evidence:
- too organized for a terrorist group
- pattern fits with russian operations
- who else gets kalashnikovs into france?
anybody doing this would set it up to look like a muslim attack. if it was france trying to create a police state for cop21, they'd make it look like muslims. if it was the oil industry trying to create a diversion for cop21, they'd make it look like muslims. if it's nato trying to create an excuse to increase the attacks on syria, they'd make it look like muslims.
but, ironically, we can be pretty sure that it's not - because they didn't take responsibility. isis has no motive to kill people in france, unless everybody knows it was isis. now, isis may take responsibility for something they didn't do, sure. but, they'd never carry out an attack and then deny it. that would make no sense, relative to how they operate.
so, we can actually rule out immediately that it's not isis or al qaeda.
that doesn't mean we won't be told it is, or that nato won't use it as an excuse to further their own goals.
motives for the russians:
- to pre-empt increasing threats of terrorist attacks in russia
- to divert attention from cop21
- to create pressure for france to pull back from syria. are the french prepared for the consequences of further involvement, or will they pull back like spain did?
- to give their allies in france (like the national front) an opportunity to campaign against muslims.
if the russians were going to do something like this right now, the reality is that france is the most strategic target.
jessica
+Michael P none of the previous attacks in france have been like this.
and, i don't think 9/11 was carried out by terrorists, either. i actually think it was....the germans. no, really. i know that's out of nowhere, but if you look at the information carefully, it all points to berlin. the motive was to crash the dollar.
i don't know if this was ever figured out. and, i don't expect to hear anybody blame the russians, even if it's understood that they did this. nato reacted to 9/11 by carrying out plans it wanted to do anyways - afghanistan is strategic, and iraq had nothing to do with it. as mentioned, i could very well see america reacting to this similarly. or, perhaps, you could interpret escalation in syria as a direct response, anyways.
Michael P
+jessica ISIS claimed responsibility now...that part of the russion conspiracy?
jessica
as i stated: isis will take responsibility for things that they did not do, but they will not deny things they did do.
i don't feel that isis has the capability to pull this off, and i think they would have taken credit immediately if they were actually responsible. they're taking credit for somebody else's work.
but, this is what the russians wanted. it's up to american intelligence to work it through, if they want to. it may serve their own aims to have people think it was isis, too.
there are other reasons to doubt the narrative. if you understand the real dynamics on the ground, the idea that it was isis doesn't really make any sense.
i'll give you a condition to look out for in the upcoming days and weeks: if nato responds by increasing pressure on assad (or even taking him out directly), you'll know what the claim of responsibility is really about.
and, i'd keep an eye on how the french public reacts to what marine le pen has to say about this. that's what the russians would really be angling for. we'll see if it works.
Michael P
+jessica How exactly do you "understand the real dynamics on the ground"?
You are making connections without connecting them...Just because nato responds a certain way does not mean your vague theory is correct unless you can actually connect the dots with something more than a hypothesis.
I just gave you a list of the "dynamics on the ground" by the way.
jessica
+Michael P i want to be clear that i'm not making authoritative claims about who is responsible. there are other explanations, too. we are at the whim of what we're told. we'll never really know.
what i'm arguing is that the russians are the most likely culprit, for the reasons i'm suggesting, and that isis is a very unlikely culprit - even if they took responsibility after the fact, after nobody else did, and after they took the time to prepare a statement.
understanding what's happening in the region of the middle east is very complicated. there's about ten wars happening at the same time. but, the biggest war that's happening is a struggle between a handful of american allies (mostly the saudis and turks - who are themselves in conflict with each other over who is taking the lead) and the russians for control over syria. this relies on the neo-con perspective that russia is weak due to the collapse of the soviet union and must be dismantled before it can regain it's power. removing assad from power is a part of the greater post cold war geo-political struggle between russia and the united states that, until recently, was a process of the americans knocking off russian client states.
isis exists within this context. it's an organization that is funded at arms length by saudi oligarchs to increase their own control in the region. the saudi long plan is the collapse of the borders in the region and the establishment of a larger, integrated arab-sunni state that includes most of iraq, jordan, kuwait, egypt and syria. in the short run, this would operate basically as an arab league. this goal itself goes back to the first world war.
the conflict you're seeing is far too complicated, and yet far too transparent, to call a conspiracy. it's more like a tactic to break the region up. and, france is ultimately in the alliance that is in favour of this.
an isis attack on france would be an attack on their own benefactors.
yet, it makes sense for them to claim responsibility, too, even if they did not do it - if it results in increased pressure on assad.
we live in a world where the conflicts that exist around us are kept obscure so that we do not understand them, because if we did understand them then we would oppose them.
it's consequently very hard to have these discussions in a medium such as this, as there is so much disinformation to cut through.
but, the dynamics on the ground - along with the way events have unfolded, and the complexity of the attack - all but rule isis out, despite what the media says, and what they say themselves, and how the military reacts.
you can surely agree that responding to these attacks by stepping up pressure on assad has no clear causal basis.
so, you should agree that i'm on to something if that is, in fact, what happens.
Michael P
+jessica I'm not buying any of this. You're a person on their computer postulating and theorizing. It's all very clever and imaginative and would make for a great alex jones video. You talk about all this disinformation....your comment is a big part of that disinformation. Others read it, it sounds cool and scandalous, but its nothing but imagination and theories, and then it gets repeated, and it soon becomes misinformation.
jessica
+Michael P well, i actually think that alex jones is a russian spy, too.
i don't claim it's more than theorizing, but we don't have another option if we want to understand what's happening. if you're serious about understanding world events, you have to begin with the basic starting point of being skeptical about official explanations and then try and deduce what's happening from there.
but, i do think that my perspective is educated. i'm not talking about aliens or new world orders. it's all very rooted in well understood academic themes. further, i've provided you with a predictive empirical test to check whether what i'm saying makes sense or not. we'll find out in a few days.
Michael P
+jessica Islamic terrorists coordinated an attack on French civilians and then admitted to it. Same as last time and the time before and the time before. There is really not much to it. And obviously since the attackers were Islamic terrorists claiming allegiance to ISIS that world leaders will put more pressure on Assad. Thats the logical progression. It doesnt mean some wild conspiracy theory is proven true. That is not an empirical test.
jessica
+Michael P so, the way to combat isis is to help them carry out their goals? intriguing.
the logical response would be to co-ordinate with assad in helping him stamp out isis.