Troublesome: The Assad Family's Many Properties in Paris

Anne Michel brings us a Le Monde article on The Assad Family's Troublesome Properties in Paris.

Indeed,

emotions are running high at the Paris town hall. According to unofficial information … Rifaat Al-Assad, the uncle of Syrian leader Bashar Al-Assad, in exile in Great Britain, in France, and in Spain since the mid-1980s, is rumored to be considering the sale of a great part of his Paris properties during the coming months.

Two anticorruption associations, Transparence International France (TIF) and Sherpa, filed suit … against Rifaat Al-Assad and unspecified persons for embezzlement of public funds, bribery, and aggravated money laundering by organized gangs.

By the associations among his properties, according to the associations, are a French mansion and "several dozen apartments" in Paris's luxurious 16th arrondissement, along with an estate of 45 hectares near the French capital. "It is likely that all or part of the assets are the product of corruption or related offenses (embezzlement, misappropriation of assets, etc)", they explain in their lawsuit.

 … Certainly, in the current regulatory framework, Rifaat al-Assad, forced into exile in 1984 after attempting to seize power from his brother Hafez Al-Assad (the father of Bashar al-Assad, who ruled Syria from 1970 to 2000), and since then, an outspoken opponent of the Syrian régime, may freely dispose of his assets. Having distanced himself from the regime, and owner of an ostensibly anti-Bashar Al-Assad news channel in London (ANN), the uncle of the strong man of Damascus (76) is not the subject of any international sanctions.

He does not appear in the list drawn up by the UN and the European Union of the 179 members or supporters of the Syrian regime whose assets are considered "ill-gotten gains" (financed from funds stolen from the people, through misappropriation, theft, or illicit transfer of public money, etc) and must be frozen (before a possible seizure by court order followed by its return to the country looted).

But for many politicians, who agree with the anticorruption NGOs' analysis, the assets of the former head of the Defense Brigades of Damascus, which has long been one of the cornerstones of the regime, the question of money's origin remains.

Besides, in the eyes of international opinion, Rifaat al-Assad is a major player in the Hama massacre in February 1982, when the Muslim Brotherhood rebellion was crushed in blood (10.- to 40,000 people, according to estimates, including a great number of civilians). Rifaat al-Assad also kept his title of vice-president of Syria until 1998. As many reasons for these elected to stay on the alert, following, or even anticipating, financial transactions by the uncle of Syria's dictator on French soil. And to question France on where its responsibilities lie.

"The Total State": The 3 Philosophers Who Paved the Road for Adolf Hitler

Pour le philosophe et écrivain Jean-Pierre Faye, soixante-dix ans après, il faut enfin admettre que ce sont trois grands esprits philosophiques – Heidegger, Jünger et Schmitt – qui ont fait le lit d'Hitler.

 … existe-t-il des écrits vraiment nazis de Heidegger, le philosophe auquel allait notre respect en raison de ses essais "existentiels" des années 1920 ? L'honnêteté de la lecture découvre en effet chez lui des écrits politiques marqués plus gravement encore que ceux de son ami l'écrivain et essayiste Ernst Jünger (1895-1998), l'auteur, dès 1930, de La Mobilisation totale (Die totale Mobilmachung), traduite en français et publiée chez Gallimard en 1990.

"L'ETAT TOTAL"

Ceux-ci se prolongent chez l'ami Carl Schmitt, l'idéologue de "l'Etat total", à qui Hitler devra, pour une très grande part, d'avoir reçu le pouvoir en 1933 – par l'effet même de la conférence sur le totale Staat que Schmitt donne, le 23 novembre 1932, devant les représentants de la grande industrie. Une amitié intensément politique lie alors Heidegger à Jünger et, par lui, à Carl Schmitt. C'est le triptyque des noms qui dessine un temple d'acceptation pour l'idéologie propagée par la furie hitlérienne.

Il faut lire les écrits politiques d'Heidegger en 1933-1934 pour saisir ces enjeux. Dès son "Appel aux étudiants" du 3 novembre 1933, il prononce : "Le Führer lui-même et lui seul est la réalité allemande d'aujourd'hui et de demain..." Et sa "Profession de foi en Adolf Hitler", la Bekenntnis zu Adolf Hitler en décembre 1933, décrit le Führer comme l'instant de "retourner à l'essence de l'Etre". Le Führer devient une ontologie...

