Category: News

Terrorism is great for business if you’re in the business of growing the government leviathan. The bodies in Paris are not yet buried, while the vultures with dollar signs (and pounds and Euros, etc) in their eyes have already swooped down for a feast.

Terrorism, what is it good for?

1) The military-industrial-Congressional complex: Thanks to Glenn Greenwald for bringing to light the enormous profits that are already rolling in for the merchants of death as Paris still smolders. As Greenwald points out, the markets could hardly wait to start buying from these military suppliers:

   

And France’s largest arms manufacturer:

2) The surveillance/spy state: This morning UK prime minister David Cameron announced that, in light of the Paris attacks, an additional 2,000 spies will be hired in Britain’s MI5, MI6, and GCHQ. The British are among the most spied-upon people on the planet, and with a 15 percent increase in spy hires they can look forward to having even more of their private lives in view of government snoops, as well as their civil liberties further clipped in the name of freedom. Cameron calls ramping up the surveillance state “invest[ing] more in our national security,” but does anyone believe an even larger spy bureaucracy will keep Britain safe?

Continue reading “Who’s Making A Killing From the Paris Terror Attacks?”

Saudi Arabia’s desire to be a regional leader in the Middle East has led it to act as a primary conveyor belt of jihadists into Syria, where the Saudis seek the overthrow of the secular Assad government. When Saudi-backed al-Qaeda rebels get hurt in southern Syria, they are patched up in Israeli hospitals. But the head-chopping Saudis are facing slow-motion suicide. Assad did not melt away, and the Saudis’ brutal war on Yemen continues to empty the Saudi coffers. The oil glut has shut off the welfare tap to keep its citizens at bay. Still the US continues to coddle the Saudi tyrants, this week announcing that it would sell them $1.3 billion worth of bombs to drop on the suffering Yemenis. More on the US/Saudi dysfunctional relationship on the Liberty Report:

Reprinted from The Ron Paul Institute for Peace & Prosperity.

For a columnist or pundit, there’s no greater temptation than to get something written – Quick! Now! – about the latest, greatest, deadliest catastrophe. After all, if it bleeds it leads.

I felt that urge the night of the Paris terror attacks. For once, I resisted. I wanted more information. I wanted to see how the usual suspects responded. I wanted to see whether or not my own immediate assumptions and predictions would hold up before I held forth.

Unfortunately, my assumptions and predictions turned out to be spot-on. The American and European political classes didn’t bother waiting for the bodies to cool – or, for that matter, to even be counted – before commencing their triumphant dance on the graves. The attacks may have been unexpected, but they certainly weren’t unwelcome. The political class immediately pivoted from a pro forma parody of normal peoples’ heartfelt condemnation to special pleading for more power.

Within hours, prominent War Party mouthpiece (and former US ambassador to the United Nations) John Bolton rushed out a piece on “four important lessons we must learn” from the attacks. Predictably, “never trust John Bolton with any decision more consequential than ordering pizza, and even then be watchful lest ye end up with anchovies” didn’t make the cut.

Continue reading “Paris: No Grave Too Warm for the Political Class to Dance On”

What happened in Paris is not right, just inevitable

Since 2011, France has been militarily involved in five countries – four of which have a predominantly Muslim population:

• Syria (2015, 87% Muslim)
• Iraq (2014, 99% Muslim)
• Mali (2014, 90% Muslim)
• Central African Republic (2013, 15% Muslim)
• Libya (2011, 97% Muslim)

Do those who mourn the victims in Paris recognize that France is killing people in other countries and that those actions have created enemies? Indeed, France is experiencing payback for it’s military expansionism in largely Muslim countries.

France struck the first blow by dropping bombs in Libya, Mali, Iraq and Syria. The Islamic State didn’t start this fight.

It doesn’t make what the Islamic State did right, but when one country drops bombs in another country they make it more likely that someone is going to attack them in their own country.

Continue reading “Terrorism Is the Price of Imperialism”

Jason Ditz, Antiwar.com’s News Editor was interviewed about ISIS on New Zealand Newstalk ZB, part of the national New Zealand Media and Entertainment, so this interview was broadcast nationwide.

Listen to the 12-minute interview here.

Bombing cities, as France did yesterday, and as the US and Russia continue to do, will only create more radicalization by killing still more civilians. Want to eradicate ISIS?

Step 1: The West should just stop supporting the Syrian insurgency, and stop supporting the Gulf States that are also supporting the insurgency. With the flow of weapons and money halted, rebels will defect, and the ground forces of the secular Syrian regime that the US has been trying to overthrow will be able to push ISIS and Syrian Al Qaeda out of Syria.

Step 2: The US should stop supporting the sectarian Shiite government in Iraq. Only then will that government be willing to compromise with the Sunnis they have been ethnic cleansing for so long, and only then will the tribal Sunnis feel they can afford to turn against ISIS again, as they did in 2006. This will give the Salafists fleeing Syria nowhere to run to.

Just stop constantly making everything worse. Just stop intervening.