|
The Islamic State's Trap for Europe |
 |
|
Monday, 16 November 2015 15:01 |
|
Gambhir writes: "The Islamic State is using tactical skills acquired on Middle Eastern battlefields to provoke an anti-Muslim backlash that will generate even more recruits within Western societies."
Refugees enter a registration camp after crossing the Greek-Macedonian border on Nov. 11. (photo: Robert Atanasovski/AFP/Getty Images)
The Islamic State's Trap for Europe
By Harleen Gambhir, The Washington Post
16 November 15
 ast week, President Obama said that the Islamic State is “ contained ” in Iraq and Syria, but the group’s attacks in Paris soon afterward showed that it poses a greater threat to the West than ever. The Islamic State is executing a global strategy to defend its territory in Iraq and Syria, foster affiliates in other Muslim-majority areas, and encourage and direct terrorist attacks in the wider world. It has exported its brutality and military methods to groups in Libya, Egypt, Afghanistan and elsewhere. Now it is using tactical skills acquired on Middle Eastern battlefields to provoke an anti-Muslim backlash that will generate even more recruits within Western societies. The United States and its allies must respond quickly to this threat.
The Islamic State’s strategy is to polarize Western society — to “destroy the grayzone,” as it says in its publications. The group hopes frequent, devastating attacks in its name will provoke overreactions by European governments against innocent Muslims, thereby alienating and radicalizing Muslim communities throughout the continent. The atrocities in Paris are only the most recent instances of this accelerating campaign. Since January, European citizens fighting with the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria have provided online and material support to lethal operations in Paris, Copenhagen and near Lyon, France, as well as attempted attacks in London, Barcelona and near Brussels. Islamic State fighters are likely responsible for destroying the Russian airliner over the Sinai. These attacks are not random, nor are they aimed primarily at affecting Western policy in the Middle East. They are, rather, part of a militarily capable organization’s campaign to mobilize extremist actors already in Europe and to recruit new ones.
The strategy is explicit. The Islamic State explained after the January attacks on Charlie Hebdo magazine that such attacks “compel the Crusaders to actively destroy the grayzone themselves. .?.?. Muslims in the West will quickly find themselves between one of two choices, they either apostatize .?.?. or they [emigrate] to the Islamic State and thereby escape persecution from the Crusader governments and citizens.” The group calculates that a small number of attackers can profoundly shift the way that European society views its 44 million Muslim members and, as a result, the way European Muslims view themselves. Through this provocation, it seeks to set conditions for an apocalyptic war with the West.
Unfortunately, elements of European society are reacting as the Islamic State desires. Far-right parties have gained strength in many European countries. France’s National Front is expected to dominate local elections in northern France this winter; on Saturday, Marine Le Pen, its leader, declared “those who maintain links with Islamism” to be “France’s enemies.” The Danish People’s Party gained 21 percent of the vote in national elections in June on a nationalist, anti-Islamic platform. The anti-foreigner Sweden Democrats is steadily growing in popularity.
The Paris attacks will surely prompt an anti-Muslim backlash, as demonstrated by protesters who brought a banner saying “Expel the Islamists” to a vigil in Lille, France. The Islamic State does not have to invent tales of Western hatred: It can simply publish photos of Dutch politician Geert Wilders, who recently proclaimed, “The less Islam, the better.” Arsonists conducted scores of attacks on asylum seekers and shelters in Germany this year, while extremists have targeted Muslim citizens in France. The continuing influx of hundreds of thousands of refugees and migrants from the Middle East and Africa creates a perfect environment for the Islamic State’s campaign.
None of these anti-Islam activities justifies the horrors that the Islamic State has committed, nor have they caused those atrocities; Europe could be as welcoming as any could wish, and still the Islamic State would send fighters and recruit disaffected locals. But backlashes against Muslims who have no part in the Islamic State’s ideologies or actions make the situation much worse. Europe must avoid the trap that the Islamic State is setting by focusing its responses to the Paris attacks and other outrages against the perpetrators and their supporters.
