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France leads new EU secret paramilitary force for suppressing protests

Tim Schumacher
Statewatch Journal
Sun, 01 Aug 2010 12:14 UTC
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The emergence of para-military police units for use abroad (and potentially at home) is exemplified by the EGF which is being organised by six EU member states outside of the Justice and Home Affairs structures1

The increasing deployment of para-military gendarmerie forces abroad is due to a changing threat analysis resulting in new requirements for operational forces. The control of the population through permanent gendarmerie deployment is a central component of this threat analysis, leading to a para-militarisation of forces, as is illustrated by the multinational European Gendarmerie Force (EGF / EUROGENDFOR). Due to this unit's dual nature (the EGF can operate under military as well as civil command, inland as well as abroad) and through common training, the paramilitarisation of police forces in Germany, the EU and worldwide is inevitable. The logo of the EGF is LEX PACIFERAT ("The law will bring peace") - it is a law enforced to ensures uninterrupted economic activity.

Population control

What is deemed to be a threat depends on which group is able to enforce its views; the group which possesses a discursive hegemony. Since the 1990s, hegemonic threat analysis and its resulting security strategies have undergone fundamental changes. With the disappearance of the clear frontlines drawn up during the Cold War, there is no definitive enemy such as the Soviet Union. According to the German government's coalition agreement, the new global threats are "international terrorism, organised crime and piracy, climate change, (lack of) food and resource security as well as epidemics and diseases": diffuse, ambiguous and asymmetrical threats.2 These new enemies seemingly can attack everywhere and at any time; they are also difficult to differentiate from the civil population or are in fact identical to it. The population therefore poses a continuous threat and its "political and social control" has become central to the planning of military and police operations.3

Comment: So, with France leading the way, the EU has quietly created a secret police force that will be accountable to no one but SITCEN, its new intelligence agency.

The name Brice Hortefeux rings a bell. Apparently he is good at creating secret police forces:

Big Agri-Business, Big Pharma, Arms Trafficking, Suicide Cults and MIVILUDES - The Truth Behind France's Cult-Hunting Policies Exposed
The author of the following contribution to the 2009 MIVILUDES report is Brice Hortefeux, who was Minister of the Interior at the time and is one of many charming characters we find in high places in France today. Somewhat unsurprisingly, Hortefeux is a friend and longstanding ally of President Nicolas Sarkozy. In June 2010, Hortefeux was fined 2,750 euros for racial insults against a party activist of Algerian descent. The incident went like this:
BBC 4 June 2010

Mr Hortefeux was joking with a small group of activists from the ruling UMP party in south-west France.

Immediately before Mr Hortefeux's controversial remark, one activist is heard saying: "Amin is a Catholic. He eats pork and drinks alcohol."

Mr Hortefeux then says: "Ah, well that won't do at all. He doesn't match the prototype."

A woman is then heard to say: "He is one of us... he is our little Arab."

The interior minister then says: "We always need one. It's when there are lots of them that there are problems."
That's just a little background into one of the people leading France's modern-day militarized 'Department of morality and normality'. Here is Hortefeux, in an appendix to the 2009 MIVILUDES report, describing the organisation and role of CAIMADES, the 'anti-cult' special police unit created to give MIVILUDES some teeth:
The services of the DGPN [General Directorate of the National Police] (DSCP/SDIG [the Sub-directorate for General Intelligence]) produced a general study on new therapies (already sent to MIVILUDES). This same service has continued its work of collecting information and intelligence for operational purposes, notably of the investigative services, thanks to a network of support staff within each departmental service which reports on cultic activities. This work is ultimately destined to feed CAIMADES, a group specializing in this area and newly created within the 'Central Office for the Repression of Violence against Persons' (OCRCVP) at the DCPJ ['Direction Centrale Police Judiciaire'].

