By Finian Cunningham
Source: Strategic Culture
Now we know how France secured a $3 billion arms deal from Saudi Arabia – by bestowing a senior Saudi prince with the Legion of Honor. For many French citizens the Legion of Honor symbolizes France’s national soul. And now the French government has put a grubby price tag on it.

The move by Paris to grasp the chance of selling weapons to Saudi Arabia also comes a week after the European Union parliament voted for an embargo on weapons supply to the kingdom over mounting human rights concerns.

Again, the French authorities – despite lofty proclamations about human rights and international law – don’t seem to have any scruples when it comes to clinching a $3 billion arms contract.

That contract was reportedly in the balance last week because of a diplomatic spat between Saudi Arabia and Lebanon, where the French weapons, paid for by the Saudis, were destined for.

Then, to the relief of the French government, the Saudis announced that they were going ahead with the arms purchase. In the new arrangement, the Saudis said that they would be taking consignment of the weapons supply from France – for their own use, thus cutting out the Lebanese national army, which had been originally designated as the beneficiary of the defense upgrade.

A day later, on Friday, Saudi deputy crown prince Mohammed bin Nayef is received in Paris at the French presidential Élysée Palace and duly awarded the Legion of Honor.

To ascribe coincidence to these developments would be impossibly naive. The quiet, almost secretive, way in which the heir to the Saudi throne was awarded the honor shows that the Paris authorities knew that granting of the medal could prove to be embarrassing.

News of the accolade only came out through reports that were carried in the Saudi official media outlet, whose House of Saud rulers were of course delighted with the grand French «honor».

France’s presidential office was obliged to confirm the award two days later – on Sunday – after the news had been broken by the Saudi media. Why the coy official French manner? No doubt, Paris was all too aware that it would appear that the gong was bestowed because it was a tawdry pay-off to the Saudis for their arms purchase going through.

The awarding of the prestigious French medal – considered to be the nation’s highest honor – has sparked public furor in France and around the world because of Saudi Arabia’s horrendous human rights record. «Disgraceful», «Shame», «Worthless», are just a few of the words of condemnation to have erupted across news and social media.

On the same weekend that the Saudi minister – a nephew of King Salman – received his French honor, the absolute, unelected rulers executed the 70th person so far this year from among the country’s burgeoning prison population. Most executions in the oil-rich kingdom are carried out by beheading with a sword. Often the decapitated corpse is subsequently hung by crucifixion in public view as a macabre warning to would-be offenders.

There is also widespread public outrage over Saudi Arabia’s ongoing bombardment of neighboring Yemen where thousands of civilians have been killed in Saudi-led air strikes over the past year. The Saudi campaign – supported by the US, British and French governments – claims to be aimed at putting down an «Iranian-backed rebellion» led by Houthi fighters.

But those claims are dubious. Yemen looks to many observers like a case of illegal foreign aggression by the Saudis on the poorest country in the Arab region. In any case, as the United Nations has declared in several dire humanitarian warnings, most of Yemen’s 24 million population are suffering from a Saudi military blockade, with reports of children starving from lack of food, water and medicines.

Furthermore, while the French presidency claimed that the Legion of Honor was awarded to Mohammed bin Nayef, the country’s interior minister, for his role in the fight against terrorism, the official citation strains credibility and contempt.

There is abundant evidence to show that the Wahhabi Islamist Saudi rulers have been prominent financial and ideological sponsors of al-Qaeda-linked terror groups over many years. Former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton admitted the Saudi terror connection back in 2009 in diplomatic cables leaked by whistleblower source Wikileaks. These same Saudi-backed terror groups are a central element in the Western-backed covert war for regime change in Syria since March 2011.

But getting back to the French-Saudi arms deal. Only last week that deal looked set to be cancelled after the Saudi rulers announced that they were not going ahead with a $4 billion aid grant to Lebanon’s government. That offer was reportedly made to Lebanon back in November 2014 by Saudi Arabia. Most of it – some $3 billion – was slated to be spent on French weapons and other military equipment in order to upgrade the Lebanese national army.

Last month, the Saudis backed away from the grant to Lebanon because they claimed that the Beirut-based Hezbollah Shia resistance movement was exerting too much influence over the Lebanese government, of which it is an elected coalition party.

The Saudis were irked, for instance, after the Lebanese government declined to support Riyadh in denouncing Iran over an attack by protesters on its embassy in Tehran. That incident followed the execution by Saudi Arabia of Shia cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr in January this year, along with 46 other prisoners.