Most urgently, however, Europe and the United States must accept the reality that protracted sectarian warfare in the Middle East is a clear and present danger to their safety and security at home. The wars in Syria and Iraq are mobilizing radicals from across the world. They are arenas in which terrorists can acquire the skills of warfare to bring directly into the West. Our complacency about those conflicts must end. We must also avoid the temptation to back dictators such as Syria’s Bashar al-Assad in hopes that they can defeat an enemy to which they have given rise and contain a conflict that they themselves have driven.
The Paris attacks must become calls to action to end the wars that are tearing the Middle East apart and flooding the world with desperate refugees. They are yet more proof that we cannot live in peace at home while millions of people are engulfed in war.
 |
|
FOCUS: A Hillary Clinton White House Will Likely Increase the Prospects for Terror in the West |
|
|
Monday, 16 November 2015 13:03 |
|
Excerpt: "Hillary Clinton's policies have consistently helped sow the seeds for radical Islamic groups like ISIS."
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her husband former President Bill Clinton wait to go on stage at the Story County Democratic Picnic in Aimes, Iowa on Nov. 15, 2015. (photo: Melina Mara/WP)
A Hillary Clinton White House Will Likely Increase the Prospects for Terror in the West
By Paul Gottinger and Andrew Stefan, Reader Supported News
16 November 15
 he impacts from the horrendous terror attacks in Paris are being felt across the US and Europe. The attack has already shifted the political discussion here in the US. Last night’s democratic debate had a renewed focus on issues of terrorism and national security. These are issues that Hillary Clinton, with her extensive foreign policy experience, tried to convince us she was best suited to handle.
Yet her record shows a different story. Hillary’s policies have consistently helped sow the seeds for radical Islamic groups like ISIS. Now, to be fair, the George W. Bush administration deserves the largest amount of blame for the creation of ISIS. The war in Iraq created the conditions from which ISIS emerged.
But Hillary Clinton voted for Bush’s war in Iraq when she was in the US Senate. This is a vote that she now regards as a “mistake.” A mistake, it would seem, is forgetting about dinner and burning the pot roast. Advocating for a war that killed one million people and created one of the most ruthless terror organizations in history is something a bit more than a mistake.
The war in Iraq also helped destabilize Syria. Al Qaeda in Iraq formed after the arrival of the US in 2003 and moved over to Syria after the Arab Spring uprising against Bashar al-Assad in 2011. In the absence of functioning states in Iraq and Syria, ISIS has flourished.
In fact, in 2012 Clinton sided with the head of the CIA, Leon Panetta, arguing that the US should go to war in Syria to remove Assad. This would have transformed Syria into an even greater mess than it is now.
Mrs. Clinton backed arming rebels in Syria early on, and continues to back the idea. She holds this position even though arming the rebels has only added to Syria’s bloodbath and has most benefitted radical Islamic groups in Syria.
Unfortunately, Hillary Clinton’s hawkish positions on Iraq and Syria are far from her only ones. As secretary of state she was a very strong advocate of the NATO war in Libya. The air strikes began with the establishment of a “no fly zone,” but they quickly transformed into assisting with the removal of Muammar al-Qaddafi.
In the aftermath of the air strikes, Libya has become a country in complete chaos. As in Iraq and Syria, ISIS has stepped in to fill the void. In February, ISIS released a video of the beheading of 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians in Libya. Libya has also become a hotbed of arms smuggling to radical groups since the overthrow of Qaddafi.
Mrs. Clinton, as secretary of state, pushed for continued close US relationships with Egypt’s military dictatorship. Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, the military strong-man currently in power in Egypt, has engaged in a vicious crackdown on the free press, activists, and Egypt’s largest political party, which has resulted in a massive escalation of ISIS terror in Egypt. Just last week, ISIS is believed to have brought a Russian airliner down over the Sinai.
After listening to last night’s Democratic debate and hearing Hilary Clinton tell why she is best suited to tackle ISIS, we would do well to keep in mind the impact her political decisions have had on the world.
Judging from her past, a Hillary Clinton White House would be more hawkish than Obama’s. As a result, there would be increased instability in the Middle East and an increased likelihood for more terror attacks like the ones in Paris.
