Friday, November 13, 2015

Terror in Paris (UPDATES -- with my prediction)

I'm sure that you are all watching news coverage of the coordinated series of terror attacks in Paris. An Agence France Presse reporter just now told MSNBC News that more than 100 people were killed in the Bataclan convert hall, where a band from California called the Eagles of Death Metal played to a packed house. There were also shootings in the street and in restaurants -- and explosions at a sports arena where President Hollande was in attendance. (He was unharmed.)

BBC reported that a migrant camp in Calais was on fire. This report now appears to be false. It is worth noting, however, that this migrant camp houses refugees from ISIS atrocities in Syria and Iraq. Earlier today, RT broadcast a very strange report:
The media has mostly focused on the Calais camp, dubbed the 'Jungle', but there are many others. RT's Poly Boiko went to one of them and found that refugees have been leaving amid fears Islamist extremists and former ISIS members have moved in.
One likely result of these terror attacks is increased European hostility to the refugees. In essence, the victims of terror will be blamed for the actions of their victimizers.

Cable TV coverage has emphasized repeatedly that these attacks came as a complete surprise to our intelligence community. Therefore, it also seems likely that this outrage will result in lessened restrictions on NSA eavesdropping.

Terrorism, classically, is a tactic employed to achieve a specific goal. Although the most reactionary elements of French and American society will clearly benefit from this parade of obscenities, I can't see what the perpetrators can possibly hope to gain. We have heard no demands; we can discern no clear motive. If terror exists solely for its own sake, should it even be called terror? We need an even stronger word to describe such madness.

Update: France 24 is reporting that all of the attackers -- in all locations -- are dead.

It is reported that the terrorists in the Bataclan concert hall wore explosive vests which they detonated as the Parisian SWAT team entered. I'm sure that the tactics employed by those cops will be subjected to much scrutiny.

Update 2: From the NYT...
Rep. Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, tells The Associated Press he was not aware of any chatter pointing to the Paris attacks ahead of time.
Let's be very suspicious if we start to hear reports of "chatter" tomorrow or the next day.
Schiff says it is unclear who was responsible for the attacks, but says the Islamic State group and al-Qaida are "distinct possibilities" — with the Islamic State more likely.
Remember: High-level American officials sought to reclassify Al Qaeda in Syria as "moderates."

Update 3: Hollande has officially blamed ISIS. A right-wing source claims that the terrorists announced that they were motivated by "Syria."

Moon of Alabama reminds us that most or all of the arms sent by "the west" to rebel groups in Syria have ended up in the hands of the ISIS/al Qaeda jihadis. Committed to the ISIS goal of removing Assad, Hollande has armed the "moderate" Syrian rebels -- even though, as we've seen in many previous posts, those moderates are largely fictional (a point conceded by presidential aspirant Ted Cruz).

Tony Blair has called for airstrikes in Syria. John McCain has advocated arming the rebels with surface-to-air missiles, while Hillary Clinton and most of the GOP candidates are talking about a "no fly" zone over Syria.

Given this background, the attacks on Paris start to make sense.

An outraged public will insist on doing something, no matter how counter-productive that "something" might be. Under the pretext of fighting ISIS, the western powers will create a "no fly" zone in Syria. The public will cheer this move without understanding one all-important fact:

ISIS has no air force.

A no-fly zone can succeed only in grounding the jets of Assad and Putin, which have been pounding the daylights out of ISIS and Al Qaeda, even though our lying media has repeatedly stated otherwise. (In retaliation for Russia's effective airstrikes, ISIS is now threatening Russia, and may have taken down that Russian jet over Sinai.)

Syrian/Russian airstrikes have turned the tide of war against the jihadis. By removing that factor, the United States will give the jihadis a clear path to victory.

Tomorrow, Obama and Hollande will tell the world that they are going to step up efforts against the jihadis. Gore Vidal once gave some sound advice: Never pay attention to what politicians say. Pay attention to what they do.

Here's my prediction: The infuriated (and easily duped) citizens of both France and the United States -- operating under the delusion that their leaders intend to fight ISIS -- will allow those leaders to take actions designed to bring ISIS and al Qaeda to power in Syria.

Irony of history or Machiavellian scheme? You make the call.

15 comments:

Unknown said...

Nihilism

prowlerzee said...

thank you for your commentary...I have no words

Anonymous said...

