Sic Semper Tyrannis

"Why the French Don’t Show Excitement" Emily Monaco

"  ... with a fairly good grasp of the language, I was convinced that I would soon assimilate into French culture.

Of course, I was wrong. There’s nothing like cultural nuance to remind you who you are at your core: my Americanness became all the more perceptible the longer I remained in France, and perhaps no more so than the day a French teacher told me his theory on the key distinction between those from my native and adopted lands.

“You Americans,” he said, “live in the faire [to do]. The avoir [to have]. In France, we live in the être [to be].”

The moment he said it, it made perfect sense. I thought back to my life in New York, where every moment was devoted to checking tasks off a perpetual to-do list or planning for the days, weeks and years to come. In France, however, people were perfectly contented to just be."  Emily Monaco

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I have frequently been accused of living too much in the "etre" rather than the "faire."  At times people have been more specific to the point of saying that I am an unnatural American, someone who ought to go hide myself somewhere among people more like me, like maybe in Mediterranean Europe.  They were probably right in saying that.

At the US Army War College, I was judged to be the most Type B officer on post at Carlisle Barracks.  I was assigned as home work to the semi-psycho extreme Type A guys.  They were told to watch me and to try to learn to calm down.  These were the kind of people who would spike little kids in the head in volleyball games, just to win, anything to win, all the god damned time.

Being Type A or B doesn't have anything to do with how aggressive you are or how much you accomplish.  No.  It has to do with your attitude toward life.

Perpignan to the Spanish border, we should have emigrated to somewhere along there.  pl

https://getpocket.com/explore/item/why-the-french-don-t-show-excitement?utm_source=pocket-newtab&fbclid=IwAR1E7GNMQnp9PikITejinWKKSkQUBrxXnvjDkTlPw6zcDnB7Bf49XZhDBWQ

Happy Anniversary to The World Turned Upside Down by Fred

On the 17th of October, 1781 – General Charles Cornwallis offers his surrender to the Americans at Yorktown, Virginia. Let's raise a glass and listen along to the song that brings such cheer.

"Macron vows to fight 'Islamist separatism'" BBC

"The country also has the largest population of Muslims in Western Europe. Many complain the authorities use secularism to specifically target them, for instance in banning the hijab.

Speaking outside Paris on Friday, Mr Macron said radical Islam was a danger to France because it held its own laws above all others and "often results in the creation of a counter-society".

He said this form of sectarianism often translated into children being kept out of school, and the use of sporting, cultural and other community activities as a "pretext to teach principles that do not conform to the laws of the republic".

"Islam is a religion that is in crisis all over the world today, we are not just seeing this in our country."

The measures announced by the president will form legislation that will go to parliament before the end of the year.

They include:

• stricter monitoring of sports organisations and other associations so that they do not become a front for Islamist teaching
• an end to the system of imams being sent to France from abroad
• improved oversight of the financing of mosques
• home-schooling restricted

Mr Macron also said France must do more to offer economic and social mobility to immigrant communities, adding that radicals had often filled the vacuum."  BBC

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SWMBO and I watch A LOT of French TV on TV 5 Monde.   The aspirational goals of French society  are made clear there.  The assimilation and integration of North Africans and Sub-Saharan immigrants from the former French Union, or empire if you prefer, are a high priority for the French.  The depiction of assimilated Muslims is generally friendly so long as the persons depicted appear to consider themselves to be French before all else.

The French have a long history of this kind of behavior.  There are many, many French people of Polish or Portuguese descent distributed throughout French society who are the evidence of a long term immigration from those countries to France.

In addition to these people, the descendants of those Algerians who more or else voluntarily left what had formerly been an integral part of France to re-locate to mainland France appear to be completely integrated into French society.  Their names are conspicuous in the "crawl" that accompanies just about every French film or TeeVee production.

These people are not the targets of Macron's virtual declaration of war against Islamism.  What he is concerned about is the mentality evident in many of the newly arrived people of Muslim identity who seek and wish to replace traditional French culture and hard won ideals of governance with a Sharia State ruled by the whims of people like Turkey's neo-Ottoman Sultan, Erdogan.

All Europeans should fear such a possibility and should decide whether or not they have the will and determination needed to preserve their own ancients ways of life.

I applaud Macron's promise of action.  pl 

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-54383173

French LTC Assigned To NATO, Arrested For Committing Espionage On Behalf of Russia. by J

French DSGI Counter-Intelligence (their MI5 equivalent) arrested a French LTC assigned to NATO, as he was wrapping up his vacation in France and heading back to his NATO base in Italy.  The LTC was arrested for committing espionage on behalf of Russia. 

The LTC speaks fluent Russian and his position appears to be that of a specialist on  Russian military affairs for his NATO base in Italy.  French authorities began investigating the LTC when he was spotted with an individual who was later identified as an Intelligence Officer for the Russian GRU, Russia's Military Intelligence.

The LTC is being held in ‘La Santé’ prison in Paris.  55 years old, father of five, has relatives in Russia.  The LTC was assigned to Allied Joint Force Command.

Earlier in the month French DSGI arrested two Retired DGSE agents, one is in his 60s, and the other in his 70s for committing Espionage on behalf of China.  French law prohibits disclosure of the full names of their agents, current and retired.

Europe 1

J.

A Bombshell Report from the New CNN

A report by Fred

There I was, first day on the new job. Trying to impress the boss with my worsmithing and insights on life, the universe, and, well - everything. Of course all good writing takes coffee, and some fresh air. So I went for a stroll and imagine, as luck would have it, what came by? I think this is what Joseph Campbell referred to as a 'call to adventure'. Take a look.

 

«Erdogan leads a panislamist and neo-ottoman project that must be fought urgently» Le Figaro

(Mezri Haddad)

 

We have this translation from the French text courtesy of Phillipe Boileau who lives at Montreal.  pl

-------------------------------

FIGAROVOX/TRIBUNE – The philosopher Mezri Haddad analyses Turkish president Erdogan’s foreign policy. Erdogan aims, in Haddad's  view, to transform Turkey into an anti-Western power on the basis of the conflict of civilisations model of Samuel Huntington.

This essay was published the 3rd of March 2020 at 10:37, and updated the 4th of march 2020 at 01:53 in Le Figaro.

Mezri Haddad is a philosopher and president of the ‘Centre international de géopolitique et de prospective analytique CIGPA’ (International center of geopolitics and analytical prospective)

________________________________________

Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been scheming against European countries for a long time. For the second time since 2015, he has carried out his blackmail of migratory flooding by opening his land and sea borders with Greece to thousands of Syrian, Afghan, Iraqi, Pakistani, Somali refugees. Among them, there are certainly terrorist infiltrators who have shaved their beards or shed their burkas. This migration is his "nuclear" deterrent, a human pipeline intended to subject the European Union to pan-Islamism and expansionist oukases [Arbitrary decision, imperative order].

The message of the Istanbul satrap [bureaucrat in a negative sense] is perfectly clear: "To safeguard the borders of Europe, either the Europeans pay me (Erdogan) even more money by supporting me militarily in my war against Damascus alongside my Islamic-terrorist mercenaries, or I pour on her thousands of Syrian hostages who dream of the European Eldorado." For, as far as Syrians are concerned, they are indeed hostages that the Turkish regime has long prevented from returning to their towns and villages pacified and liberated by the Syrian army from the barbarity of Daesh, Al-Qaeda, Al-Nusra...

Idlib province is one of the last terrorist strongholds that the Erdogan regime has supported since the beginning of the so-called Arab Spring. The Arab spring’s impacts are now being measured in the aggregation of political, geopolitical, humanitarian, socio-economic and security aspects not only in Syria but also in Libya, Yemen and Tunisia. Tunisia being the most ‘successful’ in its spring by entrusting the reality of power to the servants of Erdogan that are the Muslim Brotherhood! The liberation of Idlib is at the root of this new and very serious migration crisis. Idlib province is the most advanced post of irregular Turkish troops (jihadists) in Syrian territory. In his defense of these terrorists, the Turkish autocrat invoked security and even "humanitarian" reasons, hundreds of inhabitants of these provinces who had fallen under the yoke of theocratic totalitarianism who could flee the war and take refuge in Turkey, like the 4 million Syrians already exiled to the country. Erdogan's deception is useless because it is himself who prevents Syrian refugees from returning to their villages, and who keeps them as a bargaining chip and leverage over Europe. Before carrying out his threats, Erdogan justified his plan to occupy Syrian territories by making Europeans believe that, rather than being invaded by thousands of Syrian refugees, it would be better for them to entrust Turkey’s neo-Ottoman mission to confine these refugees to Idlib and Aleppo.
But European leaders are no longer fooled. Even if it took them a long time to understand it, they now know that the Turkish regime has forged close links with the major terrorist organizations that were rampant in Iraq and Syria and whose ramifications go as far as Europe. At his joint conference in London with Donald Trump on December 3, 2019, French President Emmanuel Macron had the courage to declare: "When I look at Turkey, it now fights those (Kurds) who fought with us, alongside us against the Islamic state. Sometimes the Turks work with IS intermediaries. It's a problem and it's a strategic problem... The common enemy today are terrorist groups and I am sorry that we do not have the same definition of terrorism."

Trump moves to unite the Middle East! (irony)

Teevee coverage of the recent events in the ME has been predictable.  Those who hated Trump continue to hate him, etc. 

A few observations:

1. I had hoped that Trump's decision to kill an Iranian general engaged in a diplomatic mission (among other things) while the man was on the soil of a supposed ally of the US was something Trump pulled out of his fundament either inspired by war movies or on the recommendation of "our greatest ally" but I am informed that in fact some idiot in the DoD included this option in the list of possibilities that was briefed to the CinC in Florida.  The decision process in such matters requires that when options are demanded by the CinC the JCS prepares a list supported for each option by fully formulated documentation that enables the president to approve one (or none) and then sign the required operational order.  Trump himself chose the death option.  I would hold General Milley (CJCS) personally responsible for not striking this option from the list before it reached the CinC. 

2.  The Iranians are a subtle people.  IMO they will bide their time whilst working out the "bestest" way to inflict some injury on the US and/or Israel.  When the retaliation comes it will be imaginative and painful.

3.  Trump is  now threatening the Iraqis with severe sanctions if they try to enforce their parliamentary decree against the future presence of foreign (US mostly) troops on their soil.  IMO a refusal to leave risks a substantial Shia (at least) uprising against the US forces in Iraq.  We have around 5,500 people there now spread across the country in little groups engaged in logistics, intelligence and training missions.  They are extremely vulnerable.  There are something like 150 marines in the embassy.  There are also a small number of US combat forces in Syria east and north of the Euphrates river.  These include a battalion of US Army National Guard mechanized troops "guarding" Syria's oil from Syria's own army and whatever devilment the Iranians might be able to arrange.

4.  This is an untenable logistical situation.  Supply and other functions require a major airfield close to Baghdad.  We have Balad airbase and helicopter supply and air support from there into Baghdad is possible from there but may become hazardous.  Iraq is a big country.  It is a long and lonely drive from Kuwait for re-supply from there or evacuation through there.  The same thing is true of the desert route to Jordan.

