The terrorist West

 » One-dimensional thinking is systematically favored by policy makers and their mass information providers. Their discursive universe is full of assumptions that find their justification in themselves and that, repeated incessantly and exclusively, become hypnotic formulas, diktats. For example, the institutions operating in the countries of the Free World are « free »; other transcendent modes of freedom are, by definition, anarchism, communism or propaganda « . Herbert Marcuse,  » L’homme unidimensionnel « , Éditions de Minuit, Paris, 1968, p.42.

 » Today, hardly anyone in the West remembers Saladin or the great scientific, artistic and social breakthroughs of the Muslim world. But everyone is « well informed » about EI. Of course, the latter is only known as an « Islamic extremist group » and not as one of the main instruments used by the West to destabilize the Middle East « . Noam Chomsky & André Vltchek,  » The Terrorist West, from Hiroshima to Drone Warfare, » Éditions Ecosociété, Montreal, 2015, p.162 ⁽¹⁾.

 » What is described as Islam belongs to the discourse of Orientalism: it is a construction created to stir up feelings of hostility and antipathy against a part of the world that happens to be of strategic importance for its oil, its threatening proximity to Christianity and its formidable historical competition with the West.  » Edward W. Said, in a lecture at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, in 1997⁽²⁾.

Everything is rushing forward: climatic disasters, identity conflicts, the wandering of youth⁽³⁾, economic, financial, social and political crises. A world is dying and the recent terrorism is only the result of a logic of secular domination of the West over the rest of the world. For if the West is thrilled today, its hour of glory of yesteryear was already the fruit of imperialist death, suffering and destruction, drawing from « its » non-Western space the raw materials and cheap labor essential to our way of life. In this misfortune, it is necessary to take advantage of the distress to look at oneself in the mirror, to make this indispensable introspection without which nothing will change. The response of governments is, of course, quite different. Those who are responsible for the deplorable state of our world continue to play us off against each other, under the guise of unity; future causes of even greater problems, they offer again and again their answers, which are only false remedies that will undoubtedly worsen the situation: pre-emptive wars, permanent alert and police state, while the injunction to unity appeases the struggles and lets pass iniquitous commercial treaties, privatizations, criminal extensions of old nuclear reactors, purchase of weapons and war planes, foreign interference.Wouldn’t it be the moment for the West to finally make its psychoanalysis?

The delirium of unity made compulsory by the governmental and media order obliges us to state directly, when we express ourselves, what is self-evident: « yes, we were moved and shocked to learn of the killings in Paris on 13/11 ⁽⁴⁾We are shocked to learn of the Brussels attacks of 22/03, and we are shocked in advance by those which will not fail to occur in the future « . If one can be moved, however, one can also try to understand why some people are not, or say they are not (two apparently identical reactions, but whose foundations are quite different); one can also for a moment extricate oneself from the emotion and look at the historical and current responsibilities in the state of the world. For emotion alone is the vector of a dangerous — and false, we will come back to it — consensus and of an a‑historical perception that freezes in the present and on itself.

It is certainly obvious that we live, feel and react to the world of which we are a part and which surrounds us, but that the way in which we are inscribed in this world conditions the emotional experience. So, logically, there should be no injunction to be moved, just an attempt to understand everything that indirectly and directly caused this drama. In this sense, and we will see it, the few « provocations » of the Muslim youth in some schools, praising the Parisian attacks and their sometimes doubtful tone as for the position to adopt, should not generate repression (following the example of France after the attacks of Charlie Hebdo where young people were placed in police custody for not having respected the minute of silence) but questioning ourselves.

OUR BODIES ARE AGITATED, WHEN WILL THOUGHT RETURN?

The emotion, if it is natural, takes nevertheless the power on the sensitive side of the being, depriving him a more or less long moment of his capacity of reasoning. It gives way to a type of discourse that is generally not very constructive, the being being being invaded and withdrawn. The images scroll by, the bodies on the ground, the blood, they follow one another, without explanation; and break for a moment the illusion of organized society.

In a hypermediated world, when an event unusual takes place, where death occurs in a wild way and suffering is mixed, the individual emotions it arouses, quite normal, are the result of a collectivesharing of a previously unknown magnitude, directly taken over by the media industry: from subjective experiences, they become mediatized, globalized emotions, exchanged via the globalized commercial media system — an exchange that is not without a link to the terrorist intention itself, which relies on this media window. They thus integrate this show where  » a part of the world represents itself before the world, and is superior to it  » and where « a part of the world represents itself before the world, and is superior to it « . what connects the spectators is only an irreversible relationship to the very center that maintains their isolation. The show brings together the separated, but it brings it together as a separate entity « ⁽⁵⁾. In this show, the staging of emotion freezes us, and in this collective staging its function is not free, it is not emotion for emotion’s sake, it is not neutral, serves propaganda and must, quickly, be replaced by another, not to interrupt.

