Majorityrights News > Category: Military Matters

DW.com, ‘Israel and Turkey reach ‘agreement’ to normalize diplomatic ties’, 17 Dec 2015 (emphasis added):

Israel has made an agreement with Turkey to normalize relations, diplomatic sources say. A restoration of ambassadorial representation - on hold after a deadly Israeli naval raid in 2010 - is envisaged.

An Israeli official said on Thursday that a preliminary agreement had been reached that foresees the full restoration of diplomatic links.

As part of the deal, Israel is to establish a compensation fund to address the killing of 10 Turks by Israeli marines who stormed a pro-Palestinian activist ship, the Mavi Marmara, in 2010. The crew aboard the vessel had been seeking to land on the Gaza Strip, breaking an Israeli blockade of the territory.

According to the official, Israel was represented by Mossad chief Yossi Cohen and Netanyahu’s official in charge of reconciliation with Turkey, Joseph Ciechanover. Turkey’s Feridun Sinirlioglu, an undersecretary with the foreign ministry, represented Anakara.

Two other sources familiar with the negotiations confirmed the details.

A full signing of the agreement is expected “in coming days,” one source told the AFP news agency.

Help from a mutual friend

Relations between the two countries - both key allies for the US in the region - broke down in the wake of the raid, and Washington has been involved in trying to patch up their differences.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday hinted that a warming of ties was in the cards, saying that an improvement in relations between the two countries would benefit the region as a whole.

Erdogan said that for a normalization of relations to be possible it would be necessary to reach a deal on compensation for the storming of the ship in 2010 - as well as to agree a lifting of the Gaza embargo.

“There is so much that we, Israel, Palestine and the region can gain from such a normalization process. The region is in need of this,” Erdogan said.

News of the deal emerged hours after Netanyahu signed a major natural gas deal - with a consortium that includes US firm Noble Energy - aimed at tapping deposits below the Mediterranean.

rc/jm (AFP, AP, Reuters)

The region is not ‘in need of this’ at all. It’s just a case of two deeply treacherous governments—Turkey and Israel—whose objectives never line up with those of NATO, getting together to come up with new ways to be total idiots and liabilities.

BBC News, ‘Libya militia chases away US troops’, 18 Dec 2015 (emphasis added):

Photos posted on Facebook claim to show US troops getting back on their plane shortly after landing.

US forces flown to Libya to support government troops had to leave after landing because of demands from a local militia group, US officials say.

It follows reports that 20 US special forces troops, equipped with advanced weaponry, landed on Monday at an airbase in western Libya.

The troops chose to leave “in an effort to avoid conflict”, a US Africa Command (Africom) spokesman told the BBC.

Libya has been in chaos since the 2011 overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi.

The US forces had travelled to Libya in order to “foster relationships and enhance communication with their counterparts in the Libyan National Army”, Africom spokesman Anthony Falvo told the BBC.

The soldiers left without incident, he added.

Analysis: Rana Jawad - BBC North Africa correspondent

It is undoubtedly an embarrassing revelation for the Americans.

The timing of the incident, so close to the long-awaited deal signed by Libya’s rival parliaments on Thursday, has fuelled speculation among Libyans over what they see as the ulterior motives of the US and other Western nations.

There has been increasing suspicion that foreign troops are looking to establish their presence on the ground in Libya, especially with the so-called Islamic State grabbing more territory in recent months.

Reactions on social media ranged from accusations that the US was promoting one side of the conflict, to questions over the West’s long-term military aims in Libya.

Western nations have repeatedly spoken of their intent to support Libyan armed forces to help secure the country and combat extremism.

However, if nothing else, the incident chiefly serves as a reminder of the challenges foreign military forces will face trying to operate in a country with no central security structure.

Mr Falvo did not elaborate further on why the troops’ landing at al-Wattiya airbase had seemingly not been cleared with the relevant Libyan groups on the ground.

The airbase is not controlled directly by the Libyan army, but by a militia affiliated to it, which may explain the apparent breakdown in communication.

Unnamed Pentagon officials told national media that US forces had been “in and out of Libya” for some time, operating in an advisory, but not a combat role.

Photos of the secret mission were published on the official Facebook page of the Libyan Air Force, saying the troops had landed “without prior coordination”.

It described the forces arriving “in combat readiness wearing bullet proof jackets” carrying night-vision goggles, GPS devices and assault rifles.

