tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-57341218629809180172024-03-08T06:39:25.496-08:00Howard Beale's News HourA commentary on news/history/politics/philosophy.Talkbouthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14408535183177475747noreply@blogger.comBlogger25125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5734121862980918017.post-71498247649917707632013-10-26T17:44:00.001-07:002013-10-26T17:47:15.534-07:00Bud Smokers know how to Roll UP<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">Marijuana users are often times
confused as hippies or dirt heads. Both terms are not accurate for this day and
age, you see, we have the occasional pot head, and we have the habitual smoker.
Not to say that one is better than the other, he’s not, they both at the end of
the day do what we think they do, they smoke weed. So why does society and
those who influence us most think that if someone takes a pipe, loads up some
bud into it, and hits it while the bowl is burning nice and slow, he is getting
high for no reason. The truth is, when he inhales all that deep green dank THC
into his lungs, the weed starts to expand his mind. It is a very potent
substance, or as others classify it, an herb. Of course he wouldn’t of had
those powerful hits like he did if he didn’t properly know <a href="http://danklegalbud.com/how-to-roll-a-joint/">how to roll a joint</a>
and not get any seeds and stems in it. Cheech and Chong, Jimi Hendrix, and Bob Marley
are just a few of the famous chronic smokers who have developed that perfect
rolling skill.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">The word pot head derives from
someone getting so high that he takes a pot and smashes his own head with it.
Not actually the case though, the real reason came about when a guy was
hotboxing his car, blowing smoke rings into the air, and vaporizing some legal
dank bud with his bong. Marijuana smokers have gotten more adapt these days
when it comes to their toking needs, for instance there are those who only puff
when they have a fatty spiff or roach at their hands, there are others who
prefer blunts and cigars to use as rolling papers.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="background-color: white;">If you want the least
amount of residue buildup on your ash tray, or on your hookah you can be sure
to compact all the green mary jane inside of the cigar tube while you pack it.
It’s more of a science and an art form than a hard skill to perform, not all
people realize that though. To get a top quality clean crisp smoke from your
weed you need to be able to have the attitude that marijuana is not just for
people in Canada or California, but also those outside of Amsterdam in the
Netherlands. High Times Magazine is an attachment to the diversity of bud smokers
all over the world.</span><span style="background-color: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
Talkbouthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14408535183177475747noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5734121862980918017.post-52681636605478077792011-09-16T22:00:00.000-07:002013-10-26T17:33:21.747-07:007/7: Crime and Prejudice<br />
<span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">With the </span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">7/7 inquests</span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> having concluded with the most ridiculous and predictable of judgments the responsibility of ordinary citizens to investigate and ask questions about the London bombings has grown. In solidarity with the </span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">July 7th Truth Campaign</span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">'s excellent research and analysis on their dedicated </span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">7/7 Inquests blog</span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">, H</span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">oward Beale's News Hour is pleased to present the sequel to </span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">7/7: Seeds of Deconstruction</span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">, </span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">7/7: Crime and Prejudice</span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The first film, 7/7: Seeds of Deconstruction largely focused on the history of covert operations and official deceptions as a context for understanding the failings of the </span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Home Office narrative</span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">, the aim in this film was slightly different. This two-hour production explores not only the crime of the bombings in London in July 2005, but also the police investigation of that crime. The context for this exploration is threefold: the role of the British police and security services in different kinds of covert actions; the post-7/7 miscarriages of justice and instances of police violence against predominantly Muslim 'terror suspects'; and the various simulations of terrorism both before and after 7/7 that helped conditioned people into accepting one or another narrative of what happened. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The film begins by looking at the case of Victorian Anarchism, in particular the tale of the Walsall Anarchists, who were set up by Special Branch via an agent provocateur. You can find further information in a </span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">previous essay</span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> on this blog. The plot appears to have been masterminded by William Melville, who went on to head up the Secret Service Bureau, which then became the original MI5. Through his proxy provocateur, Auguste Coulon, Melville succeeded in obtaining convictions of four innocent men, three of which were sentenced to ten years hard labour. At the trial the lawyers for the defence asked Melville about Coulon, but the Special Branch man refused to answer the questions, and the judge ruled in his favour. This is an early example of how the spying game, which at that time was reviled by the population as underhanded and not becoming of gentlemen, affects the integrity of the justice system. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Coulon was a police spy, paid from July 1890 until some time in 1904, with the Walsall case coming in the spring of 1892, when he received extra money. The suspicions were well-founded, and confirmation at the time could have exonerated the men on trial, but that was of less concern to the judge than preserving the ability of the police to run or 'handle' such spies. According to Andrew Cook's excellent book on Melville called </span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">M: MI5's First Spymaster</span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">, the Walsall case was the only time that Melville practised such dark arts but Alex Butterworth's </span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The World That Never Was: A True Story of Dreamers, Schemers, Anarchists and Secret Agents</span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> illustrates how the anarchists were frequently infiltrated and manipulated. The Walsall case was not exceptional. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">By the time of World War 2 MI5 had grown into a significant organisation, usurping the police Special Branches in secrecy, and hence in what they could get away with. 7/7: Crime and Prejudice details the example of </span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Mutt and Jeff</span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">, two Norwegians who were sent to Britain by the Nazis to be spies and saboteurs. Upon arriving in this country they gave themselves up and quickly became double agents. They participated in </span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">deception operations</span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">, sending back disinformation to their Nazi handlers. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The security services also carried out </span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">false flag sabotage attacks</span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">, making the Nazis believe that Mutt and Jeff were still loyal and following orders. On one occasion a firebomb attack on a food depot was bungled. Security Service operatives snuck in and set off a couple of incendiary bombs, but the fire was quickly spotted by the local police, who were of course 'compartmentalised' and 'out of the loop'. The police called in the fire brigade, who put out the fire and discovered the remains of the bombs, which were of the type used by the British Security Services. The now-declassified files available at the National Archives </span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">record</span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> how 'This led to a very delicate situation in connection with the inquiry being made by Scotland Yard. Ultimately the inquiry died out.' Clearly MI5 trumped Scotland Yard by this time. Once again, the integrity of the justice system (the police, the prosecution service and the judiciary) was compromised so that the integrity of the secret National Security State could be maintained. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">This same phenomenon was evident in Northern Ireland, where for years collusion between militants and the security services was a popularly believed 'conspiracy theory', now confirmed as historical fact. There is some reason to be cheerful - there have been a number of pretty hard-hitting </span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">inquiries into the issue of collusion</span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">, though there is still plenty of resistance to investigation and we're still waiting for even one member of the FBI, MI5, RUC Special Branch or FRU to be prosecuted for their role in the atrocities. The </span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Pat Finucane Centre</span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> has obtained some very telling paperwork in this regard, detailing a meeting in 1971 between the Attorney General and 'J.M. Parkin, Head of C2' at the British army's Northern Ireland HQ. The </span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">documents</span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> note how Parkin had, 'no doubt the Attorney General is doing all within his power to protect the security forces against criminal proceedings in respect of actions on duty.' </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">We can see much the same process going on in today's War on Terror. Inasmuch as there is an international radical Islamist movement, some members of whom are willing to carry out acts of violence, it is riddled with informers, double agents and provocateurs. From </span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Omar Saeed Sheikh</span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> to </span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Ali Mohamed</span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> to </span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Luai Sakra</span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> to </span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Junaid Babar</span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> to </span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">David Headley</span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> to </span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Edwin Angeles</span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">, from the Philippines to Algeria the unifying factor in these disparate militant and radical groups is the infiltration by those in the pay of the security services. The violence seen in Mumbai, Istanbul, Manila and beyond is one result of this covert policy. The other is miscarriages of justice. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Several significant incidents are examined in 7/7: Crime and Prejudice, all of which happened after 7/7. There are two reasons I chose post-7/7 events - firstly, to show how the attacks made it easier for the judiciary to obtain ridiculous and obscene convictions against innocent people, and also to show how whatever failings and corruption existed before 7/7 continued to exist after 7/7. Nothing has fundamentally changed. The murder of Jean Charles de Menezes by British security forces was followed by one of the most obvious attempts at a cover-up ever witnessed in this country. The have simply got away with gunning down an indisputably innocent man and then repeatedly lying about it. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Months later, in Forest Gate, the police shot another indisputably innocent man, Mohammed Abdulkahar. He survived, only to face accusations of being a terrorist. The police were forced to admit their 'mistake' but when the IPCC </span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">published</span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> a laughable disgrace of a report saying that the shooting was accidental, the police just so happened to choose that very same day to re-arrest Mr Abdulkahar on child pornography charges. These were also dropped due to lack of evidence. At no stage has anyone been held responsible for the 'intelligence failure' that led to the raid, which led to the shooting, which led to the trumped up charges. Indeed, we still have no real idea what information MI5 and Special Branch had in the weeks leading up the raid, or who took the decision to mount the 'robust operation'. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Though 7/7: Crime and Prejudice did not make this explicit, the case of </span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Mohammed Hamid et al</span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> is in many ways comparable to that of the Walsall Anarchists. The defendants were (and are) fundamentally innocent, and yet one of them confessed for reasons that aren't particularly clear. The case against them was bolstered by the use of an undercover policeman known as 'Dawood. He made covert recordings of the defendants, Hamid in particular, saying some admittedly unwise and insensitive statements, though nothing substantially different to what anyone else has said in private conversation. By maintaining that the undercover policeman was not actually an undercover policeman when he met Hamid, the prosecution argued that Hamid's statements were effectively made in public and hence constituted incitement to murder. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The other part of the trial was the charge of providing or receiving terrorism training within the UK, which only became a crime after 7/7. Hamid was accused of running training camps during several trips he and his friends made to countryside areas, and on one trip paid for by the BBC where they went paintballing. As far as terrorism or guerrilla warfare goes, one could learn a lot more from playing games like Call of Duty: Black Ops than one could from going camping with Mohammed Hamid but that didn't stop the 'independent' judiciary deciding to prosecute a group of men for playing with sticks, jumping over rivers, and slicing a melon. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">A wider issue that I have with this case is that even if Hamid were providing jihad training then prosecuting him would be an enormous hypocrisy, as the primary trainers of Islamic militants over the last 30 years or so have been the military and intelligence services of the Western powers. When Abu Hamza and 'ex' British army soldiers were </span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">training recruits in the Brecon Beacons</span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> in the 1990s to help fight the dirty wars in the Balkans, the authorities did nothing. But when one small and independent group of men who have nothing to do with the security services go to the woods and jump over rivers shouting 'Allah Akbar', somehow it is a crime. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">7/7: Crime and Prejudice also covers the case of Khalid Khaliq, arrested and prosecuted because a terrorism training manual written by a CIA double agent was found in his house, and that of three men accused of being co-conspirators in the 7/7 plot. Waheed Ali, Sadeer Saleem and Mohammed Shakil were subjected to two trials, on the barely-even-circumstantial evidence of them having visited London about 8 months prior to the 7/7 bombings. The prosecution maintained that the sites they visited - The London Eye, the London Aquarium and the Natural History Museum - bore a 'striking similarity' to the targets on 7/7, which were of course three tube stations and a bus. How a 443 ft ferris wheel resembles an underground railway station is not clear to me, and obviously wasn't clear to the juries in the trials. The men were eventually found innocent, but like so many others will have to live with the stigma of accusation for the rest of their lives. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">As such, the judiciary cannot be seen as independent from political influence, or from the machinations of the National Security State. For over a century, and continuing right up until the present day, innocent people have been wrongly convicted for serious crimes, or seriously convicted of trivial non-crimes. Those who are most consistently responsible for the most horrific crimes are almost invariably state actors and agents, and virtually without exception they have got away with it. And so, prospects for the 7/7 inquests did not look good. Five months of hearings recorded the testimony of hundreds of witnesses, and vast quantities of information was adduced as evidence. However, the most basic requirements of establishing who died, how and whether their deaths could have been prevented were ignored or categorically fudged.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The process by which bodies were recovered from the explosion sites and then identified was ruled to be 'outside of the scope of these proceedings'. This is </span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">extremely fortunate</span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> for proponents of the official narrative because of 56 people who died in the attacks, only 15 were pronounced dead at the scenes, and those 15 did not include any of the alleged bombers. The question of how the people died was inevitably answered with a verdict of 'unlawful killing' (a verdict denied to the jurors in the Menezes inquest), and the medical cause of death listed in each case as 'injuries caused by an explosion'. The problem is that precisely what exploded is not a question the inquests could answer, as </span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">no trace of primary explosive was found</span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> at any of the bomb sites. Nor were any bomb cases or bomb initiators found. Nor was any forensic evidence adduced that linked the alleged bombers to the tubs of allegedly explosive sludge found in the alleged bomb factory. