Following the terrorist attacks in Paris, German media have started talking of a new world war. The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung daily wrote that the West is in “a third world war.” Tagesspiegel said “the West – in fact, the entire planet –“ has currently been forced into a third world war.
After 14 years of the “War on Terror,” terrorism is stronger than ever. The deterioration of the Arab-Muslim world is the beginning of the “decivilization process,” said the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. The Muslim “belt of crisis, extending from Pakistan to Morocco,” which has provoked “the massive wave of refugees” coming to Europe, has a lawlessness which is challenging for the West to handle, and no state “despotism has taken power.” Sueddeutsche Zeitung said, “Syria and Co. are the wholesale exporters of trouble.”
While the West has been working with its Arab Gulf partners to execute “regime change” in middle-eastern countries, it has provided tactical support to jihadist and has laid the groundwork for these groups to become stronger. And as the West trivializes its responsibility for the havoc in a growing number of Muslim countries, there are more calls for the West to intensify its policies in the Middle East. But, stability cannot be imposed on the societies of the Muslim world from the outside. It has to be done locally.
Meanwhile, some media outlets are even calling for domestic repression in the West saying that the Bundeswehr should take on the task of protecting endangered streets, use “police and intelligence services” more and be “better equipped in an even more tightly coordinated network.” They are also calling for the “internet to be ‘absolutely’ placed under stronger surveillance,” and “freedoms, which should be protected, will be curtailed,” said one of the editors of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. The Germans have nothing against a friendly demeanor at the head of their government, however, now “they want – and need – a mean demeanor.”
The manipulation of German public opinion to habitually think of “world war” is not shared by all, however. Standing alone among the media pack is the German Handelsblatt, a business journal. “The West shares the blame for the hostile climate between the cultures,” said its editor Gerhard Steingart. The wars in Afghanistan, Syria and Iraq, waged under false pretenses, and “therefore in violation of international law – alone accounts so far for 800,000 dead.” Then Steingart added “the majority of these victims were peaceful Muslims – not terrorists.” Military escalation “does not bring peace,” it only “spawns suicide bombers,” he said.
“For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no nor ever shall be.” Matthew 24:21
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