Libya’s rival power bases (as of August 2015)

Libya has two rival governments, one based in the main city, Tripoli, and the other about 1,000km (620 miles) away in the port city of Tobruk.

Representatives of the two groups signed a deal in Morocco on Thursday, agreeing to form a national unity government, however their respective leaders voiced their reservations.

With the collapse of law and order in most of Libya, following the disastrous events of the Arab Spring, and the disastrous choice by some western leaders to utilise NATO as air cover for the reactionary Islamist forces that were unleashed by the process, the situation still remains unmanageable after 2011.

In the Greco-Roman era, the Roman Empire held the coastline of what is now known as modern day Libya, because it was a strategic imperative for them to hold it in order to more adequately manage the traffic on the Mediterranean Sea.

In light of the mass migration crisis, or the ‘immivasion’ as some people have taken to calling it, it may be time to consider that imperative again.

There are war mongers operating behind the scenes of power whose motives highly resemble those of the Cold War era: Russia, adjacent geopolitical objectives, resource acquisition and control are seen as central problems which require strong military force.

What is insufficient in John Marshall’s investigative critique and whistle blowing article, however, is a failure to make clear the facts that:

1) The particular people, including at NATO, behind these strategies - viz., war with Russia, control in the Middle East and the borders of Russia - do not identify as White; and are not acting with White (i.e., European peoples) interests in mind first and foremost.

2) In normal ethno-nationalist terms, Russia is, in fact, a problematic nation, which is not circumscribed to their, let alone to our common White/European interests; not committed to cooperation in geopolitical ordering; border and demographic defense; and provisioning of The European Ethno-National Region and its necessary alliance with The Asian Region and its Ethno-Nations.

The point is, these are very real, not trumped-up concerns, and White Nationalism must take the helm in cooperation with Asian Nationalisms to handle these concerns.

I will venture an outline of why that is and how it might come about in few days. I will do this in anticipation that Kumiko will contribute her considerable insight to correct oversights, flesh-out a myriad of details and augment points where emphasis is needed.

My perspective on this is that we’ve got the stuff of war at hand all around us already. It is now up to us to wrest the lines from the hands of Jews and others who do not identify with Whites, to shape and craft the battle lines in White Nationalist interests instead. I will argue that that will require European and Asian cooperation and, in terms of their prior imperialist overreaches and capacity to offer cooperation, a significantly chastened U.S. and Russia.

First, a look at how “obscure people’ can start wars” by John Marshall - talking about Victoria Nuland and her fellow Jewish and neocon cohorts, though, of course, he does not name the YKW as such:

Consortiumnews.com, “How ‘Obscure’ Bureaucrats Cause Wars”, 15 Dec. 2015

Exclusive: Official Washington’s anti-Russian “group think” is now so dominant that no one with career aspirations dares challenge it, a victory for “obscure” government bureaucrats, like Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, as Jonathan Marshall explains.

History isn’t just made by impersonal forces and “great men” or “great women.” Sometimes relatively obscure men and women acting in key bureaucratic posts make a real difference.

Thus, the international crisis in Syria traces back in part to the decision of President Barack Obama’s first ambassador to Syria, Robert Ford, to reject peaceful rapprochement with the Damascus regime in favor of “radically redesign[ing] his mission” to promote anti-government protests that triggered the civil war in 2011.

                                                         

Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nuland during a press conference at the U.S. Embassy in Kiev, Ukraine, on Feb. 7, 2014. (U.S. State Department photo)

In much the same way, Obama’s Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Victoria Nuland did her best to foment the Feb. 22, 2014 putsch against the democratically elected Ukrainian government of President Viktor Yanukovych, “while convincing the ever-gullible U.S. mainstream media that the coup wasn’t really a coup but a victory for ‘democracy,’” as journalist Robert Parry wrote last July.

Nuland, a former adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney and wife of neoconservative luminary Robert Kagan, helped achieve in Ukraine the kind of “regime change” that her husband had long promoted in the Middle East through the Project for a New American Century.

Nuland now has a new counterpart in the Department of Defense who bears close watching for signs of whether the Obama administration will keep escalating military confrontation with Russia over Eastern Europe, or look for opportunities to find common ground and ease tensions.

On Dec. 14, Dr. Michael Carpenter started work at the Pentagon as deputy assistant secretary of defense for Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia, with added responsibilities for the Western Balkans and Conventional Arms Control. He replaced Evelyn Farkas, who stepped down in October.