Operating within the DCPJ, the OCRCVP, created by the decree of 6 May 2006, was empowered to fight against cultic abuses constituting criminal offenses. Until 1 September 2009, one of the criminal investigative groups of this service was specifically charged with centralising information and processing court records related to this matter. The Minister of the Interior, in two memos circulated on 25 February 2008 and 23 January 2009, reminded officials of the new legal arsenal at their disposal for fighting against cultic abuses. He committed to a coordinated action on the matter, established specific guidelines in the fight and expressed a wish to bring new impetus to the activities of the various state services in this matter. [...]
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MIVILUDES can rely on scores of Gendarmerie to protect France's children from eeeevil 'cults'

The main objective of this unit is to ensure compliance with the provisions of the About-Picard law of 12 June 2001 relating to subjection to mental manipulation, facilitate meetings for characterizing these notions [of what constitutes "subjection" and "mental manipulation"] and the relevant elements of criminal offenses. To this end, CAIMADES is at the disposal of the territorial services of the police and gendarmerie to provide them with methodological (training, experience sharing, situational analysis) or operational assistance. These interventions can take the form of tips and expert advice in order to evaluate whether registered complaints or information received meet legal qualifications.

The unit is intended to facilitate the implementation of specific techniques in conducting investigations relating to acts that may constitute cultic abuses. It is capable of acting alone or in co-referral with those services initially involved during a criminal investigation. Experts assigned to the unit act in these proceedings under the guide of requisitions made by the prosecution or 'rogatory commissions' initiated by the investigating judge. It is certainly desirable that the cell intervenes alongside investigators from the beginning of inquiry, but its assistance can be obtained at any stage during the inquiry and especially during arrests and while in police custody. Such cooperation of experts, on the fringes of the investigation, is readily available and naturally enables better management of cult followers or minors as the situation requires. The implementation of CAIMADES as an entity of the OCRVP enables it to equally benefit from the operational capacities of the overall central and territorial services of judicial police.
Monsieur Hortefeux is also very good at getting things done in secret:
A few months ago, the above mentioned Brice Hortefeux, now a senior adviser to Sarkozy, was pulled in for questioning by police after he phoned another comrade of Sarkozy's, Thierry Gaubert, to warn him that the police were onto his role in collecting suitcases of cash from banks in Switzerland to finance Edouard Balladur's unsuccessful 1995 presidential election campaign. Balladur's campaign spokesman? Nicolas Sarkozy. Dubbed 'Karachigate' by the French press, the Swiss cash was kickbacks from illegal arms sales to Pakistan in the 1990s. For Hortefeux to have been able to warn Gaubert - and therefore Sarkozy, we presume - he must have had inside knowledge of the advanced stage of the judicial investigation... being former Minister of the Interior probably helped. Just about everyone in Sarkozy's entourage has been implicated or officially charged in this latest major corruption scandal to hit France, including the president's best man, Nicolas Bazire, who was Balladur's campaign manager in 1995.
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'hmmm... now where did I leave that suitcase of cash...' Brice Hortefeux

We say "latest major corruption scandal to hit France" because the current fallout from 'Karachigate' is practically a rerun of another kickbacks-for-arms scandal involving the country's top brass in the 1990s. 'Angolagate', aka the 'Mitterrand - Pasqua affair', saw just about everybody and his dog in the docks over the illicit sale of $790 million of Russian weapons and equipment to Angola from 1993 all the way up to the year 2000, fuelling a civil war that killed over half a million people, left the country in ruins and ensured that French companies, in league with dictator Dos Santos against the Unita rebels, could continue to plunder Angola's vast oil and diamond wealth. Despite a UN embargo blocking the sale of weapons to Angola, Pierre Falcone, a French businessman, arranged deals through his company Brenco with none other than the Israeli 'Lord of War' Arcady Gaydamak to ship enormous quantities of military hardware to the dictator - it remains the single largest racket of illegal arms trafficking ever (well, that we know of).

