{"content":[{"text":"in the wars in Iraq, Syria and other countries, and who have been ﬁnanced with the support \n of NATO and intelligence agencies in both Europe and the United States.","bbox":{"left":0.102926,"top":0.051633,"width":0.793849,"height":0.033372}},{"text":"The New York Times, in an article posted yesterday, acknowledged that the “Franco-Belgian \n network is part of the wider trend of European ﬁghters in Syria and Iraq, estimated by \n security services to number 4,000 to 6,000.” The newspaper added that it is “not clear how \n many have returned to Europe; while some oﬃcials estimate 10 percent, others have \n disputed that as exaggerated.”","bbox":{"left":0.102926,"top":0.102234,"width":0.7941100000000001,"height":0.08682299999999997}},{"text":"Whatever the precise number, it is clear that the individuals who carried out the March 22 \n bombings and the November 13 and Charlie Hebdo attacks in Paris are part of a broader \n group of people who have been allowed to freely travel to and from the Middle East. The \n only conclusion that can be drawn from the ease with which these forces permeate national \n borders and conduct operations is that there are protocols in place to ease their passage \n and lower any red ﬂags. They operate under a veil of oﬃcial protection.","bbox":{"left":0.102926,"top":0.206285,"width":0.7940990000000001,"height":0.10464099999999998}},{"text":"Attacks such as those in Brussels are not intelligence “lapses,” but rather the inevitable \n product of the deep integration and institutional connections between terrorist networks and \n the intelligence agencies of Europe and the United States.","bbox":{"left":0.102926,"top":0.328154,"width":0.794043,"height":0.051188999999999985}},{"text":"To stop their movements across borders, to subject them to standard security protocols, \n would have negative consequences for the wars these forces are waging across the Middle \n East. This would greatly endanger the entire strategy pursued by the Obama administration \n and its European allies—the use of Islamist proxy forces, often linked to Al Qaeda or its \n oﬀshoot ISIS, in place of “boots on the ground.”","bbox":{"left":0.102926,"top":0.396571,"width":0.794165,"height":0.08682399999999996}},{"text":"The attacks such as those in Brussels take place either as “blowback” operations by Al \n Qaeda or Islamic State forces, embittered by the failure of the US and European \n governments to carry out their promised overthrow of the Assad regime, or they are \n facilitated by sections of the state for whom terrorist acts in Western countries serve the \n purpose of shifting foreign and domestic policy—or some combination of the two.","bbox":{"left":0.102926,"top":0.500623,"width":0.794137,"height":0.08682299999999998}},{"text":"It is notable that the attacks in Brussels come less than a week after theAtlantic published \n an extensive interview with US President Barack Obama in which he defended his decision \n not to commit the resources in toppling the Assad government that many had demanded. \n Leading ﬁgures in the US media, including the New York Times columnists Thomas Friedman \n and Roger Cohen, have already seized on the events in Brussels to call for a more \n aggressive US intervention in Syria.","bbox":{"left":0.102926,"top":0.604675,"width":0.794153,"height":0.10464000000000007}},{"text":"Whatever the speciﬁc circumstances and motivations, the Brussels attack—like the Paris \n attacks last year and others before them—ﬂows from the military operations of the \n imperialist powers in Libya and Syria and their drive to destabilize and dominate the Middle \n East.","bbox":{"left":0.102926,"top":0.726543,"width":0.7940980000000001,"height":0.0690059999999999}},{"text":"These wars, steeped in recklessness and criminality, which have led to countless thousands \n of deaths and the displacement of millions, are now having deadly consequences for the \n population of Europe. Horriﬁc acts such as those that have taken place in Belgium can be \n stopped only if the wars are stopped.","bbox":{"left":0.102926,"top":0.812778,"width":0.7941370000000001,"height":0.06900600000000001}},{"text":"The original source of this article is World Socialist Web Site","bbox":{"left":0.071429,"top":0.917037,"width":0.545606,"height":0.01659200000000005}},{"text":"| 2","bbox":{"left":0.905167,"top":0.951943,"width":0.02340999999999993,"height":0.01659200000000005}}],"images_bbox":[],"images_bbox_not_text_overlap":[]}