Farkas was a firebrand who accused Russia of “shredding international law and conventions that have held firm for decades.” In a call to arms straight out of the early Cold War, she wrote, “Russia’s challenge is so fundamental to the international system, to democracy and free market capitalism that we cannot allow the Kremlin’s policy to succeed in Syria or elsewhere.”

In a remarkable display of “projection” — ascribing to others one’s own motives and actions — she declared that “Russia has invaded neighboring countries, occupied their territory, and funded NGOs and political parties not only in its periphery but also in NATO countries.” Its goal, she asserted, was nothing less than “breaking NATO, the EU and transatlantic unity.”

Farkas declared that the United States must continue its military buildup to deter Russia; provide “lethal assistance” to countries on Russia’s periphery, including Ukraine, Georgia, and Moldova; and step up economic sanctions “to pressure Russia . . . so that U.S. national security interests and objectives prevail.”

With people like that helping to shape official policy over the past three years, it’s no wonder U.S.-Russia relations have hit such a low point. Might her replacement, Michael Carpenter, take a less confrontational approach?

Carpenter moved to the Pentagon from the office of Vice President Joe Biden, where he was special adviser for Europe and Eurasia. Previously he ran the Russia desk at the National Security Council and spent several years in the Foreign Service.

Carpenter has kept a low public profile, with few publications or speeches to his name. One of his few quasi-public appearances was this April at a symposium on “Baltic Defense & Security After Ukraine: New Challenges, New Threats,” sponsored by The Jamestown Foundation.

His prepared remarks were off the record, but they were greeted warmly — “you’ve hit it right on the head” — by discussant Kurt Volker, former NATO ambassador under President George W. Bush and foreign policy adviser to Sen. John McCain. McCain has demanded that the United States arm Ukraine to fight Russia and he helped inflame the Ukraine crisis by meeting with the anti-Semitic leader of the country’s right-wing nationalist party for photo-ops in 2013.

During a short Q&A session at the symposium, captured on video, Carpenter declared that “Russia has completely shredded the NATO-Russian Founding Act,” a choice of words strikingly reminiscent of Farkas’s denunciation of Russia for “shredding international law.” He accused Russia of “pursuing a neo-imperial revanchist policy” in Eastern Europe, inflammatory words that Sen. McCain lifted for an op-ed column in the Washington Post a couple of months later. Carpenter also indicated that he would personally favor permanent NATO bases in the Baltic states if such an escalation would not fragment the alliance.

The fact that Carpenter chose to make one of his few appearances at the The Jamestown Foundation is itself highly telling. According to IPS Right Web, which tracks conservative think tanks, the foundation’s president, Glen Howard, “is the former executive director of the American Committee for Peace in Chechnya, a largely neoconservative-led campaign aimed at undermining Russia by bolstering U.S. support for militant nationalist and Islamist movements in the North Caucasus.” He has also been consultant to the Pentagon and to “major oil companies operating in Central Asia and the Middle East.”

The foundation was formed in 1984 by “a leading Cold Warrior close to the Reagan administration,” with the blessing of CIA Director William Casey, to provide extra funding for Soviet bloc defectors to supplement meager stipends offered by the CIA. Its board members today include former CIA Director Michael Hayden, and previous board members included Dick Cheney and former CIA Director R. James Woolsey, a prominent neoconservative activist.

All this matters hugely for several reasons. Increased confrontation with Russia, particularly along its highly sensitive Western border, will continue to poison relationships with Moscow that are crucial for achieving U.S. interests ranging from Afghanistan to Iran to Syria. Ratcheting up a new Cold War will divert tens or hundreds of billions of dollars into military spending at the expense of domestic priorities.

Most important, the action-reaction cycle between NATO and Russia in Eastern Europe is dramatically increasing chances for an unwanted, unneeded and disastrous war involving the world’s great nuclear powers. Ian Kearns, director of the European Leadership Network, noted in a recent commentary for the Arms Control Association:

“Despite protestations by both sides that the exercises are aimed at no particular adversary, it is clear that each side is exercising with the most likely war plans of the other in mind. The Russian military is preparing for a confrontation with NATO, and NATO is preparing for a confrontation with Russia. This does not mean either side has the political intent to start a war, but it does mean that both believe a war is no longer unthinkable. . . .

“Too few appear to recognize that the current cocktail of incidents, mistrust, changed military posture, and nuclear signaling is creating the conditions in which a single event or combination of events could result in a NATO-Russian war, even if neither side intends it.”