A few days after the 24-hour continuous broadcast of reports on the November 13 killings, Tf1, the channel of billionaire Martin Bouygues, puts the winner of Secret Story 9 and the 31 candidates of Miss France 2016 on the front page: the show goes on. It will continue in the same way after the Brussels attacks: on March 23, on the website of the Belgian daily newspaper Le Soir, the background is dedicated to the MIIX 700 — a kind of laptop/tablet -, giving the impression that the content of the site — the articles — is only a frame allowing access to the advertising. Indecent? The industrial press does not ask the question: we are not going to stop consuming. Edward Bernays, the father of propaganda, believed that  » thought in the strict sense of the term has no place in the collective mentality, guided by impulse, habit or emotion « .⁽⁶⁾(in the media logic, the images of the winner of Secret Story and the dead of November 13 occupy the same function, even if some will not want to hear it). This was rather good news, as he was going to devote part of his life to helping the industrialists format the masses so that they now wanted the products they were making. The emotion in itself, if it is a necessary reaction, does not leave room, if it lasts, is « collectivized » and is under the control of the mass media, to any place of exit. To go beyond this normal stage in order to allow the emergence of thought is therefore indispensable, not with the aim of reaching a religious truth that would allow us to explain without any doubt what happened — « we have understood — » but to try to take everything into account in the reflection, even what seemed a priori to have no connection with what happened. And to understand as well as possible.

CAN « PARIS » — AND NOW BRUSSELS — SHATTER OUR WESTERN ILLUSIONS?

In the case of the Paris attacks of November 13, 2015, and those that followed, however, it is unlikely that this unified and coherent thinking will be achieved in a massive way⁽⁷⁾The main one, which explains all the others, is that these possibilities of reaching a decontextualized thought (where the subject himself would extract himself — in part — from what he is, from his immediate interests, from his beliefs, from his nation, from all these traces left by education and socialization in the broad sense, which are able to restrict the free exercise of thought) are all based on one and the same condition: the complete questioning of our Western model and of the feeling of superiority that is inherent in it. This is a major project, since it is nothing less than changing, or initially agreeing to change, society as a whole, proposing a new one and therefore also modifying the meaning we give to our lives and to ourselves.

In this sense, to exercise one’s intelligence, in the sense of apprehending one’s environment in order to understand it, is necessarily and above all to accept to consider what for us was previously unthinkable. As to see that « our » Western values hide the destruction and the plundering necessary to our ways of life. The governmental vocabulary used by the servants of power via their media propaganda tools constantly evoke democracy, human rights, peace, justice, freedom, with the only utility of drawing up a curtain camouflaging the dictatorship of the markets, the rights limited to certain Men, war, injustice, the captivity of thousands of beings, structural misery.

And if the essential point of the ideology of the Western societies rests on the idea that the subject builds himself alone, it is difficult to think that another than oneself could be instrumentalized (« if I made myself alone, the other also »), « made » by a context, that personal dispositions could interact with objective conditions of existence. And that among these « objective conditions », some may be historical. To put it another way, how, when the subject believes himself to be master of what he is and thinks (a deep principle of liberalism, illustrated by the ideology of the  » self-made-man »), can he be allowed to do so? « In this context, it is important to consider that another person can carry out a bloody act that exceeds him — since he would therefore also be free of what he is and thinks — not in the sense that he was not « conscious » of it at the time of acting, but that his action was the result of multiple influences and, more profoundly, international contexts — the Western intervention in Iraq, Libya and Syria (see below), not to mention previous colonialism, the decay of the French and Belgian suburbs and the lack of future prospects for those who live there (the unemployment rate for those under 25 is 40.9% in Molenbeek, for example)⁽⁸⁾), the latent racism and the perennial stigmatization of the native-foreigner, at home nowhere.

