Anti-Western war and foreign policy blowback strikes Paris?

By Brian E. Muhammad -Contributing Writer- | Last updated: Nov 18, 2015 - 2:03:35 PM

French police patrol at the place de la Republique in Paris, France, Nov. 15, two days after 129 people were killed in a series of shooting and explosions. French troops deployed around Paris and tourist sites stood shuttered in one of the most visited cities on Earth in the country’s deadliest violence since World War II. Photo: Wide World Photos

A night of violence and mayhem in Paris and six simultaneous acts of coordinated violence, using bombs and automatic weapons, killed 129 people and injured hundreds more, according to officials.

The attacks targeted a football stadium where French President Francois Hollande was present, crowded restaurants and the famed Bataclan concert hall where upwards of a thousand fans attended a performance by Eagles of Death Metal—an American heavy metal band. Most of the carnage occurred at the Bataclan, officials said.

President Hollande characterized the attacks as “an act of war against France” by ISIS-ISIL, a group battling the West, the Russians and governments in Syria and in Iraq. World leaders quickly condemned the loss of innocent lives and vowed zero tolerance for terrorism.

“We are going to do whatever it takes to work with the French people and with nations around the world to bring these terrorists to justice and to go after any terrorist networks that go after our people,” President Barrack Obama said. He praised France as an “extraordinary counterterrorism partner.”

At Final Call press time, authorities were reporting ISIS-ISIL was responsible for the attack and in France raids were conducted that resulted in arrests, home detentions and politicians called for more stringent laws.

A video purportedly released by an ISIS-ISIL group in Iraq vowed to strike the United States and countries warring with their caliphate.

“We tell countries participating in the crusader campaign: We swear that you will experience a similar day to the one that France experiences; since if we have struck France in its heart—in Paris—then we swear that we will strike America at its heart—in Washington,” according to Nov. 16 translations of the video.

Inside America, some 19 U.S. governors said they would not accept Syrian refugees given reports that at least one alleged gunman entered France with refugees.

French soldiers patrol at the Eiffel Tower which remained closed on the first of three days of national mourning in Paris. Photo: Wide World Photos

According to varied media outlets, a manhunt was underway in Brussels for the alleged mastermind of the attack, Salah Abdeslam, a Belgian-born French national. USA Today reported the “26-year-old is the brother of one of seven terrorists who died in the attacks.”

Two attackers were suicide bombers, one Samy Amimour, a 28-year-old French national, blew himself up in the Bataclan music hall, according to news reports and authorities.

“Another bomber who targeted the national stadium was found with a Syrian passport bearing the name Ahmad Al Mohammad, a 25-year-old born in Idlib, prosecutors said,” according to USA Today.

“Authorities previously identified one of the suicide bombers as Omar Ismail Mostefai. A Turkish official told the AP … that authorities flagged him to their French counterparts as a possible terror suspect in 2014 but received no response. Paris prosecutors said he was flagged as having ties to extremism five years ago.

“European media outlets including The Telegraph identified two other suicide bombers as Bilal Hadfi, 20, and Brahim Abdeslam, 31,” said USA Today.

Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin called for complete unification of the world community against what he called a “challenge to human civilization.”

“It’s obvious that an effective fight against this evil demands a real unity of the forces of the international community,” he said in a statement offering Russian support.

Later, leaders attending the G-20 summit in the port city of Antalya, Turkey pledged to tighten the fight to eliminate ISIS-ISIL. President Obama said “the skies have been darkened” by the attack and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan remarked the terror was a blow “against the whole of humanity.” Turkey borders Iraq and Syria—where civil war has been raging between ISIS-ISIL, Western backed opposition groups and the government of President Bashar al-Assad who France and America wants removed.

“The killing of innocent people, based on a twisted ideology, is an attack not just on France … but it’s an attack on the civilized world,” President Obama said.

Later he rejected calls to deny any refugees from Syria entry into Western and European nations and defended his belief that ground troops were not the answer. He called for a joint global response to ISIS-ISIL.

A response to Western meddling?

The blazing assault on Paris, one of the most cosmopolitan and popular tourist destinations worldwide, raised the specter of vulnerability of European and Western capitals and cities.

People pay their respect to the victims at the site of the attacks on restaurant Le Petit Cambodge (Little Cambodia) and the Carillon Hotel on the first of three days of national mourning in Paris, Nov. 15. Thousands of French troops deployed around Paris on Nov. 15 while investigators questioned the relatives of a suspected suicide bomber. Photo: Wide World Photos

Along with questions about who was behind the attacks and the identities of the attackers, some analysts questioned whether the attacks were rooted in failed Western foreign policy, geopolitical meddling and strange bedfellow connections between Western intelligence and extremists in various parts of the globe.