Paul Gottinger is a staff reporter at RSN whose work focuses on the Middle East and the arms industry. He can be reached on Twitter @paulgottinger or via
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Andrew Stefan is a journalist in Washington, DC. He can be reached via email at
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
.
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.
|
|
|
FOCUS: Why Bernie Sanders Cleared a Path to Victory in 2nd Debate |
|
|
Monday, 16 November 2015 11:00 |
|
Galindez writes: "When Sanders compared the invasion of Iraq to regime change in Iran, Chile, and Guatemala, he reassured the progressive base that he will not have an interventionist foreign policy."
Bernie and Jane Sanders. (photo: David Becker/Reuters)
Why Bernie Sanders Cleared a Path to Victory in 2nd Debate
By Scott Galindez, Reader Supported News
16 November 15
he pundits and many polls are saying Hillary Clinton won, and maybe for a week or two while Americans worry about ISIS they might be right. Maybe she did pass the commander in chief test. But let’s face it, when Democrats caucus and vote they will not be doing so based on foreign policy. Besides, Bernie Sanders did make waves on foreign policy in a manner that could just help him in the long run.
When Sanders compared the invasion of Iraq to regime change in Iran, Chile, and Guatemala, he reassured the progressive base that he will not have an interventionist foreign policy.
“The disagreement is, not only did I vote against the war in Iraq, if you look at history, you will find that regime change, whether it was in the 1950s in Iran, toppling Salvador Allende in Chile, overthrowing the government of Guatemala – these toppings of governments, regime change, have unintended consequences. On this issue I am a little more conservative than the secretary. I am not a big fan of regime change,” said Sanders as the watch party at Drake University exploded in cheers. In the debate hall there really wasn’t much reaction to anything throughout the debate. It was a reserved, establishment crowd.
But at the watch party as Sanders delivered that response you could hear “Whoa,” “Oh my,” and “Yes” coming from people who were happy to hear a candidate for the Democratic Party’s nomination for president admitting to US foreign policy mistakes in Iran, Chile and Guatemala.
When the media and the pundits try to determine who won debates, they are looking at the event through filters colored by the past. I think Bernie made a very important step in solidifying anti-war anti-intervention groups who were uneasy about some of his past votes on foreign policy. That was lost on the pundits.
“It’s the economy, stupid”
Remember when James Carville and the Clinton inner circle understood that and focused on it? Hillary Clinton can impress everyone with her diplomatic accomplishments all she wants, but they don’t pay the mortgage or the doctor bills and they won’t put your kids through college.
The big differences between the three Democratic candidates for president are not on ISIS (none of them want boots on the ground) or the Iran nuclear deal, which they all favor. The difference is how we are going to deal with economic inequality and who is best positioned to lead that fight. This is the area that Bernie Sanders clearly won in the debate. Was there a game changer? Probably not, but the seeds of doubt were planted.
One reason I think Sanders did enough is that he even polled well after the debate on the economy and economic inequality.
So who won on points? It was a Saturday night debate on CBS, so let’s use their overnight poll, since nobody else was watching – another blunder by the DNC.
Most of the good news for Clinton was on foreign policy: those polled after the debate overwhelmingly thought she was best equipped to handle foreign policy, terrorism, and ISIS. She narrowly edged out Sanders on gun policy, 43% to 36%, a surprisingly strong performance for Sanders. That is where the good news ended for Hillary Clinton.
While many are starting to dismiss the numbers on honesty and trustworthiness, Clinton’s scores still point to a huge opportunity for Senator Sanders. 88% of Democrats polled by CBS after the debate found Sanders honest and trustworthy to only 58% for Clinton. 41% found Clinton not honest and trustworthy, while only 13% had that opinion of Sanders.
On economic issues it was also a good night for Sanders, according to the CBS post-debate poll: 43% thought Sanders would do a better job handling the economy while 40% thought Clinton would do better. When it came to fighting economic inequality, 58% thought Sanders would do a better job to only 31% for Clinton.
