'Je suis Netanyahu': BBC headline rewrite caves to Israeli intimidation, again

21st Century Wire

Are Israel and Saudi Arabia really 'friends' of press freedom?
Wait, what about free speech? Ce qui est arrivé à...'Je Suis Charlie'

PRESS INTIMIDATION: Netanyahu's photo-op at Charlie Hebdo seems even more meaningless now after bullying the BBC. Back in April, 21WIRE discovered an interesting media anomaly which no other media outlet picked up.

The New York Times had run a front page story in their early morning US domestic print edition, with a headline that read: "Saudi Defiance on Yemen Reflects Limits of U.S. Strategy"

Later, we looked for this same article online, only to find that the headline has been changed to: "Saudi Resolve on Yemen Reflects Limits of U.S. Strategy"

Why? Was pressure applied on the NYT editors, and if so, who applied pressure to the editors to make such a significant change on a lead story to change it from 'Defiance' to 'Resolve'? In an effort to sanitize the carnage in Yemen, did Saudi Arabia throw its weight around, causing NYT editors to cave in?

Perhaps a much worse situation has been happening recently between the BBC and the State of Israel. It seems that Israel has been pressuring BBC into changing its headlines.

How did Israel manage to do this to the BBC? Incredibly, Israel has been doing this on a regular [basis]. On at least one occasion, Israel even demanded an official apology from the BBC and issued a threat to revoke press cards of BBC journalists working in Israel.

Very few people are aware that the pressure applied to the BBC emanates from an Israel lobby organization that's embedded in the UK called BICOM (Britain Israel Communications and Research Centre). They claim to be, "An independent organisation devoted to creating a more supportive environment for Israel in the UK."

As we can now see, it's anything but independent, and its hardly supportive, especially when it comes to press freedom and free speech. BICOM's mission is simple: to sanitize UK media coverage in the in the event that Israel is ever exposed doing what it does on a daily basis: oppressing the native Palestinian population.

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The French Republic taken hostage

Voltairenet.org
Thierry Meyssan

The war which has now spread to Paris is incomprehensible for those French citizens who are ignorant of practically all the secret activities of their government in the Arab world, of its unnatural alliances with the Gulf dictators, and its active participation in international terrorism. These policies have never been discussed in Parliament, and the major media have rarely dared to take an interest in them.

For the last five years, the French people have been hearing about distant wars, but without ever understanding what they meant. The Press informed them about the engagement of their army in Libya, but never about the presence of French soldiers on mission in the Levant. My articles on this subject are widely-read, but perceived as some sort of Oriental aberration. Despite my personal history, it remains quite acceptable to qualify me as an « extremist », or a « conspiracy theorist », and to point out that my articles are reproduced by Internet sites of all political colours, including those which are in fact authentically extremist or conspiracist. Yet nobody seems to have any quarrel with what I write. But neither do they pay any attention to my warnings about the alliances concluded by the French governement.

Now, suddenly, the unheeded truth surfaces.

France was attacked on the night of Friday 13th November 2015 by several commandos who massacred at least 130 people in five different areas of Paris. The state of emergency was decreed for a period of 12 days over the whole territory, and may be extended by act of Parliament.

No direct link with the Charlie Hebdo affair

 

The French Press interprets these acts of war by linking them to the attack made on Charlie Hebdo, although the operational modes were completely different. In January, the attack was aimed at killing specific people, while in this case, it was a co-ordinated attack on a large number of people chosen at random.

We know today that just before the January attack, the editor-in-chief of Charlie Hebdo had received a « gift » of 200,000 Euros from the Near East in order to continue his anti-Muslim campaign [1] ; that the killers were linked to the French intelligence services [2] ; and that the origin of their weapons is covered by the Official Secrets Act [3]. I have already demonstrated that the attack was not an Islamist operation [4], that it was immediately recuperated by a state [5], and that this recuperation had raised echoes in populations hostile to the Republic [6] – an idea which was brilliantly developed a few months later by the demographer Emmanuel Todd [7].

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Paris Attacks Reveal Bizarre ISIS Strategy and NATO's Strategy of Tension in Europe -- Sott.net

Joe Quinn
Sott.net

"It's so shocking. When Charlie Hebdo happened, it was a specific, targeted attack. But this time it's terrifying because it is just random, innocent people going about their lives. I know a lot of people in Paris - there is panic and disorder here, no one can understand what's going on. We are all in a state of complete shock."

So said Quentin, 27, who works for an online company in Paris, and whose oldest friend was shot multiple times at the Bataclan concert hall.

Terrorist attacks like these are never "random", at least not in the sense that they have no point. If they appear random, then that is undoubtedly part of the strategy that drives them. Governments and groups use terrorism to achieve a specific goal, so there is always a point. To understand what the point is, you just have to know who is really responsible.

We've already been told that "ISIS" has claimed responsibility for the Paris attacks, a claim partly backed up by the convenient discovery of a Syrian passport on the body of one of the "suicide bombers" (why do these terrorists always carry ID on their suicide missions?). But given that most ISIS terrorists in Syria are foreign mercenaries, this isn't really evidence of anything, except perhaps that some ISIS terrorists were hidden among the Syrian refugees that transited through Greece this summer.

We're told that ISIS aims to establish a caliphate over as much of the Levant as possible. But achieving that aim necessarily involves the removal of the Assad government, which Western powers have been lobbying for for several years. Over the past 4 years of the "Syrian revolution", and until about 6 weeks ago, the group had gone a long way toward attaining that goal, with the Syrian Arab Army seriously pressed and the Assad government's areas of control limited to small areas in an around Damascus. After 6 weeks of Russian airstrikes however, ISIS is now losing ground faster than a 3-legged donkey in a horse race, and their paymasters in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Washington DC can't seem to funnel enough money and weapons to them to make a difference. 

This is the key point, and it's no conspiracy theory: ISIS and other "Syrian rebels" are almost entirely the brainchildren of the US government and their allies in the Middle East. Without their support, as noted by many mainstream news outlets, ISIS would have long since disappeared from the pages of history. In a previous article, I outlined the geopolitical strategy being pursued by Washington and its Mid-East allies in funding a 'Syrian revolution' to overthrow the Assad government; it's all about oil and gas pipelines to Europe and Asia, and thwarting Russian expansion.

