Further thoughts concerning the knife attack outside the Jewish Community Ctr. in Nice

Submitted by William Mayer (United States), Feb 8, 2015 at 15:48

Mr. Nilsson's contribution is no doubt interesting information but not terribly relevant. The French security personnel weren't facing a professional killer, but rather a punky street thug. If nothing else, absent live ammunition and/or magazines, the security forces still had the equivalent of 10 lb clubs in their hands and could have killed this guy if they had wanted. An alert, committed and aggressive soldier would have had the butt of his battle rifle in the perps face at the first sign of trouble.

U.S. Armed forces are trained in hand to hand combat including attackers with blades, hand guns etc. Of course it's risky [the first rule of knife fighting is accepting the fact that you will get cut] but less so than just waiting to be knifed. The little data I have from Iraq and Afghanistan indicates that the skill is particularly useful in the Muslim, especially Arab, world which has a very long tradition of using edged weapons in combat.

Another example would be the IDF which teaches recruits Krav Maga, which is an especially effective and brutal style of self-defense. Trainees are instructed to avoid confrontation where possible, but once committed to ferociously attack the most vulnerable parts of the opponent's body [eyes, groin, throat, face] with the intent of disabling the opponent[s] as quickly as possible.

The only rule is to win, nothing is out-of-bounds.

If we pull back a bit, perhaps the bottom line is that events such as this demonstrate quite pointedly how much cultural confidence the West has lost. This undercuts our will to defend our societies and survive, or better, to thrive. The jihadists are realists, they see this for what it is, weakness. In martial societies, weakness/restraint is always provocative and invites further attacks.

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