The Paris terror attacks

Eds

Alex Lantier and Barry Grey

The terrorist atrocity carried out in Paris by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) has been seized upon by the United States, France and the other imperialist powers to intensify the policies of war and plunder that destroyed entire societies in the Middle East and created the conditions for the growth of reactionary forces such as those that killed 129 people and wounded hundreds more last Friday night.

These forces have been funded and armed by Washington [Britain] and France and regional allies such as Saudi Arabia and Turkey. ISIS itself is a product of imperialist machinations in Libya, Syria and Iraq, just as Al Qaeda was the product of the earlier anti-Soviet intervention in Afghanistan. ISIS and other Al Qaeda-linked terror groups have been used as proxy armies to carry out regime-change in Libya and prosecute the war for regime-change in Syria.

The criminal assault on innocent civilians in Paris is the predictable outcome of US and European imperialism’s relentless escalation of military operations.

Workers throughout the world feel deep sympathy for the victims of the mass killings in Paris. But the hypocritical statements of the capitalist politicians and media deserve only contempt. The death toll from the wars they have launched or supported over the past 14 years surpasses a million. Their real attitude can be seen in their indifference to the incineration of at least 30 people and wounding of more than 30 others in the US bombing last month of a Doctors Without Borders hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan.

Fourteen years of the so-called “war on terror” have only fueled the spread of terrorism and violence and turned millions of people into refugees fleeing hellish war zones in the Middle East, Central Asia and North Africa. Now that the consequences of neo-colonial barbarism have exploded within Europe itself, the imperialist powers responsible for these crimes are preparing to carry out even greater crimes by reviving the fraudulent and discredited “war on terror.”

“Hollande has imposed a three-month state of emergency in France that all but transforms France into a police state—suspending basic democratic rights, closing borders, banning protests, and giving police sweeping powers to search and detain individuals…”

Hollande

After French President François Hollande called the Paris attacks an “act of war,” the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung dubbed them “France’s 9/11.” It is worthwhile considering the statement posted in the immediate aftermath of the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon by the World Socialist Web Site .

Warning of an eruption of US imperialist violence abroad and an assault on democratic rights at home, we wrote: “Far from dealing a powerful blow against imperialist militarism, terrorism plays into the hands of those elements within the US establishment who seize on such events to justify and legitimize the resort to war in pursuit of the geopolitical and economic interests of the ruling elite…

“The unrelenting efforts of American imperialism to secure its domination over the oil resources of the region… has placed the United States in violent opposition to the legitimate and irrepressible democratic, national and social aspirations of the Arab masses…

“US bombers and/or battleships have attacked Lebanon, Libya, Iraq, Iran, the Sudan and Afghanistan. Without actually declaring war, the United States has conducted military operations against Iraq for nearly 11 years… Given this bloody record, why should anyone be surprised that those who have been targeted by the United States have sought to strike back?”

As with the September 11 attacks, many questions are immediately raised as to who knew about the plans for the attacks in Paris and how they were carried out. Claims that, in this age of ubiquitous surveillance, none of the NATO countries’ intelligence agencies were aware of preparations are not credible. At the very least, the ruling class sees such atrocities as an opportunity to rapidly implement plans prepared long in advance.

Before the Paris attacks have been seriously investigated, the ruling elites in the United States and Europe are baying for war and insisting that the threat from ISIS can be met only by granting the state vast new police powers.

Hollande has imposed a three-month state of emergency in France that all but transforms France into a police state—suspending basic democratic rights, closing borders, banning protests, and giving police sweeping powers to search and detain individuals. Bavarian Finance Minister Markus Söder has called for closing German borders to Syrian refugees. The Paris attack, he declared ominously, “changes everything.”

Former NATO supreme commander US Admiral James Stavridis has penned a piece titled “NATO’s turn to attack,” calling for the NATO alliance to respond to the ISIS attack by going to war in Syria. But the intensified violence in Syria and Iraq is itself part of a broader geo-political agenda. The drive to oust Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is one component of Washington’s aggressive designs against Russia and China. These countries are seen by the US ruling elite as obstacles to American hegemony over the entire planet and have therefore been targeted for economic and, eventually, military destruction.

The escalation of imperialist war under the cover of the “war on terror” has been accompanied by a relentless assault on the social conditions and living standards of the working class, an attack that has been sharply escalated since the eruption of the world capitalist crisis in 2008. In every imperialist country, youth, and particularly immigrant youth, have been hit the hardest. They face mass unemployment, poverty and no prospects, under the existing system, for a decent future.