So given that "ISIS" is being effectively routed by Russian airstrikes and the Syrian Arab Army, why would the ISIS leadership choose to add to their woes by massacring French civilians and provoking the expected French military response against ISIS in Syria and Iraq. I mean, do these people actually enjoy having Western bombs, in addition to Russian ones, fall on their heads?

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Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité – French Government Begins Blocking Websites it Doesn’t Like

Michael Krieger
Liberty Blitzkrieg

There’s no better way to show terrorists you mean business than by preemptively ending freedom before the infidels have a chance to.

Ever since the tragic Charlie Hebdo terror attacks, France has responded by turning its back on decency, freedom and civilization itself. While the counterproductive authoritarian government response to terror attacks throughout the Western world has been long noted by myself and countless others, no country has demonstrated a more enthusiastic embrace of fascism and irrationality than France.

The writing was on the wall shortly after the attacks. I noted it in the post, French Authorities Demonstrate Defense of Free Speech by Arresting 54 People for Free Speech. Here’s an excerpt:

While I’m sure many of the millions of French citizens who marched in solidarity with the victims of the recent senseless violence and in the name of free speech came with genuine intentions, the corps of professional authoritarians, I mean politicians, who tagged along in order to pose for a staged photo op, clearly had less than noble intentions. Indeed, they likely spent the entire time scheming as to how the tragedy might be used to strip more rights away from their citizens, and it didn’t take long for the apparent hypocrisy to manifest itself in real life.

Authorities said 54 people had been arrested for hate speech and defending terrorism in the last week. The crackdown came as Charlie Hebdo’s defiant new issue sold out before dawn around Paris, with scuffles at kiosks over dwindling copies of the satirical weekly that fronted the Prophet Muhammad anew on its cover.

France has been tightening security and searching for accomplices since the terror attacks began, but none of the 54 people mentioned Wednesday have been linked to the attacks. That’s raising questions about whether Hollande’s Socialist government is impinging on the very freedom of speech that it so vigorously defends when it comes to Charlie Hebdo.

In that post, I mentioned the case of a controversial comedian, Dieudonne M’bala M’bala, who was arrested for Facebook comments. Yesterday, we discovered he was found guilty. I shared my sentiments on Twitter:

Just take a moment to think about how completely idiotic this is: pic.twitter.com/qw3cWERML0
— Michael Krieger (@LibertyBlitz) March 18, 2015

Yes, you read that right. He was found guilty of a joke.
Not to be outdone, French authorities are hard at work censoring the internet generally. TechDirt reported the following:

We had been noting, in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo attacks in France, how the country that then held a giant “free speech” rally appeared to be, instead, focusing on cracking down on free speech at every opportunity. And target number one: the internet. Earlier this week, the Interior Minister of France — with no court review or adversarial process — ordered five websites to not only be blocked in France, but that anyone who visits any of the sites get redirected to a scary looking government website, saying:

You are being redirected to this official website since your computer was about to connect with a page that provokes terrorist acts or condones terrorism publicly.

Except… it already appears that France is really just censoring websites with messages it doesn’t like. In that first batch was a site called “islamic-news.info.” The owner of that site not only notes that he was never first contacted to “remove” whatever material was deemed terrorist supporting (as required by the law), but that nothing in what he had posted was supporting terrorism.

But, with no judicial review, no due process at all, the French government declared the site to be a terrorist supporter and now it’s gone.

On the positive side, France, if “they” really do hate you for your freedoms, pretty soon you won’t have anything to worry about.

Charlie Hebdo attacks used to justify increasing fascism in Europe, intel agencies to blame?

Vladimir Platov

New Eastern Outlook

After the bloody events in Paris, when journalists of Charlie Hebdo were murdered in the broad daylight, all across the globe numerous journals have been discussing who could benefit from this tragedy.

In some countries (primarily Muslim) the manifestations against the provocative publications of controversial cartoons of the Prophet that mocked the religious feelings of all Muslims are still on the rise. Some experts have linked these provocative anti-Muslim cartoons with the acquisition of Charlie Hebdo by the Rothschilds in December 2014, the latter of whom are constantly worrying about their profits. But now they can be fairly content since after these tragic events the number of copies sold increased tenfold!
Another group of experts believes that the attack on French journalists was the result of direct actions of Western intelligence agencies. Therefore, the consequences of the Charlie Hebdo massacre can be compared to those of 9/11 attack, such as the tightening of security in Europe. 

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Joe Quinn: 'Paris terror attack serves same old Western imperial agenda for world domination'

Sott Media

Charlie Hebdo - The Hidden Agenda Exposed

Total hysteria: France now jailing people for 'ironic' comments

Ali Abunimah
Electronic Intifada

 It may sound like an ironic joke, but it isn't. Less than a week after the massive rallies in defense of "free expression," following the murders of the Charlie Hebdo cartoonists, French authorities have jailed a youth for irony.
  The arrest is part of a harsh crackdown on free speech in the country that has prompted criticism from national and international human rights organizations.

A 16-year-old high school student was taken into police custody on Thursday and indicted for "defending terrorism," national broadcaster France 3 reports.

His alleged crime? He posted on Facebook a cartoon "representing a person holding the magazine Charlie Hebdo, being hit by bullets, and accompanied by an 'ironic' comment," France 3 states. 

The report does not include the drawing - presumably that could put France 3 afoul of the law. So we do not know for sure what the youth is accused of sharing.

An actual Charlie Hebdo from July 2013 caused outrage for mocking Egyptian protestors killed after the military coup. The text says "The Quran is shit. It doesn't stop bullets."

But the cartoon at the top of this page fits the description precisely. It was widely shared on social media, and published on 7 January on the website of the controversial French comedian Dieudonné. It is a mock Charlie Hebdo cover by the cartoonist Dedko.

The text says "Charlie Hebdo is shit. It does not stop bullets." It appears quite heartless and cruel, but look at the copy of Charlie Hebdo that the person in the cartoon is holding.

It represents a real Charlie Hebdo cover that was published in July 2013, days after the military coup in Egypt. It caused outrage at the time because of its cruelty and insensitivity.

It shows an Egyptian protestor being shot through a copy of the Quran he is holding. The text says, "The Quran is shit, it doesn't stop bullets." 

