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Elsewhere in the world, the Chilean struggle to preserve the people’s historical memory did not resonate so much. Now, as statues glorifying colonialism were toppled over and vandalised in the U.S., the UK and Belgium, the ramifications of colonial rule have been brought closer to home, in particular the links between colonialism and racism. The question that should be asked is what happens once the current protests simmer down and the current reckoning is no longer a news item and shielded from public scrutiny and interest?

There have been mixed reactions to the toppling and vandalising of colonial monuments, from approval of their elimination to the cloistering of such relics in museums. The current uproar necessitates a strategy, if the initial manifestations against historical colonial legacy are to bear any impact on current politics.

Glorification and eradication can both lead to different forms of oblivion in the absence of education. By colonising public spaces and having education systems perpetuate the colonial narrative, the collective historical memory which matters is marginalised to accommodate an ongoing violence which neglects the voices of the colonised. As Fidel Castro once declared in 1960 while addressing the UN General Assembly, “Colonies do not speak. Colonies are not known until they have the opportunity to express themselves.”

For the colonised, anti-colonial struggle is also a reclamation of narratives. The former colonial powers, or systems of governance built upon colonial legacies follow a different trajectory in reckoning with their past. For example, the differentiation between grudgingly made reparations to former colonies, and the glorification of colonialism through erected monuments within the public spaces of former colonisers, is proof of an existent political dissonance which requires more than temporary anger and destruction.

Belgium, for example, has followed up the demonstrations with the intent to set up parliamentary debates that go beyond “gratuitous apologies”. Reparations for Belgium’s colonial legacy in the Congo are expected to form part of a commission that is charged with establishing truth and reconciliation.

Land appropriation and exploitation, slave labour, trafficking, genocide, massacres and the maiming of the colonised populations are components of historical memory which should be brought to the fore, if the former colonial powers now styled as democratic countries are to alter thinking and politics beyond the visible memorabilia and monuments, or the preservation of colonial history in museums, as the fate of some removed statues will be. Preserving racism in museums is an established framework that can impede the current awareness from developing into anti-colonial recognition and solidarity. The repatriation of stolen artefacts and human remains to their respective indigenous communities are only part of the decolonisation framework.

The current focus on public spaces and how these are tainted by colonialism can become a historical act if, through education, society becomes attuned to decolonisation. To think critically about history, in particular to refute the mainstream narratives as absolute truth, should accompany the current furore over monuments, which risks becoming an isolated act if not substantiated by a rethinking of historical identity. In Europe, far from the ramifications of colonialism, this process is paramount. It requires a thorough reckoning with the past, one that brings the subaltern narratives to the helm. Anything less will merely reflect the hegemonic view on human rights and values – a concept which has obstructed an authentic process of decolonisation.

Belgium has joined the list of countries that are rebelling against their elected leadership. Over the weekend the Belgian government fell over Prime Minister Charles Michel’s trip to Morocco to sign the United Nations Migration Agreement. The agreement made no distinction between legal and illegal migrants and regarded immigration as a positive phenomenon. The Belgian people apparently did not agree. Facebook registered 1,200 Belgians agreeing that the Prime Minister was a traitor. Some users expressed concern for their children’s futures, noting that Belgian democracy is dead. Others said they would get yellow vests and join the protests.

The unrest witnessed in a number of places is focused on some specific demands but it represents much broader anger. The French yellow vests initially protested against proposed increases in fuel taxes that would have affected working people dependent on transportation disproportionately. But when that demand was met by the government of President Emmanuel Macron, the demonstrations continued and even grew, suggesting that the grievances with the government were far more extensive than the issue of a single new tax. Perhaps not surprisingly, the French government is seeking for a scapegoat and is investigating “Russian interference.” The US State Department inevitably agrees, claiming that Kremlin directed websites and social media are “amplifying the conflict.”

Some commentators looking somewhat more deeply at the riots in France have even suggested that the real issue just might be regime change, that the Macron government had become so disconnected with many of the voters through both its policies and the rhetoric justifying them that it had lost its legitimacy and there was no possibility of redemption. Any change would have to be an improvement, particularly as a new regime would be particularly sensitive to the sentiments of those being governed, at least initially. One might suggest that the prevailing sentiment that a radical change in government is needed, come what may, to shake up the system might well be called the “Trump phenomenon” as that is more-or-less what happened in the United States.

The idea that republican or democratic government will eventually deteriorate into some form of tyranny is not exactly new. Thomas Jefferson advocated a new revolution every generation to keep the spirit of government accountable to the people alive.

Call it what you will – neoliberalism, neoconservatism or globalism – the new world order, as recently deceased President George H.W. Bush once labeled it, characteristically embraces a world community in which there is free trade, free movement of workers and democracy. They all sound like good things but they are authoritarian in nature, destructive of existing communities and social systems while at the same time enriching those who promote the changes. They have also been the root cause of most of the wars fought since the Second World War, wars to “liberate” people who never asked to be invaded or bombed as part of the process.

