சென்னை வெள்ளம்-தத்தளிக்கும் தமிழகம்.

சென்னை வெள்ளம் ஒரு கருத்து சித்திர தொகுப்பு - தமிழீழச் செய்தியகம்

புதிய தலைமுறை தொலைக்காட்சி நகரமைப்பு விபரணம்:

குறிப்பு: ஒளி நாடா விபரணம் உரைக்கும் மையமான கருத்து; கடந்த 10 ஆண்டுகளில் எடுக்கப்பட்ட நகரமைப்புப் பணிகளே இவ் அனர்த்தத்துக்கு தனிக் குறிப்பான காரணமாகும்.
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இந்திய உலகமயத்துக்கு படுக்கை விரித்த, தமிழ்  நாட்டு ஆளும் கும்பல்களின், சிசுவே- 
2015 சென்னை வெள்ளம்! 

புதிய ஈழப் புரட்சியாளர்கள்

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SUBMERGED

Chennai floods are not a natural disaster—they’ve been created by greedy town planners and dumb engineers.

 Thanks to the “Make in Chennai” boom.

WRITTEN BY Nityanand Jayaraman  · Nov 18, 2015 · 08:15 am

CHENNAI FLOODS

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa's response to the floods in Tamil Nadu is frightening. A report in NDTV quotes her as saying, “Losses are unavoidable when there's very heavy rain. Swift rescue and relief alone are indicators of a good government.” These words are intended to normalise a human-made disaster, and gloss over the pathology of urban development under successive administrations.

It is quite usual for politicians and civic officials to blame so-called unprecedented rains for the civic and humanitarian crisis each monsoon brings, and decouple development from disaster. But unprecedented rains occur quite regularly in Chennai. As a city on the high-energy coast facing the Bay of Bengal, Chennai is no stranger to heavy rains and cyclonic storms. Chennai has experienced particularly heavy rains roughly once every 10 years – 1969, 1976, 1985, 1996, 1998, 2005, 2015.

Sathyabama University was constructed in a water body on Old Mahabalipuram Road.

In fact, at 235 mm, last weekend's rainfall is not even the big daddy of big rains. The Nungambakkam rain gauge recorded 270 mm on October 27,  2005; 280 mm in 1969, and 450 mm in November 1976.

Even in 1976, Adyar overflowed its banks and invaded first-floor houses. But those were the days when Chennai was derided for being an overgrown village, an underdeveloped aspirant to metropolitan status.

Today, Chennai has a host of expensive infrastructure aimed at ushering in a “Make in Chennai” boom – a brand-new (though leaky) airport built on the floodplains of the River Adyar, a sprawling bus terminal in flood-prone Koyambedu, a Mass Rapid Transit System constructed almost wholly over the Buckingham Canal and the Pallikaranai marshlands, expressways and bypass roads constructed with no mind to the tendency of water to flow, an IT corridor and a Knowledge Corridor consisting of engineering colleges constructed on waterbodies, and automobile and telecom SEZs and gated residential areas built on important drainage courses and catchments.

MRC Nagar 2001, Google Maps

MRC Nagar 2015, Google Maps

With every invitation to Make in Chennai, the city is unmaking itself and eroding its resilience to perfectly normal monsoon weather events. The infrastructure of big commerce has replaced the infrastructure to withstand natural shocks.

The 2015 disaster was not just avoidable; it was a direct consequence of decisions pushed for by vested interests and conceded by town planners, bureaucrats and politicians in the face of wiser counsel.

The case of the Pallikaranai marshlands, which drains water from a 250-square-kilometre catchment, is telling. Not long ago, it was a 50-square-kilometre water sprawl in the southern suburbs of Chennai. Now, it is 4.3 square kilometres – less than a tenth of its original. The growing finger of a garbage dump sticks out like a cancerous tumour in the northern part of the marshland.  Two major roads cut through the waterbody with few pitifully small culverts that are not up to the job of transferring the rain water flows from such a large catchment. The edges have been eaten into by institutes like the National Institute of Ocean Technology. Ironically, NIOT is an accredited consultant to prepare Environmental Impact Assessments on various subjects, including on the implications of constructing on waterbodies.

Other portions of this wetland have been sacrificed to accommodate the IT corridor. But water offers no exemption to elite industry. Unmindful of the lofty intellectuals at work in the glass and steel buildings of the software parks, rainwater goes by habit to occupy its old haunts, bringing the back-office work of American banks to a grinding halt.

The vast network of waterbodies that characterised Chennai can only be seen on revenue maps now. Of the 16 tanks belonging to the Vyasarpadi chain downstream of Retteri, none remain, according to Prof. M. Karmegam of Anna University.