Assuming that the mock Charlie Hebdo cover is the one shared by the youth on Facebook, this incident sums up the sheer hypocrisy of France's current national mood.

Anything mocking and denigrating Islam and Muslims is venerated as courageous free speech, while anything mocking those who engage in such denigration - even using precisely the same techniques - can get you locked up.
 
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“Je Suis CIA”

Comment: Don't forget Mossad Larry...Their sticky fingers were all over the event.

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

Larry Chin
Global Research


Since 9/11, the imperial playbook has consisted of a favorite and time-tested tactic: the false flag operation.

Carry out or facilitate a spectacular atrocity. Blame it on the enemy of choice. Issue a lie-infested official narrative, and have the corporate media repeat the lie. Rile up ignorant militant crowds, stoke the hatred, and war-mongering imperial policy planners and their criminal functionaries get what they want: war with the public stamp of approval.

Here we are again.

The Charlie Hebdo incident is being sold as “the French 9/11”. It certainly is, in all of the most tragic ways: France, like the United States on 9/11, has been used. The masses of the world have been deceived, and march in lockstep to NATO’s drumbeat again.

All signs lead from French intelligence back to Washington—and Langley, Virginia—directly and indirectly. Red herrings and deceptions comprise the official narrative.

The Al-Qaeda narrative, the classic CIA deception, gets fresh facelift. The fact that Al-Qaeda is CIA-created Anglo-American military-intelligence is ignored. The agenda behind the ISIS war—a massive and elaborate regional CIA false flag operation—registers even less.

The Charlie Hebdo terrorists have ties to Anglo-American intelligence and the Pentagon that the masses do not bother to think about. They are also tied to the (conveniently dead) 9/11-connected Al-Qaeda mastermind/CIA military-intelligence asset Anwar Al-Awlaki.

These and other obvious connections to Washington and the CIA do not raise alarm bells among the ardent ones waving Je Suis Charlie signs (which “magically” appeared, and seem to have been mass-produced in advance).

Signs of an inside job and a still unfolding cover-up are significant, from pristine, undamaged passports found on scene to the convenient suicide of Helric Fredou, the Paris police commissioner in charge of the Hebdo investigation.

The Kouachi brothers and Amedy Coulibaly were not only well known by French authorities, French intelligence and the CIA. The Kouachis were tracked and monitored—guided—over the course of many years, arrested many times, yet were allowed to continue training and plotting with fellow Al-Qaeda in Iraq, Yemen, Syria, etc. These are telltale signs of a guided military-intelligence operation. A blatantly obvious terror cell, known to authorities, “drops out of sight”, and then set loose at an appropriate moment. And then executed.

None of these things, which alarm seasoned observers, registers among the emotional masses; the lemmings who willfully refuse to address its real source: the architects of Anglo-American war policy.

Only the NATO war agenda benefits from any of this.

“France’s 9/11” is more accurately France’s latest Operation Gladio. As noted by Paul Craig Roberts, there is a reason why the Charlie Hebdo attacks took place when it did:

France is suffering from the Washington-imposed sanctions against Russia. Shipyards are impacted from being unable to deliver Russian orders due to France’s vassalage status to Washington, and other aspects of the French economy are being adversely impacted by sanctions that Washington forced its NATO puppet states to apply to Russia.

This week the French president said that the sanctions against Russia should end (so did the German vice-chancellor).

This is too much foreign policy independence on France’s part for Washington. Has Washington resurrected “Operation Gladio,” which consisted of CIA bombing attacks against Europeans during the post-WW II era that Washington blamed on communists and used to destroy communist influence in European elections? Just as the world was led to believe that communists were behind Operation Gladio’s terrorist attacks, Muslims are blamed for the attacks on the French satirical magazine.

Now France is militarized, just as the US was in the wake of 9/11. And the French right-wing has newfound cache.

The hostile takeover of the public mind

Notice that the last two false flag operations in recent months—the false flagging of North Korea over Sony and the film The Interview, and the Charlie Hebdo deception—both revolve around the ideas of “free speech” and “free expression”.

This is a phantom battle, choreographed by those who could not care less for “freedoms”. In fact, the masses are being manipulated towards supporting war and mass murder, and police state agendas that specifically curtail freedoms.

What more creative way to take away freedoms than to make people give them up voluntarily?

The hordes of American citizens that supported the “war on terrorism” to “defend freedom” got the Patriot Act, which gutted what liberties they had; the Constitution and the Bill of Rights will not be restored. This process continues all over the world. Ask the average uninformed French citizen today suffering from post-traumatic stress, and they will gladly give up their rights, anything so that “terrorists” are stopped.

Note how the powers that be have taken to inserting their pro-war messages even more forcefully where the ignorant public spends the majority of its time: in popular entertainment. In Hollywood products, in their cartoons, in their magazines, in their celebrities.

Let George Clooney, Seth Rogen and James Franco transmit the messages of war for the CIA and the Pentagon.

Weaponize stupid movies like The Interview and crude magazines like Charlie Hebdo, and watch people become bloodthirsty, vengeful, unthinking and war-loving.

It is the CIA’s ongoing mission to plant its assets and its propaganda into the media and the arts, controlling the perception of culture as well as framing all debate. It is making a huge push at the moment, relishing the speed and effectiveness of technology and social media.

Hundreds and thousands of innocent lives have been lost in this endless, brutal and criminal war. Yet its architects and functionaries remain untouched.

Je Suis Langley

No Anglo-American war of conquest, no Charlie Hebdo massacre.
No CIA, no Militant Islam, no Al-Qaeda, no ISIS, no Charlie Hebdo massacre.
No 9/11, no “war on terrorism”, no ISIS deception, no Charlie Hebdo massacre.
No war against Russia, no Charlie Hebdo massacre.

Je Suis Charlie? No.

To the naïve ones who believe the lies and march on the streets carrying the signs, you are the victims, the gullible, the dupes, the pawns.

Tu es CIA.

Tu es NATO.

EU nations wasting no time intensifying police state actions since Paris shootings

Ulrich Rippert
World Socialist Web Site
Wed, 14 Jan 2015

Governments throughout Europe have responded to the attacks on Charlie Hebdo in France by moving quickly to push through a raft of anti-democratic measures. They are exploiting the shock and confusion generated by the event in Paris to take actions that have long been prepared, but that have so far encountered resistance.

