It Makes Less Sense Because There's An Explanation
The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 - and all other acts of terror and violence - will never be understandable, but they can make sense. To my mind at the time, the attacks were a response to a response to an action to an effect to an accidental side effect. They were a piece of a never ending cycle of violence, international politics, anger, and hate. They were directed against and purportedly in response to the actions of the United States government (invading Iraq; toppling leaders; propping up other leaders; selling weapons; oil, etc.). The line connecting A and B wasn't straight, or clear, but it was inherently conceivable (if not still completely reprehensible).
The terrorist attack at the Charlie Hebdo office seems to have a more immediately identifiable straight line: satirical cartoons published in the magazine offended some people so those people killed the cartoonists, journalists, and publishers responsible for them. There's a logic to that. A clear goal: punish the offenders, and presumably, dissuade future publishing of such cartoons - and thus future consumption of such cartoons.
But now this is where it all stops making sense:
-The radical Muslim terrorists - in their distorted minds doing what their religion calls them to do by striking against the anti-Muslim offenders - didn't just kill those responsible for the cartoons, they also killed a maintenance man, an office visitor, and a Muslim cop. A cop they wounded and then executed at point blank range, on the street, which was captured on video. A cop you can presume was also offended by those cartoons - but in the least, had nothing to do with their publication.
-A lot of people before the attack had never heard of Charlie Hebdo or the people who ran it, wrote for it, or illustrated for it. Now we know these people by name and their pictures are on newspapers and TV and the internet. And now we know their publication.
-A lot of people had never seen the offending cartoons Charlie Hebdo had published - and many of those people wouldn't have found them amusing, intelligent, or tasteful. But now, those cartoons are being posted, shown, shared, and looked at by millions of people around the world - people, like myself, who are sharing them and looking at them not necessarily because of the content, but because of what happened to the people who created them, because they created them.
-The terrorists attacked those responsible for the offensive cartoons - but now millions of us have shared and spread the cartoons. Newspapers have republished the cartoons - newspapers that never, ever would've otherwise. Thanks to them, the cartoons are now being seen more quickly, in more mediums, by more people than if Charle Hebdo continued doing what it was going for the rest of the century. So now they have to kill us all - every single one of us.
-Publications around the world responded with cartoons to the attacks - cartoons that mocked the attackers and their religion. Cartoons that would not have been created if it were not for the attack.
-Charlie Hebdo - the offices of which were firebombed and destroyed in 2011 after a previous mocking cartoon was published - shared an office with another liberal magazine in Paris and continued to publish. In response, the staff believe it was better to die doing what they were doing than stop out of fear or intimidation. By Wednesday of next week, Charlie Hebdo will be publishing a new issue - they're going to print 1,000,000 copies (instead of the usual 30,000 or so) - by working out of that same liberal magazine's Paris office. So, the attack on their office didn't stop the magazine. And the assassination of a lot of the staff hasn't stopped the magazine (an outcome the staff was prepared to accept to keep publishing the magazine) - it's only increased its exposure and most likely (even just temporarily) will increase it's readership.
To recap, a group of thin-skinned terrorists believed killing people responsible for creating and publishing cartoons they found offensive would be punishment for the cartoons, would prevent them from creating or publishing cartoons in the future, and would prevent people from seeing them. That's the assumed logic.
And the actual consequences of their actions: the magazine will be putting out a new issue from a different office in less than a week, to thousands of percent more people than would normally read it or pay attention, and in the meantime the world looks at, shares, and spreads the offending cartoons while creating new ones in countless publications around the world just because they can and won't be told by anyone they can't.
So, the logic collapses. The sense becomes nonsense. There's really no understanding any of this because these guys were idiots who accomplished all they were trying to prevent.
It's goddamn condemnable and disgusting that people had to die just because they wanted to say something. What a bunch of fucking assholes.
-The Oldest Young Man You Know