The real reason for Saudi petulance is that Hezbollah militia fighting in Syria have been a major military factor in why Syrian president Assad’s army has managed to turn the strategic tables on the anti-government insurgents there. Russian air power and Syrian army ground forces backed by Hezbollah and Iranian militia have salvaged Syria from a proxy war for regime change that Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey and Western governments had fomented over the past five years.

Cancellation of the military grant to Lebanon by the Saudis was also accompanied by other diplomatic slights towards Beirut, including travel warnings and a fresh declaration by Saudi Arabia and its Persian Gulf cronies against Hezbollah as a «terrorist organization».

Thus there can be little question that the abrupt Saudi cut-off of military aid to Lebanon is part of its proxy war in Syria.

That cut-off, however, appeared to leave France out in the cold as the weapons supplier. Until, that is, Saudi Arabia subsequently announced that it was going ahead with the French arms purchase, with the equipment being shipped to Saudi Arabia instead of Lebanon.

With the French economy languishing under sluggish growth, sagging trade and budget deficits and record unemployment, the news of the Saudi $3 billion arms deal would have been met with intense relief in Paris.

And so the red carpet at the Élysée Palace was rolled out – «discreetly» mind you – for the Saudi dictator’s nephew.

The Legion of Honor is supposed to be France’s highest national accolade, awarded to outstanding citizens and foreign dignitaries. It was created in 1802 by emperor Napoleon Bonaparte.

At the same time that Saudi deputy crown prince Mohammed bin Nayef received his medal from French president Francois Hollande in Paris, the Legion of Honor was also awarded separately to British veterans of the Second World War for their courage during the D-Day landings in 1944.

No wonder then that the juxtaposition of the awards has sparked public anger in France and England, with protesters claiming that the accolade has been grossly devalued for those deserving recipients – men and women who gave their lives to save France and Europe from fascist despotism.

If the Legion of Honor is taken as a symbol of French national soul, then it is understandable that many are disgusted that France’s soul is flogged for an arms deal with the one of the world’s most despotic regimes.

It should not be surprising, too, that French president Hollande and his government are viewed with such increasing contempt, both nationally and internationally.

Hollande’s corroding credibility is a problem that is shared by other Western governments, Washington and London in particular, who are likewise seen to be corrupt. Because, like Paris, they are consorting with despotic regimes for the same sordid self-interests of selling weapons and trying to destabilize foreign states.

By Sharmine Narwani
Source: Veterans News Now
The terror in Paris is due entirely to France in Syria.

Let’s not beat around the bush.

The terror attacks in Paris last Friday shook the globe, even in countries where these acts are sadly the norm. Europe hasn’t seen carnage on this scale, with this degree of planning, for decades. But was this political violence entirely unexpected?.

Perhaps not. When French commentators railed against the perpetrators for “an attack on our values, our way of life” they couldn’t have been more wrong.

The Paris attacks had one source only and that was the Syrian conflict. True, the alleged terrorists, ISIS, were able to recruit angry, young, European Muslims to the task because of years of disenfranchisement and voicelessness in the heart of their continent.

But there would have been no calling, no urgency, no engine driving the recruitment frenzy, out of context of the Syrian storyline.

Nearly five years ago, several regional and western states utilized the larger-than-life symbols of the Arab Uprisings to create regime change in Syria. Syrians had already hit the streets in small numbers, galvanized by the fearlessness of their fellow Arabs to demand political and economic reforms. But it was only when shots rang out and Syrians fell dead that demands turned to rage and larger numbers mobilized.

With the benefit of time and disclosure, we have since learned that Syrian security forces were also being killed from the earliest days – 88 soldiers in the first month – and that there were armed elements shooting at both sides, to stir up conflict for the explicit purpose of effecting regime change in Syria. (1)

In a 2015 report on ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the US-think tank Brookings Institution wrote:

“Presented with an opportunity to inject violence into what had been a peaceful revolt, Baghdadi sent one of his Syrian operatives to set up a secret branch of the Islamic State in the country that year. The branch, later known as the Nusra Front, initially followed the Islamic State’s playbook by attacking civilians as part of a clandestine terror campaign to sow chaos.”

And chaos they sowed.

Chaos, of course, is a goal for radical, Salafist, militant groups. It creates a political and security vacuum that they are well-equipped to fill. These practices and experiences were honed at the expense of Afghans three decades ago, when the Saudi-funded and CIA-trained Mujahedeen learned how to create, then exploit, power vacuums.