Immediately after the attacks, the police presence at airports, in front of embassies, government buildings, newspaper offices and public places was reinforced by thousands of security forces in European capitals and major cities. Heavily armed and camouflaged military troops have been deployed throughout Paris and elsewhere in France, including at the Eiffel Tower and in all public places. Parts of the city resemble a war zone.

On Monday, the Ministry of Defence in Paris announced the deployment of 10,000 troops to maintain peace and order and protect public buildings. In addition, the government has provided 4,700 police officers and gendarmes to guard Jewish schools and synagogues that are considered particularly vulnerable. After a cabinet meeting on Monday, Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian spoke of a permanent threat. Prime Minister Manuel Valls promised more money for the secret services and more effective surveillance.

At a security summit last weekend in Brussels, the European powers agreed that a European-wide passenger data system must be adopted as soon as possible. Airlines will be obliged to retain the records of their passengers for up to five years. US General Michael Hayden, the former director of the CIA and chief of the NSA, also took part in the meeting. Hayden has been responsible for implementing and expanding much of the illegal and unconstitutional spying programs developed in the United States.

Individual countries throughout Europe are planning their own measures. In Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel (Christian Democratic Union, CDU) has called for better international intelligence cooperation.

Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière (CDU) stressed on Monday that one of the most important measures in Germany was the deployment of more intelligence staff for the monitoring of Islamic fundamentalist groups. For this, funding would have to be significantly increased, he said. De Maizière and others have called for the reintroduction of data warehousing. In 2010, the Supreme Court ruled that the mass storage of telephone, e-mail and internet traffic data of all users for several months, without any grounds of suspicion, was legally questionable.

Last year, the European Court of Justice ruled that such monitoring and collection of personal data was illegal. It explained that the storage of communications could not abrogate professional secrets, including those of journalists. Now, in the name of defending the freedom of the press, the German ruling class is pushing to rapidly implement these anti-democratic measures.

Also on Monday, Justice Minister Heiko Maas (Social Democratic Party, SPD) said that individuals accused of traveling to participate in terrorist activity will face even harsher punishment. Up to now, only those attending a terrorist camp in order to prepare an attack could be punished. In the future, it will be a criminal offence to travel abroad with the intention of participating in attacks or to train as a terrorist. It will make no difference whether the accused individual actually arrives at the terrorist camp. 

Sott.net Comments: And who determines what an individual's intentions are when traveling? This is a law that will be quite easily used to arrest anyone whom the government wishes. They can just say that the person planned to participate in attacks, without any proof, and the person's rights will be out the window.

According to political weekly Die Zeit domestic political affairs spokesman Burkhard Lischka (SPD) complained that there are cases in which someone expressed their intentions in a letter or on a social network, but could not be prosecuted. In the future, these individuals could be detained in Germany or abroad.

The Minister of Justice also wants to create a specific criminal offence of financing terrorism. Donations of all sizes supposedly aimed at supporting terrorist activities would be punishable. In the US, such laws have been broadly applied and used to target groups that are not directly connected to any Islamic fundamentalist organizations.

Later this week, the government in Germany will consider a bill that provides for the withdrawal of identity cards from "potential attackers." It is already possible to withdraw a suspect's passport under certain conditions.

In Britain, Prime Minister David Cameron has announced a drastic expansion of Internet surveillance. He wants to ban encryption programmes and news services like WhatsApp.

Cameron said that there must be no "means of communication" that "we cannot read." Previous governments have hesitated in taking such steps, Cameron said, but they are necessary so that, "in extremis," any communication could be obtained with a signed warrant from the Home Secretary.

The "Snoopers Charter", as these proposals came to be known when they were first introduced, failed to pass parliament in 2012. They would require communications companies to retain details of their entire communication traffic for twelve months. Any person who communicates using encryption or sends encrypted files would be required to provide government officials access to cryptographically-protected information. Those refusing to hand over their password could face up to two years in prison.

The Italian government under Prime Minister Matteo Renzi (PD, Democratic Party) has also announced a significant expansion of state powers. Interior Minister Angelino Alfano has announced that he will introduce a bill in the Council of Ministers that will enable the police to withdraw the passport of any terrorism suspect.

In addition, Alfano will provide the police and judiciary with extraordinary powers that will allow increased Internet surveillance. The government is planning to shut down suspicious websites. Internet service providers must cooperate in the future, to "track messages in the network that contribute to radicalization," Alfano said. The government would prohibit providers "from accepting websites that incite terrorist behavior."

The main purpose of this coordinated offensive by the European powers is not the fight against an alleged "Islamist threat." The ruling elites are increasingly turning the continent into a police state as popular resistance against the European Union and its policies is growing. The military employed in the streets of Paris, the building up of the intelligence apparatus and the assault on democratic rights are directed above all at the growing opposition in the European working class to austerity at home and unending war abroad. 

Attack on Charlie Hebdo and the hypocrisy of pencils

Corey Oakley
Red Flag
11 Jan 2015

 It was Herald Sun cartoonist Mark Knight who tipped me over the edge.

To be fair, he wasn't wholly responsible. If it wasn't for all the lunacy that preceded him, I probably would have dismissed his cartoon as just another Herald Sun atrocity, more a piece of Murdoch-madness to be mocked rather than trigger for outrage. But context is everything. And after days of sanctimonious blather about freedom of speech and the Enlightenment values of Western civilisation, his was one pencil-warfare cartoon too many.

The cartoon in question depicts two men - masked and armed Arab terrorists (is there any other kind of Arab?) - with a hail of bomb-like objects raining down on their heads. Only the bombs aren't bombs. They are pens, pencils and quills. Get it? In the face of a medieval ideology that only understands the language of the gun, the West - the heroic, Enlightenment-inspired West - responds by reaffirming its commitment to resist barbarism with the weapons of ideas and freedom of expression.

It is a stirring narrative repeated ad nauseam in newspapers across the globe.