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The question of preventability was dealt with by portraying the London emergency services as hopelessly incompetent and mismanaged, but failing to name even a single policy or budgetary decision or specific official as responsible. A few recommendations were made but even the mainstream media </span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">recognised</span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> that it is highly unlikely that any of them will be adopted. The other aspect to the 'preventability' issue is examined in some detail in 7/7: Crime and Prejudice. Among the findings outlined by J7 and presented in the film is that the security services did not tell the truth about the pre-7/7 intelligence when asked about it by the Intelligence and Security Committee. They had a </span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">phone number</span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> connected to alleged 7/7 ringleader Mohammed Sidique Khan several months before the ISC's report claims they had it. They came across the number during phone surveillance of Q, a supposed Al Qaeda facilitator who, like Auguste Coulon, the police refuse to answer questions about. According to a </span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Security Service document</span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> made available at the inquests a subscriber check on the phone was carried out on March 11th 2003. According to the ISC's second report ('</span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Could 7/7 have been prevented?</span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">') the British Security Services didn't start monitoring Q's phone until 'late March 2003' after receiving a tip-off from the National Security Agency about him. So where did they get the number from, and why were they doing a subscriber check on it before they had any reason to care about who was using it? The implication is that they were monitoring Mohammed Sidique Khan, and possibly others around him, more closely and for a longer timeframe than they've admitted. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Of course, this could just be covering-up for incompetence, but this is doubtful for two reasons. Firstly, it is not what the government and their friends have used as their excuse. According to them, and repeated in the inquest verdict, </span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">there was no intelligence failure</span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">. As far as they are concerned, they did everything right. Rather than make a half-assed confession of incompetence, but fail to fire anyone or change anything (the preferred PR response to questions about 9/11), the British cover-up strategy has been to deny that there's even been a cover-up, or that anything went wrong. This bizarre and implausible argument has, in the manner of doublethink, been used alongside the strategy to say that things did go wrong, that there was an intelligence failure, but that the only answer is to give more power, funding, resources and protection to the Security Services. So we go round and round, caught in a dialogue between two (likely) false propositions, having an argument that takes place in terms defined by the very people we're trying to hold to account. If we lack the vocabulary to even ask the questions in the right way then we've got no chance of ever getting a proper answer. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The same is true of the battle between conspiracy theories. The official conspiracy theory of 7/7 is a joke, indeed, it doesn't really exist. The conspiracy theory told by the police that they claim to have derived from investigating the crime contradicts the conspiracy theory told by the anonymous Home Office civil servant who wrote the official narrative. But many people take these two stories as being only one story, and reject it wholesale in favour of alternative narratives, usually revolving around terrorism training exercises and patsy suicide bombers. The 'independent' media has uncritically accepted and promulgated the alternative narratives, subjecting them to almost no scrutiny whatsoever, let alone the crackpot Jesus-freak cross-dressing intelligence agents who promote them. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">In doing so, all of these supposedly independent researchers remained ignorant of the fact that in the couple of years before 7/7 there were numerous training exercises, films and TV shows that simulated terrorist attacks and helped establish this polarised dialogue about such attacks. The exercises are the only thing that have been considered, and only in the context of whether they were practice runs for the real attacks. The psychological effect of these attacks, their role as simulations (bridges between the real and the paranoid nightmares inflicted on us by the ruling class) has been under-examined, and 7/7: Crime and Prejudice seeks to put that right. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">A quick run-down of events looked at in the film goes as follows:</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">17th</span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> June 2002</span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> - Spooks episode shows MI5 staging a fake attack on a London train station.</span></span> </blockquote>
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<span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span> <span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">9th</span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> June 2003</span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> - Spooks episode shows Muslim suicide bombing.</span></span> </blockquote>
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<span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">7th July 2003 - Spooks episode shows bomb attack on London at the same time as a security service exercise.</span></span> </blockquote>
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<span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">7th September </span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">2003</span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> – 'Osiris II' exercise based around chemical attack on London underground</span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">.</span></span> </blockquote>
