‘War on terror’ NOT answer to Brussels atrocities, Belgian says

This video from the USA says about itself:

Hedges: “We Bomb Them, They Bomb Us”

24 March 2016

Chris Hedges, ​journalist and senior fellow at The Nation Institute, discusses the Brussels attacks.

By Michel Collon in Belgium:

Brussels attacks: no, Mr. Prime Minister!

Yesterday, like so many of my fellow Brussels [people], I spent hours checking the location of my close ones. Who, by misfortune, could have been on the subway, a line which I myself take to come to the headquarters of Investig’Action? Who, by misfortune, could have been on the airport Starbucks where I have the habit of having a break while waiting for a flight? The clogging of the communication channels made the waiting for connection even more distressing.

In short, like so many of my fellow people from Brussels, I’ve lived one day what Iraqis, Libyans, Syrians and before them Algerians have been living for years. Because I have been many times to sites bombarded by Westerners, I know what the scene looks like: body parts lost everyone making it impossible to the family to depart with loved ones. I have seen the pain of those who will never see their husband, wife or child.

Like so many of my fellow people from Brussels, I’ve cried and felt like striking the criminals who took so many innocent lives. But we are not born criminals, we become [them]. And the most important question is: how did they get there? To the point of denying the value of the lives of so many innocent people! Of making them suffer and terrorize them, instead of fighting with those innocents against the injustice that strikes us all? Who has intoxicated these young men? Who has taught them violence to the point of despair and most of all who has armed them? Criminals, no doubt, but aren’t they also the victims of some sort, even if the word may cause shock.

When I heard Prime Minister Charles Michel declare during the press conference [that] people of the country should unite and that he avoided carefully the central question of “how have we arrived to this point and who is to be held responsible?”, I felt anger against this hypocrite who proposes to us simply to continue life as before when the question is precisely “How to avoid this to begin again soon? Apply which policies to end this infernal mechanism”?

Do you really believe surveillance and repression will avoid new attacks? Some, yes, but not all because it is just impossible. To do so we need a change of policies. Of your policies.

Einstein said: “We can’t solve a problem by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them”. Indeed, we will not stop terrorism if we don’t fight its deep causes and work on prevention.

Mr. Prime Minister Charles Michel I do not thank you. Because you have avoided asking the important questions: Did the Saudis and Qataris finance the terrorists? Yes, the reports from the US service say. The US created al-Qaeda? Yes, Hillary Clinton has recognized. The CIA organized a training camp in Syria? Yes, the American journalist Seymour Hersh has proved. Did France’s former foreign minister Laurent Fabius encourage terrorism by saying “al-Qaeda does a good job”? Yes, take a look at his video from December 2012 in Marrakech.

Generally speaking, has the US made use of the so-called Islamic terrorism from Bin Laden in Afghanistan in 1979 till today’s Syria, including Bosnia, Kosovo, Caucasus, Algeria, Iraq, Lybia and other countries? Isn’t it urgent to create a commission to investigate the links of the US to the terrorism and the background strategies of all this drama? You and Europe, will you continue to follow Washington as a small dog? You are happy like a little kid to receive a call from Obama. … Mr. Michel, when I think of all the suffering that could have been avoided, I do not wish to thank you.

It is true you are not alone in practicing political cant.

Foreign minister Didier Reynders, I do not thank you either. You have declared yesterday terrorists attack “our way of living”? Exactly the words of George W. Bush on September 11th, before attacking Iraq and Afghanistan under untruthful pretexts. Mr. Reynders, why haven’t you recalled your April 2013 declaration boasting “these youngsters (to whom) we may build a monument as heroes of a revolution”?

Why have you refused my invitation to participate in a debate “Youngsters in Syria, how to stop them from leaving?” ? The subject did not concern you? Did you think to “change the regime“, as you say, all means were good, even terrorism? Haven’t you considered encouraging them to pursue theses acts in other territories some would perpetrate them here? Mr. Reynders, I do not thank you.

Ms. Milquet, I also do not thank you. You were minister of Interior at this time. You have also refused to participate on the debate, always with a new excuse only to silence yourself later. Embarrassed to have turned a deaf ear to the cries of distress from mothers watching their boys — kids of 16, 17, 18 yo — to leave towards hell without any action from Belgium doing anything to stop them. Do you feel any regrets now you see the consequences? Ms. Milquet, I do not thank you.

Isn’t it about time to start a major discussion on the consequences of international politics conducted by Belgium for years?
…

3. Should Belgium prostrate itself in front of Saudi petro-dollars (stolen from the Arab people instead of used to fight poverty as in Latin America) when we know Saudis finance the poisoning of young spirits with a falsified version of Islam?

4. How can we justify the refusal of asylum to the victims of «our» wars in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan?

5. When will we finally open the debate on the humanitarian intervention in Lybia, when Otan [NATO] allied with al-Qaeda to overturn Kahdhafi, violating the Charter of the United Nations, which forbids such practices? The consequence we know today: Lybia is a nest of the international terrorism.

Isn’t it time also to open a major debate on the consequences of social politics — more likely anti-social — conducted by the Belgium government for years?

1. Can you wear away the education budget non-stop? Fabricate the school-parkings where teachers do not have the adequate formation and means to face the complex questions of nowadays?

2. Can you wear away the prison and rehabilitation budgets non-stop, if the consequence may be the small delinquents becoming unrecoverable?

3. Can you wear away the audio-visual media budget non-stop, the consequence being journalists without time to deepen their stories (as stated by people from RTBF) and condemned to copy and paste and fast-info? Not to mention leaving people being subject to believing in conspiracy theories or worse being subject of fanatic preachers and unscrupulous recruiters?

4 Can you continue to give banks and multinationals the gift of not paying taxes and throw your deficit in the hands of the local authorities, where the responsibles do not dispose of means to help the young people? Isn’t it this way you produce municipalities \without hope such as Molenbeek? (Not only but also Vilvoorde, Verviers, Antwerp and let’s not forget euro-djihadists come from various European countries.)

5. Must we be surprised when a high number of young people falls in the arms of professional recruiters? When we let the police know and often parents and teachers heard back: “They can go to Syria; what we do not want is that they come back”?

6. Do you really feel you have the right to say you are surprised by the attacks in Paris and Brussels even though the alarm has been ringing for years and you refused to listen?

Yesterday, all parents were frightened for their children. Today, they have questions about what kind of education to offer in front of a world the more and more violent. Can we really give them a real education and a future? Tomorrow, what city will be striked? The growing hate and fear, Muslims as target, plays the game of the extreme right. Is that what you want?

Conclusion: the attacks are not a fatality, it is the result of a policy. Conducted in Washington. Then in London and Paris. Brussels following. Leaders, you are co-responsible. Do we have the right to debate — in “democracy” — or will you still pressure the media to silence?

Brussels, 23rd of March

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