Virtually every one of the flood-hit areas can be linked to ill-planned construction. The Chennai Bypass connecting NH45 to NH4 blocks the east flowing drainage causing flooding in Anna Nagar, Porur, Vanagaram, Maduravoyal, Mugappair and Ambattur. The Maduravoyal lake has shrunk from 120 acres to 25. Ditto with Ambattur, Kodungaiyur and Adambakkam tanks. The Koyambedu drain and the surplus channels from Korattur and Ambattur tanks are missing. Sections of the Veerangal Odai connecting Adambakkam tank to Pallikaranai are missing. The South Buckingham Canal from Adyar creek to Kovalam creek has been squeezed from its original width of 25 metres to 10 metres in many places due to the Mass Rapid Transit System railway stations. Important flood retention structures such as Virugambakkam, Padi and Villivakkam tanks are officially abandoned.

Capacity reduction

Before political rivalry between the two Dravidian parties brought it to a midway halt, an ill-advised Elevated Express freight corridor from Chennai harbour to Maduravoyal had already reclaimed a substantial portion of the Cooum's southern bank drastically reducing the flood-carrying capacity of the river.

Remarkably, all these causes were listed out by the government's own officials at a seminar on waterways organised by the Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority in 2010. But there seems to be many a slip between enlightened understanding and enlightened action.

The Second Masterplan prepared by the Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority glibly authorises built-up spaces with no regard to hydrology. In the Ennore region, the authority has reclassified waterbodies, intertidal zones and mangrove swamps as “Special and Hazardous Industries” and handed it over to the Kamarajar Port Ltd.

In Ponneri, a town in a rural part of Chennai Metropolitan Area, developers are executing  Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority-approved plans with no regard to drainage. Last weekend, Ponneri received 370 mm of rain – 135 mm more than Chennai did. While it suffered from flooding, damage to property and life was not high. Ponneri is slotted to be developed as a Smart City. But will our dumb engineers be able to build a smart city?

We welcome your comments at letters@scroll.in
http://scroll.in/article/769928/chennai-floods-are-not-a-natural-disaster-theyve-been-created-by-unrestrained-construction
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Chennai's vanishing waterbodies
A.SRIVATHSAN,  K.LAKSHMI

Ghost of waterbody:Maduravoyal lake is one of the many waterbodies on the city fringes that have shrunk owing to encroachments and inadequate maintenance.— Photo: Maheshwar Singh
Ghost of waterbody:Maduravoyal lake is one of the many waterbodies on the city fringes that have shrunk owing to encroachments and inadequate maintenance.— Photo: Maheshwar Singh Of 650 extant two decades ago, only a fraction remains; water shortages, flooding a direct consequence

About two decades ago, a research project by the Centre for Environmental and Water Resource Engineering, IIT Madras estimated that about 650 waterbodies existed in the Chennai region.

More than half of them were located south of River Adyar. At present, as the second Master Plan for Chennai indicates, only a fraction of them exists. Most of the waterbodies within the city have vanished and only a few remain in the immediate periphery.

According to records of the Water Resources Department (WRD), the area of 19 major lakes has been shrunk from a total of 1,130 hectares to nearly 645 hectares and hence reduced their storage capacity.

M. Kaarmegam, former director of the Centre for Water Resources, Anna University, said: “There were 16 tanks downstream of Retteri called Vyasarpadi chain of tanks. Kodungaiyur tank was one among them. Now, there is no sign of them. There was also a tank in Thirumangalam area.”

Maduravoyal Lake, which was once spread across 120 acres has now shrunk to 25 acres. Encroachments and misuse of lake bed were the reasons, he added.S. Narayanan, treasurer of Kazura Garden Residents' Welfare Association, Neelankarai, recalled that there were over 13 waterbodies in the area until a few decades ago. “Many of them have been encroached upon and buildings have come up. There are only two lakes now. Even a pond in our colony has been encroached,” he said.

The consequence of this rapid loss of waterbodies has not only reduced the extent of collective water harvesting, but also severely impacted flood management within the city. The principal cause of local flooding in many areas, it emerges, is the mismanagement of waterbodies and impairment of linking canals.

For instance, the Virugambakkam drain, which was 6.5 km long and drained into the Nungambakkam tank, is now present only for an of extent of 4.5 km. The remaining two km stretch of the drain is missing. Nungambakkam tank was filled and built.

This along with the loss of Koyambedu drain has resulted in the periodic flooding of Koyambedu and Virugambakkam areas.

