Paris (Beirut Kenya Yemen Nigeria)
by Alex Symington…….
I don’t want to write about the Paris attacks, but I feel compelled because, like effective therapy, writing and talking about a horror make it real and once made real it can be exorcised.
Upon learning the identity of those responsible for these vile murders, as if on cue, France’s President Hollande vowed “to retaliate with a pitiless war on the terrorists.” Really? Just what has the West been doing up to this point in time? Baking cakes and sending flowers? Can we, for once, try a different approach? We kill them, they kill us…This is an eternal dance.
Nicolas Henin, author of Jihad Academy, The Rise of Islamic State, was held hostage by ISIS for ten months in Syria. He learned that the Islamic State longs to provoke retaliation. “We should not fall into the trap.” He asks the questions, “While we are trying to destroy Isis, what of the 500,000 civilians still living and trapped in Raqqa? What of their safety? What of the very real prospect that by failing to think this through, we turn many of them into extremists? The priority must be to protect these people, not to take more bombs to Syria.”
Maybe if our Western “leaders” cracked opened a history book they would see they just keep making the same hubristic mistakes, over and over again. Remember “Mission Accomplished?” The arrogance was stupefying! 1.2 million Iraqi dead as a result and it is not hard to see why the West is hated.
A terrorist criminal check list might look like this:
1. Murder people indiscriminately, check!
2. Leader of murdered victims vows retaliation where more innocents will die, check!
3. More innocents being killed by Westerners creates more sympathy for the terrorists, check!
Bonus: Local reactionary vigilantes harass, vandalize and/or kill innocent local Muslims, thereby creating more local radicalized Muslims, check!
Like a puppet on a string, Hollande does the bidding of a handful of monsters and like the US and the UK completely ignores those who bankroll these charming individuals. Well, surprise surprise, it is none other than our dear friends, the Saudis! Remember our favorite Saudi, Osama bin Laden? I sure do. Maybe I’m just not sophisticated enough to understand the intricacies and subtle nuances of the US/Saudi-Hooker/Pimp relationship we have or is it Dope Fiend/Dealer? Either way, the reality is we are in league with a government that publicly chops off heads as a punishment for adultery and has institutionalized misogyny while funding the likes of ISIS and al Qaeda who really really don’t like you and me. Most recently as of last Tuesday the US state department has approved the sale of $1.3bn of bombs to Saudi Arabia. I guess our Imperial/Corporate/Military/Industrial ghouls need the money, but I have to wonder who will be on the receiving end of these bombs.
On history…Remember when the Middle East was arbitrarily cut up like a slab of baklava during WW1? No? Don’t feel bad, it would seem neither do our “leaders.” In 1916 the British and French took it upon themselves to draw imaginary lines in the sand and divvy up the Middle East between them. In essence colonizing regions of highly complex religious, cultural and tribal differences and lumping them together for the convenience of shared exploitation. What had taken thousands of years to form organically was shattered overnight by the thoughtless blind greed of the West.
The sins of the grandfathers and fathers have come back to haunt us in the form of ISIS. This “Party of Death” as historian Simon Schama calls them is the result of Western meddling over the last hundred years and most recently with the US led Bush/Cheney invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan that continues under Barack Obama and, to listen to the Republican candidates for POTUS, to be continued and expanded upon by them, if given the opportunity. We haven’t learned a damned thing, have we? Nothing in this world, good or evil, comes about in a vacuum.
In an article by John B. Judis in The New Republic , he has gone to the source. “The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) publishes a weekly webzine, The Islamic State Report. The latest issue is headlined “Smashing the Borders of the Tawaghit.” (“Tawaghit” are non-Muslim creations.) ISIS, citing the Sykes-Picot Treaty of 1916 between the British and French, boasts that it is destroying the “partitioning of Muslim lands by crusader powers.”
Judis writes about the significant historic events that formed the present day Middle East and quotes The Islamic State Report article that details the meddling of the West in the region with annoying accuracy. Shooting the messenger might make some feel very good in this case, but that would not negate the facts or the history.
Medea Benjamin of CODEPINK said, “It is important to condemn the specific terrorist murders in France, but that is not enough. The U.S. government must break with the intolerant and murderous monarchy out of which al-Qaeda and ISIS have spawned. And we call on all groups that take Saudi money—from think tanks to universities to NGOs to PR firms—to stop accepting Saudi funds. Breaking with the Saudi regime is one concrete, non-violent act we can take to stop the spread of extremism and make the world a safer place.”
We in the West are way past due for some serious collective introspection. Hard questions need to be asked and past behavior revisited and examined closely. We need to be smarter than terror. We need to change from a culture of the knee-jerk to enlightenment and imagination if we are ever to evolve and climb out of our primordial quagmire. A good place to start would be by divorcing ourselves from the likes of Saudi Arabia and other “friends” financing radical Islam and promoting senseless death to anyone that doesn’t hold with their particular brand of theocracy. These people are not our friends. We’ve made sure of that.