And there are, of course, major differences between neoliberals and neoconservatives in terms of how one brings about the universal nirvana, with the liberals embracing some kind of process whereby the transformation takes place because it represents what they see, perhaps cynically, as the moral high ground and is recognized as being the right thing to do. The neocons, however, seek to enforce what they define as international standards because the United States has the power to do so in a process that makes it and its allies impossible to challenge. The latter view is promoted under the phony slogan that “Democracies do not fight other democracies.”

The fact that globalists of every type consider nationalism a threat to their broader ambitions has meant that parochial or domestic interests are often disregarded or even rejected. With that in mind, and focusing on two issues – wholesale unwelcome immigration and corrupt government run by oligarchs – one might reasonably argue that large numbers of ordinary citizens now believe themselves to be both effectively disenfranchised and demonstrably poorer as rewarding work becomes harder to find and communities are destroyed through waves of both legal and illegal immigration.

In the United States, for example, most citizens now believe that the political system does not work at all while almost none think that even when it does work it operates for the well-being of all the citizens. For the first time since the Great Depression, Americans no longer think of upward mobility. Projections by sociologists and economists suggest that the current generation growing up in the United States will likely be materially poorer than their parents. That angst and the desire to “do something” to make government more responsive to voters’ interests is why Donald Trump was elected president.

What has been occurring in Belgium, France, with Brexit in Britain, in the recent election in Italy, and also in the warnings coming from Eastern Europe about immigration and European Union community economic policies are driven by the same concerns that operated in America. Government itself is becoming the enemy. And let us not forget the countries that have already felt the lash and been subjected to the social engineering of Angela Merkel – Ireland, Spain, Portugal and Greece. All are weaker economies crushed by the one size fits all of the EURO, which eliminated the ability of some governments to manage their own economies. They and all their citizens are poorer for it.

There have been windows in history when the people have had enough abuse and so rise up in revolt. The American and French revolutions come to mind as does 1848. Perhaps we are experiencing something like that at the present time, a revolt against the pressure to conform to globalist values that have been embraced to their benefit by the elites and the establishment in much of the world. It could well become a hard fought and sometimes bloody conflict but its outcome will shape the next century. Will the people really have power in the increasingly globalized world or will it be the 1% with its government and media backing that emerges triumphant?

Emergency meetings by European Union security chiefs last week following the Brussels attacks were given even more urgency by warnings from Europol that as many as 5,000 terrorist operatives were primed to bring war onto the streets of EU capitals.

There were also several arrests of terror suspects in France, Germany and Belgian, with one man shot by police in Brussels believed to be connected with the suicide attackers who struck the Belgian capital days earlier.

A report in the Washington Post noted: «As European governments scramble to control the expanding terrorist threat posed by the Islamic State, on the battlefields in Iraq and Syria the group is a rapidly diminishing force».

The Post attributes the defeats for the terrorist brigades to the military support afforded by Russia to the Syrian army and from the US to Iraqi forces. Advances against ISIS in the ancient city of Palmyra as well as in its eastern Syrian stronghold of Raqqa underscore the dramatic collapse of the terrorist self-proclaimed Caliph.

But, ironically, the gains made in Syria and Iraq against the jihadists are placing Europe at greater threat than at any time before.

The fact that the terrorists could strike last week in Brussels, the political heart of Europe – killing more than 30 people – underscores the danger. Furthermore, the Belgian capital is also the headquarters of the US-led NATO military alliance.

If terrorists can strike in this place – with one of the three explosions at a metro station shaking the foundations of the European Council’s building – it demonstrates that nowhere is beyond the terrorists’ reach.

In the aftermath of the Brussels bombings, security forces recovered more explosives at an apartment that had housed the suicide attackers. Six people have reportedly been arrested amid warnings that more terror assaults are likely.

Meanwhile, French interior minister Bernard Cazeneuve announced that an imminent terrorist attack had been foiled with the arrest of one man in the Paris suburb of Argenteuil.

There is indeed a foreboding sense of European authorities grappling with the scale of the problem.

The organizational links between the Brussels attackers and those who carried out the Paris atrocity in November, when 130 people were killed, shows that the EU has a serious cross-border security issue. The ease of movement by the terrorists is mismatched by the cumbersome liaison between state security services.

Brussels may have for now acquired the notoriety of «incubator of terrorism» in Europe. But there are indicators that terminating the Brussels cell will not bring a solution to Europe’s wider terror threat.

Europe is facing a «perfect storm» of terrorism due to several factors. One is that thousands of European citizens are known to have travelled to Syria and Iraq out of some misplaced notion of «fighting jihad» for the Islamic State’s self-professed Caliph. Over the past five years, these European jihadists have gained skills in bomb-making and weapons use. How many have returned to Europe is not known, but as Europol indicates it is probably in the order of several hundreds.

Proportional to population, Belgium has seen the biggest number of its citizens going to Syria and Iraq as mercenaries. But there also large numbers from France, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Netherlands, Britain and Germany.

Although EU countries have tightened border restrictions in recent months over the refugee crisis, the jihadists are mostly EU-born or naturalized citizens who are thus able to travel easily across the bloc owing to visa-free regulations.