Bien pire, son "Appel pour le service du travail", le 23 janvier 1934, souligne "l'empreinte préfigurée dans le Parti national-socialiste ouvrier allemand". Ce parti dont le nom est raccourci par Goebbels en Parti nazi-sozi, ou en version courte : Nazi. Il s'agira en effet des camps de travail, salués par Heidegger comme "le bienfait qui émerge du mystère vivifiant qu'est l'avenir nouveau de notre peuple"... Le délire nazi atteint son apogée.

Car au même moment surviennent d'autres camps de travail, dits "camps de concentration", qui couvrent le territoire national. Durant la seconde guerre mondiale, apparaissent en Pologne ceux qui sont nommés secrètement les camps d'extermination, les Vernichtungslager.

 Or le 1er mai 1933, Heidegger et Carl Schmitt adhèrent au Parti nazi. Il faut souligner le fait que l'adhésion au parti unique est difficile dans le Reich hitlérien. Contrairement à l'Italie mussolinienne, où tout le monde prend sa carte, comme la "carte du pain". Il y aura 24 millions d'adhérents au Parti fasciste, 8 millions seulement au parti hitlérien. Le geste de l'adhésion est donc grave et contrôlé. Heidegger, dans son cours de décembre 1933 sur Héraclite..., énonce la nécessité de "l'attaque", dans le but "d'effectuer l'extermination totale".

LES CAMPS D'EXTERMINATION

Ce terme terrible va marquer les Vernichtungslager, les camps d'extermination hitlériens de 1942-1945. Surgis dans la Pologne anéantie : à Chelmno, à Belzec, Auschwitz-Birkenau, Maïdanek, Sobibor, Treblinka... Ce terme s'inscrit dans la plus terrible réalité de l'Histoire. Heidegger aura-t-il connaissance de ce qui a lieu dans les camps de Pologne ? Jünger note dans son journal ce qu'il entrevoit en 1943 à Lodz, en deçà du front de l'Est...

Mobilisation totale, Etat total, extermination totale : ces trois formules dessinent l'Europe en état de guerre. Jünger, Carl Schmitt, Heidegger prononcent en ces termes le réel le plus dangereux et la même terreur politique croissante.

 … Carl Schmitt ? Ce juriste est un ami de longue date pour Jünger, ce dont témoigne son journal posthume, comme Jünger devient l'ami intense d'Heidegger. Carl Schmitt a donc en décembre 1932 donné sa conférence décisive devant ce qui se nomme "l'Union au Long Nom", réunissant les plus grands de la grande industrie. La conférence de Schmitt devant un tel auditoire culmine dans l'exigence de fonder "l'Etat total" – Etat qui doit s'affirmer "total au sens de la qualité et de l'énergie"... Un Etat qui s'attribue "les moyens de la puissance"...

Ainsi l'Etat total est-il défini par Schmitt en opposition à l'Etat "quantitativ total", celui qui se retrouverait gonflé d'entreprises nationalisées... Au contraire, "l'Etat total en ce sens est un Etat fort... Il est total au sens de la qualité et de l'énergie, comme l'Etat fasciste se nomme "Stato totalitario"", précise Carl Schmitt, reprenant les termes du fascisme italien. Mais qui sait aujourd'hui que le mot "totalitaire" est une improvisation mussolinienne ?

Voici surgir la doctrine de Schmitt sur les "nouveaux moyens de puissance". Nous sommes le 23 novembre 1932. Dans un mois et une semaine, l'ex-chancelier von Papen, dont Schmitt est l'avocat, et dont le chancelier Schleicher a pris la place, aura préparé la "combinaison" du 30 janvier 1933. Donnant le pouvoir au caporal Hitler, méprisé et haï par le président Hindenburg, qui pourtant le nomme chancelier du Reich. …

"LES MOYENS DE LA PUISSANCE"

La formule de Schmitt souligne les enjeux : "L'Etat total" est l'Etat des "moyens de puissance", et non des socialisations, il se gonfle de police, et non d'entreprises socialisées. Le totale Staat hitlérien vient prendre la relève du Stato totalitario fasciste. Car le mot "totalitär" n'est pas un terme hitlérien : il est refusé comme "trop libéral" par le juriste nazi Wilhelm Stuckart, celui dont Eichmann sera le subordonné.

 … Par Carl Schmitt, juriste spécialisé dans le droit d'Etat, est donc apparue cette proposition grave, dans sa conférence de novembre 1932 : c'est la figure de "l'Etat total" – cette formule dangereuse d'où va survenir le mot "totalitarisme", aujourd'hui courant, exploré plus tard par Hannah Arendt, qui va pourtant méconnaître son origine mussolinienne.