More from other sources:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/78fdcf96-8bba-11e5-8be4-3506bf20cc2b.html#axzz3rcrukUo4
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/06/14/america-s-allies-are-funding-isis.html
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/11/saudi-arabia-bombs-sale-yemen-151117160003912.html
http://www.thenation.com/article/we-cannot-defeat-isis-without-defeating-the-wahhabi-theology-that-birthed-it/
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/nov/16/isis-bombs-hostage-syria-islamic-state-paris-attacks
http://www.codepink.org/to_fight_isis_break_with_saudi_arabia
http://www.dailykos.com/?detail=action
http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/nearly-2000-civilians-were-killed-single-terror-attack-nigeria-where-was-media
https://newrepublic.com/article/118409/mideast-unravelling-and-theres-not-much-us-can-do
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/arts-and-entertainment/wp/2015/11/15/among-social-medias-eiffel-towers-and-peace-signs-the-story-of-an-april-terrorist-attack-in-kenya/
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/16/world/middleeast/beirut-lebanon-attacks-paris.html?_r=0
http://www.wsj.com/articles/two-suicide-bombings-target-yemen-mosques-1426850471
http://www.latimes.com/world/la-fg-paris-attack-muslims-20151115-story.html
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=3860950
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-25299553
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2668912/ISIS-militants-produce-slick-weekly-magazine-packed-English-language-Islamist-propaganda-designed-recruit-radicalise-extremists-West.html
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/sep/16/iraq.iraqtimeline?CMP=share_btn_fb
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pKMV6e5kEo
Well done, nicely stated and well researched. I see the discourse of struggling toward peace in your writing Thanks, Martha
Very convincing arguments, Alex.
Plus, one more: the imbalance of
destructive power and sophistication
of weaponry. We are seen as bullies
who need to be taught a lesson.
They obviously keep score, tallying
up the totals killed or maimed, both
purposely and accidentally. In the
not too distant past, we leveled two
cities, actually three. More recently,
“shock and awe”. It can be said,
“we’ve earned whatever they can
make happen”.
I’m not saying any past justifies any
future, but look at our ‘rebel flagged’
South – where many ‘good Americans’
think that way, and it has been 150
years!
Not to mention looking back upon
Christian atrocities. I’m presently
reading Hitchen’s “God Is Not Great”.
Looking forward, even to a possible
Sanders presidency, our nation is
filled with ‘vengeance seekers’ in
the name of ‘our’ god. Dominionists
control towns, counties, cities, even
half of state governments – and the
school boards within. Home-schooling
is rife to boot. A Huckabee runs for
president!
There’s no logic, no reality. It’s all
gut feelings and emotion. We are
‘de-volving’ just when the planet
most needs us to e-volve.
No, I’m not giving up, but where are
the positive alternatives?
Will the good of the internet outweigh
the bad? Can it?
Sigh. First, ‘we must know the enemy’.
In this, I think, Pogo is right: “We’ve
met the enemy, and he is us!”
Now, might we hope for some Constructive
comments from All of your readwers?
pip
Alex, This is a worthy sequel to my essay entitled “Consumerism vs. Islam”, and it comes with a more detailed factual foundation. I’d like to add one thing here: the fact that public opinion is being so easily lead back to a war footing is really the result of one thing — the volunteer army. If nobody has any skin in this game, then it is game on. It is also a patently obvious display of the cowardice we display as a nation. Sure, go ahead, war, war … just so long as I can go to my football game this weekend. Pathetic. Also, at the risk of sounding like KB, one has to begin to wonder about just who is behind all of this. Remember, the most fascistic elements of our society most benefit from these attacks. Racism, nationalism, blind patriotism, etc., fester in such an environment. Are these attacks being allowed to happen? Just a thought, one worth not ignoring. Thanks Alex, ciao, Jerome
Yes,the “sins of the grandfather,” that moment when the Middle East was “arbitrarily cut up like a slab of baklava”–it seems so appropriate to acknowledge the historic “meddling of the West” in a sticky-gooey dessert metaphor.
“sticky-gooey” seems appropriate, Kalo, as in ‘descriptive of unrefined oil and clotting blood’, the need for one spilling the other. Also, in the common predicament of everyone involved in an area forever consumed by Old Testament-Torah-Koran sourced hatreds. Thank God for religions – [snark alert].
Perhaps we cannot know for sure, but IF there is a ‘modern’ cabal running the world, I suspect they allow the present global realism-avoiding faith- based propensity for paranoia to play itself out. As a good third of humanity eliminates itself through coming food/land/water wars, [or simple starvation], those elites will ‘wait in the wings’ having made certain their own survival. That would be a cynical scenario, but easily justified ‘in the right sort of mind’ for the survival of our species and ultimately a finally liveable world. Maybe.
As long as nobody goes nuclear, it might work. Except meanwhile certain corporations hurry the warming, encouraged by such as the Koch Bros,
too hubristic in their righteous and moneyed certainty to realize they face a permanent end just like you and I.
pip
Alex,
Great piece…Wonderfully executed…
I’m going to respond as I did to Jerome.