That is big news for Bernie and why I think he won the debate. Those are the issues that Democrats will be voting on in the primaries and caucuses. Bernie has laid the groundwork to win, and with two months to go before the voting begins there is plenty of time for Sanders further his case.
On economic issue after issue, Sanders showed daylight between himself and Secretary Clinton. On the minimum wage, Clinton falls short, calling for $12 hour, citing an economist’s opinion that $15 an hour could be too high.
Sanders responded: “It is not a radical idea to say that if somebody works forty hours a week, that person should not be living in poverty. When we put money into the hands of working people, they’re going to go out and buy goods, they’re going to buy services, and they’re going to create jobs in doing that,” he said. “That is the kind of economy I believe in. Put money in the hands of working people. Raise the minimum wage to fifteen bucks an hour.”
On health care, Sanders defended the gains made by Obama but said they do not go far enough. “I believe we’ve got to go further. I want to end the international embarrassment of the United States of America being the only major country on Earth that doesn’t guarantee health care to all people as a right, not a privilege.” Under the private-insurance system, he went on, “We end up spending—and I think the secretary knows this—far more per capita on health care than any other major country, and our outcomes, health-care outcomes are not necessarily that good.”
The moderators pressed Sanders on how he would pay for his proposals, specifically how big a tax hike would come. “We haven’t come up with an exact number yet, but it will not be as high as the number under Dwight D. Eisenhower, which was ninety per cent.” That received the loudest response of the night, many laughing. “I’m not that much of a socialist compared to Eisenhower,” Sanders went on.
It was a good start for Sanders, who will be giving a major address on democratic socialism in the next few weeks. He has to address fears about what being a socialist means.
I think the strongest blow landed by Sanders was why Clinton would be compromised in efforts to take on Wall Street.
Sanders said: “Let’s not be naive about it…. Why, over her political career, has Wall Street been a major—the major—campaign contributor to Hillary Clinton? You know, maybe they’re dumb and they don’t know what they’re going to get, but I don’t think so.”
The biggest blunder of the night came when Secretary Clinton, in what was clearly a rehearsed, prepared response, tried to justify her Wall Street support by invoking 9/11. When you take a step back and think about it, it was a logical response. As senator from New York, she represented Wall Street when they rebuilt from 9/11 but it didn’t come across that way to everyone. The delivery was too defiant instead of a more respectful emotional response that might have landed where she wanted it.
“So I represented New York, and I represented New York on 9/11 when we were attacked. Where were we attacked? We were attacked in downtown Manhattan where Wall Street is. I did spend a whole lot of time and effort helping them rebuild. That was good for New York. It was good for the economy, and it was a way to rebuke the terrorists who had attacked our country.”
The response on twitter was swift and argued that the response was tone deaf.
After a brief exchange on Glass-Steagall, Bernie pressed on: “But at the end of the day, Wall Street today has enormous economic and political power,” he said. “Their business model is greed and fraud. And for the sake of our economy … the major banks must be broken up.”
The exchange on campaign contributions left doubt that Clinton could stand up to the banks. It is clear that the Sanders campaign will continue to press on campaign finance and on the fact that her large contributions from Wall street and other corporations leave her compromised when it comes to real reform. That is Bernie’s path to victory, and it is a path that he cleared the way for in the Des Moines debate.
Scott Galindez attended Syracuse University, where he first became politically active. The writings of El Salvador's slain archbishop Oscar Romero and the on-campus South Africa divestment movement converted him from a Reagan supporter to an activist for Peace and Justice. Over the years he has been influenced by the likes of Philip Berrigan, William Thomas, Mitch Snyder, Don White, Lisa Fithian, and Paul Wellstone. Scott met Marc Ash while organizing counterinaugural events after George W. Bush's first stolen election. Scott will be spending a year covering the presidential election from Iowa.
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.
|
|
There Is Only One Way to Defeat ISIS |
|
|
Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=11104"><span class="small">Charles Pierce, Esquire</span></a>
|
|
Monday, 16 November 2015 09:23 |
|
Pierce writes: "These are things that will not solve the terrible and tangled web of causation and violence in which the attacks of Friday night were spawned. A 242-ship Navy will not stop one motivated murderous fanatic from emptying the clip of an AK-47 into the windows of a crowded restaurant."
