Orwell Bienvenue to France – Encore!
By Finian Cunningham for Strategic Culture Foundation
Strategic Culture Foundation
February 28, 2016
Posted at Quemado Institute February 29, 2016
Jean-yves Le Drian, Francois Hollande (–ouest-france.fr)
France is in the throes of a «secret war» in Libya – in audacious violation of international law. But to report on this criminality is an offense! Welcome to the Orwellian world of double-think that the French state has entered.
A report in French newspaper Le Monde this week lifted the lid on France’s clandestine operations in the North African country. It said that French special forces were conducting covert missions to set up air strikes against the Islamic State terror group.
The mission has been authorized by French President Francois Hollande, according to Le Monde. The special forces are being deployed for «discreet action» to prepare strikes on Islamist targets.
Immediately, France’s Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian came down on the publication like a ton of bricks, alleging that the newspaper may have «compromised» national state security.
State-owned news channel, France 24, quoted a spokesman for Le Drian as saying: «When secret operations are taking place, the goal is they are not revealed for the security of the men and the operations».
Or, to put it more accurately: when criminal, unlawful violations against other country’s sovereignty and international law are taking place, the goal is they must not be revealed to the public. Otherwise the authors of such crimes will be seen for what they are: rogue-state criminals. No wonder Monsieur Le Drian has been photographed this week looking more grumpy than usual.
The repercussions could be severe for Le Monde, or any other news outlet, reporting on the matter. The French government says it is probing if there has been a «leak of classified information» over the report. Violation of French «defense secrecy rules» carries a penalty of up to three years in prison and a fine of €45,000 ($50,000).
So let’s get this straight. French elite military forces and agents belonging to the state intelligence service, DGSE, are present in Libya and are ordering in air strikes against jihadist targets, according to Le Monde. Yet, to report on this French state-sponsored lawlessness is potentially «a crime», according to those who are responsible for the bigger crime of violating a country’s sovereignty.
The chilling effect on independent journalism is no doubt fully intended. Government commits crimes, don’t report it, seems to be the watchword.
Le Monde is not the only news outlet disclosing the Western ratcheting up of war – again – in Libya. In the past week, the New York Times reported that American, British, French and Italian special forces were operating in Libya. It is understood that these combined covert forces do not have any legal mandate for conducting their activity. There is no UN mandate for such operations, and there are no Libyan authorities worth talking about to give approval. This is simply unmitigated lawlessness writ large.
NATO bombing of Tripoli, 2011 (–villageknight.com)
Since the US and other NATO forces bombed the hell out of Libya for seven months in 2011, resulting in up to 30,000 Libyan deaths and the overthrow of the government of Muammar Gaddafi, and his murder by NATO-backed jihadists, the country has been in a state of utter chaos, riven by feuding militias.
Any central authority that existed in Libya has been pulverized – by NATO. The French government in particular under former President Nicolas Sarkozy bears heavy responsibility for turning the once-prosperous Libya into this failed abject state.
Since then, the Americans and their Western allies have been able to bomb Libya at will. Last November, a US air strike reportedly killed an Islamic State commander, Abu Nabil, in the east of the country. Last week, another US air strike hit an alleged IS training camp in Sabathra, west of Tripoli, killing more than 40.
Following that latest strike, the so-called «unity government» of Libya, based in exile in Tunis, which the Western powers have been trying to cobble together, even condemned that action as a violation of Libyan sovereignty.
The NATO powers have destroyed Libyan sovereignty, and yet even a shell of governing semblance, which the West endorses, has raised objection to Western military interference.
This is Orwellian beyond words. Bombed state, failed state, jihadist chaos, the West then bombs to allegedly defeat terror groups it helped install in this failed state, and there is no national authority to properly object, because NATO obliterated such authorities; and then when a news organization reports on the latest twist in this state-sponsored criminality it is threatened with «compromising» state security.
There is no other way to assess this. France, as with its other Western accomplices led by the US, is descending into full-blown fascism. Lawlessness is the norm. Bombing countries has become a preordained, god-given right. And if reported on, then prosecution follows.
And why should we be surprised? France embraced fascism 75 years ago when the Vichy state became a willing, zealous collaborator with Nazi Germany and its genocidal program. Tens of thousands of French citizens were shunted off in trains to be exterminated in fascist death camps by their French rulers.
Today, under the rubric of «combating terrorism» – terrorism that Paris fomented in Libya and Syria – the French authorities have imposed a state of emergency on their citizens. French President Hollande and his shrill prime minister Manuel Valls declare that «France is at war» against the Islamic State terror group – a network that came to life through illegal French sponsorship of jihadists to overthrow the governments of Libya and Syria.
French state «emergency powers» have permitted thousands of French homes to be raided without warrants in recent months since the terror attacks in Paris on November 13. The French rulers give themselves fascistic powers against citizens over a case of terror blow back – blow back that they have largely created through their international lawlessness in the first place.
Now the state sponsors of terrorism who destroyed Libya are giving themselves carte blanche to go back into Libya – under the pretext of «fighting terrorism» – to maraud and bomb that country with special forces.
Step back and see it for what it is. We are on a path of wanton lawlessness, fascism and perdition. The very people in government who should be held to account and prosecuted for international crimes are committing more such crimes under their own self-referencing criminality. And when the public ought to know about this, the rogues in government then throw up their spurious self-justifying claims of «national security» and threaten to lock-up «violators».
The conceited French notions about «free speech» and «human rights» are so overblown. So, so overblown. Meanwhile, despicable history of actual participation in fascist crimes are so overlooked and pushed down the memory hole. Well, we might know why the latter is. Because the same French ruling establishment is once again embracing the vile darkness of the past.
Orwell, bienvenue – encore!
Finian Cunningham
Finian Cunningham (born 1963), originally from Belfast, Ireland, is a prominent expert in international affairs. The author and media commentator was expelled from Bahrain in June 2011 for his critical journalism in which he highlighted human rights violations by the Western-backed regime. 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 journalism. He is also a musician and songwriter. For many years, he worked as an editor and writer in the mainstream news media, including The Mirror, Irish Times and Independent. He is now based in East Africa where he is writing a book on Bahrain and the Arab Spring.He co-hosts a weekly current affairs programme, Sunday at 3pm GMT on Bandung Radio. Finian Cunningham is a frequent contributor to international media, including PRESS TV and nsnbc, where he began contributing in 2012. —Source
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