First, Socialist French politicians loudly backed brutal jihadists in Syria to overthrow the dictatorship of Bashar al-Assad. Then they supported open borders so those same jihadists and their victims could flood into Europe, where the law-abiding populace has been largely disarmed and left defenseless by those same politicians. Now, the French government and Western politicians are feigning shock over the tragic but entirely predictable terrorist attack that claimed more than 120 lives in Paris. And if the same sort of policies continue, which appears likely at this point, analysts say more attacks in the future are all but inevitable.
Among those pointing to French government support for jihad in Syria as being at least partly responsible for the “blowback” was former congressman and three-time presidential contender Ron Paul. “Because the U.S. and its allies are essentially on the same side as ISIS and other groups — seeking the overthrow of Assad — many of the weapons they have sent to the more ‘moderate’ factions also seeking Assad’s ouster have ended up in the hands of radicals,” explained Paul, who for decades has been a leading advocate of a non-interventionist foreign policy. “Moderate groups have joined more radical factions over and over, taking their US-provided training and weapons with them.”
Indeed, as top U.S. officials and declassified intelligence documents have revealed, the reality is even worse than what Paul describes in his diplomatically worded critique. Consider, for example, the fact that Obama’s so-called “anti-ISIS” coalition — the governments and dictatorships ruling France, the United Kingdom, Turkey, and various Sunni Arab kingdoms — was largely responsible for creating, arming, funding, and training the Islamic State. “There was no moderate middle” in Syria, Vice President Joe Biden explained in a speech, contradicting Obama and his claim to be arming “moderate” rebels. Biden also noted that Obama’s Islamic allies were determined to take down Assad and have a “proxy war.”
“They [Obama’s allies] poured hundreds of millions of dollars and tens, thousands of tons of weapons into anyone who would fight against Assad; except that the people who were being supplied were Al Nusra and Al Qaeda and the extremist elements of jihadis coming from other parts of the world,” Biden continued, without pointing to the administration’s well-documented role in it all. “All of a sudden everybody’s awakened because this outfit called ISIL, which was Al Qaeda in Iraq, which when they were essentially thrown out of Iraq, found open space in territory in eastern Syria, work with Al Nusra who we declared a terrorist group early on, and we could not convince our colleagues to stop supplying them.”
Other top U.S. officials have echoed those remarks. Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Martin Dempsey admitted in Senate testimony that he knew of Arab allies in Obama’s anti-ISIS coalition that were funding ISIS. The terror group claimed responsibility for the attack, in which a handful of jihadists killed or injured more than 500 disarmed and helpless victims across Paris. Other senior military officials have also admitted that the Obama administration backed jihadists despite warnings about the inevitable consequences that would follow. Some former U.S. generals have even concluded that Obama “switched sides” in the terror war.
And a declassified 2012 report from the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency revealed that Western powers and their Islamic allies have known all along that al-Qaeda was leading the Syrian uprising, but were supporting the jihad anyway. “There is the possibility of establishing a declared or undeclared Salafist [fundamentalist Islam] principality in Eastern Syria (Hasaka and Der Zor), and this is exactly what the supporting powers to the opposition want, in order to isolate the Syrian regime,” the same document explains. They got their wish, of course, when the Islamic State officially announced the establishment of its “caliphate” in Eastern Syria and parts of Iraq.
“Does anyone not believe this is a recipe for the kind of disaster we have now seen in Paris?” asked Paul in his column, published by the liberty-oriented Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity. “The French in particular have been very active in arming even the more radical groups in Syria, as they push for more political influence in the region. Why do they still refuse to believe in the concept of blowback? Is it because the explanation that, ‘they hate us because we are free,’ makes it easier to escalate abroad and crack down at home?”
But thinking that more of the same will help solve the problem is futile, Paul continued. “It may not be popular to say this as emotions run high and calls ring out for more bombing in the Middle East, but there is another way to address the problem,” he said. “There is an alternative to using more military intervention to address a problem that was caused by military intervention in the first place. That solution is to reject the militarists and isolationists. It is to finally reject the policy of using ‘regime change’ to further perceived US and western foreign policy goals, whether in Iraq, Libya, Syria, or elsewhere.”
