250 people killed in Ashanti

A total of 250 people were killed in car crashes in the Ashanti Region, last year, while 1,423 others, suffered various injuries.    

Compared with the 2013’s figure of 280 deaths with the number of injured persons standing at 1,495, there was a reduction in the fatality rate.  

Mr. Thomas Wisdom Boakye, the Regional Manager of the National Road Safety Commission (NRSC), who provided the statistics at a press briefing in Kumasi, said the period saw 233 pedestrian getting knocked down by vehicles, motorbikes and bicycles.

He noted that most of the accident deaths could have been avoided given timely rescue and proper professional handling of the victims.    

 

This, he said was one area serious attention should be focused on, going forward.   

Mr. Boakye spoke of the need for people to quickly call in the Ghana National Fire Service and the National Ambulance Service – the appropriate rescue operation teams during such emergencies.

He condemned the insensitivity of some individuals, who instead of making efforts to get emergency aid for the crash victims, resort to taking pictures with their smart phones to post these on the social media.

He said there are yet others, who take advantage of such unfortunate situations to steal from people, instead of providing assistance to them and condemned their depravity.

Mr. Boakye reminded drivers to be more cautious and to ensure that they paid due regard to road traffic laws to make the roads safe. 

He asked them to avoid speeding, drunk-driving and over loading of their vehicles.

GNA

Editorial

SHAMEFUL HYPOCRISY

It is unbelievable but it has happened. Israeli Prime Minister, Netanyahu joined world leaders to protest against religious bigotry and political extremism.

Wow!

Isn’t Netanyahu one of the world’s most accomplished terrorist? Didn’t his government only recently announce that it wants to turn Israel into a Jewish state?

The hypocrisy of the whole enterprise of protest against extremism is laid bare with the participation of the world’s leading extremist.

In any case were the extremists causing havoc in Europe and elsewhere not recruited, trained and armed by the same western leaders?

What is the difference between these western leaders and the confused Islamists when they believe that the price of being different is death?

We need to condemn all terrorists’ acts even if they involve so called super powers sending out drones to kill innocent women and children.

KNUST churns out 1, 287 nurses

Prof Naana Jane Opoku Agyemang

Three nursing training institutions affiliated to the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) have held a joint graduation ceremony with a call to nurses to accept postings to deprived rural communities.

Dr. Kwaku Agyemang-Mensah, Minister of Health, said they should accept to work under challenging conditions to bring relief to the sick.

He said nursing is all about service to humanity.

He asked them to show empathy to patients, uphold their code of ethics, maintain high standards of professionalism and should be diligent and to demonstrate passion for the job of helping to save lives.

In all, 1,287 students from the Kumasi Nursing and Midwifery Training School, Asante-Mampong Midwifery and Health Assistants Training School and the Saint Patrick’s Midwifery Training School at Offinso graduated and were presented with certificates.

They represent the first batch of nurse trainees to be graduated under the KNUST-Ministry of Health partnership which was formalised with a Memorandum of Understanding, last year, mandating the university to supervise the training of nurses.

By the agreement, all nursing, community health and midwifery training colleges, as well as environmental health and health assistants’ training schools come under the academic management of the KNUST, including the award of certificates. 

Dr Agyemang-Mensah asked them to work hard in their various capacities to bring down the incidence of maternal and infant mortality and tame the resurgence of communicable diseases.

Professor William Otoo Ellis, Vice-Chancellor of the KNUST, said the academic facility has the capacity to nurture the training institutions under it into fully-fledged reputable tertiary health training colleges. 

The university, he said, would work in concert with the academic board of the colleges and deepen its monitoring and supervisory roles to raise standards.

GNA

Technical Universities to curb youth unemployment – Mahama

President John Mahama

President John Dramani Mahama, says the conversion of the nation’s Polytechnics into Technical Universities, will curb youth unemployment, alleviate poverty and create wealth.

He said the conversion had a strong link with training in medium and high level employable skills, which was the focus of Technical Universities.

He observed that the policy of government was ultimately to convert all Polytechnics into Technical Universities.

“It is in this vein that government commits to ensuring the successful implementation of the conversion in line with the nation’s economic restructuring and global competitiveness,” President Mahama made these remarks in Accra in a speech read on his behalf by Mr Fiifi Kwetey, Minister of Food and Agriculture, at the stakeholder Consultative Forum on the conversion of polytechnics into technical universities.

The forum on the theme: “Repositioning Technical Education as a Driver of Economic Transformation and National Development,” brought together a number of distinguished personalities in the education sector for deliberations.

Its aim was to create the context for understanding and collaboration amongst all stakeholders and it was also a platform for a national discourse in a bid to fine tune on-going implementation processes towards the conversion.

President Mahama said the decision to convert Polytechnics into Technical Universities was carefully thought through.

He said major considerations, included the need to re-brand technical education, deepen its relevance and give it the necessary support and attention for the country’s development.

“We envision the transformed Polytechnics to Technical Universities as institutions that have not merely assumed new names but a new culture and character with a more purposeful social contract with the tax payer.

“The decision of conversion is also to emphasize a close engagement with the world of work without necessarily disengaging with the requisite academic orientation of higher education institutions,” President Mahama said.

“The new universities will be the bridge between the world of science and industry. They will forge a symbiotic relationship with industry by utilizing the resources of industry for innovation and technological advancement of our country,” he added.

He said: “We cannot transform the economy of this country by doing business as usual. We must put premium on knowledge generation and creativity to create a knowledge-based economy.

“Re-branding of our Polytechnics is one of the strategic objectives for driving the change. We must carefully execute the process in order to carve a desirable future for our present and next generation.”