Salah Abdeslam, the 26-year-old man who is believed to have orchestrated the Paris attacks but was arrested in Brussels on March 18, four days before the latest atrocity, is known to have previously travelled to Germany, Hungary and Austria along with others belonging to the Brussels cell. It can be assumed therefore that other jihadists have likewise coordinated between EU states.

Besides, apart from the hundreds of returning jihadists, there are plenty of terror recruits «at home» among Europe’s radicalized Muslim communities. While the vast majority of Arab-Muslim citizens living in Europe have nothing to do with radicalism, a tiny fraction out of several million people computes into several hundred potential jihadists.

The process of radicalization leading to terrorism is given full vent because many of Europe’s Muslim communities have been marginalized over many years through institutionalized racism and poverty. Deteriorating social conditions in the EU are by no means confined to Muslim communities. It is an EU-wide endemic problem for all citizens as economies systematically founder. But that malaise intersects sharply with other jihadist factors in Arab-Muslim communities.

Molenbeek, the suburb of Brussels, is a case in point. This is where the Paris and Brussels attacks were organized from. Molenbeek has a population of around 100,000 of which about half are Muslim of Arab descent with most of them from Morocco. Brussels has been described as the most Muslim city in Europe in proportion to the population. Many of its Arab citizens descend from workers who were brought to Belgium in the 1960s and 70s as cheap labor. But over the decades, future generations of these Arab people have become marginalized through chronic unemployment, which has in turn fueled alienation and resentment towards the authorities. Youth unemployment in Molenbeek is said to be as high as 40-50 per cent. In this stagnant milieu, recruitment to radical networks is made so much easier.

The same pattern can be seen in other European cities. The marginalization is worsened by recent years of unrelenting economic austerity which has driven up poverty and unemployment. This has produced a phenomenon of «states within states».

Another factor is that European governments have over many years welcomed financial donations from Saudi Arabia and Qatar for investment in sprawling ethnic Arab ghettoes. This has led to the building of mosques preaching a fundamentalist Salafist or Wahhabi version of Islam, which, in turn, feeds into terrorist recruitment. Belgian authorities welcomed donations from Saudi Arabia in a bid to lure cheap oil contracts from the Persian Gulf, while France courted billions of dollars from Qatar’s monarchial rulers, partly as a cost-cutting measure for French governments who felt that they could then withdraw public spending on its Arab-populated inner-city districts.

So we have large Arab-Muslim communities marginalized within the EU, influenced by fundamentalist ideology, and which have seen large numbers of their disaffected youth travel to places like Syria to become «blooded» in the craft of terrorism.

Of course, why these young jihadists have gone to Syria in the first place is because European governments targeted the country for regime change and poured weapons into militant groups to wage proxy war. Instead of resisting Washington’s policy of regime change in the Middle East, the Europeans went fully along with it.

As noted, Brussels may have taken the lead in the new front of jihadist terrorism in Europe. But there is every reason to believe that similar terror cells are incubating in several other EU states. As the jihadists witness the collapse of their hallowed self-declared caliphate in Syria and Iraq, it stands to reason that they would seek revenge within Europe.

One significant indicator is that one of the suicide bombers in the Brussels airport attack was Najim Laachraoui. He is said to have been the bomb-maker for the terror cell. His DNA was also found on bomb remains from the Paris massacre, although he was not personally involved in carrying out that attack. The question is: why would the terror group sacrifice their bomb-making expert in last week’s operation in Brussels? His fatal involvement in carrying out that attack could be a sign that the Molenbeek cell was under strain and lacking in volunteers. That might suggest that his death forecloses the capability of the jihadists to mount future bombings.

However, a more disturbing inference is that the Brussels cell is only one of many autonomous terror cells that are active in other European cities. If that is so, then the loss of the Brussels bomb-maker presents no big deal, from the terrorist point of view. And therefore that could be why he was permitted to join the suicide mission. Because, the logic goes, there are many more such cadres in other European locations with the same bomb-making expertise.

Europe’s porous borders for its citizens, including jihadist citizens, plus the inertia of security services, as the Belgian case starkly reveals, means that the bloc has an onerous task on its hands.

The disclosure by Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan that Ankara sent back one of the Brussels bombers last year, due to «terror suspicions», to the Netherlands and then to Belgium, without any arrest in either of these jurisdictions, shows how vulnerable Europe is.

The implication is that European states, as with the Turkish authorities, have for too long turned a blind eye to jihadists crossing their borders because of their bigger geopolitical game to destabilize Syria.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov put his finger on the issue following the Brussels attack, when he denounced the EU for «playing geopolitical games» over terrorism. Syrian president Bashar al-Assad was also spot-on when he said that atrocities like Brussels and Paris are «inevitable» consequences of Europe’s covert intrigues against his country.

Far from dealing with isolated terrorist events, Europe is heading into a perfect storm of more carnage – a storm that it has largely created.

And, ultimately, European civilians are paying a macabre price for their governments’ culpability.

But the questions won’t be asked.