On peut sous-estimer la magie toxique de ces creuses formules. Et négliger le lien étroit entre Carl Schmitt, Heidegger et Jünger, le porteur de la mobilisation totale. Car ce triumvirat va demeurer en marge du IIIe Reich qui survient. Mais Jünger l'a annoncé, par sa formule explosive. Carl Schmitt l'énonce violemment en termes de "droit" – ou de "contre-droit"...

 … Ainsi les trois amis, Schmitt, Jünger, Heidegger – l'étrange trio des penseurs – contribuent au langage de ce Reich qui dévaste l'Europe de la seconde guerre mondiale. Tous trois se retrouvent donc en 1955 pour fêter l'anniversaire de l'un d'eux, Jünger. A l'occasion de cette fête, Heidegger décrira ce qu'il nomme l'Abbau, que le philosophe français Gérard Granel (1930-2000) traduira par la "déconstruction".

Cette inflation des langages débouche dans ce qu'Heidegger revendique à son compte comme "la Terreur". Cette terreur aura suscité de surcroît pour notre avenir l'arme de la destruction absolue.

When You Have Lost Le Monde and Plantu… (2)

So, France; so, Europe, you got the US commander-in-chief you asked for!

Even Le Monde's editorial page is filled with skepticism… As for Plantu, his cartoon has the United Nations examining Syria's chemical weapons stockpile.

• Barack Obama: So… Have we found anything?…

When You've Lost Plantu and Le Monde… (1)

So, France; so, Europe, you got the US commander-in-chief you asked for!

As for Plantu, his cartoon depicts Barack Obama as a black butler to a white master (Vladimir Putin), which liberals might be (sorely) tempted to instantly decry as racism, except that it evokes a film currently playing in cinemas, Lee Daniels' The Butler — although of course the cartoonist seems to be unable to refrain from taking a potshot at the Republicans in Congress as well.

• Barack Obama: We put a lid on it and say no more about the subject!

(See also one weekly's cartoon of BHO's Egyptian policy…)

Even Le Monde's editorial page is filled with skepticism…

Diplomacy, unfortunately, does not only take place between honest people of good will. The Russian proposal on the Syrian chemical weapons, brought forward Monday September 9 with extreme skill by foreign minister Sergei Lavrov, has all the ambiguities and pitfalls that one can fear when dealing with a regime such as that of Bashar al-Assad or cunning strategists such as MM. Putin and Lavrov.

 … Western leaders [have] every reason to be skeptical about the motivations of Moscow and the provisions of Damascus to comply with a bona fide control of its chemical arsenal. Besides the obvious physical challenges presented to an assignment of inspectors in monitoring military sites in a country at war, the terrain of the negotiations itself is replete with mines.

... Meanwhile, Bashar al-Assad continues to destroy his country and kill its people. The Russians are great chess players. That is something it would be a mistake to forget.

One wishes that Le Monde might have tried to use the same tone and terms during the Iraq conflict.

La diplomatie, malheureusement, ne se conduit pas qu'entre gens honnêtes et de bonne volonté. La proposition russe sur les armes chimiques syriennes, très habilement avancée, lundi 9 septembre, par le ministre des affaires étrangères, Sergueï Lavrov, comporte toutes les ambiguïtés et les pièges que l'on peut redouter lorsque l'on a affaire à un régime comme celui de Bachar Al-Assad ou à des stratèges aussi rusés que MM. Poutine et Lavrov.

 … Les dirigeants occidentaux [ont] toutes les raisons d'être sceptiques sur les motivations de Moscou et sur les dispositions de Damas à se plier à un véritable contrôle de son arsenal chimique. Outre les évidentes difficultés physiques que présenterait une mission d'inspecteurs chargés de contrôler des sites militaires dans un pays en pleine guerre, le terrain de la négociation est lui-même miné.

 … En attendant, Bachar Al-Assad continue à détruire son pays et à massacrer sa population. Les Russes excellent aux échecs. On aurait tort de l'oublier.

Russian mastery at chess certainly is something that few people in the Apologizer-in-Chief's administration ever remembered, busy as they were in demonizing, in breaking, and in trying to reeducate the true enemy of America, and indeed the true enemy of the world — all things American, all things Western, all things conservative, and all things Republican.

Paradise for Muslims, According to Charlie Hebdo

Islamist paradise cartoons from Charlie Hebdo (with a wink to the recent death of Jacques Vergès):

Where were you on Sept. 11, 2001, when America changed forever?