They have been filled with depictions of broken pencils re-sharpened to fight another day, or editorials declaring that we will defeat terrorism by our refusal to stop mocking Islam. It is well past time to call bullshit. Knight's cartoon made the point exceptionally clear, but every image that invoked the idea that Western culture could and would defend itself from Islamist extremism by waging a battle of ideas demonstrated the same historical and political amnesia.

Reality could not be more at odds with this ludicrous narrative.

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Paris: March of the hypocrites

Justin Raimondo
Antiwar.com
Mon, 12 Jan 2015

It was only natural that "world leaders" would place themselves at the head of the Paris "unity" demonstration held to express outrage at the vicious Charlie Hebdo murders. Daniel Wickham, a student at the London School of Economics, compiled a list of the enemies of free speech who elbowed their way to the head of the march. Most hypocritical of all are the French themselves, who have laws against "hate speech" which are only selectively enforced and which have been used against the editors of Charlie Hebdo in the past. This cognitive dissonance was eloquently expressed by one Frenchman who carried a sign saying: "I'm marching but I'm conscious of the confusion and hypocrisy of the situation."

That politicians would steal the spotlight and turn the sincere outrage of millions into an opportunity for self-advertisement is hardly surprising. Sincerity has its uses, however, and these will become apparent in the days and weeks to come. Those marchers will soon be cheering their soldiers as they go marching off to war, with "Je suis Charlie" inscribed on their banners.

The target? Syria, where "links" have been found between the Paris attacks and the self-proclaimed "Caliphate"of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. The New York Times reports:

Amedy Coulibaly, one of the three gunman responsible for the terrorist attacks in France last week, produced a video that appeared online on Sunday, two days after his death, showing him sitting below the flag of the Islamic State militant group and pledging allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the organization's leader.

If you read the transcript of the video it reads almost like a script prepared by our biggest warmongers. It takes the form of an interview, with the invisible interviewer represented by words on a screen and Coulibaly answering:

Which group are you linked to and do you have an Emir?

Coulibaly: 'I am pledging my allegiance to the Caliph of the Muslims, Abu Bakr al Baghdadi. I have made a declaration of allegiance to the Caliph and the declaration of a Caliphate.'

The Islamic State has been trying to provoke a major military response from the Western powers for months now, executing American journalists and aid workers and posting videos of the executions on the Internet, but so far the US has reacted with caution. So they resorted to attacking the West on its own soil, and now the chorus of voices calling for an all-out invasion of Syria will become deafening, drowning out all reason. And Coulibaly dots all the i's and crosses the t's:

Are you linked to the brothers who attacked Charlie Hebdo?

Coulibaly: 'We are a team, in league together. I am with the team who did Charlie Hebdo. I went out a little against the police too. So that's that. We did some things together, some things separately to have most impact. [Sound of TV news in the background in which newsreader can be clearly heard talking about the attacks].

'We have managed to be synchronized together, to come out at the same time, because we are close in the same business.'

It's all so pat, an engraved invitation: Come and get us!

From his permanent pulpit on the Sunday morning TV talk-fest, Senator John McCain declared his intention to oblige them. Railing against the failure of the United States to defeat ISIS, McCain is asked by journalist Gloria Borger what exactly he has in mind, and his response is a preview of things to come:

ISIS right now is winning. And we need to go after them, and we need to have more boots on the ground. We need to understand that Syria and Iraq are the same. We need to arm the Free Syrian Army. We need a no-fly zone, which many of us have been calling for, for years, and a coherent strategy that can be presented to the Congress, because they're going to be wanting an authorization for the use of military force.

There's something more than a little counterintuitive about McCain's call for a no-fly zone: after all, ISIS doesn't have an air force, while the most effective counterweight to them - the Syrian government - does indeed. If McCain's concern is ISIS, then why go after Bashar al-Assad? And as for arming the Syrian Free Army: those arms are more than likely to show up in the hands of ISIS. As Debka File reports:

The Syrian rebel militia Al Yarmouk Shuhada Brigades, backed and trained for two years by US officers, mostly CIA experts, in Jordan, and supported by the Israeli army, has abruptly dumped these sponsors and joined up with the Islamic State in Iraq.

If McCain has his way, the next terrorist attackers who show up in the streets of a Western city are more than likely to have been trained by our very own CIA. A purer form of "blowback" could hardly be imagined.

In a more general sense, the principle of "blowback" operates in the terrorists' favor as the US and its allies get more deeply involved in Syria and Iraq: if the Western powers follow McCain's advice, jihadists will stream from Europe to the region in even greater numbers and the legitimacy of the "Caliphate" in the eyes of Muslims everywhere is increased. McCain and his fellow interventionists have a symbiotic relationship with the terrorists: both are legitimized on the home front by the actions of the other.

ISIS was itself birthed in the chaos that accompanied our invasion and conquest of Iraq, and McCain and the War Party are intent on duplicating that Orc factory in the territory of Syria.

So how does this policy of creating and succoring the very threats they rail against benefit the leaders of the West?

Without the threat of terrorism, our foreign policy of perpetual war would have zero public support. Without the excuse of having to monitor the ever-escalating activities of the Coulibalys of this world, the very idea that the government has the "right" to scoop up our communications and store them in a giant facility out in the Utah desert would be dismissed as a dystopian fantasy.

But then again, that's the world we live in, in the year 2015: a dystopia so absurd that no writer, prior to September 11, 2001, would have dared put it into print, either as fiction or speculative nonfiction.

And so the hypocrites march on, right over a cliff and into an abyss of their own making.

Je suis Charlie: Or, "I'm a racist pervert too!"

Glenn Greenwald
The Intercept

 

Defending free speech and free press rights, which typically means defending the right to disseminate the very ideas society finds most repellent, has been one of my principal passions for the last 20 years: previously as a lawyer and now as a journalist. So I consider it positive when large numbers of people loudly invoke this principle, as has been happening over the last 48 hours in response to the horrific attack on Charlie Hebdo in Paris.

Usually, defending free speech rights is much more of a lonely task. For instance, the day before the Paris murders, I wrote an article about multiple cases where Muslims are being prosecuted and even imprisoned by western governments for their online political speech - assaults that have provoked relatively little protest, including from those free speech champions who have been so vocal this week.

