The War on Terror: Who's Behind the Mask?

Sott.net
Thu, 03 Dec 2015 21:36 UTC

© nondecaf.tublr.com

Before absorbing the message conveyed by the mainstream media when they show you images of masked terrorists, (juxtaposed with images of masked special forces) have you ever stopped and wondered how to tell them apart? Why do people wear masks anyway? Wearing a mask obviously helps to conceal identity. When 'officers of the law' hide their faces in this way, we assume it is to to prevent possible "revenge" attacks against him or his family. But is that really the case?

Before we answer that, what about these lunatic Muslim terrorists who carry out attacks like we saw in Paris a few weeks ago? We're told that they wish to die in the name of Allah and be remembered as prophets or martyrs, but they wear masks too. But wouldn't a mask defeat that particular purpose, not to mention being rather superfluous on a 'suicide mission'?

Philip G. Zimbardo, PhD, did an interesting study about the use of masks and uniforms. He is quoted here:

People's aggression can also increase when they feel anonymous —for example if they wear a uniform, hood or mask, Zimbardo said.

"You minimize social responsibility," he explained. "Nobody knows who you are, so therefore you are not individually liable. There's also a group effect when all of you are masked. It provides a fear in other people because they can't see you, and you lose your humanity."

For example, an experiment in 1974 by Harvard anthropologist John Watson evaluated 23 cultures to determine whether warriors who changed their appearance —such as with war paint or masks--treated their victims differently. As it turned out, 80 percent of warriors in these cultures were found to be more destructive —for example, killing, torturing or mutilating their victims— than unpainted or unmasked warriors.

What's more, a person's anonymity can be induced by acting in an anonymity-conferring environment that adds to the pleasure of destruction, vandalism and the power of being in control, Zimbardo noted.

"It's not just seeing people hurt, it's doing things that you have a sense that you are controlling behavior of other people in ways that you typically don't," Zimbardo said.

Zimbardo noticed that in his own simulated jail experiment in 1971 —the Stanford Prison Experiment— in which college students played the roles of prisoners or guards, and the guards became brutal and abusive toward prisoners after just six days, leading Zimbardo to prematurely end the experiment. The experiment showed that institutional forces and peer pressure led normal student volunteer guards to disregard the potential harm of their actions on the other student prisoners.

"You don't need a motive," Zimbardo said. "All you really need is a situation that facilitates moving across that line of good and evil."

Okay, so that would be a plausible explanation for terrorists wearing masks. But why the special forces? Would uniforms and masks also turn them into monsters? That's quite the opposite of the role they are assigned to fulfill.

And why are there anti-masks laws in many countries, making it a crime to conceal your face "for political or cultural purposes", while the same standard doesn't apply to the authorities? Are we supposed to blindly believe that just because they wear a uniform they are legitimate? Uniforms and masks aren't hard to get. Even a child can get one on Amazon. Fancy an Israeli uniform for yourself? A uniform is obviously no proof of legitimacy.

Now, consider these few images:

Heavily armed men wearing black combat gear from head to toe... their job is to kill 'terrorists' to keep us safe, which they do by terrorising us all

© AP

French masked police officers walk in a street of Saint-Denis, near Paris. Wednesday, November 18, 2015.

© AP / Peter Dejong

Hooded French police officers in Saint-Denis, near Paris, Wednesday, Nov. 18, 2015. Can you tell which ethnic group or religion they belong to?

© wnd.com

Texas RAID police, supposedly

© Reuters

Spain: Regional police officers detain a man during a raid in one of the region's biggest operations against jihadi activity, in Sabadell, near Barcelona, April 8, 2015

© Pascal Pavani /AFP / Getty images

Members of the French RAID special police force unit leave after their assault on murder suspect Mohammed Merah's Toulouse apartment. - March 22nd, 2012

© AP

Belgian Special Forces during state of siege, November 2015. Masked, once again.