The consequences of militarism are intersecting fatally with the growing alienation of working class and immigrant youth. Given the absence, despite popular opposition to imperialist war, of an organized anti-war movement, this anger finds no progressive outlet. This makes sections of them vulnerable to the demoralized and demagogic preachments of outfits such as Al Qaeda and ISIS.

The primary responsibility for the absence of a movement against war rests with the various organizations of middle class ex-left elements that once headed up protest movements—and channeled them behind parties and politicians of the ruling class—but have over the past 15 years shifted far to the right and directly into the camp of imperialism. Organizations such as France’s New Anti-capitalist Party, Germany’s Left Party, Spain’s Podemos, Greece’s Syriza and the International Socialist Organization in the US have thrown their support to US-led wars for regime-change in Libya and Syria and provided political cover for Washington’s war-mongering against Russia and China.

The Paris bombings and subsequent escalation of imperialist violence in Syria and Iraq underscore the urgent need for the building of an international anti-war movement. The social force that can disarm the imperialists and put an end to war is the working class. The new movement against imperialist war must be based on the working class, united and mobilized across all borders in a revolutionary struggle to end war by ending its source, capitalism.

Alex Lantier and Barry Grey are senior editorial members of wsws.org, an information branch of the Social Equality Party (SEP).

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Hillary Clinton’s War: The Destruction of Libya and the Murder of Gaddafi

Compiled and edited by Thomas Baldwin
with the grateful assistance of DeNeice Kenehan.

Posted on October 19, 2015 by doctom2010

hillary-with-libyan-soldiers-victory-sign

Hillary Clinton with Libyan soldiers in October 2011. The ‘V for victory’ gesture seems slightly misplaced at the moment. [Kevin Lamarque/Reuters ]

[box] HILLARY’S WAR: The REAL STORY about Benghazi is what happened before the bloody blowback to the interventionist western overthrow of the Libyan government, destruction of the nation and regional chaos. And it looks like Hillary’s role in this war and her relationship with her private “spy,” Sidney Blumenthal, might be explored this Thursday, October 22, by the House Benghazi investigation committee.

If it’s not then we’ll know why. It will be opening Pandora’s Box to expose our warmongering imperialism in another concrete case. As is well known, both political parties support the imperial agenda, and this entire sordid affair will show another example of how the U.S. government doesn’t give a damn about our immoral and murderous behavior around the world as long as it serves our imperialistic needs to dominate by our display of military force. The Duopoly, driven by the Military Industrial Complex (backed by big banks and corporatists), only cares about power and money. As presented in many excellent articles on this site, they use “humanitarian” excuses and the establishment of “democracy” as a pretext to invade another country–any country that can’t retaliate. Any country which attempts to show independence and serving its own interests is branded as headed by a “ruthless dictatorship”, and a threat to national security. Tragically, Libya serves as a perfect example along with numerous other examples.

Hillary Clinton: “We came, we saw, he died”

Here’s what some noteworthy articles have to say:

From the reference cited: Gowdy: Newly discovered e-mails suggest Clinton influenced by Blumenthal’s business in Libya

“According to a letter from Chairman Trey Gowdy to Elijah Cummings, the ranking Democrat on the committee, at least once Clinton sought to aid Blumenthal’s business interests in Libya. …

“These messages should have been made public when the State Department released Secretary Clinton’s other self-selected records on Libya and Benghazi, but there was a clear decision at the time to withhold this information from the American people and the Committee,” reads the letter. “The State Department has now made these messages available, and the Committee intends to question Secretary Clinton about them during her appearance.”

“…At this point, Gowdy notes in his letter, Hillary forwards this to Jake Sullivan, saying that “I agree about the need to keep the attack tempo up.” Note that this exceeded the stated mission for the US and NATO in Libya, transforming it from a genocide-prevention operation to a full-blown war of regime change on Gaddafi.

The motivation, at least as expressed to Hillary and then forwarded by her to her team, appears to be entirely related to the need to look tough for the re-election campaign.

At one point, Blumenthal transmits the name of a CIA intelligence source to Hillary on her unsecured e-mail, which she then blithely forwarded from her private account…”

(Continued at link in title above.)

And from this source: “Ripped from Hillary’s Email: French Plot to Overthrow Gaddafi and Help Itself to Libya’s Oil” –

“French intelligence plotted to overthrow Muammar Gaddafi to horn in on Libya’s oil and to provide access for French businesses.

“…The “news” in the Benghazi emails, according to the New York Times, is that, after denying it, Clinton may indeed have solicited advice from Blumenthal.

“…While the emails do raise questions about Hillary Clinton’s veracity, the real story is how French intelligence plotted to overthrow the Libyan leader in order to claim a hefty slice of Libya’s oil production and “favorable consideration” for French businesses.

