Paris, by Nicolas Haeringer

Peaceful relations among humans on earth, and peaceful relations between humans and the other life forms on the planet, are imperative for the survival of planet earth as a habitat for life as we know it. Making the achievement of peace an affirmative goal for all humanity is noble and essential.

Paris, by Nicolas Haeringer

Postby admin » Mon Nov 16, 2015 11:27 pm

Paris
by Nicolas Haeringer - 350.org
November 16, 2015

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Friends,

There are times when words are hard to come by, and when you find them they feel inadequate.

I’m writing you from France, with a heavy heart. Following Friday's attacks in Paris, the mood here is tense. People are angry, and many are afraid. Many of our staff members are in Paris to get ready for the climate talks in a couple of weeks, and they are feeling the pain of this moment sharply.

I am heartbroken -- for the lives lost in Paris, and for those lost in Beirut and Baghdad, which also suffered devastating attacks late last week. Clearly the world is hurting in many places right now.

As we’ve struggled to find the right words and the right response to Friday night’s attacks, one thing rises to the top for me:

The upcoming Paris Climate Summit is, in a sense, a peace summit -- perhaps the most important peace summit that has ever been held.

We need global solidarity more than ever right now, and that is, really, what this movement is all about. Even as climate change fans the flames of conflict in many parts of the world -- through drought, displacement, and other compounding factors -- a global movement that transcends borders and cultural differences is rising up to confront this common existential threat.

Let’s hang on to that solidarity and love. Let’s learn from it. Especially at a time like this.

Friday night’s events were horrific, and we must clearly and unequivocally condemn such violence. Their aftermath has also been frightening though, and we should stand in equal condemnation of the instinct to meet violence with more violence. It is a cycle as old as it is ugly: after tragedy comes the rush to judgement, the scapegoating, the xenophobia and Islamophobia, the blame.

There is a real danger here that those already impacted by both the climate crisis and the wars that are so intimately bound up with it -- migrants, refugees, poor communities, and communities of color -- will be further marginalized.

If there is a thing we must resist, it is our own fear and short-sightedness. No government should use a moment like this to increase the burden of hatred and fear in the world -- sowing suspicion, calling for war, and reducing people’s civil liberties in the name of security. This is a mistake we've seen too often before, compounding tragedy with more tragedy.

The Paris Climate Summit, scheduled to begin in just a couple of weeks, will proceed. The government is promising heightened security measures, which is understandable but also worrisome.

We don't yet know what Friday night's events mean for our work in Paris. The coalition on the ground is committed to working with the French authorities to see if there is a way for the big planned march and other demonstrations to safely go forward. We fully share their concerns about public safety -- just as we fully oppose unnecessary crackdowns on civil liberties and minority populations.

We do know that this global movement cannot and will not be stopped:

The Global Climate March -- a worldwide day of action scheduled for November 28th and 29th -- will also proceed, no matter what. We can think of few better responses to violence and terror than this movement's push for peace and hope.

We hope you’ll join us at the end of the month.

There couldn't be a more important time to work for climate justice, and the peace it can help bring.

With love and determination,

Nico and team at 350.org
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Re: Paris, by Nicolas Haeringer

Postby admin » Wed Nov 18, 2015 8:11 pm

Identified Paris Attackers Were Not Refugees
by Alexandra Jacobo
November 18, 2015

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Contrary to previous reports, all identified terrorists involved in the Paris attacks last week were European nationals. Does this affect the outlook on Syrian refugees resettling in foreign countries?

According to a top EU official, every attacker currently identified in the investigation of the Paris attacks was a European Union national. The Syrian passport that was found near one of the attack sites is most likely a fake.

Federica Mogherini, High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy/Vice President of the European Commission stated:

“Let me underline, the profile of the terrorists so far identified tells us this is an internal threat. It is all EU citizens so far. This can change with the hours, but so far it is quite clear it is an issue of internal domestic security.”


Two foreign passports were found near the attack sites. The Syrian passport called into question the status of accepting Syrian refugees. Many politicians in Europe and the United States even called for a halt to refugee resettlement. Panic started when the Greek government said that someone using the passport was among refugees that passed through Greek islands. According to ThinkProgress, Governors from Alabama, Michigan, Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Massachusetts, Indiana, Illinois, Ohio, Florida, North Carolina, Arizona, Georgia, Wisconsin, Tennessee, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Oklahoma, and South Carolina all say their states will not allow refugees to resettle in their states.

Other countries are taking the same stand. Poland is backing out on an agreement they had to take in several thousand Syrian refugees and allies of Germany are concerned about their open-door policy.

Different information has been reported on the Syrian passport. A U.S. Intelligence official reported that the passport did not “contain the correct numbers for a legitimate Syrian passport and the picture did not match the name” leading them to determine it was a fake. According to The Independent, a man in Serbia was detained after he was found carrying a passport matching the same details (but with a different picture) as the one found in the Paris attacks. This most likely means that both passports were purchased from the same forger.

The Egyptian passport found at the scene did not belong to one of the attackers, but rather to a critically wounded victim.