If the various bombings are false flag attacks, the governments will get away with them, because the attacks blamed on Muslim terrorists fit every agenda that is out there. Government agendas for more war, military spending, and police state measures are served. But so also are the agendas of those who want to limit immigration, those who want to blame the bombings on blowback from Western imperialism, those such as the Russian government who desire a united front against terrorism, and those who use the bombings to stress the innate goodness of the West, which attracts hatred because of its goodness. Washington likes the bombings because they keep Europeans scared and the governments under Washington’s thumb.

Anyone who raises real questions is set upon by every group for whom the bombings blamed on ISIS are a blessing to their agenda.

Just as we hear today that ISIS bombed an airport or whatever, we heard throughout the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s that this or that communist group, such as the Red Brigades, the Red Army Faction or Baader-Meinhof gang had bombed a train station. In truth these bombings were the work of Operation Gladio, a conspiracy of the CIA and European intelligence services against the European peoples. The conspiracy was revealed by the Italian government and culminated in an extensive investigation in which intelligence operatives testified that they focused on killing woman and children because it had the greatest impact in discrediting the communists on whom the attacks were blamed. European communist parties in Italy and France were growing in electoral success, and Washington wanted the communists discredited. That is what the bombings achieved.

So today when you hear the presstitutes report that ISIS bombed this and that, all you really know is that this is the government’s claim and that governments made similar claims in the post-WWII 20th century when Washington regarded it as imperative to discredit European communist parties.

Western governments have always found it easy to hoodwink their populations, and it is just as easy today.

March 26, 2016, A Report from Warsaw, Poland:

Dear Dr Roberts,

With the reference to your article on the Bruxelles attacks, I was impatiently waiting for your comments during the recent days. As you indicated the RT immediately found that the 2011 Domodedovo airport attacks film was used by the media to depict the attack in Bruxelles. Also, no images of dead corpses were shown.

But let me report a bizarre thing from Poland. One, the right-wing PM immediately declared that there will be no refugees accepted in Poland, and it seems the authorities were waiting for such an event. Two, it came out the right-wing government, which has majority in the Sejm (Polish parliament), forced a draft of an extreme anti-terrorism bill, which grants virtually unlimited power to the secret police, the ABW, allows it and other security agencies to put anyone under surveillance without a court approval. It also grants the secret police access to all IT systems within Poland, and, most oddly, forces the registration of pre-paid telephone SIM cards, which were always accessible in Poland for a fee of just 5 PLN (ca. US$1.25) at any kiosk, supermarket or gas station without any need to provide your ID and/or address. To make matters worse, the draft did not explain what the “terrorist threat” means, which allows broad interpretation by the authorities and the imposition of martial law. It seems the draft was prepared well before the Bruxelles events because of its complicated character.

All these lead to a conclusion that the Bruxelles attacks were staged. RT also reported that an Israeli security company was responsible for Bruxelles airport security, which adds more doubts.

paulcraigroberts.org

The Brussels attack was linked to the November 13, 2015 attacks in Paris, which targeted the Bataclan concert hall and restaurants and cafés in the heart of the city, as well as the Stade de France football stadium.

In almost a replay of the Paris attacks, the news media began reporting that the Brussels attack was carried out by two brothers – Ibrahim and Khalid el-Bakraoui – who were linked to the November 13 attacks in Paris. The November 13 attacks were, in turn, linked to the January 7, 2015 ISIL attacks on the Paris offices of the satirical magazine «Charlie Hebdo» and a kosher supermarket in the Paris suburbs. The January 7 attacks also involved two brothers – Cherif and Said Kouachi. Since all the sibling attackers died in suicide attacks, the media is bound to believe what law enforcement reports to them about the Paris I, Paris II, and Brussels attacks. One of the suicide bombers at Brussels airport was reportedly ISIL’s chief bomb maker in Western Europe, Najim Laachraoui, who is said to have made the suicide bomb-laden vests used in the Paris II attacks.

Just prior to the Brussels bombings, Belgian police swooped in on the person they said was the mastermind of the Paris II attacks, Salah Abdeslam. Abdeslam was captured in the largely Muslim-populated neighborhood of Molenbeek in Brussels, an area believed to have spawned a number of ISIL terrorists and guerrillas who have fought in Syria and Iraq.

There was some media speculation that Abdeslam began passing to the police details of ISIL’s plans for future terrorist attacks. Nevertheless, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who, himself has suspicious connections to ISIL fighters in Syria, claimed that one of the Brussels terrorist brothers, Ibrahim el-Bakraoui, had been deported by Turkey to the Netherlands in July 2015, some four months before Abdeslam’s cell carried out the Paris attacks. Erdogan said that Turkey deported Ibrahim el-Bakraoui because he was a militant foreign fighter in Syria. Turkey has aided and abetted other militant foreign fighters, including terrorists, traveling to and from Syria, so why Erdogan singled out el-Bakraoui is a mystery. It also stands to reason that if Turkey was such a valued member of NATO, why did it deport a security threat to the Netherlands, also a NATO member?

And just as with previous terrorist attacks, the media reported that the Brussels attackers were previously known to European law enforcement and intelligence services. So, why were they able to carry out three successful major terrorist attacks in a year-and-a-half time period?

