Some thoughts........ I have been out of loop in the past week but not out of touch. Reading about the tragedy in France and loss of 12 lives which regardless of the circumstances is considered an act of violence and I personally condemn any acts of violence - as I am sure we all do - because in my opinion when it comes to justice, we ought not to have a sliding rule, we ought to reject, deject and condemn violence. Let us remember that injustice anywhere is injustice everywhere. I dont like to speculate, because there are always more information that are out there that I/we dont know about. The story is in progress and a little by little some info will find its way to the public, alas as we have seen throughout the history, we would never know the whole story and ultimately partial truth. However events such as this tragedy neither happens in a vacuum nor it is an isolated case, hence reference to ones mental notes is inevitable and it often is the only means/apparatus to seek truth. Some of you know that as of late I have began to subscribe to miracles - the unexplained if you would - and while I DO believe in miracles, I DO NOT believe in coincidences, specially when it comes to current events and international politics/relations. I strongly reject the idea of coincidences in arena of current political events as I believe almost everything can be explained and those circumstances that cant be explained are simply clandestine and though the explanations exists it is meant to be unavailable. So let us examine some of the facts and furthermore let us as always attempt to search for an answer to the most significant of questions; who gets to benefit from this barbarian act of violence? What were the surrounding circumstances at the time? Why France? Why Charlie Hebdo, etc? Why now? WHY CHARLIE HEBDO? HISTORY/BACKGROUND Charlie Hebdo whose office were attacked is a French satirical weekly newspaper, featuring cartoons, reports, and jokes which are quite often provocative, inflammatory, bigoted and racist. So printing strongly anti-religious comics, crass mockery of politics, culture and religion is reflection of all components of left wing pluralism which Charlie Hebdo suppose to present according to its former editor. The paper gained notoriety when it pandered to Islamophobia and Xenophobia which marks the French climate in the last decades by publishing crass mockery and insult directly pointed at Islam as of late 8 years. In fact the paper has been the bedrock of controversy since 2006 when it published a Cartoon in mockery of prophet Mohammad. At the time French President Jacques Chirac condemned the overt provocations and stated; Anything that can hurt the convictions of someone else, in particular religious convictions, should be avoided. The Grand Mosque, the Muslim World League and the Union of French Islamic Organizations (UOIF) sued the paper in February 2007, and eventually Philippe Val, the editor of the paper at the time, was acquitted by the court. In 2009, Philippe Val resigned and Charb (Stéphane Charbonnier) became editor and provocations and insulting behavior of the paper continued, and the papers controversial November 3rd, 2011 issue, renamed Charia Hebdo (a reference to Sharia law) depicted Muhammad saying: 100 lashes of the whip if you dont die laughing. In the early hours of November 2nd, 2011, the newspapers office was fire-bombed and its website hacked. François Fillon, the Frances prime minister, and Claude Guéant, the Frances interior minister, voiced support for Charlie Hebdo at the time, indicating while Chirac government at least condemned the behavior of the paper as overt provocations Sarkozys government were quite complaisant with papers pandering to Frances atmosphere of Islamophobia. PLAUSIBLE CIRCUMSTANCES Because of the long track records of controversies in addition to the firebombing of 2011 and the papers insistence to continue with its existing format publishing Xenophobia trash, the Editor Charb (Stéphane Charbonnier) who was killed in the attack was under police protection from numerous death threats he has received in past 3 years. So the fact that the editor was under protection of the police, which means the the office from which he was operating the said location of crime were under watchful eyes of French Police makes the occurrence of this tragedy even more peculiar to say the least. How could 2 or 3 (conflicting reports as number of suspects) gunmen go in and mow down 12 people in cold blood, where extra police protection were in place, and even more strangely how could they actually get away from the scene and disappear in thin air. Quiet often many strange things happens at once, while the tragedy of this magnitude often present itself as shocking, unexpected, taking the authorities off-guard, nobody knew where it came from despite police protection based on 2011 fire-bombing of the same office, the authorities know very quickly that they suspects were couple of disgruntled Muslim fanatics, brothers, and that they were part of Al Qaeda trained in Yemen. Brilliant right? The authorities are suddenly