5.  Trump's strategery appears to be based on the concept that the Iraqis will submit to our imperial demands.  "We will see."  pl

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/iran-strike-live-updates/2020/01/06/3b5451f2-3024-11ea-9313-6cba89b1b9fb_story.html?rand=4

"Latest situation in foreign forces deployment in Syria" Yeni Safak

"The U.S. forces evacuated 16 bases and military posts during Operation Peace Spring and returned to six bases as the operation was paused.

The U.S. army strengthened its military presence in Syria’s northeastern border and oil fields.

With five bases and military posts in Hasakah province, the U.S. forces are conducting efforts to set up two other military posts in Qahtaniyah town and Himo village in Qamishli city.

The U.S. aims to both secure oil fields in Hasakah and strengthen its presence on the Turkish border with the military posts.

The U.S. forces are currently deployed at 11 bases and military posts, including five in Hasakah, four in Deir ez-Zor and two in Raqqa.

They also carry out efforts to set up two new bases in Deir ez-Zor."  Yebi Safak

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Yes, this newspaper is pro-Erdo but this looks like a useful map to lay out where everyone is at present.  The map does not extend far enough south to include the US roadblocking position at Al Tanf on the Syrian/Iraqi border but other than that- pretty complete.  pl

 

https://www.yenisafak.com/en/world/latest-situation-in-foreign-forces-deployment-in-syria-3507700

"Joltin'" Jack Keane wants your kids to fight Russia and Syria over Syrian oil.

"Joltin" Jack Keane, General (ret.), Fox Business Senior Strategery Analyst,  Chairman of the Board of the Kagan run neocon "Institute for the Study of War" (ISW)  and Graduate Extraordinaire of Fordham University, was on with Lou Dobbs last night.  Dobbs appears to have developed a deep suspicion of this paladin.  He stood up to Keane remarkably well.  This was refreshing in light of the fawning deference paid to Keane by all the rest of the Fox crew.

In the course of this dialogue Keane let slip the slightly disguised truth that he and the other warmongers want to keep something like 200 US soldiers and airmen in Syria east of the Euphrates so that they can keep Iran or any other "Iranian proxy forces" from crossing the Euphrates from SAG controlled territory to take control of Syrian sovereign territory and the oil and gas deposits that are rightly the property  of the Syrian people and their government owned oil company.  The map above shows how many of these resources are east of the Euphrates.  Pilgrims!  It is not a lot of oil and gas judged by global needs and markets, but to Syria and its prospects for reconstruction it is a hell of a lot! 

Keane was clear that what he means by "Iranian proxy forces" is the Syrian Arab Army, the national army of that country.  If they dare cross the river, to rest in the shade of their own palm trees, then in his opinion the air forces of FUKUS should attack them and any 3rd party air forces (Russia) who support them

This morning, on said Fox Business News with Charles Payne, Keane was even clearer and stated specifically that if "Syria" tries to cross the river they must be fought.

IMO he and Lindsey Graham are raving lunatics brainwashed for years with the Iran obsession and they are a danger to us all.  pl

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/military/graham-fox-news-star-showed-trump-map-change-his-mind-n1069901

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petroleum_industry_in_Syria

What just happened in Paris? Observations and Questions, by Fred

School isn't going to be the same for these kids for some time to come. A few short months ago the Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris "caught fire" in what was immediately - like while the fire was still burning - labeled an industrial accident. Those premature pronouncements reminded me of nothing more than the ongoing "Russia" did it pronouncements here in the US. 

No Smoking - you can't smoke in a restaurant but behind a closed door on a jobsite is apparently ok.

Fire update 2

Yesterday five individuals were attacked with a ceramic knife that was smuggled through the security screening at the Préfecture de police de Paris Headquarters building. Four are dead and one critically injured. That did not strike me as an act of rage over a management dispute but rather as a premeditated act of murder. Is it terrorism?

40% of French electricity is from nuke plants.

f

"Nuclear power is a major source of energy in France, with a 40% share of energy consumption in 2015.^[1] Nuclear power is the largest source of electricity in the country, with a generation of 379.1 TWh, or 71.6%^[2] of the country's total production of 519.4 TWh, the highest percentage in the world.^[3]

Électricité de France (EDF) – the country's main electricity generation and distribution company – manages the country's 58 power reactors.^[4] EDF is substantially owned by the French Government, with around 85% shares in government hands.^[5]

France exported 38 TWh of electricity to its neighbours in 2017.^[6] France becomes a net-importer of electricity when demand exceeds supply, in rare cases of very inclement weather, because of the lack of more flexible generating plants."  wiki

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Chernobyl! Fukushima! Three Mile Island!   I can hear the outcry from right here.  Oh, scuse me!  Raht heah!.  (language notation for you all.  Well , some of you all)  This reminds me of the blonde TV dummy recently reporting from Rheims on the women's soccer championship who batted her blue eyes at the camera and said that she just couldn't understand why the locals didn't say Reems when mentioning the city.  She said that they unaccountably pronounced the name as "Hann."  Sweet Jaysus,  Are they actually paying this creature?

Seriously, the French electricity company is tightly controlled and largely owned by the government.  Security is tight and lethal.  There is continuous ongoing reactor safety research and installation of product improvements and guess what?  There is NO pollution.

Well, duh!  If we went down that road maybe we could start exporting electricity as well as oil/gas.  pl

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_France

May Day in the City of Light

"French police have fired tear gas on masked protesters who joined large May Day demonstrations in Paris.

Traditionally a union-led day of action in the country, this year's event brought both the "yellow-vest" movement and so-called "black blocks" of dark-clad protesters onto the streets.

Some smashed shop windows and threw projectiles at the more than 7,000 officers deployed.

Police responded with tear gas and water cannon, and arrested 380 people.

About 38 people were wounded, including 14 officers - one of whom was hit in the head with a paving stone."  BBC

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The French National Police said today that they will uphold the right of protest in the face of riotous demonstrations in the street.  I applaud their willingness to do so.

But, the damned rioters have now gone too far.  In the film above you can see them raising hell in front of one of my favorite lunch places in all the world, the "Relais de l'Entrcote" in the Rue Marbeuf in the 8th Arrondissment or it could be in from of the Montparnasse branch of the restaurant.

The sliced steak served with a lovely butter/garlic/shallot sauce is just marvelous. 

OK, Macron,  a national treasure is threatened.  Get your act together.  pl

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-48119183

http://relaisentrecote.fr/

Ave Maria

"A gutted roof, blackened stone and a gaping hole where the spire once stood.

The scale of the damage caused by a devastating fire that tore through Notre Dame cathedral on Monday has been revealed by dramatic images shot from a drone above the 850-year-old church.

The pictures, taken by Lana Sator, show the interior of the medieval Catholic church exposed to the elements, and the impact caused by the dramatic collapse of the structure's spire.

French President Emmanuel Macron has pledged to rebuild the cathedral, one of Paris' most-famous landmarks."  CNN

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The miracle of what remains is astonishing.  Those who criticize les pompiers de Paris are just bitching against brave men and women who did their best.

The flying buttresses held under all that pressure from heat and stone expansion.  What a marvelous thing!  The Rose windows survived!  Another miracle!

And then there was the hero priest, the chaplain of the firemen, who led some of his flock into the burning medieval building with tons of dried wood above them to save holy relics but most importantly for them the consecrated Host from the altar.  We Catholics believe that the consecrated Host is the actual Body of Christ transformed at the Consecration through trans-substantiation.  To die in the attempt to save that was surely to be saved.

And then there was the spectacle of so many young French people gathered in the streets to mourn and sing the praises of Jesus' mother for whom the cathedral is named.

This was nothing like defeat for France and her remaining Christian people. No, it was a moment of renewed hope.  pl

https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/17/world/gallery/notre-dame-aerials-intl/index.html

Is the EU collapsing?

"Today, there are far too few of the 28 EU countries that have been lifted out of their poverty and other conditions that made them want to join the Union. And within many of the countries, there are way too many people who are, and feel, left behind. While Brussels has become a bastion of power that none of the disadvantaged feel they can properly address with their grievances.

The main fault of the EU is that the biggest party at the table always in the end, when things get serious, gets its way. The 80 million or so people of Germany de facto rule the 500 million of the Union, or you know, the three handfuls that rule Germany. No important decision can or will ever be taken that Berlin does not agree with. Angela Merkel has been the CEO of Europe Inc. since November 22 2005, gathering more power as time went by. That was never going to work unless she made everyone richer. Ask the Greeks about that one.

Merkel was the leader of both Germany and of Europe, and when things got precarious, she chose to let German interests prevail above Italian or Greek ones. That’s the fundamental flaw and failure of the Union in a nutshell. All other things, the Greek crisis, Salvini, Macron, Brexit, are mere consequences of that flaw. In absence of a forever economic boom, there is nothing left to fall back on.  SF

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A persuasive article, the Europeans here can now explain to us all how much better and more virtuous Europe is than the United States.

What was it that Macron was saying about a European army?  The CRS and the Gendarmerie Mobile will get this under control but Macron may well be neutered by the unrest. 

FWIW, the disparate power exercised by the great and the small states under present EU conditions is exactly what the US Framers successfully avoided by the Great Compromises in the US Constitution.  pl

https://southfront.org/macron-heralds-the-end-of-the-union/

A Serb's comment on French policy in history - Jovan Pjescic

Sometimes it’s hard to understand the big powers - case of France

During the recent commemoration of the end of WWI in Paris, in the Notre-Dam Cathedral, among other flags, there was the flag of Kosovo*¹. When you take a look at the pictures of the world leaders taking part in the commemoration, you can see the president of the so-called Kosovo* Hashim Tachi², sitting in the second row, right behind Putin (who is next to the first lady of France).

First, a few presumptions can be made:

• the French call all the states they want to the ceremony, regardless of their role in WWI. This is a call for peace, or as often stated ‘’so that it never happens again’’, and a reflection of the EU strength, essentially based on the german-french reconciliation, understanding and cooperation;
• the French have recognized Kosovo as a sovereign nation, and they treat it like that, regardless of what the Russians, Chinese, Spaniards or at last and the least Serbs, think of it;
• the host sovereignly decides on the protocol - who of the leaders sits where, whose flag is to be displayed where, etc.

Lest We Forget. A Suggestion to President Trump on his visit to Paris. by Fred

The gateway is gilded in gold just like your Manhattan Apartment. The symbolism is fitting to your rhetoric.

Memorial

 

There's an American flag.

And a great view of the city.

 Remember to plant a flag, or bring some flowers.

There are 1,500 more.

Suresnes American Cemetery

It's an easy ride on the L from the Grande Arche de la Defense. Walk up Rue du Calvaire, turn Right on Boulevard Washington. Have lunch across the street at Au Pere Lapin. No Michelin stars but its about time a few presidents ate at someplace middle class for a change. Take a stoll along the river later in the evening and remember, 100 years ago the red sky at night had a different meaning.

 

Lest we forget. 

