Terror attacks give West excuse to curb civil liberties: Pundit

Press TV has conducted an interview with John Steppling, an author and commentator from Norway, to discuss the deadly truck attack in the southern French city of Nice.

The following is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: We have two major terrorist attacks that have happened now in France. If you would take a look at both reactions, Francois Hollande seems to be very proactive once the attack happens but when it comes down to for example dealing with the ISIL (Daesh) in Syria which at this point there's been claims that they are responsible for this in one way or another that he falls short because somehow it seems like there has to be cooperation with Russia. Why does he fall short there? Why does he just go through all the way and try to target it?

Steppling: Well, you know you have to look at this attack in the light of the Brussels attack all the way back to Charlie Hebdo and attacks in Paris before that and so forth and probably all the way back to 9/11 and so forth and the way the governments react but the first question is really cui bono. Who benefits from this and one of the agents that benefits are the security apparatus for western governments.

The French president immediately called for an escalation in bombing Syria and Iraq. The alleged perpetrator of this was a French Tunisian with no apparent ties to the Islamic State or anything they claimed responsibility but the trustworthiness of these claims is always an open question and so you know what I think is going to happen is, you know I'm not exactly answering your question, I realize, but I'm getting to it. One of the things that's going to happen is that we're going to see unprecedented shredding of rights and unprecedented surveillance and a rationing up of the state of emergency already in France and you're seeing it in Germany with the right-wing party coming up for election I believe in Berlin. In the United States, the shooting in Dallas escalated a lot of talk about you can't buy a gun if you're on the no-fly list or vice versa or something. All that is extraordinarily repressive measures and it's hard to look at this without taking a very long historical view. I mean you have in the United States now two candidates both of whom have foreign policy advisers that are in direct seamless line all the way back to Alan Dallas through Richard Helms so forth and this global hegemony that it seems the West especially the US is ever desirous of is further facilitated by these attacks.

So, it's a very complicated question and we have this guy in Nice who was a petty criminal described as having a George Clooney haircut which I'm guessing is not the regimental cut for the Islamic State and had domestic problems with his wife and so forth. I mean so what is one make of that I don't know really but it's hard  to think that western governments don't benefit from this in a certain way and I think it's going to make travel and crossing borders and stuff ever more difficult and problematic.

So, why doesn't Hollande cooperate with Russia? And who knows? Because the United States told him not to I don't know but I fear for civil liberties most of all following this. I mean we saw what happened in the United States after 9/11 and this aspect will only get worse.

Press TV’s website can also be accessed at the following alternate addresses:

www.presstv.co.uk