“…According to the memos, in return for money and support, “the DGSE officers indicated that they expected the new government of Libya to favor French firms and national interests, particularly regarding the oil industry in Libya.” The memo says that the two leaders of the Council, Mustafa Abdul Jalil and General Abdul Fatah Younis, “accepted this offer.”

“…Another May 5 email indicates that French humanitarian flights to Benghazi included officials of the French oil company TOTAL, and representatives of construction firms and defense contractors, who secretly met with Council members and then “discreetly” traveled by road to Egypt, protected by DGSE agents.

“…But the collapse of Libya was a particularly catastrophic event, which—as the African Union accurately predicted—sent a flood of arms and unrest into two continents.
The wars in Mali and Niger are a direct repercussion of Qaddafi’s fall, and the extremist Boko Haram in Nigeria appears to have benefited from the plundering of Libyan arms depots. Fighters and weapons from Libya have turned up in the ranks of the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq. And the gunmen who killed 22 museum visitors in Tunisia last March, and 38 tourists on a beach July 3, trained with extremists in Libya before carrying out their deadly attacks.”

Clinton was aware of everything the French were up to and apparently had little objection to the cold-blooded cynicism behind Paris’s policies in the region.

“…The story ends with a piece of petty gossip: Clinton wanted to take credit for Gaddafi’s fall, but the White House stole the limelight by announcing the Libyan leader’s death first.”

Continued at link in title above

From The Atlantic:
BENGHAZI WON’T STICK TO HILLARY CLINTON BUT THE DISASTROUS INTERVENTION SHOULD

“Republicans are still trying to use the 2012 attacks in Benghazi, Libya, to sink Hillary Clinton’s presidential ambitions. Last week, the congressional committee investigating the attacks subpoenaed Sidney Blumenthal, who sent memos on Libya to then-Secretary of State Clinton while he was both employed by the Clinton Foundation and advising businessmen angling for contracts from the country’s transitional government. Clinton herself has agreed to answer questions from the committee, though it’s unclear when the hearing will take place.

Hillary’s Man, Sidney Blumenthal: the elegant, highly educated vermin that characterizes the rotting empire. This type of chiseler exists in all major “democracies”.

The alleged scandals aren’t sticking—not beyond the right-wing crowd, anyway. Perhaps Republicans should choose another tack, as one aspect of Clinton’s tenure at the State Department does deserve more scrutiny: the disastrous intervention in Libya.

“We came, we saw, he died,” Clinton laughed after learning of dictator Muammar Gaddafi’s death. She’s probably less triumphant today, given that Libya is now a failing state. GOP presidential aspirant Rand Paul and the Washington Post have even, for different reasons, called it “Hillary’s war.” That’s a misnomer; she was far from alone in supporting it, and others played a similar role in the decision to topple Gaddafi. Yet some of the mistakes made in Libya fall primarily on Clinton’s shoulders.”

Continued at link in title above

HILLARY’S WAR —
From Antiwar.com

The Pentagon tried to stop her – unfortunately, to no avail

by Justin Raimondo, February 02, 2015

“What’s happening in Libya today is a crime: murder, rape, looting, chaos, a war of all against all. The perpetrator, the one key person who made all this possible, is a well known personage in American politics, a former Secretary of State and the frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination.

What Hillary Clinton did to Libya is a crime on a scale rivaled only by the crimes of the Bush administration in Iraq – and there is a definite parallel in the methodology of the criminals.

Libya has been pretty much off the public’s radar screen ever since the US intervention that led to Muammar Qaddafi’s downfall – and the ugly aftermath in which the US ambassador was murdered by the very people Washington was intent on “liberating.” Now the aftermath is getting even uglier.

The country is imploding, with two rival governments claiming suzerainty, but describing Libya’s situation as a state of “civil war” is a bit of an understatement. If ever there was such an entity as a “failed state” – that is, a state that has simply collapsed, and is dragging the rest of society down along with it – then Libya fits the definition to a tee. If we liken a society to the human body, then we can say Libya’s immune system is down, allowing a deadly infection to invade and take root – in this case, the “Islamic State,” or “caliphate,” known as ISIS, which first reared its head in Syria and is now spreading into Libya. “

Libya: From Africa’s Wealthiest Democracy under Gaddafi, to US-NATO Sponsored Terrorist Haven

“Today, after US intervention, Libya is home to the world’s largest loose arms cache, and its porous borders are routinely transited by a host of heavily armed non-state actors including Tuareg separatists, jihadists who forced Mali’s national military from Timbuktu and increasingly ISIS militiamen led by former US ally Abdelhakim Belhadj.

