EU UNITY required as Brussels tragedy strikes at the heart of an already fragile European Union - by E. Reguky and M. Mackinnon

United we stand divided we fall

This week’s bombings in Brussels shattered the peace, and the sense of self-confidence, in the heart of the European Union. The Islamic State militants who carried them out may yet achieve a much larger goal: speeding the breakup of the 28-country bloc that is the grandest geopolitical project since the Second World War.

Even before the massacre, the EU – based on lofty ideals about the free movement of people, money and ideas – was reeling from a seemingly endless series of body blows. There was the refugee crisis, the spectre of Britain voting to leave and the rise of parties of extreme right and left, movements united only by their anti-EU positions. All these problems were exacerbated by Tuesday’s bloodshed.

Throw in the continent’s lingering economic malaise – symbolized by shocking jobless rates in Mediterranean countries – and an institution that was lauded just four years ago with a Nobel Peace Prize for its role in maintaining stability in Europe seems at genuine risk of falling apart.

That reality is just starting to sink into the institutional, clubby atmosphere of Brussels, a world of expense accounts, black BMWs and cushy high-paying jobs. Samir Benelcaid, a Belgian radio talk-show host who broadcasts in French and Arabic, said “people in Brussels didn’t really worry about the future of the EU” even though they were involved in shaping it.

The mentality is starting to change since this week’s bombings. “My own view is that Europe is falling down,” Mr. Benelcaid said. “The EU is facing so many issues with no responses, like migration, terrorism, unemployment. They give billions and billions of euros to young people for jobs formation and there are no results.”

The questions facing the EU post-Brussels are whether the bloc is just one, or perhaps two, more blows away from shattering – and whether the threat of disintegration will persuade the EU’s leaders and citizens that their union is worth saving.

Read more: Brussels tragedy strikes at the heart of an already fragile European Union - The Globe and Mail

Terrorism and the Press: Politicians duck the blame for terrorism and Press lets them get away with it - never asking any real questions

The Press: Say not, See Not, Hear Not

It is amazing listening to news stations during any terrorist attack. They report "blow by blow" all the gruesome and horrific details endlessly.

CNN in particular, turns these sad events into an endless nauseating soap opera with infinite and at times totally insignificant detail.

Questions are asked about why the most wanted man in Europe was able to elude the police for so long, even though he was living in his home district of Molenbeek in Brussels.

Television and newspapers ask nervously about the chances of Isis carrying out another atrocity aimed at dominating the news agenda and showing that it is still in business.

The reporting of the events in Brussels is in keeping with that after the January (Charlie Hebdo) and November Paris attacks and the Tunisian beach killings by Isis last year, or the killings in Ankara and Istanbul 

For several days there is blanket coverage by the media as it allocates time and space far beyond what is needed to relate developments. But then the focus shifts abruptly elsewhere and Isis becomes yesterday’s story, treated as if the movement has ceased to exist or at least lost its capacity to affect our lives.

The outpouring of official grief that commonly follows any atrocity, such as the march of 40 world leaders through the streets of Paris after the Charlie Hebdo killings last year, is used to help neuter any idea that the political failures of these same leaders might be to a degree responsible for the slaughter.

After all, such marches are usually held by the powerless to protest and show defiance, but in this case the march simply serves as a publicity stunt to divert attention from these leaders’ inability to act effectively and stop the wars in the Middle East which they had done much to provoke.

But it its not only the US which deserves the blame. By taking up the cause of the Syrian and Libyan opposition and destroying the Syrian and Libyan states, France and Britain opened the door to Isis and should share in the blame for the rise of Isis, terrorism and creating the refugee crises in Europe.

By refusing to admit to or learn from past mistakes, the West Europeans did little to lay the basis for the current, surprisingly successful “cessation of hostilities” in Syria, which is now considered by the public at large almost entirely as a Russian achievement. 

Once again the question can be asked - which major News Agency has shown the courage to sit down with any important political leader and ask them some serious investigative questions, like: "why have you made such a mess in the Middle East , or, "what is being done to stop weapon dealers from selling their weapons and munition around the world at will ", or, "how come the former US Bush Administration  is not taken into a criminal court  for war crimes ", or, "why is the West propping up the Egyptian military dictatorship, or, "why is the military industrial complex industry selling  weapons and aircraft to despotic and undemocratic nations like Saudi-Arabia, Egypt, Iraq and Somalia", or, "why can't the UN declare the Middle East region a nuclear free zone", or, "what are the requirements to be a member of NATO, when we see that one of their member states (TURKEY) does not respect freedom of the Press, throws investigative reporters in jail or takes over newspapers when they don't follow the party line" - and the list goes on and on.

Barton Gellman of the Washington Post says that for journalists just getting basic information from any governmen tagency has become very difficult: “Besides the actual risk of prosecution . . . there’s an investigative issue that very much relates to the ability to do national security journalism now. Almost everything you want to write about these days, if you are writing about diplomacy, or intelligence, or defense, is classified; everything indeed, except the boiler plate press release and the tightly controlled  news conference, is classified."