Pre-attack knowledge by the authorities of an alleged terrorist perpetrator was certainly the case in the Merah affair in March 2012. Mohammed Merah, a French national, was killed by French police after he was accused of killing three French paratroopers in Montauban and three students and a teacher at a Jewish school in Toulouse. It was later discovered that not only did the French Central Directorate of Internal Intelligence (DCRI) have a dossier on Merah but that it tried to recruit him as an agent. Merah traveled with ease to Afghanistan and Pakistan with the foreknowledge of French intelligence. The then-governing conservatives of President Nicolas Sarkozy and the opposition, now ruling, Socialist Party, conspired to cover up Merah's links to French intelligence.

The deadly 1980 attack on the Bologna train station in Italy began, in earnest, the modern era of using false flag attacks in waging asymmetric warfare. Although the Italian government and media originally blamed the bombing on leftist radical Italian guerrillas, it was, in fact, carried out by an underground fascist cell that obtained the bomb materials from hidden caches belonging to the secret NATO «stay behind» paramilitary network known generically as «Gladio».

By blaming leftist guerillas for various terrorist attacks in Europe, NATO was able to convince its members to host US offensive cruise missile systems and keep NATO tightly-bound as an agent for US foreign policy goals, including facing down the Soviet Union. Today, with Islamist terrorists replacing leftist guerrillas as NATO’s chief raison d’être, policymakers on both sides of the Atlantic have used the terrorist attacks in Brussels and Paris to call for an end to Belgium’s unruly federal system of two states – Flanders and Wallonia – within one. Belgium, the neoconservative-slanted policy wonks believe, would be better off with a strong central government and strong centralized intelligence and security forces. That NATO message is not merely for the attention of Flanders and Wallonia but also for separatists in Catalonia, Scotland, Corsica, Wales, Veneto, and other independence-minded regions within NATO borders.

NATO, on behalf of a personal data-hungry United States, also wants to see unfettered access by European and American intelligence and security services to databases on air travelers in Europe. European data protection officials have been reticent about sharing such personal data with the United States, particularly after the Edward Snowden revelations about how the US National Security Agency abuses such data.

The question must be asked: If Western European intelligence had advanced knowledge of Paris I, Paris II, and Brussels, why was preventive action not taken? If governments «let it happen on purpose» – or «LIHOP» – meaning, allow planned terrorist events to occur without disruption, those governments can rush their counter-terrorism «wish list» of massive surveillance and larger security and defense budgets into quickly-passed legislation amid the resulting climate of fear. No politician wants to be seen as weak on security, particularly after major terrorist attacks.

One such tell-tale sign of a false flag operation is the convenient discovery by police of evidence linking attacks to the perpetrators, be they unknowing double agents or patsies who believe in whatever cause has been dangled before them.

One sign of a false flag operation is that «evidence» linking the intended perpetrators to the crime scene is always conveniently discovered after the event. French police claim they were able to pin the Paris I attack on two Franco-Algerian brothers, Cherif and Said Kouachi, because Said, the eldest brother, left his French identification card in a black Citroen used as a getaway car. Police would not say whose identification card they found. Some French security experts warned that the ID card may have been purposely planted in the car to confuse the police. Police also conveniently found Molotov cocktails and Islamist jihadist flags inside the getaway car.

In the case of Brussels, a taxi driver who said he believed he picked up the Bakraoui brothers and Laachraoui in the Schaerbeek neighborhood of Brussels and drove them to Zaventem, contacted the police after the explosions. The cab driver recalled that it was suspicious that the three passengers did not want him to help them with their extremely heavy luggage. When the police raided the pick-up address, they found bomb-making chemicals, detonators, and a suitcase packed with nails and screws. Also discovered was the signature black and white ISIL flag. But there was another convenient clue found in a trash dumpster near the terrorist apartment: a computer with the last testament of Ibrahim el Bakraoui. The terrorist, who Erdogan insists was expelled from Turkey for his radical views, wrote that he was «is in a rush, not knowing what to do, being looked for everywhere, not feeling safe and if this goes on, he risks ending up in a cell».

If Brussels goes according to script, the European Union will soon implement a draconian surveillance regime throughout Europe. Europeans will find their freedom of movement throughout the European space to be restricted while Europe continues to take in more migrants from the Middle East and North Africa. And among these migrants will be jihadists looking at carrying out more Paris- and Brussels-like attacks. And the European population will find themselves powerless in the face of such a vicious cycle of terrorist events and more migrants.

Belgium has recently become the main supplier of jihadi fighters to Syria and Iraq and and an important logistical hub of militants operating in Europe. Only according to the information provided by the Belgian authorities, some 380 Belgian citizens arrived in Syria to join ISIS. This makes Belgium the most jihadi-infiltrated country in the EU with 34 militants per 1 million citizens. For instance, these numbers in Germany and France are 22,3 and 18,1 ISIS members per 1 million citizens.