Almost all of the identified terrorists have been tied to France and Belgium.
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Re: Paris, by Nicolas Haeringer

Postby admin » Wed Nov 18, 2015 8:27 pm

ISIS as Instruments of Proxy War on Western Populations
by Joe Quinn
Sott.net
Mon, 16 Nov 2015

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The obvious result, and therefore goal, of the horrific Paris attacks that were blamed on ISIS terrorists is to provoke the potential socio/political 'fracture point' of French Muslims vs. (mostly lapsed) French Christians and ignite a debate on what should be done about France and Europe's 'multi-culturalism' in an age of Jihadist terrorism.

This is a particularly cynical and, frankly, evil, maneuver in the context of the recent influx of large numbers of Syrian migrants into Europe, who are fleeing a war against the Assad government that was ignited and has been fully backed by Western powers, including France.

To put it more bluntly, France has been supporting in Syria the very same type of jihadist terrorists that it blames for the Paris attacks.

As I noted in a previous article, it's a matter of public record that after WW2, the US government and NATO countries established covert paramilitary networks in European countries that were tasked with carrying out terrorist attacks against European civilians to provoke the then socio/political fracture point of East vs. West and Communist vs. Capitalist ideologies.

Many terror attacks were carried out between the 1960s-1980s by this 'Gladio' network, several of which targeted and killed European civilians in attacks similar to that in Paris last weekend. Today, the same strategy of creating tension via terror attacks on Western populations in order to achieve geopolitical goals is at work, the only difference being that "Soviet communist" has been replaced with "Muslim terrorist".

While the goals of such a strategy involve the control over tangible resources like oil and gas that facilitate control over nations, control over public perception - what ordinary people think and feel - is also critical. Ultimately the power of any earthly authority is derived from the people that support it, so that support must be maintained, at any cost.

With a relatively benevolent authority, the process of securing public support evolves naturally through relative transparency in government actions. But when an established authority is actively pursuing policies that are the very antithesis of the values upon which their positions of power supposedly rest: secrecy, deception and covert action is the order of the day with "national security interests" used as a coverall.

Europe and the 'West' is generally understood to be a global defender of freedom and democracy and the values of 'enlightenment'. Yet in the last 4 years Western governments and intelligence agencies have been actively supporting some of the most barbaric examples of human detritus imaginable, all in an effort to illegally overthrow the democratically-elected government of Syria. In doing so, these same Western governments have facilitated the slaughter of up to 250,000 Syrian civilians and caused millions more to flee their homes.

Despite these facts, Western populations are still regaled with the same overworked, clichéd propaganda that posits Western governments as bastions of righteousness fighting against an atavistic horde. Clearly, we are being deceived on the level of Hitler's 'big lie', which holds that "the great masses will more easily fall victim to a big lie than to a small one".

The truth is that this 'hoard' of Muslim extremists are almost entirely a creation of Western governments who use it as an external threat against which the West must 'fight' if it is to safeguard its 'values'. Western 'values' in this case are the same values that motivated the British Empire 300 years ago, and every Western Empire since: conquest and control of as much of the globe and its resources, human and natural, as possible.

A battle is underway on our planet, but it is not a battle between any religious or cultural ideology subscribed to by the masses of ordinary people. Rather it is a battle between normal human beings - the world's most valuable self-replenishing resource - and those psychologically deviant individuals who have insinuated themselves into positions of power over the masses for the express purpose of herding us to an ever finer order of control. If you doubt this, you may want to look back at the course that our global society has taken over the past 15-20 years.

It is no coincidence that the increase in wars and conflict in other parts of the world has progressed in tandem with the militarization of Western society and a loss of civil liberties. I suppose one could argue that the former begets the latter, and it is therefore simply an unintended consequence. But that argument requires you to ignore the mountain of data that proves unequivocally that wars are planned and waged to achieve the very specific goals of accumulation of power into the hands of a few.

As I noted above, those who seek power in this world, must first and foremost seek power over the people. If this is not possible through the honest promotion of genuinely noble values, then it must be exacted through the establishment of a police state infrastructure that demands compliance and obedience from the population, so that the authorities can play their game of 'who rules the world' in peace. It seems there is no better way to induce submissive consent in a population than by invoking the fear of painful and bloody death in them. Obviously you don't want to kill them all, or even a large number of them, but by the power of modern digital media, an entire population can be traumatized by proxy with a well-orchestrated and bloody terror attack.

What is very clear (to me anyway) is that the people of this world, whether directly or by proxy, will not be allowed to 'live in peace'. War has indeed been loudly and violently declared, and while I agree that the threat is 'homegrown', its representatives are not some bearded guys on a Youtube video. They are, instead, the well-spoken suit and tie-wearing gentlemen on the evening news who promise freedom, democracy and security for all, even as they deliver the exact opposite.
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Re: Paris, by Nicolas Haeringer

Postby admin » Wed Nov 18, 2015 8:30 pm

France funding Syrian rebels in new push to oust Assad
Money delivered by French government proxies across Turkish border has been used to buy weapons and ammunition
by Martin Chulov in Ankara
December 7, 2012

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Syrian rebel fighters in Aleppo. Photograph: Odd Andersen/AFP/Getty Images

France has emerged as the most prominent backer of Syria's armed opposition and is now directly funding rebel groups around Aleppo as part of a new push to oust the embattled Assad regime.