I've previously covered cases where Muslims were imprisoned for many years in the U.S. for things like translating and posting "extremist" videos to the internet, writing scholarly articles in defense of Palestinian groups and expressing harsh criticism of Israel, and even including a Hezbollah channel in a cable package. That's all well beyond the numerous cases of jobs being lost or careers destroyed for expressing criticism of Israel or (much more dangerously and rarely) Judaism. I'm hoping this week's celebration of free speech values will generate widespread opposition to all of these long-standing and growing infringements of core political rights in the west, not just some. 

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Charlie Hebdo: France's 9/11

Harrison Koehli
Sott.net
Sun, 11 Jan 2015

In the last few days since the mass shootings at the offices of the Parisian satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, and a Paris Kosher supermarket which left 17 dead, France has seen massive demonstrations in support of the victims and their families, a catchy but misplaced meme of solidarity with the slogan "Je suis Charlie", and a string of anti-Muslim hate speech and attacks. The head of the French National Police is warning of "further attacks", the government is pushing a hard-line stance in the war on terror, and the country is on red alert. Some are calling it France's 9/11. That could be closer to the truth than they intend to convey by making that particular connection, assuming anyone knows the real culprits behind the 9/11 attacks.

To see why, first let's take a look at the Paris attack, the suspects, and what the media has been telling us about them. 

The Kouachi Bros.

The attack starts at 11:30 local time, Wednesday 7 January 2014, at the Charlie Hebdo offices in Paris. Two masked men bearing Kalashnikov rifles (later identified as French-Algerian brothers Cherif and Said Kouachi) enter an editorial meeting, shooting dead 10 employees, including the magazine's editor and several cartoonists.

Their voices are recorded saying, ""Allahu akbar," "we've killed Charlie Hebdo" and "we've avenged the prophet." Witnesses described their actions as professional -- they must have had extensive combat training and experience. One witness at first confused the gunmen with France's elite anti-terrorism forces:

"They knew exactly what they had to do and exactly where to shoot. While one kept watch and checked that the traffic was good for them, the other one delivered the final coup de grace," he said.

The men then exit the building and make their getaway, before engaging in a shootout with police north of the site of the attack. One of the men calm executes a wounded police officer, Ahmed Merabet (a Muslim, incidentally), on the street. Contrary to many claims and videos 'busting this open' as a hoax, the video seems legitimate. Kalashnikovs don't recoil that much, and the video is choppy. Also, it appears Merabet was shot in the back, not the head (explaining the lack of visible blood or bullet exit wound).

Continuing their escape, the men seemingly evade police after a high-speed chase, changing vehicles several times, again with an odd sense of calm. For example, while hijacking their second car, they tell the car's owner: "If the media ask you anything, tell them it's al-Qaida in Yemen." Never miss a chance to self-advertise!

Police release the names of three suspects: the Kouachis and 18-year-old Hamyd Mourad, Cherif's brother-in-law, who later turns himself in to the police: he was in class at university of the time of the attacks, confirmed by his professors and classmates. The brothers were allegedly identified by an ID card accidentally left in in the Citroën C3 car they left during their escape. Shades of 9/11! However, their names were reportedly circulating on Facebook and Twitter an hour before police confirmation of their names.

The next day, Thursday, a policewoman is shot dead in Montrouge. Initially thought to be unrelated, police then state that the shooter knew the Kouachis. This is allegedly the same man who will later take hostages in the kosher supermarket. The two Charlie Hebdo suspects are next seen driving north through Picardy, and they rob a gas station.

Friday, in a new car, the men are seen with rifles and a rocket-propelled grenade launcher, and they procure a new car after the previous one runs out of gas. They are involved in another shoot-out on the N2 motorway, taking refuge in a printing works building, with one hostage. While there, a BFM reporter calls the print office and speaks to Cherif, who says:

We just want to say that we are the defenders of the prophet, and that I, Cherif Kouachi, was sent by al-Qaida in Yemen. And that I went there and that it was Sheikh Anwar al-Awlaki who financed me", adding that the visit took place before Awlaki was killed.

While this is happening, Ahmedi Coulibaly, a man with a 'long criminal history' takes hostages in a Jewish supermarket in Paris. Police state this is the same man who shot the policewoman the day before. BFM also has a conversation with Coulibaly:

BFM: Are you in touch with the two brothers who conducted the operation at Charlie Hebdo?

Coulibaly: Yes. We synchronized our operations.

BFM: Are you still in touch with them? Have you recently spoken with them by phone?

Coulibaly: No.

BFM: How were you synchronized with the Kouachis? Are there further attacks planned?

Coulibaly: No, we only synchronized to kick-start things: so when they started Charlie Hebdo, I started on the police officers.

Back at the printers, shots and explosions are heard, the gunmen are killed on sight, the hostage freed, with no casualties. AFP reports the suspects "came out firing on security forces", but their professional training seems to have escaped them, as they missed their targets. Around 20 minutes later, bangs are heard at the supermarket. The hostage taker and 4 hostages are reported killed.

Before the final encounter with the police, one hostage relates hearing Coulibaly say: "I am Amedy Coulibaly, Malian and Muslim. I belong to the Islamic State." Police are still searching for Coulibaly's girlfriend, Hayat Boumedienne (who may be in Syria, by way of Turkey, according to AFP). Boumedienne was reportedly in frequent telephone contact with the Kouachis' wives. She and Coulibaly reportedly had more than 500 telephone conversations with the Koulachis.

So who were these guys?

It turns out Cherif, a petty criminal until he turned radical jihadist, was on a global watch list, and had been on the U.S.'s no-fly list "for years". Take a look at this timeline (unsourced entries are culled from this article):

• 2005: Cherif is was arrested for trying to fly to Syria in order to join the Iraqi insurgency. (He would tell a French documentary team that he was radicalized by a 'firebrand Muslim preacher', Farid Benyettou.)
• 2005: According to French Justice Minister Christiane Taubira, one of the brothers was in Yemen.
• 2008: Cherif is convicted on terrorism charges for sending recruits to the Iraqi insurgency during the period of 2004-2006. In the trial, it is revealed that he has received combat training with Kalashnikovs. He's sentenced to three years, but only serves half of that.
• 2009: Le Parisien reports that French authorities begin surveillance on the brothers.
• 2010: Cherif is investigated for involvement in a plot to free an Islamic militant from prison, but is released without charges.
• 2011: Said is trained by Al-Qaeda in Yemen, according to Reuter's 'sources'. This prompts French authorities to "step up" surveillance on the brothers, during which they turn up with "nothing suspicious".
• 2014: Surveillance on the brothers is stopped in July.
• 2014: A source "close to French security services" tells CNN that Cherif travels to Syria, presumably to fight alongside anti-Assad forces, and returns to France in August. It's uncertain when he arrived in Syria (before or after surveillance ended?).