This phenomenon is now repeating in the suburbs. The surplus channels connecting various waterbodies in western suburbs such as Ambattur and Korattur have been encroached upon. The waterbody in Mogappair has almost disappeared. Lake beds often serve as make shift dumping yards and cesspool. This has resulted in inundation of neighbouring localities.

The Veerangal Odai that connects the Adambakkam lake with Pallikaranai marsh ends abruptly after 550 m from its origin and the remaining part is not to be seen. This causes inundation in places such as Puzhithivakkam and Madipakkam.

S. Mohan, professor, Environment and Water Resources Engineering, IIT Madras, cautions that loss of waterbodies and channels not only induced flood but also increased saltwater intrusion. As a thumb rule, he said, every one metre of water-head in a water body can push sea water laterally by 40 meters.

The waterbodies thus function like a protective ring. But for the presence of Buckingham Canal, saltwater would have intruded further west and affected more residential areas, Mr. Mohan explained. Restoration and proper maintenance of the tanks are critical to Chennai's future, he emphasised.

Some of the tanks, because of negligence have silted at the rate of 2 to 3 mm every year and some have been lost due to encroachments.

A way forward would be to create a scientific inventory of waterbodies and delineate flood zones within the city. The flood zone will have to be identified based on the location of the waterbodies, natural drains, water shed area and it has to be a no building zone, said Mr. Mohan.

According to sources in the WRD, only 19 of the 29 existing major waterbodies can be restored. Others such as the Ullagaram, Adambakkam, Thalankanacheri, Mogappair and Senneerkuppam tanks cannot be restored, they say. The case of lost water channels is even worse, they have totally disappeared.

All is not lost say the officials. The waterbodies in Madhavaram and Korattur can be fully restored. The water resources along with that in Ambattur and Porur could be used as storage points as they would have a capacity of 600 million cubic feet of water.

Once rejuvenated, the 19 waterbodies would have a combined storage capacity of 1,000 mcft. At present, the city reservoirs have a storage capacity of 11,000 mcft, officials of the Water Resources Department said.

The department is also in the process of improving the waterways and surplus courses and creating straight cut canals from various waterways to the Cooum under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission. This could substantially improve flood management within the city, officials added.
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வெள்ள அனர்த்த வீடியோ பதிவுகள்;இரண்டு

சைப்பிரஸ் சிரியா காலனியாதிக்க வரைபடம்

ENB Map Snap shot from World Map

சூரியன் அஸ்தமிக்காத பிரித்தானிய காலனியாதிக்க காட்டுமிராண்டி சாம்ராஜ்ஜத்தில் சைப்பிரசும் ஒரு கைதி.1960 இல் இது ``சுதந்திரம்``பெற்றது.இருந்த போதும் இந்த ``சுதந்திரத்தை``வழங்கிய ராஜ வம்சம் தனது ஏகாதிபத்திய அரசாதிக்கத்துக்கு
( இறையாண்மைக்கு) உட்பட்ட இரண்டு படைத்தளங்களை உத்தரவாதப்படுத்திக் கொண்டுதான் இந்த ``சுதந்திரத்தை`` வழங்கியது.
இந்தப் படைத்தளங்களில் இருந்துதான்,பிரித்தானியா தனது பங்குக்கான  சிரிய,மத்திய ஆசிய மூன்றாவது உலக மறுபங்கீட்டு காலனியாதிக்க யுத்தத்தை ஏவுகின்றது.
குருச்சேவ் திருத்தல்வாதத்தின், பேரப் பிள்ளைகளும்,பூட்டப் பிள்ளைகளும் ஆன,நமது தற்கால ஏகாதிபத்திய தாசர்கள் இனிமேலும் அரைக்காலனிய நாடுகளை சுதந்திரம் பெற்ற நாடுகள் என்று பேசுவார்களேயானால், அவர்கள் ஏகாதிபத்திய அடிமைகள் அல்ல,ஸ்பாட்டகர்ஸ் கால அடிமைகளே.

British Bombers Make First Air Strikes on Syria After UK Parliament Vote

ENB File photo

British Bombers Make First Air Strikes on Syria After UK Parliament Vote
By REUTERSDEC. 3, 2015, 1:48 A.M. E.S.T.NYTimes

AKROTIRI, Cyprus/LONDON — British bombers made their first strikes on Syria on Thursday, just hours after Britain's parliament voted to target Islamic State targets in Syria, a government source said.

Tornado bombers took off from the RAF Akrotiri air base in Cyprus and made strikes on targets in Syria, the source said. The bombers were back at base.