well of information, in fact today I read that the brothers are said to be on US no fly list ;) Now the brilliancy does not end there, almost always the suspects are found and killed, NOT captured but KILLED and it is in post death that the world will learn so much more about them. I cant help but to remember another tragedy, the killing of US Ambassador Stevens in Benghazi, Libya. Again sort of clear circumstances, as it happened on anniversary of 9/11 and right after the alleged release of a YouTube Cartoon insulting Islam alerting CIA for extra protection. None the less attack happened, and it was attributed to Islamist extremist disgruntled over the YouTube video, the culprits were never found in Ambassador Stevens case. Muslim Fundamentalist could not be blamed as there were many videos circulating around the internet showing locals actually trying to help to carry the lifeless body of Ambassador to safety and revive him. Hence further investigations were best shoved under the rug quickly, the rest is history, in after math and in retrospect we know who benefited from that tragedy. ISLAMIC EXTREMISM AS A SCAPE GOAT Do I separate the behavior of Islamic fundamentalism/extremism or possible role it might have played in Paris tragedy? No of course not, we all know about fundamentalism in general, we all know the vermin and heart eating thugs who are called Jihadist in Syria, and are supported by US and Western interests are the same people who are called Muslim Extremist/ Terrorists in France. We all know that US funds and support Al Nusra/extreme and militant arms of Al Qaeda in Syria and hunt them in Yemen and Afghanistan. By now even the most skeptical of us know where the Islamic extremism originated, who trains them, who sponsors them, what is their purpose, and why are they necessary? Besides oil (fissile fuels) Wahhabi death squads are second export of Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Gulf monarchies such as Qatar, Kuwait, UAE whom with a nod from the West fund them. Extremists of course serve a function, not only they are apparatus for divide and rule and the main ingredient for secular war as long as they are there we can declare war on them (war on Terror) and we have a responsibility to protect our allies. Extremist are indeed a gift that keeps giving, after all how can we even tackle Islamophobia, a man-made bi-product of Islamic Extremists, with just words? So Islamophobia also serves a function: this frame of mind creates the very target of its bigotry which in return justifies the very war we declare upon it. Not an unfamiliar frame of mind and notions, the Europeans under auspices of ending slavery, colonized Africa, after rendering slaves the continents top commodity. West does this very cleverly, on one hand it lambaste Islamophobia on the other hand it encourages war in Syria and Libya, the latter defeating the intention of the former. Extremist groups achieve power via Western intervention, they reinforce Islamophobia abroad, with which imperialist governments discover a willing population for the continuation of its military ventures. Therefore knowing the dynamics, we must be informed consumers of News even the Propaganda, we must at least agree that the way this story has unfolded is astonishingly familiar, brilliant and a model that has been used throughout the history, with little to no surprises. WHO BENEFITS? We must ask valid questions? Why havent those whose religious convictions were hurt by Charlie Hebdo distasteful and crass cartoons since 2006 and used the French court system to verbalized their grievances and even took more extreme measure to fire bomb the same office in 2011, decided to mow down 12 people in cold blood in 2015? In what way would Muslim fundamentalists disgruntled by the insulting cartoons benefit from this barbaric act especially in an already xenophobic, Islamophobic French political atmosphere? WHY FRANCE? The timing is quite interesting indeed, remember there is no such thing as coincidences just very interesting/questionable/plausible. France incidentally were amongst the few European countries who recognized Palestine statehood, and on November 25th, 2014, Mr. Netanyahu warned French Parliament that it would be a grave mistake for French Parliament to follow suit of several other European nations in recognizing Palestine Statehood. Read more: rt/news/208187-israel-france-grave-mistake/ WHAT DOES FREEDOM OF SPEECH GOT TO DO WITH IT? Now as expected there are always global outcry of those who would like to evoke notions such as Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Expression, some even go as far as saying the French Revolution was all about Freedom of Speech and Religion, blah, blah, blah..........all well and good, but where was the outcry when France was the only country who banned Stand with Palestine/Gaza marches in wake of 50 days of massacre of Palestinians. It is evident that when we have sliding rules for any of these liberties they often come at very high cost.
Posted on: Sat, 10 Jan 2015 00:19:39 +0000
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