This inability to empathize, to perceive our Western responsibilities in the creation of « monsters », is also the sign of this lived superiority of the West and of its indisputable domination. No questioning of hyperconsumerism, made possible in large part by the oil we need and which guides our foreign policy. We would all be on the same path, the West in the lead, and all problems would solve themselves by integrating the « inferior » subject to the values of the dominant group (expressed by the terms « underdeveloped », « developing », « emerging », « advanced » countries), a movement responsible for planetary standardization. The language used in the days following November 13 in Paris, illustrates this unwavering belief in our superiority and our sense of non-responsibility for the state of the world:

•  » The acts committed on Friday night in Paris » « constitute an aggression against our country, against its values, against its youth, against its way of life « . Hollande states here, in his speech before the Parliament, the freedom that would be intrinsic to our countries. This indicates both that « they » — the others — do not share them (this « they » obviously including not only the terrorists, but more broadly, and inevitably, all Muslims and Islam in general), but also that its values are from the outset the ferment of our Western societies and that there should be no doubt about it (the attack and its interpretation reinforcing this feeling);
• Following from the first point, all the wars, politico-military choices made by the powers that be and various foreign policy interventions would have no influence whatsoever on the short and long term reactions of these « terrorists », who would be as if they had no history. The facts are anhistorical: these events  » are the work of a jihadist army, the Daech group, which is fighting us because France is a country of freedom, because we are the country of human rights  » (F. Hollande). The dictatorship of the present prevails over any temporal dimension. And in fact, it is better to hide the Western responsibilities in the state of the world, because once exposed they could only contradict the words of those who call themselves « the fatherland of human rights and freedom « . Thus, and paradoxically at first sight, the attacks against the countries of human rights reinforce that they are countries of human rights. Thus, the media-political description will most often stop at the descriptive course of events, at the genealogy of the day of the culprits, linking them to single members of extremist groupings, without attempting to explain their personal « pre-radicalization » path. They emerge from who knows where.

Overall, the warlike and comparative rhetoric used — « More than ever, the French army remains mobilized to oppose the threat of terrorists. We will win this war » (Gal de Villiers, Etat-Major Armées, March 22, 2016) — generates and feeds a discourse of inter-group « confrontation, » which more than anything else carries a deep-seated desire not to question the group that is comparing — thus us. We define ourselves by defining another group that opposes our own and its supposed values. A method that consists in saying without saying.

SOME BASIC NOTIONS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY

Beyond the reason of fighting for the control of material resources, the struggles between groups also fulfill in a primordial way symbolic and identity functions.  » Intergroup conflict is [donc] a social competition that goes beyond self-interest in its most concrete form « ⁽⁹⁾. This is fundamental to the subject at hand, because knowing that conflicts and wars only directly and materially benefit the wealthy, governments and arms dealers, we must understand that they can also be indirectly beneficial to the people.

Social identity, which is the part of the self-concept that derives from group membership,  » requires the minimal presence of agroup ‘in front of you’ « ⁽¹⁰⁾. Thus, to define oneself as a member of a group, to draw a positive social identity from it, one needs another group in front of it, which one opposes preferably and which will thus define the values of the endogroup (the group with which one identifies) as positive. Basically and to make it simple, to call myself a member of a soccer team A, I need a soccer team B (or Y, X, etc).

This comparison with another group will provoke essential stereotypical mechanisms:

• By categorizing oneself as a member of a group, one will accentuate the perception of homogeneity within one’s group as well as within the other group to which one compares oneself, and the differences between one’s group and the group to which one compares oneself. That is, the members within the group (A) will perceive themselves to be more similar to each other than they really are and will view members of the other group (B) to which they compare themselves as more similar to each other as well, and thus their group (A) as very different from the other (B). This « We are all the same in our group and they are all the same in theirs, so we are very different from them », is an inevitable cognitive mechanism, automatic, proper to the social being, and it is necessary to do a real introspection work to become aware of it. François Hollande’s statement perfectly illustrates this mechanism:  » On Friday, the whole of France was the target of the terrorists. The France that loves life, culture, sports and parties. France without distinction of color, origin, background, religion. The France that the assassins wanted to kill was the youth in all its diversity. Most of the dead were under 30 years old. Their names were Mathias, Quentin, Nick, Nohemi, Djamila, Hélène, Élodie, Valentin and I forget so many others !  » No reference to the France that is dying, the miserable France, the France that does not celebrate and is excluded from « culture »: Arnault, Bouygues, Dassault, the tax exiles and the rentiers of the 16th arrondissement of Paris are sitting next to the unemployed mother who cannot make ends meet, the young school dropout deprived of the integration allowance, the destitute old pensioner, the suburban youth without a future, the student who prostitutes herself to pay for her studies. It is  » National unity in the face of abomination  » (F. Hollande);

• To the « all the same in the attacked group », answers therefore a mental mechanism of « all the same in the attacking group ». No matter how much some leaders pretend to know the difference (they do perfectly well when they have to make deals with terrorist states like Saudi Arabia or Qatar, see below), this is the cognitive mechanism that takes place. So, inevitably, the other group, the Muslims, is homogenized: they are all hostile to progress and modernity, « enemies of freedom » as defined by Western society, and potentially dangerous. We don’t know well who « they » are, but we know that they define themselves in perfect opposition to what « we » are — and that therefore they cannot be perceived as too different from each other at the risk that they no longer reflect the image that we are so similar to each other.