President Mahama said government had taken note of the recommendations by the Technical Committee which had set the effective start date of converting the Polytechnics to Technical Universities for September, 2016.

He said government acknowledged the various challenges in our quest to economic transformation, and would continue to put in place interventions aimed at meeting the needs of the citizenry.

The President observed that despite these challenges, successes had been made in ensuring that our educational system produced the human capital with the right mix of skills to propel our economic agenda.

He said government through the Council for Technical and Vocational Education and Training in collaboration with Amatrol, had provided state-of-the-art equipment to the Takoradi and Kumasi polytechnics for training in Engineering.

President Mahama said about six laboratories in each Polytechnic have been equipped and built at a cost of five million dollars,  in areas such as electronics, pumping systems, advance manufacturing, solar and wind technology.

He said the facility would be extended to the Ho, Koforidua and Tamale Polytechnics, adding that government allocated an amount of four million Ghana Cedis through GETFund in the 2014 budget for the project, adding that this year’s allocation would increase as part of processes for the conversion to technical university status.

The President commended the Technical Committee for a good work done, and extended government’s appreciation to Deutscher Akademischer Austausch Dient (DAAD) for their assistance.

Professor Jane Naana Opoku-Agyemang, Minister of Education, announced that the Technical Universities Draft Bill to enhance the process had also been completed.

Dr George Afeti, Chairman of the Technical Committee on the Conversion of Polytechnics in Ghana to Technical Universities, presented the report’s recommendation to the forum.

He urged the Ministry of Education to take steps to quickly sign a Memorandum of Understanding with DAAD to bring into full effect the contents of the letter of intent signed with DAAD in April 2014.

GNA

Will France review policy on Syria?

Terrorists operating in Syria

By Yusuf Fernandez

The deadly attack against the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo has put on the table the issue of the fight against terrorism. Almost simultaneously, a terrorist attack took place on the border between Iraq and Saudi Arabia. Three Saudi guards, including General Odah al-Balawi, were killed by ISIL terrorists who were trying to infiltrate the kingdom. Both incidents have highlighted the vulnerability of both countries to the terrorist threat.

However, France has maintained a very ambiguous stance on terrorism in the Arab world. In their speeches, French leaders reaffirm time and again their commitment to fight terrorism in all its forms. On the ground, however, things are different. France has contributed money and weapons to the terrorist groups in northern Syria in order to overthrow the government of Bashar al-Assad. President François Hollande himself recently acknowledged that France has armed the “rebels” fighting the Syrian army. The same operation had previously been carried out in Libya. France encouraged armed militias to fight the regime of Muammar al Gaddafi before bombarding the country, which has now turned into a sanctuary for international terrorism.

In its policies in the Middle East, France has allied with some Persian Gulf regimes sponsoring extremism and terrorism, such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Some French experts claim that Saudi Arabia has worked in France to convert Muslims to Wahhabism, the Saudi state´s religion and the ideology of Al Qaeda and ISIL. Issa Ayyoubi, a professor of international law, points out that Saudi Arabia “has never invested money on the development of Muslims in France as a community, but it has only sought to spread the Wahabi trend”. Both Saudi Arabia and Qatar have invested a lot of money in France and have achieved undeniable influence over the French foreign policy. All these countries have sponsored terrorist groups fighting the Syrian state.

Therefore, French policies and Wahabi sectarian propaganda have actually encouraged hundreds of French -and European- young people to go and fight in Syria. However, these policies have clearly backfired. Two of the terrorists who carried out the attack against Charlie Hebdo, Said and Cherif Kouachi had recently come from Syria where they had reportedly gained combat experience.

Now, European countries fear the return of their nationals fighting in Syria. French -and other European- intelligence services are knocking on the doors of Damascus in order to establish security coordination with Syria. According to some Lebanese media, Syria has responded positively to French demands, but it has stipulated that France must restore its diplomatic relations with Syria in order to establish such cooperation. France has so far failed to respond.

Unfortunately, the attacks will be used by the far-right parties, above all the neofascist National Front, to increase their demagogic campaign against immigrants, and especially against Arabs and Muslims. This fact shows that the interests of extremists (both neofascists and Takfirists) intersect and the two groups need each other in order to achieve their common goal: to destroy religious and social coexistence in France and Europe.

In this way, apart from the employees of the magazine who were killed, the real victim of the terrorist attack in Paris will be the Muslim community in France, which was already suffering from acute Islamophobia before the attacks. The real winners are the Marine Le Pen´s party and the entire right-wing extremist movement in Europe. Therefore, no one can exclude the possibility that the Paris attacks were facilitated, and even instigated, by agencies and interests of which the terrorists were even not aware.

Significantly, the attackers appeared to have detailed intelligence on the magazine. “The attackers were well informed and knew the weekly editorial board meeting was Wednesday at 10 a.m. Otherwise, the rest of the week, people are not around so much,” another Charlie Hebdo journalist told Le Monde.

Two choices

Currently, France has two choices, as the United States did after the September 11 attacks. The country can engage in a serious process to strengthen its political and security position, which requires a radical change in its strategy, or it can escape forward and maintain its erroneous policies that have led to the growth of terrorist groups and their ideology not only in Syria and Iraq, but also in Europe and other parts of the world.

France is taking part in the airstrikes of the US-led coalition in Iraq but, according to experts, these attacks will be ineffective without intelligence and military cooperation with the governments of the region, particularly the Syrian one. The Syrian army is today the most powerful force in the war against terrorism in the region and the French arrogant policy not to speak with Damascus has started to turn against France itself.

