Produced and published by Global Gold.
The tragic Paris attacks are leading me to raise questions once again, since it is the second time that France has topped the news headlines this year. I believe that followers of Global Gold’s Outlook Report are by now aware that I am a big fan of historícal research. I tend to consult my history books to reflect on the past and see if I can recognize patterns similar to the events we are experiencing today.
Looking back, it seems obvious that in the course of the 20th and 21st century, wars went from being about nationalism to ideological wars (communism versus democracy or what we would call ‘state capitalism disguised as democracy’), to becoming about religion, which sort of takes us back to the dark ages.
Since the Berlin wall came down back in 1989 and communism was defeated, the latter has been replaced by the “Muslim World” as the new enemy. We could see this change in Hollywood movies and in our media coverage.
“All terrorists are Muslims” – except the 94% who aren’t. Attribution of terror attacks in the US between 1980 to 2005 according to the FBI.
Audiences which are unaware of political contexts, easily link Islam to terrorism. As a result, they have wrongfully become two sides of the same coin. In our coverage of the Charlie Hebdo attacks, we talked a lot about freedom of the press. However, at this point I would like to take the opportunity to look at the Paris attacks in a broader context.
“They Hate us Because we are Free!”
Since 9/11 Western governments have conveniently used the “war on terror” to launch military attacks on the Middle East. Whenever an attack occurred on Western soil, they offered the explanation that “they hate us because we’re free”. Ryan McMaken from the Mises Institute wrote the following a few days ago:
“[…]that this slogan has been especially effective among very ignorant sectors of the population who seemed to be under the impression that the United States had been engaged in non-interventionist foreign policy prior to the 9/11 attacks. “Why we were just minding our own business”, came the shocked and exasperated claims of the know-nothings. “These Arabs just attacked us for no reason, so they must just hate us because we’re so doggone free.”
The problem is that there is a large segment of western society that believes these statements, and even supports this viewpoint. As a result, military involvement in the Middle East has grown out of proportion. Now, 13 years after the beginning of the second war in Iraq, the West can’t get itself out of the mess that it created with its own hands.
Terror attacks in Western Europe from 1970 to 2015. “Terrorism is a completely new, giant problem, that requires us to relinquish many of the civil liberties we have taken for granted in recent decades. Otherwise we will all die!” Except that terrorism was a far bigger problem in Western Europe in the 1970s and 1980s, and we somehow managed to pull through at the time without surrendering our civil liberties.
History tells us a few important facts: the US used rebel groups in Afghanistan to fight the Soviet Union. These groups were led by Osama Bin Laden, back then hailed by the Americans as a hero, who later formed Al-Qaeda that became the synonym for terror. But since Bin Laden was killed, terror needed a new face: ISIS.
ISIS is an off-shoot of Al-Qaeda. However, the reason why it gained power so quickly is due to the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Not only did the invasion topple a government, it wrecked a whole country, destabilized an entire region and left a power vacuum behind. This power vacuum allowed armed groups to emerge and to gain a foothold in the region.
ISIS managed to find its way to Syria by manipulating the war between Bashar Al Assad and the Free Syrian Army. This war meant the destruction of Syria and its infrastructure, instability, and a massive flow of refugees into neighboring countries that has recently begun to shift to Europe.
In remarks to American journalist Ben Swann in his documentary “Origin of Isis”, Daniel Mc Adams (Executive Director of the Ron Paul Institute) described ISIS as the best-funded armed group, since it has secured oil from fields in Syria that is now being sold in the black market. All of this is a result of the direct action taken by the US and Europe in the Middle East – they were not merely “minding their own business”, were they?
ISIS is not a Coincidence – it is the Logical Result of Western Policies since the Cold War
This goes even further back than 9/11, since the emergence of armed Islamist groups like the Taliban, Al-Qaida and ISIS are the logical consequence of the massive interventions that have occurred since the 1950s. Even politicians don’t deny that these foreign policies are contradictory. When asked about the sanctions on Iraq up to 2003 that led to the death of an estimated 500,000 children (more people than died in Hiroshima), Madeleine Albright said “the price was worth it”.
It is clear even to those who are not afraid to recognize their own “cognitive dissonance”, that the Islamist armed groups, whether the Taliban, Al-Qaida or ISIS have all been financed and armed by the same powers that are responsible for waging war on the Third World for decades.
So why was Paris attacked? Daniel Mc Adams states that the U.S. is “hostage to its own regime-change philosophy”. However, the rest of the Western world is also a hostage in one way or another. The fact that Paris was targeted for yet another catastrophic attack could be linked to France’s intensive meddling in Africa and the Middle East in recent years.
The French government alone conducted more than 200 bombing raids in the Middle East in little over a year. The French also have a colonial history of more than 100 years in the Middle East and still have several thousand troops deployed in West Africa. They were also involved in NATO’s war against the Libyan government in 2011.