« We are all Charlie », « We are all Paris », « We are all Brussels », means ultimately « We are all united ». No more splits, no more dissension. The Belgian Prime Minister, Charles Michel, made it clear following the Paris attacks:  » In the fight against terrorism, there is no right or left  » (…) « Let’s go beyond our differences, let’s get together, more than ever, we must gather behind our fundamental universal values, respect for others, tolerance… » (…) (…) « With different words, we have finally given a clear message, clear, wanting to carry high the universal values of freedom. I call on all parliamentarians and Democrats to come together. Let’s get to work! « . Nice theorizing, knowing that in practice a context of « anti-terrorist fight » will give rise to measures — rather right-wing, if this concept still has any meaning — opposed to values of openness, sharing, understanding and inter-community solidarity -, hostile to any challenge to the established order. Perfect for the neo-liberal policy of the parties in the Belgian government majority, one of whose members, Didier Reynders (MR), had already shone for having invented the famous notional interest, a subtle tax arrangement that made Belgium lose more than 2 billion euros… pocketed directly by the biggest multinationals⁽¹¹⁾All Charlie of course », bosses as well as employees or dismissed.

After Paris, the pathetic haste was the rule of power: on November 19, 2015, it announced that the demonstration of December 29 in Paris at the opening of the Cop 21, is cancelled⁽¹²⁾Even if we expected a number of claims that still put the hope of change in  » the awareness of leaders  » — government, NGOs, multinationals — that « the must take their responsibilities « .⁽¹³⁾It is equally certain that other groups would demonstrate, basing their demands on a return to democratic management by the people themselves, not asking for another world, but showing that it is up to us to make it. Cancelled. The injunction to consensus does not, by definition, tolerate dissensus, and therefore contestation. Move along, there’s nothing to see!

Belgium, « united » to the French suffering, takes unprecedented measures. November 13: Paris attacks, Belgian schools closed for two days; March 22: Brussels attacks, schools remain open. Look for consistency.

BEHIND ALL THIS, THE ORDER NOT TO THINK

These reactions are part of the main characteristic of modern man and the ideological system that formed him, namely the incapacity, despite the shocks of reality, to question the model of capitalist society to which his way of life responds. This is not new, Auschwitz symbolizing the major historical event from which modern society has not learned anything, which would have allowed it to look at itself in the mirror and no longer « exonerate modernity » by continuing to persuade us to be the civilized ones facing the barbarians :  » The quarantine of half a century ago is still going on. One could even say that the barbed wire hedges have thickened over time. Auschwitz has become a « Jewish » or « German » problem and the property of Jews or Germans (…) this illegitimate monopolization effectively prevents the disaster presented as « uniquely Jewish » from becoming a universal problem of the modern human condition and thus a public property . Basically, such a presentation reducing the Holocaust to the German particularity is a « sstrategy that has the double result of marginalizing crime and exonerating modernity [qui] is to isolate the Holocaust from a category of comparable phenomena and to interpret it as an eruption of premodern (barbaric and irrational) forces long since overcome in civilized societies « normal » « ⁽¹⁴⁾.

Ironically, this comparison with the present situation. In the same way that the Holocaust was reduced to a problem between Germans and Jews, to the only anti-Semitic hatred — as one tries to reduce the Palestinian conflict -, refusing to see the causality inscribed in the bureaucratic organization of our world which had generated these horrors, the present discourse again reduces the situation to a conflict of civilization which would be translated by the hatred of a religion and of those who carry it against the Western civilization and its values. This interpretation already reflects the Western superiority complex which ignores the richness of the Muslim world and assimilates a whole civilization to barbarians as soon as a few madmen proclaim themselves…

The  » etiological myth deeply rooted in the consciousness of our Western society is the uplifting story of a humanity emerging from a pre-social state of barbarism « , and would feed this form of dichotomous thinking advantageous to the one who propagates it. Holocaust or other tragedies would therefore be only errors of course and not creations of a certain type of society,  » in other words, we don’t have enough civilization yet, the civilization process must be completed. If the massacres have really taught us anything, it is that the prevention of such hiccups of barbarism requires even more civilizing efforts. There is nothing in this lesson that casts any doubt on the future effectiveness of such efforts or their ultimate results. We are definitely moving in the right direction. But maybe not fast enough « ⁽¹⁵⁾. And more than ever in our time, « civilization » will have been synonymous with wild liberalism.