Clearly, Gaddafi’s system of economic and direct democracy was one of the 21st century’s most profound democratic experiments and NATO’s bombardment of Libya may indeed go down in history as one of the greatest military failures of the 21st century.”

“October 20, marks the four-year anniversary of the US-backed assassination of Libya’s former leader, Muammar Gaddafi, and the decline into chaos of one of Africa’s greatest nations.

In 1967 Colonel Gaddafi inherited one of the poorest nations in Africa; by the time he was assassinated, he had transformed Libya into Africa’s richest nation. Prior to the US-led bombing campaign in 2011, Libya had the highest Human Development Index, the lowest infant mortality and the highest life expectancy in all of Africa.

Today, Libya is a failed state. Western military intervention has caused all of the worst-scenarios: Western embassies have all left, the South of the country has become a haven for ISIS terrorists, and the Northern coast a center of migrant trafficking. Egypt, Algeria and Tunisia have all closed their borders with Libya. This all occurs amidst a backdrop of widespread rape, assassinations and torture that complete the picture of a state that is failed to the bone.

Libya currently has two competing governments, two parliaments, two sets of rivaling claims to control over the central bank and the national oil company, no functioning national police or army, and the United States now believes that ISIS is running training camps across large swathes of the country.

On one side, in the West of the nation, Islamist-allied militias took over control of the capital Tripoli and other key cities and set up their own government, chasing away a parliament that was previously elected.”

(Continued at link in title.)
October 20, marks the four-year anniversary of the US-backed assassination of Libya’s former…

GLOBALRESEARCH.CA

10 Things You Didn’t Know About Libya Under Gaddafi’s So-called Dictatorship

By DNA on November 16, 2014

What do you think of when you hear the name Colonel Gaddafi? Tyrant? Dictator? Terrorist? Well, a national citizen of Libya may disagree but we want you to decide.

Ruling the country for for 41 years until his foul demise in October 2011, Muammar Gaddafi did some truly amazing things for his country and repeatedly tried to unite and empower the whole of Africa. So despite what you’ve heard on the radio, seen in the media or on the TV Gaddafi did some powerful things that were not very reminiscent of a vicious dictator. Here are ten things Gaddafi did for Libya that you may not know about…

1. In Libya a home is considered a natural human right.

In Gaddafi’s green book it states: ” The house is a basic need of both the individual and the family, therefore it should not be owned by others”. Gaddafi’s Green Book is the formal leader’s political philosophy, it was first published in 1975 and was intended reading for all Libyans even being included in the national curriculum.

2. Education and medical treatment were all free.

Under Gaddafi’s reign Libya could boast one of the best healthcare services in the Arab and African world. Also if a Libyan citizen could not access the desired educational course or correct medical treatment in Libya they were funded to go abroad.

3. Gaddafi carried out the worlds largest irrigation project.

The largest irrigation system in the world also known as the great manmade river was designed to make water readily available to all Libyan’s across the entire country. It was funded by the Gaddafi government and it said that Gaddafi himself called it ”the eighth wonder of the world”.

4. It was free to start a farming business.

If any Libyan wanted to start a farm they were given a house, farm land and live stock and seeds all free of charge.

5. A bursary was given to mothers with newborn babies.

When a Libyan woman gave birth she was given 5000 (US dollars) for herself and the child.

6. Electricity was free.

Electricity was free in Libya meaning absolutely no electric bills!

7. Cheap petrol

During Gaddafi’s reign the price of petrol in Libya was as low as 0.14 (US dollars) per litre.

8. Gaddafi raised the level of education.

Before Gaddafi only 25% of Libyans were literate. He bought that figure up to 87% under his rule with 25% earning university degrees.

9. Libya had Its own state bank.

Libya was the only country in the world to have a bank owned by the state meaning they were able to give loans to citizens at zero percent interest by law and they had no external debt.

10. The gold dinar

Before the fall of Tripoli and his untimely demise Gaddafi was trying to introduce a single African currency made of gold. Following in the foot steps of the late great pioneer Marcus Garvey who first coined the term ”United States of Africa”. Gaddafi wanted to introduce and only trade in the African gold Dinar – a move which would have thrown the world economy into chaos.

The Dinar was widely opposed by the ‘elite’ of today’s society and who could blame them. African nations would have finally had the power to bring itself out of debt and poverty and only trade in this precious commodity. They would have been able to finally say ‘no’ to external exploitation and charge whatever they felt suitable for precious resources. It has been said that the gold Dinar was the real reason for the NATO led rebellion, in a bid to oust the outspoken leader.

So, was Muammar Gaddafi a Terrorist?