Paul was not the only voice expressing similar concerns. After the Paris attacks, the pro-transparency group WikiLeaks took to Twitter to make the same argument. “At least 39 dead in French terror attacks this evening. France has closed borders. US, UK, France fed ISIS. Not so funny now, is it?” the group asked in a comment that, despite its truthfulness, was perceived as insensitive by some critics. “At least 39 dead tonight in Paris terror attacks. 250,000 dead in Syria & Iraq. Both a direct result of US, UK, France feeding Sunni extremists.” The anti-secrecy group also said that those who funded, armed and trained Sunni extremists in Syria and Libya — a clear reference to the Obama administration and the Socialist French government — should be “brought to justice.”
In response to the attacks, the Socialist president of France, Francois Hollande, vowed a “merciless” response to jihad. Within days, French military jets were dropping bombs over Syria, supposedly aiming to strike ISIS targets. Yet, in recent years, French authorities have been among the most vocal supporters of the Islamic extremists waging war on Syria’s secular tyrant, Bashar al-Assad, who is called an “apostate” by Western-backed jihadists hoping to oust him. In Libya, the French government was also key in the “regime change” plot that armed known Islamic terrorists — many were openly affiliated with al-Qaeda — to overthrow the secular autocracy of dictator Moammar Gadhafi.
Of course, those two conflicts, in which Western globalists openly sided with terrorists and jihadists against former “terror war” allies, were the primary drivers of the massive influx of refugees into Europe. And while skeptical analysts have cast doubt on the narrative, according to multiple news reports, at least one of the Islamists who struck in Paris, possibly two, entered Europe as a Syrian “refugee” through Greece. Obama is planning to bring thousands to the United States, even though U.S. officials acknowledge that they cannot be properly vetted due to a lack of information from Syrian authorities.
ISIS, al-Qaeda, and other terrorist groups have even been bragging publicly about how they are “infiltrating” the West by posing as “refugees.” Fake Syrian passports can easily be purchased on the black market. Those groups have been explicit in promising attacks on the West, too. And multiple analysts have argued that French security services, when they are not tracking down anti-Islam activists for “hate speech” prosecutions, have been tracking the jihadists — while doing practically nothing to stop them. At least several of the terrorists in recent attacks were well known to authorities, according to media reports. Indeed, Turkish authorities said they warned French officials about one of the Paris attackers — twice.
Disarming the law-abiding citizens of France with among the world’s most draconian gun-control regimes, leaving the French defenseless to cower in front of terrorists with no respect for weapons regulations, certainly did not help matters either, pundits declared. “You can say what you want, but if they had guns — if our people had guns, if they were allowed to carry — it would have been a much, much different situation,” argued U.S. presidential hopeful Donald Trump, currently a frontrunner for the GOP nomination, in a speech to a cheering audience in Texas.
“When you look at Paris — the toughest gun laws in the world — nobody had guns but the bad guys. Nobody. Nobody had guns,” Trump continued, echoing previous remarks he made during the last mass shooting in Paris by jihadists earlier this year. “[The terrorists] were just shooting them one by one.” He also noted that in the United States, cities with the most gun control tend to have the most violence. “So our country better get smart because we’re not smart right now,” Trump added.
A month before the attack, Obama was exploiting anti-Christian terrorism to advance more gun control in the United States. And just hours before the attack, Obama even claimed, falsely, that ISIS had been “contained.” Still, before the names of the victims were all released, those same politicians were already demanding more war, more intervention in Syria, more surveillance of citizens, and other draconian measures. Perhaps not surprisingly, Obama administration officials also seized on the Paris attack to slam privacy rights, encryption, and more. Some even tried to deflect the blame for the attacks onto NSA leaker Edward Snowden.
In the end, though, Snowden did not cause the attack, nor did a lack of gun control, or a lack of Western military intervention in the Middle East. But the horrific terror spree should not have been a surprise. Instead, the bloodshed was the predictable fruit of globalist machinations in the Middle East and beyond — the very same sort of machinations that are now being ramped up in the wake of the attack — as well as domestic policies such as gun control and open borders. If the people of the United States and France are concerned about jihadist terrorism, they should look at the source of most of it, and bring those responsible to justice.
Photo at top shows security forces outside Notre-Dame Cathedral during memorial service: AP Images
Alex Newman, a foreign correspondent for The New American, is normally based in Europe. Follow him on Twitter @ALEXNEWMAN_JOU. He can be reached at [email protected].
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