The possible benefits to the perps are hare to see. Islamists in Syria target westerners with beheadings to justify western involvement in the region. Then receive a pass (assistance) from US military so thry can destabilize the legitimate government. During this time vastly less targeting of Westerners. Russia steps in to do what the US chose not to. Now a major incident against random western civilians. Is it a public warning that unless US and allies stop Russian attacks they can expect a public backlash? Either we suceed in Syria or you will suffer with us? I can't see any other political aim to the attack (other possibilities almost certainly exist though).

Stephen Morgan said...

According to Football365 there had been a terror threat earlier in the day which had spooked the players. Hollande also left the match early.

b said...

Militarily it would make sense if the aim of these terror attacks were to draw the west in further into the Middle East - Syria in particular - to overstretch them.

Long-term, the US and its allies - the Israeli Poodles Club - cannot hold their positions in the Middle East and the predominantly Muslim area of the world. That's clear. They haven't got the force. The US is history. But there's a question of götterdämmerung. There was with the German navy in 1918 too. An uprising stopped it. But millions had already died in the trenches.

Although the west does a lot of propaganda for so-called "Muslim" terrorists such as these - who are, let us be very clear, viewed by almost all Muslims as scum - even to the point of certifying and widely circulating their videos for them (thanks SITE), if any actual demands were made yesterday they probably wouldn't publicise them. It's interesting that while the French authorities (rightly, in my opinion) are closing down many schools, museums, libraries, sports arenas etc. for fear of more attacks (sure, there's also a propaganda gain), western governments are pretending they can't do anything about their "enemy" spreading videos on the internet, including on Google-owned Youtube. So they can close down swimming pools and sports events but not any part of the Youtube distribution network? Bullshit!

Meanwhile they ban the hijab - an outrageous attack on Muslims. Feminists often talk about women's rights - especially while they keep buying feminist books - but I haven't heard much talk of the right of women to wear headscarves of their own choosing if they want to. What's fucking wrong with people's minds?

Oh. Did I mention Google?

Some of the above is by the by, worth saying for the reason of encouraging logical thought. Daesh are close to the best thing that ever happened to the rulers of the west, in relation to both their foreign policy and their internal policy.

The view on the Arab street seems to be that these and other operations are done by gangs for hire. I think that's accurate. Ditto in Tunisia. Ditto in Syria.

Who paid?

And is Marine on her way to the Elysée? I think she is. With her shitarsed sidekick Michel Houellebecq playing André Malraux.

Lastly...it's worth keeping an eye on how matters Israeli are being reported by Russia Today. I think things may be changing on that front.

b said...

@Anonymous - France, the US and the west are in no position to stop Russian attacks on Daesh in support of the Syrian government.

Last month, France mooted the placing of UN blue-hat soldiers in Jerusalem - to guard the the Haram al_Sharif, Temple Mount. They made that proposal to the UN Security Council.

No shit.

Here's a write-up in the Jerusalem Post:

************************************
Will we soon be seeing the distinctive light blue helmets and berets of United Nations peacekeeping forces on the Temple Mount? If France has its way, the UN Security Council will accept a French motion and vote in favor of stationing “independent observers” on the site to “identify possible violations of the status quo.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made it clear Sunday that he rejects the French proposal. But the UN, an institution not known for its impartiality when it comes to the Jewish state, might put pressure on Israel to accept a UN Security Council decision, if one is made.

The French and other nations apparently are under the impression that a UN peacekeeping force would succeed in calming tensions at a site that has been the epicenter of Muslim Palestinian violence.

Apparently, the lessons of history have not been learned.

Of all the many failures of the UN over the seven decades since it was established, UN peacekeeping forces stand out for special distinction as horribly inept and corrupt.
************************************

Just saying.

At a certain embassy in Paris, they must be high-fiving and dancing in response to yesterday's slaughter, as if they were, oh, removal men with a white van, or art students or something, on 911.

sillybill said...

person pretending to be b?
you don't sound like b of moa, dont know if yr doing it on purpose or not but get yr own nym or just anon.

Anonymous said...

ISIS is asking for an end to bombings and drone strikes. That is their demand.

Bran said...

@b: Nice find, a significant nugget that didn't get much traction in the news.

I had thought the IS doing it to threaten western leaders idea would have only played out if the MSM had perhaps placed the blame on non-IS refugees (early reports of gunmen shouting "for Syria", rather than Islamic chants, raised the possibility) and/or governments calling for a push for stability (i.e a ceasefire) in Syria.