Of course, this couldn't be done without opening doors, so Falcone showered millions of dollars (in more suitcases of cash) upon power brokers in France. Guess who was named by Falcone as one of the more than 40 French politicians to win a lucky potluck suitcase? That's right... Georges Fenech, who was a magistrate in Lyons in 1997 at the time, soon to be made a judge, and was busy prosecuting his war on minorities. He denied everything of course and, like most of the French Mafia implicated in Angolagate, got away with it.
Having cut their teeth among the ranks of special forces in Afghanistan and the Balkans, it's unlikely that this 'new riot' squad is being drafted in to do grunt work on the streets. No, Europe's elites might have much craftier work in mind for them...

The Return of Gladio And The Rebirth of Terror Under French Tyrant Nicolas Sarkrazy

Operation Gladio: State-Sponsored Terror

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Vader

"Eurogendfor" - the private army of the EU, ready to march to Greece


Uhupardo
Fri, 16 Mar 2012 05:59 UTC
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Translation : Current Concerns

cc. There are articles which the reader can only comment like this: "This cannot be true, I regularly inform myself and usually think I am up to date, but why do I not know about that?" - The following is one of those: If you think of gender - the synthetic newfangled definition of sex - in connection with Euro-Gender-For, you are on the wrong track. The name is a showpiece of the intellectual power of innovation of the French: Instead of EU rambo troops or Goldman Sachs bodyguards along the lines of Blackwater a "police"-private army has emerged. This way the Germans from Angela Merkel's faction may deflect the "indignation" that they trigger in the countries of the oh-so-liberal euro-Europe to the French. But at the latest upon arrival in Greece, this spin doesn't work any longer.
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MIB

Secret Service Closes Ranks in Sordid Scandal

Alicia A. Caldwell
The Associated Press
Tue, 01 May 2012 00:00 UTC
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© The Associated Press/Susan Walsh
In this Monday, Oct. 24, 2011 file photo, Secret Service agents stand guard as President Barack Obama meets with the neighbors of homeowners Jose and Lissette Bonilla in Las Vegas. The Secret Service has been tarnished by a prostitution scandal that erupted April 13, 2012 in Colombia involving 12 Secret Service agents, officers and supervisors and 12 more enlisted military personnel ahead of President Barack Obama's visit there for the Summit of the Americas.
Washington - After two weeks of disturbing revelations about a tawdry prostitution scandal, the Secret Service and its supporters are circling the wagons to restore the "secret" part of its mission.

Retired agents have been instructed to stop talking to reporters. Secret Service agents are dismantling Facebook accounts, hanging up on reporters and notifying headquarters - even calling police - when journalists knock on their doors at home for interviews about the investigation.

"What purpose do these revelations, true or exaggerated, serve? What ever happened to one's pride in being discreet and keeping a confidence?" asked the president of the Association of Former Agents of the U.S. Secret Service, Pete Cavicchia, in an email to members. Cavicchia, head of a New York-based security and investigations firm, praised retired agents who declined interviews, urged others to "exercise the proper caution" and added, "We as an organization and individually do not have to add to the damage and speculation at this time."

Cavicchia said Monday that the email speaks for itself.

The scandal and what it's revealed about the culture inside the Secret Service have been a shock to an agency that is famously discreet. More than a dozen Secret Service agents contacted by The Associated Press have abruptly hung up or declined to return multiple messages to discuss their agency and former coworkers. One reported it to headquarters when an AP reporter visited his home in the evening; some retired officials who were interviewed quickly notified headquarters about what questions reporters were asking.
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Vader

Psychopaths and American Exceptionalism: In Defense of Torture: CIA Torturer Has No Regrets


Information Clearing House
Sun, 29 Apr 2012 00:00 UTC
"We are the dark side."

Jose Rodriguez, the former head of the CIA's Clandestine Service, defends the "enhanced interrogation techniques" used on high-level al Qaeda detainees and says he has no regrets. Lesley Stahl reports.

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Airplane

Pakistani Officials: Suspected U.S. Drone Strike Kills "Militants" Hiding in High School

Shaan Khan
CNN
Sun, 29 Apr 2012 10:07 UTC
Drone
© Reuters
Islamabad - A suspected U.S. drone strike killed three people Sunday at a high school in northern Pakistan where militants were hiding, intelligence officials said.