Molenbeek municipality in Brussels, a major part of people there follow Islam, plays a key role in the jihadi movement in Europe. The jobless rate there is about 37% and, according to Belgium Itinera Institute any equipment and weapons needed for a terror attack could be found there if you have a half hour and 500-1000 EUR. Furthermore, for different radicals, this municipality is a good place to go off the grid. These facts look especially strange considering that Brussels is a heart of the EU bureaucracy and the main EU institutions are located in the city. If this isn’t explained by a high level of incompetence and unwillingness to work of the Belgian and EU security services, there are only conspiracy theories in reserve.

According to Western experts, Belgium has been a rear base of militants for a long time. Its advantageous geographical location, a wide black market of arms and a significant Muslim society allowed radicals to recruit new militants, plan operations and spread propaganda there.

The radical group “Shariah4Belgium”, which was created in 2010, played an important role in involvement of Beligian jihadists into the war in Syria and Iraq. Militants recruited by “Shariah4Belgium” set a Belgian fraction in the Mujahideen Shura Council led by Amr al Absi who was one of the persons involved in the creation of ISIS. The most part of militants, arrived from Belgia, joined ISIS in 2014. According to researches, 80% of Belgian citizens which joined ISIS are born in Belgium and represent a diverse range of social strata.

The Mar.22 terror attack in Brussels was one of ISIS’ attempts to start a jihadi war in Europe in order to draw away the EU’s attention from the main battlefields in Libya, Iraq and Syria. Terrorists are aimed to set the climate of fear and hate, fuel clashes on national and religious field destroying the shaky European unity. The incompetence of EU security services and the EU leadership’s criminal practice of ignorance of the problems play into the terrorists’ hands.

Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel said «what we feared has happened», adding that authorities are worried there will be more attacks.

Exactly! What strikes most is the predictability of the tragedy. The Paris attacks were traced to Brussels. Since then, the European capital has been in focus of European security forces. The main suspect was arrested there. There had been a lot of warnings – nothing worked! Brussels has been struck by a retaliatory attack.

Perhaps, the Belgian security forces did what they could. Some assessments make doubt their efficiency.

And there are certain limits to what they can do.

In a broader sense, it happened because Europe had failed to realize the halcyon days were over as it faced a new kind of threat it hoped so much to prevent. 

In November 2015 French President François Hollande said «We are all at war with Islamic State now».

And he was right. But a war is not just instability or intimidation, but rather the inevitability of enemy’s onslaught. Belligerents exchange strikes. One delivers a blow to repel an attack perfectly knowing there will be an attempt to hit back. 

A war is an emergency that changes the established way of life introducing new priorities and rules to the game with a different system of decision making process. Casualties are unavoidable and one has to move out of the comfort zone. The values previously considered to be universal have to be reviewed. The goal to accomplish the set mission is paramount and the enemy is clearly defined.

Is the EU ready for it? Obviously not. That’s the bottom of the problem.

Any time a terror attack takes place, European leaders say the crime committed will fail to make the West refuse its values and way of life. Europe will not be tempted to go too far with restrictive measures. 

It is deeply rooted inside the European mentality. Europe clings to the principles that made the Old Continent prosperous after the horrors of two self-inflicted world wars. Gradually Europe started to impose its values on others diminishing its readiness to compromise. The EU, once known for its ability to overcome snags on the way to common good, has lost flexibility. No more can it adapt to reality.

A war may shake the whole European construction where the ideology is as important as economy or politics. There are fears Europe may implode because the attacks come from within. Quite often the perpetrators are born in Europe. The traces may lead to the Middle East, but the blows are delivered inside the EU. Europe normally responds with solidarity marches and «je suis…» slogans. The calls are voiced to prevent the divisions along religious and sectarian lines. The perpetrators named and the universal evil are the enemies. Never a clearly defined social group is found guilty, because finger pointing should be accompanied by a list of measures to be taken – something Europe is not ready for. The reaction is always the same: the rules for migrants get toughened, special services are told to step up coordination, which is believed to be poor within the EU, the orders are given to crack down on ideological drivers of Islamist terrorism and step up control over information flows. 

Always the same song and dance, but the established order of things is never changed. 

Will it ever be different? May be yes, but not in the near future. At that some outcomes of the tragedy are already easy to predict. They are almost inevitable.

Domestic consumption and tourism sector will suffer for some time because people will shy away from travelling across Europe. Shoppers and restaurant goers will keep away from densely crowded areas with cafes and shopping malls.

Due to the large number of refugees there is a growing need to build more and more reception centers which means there will be more and more refugee camps in the countries bordering the European Union.

The growing anti-migrants sentiments, or even a probable racist backlash, may make the terrorist organizations gain more recruits in European Muslim communities. 

The debates over EU border controls in the Schengen zone will be renewed. According to the European Commission, it is planned to lift them by the end of 2016. The Brussels attack will make the implementation of these plans much more difficult. The area of the Schengen zone is full of walls and barbed wire – between Hungary and Serbia, Slovenia and Croatia, Austria and Slovenia, and some countries also think about a complete closure of the borders with other countries. It should be noted that open borders are fundamentally important to the European economy. Many companies based in the region have structured their operations across borders. Now there will be an increase in transportation and labor costs simply to move goods between their assembly plants or to the consumers. 

