Editorial: Competing for terror's market share

Paris is on high alert after terror struck over the weekend.

"Au nom de quoi?"

Of all the images of the Paris attacks, a photograph of a red rose pushed through a bullet hole with the above question attached is the most eloquent.

Translated it reads: "In the name of what?"

Whoever placed it in that Parisian restaurant wall trumped any subsequent condemnation with a simple act of elegant contrast.

The City of Love is in lockdown.

And amid the terror-come-trauma comes the bigger question - which reaction is the sensible one?

The French are emphatic. They attest a response of the "merciless" variety is the only possible riposte. Few would argue. And even those who did would have to concede such a response would be proportionate.

The subsequent commentary hasn't stopped flowing from politicians, retired military personnel, international law academics, current and ex-Presidents. All of it seems to stem from that very human desire to impose a measure of order over chaos. Yet, for whatever reason, it always comes across as futile.

Europe's security services, long deemed the most accomplished in the world, are now faced with a rapidly evolving terror. The real fear is that this terror is no longer the work of warped ideology alone, but instead a game of one-upmanship between Al Qaeda (responsible for Charlie Hebdo massacre) and IS (behind Friday's attacks). Both are competing for terror's market share.

The above question - au nom de quoi? - is thus a rhetorical one. The cruel players in this ghoulish theatre are like men in a dystopian blockbuster, "men who just want to watch the world burn".