Contradictions

First thing Wednesday morning of a long day's news: report of a massacre in Paris, at the office of the comic magazine firebombed in 2011, after publishing "Prophet Mohammed" cartoons.

Juan Cole sees those responsible as aiming to "'sharpen the contradictions'" between Muslims and the rest of French society—

Al-Qaeda wants to mentally colonize French Muslims, but faces a wall of disinterest. But if it can get non-Muslim French to be beastly to ethnic Muslims on the grounds that they are Muslims, it can start creating a common political identity around grievance against discrimination.
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The operatives who carried out this attack exhibit signs of professional training. …they certainly know that they are playing into the hands of Marine LePen and the Islamophobic French Right wing. They may have been French, but they appear to have been battle hardened. This horrific murder was not a pious protest against the defamation of a religious icon. It was an attempt to provoke European society into pogroms against French Muslims, at which point al-Qaeda recruitment would suddenly exhibit some successes instead of faltering in the face of lively Beur youth culture (French Arabs playfully call themselves by this … term deriving from wordplay involving scrambling of letters). Ironically, there are reports that one of the two policemen they killed was a Muslim.
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...an insular and hateful minority will take advantage of this deliberately polarizing atrocity to push their own agenda. Europe’s future depends on whether the Marine LePens are allowed to become mainstream. Extremism thrives on other people’s extremism, and is inexorably defeated by tolerance.

Digby noted this little maneuver—

Unfortunately, I made the mistake of tuning in to Fox News a few minutes ago to watch them all eating croissants and marching around the table singing "La Marseillaise". Ok, maybe I'm exaggerating. But they do seem to have rather suddenly become Francophiles which is ironic to say the least. I couldn't help but recall this National Review article by neocon Michael Ledeen...

Fox felt more sudden love for the French, as hostages were taken in a kosher market.

Same day as the Chalie Hebdo attack in Paris, the attempted bombing of the Colorado Springs NAACP office seems to be a national non-story; Charles Pierce—

Somehow, another attempted terrorist attack has gone largely unnoticed. It is very strange how this happens sometimes.

Agents from the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives went to the scene after the blast to gather evidence and place markers. The FBI said that a gasoline can was placed next to the device but the contents did not ignite. According to the the FBI, officials are seeking a "potential person of interest," described as a balding white male, about 40 years old. "He may be driving a 2000 or older model dirty, white pick-up truck with paneling, a dark colored bed liner, open tailgate, and a missing or covered license plate," the FBI said in a statement said.

I think local and federal law enforcement immediately should begin profiling every man in Colorado matching this description.

When the carnage in Paris finally ended [date 9th?} Pierce observed—

One encouraging part of the French response to this incident is the fact that it was conducted primarily as a police action. A vigorous one, granted. A militarized one, certainly. But, at least from my vantage point, the murderers were treated as criminals. They were identified as criminals, hunted as criminals, and ultimately discovered through the basic techniques of criminal investigation. Except over here, they weren't treated as super-villains with dark magical powers. They were gunmen -- and one gunwoman -- who shot up places and killed people. Their crimes were their only cause. Now they are dead. Their crime spree is over. It ended the same way crime sprees ended for Bonnie and Clyde, and John Dillinger. And it's time for people to calm down again. But I suspect that won't happen, at least not here.