The fight against terrorism requires a more serious commitment by Western countries and France in particular. French and American leaders should review their position and abandon all practices encouraging terrorism, such as the training and arming of “moderate rebels in Syria” who are neither moderate nor rebels but bloodthirsty terrorists. Only time will tell if he infamous massacre at Charlie Hebdo magazine will lead French -and Western- political and military leaders to change their policy on counter-terrorism in order to improve the regional and international cooperation on this issue and to prevent more infamous attacks both in Europe and the Middle East.

YF/NN

Source:www.presstv.com

West’s sickening moral hijack of Paris massacre

Francois Hollande, French President

By Finian Cunningham

The Western reaction to the massacre at a French magazine last week is sickening. Western leaders, from US President Barack Obama to Pope Francis, from Britain’s Queen Elizabeth to United Nation Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, have all come out in force to issue statements of condemnation and condolences over the mass killing of 12 people by two gunmen at a Parisienne office.

French President Francois Hollande declared a national day of mourning, flags are being flown at half-mast on government buildings and town halls, and the bells of Notre Dame Cathedral in the French capital rang out to pay respect for the victims.

But let’s put the slaughter of the French journalists and twopolicemen in perspective. Almost every week, a similar number of people are killed in air strikes and aerial drone attacks carried out by the US and its NATO allies, including France, in countries across Central Asia, the Middle East and Africa.

From these latter attacks, thousands of civilians have been murdered in recent years from indiscriminate Western military violence in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia - the toll added to by victims in Syria and Iraq since a US-led bombing coalition began operations last September.

Where are high-profile international condemnations and condolences over these victims? Where are the candlelit vigils? Exactly, none. Where are the Western media front page headlines declaring: “Nous Sommes Yemen” (We are Yemen)? Or “Pakistan,” “Somalia,” or wherever?

Western leaders and media are affecting moral outrage over the massacre at the French publication, Charlie Hebdo, this week. But in their posturing, they display a reprehensible double standard and hypocrisy towards other victims of terrorism.

The actions of officially designated terrorists - such as al-Qaeda and its offshoots linked to the Paris atrocity - are deplored with maximum rhetorical force. But not so the actions of state terrorists, such as Washington and its Western allies, including the French government, when they launch air strikes on villages in foreign countries - in total violation of international law and morality.

What is even more sickening is the way Western governments are using the massacre in Paris as a means to claw some moral authority from the incident.

President Obama condemned the killings, saying: “Time and again, the French people have stood up for the universal values that generations of our people have defended.” In other words, Obama is insinuating his government on the side of the victims, as if they are one and the same standing up to evil.

Obama added, “France, and the great city of Paris where this outrageous attack took place, offer the world a timeless example that will endure well beyond the hateful vision of these killers.”

Hollande addressed his nation in a TV broadcast calling for “unity” and claiming that the victims of the Paris shooting were “heroes” who died for France.

“Our best weapon is our unity. Nothing should oppose us, divide us, to separate us,” Hollande said in sombre tone, adding: “Freedom is always stronger than barbarism... Today the French Republic as a whole was the target.”

The rhetoric is narcissistic, hypocritical, deceitful and nauseating.

Despicably, as in similar recent attacks in Australia, Canada and Britain, the Western leaders are using the violence as a way of justifying their “war on terror” pretensions and their own criminality. 

Western governments led by Washington have for nearly 15 years used the threadbare pretext of "fighting terrorism" to launch illegal wars and murder campaigns all around the globe, and in Muslim countries in particular. So audacious are these Western countries that their self-justified “fight against terrorism” has now morphed into regime-change operations in other countries using covert state-sponsored terrorism, as in Libya, Syria and Ukraine.

In addition to the Middle East and North Africa, France has ordained itself the moral and legal right to launch military aggressions in Mali and the Central Africa Republic causing thousands of deaths and millions of refugees over the past two years.

Western governments, foremost Washington, London and Paris, are running amok with state terrorism and gangsterism in their pursuit of imperialist interests.

When forms of terrorism rebound in Western capitals, the appropriate logical conclusion is that this is blowback from the wanton vandalism of these Western governments towards international law and moral standards. Their heinous culpability needs to be condemned and understood as the source of all consequences. We should not allow the ultimate authors of international violence to hide behind the selective mourning for victims of terrorism.

By allowing Western leaders to manipulate public sentiments and infiltrate these sentiments for their own undeserved moral authority - that will inevitably lead to further violence and conflict.  Already, there are reports of violent backlash against Muslim communities across France and no doubt far-right Islamophobic groups will seek to exploit to the hilt.

But any proper public backlash should be directed at Western governments and Western leaders like Obama, Hollande, Cameron, Harper and Abbott who are plunging the world into further mayhem from their reckless state-sponsored terrorism.

FC/MKA

Source presstv.com

Consequences of the Shooting at Paris Offices of Charlie Hebdo

France Interior Minister Brice

By Bill Van Auken and Alex Lantier

Global Research, January 08, 2015

World Socialist Web Site

Twelve people are dead and eight wounded, including four who are fighting for their lives, after a massacre yesterday morning by masked men armed with assault rifles, rocket-propelled grenades and bulletproof vests at the offices of the satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo in Paris. The cartoonists Charb, Cabu, Tignous, and Wolinski were among the dead.

Protests were held against the killings in Paris, Toulouse, Strasbourg, and other French cities, as well as in cities across Europe, including London, Berlin, and Rome.

Paris police Wednesday night announced that they had identified three suspects in the attack. The suspects were named as Said Kouachi and Cherif Kouachi, two brothers, both French and in their early 30s, and 18-year-old Hamyd Mourad. Mourad subsequently walked into a police station about 145 kilometres from Paris and is now in custody.