In such a way, the actions of relatively minor figures in history – if their provocations are not reined in – can lead the world to cataclysm.

KY3, ‘Number of reports of mass cell phone buys grows in Missouri’, 10 Dec 2015:

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. - The FBI is aware of reports of men visiting Walmart stores in several cities in Missouri and purchasing or trying to purchase large quantities of cellular telephones.  An FBI spokeswoman won’t say exactly how much its agents are delving into the purchases.  Some of the cities where the purchases and attempted purchases are reported by police and media are Macon, Columbia, Jefferson City, Lebanon, Ava, Jackson and Cape Girardeau.

Ava police say a man of Middle Eastern background bought a large number of cellular telephones at the Walmart store in Ava about 6:15 a.m. last Saturday. Police questioned the man, who was from Michigan, and he told them that he is a businessman. Police found no reason to detain him.

That purchase was about three hours after two men bought 60 cell phones at the Walmart store in Lebanon.  Officers there questioned the men, at least one of whom said he is from Michigan, according to Ava police.  Laclede County Sheriff Wayne Merritt said officers also found no reason to detain the cell phone buyers in Lebanon.

An Ava Police Department spokeswoman said her department’s officers also have heard of a similar purchase of a large number of cell phones at a Walmart store in Columbia.  She said it’s possible that all three purchases are related and by the same men.

A TV station in Kansas City reported similar purchases or attempted purchases in Macon and Jefferson City.  A TV station in Jefferson City reported similar purchases at stores in Jackson and Cape Girardeau, as well as other cities.

After an earlier version of this story was posted on Thursday afternoon, the Marshfield police chief called to say that a man who gave a Michigan address made a similar purchase of a 19 prepaid cell phones in his city in October.  The chief said that man gave a false tax exempt waiver form to the store and bought the phones without sales taxes.

KY3 reporters have repeatedly called Walmart headquarters to try to find out if Walmart has a policy that limits the number of cell phones that one person can buy at a time, or has recently changed its policy.  Walmart representatives have not returned those calls. On Thursday, a KSPR reporter went to the Walmart store on South Campbell Avenue in Springfield and tried to buy six cell phones and was told the limit is two; the store employees were not told he is a reporter.

Law enforcement officers say purchasing cellphones in bulk is done for any number of uses, including to give as gifts or to resell for profit.  Law enforcement agencies report cell phones are also potential tools in the hands of terrorists. The devices can be used to communicate and they’re difficult to trace if they’re prepaid phones; they can also be used as detonators for bombs.

Harmless resellers, or Islamist cells organising themselves? I wonder what will turn out to be the truth?

Perhaps the only way to find out for sure, would be to let a couple thousand more Syrian ‘refugees’ into the United States. Or something.

                                                                                                              [more details under the fold]

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A still pond

Every action has reflections that ripple outward, like when a pebble is cast into a still pond. The enactment of free trade agreements such as NAFTA and, soon to come, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, have additional effects that are only seen in the criminal underworld. Every opening up of trade that occurs, also is an opening up of the potential for the transport of contraband of various sorts.

One of the webs of associations that have grown and become more complex over the past decade is the international drug trade, particularly those groups who interface with the Sinaloa Cartel in Mexico. As of December 2015, the components of the international drug trade surrounding the Sinaloa Cartel are as follows:

• Sinaloa Cartel and associates (Mexico, Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru, Argentina, Chile, Guatemala, El Salvador, Panama, Honduras, Costa Rica, Bolivia, Philippines, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Australia, New Zealand, Nicaragua)
• Gente Nueva (Mexico)
• Artistas Asesinos (Mexico)
• Los Mexicles (Mexico)
• Los Antrax (Mexico)
• Mara Salvatrucha (Mexico, Canada, United States)
• Cosa Nostra (Transatlantic)
• French Mafia (Transatlantic)
• FARC (Colombia)
• United States DEA
• Elements of Mexican government
• Elements of Columbian government
• Elements of Taiwanese government
• Elements of Myanmar government
• Elements of Laotian government
• Elements of Japanese government
• Elements of British government
• Elements of Kosovo government
• Elements of Afghan government
• Kurdish Workers Movement (Middle East)
• Albanian-connected syndicates (Europe, Caucasus)
• Russian Mafia (Russia, Central Asia, Europe)
• Chicago street gangs (Chicago)
• Yamaguchi-gumi (Japan, Transpacific)
• Inagawa-kai (Japan, Transpacific)
• Sumiyoshi-kai (Japan, Transpacific)
• The Seven Star Mob (South Korea, Transpacific)
• The H.S.S. Mob (South Korea, Transpacific)
• 14K (Hong Kong, Transpacific)
• Sun Yee On (Hong Kong, Transpacific)
• The United Bamboo Gang (Taiwan, United States)
• Celestial Alliance (Taiwan, China)
• etc.