Since Fox News features an article titled Where were you on Sept. 11, 2001, when America changed forever? — feel free, cher lecteur, to add your own memories to the comments section, both this blog's one and the Fox News section — I took an excerpt from an article written in 2005 and augmented on 2011's tenth anniversary, and posted it on the Fox News website. (There's a Like button at the bottom of each Fox comment, incidentally, should you appreciate what I wrote in my comment…)

On September 11, 2001, I was in France, having an afternoon drink (remember, Western Europe is six hours ahead of the East Coast) in the TGV's dining car, on a train heading north to Paris.

Cel phone communication is hard to come by on trains, but at one point I heard I had a message on the answering machine. I called the number to hear the message. It was my (New York-born) mother, and all the message said was to please call back: "There has been a series of catastrophes in the States".

Befuddled, I headed out into the corridor and called my parents, and after answering, my mom said I should talk to my dad. I listened incredulously as my father explained that planes had been deliberately flown into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and that both Twin Towers had collapsed.

Needless to say, I headed back to the dining car in another state of mind, totally closed off and unable to communicate with anyone.

(At one point, three or four members of some state-owned company (they may have been EDF) entered the dining car.  Although they discussing the day's events, they were obviously heading to Paris to demonstrate against the French government, and during their conversation, I overheard one of them making a joke (sic). With a snicker, he said "Ils l'ont fait exprès pour saboter notre manifestation" (They [obviously meaning the Americans] did it on purpose, in order to sabotage our demonstration). Alhough the others barely laughed at what was obviously an instance of sophisticated humor (smiles were in order, though), the comment should give a better idea of the real state of friendship harbored in Europe towards America then the presumed one extant in the myth of the squandered sympathy.)

I was too emotionally drained to react to this comment, and anyway without a radio and a TV set to get a better idea of the situation, the extent of the terrorist attacks was hard to believe. I had listened to learn more, and had certainly not expected anything but empathy for Americans.

Anyway, another two hours went by without news, without images of any kind, and when I arrived at Gare de Lyon, I rushed home faster than I ever have before, arriving drenched with sweat just in time for the 8 o'clock news. That night I hardly slept, as I stayed up in front of the TV all night long, wishing, wishing drastically that the news wasn't true.

For the next couple of weeks I wore a bandanna with the Stars and Stripes everywhere I went.

http://no-pasaran.blogspot.com/2011/09/personal-memories-of-september-11-2001.html
(This comes from a No Pasarán post [posted] on the tenth anniversary of the attacks…) 

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/09/11/where-were-on-sept-11-2001-when-america-changed-forever/?hubRefSrc=permalink#comments#ixzz2eabYuZ5n

Speaking of Fox News: see the video montage of Obama administration statements on Syria (thanks to Instapundit, who calls it nothing less than "absolutely devastating")

Former French Ambassador Arrested with 350,000 Euros in Cash, Links Money to Iraq

Boris Boillon was arrested on July 31 at Paris’s Gare du Nord station

writes France 24 (merci à Hervé), as the former French ambassador

attempted to board a train to Brussels carrying more than 350,000 Euros in cash, it emerged on Friday.

It seems like a spectacular fall from grace for a man who enjoyed such an illustrious political career. Fluent in Arabic, he served as his country’s ambassador in both Iraq and Tunisia. Former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi referred to him as “my son,” and ex-French president Nicolas Sarkozy, for whom he worked as an advisor, affectionately called him “my little Arab”.

Boillon was stopped by customs as part of a routine check, according to the French investigative website Mediapart, which broke the story. When asked if he had any currency on him, the ex-diplomat said nothing about the hundreds of thousands of Euros in his bag. A major faux-pas considering that French law requires all people entering or leaving the country to declare any sum of money equal to or exceeding the amount of 10,000 Euros.

Boillon’s bag was subsequently searched, and lo and behold, it was stuffed with envelopes of cash.

A simple explanation?

The 43-year-old said that the cash was payment for past consulting work, which he claims nets him around 500,000 Euros per year. 

 

“It’s money that I made this year in Iraq from the services I provide to Iraqi companies,” Boillon said, according to an excerpt of his testimony obtained by Mediapart. “Because Iraq lacks a developed banking system,www.ekurd.net these companies wired me the cash to Paris.”

See also: the French consulate chauffeur in Jerusalem caught with 150 kilos of gold bars

Smart Diplomacy Through the Eyes of Charlie Hebdo

Pre-Syrian crisis cartoon from Charlie Hebdo:

America Condemns the Repression in Egypt

• Obama: It would have been cleaner with drones.