There would be just the hatred carried by these terrorists, nothing more, a hatred that would only come from the rejection of the values of modernity, without any origin, history, genesis: we do not question the past (what roles of the West — colonization — in the present divisions), nor the present (what are the present roles — foreign policy, financial interests, dubious collaborations, Western way of life), nor the human process of radicalization (the adult terrorist subject is reduced to the only dimension that defines him, almost as if he was born a terrorist. We never ask ourselves why this is happening now and whether in a decent and egalitarian society, not seeking domination of any part of the world over the other, of any group over the other, educating to limits, the same child would have become a terrorist. This lack of questioning makes terrorism a quasi atavistic trait).

OUR LIFESTYLES ARE OPPOSED TO THE SEARCH FOR TRUTH

The habit of locating the causes of dysfunction outside the system: they are the « terrorists », the « enemies of democracy », the « barbarians », the « forces of evil », legitimizes our ways of life and does not set any limits to our actions, establishing no threshold beyond which one could think that our despoiling of the world under the guise of « humanitarian aid » and « preventive wars » is « sufficient ». Our unheroic acts are obviously absent from the discourse — or not perceived in a structural dimension -, they are then just accidents; no mirror therefore, no need to review our international policy, nor that of the interior. Is education partly responsible for the drift of young people who lack reference points? But no, please! One must see in the sick only sick people, but sick people coming from a particular group, not making etiology: whatever the history of the subject, he is reduced to the rank of terrorists, and the one who will try to understand is assimilated to the one who seeks to excuse⁽¹⁶⁾almost a culprit too⁽¹⁷⁾.

Because it is better for the power in place that the subject does not think and feeds on information that does not take the problems at their root. And since the subject derives a secondary benefit from the objects of capitalist consumption — they momentarily satisfy him of his dissatisfaction, since he turns away from them — a form of connivance is established all the more solidly between his choices, his perception of reality and that of the power that seeks only « growth », the purchasing power of the masses and thus production and consumption.

Behind the curtain of the political-media spectacle, however, the reality is raw, and quite simple in the end. John Perkins, an American citizen, explains in the documentary « Let’s make money », what his job as a « financial assassin » consisted of:  » our task is similar to that of a mafia killer, because our principle of a loan for a return, the mafia and the gangsters apply it since centuries. But we act on a very large scale, with governments, countries and we are more professional. We operate in different ways: most often the financial assassin identifies a country that has resources that our companies want and we prepare a huge loan from the World Bank or a sister organization. But the money never leaves for this country. It goes to our own companies that initiate infrastructure projects in the country; this benefits a few very rich people living in this country as well as our companies, but does not benefit the majority of the inhabitants, who are too poor. However, they are the ones who inherit colossal debts, so high that they cannot pay them back. As long as they are struggling to pay back, they cannot afford a good medical or educational system, and the economic murderers tell them: « Youowe us a lot of money, you cannot pay your debts; give us a pound of your flesh ».« Sell us your oil at a discount », « support us in the next crucial vote at the UN« or « Esend your troops to Iraq for example ». That’s how we managed to create this empire. Because the fact is that we make the laws, we control the World Bank, we control the IMF, we even control the United Nations. And what economic murderers do is not illegal. Pushing countries into debt and then demanding favors from them should be illegal, it is not.

One of the characteristics of an empire is to impose its currency on the rest of the world. That’s what we did with the dollar. In 1971, the United States was heavily indebted, mainly because of the Vietnam War. The gold standard system was in effect. One day, some countries decided to pay their debts in gold instead of in dollars, which were no longer safe. Nixon refused to pay in gold, despite the existing standard, because the United States did not have enough stock. Very quickly, oil became the new reference. I played a big role in the negotiations with Saudi Arabia, insisting that OPEC only sell oil in dollars. The dollar has become the reference currency for oil. This standard is much more important, because oil is much more valuable than gold nowadays. Since then, the world buys oil only in dollars, a very powerful currency. Today, the United States is bankrupt again. We have colossal debts, more than any country has ever had. If a country decided to pay its debts with a currency other than the dollar, we would be seriously embarrassed. Currently, countries pay in dollars, because oil is an indispensable commodity that can only be bought in dollars, but Sadam Hussein threatened to sell oil in other ways than dollars, just before his fall…