Few can answer this question fairly, but if anyone can, it’s a Libyan citizen who has lived under his reign? Whatever the case, it seems rather apparent that he did some positive things for his country despite the infamous notoriety surrounding his name. And that’s something you should try to remember when judging in future.

This quirky video documentary spells out an interesting, if rather different, story from the one we think we know. By the way, for the record we don’t believe in Illuminati as a supposed conspiracy explaining much of the world’s turmoil. The Illuminati do not exist, and they play no role in contemporary history. What DOES exist is the tight, coordinated actions of the global capitalist plutocracy, whose main champion, its world citadel, is US imperialism, with the Pentagon and intel agencies muscle behind it.

Gaddafi The Truth About Libya- Documentary

Muammar Gaddafi Interviewed Just Before Libyan Revolution

Journeyman Pictures

Published on Aug 22, 2013

Gaddafi interview 2010 – Libyan leader Gaddafi is questioned on many topics including terrorism, Palestine and Israel, the Lockerbie bombing and more.

In this rare interview shot in February 2010 – less than two years before he was killed while hiding in a culvert – Muammar Gaddafi tells presenter George Negus he’s always merely represented the will of the people.

“For 40 years I have not been the ruler, the authority has been with the people,” says Gaddafi calmly. Surrounded by security guards and local TV crews in a library of his military compound, which was bombed by the Americans back in 1986, Gaddafi gives an air of quiet confidence. He continues to deny responsibility in the Lockerbie bombing and advocates a one-state solution to the Israel and Palestine conflict. He also comments on Libya’s nuclear programme, and shares his opinions on terrorism and democracy. Quizzed by Negus about his softened image, Gaddafi responds that “It is the world that has changed.”

Produced by SBS. Ref – 5884

Journeyman Pictures is your independent source for the world’s most powerful films, exploring the burning issues of today. We represent stories from the world’s top producers, with brand new content coming in all the time. On our channel you’ll find outstanding and controversial journalism covering any global subject you can imagine wanting to know about.

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First Published on Apr 13, 2014

James and JoAnne Moriarty of LibyanWarTheTruth.com discuss their experiences as businesspeople in Libya since 2007 and as eyewitnesses to the destruction wrought by the NATO-sponsored Al-CIAda perpetrated overthrow of that country in 2011. From the truth about the outside forces brought in to destabilize the country to what really happened in Benghazi, their website and their DVD, Escape From Al Qaeda, is essential information for those seeking to get to the bottom of what really happened in Libya.

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NATO is Building Up for War

BRIAN CLOUGHLEY

The Rising Swell of Anti-Russian Propaganda

The slanders never stop. Like a wild fungus they sprout all over the Western media, all peddling the same lies, the very signature of Orwellian propaganda.

Voutenay sur Cure, France.

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he German city of Frankfurt is continental Europe’s largest financial center and host to the country’s Stock Exchange, countless other financial institutions, and the headquarters of the European Central Bank (ECB) which is responsible for administering the monetary policy of the 18-nation Eurozone. The place is awash with money, as demonstrated by the plush new ECB office building which is costing a fortune.

Intriguingly, the Bank isn’t alone in contributing to Europe’s bureaucratic building boom. There is another Europe-based organization of equal ambition, pomposity and incompetence which is building a majestically expensive and luxurious headquarters with a mammoth cost overrun about which it is keeping very quiet indeed.

The perpetrator of this embarrassing farce is NATO, the US-Canada-European North Atlantic Treaty Organization which is limping out of Afghanistan licking its wounds, having been fighting a bunch of sandal-wearing rag-clad amateur irregulars who gave the hi-tech forces of the West a very hard time in a war whose outcome was predictable. But the debacle hasn’t dimmed the vision of the zealous leaders of NATO who are confronting Russia in order to justify the existence of their creaking, leaking, defeated dinosaur. Their problem is not only do they lose wars, but they then look for another one to fight — to be directed from a glittery new and vastly expensive building whose cost has soared above all estimates.

Just like NATO’s wars.

Gaddafi dead: Murdered by Washington’s mafia tentacles.

[dropcap]N[/dropcap]ATO’s operation ‘Unified Protector’ to overthrow Libyan leader Muammar Gadhafi involved a massive aerial blitz of 9,658 airstrikes which ended with the gruesome murder of Gadhafi — and caused collapse of Libya into an omnishambles where fanatics of the barbarous Islamic State are now establishing themselves.