The recent EU-Turkey agreement on migrants will be in jeopardy because the attacks would reignite anti-Muslim sentiments and increase popular demands on EU governments not to grant visa-free travel to Turkish citizens, a key stipulation envisioned by the agreement.

Some countries will likely announce new national security legislation, including enhanced intelligence sharing with other European states. 

The tragedy will reinvigorate discussions on military operations in the Middle East. It would be natural for Europe to boost cooperation with Russia. It’s worth to note that after the November 2015 terror attacks in Paris Russia and France concluded an intelligence exchange agreement to improve the effectiveness of their anti-terrorist activities.

It would be propitious to remember that right after the Paris attacks, the head of the CIA said he was determined to keep conversations open between the intelligence communities of the United States and Russia and wanted to see relations between the two nations enhanced to prevent future terrorist attacks, particularly from the Islamic State group. «So we’ve been exchanging information. I think it needs to be enhanced», CIA Director John Brennan said, speaking at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. «But I am determined to continue to work with my Russian counterparts, because of the importance that I think we each can bring to this issue, in terms of our insights, our information, our data and sharing».

Last month, Greek Defense Minister Panos Kammenos called for enhancing intelligence sharing between Russia and the EU. «We need to have cooperation with Russia, exchange information about a common enemy: terrorism», Kammenos said at a conference.

It is important because the EU is at war and needs allies, especially the ones with great experience of fighting the enemy.  

Gradually, the European political pattern is going through changes. Far-right forces are getting stronger. It does not mean they are on the way to grab power (though it may happen in some states), but it makes major political parties move to the right. More important, they come as nationalist forces challenging key principles of the EU, including the free movement of labor and the Schengen Agreement, which eliminated border controls among several member states. A significant reshaping of European political landscape is already looming with major forces shifting from center to make polarization the defining feature of European politics. 

The divisions along traditional lines (left, right, conservatives, liberals, socialists etc.) will blur ceding place to the differences in views on the ways to fight the main threat.

For instance, in Germany two mainstream political parties are divided inside over the support for the Chancellor’s migration policy. Some Social Democrats and Christian Democrats support Angela Merkel while other members of the same parties oppose her. Both parties are members of the ruling coalition. Nobody comes up with clearly defined set of measures to be considered. It boosts support for PEGIDA and Alternative for Germany right-wing parties among voters. The anti-Merkel sentiments are expected to grow. Germany may become the driver of the change on the European political landscape in case a terror attack takes place there.

A major attack will make the divisions come into the open and spur the process of political revision in Germany and throughout the entire EU.  

Brexit may be greatly impacted by the Brussels tragedy. Although the British government has wisely maintained control over its borders, there is widespread concern among the British public about border security in the Schengen zone and unregulated migration.

The attack strengthens the Eurosceptics – less Europe means more security, they say. The tragedy in Belgium will give political ammunition to the «vote out» campaign.

Brexit could also be the catalyst for more ethnocentrism and disintegration across the continent. It would certainly increase Marine Le Pen's chances of winning the French presidency in 2017.

No doubt the EU is on the threshold of deep changes. It’s hard to make any predictions about its future, but the best days of the European Union are behind. It will never be the same again.

Dramatic loss of life in the terror attacks in Brussels: 34 killed and more than 180 wounded according to the latest reports. 

Prior to the conduct of a police investigation, in the hours following the attacks, the Western media went into overdrive, intimating without evidence that the Islamic State (ISIS) operating out of Raqqa, Northern Syria was responsible for the attacks. 

According to the Independent “Isis supporters have been celebrating the Brussels attacks online [social media] as speculation mounts that the group is behind a wave of deadly attacks in the Belgian capital.”

The report is based on information emanating from social media, which does not constitute a  reliable source of information.

An unkown self-proclaimed news agency (Amaq Agency) allegedly representing the ISIS provided the following report:

This mysterious agency was then immediately quoted by Reuters in an authoritiative report.

In turn, alleged supporters of ISIS on twitter were quoted. According to the Jerusalem Post (March 21, 2016):

The “tears of joy” that were shed by ISIS supporters on Twitter are also related to the fact that the terrorists succeeded in paralyzing the activity in the airport attacked. One of ISIS’ main declared goals is to devastate the Western economy and replace the dollar with its own coin as the only international legal tender.

Who Controls the ISIS social media and twitter accounts?

Hackers have claimed that a number of Islamic State supporters’ social media accountsare being run from internet addresses linked to the [UK  government] Department of Work and Pensions.

A group of four young computer experts who call themselves VandaSec have unearthed evidence indicating that at least three ISIS-supporting accounts can be traced back to the DWP.

Every computer and mobile phone logs onto the internet using an IP address, which is a type of identification number.

The hacking collective showed Mirror Online details of the IP addresses used by a trio of separate digital jihadis to access Twitter accounts, which have been used to spread extremist propaganda.

At first glance, the IP addresses seem to be based in Saudi Arabia, but upon further inspection using specialist tools they appeared to link back to the DWP.  ..

[T]he British government sold on a large number of IP addresses to two Saudi Arabian firms.

After the sale completed in October of this year, they were used by extremists to spread their message of hate.