The identification of the alleged attackers raises more questions than it answers. Cherif Kouachi, in particular, is well-known to the French and American intelligence and police agencies. In 2005, the New York Times reported that he was arrested in France on charges of intending to travel to Iraq to join the insurgency against the US occupation. In 2008, he was convicted by French courts of terrorism charges and sentenced to three years in prison for allegedly attempting to send French Muslims to Iraq. At the time, he told the Associated Press that he had been driven to act by the images of torture from the US prison at Abu Ghraib.

Kouachi served 18 months of his sentence and remained under close surveillance by the French secret services. The French government will have to explain how such an individual—if police claims that he was the gunman are true—was able to obtain a rocket-propelled grenade launcher and automatic weapons and organize a highly professional and deadly attack in the middle of Paris without being prevented or detected.

Moreover, the site of the attack was itself well known to French authorities as a target. The magazine’s headquarters had been placed under police guard when it was fire-bombed in 2011 after publishing caricatures of the Prophet Mohamed. Charb was under police protection, as he was reportedly on a death list drawn up by Al Qaeda. Nonetheless, the gunmen succeeding in gaining access to the building shortly before 11 a.m., by threatening one of its employees at gunpoint.

The Paris atrocity conforms to the pattern of virtually every major case of terrorism internationally, stretching from the September 11, 2001 attacks to the present. They have not been carried out by people off the security services’ radar, but by individuals who were well-known and purportedly under scrutiny. Invariably, the authorities asserted that the atrocities were not prevented due to “intelligence failures.”

Long experience shows that the political forces that set such operations into motion are inevitably more complex and more sinister than they first appear. Nonetheless, the political purposes to which this latest atrocity will be put were readily apparent well before anyone had claimed to identify its authors. It was seized upon as an act that would strengthen the most reactionary political forces in Europe and internationally.

This was the immediate reaction, for example, of the New York Times, which affirmed that the mass killing was “sure to accelerate the growth of anti-Islamic sentiment in Europe, feeding far-right nationalist parties like France’s National Front.”

The attack in Paris unfolded in the context of growing right-wing, xenophobic, anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim agitation across the continent, from the mass rallies organized in Germany under the banner of “Patriotic Europeans against the Islamization of the West” to the growth of right-wing nationalist parties like UKIP in Britain. As the media reaction makes clear, the carnage in Paris will be exploited to strengthen these reactionary tendencies.

Marine Le Pen, the leader of the neo-fascist National Front, exploited the attack as a means of legitimizing her party’s poisonous chauvinist politics. “It’s my responsibility to say that fear must be overcome and we must say that this attack should on the contrary free us in how we talk about Islamic fundamentalism,” she declared. In other words, the gloves were off in terms of whipping up anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim hysteria.

Whoever carried out this massacre, such terrorist actions can only play into the hands of the most reactionary forces in the state, and the growing constituency in the ruling elite for stepped-up military intervention abroad and police-state measures at home. As the aftermath of 9/11 conclusively demonstrated, these actions horrify and disorient the public, and provide an opportunity for the state to implement policies for which—except for the terrorist actions—there is no broad-based popular support.

Predictably, the widely-despised French President, François Hollande, appeared at the site of the shooting at 12:30 p.m. to announce a large-scale police operation and appeal for national unity. With his government’s involvement in Middle East wars growing, despite the overwhelming hostility of the French public, Hollande—France’s most unpopular president of the post-World War II period—seized upon the attack for its political utility.

All accounts of Wednesday’s attack indicate it was carried out in a highly organised and ruthless fashion.

Corinne Rey, a cartoonist at the paper, told L’Humanité:

“I had gone to pick up my daughter in child care and, when we arrived in front of the paper’s headquarters, masked and armed men brutally threatened us. They wanted to get in and go upstairs. I entered the code. They shot Wolinski, Cabu … It lasted five minutes. I had hidden myself under a desk…They spoke perfect French, they said they were with Al Qaeda.”

Significantly, the attackers appeared to have detailed intelligence as to the operations of Charlie Hebdo. “The attackers were well informed and knew the weekly editorial board meeting was Wednesday at 10 a.m. Otherwise, the rest of the week, people aren’t around so much,” another Charlie Hebdo journalist told Le Monde.

Witnesses said that the gunmen moved calmly and methodically. They shouted “Allah Akbar” while beginning to shoot. They identified the journalists as they shot them and apparently also said they would not kill women. As they left the building, they engaged in a running gun battle with police. By then, ten people were dead inside the building and two outside, including two policemen.

They attacked several police cars during their escape, shouting “Allah Akbar.” They stopped to execute one wounded policeman with a shot to the head. They then exploited traffic to evade police and abandoned their car near the Porte de Pantin. They commandeered a new vehicle, holding the driver at gunpoint, and escaped into the northern suburbs of Paris.

Anchors on BFM-TV compared the shooting to the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York City and speculated that the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq (ISIS) was responsible. Predicting a major change between “a period before and a period after” the Charlie Hebdo shooting, they added: “January 7 will unfortunately mark France in this beginning of the 21st century.”

During the day, over 3,000 policemen were mobilized for a manhunt in the north Paris suburbs into which the gunmen had disappeared. Heavily armed police were also deployed to train stations, public buildings and monuments in Paris and throughout France.

Alain Chouet, a former security director for France’s General Directorate of Exterior Security (DGSE), told Atlantico: “These are professionals, dressed in black with ski masks so as not to be recognized. They acted in the style of highly-trained criminals.”

Asked whether this meant that Islamist groups like IS were now working with French organized crime, he replied:

“It remains to be seen whether the attackers have any foreign ties…They could be one of two types of professionals of violence: criminals who carried out this action for one reason or another, or professionals trained abroad and sent to France for this purpose. However, if the Islamic State had controlled the operation from beginning to end, it seems likely they would have chosen a more symbolic target, more directly representing the French state.”