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<span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">3rd February </span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">2004</span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">– BBC broadcasts Crisis Command pilot episode featuring attack on Waterloo underground station and a plane crashing into the houses of Parliament.</span></span> </blockquote>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span><br />
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">11th March </span></span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">2004</span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> - 3/11 bombings in Madrid.</span></span> </blockquote>
<blockquote>
<span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">16th</span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> May 2004</span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> - Panorama episode 'London Under Attack' features attacks on three underground stations and a large road vehicle.</span></span> </blockquote>
<blockquote>
<span style="font-family: arial;">16th May 2004</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> - 'Operation Transit Safe' exercise in New York based around multiple bombings on the subway.</span> </blockquote>
<blockquote>
<span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">24th September </span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">2004</span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> - BBC/</span><span style="font-family: arial;">HBO production 'Dirty War' is broadcast, featuring two pairs of Muslim suicide bombers, one pair attack Liverpool Street station in a suicide bombing, the other pair are shot dead by police.</span></span></blockquote>
<blockquote>
<span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">13th</span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> December 2004</span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> - Spooks episode shows Muslim 'proxy bomb' and shows terrorist mastermind being shot dead by special forces.</span></span></blockquote>
<blockquote>
<span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">5th</span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> to 8th</span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> April 2005</span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> - Atlantic Blue exercise based around bombings on London trains and buses. US exercise includes fake news footage and a fake terrorist suspect who is a Muslim.</span></span></blockquote>
<blockquote>
<span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">June 2005 - Spooks episode filmed based around attack on London train station, also shows terrorist being shot dead by special forces.</span></span> </blockquote>
<blockquote>
<span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">12th June </span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">2005</span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">- Emergency service training exercise at Tower Hill underground station.</span></span> </div>
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
<span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Early July 2005 - Tabletop exercises based on multiple bombings on the tube run by the Metropolitan Police and Deutsche Bank.</span></span> </blockquote>
<blockquote>
<span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">7th July </span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">2005</span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">- Actual attacks in London on multiple tube trains/stations and on a bus. Training exercise closely replicating real attacks takes place in London shortly after the tube train explosions. Training exercise based around attacks on subway take place in New York. </span></span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: arial;">As detailed in 7/7: Crime and Prejudice, however, this conditioning did not end on 7/7. The simulations continued.</span> <br />
<span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span><br />
<blockquote>
<span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">21st July </span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">2005</span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> - Four men set off fake bombs in rucksacks on three tube trains and a bus.</span></span></blockquote>
<blockquote>
<span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">22nd July </span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">2005</span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> - 'Police' shoot dead Jean Charles de Menezes, apparently because they thought he was a suicide bomber.</span></span></blockquote>
<blockquote>
<span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">8th January 2006 - 'Northstar V'</span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> exercise in Singapore, based on 7/7. News broadcasts carry images of the arrest of a mock suicide bomber.</span></span> </blockquote>
<blockquote>
<span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">25th September </span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">2006</span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> - Spooks episode features Islamic 'unwitting suicide bomber' duped by terrorist mastermind. Also features a terrorist being shot dead by police.</span></span> </blockquote>
<blockquote>
<span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">16th October </span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">2007</span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> - Spooks episode shows Muslim MI5 agent planting bomb underneath a train in a false flag attack.</span></span> </blockquote>
<blockquote>
<span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">30th October </span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">2007</span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> - Spooks episode features unwitting suicide bomber from Sept</span></span> </blockquote>
<blockquote>
<span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> 2006 episode, who has been turned into an MI5 informant. He is again duped into</span></span> <span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 100%;">being an unwitting suicide bomber by a terrorist mastermind.</span></blockquote>
<blockquote>