Fred 

 

"Who needs Saudi Arabia?" Washpost editorial

 

"As for arms sales, someone needs to brief Mr. Trump on the actual results of the promises made to him when he visited Riyadh last year. As Bruce Riedel of the Brookings Institution sums it up, “The Saudis have not concluded a single major arms deal with Washington on Trump’s watch.” Moreover, an end to supplies of U.S. spare parts and technical support, something Russia cannot provide, would quickly ground the Saudi air force. That would have the welcome effect of ending a bloody bombing campaign in Yemen that a U.N. investigation concluded was probably responsible for war crimes."  Washpost

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Once again, I am not a great fan of Bezos or his blog, but two days in a row they have printed something I can agree with.  Something has changed for him.

It has become a meme in the blather that runs shrill and shallow in the US media, that Saudi Arabia is a faithful, and indispensable ally of the US in the ME.  Bezos disputes this and so do I. 

A few points:

Yes, they chop heads off after Friday prayers outside the local mosque.  They also do hands and feet.  They stone to death women found guilty of adultery.  They sew them in bags before the men present throw handy five pound rocks at them.  The government is deeply approving of this.  Sound familiar?  Yes, it should. The jihadis whom the Saudis sponsor in Syria do the same things.  The Sunni jihadis  are nearly defeated in Syria and it has become clear that the Saudi government has been evacuating their leaders, probably with US connivance, so that they can pursue greater visions of jihad elsewhere.

The importance of Saudi Arabia in the world oil market is IMO now much exaggerated.  They can undoubtedly do some damage by manipulating the short term contract (spot) market but this is something they would pay for heavily.  The Kingdom is cash strapped.  It was not for nothing that MBS turned the Ritz Carlton in Riyadh into a prison for the wealthy including many of his own kin in order to squeeze and in some cases torture them into handing over a lot of their cash to the government.  Depressed petro sales at artificial prices will only further reduce revenue to the government.

The notion that Saudi intelligence contributes much to the GWOT is a joke.  Saudi intelligence competence is something that exists only in pitchmen's claims voiced by TV touts.  In fact, they get almost everything they have from the US and are like greedy baby birds always looking to be fed.  They cannot organize a trip to the gold plated toilet.  It took 15 of them to ambush Khashoggi, well, OK, 14 of them and a doctor to carry the electric bone-saw.

We need to sell them more equipment that they cannot use?  It does not appear to me that any of the contracts that they promised to DJT has been signed.  Their technique is simple.  Keep the hope of profit for the US alive as leverage.

Lastly, the chimera of a great Arab alliance (a la NATO) is delusory.  The Saudis lack both the organizational ability for such a thing and significant military power. They possess one of the world's largest static displays of military equipment.  They have neither the manpower nor the aptitude to use such equipment effectively.  As I have written previously, the Gulf Arabs have long had such an alliance.  It is the GCC and it has never amounted to anything except a venue for the Arab delight in meetings and blather. 

The basis for the desire for such an alliance is the Israeli strategic objective of isolating Iran and its allies; Syria, Hizbullah and Hamas with an eventual hope of destroying the Iranian theocracy.  Israel is frightened of a possible salvo of many thousands of missiles and rockets into Israel from Lebanon as well as an eventual successful creation of a missile deliverable nuclear weapon by the Iranians.  These are real and credible threats for Israel, but not for FUKUS.  Israel has only two really valuable counter-value targets; Haifa and Tel Aviv.  A hit on one or both with a nuclear weapon would be the end of Israel.  The Israelis know that.

Adroit information operations carried out over generations by the Israeli government and its supporters have created in the collective US mind an image of Iran as a disguised 3rd Reich.  This was well done.  The same operation was run against Iraq with magnificent results from the POV of Israel

Saudi Arabia is a worthless ally.  pl 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/who-needs-saudi-arabia/2018/10/15/3ebe473c-d0a1-11e8-8c22-fa2ef74bd6d6_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.a339b03b5abf

Have you never met a lying woman? (editorial)

 

Yes, I know you are not supposed to say things like that, but, it happens to be true that women are not semi-divine beings, born with few traces of original sin.  Like men, they lie, fornicate, cheat and steal.  US senators are apparently constrained  by politics into adopting a rhetorical position in which they pretend that women are better and more filled with integrity than men.  To hell with that!  Such a position is so obviously untrue as to be absurd.  I am not going to soften my words by whining about all the wonderful, brilliant, adorable, madonnesque, but still desirable women I have known. (so to speak).  In the present circumstance such an attempt to mollify the harridans, male and female, is just weakness.

It is clear to me that a silent coup is underway, a coup against the conservative/deplorable side of America.  This is a coup that seeks to deny the Republican Party the ability to govern by abandoning the customs and norms of civility that lie at the center of the US form of government while reverting to the law of the jungle "red in tooth and claw."  In US government it has been long understood that recognition of the fragility of the Union within the framework of the constitution should be accepted as a basis for what people are wise to say and do to each other.

There have been rash actions in recent years, actions that have damaged the comity that once prevailed in places like the US Senate.  McConnell's decision to deny Merrick Garland a hearing was a terrible mistake which provides the Progresso Democrats with an excuse to stonewall any and all Republican nominations for the judiciary.  Harry Reed's decision to abandon the 60 vote rule for cloture in judicial appointments was very short sided.

The Progresso Democrats are delaying the Kavanaugh confirmation in the hope that they will recover one or both houses of congress.  If they control the House, they will pass bills of impeachment against Trump and probably Kavanaugh as well.  If they also control the senate then one or both of these might result in convictions and removals.  This would not be politics.  It would be war conducted as politics. The Progresso Democrats should not expect that such actions would be meekly accepted. 

The Republican leadership in the senate looks weak as it seeks to placate the Progresso Democrats over proliferating and shaky claims of molestations leading to wounding of the female soul.  There is no reason to think that procrastination will not continue endlessly if this is allowed to govern Republican actions.  Why should conservative/deplorables turn out to vote for weaklings afraid of being called misogynists by people like Senator Blumenthal? 

The Judiciary Committee should have voted him out today and the full senate should have confirmed him on this Wednesday.  Every day that passes without that confirmation is a victory for the Progresso Democrats.  pl 

FUKUS & Turkey are now al-qa'ida's allies. (editorial)

FUKUS equals France, the UK and the US.  It appears that the policy of this tri-partite re-birth of the Entente Cordiale has changed with regard to Syria since the middle of August.  Before that change FUKUS seemed to have acknowledged and conceded the inevitability of an R+6 offensive that would re-capture all of Idlib Province in NW Syria.  That seems changed.

The province is now occupied and dominated by the jihadi fighters of hayat tahrir al-sham (HTS).  This is the cover name of al-qa'ida in Syria.  You may probably remember them as the folks who attacked the US on 9/11.  If you do,That would be a correct memory.  These jihadis are quite different from the ISIS (daesh) fighters of the Islamic State.  The US, Syria, Iraq, France and the UK have successfully fought ISIS all over Syria and Iraq when FUKUS was not busy Accidental-Bombing (neologism) the Syrian Army.

FUKUS and the Lord of the White House  (LOTWH) have traditionally made a clear distinction between ISIS and the other jihadi groups like HTS.  Over the years of the Syrian Civil War FUKUS has insisted, and still does, that HTS is somehow a "freedom fighter" group along with the rag-tag Free Syrian Army unicorns.  That was certainly the view of the late Saint John of Arizona.  In the aftermath of his passing and the subsequent media hysteria, the LOTWH seems to have accepted the wisdom of St. John in perceiving the "true" nature of HTS.

In  other words the US seems now to be fully "on board" as the protector of HTS's redoubt in Idlib Province.  The French, still deep in the embrace of Macronisme and the Brits with their desire to continue to be "players" are also "on board"

In pursuit of these newly adopted neocon policy ambitions for al-qa'ida in Syria, Ambassadors Jeffrey and Haley have threatened Syria, Iran and Russia with hellfire and damnation if they dare to try to Make Syria Whole Again  (MSWA - need a vowel in there somehow) by launching the offensive so fully prepared at this date.

Meanwhile the Sultan Tayyip and his crew at the summit of Turkworld are doing their best to outplay everyone in an effort to effectively annex as much of NW Syria as possible.  To that end Tayyip has warned the Syrians against trying to re-capture these lands of the Fertile Crescent, hoping perhaps to see Turkish taught there as the mandatory medium of communication in the manner of German in Alsace-Lorraine from 1871-1918.  Turkey is reinforcing its "Observation Posts" all around the perimeter of Idlib Province whilst the White Helmets Film Troupe (WHFT) have a number of possible new Oscar winner "documentaries" in production at their FUKUS sponsored jisr al-shughur facility.

My Fearless Forecast - In the end, the Russians and Syrians will say to hell with this and launch the offensive. pl

More thoughts on Trump and his thinking - 12 July 2018

1.  First he beat up the oh, so sensitive Europeans, then he claimed they would spend 4% of GDP on defense.  In response the French then said, non, We will spend only 2%.  Well, that is what he wanted to hear.  He doesn't care at all if they think he is an uncultured lout.  He got what he wanted.

2.  He is not at all mollified about US/European trade imbalances.  Having seen the way they caved in and rolled over on the NATO defense spending he is more convinced than ever that they will cave in on trade concessions.  He has always worked this methodology and it has by and large succeeded.  It seems to be working again.  Kay Bailey Hutchison will soon be gone from her post as ambassador to NATO.  She is nothing like tough enough for him.

3.  Teresa May faces a stark choice.  Either, she gives up her crypto-resistance to Brexit and seeks a bi-lateral trade deal with the US or he will join the forces actively seeking to drive her from office.  Trump is unlikely to forgive and forget over the backdoor reception he got in England.  No amount of toot-tooting by the Scots Guards at Blenheim Palace will make good his anger at being snubbed.

4.  He is looking for a deal with Russia on any number of fronts. He will largely accept Russia's views on the supposed use of gas by the Syrians.

5.  Israel has signaled its abandonment of regime change in Syria, settling instead for an exclusion of R+6 forces from anything west of UNDOF lines B & C.  Bibi actually told Putin at their meeting recently  that he would "deliver" the US on reduction of sanctions against Russia if Russia abandoned tacit support of an Iranian presence in Syria.  Trump will have heard of this and will greatly resent Natanyahu's presumption.

6.  He and Putin will agree on a modus vivendi in Syria.  After mopping up in the SW, the R+6 will move in force to the task of liberating Idlib Province.  Trump will do nothing about that.  That will be part of his deal with Russia.  pl

Neocon Jack Keane wants a permanent US presence in Syria

 

"Keane retired from military service in 2003. He now works as a national security analyst for Fox News. He has served an advisory role in the management of the U.S. occupation of Iraq, as a member of the Defense Policy Board Advisory Committee. In January 2007, Keane and scholar Frederick W. Kagan released a policy paper, entitled "Choosing Victory: A Plan for Success in Iraq",^[7] through the American Enterprise Institute that called for bringing security by putting around 30,000 additional American troops there for a period of at least 18 months. In part convinced by this paper, President George W. Bush ordered on January 10, 2007, the deployment of 21,500 additional troops to Iraq, most of whom would be deployed to Baghdad, this deployment has been nicknamed the 2007 "surge".    wiki on Keane

--------------

I watched this man hold forth this morning on Varney and Company a business and politics show hosted by Stuart Varney a fervently American immigrant from England who apparently never saw a jingo he didn't like.