At this stage, no claims by media or the French state about the attack and who carried it out can be accepted uncritically.

It is possible that the attack was carried out by deeply disoriented and socially alienated French-Muslims, who are embittered by the combination of deplorable conditions in France, anti-Muslim discrimination, their own treatment by the authorities and the bloody consequences of years of US and European military operations in the Middle East. However, this scenario does not exclude the possibility that their actions were facilitated, and even instigated, by agencies and interests of which the actual perpetrators were not aware.

Whatever the case, the political intention and effect of the attack is clear: to polarize society along national, ethnic and religious lines, dividing the working class and strengthening the drive to war, social reaction and repression.

The main danger arising from this horrible attack is the political purpose to which it will be put. In that sense, the media’s initial comparisons of the Charlie Hebdo shooting with the September 11 attacks are a sharp warning to the working class. That tragedy was exploited to embroil the American people in unpopular wars across the Middle East, above all in Iraq and Afghanistan, and to build up US intelligence agencies as a massive domestic spying apparatus, combined with paramilitary forces operating an unaccountable global network of torture and drone murder.

Class-conscious workers will oppose any attempt by the state to exploit the Charlie Hebdo murders to justify stepped-up wars in Iraq, Syria, and the Middle East, and further attacks on democratic rights.

Paris Killings: Terrorism or False Flag?

Said Kouachi and Cherif Kouachi

By Stephen Lendman

Global Research

Things aren’t always as they seem. When incidents like this happen, take nothing at face value.

On Wednesday, three heavily armed masked men attacked the Paris-based satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo. Known for lampooning Islam, other religions and political figures.

The incident took place in broad daylight. Killing 12. Wounding eight others. MSM reports didn’t surprise. Headlines screamed “terrorism.”

BBC was typical. “Unprecedented terrorism,” it said. “France has never seen terror like this.”

New York Times editors said the “massacre…motivated by hate.” Calling what happened “terrorism.

Washington Post editors said “Charlie Hebdo stands for free expression. The West must do no less.”

Wall Street Journal editors headlined “Islamist Terror in Paris,” saying:

“Wednesday’s massacre…is a reminder that jihadism isn’t a distant Middle Eastern phenomenon.”

“There will be many more such attempts at mass murder, and authorities in the US and Europe need broad authority to surveil and interrogate potential plotters to stop them.”

“(V)iolent Islam isn’t a reaction to poverty or Western policies in the Middle East.”

“It is an ideological challenge to Western civilization and principles…”

Los Angeles times editors headlined “Paris terrorists aimed at freedom of expression, we must defend it.” Calling the attackers “terrorists.”

Chicago Tribune editors headlined “Terror in France.” Calling the incident an attempt to “stifle” free expression.

London Guardian editors referred to “guns…trained on free speech.”

French President Francois Hollande called the attack an assault on “the expression of freedom…the spirit of the republic.”

On prime time evening television, he said: “Today the French republic as a whole was the target.” He declared Thursday a national day of mourning.

Obama called Hollande from Air Force One. A White House statement said he “personally offer(ed) his condolences.”

“(E)xpress(ed) solidarity after this morning’s horrific terrorist attack in Paris.”

“Americans stand beside the people of France in the aftermath of this outrage.” Offered US “resources” to help bring the perpetrators to justice. “And anyone who helped plan or enable this terrorist attack.”

Hard-right National Front leader Marine Le Pen said “ the nation is under attack, our culture, our way of life. France must be in the war against Islamic fundamentalism. They are at war against France.”

In 2006, Charlie Hebdo (CH) reprinted controversial Prophet Muhammad cartoons. Originally published by the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten.

On November 2, 2011, CH’s office was fire-bombed. Its web site hacked. After its special edition called “Charia Hebdo.”

The Prophet Muhammad listed as “editor-in-chief.” The cover featured a cartoon lampooning him. Saying “100 lashes of the whip if you don’t die laughing.”

On Wednesday, reports said one suspect, Hamyd Mourad, walked into a Charlevill-Mezieres police station 145 miles northeast of Paris and surrendered.

How he got there wasn’t explained. Was he involved? Is he part of a false flag plot? Police identified two other suspects – Said and Cherif Kouachi. Paris residents.

Criminal investigations take time. Suspects don’t usually turn themselves in voluntarily. Let alone within hours of an incident.

Weeks often pass before police file charges. Usually after making arrests.

According to Reuters, a police source said one attacker was “identified by his identity card, which had been left in the (abandoned) getaway car.” More on this below.

Cherif Kouachi previously was imprisoned for 18 months. For criminal association with a “terrorist enterprise” in 2005.

Allegedly involved in recruiting French nationals to fight Americans in Iraq. “He was arrested before (supposedly) leaving for Iraq to join militants,” said Reuters.

“The third man (Hamyd Mourad) was not seen in any (video) footage…It was not clear if he was directly or in any way involved in the attack.”

No one claimed responsibility, said Reuters. It cited “a witness quoted by 20 Minutes daily newspaper saying one of the assailants cried out before getting into his car: ‘Tell the media that it is al Qaeda in Yemen!’ ”

AFP said Paris is “in lockdown.” Citing “troops in railway stations, armed police outside media buildings, ultra-tight security at department stores.”

“The government raised the capital’s alert to its highest level immediately after the attack…It deployed hundreds of police across the city.” Some reports said thousands.

In his 1997 book titled “The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and its Geostrategic Imperatives,” former Carter administration national security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski said:

“As America becomes an increasingly multicultural society, it may find it more difficult to fashion a consensus on foreign policy issues, except in the circumstance of a truly massive and widely perceived direct external threat.”