"A strike was made from over Syria," said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The source declined to give further operational information about the targets or the number of aircraft involved, citing national security.

A Reuters witness in Cyprus saw four jets leaving in pairs from the air base within an hour of each other. All four had since returned.

RAF Akrotiri has been used as a launchpad for attacks on Islamic State targets in Iraq for just over a year, and late on Wednesday Britain's parliament broadened its scope for targets within Syria.

After more than 10 hours of tense debate, members of parliament voted in favor of the air strikes by 397 to 223.

Addressing parliament on Wednesday, Prime Minister David Cameron said high-precision, laser-guided Brimstone missiles attached to the Tornado GR4 bombers would help to make a real difference by hitting the de facto Islamic State capital of Raqqa and its oil-trading business.

France and the United States are already bombing Islamist militants in Syria, while Russia has bombed mainly other rebels, according to conflict monitors and Western officials, in an intervention launched on Sept. 30 to bolster its ally, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The West says Assad must go.

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Britain, a former colonial power, retains two sovereign military bases in Cyprus.

                                                                                        ============================

Cyprus, 100 km (60 miles) from Syria, is the closest European Union member state to turmoil in the Middle East.

In October, two boatloads of Middle Eastern migrants, including Syrian refugees, washed ashore at Akrotiri, a jutting peninsula on Cyprus's southern coast.

Britain, a former colonial power, retains two sovereign military bases in Cyprus.

(Reporting by Michele Kambas in Akrotri and Guy Faulconbridge in London; Editing by Sandra Maler and Nick Macfie)
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British parliament votes to bomb Islamic State in Syria | Reuters
Dec 3, 2015 04:21 IST

LONDON Britain's parliament voted on Wednesday to launch bombing raids against Islamic State in Syria, supporting Prime Minister David Cameron's case that the country needs to help destroy militants who are "plotting to kill us".

After more than 10 hours of tense debate, lawmakers voted in favour of air strikes, by 397 to 223. British Tornado GR4 bombers could leave an air base in Cyprus within hours to launch the country's latest military action in the Middle East.

Given Britain's diminished role on the world stage, the victory hands Cameron the chance to restore Britain's standing in global affairs. He had urged lawmakers not to turn their back on allies such as France in their time of need.

"Britain is safer tonight because of the decision that the House of Commons has taken," Foreign Minister Philip Hammond told Sky News.

Many British voters are wary of being dragged into another war in the Middle East. Some view Western intervention in Iraq and Libya as a failure that sowed chaos across the region and the news of the vote was met by howls of disgust by dozens of anti-war protesters demonstrating outside parliament.

But the Nov. 13 attacks on Paris that killed 130 people and were claimed by Islamic State have stiffened the resolve of some lawmakers and divided the opposition Labour Party, which convinced Cameron he could win the support of parliament for extending air strikes beyond Iraq.

Cameron said the more than four-year Syrian civil war could not be resolved by military action alone, but that the strikes would "degrade" Islamic State militants - which he said should be called Daesh.
Daesh is the pejorative word used by opponents or people who do not support Islamic State to refer to the jihadist group.

"These terrorists are plotting to kill us and to radicalise our children right now. They attack us because of who we are, not because of what we do," Cameron told a packed House of Commons, where many lawmakers sat on steps or stayed standing.

"The question is this: do we work with our allies to degrade and destroy this threat, and do we go after these terrorists in their heartlands, from where they are plotting to kill British people, or do we sit back and wait for them to attack us?"

Germany's parliament is also expected to vote on Friday in favour of joining the campaign against Islamic State, although only to provide military support for air strikes, not actually to take part in them.

CALL TO ARMS

British air strikes are unlikely to change the military balance, given the United States is already involved, but the vote handed Cameron the chance to show Britain's willingness to add to a Western consensus for taking the battle to militants in Syria.

Cameron said high-precision, laser-guided Brimstone missiles would help to make a real difference by hitting the de facto Islamic State capital of Raqqa and its oil-trading business.
France and the United States are already bombing Islamist militants in Syria, while Russia has bombed mainly other rebels, according to conflict monitors and Western officials, in an intervention launched on Sept. 30 to bolster its ally, Syrian President

Bashar al-Assad. The West says Assad must go.

The vote also boosts Cameron after he suffered a humiliating 2013 parliamentary defeat over plans to bomb Assad's forces.

But it is a blow to the leader of Britain's main opposition Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn, who was against launching the air strikes.

Corbyn, a veteran anti-war campaigner who argued the bombing would be ineffective and kill civilians, was forced to allow his lawmakers to vote according to their conscience in order to quell a rebellion in his party over the military action.