However, there is another side to the story, as some facts about the Paris attacks were quite strange and raised red flags. First of all, a multi-site simulation of a terrorist attack involving first responders, police, emergency services and other personnel was planned in the morning hours of November 13 (as confirmed by Patrick Pelloux, EMT and chronicler at Charlie Hebdo, to France Info radio on the following day).
This was similar to the government exercises conducted during the bombings in London, Madrid and Boston. I find this quite disturbing. When something is repeated so many times, it is usually no longer a coincidence. Secondly, the directors of the CIA and French intelligence held a meeting a few days before the attack.
Could this be just another coincidence? These “coincidences” remind me of 1990, when Italian Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti officially revealed information on ‘Operation Gladio’. Gladio was a secret ‘stay-behind’ operation created by NATO with the help of the Pentagon, the CIA and MI6. It orchestrated bombings in Italy and other European countries.
The goal was to rally people’s support for their governments in Europe in the fight against communism. The Swiss historian and peace researcher, Dr. Daniele Ganser and others have written about this dark form of government oppression. Ganser quotes right-wing extremist Vincenzo Vinciguerra, who had ties to the Gladio branch of the Italian military secret service, as saying:
“You had to attack civilians, the people, women, children, innocent people, unknown people far removed from any political game. The reason was quite simple. They were supposed to force these people, the Italian public, to turn to the state to ask for greater security. This is the political logic that lies behind all the massacres and the bombings which remain unpunished, because the state cannot convict itself or declare itself responsible for what happened.”
Don’t get me wrong, I am not claiming that Paris was a false flag attack, because I really don’t know. Nevertheless, what can be said is that many terror attacks/incidents in the past were conducted by the “Deep State” and its servants, the secret agencies, with the aim of shaping people’s perception towards certain groups or countries. Therefore I believe it would be naïve to take the official story for granted without even asking a few questions.
Gladio is inter alia a perfect example of how governments have used violence against their own citizens to shape the mindset of the public to unify it towards a common goal and objective, which in our present case is counter-terrorism. The problem is however that by giving its support, the public indirectly relinquishes many freedoms and liberties.
After the Siege: Closing on the Home Front
The aftermath of the attack will also have repercussions at home. Now that the pretext has been created, the state can justify curtailing civil liberties, as well as stepping up monitoring and coercion of the population. In our interview with Prof. Václav Klaus, the former President of the Czech Republic, shortly after the Charlie Hebdo incident, he warned us that we will see new attempts to limit our freedoms under the banner of fighting terrorism. This is exactly what is happening today. By the time this article was written, France had already announced that it will derogate from the European Convention on Human Rights during its state of emergency!
What is truly astonishing though is the fact that governments seem to have little regard for their own people. I have the feeling that some people in power seemingly believe we are completely ignorant. Of course they have also created the mechanisms for indoctrination. Just look at our public education system.
Wilhelm Wundt, the father of experimental psychology (and his proponents John Dewey and Edward Thorndike in the U.S.), the scientist who shaped today’s public educational system, explained it in this way: “Man is devoid of spirit and self-determinism”. He set out to prove that “man is the summation of his experience, of the stimuli which intrude upon his consciousness and unconsciousness.”
Similarly, H. L. Mencken, a German-American journalist, wrote in the April 1924 issue of The American Mercury that the aim of public education is not:
“[…] to fill the young of the species with knowledge and awaken their intelligence… Nothing could be further from the truth. The aim… is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed and train a standardized citizenry, to put down dissent and originality. That is its aim in the United States… and that is its aim everywhere else.”
H.L. Mencken in 1951
Photo credit: Robert Kneichse
Our public education system is based on methods that show we can grow up based on stimulus-response compatibility. Our way of thinking and our mindset are based on conditioning and not on logical thinking. Therefore, Wundt and his associates believed that the State seeks to indoctrinate us through its education system to believe that the rights of the individual are secondary (at best) to the “greater good” of the collective.
The renowned psychoanalyst Arno Gruen says that we enter the world as individuals, but leave it as copies. Our education system discourages the development of independent thought. If you don’t fit into the preset mold then you are wrong. We have lost our free will.
Stop Fighting Symptoms – Think Independently and Look for Cause and Effect!
I hope you are not offended by my words and will forgive me because I’m a freedom and liberty loving Swiss. I have been raised in a political environment of neutrality with no foreign intervention in 500 years and a political system that provides for a lower degree of centralization of power than any other form of government.
Therefore, we have never experienced nationalistic or even racist propaganda campaigns, and have never had presidents telling us to wage a war against another country for one cause or another. The belief that peace can be created through bombing and killing millions of civilians is something I fail to understand. I personally prefer to think independently and to investigate and explore instead of prematurely taking positions or adopting the views of others.
Zurich, Switzerland. Somehow the Swiss have managed not to get involved in foreign wars for approximately five centuries. This has evidently not harmed them at all – nowadays, the country is regularly ranked as one of the two countries with the highest degree of economic freedom in the world (the other one is Hong Kong).