Ordinarily I’d draw up a map of how these all interact, along with mainstream news sources, but that would be a time-consuming task, and illustrating how they are all together is not the main purpose of this article. I provide that list only to say that they are together.

The alleged email

With Sinaloa Cartel sitting in the middle of that enterprise with the most to lose and most to gain from the success of the expansion of their operations and the linkages that they are cultivating around the world, it is not surprising that when this amalgamation of interests wishes to take on a human voice without disguise or artifice, it manifests as an email from Joaqin ‘El Chapo’ Guzman to Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi, which allegedly reads as follows:

Cartelblog, ‘El Chapo sends threatening message to terrorist group ISIS’, 07 Dec 2015 (emphasis added):

[...]

As drugs are not a part of the organizations ideology for a Muslim State, ISIS fighters have been destroying shipments of drugs from the cartels.

The cartels have made it clear that ISIS just made a huge mistake by destroying their shipments. It’s clear from the leaked emails that they are not only extremely mad, but are definitely willing to step up and take the organization out if they continue to mess with their business.

Here’s part of the leaked email:

“You [ISIS] are not soldiers. You are nothing but lowly pussies. Your god cannot save you from the true terror that my men will levy at you if you continue to impact my operation.”

“My men will destroy you. The world is not yours to dictate. I pity the next son of a whore that tries to interfere with the business of the Sinaloa Cartel. I will have their heart and tongue torn from them.”

[...]

To the pious Islamist readers out there, and I know you are out there, be aware of this when you set out on your jihad. Whether that email is real or a creative mock-up of what such an email would look like if it were to be composed, it is basically an accurate reflection of what the mood must be among the high ranks of the various criminal syndicates around the world.

And do not doubt that hearts and tongues will be torn out. So think twice before getting involved. Do you really want your heart and tongue torn out?

With what army?

ISIL fighters have managed to negatively impact the bottom line of weapons manufacturers, oil services companies, agribusinesses, and now drug cartels and those who are invested in the movements of drugs around the world. That has ramifications.

For example, if Yamaguchi-gumi were ever to be listed as a ‘legitimate’ business conglomerate on the Japanese market instead of as multiple companies with obfuscated revenue streams and connections to ‘legitimate’ banks, it would actually be the second-largest private equity group in Japan. And in the west, this same logic applies, as many might remember from the situation involving Citigroup, and Barclays, and Bank of America, and so on.

Some people may have heard of the idea that the world revolves around guns, oil, grain, and drugs. They are right, it does. And some may ask, “What army will open the way for drugs to traverse the Middle East without interception again? The criminal organisations don’t have an army.”

Actually, there is an army which will accomplish that task, although it is not one assembled for that specific purpose. I wonder if anyone can guess which army that is?

Chess and not checkers

The world really is an interesting place, and people sometimes end up with really interesting unintentional-allies. In the coming period, I would propose that it would be prudent for ethno-nationalist groups to adopt a rhetorically nuanced approach to the drug war—much like the one I’m taking in this post—one which takes into account that the criminal syndicates have a potential to be a pseudo-ally to the NATO war effort because of shared interests, although not shared ideals.

People like Donald Trump and his supporters seem not to understand this dynamic, because they seem to want to fight ISIL and the Sinaloa Cartel at the same time. For what purpose? Surely it would always be more sensible to make good use of the cartels against ISIL. Government piggybacking on the trade—which is to say, standing on both sides of the trade—would also generate money from the fact that contraband tends to have enormous profit margins because it is illegal, and piggybacking would also enable the government to understand the market better and to mitigate the trade’s most socially-harmful side-effects ahead of time.

The pushback from Central and Eastern Europe continues, as Donald Tusk is now criticising Germany’s mass migration drive:

EU Observer, ‘Tusk: ‘Wave of migrants too big not to be stopped’‘, 03 Dec 2015 (emphasis added):

‘Access to Europe is too easy,’ Tusk said. (Photo: Consillium)

The current influx of migrants is “too big not to stop them,” European Council president Donald Tusk has said. He proposed that irregular migrants are detained for up to 18 months to check their identity.