General Keane is a close associate of the Kagans, Victoria Nuland, Petraeus and the like.  He has consistently pressed in policy circles for aggressive foreign policy ventures including the Iraq "Surge" that helped secure the Baghdad area from Iraqi insurgents.  In fact the security situation markedly improved across Iraq because Petraeus was smart enough to encourage the work that had been done by Green Berets and junior USMC people in encouraging the Sunni Arabs to abandon support of the jihadi guerrillas.

On Varney's show today Keane pushed for a US policy in Syria that would establish a "security zone" in Syria east of the Euphrates and in the Kurdish areas east of Manbij.  He was clear that he believes that this "security zone" should be held indefinitely, in other words, permanently.

He said that such a zone would prevent the western expansion of Iran through northern Iraq and then Syria westward to the Mediterranean thus completing the dreaded Shia Crescent.  The fact that the Iraqi sovereign government might object to such Iranian expansion did not seem to occur to him.  Perhaps he has taken note of the condemnation by that Shia Arab dominated government of the FUKUS missile strikes in Syria.

To help the FUKUS forces hold this enclave indefinitely, he repeated the notion that the Sunni majority countries in the region should contribute armed forces to the Sunni Enclave.  DJT has recently said much the same thing.  This raises the possibility to me that his "thinking" on this matter originates with the arch neocons and their favorite vehicle the Institute for the Study of War, a Kagan operation through and through.  Well, pilgrims, I am here to tell you that the Sunni Arab countries are not going to do that,  Apart from Jordan's small but competent forces, the rest have no armed forces capable of doing anything but oppress civilian populations.  Saudi Arabia's indefensible war against the people of Yemen is a perfect example of the military ineptitude of the Sunni Arab states.  Repeatedly defeated by the Houthis and the rump of the Yemeni Army the Saudi have resorted to employing African and other mercenaries against the Yemenis as well as pursuing a savage campaign of aerial bombing against Yemeni civilians.  Perhaps they were inspired to do this by the courses of study of RSAF officers at the US Air Force "University" at Montgomery, Alabama.  the Strategic Bombing theories of Douhet are still much admired there.

Toward the end of his discourse this morning, Keane, came to the crux of his argument.  He said that a war is coming in which Iran, Hizbullah and the Syrian government will fight Israel and that the US must be in a position in Syria to defend Israel when that happens.  Thus it is revealed that the source of Keane's (and now DJT's) thinking is simply Israel's obsession with the hostility of the Gentile World to include all those Muslims surrounding them.  In other words, Keane's neocon pitch is based on Zionist fear.

Keane several times repeated a line to the effect that no US combat brigades or regiments would be committed to the Sunni Enclave.  To believe this magical thinking is to believe that no real fighting would eventually have to be done.

I have seen a poll today that indicates that 61% of the American people approve of the FUKUS missile strikes against the fictional chemical weapons target set in Syria.  The gullibility involved in that is impressive.  pl  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Keane

Are the Russians Correct? by W. Patrick Lang

"The US Government claims that 100% of the 100 plus cruise missiles launched by the coalition it heads reached their targets on Syrian government chemical warfare connected sites.

The Syrian and Russian governments state that 75% of these missiles did not reach their targets.

Who should we believe?

The extreme nature of the US claim should inspire caution. No system functions at 100% efficiency and effectiveness. None. A very senior civilian colleague in DIA once asked me why sophisticated weapons so often malfunction or are otherwise defeated. I told her that it was simply a fact of life that in actual warfare “whatever can go wrong, will go wrong.” She resolutely stated that this should not be. “The manufacturers guarantee that they will work as advertised,” she insisted. “They lie,” I told her. “That’s business.” She was not happy with that answer, but it was the truth. There is no such thing as a perfectly functioning weapon system."  Lang

http://www.unz.com/article/are-the-russians-correct/

Russia Sends 14 Questions To Britain on the Skripal Nerve Agent Affair

By Robert Willmann

Russia has presented 14 questions to the British Foreign Ministry on the alleged poisoning of the Skripals in Britain by a nerve agent--

 1. Why has Russia been denied the right of consular access to the two Russian citizens, who came to harm on British territory?

2. What specific antidotes and in what form were the victims injected with? How did such antidotes come into the possession of British doctors at the scene of the incident?

3. On what ground7:55:14 PM7:57:06 PMs was France involved in technical cooperation in the investigation of the incident, in which Russian citizens were injured?

4. Did the UK notify the OPCW (Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons) of France’s involvement in the investigation of the Salisbury incident?

5. What does France have to do with the incident, involving two Russian citizens in the UK?

6. What rules of UK procedural legislation allow for the involvement of a foreign state in an internal investigation?

7. What evidence was handed over to France to be studied and for the investigation to be conducted?

 

At least Nauru is still with us ...

 

"  nine states – including the United States and Israel –voted against the resolution. The other countries which supported Washington were Togo, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau, Marshall Islands, Guatemala and Honduras."  Guardian

-------------

(irony alert) So, Perfidious Albion has bitten the hand that fed them.  That's right isn't it?  No?  What about all that Spam we sent them when they ran out of crumpets?  What about that?  Why would Palau have voted on our side?  Ah, there must be some pot of Golden Grickels from which they sup, maybe something about a Jack London memorial pearl fishery or, something. (end of irony)

 

Nikki Haley, is a city girl flower of South Carolina politics.  Do you suppose that she may be learning that THE WORLD is harder to bully than a bunch of "good ole boys" who like to put Rebel flag decals on their pick-up trucks?

And then, there are the related spectacles of the Israeli UN ambassador sneering just now on the TeeVee at THE WORLD whilst Iraq, Afghanistan, Jordan, Turkey and Egypt voted for the resolution.  I guess that means that they don't need the money badly enough to roll over when ordered. 

There will be no peace for Israel.  pl 

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/dec/21/united-nations-un-vote-donald-trump-jerusalem-israel

Why do the French have good nuke power?

 

"No one knew for sure exactly how far those molten fuel cores had traveled before desperate plant workers — later celebrated as the “Fukushima Fifty” — were able to cool them again by pumping water into the reactor buildings. With radiation levels so high, the fate of the fuel remained unknown.

As officials became more confident about managing the disaster, they began a search for the missing fuel. Scientists and engineers built radiation-resistant robots like the Manbo and a device like a huge X-ray machine that uses exotic space particles called muons to see the reactors’ innards.

Now that engineers say they have found the fuel, officials of the government and the utility that runs the plant hope to sway public opinion. Six and a half years after the accident spewed radiation over northern Japan, and at one point seemed to endanger Tokyo, the officials hope to persuade a skeptical world that the plant has moved out of post-disaster crisis mode and into something much less threatening: cleanup."  NY Times

 https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/19/science/japan-fukushima-nuclear-meltdown-fuel.html?hpw&rref=science&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=0

******** 

"Nuclear power is a major source of energy in France, with a share of 40% of energy consumption in 2015.^[1] Nuclear power is the largest source of electricity in the country, with a generation of 416.8 TWh, or 76.3%^[2] of the country's total production of 546 TWh, the highest percentage in the world.^[3]

Électricité de France (EDF) – the country's main electricity generation and distribution company – manages the country's 58 power reactors.^[4] EDF is substantially owned by the French Government, with around 85% shares in government hands.^[5]

As of 2012, France's electricity price to household customers is the seventh-cheapest amongst the 28 members of the European Union, and also the seventh-cheapest to industrial consumers, with a rate of €0.14 per kWh to households and €0.07 per kWh to industrial consumers.^[6] France was the biggest electricity exporter in the EU in 2012, exporting 45TWh of electricity to its neighbours.^[7] With very inclement weather, when demand exceeds supply, France infrequently becomes a net-importer of electricity in these rare cases, because of the lack of more flexible generating plants.^[8]  Wiki 

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_France

---------------

Japan is reputed to be among the most technologically advanced countries in the world.  The process of the progress of their society in this regard runs uninterruptedly from the Meiji period onward.  So, how did these events at Fukushima get so out of hand and why have they not worked out solutions over the last six years?

At the same time, the French who are obsessed with their patrimoine and good cheese seem able to manage a nuclear power system that provides 40% of the countries electric power needs.

Why is that?  pl

Did Trump Get it Right by Accident? by Publius Tacitus

Following up on Colonel Lang's post regarding the Saudi Arabian/Egyptian debacle in trying to bully Qatar (please see Little Qatar has bested the GCC and Egypt. Mufaja'a!), there are two other major developments. First, Donald Trump reportedly has ordered the CIA to pull the plug on arming and training Islamic radicals bent on overthrowing Bashar Al Assad:

The program was a central plank of a policy begun by the Obama administration in 2013 to put pressure on Assad to step aside, but even its backers have questioned its efficacy once Russia deployed forces in Syria two years later. Preceding the CIA program was a Pentagon-led effort which was criticized by Foreign Policy for costing $500 million without yielding tangible results.

Officials said the phasing out of the secret program reflects Trump’s interest in finding ways to work with Russia after Trump's July 7 meeting with Putin at the G-20 Summit in Hamburg, Germany. It may also signal a lack of capability as well as desire in Washington to take steps to remove Assad from power in Syria. Officials told the Washington Post that Trump made the decision to scrap the CIA program nearly a month ago, after an Oval Office meeting with CIA Director Mike Pompeo and national security adviser H.R. McMaster.

After the Trump-Putin meeting, the United States and Russia announced an agreement to back a new cease-fire in southwest Syria, along the Jordanian border and adjoining the Israeli occupied Syrian Golan Heights, where many of the CIA-backed rebels have long operated. Trump described the limited cease-fire deal as one of the benefits of a constructive working relationship with Moscow. The ending of the CIA program was not a condition of the cease-fire negotiations according to officials.

Second, our "ally" Turkey has ratted out the location of US secret military bases in Syria and Iraq:

Sanity Emerging in Europe over Syria?

" French President, Emmanuel Macron, recently departed from his campaign proposals on the Syrian War by saying that “My lines are clear: Firstly, a complete fight against all the terrorist groups. They are our enemies.” Promising more cooperation with Russia in eradicating terrorism, Macron added that he sees no legitimate successor to President Bashar al-Assad and that President Assad is not the enemy of France. These comments came as a shock to many pundits as it was clear that Macron was the establishment centrist candidate in the 2017 French presidential election, even securing an endorsement from former U.S. President, Barack Obama. While this may be seen as a one-off statement and perhaps only rhetoric to please a growing opposition to deeper intervention in Syria, a trend is beginning to emerge in European politics that is challenging interventionist orthodoxies mainly emanating from the United States."  AMN

----------

Well, well, sanity raising it comely head?  I can only assume that this admirer of handsome middle aged women means AQ based jihadi groups supported by Israel and the CIA as well as the IS ones that the US  is obsessed with.  This would be a radical change in focus for the French. 

Such a change in policy would likely be followed across Europe.  Someone will have to explain this to Trump.  pl  

https://www.almasdarnews.com/article/is-europe-pursuing-an-independent-foreign-policy/

Macron wins the French presidency with 65 % of the vote.

The voting rate was approximately 75%.  The cities appear to have turned out the vote very heavily.  Le Pen received just under 35% of the vote which for a party and candidate that wants to withdraw from the EU, severely limit immigration and deport those suspected of terrorism is a rather healthy showing.  Le Pen just said on French TV that she received 11 million votes.