<span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">5th November </span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">2007</span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> - Internet documentary 7/7 Ripple Effect claims 7/7 was a</span></span> <span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">inside job, with patsies believing they were taking part in a training exercise who were then shot by police snipers, and that the bombs were planted underneath the train, probably by MI5.</span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></span></blockquote>
<blockquote>
<span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">28th October </span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">2008</span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> - Spooks episode features quadruple Muslim suicide bombings on London. </span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Four men, one of whom is an undercover MI5 agent, are watched closely by the security services.</span></span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">An informant in Pakistan intelligence tells MI5 that the men are only doing a practise run, with dummy bombs, and that others will carry out the real attacks.</span></span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The informant double crosses MI5 and the men are given real bombs, One of the would-be bombers is shot dead by police, two of the bombs are stopped, and the fourth bomb is detonated by remote.</span></span></blockquote>
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">When considering all this it may also be illuminating to throw in the cases of </span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Nicky Reilly</span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> and Taimur al-Abdaly. Reilly is a young white convert to Islam who apparently attempted a suicide bombing in Exeter in May 2008. His mother has said that he must have been brainwashed and given help putting his device together, citing his having Aspergers syndrome, which would make him an obvious target for provocation. His device went off in the toilet of the restaurant he admits to having targeted, injuring him seriously, though not grievously, and causing no other injury or loss of life. </span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Taimur Abdulwahab al-Abdaly</span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> was 'Sweden's first suicide bomber', though as with 7/7, and Martial Bourdin, it is far from clear whether he intended to kill himself. In December 2010, right in the middle of the 7/7 inquests, there were two explosions in Stockholm. The first, in a car, caused two people minor injuries and didn't even destroy the vehicle. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The second, about 12 minutes later, killed al-Abdaly and caused no other injuries. You can watch not-particularly-revealing CCTV of the second explosion </span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">here</span></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">. What is obvious is that if al-Abdaly had been a conventional suicide bomber, i.e. one who is trying to kill members of the public as well as himself, then he failed miserably. Despite this, the mainstream media are unanimous in saying Reilly was a failed suicide bomber and al-Abdaly was Sweden's first suicide bomber. The independent media have had little to say about either case. </span></span><br />
Looking to the future the hope for an official but independent public inquiry into 7/7 may be optimistic, but it remains a possibility. The Gladio case, and the investigations into the collusion in Northern Ireland both found that the suspicions about state involvement in terrorist crimes were well-founded. Many of those who were wrongly imprisoned during the Irish War on Terror and the Europe-wide Strategy of Tension are now freed and exonerated. Vindication and true investigation is possible. Rather than taking the easy and lazy route of propagating our favourite conspiracy theories we should find ways to apply pressure on the state and to feed information to the growing number of sceptical people. <br />
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<br />Talkbouthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14408535183177475747noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5734121862980918017.post-8898562968624619472011-06-12T22:00:00.000-07:002013-10-24T11:51:02.916-07:00
The Headley-Rana Drama
<br /><blockquote><span style="font-family:arial;">Terrorism is aimed at the people watching, not at the actual victims. Terrorism is a theater - </span><a href="http://reality19.wordpress.com/2008/09/28/terrorism-perspectives-theatre-of-terror-approach-and-the-internet/"><span style="font-family:arial;">Brian Jenkins, RAND corporation</span></a></blockquote><p><span style="font-family:arial;">The trial of Tahawwur Rana </span><a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/chibrknews-day-2-in-mumbi-terror-trial-deliberations-20110609,0,1138670.story"><span style="font-family:arial;">concluded</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> a couple of days ago with the Pakistani-Canadian found guilty of providing material support to Lashkar-e-Toiba and of supporting a conspiracy to carry out a terrorist attack against the offices of the Jyllands-Posten. Rana was found innocent of conspiring with David Headley to enable Headley's role in the 2008 26/11 massacre in Mumbai. The background to this trial is extraordinarily complex and intricate, and there are many questions that can't yet be answered. Several things are certain. </span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">Rana was </span><a href="http://www.investigativeproject.org/documents/case_docs/1520.pdf"><span style="font-family:arial;">accused</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> of helping David Headley, a lifelong friend, set up a branch of Rana's business in Mumbai to provide cover for Headley's surveillance missions. Rana ran a travel business/immigration advice company. He was accused of providing similar help for the proposed attack on the Jyllands-Posten, the Danish newspaper who caused a storm by publishing cartoons of the prophet Mohammed. The trial exhibits, </span><a href="http://www.justice.gov/usao/iln/hot/us_v_rana.html"><span style="font-family:arial;">available at least for a while</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> on the US Justice