The US-led invasion of Iraq, however, was the pivitol event that began the seeding of these extremist terror networks far and wide. Baghdadi is an Iraqi and ISIS is borne from Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) which then merged into the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI), the precursor to ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham).

During the course of the Syrian conflict, we have seen the ease of movement between extremist groups. Free Syrian Army (FSA) members join ISIS, Ahrar al Sham militants join Jabhat al-Nusra, they fight with each other, they break up and re-form under new leadership – avowed enemies fighting on one front form security pacts when fighting on another. And thousands of these western-backed rebels have fought alongside ISIS and Al-Nusra, Al Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria.

“Armed moderates” are practically non-existent in Syria, despite countless efforts by western media, analysts and politicians to whitewash the “rebels” and pretend ignorance on the radical character of the militants they armed and assisted. Former US Defense Intelligence Agency Director Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn admitted in August that his government and western allies had taken a “willful decision” to support the establishment of a “Salafist principality in Eastern Syria” – the same area now controlled by ISIS. (2)

At the forefront of the foreign intervention that has supported, financed, armed and assisted militants in Syria are three western states, the US, UK, France, and three main regional states, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar (UAE too).

In August 2012 when the Syrian conflict ratcheted up to a whole new level of armed political violence, I visited Zaatari Camp in Jordan, near the border with Syria where refugees were encamped. Right outside the camp entrance was a French military hospital, which I was told was providing emergency medical assistance to civilian refugees.

Later, we learned that the French facility was involved in patching up rebel fighters who would then return to the Syrian military theater. These were still early days in the Syrian conflict – around 10,000 dead compared to the 250,000-plus death toll today. (3)

But by the end of 2012, the proactive French role inside Syria was clearly detectable. British daily The Guardian wrote in December 2012:

“France has emerged as the most prominent backer of Syria’s armed opposition and is now directly funding rebel groups around Aleppo as part of a new push to oust the embattled Assad regime. Large sums of cash have been delivered by French government proxies across the Turkish border to rebel commanders in the past month, diplomatic sources have confirmed. The money has been used to buy weapons inside Syria and to fund armed operations against loyalist forces.” (4)

At this point, an EU arms embargo on Syria was in effect, but direct French weapons shipments to rebels were also secretly taking place. According to the 2015 book “In the corridors of French diplomacy,” French President Francois Hollande told author Xavier Panon, a diplomatic and military specialist, that France’s “services” were delivering “lethal weapons” to Syrian rebels in the second half of 2012. These arms shipments included canons, machine guns, rocket launchers and anti-tank missiles, and were, according to Hollande, ostensibly earmarked only for vetted FSA militias.

France and the UK teamed up to push through a lifting of EU weapons sanctions on Syria in May 2013, and the following month, at a ‘Friends of Syria meeting’, Paris committed to further increasing military aid to rebel groups. Furthermore, the French government was arguably the biggest cheerleader for launching airstrikes against Syria in August 2013 – efforts that were ultimately thwarted by widespread public pressure against military intervention in the US and UK.

We know that French funds ended up in the hands of Islamist militant groups like Liwa al-Tawhid for the purchase of ammunition and undoubtedly other military necessities. We also know that a slew of other weapons connected to France have shown up in the Syrian military theater, whether directly or indirectly. These include MILAN anti-tank missiles, Russian Igla anti-air missiles (reportedly transferred to Syria via Libyan Al Qaeda members who claim they were trained by the French), APILAS anti-tank weapons, SNEB rockets, FAMAS assault rifles and others lethal arms.

And just this month, photos of the APILA rocket launcher originally supplied to rebels were spotted in ISIS’ possession. (5)

Why were the French so determined to pursue a policy of military escalation in Syria – given that the proliferation of weapons in the Syrian theater was clearly leading to massive casualties, widespread destabilization and the exacerbation of a humanitarian crisis?

One need only to look at another of Hollande’s foreign policy and economic initiatives to understand his Syria policy.

To bolster a lagging economy, the French president dove headfirst into a series of mega arms deals with Saudi Arabia, Qatar and other Persian Gulf states – selling sophisticated weaponry to despotic, sectarian regimes neck-deep in dealings with jihadi and Salafist networks spanning the Middle East and North Africa.

