rigorousintuition.ca

The attack was attributed to the right-wing extremist and geology student Gundolf Köhler who was killed while placing the explosive device; however, doubts remain as to whether he acted alone. Repeated attempts to re-open the investigation in the years that followed the bombing have not been successful until 2014.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oktoberfes ... estigation

The attack has been attributed to the neo-fascist terrorist organization Nuclei Armati Rivoluzionari (which always denied any involvement), although many other theories have been proposed, especially in correlation with the strategy of tension.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bologna_massacre

CIA Behind France Attacks, Says Ex White House Official
Paul Craig Roberts, wrote on his blog Thursday that the atrocities were a "false flag" operation, similar to those carried out after WW II to frame communists.



Attacks carried out by alleged Islamic gunmen in France last week that left 17 dead were the work of the CIA, “designed to shore up France’s vassal status to Washington,” a former White House official has claimed.


Former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and editor of the Wall Street Journal, Paul Craig Roberts, wrote on his blog Thursday that the atrocities were a “false flag” operation, similar to those carried out after World War II to frame communists.


“Muslims are going to be framed for an inside job designed to pull France firmly back under Washington’s thumb,” he wrote.


The tragedy began when two heavily armed brothers burst into the Paris office of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo Wednesday, killing 12. The drama continued with the murder of a policewoman, and two concurrent sieges, one in a kosher supermarket.


As evidence for his theory, Roberts drew on the revelation that the ID of gunman Said Kouachi was found on the scene, comparing it to the “undamaged passport of one of the alleged 9/11 hijackers (found) among the massive pulverized ruins of the twin towers,” another attack he claims the U.S. intelligence agency was behind.

The ex-Washington insider suggested that the motive could be to create greater dependence on the U.S. from France, whose president this week called for an end to Washington-imposed sanctions against Russia.


“This is too much foreign policy independence on France’s part for Washington,” Roberts wrote.


The publication of this version of events comes as Wikileaks posted a text Saturday that appears to be written by its founder, Julian Assange, which says the failure of the French authorities in the Charlie Hebdo massacre is so conspicuous, that questions about government links to the killers must be asked.


Among the author’s questions are: Why weren’t the Kouachi brothers, both known to have extremist ties, not under surveillance?; Why were the Charlie Hebdo offices not better protected, given that the magazine regularly and strongly criticizes Islam?; and just how did two known terrorists get hold of semi-automatic weapons?


“Cherif Kouachi had already been convicted of terrorism offences and served 18 months in prison for it. Both brothers were already on terrorism lists. Far from hiding messages under rocks or using encryption, the alleged conspirators communicated hundreds of times before and during the attacks — on regular phones,” the article states.

CIA Behind France Attacks, Says Ex White House Official

Club Orlov

Sunday, January 11, 2015

On the Charlie Hebdo Carnage

The killing of the staff at the French satirical publication Charlie Hebdo by Moslem assailants who said that they wanted to die as martyrs, and the subsequent killing of the assailants, together with their hostages, by the French police, could not have failed to produce strong emotions. For instance, my friend Bruno had this to say. I don't entirely disagree, especially about the undue haste of the French police, but I do want to make a few points about methods.

No matter how difficult it is, what's needed in such a situation, at least on the level of those aspiring to any sort of social adequacy, is a dispassionate look, with an eye toward what would qualify as a political fix that can win the peace, rather than some combination of police/military/judicial action that is virtually guaranteed to lose the war, by making the situation worse. You see, police/military/judicial action is only effective when the enemy could potentially admit defeat, surrender and make amends. When the enemy wishes to be martyred, police/military/judicial action is akin to combating alcoholism with bottles of booze.

What Bruno proposed—capture, torture, public humiliation, public execution—worked very well for Jesus Christ. Here we are over 2000 years later, and he is still the world's best-known, most widely celebrated martyr. If, by the standards of one of the world's greatest religions, poking fun at prophet Mohammed is a sin, and if the perpetrators of the Charlie Hebdo can be said to have died for that sin, then that, by a rather simple calculus, does qualify them as martyrs, even in the Christian tradition.