Macron is going to be a very conventional politician/president.  He doesn't look like a very strong figure and France faces severe problems.  Le Pen quipped during the campaign that France would have a woman president no matter who won because the actual president would either be she or Angela Merkel.  pl

A French election is not like a US election.

 

SWMBO and I are suitable objects for mockery by Joe Scarborough.  We speak French, are proud of that and are correctly to be described as Francophile.  We subscribe to TV 5 Monde and watch it a lot.  IMO Mr. Jefferson was correct when he remarked that all civilized people have two languages, their own and French.

We were watching the election extravaganza on TV 5 on Sunday when the polls closed in France.  They all closed at the same time, 8 PM EDT.  Within 30 seconds the network announced the outcome and the victory of Emanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen.  Evidently the French have the whole country wired together in such a way that reporting is instantaneous.  There were a few precincts/districts/whatever not reporting but only a few.  I presume these are the result of overseas voting or something similar.  It was a remarkable demonstration of highly effective electoral administration.  Turnout was reported at 78%.  This was also remarkable although the French media seemed to think it was low.

There were 11 candidates.  Some were a little silly when viewed from outside the system.  There was one man who ran from the Atlantic end of the Pyrenees Mountains.  This is a charming region but not likely to serve as a national political base.  And then there was Francois Fillon, a former prime minister and centrist who went down in a classic political mess caused by his own foolishness in hiring his wife and son for "no show" government jobs.  H probably would have won without that.

The two winners are fascinatingly un-American:

Marine Le Pen, the daughter of  an old combatant of the Algeria War.  He was a paratroop intelligence officer in the Battle of Algiers and evidently is not a "people person."  He founded a relentlessly nationalist, anti-Muslim, isolationist and xenophobic political party.  Le Pen received 37% of the working class vote.  Her support is concentrated in the economically devastated industrial north and in the sunny south where people are faced on a daily basis with what many see as a demographic and culture menace across the Mediterranean Sea.  Le Pen was raised in a privileged way with attendance at elite schools and residence in elite neighborhoods but that does not seem to lessen working class support for her.   She is a very considerable orator but the other candidates are rapidly closing ranks against her and telling their supporters to vote for Macron.

Emanuel Macron is 39 years old, a former investment banker, finance minister and a graduate of the Ecole Nationale d'Administration (ENA).  He is pro-EU, pro-immigrant and a movie star or shirt ad model type.  the most interesting thing about him is his marriage.  His wife is 24 years his senior.  She was his high school Latin and French literature teacher at a Jesuit school in Amiens.  He was 15 when they became "an item."  She divorced her first husband to marry Macron in 2007.  She has three children by her first marriage.  They live with the Macrons.    Interestingly the French are simply not interested in his private life.  I remember the case of a pretty blond teacher in the NW of the US who fell madly in love with a 14 year old boy in her class.  I seem to remember that she was a phys ed teacher.  She eventually went to prison as a child molester.   They married after she served her sentence. 

This illustration of the difference in attitude toward life between most Americans and the French is striking this matter.  Mme. Macron will probably e the first lady of France.  pl 

 

http://www.cnn.com/2017/04/24/europe/french-presidential-election/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emmanuel_Macron

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marine_Le_Pen

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89cole_nationale_d%27administration

Deplorable in Paris - by Fred

A journey in the cold snows of winter, to the land of my forebears. A light snow fell as I walk to the cathedral my ancestors prayed in before they embarked on their journey to a new life in the New World. A day much like this; at the end of one year, before the birth of the new. Long ago when the world was lit only by fire.

I wonder what they would make of the lights of ours? Electric lamps and guards before the door to the house of God. They would recognize what was within; the joy at the birth of the hope of salvation. Even now, in the winter of such contentment, the song and the joy remains the same.

Such was the day on my arrival in the City of Light that Christmas Day. A chill wind and soft snow with just enough warmth to threaten a thaw. No throngs of gawking tourists; just a long, thin, line of worshipers moving ever forward past the barriers and the watchful eyes of the CRS. Few seats were vacant. Only a few were filled with visitors from distant lands. A sermon in French and in Latin. My ancestors would recognize the temper of our times.

Such a different day, just two days later, at that other cathedral of the City, St. Sulpice. A paved road stretches forth from the Luxembourg Gardens to Place Saint Sulpice. 

Guards and tourists too at one end. At the other? No throngs at the door, no CRS, no guards visible at all. A few tourists, a few parishioners. Just we few, we happy few. Lost souls hearing the echo of the Word. The soft baa, baaing of the black sheep is heard within the cathedral, though most do not know their condition, nor how close damnation - or salvation, lies. For there at the edge of the Nave stood Mephistopheles with - a bag of cookies. His hand out stretched in temptation to his pupils. His eyes gleaming as he tempts in mockery of the communion.

How close to evil we come, so close, when an anger equal to that of pagan Achilles rises in our breast. Lead us not into temptation and deliver us from evil, so goes the prayer. A softer passion moved me. I took a few short steps when at the edge of the transept I was brought to a stop by what I beheld at a nativity display. Just beyond the velvet rope, stretched out full length, giving coins and prayers to the baby Jesus, a woman of middling age. Tears ran down her faces; and down the faces of the French women who stood in amazement, in compassion. They crossed themselves and spoke soft prayers to God. Life played out before me in all its sadness and hope and glory. The third calendar day from the one we mark as the birth of our savior. A trinity indeed.

It was a short walk, though one long in contemplation, toward the Cluny and the Medieval Age. How did Goethe put it? Das Ewig Weibliche zieht uns hinan?  Long I stood in contemplation in front of her. “I’m with her” has such different meaning here.

Hours later a different longing, a secular one? A primal one? Growling out, from the stomach. A simple longing, for mothers cooking? Such a shift from food for thought, and the soul. I ventured out again, on a different road, one well paved, well traveled:


A few turns, a darkened street, a single lite. So much like that first night in France, in the century passed. 

Here it lies, just beyond....an adventure.

This must be the place, for romance, 

for, shall I say it, dinner?

Mmm, mm.  A full day, a full belly, satiated I journeyed forth again, to find just how late the hour.

Even the night owls had ventured home to bed. An example I was looking forward to follow. Just a few steps more, a minute or two only from this very cafe. It was then, so unsuspectingly, at the very threshold of the Inn that I was set upon so suddenly - by a fierce beast with black hair and white fangs. I thought can it be, the hound, the Hound of the Baskervilles!? Why here is the scoundrel:

Well, he is a hound. More Puppy of Paris than diabolical beast. Lemon (pronounced the French way) the Puppy of Paris. Well there is only one thing to do after being set upon by such as he. Uphold the tradition - of Americans abroad. I took him (with the owners permission)  into the courtyard for a round of fetch. It was then the urge struck me; and yes, I did the deed, just like so long ago with Lil' Yeller. I taught a young dog a new trick. There were some hastily concealed smiles, betrayed by flashing eyes, from the ladies behind the counter when they heard young Lemon sound forth the proper greeting to the master when he returns home: "Baarrrooooo!".  I wonder how that greeting sounds in French? At least in the future no one will mistake him for a puppy. I know, it was, in a word, Deplorable.

Thus concluded the most important events in the tale of a winter journey. 

A Coming Civil War in France?

 

(Patrick Calvar - Head of DGSI)

 "France is 'on the verge of a civil war' which could be sparked by a mass sexual assault on women by migrants, intelligence chief warns

France is on the verge of 'civil war', the country's head of intelligence says

• Patrick Calvar said mass sexual assault of women by migrants may start it
• Believes situation so tense another terror attack could also spark backlash
• More than 1,000 women sexually abused in Germany on New Year's Eve "  Daily Mail

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3685561/France-verge-civil-war-sparked-mass-sexual-assault-women-migrants-intelligence-chief-warns.html

********

 "For French President François Hollande, the enemy is an abstraction: "terrorism" or "fanatics".

• Instead, the French president reaffirms his determination to military actions abroad: "We are going to reinforce our actions in Syria and Iraq," the president said after the Nice attack.

• So confronted with this failure of our elite who were elected to guide the country across nationals and internationals dangers, how astonishing is it if paramilitary groups are organizing themselves to retaliate?

• In France, the global elites made a choice. They decided that the "bad" voters in France were unreasonable people too stupid to see the beauties of a society open to people who often who do not want to assimilate, who want you to assimilate to them, and who threaten to kill you if you do not. The elite took the side against their own old and poor because those people did not want to vote for them any longer. They also made a choice not to fight Islamism because Muslims vote collectively for this global elite."  Gatestone Institute 

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/8489/france-the-coming-civil-war

---------

(Nice, France)

Calvar is the equivalent in France of Andrew Parker, head of MI-5 in the UK and James Comey, Director of the FBI in the US.  This is not a voice crying in the wilderness.  He is one of the big guys. 

These articles stress the disdain with which the globalist Borg views the people of France.  Calvar is particularly firm on this point and says that the French people are on the verge of taking up arms (hard to get there) to begin retaliatory raids into Muslim neighborhoods.  I suppose the French here on SST will give us their opinions on this.

The US is not France.  We are actually MORE violent.  The US is saturated with small arms and ammunition.  Trump is telling his Corps of Irredeemables (CoI) that the election is being stolen by the Borgist media.  The CoI is evidently at least 35% of the population.  That would be something over 100 million people.  He is likely to launch a radio and TV network to continue to hold the attention of the CoI.  The CoI is chanting "lock her up," and "Ryan sucks!"

Why would Calvar's concern not be equally applicable to the US?  pl

We grieve for Nice ...

"Lafayette, nous voici!"  pl

Bastille Day 2016

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lu3eSNi__4w

 

"Allons enfants de la Patrie,
Le jour de gloire est arrivé!
Contre nous de la tyrannie,
L'étendard sanglant est levé, (bis)
Entendez-vous dans les campagnes
Mugir ces féroces soldats?
Ils viennent jusque dans vos bras
Égorger vos fils, vos compagnes!

Aux armes, citoyens,
Formez vos bataillons,
Marchons, marchons!
Qu'un sang impur
Abreuve nos sillons!

Que veut cette horde d'esclaves,
De traîtres, de rois conjurés?
Pour qui ces ignobles entraves,
Ces fers dès longtemps préparés? (bis)
Français, pour nous, ah! quel outrage
Quels transports il doit exciter!
C'est nous qu'on ose méditer
De rendre à l'antique esclavage!

Aux armes, citoyens...

Quoi! des cohortes étrangères
Feraient la loi dans nos foyers!
Quoi! Ces phalanges mercenaires
Terrasseraient nos fiers guerriers! (bis)
Grand Dieu! Par des mains enchaînées
Nos fronts sous le joug se ploieraient
De vils despotes deviendraient
Les maîtres de nos destinées!

Aux armes, citoyens..."

The Marseiilaise

 

 

Saturday in Paris ..... Observations by Fred

New Yorkers before me, LA moguls behind, to the right the road, to the left; Le Steak

Millennial children, children no more; narcissist still. The photo, then photos, then surfing.