Unfortunately, that is just the way how most governments operate these days.  Today there is more classified information which can not be accessed than there is open-source information on the planet.”

Bottom-line, political clarity and honesty is a "Fata Morgana" when it comes to getting it from Governments. Consequently distinguishing  "fiction"    today is the new reality.

 Almere-Digest

The Netherlands: Dutch Minster van der Steur in denial about President Erdogan's info on El Bakraoui

Dutch Parliament in session

The Dutch counter-terrorism service NCTB is investigating claims by both Turkey and Belgium that one of the Zaventum airport suicide bombers had been sent back to the Netherlands last year.

Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Wednesday night that Ibrahim El Bakraoui had been picked up on the Turkish border with Syria last year and that both Belgium and the Netherlands were warned he was ‘a foreign fighter’, broadcaster Nos says.

El Bakraoui was sent to the Netherlands at his own request, after Belgium failed to find any terrorist links, Erdogan is reported to have said. He is then thought to have travelled on to Belgium.

Belgium’s justice minister, Koen Geens, later confirmed that El Bakraoui, 29, was sent to the Netherlands. He was not known as a terrorist but was on parole for other crimes, Geens is quoted as saying by VRT news.

 According to the Standaard newspaper, he had been sentenced to nine years in jail in 2011 for an armed robbery and was released on parole in 2014.

At  first Dutch ministers avoided any commenst and the claims and inquiries about this case were being referred to the NCTB,  Dutch News agency Nos said .

Tonight Thursday March 24, however,  Dutch minister of Safety and Security  Ard van der Steur said in a letter he addressed to the Dutch Parliament that the statement made by Turkish President Erdogan about El Bakraoui were not as he perceived them and he gave a "variety of answers" why he thought so.

Once again, the above showed how disorganized and poorly coordinated vital security information, in this case pertaing to the criminal activities of El Bakraoui, were being handled.

A Dutch parliamentarian noted : "instead of trying to duck the fact that he failed to deal properly with this issue, Mr. van der Scheur should follow the example of his Belgian colleague and at least hand in his resignation".

Almere-Digest

EU Security A Complete Mess : No Organization - No "Chiefs" - No "Indians" - and extremely poor coordination

EU Security  Coordination In Poor Shape

Belgian authorities actually had accurate advance warnings that terrorists planned to launch attacks at the Brussels airport and subway — yet failed to act, according to several reports.

Despite the knowledge, the intelligence and security apparatus in Brussels — home to most of the European Union agencies — was limited and ill-prepared to handle the alert,

In other developments Wednesday, March 23, Turkey’s prime minister said his country last year arrested one of the Brussels attackers and deported him to the Netherlands, but Belgium ignored warnings that he was a militant.

“One of the Brussels attackers was detained in Gaziantep (in southern Turkey (close to the Syrian border) and then deported” to the Netherlands, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan told reporters about Ibrahim El Bakraoui.

Turkey said it warned both Belgium and the Netherlands that Ibrahim was a “foreign terrorist fighter.”

Dutch authorities later allowed him to go free because Belgian authorities could not establish any ties to terrorism, an official in the Turkish president’s office said.

Turkey formally notified Belgium of the 29-year-old Belgian national’s deportation on July 14, 2015.

The announcement came after authorities said they discovered a cache of explosives in a house and a farewell note from an airport suicide bomber — one of two brothers identified in the attacks.

The brothers were identified as Ibrahim and Khalid El Bakraoui, both of whom had extensive criminal records but had not been on watch lists as potential terror threats.

What Europe does not have is any cross-national agency with the power to carry out its own investigation and make its own arrests.

This means that cross-border policing in the European Union has big holes. It depends heavily on informal cooperation rather than formal institutions with independent authority.

Sometimes this works reasonably well. Sometimes this works particularly badly. Belgium is a notorious problem case, because its policing arrangements are heavily localized.

In the past, many Belgian policing forces have had difficulty cooperating with each other, let alone with other European forces.

Europe has to put some serious thought into setting up a "Pan European Security Network" to coordinate, trace, find, capture and if need be, eliminate security threats to its citizens. This has to happen pretty quickly.

Almere-Digest

The Bruxelles Tragedy: US failed Middle East policy indrectly responsible for Brussels terror attacks - by Claire Bernish

Brussels Landmark Statue "Manneke Pis" says it all

Before the bodies had been counted. Before the injuries had been assessed. Before any group claimed responsibility for perpetrating the attacks in the Belgian capitol Brussels, the lazy condemned the entire religion of Islam.

This blame, meted out to a religion whose tenets expressly forbid killing innocents — “it is as if he had slain mankind entirely” — lacks fundamental logic. Worse, it lacks precision.

Without precision and studied consideration of the conditions which culminated in these acts of terrorism, one Bruxelles Landmark Statueguarantee can be cemented: future attacks.

