This morning’s key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

American politics becomes infused with anti-Muslim xenophobia


New York’s World Trade Center displaying France’s colors – blue, white and red

I’m well aware that there are people reading this who will be angry that the word “xenophobia” is even being used to refer to attitudes towards Muslims following the Paris attack. But I’m not judging anyone. I’m just reporting what is happening, based on Generational Dynamics analyses, and what is happening is a big surge in anti-Muslim xenophobia.

As we go deeper into this generational Crisis era, and the survivors of World War II are increasingly dead and gone, ethnic and religious fault lines are opening rapidly, and xenophobia in general is growing.

“Black lives matter” activists are furious that suddenly their pet cause has become irrelevant almost overnight. Positions taken last week by candidates running for president are becoming irrelevant. Even the holiest issue of all, climate change, may become irrelevant.

President Obama is planning to accept about 10,000 refugees from Syria in the next year. However, on Monday, at least 23 state Governors, 22 of them Republican, announced that their states will not accept any Syrian refugees. Wisconsin’s Republican governor Scott Walker said, “There may be those who will try to take advantage of the generosity of our country and the ability to move freely within our borders through this federal resettlement program, and we must ensure we are doing all we can to safeguard the security of Americans.”

After years of hysteria over the NSA’s collecting people’s phone call lists, it is now becoming fashionable to talk about not only about collecting data, but every sharing it with other countries. CIA director John Brennan criticized the “hand-wringing” of the NSA data collection, and implied that one reason that the Paris attack was not discovered in advance was because of intelligence cutbacks, such as those resulting from “whistleblower” Edward Snowden:

I do think this is a time for particularly Europe, as well as here in the United States, for us to take a look and see whether or not there have been some inadvertent or intentional gaps that have been created in the ability of intelligence and security services to protect the people that they are asked to serve. …

And in the past several years, because of a number of unauthorized disclosures and a lot of hand-wringing over the government’s role in the effort to try to uncover these terrorists, there have been some policy and legal and other actions that are taken that make our ability collectively, internationally, to find these terrorists much more challenging. And I do hope that this is going to be a wake-up call, particularly in areas of Europe where I think there has been a misrepresentation of what the intelligence security services are doing by some quarters that are designed to undercut those capabilities.

On Monday, President Obama’s former ambassador to Iraq and Turkey wrote that American ground forces are necessary:

After almost 18 months of the Obama administration’s half-measures, it’s obvious that defeat of the Islamic State is not going to happen absent a first-class, mobile ground force being launched to mate with overwhelming air power. That ground force does not have to be large — the main U.S. assault force in the largest battle of the second Iraq war, Fallujah in 2004, counted only seven to eight battalions, with reinforcement and support, for a total of 7,000 to 8,000 troops. Nor does it have to be all American. French and other experienced Western troops could complement U.S. forces, as could effective Iraqi and Syrian formations. But without U.S. ground forces, none of this will take place. The Islamic State will hold together its “state,” and its counterattacks — as well as Iranian-Russian exploitation of the Islamic State for their own aggression — will destabilize much of Eurasia and expose the United States again to mass terrorist attacks.

Sounds easy, doesn’t it?

I realize that many people reading this will welcome not only talk of exterminating the so-called Islamic State (IS or ISIS or ISIL or Daesh), but also of going farther, exterminating all jihadists, or even all Arabs and Muslims. Many people can’t tell the difference between an Arab and a Muslim anyway. If you feel that way, then from the point of view of Generational Dynamics, I can promise you that by the time the next war ends, if you even live to survive the war, then you will live to regret what you wished for. Breitbart and USA Today and Guardian (London) and US News and Washington Post

Paris attack significantly worsens Europe refugee crisis

Xenophobia is also surging in Europe, especially since it emerged that one of the perpetrators of the Paris attacks came from Syria among the thousands of refugees that arrive in Greece every day. Ahmad al Muhammad entered Greece on October 3. From there he moved to Macedonia, then Serbia and Croatia, where he registered in the Opatovac refugee camp. From there, he made his way to Paris, where he blew himself up on Friday.

Before the Paris attacks, there were many people stating strongly-held fears that one million Muslim refugees would destroy the Christian way of life for 500 million Europeans. Now, however, the fear is that the refugees would present a severe Paris-like security risk to the 500 million Europeans.

The debate is very sharp in Macedonia, Serbia and Croatia, along the path that refugees take after entering Greece. Officials in these countries say that they are on heightened alert about possible jihadists in the crowds of refugees, though no one seriously believes that there is any reliable way of detecting them. But some political leaders and rights campaigners also issued warnings that the Paris attacks should not be directly linked to the refugee issue or used to stoke ethnic xenophobic hatred. According to one activist, “We are already facing serious hate speech, even hatred-driven incidents towards those who are helping refugees.”

In France, Marine Le Pen, the leader of the far-right Front National (FN) political party, has demanded “the immediate halt of all intake of migrants in France.” Le Pen expects to do very well in next month’s regional elections in France.

France’s Socialist president, François Hollande, began a speech on Monday to a a joint session of parliament in the Palace of Versailles that with the words “France is at war.” He promised to exterminate ISIS and he concluded the 50-minute speech with, “We will eradicate terrorism.” Lawmakers from all parties gave him a standing ovation and sang “La Marseillaise,” the national anthem.

La Marseillaise is an interesting song, written in 1792 during a generational crisis war, the bloody French Revolution. The song itself is extremely bloody:

Do you hear in our fields the howling of those fearsome soldiers? They are coming into our arms, to slit the throats of your sons and wives. … Form your battalions! March! March! And make their impure blood soak into our fields!

This song fits very well at the conclusion of a speech declaring war on ISIS. CNN and Daily Mail (London) and Balkan Insight and Irish Times

KEYS: Generational Dynamics, France, Paris, xenophobia, Scott Walker, NSA, John Brennan, David Snowden, Islamic State / of Iraq and Syria/Sham/the Levant, IS, ISIS, ISIL, Daesh, Ahmad al Muhammad, Greece, Macedonia, Serbia, Croatia, Front National, Marine Le Pen, François Hollande, La Marseillaise, French Revolution
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