“Leadership of some type is needed, so at least we can establish a baseline, a point, establishing where we are; allowing some clarity and space to emerge, in the hope that we might arrive at a place where the accrued ‘wisdom’ of a people will prevail”.
Love, Blessings & Respect…
What “accrued ‘wisdom’ of a people” might that be?
Sister,
Greetings. Good to hear from you.
The “accrued wisdom” I am referring to is the advanced state of consciousness acquired by Self-Realized and Self-Actualized individuals.
Always, Blessings & Respect…
Meesrs. Symington, Grapel, Donnelly, Piper, and Shaquille… Please try and open your mind while you watch this. all it lacks is a direct link to the owners of international finance as the pinnacle of control. There is no war on terror. there is a war on US.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1D-9_LFPN7g
So, KB, you’re asserting that there IS a cabal within, made up of the more ‘ambitious’ associates of the aforementioned Trilateral Commission and more right wing or extremely Libertarian groups and think tanks, perhaps Kato and such?
I wish I was in contact with my cousin, who is privy to all
of the necessary information. I might find out if there is such a cabal, [which I was only speculating about in a previous comment], and how ‘powerful and manipulative’ it might be.
Actually, that such a cabal would be a ‘group puppetmaster’ of global terrorists, without an explanation or ‘how’, rather than just an accusation that they ‘do’ pull the necessary strings, is presently too much for me to swallow. And, I do have a pretty good imagination.
Gotta admit though, that video was well produced.
seriously, pip
the “cabal” is the Rothschild family at the top, with various other families playing a supporting role. they own the world’s central banks and the retail banks. as you may or may not know, money is created as debt, out of thin air by both these types of banks through the tapping of a keyboard or fractional reserve banking.
now, what do you suppose one would do who had the power to print money? do you think they might buy governments? the means of production? control economies? dictate world events?
you guys all seem to understand corporate power; who do you think owns the corporations?
look up money creation. then look up the history of the Rothschild family. I’m sure you can understand that he who controls the money controls the world.
Keysbum, You know I have respect for much of what you say. The fact that there could be some grand conspiracy to control the world thru finances and such, is really not that new or startling. But they do not go unopposed. Certain upheavals in history prove this. Now, sure, these masonic-like masters at the top could very well be funneling money to terrorist groups, thru the most secretive ways and channels. I can easily believe that. But I don’t think it is all so clean and gift wrapped as you say. The masonic masters don’t operate in vacuum, they have to fight for what they want, just as other sectors of society do. I ask you this: do you think those who make up the French Parliament, or the American Congress, or the English House of Commons, were all secretly happy for these acts of terror, that they were in on it, etc.? Just wondering, ciao, PCM
Mr. Grapel, why do you continue to refer to the international monetary system as a “conspiracy theory?” that is a pejorative reserved for the intellectually callow. the manner in which money or credit is entered and exited through the worlds banks and economies is a fact. the fact that the banks are privately owned is a fact. there is no discussion or opinion about that, it is fact. what, do you think that banks loan out their deposits? or currency/credit comes from the money fairy? where do you think money comes from? and you know what, it obviously is something “new” because you don’t seem to know about it. even as erudite a business scholar as Shaquille doesn’t seem to know about it.
once you become edified to the international monetary system, you will see that these people create history, they do not react to it. there is no major world event, or movement, that is not a planned orchestrated event. these people literally own the world, and thus, they steer it into whatever direction they choose. to do otherwise would be irrational according to the orthodox economic/market tenets you all believe in. the “war on terror” is a prime example. as was the “red scare.” as was the “hun menace” (pt. 1&2). the depression. the panic of 1907, the oil shocks, the tech crash, the housing bubble, the crash of 2008, and on and on. all this stuff is planned and carried out thru many acolytes including, and mainly, governments.
to answer the last part of you comment: i think ascertaining the emotional state of politicians is irrelevant. these people are employees of the ruling elite and simply do what they are told. why does BP get to kill the Gulf and get away with it? why do american police kill with impunity? why are our kids so dumb they can’t say who we gained our independence from? why are we turning into a nation of dumpster divers? and why does congress with a 9% approval rating get re-elected 91% of the time?
it is because we have no say. it is because the politicians have no say. we are owned. why is that so hard to accept?
please watch these.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5ayg3hbhoM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DzzLqJx7y3Q
got 3 hours to learn something? this is probably the definitive explanation of the monetary system.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwqUr7PSRO8
Keysbum, I have never disputed the material you constantly harp upon. But that does not mean there cannot be a reaction to it. “They” (whoever they are) must react to the world around them, like any other aspect of existence. If “they” had always had their way, we’d all be serfs with no options in life whatsoever. Now, is there still a cabal of rulers who wield immense power? Of course, but time keeps on moving into the future and what that future will be is always up for grabs. Thanks for the material and the conversation, ciao, PCM