Sometimes you fail to corrupt leaders, as I failed with Omar Torrijos in Panama and Jaime Roldos in Ecuador. It doesn’t happen often, but in this case, the jackals are let loose. They are the ones who overthrow the government or assassinate their leaders. After my failure with Omar Torrijos in Panama and Jaime Roldos in Ecuador, the jackals were sent to assassinate them. In the only case where the economic assassins and jackals fail, then and only then is the army sent in. This is exactly what happened in Iraq: the assassins could not succeed in corrupting Sadam Hussein, the jackals could not kill him, so the army was sent. The first time the military invaded Iraq, in 1991, Hussein’s army was destroyed. We thought he was punished enough and would change his mind. In the 90s, the killers came back and tried to convince him. If he had given in, he would still be running his country and they would be selling him jets, tanks, whatever he wanted. But he did not give in, the jackals did not kill him. He was very well protected, he had several look-alikes. Even his men did not know if it was really him they were escorting. Neither the economic assassins nor the jackals succeeded the second time, so we sent the army again and eliminated him. What follows is part of the story « ⁽¹⁸⁾.

John Perkins’ words will never be the subject of recurrent debate in the mass media, so much so that they defend the dominant interests, fill their pages with car advertisements and therefore cannot question our hyper-dependent lifestyles. In the same way, what is happening in Syria is not explained by a press at the service of the oligarchy. Easier then to describe a tyrant to eliminate. We ourselves prefer not to see, anxious to get into our car to do our shopping at the supermarket, forget about work and fly to a « city-trip » in New York or Milan. Enjoying our « freedom », certainly.

THE ARAB THAT HIDES THE FOREST

Western war propaganda needs to create an enemy to justify its interventions, perpetuate the plundering of the planet and maintain the Western way of life. In Syria, Bashar Al Assad plays this role perfectly; in Russia, it is Vladimir Putin⁽¹⁹⁾. While demonizing the Syrian leader, the West was at the same time arming those who opposed him: the Islamic State organization and the various rebel groups. Despite the fact that the West has declared that it has control over the weapons distributed, which are only intended for « moderate rebels », we know two things: that this control is very difficult to put in place, if not impossible, and that there are no — or very few if one perceives in the Kurdish Rojava rebels a form of opposition to the Syrian regime — « moderate rebels » to the Syrian regime.

While we cannot comment on what Bashar Al Assad has actually done, we do know the situation in the country. In conflict with Israel, which occupies part of its territory (the Golan Heights), and having had to deal with the double consequence of the invasion of Iraq by the Western powers: the refugee crisis from a devastated Iraq and the creation of Daech, Syria has been and still is the victim of multiple attempts at « destabilization » by the United States and other Western countries. It is therefore a country that defends itself, which makes Jean Bricmont say that  » Bashar Al Assad does not slaughter his own people for fun, if you will, but because he is engaged in a war to the death with an equally violent, but less heavily armed, opposition . »⁽²⁰⁾. Then, given the bundle of destabilizing factors in Syria, he adds, concerning Bashar Al Assad, that he  » it is hard to believe that he could have resisted for so long an insurgency clearly supported by foreign powers without the support of at least a significant part of his population. There are many dictatorships that have collapsed in the face of much less powerful opposition than the one to which the « Syrian regime » is facing « ⁽²¹⁾.

Not being able to benefit from precise information on the personal behavior of the Syrian president (any more than we can obtain precise information on the actions of Western leaders, except that we know that they are systematically absolved for those they are accused of. Sarkozy, among many others, is a perfect example, who, if we were in a decent society, should, along with Didier Reynders and a myriad of other politicians, be behind bars…), we can, however, see that steps have been taken by his regime, which were in no way aimed at harming Western countries. Thus Bernard Squarcini, former head of French intelligence, who recently revealed  » that the Syrian secret services came to him with a list of all the French jihadists operating in Syria « ⁽²²⁾. Nice gesture for the one who is presented as a bloody tyrant… Bernard Squarcini then  » turned to his French counterpart who said: ‘Yes, I’m interested, but I have to refer to Prime Minister Manuel Valls’ . To which the latter replied: « No way, we do not exchange information with a regime such as Syria. The French Prime Minister has therefore refused aid that could have prevented the November 13 attacks in Paris, those in Brussels, and the following ones…