Large sums of cash have been delivered by French government proxies across the Turkish border to rebel commanders in the past month, diplomatic sources have confirmed. The money has been used to buy weapons inside Syria and to fund armed operations against loyalist forces.

The French moves have stopped short of direct supply of weapons – a bridge that no western state has yet been willing to cross in Syria. But, according to western and Turkish officials as well as rebel leaders, the influx of money has made a difference in recent weeks as momentum on the battlefields of the north steadily shifts towards the opposition.

Some of the French cash has reached Islamist groups who were desperately short of ammunition and who had increasingly turned for help towards al-Qaida aligned jihadist groups in and around Aleppo.

One such group, Liwa al-Tawhid, an 8,000-strong militia that fights under the Free Syria Army banner, said it had been able to buy ammunition for the first time since late in the summer, a development that would help it resume military operations without the support of implacable jihadi organisations, such as Jabhat al-Nusra, which is now playing a lead role in northern Syria.

The French newspaper le Figaro reported this week that French military advisers had recently met with rebel groups inside Syria, in an area between Lebanon and Damascus, in further evidence of efforts by Paris to step up pressure on president Assad.

France has suggested that rebels should be given "defensive weapons" to use against the regime and was the first country to recognise a recalibrated political body as the legitimate voice of the Syrian people.

France has given a steady flow of humanitarian aid in recent months, including funds to rebel-held parts of Syria so that these "liberated zones" could begin to restore infrastructure and services for civilians. In September, the French defence minister stressed France was not providing weapons.

Foreign Secretary William Hague has added impetus to the new push to arm the opposition, again suggesting Britain would support moves to lift an arms embargo on the rebels.

A flurry of diplomatic moves this week, after months of political torpor, appear to have revitalised opposition efforts throughout Syria. The frantic diplomacy has been driven by fears that Syrian officials might use their stocks of chemical weapons as a last resort on battlefields that are no longer under their control.

A rebel siege of Damascus has now entered its second week. And although loyalist army divisions appear at no immediate risk of losing the capital, military units elsewhere in the country have lost influence over large swathes of land and are under increasing pressure over supply lines.

Rebels have been under pressure from the US, Britain, France and Turkey to fight under a joint command and control structure rather than as an assortment of militias, which often work at cross purposes.

At a meeting in Istanbul on Friday, commanders of the Free Syria Army – more of a brand than a fighting force throughout the civil war – agreed to establish a 30-member unified leadership.

After 21 months of crumbling state control in Syria, western diplomats in Ankara and elsewhere in the Arab world appear to be shifting their thinking from trying to manage the consequences to planning the future course.

"Assad won't be here next December," a senior Turkish official predicted. "Even the Russians have moderated on this. When we used to talk to them about Assad going, it was point-blank refusal. Now they are looking for common ground and wanting to exchange ideas."

The official said the US has also recently stepped up its efforts to oust Assad, but was not yet talking about arming the opposition and was refusing to deal with Islamist groups, such as Liwa al-Tawhid.

"What has happened with Jabhat al-Nusra (gaining influence), I would say is a product of (US) attitudes," he said. "They have a template by which they operate. And if a group fits perfectly into that, well that's fine. And if they don't it's a problem for them.

"Some of these groups have been forced to pretend that they are jihadists in order to get what they want."

US officials this week said that Turkey, for its part, was not prepared to directly lead the international response to Syria and was expecting Washington to fill that void.

President Barack Obama's warning during the week to Assad not to use chemical weapons was seen as his most strident stance yet, but it signalled no shift from an official wariness of the opposition, which had become more pronounced as jihadist groups gained prominence around Aleppo from late in the summer.

Turkey also remains wary of a potential threat from chemical weapons. However, officials said they were not convinced that even cornered regime leaders would use them.

Ankara will soon to take delivery of several patriot missile batteries, along with 400 German troops who will operate them along the southern border with Syria.

Officials say the increased Nato presence in Turkey makes it likely that Turkish air space and military bases would be used in the event of a decision being made by the US to seize Syria's chemical weapons stockpiles.

"That would have to be dealt with through existing mechanisms of Nato," the official said. "There is now a framework in place."
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Re: Paris, by Nicolas Haeringer

Postby admin » Wed Nov 18, 2015 8:35 pm

France admits it directly supplied arms to Syrian “rebels”
By Pierre Mabut
27 August 2014

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President François Hollande confirmed in a Le Monde interview on August 19 that France has been directly supplying arms to the “rebels” of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) in its proxy war to remove the regime of President Bashar al-Assad. This came ahead of the recent US decision to intervene militarily in Syria, ostensibly to crush the Islamic State (IS) opposition militia operating in Iraq and Syria.

French imperialism has been arming Syrian Islamist opposition forces since at least the spring of 2013. According to Le Monde, it provided weapons including 12.7-mm machine guns, rocket launchers, body armour and communications equipment—but “ nothing”, according to a Le Monde source, “which ‘could have been turned against us’ such as explosives”. The same weapons are also being shipped to the Peshmerga Kurdish militias in northern Iraq to stop the progress of the IS takeover, a direct product of the US war in Iraq.

