Welcome to World War Three
Welcome to World War Three
Analysis: The Paris attack is directly tied to events in Syria and Iraq; this was not an intelligence failure but rather the failure of the West to see itself as in a total war vs. radical Islam.
By Ron Ben-Yishai, YNET, November 15, 2015
It is time that we came to the realization: we are in the midst of World War III. A war that will differ from the others but will take place all over the globe, on land, air and sea. This is a war between jihadist Islam and Western civilization; a war between radical Islam and all those who refuse to surrender to its values and political demands.
This war will, of course, have to be fought on the ground – with American, British and French divisions and tanks that will fight in Syria and Iraq, but also with security measures taken at border crossings and by special forces and intelligence agencies in Belgium, France and Germany as well as in the Philippines, China and Russia. This war will be conducted on the Mediterranean Sea as well as in the air with combat aircraft bombarding concentrations of ISIS and al-Qaeda fighters across Asia and Africa and security measures taken at airports and passenger aircraft worldwide. This is what the third world war will look like, which Israel has been a part of for a while now.
Indications from the Paris attack immediately pointed to Islamic State, and after they took responsibility for it – it is possible to discern the strategy set forth by the organization: Painful blows of terror at targets easy for them to operate in and which allow them to claim a mental victory with minimal effort and risk.
One can identify the beginning of the current offensive with the Russian plane explosion over Sinai three weeks ago. The Paris attack was directed according to the same strategy. It is likely that the attack had been planned over many months, but the background is the same as that of the plane attack: ISIS is now taking heavy blows in Syria and Iraq and is losing several of its important outposts in the heart of the Islamic caliphate it wants to establish.
Therefore ISIS is attacking its enemies’ rear and Europe, as usual, is the first to get hit. ISIS and al-Qaeda prefer striking in Europe because it is considered the cradle of Christianity and Islamic fundamentalist organizations still see it as the homeland of the Crusaders, who just as in the past, are at present waging a religious and cultural war on Islam. France and Paris were chosen as a target as France stood at the forefront of the cultural and religious struggle against radical Islam. It is also the easiest target to attack.
This war will, of course, have to be fought on the ground – with American, British and French divisions and tanks that will fight in Syria and Iraq, but also with security measures taken at border crossings and by special forces and intelligence agencies in Belgium, France and Germany as well as in the Philippines, China and Russia. This war will be conducted on the Mediterranean Sea as well as in the air with combat aircraft bombarding concentrations of ISIS and al-Qaeda fighters across Asia and Africa and security measures taken at airports and passenger aircraft worldwide. This is what the third world war will look like, which Israel has been a part of for a while now.
Indications from the Paris attack immediately pointed to Islamic State, and after they took responsibility for it – it is possible to discern the strategy set forth by the organization: Painful blows of terror at targets easy for them to operate in and which allow them to claim a mental victory with minimal effort and risk.
One can identify the beginning of the current offensive with the Russian plane explosion over Sinai three weeks ago. The Paris attack was directed according to the same strategy. It is likely that the attack had been planned over many months, but the background is the same as that of the plane attack: ISIS is now taking heavy blows in Syria and Iraq and is losing several of its important outposts in the heart of the Islamic caliphate it wants to establish.
Therefore ISIS is attacking its enemies’ rear and Europe, as usual, is the first to get hit. ISIS and al-Qaeda prefer striking in Europe because it is considered the cradle of Christianity and Islamic fundamentalist organizations still see it as the homeland of the Crusaders, who just as in the past, are at present waging a religious and cultural war on Islam. France and Paris were chosen as a target as France stood at the forefront of the cultural and religious struggle against radical Islam. It is also the easiest target to attack.
Huge quantities of arms and ammunition arrive in Europe from Libya via Sicily, Malta, Greece and many other places. These Libyan weapons move like a deadly wave through Europe, are available to anyone interested in them and can be moved about without any difficulty, as we have seen in previous attacks, from state to state. The same is true with explosives, although terrorists are able to manufacture explosives from local products – acetone and hydrogen peroxide, for example. The information is available to everyone, and Hamas had already shown during the second intifada how to equip a terrorist with an explosive belt containing homemade explosives which are no less deadly. A similar process took place in Iraq, and now France is taking a hit from it.
