By Claudio Grass, Managing Director at Global Gold AG

Paris attacks legitimize a new wave of counter-terrorism and emergency laws

The tragic Paris attacks led 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 our Outlook are now aware that I am a big fan of history. I have a tendency to go back to my history books to reflect on the past and recognize similar patterns to the events that we are experiencing today. Looking back, it seems obvious that, going through the 20th century and into the 21st, wars went, from being about nationalism, to ideological wars (communism versus democracy or what we would call ‘state capitalism disguised in 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 Since the Berlin wall came down, back in 1989, and communism was defeated, it has been replaced by the “Muslim world”. We could see this change in Hollywood movies and in our media coverage. Audiences, who are not aware 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 greater picture of the Paris attacks.

“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 came up with the same statement 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 bare hands. History tells us some important facts: the U.S. 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. presence in Iraq. Not only did it topple a government, it wrecked a whole country, destabilized an entire region and left behind a power vacuum. 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 the Middle Eastern countries that now began to shift to Europe. In his remark 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 they secured oil from fields in Syria that is now being sold in the black market. All of this comes down to the direct action of the U.S. and Europe in the Middle East – they were not just “minding their own business” at all now, were they?

ISIS is not a coincidence – it is the logical result of western policies since the Cold War

This goes even further 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 they have contradictory policies. When asked about the sanctions on Iraq up to 2003 that led to the death of an estimated 500’000 children (more than those that 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 stated 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 another catastrophe 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 one year. They also have a colonial history of more than 100 years in the Middle East and still deploy several thousand troops to West Africa. They were also involved in NATO’s war against the Libyan government in 2011. However, there is another side to the story, since some facts about the Paris attacks were strange and raised red flags. First, there was a multi-site simulation of a terrorist attack planned involving first responders, police, emergency services and other personnel in the morning hours of November 13th (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 in the advent of the bombings in London, Madrid and Boston. I find this quite disturbing. When something repeats itself, it usually is no longer a coincidence. Second, 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” reminded 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. Their goal was to rally people’s support for their governments in Europe in their fight against communism. The Swiss historian and peace researcher, Dr. Daniele Ganser, and others wrote about this dark form of government oppression. He 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 to shape the 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, amongst others, is just a perfect example of how governments used oppression against their own citizens to shape the mindset of the public to unify them towards a common goal and objective, which in our case is: counter-terrorism. The problem, however, is that by giving this 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 is created, the state can justify limiting freedoms and liberties, as well as monitor and coerce. In our interview with Prof. Ing. Václav Klaus, former President of the Czech Republic, shortly after the Charlie Hebdo incident, he warned us that we will see new waves of attempts to limit our freedoms, under the banner of fighting terrorism. This is exactly what we are seeing today. By the time this article was written, France had announced it will derogate from the European Convention on Human Rights during its state of emergency!

But what truly astonishes, is the fact that governments seem to have little regard for their people. I have the feeling that some people in power just believe that we are completely ignorant. Of course, they have also created the mechanisms to be able to indoctrinate us. Just look at our public education system. Wilhelm Wundt, father of experimental psychology (and his proponents John Dewey and Edward Thorndike in the U.S.), who was the scientist that 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, who 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.”

Our public education system is based on methods that show we can grow up based on a stimulus-response compatibility. Our way of thinking and mindset are based on conditioning and not on logical thinking. Therefore, Wundt and his associates believed that, through its education system, the state seeks to indoctrinate us to believe that the right of the individual is secondary (at best) to the greater good. The renowned psychoanalytic Arno Gruen says that we enter the world as individuals but leave it as copies. This means that 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 the 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 for 500 years and a political system that allows less centralization of power than any other form of government. Therefore, we have never experienced nationalistic or even racist propaganda campaigns or presidents telling us to wage a war against another country for one cause or another. To believe that peace can be created through bombing and killing millions of civilians, is something I fail to understand. This is because I personally prefer to think independently and to investigate and explore instead of prematurely taking positions or adopting the views of others.

We have to think in terms of cause and effect and not like the mainstream media, or public intellectuals and politicians who only tackle the symptoms. For example, I find that the cause of high crime rates is an unsound society that is negatively impacted by the state that legitimizes the use of coercive measures (including the use of force). Similarly, an overwhelming state that uses force against foreigners will always use coercion against its own people, both physically and psychologically. It is intended to have people not think independently.

The western governments (aided by mainstream media) don’t recognize that the cause of the refugee waves was due to their management of the situation in the Middle East. It was a cause of direct and deliberate action. The irony is that Western governments that sent bombs and drones to the Middle East are now asking their citizens to embrace the refugees and to live side-by-side in the same villages and towns, even though society has been conditioned not to accept them. When I look at Paris and the absurd western politics promoting ’universalism’, I’m not sure if I should laugh or cry – insanity among the rulers is just inexpressible. On the other hand, the ignorance of the masses is quite unsettling.

Our political economy reinforces state control and our education system is designed for our indoctrination! No one knows the future but we can identify trends. My personal opinion is that the powers are accelerating a religious war, which will make Islam the opponent of the rest of the world. This is being reinforced by politicians who, by definition 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 not based on production and savings, but is based on printing money to finance the welfare/warfare state, and that also relies on bribing politicians who bail out too-big-to-fail companies, who impoverish the middle class through inflation and higher taxes, will lead us to total dependency on governments. When we further add the factor of terror attacks, the military response of western governments is to intensify their attacks in the Middle East. This has only one logical consequence: that hatred between western countries and the Muslim people will intensify and that the parallel society in western nations and radicalization on a global scale will increase further. More terror attacks will follow, and governments will grow all the more coercive as they steer towards totalitarianism. People won’t be able to flee because they are trapped in a system that controls everything and everyone.

This is what is happening right now. This is what our political leaders are enforcing and we are all just looking to see what’s going to happening 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, 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 that their opinions have 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.”

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 their 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 make it. The first thing we need to do is undo the current situation with our military involvement in the Middle East and Africa. If we favor war over peace, it will destroy our culture, our traditions, our freedom and our liberties. As a result, humanity is going to become a borrowed word. This is why I strongly believe that people one day will open their eyes and will refuse to let the media or politicians impose their reality on them. Only independent thinking leads directly to the cause and shift the focus away from its symptoms. I’m still convinced that people in the future will understand what Murray Rothbard wrote a few years ago that peace is the solid foundation for a society 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”.