The Hollande government’s role in Syria in arming the “rebels” is yet another devastating exposure of France’s pseudo-left parties, such as the New Anti-capitalist Party (NPA), that backed the imperialist proxy war in Syria. Promoting the Socialist Party’s (PS’s) foreign policy, the NPA repeated the lie that the FSA was leading a “democratic revolution” and attacked Hollande for not arming the Syrian opposition. In fact, the NPA was simply pressing Hollande to deepen the reactionary policy he was already carrying out.

An NPA National Committee resolution on Syria last September stated: “The Western powers have done everything since the start of the uprising to avoid a new military adventure…. We must support the demand for food, basic necessities, medical aid…but also arms for the most democratic sectors.”

Also last September, NPA spokesman Olivier Besancenot on RFI called on Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius “to graciously give weapons to the Syrians”. He cautioned the government not to listen to “Those who say ‘we should above all not give weapons because they will end up with the jihadists’, well that is already the case” (see: “ISIS offensive in Iraq exposes French pseudo-left’s support for Syria war”).

The NPA’s pro-war hysteria reflects the deeply cynical policies of its reactionary affluent middle class base, which supports French imperialism’s drive to re-colonise Syria but wants to falsely posture as critics of the Hollande government to disorient working class opposition. It may be safely assumed that, whatever tactical objections they make to the course of French war policy, they will continue to support the escalating intervention in Syria.

In his Le Monde interview, Hollande underlined France’s determination to intervene in Syria, remarking: “We must not relax the support that we have granted to the rebels, who are the only ones participating [in the war] with democratic intentions.”

The presentation by Hollande and the NPA of the Syrian opposition forces backed by the Western powers and their allies as democratic is a vile fraud. The IS and large parts of the FSA are composed of Islamist groups using terror bombings and mass killings to conduct a brutal civil war that left nearly 190,000 dead and millions of refugees. Indeed, it is precisely these crimes that Washington is now cynically exploiting to claim it has to intervene in Iraq and Syria in order to crush the IS.

Hollande turned reality on its head, claiming the growth of the IS in Syria and its sectarian wars was due to the NATO powers’ decision not to go to war with Assad.

“The international community carries a heavy responsibility in what is taking place in Syria, If two years ago there had been action to install a transition, we would not have had the Islamic State. If one year ago, there had been a proportionate reaction of the great powers to the use [by al-Assad] of chemical weapons, we would not be faced with this terrible choice between a dictator and a terrorist group,” he said.

Indeed, President Hollande and the US bear a “heavy responsibility”, but it is for fomenting the civil war, using reactionary jihadist forces such as the FSA and IS as proxies.

The lawlessness of Hollande’s PS government was witnessed in August 2013, when it clamoured for the bombing of Syria for regime change over a threatened Russian veto in the UN Security Council. War was averted at the last minute, due to deep splits in the foreign policy establishment and broad popular opposition to the war reflected in a vote against war in the British parliament—much to the chagrin of Hollande’s government, which was prepared to risk provoking a war with Russia and Iran.

The growth of the jihadist forces in Syria is the direct result of the arming and financing by the CIA, France and the Gulf monarchies as proxy forces to overthrow Assad. Substantial sections of the FSA, which Hollande cynically called “democratic,” have defected to the Al Qaeda-linked Al Nusra Front.

France has openly stoked the flames of civil war ever since 2012, when Hollande recognised the Syrian National Coalition—on which the FSA sits, together with representatives of various Islamist groups and liberal opponents of Assad—as Syria’s government. Hollande’s PS government is one of the most bellicose warmongers on the planet—launching wars in Mali and the Central African Republic in a drive to re-colonise Africa, and backing Washington and Berlin in their proxy war with Russia over Ukraine.
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Re: Paris, by Nicolas Haeringer

Postby admin » Wed Nov 18, 2015 8:41 pm

ISIS offensive in Iraq exposes French pseudo-left’s support for Syria war
By Alex Lantier
25 June 2014

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The offensive of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) militia against the US-backed regime in Iraq is a devastating exposure of the pro-imperialist politics of France’s New Anti-capitalist Party (NPA). Stunned by ISIS’s turn from a war the NPA supports in Syria towards one in Iraq that cuts across French imperialist interests, the NPA is turning 180 degrees, cynically denouncing ISIS while downplaying the risk of a new US-NATO war in Iraq that could devastate the region and the world.

The NPA’s brief news analysis, titled “The offensive of ISIS in Iraq,” seeks to cover up the central role played by the policies of US and European imperialism in creating the crisis, policies the NPA has aggressively supported.

It cynically lays responsibility for the bloodshed entirely at the door of the United States’ Shiite-led stooge regime in Iraq. Complaining that Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki “let the situation rot,” the NPA writes: “With the Syrian revolution, he got his orders from Iran: to back the Syrian regime. He entered into conflict with [Iraqi] Kurdistan, which was backing the Kurdish opposition [in Syria]. Finally, by crushing all representation of moderate Sunnis, he pushed Sunni militants towards the extremists.”