Another reason for choosing France is that it is considered the center of and the pinnacle of European culture and it is to a great extent a world city of the first order. Therefore the attack there has the greatest effect on people’s consciousness. Horror is effectively spread. It appears that the attackers were equipped with the pages of messages that declared so that those victims who survive would be able to cite to a media thirsty for every detail. “You bomb us in Syria and we bomb you in Paris,” was heard.
They also were dressed in frightening clothing, right out of a Hollywood horror movie, but the weapons and explosives were real. ISIS mixes the virtual world with the real world fluidly and this is the secret of its success and its appeal to young Muslims in the West.
A change of perception needed
To carry out terrorist attacks in seven different locations requires lots of time and elaborate organization. One has to plan, to stockpile weapons and explosives, choose targets, collect information about the targets ahead of the attack, recruit attackers some of whom are willing to die in suicide attacks and tour the scene of the attack and prepare nearby before the actual attack. Therefore, it is reasonable to estimate that the attack was planned and prepared months ago and was kept on hold for a strategically opportune moment.
We need to prepare for further attacks not only in France, but throughout Europe. To this end, Europe will need to resume full control its borders and will having to boldly deal with the dilemma of protecting human and individual rights versus the need to provide security. So far EU countries have preferred, and they can’t be condemned for it, the individual liberty of citizens over the defense against terrorism. Now Europe and especially France will have to reach the conclusion that the most important individual right is the right to life.
There’s no specific intelligence failure here but rather a total failure of perception that requires rethinking. The West will have to establish a joint intelligence apparatus that will perform assessments and issue immediate alerts – and this concerns not only France and Western Europe but also Russia, China and other countries. European countries will have to establish special forces and station them in large, as well as medium and small, urban concentrations to be able to react quickly to any warning or intelligence information.
The way Israel manages to gather intelligence and act on it quickly with the Border Police counter-terrorism unit and Shin Bet’s operational unit must serve as a model. It is clear that European bureaucrats, EU officials, will at first oppose the adoption of this model – but reality will probably force it upon them. They also will have to enact legislation to enable the mechanisms set up for intelligence gathering and rapid reaction to decisively prevent attacks before they occur and handle them quickly if they have already started to take place.
The world war between murderous fundamentalist Islam and Western civilization – and basically anyone and anything not Muslim – will have to be waged without compromise and without half-steps on land, air and sea. Brussels may not like it – but we’re all in the same boat. And no, the current wave of terrorism has nothing to do with the “occupation of Palestine.”
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Good article, Buzz. Thanks for seeding this!
Dear Friend Dower: I concur, and also praise Buzz for posting this.
E.
Thanks Dowser and Enoch. It's nice to hear from people who believe this terrorism must be stopped.
From a military standpoint, it's obvious that we are at war across the world and we will continue to be at war for the foreseeable future. One of the problems of the ideological war being waged is that it's very hard to fight a war against people that are willing to die for their cause, in fact that embrace death. They are very hard to turn from their goal. And being an apologist for them means nothing to them at all.
There was a scene from the movie The Godfather, when he was down in Cuba and a radical grabbed an upper ranking police official and bear-hugged him into a car where he set off a grenade killing both him and the police officer. Hard to beat that kind of 'True Believer'. It can be done, but it is going to take people becoming serious about the threat. As long as people are willing to say it's just a hit there and one over there instead of addressing it as a whole, we will not be on the road to solving this.
The article wants us to put what is essentially an ideological war on an equal footing with WW2 , where entire national populations are in some ways mobilized to concentrate on the war effort.
Sorry, that is absurd. Let people live their lives without having this "war" on their minds 24/7. This "war" is more akin to the cold war between the US (and the West ) and communism (Russia and the eastern bloc) which enfolded over many decades as part of international affairs, not as an entirely consuming emergency.