Paris. (photo: Martin Bureau/Getty Images)
There Is Only One Way to Defeat ISIS
By Charles Pierce, Esquire
16 November 15
We must hold accountable our Middle Eastern "allies"—the states and bankers and political elites—who persist in funding mass murder.
here was a strange stillness in the news on Saturday morning, a Saturday morning that came earlier in Paris than it did in Des Moines, a city in Iowa, one of the United States of America. The body count had stabilized. The new information came at a slow, stately pace, as though life were rearranging itself out of quiet respect for the dead. The new information came at a slow and stately pace and it arranged itself in the way that you suspected it would arrange itself when the first accounts of the mass murder began to spread out over the wired world. There has been the predictable howling from predictable people. (Judith Miller? Really? This is an opinion the world needed to hear?) There has been the straining to wedge the events of Friday night into the Procrustean nonsense of an American presidential campaign. There will be a debate among the three Democratic candidates for president in Des Moines on Saturday night. I suspect that the moderators had to toss out a whole raft of questions they already had prepared. Everything else is a distraction. It is the stately, stillness of the news itself that matters.
The attacks were a brilliantly coordinated act of war. They were a brilliantly coordinated act of pure terrorism, beyond rhyme but not beyond reason. They struck at the most cosmopolitan parts of the most cosmopolitan city in the world. They struck out at assorted sectors of western popular culture. They struck out at sports, at pop music, and at simple casual dining. They struck out at an ordinary Friday night's entertainment. The attacks were a brilliantly coordinated statement of political and social purpose, its intent clear and unmistakable. The attacks were a brilliantly coordinated act of fanatical ideological and theological Puritanism, brewed up in the dark precincts of another of mankind's monotheisms. They were not the first of these. (The closest parallel to what happened in Paris is what happened in Mumbai in 2008. In fact, Mumbai went on alert almost immediately after the news broke.) They, alas, are likely not going to be the last.
The stillness of the news is a place of refuge and of reason on yet another day in which both of these qualities are predictably in short supply. It is a place beyond unfocused rage, and beyond abandoned wrath, and beyond unleashed bigotry and hate. It is a place where Friday night's savagery is recognized and memorialized, but it is not put to easy use for trivial purposes. The stillness of the news, if you seek it out, is a place where you can think, sadly and clearly, about what should happen next.
These are a few things that will not solve the terrible and tangled web of causation and violence in which the attacks of Friday night were spawned. A 242-ship Navy will not stop one motivated murderous fanatic from emptying the clip of an AK-47 into the windows of a crowded restaurant. The F-35 fighter plane will not stop a group of motivated murderous fanatics from detonating bombs at a soccer match. A missile-defense shield in Poland will not stop a platoon of motivated murderous fanatics from opening up in a jammed concert hall, or taking hostages, or taking themselves out with suicide belts when the police break down the doors. American soldiers dying in the sands of Syria or Iraq will not stop the events like what happened in Paris from happening again because American soldiers dying in the sands of Syria or Iraq will be dying there in combat against only the most obvious physical manifestation of a deeper complex of ancient causes and ancient effects made worse by the reach of the modern technology of bloodshed and murder. Nobody's death is ever sacrifice enough for that.
Abandoning the Enlightenment values that produced democracy will not plumb the depths of the vestigial authoritarian impulse that resides in us all, the wish for kings, the desire for order, to be governed, and not to govern. Flexing and posturing and empty venting will not cure the deep sickness in the human spirit that leads people to slaughter the innocent in the middle of a weekend's laughter. The expression of bigotry and hatred will not solve the deep desperation in the human heart that leads people to kill their fellow human beings and then blow themselves up as a final act of murderous vengeance against those they perceive to be their enemies, seen and unseen, real and imagined. Tough talk in the context of what happened in Paris is as empty as a bell rung at the bottom of a well.
