In the aftermath of the dreadful event there is much to be done. The injured have to be nursed, the bereaved consoled and supported, the emergency services thanked for undoubted acts of heroism and the investigating authorities have to pursue all leads to neutralise any remaining risk from other members of this terror unit. Also questions must now be asked.
This is the third major terror attack in France this year. The second, the planned indiscriminate shooting of passengers on an express train failed because of the extraordinary intervention of young American tourists with military training aided by an ex-pat Brit. Each time the perpetrators are known to the police and intelligence services, but somehow are not subject to any preventive action. Their details are recorded but it seems to end there. Clearly this will not do and a rapid rebooting of the security model in force is required.
Then we must turn to our modern generation of politicians who seem to imagine that it is possible to engage in armed warfare, mostly air strikes against a designated enemy, without any hit back being either possible or justified. This is muddled and dangerous thinking and very misleading to the public, who are also voters.
I come from the generation which remembers World War Two not as a military participant, but as a child civilian. I recall what it was like to be beneath falling bombs, caught out in the open exposed to strafing enemy fighters, being taught my times tables in the school cellar as the flying bombs, Hitler’s V weapons, stuttered and crashed down on the neighbourhood above, standing for morning prayers in an assembly room without windows and a floor covered in splintered glass and casually wondering as I left home in the morning for school, whether it would be there when I returned later in the day.
Everybody coped and remained steadfast and calm, because they knew it was war and they were a legitimate target. They knew also that whatever was done to us we would do in return. They destroyed our Coventry and killed nearly 500 hundred innocent civilians, we destroyed a good part of their Hamburg and killed nearly 50,000 of theirs. Moreover they knew, their politicians knew, their military knew, yes everyone knew that the price you paid for going to modern war was that you became a target in so doing, and you put your life and those of your loved ones on the line 24/7. But the price was judged worth paying because the war had a purpose, a plan, a strategy and an aim with a goal which could be achieved. The reward would be a better safer world. But now it is quite different.
None of the politicians who ordered these wars has ever been inside one. Nobody comes out and explains that the price you will pay for your country bombing a far away enemy with its modern jets, is the very real risk that you will be indiscriminately shot in a cafe by a fanatic seeking vengeance for that clear act of war. Nobody is able to explain with clarity why all these wars over the last few years have failed completely to bring any meaningful improvement, have caused massive civilian suffering, have lead millions to tramp across fields and die in seas just to get away, and why it is that when one enemy is vanquished another pops up.
If there is an overriding lesson of Paris it is that the solidarity expressed by millions of ordinary people around the world, should now be used to make their politicians come clean. People must be told how the war is to be prosecuted, what the aim is, what is the strategy and why no other way will work. Like dodgy car salesmen these politicians will not easily be believed because every war fought since 9/11 has been not only a failure, but has given rise to new enemies and new conflicts. If the objective, as we are constantly told is to keep us safe, why is Paris grieving from its greatest atrocity since the Nazis?
Meanwhile in the United Kingdom we can thank our lucky stars that we have probably the most advanced, dedicated and effective security organisation anywhere in the world. If they ask for more powers give them. In war it is not about privacy and personal freedom; it is about your life and the lives and limbs of those you love.