“In particular, Washington and its NATO allies have sought to turn a pair of alleged brief incursions by Russian warplanes across Syria’s northern border into Turkish airspace last weekend as an effective act of war. ‘NATO is ready and able to defend all allies, including Turkey against any threats,’ NATO’s Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told reporters as he entered the meeting. He added that NATO was prepared to deploy troops to Turkey and had already taken steps to increase the alliance’s ‘capacity’ and ‘preparedness’ to do so. The magnification of the alleged violations of Turkish airspace into a confrontation between Moscow and the Western alliance has been driven mainly by Washington.”
“‘It’s important for us to be very clear that we will respond and defend Turkey if they come under assault from the Russians,’ he said. ‘Otherwise the entire NATO alliance comes into question.’ A strong signal of support, Rubio stated, would stop the Russians from testing the alliance. He added that he fully expected an international incident such as this one as a consequence of Russia conducting military operations in the Middle East. ‘My sense is that the Russians would not test it, they do not have the capabilities to confront the NATO alliance particularly the United States or even the Turks for that matter,’ he said.”
“Terrorists strike, people feel fear, and the terrorists win. This is foolish. More Americans are killed by their cars or bathtubs, but you don’t fear those things. You shouldn’t fear terrorism either. Fear has been bad for America. Every time the public feels afraid the politicians do something stupid. For example: We felt fear about 9-11 so we imposed the Patriot Act and the TSA on ourselves. We felt fear about supposed weapons of mass destruction, and so we invaded Iraq. That invasion was the petri dish for ISIS. Now we’re afraid of ISIS. So that means we must be on the verge of doing something else idiotic. Please refuse to participate in the stupidity. Instead, actively oppose it.”
“The same draft document that includes a crackdown on Bitcoin is said to also include a plan ‘to curb more effectively the illicit trade in cultural goods,’ presumably a reference to antiquities smuggled out of ISIS held territories and sold on the black market for a profit. Bitcoin’s role in the Paris terrorist attacks isn’t entirely certain, despite the fact that the Ghost Security Group suggested earlier this week that Bitcoin may have been used to finance the attacks. It may be cliched to say cracking down on anything as a result of terrorism is a case of letting the terrorists win, but without question the proposal by the European Union precisely fits this definition.”
“Officials in several countries are wasting no time in trying to convince the public to trade essential freedoms for the promise of enhanced security. US officials are also eager to cash in on the panic with more powers, seeking to expand their ability to carry out mass surveillance, citing the largely toothless ‘reforms’ of NSA surveillance as proof that the US has intelligence ‘gaps’ that need to be filled by more intrusion into ordinary citizens’ affairs. Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon was the least specific but the most direct, insisting that Paris proved the need to favor security over basic human rights, and predicting a massive shift toward more government power.”
“Today’s horrific attacks in Paris have moved us all, and the more we learn, the more our hearts ache,” said Governor Cuomo. “These were cowardly acts of evil by people who have inexplicably chosen to believe in radical hatred above all else.”
‘Inexplicable’; perhaps, for the pathologically dense.
Let France and all nations following its path know that they will continue to be at the top of the target list for the Islamic State and that the scent of death will not leave their nostrils as long as they partake in the crusader campaign, as long as they dare to curse our Prophet (blessings and peace be upon him), and as long as they boast about their war against Islam in France and their strikes against Muslims in the lands of the Caliphate with their jets, which were of no avail to them in the filthy streets and alleys of Paris. Indeed, this is just the beginning. It is also a warning for any who wish to take heed.
France? That effete land of art, fashion, and cheese?
It’s not as if they should be surprised. After all, if the Paris bombings were a reaction motivated by French foreign military adventures, we have seen this before. From the article:
This isn’t the first time France’s involvement abroad has led to terrorism at home. In 1995, Algerian Islamists set off eight bombing attacks that killed eight people and wounded 200 in Paris to punish France for supporting the government in that country’s civil war.
There is, however, said to be no specific intelligence indicating there is a direct terrorist threat to attack Britain. The heightened measures in the UK are partly to reassure the public [..]
Knowing Syria was a critical piece in its energy strategy, Turkey attempted to persuade Syrian President Bashar Assad to reform this Iranian pipeline and to work with the proposed Qatar-Turkey pipeline, which would ultimately satisfy Turkey and the Gulf Arab nations’ quest for dominance over gas supplies, who are the United State’s allies. But after Assad refused Turkey’s proposal, Turkey and its allies became the major architects of Syria’s “civil war.”
Mainstream media outlets repeat the comfortable myth that terrorist attacks are primarily motivated by the desire to impose Sharia law in Western countries. While the precise mechanism by which random acts of violence lead to a formal Sharia law regime is yet to be identified, it is perhaps more instructive to examine the statements made by the attackers themselves, which invariably cite not only their religious beliefs, but specific acts of military violence carried out by U.S., NATO, and/or GCC partners in Middle Eastern countries. Two recent examples are the statements following the Charlie Hebdo and November Paris attacks.
But let’s step back to the bigger picture for a moment:
It is not hard to imagine that every one of these attacks that senselessly kills children, friends, and loved ones creates motivation to retaliate among those remaining. ISIS recruiters offer a vision of utopia to a generation of young people that has only known war, poverty, and personal tragedy.
Explaining the inexplicable: How can terrorists be gaining ground versus the most powerful governments in the world?
