and lives of so many so
unnecessarily. Instead, we should be cooperating with law enforcement in their
work, volunteering anything and everything that might be of value to them that
we might have seen or know. A “war” focus for the response will lead us to view
the problem as vaguely “foreign” and large populations of people as the
“enemies”.
I hope that
others will agree with me on this, and that we can do what we should have done
14 years ago when the US suffered such horrific attacks – respond to last
night’s atrocities with the professionalism, fairness, and thoroughness that I
know lies within the criminal justice systems of the French Republic and the
United States of America.
Please don’t
retreat from these values; we will be safer and better if we work to make them
even stronger and more effective in protecting all people from criminal acts.
The French and Nice flags at half-mast
this morning in the Nice Port.
-30-
[1]
Terry Maguire is a Washington, DC lawyer, former newspaper association
executive and international media consultant; he lives in Nice and in Chapel
Hill, and is a US and European citizen.
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