The kind 9/11 created. Others discussed below. State-sponsored.

Orchestrated and carried out to further new world order global dominance plans.

America, Britain, Israel, France and other rogue partners involved.

US officials identified so-called 9/11 attackers nearly straightaway after the incident.

The FBI lied claiming Mohamed Atta left behind luggage containing “decisive evidence” about Al Qaeda’s responsibility for the attacks.

Passports allegedly found at United 93′s crash site were fake.

Alleged hijackers weren’t aboard the four fateful flights.

A previous article called the official story the mother of all Big Lies. Who ever heard of perpetrators leaving behind incriminating documents? Identifying themselves responsible for terror or other attacks.

Yet French authorities claimed one attacker left his identity card in an abandoned getaway car. An obvious red flag. Questioning the official account’s veracity.

False flags are a longstanding US tradition. 9/11 is Exhibit A. The clearest example. State-sponsored terrorism writ large. Falsely blamed on innocent victims.

Imperial wars followed. Against Afghanistan. Iraq. Parts of Pakistan. Libya. Syria. Iraq again. Palestine and Lebanon (in 2006) allied with Israel.

As well as numerous proxy wars. Homeland ones against Muslims. Black Americans. Latino immigrants. Environmental and animal rights activists. Ordinary US workers.

In April 2013, evidence suggested state-sponsored terrorism responsibility for Boston marathon bombings.

Tamerian and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev were set up as convenient patsies. Neither brother had anything to do with what happened.

European countries have their own crosses to bear. Partnered with Washington’s quest for world dominance. Needing justification for imperial wars.

Crackdowns on homeland freedoms. What better way than by stoking fear. False flag terrorist attacks work best. Hyped by media propaganda.

In March 2004, Madrid train bombings occurred three days before Spain’s general elections.

Al Qaeda was blamed. With no corroborating evidence. Fear was stoked. Suggesting follow-up attacks against other Western targets. Including American ones.

On July 7, 2005, so-called London 7/7 underground bombings attacked the city’s public transport system.

During the morning rush hour for maximum disruption and casualties. At precisely the same time, an anti-terror drill occurred. Simulating real attacks.

At the time, AP said Israel’s London embassy warned Scotland Yard in advance. Israeli Army Radio reported:

“Scotland Yard had intelligence warnings of the attacks a short time before they occurred.”

No action was taken. Israel’s then finance minister Netanyahu was told to skip a London economic conference. He was scheduled to speak.

Other officials were warned, not the public. Fifty-two people died. Over 700 were injured.

These type attacks raise suspicions. Vital questions remain unanswered. Who gains? Who loses?

On 9/11 morning, the CIA simulated a pre-planned emergency response required if a plane struck a building.

Held at its Chantilly, Virginia Reconnaissance Office. Simulating a small jet aircraft hitting one of its buildings.

In October 2000, the Pentagon simulated a commercial plane striking its building. Pre-9/11 exercises preceded the real thing.

On June 30, 2007, a Jeep Cherokee with propane canisters crashed into Glasgow International Airport’s glass doors. The usual suspects were blamed. Islamic terrorists.

In May 2013, two assailants killed British soldier Lee Rigby. In broad daylight in London. Alleged attackers remained on the scene.

Until police arrived 20 minutes later. Why wasn’t explained. Killers don’t usually stay around to be captured.

Both assailants were shot and apprehended. Hospitalized for treatment.

One allegedly said “we must fight as they fight us. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.” Britain’s ITV news aired an edited video clip.

Allegedly a witness filmed it. Conveniently in the right place at the right time. Showing a young Black man with blood dripping from his hands.

Saying “we swear by almighty Allah we will never stop fighting you.”

“The only reason reason we have done this is because Muslims are dying every day.”

Reports called what happened the first domestic Al Qaeda-inspired attack since the July 7, 2005 underground (so-called 7/7) bombings.

On January 11, 2010, one day before Haiti’s devastating earthquake, the Pentagon’s US Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) simulated a hurricane striking the island.

In preparation for carefully planned measures to be implemented. Involving occupation, control and plunder.

Deputy SOUTHCOM commander General PK Keen was in Haiti when the quake struck the next day. Ready to initiate US policy.

Haiti remains colonized. Plundered for profit. Its people exploited. With no say over issues most affecting their lives. Controlled by America’s iron fist.

What follows Wednesday’s Paris attacks remains to be seen. Maybe CIA operatives plan something similar in America.

Perhaps another step toward eliminating freedom altogether. Escalating US-led NATO’s war on the Middle East.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.” http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com. Listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network. It airs three times weekly: live on Sundays at 1PM Central time plus two prerecorded archived programs. 

Washington Buries the CIA Torture Report

John Brennan, CIA Boss

By Patrick Martin

Global Research, January 08, 2015

World Socialist Web Site

One month ago, the Senate Intelligence Committee released the 500-page summary of its voluminous report on the torture of prisoners in secret CIA facilities overseas, conducted between 2002 and 2007. In grisly detail, the report documented such practices as waterboarding, systematic beatings, and hitherto unknown tortures like “rectal feeding.” But in practice, the report has been buried, its evidence of government criminality ignored, the perpetrators and organizers of torture going scot-free.

As the World Socialist Web Site declared at the time,

“Two irrefutable conclusions flow from the release of the Senate Intelligence Committee report on CIA torture: 1) The United States, during the Bush administration, committed criminal acts of the most serious character, in violation of international and domestic law; and 2) None of those responsible for these crimes will be arrested, indicted or prosecuted for their actions.”