Last year, US Vice President Joe Biden exposed the dangerous game being played by some of these states – he names Turkey, Saudi Arabia and the UAE in these comments:

“They were so determined to take down Assad and essentially have a proxy Sunni-Shia war, what did they do? They poured hundreds of millions of dollars and tens, thousands of tons of weapons into anyone who would fight against Assad except that the people who were being supplied were Al Nusra and Al Qaeda and the extremist elements of jihadis coming from other parts of the world.” (6)
While Hollande was raking in the Euros from arms deals with these very states, he was turning a blind eye to their activities in Syria.

France’s weapons exports in 2014 were just over 8 billion Euros. By May of 2015 alone, that number had skyrocketed to 15 billion Euros, primarily due to a $7 billion sale of military hardware to Qatar. The French ministry of defense claimed that 30,000 jobs would be created by this one sale – but at what cost?

And last month, the French inked an additional $12 billion in contracts with the Saudis, including major military hardware and parts.

France isn’t alone in these arms sales – the UK and US are right alongside competing for Persian Gulf petrodollars. Never mind that one of the biggest recipients of weapons is Saudi Arabia (today the number one weapons importer in the world), which has instigated the horrific carpet-bombing of Yemen that has killed thousands and decimated the already impoverished country. Worse yet, the main beneficiaries of the Yemeni bombing campaign appear to be Al Qaeda, who are de facto allies of the Saudis against the Houthis, and have used the chaos to move into new territory throughout the south of the country.

On Monday, the US White House announced a further $1 billion sale to the Saudis of air-to-land munitions for their Yemeni campaign – under the guise of “counter-terrorism” no less – ironic, given that Al Qaeda gains each time the Saudis drop a bomb.

Two years after the September 11 terrorist attacks that claimed almost 3,000 victims in the United States, the US Senate’s Judiciary Committee held hearings on terrorism and its connection to Wahhabism (state religion of Saudi Arabia and Qatar). During the hearings, Saudi Arabia was called the “epicenter” of terror funding for “principally Al Qaeda but many other recipients as well.” The Saudis, according to Senate transcripts, had contributed a whopping $70 billion over 25 years to the funding of “what they call Islamist activities.” (7)

In 2009, a secret US State Department cable signed off by then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton claims: “Donors in Saudi Arabia constitute the most significant source of funding to Sunni terrorist groups worldwide…Saudi Arabia remains a critical financial support base for al-Qaeda, the Taliban, LeT (Laskhar-e Taiba), and other terrorist groups…It has been an ongoing challenge to persuade Saudi officials to treat terrorist financing emanating from Saudi Arabia as a strategic priority.”

Hollande’s government is hooked on the profits derived from its Persian Gulf allies. But this relationship has also made him hostage to short-term rewards – in exchange for turning France’s foreign policy into a subservient arm of Saudi-Qatari geopolitical objectives.

The Paris attacks were surely undeserved, but never unexpected. Over the past three decades we have seen, over and over again, that Salafist extremists bite the hand that feeds its ranks. While mentor states enjoy the fact that militants are convenient foot soldiers and proxies who can fight their foreign battles, they do not yet see the inevitable blowback as a deterrence. Rather, they hunker down when a terror attack heads their way, cut off further civil liberties under the guise of fighting “terrorism,” drop a few bombs and scapegoat an ethnic or religious minority group until the anxiety fades. Then it is back to old business.

In Paris, on Friday, the perpetrators – whether ISIS or another radical Salafist group – had little to lose and much to gain. Chaos is their game, and their goals, operations and cells are easily shifted. Not so France.

Hollande reacted by declaring war, stomping his feet in outrage…and dropping some bombs on Syria. He is not a visionary, but a cog in a business wheel. Under his governance and prior to the Paris attacks, France had conducted all of five airstrikes in their “war on ISIS” in Syria. And collected a lot of cash for it.

No, ISIS/Al Qaeda/Nusra Front/Whomever doesn’t give a fig about French “values” and “way of life.” The terror in Paris is due entirely to France in Syria.

References
1. https://www.rt.com/op-edge/157412-syria-hidden-massacre-2011
2. http://levantreport.com/2015/08/06/former-dia-chief-michael-flynn-says-rise-of-islamic-state-was-a-willful-decision-and-defends-accuracy-of-2012-memo/
3. http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/MID-01-081113.html
4. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/dec/07/france-funding-syrian-rebels
5. https://twitter.com/MuradoRT/status/662723467737886720
6. http://mideastshuffle.com/2014/10/04/biden-turks-saudis-uae-funded-and-armed-al-nusra-and-al-qaeda/
7. https://www.rt.com/op-edge/256561-sunni-threat-middle-east-stability/

* Sharmine Narwani is a commentator and analyst of Middle East geopolitics.