In spite of the horror of NATO’s Libyan catastrophe one does have to have a quiet smile about Ivo H. Daalder and James G Stavridis whose deeply researched analysis in the journal Foreign Affairs in 2012 was titled ‘NATO’s Victory in Libya.’ These sages declared that “NATO’s operation in Libya has rightly been hailed as a model intervention . . . NATO’s involvement in Libya demonstrated that the alliance remains an essential source of stability . . . NATO may not be able to replicate its success in Libya in another decade. NATO members must therefore use the Chicago summit to strengthen the alliance by ensuring that the burden sharing that worked so well in Libya — and continues in Afghanistan today — becomes the rule, not the exception.”

Not much is working well in either Libya or Afghanistan two years after the Daalder-Stavridis advocacy of “burden sharing” and it is obvious that NATO has been the opposite of a “source of stability” in both unfortunate countries.

Blaming him for Western crimes in Syria, actually created by the US.

Blaming Putin for Western crimes in Syria, actually created by the US and its regional accomplices.

In October 2005 I wrote that “NATO is to increase its troop numbers in Afghanistan to 15,000 and its secretary-general states that instead of acting as a peacekeeping force it will assume the combat role of U.S. troops, which is insane . . . The insurgency in Afghanistan will continue until foreign troops leave, whenever that might be. After a while, the government in Kabul will collapse and there will be anarchy until a brutal, ruthless, drug-rich warlord achieves power. He will rule the country as it has always been ruled by Afghans: by threats, religious ferocity, deceit, bribery, and outright savagery when the latter can be practiced without retribution. And the latest foreign occupation will become just another memory.”

The number of US-NATO troops in Afghanistan has been reduced from a high of 130,000 to 13,000, of which some 10,000 are U.S., but NATO’s new headquarters building in Brussels is expanding in both size and cost. The budget for the immense complex was approved at 460 million Euros (500 million US dollars) in 2010 but has now surged to over 1.25 billion Euros, about 1.4 billion dollars.

Germany’s Der Spiegel reported in January that the scandal of the cost overrun was being kept secret by all governments contributing to this redundant organization. A leaked cable from Germany’s ambassador explained that at a meeting of NATO representatives last December they “pointed to the disastrous effect on the image of the alliance if construction were to stop and if NATO appeared to be incapable of punctually completing a construction project that was decided at the NATO summit of government leaders in April 1999 in Washington. The risk of a further cost increase is already palpable.”

The solution to NATO’s self-imposed image problem was simple: the people responsible for managing the affairs of a military alliance involving 28 countries, 3.5 million combatants and 5,000 nuclear weapons decided, as asked by the staff of its Secretary General, to deal with the matter “confidentially.” In other words, the cost overruns and delays in construction are being deliberately concealed from the public in the hope that NATO’s executives will not appear incompetent.

Meantime, while trying to conceal their flaws, faults and failings in management of basic administrative affairs, NATO’s chiefs are squaring up to Russia in an attempt to persuade the world that President Putin is about to mount an invasion from the east. The focal point of NATO’s contrived alarm is the corrupt and chaotic regime in power in Ukraine, which has serious disagreements with Russia and is therefore energetically supported by the United States to the point of distortion, menace and mendacity.

As reported in the UK’s Daily Telegraph on March 4, the commander of US troops in Europe, General Frederick “Ben” Hodges, has accused Russia of having 12,000 troops inside eastern Ukraine, which was irresponsible nonsense.

Hodges was formerly the army’s Congressional Liaison Officer in Washington where he obviously acquired a taste for political grandstanding, as in a political speech of the sort that generals have no right to make he declared that “We have to raise the cost for Putin. Right now he has 85 per cent domestic support. But when mothers start seeing their sons come home dead, when the price goes up, domestic support goes down,” which was as offensive as it was hostile.

Endless groundless accusations: the standard for Western journalism.

In February the Wall Street Journal reported Hodges as saying “I believe the Russians are mobilizing right now for a war that they think is going to happen in five or six years—not that they’re going to start a war in five or six years, but I think they are anticipating that things are going to happen, and that they will be in a war of some sort, of some scale, with somebody within the next five or six years.” Just what President Putin was supposed to make of that is anyone’s guess — but it is certain that Hodges’ bellicose meanderings did nothing to persuade Moscow that there would be any attempt by the US-NATO coalition to modify its policy of uncompromising enmity.

Other pronouncements by NATO leaders have been equally threatening and intended to convince the public of western Europe that Russia attacked Ukraine.

But even if Russia had indeed invaded Ukraine, it would have had nothing whatever to do with anyone else.

The US-NATO coalition willfully ignores the fact that Ukraine is not a member of either the European Union or NATO and has no treaty of any sort with any nation in the world that would require provision of political, economic or military support in the event of a bilateral dispute with any other country. Yet NATO has seized upon the Ukraine-Russia discord to justify its policy of unrelenting hostility to Moscow.