I was not a reader of Charlie Hebdo, and so I don't know whether they properly satirized the American invasion of Iraq, the seeding of Basra, Fallujah and other parts of Iraq with depleted uranium munitions causing a large number of cancers and birth defects, the wholesale slaughter of Iraqi civilians, or the use of torture at Abu Ghraib and other US-run detention centers. Or whether they shined a comic light on the utter futility of the NATO war in Afghanistan, whose only result seems to be a speedy return to status quo ante as soon as the troops pull out. I think there are gems of comedy there: the Americans are still sending in advisers—as if they ever knew what to do there themselves! I hope they did satirize these events; if they didn't, but on the other hand saw it fit to poke fun at Islam, then that would seems a tiny bit lopsided to me, but I hope to stand corrected.

Nor do I know if Charlie Hebdo properly savaged the Israelis for their various practices, such as shelling UN-run schools because there might be “terrorists” lurking among the women and children, or for the Israeli military propaganda along the lines of “shoot pregnant Palestinian women and kill two for the price of one.” Is there humor in such things? I don't know. Nor is there humor in the Qur‘an, or in any of the acts ascribed to prophet Mohammed. And yet the satirical geniuses at Charlie Hebdo found some there. So why does Israel get the kid glove treatment? Again, I hope to stand corrected, but if that's the case, then there is a bit of lopsidedness there as well.

There is also the tiny matter of taste. I know that the French are not alien to the idea of mauvais goût. And given what has been happening in many Islamic countries around the world—from outright invasions and bombings to drone strikes, to US-funded political corruption and régime change, to sanctions maintained over decades, to many acts of discrimination in the western countries to which circumstances force the refugees from the destroyed countries to flee—it seems like poking fun at their religion using cartoons, however gently, is akin to joking about rope in the house of the hanged. By analogy, consider writing such oeuvres as “Auschwitz, the operetta.” Or how about a song-and-dance troupe composed of non-Jews, called “The Not Ready for Holocaust Players”? Would that be in bad taste? You bet! Of course, none of these particular expressions of mauvais goût are likely to happen, because people in the west are deathly afraid of being labeled anti-Semites. On the other hand, they are not yet particularly afraid of being shot in the head by furious Moslems. Why the disconnect, I wonder? The instinct of self-preservation does not seem fully engaged yet.

I want to keep this to below 1000 words, so I will close simply by noting what the solution may look like. The only solution I see is a duopoly, where Moslems and non-Moslems run their respective segments of society according to different sets of rules. Some rules they must have in common, such as a ban on incendiary, extremist speech. The prohibition against “shouting fire in a crowded theater” applies to such arrangements.

Examples of such arrangements being successful include the Republic of Tatarstan (Russian Federation) where Orthodox Christianity and (majority) Islam coexist peacefully, and mixed marriages can offer a choice of religions to the children they produce. Another example is the Republic of Chechnya (also Russian Federation) which, having fought a bloody separatist conflict financed by the Saudis and the US, can now successfully combat Islamic terrorism on its own, without involving federal authorities. Russia is now a dual Christian/Islamic federation; if current demographic trends continue, then at some point it will become an Islamic/Christian federation. So be it. If peace is maintained, nobody will notice or care. France can embrace the same choice, forming Les Républiques Françaises, and probably will, because what choice does it have—other than losing the war?

2 of 13 comments:

zirpqe said...

Dmitry;

Although a French Roman Catholic by birth, I'm certainly not very keen on organized religion. However, comparing JC's martyrdom to these suspect souls might be considered a bit of a stretch. JC was principally a man of pace after all.

One clarification, if I may. As far as professional torture goes, I should have been clearer. It was not the utterly inhumane torture called for. I was thinking more in terms of highly effective interrogation techniques....

But honestly, I'm a bit torn here as well..................a poor choice of words on my part.

