Western Politics Of
High-octane Emotion
By Finian Cunningham
January 19, 2015 "ICH"
- "Press
TV"
- So America's top diplomat John Kerry wants
to give France "a big hug" to condole over
the recent spate of alleged terror attacks
in that country. Speaking in Paris while
laying a wreath for the 17 victims of
violence, Kerry said that "America feels the
pain of our oldest ally."
Kerry's words, accompanied by James Taylor's
mawkish song 'You've Got a Friend', is
typical of the new politics of high-octane
emotion that is inducing people to take
leave of their senses.
Since the violent attacks that hit Paris
last week, the French authorities have
orchestrated full-court national and
international mourning. Massive marches for
"unity" and "free speech", candlelit vigils,
medal-of-honor ceremonies, and somber
eulogies and paeans to "French values" - all
such events and media coverage have sought
to bolster the support for state
authorities.
The trouble with this "high-octane emotional
politics" is that it stupefies the public
from asking some very necessary hard
questions of the authorities. By buying into
weeping and self-indulgence, the public are
at risk of being manipulated like never
before.
Just as John Kerry was offering a big hug
"to all of France", the US government this
week announced a significant step-up in its
military involvement in Syria. The Pentagon
unveiled plans to send 500 military
personnel to train "moderate rebels" to
fight against the elected government forces
of President Bashar al Assad.
Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey are to
provide the US with training grounds on
their territories to furnish a "new rebel
army" of 15,000 fighters. The previous
"moderate rebels" became subsumed into the
ranks of the extremist Al Nusra and ISIS,
taking their American weapons with them.
It is widely acknowledged, even in the
Western mainstream media, that the conflict
in Syria has fuelled extremism across the
Middle East, which is finding its way into
Europe. As troops go on high-alert
counter-terror operations in France and
Belgium this weekend, there is an
unequivocal correlation between the
conflicts in Syria, Libya and Iraq - and new
threats of terrorism in Europe.
The latest troop dispatch by the US to train
"rebels" in Syria will inevitably lead to
more conflict and terrorism. So much for
John Kerry's big hug and emotive pleas of
"you've got a friend". Kerry is like an
arsonist paying his respects to families of
charred victims.
That conclusion should be a no-brainer. But
as the masses are swooning with emotion -
and a lot of that crocodile tears too - some
basic facts become blinded, conveniently for
the authorities.
One basic fact is that the Western states'
covert war for regime change in Syria is
criminal and in violation of several
international laws. Western political
leaders crying over victims in Paris should
be prosecuted for war crimes from their
four-year-long military adventurism in Syria
involving proxy extremist networks. These
terror networks are feeding directly back
into European societies. American and
Western media deception of "training
moderate rebels" should be dismissed with
the contempt that it deserves. Washington
and its European allies are up their necks
with terror networks.
Days after the apparent terror killings in
Paris, French President Francois Hollande
made one of many emotive speeches that week
proclaiming the supposed virtues of Western
values - while on board the aircraft carrier
Charles De Gaulle. The largest vessel in the
French fleet was then deployed to join NATO
forces in the Persian Gulf to step up
bombing campaigns in Syria and Iraq "to
defeat terrorism".
With tears running down the nation's cheeks,
the French authorities are thus stoking more
violence in the Middle East than they have
already done along with their Western
allies. How crass can it get? But in the new
lachrymose politics of emotions, the public
surrenders to the crassness.
However, it is precisely at this juncture
that we need to avoid emotional
over-reaction and instead to pursue
rational, critical questions. As several
respected commentators have already noted
there are gaping doubts in the official
French version of what took place in Paris
last week.
Michel Chossudovsky has pointed out that the
French police chief, Elric Fredou, who was
looking into the attack on the Paris
magazine Charlie Hebdo, in which 12 people
were killed, was himself found dead in an
apparent suicide on the night following that
incident. The timing is highly suspicious,
but the wider public, misled by the
non-inquiring media, appear to be
disinterested in the circumstances of the
police commissioner's untimely death. Was it
really suicide? Was he being shut-up over
damaging revelations about who were the real
perpetrators of the attack on Charlie Hebdo?
Paul Craig Roberts has also pointed out
several incongruities in the official
narrative, including the way that the French
state security forces executed the Kouachi
brothers and the kosher supermarket gunman
Amedy Coulibaly, instead of capturing them,
thus removing any possibility for the public
to hear their accounts. Were they set up by
French military intelligence to take the rap
for the earlier terror attacks? Roberts
notes that the professional behaviour of the
masked gunmen in the Paris attacks does not
match the bumbling behavior of the Kouachis
at the later, fatal shoot-out.
Also, as Peter Koenig recently argued, the
spate of French alleged terror attacks, as
well as the recent fatal incident in Belgium
this weekend, is being used as a "shock and
awe" device to manufacture public opinion
into accepting more coercive state police
powers and foreign military interventions -
the very policies that are fueling
terrorism.
Western governments and their pliable news
media are audaciously playing politics with
public emotions. Proven Western state
involvement in Middle East conflicts and
false flag terrorism needs to be rigorously
interrogated and exposed more than ever.
But the public seems too occupied shedding
tears, singing the Marseilles, and accepting
big hugs from the likes of John Kerry, to
otherwise be able to think straight and to
hold the authorities to account. Ironically,
in the political climate of high-octane
emotions, the people are turning for
protection from the very authorities who are
placing them in increasing danger.
Finian Cunningham (born
1963) has written extensively on
international affairs, with articles
published in several languages. He is a
Master’s graduate in Agricultural Chemistry
and worked as a scientific editor for the
Royal Society of Chemistry, Cambridge,
England, before pursuing a career in
newspaper journalism.
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