Paris Attacks - What happens now?

Completely sad and heart-wrenching – that’s the only way one could describe the emotions felt after hearing and seeing the news of massacre in France – which had the echoes of 9/11 World Trade Center and 26/11 Mumbai massacre.  So many innocent lives wasted so wantonly for the sake of some demented ideology, it is just mind boggling.

While the world mourns the loss, a big question comes to mind: What happens now?

Here is what we know so far: seven hardcore ISIS terrorist carried out the heinous massacre of innocent civilians in the name of fighting Jihad. It was a highly coordinated attack which involved a lot of planning. One of the terrorists was known to French authorities and had made a trip to Syria. Among the blown up pieces of the terrorist, an intact Syrian passport was found thus making a Syria connection proof positive – notwithstanding the fact that the forged passports are also available across the border. It is also becoming clear from the report that the terrorists made their gateway to Europe by disguising as refugees.

Now let’s start by analyzing the situation from the perspective of various players involved in the Middle East crisis and how it would impact them.

For Syrian President Assad, it is nothing but a vindication of his warnings to the world that ISIS – and other “motley” crowd of “jihadis” against whom he is waging a war – is the biggest threat to the global community. (I don’t want to go into the word-play of “moderate rebels” and “hardcore rebels” so “intellectually” discussed by the western “strategists”. As Lavrov correctly stated there is no distinction between moderate and hardcore terrorist, a fact conveniently lost in the demented minds of western governments).

For the last 4 years, Assad has been battling these cut-throats – financed and released by Saudis and their side-kick Qataris, on the once peaceful nation of Syria – who are interested in seeing Assad’s removal from power to achieve three big geopolitical gains: One, It would take the Qatari gas pipeline to Europe through Turkey – which is also interested in seeing Assad’s removal from power and it is also the territory used by wannabe jihadis from all over the world to infiltrate Syria – in order to break Gazprom’s hold on European gas market.

Two, removal of Assad would also nullify the emerging Shia crescent from Iran, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon and would cement Saudi Arabia’s position as the undisputed regional power in the Gulf. It is a power struggle between Shias and Sunnis for regional supremacy.

And, third, weakening Gazprom’s hold on Europe by way of pipeline would also deliver a blow to Russian economy which is already under fruitless sanctions.

But the Russian intervention has upset the entire apple cart causing severe angst among the backwards – the 7^th century Sheikhdoms of the Middle East.  As legendary boxer Mike Tyson said it so eloquently: “Everyone has a plan till they get punched in the mouth.” The West and its allies in the Gulf certainly have got punched not in the mouth but have got a kick on their alter-ego. The smarting Middle East Sheikhdoms would give anything to see the back of Assad even if it means involving western military powers by hook or crook.

So Assad is now not only vindicated in his fight against the ISIS but is now in a stronger position thanks to Russian support which has achieved a lot more in 45 days than the western coalition (“wink, wink”) against ISIS could achieve. Russia has also proven to the world why it is necessary to fight the scourge of ISIS when it recently suffered its own tragedy when ISIS militants downed its passenger aircraft over Sinai resulting in the loss of all those on board.

How the west and, in particular, France would react to this tragedy remains to be seen.  And that is the big question. Just like with 9/11, the parallels are strikingly similar: 9/11 traced to Al-Qaeda which was traced to Afghanistan and Taliban which resulted in a US campaign which is still ongoing.

The massacre of 11/13 has now been traced to ISIS and to Syria due to the discovery of the Syrian passport and Syria is ruled by Assad – a “bad boy” in western eyes.

Would France take the same steps that US took, now that the connection to Syria has been made clear? If France decides to act against ISIS, then it remains to be seen whether it would go on bombing spree against ISIS territory or would it target Assad?

If France decides to launch air attacks on the ISIS targets, would it coordinate them with Russians who have effectively established a no-fly zone in Syria?

Also, would it coordinate air strikes with the Syrian government since it involves bombing a sovereign territory – though suffering due to the evil machinations of the Gulf States and their allies in the West?

Third, since France is a member of NATO, would NATO get involved as the territory of one of its members is attacked by a “state” – Islamic state? It would give NATO an opening it is itching for to attack Syria and topple Assad.

And, If NATO gets involved, then would Russia sit on the sidelines and see its ally get toppled by NATO under the guise of fighting ISIS?