Photo via luxuryrehab.in
We have to think in terms of cause and effect, unlike the mainstream media, public intellectuals and politicians who are only focused on symptoms. For example, I hold that the cause of high crime rates is an unsound society that is negatively impacted by a State that legitimizes the use of coercive measures (including the use of force). Similarly, an overbearing State that uses force against foreigners will always use coercion against its own people as well, both physically and psychologically. The suppression of independent thought is intentional.
Western governments (aided by the mainstream media) refuse to recognize that the cause of the refugee waves is their management of the situation in the Middle East. Their direct and deliberate actions were ulitmately responsible. The irony is that Western governments that have sent bombs and drones to the Middle East are now asking their citizens to embrace the refugees and live side-by-side with them in the same villages and towns, even though society has been conditioned not to accept them.
Middle Eastern refugees near the Austrian border
Photo credit: AP / HO
When I look at Paris and the absurd Western policies promoting “universalism”, I’m not sure if I should laugh or cry – the insanity among our rulers is just beyond belief. On the other hand, the ignorance of the masses is quite unsettling as well.
Our political economy reinforces state control and our education system is designed for indoctrination. No one knows the future, but we can certainly identify trends. My personal opinion is that the powers that be are promoting a religious war, which intends to make Islam the opponent of the rest of the world. This is reinforced by politicians who should be serving the people, yet self-preservation leads them to serve the State, their true master. These circumstances create a dangerous conflict of interest.
This political context, combined with our economy, which is no longer based on production and savings, but on printing money to finance the welfare/warfare state, that moreover relies on bribing politicians who bail out too-big-to-fail companies, impoverishing the middle class through inflation and higher taxes, is leading us to total dependence on governments.
When we further add the factor of terror attacks, the response of western governments is to intensify their military attacks in the Middle East. This has only one logical consequence: hatred between Western countries and the Muslim people will intensify. The parallel society in Western nations and radicalization on a global scale will increase further. More terror attacks will follow, and governments will become all the more coercive as they steer toward totalitarianism. People won’t be able to flee, because they are trapped in a system that controls everything and everyone.
Statist German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831), whose ideas are poisoning political discourse and informing State propaganda to this day
Engraving by Julius Ludwig Sebbers
This is what is happening right now. This is what our political leaders are enforcing and we are all just waiting to see what is going to happen next. The pretext is clear: “they hate us because we are free”. This is simply just another way of using Hegelian Dialectic to fool the masses. From this system of Hegelian philosophy comes the historical dialectic, or as per Anthony C. Sutton, the notion that all historical events emerge from a conflict between opposing forces.
How so? Any idea or implementation of an idea may be seen as a thesis. This thesis will encourage the emergence of opposing forces, known as the antithesis. The final outcome will be neither thesis nor antithesis, but a synthesis of the two forces in conflict. Hegel described the function of a Parliament or a Congress as merely to allow individuals to feel as if their opinions had some value. Hegel wrote:
“By virtue of this participation, subjective liberty and conceit, with their general opinion, (individuals) can show themselves palpably efficacious and enjoy the satisfaction of feeling themselves to count for something.”
War, the organized conflict of nations for Hegelians, is only the visible outcome of the clash between ideas. As John Dewey, the Hegelian darling of the modern education system, puts it:
“War is the most effective preacher of the vanity of all merely finite interest, it puts an end to that selfish egoism of the individual by which he would claim his life and property as his own or as his family’s.”
American Hegelian philosopher John Dewey (1859-1952) – yet another etatiste who worshipped war as a means to promote collectivism.
Photo via Keystone View Co., New York
Dialectic in praxis can come as follows: Create a problem (bomb the Middle East), provoke a reaction (refugee streams), come up with a solution (universalism) and then start over again. Create a problem (terror attacks), provoke a reaction (people start mistrusting and fighting each other), come up with solution (enforce state control and deprive the public of its liberties)… it goes on and on.
Is there a light at the end of the tunnel? I believe that we always have a choice, but we also have to actually makeit. The first thing that needs to be done is to end our military involvement in the Middle East and Africa. If we favor war over peace, it will destroy our culture, our traditions, and our freedom. Humanity is going to become a “borrowed word”.
I strongly believe that people will one day open their eyes and refuse to let the media or politicians impose their reality on them. Only independent thinking leads directly to the cause and shifts the focus away from mere symptoms. I remain convinced that in the future, people will understand what Murray Rothbard wrote a few years ago – namely that peace is the only sound foundation for a society that wishes to live in liberty:
“Libertarianism holds that the only proper role of violence is to defend person and property against violence, that any use of violence that goes beyond such just defense is itself aggressive, unjust, and criminal.”
Murray Rothbard: Similar to Mises, he believed that peace, not war, is the “father of all things”.
Photo credit: Ludwig von Mises Institute
Charts and maps by: Atlas / QZ.com, Loonwatch.com, Wikipedia