And now these:

© AFP

An image grab taken on April 19, 2015 from a video reportedly released by the ISIL Takfiri terrorist group, purportedly shows men described as Ethiopian Christians captured in Libya kneeling on the ground in front of masked terrorists before their beheading on a beach at an undisclosed location in Libya.

© Express

Militants belonging to the Baloch Liberation Army, supposedly. They opened fire in Karachi, and were conveniently killed by the special forces. - August 18th, 2015

© AP

Dec. 10, 2006 - (Allegedly) masked Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood students parade inside their al-Azhar university campus in Cairo, Egypt.

© Jewishpress

Alleged Hamas terrorists in Israel, August 18th, 2014. Palestinians hardly have any food to eat and water to drink, but these guys even got matching uniforms and weapons...

During one of the attacks on November 13th in France, a Danish witness described one of the terrorists in the following way:

"Everything he was wearing was tight, either boots or shoes and the trousers were tight, the jumper he was wearing was tight, no zippers or collars. Everything was toned black. If you think of what a combat soldier looks like, that is it - just without the webbing. Just a man in military uniform, black jumper, black trousers, black shoes or boots and a machine gun."

You can read similar reports and an analysis of the same here. Do you see how blurry the line can often be? Who are the good guys, and who the bad guys?

It gets even more complicated when we hear reports about evil head-chopper Muslim terrorists with blue eyes, blond hair and Caucasian looks, with perfect British accents, or with very clear links to some intelligence agencies. Some terrorists simply need to shave off their beards and dress like women to successfully avoid being caught.

Then there's the all too convenient proof left at the scene of attacks like those amazing passports and ID cards, or a finger (or some other body part) that is determined via DNA test to belong to an evil terrorist.... who turns out to have been on a police database for years.

This "confusing" reality is analyzed and explained in more detail here. Let me quote something from that article that may make you think twice about who those hooded terrorists that you saw in the last picture above may really be:

When the US and EU governments defined Muslim groups in the Middle East as their enemy in the 'war on terror', US and EU intelligence agencies began the standard process of dealing with that 'threat'. Israeli intelligence agencies, of course, having lived with what it calls 'Muslim terrorism' for several decades, had long-since begun this process. [...]

The first (and most important) order of business is infiltration of the 'terrorist' group. This is typically done by capturing and 'turning' members of the target group so that they work as 'double agents' for the intel agency. It's a pretty simple process. A member is arrested and faced with a choice between long imprisonment (or torture and death) or working for the intel agency as an informant [or a "stone throwing"/ modern terrorist???]. Sometimes threats to family members and other forms of blackmail are used. On occasion, members turn themselves in and offer to work for the agency in return for money and immunity from prosecution or persecution. An actual member of the intelligence agency may also join the group as a new member and then, with the help of the agency, climb up through the ranks. In this way, the agency begins to gain control over the 'terrorist' group and to direct its actions. These types of informants must, of course, appear genuine to other group members, and they are encouraged by their handlers to carry out killings and other attacks in order to 'gain credentials'. [...]

We have to remember that the broad agenda of Western governments is not simply to 'defeat Muslim terrorist groups' in the Middle East, but to destroy any popular Arab Muslim resistance to ongoing Western control over the resources of Middle Eastern countries (and to protect the state of Israel, of course). In that context, it may be possible that the existence of a Muslim terror threat is a useful tool with which to effect that ongoing control, and to prevent a more equal status quo from emerging, one in which Western governments no longer enjoy the lion's share of the wealth of Middle Eastern nations.[...]

At some point you may have wondered about the logic of a Muslim terror group carrying out attacks against Western populations that are ostensibly done in order to 'protect the Muslims', even though such attacks will obviously provoke a backlash against Muslims. Why would any 'defenders of Islam' choose to provide such incontrovertible evidence to those who subtly (or not so subtly) accuse Muslims of being nihilistic killers that they are, in fact, nihilist killers?

We should constantly remember to ask even simple questions such as these, to never take anything for granted, and to always ask for more proof. You never know who hides behind a mask. Good police agents exist, terrorists exist, double agents exist. But who is who?