Stephen Lendman

Muslims are convenient scapegoats of choice in America, other Western societies and Israel. Islamophobia rages, boosted by Bastille Day violence in Nice.

Western media said lone jihadist lorry driver/gunman Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel singlehandedly mowed down or shot over 200 holiday celebrants in Nice overnight - killing scores, injuring many others, the claim defying credibility.

How could one person cause so many casualties before being stopped? Logic suggests more than one attacker involved, maybe covert CIA, Mossad and/or French security forces.

Rabble-rousing reports made what happened sound like a bad film plot, alleged terrorism the way Hollywood portrays it, sensationalism to build viewer interest - in real life to hype terrorist threats, stoke fear and manipulate people to go along with what they’d otherwise oppose.

Bouhlel is dead, lethally shot by police, unable to tell tales, conveniently ID’d by his identity card, cell phone and bank card left behind.

Why would anyone carry them to the scene of a planned crime, risking easy identification and arrest if caught alive? Police claimed firearms and explosives were found inside the lorry - no independent corroborating reports available.

French President Francois Hollande extended a state of emergency, affording him “extraordinary (police state) powers” for another three months through late September.

Permanency may follow, perhaps in other European countries. On September 14, 2001, George Bush issued Proclamation 7463: Declaration of National Emergency by Reason of Certain Terrorist Attacks.”

Annually it’s renewed with scant or no media coverage. America’s only threats are ones it invents. Domestic attacks are state-sponsored.

No Islamic terrorist ones occurred on US soil in memory, perhaps never. Innocent patsies were set up to look otherwise. False flag deception works this way.

On Friday, Hollande vowed stepped up war on Islam, harsher homeland crackdowns and escalated “military action in Syria and Iraq.”

Fear-mongering rages on both sides of the Atlantic, Western leaders taking full advantage, plotting their next moves.

Was Bouhlel set up like other convenient patsies? Is he the bad guy or is something more diabolical going on?

Was state-sponsored terrorism responsible for Nice overnight? Will greater imperial madness follow? Are harsher crackdowns on human and civil rights coming en route to eliminating them altogether?

Hillary wants NATO strengthened, making it a greater deterrent to peace and stability than already. Trump said “(t)his is war.” If elected president, he’ll declare it on ISIS, he blustered. Precisely how, where, to what extent, and by what legal authority he left unexplained.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich called for banning Sharia. Will greater war on Islam follow than already?

Wall Street Journal editors hyped Islamophobia, saying “Jihad has become the default assumption of our age.”

They urged strengthening NATO, shamelessly claiming it’s to protect freedoms from “21st-century barbarism,” ignoring the real thing.

State-sponsored war on humanity is terrorism’s most extremist form. Expect lots more coming - an endless body count of imperial victims.

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Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

His new book as editor and contributor is titled "Flashpoint in Ukraine: How the US Drive for Hegemony Risks World War III".

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

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