Corbyn had hoped media reports that Cameron told Conservative lawmakers at a meeting late on Tuesday not to vote with the Labour leader "and a bunch of terrorist sympathisers" would harden opposition to the action.

But many of his party voted with the prime minister, a move which may bring into question Corbyn's leadership.

The British public is divided over launching the strikes, with a YouGov opinion poll showing voter support for action in Syria had fallen to the lowest level since September 2014, with 48 percent of respondents supporting strikes and 31 percent against.

Those opposed to air strikes recalled the events of 2003 when Britain helped the United States to invade Iraq after asserting - wrongly, as it later turned out - that dictator Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction.

Julian Lewis, Conservative chairman of the Commons Defence Committee and a critic of extending air strikes to Syria, said the government was in denial about the effectiveness of bombing without deploying viable ground troops.

Lewis compared Cameron's assertion that there are as many as 70,000 moderate opposition fighters in Syria with the "dodgy dossier" on Iraq's military capabilities.

"Instead of dodgy dossiers, we now have bogus battalions of moderate fighters," he said.

(Additional reporting by William James, William Schomberg and Stephen Addison; Writing by Guy Faulconbridge and Elizabeth Piper; Editing by Mark Heinrich, Ruth Pitchford and Frances Kerry)
This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.

மாவீரர் தினம்: விடுதலைப் புலிகள் பெயரால் வெளியிடப்பட்ட அறிக்கை

புதிய ஈழப்புரட்சியாளர்களின் 2015 மாவீரர் தின அறிக்கை

விடுதலைப்புலி கடற் படைத் தளபதி தோழர் சூசைக்கு காணிக்கை!

Former LTTE member found dead near home

Former LTTE member found dead near home
November 23, 2015 08:22

A former LTTE member who was rehabilitated and released into society, was found dead near his home in Mannar.

Weerasingham Dhanapalasingham, aged 40, was working as a fishermen when he was found dead near his home on Saturday.

The police said that his body was found hanging from a swing tied to a tree near a tent close to his house.

A person who had gone to take him for fishing had found him dead.

Initial investigations have found that the man may have committed suicide. (Colombo Gazette)

2015 மாவீரர் தின முழக்கம்

Russian bombs can provoke a terror backlash. Ours can too

“The hardest thing to explain is the glaringly evident which everybody has decided not to see,” wrote Ayn Rand in her novel The Fountainhead. That there is a link, a connection, between the west’s military interventions in the Middle East and terrorist attacks against the west, that violence begets violence, is “glaringly evident” to anyone with open eyes, if not open minds.

Yet over the past 14 years, too many of us have “decided not to see”. From New York to Madrid to London, any public utterance of the words “foreign” and “policy” in the aftermath of a terrorist attack has evoked paroxysms of outrage from politicians and pundits alike.

The response to the atrocities in Paris has followed the same pattern. Derided by a former Labour minister as “west-hating fury chimps”, the UK’s Stop the War coalition removed from its website a piece that blamed the rise of Islamic State (Isis) and the Paris attacks on “deliberate policies and actions undertaken by the United States and its allies”. The Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, scrapped a speech in which he was due to say that Britain’s “disastrous wars” have “increased, not diminished, the threats to our own national security”. Such arguments are verboten in our public discourse.

Isn’t it odd, then, that in the case of Russia, western governments have been keen to link Vladimir Putin’s – and only Vladimir Putin’s – foreign policy to terrorist violence? On 1 October the US government and its allies issued a joint statement declaring that the Russian president’s decision to intervene in Syria would “only fuel more extremism and radicalisation”. Yes, you heard them: it’ll “fuel” it.

Moscow’s bombing campaign will “lead to further radicalisation and increased terrorism”, claimed David Cameron on 4 October. Note the words “lead to”. Speaking at a Nato summit on 8 October the US defence secretary, Ashton Carter, warned of the “consequences for Russia itself, which is rightly fearful of attacks”. Got that? “Rightly fearful”.

And, in the days since the crash of the Russian Metrojet airliner in Egypt on 31 October, which killed 224 civilians, commentators have queued up to join the dots between Russia’s actions in Syria and this alleged terrorist attack by Isis. On a BBC panel discussion the Telegraph’s Janet Daley referred to the crash as “a direct consequence of [Russia’s] involvement in Syria”, adding: “[Putin] has perhaps incited this terrorist incident on Russian civilians.”