What a miserable cover-up! What triggered the ISIS-led Sunni revolt in Iraq was, on the one hand, the massive arming of far-right Sunni Islamist militias in Syria—a CIA-led operation the NPA supports and cynically glorifies as a “revolution”—and, on the other, the deep ethno-sectarian tensions created in Iraq by the 2003-2011 US war and occupation, during which Washington pursued a divide-and-rule strategy designed to weaken the Iraqi resistance.

The NPA is directly responsible for the latest bloodshed, having pressed during the three years since the Syrian war broke out in 2011 for the imperialist powers to arm Islamist forces like ISIS, and more broadly to escalate the war in Syria as it destabilized the entire region.

“[French foreign minister Laurent] Fabius is a broken record, he’s said the same thing for months. He should graciously give weapons to the Syrian revolutionaries,” NPA spokesman and former presidential candidate Olivier Besancenot told RFI last September, as Washington and Paris threatened a direct attack on Syria.

Besancenot even dismissed concerns raised by sections of the imperialist foreign policy establishment that pouring weapons into the Syrian opposition meant arming Al Qaeda-linked jihadists like ISIS. “Those who say, ‘We should above all not give weapons because they will end up with the jihadists,’ well, that is already the case,” he said, pompously adding: “It is my principle as an internationalist to have confidence in the peoples to decide on their own destiny.”

Besancenot’s defense of the arming of ISIS by the imperialist powers and their Arab allies, and his attempt to pass it off as a left-wing, “internationalist” position exemplifies the rotten role of the French pseudo-left. Drawn from a narrow, affluent layer of pro-imperialist academics, union bureaucrats, and media-driven political fixers, they seek to give a thin “left” cover to the bloody operations of far-right forces, so long as they were aligned with French imperialism. The NPA is now reaping the whirlwind, as its Islamist proxies turn in a direction Besancenot and his associates did not expect.

As ISIS’s offensive undermines the Maliki regime and threatens the Iraqi holdings of oil firms like France’s Total, the NPA is changing its tune, denouncing its erstwhile protégés. Now, it writes, “ISIS has shown its true face: raping women, assassinating imams, floggings of youth, exodus towards Kurdistan, expulsion of Christians, forced marriages of young girls, massacres of 1,700 Shiite military men.”

This comment exposes the filthy, pro-imperialist politics of the NPA. As long as ISIS was fighting in a French-backed war that the NPA hoped would increase French influence in its former colonial sphere, it studiously ignored ethnic massacres and other war crimes by ISIS and its allies, or blamed them on Syrian president Bashar al-Assad. From the standpoint of the reactionaries inside the NPA, the raping and killing was a necessary down payment to install a right-wing stooge regime in Damascus subordinated to the interests of Washington and Paris.

The NPA shifted its attitude as ISIS seized large parts of Iraq and its oil industry, and affluent petty-bourgeois like Olivier Besancenot and NPA founder and ex-1968 student radical Alain Krivine contemplated the damage this might do to the Total stock in their financial portfolios. Suddenly, the NPA discovered that the Syrian Sunni Islamist forces it has supported carry out bloody and brutal crimes.

As it tries to gloss over the crying contradictions in its foreign policy agenda in the Middle East, condemning Sunni Islamist militias in Iraq while continuing to promote their activities in Syria as a “revolution,” the NPA descends into complete political incoherence.

While acknowledging the Sunni militias’ crimes in Iraq, it tries to blame this offensive on ISIS’s regional opponents, the Assad regime and Iran. ISIS, the NPA writes, “has benefited from financing by regimes that are apparently opposed to it, but who are in agreement on the disintegration of the peoples of the region: Qatar, Iran, Syria, and others.”

The NPA’s claims that Iran and the Assad regime are conspiring to secretly back ISIS in a plot to take over large parts of Iraq—while fighting a bloody war against Sunni Islamist militias like ISIS that has claimed over 100,000 lives just across the border in Syria—are ludicrous. The driving force behind the ISIS offensive is the imperialist powers’ flooding of the Syrian opposition militias with weapons, which has destabilized the entire region.

More is involved in the NPA’s crafting of such blatant falsehoods than simply an attempt to cover up the NPA’s filthy record in Syria, however. As Washington sends hundreds of military “advisors” back to Iraq, events are rapidly moving in the direction of a renewed US-NATO war in Iraq. Such a war, fought in even more explosive global conditions than the initial 2003 invasion, would threaten to draw in the major regional powers allied to factions inside Iraq, such as Turkey, Iran, and Saudi Arabia, in a regional or even global conflict.

Placed in this context, the closing lines of the NPA’s analysis are criminally complacent. It blandly writes, “As for Obama, facing the disastrous balance sheet of US policy in the region, he has conditioned aid to Iraq to a political solution between Maliki and his former partners, while at the same time moving closer to the Iranian regime.”