Why? Because humans have an unironic penchant for neglecting lessons from past mistakes — and an unfaltering blindfold as if their present actions exist in a vacuum. Indeed, blaming an entire religion for the actions of a few falsely claiming they follow its teachings might be precisely what the ignominious war machine of U.S. imperialism needs. In fact, modern-day terrorism exists because of the actions of a specific religion — and it isn’t Islam.

Imperialism, and its roots planted firmly in statism, inarguably create, foster, and perpetuate terrorism at an alarming rate. An active military campaign and overarching surveillance program ostensibly embarked upon to demolish terrorism — anywhere on the planet — instead manufacture terrorism at an increasingly rapid rate.

This cyclical structure isn’t difficult to comprehend, yet it somehow escapes those eager to scapegoat blame on the undeserving — because xenophobia.

For years, the United States military and its over-inflated budget have bombed the hell out of predominantly Muslim countries — doing a bang-up job of mostly missing intended targets, instead killing civilian non-combatants more than of the time by some estimates. U.S. foreign policy’s relentless hammer created the staggering refugee crisis as civilians — either having their homes destroyed by bombing or from justifiable fear it could happen — by the millions feel they have no choice but to escape.

Worse still, the U.S.’ vying for natural resources — oil, opium, rare earth metals, and more — have caused a complex juggernaut of proxy wars with sometimes contradictory aims. This wrangling to exploit countrysides in otherwise peaceful countries stands as classic imperialist dogma: they have it, the U.S. government wants it, and the military is promptly deployed to make it happen.

Largely downplayed in this cycle are countless corporations pulling the strings — directly driving hegemonic foreign policy.

Would we need to invade Afghanistan for its insanely profitable opium crops without Big Pharma? Doubtful. Would we need to partner with Saudi Arabia — not only a notorious human rights abuser, but one of the most despised countries in the Middle East — were it not for its enormous stores of oil? No way.

Would Syria be the quagmire it has become if it weren’t geostrategically integral for a proposed oil pipeline? Nope.

War has been called ‘endless’ for justifiable reasons — but it wouldn’t be so without imperialism driving its existence. Violence is its tool. But endless violence isn’t without consequences.

Terrorism holds undeniable responsibility for the attacks in Brussels, but it didn’t manifest because of Islam.

Blaming Islam is the lazy way out of holding those ultimately responsible for its rise — and secures its perpetuation. But it doesn’t mean Islam is to blame.

Note EU-Digest: as has been mentioned many times before  - the EU, in addition to numerous other urgent changes it needs to make to avoid self-destruction, must establish it's own Middle East foreign policy based on economic development and trade, and completely "divorce" itself from the many years of failed US Middle East policies.

Read also: America Should Take Responsibility for the Brussels Terror Attacks

Unity and Integration: Let's hear it for the US - the EU still has a long way to go on this - by RM

UNITY IS WHAT COUNTS

Yes indeed -This time let's hear it for the US. 

To those of you who are sometimes critical of the US (including myself) it must also be noted there are still quite a few positive things happening there

This in spite of the steady progress made by Corporate America to get an ever stronger grip on the US political system and economic environment.

 Here is one of the developments that I believe is quite positive.

Even though not everyone might be impressed by the Presidential candidates running for office to replace President Obama, what is impressive, on the other hand, is that among the candidates running for the Presidency are, a woman, two Cuban Americans, a Socialist and a Fascist.

All hoping to replace a black President, with a Muslim father from Nigeria and a Christian mother from Kansas, USA

In a way, as Europeans, we can certainly learn from that, if we ever want to overcome our rampant religious, racial and cultural phobias, and achieve real unity.


EU-Digest

Brussels Attack - Inadequate security - live updates: manhunt under way for airport suspect – by M.Weaver, H Siddique, R. Jalab

• There were several terrorist attacks this morning: two explosions in Zaventem and one in Maalbeck, which many killed and wounded.
• Two of the three men in the CCTV photo “very likely committed a suicide attack.’
• Van Leeuw confirmed that there is an active manhunt underway for the third man seen in CCTV footage at Zaventem airport dressed in white.
• Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the attack through its media wing, but it was still “too early to make a direct connection between the attacks in Paris [in November] and today’s attacks”, Van Leeuw said. Isis’s claim of responsibility has not yet been formally verified, he said.
• There are several raids under way across the country, but Van Leeuw warned of the risks of reporting details of active operations.
• Witnesses are currently being questioned, with more were being sought.
• Several explosions were heard at the airport after the initial two blasts, but these were controlled detonations by security forces, Van Leeuw said, before warning that there may yet be more controlled detonations of suspect packages.
• And with that, Van Leeuw declined to give any further information so as not to affect the ongoing investigations.

Note EU-Digest: It is remarkable how inadequately many European airports and train stations are protected . With a few exceptions,  there are no baggage controls or security gates/checks at most of the entrances into main airports terminals or train stations. European airports which have train stops below the airport or main train terminals usually do not have security checks for passengers and their luggage going into the main terminal. It is a disaster waiting to happen and the EU and local governments  better take immediate action to avoid even more of these horrible events.

 Read more: Brussels attacks: manhunt under way for airport suspect – live updates | World news | The Guardian