Compare and contrast Daley’s remarks on the downing of Flight 9268 with her reaction to the Paris attacks. Rather than accusing President Hollande of “inciting” terrorism against the people of France, or calling the carnage a “direct consequence” of French involvement in Syria, she took aim at anyone who might dare draw attention to the country’s military interventions in Muslim-majority countries such as Libya, Mali and, yes, Syria.

“If there is any need to argue about these matters, it should come at some other time,” she wrote, because “the French people did not deserve this”, and “it is wicked and irresponsible to suggest otherwise”. (To quote one of the leading foreign policy sages of our time, Phoebe Buffay of Friends: “Hello, kettle? This is pot. You’re black.”)

If Isis did bring down the Russian airliner, then of course it would be madness to pretend it wasn’t linked to Putin’s military campaign on behalf of the dictator of Damascus. Yet it would be equally insane to pretend that the horror in Paris had nothing at all to do with France’s recent military interventions in the Middle East and west Africa.

''Yes, the attackers in the Bataclan concert hall chanted Allahu Akbar as they opened fire on the crowd, but they were also heard saying: “What you are doing in Syria? You are going to pay for it now.”''

Yes, the attackers in the Bataclan concert hall chanted Allahu Akbar as they opened fire on the crowd, but they were also heard saying: “What you are doing in Syria? You are going to pay for it now.” Yes, Isis’s official statement of responsibility referred to Paris as “the capital of prostitution and obscenity”, but it also singled out the French government for leading a “Crusader campaign” and “striking the Muslims … with their planes”.

To understand political violence requires an understanding of political grievances; to blame terrorism only on religious ideology or medieval mindsets is short-sighted and self-serving. The inconvenient truth is that geopolitics is governed as much as is physics by Newton’s third law of motion: “For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.” The CIA, back in the 1950s, even coined a term – “blowback” – to describe the unintended negative consequences, for US civilians, of US military
operations abroad.

Today, when it comes to Russia, an “official enemy”, we understand and embrace the concept of blowback. When it comes to our own countries, to the west, we become the child in the playground, sticking our fingers in our ears and singing “La la la, I can’t hear you.”

You can argue that French – or for that matter UK or US – military action in the Middle East is a legitimate and unavoidable response to the rise of a terrorist mini-state; but you can’t argue that actions don’t have consequences.

The former chief of the CIA’s Bin Laden Unit, Michael Scheuer, told me in 2011 that “people are going to ... bomb us because they don’t like what we’ve done”. In an interview for al-Jazeera in July, the retired US general Michael Flynn, who ran the Defense Intelligence Agency from 201315, admitted to me that “the more bombs we drop, that just … fuels the conflict”.

It is a view backed by the Pentagon’s Defence Science Board, which observed as long as ago as 1997: “Historical data show a strong correlation between US involvement in international situations and an increase in terrorist attacks against the United States.”

''Let me be clear: to explain is not to excuse; explication is not justification. There is no grievance on earth that can justify the wanton slaughter of innocent men, women and children, in France or anywhere else.''

Let me be clear: to explain is not to excuse; explication is not justification. There is no grievance on earth that can justify the wanton slaughter of innocent men, women and children, in France or anywhere else.

The savagery of Isis is perhaps without parallel in the modern era. But the point is that it did not emerge from nowhere: as the US president himself has conceded, Isis “grew out of our invasion” of Iraq.

Yet we avert our gaze from the “glaringly evident” and pretend that “they” – the Russians, the Iranians, the Chinese – are attacked for their policies while “we” – Europe, the west, the liberal democracies – are attacked only for our principles. This is the simplistic fantasy, the geopolitical fairytale, that we tell ourselves. It gives us solace and strength in the wake of terrorist atrocities. But it does nothing to stop the next attack.

Source: The guradian uk wednesday 18 November 2015

CONFIRMED: French Government Knew Extremists BEFORE Paris Terrorist Attack

CONFIRMED: French Government Knew Extremists BEFORE Paris Terrorist Attack
By Tony Cartalucci
Global Research, November 14, 2015

 As predicted and previously reported, terrorists who took part in an unprecedented attack in the center of Paris killing over a 100 and injuring hundreds more, were well-known to French security agencies before the attack took place.

The UK Daily Mail reported in its article, “Hunt for the Isis killers: One terrorist identified as ‘young Frenchman known to authorities’ – another two found with Syrian and Egyptian passports,” that:

One of the terrorists involved in last night’s attacks in Paris has been officially identified as a Parisian, according to local media reports.

The man, who was killed at the Bataclan, was identified using his fingerprints and was from the southern Parisian neighbourhood of Courcouronnes.