« Al-Nosra [Syrian terrorist group affiliated with Al Qaeda] is doing a good job on the ground » (Laurent Fabius, Le Monde, 12/13/2012)

Manuel Valls, however, did not refuse with such firmness to visit Saudi Arabia in October 2015, at the Franco-Saudi forum in Riyadh:  » Manuel Valls paid an official visit to Saudi Arabia on October 12 and 13, 2015. He was accompanied by Laurent Fabius, Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Development, J‑Y. Le Drian, Minister of Defense, Alain Vidalies, Secretary of State for Transport, Sea and Fisheries, and Jean-Marie Le Guen, Secretary of State for Relations with Parliament « ⁽²³⁾. Didier Reynders, then Liberal Minister of Finance, visited Saudi Arabia in 2012 and met with Saudi Prince Nayef Bin Fawaz al Chaalan, who is accused of being involved in a vast cocaine trafficking operation by diplomatic plane and is also wanted by Interpol. Caught on camera with the prince, his brother and the prince’s pet leopard, Didier Reynders said he knew nothing of his host’s past… he had to ignore the words of the two Saudi brothers who said  » be in daily contact (via satellite) with members of the Syrian opposition « . But fortunately the Saudi dynasty was there for Didier Reynders, allowing him  » to shed light on the way certain groups operate in the field. This certainly demonstrates the complexity of the Syrian file »⁽²⁴⁾. Some interest perhaps? Here and there… Valls  » has signed several agreements, contracts and letters of intent, for a total value of around 10 billion euros « ⁽²⁵⁾Prince Philippe, for his part, has carried out several economic missions in Saudi Arabia:  » If Besix has succeeded in making itself known in Saudi Arabia, it is thanks to the presence of Prince Philippe during the economic mission « ⁽²⁶⁾. Ah, what we wouldn’t do for money, and the « economic recovery of France » or Belgium and « growth », even if it means a few attacks… and  » talking with people whose values you don’t share ⁽²⁷⁾said Charles Michel.

We are no longer at a « contradiction », when there is money, we are even able to  » promote Saudi Arabia at the Human Rights Council « . Yes, as the executive director of UN Watch says,  » Petrodollars and politicstrump human rights « ⁽²⁸⁾. It is not surprising then that  » at the time, neither the United States, nor theEuropean Union, nor France opposed this appointment . Oh, come on, it’s no big deal if they throw a few rocks at buried bloggers until they die, and behead in public squares at a rate higher than Daech, « those barbarians ». More embarrassing, however, when a Saudi prince, Abdel Mohsen Ibn Walid Ibn Abdelaziz, is arrested with two tons of Captagon in Beirut. Captagon is the drug of which traces were found on the individual who made his carnage on the beach of Sousse and that the terrorists take before perpetrating their ultimate act … and that we think that the attackers of November 13 in Paris had consumed. But Saudi Arabia has money and in times of crisis France cannot balk at certain investments. The perception of barbarism and indignation has its limits: our interests…

A FEW ATTACKS TO BE ABLE TO CONTINUE DRIVING A CAR

We get what we deserve? A little, in any case, according to Marc Trevidic: former investigating judge at the Paris anti-terrorist center:  » France is not credible in its relations with Saudi Arabia. We know very well that this Gulf country has poured the poison into the glass by spreading Wahhabism. The Paris attacks are one of the results. Proclaiming that we are fighting against radical Islam while shaking hands with the king of Saudi Arabia is like saying that we are fighting against Nazism while inviting Hitler to our table « ⁽²⁹⁾. This support is also accompanied by a complete alignment of France with the United States and Israel:  » When talking about France, one cannot ignore the elephant in the room, which everyone knows exists and which no one talks about (or dares to talk about): the extraordinary influence of pro-Israeli networks in the political-media and intellectual world. And it is obvious that all « Arab nationalist regimes« including Syria, have long been hated in pro-Israeli circles. This, combined with the alignment with the United States, explains the fanatical hostility of some French leaders towards the « Syrian regime » « ⁽³⁰⁾.

