Dress Rehearsal For What Will Happen Here? French Rail Sabotage

For some time now there has been significant concern about possible sabotage of American critical infrastructure. Our borders are wide open. Our security services, as seen in Butler, Pennsylvania, are woefully ineffective, and no one in D.C. seems to be doing anything about the continuing stream of military-age males coming across our southern border. This has long since ceased to be an abstract concern and become something very real and very immediate.

If you don’t believe that, maybe you should look at what just happened in France.

Just prior to the opening ceremony for the Summer Olympics, rail travel in France was brought to a standstill. Three separate attacks on rail lines occurred in a coordinated fashion. A fourth was apparently foiled. Officials called the attacks “coordinated acts of malice.”

An official investigation has been opened. Initial reports suggest that incendiary devices were used to shut down signaling systems at key nodes on rail lines and the location of the attacks showed extensive knowledge of how the rail system operates. These were not acts of vandalism. They were attacks by teams of individuals who knew precisely where to hit the French rail system in order to cause maximum disruption. Hundreds of thousands of people have been impacted.

French railway operator SNCF said it was a “massive attack aimed at paralyzing the network” and confirmed that three high-speed lines servicing the west, north, and east of France had been affected, while an attack on a fourth line going south had been foiled.

Service has not been restored. It will take a minimum of several days to get the system functioning again. That is assuming, of course, that further attacks do not take place.

Roughly half the trains taking athletes to the Olympic Games were impacted. A large number of athletes may miss the opening ceremonies.

French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal said Friday that the attacks “were carried out on nerve centers of our high-speed rail system,” which he said showed “a good knowledge of the system and where to strike.”

In France, the presumption is that this may be the beginning rather than the end of attacks on the rail network and other critical infrastructure. Patrice Vergriete, acting transport minister, said,  “We are preparing for [other attacks]. We had no specific alert before these planned acts of malice and sabotage. Today we are on alert, so obviously we have mobilized all security forces, as well as drones, so today we have greatly increased our vigilance.”

No one appears to have any solid information on who is behind the attacks. Some officials have pointed the finger at leftists, while others have blamed Russia. There have also been comments suggesting that Iran might be behind the sabotage.

Foreign Minister Israel Katz asserted on X Friday that the fires were “planned and executed under the influence of Iran’s axis of evil,” but he did not provide any evidence to support that claim.  Katz has previously suggested, however, that he had intelligence suggesting Iranian plans to disrupt the Olympics.

Early this afternoon The Sun reported that some experts were suggesting Russia might be behind the attacks as a TV reality star - a Russian citizen living in France - had been arrested several days ago for allegedly stating his intent to disrupt the Olympic games.

In Paris, a huge security presence is in place to protect the Games. The French have brought in 45,000 police and paramilitary officers. Another 10,000 soldiers are set to add to the security along with 22,000 private security guards. Police snipers are positioned on high points along the Seine. Armed officers are also manning boats on the river.

It is far too early to know what will happen next. These attacks which were well planned and well executed may turn out to be only the opening salvo in a much more intensive and prolonged campaign against the Games and France.

It should be clear to everyone in this country charged with internal security, however, that we are only steps away from seeing the same or worse on our soil. As noted above, we have abandoned control of our borders. We have no real idea how many foreign agents or terrorists are here. Anybody with any degree of sophistication can operate here with impunity.

We do know that even the Secret Service has now so degraded as to be ineffectual. Less than two weeks ago a mentally disturbed young man with a rifle walked right through the security around a Trump rally and came within a hair’s breadth of killing the former President of the United States. Many people are asking what went wrong. It might be more accurate to ask what went right – to which the answer would be nothing.

Suffice it to say that if we are incapable of handling that level of threat we have not a prayer of stopping guys who can map a national rail network, pinpoint its weak spots, and then carry out coordinated attacks across an entire nation.

We should also recognize that we have on our soil front organizations tied to groups like Hamas which coordinate on a national scale and organize massive events like those that just happened in Washington, D.C. Organizations like this that can shut down major cities can just as easily support terrorist attacks on targets nationwide.

We talk a lot about the danger that lies ahead if we don’t change course. We have perhaps failed to understand that “someday” is “today.” It is no longer a matter of “if” we will pay a price for our policies. It is now a matter of “when.”

Want to know what’s coming? Look at France, and you may well be seeing a dress rehearsal.