French reports say that the man, who was around 30 years old, was already known to French anti-terrorist authorities prior to last night’s attacks. (emphasis added)

Similarly in January 2015 in the wake of the “Charlie Hebo attack” which left 12 dead, it was revealed that French security agencies tracked the perpetrators for nearly a decade beforehand, having arrested at least one terrorist a total of two times, incarcerating him at least once, tracked two of them overseas where they had trained with known terrorist organizations and possibly fought alongside them in Syria, before tracking them back to French territory. Astoundingly, French security agencies never moved in on the terrorists, claiming that after a decade of tracking them, they had finally decided to close their case for precisely the amount of time needed for them to plan and execute their grand finale.

More Wars and More Surveillance Can’t Help  

With a similar scenario now emerging, particularly in the wake of the “Charlie Hebo attack,” where French security agencies knew about extremists but failed to stop them before carrying out yet another high-profile attack, even with enhanced surveillance powers granted to them by recent legislation, it appears that no amount of intrusive surveillance or foreign wars will stem a terrorist problem the French government itself seems intent on doing nothing to stop.The problem is not France’s immigration laws. Dangerous people are in France, but they are being tracked by French security agencies. The problem is not Syria. Terrorists have left to fight there, acquired deadly skills and affiliations before returning to France, but have likewise been tracked by French security agencies. Instead, the problem is that French security agencies are doing nothing about these dangerous individuals knowingly living, working, and apparently plotting in the midst of French society.In the coming hours and days, the French government and its various co-conspirators in their proxy war against Syria will propose a plan of action they claim will stem the terrorist threat France and the rest of Europe faces. But the reality is, the problem is not something the French government can solve, because the problem is clearly the French government itself.

ISIS is Behind the Paris Attacks, But Who is Behind ISIS? 

With the so-called “Islamic State” (ISIS) emerging as being behind the attack, the question that remains is, who is behind ISIS itself? While the West has attempted to maintain the terrorist organization possesses almost mythological abilities, capable of sustaining combat operations against Syria, Iraq, Lebanon’s Hezbollah, support from Iran, and now the Russian military – all while carrying out large-scale, high-profile terrorist attacks across the globe – it is clear that ISIS is the recipient of immense multinational state-sponsorship.

The rise of ISIS was revealed as early as 2007 in interviews conducted by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh in his 9-page report “The Redirection.” The interviews revealed a plan to destabilize and overthrow the government of Syria through the use of sectarian extremists – more specifically, Al Qaeda – with arms and funds laundered through America’s oldest and stanchest regional ally, Saudi Arabia.

A more recent Department of Intelligence Agency (DIA) report drafted in 2012 (.pdf) admitted:

If the situation unravels there is the possibility of establishing a declared or undeclared Salafist principality in eastern Syria (Hasaka and Der Zor), and this is exactly what the supporting powers to the opposition want, in order to isolate the Syrian regime, which is considered the strategic depth of the Shia expansion (Iraq and Iran).

The DIA report enumerates precisely who these “supporting powers” are:

The West, Gulf countries, and Turkey support the opposition; while Russia, China, and Iran support the regime.

And to this day, by simply looking at any number of maps detailing territory held by various factions amid the Syrian conflict, it is clear that ISIS is not a “state” of any kind, but an ongoing invasion emanating from NATO-member Turkey’s territory, with its primary supply corridor crossing the Turkish-Syrian borderbetween the Syrian town of Ad Dana and the western bank of the Euphrates River, a supply corridor now increasingly shrinking.

Image: ISIS-held territory seen in dark grey forms a corridor directly up to the Syrian-Turkish border – or more accurately, begins at the Turkish-Syrian border. In recent days, this corridor has faced being completely cut off by joint Syrian-Russian gains in and around Aleppo and toward the western bank of the Euphrates River. East of the Euphrates is already held by Kurds and Syrian forces. NATO is clearly providing ISIS’ primary support, and yet ISIS is alleged to have been behind an attack on a NATO member.

In fact, the desperation exhibited by the West and its efforts to oust the Syrian government and salvage its proxy force now being decimated by joint Syrian-Russian military operations, is directly proportional to the diminishing size and stability of this corridor.

Just last week, Syrian forces reestablished firm control over the Kweyris military airport, which was under siege for years. The airport is just 20 miles from the Euphrates, and, as Syrian forces backed by Russian airpower work their way up toward the Turkish border along the Syrian coast, constitutes a unified front that will essentially cut off ISIS deeper inside Syria for good.

Should ISIS’ supply lines be cut in the north, the organization’s otherwise inexplicable fighting capacity will atrophy. The window for the West’s “regime change” opportunity is quickly closing, and perhaps in a last ditch effort, France has jammed the spilled blood and broken bodies of its own citizens beneath the window to prevent it from closing for good.