Jamie Turner, an expert from a firm called PCA Predict, discovered a record of the sale of IP addresses, and found a large number were transferred to Saudi Arabia in October of this year.

He told us it was likely the IP addresses could still be traced back to the DWP because records of the addresses had not yet been fully updated.

What the Daily Mirror report suggests (as well as other reports) is that the IP addresses of the ISIS are indirectly linked to the British government, i.e. 1) the identity of the ISIS social media is  invariable known to police authorities, and 2) The ISIS social media are sponsored by Saudi Arabia, which is also involved in the recruitment and training of terrorists in liaison with US-NATO.

It is worth noting that the British government has acknowledged its responsibility:

The Cabinet Office has now admitted to selling the IP addresses on to Saudi Telecom and the Saudi-based Mobile Telecommunications Company earlier this year as part of a wider drive to get rid of a large number of the DWP’s IP addresses. (Mirror, op cit cit, emphasis added)

The State Sponsors of Terrorism

The events in Brussels raises the broader question: who is behind the ISIS?

Israel intelligence sources (DEBKA) in a 2011 report confirmed the role of NATO operating out of its Brussels headquarters and Turkey’s high command in the training and recruitment of terrorists:

NATO headquarters in Brussels and the Turkish high command are meanwhile drawing up plans for their first military step in Syria, which is to arm the rebels with weapons for combating the tanks and helicopters spearheading the Assad regime’s crackdown on dissent. … NATO strategists are thinking more in terms of pouring large quantities of anti-tank and anti-air rockets, mortars and heavy machine guns into the protest centers for beating back the government armored forces. (DEBKAfile, NATO to give rebels anti-tank weapons, August 14, 2011)

This initiative, which was also supported by Saudi Arabia and Qatar, involved a process of organized recruitment of thousands of jihadist “freedom fighters”, reminiscent of  the enlistment of  Mujahideen to wage the CIA’s jihad (holy war) in the heyday of the Soviet-Afghan war:

Also discussed in Brussels and Ankara, our sources report, is a campaign to enlist thousands of Muslim volunteers in Middle East countries and the Muslim world to fight alongside the Syrian rebels. The Turkish army would house these volunteers, train them and secure their passage into Syria. (Ibid, emphasis added)

These mercenaries were subsequently integrated into US and allied sponsored terrorist organizations including Al Nusrah and ISIS.

And then in August 2014, Obama launched his counter-terrorism campaign. Yet the evidence confirms that instead of destroying the ISIS, the US and its allies including Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Israel were in fact protecting the ISIS.

Again according to the Daily Mirror in a 2015 report, the counterterrorism campaign was conducive to ISIS doubling the territory under its control, until the launching of the Russian intervention in late September 2015.

Sheer Incompetence of  the US Air Force (doubtful) or Washington’s complicity in protecting the terrorists?

Recently the release of the Hillary Clinton email archive as well as leaked Pentagon documents confirm that the US and its allies were supportive of ISIS, which are according to press reports, the alleged architects of the Brussels attacks.

The 7-page Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) document dated August of 2012, points to US complicity in supporting the creation of an Islamic State:

Global Research

Assuming that the IS quasi-state has a «foreign policy», one may say that its first goal was to create chaos in Europe, which is considered to be the most vulnerable part of the non-Muslim world.

The second goal presupposes undermining the shaky foundation of the European Union and weakening the individual states to create proper conditions for great migration with Muslims moving to the Old Continent from North Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia. 

«Peaceful» conquest had been planned long before the emergence of the IS. The European Council for Fatwa and Research (ECFR), a private foundation composed of Islamic clerics and scholars, was founded in London in March 1997 on the initiative of the Federation of Islamic Organizations in Europe. Its ideologists say that Europe is home to extremist fundamentalist powers representing an alliance between Crusaders and Zionists.

The ECFR runs a vast network of mosques, religious schools and educational centers for imams. Qatar provides funds for its activities through charity institutions. 

The ECFR is headed by Yusuf al-Qaradawi, who believes that no armies and weapons are needed to conquer Europe.

According to him, it can be done with the help of clerics and preachers teaching Islam in all languages and dialects. 

Despite that, the regular terror activities are spread throughout the whole continent. It allows the «peaceful conquerors» to speak the language of ultimatums. Even this imminent threat has so far failed to unite Europe.

* * *

Looking back in history, one can see that nomads have never cared about getting acquainted with the way of life in the countries they conquered. Their only goal was to derive profit. The Genghis Khan’s conquest and the Arab invasion at the time of early caliphates confirm the fact.

The coming of new settlers from the East should not be perceived as a unique phenomenon. The question is, will those who are threatened by this conquest (Samuel Huntington called it «the clash of civilizations»), unite before its too late?

And another question is, why the «new wave» of terror acts hit France and Belgium first? Perhaps, because these countries happened to be the most susceptible to the all-European degradation. They are the weakest link in the chain.

Europe is sick, it’s an open secret since a long time ago. An organism weakened by illness is vulnerable to infection. Will Europeans find a way to fight the virus threatening their civilization? If not, we’ll never see the Europe we once knew.