Francois Hollande, the French president who was at the soccer game that was attacked, has promised that France will wage "pitiless war" against the forces that conceived and executed the attacks. Most wars are pitiless, but not all of them are fought with the combination of toughness and intelligence that this one will require. This was a lesson that the United States did not learn in the aftermath of the attacks of September 11, 2001. There are things that nations can do in response that are not done out of xenophobic rage and a visceral demand for revenge. There are things that nations can do in response that do not involve scapegoating the powerless and detaining the innocent. There is no real point in focusing a response on the people whose religion makes us nervous. States should retaliate against states.
It is long past time for the oligarchies of the Gulf states to stop paying protection to the men in the suicide belts. Their societies are stunted and parasitic. The main job of the elites there is to find enough foreign workers to ensla…er…indenture to do all the real work. The example of Qatar and the interesting business plan through which that country is building the facilities for the 2022 World Cup is instructive here. Roughly the same labor-management relationship exists for the people who clean the hotel rooms and who serve the drinks. In Qatar, for people who come from elsewhere to work, passports have been known to disappear into thin air. These are the societies that profit from terrible and tangled web of causation and violence that played out on the streets of Paris. These are the people who buy their safety with the blood of innocents far away.
It's not like this is any kind of secret. In 2010, thanks to WikiLeaks, we learned that the State Department, under the direction of then-Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, knew full well where the money for foreign terrorism came from. It came from countries and not from a faith. It came from sovereign states and not from an organized religion. It came from politicians and dictators, not from clerics, at least not directly. It was paid to maintain a political and social order, not to promulgate a religious revival or to launch a religious war. Religion was the fuel, the ammonium nitrate and the diesel fuel. Authoritarian oligarchy built the bomb. As long as people are dying in Paris, nobody important is dying in Doha or Riyadh.
Saudi Arabia is the world's largest source of funds for Islamist militant groups such as the Afghan Taliban and Lashkar-e-Taiba – but the Saudi government is reluctant to stem the flow of money, according to Hillary Clinton. "More needs to be done since Saudi Arabia remains a critical financial support base for al-Qaida, the Taliban, LeT and other terrorist groups," says a secret December 2009 paper signed by the US secretary of state. Her memo urged US diplomats to redouble their efforts to stop Gulf money reaching extremists in Pakistan and Afghanistan. "Donors in Saudi Arabia constitute the most significant source of funding to Sunni terrorist groups worldwide," she said. Three other Arab countries are listed as sources of militant money: Qatar, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates. The cables highlight an often ignored factor in the Pakistani and Afghan conflicts: that the violence is partly bankrolled by rich, conservative donors across the Arabian Sea whose governments do little to stop them. The problem is particularly acute in Saudi Arabia, where militants soliciting funds slip into the country disguised as holy pilgrims, set up front companies to launder funds and receive money from government-sanctioned charities.
It's time for this to stop. It's time to be pitiless against the bankers and against the people who invest in murder to assure their own survival in power. Assets from these states should be frozen, all over the west. Money trails should be followed, wherever they lead. People should go to jail, in every country in the world. It should be done state-to-state. Stop funding the murder of our citizens and you can have your money back. Maybe. If we're satisfied that you'll stop doing it. And, it goes without saying, but we'll say it anyway – not another bullet will be sold to you, let alone advanced warplanes, until this act gets cleaned up to our satisfaction. If that endangers your political position back home, that's your problem, not ours. You are no longer trusted allies. Complain, and your diplomats will be going home. Complain more loudly, and your diplomats will be investigated and, if necessary, detained. Retaliate, and you do not want to know what will happen, but it will done with cold, reasoned and, yes, pitiless calculation. It will not be a blind punch. You will not see it coming. It will not be an attack on your faith. It will be an attack on how you conduct your business as sovereign states in a world full of sovereign states.
And the still, stately progress of the news from Paris continues. There are arrests today in Brussels, of alleged co-conspirators. The body count has stabilized. New information comes at its own pace, as if out of respect for the dead. In the stillness of the news itself, there is refuge and reason and a kind of wounded, ragged peace, as whatever rolled up from the depths of the sickness of the human heart rolls back again, like the tide and, like the tide, one day will return.
|
|
