New information, published by the Croatian daily Slobodna Dalmacija, alleges that the French state was responsible for the attacks which occurred in Paris in January and November 2015. Either the French authorities had previously infiltrated the groups which perpetrated these attacks, and chose not to intervene to prevent them, or else they were directly implicated in the organisation of the attacks.
Doesn’t the heart surge to hear crusading Western liberals warn of the ‘existential threat’ from Islamic State and the call for ‘dutiful military responses’? And all in the name of ‘our civilizational values’.
Excluding legitimate analyses of profoundly important events like those in Paris when they are most needed is not responsible, careful journalism. It is dangerous cowardice. It is most definitely not a politically neutral position.
The panic and fear witnessed on the streets of the city shown on the mainstream news channels in the aftermath of the attacks will, I suspect, be an illustration of what is to come in the future.
In truth, France had been implicated on the side of Al-Qaïda at least since the beginning of 2011. At that time, the United Kingdom and France had signed up for the US project called « the Arab Spring ». The goal of this operation was to overthrow all the secular Arab régimes and replace them with dictatorships run by the Muslim Brotherhood.
By comparison, the Times (11/14/15) had six first-day stories on the Paris attacks, three of them on the front page. There were some 20 follow-up stories the next day (11/15/15), four of them on the front page. The day after that (11/16/15), there were 15 more follow-up stories, another four on Page 1. One of the November 16 follow-ups—on page 6—looked at reactions in Beirut to the Paris bombing.
Of course we should grieve for the victims, but there is something far more important at stake than mere human lives, which are, deplorably, becoming cheaper with each passing year. We should grieve for the truth.
Another terrorist outrage – this one in Paris – is spreading fear and fury across Europe. Which makes this a key moment for President Obama to finally level with the American people about how U.S. “allies” — such as Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar — have been aiding and abetting extremists, reports Robert Parry.
Since 2001 the U.S. has expended enormous efforts to kill a handful of men — bin Laden, al-Zarqawi, al-Awlaki, and this weekend, Jihadi John. Others, many without names, were killed outside of media attention, or were tortured to death, or are still rotting in the offshore penal colony of Guantanamo, or the dark hell of the Salt Pit in Afghanistan.
And it has not worked, and Paris this weekend, and the next one somewhere else sometime soon, are the proof.
We know why, and it isn’t an epic struggle of liberal democracies against extremist Islam. Rather, it the battle of state-sanctioned sociopathic violence versus radical groups such ISIL and al-Qaida and their particular brand of sociopathic violence. We are simply viewing different sides of the same fucked up coin. As always, the tragic casualties of the power struggle are innocent civilians, both in Europe and the Middle East.
If the people of France want to strike hard at those responsible for repeated terrorist attacks within their borders, they can start with those who knew of the attacks and did nothing to stop them, who are also, coincidentally, the same people who helped give rise to ISIS and help perpetuate it to this very day.
Among other things, the attack took down the French mobile data network and blinded police surveillance The attack was not a straightforward DDOS attack but a sophisticated attack that targeted a weakness in infrastructure hardware.
Such an attack is beyond the capability of most organizations and requires capability that is unlikely to be in ISIL’s arsenal. An attack on this scale is difficult to pull off without authorities getting wind of it. The coordination required suggests state involvement.