Moreover, the overriding interest I have for the judicious application of harsh interrogation techniques, is that It may well provide the opportunity to have the terrorists cough up who or what is really behind the mindless mayhem. For all we know they might point us to the CIA and/or Mossad.

Thanks very much for sharing my piece with your viewers Dmitry, I consider it a tremendous honor.

All the best,
Bruno de Landevoisin
Sunday, January 11, 2015 at 12:53:00 PM EST

Dmitry Orlov said...

Bruno -

I didn't summarize your argument fully, trying to keep my piece down to 1k words.

About men of “peace” vs. violence, in a violent conflict the choice is a matter of tactics, the stock in trade still being violence. Violence is for the strong, “peace,” or martyrdom, is for the weak. Growing up in Galilee, Christ saw the Romans crucify scores of his countrymen all along the major roads. He saw clearly that crucifying the Romans right back is not the answer. But by being crucified voluntarily he planted a bomb that went off centuries later, blowing Rome apart.

It is easy for us to see the perpetrators of the Charlie Hebdo massacre as extremist, but that is not the relevant perspective. The question is, how extremist are they from their own world-view. The prohibition against graven images and idol-worship is part of the 10 commandments, and is adhered to by a number of Anabaptist Christian sects that take the Bible literally. It is also followed by the Orthodox Christian, where icons are allowed, but must adhere to a canon that imposes a layer of abstraction and bans realistic renderings. It is more extreme in Islam, but these are shades and gradations. Different religions have different prohibitions, and these must be respected. When Pussy Riot desecrates a cathedral with their music, or when Charlie Hebdo violates a prohibition in the most crass way possible, they are playing the game of victimhood, but what are they martyring themselves for? The right to fart in public? Looks like it to me...

seemslikeadream » Sun Jan 11, 2015 11:59 am wrote:can someone translate that German article?
link

jingofever » 12 Jan 2015 08:55 wrote:So Netanyahu wants Europe's Jews to flee all of the scary Muslims and move to the Middle East? That does not sound quite right. I wonder if his invitation has less to do with concern about their safety and more to do with the ~40% of young Israelis who want to emigrate from Israel?

CIA Behind France Attacks, Says Ex White House Official

That should read, "Says man". His being an "ex-White House official" has nothing to do with anything he now says.

Hunter » 12 Jan 2015 09:54 wrote:Can someone PLEASE tell me THIS is not real? Seriously.

https://public.isishq.com/public/SitePages/Home.aspx

A US based private intelligence and security firm called ISIS, really? Really?



ISIS provides worldwide security, intelligence, technology and training to government and private enterprises. ISIS is strategically positioned across the globe, with a highly credentialed management team and personnel. We have a superlative track record for delivering exceptional service and support to the most demanding of clients in the most challenging of circumstances.

Check out Naomi Wolf FB page, she is making some good points about all these heads of state gathering in the same place today in France and how it would take weeks of planning by security services to make that happen, and yet here they all are in just FOUR DAYS!
...
Also notable, NO OBAMA.

Joe Hillshoist » 11 Jan 2015 17:52 wrote:

Hunter » 12 Jan 2015 09:54 wrote:Can someone PLEASE tell me THIS is not real? Seriously.

https://public.isishq.com/public/SitePages/Home.aspx

A US based private intelligence and security firm called ISIS, really? Really?



ISIS provides worldwide security, intelligence, technology and training to government and private enterprises. ISIS is strategically positioned across the globe, with a highly credentialed management team and personnel. We have a superlative track record for delivering exceptional service and support to the most demanding of clients in the most challenging of circumstances.

I'm pretty sure the private intelligence company that Sterling Archer works for is called ISIS, are you sure that isn't sophisticated marketing for the show.

RocketMan » 12 Jan 2015 07:11 wrote:What caught my eye was the WORLD LEADER from Mali marching there. Token black guy? Hasn't Mali been acting as some sort of factotum for western interests in the UN?