Quite the background, huh?

The Context

The timing of the attacks is curious, some might say even convenient, or worse. To demonstrate why, take a look at this sequence of events, keeping in mind the propensity of Mossad (and other intelligence agencies) for carrying out terror attacks and framing Muslims for them.

• September 24: ISIS releases video showing the beheading of French hostage Herve Gourdel, after a previous video demanding an end to French involvement in airstrikes on Syria.
• November 9: French government is on high alert after unexplained drone flights over nuclear power stations. These illegal flights, using highly sophisticated drone technology, began in October of last year and have continued, with one recent report of flights on January 3.
• November 19: ISIS releases video showing French jihadists burning passports and calling for terror in France.
• November 23: Israeli PM Netanyahu warns France that French recognition of Palestinian statehood would be a "grave mistake".
• December 2: France's Lower House of Parliament votes in favor of recognizing Palestine.
• December 6: Hollande unexpectedly meets Putin in Moscow, defying the anti-Russia brigade.
• December 20: Burundi-born Frenchman attacks police station in Tours with knife, shouting "Allahu Akbar", injuring three before being shot dead.
• December 22: Driver shouting "Allahu Akbar" runs down pedestrians in five parts of Dijon, injuring 13.
• December 31: France votes in favor of Palestinian Statehood
• January 5: Hollande urges for an end to sanctions on Russia, defying the anti-Russia brigade once again.
• January 6: The French military announces it is sending an aircraft carrier to the Gulf to fight ISIS in Iraq.
• January 6: France warns Palestinians: Don't resubmit UN statehood bid.
• January 7: Amchai Stein, the deputy editor of Israeli IBA Channel 1, just happens to be at the scene of the Charlie Hebdo attacks and posts photos of the shooting on Twitter.
• January 10: Announcement of a video released by ISIS 'days ago', with a French jihadist calling for fellow jihadis to tear down France.

Funny how those dastardly terrorists never seem to get what the want, right? Syria is bombed, so they kill a bunch of people thinking that will stay the West's mighty hand, but the West just gets angry and keeps on bombing! Who could foresee such an illogical outcome? What's the point? Well, here's the ever-litigious Alan Dershowitz to spell it out for us: 

 In other words, France isn't tough enough on 'terrorism' (i.e., they support Palestinian statehood). What better way to change that than to flip the collective French paranoia switch, stir up anti-Islam feeling, and thus get those Frenchies to make the associative leap from 'evil Muslims' to 'evil Palestinians'. As people like Dershowitz like to point out, practically all Palestinians are terrorists (never mind that it was Jewish terrorist groups responsible for the ethnic cleansing of Palestine to begin with).

Dershowitz's friend, Bibi Netanyahoo, also wasted no time in exploiting the attacks for his own purposes, calling for the West to support Israel's own 'war on terror' (i.e., war on Palestine) and adding this mafia-esque ultimatum: "The terror of Hamas, Hezbollah, ISIL and Al-Qaeda will not stop unless the West fights it physically." And Bibi and his friends in the Mossad will make sure to see to that personally, no doubt!

But Dershowitz does have a point. France is a supporter of terrorism, of a sort. But so is Israel! After all, in 2011 France helped arm the rebels in Libya, rebels who were perfectly open about their allegiance with Al-Qaeda. Then again, in 2013, France supported the rebels in Syria, who also have made no bones about their allegiance with ISIS and Al-Qaeda. Israel supports ISIS/al-Nusra in the occupied Golan heights.

You can bet the French intelligence agencies involvement with Islamic terror goes deeper than that, though. (See Joe Quinn and Niall Bradley's Manufactured Terror for the details.) So there's always the possibility that this is a case of blowback - a result of misguided support of terrorists on the one hand, and public ideological conflict with them on the other - but the timing seems all too convenient.

The attacks also had the advantage of displacing other big stories, such as the Jeffrey Epstein/Prince Andrew sex slave scandal (in which Dershowitz himself is implicated), from the headlines, and thus, the public's awareness. It also comes after a seemingly endless string of reports and investigations revealing ISIS to be a U.S./NATO proxy. It also comes as Palestine is set to join the ICC on April 1, at which point they stand a small chance of taking Bibi and the rest of them to the Hague for war crimes.

And what's up with Israelis just happening to be on the scene in order to 'document' major terror events? (For example, at the Twin Towers on 9/11, at Schiphol airport for MH17, or Rita Katz of SITE Intelligence Group, who somehow manages to get ISIS's videos before they are 'officially' released.)

And speaking of Mossad, out of the goodness of his heart, Netanyahoo confirmed on January 9 that he "ordered Mossad to provide French officials for all the assistance they need in tackling the ongoing terror situation in and around Paris." He's also sending an Israeli Police SWAT team that specializes in "siege situations and rescues". How nice of him.  

The Reality

The Charlie Hebdo attacks check almost every point in the false-flag handbook: early conflicting reports (2 shooters, 3 shooters), convenient evidence (ID in the getaway car), patsies with prior run-ins with police and counterintelligence (making them perfect CIs or victims of entrapment), convenient deaths (dead men tell no tales, leaving the government all too willing to fill in the blanks with their own version of events), contradictions (professional behavior vs. bungled last stand; third suspect with a perfect alibi), and of course, affiliation with known intelligence fronts. Of course, that doesn't prove it was a false flag. These guys may have been acting on their own initiative, or that of their 'cleric handlers' (but more on that in a moment). Either way - convenient blow-back or malevolent false flag - the result is the same, and equally helpful to Israel and the U.S.'s agenda around the world.