Says who? By what standards? What has he really done? And why aren’t Western leaders judged by the same criteria?

NATO’S Supreme Commander, US General Breedlove, has also contributed greatly to tension and fear in Europe by issuing dire warnings about Russia’s supposed maneuvers. On March 5 he indulged in fantasy by claiming, without a shred of evidence and no subsequent proof, that Russia had deployed “well over a thousand combat vehicles” along with “combat forces, some of their most sophisticated air defense, battalions of artillery” within Ukraine. This pronouncement was similar to his downright lie of November 18, 2014, when he told the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung that there were “regular Russian army units in eastern Ukraine.”

The swell of anti-Russian propaganda, confrontation and attempted intimidation by NATO has increased, and if it continues to do so it is likely that Moscow will take action, thereby upping the stakes and the danger even more. It is time that NATO’s nations came to terms with the reality that Russia is a major international power with legitimate interests in its own region. Moscow is not going to bow the knee in the face of immature threats by sabre-rattling US generals and their swaggering acolytes. It is time for NATO to forge ties rather than destroy them — and to build bridges rather than glitzy office blocks.

[box] Brian Cloughley writes about foreign policy and military affairs. He lives in Voutenay sur Cure, France. [/box]

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WHAT’S SCARIER: TERRORISM, OR GOVERNMENTS BLOCKING WEBSITES IN ITS NAME?

BY GLENN GREENWALD | THE//INTERCEPT

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he French Interior Ministry on Monday ordered that five websites be blocked on the grounds that they promote or advocate terrorism. “I do not want to see sites that could lead people to take up arms on the Internet,” proclaimed Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve.

(IMAGE: David Thompson)

When the block functions properly, visitors to those banned sites, rather than accessing the content of the sites they chose to visit, will be automatically redirected to the Interior Ministry website. There, they will be greeted by a graphic of a large red hand, and text informing them that they were attempting to access a site that causes or promotes terrorism: “you are being redirected to this official website since your computer was about to connect with a page that provokes terrorist acts or condones terrorism publicly.”No judge reviews the Interior Ministry’s decisions. The minister first requests that the website owner voluntarily remove the content he deems transgressive; upon disobedience, the minister unilaterally issues the order to Internet service providers for the sites to be blocked. This censorship power is vested pursuant to a law recently enacted in France empowering the interior minister to block websites.

Bernard Cazeneuve: a bourgeois bureaucrat in the service of the criminal status quo. We have plenty of this vermin at home.

Forcibly taking down websites deemed to be supportive of terrorism, or criminalizing speech deemed to “advocate” terrorism, is a major trend in both Europe and the West generally. Last month in Brussels, the European Union’s counter-terrorism coordinator issued a memo proclaiming that “Europe is facing an unprecedented, diverse and serious terrorist threat,” and argued that increased state control over the Internet is crucial to combating it.

The memo noted that “the EU and its Member States have developed several initiatives related to countering radicalisation and terrorism on the Internet,” yet argued that more must be done. It argued that the focus should be on “working with the main players in the Internet industry [a]s the best way to limit the circulation of terrorist material online.” It specifically hailed the tactics of the U.K. Counter-Terrorism Internet Referral Unit (CTIRU), which has succeeded in causing the removal of large amounts of material it deems “extremist”:

In addition to recommending the dissemination of “counter-narratives” by governments, the memo also urged EU member states to “examine the legal and technical possibilities to remove illegal content.”

Exploiting terrorism fears to control speech has been a common practice in the West since 9/11, but it is becoming increasingly popular even in countries that have experienced exceedingly few attacks. A new extremist bill advocated by the right-wing Harper government in Canada (also supported by Liberal Party leader Justin Trudeau even as he recognizes its dangers) would create new crimes for “advocating terrorism”; specifically: “every person who, by communicating statements, knowingly advocates or promotes the commission of terrorism offences in general” would be a guilty and can be sent to prison for five years for each offense.

In justifying the new proposal, the Canadian government admits that “under the current criminal law, it is [already] a crime to counsel or actively encourage others to commit a specific terrorism offence.” This new proposal is about criminalizing ideas and opinions. In the government’s words, it “prohibits the intentional advocacy or promotion of terrorism, knowing or reckless as to whether it would result in terrorism.”

There can be no doubt that such new criminal laws are specifically intended to ban ideas these governments dislike. The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives lays out numerous ways that the law will allow the government to imprison people for the expression of political ideas:

The new offence will bring within its ambit all kinds of innocent speech, some of which no doubt lies at the core of freedom of expression values that the Charter was meant to protect. . . .Even if the government exercises restraint in laying charges and arresting people, the result is an inevitable chill on speech. Students will think twice before posting an article on Facebook questioning military action against insurgents overseas. Journalists will be wary of questioning government decisions to add groups to Canada’s list of terrorist entities.