And, lastly, from the view point of European Union itself: would it remain intact or would it dissolve with each nation going back to its national borders? Many nations like Slovenia, Hungary, Austria etc. have already erected fences to prevent the unprecedented influx of the “refugees” from Africa and Middle East which is changing the face of European civilization. The terror attacks are now going to reinforce the position of political leaders – Marine Le Pen in France, Victor Orban in Hungary and Dutch leader Geert Wilders to name a few – who are advocating complete stoppage of the refugees to prevent rapid Islamization of Europe.

What happens now is crucial. If those lives perished due to actions of evil permeating from the Middle East Petri dish, then let us act to remove that scourge from the face of the earth as Kerry said so forcefully. But, if they lost their lives due to “some machination” hell-bent on achieving some diabolical result in the Middle East, then I don’t even want to  contemplate about it as the whole thing is fraught with utter catastrophe.

For now, let us all pray for those departed souls – including the passengers on the downed Russian aircraft – who lost the opportunity to live the life to the fullest due to actions of some true evil and hellish people not even fit to be called human beings.

The Empire itching for war!!

Ever since the Iraq war of 1991 when Empire assembled a coalition to kick Saddam Hussein out of Iraq, it seems the “shock and awe” of its televised cruise missile bombing seems to have gone to the head of the rogue Empire.

During Iran-Iraq war, Iraq was USA’s buddy. But during Kuwait war, Iraq was the rogue regime, a threat to all the Middle Eastern countries. We will not go into why Saddam felt emboldened to go into Kuwait, but Iraq war was an oddity where the world united to kick Saddam and restore Kuwait’s sovereignty.

But the success of that campaign went to the head of the USA and the USA repeated the same scenario in Balkans – in the formerly Yugoslavia – aided and abetted by massive propaganda by the western media.

There was another factor that helped the NATO – Russia’s weakness. Had Russia been militarily powerful as it was during cold war, I doubt NATO would have tried what it did – bombing Serbia indiscriminately.  But that is a question for the discussion on the “if” scenario – purely academic.

Buoyed by the success of the Balkan campaign, the US switched gears and focused its attention back to the Middle East. Enter the Iraq war 2.0 with all the “theatrics” – remember Colin Powell’s “infamous” WMD tactics and mobile weapons lab? – which was based on the famous clean break strategy which called for the overthrow of Saddam’s regime and the containment of Syria through proxy war.

The war that was supposed to have been a “cakewalk” turned out to be anything but a cakewalk. Iraq is in complete chaos. This chaos has given rise to the Islamic State.

In northern parts of Iraq, the Kurds are fighting to establish their own state. The western parts are in the control of 7^th century barbarians – the Islamic State comprising mostly the disgruntled elements from Sunnis and members of Saddam’s disbanded army – who are antagonistic towards civilized way of life and  whose preferred way of dealing with opposition and contrary view point is beheading, burning, drowning, blowing up world heritage sites, etc.

Not being satisfied with the chaos and the fundamentalism that it fueled in Iraq – which somehow the Empire thought as a success – it went whole hog. It launched Arab spring. The dominoes were falling in quick succession. First to fall was Tunisia, followed by Egypt and then followed by Libya.

Only in Egypt’s case, the Arab spring turned full circle. The overthrow of secular Mubarak government saw the Muslim brotherhood, a fanatic fundamentalist organization, which sought to turn the clock back to medieval period – the hallmark of all Islamic regimes – did not fly with the Egyptian population which rose in protest forcing country’s military to step in and remove Morsi – now facing death penalty – from power. Current President Sisi seems to have reversed the tide of Arab spring in Egypt’s case.

But it is Libya which has turned into an utter turmoil – completely ungovernable. With the removal and killing of Gaddafi – the leader who warned Europe that his removal would cause a flood of migrants to European shores – Libya now has descended into a complete chaos. Different factions – zealously cut-throat in their attitude – are ruling different parts of the country. This, in return, has triggered largest wave of migrants to Europe crossing Mediterranean.

To the Empire, this was just an appetizer. Syria, along with Iran, was to be the dessert, but which eluded them thanks to Russia. By intervening in the Syria, a resurgent Russia has upended all the machinations and hideous calculations of the head-chopping nation in the world – Saudi Arabia, which currently “chairs” United Nations Human Rights Council Panel and its equally ugly side kick, Qatar – which has generously supported all sorts of ruffians and bandits in Syria to overthrow Assad’s regime with the aim of preventing the rise of Shia crescent and also to facilitate the gas pipeline through Syria to Turkey to its final destination Europe to break Gazprom’s hold on Europe.

