The French Islamic Terrorists: Is Their Aim To Provoke the West Into Over-reaction?

The French terror attacks, which have now left 18 dead, have been summarily described by one French official as "the French being at war". No, I don't think so. That fulsome rhetoric embodies precisely the memetic mistake the U.S. made after 9/11 which enticed us into nearly bankrupting ourselves by two useless 'wars' (I call them occupations) that have merely left us with $4 trillion in debt (when all the medical costs are finally toted up). Rather than treat the al Qaeda imps as what they were - criminals- we inflated them to the level of another superpower just like us, as demonstrated by the military response in Afghanistan (now 13 years and counting) and the debacle in Iraq.

Anyway, Juan Cole has some insightful words on the Charlie Hebdo attack in Paris. He points out that the shooters were neither "attacking free speech" nor "defending Mohammed"; they were using a time-honored tactic of radical extremists (of all stripes): "sharpening the contradictions," hoping to provoke an overreaction that would lead to repression and persecution of Muslims in general -- thus helping the extremists recruit new members. 

This is similar to  what bin Laden did with such spectacular success with 9/11: provoking an endless global war, with Western "interventions" and "targeted assassinations" and drone strikes that have killed hundreds of thousands of innocent people -- all of which, as our own security services tell us, have fed the flames of extremism and made the situation worse.

Much of this was highlighted in my blog post of May 4, 2011, referencing Rachel Maddow's excellent analysis from the night before.  Maddow showed, using assorted news releases, past documented video quotations and third party reports how we'd all been had in a classical 'rope a dope'. While we had our eyes and minds focused on the DEATHS brought by Bin Laden from his 9/11 terror attacks, we lost sight of his hidden goal: to bring the whole American Republic to its knees by making it spend itself into oblivion. Which is damned near what we have succeeded in doing, by erecting an entire security -defense establishment (much of it contracted out) in addition to an expanded military -industrial establishment.

In the meantime, most of our civil liberties have been extirpated or at least seriously compromised by the Patriot Act and other provisions exposed by Edward Snowden.

According to Maddow, in her then introductory remarks:

"When we think about Bin Laden we think about murder, mayhem and perverted, pseudo-theology. But Osama Bin Laden himself always thought about money. Money was always how he explained what he was doing, and what al Qaeda was up to. One month after the September 11 attacks, gave an interview to Al Jazeera in which he said, quote:

"The losses on Wall Street amounted to 16 percent, and they have said this was a record loss that had never happened in the market's history in 230 years. The capital in circulation in this market amounted to $4 trillion. If we multiply 16 percent by $4 trillion to find out the losses their shares suffered, that is $640 billion. This is what they lost in one hour. The national income in the U.S. is $20 billion.

Bin Laden, in Maddow's quote from Al Jazeera, then goes on to brag about the hidden economic costs latent in the "psychological shock" after the attacks on the Twin Towers and Pentagon.

Maddow then played the infamous Bin Laden video that emerged just on the eve of the 2004 U.S. presidential elections. In this video he's heard to state

"Al Qaeda spent $500,000 on the attacks but America in the incident and the aftermath spent more than $500 billion"

So even three years after the horrific 9/11 events, Bin Laden wasn't bragging about the deaths or physical damage inflicted on New York or Washington but the financial costs to the country. Obviously, as Maddow pointed out, that was where his head and major purpose were, though Americans always believed it was about death, destruction.

Juan Cole's insight and suggestion is that, like the U.S. in the aftermath of 9/11, the aim of the French terrorists might well have been the same - to provoke France and the West into a disproportionate response that will cost blood and treasure.

Do the French have the good sense not to fall into the trap that we fell into, set by bin Laden? (Who must still be laughing from his watery grave)?  Only time will tell, but when one hears any kind of "war" rhetoric the future doesn't appear very auspicious.

Cheney & Other Neocons Ought to be Keeping Silent - Not Trashing Obama

"Never mind the fact that the perpetrators of this enormous fraud, this smash-and-grab robbery, this looting of the Treasury, this act of first-degree murder on a massive scale, all walked away scot-free to pursue new careers and live lives of comfort. Amazingly enough, that's not the worst part. The worst part is that they're all on my television again, trying to blame President Obama for the circumstances created by their own feckless, murderous decisions." - William Rivers Pitt, in 'They Belong in Prison, Not on TV' on smirkingchimp.com

I still have my mouse pad given to me as a gift some years ago: it shows Dick Cheney's snarling mug on one side and that of his spitting image - a snarling "Satan" on the other, e.g.
Given this piece of filth was largely the Maestro of the Iraq invasion, one would have thought he'd be keeping a low profile, as opposed to actually having the nerve to pen an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal daring to insinuate Obama committed "treason" for "betraying the future of our country". What the fuck is he talking about? He and his fellow Neocon vermin betrayed the country by destabilizing Iraq and opening the doors to real terror. He and the necons were actually WAR Criminals, who ought to now be rotting just outside the Hague - but because of the overly good graces of Obama, these scum were never prosecuted or turned over! One must question where the thanks are now. Have they no shame? No they don't!