Far from being shamed or humiliated by the detailed exposure of their criminality, those most implicated in the establishment and operation of the torture chambers have brazenly defended their conduct. From former Vice President Dick Cheney to ex-CIA directors George Tenet, Michael Hayden and Porter Goss, to the operational head of the interrogation program, Jose Rodriguez, they have displayed a well-justified confidence that the Obama administration will protect them from any consequences.

The Obama administration has officially shut down the secret CIA prisons and adopted a policy of blowing up its enemies with drone-fired missiles rather than capturing them. The shift from interrogation to extermination has increased the number of innocent victims many-fold. Whereas dozens of those jailed in CIA prisons were found to have no connection to terrorism, the drone-missile strikes have killed thousands of civilians in Pakistan, Yemen and other countries.

Two recent incidents demonstrate the complicity of the Obama administration with the torturers. On December 30, the outgoing chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Senator Dianne Feinstein, sent a nine-page letter to the president outlining proposed legislative and administrative actions to be taken on the basis of the torture report.

The changes were largely cosmetic, such as enacting into law the ban on waterboarding and other forms of torture imposed by executive order after Obama took office in 2009. Even these minimal legislative actions will go nowhere in the new Republican-controlled Congress, and the proposed administrative actions will be ignored by the military-intelligence apparatus. The White House has not bothered to respond to Feinstein’s letter.

In a statement issued January 5, the CIA announced that after four years in office, the agency’s inspector-general David Buckley was resigning, effective the end of the month, to “pursue an opportunity in the private sector.” Buckley ran afoul of the CIA top brass with a report last July acknowledging that five CIA operatives had penetrated the computers used by Senate Intelligence Committee staffers who prepared the torture report, in an effort to find out how the Senate panel had obtained certain CIA internal documents that the agency had decided to withhold from the committee that has legal oversight authority.

This electronic surveillance of the legislative branch was so brazenly criminal that Senator Feinstein felt compelled to deliver a one-hour address on the floor of the Senate last March denouncing the agency’s actions. She charged that the agency “may well have violated the separation-of-powers principle embodied in the United States Constitution,” and also “the Fourth Amendment, the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, as well as Executive Order 12333, which prohibits the CIA from conducting domestic searches or surveillance.”

CIA Director John Brennan denounced Feinstein’s charges, and the agency sought Justice Department prosecution of the Senate staffers for alleged “theft” of CIA documents—i.e., evidence that CIA officials had lied about the torture and withheld information from the Senate panel. After inspector-general Buckley’s investigation upheld Feinstein’s claim, Brennan had to publicly apologize to Feinstein, but he was not fired either for authorizing the surveillance of the Senate panel or for lying about it. Now Buckley has been pushed out.

This confirms the pattern that the only torture-related “crime” that the Obama administration punishes is the effort to expose it. Hundreds of CIA agents and contractors were involved in the illegal torture program over a six-year period, but only one has ever been prosecuted: John Kiriakou, who publicly described the waterboarding of suspects and was jailed for 30 months for violating the Intelligence Identities Protection Act. Only one high-ranking CIA official has been sacked over the torture program: the inspector-general who undercut the agency’s efforts to cover it up.

The American media is an essential partner in this ongoing cover-up of government criminality. The report was initially the subject of massive media publicity, and the New York Times went so far as to publish a strongly worded editorial headlined, “Prosecute the Torturers and Their Bosses,” urging that charges be brought against Cheney, Tenet, Rodriguez and other former top officials. As the WSWS said at the time: “In effect, the most influential newspaper in the United States has declared that the Bush administration was a criminal government.”

In the weeks that followed, however, the media has dropped the subject. There have been no followup reports on the biggest exposure of criminal actions by the military-intelligence apparatus since the revelations about CIA assassination plots in the early 1970s. The Times editorial urging prosecution of the torturers was evidently the last gasp of a guilty conscience. The leading US daily has not reported either Feinstein’s letter or Buckley’s resignation, a silence joined by the Washington Post and the television networks.

Behind the scenes, as Buckley’s ouster and Feinstein’s appeal demonstrate, a struggle is raging within the US ruling elite. The media silence is not merely to protect the criminals responsible for torture and murder. It is above all directed at disguising the ongoing political crisis, and excluding the vast majority of the American population, the working class, from any role in determining its outcome.

No section of the ruling elite will defend democratic rights. That task falls to the working class, which must take up the demand for the prosecution of all those responsible for the atrocities documented in the Senate report, and those responsible for the crimes of American imperialism that have continued and even escalated under the Obama administration.

Where did the Paris Shooters Get Their Weapons?

By Tony Cartalucci

Global Research

Heavily armed, well-trained gunmen executed what appears to be a well-planned attack in Paris, France, killing 12, including 2 police officers. Where did these terrorists get their weapons, training, political backing, funds, and inspiration? A short timeline featuring news stories from 2011 to 2014 helps explain how France’s recent national tragedy could have been the direct result of its own insidious, callous, terroristic foreign policy that has visited this very same carnage seen in Paris, upon the people of Libya and Syria, a thousand fold. 

2011 - France supplying weapons to Libyan rebels, London Telegraph:

A French military spokesman, Colonel Thierry Burkhard, said it had provided “light arms such as assault rifles” for civilian communities to “protect themselves against Col Gaddafi”.

But the decision to arm the rebels is a further move towards direct involvement in the land war on top of the air war against Col Muammar Gaddafi. The Nafusa rebels have come closest to breaking through to Tripoli itself of any of the front lines of the conflict, while three months of Nato bombing have failed to dislodge Col Gaddafi from power.

Le Figaro, the French newspaper which first reported the air drops, said the shipment included rifles, machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades, along with Milan anti-tank missiles.