The NPA’s speculations about a truce between Maliki and Sunni forces brokered by Washington, coming amid escalating fighting and US military intervention in Iraq, are absurd and reactionary. Even if the imperialist powers succeeded in negotiating a temporary truce between the Iraqi factions, this would not halt the trend of escalating violence in the region. That is determined by the reckless and aggressive policies of imperialism—the war in Syria, threatening Iran with war over its nuclear program, and the bitter legacy of the nine-year US occupation of Iraq—which the NPA defends.

The working class internationally is confronted not with a peace policy from Washington, but the necessity of a political struggle against imperialist war, in which it will face pro-imperialist pseudo-left groups like the NPA as political enemies.
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Re: Paris, by Nicolas Haeringer

Postby admin » Wed Nov 18, 2015 9:00 pm

Paris Attacks Reveal Bizarre ISIS Strategy and NATO's Strategy of Tension in Europe
by Joe Quinn
Sott.net
Sun, 15 Nov 2015

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Scenes from the multiple coordinated terror attacks in Paris on Friday 13th November 2015

"It's so shocking. When Charlie Hebdo happened, it was a specific, targeted attack. But this time it's terrifying because it is just random, innocent people going about their lives. I know a lot of people in Paris - there is panic and disorder here, no one can understand what's going on. We are all in a state of complete shock."


So said Quentin, 27, who works for an online company in Paris, and whose oldest friend was shot multiple times at the Bataclan concert hall.

Terrorist attacks like these are never "random", at least not in the sense that they have no point. If they appear random, then that is undoubtedly part of the strategy that drives them. Governments and groups use terrorism to achieve a specific goal, so there is always a point. To understand what the point is, you just have to know who is really responsible.

We've already been told that "ISIS" has claimed responsibility for the Paris attacks, a claim partly backed up by the convenient discovery of a Syrian passport on the body of one of the "suicide bombers" (why do these terrorists always carry ID on their suicide missions?). But given that most ISIS terrorists in Syria are foreign mercenaries, this isn't really evidence of anything, except perhaps that some ISIS terrorists were hidden among the Syrian refugees that transited through Greece this summer.

We're told that ISIS aims to establish a caliphate over as much of the Levant as possible. But achieving that aim necessarily involves the removal of the Assad government, which Western powers have been lobbying for for several years. Over the past 4 years of the "Syrian revolution", and until about 6 weeks ago, the group had gone a long way toward attaining that goal, with the Syrian Arab Army seriously pressed and the Assad government's areas of control limited to small areas in and around Damascus. After 6 weeks of Russian airstrikes however, ISIS is now losing ground faster than a 3-legged donkey in a horse race, and their paymasters in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Washington DC can't seem to funnel enough money and weapons to them to make a difference.

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'Look what we found in the desert!'

This is the key point, and it's no conspiracy theory: ISIS and other "Syrian rebels" are almost entirely the brainchildren of the US government and their allies in the Middle East. Without their support, as noted by many mainstream news outlets, ISIS would have long since disappeared from the pages of history. In a previous article, I outlined the geopolitical strategy being pursued by Washington and its Mid-East allies in funding a 'Syrian revolution' to overthrow the Assad government; it's all about oil and gas pipelines to Europe and Asia, and thwarting Russian expansion.

So given that "ISIS" is being effectively routed by Russian airstrikes and the Syrian Arab Army, why would the ISIS leadership choose to add to their woes by massacring French civilians and provoking the expected French military response against ISIS in Syria and Iraq. I mean, do these people actually enjoy having Western bombs, in addition to Russian ones, fall on their heads?

In case you haven't noticed, just about every alleged Muslim terror attack since 9/11 has been immediately used by the US government and its allies to justify continued action in their 'war on terror'. This is despite the fact that, on most occasions, the Muslim terrorists carried out their attacks for the express purpose of intimidating Western governments into ceasing their bombing and invading of Muslim countries.

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Western governments clearly don't mind killing civilians, especially civilians of other countries. Groups like ISIS share the same ideology, obviously. You'd think that, by now, the Jihadis would have figured out that the 'great Satan' is unlikely to be swayed from its imperial designs by a few terror attacks against its servants. On the contrary, it merely serves to encourage him in his hell-raising in Muslim lands. Then again, it is possible that, for a very good reason, the jihadis actually want a full-blown NATO attack on Syria.

So could it be that the failure of Western governments to adequately support the jihadis in their desire to give Assad the Gaddafi treatment has forced the jihadis to provide Western governments with the political capital necessary to take some real action? Are French citizens being asked to countenance the possibility that 129 of them had to be gunned down to motivate the French government to act? And if ISIS is largely controlled by the Saudis on behalf of the Americans, who is really providing this 'motivation'?

An interesting historical precedent

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The train bombing carried out by the NATO-created OAS terror group on the Paris-Strasbourg line in 1961

Prior to the attacks in Paris, France's worst terrorist atrocity was carried out in 1961 by the "Organisation of the Secret Army" (Organisation de l'armée secrète) when it planted a bomb on the Paris-Strasbourg train line, derailing a train and killing 28 people. The OSA grew out of NATO's 'stay behind' paramilitary groups (known collectively as Operation Gladio) that were tasked with preventing European nations from siding with the Soviet Union and thereby posing a direct threat to US global hegemony.