Russia’s successful operations against Islamic State fighters by extensive pinpoint bombing – supported by a volley of “Kalibr” cruise missiles fired from Caspian sea flotilla – has ended Empire’s hegemony in the Middle East. Now even Iraq and Afghanistan are booting out the Empire’s “human rights defenders” and turning towards Russia seeking its help to combat Islamic State fighters.

But the Empire is not done yet. As is the case with a wounded and cornered animal – it hisses and lashes out viciously – the Empire is doing exactly the same. The deployment of so-called “advisors” – numbering only 50 – is nothing but an attempt to gather for itself some leverage in “deciding” Syria’s future. But the champion of democracy fails to understand – and point made clear by Russia repeatedly – that the future of Syria can only be decided by Syrians themselves and through the elections. But the Empire is allergic to this position.

The Empire has not learned the lessons of its disastrous intervention in Libya. Now in Syria, it is trying to deploy “advisors” to guide the Kurdish groups fighting ISIS. There are many, many things wrong with this development.

First of all, nobody – certainly not the sovereign Government of Syria – has invited the Empire to place their advisors with the Kurdish militants fighting ISIS.

Secondly, The Empire will be using Turkish airbase at Incirlik to carry out the “advising” mission. Consider this: The Turks are against the Kurds and are fighting them. The Empire is now going to align itself with the sworn enemies of Ankara and going to use the Turkish airbase. What a comedic situation! But that is the hallmark of the US foreign policy: Comedic and Absurd!

Third, Russia has effectively created a no-fly zone by placing advanced anti-aircraft defenses. The aircrafts of the Empire – sooner or later – are bound to come in contact with them.

Fourth, with Iranian IRGC force and the battle-hardened disciplined Hezbollah effectively operating in the Syrian theater, they too are going to come in contact – again sooner or later – with the Empire’s advisors.

What happens then is anybody’s guess. Russia has repeatedly said that the lawless situation perpetuated by the crazed hegemon – bankrupt in every way – can no longer be tolerated.

EvenCongresswoman Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii, member of Armed Services Committee) has begun to sound alarm regarding the Obamaregime’s “escalation”.

And, there is now the case of South China Sea. Sailing by the US destroyer Lassen – close to the China’s man-made island – was a kind of thumbing of nose towards China. China patiently watched the provocation and did not respond to the violation of its territorial waters. China did lodge the strongest protest and its foreign ministry spokesman has warned against the future violations. Whether the Empire will heed them, is another matter.

Which brings to mind the question why the Empire is so hell bent on war?

There are many, many answers, but I can think of mostly two as the most important: One, the loss of position as the sole superpower in the world and the rise of multi-polar world which is a complete anathema to its ideology – “Wolfowitz Doctrine” – of being the sole “benevolent” Hegemon in the world.

Secondly, and most important, I believe – is the precarious financial condition of the Empire: its debt is exploding exponentially, now approaching 19.6 trillion dollars; unemployment number – though officially manipulated and kept low – is rising; job creation is absolutely dismal; number of people out of workforce has reached almost 94 million; nearly 46 million Americans are on food stamps; majority of the jobs that are getting created are in the health and hospitality industry with many of them being part-time jobs; Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) has turned out to be anything but affordable both for the employers and ordinary Americans as well and health co-ops some of whom have closed the shop; Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid etc. are all facing problems. The list goes on and on.

There is no way that the economic situation can be reversed. No wonder the Federal Reserve knows what a rate hike would mean for the US economy – complete collapse and social chaos – and is therefore dithering about raising them.  James Carville’s – Bill Clintons’ Campaign manager during 1992 Presidential run – famous words come to mind: “The economy, stupid”.

The only solution to come out of this dire economic situation – with loss of hegemony thrown in the mix for cosmetic purposes – seems to be “War”. 

And, the geniuses – aka “Madcaps” – of the US establishment seem gung-ho for such a scenario to achieve: One, complete Hegemony over the planet, and secondly, wipe out all the debts as only the war can achieve that.

Dmitry Rogozin, Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister, has pointed out “there will be no winners”.  The mankind will not survive the conflagration, if one ever breaks out among military powers of the world. (Even the doomsday clock has been moved closer to 3 minutes to midnight.)

But this fact seems to have been lost on the Neocon establishment hell bent on establishing hegemony and pushing for more robust military interventions abroad, trampling all international laws and violating national sovereignties in the process – a hallmark of colonial attitude.

Deploying “advisors” to Syrian theater and taunting China seems to point to one and only conclusion: The Empire is itching for war as a way to solve its own problems.

Mankind is squarely in the cross-hairs of the “champion of democracy”.