Behind the editorial: Our email thread on Paris attack

Usually the editorial board meets each morning to discuss, argue and wrestle our way to a consensus opinion. When we left office on Friday night, Michael Dobie, Randi F. Marshall and Mark Chiusano had already written blogs about the terrorist attacks in Paris.

We knew that we would have to tear up our planned editorials, cartoons and op-eds scheduled for Sunday. But it was too early to know exactly what we would say. Our discussion started Friday night and continued into mid-day Saturday. Michael Dobie wrote the editorial, incorporating all our points of view. He emailed it to the entire board to make sure we agreed with his distillation of our varying views.

Then our publisher, Gordon McLeod, challenged us to put the email string online to give readers a better understanding of how the board works. So we did. Please continue our conversation with your thoughts on what views should be considered. Thank you. -- Rita Ciolli, Editorial page editor

Lane Filler, 11:08 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 13
I think we need to be very careful how we handle Paris ... particularly in light of the fact that there is NOTHING unusual about 100 people being killed by terrorists ... It's a weekly, even more common than weekly occurrence worldwide. This is shocking because the dead are mostly white ... European ... living in a type of city and lifestyle we can relate to. I just think whatever we do needs to acknowledge ... how often we don't acknowledge or even blink at similar occurrences ... Need to be as honest as possible. Thanks.
 
Matt Davies, 6:48 a.m. on Saturday, Nov. 14
Lane, I share that same unease. We're shielded in the west (though in the U.S. our daily firearms toll is similar). Once the sheer shock of what happened in Paris has been processed, there will be a lot to talk about. People expect bloody carnage in Iraq or Beirut, where 48 were killed by suicide bomber on Thursday, but not in "our" cities.
 
I'll try to tackle that feeling in visual form a bit later in the week, when people are more likely to want to listen. Today ... something a little more quiet.

Rita Ciolli, 9:37 a.m.
Randi updated her blog of last night to get us started. The response to the attack is still the main thrust. We should focus the young victims and this particular part of Paris --- and we do not need to articulate a specific policy prescriptive. But we do need to layer on the ISIS angle --- the manifesto below is quite chilling and the West's engagement in Syria.
Please send along your thoughts and perhaps we can get this going sooner rather than later in the day.
Christopher Anzalone (@IbnSiqilli) 11/14/15, 7:39 AM
Islamic State communiqués (Arabic, French, Russian, & English versions) regarding yesterday's attacks in Paris: pic.twitter.com/cv0VYxQE7V
 
Eli Reyes, 9:58 a.m.
Think we need both: lament and the more meat on the bone: this is Isis truly going global in a big way. Charlie Hebdo was bloody, deadly, but the specific targets, the coordination and execution of Friday's attack demonstrate a level of sophistication and dedication not yet really seen outside of the conflict region, if you will.
 
Some on social media are already saying that France should stop taking on refugees, and now French authorities have taken steps to prevent attacks against refugees/Muslim communities. IMHO, adding or withdrawing troops in Syria/Iraq, again as some have suggested on social media, won't impact this new paradigm.  (I remember something about Isis sending some of its fighters along to blend with refugees heading to Europe.) Convoluted/complex, multi-layered problem.
 
Of course, this story may go in a different direction in a few hours.
 
Michael Dobie, 10:02 a.m.
Our blogs yesterday clearly are a good start. Randi's is very good. The emotion is still strong and should be front and center. I like a lot of what you both wrote this morning in terms of direction. Don't know how deeply we want to go into how many of these things but:
 
There's still a lot we don't know, and we don't need to know to make this work. Eight are dead, but how many more were involved in the planning and execution. How developed is the network from which this horror springs? The unease is chilling.
 
French police are searching for perpetrators and trying to determine the logistics of how this happened but Hollande has stated bluntly and correctly that his nation is at war. Where does that lead the French, and the U.S., and other Western nations? There is a growing consensus that these kinds of attacks will not stop until ISIS is defeated and that ISIS cannot be defeated by air attacks alone. It must involve ground troops. But whose? And how many? It feels like this is a point of change, but the will of nations is fickle and unpredictable.
 
Tom Ridge apocalyptically said the barbarians are no longer at the gate, they're inside the gates. And the Pope labeled the  attacks part of the Third World War. Clearly, there is distress all over the world.
 
Already, we're hearing calls from people like Huckabee to close our borders to keep "those people" out -- not understanding that so many of those fleeing are fleeing exactly this kind of terror. Calls for closing what have been open borders across Europe are growing. And ISIS succeeds in sewing chaos.
 
And we never talked about tonight's Democratic debate, but this is sure to be a topic.
 
Rita Ciolli, 10:08 a.m.
This is the right direction. I think we need to be clear and strong without worrying about being comprehensive. I would leave out the domestic politics, and the refugee issues for now. That could go into a Monday edit..... We need to reflect the fear and worries about  what this means now, read the ISIS statement which references the Crusades and the cross.. and the need to bring down the West. Whether their goal is to get  us out of Syria or create a world caliphate, their tactics must be confronted

Mark Chiusano, 11:04 a.m.
I think Lane's point is important, terrible and shocking as this feels. One measured way to do it might be to say that events like these remind us of the dangers present every day in other parts of the world, places that people are actively fleeing. It's simplistic but there should be a way to condemn attacks like these in "our" cities and elsewhere at the same time.

Lane Filler, 11:12 a.m.
I think we have to reflect the conflicted nature of this...that we are so horrified by the attacks in Paris emotionally, yet we understand on a universal level that these lives are not more valuable than those of the civilians killed by France in Syria, or Algeria, or Vietnam, or the civilians killed by the US in Iraq (70,000 is the lowest possible estimate) or Syria or a Doctors Without Borders hospital that gel absolutely no weapons, where we killed 30 people in direct disregard of the Geneva Convention.
 
This is a war...it has been constructed by both sides in such a way that there are no "true" civilians.
 
We are nearing the point where the only meaningful issue will be security, our desire to triumph in this conflict, and not the niceties of who was a little bit righter or wronged this time.
 
And we may have to simply take the open eyed stance that we are utterly devoted to triumphing, no matter what the cost, understanding there will be atrocities committed in both sides, because the charge of the military and security apparatus of our and our allies is to protect and safeguard us, not to seek some type of justice or morality that becoming hard to define and impossible to achieve, IMHO.
 
Larry Striegel, 11:25 a.m.
I agree with Lane's suggestion that we give the attacks perspective in terms of lamenting human lives lost in this new normal. And I think he's right about the role of the military in providing security, but not a moral solution. The tougher solution in my mind -- tolerance, democratic ideals and justice -- are the greater goals worth seeking.
 
Anne Michaud, 11:25 a.m.
I like Mark's formulation. Lane, I disagree that we (or France or Russia) are killing Shiite pilgrims in Baghdad.
 
Rita Ciolli, 11:33 a.m.
Like Anne, I think it would be a mistake to say that all of these recent terrorist events are the same. The actors and the motivations are very different. But I do like Mark's point that all lives are equal. I don't know how New Yorkers would have better understanding now, after Paris since we still remember 9/11.