In an interview with six European newspapers, Tusk said there is “no majority” in Europe for plans to relocate asylum seekers and that the priority should be the protection of Schengen’s external borders.

The scheme to relocate 160,000 refugees from Italy and Greece has been pushed by Tusk’s EU Commission counterpart, Jean-Claude Juncker, and by Germany’s Angela Merkel. So far, just a few dozen people have been relocated.

“I am convinced there is no majority in the EU for such a system,” Tusk said, adding that “this time, central Europe is not the only problem.”

“Let’s avoid hypocrisy: it is not a question of international solidarity anymore, but a problem of European capacities. Europeans would be less reluctant if the EU’s external border was really under control,” he said.

“Today access to Europe is, simply speaking, too easy,” he added.

Tusk, who chairs the summits of EU leaders, asked them to “change [their] mindset” and covertly took on Merkel.

“Some [leaders] say the wave of migrants is too big to stop them. That is dangerous,” he said.

“This wave of migrants is too big not to stop them,” he said, adding that nobody is ready “to absorb these high numbers, Germany included.”

Effective controls

He noted that debate on migration has slipped out of the hands of “politicians or intellectuals or commentators” and has gone “really public because the fear and uncertainty is so genuine.”

He also reiterated that the key is border control.

“Every country must respect and apply the Schengen Borders Code, including the rule that asylum requests be filed in the country of arrival, for example Greece, and not somewhere else,” Tusk said.

“It is often said that we must be open to Syrian refugees. But these are only 30 percent of the inflow. Seventy percent are economic migrants. Also for this reason we need more effective controls,” Tusk noted.

Controls are not only a matter of stemming the flow, but also a question of security, he said, floating the idea that the EU should be ready to detain illegal migrants as long as it can to check them.

“If you want to screen migrants and refugees, you need more time than only one minute to fingerprint,” he noted, adding that international and European law allow up to 18 months “for the screening we need.”

Will Donald Tusk’s voice be heeded though, I wonder?

Vocactive,‘ISIS: “May god spread fear in the homes of the Crusaders.”, 3 Nov 2015:

Fourteen people were killed and at least 17 wounded

“Three lions made us proud. They are still alive,” one ISIS adherent tweeted in Arabic after the shootings at Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino. “California streets are full with soldiers with heavy weapons. The Unites States is burning #America_Burning #Takbir”

Translation:

“Three lions made us proud. They are still alive,” tweeted after the shootings in San Bernardino

After the Paris attacks, confirmed ISIS accounts praised “Lions” as well.

LA Times, San Bernardino shooting live updates: Victims who died ranged in age from 26 to 60, 3 Nov, 2015:

What we know

• Around 11 a.m. on Wednesday, two assailants opened fire in San Bernardino at a party in the Inland Regional Center, police said.
• Fourteen people were killed and 21 wounded. The names of all those injured have not yet been released, but The Times is collecting their names and stories.
• After a Wednesday afternoon car chase, the two armed suspects were killed by police: Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik.
• The attackers’ motive is unknown. President Obama, in a statement from the Oval Office Thursday morning, said the shooting was possibly related to terrorism, but might also be workplace related.
• Police said there was “some degree of planning.” The suspects were heavily armed, wearing tactical attire, and had an arsenal of ammunition and pipe bombs in their Redlands home.

A silver lining to terrorism is that it moves us in the direction of having to classify people - e.g., non-White middle-easterners, as a whole - as we are less able to distinguish “the good ones from the bad ones.” That is a necessary step in racial, systemic maintenance.

Guardian, ‘Jeremy Corbyn demands two-day Commons debate on Syria airstrikes’, 30 Nov 2015 (emphasis added):

Today’s shadow cabinet agreed to back Jeremy Corbyn’s recommendation of a free vote on the government’s proposal to authorise UK bombing in Syria.

The shadow cabinet decided to support the call for David Cameron to step back from the rush to war and hold a full two day [public] debate in the House of Commons on such a crucial national decision.

Shadow Cabinet members agreed to call David Cameron to account on the unanswered questions raised by his case for bombing: including how it would accelerate a negotiated settlement of the Syrian civil war; what ground troops would take territory evacuated by ISIS; military co-ordination and strategy; the refugee crisis and the imperative to cut-off of supplies to ISIS.

It’s almost as though the Labour party is staffed by actual retards.