The line wraps around, 20 people 20 minutes. One car towed. Almost worth a photo, that. Why a New Yorker thought it was worth a video I don’t know but I do know it was sunny and 78 in Catalina. Poor Roderick, he forgot the gin. Important information for those in LA to  transmit to their colleagues in Paris. How little did Alexander for see the evolution of his invention.

Black dress, white apron, formal service with a semi forced smile. I’ll receive a real one later tonight. Relais de l ’Entrecote. Paps frites, steak, walnut salad. That’s it. Well there is wine and desert. The cuvee I think. Yes the full bottle. This is Saturday night in Paris.

Dinner arrives: the steak, the frites, the wine. First scent, first sip. The aroma of spring, fresh berries with a hint of oak. Who needs tea and madeleines when one has frites?

First frite, first temptation, first memories. I close my eyes, yes, memory lives. It is 19Reagansomething. Toulon. Christmas Eve. Le Fleet Mediterranean is afire with lights. A celebration at anchor, at home. What time is it in Paris? In Washington they know, “The Russians are coming, the Russians are coming!” They must be at dinner in Paris.

Thomas, Nolan, John, Fredrick. Shopping bags scented with perfume, stomachs agrowl.  An ally, a lighted menu. Five steps down, a door. Five words of French between us. Steak, frites, le adventure. The four Americans, after days of scrubbing, still slightly scented of 37 days of diesel and amine and sweat. Perfume de submarine.

She’s eight months if a day. She waves us to a table, the last table. Four menus appear. Needless for what do for young red blooded American men desire for dinner in a strange, strange land?  Like ravenous wolves we make short work of a fine meal and chew up a lovely language all the while; but in innocence, like the wolf.

Thomas glances at his watch. Mickey is pointing to 11. The hour approaches. The mousse and coffee are gone, as are the other guests. The bill arrives. Her smile has faded, her hair is damp, her belly full to bursting.

The balance paid yet still pockets empty. Duty beckons. Duty. Francs, who needs francs when duty calls? Babies need francs, to bath them, to cloth them, to love them.

Time has flow by in an instant. It is Saturday in Paris. A rumble grows from afar, from Place de Monge. Generation Indentiare, closer now, closer they come. “France for the French!” Is it “Hammer time” on Rue  de Ecoles? The volume is a roar as they march by my hotel window. The rain is soft. Tears? Tears from Joan perhaps, the Maid of Orleans? No. From Jesus, who weeps for he knows what is to come.

Life, life must be lived. The diner must be eaten. The New Yorkers and the Moguls; they must be endured. Such are our trials. Easy trials to pass when one in Paris on a Saturday.

The waitress arrives. I tell her to bring desert for the New Yorkers and put it on my tab. It is their first anniversary I explain. They are still newlyweds. Seven years in June as she gestures to herself. Her smile is genuine now.

The Moguls? In the back, with the expense account crowd. Lost in the ravages of superficiality, in Paris on a Saturday. Phones still in hand. The internet; strangling the mind of man as easily as nets in water strangle fish.

Click, click click. Heels strike the sidewalk as I turn left a Foucquet’s. It is only a short stroll on the Champs Elyse, towards the Etoile, watching the crowd. A glance at the watch, not Mickey’s hand this time. The time of the child is past. Onward I stroll. Past wealth, past crowds, past joy, past homelessness.

Questions arise: Which beggar to grant charity, which to deny? What duty beckons now?

What time is it in Paris? Don’t they know “The Russians are coming, the Russians are coming!”? What time is it in Paris? In Washington it is a dark hour and the year is 20Neoconsomething.

Another source of Bibi's campaign funds?

 

 "Arnaud Mimran, who allegedly defrauded the European Union of about $315 million along with several partners, testified Thursday in a Paris court that he gave Netanyahu the money in 2001, the RTL broadcaster reported.

“I financed him to the tune of about 1 million euros,” he said.

Netanyahu told Haaretz the claims are “a total lie.”

Israeli law limits donations to parties and politicians running for office to approximately $4,000. Prosecutors do not intend to pursue the issue since it does not violate French law, Haaretz reported.

In March, Netanyahu’s office denied claims made by Mimran that he allowed Netanyahu to use a large apartment in Paris, according to Fabrice Arfi, a journalist for the Mediapart news site. Arfi shared the findings of his investigation with Haaretz, which published a report about it.

Netanyahu had used the apartment on Victor Hugo Avenue since the early 2000s, according to the report. He and Mimran were photographed together in Monaco, near France, in 2003 when Netanyahu was Israel’s finance minister and Mimran was already suspected of crimes separate from the ones for which he is on trial."  JTA

-----------------

Well, pilgrims, Bibi was rumored to have received $ 80 million in laundered money from King Salman of SA.   A million Euros here, $ 80 million dollars there ...  After a while it starts to add up to real money.  Isaac Herzog supposedly said that he had never said any such thing about King Salman's money, but that was before he learned that Bibi preferred Avigdor Lieberman to him as a coalition partner.  Lieberman is about to launch a "disciplinary" attack on the leadership of the IDF.  It will be interesting to see what the IDF leaks about Bibi and Lieberman.  pl  

http://www.jta.org/2016/05/19/news-opinion/israel-middle-east/netanyahu-denies-french-fraud-suspect-gave-him-1-million-for-campaign

http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/1.720506

http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2016/05/httpwwwglobalresearchcasaudi-king-salman-financed-netanyahus-campaign-panama-papers-leak5524183.html

“TTIP expected to fail after US demands revealed in unprecedented leak” - TTG

Bernd Lange, the chairman of the European Parliament's important trade committee, has indicated that he now expects the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) negotiations will probably fail, following a major leak of confidential documents from the talks.

Greenpeace Netherlands has released half of the entire TTIP draft text as of April 2016, prior to the start of the 13th round of TTIP negotiations between the EU and the US, which reveal US demands in detail for the first time.

Although the EU has improved transparency recently, and routinely publishes its offers for each TTIP chapter, the US has consistently refused to do so. Even MEPs and MPs have faced extreme restrictions on what they are allowed to look at, copy, or even say when it comes to the US position. The new leak by an unknown whistleblower represents a major blow to US attempts to keep its negotiating demands confidential, and provides important information to the both the EU and US public for the first time.  (Ars Technica)

————————————————

If the world is going to be saved, it will be due to the actions of whistleblowers and document leakers. Like "The Man" likes to say, "If you see something, say something." The day after the Greenpeace TTIP document release, Hollande announced he would not back the trade deal in its current form. The deal is widely unpopular in France and Hollande is looking to boost his popularity. The deal is even less popular in Germany. France’s trade secretary said that negotiations over the deal will most likely be suspended.

This is a serious blow to Obama’s dream of getting the TTIP ratified before he leaves office. If the UK decides to leave the EU, that is another blow. RT has been airing a clip of Obama saying that the world must bend to US trade rules. He really comes across as a malevolent emperor in that clip. This TTIP story is widely covered overseas, but it is hardly mentioned in the US MSM…. except for a short article in “Foreign Policy.” Guess who owns the US MSM?

TTG

http://arstechnica.co.uk/tech-policy/2016/05/ttip-to-fail-leak-reveals-us-isds-gmos-demands/

http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/05/03/french-president-says-non-to-ttip/

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/may/03/doubts-rise-over-ttip-as-france-threatens-to-block-eu-us-deal

https://www.rt.com/news/342069-germans-oppose-ttip-poll/

TERROR ATTACKS IN PARIS AND BRUSSELS: Who is "Abu Suleyman", the French IS executive behind it all ? (2)

By Patrick BAHZAD

 In last week's piece ("Going after the masterminds"), we focused on the environment in which the Paris attacks of November 2015 had taken place: a gradual increase in the threat level, combined with a number of failed or thwarted attempts at causing havoc through "lone gunmen" attacks all across Western Europe, in France in particular. Based on a couple of "open source" articles, we also considered the prospect of a French national being the IS executive in charge of organising and overseeing the Paris carnage and – possibly – its Brussels' spin-off. This week's piece is going to look more closely at details regarding this alleged mastermind, analysing information about his possible identity and assessing its credibility.

 While the nom de guerre "Abu Suleyman al-Faransi" has most definitely been the subject of extensive research by various intelligence agencies, it has now made it into MSM headlines with a new piece by "The Daily Beast". A big question mark doesn't always make for a good title, but when you're asking about the "Frenchman Running IS Terror Networks in the West ?", you're already making quite a statement. Before turning to new and sometimes contradictory evidence, let us first look into how the name "Abu Suleyman" first appeared on the IC and media radar.

As previously explained, ISIS inspired or influenced individuals have been trying to stage attacks in the West ever since early 2014, with most attempts failing out of the sheer incompetence of their would-be authors, or because they were foiled in due time by law enforcement. The most dangerous plots were definitely the work of Syria returnees, with Mehdi Nemmouche being the most "successful" (4 people killed at the Jewish Museum of Brussels, in May 2014). On the other hand, there was also a much larger number of failures by so-called "self-radicalized" individuals having never left for the Middle-East, and some of these botched operations have been quite embarrassing to IS leadership in Iraq and Syria.

The Paris Attacks as the work of IS' "Security Office"

To the spokesman of the "Islamic State" in particular, Mohammad al-Adnani, this must have felt like a slap in the face. On September 22nd 2014, he had called onto his followers to kill Western "disbelievers", especially the French, in any possible way, yet the result of this call remained discouragingly poor, until the night of November 13th 2015. What Adnani and  members of the IS Security Office ("Maktab al-Amni") had probably failed to recognize, was that Western recruits with no prior experience from Middle-Eastern training camps or frontline fighting lacked even the minimal expertise to stage what IS would have considered a successful strike, i.e. one that could attract sufficient media and government attention to allow for a huge propaganda stage and Jihadi media campaign.

Mehdi Nemmouche, himself an ISIS member and Syria returnee, was a significant exception to the amateurishness displayed by characters such as the would-be Thalys train shooter, whose weapon jammed when he was upon to fire on passengers in the Amsterdam to Paris high-speed train, prompting two US servicemen to overpower him as they saw him struggle with his AK-47. There were other examples illustrating the clumsiness of the IS inspired "lone gunmen" or demonstrating the ability of the IC to foil plots as rudimentary and crude as those. To members of Europe's counter-intelligence however, early success against such poor attempts didn't bode well for the future: sooner or later, someone would manage to carry out an attack, or the IS would be able to recruit an individual determined and skilled enough to pull it through.

TERROR ATTACKS IN PARIS AND BRUSSELS: Going after the masterminds (1)

By Patrick BAHZAD

Five months ago, Paris was hit by a series of simultaneous terror attacks the likes of which it had not seen before. Initial reactions by the French government were characterized by a long forgotten belligerent tone, which probably also bore testimony to the disbelief of the French people at the sight of these attacks in the nation's capital. France had entered a new phase in the struggle against Jihadi terrorism, just as Brussels would a few months later in a follow-up attack. The West has no choice but to brace itself for this type of events. In Europe, but also in the US, despite better protection through natural as well as man-made defences.