In Iraq, then Libya, then Egypt, former U.S.-backed authoritarians heading secular governments were deposed one by one. Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi were victims of openly executed military regime change operations, while Hosni Mubarak was the victim of a series of events that led to the present U.S.-backed military dictatorship. The latter was accomplished through an alphabet soup list of NGOs:
Washington’s democracy assistance programme for the Middle East is filtered through a pyramid of agencies within the State Department. Hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars is channeled through the Bureau for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor (DRL), The Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI), USAID, as well as the Washington-based,quasi-governmental organisation the National Endowment for Democracy (NED).
In turn, those groups re-route money to other organisations such as the International Republican Institute, the National Democratic Institute (NDI), and Freedom House, among others. Federal documents show these groups have sent funds to certain organisations in Egypt, mostly run by senior members of anti-Morsi political parties who double as NGO activists.
The Middle East Partnership Initiative – launched by the George W Bush administration in 2002 in a bid to influence politics in the Middle East in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks – has spent close to $900m on democracy projects across the region, a federal grants database shows.
USAID manages about $1.4bn annually in the Middle East, with nearly $390m designated for democracy promotion, according to the Washington-based Project on Middle East Democracy (POMED).
The US government doesn’t issue figures on democracy spending per country, but Stephen McInerney, POMED’s executive director, estimated that Washington spent some $65m in 2011 and $25m in 2012. He said he expects a similar amount paid out this year.
A main conduit for channeling the State Department’s democracy funds to Egypt has been the National Endowment for Democracy. Federal documents show NED, which in 2011 was authorised an annual budget of $118m by Congress, funneled at least $120,000 over several years to an exiled Egyptian police officer who has for years incited violence in his native country.
This appears to be in direct contradiction to its Congressional mandate, which clearly states NED is to engage only in “peaceful” political change overseas.
We know where the military dictatorship gets its money and weapons. Where do terrorists get the money and weapons with which they can become an organized army, occupy territory, and train recruits?
The source of motivation for terrorist attacks is apparently not “inexplicable”. The means by which those attacks are carried out also does not seem to be at all “inexplicable”.
What may be the truly “inexplicable” and uncanny part of the process: the ability of Western governments and media to cultivate such mass ignorance that they are able to pretend to be mere victims of purportedly “inexplicable” attacks, thus enabling ever-ongoing seizures of extra-constitutional police and emergency powers that are unlikely to be relinquished voluntarily.
The Reichstag Fire in Nazi Germany was perhaps the template for this mechanism of permanent ’emergency’ escalations of state power, which has today evolved into a global phenomenon, fueled by ISIS and at the same time fueling ISIS through its reactions.
One could ascribe failures to stop future attacks on power elite ‘interests’ or on civilians to malice, or to incompetence instead, depending on your perspective.
What’s the answer?
Interpret the latest attack as another datapoint indicating failure of the policy, and reverse course. Withdraw from foreign military occupations, renounce illegal emergency powers and secret spying on citizens, convert payments to foreign militaries and governments into aid for war victims including resettlement domestically, and sweep away the hubristic ruling class ideology that enabled this global human rights catastrophe and policy disaster in the first place.
Which course will the U.S. and NATO governments pursue from here? Perhaps a course they could have chosen almost 10 years ago that would certainly not have trained and armed ‘friendly’ terrorists, would certainly have not motivated young people to join terrorist organizations with more anger-inducing tragedies, and would certainly not have deliberately destabilized an entire region of the globe through armchair regime change pursuits.
Only a madman would repeat the same courses of action and expect differing results. So are Western leaders mad, or are they openly pursuing the same results?
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“At the height of the ‘Grexit’ crisis, Greeks were limited to cash withdrawals of about €60 a day. For nearly two weeks, under the terms of an emergency decree, they could not send money out of the country. But tens of thousands of Greek businesspeople had to pay for imported goods to keep their enterprises running. Those who’d thought ahead and stockpiled euros packed wads of currency into suitcases, flew to the countries where their suppliers were based and paid in cash. They didn’t have to declare anything and weren’t stopped as they boarded planes to other EU destinations. That will probably not be allowed to happen again.”
“In a statement from Downing Street, the prime minister expressed solidarity with France and warned that ‘however much we prepare, we in the UK face the same threat’. After a meeting of the emergency Cobra committee, Cameron said the terror threat level for the UK would remain at severe but it would be further reviewed in the light of evolving risks from groups and individuals associated with Islamic State. There will also be extra security at airports, especially those with routes with France. However, there is said to be no specific intelligence of a direct terrorist threat to attack Britain. There will be extra security at events where large crowds gather, at least in the short term.”
“A mayoral candidate who was stabbed Saturday in Cologne, Germany — allegedly for supporting the resettlement of refugees in the city — won the election Sunday amid rising tensions over refugee policies in Germany, which will welcome up to 1.5 million people this year. Henriette Reker won with 53 percent of the vote as she was recovering from the attack, which took place at a campaign event. A 44-year-old man and former member of a now-banned neo-Nazi organization stabbed her in the neck, saying, ‘It’s wrong what’s happening here. I’m freeing you from such follies.’ He also expressed fears that ‘foreigners would take jobs’ and that Sharia would be imposed in the country.”
“The draft Investigatory Powers bill has just been published in the UK while the US senate has voted through a proposed Cybesecurity Information Sharing Act. Both nations are pursuing an aggressive path toward entrenching surveillance powers at the cost of citizens’ privacy. Both bills disregard privacy considerations: CISA through its power that subordinates other laws, the Investigatory Powers bill by expressly authorising bulk data collection with very little meaningful independent oversight. It is hard to see how either of these bills is even a nod in the right direction. They read like a confirmation that business as usual continues for the likes of the NSA and GCHQ.”