Let’s recall here (for the memory-challenged) that it was Cheney who originally had a plan underfoot to bogusly attack Iraq from 1992  (under the banner of the 'Project for the New American Century') operating under the presumption that Poppy Bush (George the First) would be re-elected. Well, he wasn’t.  Clinton took the election thanks to Ross Perot splitting the ‘puke vote. This meant Cheney’s plan had to be put on hold until another Bush could get in, and that wasn’t until 2000 – when five treasonous Supreme Court justices interrupted a Florida recount to hand the election to Junior, aka Dumbya.

Even then it wasn’t a done deal, a pretext still had to be found for invasion and occupation. The gift fell into the laps of Bush, Cheney and their Neocon warmonger cohort with the devastating 9/11 attacks. People will argue over 9/11’s real origins until their dying day but one thing we do know: the Bush Criminals profited handsomely in the wake, with Bush’s approval rating shooting up into the 90s (from below 35%) even as the national security state and military –industrial complex got the go ahead for the biggest spending in 60 years. At the very least, while many of us don’t believe these vermin deliberately blew up the Twin Towers, we do think it highly probable they KNEW what was coming and sat back and did nothing. In other words they let it happen.  It was simply too great a benefit ‘plum’ to do otherwise. See also: http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2012/09/how-responsible-was-bush-for-911.html

It also finally enabled the original Cheney Iraq invasion-occupation plan to be put into motion. All the Neocon memos surfacing from just after 9/11 (many from Paul Wolfowitz & Cheney) showed repeated underscored emphases like: “TIE SADDAM TO 9/11! HOW?” Indeed, how? Since Saddam was a resolute secularist who had no tolerance for religious extremists of either the Sunni or Shi’ite Muslim stripe. But the traitor Cheney and his Neocon ilk were determined to make the connection and have the corporate U.S. media coopted to assist in the PR blitz that lasted from October, 2002 until March, 2003 when the Cheney-bred dogs of war were unleashed. To that end, the Cheney-directed Neocons employed every sort of ruse - from 'yellowcake' to aluminum tubes and alleged claims of WMD (from an Iraqi traitor rat named 'curve ball') - to pump up a bogus case for invasion just like Hitler and the Nazis did (using faked imagery of German fraus being raped by Poles) to justify an invasion of Poland in 1939. Once he had the U.S. corporate media on his side it was merely a matter of drum beating a sheep-like American public into giving him the poll numbers he desired to launch an invasion in March, 2003.

If there was one prime Nazi I'd compare Cheney to it would probably be Rudolph Hess, but the malignancy of Hess pales besides that of Cheney.  While Hess likely was directly responsible for the deaths of thousands, Cheney's Iraq interference machinations led to a wasteful occupation that in the end cost us over $3 trillion and more than 4400 American lives as well as 600,000 innocent Iraqi lives (according to WHO, the World Health Organization). Meanwhile, the bloody Nazified takeover as well as hyped rhetoric (“Axis of Evil”) drove the other two members of that defined “axis”, Iran and North Korea, to develop their own nuclear weapons – realizing this would likely be the only deterrent to the crazed Amerikkan pre-emptive warmongers. So, if Iran and North Korea do have ‘x’ atomic bombs today, you can lay the blame on Dick Cheney’s lap as well as his accomplices, aka the Neocon rats like Paul Wolfowitz, William Kristol, Richard Perle et al.

 Make no mistake that Cheney is the real traitor, whose costly pre-emptive war will cost us well into the future, including the brain-damaged vets needing aid, and benefits. But at the same time Cheney's is only one dastardly head belonging to the multi-headed Hydra Neocons. This Hydra is now raising its voice in the media to try to brand Obama responsible for the current Iraqi turmoil - as opposed to pointing the finger at themselves. For they were the architects of one of the worst geopolitical disasters in living memory.

Make no mistake I wanted all of them brought to account, especially for their torture and rendition practices - as well as launching  a pre-emptive war. I had opined at the time (just after Obama's 2008 election) that he needed to prosecute them with the full force of law - using all the resources of the Justice Dept.-  and if not hung as war criminals, then tossed into assorted slammers here in the U.S. to rot. But Obama was too gracious by far insisting we must "look forward, not backward".  Did he have any notion then of the ingratitude these degenerates would show now? Not bloody likely!

When next the neocons are tempted to go off on Obama, they need to visualize just where they'd be right now had he not been so generous and forgiving five years ago.

See also:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/william-rivers-pitt/56519/they-belong-in-prison-not-on-tv