For now though, we must go after the individuals who were behind the attacks, even if they are hidden in some shadowy basement somewhere in the Middle-East. Getting to them however will not be an easy task and will involve more than just following up on the bread crums left by the footsoldiers who were sent to do the dirty work. Understanding how things got to the point we're at today, is also part of the process. That is the rationale for this piece, which will look into lessons that can already be taken from what happened and analyse what kind of threats are out there, before turning to the individuals who might possibly have ordered the attacks and for what purpose.

Arrests were made, but this is far from over

In truth, a number of people involved in these gruesome killings were already taken into custody and charged, particularly the much talked about Salah Abdelslam, brother to one of the Paris suicide bombers and driver to three men who blew themselves up outside the “Stade de France”. Considered a crucial piece in the European terror puzzle, Abdelslam managed to avoid capture for almost four months, before being arrested by Belgian police in March 2016, in what seems to have triggered his accomplices’ decision to organise the Brussels bombings.

Contrary to what many headlines suggest however, it’s highly unlikely that he’s anything like a ringleader or logistics expert. He may still hold some vital information nonetheless, in so far as he stood at the junction between various cells within the IS network. And while Abdelslam’s role as well as other aspects of the ongoing investigations were widely publicized, in particular the alleged use of encryption tools by the terrorists, other pieces of information have gone mostly unnoticed, even though they have much further reaching implications.

In the last two weeks however, a couple of articles and open source pieces were published that give some insight into the search for the real “masterminds” behind the Paris attacks. The Jamestown Foundation for example published an interesting piece about the men who pulled the strings ("Recent Attacks Illuminate IS' Europe Network"). So has French Intel newsletter “TTU” ("Abou Souleiman: l'émir français de Daech").

However incomplete and fragmentary, these pieces are asking the right questions and provide some good insights. Of particular interest is the role allegedly played by a French national in the planning and organisation of the attacks, a man whose executive position in the "Islamic State" would be quite uncommon for a European. But before getting there, it's important to look into how IS terror developed over the past years and what can be already be learnt from the recent attacks.

"... Now it might take decades." Washpost

 

" ... there is a broad recognition in the Pentagon that building an effective Afghan army and police force will take a generation’s commitment, including billions of dollars a year in outside funding and constant support from thousands of foreign advisers on the ground.

“What we’ve learned is that you can’t really leave,” said a senior Pentagon official with extensive experience in Afghanistan and Iraq who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal discussions. “The local forces need air support, intelligence and help with logistics. They are not going to be ready in three years or five years. You have to be there for a very long time.”

Senior U.S. commanders have also been surprised by al-Qaeda’s resilience and ability to find a haven in the Afghan countryside, as well as the Taliban’s repeated seizure of large tracts of contested territory."  Washpost

------------

We pay these guys?  We educated them in what we describe as Staff or War Colleges?  (Self referential hazard) I graduated from a variety of the "higher" US service schools and I will tell you that there was nothing very creative that was taught in any of them.  It was essentially "cook book" teaching.

A lot of people on SST start to glow red in the eyes when I say something favorable about the WWI and II German Army, but the contrast in pedagogy is striking.  The German Army systematically (of course) first selected the smartest young officers  to become the intellectual core of the Army.  It then taught these officers the Army's doctrine for combat.  Following that, the same Army taught them to ignore that doctrine when that was necessary and to think for themselves.

That is not what happens in the US.  In this country most national board selected war college attendees (these are the top service schools) are essentially mirror images of the present caste of senior officers.  They are people who have consistently been the best uniformed bureaucrats, the best apple polishers, the people who looked the best in the official file photographs (no mustache!), and it does not hurt one's chances if a relative is a three or four star flag officer. A majority are (in Myers-Briggs terms) SJs.  These are the guys who make the trains run on time.  They are wedded to the palpable and the "here and now."  Not surprisingly they are not good at what Bush 41 called "the vision thing."  They typically form large committees seeking to understand the future by reducing all factors to tiny and edible bits.  It is understandable that they detest the MB test as well as those those who do have "the vision thing."  Well, pilgrims,  by and large this group of future-blind careerists run the armed forces and its interactions with the foreign policy community.

In Afghanistan these people have relentlessly sought to apply the recipes bestowed on them by people like Petraeus, Kilcullen et al to the project of nation building that we have attempted since 2009.  It is a failure.  Is that not clear?

Afghanistan is not  a nation-state.  It never was.  There is a state of Afghanistan that is inhabited by five or six different ethnic nations.  They do not share a common language.  The economy amounts to next to nothing except in the parts the Chinese hope to make something of.  The armed forces and police are far larger than anything Afghanistan can possibly support in the present or future.  That means that the Americans (mainly) will have to support this artificial and inorganic creation forever.

The generals have "learned" that we cannot leave?  The French thought that of Algeria until De Gaulle wisely decided to leave.

I say again.  We pay these guys?  pl 

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2016/01/26/the-u-s-was-supposed-to-leave-afghanistan-by-2017-now-it-might-take-decades/

PARIS ATTACKS : The Belgian Syndrome Sets In Again

By Patrick BAHZAD - updated on November 17th 2015, 10.30 EST

As the investigation into Friday’s attacks now focuses firmly on Belgium, one cannot but notice that there is an eerie sense of déjà vu about this whole thing. Already after the “Charlie Hebdo” attacks, in January, police uncovered strong links, both operational and logistical, with Belgium.

 

This is almost like same things all over again. And I’m not just talking about the previous Paris attacks. Back in 1995, when France was rocked by an Islamic bombing campaign, investigators managed to gather enough evidence to show that the logistics and the planners were located in Brusssels. In 1998, to give just one more example, another bombing plot was uncovered, aimed at targeting the Soccer world cup which took place in France that year. Again, Belgium and Brussels turned out to be the rearbase of the terrorists.

For those interested, there is a piece I wrote about this Belgian syndrome , as I like to call it: "Belgium: from rear base to frontline state of European Jihadis". Change a couple of names and dates, and you will still get a pretty accurate picture of the importance of this “chocolate making country” for Jihadis in Europe. One area of Brussels in particular rose to questionable fame in that regard: Molenbeek-Saint-Jean.

The wannabe terrorist of the Thalys train –  who was disarmed by two US servicemen back in August – lived in Molenbeek. So did the man who shot and killed 4 people at Brussels Jewish Museum in 2014. The terrorist cell that was taken out by Belgian police in January 2015, as a follow up to the “Charlie Hebdo” attacks, had two members who were actually from the same neighbourhood. And now, we got Molenbeek again at the centre of a major terrorist investigation. In this current case, two reasons point to this area.

Some thoughts on Paris, Article 5 and jihadism

I offer some thoughts on the situation:

- The NATO Treaty is US law.  If the French invoke Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty we must accept that appeal and go to war alongside them.  If we do not, then NATO is finished.  If our response to the Article 5 request requires American ground troops, so be it.  Fish or cut bait.

- The politics of 2016 has reduced the statements of the various candidates to gibberish in which they spout slogans at each other seeking the attention of the Borg and the ignorant.  An example would be the statement just now made to Jake Tapper by Jeb Bush that the Syrian government is as much a threat to Syrian Christians as is the Islamic state and the other Sunni jihadis.  Of course, anyone who knows anything about Syria knows that the large Christian population views the Syrian government as their sole protectors from the jihadis.  Jeb or el-jebe as he is sometimes known in the Latino world also "thinks"  that a US no-fly zone in Syria as a grand idea.  IS does not have an air force so such a no-fly zone would be intended to prevent Syria air force and  Russian air force intrusion.  This would mean war with Russia.  Where does he get such "thoughts?"  He gets them from the same neocons who were his dumb-dumb brother's advisers and who seduced and lied us all into invading Iraq as part of their grand scheme to reduce the countries of the ME to chaos. 

- Obama is in Turkey conferring with Erdogan, the Saudi king and the emir of Qatar. as to how to combat IS.  This is a joke!  All of these are sponsors of IS and the other Sunni jihadi movements.  Senator Lindsey Graham just told Tapper that we (the US) should lead an army of Arabs and THE TURKS into the fight.  Of course, Graham is a wholly owned property of Izrul.  Whatever mind "he" has in regard to the ME was carefully sculpted by them while writing upon the tabula rasa that was his brain before they began their work.   But even "he" should know that Erdogan's Turkey is an ally of IS and will never, never participate in a serious move against IS.  Actually, Kemalist Turkey is dead and will probably not be seen again. 

- At least one (probably three) of the Paris attackers probably entered Europe as part of the migrant flow that passed  through Erdogan's Turkey.  One man was registered by the Greeks government on Leros and then was again registered in a Croatian refugee shelter.  The really operative part of this tale is that this or these people traveled through Turkey unmolested by the Turkish police and security services.  I once lived in Turkey and even then these services were ubiquitous and aggressive.  So, IMO Erdogan has passed these people through and sent them on their mission.  Just look at his face as he walks around at Antalya.  That is the cat who has eaten the canary.

- People who think that the US homeland is not threatened by a Paris type event are wrong.  We have large resident populations who are disaffected and subject to jihadi recruitment.  Such an attack does not require many strikers.  We have tough police but the possibility of jihadi success is always there.  Our borders are long and not really secure.  IMO the Canadian border is even more insecure than that with Mexico.  There are a lot of places in northern New England and New York state where you can easily walk across the border between border entry points and then be picked up by someone waiting for you.  The US is saturated with firearms and the materials with which to make explosives.   The pattern in Paris was evidently local French and Belgian national jihadis born of Muslim immigrants combined with reinforcements sent in as stiffening for the home team.   This is a viable model for attacks in the US.  A question for me is why the attackers carried their travel documents into the attacks.  Was this a search for recognition? That could be.

- What would my strategy be if I were emperor of the world?

    * Europe must put back up its border controls.

    * Erdogan's program for a Muslim invasion by inundation of Europe must be ended.  Send them back to their home countries. 

    * Accept the idea that in a UN supervised election Assad may win.  Hilary Mann Leveritt pointed out yesterday that in an election a couple of years ago that included the Syrian refugee diaspora, Assad won.  The Borgist TV anchor nearly had apoplexy.

    * Defeat and destroy IS in Syria and Iraq.  To do this we must accept the cooperation of all who wish fight IS and any other jihadis.  That would include Russia, Hizbullah and Iran.

    pl

Declare War… For Real This Time - TTG

 

Earlier today, our own bth made a worthwhile request. “What I want is a discussion on this forum of what an actual punitive attack on IS would be composed of and how it would be accomplished.” Yesterday, Babak Makkinejad asked, “And who is the enemy this time? Another noun? Or would it be an adjective this time? Damned good questions from both our committee members, in my opinion. I'll start.

At this moment, only Egypt has formally declared war on the Islamic State. I won’t be so bold as to tell France what she should do in the coming days, but I’m pretty sure she will do what’s right.  

I am comfortable in declaring what I think the US should do immediately. I want to see the US Congress unequivocally and formally declare war on the Islamic State and Al Qaeda. At the same time our Congress should stop shilly-shallying around any and all AUMF declarations. End that crap and the amorphous GWOT (global war on terror). All that does is give every parochial interest group cover for increasing Executive and Judicial overreach and other pet programs. 

This declaration of war should specifically state that all means available may be used to defeat our enemies including criminal law. Our enemies are murders, not soldiers. We will adhere to international law and our own codes of conduct out of a concern for our character, not out of a concern for our enemies’ rights and privileges.  

