November 16, 2015

After Paris Attacks A Call for Justice – Not Vengeance

Phyllis Bennis: "The years after 9/11 are a powerful reminder that an ‘all-out war’ on terror only creates more terrorism."

By Phyllis Bennis, November 14, 2015. Originally in The Nation.

"France is in mourning and in shock. We still don’t know how many people were killed and injured. In fact, there’s a lot we still don’t know — including who was responsible. The ISIS claim of responsibility tells us virtually nothing about who really planned or carried out the attacks; opportunist claims are an old story. But the lack of information hasn’t prevented lots of assumptions about who is “obviously” responsible and what should be done to them. Already the call is rising across France — “this time it’s all-out war.”

But we do know what happens when cries of war and vengeance drown out all other voices; we’ve heard them before.

A few days after the 9/11 attacks, we at IPS and some of our allies organized a public statement whose lead signatories included Harry Belafonte, Danny Glover, Gloria Steinem, Rosa Parks and many more. The statement reflected the deeply-rooted fear we all shared, that however horrific the attacks of September 11, it was George W. Bush’s statement in response to those attacks that threatened the world. That was the moment he announced that the response to this enormous crime against humanity would be a war—that he would lead the world to war “against terror.”

We know how that played out. It didn’t work out so well. Already we’re hearing French officials and commentators and pundits calling for more of the same. “This time it’s all-out war” is the French version of Bush’s “you’re either with us or with the terrorists.”

"... now everyone knows the devastating wars that killed so many hundreds of thousands of ordinary people didn’t work to wipe out terrorism. Terrorism survives wars; people don’t. We saw the proof of that again last night in Paris, and we saw it the day before in Beirut. We were hearing sounds of victory from US war-makers. The Obama strategy was working, they said. ISIS was being pushed back from Sinjar by Kurdish militias. A US airstrike assassinated Mohammed Emwasi, known as “jihadi John” from the ISIS videos. Yet the war — a new version of that same “global war on terror” — is still being waged, and clearly it still isn’t working. Because you can’t bomb terrorism — you can only bomb people. You can bomb cities. Sometimes you might kill a terrorist — but that doesn’t end terrorism, it only encourages more of it."
... Read full posting here

Other commentary: Paris: Western Nations Bring This Onto Themselves

By Patrick L. Smith, www.salon.com
November 15th, 2015

"It is time to square our “values” with our history.The West’s behaved horrifically in Middle East for decades. We can’t be surprised by Paris. Let’s look in a mirror...

Excerpt: "Given French jets have recently flown beside American formations on bombing sorties across Syria, it does not get much clearer: If we term what is going on in Syria and Iraq a war, it would follow that we must count Friday’s events in Paris another theater in it.

What has followed since Friday is familiar enough. Hollande declared a state of emergency and closed France’s borders; the French military is mobilized and the police’s powers are to be increased. Obama pledged “to provide whatever assistance that the government and people of France need to respond.” If the past is any guide, this surely refers to America’s surveillance and intelligence capabilities and all the technologies associated with these.

What has not followed is too familiar. No one, once again, asks the simple question, “Why?”"... Read full posting here