Political analyst Eric Draitser told The Final Call that French and American intelligence have historically maintained such ties.

“My initial reaction was to think about the interrelationship between French intelligence and terrorist groups in Syria,” said Mr. Draitser.

French intelligence with the American CIA and British MI6 has been “intimately involved in funneling arms, weapons, finances to their favored so-called moderate rebels,” or “terrorist groups” in Syria to wage war against the government of Bashar al-Assad.

“The question then becomes,” Mr. Draitser said, “to what extent are the intelligence agencies intertwined in this scenario? Is this just your typical blowback—which is entirely possible. Is it something more sinister? Are these people who were in touch with intelligence officials there, in touch with intelligence officials here?”

“Terrorism is a favorite weapon of the West,” Mr. Draitser insisted. “The West has been using terrorism for decades as a means of affecting its political agenda.”

He cited CIA financing and training of fighters in Afghanistan to oppose the Soviet Union in the 1980s which morphed into Al-Qaeda. Then there was the CIA backed-Kosovo Liberation Army in the Balkans in the 1990s and the Al-Qaeda affiliated “murderers and killers” used to overthrow Muammar Gadhafi in Libya in 2011. The same applies to Syria, which is the current focus of Western attention for regime change, said Mr. Draitser.

A case for more war and repression?

In response to the attacks, France embarked on intensified airstrikes over Raqqa, Syria, the reputed stronghold of the Islamic State. France said the bombings were the strongest strikes since assaults started as part of a U.S.-led mission launched in 2014.

At Final Call press time France Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve told reporters police had arrested people and seized arms, including rocket launchers in overnight raids on Nov. 15, and placed another 104 people under house arrest.

“Let this be clear to everyone, this is just the beginning, these actions are going to continue,” Mr. Cazeneuve said according to France 24 television.

There is a real danger that the attack would be used as an excuse for “wider war” in Syria although intervention in Syria has been unpopular with the people of France, said Sara Flounders, co-director of the New York-based International Action Center.

Ms. Flounders also lays culpability for the attack in Paris on French and U.S. arming and training “fanatical groups” as proxy forces to do in Syria what was done to Libya and Iraq—leaving behind “smoking ruins” and chaos.

“U.S. and French wars in the region are the cause of what just happened and it’s one more example that the wars put us all at risk,” she argued. “Imperialism has destabilized and ripped apart whole countries, national cultures and left millions of lives in shambles and there’s been no sympathy for them. This is what Syria goes through every day.”

Other critics point out the hypocritical way French deaths were responded to as a European country under attack. There were few global sympathy tweets, marches and tributes for similar attacks in Kenya, Beirut and Iraq. Some noted a double standard as the world was called to mourn as Paris was burning but other lives lost hardly drew comments or sympathy.

According to media reports, a Syrian passport found on the scene of the attacks tied the assailants to refugee camps for displaced Syrians escaping their war ravaged homeland.

“I would hope they would not use the excuse of the Syrian passport found to block the legitimate cause of the refugees who are fleeing the chaos created by the West in Syria … with the idea that al-Assad must go,” said A. Akbar Muhammad, international representative of the Nation of Islam and the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan.

A StratFor Analysis report called “What Next” said, “France has kept a relatively low profile in the attempts to stem the flow of migrants” though it has supported Germany’s push for relocation of asylum seekers across Europe. “Nevertheless, this event can be expected to strengthen the argument of those groups that have been calling for a halt in the flow of immigrants and the closing of borders in countries such as Germany, Sweden and much of Central and Eastern Europe,” the report noted.

Mr. Draitser added that “right wing extremists’ reactionary positions, fascists and Islamophobia” were generally on the rise in France and in Europe. This incident will only embolden those forces, he said.

“There was already an extreme double standard,” said Ms. Flounders. On the one hand there are the most restrictive laws in France compared to any other country in Europe, however “it was not illegal to have the most offensive caricatures of Muslim people, African people, of Muhammad, but absolutely against the law to have any criticism of Israel which people were prosecuted for.”

Some scoffed at Twitter and Facebook allowing profile pics to be blended into the French flag’s tricolours, red, white and blue. They decried the double standard that seemed to say only White Lives Matter. A “f—k France” hashtag emerged, supported by information about French wrongdoing, colonial horrors and atrocities and forgotten suffering among the darker people of the world.

With the current political and social climate in France and the European Union exacerbated by the tragic event, civil liberties are expected to be further curtailed, said observers.

“So sadly it’s not a good time to be a Muslim in Europe,” said Mr. Draitser.

The Final Call