This has been the goal of NATO's Operation Gladio for generations: strategy of tension. And if Sibel Edmonds is right (and it sure looks like she is), the whole Islamic terror scare is simply Gladio Plan B. And some 'big names' in the terror circuit are directly implicated. For example, the Guardian has this to say about Al-Qaeda in Yemen, the group on whose behalf the Kouachis allegedly carried out their attack:

The Yemen branch of al-Qaeda, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), has some track record of attempting terrorist attacks in the West, including the December 2009 "underwear bomber" plot and the October 2010 cargo planes bomb plot, with explosives packed in toner cartridges.

The leader of AQAP, Nasir al-Wuhayshi, is al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri's second-in-command.

First of all, remember the underwear bomber? Or the toner bomber? Well, their leader's leader, Zawahiri, just happens to be an intelligence agent. At least, so says Edmonds:

Another figure of importance whose name comes up in connection with this investigation is Ayman Al-Zawahiri, formerly Bin Laden's right hand man and the current nominal leader of the Al-Qaeda organization. According to Edmonds he appeared as a figure in several FBI counterterrorism investigations in the 1990s, turning up in Turkey, Albania, Kosovo and Azerbaijan. His travels to the Balkans in the mid 1990s make sense given Al-Qaeda involvement in the so-called Yugoslav Wars, but his involvement in Turkey and Azerbaijan is of particular relevance to this study. Edmonds claims that he worked with the Turkish arm of NATO and NATO itself during this period, meeting several times with US military attaches in Baku, Azerbaijan.

And this:

"In interviews with this author [Nafeez Ahmed] in early March, Edmonds claimed that Ayman al-Zawahiri, current head of al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden's deputy at the time, had innumerable, regular meetings at the US embassy in Baku, Azerbaijan, with US military and intelligence officials between 1997 and 2001, as part of an operation known as 'Gladio B'. Al-Zawahiri, she charged, as well as various members of the bin Laden family and other mujahideen, were transported on NATO planes to various parts of Central Asia and the Balkans to participate in Pentagon-backed destabilization operations.

"According to two Sunday Times journalists speaking on condition of anonymity, this and related revelations had been confirmed by senior Pentagon and MI6 officials as part of a four-part investigative series that were supposed to run in 2008. The Sunday Times journalists described how the story was inexplicably dropped under the pressure of undisclosed 'interest groups', which, they suggest, were associated with the US State Department."

And the Iraqi insurgency Cherif sent recruits to and which he so wanted to join, the one led by Zarqawi? An internal briefing from U.S. military headquarters said Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, the U.S. military's chief spokesman at the time, concluded that "The Zarqawi PSYOP program is the most successful information campaign to date." Zarqawi was a PSYOP creation.

Whether people like the Kouachis know it or not, they're working for the CIA. Mossad. NATO. MI6. And they're doing their job well. After all, what do we see so far in the aftermath of the attacks? French politicians are upping their rhetoric. PM Manuel Valls just 'declared war' on radical Islam. Troops are on the streets in preparation for mass rallies, which will include visits from such notables as David Cameron, Angela Merkel, Sergey Lavrov, Ahmoud Abbas, and Bibi Netanyahoo.

Hate crimes against Muslims are on the rise too. In the first day, a mosque was shot at and attacked with blank grenades, a prayer hall was shot at, and a kebab shot was blown up. 'Death to Arabs" was scrawled in graffiti on a mosque in Poitiers, more in Bayonne, a high school student was beaten, and a car belonging to a Muslim family was shot at.

They're also taking to the streets defending the holy mantra 'freedom of speech'. 'Je suis Charlie', the world is chanting. I'm sorry, but do these people even know what they're doing by making such an identification? I think they're making utter fools of themselves. It's somewhat akin to defending free speech be saying "I am Goebbels". Have all these people even looked at the cartoons published by Charlie Hebdo? Google them and prepare to vomit: they are vulgar, insulting, juvenile, and hate speech. Glenn Greenwald nailed it in his recent article on the subject:

Central to free speech activism has always been the distinction between defending the right to disseminate Idea X and agreeing with Idea X, one which only the most simple-minded among us are incapable of comprehending. One defends the right to express repellent ideas while being able to condemn the idea itself. There is no remote contradiction in that: the ACLU vigorously defends the right of neo-Nazis to march through a community filled with Holocaust survivors in Skokie, Illinois, but does not join the march; they instead vocally condemn the targeted ideas as grotesque while defending the right to express them.

But this week's defense of free speech rights was so spirited that it gave rise to a brand new principle: to defend free speech, one not only defends the right to disseminate the speech, but embraces the content of the speech itself. ...

So it's the opposite of surprising to see large numbers of westerners celebrating anti-Muslim cartoons - not on free speech grounds but due to approval of the content. Defending free speech is always easy when you like the content of the ideas being targeted, or aren't part of (or actively dislike) the group being maligned.

Indeed, it is self-evident that if a writer who specialized in overtly anti-black or anti-Semitic screeds had been murdered for their ideas, there would be no widespread calls to republish their trash in "solidarity" with their free speech rights. ...

With all due respect to the great cartoonist Ann Telnaes, it is simply not the case that Charlie Hebdo "were equal opportunity offenders." Like Bill Maher, Sam Harris and other anti-Islam obsessives, mocking Judaism, Jews and/or Israel is something they willrarely (if ever) do. If forced, they can point to rare and isolated cases where they uttered some criticism of Judaism or Jews, but the vast bulk of their attacks are reserved for Islam and Muslims, not Judaism and Jews. Parody, free speech and secular atheism are the pretexts; anti-Muslim messaging is the primary goal and the outcome. And this messaging - this special affection for offensive anti-Islam speech - just so happens to coincide with, to feed, the militaristic foreign policy agenda of their governments and culture.

To see how true that is, consider the fact that Charlie Hebdo - the "equal opportunity" offenders and defenders of all types of offensive speech - fired one of their writers in 2009 for writing a sentence some said was anti-Semitic (the writer was then charged with a hate crime offense, and won a judgment against the magazine for unfair termination). Does that sound like "equal opportunity" offending?

So I'll repeat myself: Good job, France. You've fallen hook, line and sinker for the lowest, basest manipulation possible. You've not only become racist neandertals in service of the most cynical, racist, violent agenda possible; you've done this all the while thinking you're upholding some universal principle of good. You've had your 9/11. And you're reacting exactly the way your masters wanted: like gullible, mindless idiots. How's that for free speech?