"The well-coordinated series of terror attacks on Paris left more than 129 people dead..."

That's from a CBS News article, "ISIS claims 'blessed invasion' of Paris." Obviously, "blessed invasion" is inflated propaganda from ISIS, but I want to question the characterizations we're seeing from our own politicians and journalists. I keep seeing expressions of respect for the sophistication of the Paris attacks, and I want to question it, because there is a temptation to say, when attacked, that the enemy must be very smart and strong and determined.

But was it really so difficult to send a bunch of men out all on the same day to hit soft targets — 4 restaurants, a concert hall, and a stadium? There are so many restaurants, completely unguarded and accessible, predictably full of people. Men with guns/explosives hit 4 restaurants in one city, not 100, not 1000.

The concert venue was another soft target, and the scene was chaotic. Many escaped. If the building were sealed up before anyone knew they were under attack, it would have been sophisticated, or if the entire building were demolished, killing everyone. But it was only men with guns rushing in, causing what damage they could, with (apparently) absolutely no plan for their own escape.

The stadium was the big target. The president, François Hollande, was in attendance. The attackers got nowhere near him. In fact, the attackers apparently scuttled whatever big plan they might have had, blowing themselves up at the gates. The huge crowd didn't even know there was an attack. Hollande slipped out and the crowd watched the game to the end.

What's scary isn't that the attacks are sophisticated, but how easy it is to hit a bunch of soft targets in one city, and how big a deal it is even when it's sloppily done and mostly unsuccessful. That's how it looks to me.

"Three teams of Islamic State attackers acting in unison carried out the terrorist assault in Paris on Friday night..."

"... including one gunman who may have traveled to Europe on a Syrian passport along with the flow of migrants," the NYT reports.

The Paris prosecutor, François Molins, said the attackers were all armed with heavy weaponry and suicide vests.... The gunman with the Syrian passport — which Greek officials said had been registered at the Aegean island of Leros on Oct. 3 — was 25, and died at the stadium. Another gunman, who died at the concert hall, was 29 and a native of Courcouronnes, about 20 miles south of Paris. He had a criminal record and was known to be associated with extremist Islamic ideology, Mr. Molins said....

The possibility that one of the attackers was a migrant or had posed as one is sure to further complicate the already vexing problem for Europe of how to handle the unceasing flow of people from Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. It could also lend weight to the xenophobic arguments of right-wing populists like Marine Le Pen, the leader of the National Front party, who on Saturday held a news conference to declare that “France and the French are no longer safe.”

Hollande: "It is an act of war that was committed by a terrorist army, a jihadist army, Daesh, against France."

"It is an act of war that was prepared, organized and planned from abroad, with complicity from the inside, which the investigation will help establish.... France, because it was foully, disgracefully and violently attacked, will be unforgiving with the barbarians from Daesh... [France will act within the law but with] all the necessary means, and on all terrains, inside and outside, in coordination with our allies, who are, themselves, targeted by this terrorist threat."

From the NYT's "Hollande Blames ISIS for ‘Act of War’ on Paris."

Why won't French President François Hollande have dinner with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on Rouhani's trip to Europe.

Because Rouhani insists that no wine be served.

This has something to do with the French love of wine and something to do with a French "domestic culture war, with its right wing raising alarms over 'Islamification' that has spilled into its deep national relationship with food."