We should formally inform all neutral parties that we will deal with any efforts to provide aid and comfort to our enemies quickly and harshly. This will serve as the final warning. Any US citizen or corporation providing aid and comfort to our enemies will be treated as a traitor in time of war. No exceptions.

All those who join us in this war will be considered allies and will be treated with respect and cooperation. If that means issuing letters of marque, so be it. Again, no exceptions.

Then we get down to business and openly accept the costs and consequences of this war.

TTG

PARIS ATTACKS: Time for a reality check

By Patrick BAHZAD

We are at war now, says the French press ! No, we are not at war now ... We have been at war for some time already, not a conventional war, but a war nonetheless.

The trouble is, lots of people in the West in general, and in France in particular, didn't know or didn't want to know this uncomfortable truth, and a number of so called "analysts" and "experts" refused to acknowledge it, even after the January attacks on "Charlie Hebdo". 

Earlier this year, I wrote a piece on SST "WRITING ON THE WALL: The significance of recent trends and patterns in Jihadi terrorism". Now, I realize I may sound like those "told you so" armchair strategists, but I want to warn again - like others - about the dangers our societies are exposed to. These threats are complex and just going after potential accomplices, or their backers, won't cut it. 

France wants US guarantees on Iran sanctions (by CP)

The US has many problems at their hands right now. Some of these problems just happened, emerged over time while some of them are entirely self-inflicted. Amongst the self-inflicted wounds is the fact that the US is no longer a reliable or trustworthy party.

The US has made its deal with Iran. But will they stick to it?

Given the fulminations against Iran and the so-called 'bad deal' coming out of the mouths of congresscritters, US presidential aspirants and given their craven sucking up to Bibi Netanyahu, a declared enemy of the aforementioned agreement,  the French have reason to question US reliability.

"Western firms have sought to renew commercial ties with Tehran in light of the deal, but last month Washington cautioned against rushing to invest in Iran until it fully complies.

French firms, once very active in Iran, were among those to have faced heavy penalties for violating sanctions.

"The attitude of the Americans is cooperative, but now we want that to be turned into something concrete so that the same thing doesn't happen again," Fabius told lawmakers ahead of next week's visit by Iranian President Hassan Rouhani to France.

BNP Paribas was fined almost $9 billion in 2014 for transactions violating U.S. embargoes. This week, Deutsche Bank paid a $258 million penalty to settle charges that it did business on behalf of entities in U.S.-sanctioned countries like Iran and Syria.
...
Immediately after the nuclear deal U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry had pledged that the U.S. authorities would ensure European firms would not be subject to penalties once sanctions had lifted.

But diplomats and executives say firms also want guarantees from the United States that they would be safe if sanctions were re-imposed. Without such assurances, businesses would remain prudent before committing themselves, they said."

To wit: Paribas was fined in the US for transactions that neither violated French law, nor European law nor international law but unilateral US sanctions law. Every action took place outside the US, by outside actors. The US claimed jurisdiction pretty much because a digital dollar of the transaction touched a US computer for a virtual second. Such arbitrary imposition of fines is a risk that all multinationals doing business with Iran face.

Obama wants the agreement with Iran, but will he be able to have it move forward in light of the hostility in Congress and from the pro-Israel quarters? There isn't much cause to expect reason in that quarter. And what will happen after Obama?

In light of these imponderables the French prudently want US guarantees, in writing, that the US won't prey on go after French companies for violating re-imposed or new US sanctions, just because whoever may succeed Obama happened to change his mind and reset to the US default mode - regime change, or - an unlikelier case, but in fairness - should the Iranians renege on their part of the deal.

The US today find themselves in a situation where they have a record of arbitrariness, incoherence and of reneging on commitments they made. That is not a legitimate hegemonic entitlement but a liability, and should be understood as such.

by confusedponderer

French Military Intelligence Cautious about Russian Military Build-up in Syria

By Patrick BAHZAD


Amid wide speculations about Russian troops' and logicistics' moves to and from Syria, the director of French "Direction du Renseignement Militaire" (DRM) - the counterpart to America's DIA - went on the record on Friday, stating that "cool heads need to prevail with regard to Russian involvement in Syria".

Speaking at a conference about "Intelligence and Geolocation", General Gomart emphasized that it was important to "let reason prevail" and that some of the most recent news published in various media outlets were subject to a risk of "intelligence manipulation". According to General Gomart, some "95 % of intelligence is based on open sources of all kinds", which means the real worry is the reliability of this information.  

This applies also to most pieces published in recent days about the Russian presence in Syria. As a comparison, General Gomart went as far as giving the example of Ukraine in 2014, when a wealth of stories surfaced, forecasting a Russian invasion before the end of the summer. Photographs of Russian units allegedly operating on the Ukrainian border, or already inside the country, had been published repeatedly, together with stories about a "pre-invasion" military build-up.

According to the director of French DRM, these stories had blown the reality on the ground totally out of proportion, with no "logistics" such as field hospitals or fuel pipelines actually being provided for. The number of "heavy armour" also proved to be greatly exaggerated. Furthermore, and contrary to stories about large numbers of Russian soldiers coming home in "body bags", monitoring of social media revealed no increase in traffic, nor any uptake in messages confirming or even suggesting an increase in combat related deaths.

PROFILE OF A WANNABE MASS-MURDERER: AYOUB AL-KHAZZANI, THE SHOOTER OF THE AMSTERDAM TO PARIS TRAIN

By Patrick BAHZAD - updated on August 25th, 5 a.m. EST




It has been three days now since Ayoub Al-Khazzani, the shooter of the Amsterdam to Paris train, was taken into custody. Under French anti-terrorism law, investigators can keep a suspect for up to 96 hours (4 days) before charging him with anything. What is known so far fits a pattern that has been seen previously in several  high-profile terrorism cases.

Similarities with other notorious Jihadi gunmen are striking in more than just one way, yet authorities are still reluctant to admit Khazzani is an Islamic terrorist. Investigators and counter-terrorism experts however have much less doubt about the kind of individual they are dealing with. All too often already, they have come across the type of personality and curriculum such as Ayoub Al-Khazzani's.

From Morocco to Spain

Born in Morocco in 1989, Khazzani grew up in the North of the country, in the city of Tetuan. Interestingly, this city has a long history as a hotbed of Jihadi terrorism. In January 2007 for example, the most important Moroccan network sending fighters into Iraq was dismantled in Tetuan. At the time, 32 locals were arrested and later sentenced to long prison terms.

Additionally, the five Moroccan nationals who had perpetrated the terrible Madrid train attacks of 2004 were all from Tetuan. Three weeks after the bombings, they were rounded up by Spanish police and blew themselves up rather than surrender. A sizable fraction of Moroccan suicide bombers who went to Iraq in the mid-2000s were also from Tetuan.

And finally, it has to be mentioned that no later than two months ago, a public demonstration of the city's Salafi preachers and their followers took place officially - quite an event in its own right in the Sherifian Realm - calling for implementation of Sharia law in the country.

Ayoub was 18 when his family left Tetuan for Spain, in 2007. They first lived in Madrid for three years, before moving south to Algesiras. Oddly enough, it seems the Khazzani family had a particular talent for picking up places known for their Islamic radicalism. Just as the slums of "Jamaë Mezouak" in Tetuan were and still are a stronghold of Salafism, so was the neigbhorhood of  "El Saladillo" in Algesiras, home to the Khazzani family since 2010.

SHORT AND SHARP: UPDATE ON FOILED TERROR ATACK AGAINST AMSTERDAM TO PARIS TRAIN

 

By Patrick BAHZAD - updated on August 22nd, 7.30 am EST

 
In yet another case of "lone gunman syndrome", a potentially catastrophic terror attack was foiled yesterday by two US servicemen on the "Thalys" highspeed train going from Amsterdam to Paris.

 

As more details are trickling in about the incident that happened Friday afternoon, it has become clear to law enforcement that we are dealing again with a lone gunman/terrorist carrying out yet another isolated attack.

Although the French Ministry of the Interior has cautioned against jumping to conclusions, Belgian Prime-Minister Charles Michel has acknowledged that a major terror attack had been avoided. Given that the incident took place on a train between Belgium and France, two investigative teams (the French Counter-terrorism Task Force and the Belgian Federal Prosecution Office) are closely cooperating and currently looking into the events as well as into the alleged shooter's identity and past.

What happened and who was involved ?

It was 5.45 pm local time and the "Thalys" was just short of the border to France, when a man sitting in the last carriage of the highspeed train opened fire, shooting at least one round with his handgun and seriously wounding one man.

Among the passengers, who immediately ducked down, were three American tourists (two of them US servicemen) who saw the gunman pass them by as he was pursuing one of the train conductors. The shooter was trying to continue firing his handgun and was carrying an AK-47.

As it turned out, the primer of the AK was faulty, so that the rifle didn't go off when the shooter had first tried to use it. Instead he had picked a handgun out of his backpack but only managed to fire one bullet. Somehow, in his frenzy, he ejected the magasine of his weapon and carried on pulling the trigger as he went after the conductor. With no ammunition in the chamber and no magasine engaged, he was however unable to do anymore damage.

A Uniquely French Solution to Libya by Harper

 

While the United States remains hopelessly caught up in the fantasy about "nation building," as evidenced by our decades-long adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan (and now, looking ahead, in Syria as well?), the French have demonstrated a clear understanding of the difference between targeted counterinsurgency and the permanent presence of a "nation building" program.  Perhaps they learned the proper lessons of Vietnam and Algeria, lessons that have evaded many American thinkers, such as Gen. David Petraeus, who remains enamored with the COIN/nation building approach, despite the stubborn message coming out of our Iraq and Afghanistan experiences. 

The French demonstrated their astuteness in the recent crisis in Mali, where French forces went in to support the government on a limited scale, for a limited duration, and accomplished a shift in the balance, which has enabled the Mali government and military to bring the country back under a semblance of control. 

This same approach could be beneficial in Libya, where a Salafist insurgency has created a deep and unending crisis. The elected government is, in effect, operating from quasi-exile, the capital is under the control of a coalition of Salafist groups, whose actual center of power is the Benghazi-Derna area of eastern Libya.  A concentrated French military action, targeted at the Benghazi-Derna stronghold of the jihadists could be sufficient to tilt the entire balance.  The French are more than capable of carrying out such a mission, and it would likely split the Salafists, who are only unified around a common opposition to the duly elected government.  Hardcore ISIS and Al Qaeda elements have always been able to recruit in the Benghazi-Derna area.  Knocking out their critical base and providing a limited residual mop-up presence could be the difference between success and failure. 

Libya has different demographics, geography and history/culture than Syria or Iraq.  It is tribal, relatively underpopulated and chaotic.   

Under the former presidency of Sarkozy, the French played a destructive role in promoting the ouster of Qadaffi and his ultimate execution.  A limited, targeted "correction" of that blunder might very well be the best option available at this moment.   I am open to suggestions, corrections, more indepth analysis.  What do you think?

"Aux Armes Les Citoyens!"

Quatorze Juillet!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lu3eSNi__4w 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R%C3%A9giment_de_marche_du_Tchad

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