The reality is that France knew the “Charlie Hebo” attackers, they knew beforehand those involved in the most recent Paris attack, and they likely know of more waiting for their own opportunity to strike. With this knowledge, they stood by and did nothing. What’s more, it appears that instead of keeping France safe, the French government has chosen to use this knowledge as a weapon in and of itself against the perception of its own people, to advance its geopolitical agenda abroad.

If the people of France want to strike hard at those responsible for repeated terrorist attacks within their borders, they can start with those who knew of the attacks and did nothing to stop them, who are also, coincidentally, the same people who helped give rise to ISIS and help perpetuate it to this very day.

The original source of this article is Land Destroyer Report
Copyright © Tony Cartalucci, Land Destroyer Report, 2015 
Tony Cartalucci, Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine“New Eastern Outlook”.

The Paris Terrorist Attacks and the “Official Story”..

The Paris Terrorist Attacks and the “Official Story”: 
The Matrix Extends Its Reach

By Dr. Paul Craig Roberts
Global Research, November 14, 2015

Within one hour of the Paris attacks and without any evidence, the story was set in stone that the perpetrator was ISIL. This is the way propagada works.

When the West does it, it always succeeds, because the world is accustomed to following the lead of the West. I was amazed to see, for example, Russian news services helping to spread the official story of the Paris attacks despite Russia herself having suffered so often from planted false stories.

Has the Russian media forgotten MH-17? The minute the story was reported that the Malaysian airliner was hit by a Russian missile over eastern Ukraine in the hands of separatists, the blame was ascribed to Russia. And that is where the blame remains despite the absence of evidence.

Has the Russian media also forgotten the “Russian invasion of Ukraine”? This preposterous story is accepted everywhere in the West as gospel.

Has the Russian media forgot about the book by the German newspaper editor who wrote that every European journalist of consequence was an asset of the CIA?

One would have thought that experience would have taught Russian media sources to be
careful about explanations that originate in the West.

So now we have what is likely to be another false story set in stone. Just as a few Saudis with box cutters outwitted the entire US national security state, ISIL managed to acquire unacquirable weapons and outwit French intelligence while organizing a series of attacks in Paris.

Why did ISIL do this? Blowback for France’s small role in Washington’s Middle East violence?
Why not the US instead?

Or was ISIL’s purpose to have the flow of refugees into Europe blocked by closed borders? Does ISIL really want to keep all of its opponents in Syria and Iraq when instead it can drive them out to Europe? Why have to kill or control millions of people by preventing their flight?

Don’t expect any explanations or questions from the media about the story that is set in stone.

The threat to the European political establishment is not ISIL. The threats are the rising anti-EU, anti-immigrant political parties: Pegida in Germany, the UK Independence Party, and the National Front in France. The latest poll shows the National Front’s Marine Le Pen leading as the likely French president.

Something had to be done about the hords of refugees from Washington’s wars, or the establishment political parties faced defeat at the hands of political parties that are also unfriendly to Europe’s subservience to Washington.

EU rules about refugees and immigrants and Germany’s acceptance of one million of the refugees, together with heavy criticism of those governments in Eastern Europe that wanted to put up fences to keep out the refugees, made closing borders impossible.

With the Paris terror attacks, what was impossible became possible, and the President of France immediately announced the closing of France’s borders. The border closings will spread. The main issue of the rising dissident political parties will be defused. The EU will be safe, and so will Washington’s sovereignty over Europe.

Whether or not the Paris attacks were a false flag operation for the purpose of obtaining these results, these results are the consequences of the attacks. These results serve the interests of the European political establishment and Washington.

Is ISIL so unsophisticated not to have realized that? If ISIL is that unsophisticated, how did ISIL so easily deceive French intelligence? Indeed, can French intelligence be intelligent?

Can Western peoples be intelligent to fall for a story set in stone prior to any evidence? In the West, facts are created by self-serving statements from governments. Investigation is not part of the process. When 90 percent of the US media is owned by six mega-corporations, it cannot be any different.

As The Matrix grows in the absurdity of its claims, it nevertheless manages to become even more invulnerable.
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Dr. Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal. He was columnist for Business Week, Scripps Howard News Service, and Creators Syndicate. He has had many university appointments. His internet columns have attracted a worldwide following. Roberts’ latest books areThe Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism and Economic Dissolution of the West and How America Was Lost.

The original source of this article is Paul Craig Roberts
Copyright © Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, Paul Craig Roberts, 2015