2011 - Libyan rebel commander admits his fighters have al-Qaeda links, London Telegraph:

Abdel-Hakim al-Hasidi, the Libyan rebel leader, has said jihadists who fought against allied troops in Iraq are on the front lines of the battle against Muammar Gaddafi’s regime.

2012 - France to push for arming Syria’s opposition coalition, the BBC:

France’s foreign minister has said he will discuss supplying arms to the Syrian opposition coalition with European partners.

The government plans to push for a relaxation of the EU arms embargo to Syria to enable “defensive arms” to reach opposition fighters.

2013 - Syria crisis: France and Britain move a step closer to arming rebels, the London Guardian:

France and Britain have moved a step closer to arming the opposition to the Assad regime in a radical move aimed at tipping the balance in the two-year civil war while also ignoring European policy on Syria.

The French president, François Hollande, went into an EU summit in Brussels with a dramatic appeal for Europe to join Paris and London in lifting a European arms embargo, but the sudden policy shift was certain to run into stiff German opposition.

2013 - Syrian rebels pledge loyalty to al-Qaeda, USA Today:

A Syrian rebel group’s April pledge of allegiance to al-Qaeda’s replacement for Osama bin Laden suggests that the terrorist group’s influence is not waning and that it may take a greater role in the Western-backed fight to topple Syrian President Bashar Assad.

The pledge of allegiance by Syrian Jabhat al Nusra Front chief Abou Mohamad al-Joulani to al-Qaeda leader Sheik Ayman al-Zawahri was coupled with an announcement by the al-Qaeda affiliate in Iraq, the Islamic State of Iraq, that it would work with al Nusra as well.

2014 - France delivered arms to Syrian rebels, Hollande confirms, France 24:

President Francois Hollande said on Thursday that France had delivered weapons to rebels battling the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad “a few months ago.”

France Isn’t the Only One

The cartoonish nature of France first being reported to give weapons to “rebels” before these “rebels” are reported to be, in fact, Al Qaeda is not simply France’s bad luck. It is part of NATO’s very intentional, vast network of global state-sponsored terrorism. It would be reported that terrorists armed by the US in Syria with antitank missiles sided with Al Qaeda franchise and US State Department listed foreign terrorist organization, Al Nusra.

The Daily Beast would report in its  September 2014 article, “Al Qaeda Plotters in Syria ‘Went Dark,’ U.S. Spies Say,” that:

One Syrian rebel group supported in the past by the United States condemned the air strikes on Tuesday. Harakat Hazm, a rebel group that received a shipment of U.S. anti-tank weapons in the spring, called the airstrikes “an attack on national sovereignty” and charged that foreign led attacks only strengthen the Assad regime.The statement comes from a document, purportedly from the group, that has circulated online and was posted in English translation from a Twitter account called Syria Conflict Monitor. Several Syria experts, including the Brookings Doha Center’s Charles Lister, believe the document to be authentic.

Before the official statement, there were signs that Harakat Hazm was making alliances in Syria that could conflict with its role as a U.S. partner. In early Septemeber a Harakat Hazm official told a reporter for the L.A. Times: “Inside Syria, we became labeled as secularists and feared Nusra Front was going to battle us…But Nusra doesn’t fight us, we actually fight alongside them. We like Nusra.”

This group would later be reported by the Western press as having “surrendered” to Al Qaeda. The International Business Times would claim in its article, “Syria: Al-Nusra Jihadists ‘Capture US TOW Anti-Tank Missiles’ from Moderate Rebels,” that:

Weaponry supplied by the US to moderate Syrian rebels was feared to have fallen into the hands of jihadist militants affiliated to al-Qaida after clashes between rival groups.

Islamist fighters with Jabhat al-Nusra seized control of large swathes of land in Jabal al-Zawiya, Idlib province, at the weekend, routing the US-backed groups the Syrian Revolutionaries Front (SFR) and Harakat Hazm, activists said.

Washington relied on SFR and Harakat Hazm to counter Isis (Islamic State) militants on the ground in Syria, complementing its air strikes.

Clearly, Harakat Hazm willingly pledged allegiance to Al Qaeda, bringing with them Western armament. Much of Al Qaeda’s weapons, cash, training, and backing has been supplied by the West through similar “laundering” arrangements – intentionally – with plans to arm Al Qaeda and use it as a mercenary force against Western enemies in the Middle East laid as early as 2007.

Al Qaeda was intentionally organized and directed by the US, Saudi Arabia, and Israel to engage in a regional confrontation aimed at Iran and its powerful arc of influence including Syria, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and now apparently Iraq. A similar gambit played out in North Africa during NATO’s war with Libya. Before that, in the 1980′s, the US CIA notoriously created Al Qaeda in the first place to fight a proxy war against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan.

This most recent use of Al Qaeda was exposed by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh in his 2007 article,  ”The Redirection: Is the Administration’s new policy benefiting our enemies in the war on terrorism?” it which it was stated explicitly that (emphasis added):

To undermine Iran, which is predominantly Shiite, the Bush Administration has decided, in effect, to reconfigure its priorities in the Middle East. In Lebanon, the Administration has coöperated with Saudi Arabia’s government, which is Sunni, in clandestine operations that are intended to weaken Hezbollah, the Shiite organization that is backed by Iran. The U.S. has also taken part in clandestine operations aimed at Iran and its ally Syria. A by-product of these activities has been the bolstering of Sunni extremist groups that espouse a militant vision of Islam and are hostile to America and sympathetic to Al Qaeda. 

Now these “extremist groups that espouse a militant vision of Islam” and who are “sympathetic to Al Qaeda” are running loose in France spilling French blood, with and inexhaustible supply of weapons and cash courtesy in part of the French government itself, and with years of combat experience fighting Paris and the rest of NATO’s proxy wars for them everywhere from Libya to Syria.