The 1961 train bombing was specifically designed to prevent then French President Charles de Gaulle from signing the Evian accords that ended the France-Algeria war and paving the way for Algerian independence from France (and therefore NATO). A few days before the derailment, a threat had been sent to the station master and a police investigation into the tragedy found was that it was a deliberate attack. This information was, however, kept secret for 20 years.

Members of this same Secret Army Organisation, in league with US intelligence, made several attempts to assassinate de Gaulle. After the most serious attempt in 1962 when the President's car was raked with machine gun fire by a member of the OSA, officers of France's external intelligence agency still loyal to de Gaulle traced the assassination attempt through Permindex, the Swiss corporation linked to the assassination of JFK, to NATO headquarters in Brussels, Belgium.

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NATO's military SHAPE HQ in southern Belgium

De Gaulle realised that NATO, despite the talk of "allied powers", was little more than the HQ of US military expansionist plans in Europe and decided to remove France from its influence. Today NATO, and its Supreme Headquarters of Allied Power in Europe, or "SHAPE", based just north of Mons in southern Belgium remains the cover through which US hegemony is exercised over all European nations, particularly the former Soviet republics. In 2009, under then President Nicolas Sarkozy, France rejoined the NATO alliance.

There are many examples that show the extent to which the US government, through NATO, has been prepared to go to undermine genuine European independence and thwart Russian influence. One example was the 1980 bombing of a train station in Bologna Italy that killed 85 people and wounded more than 200. While "communists" were originally blamed, in recent years evidence has emerged that the culprits were in fact Italian secret service agents, including a CIA liaison officer, operating under the aegis of Gladio, who were determined to prevent Italy from 'swinging to the left' and into the arms of Soviet Russia.

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A TGV train goes off the rails as workers test a section of brand new high-speed railway near Strasbourg on November 14th 2015. It's officially being blamed on "excessive speed"...

It seems to me to be a rather interesting coincidence then that, one day after the Gladio-style Paris attacks, a French train on the Paris Strasbourg line derailed, killing 10 people. While authorities almost immediately discounted a deliberate attack and blamed "excessive speed", police investigating have said the cause is still unknown.

The point of NATO's Gladio network was to create a strategy of political and social tension in European countries. This "strategy of tension" can be defined as a campaign to create trauma and shock in a population and, if necessary, generate a crisis of citizens' trust in the democratically-elected government and generating - again, if necessary - the conditions for a military or authoritarian force to assume power. It can also be used to create a security psychosis among the population, dividing the population against itself and encouraging citizens to advocate for a more authoritarian political organization that will deal with the security problem.

In the specific context of the modern 'war on Muslim terrorism', the demonization of Muslims is a prerequisite for continued Western meddling in the Middle East and elsewhere - not to mention continued Western sanctioning of Israel's brutal treatment of Palestinians.

In such a context, terror attacks attributed to Muslim groups like ISIS - especially when they occur in a country like France with a significant Muslim minority - cannot but be seen as serving a very particular agenda that, unfortunately, must not be explicitly named.

Joe Quinn is the co-author of 9/11: The Ultimate Truth (with Laura Knight-Jadczyk, 2006) and Manufactured Terror: The Boston Marathon Bombings, Sandy Hook, Aurora Shooting and Other False Flag Terror Attacks (with Niall Bradley, 2014), and the host of Sott.net's The Sott Report Videos and co-host of the 'Behind the Headlines' radio show on the Sott Talk Radio network.

An established web-based essayist and print author, Quinn has been writing incisive editorials for Sott.net for over 10 years. His articles have appeared on many alternative news sites and he has been interviewed on several internet radio shows and has also appeared on Iranian Press TV. His articles can also be found on his personal blog JoeQuinn.net.
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Re: Paris, by Nicolas Haeringer

Postby admin » Wed Nov 18, 2015 9:03 pm

‘France is at war’: Hollande urges more security spending & stripping of citizenship after attacks
by rt.com
16 Nov, 2015

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French President Francois Hollande delivers a speech at a special congress of the joint upper and lower houses of parliament (National Assembly and Senate) at the Palace of Versailles, near Paris, France, November 16, 2015. © Philippe Wojazer / Reuters

Stating that France is now "at war," President Francois Hollande urged for increased security spending and stripping dual citizens of their French nationality if they are deemed a terrorism risk. It comes just days after Paris attacks killed 129 people.

In a Monday address to both houses of parliament, Hollande said France will step up strikes in Syria, calling it “the biggest factory of terrorists the world has known.”

"Our democracy has triumphed before over adversaries that were much more formidable than these cowards," Hollande said.

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RT ✔ @RT_com
URGENT: Hollande to meet Obama & Putin in next few days ‘to join our forces’ http://on.rt.com/6wd7
8:41 AM - 16 Nov 2015


The French president demanded a rapid implementation of "co-ordinated and systematic controls" of the EU's internal and external borders, stressing that it will patrol its national borders if Europe does not comply. This would mean dismantling the European Union.

He stated that he was extending the current state of emergency by an additional three months, adding that the French constitution must be amended for crisis situations, allowing dual citizens to be stripped of their French citizenship and barred from the country if they are a terrorism risk.