Going with the more predictable response of violence in kind, makes it even harder to see any rational benefit to IS in conducting the attacks.

The likely outcome of a violent IS attack on Paris is not exactly hard to predict.
a. French people will lose civil liberties.
b. Government will gain security powers.
c. refugees will suffer
d. Muslims in general will suffer
e. right wing groups will gain support
f. IS will be more heavily targeted
g. 'moderate' islamic groups might receive more support
h. Western states have an excuse for higher level of intervention
i. Israel's ideological crusade against the Arab threat receives new support

Its hard to imagine that IS members, irrational as they may be, could think that g or h would offer enough tangenital benefit to outweight f (facade though that might be).

So the possibility of an orchestrated event should be no less likely to any reasonable analyst. The FBI alone have carried out similar manipulation of idiot proxies many times since 9/11, and it would stand to reason that they have far less access to true hardcore jihadis than the foreign intelligence services.

Its also possible that if it was such an event it went beyond what the instigators had expected. Two suicide bombings near a packed stadium kill only 3 people while gunmen kill over a hundred? It may have begun as an instigation as small in scale as similar FBI events (even as an excuse to expel refugees), a small bomb, perhaps a few casualties, and then those involved had ideas of their own.

Joseph Cannon said...

sillybill, I should explain. I know the b who comments here. We haven't actually met, but we first ran into each other on the internet back in the 1990s. He's quite a brilliant fellow, even though we do not always agree. (I believe that he is a professor in real life.) In the past, I've asked him to guest post here -- and I've practically begged him to begin his own blog.

The Cannonfire b came first: Moon of Alabama came later.

Anonymous said...

To be clear, a no-fly zone wouldn't ground Russian jets. A no-fly zone would be illegal, and Putin would fly his jets on their legal sorties right through it. -Df

sillybill said...

thanks joseph - b at moa had a problem last week or two of someone faking other folks nym and saying outrageous bs, sorry original b, my bad.

Bran said...

There's always the possibility that IS follow a similar strategy to the USA. A system in chaos is better than one with stability where you are in decline. However, this tends to work far better when you are starting in a position of power.

Then there's the premeditated backlash, whereby they might hope to initiate a crackdown on Muslims refugees in Europe and gain future extremist converts in the region. The problem with this one is that you're choosing to sacrifice a large number of existing operatives and near-term operational latitude for a potential (highly questionable) boost in long-term recruitment or capability.

However, suicidal, religiously motivated, homicidal maniacs are not the most rational of individuals. The fact that "It wouldn't make sense for them to do it for this reason" in no way rules it out as a motivation for the attackers. What does reduce the plausibility of 'poorly conceived aims' is that a group capable of coordinating the logistical and tactical aspects of a paramilitary operation on this scale (without assistance from intelligence agencies) would have been unlikely to have failed to put similar care into the strategic aspects.

So, most likely rationale is that it was aimed at producing the most predictable immediate reponse, either domestically or internationally. Question thereafter becomes which groups benefit the most from these actions, which of them have the capability to influence and support the operations of Islamic extremists, have any of these groups had past contact of any kind with those involved, and has there been any sign that foreknowledge of the attacks existed but was not acted upon?

I'm most curious about the third question, past contact, but by the time any connections are revealed you're well beyond shifting public opinion on suitable responses.

-> said...

My translation of 1 interesting observation made by 1 commentaron spiegel-online :
20151113 -On, purely coincidentally, what took place was 1 anti terror exercise by the french security services.
20151113 coincidentally, the scenario of that exercise EXACTLY corresponded to the events becoming real on the same day .
Patrick Pelloux, who also was 1. responder at the time of the attacs on Charlie Hebdo
20151113 Patrick Pelloux, purely coincidentally also was the First Responder
20151113 PATRICK PELLOUX spoke in 1 Radio-interview after the attacs of 1 FURTUNATE CO-INCIDENCE, in that tose anti-terror exercise having taken place on the same day, because of which THEY were prepared.
http://www.spiegel.de/forum/politik/anschlaege-frankreich-die-welt-blickt-auf-paris-thread-381718-4.html#postbit_37271151

Green Eagle said...

ISIS does have an air force, if by "having an air force," you mean they are in possession of a number of planes seized from Syria and Iraq. They have not demonstrated any ability to use them for anything, and it is probable that the minute they take off they will be shot down.