“Most significant for the French state in the current context are the powers given to the security services and police to act without judicial oversight. They can conduct house searches at any time, enforce house arrest and confiscate certain classes of weapons, even if people hold them legally. Using the special measures, 168 homes have been raided and 104 people have been placed under house arrest in the past 48 hours. These have led to 23 arrests and the seizure of 31 weapons. On Sunday the French president, François Hollande, was reported to have told parliamentarians he was considering an extension of three months.”
“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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“The American Psychological Association (APA) has approved a ban on psychologists’ involvement in national security interrogations. The APA adopted the plan in the wake of 542-page independent investigation (PDF) that discovered psychologists worked with the Central Intelligence Agency to help silence dissent over harsh interrogation tactics being employed by the Bush administration (including torture). What’s more, the report found that APA officials colluded with military officials to adopt APA ethics rules in order to allow psychologists to be a part of tortuous interrogations in the wake of the September 11, 2001 terror attacks.”
“The unnerving spectacle made its biggest impression on the Americans who saw it first-hand. And they were probably its chief intended audience. ‘Getting people really concerned in L.A.’ is exactly what the regime wanted. Why else would the government clear the skies to paint them with nuclear war games precisely when and where it would have the biggest audience with the best visibility: near a basin full of people in the most densely populated region in the country, at a time (around 6:00 pm) when it is nice and dark, yet millions would be out and about, returning from work, or heading out to dinner? This was ‘Shock and Awe’ for domestic consumption.”
“Littell has played ‘the nuclear card’ before when advocating ‘common sense [gun] reforms’ and disparaging armed resistance to tyranny. And what he doesn’t grok is that the line in the sand for those of us who will not comply is mass enforcement of the very edicts he endorses. That would not be possible without a nationwide program to collect the firearms and magazines he maintains would be useless. No, to anyone contemplating that, including proponents of a nuclear deterrent. We will not comply. Your move.”
“This document shows that the U.S. and its allies have supported Al-Qaeda associated elements in Syria, even though they knew this would lead to the rise of ISIS and the creation of an Islamic State in Syria. The Obama administration was warned in advance by the Defense Intelligence Agency that this policy would assist Al-Qaeda and ISIS while endangering the U.S. backed government in Iraq.”
“On August 2, Britain’s Sunday Express newspaper headlined ‘SAS dress as ISIS fighters in undercover war on jihadis,’ saying: ‘More than 120 members belonging to the elite regiment are currently in the war-torn country’ covertly ‘dressed in black and flying ISIS flags,’ engaged in what’s called Operation Shader – attacking Syrian targets on the pretext of combatting ISIS. The latest revelation comes two weeks after learning Prime Minister David Cameron last year approved British warplanes joining US ones in bombing Syria despite parliamentary rejection in August 2013. At least part of its current covert ground operation is under US command – so-called ‘smash’ units.”
“Fresh on the heels of the establishment of an ‘ISIL-Free Zone’ (aka ‘No-Fly Zone’) in northern Syria along the Turkish border, the United States has quietly announced that it will also extend its airstrike operations to act as the traveling bodyguard of the jihadists it has trained and ‘vetted.’ The policy, reportedly authorized by Barack Obama, would involve the US Air Force bombing any force attacking the so-called ‘moderate rebel fighters,’ including the Syrian military. The announcement was first reported on Sunday by the Wall Street Journal via anonymous military sources.”
“Truman had two choices: drop the two bombs or else abandon unconditional surrender as civilian policy governing the military. He was unwilling to drop unconditional surrender, just as Lincoln had been unwilling to drop it in the summer of 1864. So, he decided to escalate the war on civilians. The main criterion of conditional surrender for Japan would have been the maintenance of the Emperor’s formal control, at least officially, over Japan. That was exactly what Truman unofficially gave to Japan. American military forces did not bomb his residence during the firebombings of Tokyo. After the war, he was not removed from command.”
“Newborn death rates skyrocketed in the nine months after the bombing: 43% of pregnancies in which the fetus was exposed within a quarter-mile of the hypocenter ended in spontaneous abortion, stillbirth or infant death. Young mothers giving birth in the ruins did not know it yet, but even those infants who survived would face severe physical and mental disabilities. For years, tens of thousands of hibakusha (‘atomic bomb-affected people’) suffered agonizing radiation-related illnesses. Many died. Meanwhile, Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s occupation press code censored Japanese news accounts, personal testimonies, photographs and scientific research on the survivors’ conditions.”