If someone argues that continuous Western violence and interference in the Muslim world for decades justifies violence being returned to the West, or even advocates that governments arm various insurgents considered by some to be “terrorists,” such speech could easily be viewed as constituting a crime.

To calm concerns, Canadian authorities point out that “the proposed new offence is similar to one recently enacted by Australia, that prohibits advocating a terrorist act or the commission of a terrorism offence-all while being reckless as to whether another person will engage in this kind of activity.” Indeed, Australia enacted a new law late last year that indisputably targets political speech and ideas, as well as criminalizing journalism considered threatening by the government.

From the viewpoint of those in power, “a terrorist can be anyone who disseminates ideas that are threatening to the exercise of our power.”

Punishing people for their speech deemed extremist or dangerous has been a vibrant practice in both the U.K. and U.S. for some time now, as I detailed (coincidentally) just a couple days before free speech marches broke out in the West after the Charlie Hebdo attacks. Those criminalization-of-speech attacks overwhelmingly target Muslims, and have resulted in the punishment of such classic free speech activities as posting anti-war commentary on Facebook, tweeting links to “extremist” videos, translating and posting “radicalizing” videos to the Internet, writing scholarly articlesin defense of Palestinian groups and expressing harsh criticism of Israel, and even including a Hezbollah channel in a cable package.

In this regard, having the French Interior Ministry now unilaterally block websites is the next logical step in this growing attack on free speech by Western governments in the name of stopping extremism and radicalism. The large red hand of state censors over the Internet is a perfect symbol of the prevailing mindset in the West, whose fondness for self-righteously condemning China and Iran for their attempts to control Internet content is bottomless. The ironic mass arrests by France of people who “glorify” terrorism — carried out in the immediate aftermath of the Paris “free speech” rally — largely targeted that country’s Muslims.

Let’s briefly note the futility of the French efforts: in the way that censorship efforts fail generally and are particularly doomed to failure in the Internet era. I’m currently in Germany, just a few miles from the French border, and am able to access all the banned sites. Reports suggest that the French government failed miserably on technical grounds to block the targeted sites, as at least four of the five are still fully available even in France. The owner of the hosting company for one of the banned sites, islamic-news.info, insisted on Twitter yesterday that he was never contacted with any request to remove offending material.

Beyond the technical issues, trying to legislate ideas out of existence is a fool’s game: those sufficiently determined will always find ways to make themselves heard. Indeed, as U.S. pop star Barbra Streisand famously learned, attempts to suppress ideas usually result in the greatest publicity possible for their advocates and/or elevate them by turning fringe ideas into martyrs for free speech (I have zero doubt that all five of the targeted sites enjoyed among their highest traffic dates ever today as a result of the French targeting).

But the comical futility of these efforts is exceeded by their profound dangers. Who wants governments to be able to unilaterally block websites? Isn’t the exercise of this website-blocking power what has long been cited as reasons we should regard the Bad Countries — such as China and Iran — as tyrannies (which also usually cite “counterterrorism” to justify their censorship efforts)?

censor-china-540x345

[dropcap]A[/dropcap]s those and countless other examples prove, the concepts of “extremism” and “radicalizing” (like “terrorism” itself) are incredibly vague and elastic, and in the hands of those who wield power, almost always expand far beyond what you think it should mean (plotting to blow up innocent people) to mean: anyone who disseminates ideas that are threatening to the exercise of our power. That’s why powers justified in the name of combating “radicalism” or “extremism” are invariably — not often or usually, but invariably — applied to activists, dissidents, protesters and those who challenge prevailing orthodoxies and power centers.

My arguments for distrusting governments to exercise powers of censorship are set forth here (in the context of a prior attempt by a different French minister to control the content of Twitter). In sum, far more damage has been inflicted historically by efforts to censor and criminalize political ideas than by the kind of “terrorism” these governments are invoking to justify these censorship powers.

And whatever else may be true, few things are more inimical to, or threatening of, Internet freedom than allowing functionaries inside governments to unilaterally block websites from functioning on the ground that the ideas those sites advocate are objectionable or “dangerous.” That’s every bit as true when the censors are in Paris, London, and Ottawa, and Washington as when they are in Tehran, Moscow or Beijing.

[box] Glenn Greenwald is well known for his activism on behalf of freedom and social justice. For more details, Google him! [/box]

Email the author: glenn.greenwald@theintercept.com | @ggreenwald