The French president stated that 5,000 police jobs will be created in the next two years. He said there would be no job cuts in the military until 2019.

Hollande stressed that the security measures will increase spending, but stated that security is more important than EU budget rules.

The leader said he will meet with US and Russian leaders to discuss combining their efforts to destroy ISIS, and called on the United Nations Security Council to rapidly issue a resolution against terrorism.

The address marked the first time in more than six years that a French president addressed both houses of parliament, the Senate, and the National Assembly. This is a procedure reserved for constitutional revisions and major presidential speeches.
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Re: Paris, by Nicolas Haeringer

Postby admin » Thu Nov 19, 2015 5:33 am

Paris Bombing/Peace-Global Warming Conference Excerpt from "Team America"
directed by Trey Parker
[Without Regard to the "Hate Everything Exception to Criticism", i.e., if we could only hate everything, we would be above criticism, and be in total control of the "virtuous" mirror that reflects our hate back on you.]

NOTICE: THIS WORK MAY BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT

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[TEAM AMERICA WORLD POLICE]

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[PARIS, FRANCE: 3,635 MILES EAST OF AMERICA]

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PUPPETEER: Oh, hello.

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MOTHER: Jean Francois?
Jean Francois?

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JEAN FRANCOIS: Frère Jacques, Frère Jacques, Dormez vous? Dormez vous?

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MOTHER: Jean Francois.

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[TEAM AMERICA WORLD POLICE]

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POLICE: You in the robes. Put down the weapon of mass destruction ...

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and get on the ground. You're under arrest.

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JOE: Put down your weapons now!

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CHRIS: Why can't they ever do this the easy way?

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CARSON: World Police. Get down on the ground!

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LISA: Hey, terrorist.

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Terrorize this.

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CHRIS: All right, let's make this interesting.

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You lose.

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CARSON: He's getting away with the WMD!

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JOE: I got him.

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JOE: Damn, I missed him.

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CARSON: Sarah, he's got the bomb. You got a fix?

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SARAH: I got him, Carson. He's heading for the Louvre.

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Your plans are over.

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CARSON: All right, Sarah.

JOE: Yeah, all right, team!

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SARAH: Nothing to it.

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CHRIS: All right.

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JOE: Bonjour, everyone. Don't worry. Everything is bon.

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We stopped the terrorists.

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***
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Re: Paris, by Nicolas Haeringer

Postby admin » Thu Nov 19, 2015 5:33 am

Paris Bombing/Peace-Global Warming Conference Excerpt from "Team America"
directed by Trey Parker
[Without Regard to the "Hate Everything Exception to Criticism", i.e., if we could only hate everything, we would be above criticism, and be in total control of the "virtuous" mirror that reflects our hate back on you.]

NOTICE: THIS WORK MAY BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT

YOU ARE REQUIRED TO READ THE COPYRIGHT NOTICE AT THIS LINK BEFORE YOU READ THE FOLLOWING WORK, THAT IS AVAILABLE SOLELY FOR PRIVATE STUDY, SCHOLARSHIP OR RESEARCH PURSUANT TO 17 U.S.C. SECTION 107 AND 108. IN THE EVENT THAT THE LIBRARY DETERMINES THAT UNLAWFUL COPYING OF THIS WORK HAS OCCURRED, THE LIBRARY HAS THE RIGHT TO BLOCK THE I.P. ADDRESS AT WHICH THE UNLAWFUL COPYING APPEARED TO HAVE OCCURRED. THANK YOU FOR RESPECTING THE RIGHTS OF COPYRIGHT OWNERS.


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[KIM JONG IL AND THE FILM ACTORS GUILD INVITE YOU TO THE WORLD PEACE CONFERENCE]
 
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KIM JONG IL: Radies and gentlemen.
The Film Actors Guild and Kim Jong Il are preased to welcome you

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to the International World Peace Ceremony.
The most important people from every country

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are gathered here in soridarity to cerebrate peace.

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There will be music, dancing and, of course,

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the biggest stars in Horrywood.

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In the box to your reft is the mastermind of this spectacurar show,

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the multitarented Kim Jong Il.

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Oh, herro.

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And now we present to you the very best in North Korean music.

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KOREAN SOLDIERS: [Singing in Korean]

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KOREAN LADY: [Singing in Korean]

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[Audience Clapping]

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KIM JONG IL: Ten years of pranning, and finarry the night is here.

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The terrorists know to be in position by the time Arec Barrwin takes the stage.

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That's when I trigger all the WMDs to go off at the same time.
When you see Arec Barrwin,

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you will see the true ugriness of human nature.

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LISA: Your plan will never work. Something will stop it.

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KIM JONG IL: You stupid, naive Team Americans.
You berieve in true rove and happy endings
even while the world around you spirals downward.

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LISA: Sometimes believing is all we have.

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ALEC BALDWIN: And as the leaders of your countries, you have the power

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to bring the world together under the principles of the Film Actors Guild.

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DANNY GLOVER: You're gonna knock them dead, Alec.

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INTERCOM: Ten minutes, Mr. Baldwin.

***
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