Losing 175 or whatever it is number of French men and women is a deep tragedy and call to arms. It is not the start off WW3. The hysterics want to run off again, and take everybody else with them.
I tend to agree with you 175 dead is just four months of normal life in Chicago and you don't see anyone planning a war over that.
It is not a war like numbers I and II. It is an ideological war - a war of civilization vs. primitive savagery. You only need to read the first couple of paragraphs to understand that. But what is clearly stated is that it will have to be fought on the ground, and that is what makes it similar to I and II.
the failure of the West to see itself as in a total war vs. radical Islam.
Do you know what the historical definition of total war is Buzz ? It does not mean "ideological" war.
"Total war is warfare that includes any and all civilian -associated resources and infrastructure as legitimate military targets , and justifies using weapons and tactics that result in significant civilian or other non-combatant casualties , whether collateral damage or not. American-English Dictionary defines "total war" as "war that is unrestricted in terms of the weapons used, the territory or combatants involved, or the objectives pursued, especially one in which the laws of war are disregarded." The term can also be applied when the war effort requires significant sacrifices by most of the friendly civilian population."
wiki
Who said it was "Total war"? What's the definition of "war"? Personally, I don't see that war being won without it being "Total war".
Who said it was "Total war"?
It is in the FIRST SENTENCE of the article you seeded Buzz.
So it is. I don't think he meant it to be as defined in the dictionary. I think he must have meant it to be a world war, which it is becoming if it's not that yet. In fact the analysis may not have been written by the author of the article. The author used the words "world war".
This is a different type of war than anything that has been fought before. Many only seem to be taking about the French killed 2 days ago as this is war, or it isn't.
Here is bit of information, within the last week ISIS has killed in Paris, taken down a Russian airliner, and the suicide bombing in Beirut. That's around 500 hundred people in one week that we are aware of. Now add the number of Yazadi, Kurds, Syrians, Iraqi's etc etc since ISIS started this war...The number is in the thousands, tens of thousands.
That is a frickin' war. Semantics don't mean anything when people are dying.
Agreed Kavika
Many people, including liberals, agree that it is a war. It is mainly a war of ideology, with limited areas of military conflict. It is not World War 3.
Many people, including liberals, agree that it is a war. It is mainly a war of ideology, with limited areas of military conflict. It is not World War 3.
For some reason it is easy to imagine hearing Chamberlain saying nearly exactly the same thing.
Personally I don't give a shit what your definition of "war" is. Maybe it's just a game of "Red rover red rover let JohnR come over" but it's a problem happening all over the world and it's going to take boots on the ground to stop it.
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I tend to agree with you 175 dead is just four months of normal life in Chicago
Really !!! WTF are you doing ?!?! Using a horrific tragedy as an opportunity irritate John Russell ?!?! WTF is wrong with you ?!?!
How many terror attacks would it take to qualify as a world war worthy of being labeled a world war? What difference would the distinction make in the long run when they both lead to million dead?
Do you know how many terror attacks that kill 200 people each you would need to reach one million dead ? Five thousand.
And besides that, there were 50 million dead in WW2, so you would need 250,000 terrorist attacks killing 200 people each to reach that figure. To put it mildly, that is not in the cards.
How many countries does the same kind of terrorism, with the same kind of perpetrators, be required to make it a "world" war? Would you like to count up the number of countries experiencing this kind of terrorism? I don't agree that the number of victims makes any difference. It could be 3000 or it could be only one - if the intent and perpetrators are the same, terrorism with the same intent. I don't see any difference between 9/11 and the incident at the Canadian Parliament, or the hacking off the head of the soldier on a London street, or what just took place in Paris.
Here is a list of all the terrorist attacks of 2015, around the world. Turkey, in particular, was the victim of a number of the attacks, as were locations in Africa. Only one location has evoked speculation about WW3 though. It should strike us as odd, but we know why it doesn't.
For the past 40 or 50 years there has been constant terrorism in various places around the world, yet it is only now we hear of how this should lead to a wide war. Hmm.