The drone fired two missiles at the school in the city of Miranshah, killing three suspected militants, the Pakistani intelligence officials said.

The city is located in North Waziristan, one of seven districts in Pakistan's tribal region widely believed to be a haven for militant groups.

It comes several weeks after Pakistani lawmakers approved a list of recommendations that includes a call for an immediate end to U.S. drone attacks.

There has been a sharp drop in the number of drone attacks in Pakistan since a November NATO airstrike that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers on the country's border with Afghanistan, driving U.S.- Pakistan relations to a low point.
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USA

Celebrating our "Warrior President"

Glenn Greenwald
Salon
Sun, 29 Apr 2012 06:28 UTC
The Democratic case for Obama's foreign policy greatness is most significant for what it blissfully ignores

Obama speech
© Getty Images
Peter Bergen, the Director of National Security Studies at the Democratic-Party-supportive New America Foundation, has a long Op-Ed in The New York Times today glorifying President Obama as a valiant and steadfast "warrior President"; it begins this way:
THE president who won the Nobel Peace Prize less than nine months after his inauguration has turned out to be one of the most militarily aggressive American leaders in decades.
Just ponder that: not only the Democratic Party, but also its progressive faction, is wildly enamored of "one of the most militarily aggressive American leaders in decades." That's quite revealing on multiple levels. Bergen does note that irony: he recalls that Obama used his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech to defend the justifications for war and points out: "if those on the left were listening, they didn't seem to care." He adds that "the left, which had loudly condemned George W. Bush for waterboarding and due process violations at Guantánamo, was relatively quiet when the Obama administration, acting as judge and executioner, ordered more than 250 drone strikes in Pakistan since 2009, during which at least 1,400 lives were lost."

To explain the behavior of "the left," Bergen offers this theory: "From both the right and left, there has been a continuing, dramatic cognitive disconnect between Mr. Obama's record and the public perception of his leadership: despite his demonstrated willingness to use force, neither side regards him as the warrior president he is." In other words, progressives are slavishly supportive of "one of the most militarily aggressive American leaders in decades" because they have deluded themselves into denying this reality and continue to pretend he's some sort of anti-war figure.
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Airplane

Obama's Death Panels: Jeremy Scahill at the Drone Summit

Kevin Gosztola
Drones Watch
Sun, 29 Apr 2012 00:00 UTC
obama_drones
© Unknown
Activists, lawyers, human rights advocates, civil liberties defenders and others came together for a major international summit on drone warfare and the issues created by drone use yesterday. The summit was co-organized by CODEPINK, the Center for Constitutional Rights and Reprieve. An exceptional lineup of speakers addressed participants detailing salient and significant aspects around the Obama administration's expansion of the covert drone wars in countries like Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen.

The day wrapped up with a speech from Jeremy Scahill of The Nation, who has been one of the few journalists to actually travel to these countries where the covert drone war is playing out. Scahill has produced reports on Yemen and Somalia that show how the US is carrying out its "war on terrorism" and using drones to target and kill people.

Scahill opens his speech by saying, "The real death panels that we have in this country were unleashed on our own citizens. Republicans like to talk about death panels having to do with health care. President Obama is the one that is operating secret death panels" that include United States citizens and often include non-US citizens. The vast majority of the victims of this policy around the world are not US citizens.
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Airplane

Perception Management: U.S.acknowledges drone strikes, says civilian deaths rare

Michael Isikoff
NBC News
Mon, 30 Apr 2012 17:30 UTC
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© Thir Khan/AFP-Getty Images file
Pakistani tribesmen pray for the victims of a missile strike in Miranshah, Pakistan, on Feb. 15, 2009, after a suspected U.S. drone blasted a Taliban training camp, killing at least 27 people, according to Pakistani security officials said.
White House counterterrorism adviser John Brennan on Monday spoke openly -- and at great length -- about what has long been one of the government's most controversial official secrets: the use of remotely piloted drones to kill suspected terrorists.