But « Chuutt » is not to be said. Let us instead rally behind empty slogans such as:  » Terrorism will not destroy the Republic, because it is the Republic that will destroy it  » ⁽³¹⁾. The « Republic » will not talk about what it has built. Do not tell the story either, say that Al Qaeda stems from American support for the Mujahideen in the fight against terrorism, foreign interference that in the era of the witch hunt will completely destabilize the Middle East, of which the EI will only be the sequel:  » Al-Qaeda is one of the radical Islamist groups created and introduced by the West in various Muslim countries, and more recently the Islamic State organization. EI is an armed extremist group born in the « refugee camps » the Turkish-Syrian and Jordanian-Syrian borders. It has received funding from NATO and the West to fight against the (secular) government of Bashar al-Assad. These radical elements have several functions. The West uses them as intermediaries in the wars it wages against its enemies, i.e. against those countries that persist in undermining the Empire’s complete domination of the world. Then, when these extremist armies come to « Doing it to their heads » (which always ends up happening), they are made into scarecrows intended to justify the war on terror or, as we saw after the capture of Mosul by EI, a new intervention of Western forces in Iraq « ⁽³²⁾. This obviously benefits the military-industrial complex and the plutocracy that serves it and is served by it, that is to say, a ruling caste in the service of big capital, whose prolonged state of emergency measures protect them above all from dissent against their domination and denouncing their historical role in what is happening.

For its part, after several years of unsuccessful strikes by the United States on Syria and armed support from France, Russia decided to intervene. Response from the French government?  » Taken by surprise on September 30 by Putin’s decision to bomb all of Bashar al-Assad’s enemies, regardless of affiliation, they reacted by sending weapons to all opposition groups to the Syrian regime, labeled as Islamists or not . It is therefore obvious that when France says it is arming the rebels, it is arming the terrorists. And the same countries that are surprised at the results of the actions they perpetuate will be similarly surprised that the weapons they manufacture end up in the hands of terrorists in the apartments of Saint-Denis, or in the hands of Islamic State fighters. « Oh boy, if we had known… », uh, but you have to be able to« talk with people whose values you don’t share », and between talking and trading, there is… nothing.

This final decision was further evidence of France’s willingness to support opposition forces to the president rather than to fight Daesh. On this subject, in addition to the French refusal to the Syrian proposal to collaborate with its intelligence services in order to curb probable attacks, the former head of American intelligence already denounced in a secret report that  » the Salafists, the Muslim Brotherhood and al-Qaeda in Iraq were the most important forces in the insurgency in Syria, » with support « from the West, the Gulf countries and Turkey »; these anti-government jihadist groups armed and supported by the West have by this support become Daesh « ⁽³³⁾ CQFD? No, that doesn’t seem to be enough evidence for some… (if only the industry media would really inform us, which they won’t).

Let’s not be afraid to say it:  » The ultimate perpetrators of the Syrian tragedy are those who have tried to dominate the Middle East for decades and subvert all regimes that opposed their domination ». Jean Bricmont adds: « In Europe, this kind of observation is practically impossible to make, but this is not the case in the rest of the world, and the autism into which European opinions are sunk is just another symptom of our decline « ⁽³⁴⁾. Let’s add: our decline which will take, if it doesn’t change quickly, apocalyptic forms.

The transcendent value, beyond a so-called Western or Islamic universalism, that binds the different groups is that of money and profit at all costs. « Democracy or human rights » as well as « religious precepts » are only tools to perpetuate the domination by which they justify their actions. The knowledge of colonial history and its neo-colonial mutation, allows us to understand that radical groups were not only supported by the West, « but that it created them »,  » The West identified the most abominable monsters, gave them billions of dollars, armed them, gave them high-level military training, and then released them into the wild. The countries that breed terrorism, such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar, are among the West’s closest allies and have never been punished for spreading horror throughout the Muslim world « ⁽³⁵⁾.

Our repressed Western superiority, or more importantly, our culture’s built-in norm, is centuries old. Most of us are constantly hierarchizing the cultures and ethnic groups of this world which, under the pretext of our superiority at all levels, should be melted into the Western mold. Behind the « We are Charlie », « We are Paris », « We are Brussels »… lies the ignorance of what we are.

And this ignorance is fed by our illusion of being stronger than anything, protected by the police and the army. Behind this chimera of protection lies the truth that the terrorist struggle, borrowing from the Viet Cong’s maquis style, is much more powerful than the organized police and army. Hundreds of young people have already returned from Syria, thousands of terrorists will soon come from Turkey once the visa to come to Europe is abolished. At that point, there is nothing we can do about it. The military strutting through our streets will not prevent the worst. And it will be chaos.

Will we grasp the absurdity that governs us? The illusory superiority that drives us, dictates our relationship to the Other and to ourselves?

There is little hope. But when there are few, there are still some…

Alexandre Penasse