In doing so, he became the first U.S. government official to acknowledge that the drone strikes sometimes kill innocent people, though he characterized such deaths as "exceedingly rare." But a new analysis by an independent Washington think tank estimates that more than 300 civilians have been killed by drones since President Barack Obama took office.

In a major speech on the anniversary of Osama bin Laden's death during a raid in Abbottabad, Pakistan, by U.S. Navy SEALs, Brennan proclaimed that al-Qaida is now "on the path to its destruction." But the headline was what he had to say about the drone program - long a forbidden subject for senior U.S. officials - and how the U.S. government uses it.

"The United States conducts targeted strikes against specific al-Qaida terrorists, sometimes using remotely piloted aircraft, often referred to publicly as drones," said Brennan, in his speech at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, a Washington, D.C., foreign policy think tank.

Comment: We won't go into Navy Seals and Osama. Osama bin Laden corpse photo is fake

Instead we'll travel down memory lane about these Drones that somehow miss civilians:
Drone kills 25 on eve of mass protest, US drone strike kills 25 in Pakistan, US drone kills 8 in Pakistan, drone strikes have killed over 130 in Yemen, US Drone Strike Kills 78 in Somalia, US drone strike kills 23 in Pakistan It's easy to get to over 250 men, women and children. Perhaps Brennan ran out of fingers or forgot a digit? And this small group of articles isn't the whole, and if you think about it, what about the forgotten and hushed numbers that didn't make it into the main stream media?

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Question

Hide-and-Ship: Did the US Know Libyan Weapons were en Route to Syrian Rebels?


Russia Today
Mon, 30 Apr 2012 00:00 UTC
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© Agence France-Presse/Anwar Amro
The vessel Lutfallah II docks at a naval base at the port of Beirut on April 28, 2012
The US and NATO have some questions to answer about the massive weapons cargo seized by Lebanese intelligence officials, Franklin Lamb tells RT. He says they surely knew the shipment was on its way to Syrian rebels, but still turned a blind eye.

­The Sierra Leone-registered ship Lutfallah II, carrying three containers filled with heavy machine guns, shells, rockets, rocket launchers and other explosives has been intercepted over allegations that the arms were intended for Syrian rebel consumption. Some of the arms seized were labeled as Libyan.

The ship's 11 crew members were detained and questioned by Lebanese intelligence officers. Lebanese military prosecutor Saqr Saqr says an investigation is underway.

The ship was en route from Libya to the northern Lebanese port of Tripoli, according to the ship's owner. Lebanon's Tripoli is a hotbed of support for the Syrian opposition. Official Damascus has frequently complained about arms being smuggled from the area into the country.

The vessel is now being held in Selaata, a port city 50 kilometers north of Beirut.
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Light Sabers

Former Mossad Chief, Israeli Minister Trade Accusations at New York Conference

Chemi Shalev
Haaretz
Sun, 29 Apr 2012 00:00 UTC
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© Mark Yisrael Salem
Former IDF chief Gabi Ashkenazi (left) and former Mossad chief Dagan at the New York conference, April 29, 2012.
Meir Dagan defends statements made by former Shin Bet security service chief, criticizing Netanyahu and Barak over Iran; Minister Gilad Erdan says Dagan sabotaging international efforts to halt Iran's nuclear program; ex-PM Olmert joins in defense of Dagan, Diskin.

An embarrassing confrontation broke out on Sunday during a panel discussion at a New York conference, when former Mossad chief Meir Dagan accused Environmental Protection Minister Gilad Erdan of lying, while Erdan replied that Dagan is sabotaging Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's efforts to put a halt to Iran's nuclear aspirations.

At the conference, sponsored by the Jerusalem Post in New York, the two also exchanged harsh words after Dagan warned Erdan over the so-called "Dagan law," forbidding former security officials to issue open statements until a certain cooling period wears off.
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