Department website, include videos and transcripts of Rana's interrogation by the FBI, emails between Rana, Headley, and members of the ISI and LeT, and Headley's surveillance videos and photos. </span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">The 26/11 Mumbai slaughter was more a paramilitary act of low-intensity warfare than it was a terrorist attack. For one thing, it was clearly state-sponsored by the Pakistani ISI, using the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) group as a proxy. The massacre was highly sophisticated - Headley made over half a dozen trips to India to carry out </span><a href="http://ibnlive.in.com/photogallery/4011-5.html"><span style="font-family:arial;">surveillance</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">. The attack was not a crude bombing, but a brutal, closely targeted commando raid that lasted nearly three days. The perpetrators landed by boat, which is difficult to detect and impossible to stop. LeT gunmen stalked the streets, directed to specific GPS co-ordinates by handlers on the phone hundreds of miles away in Lahore. They gunned people down indiscriminately and set off numerous bombs. They killed over 160 people, and injured over 300. 9 of the terrorists were shot dead by Indian security forces. The member of the group that was captured alive, Ajmal Kasab, is the man in this well-known picture:</span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;"> </span><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 512px; height: 303px;" src="http://bombaystreets.com/wp-content/woo_uploads/109-ajmal_kasab.jpg" alt="" border="0"><span style="font-family:arial;"> </span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">He has since been tried, found guilty, and sentenced to death by the Indian authorities. </span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">Almost from the off, the Indian government and media have said that the ISI were behind the attacks. Indeed, they were far too co-ordinated, too well planned and executed, too 'professional' to have been carried out by a 'retail' terrorist group. Any terrorist attack that kills over half as many people as it injures (i.e. over 1/3 of all casualties are fatal) is a very 'successful' attack. Even veterans of the Soviet-Afghan war would only have experience of insurgency, of guerrilla warfare, not paramilitary urban terrorist operations as occurred in Mumbai. The shoe fits the ISI, no doubt about that.</span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">Indeed, this has been a central theme in the US vs Rana trial. Rana initially tried to offer the defence that everything he had done, he had done for the Pakistani government. The US ruled against him, saying that he had no immunity from crimes against Americans. You can read the ruling </span><a href="http://www.investigativeproject.org/documents/case_docs/1515.pdf"><span style="font-family:arial;">here</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">, courtesy of the Investigative Project on Terrorism. Throughout Headley's </span><a href="http://article.wn.com/view/2011/05/24/David_Headley_nails_army_majors_pressure_mounts_on_Pakistan/"><span style="font-family:arial;">testimony</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> he has referred to </span><a href="http://news.oneindia.in/2011/06/13/isiofficers-ncos-trained-meheadley-aid0126.html"><span style="font-family:arial;">handlers</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> within both LeT and the ISI who provided training and directed both the Mumbai attack and the Denmark plot. The </span><a href="http://pib.nic.in/archieve/others/2011/may/d2011050901.pdf"><span style="font-family:arial;">charge sheet</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> filed by the US government in the Chicago trial named co-conspirators including 'Major Iqbal' of the ISI. The Indian National Investigation Agency's </span><a href="http://ibnlive.in.com/news/read-david-headleys-nia-interrogation-report/154008-53.html"><span style="font-family:arial;">report</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> on their interrogation of Headley last year details how Major Iqbal was not satisfied by the training Headley got from LeT, so he arranged for further intelligence/reconnaissance training. He helped finance Headley's trip to India, and debriefed him and took copies of his photos/videos when he returned. Again, this was a highly sophisticated operation. </span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">So, there is no real dispute that the ISI, or at least people within the ISI, had their hands all over the Mumbai plot. What this trial has largely ignored is that Headley was a secret agent of some kind, working for the US government, and may have been all along. Headley was born in the US in 1960, his mother a well-to-do white American socialite, his father a Pakistani working in the Pakistan embassy in Washington. Headley's original name was Daood Gilani. His parents split up and his father took custody of young Daood, returning home to Pakistani. Gilani was educated as an elite Pakistani cadet boarding school, where he first met and befriended Tahawwur Rana. </span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">In 1977 there was a </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Fair_Play"><span style="font-family:arial;">coup d'etat</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> in Pakistan, when the Socialist(ish) Pakistan People's Party were accused of vote-rigging in the national elections, and the military seized control of the government. Daood's mother retook custody of him and brought him back to America. He worked in a couple of video stores and in his mother's </span><a href="http://www.tehelka.com/story_main49.asp?filename=Ws070611PubOwner_TerrorSpy1.asp"><span style="font-family:arial;">pub</span></a> (named the Khyber Pass) but clearly got involved with seedier enterprises because in 1988 he was arrested for drug smuggling. He was arrested at Frankfurt airport with two kilos of heroin in his suitcase. Gilani offered to co-operate and got a reduced sentence in return for helping set up two other men on drugs charges. He got out in 1992, but had a heroin addiction and wound up back in jail for a few months in 1995.<span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">He was again arrested for drug smuggling in 1997, again with several kilos of heroin. What should have been a mandatory 10 year minimum sentence was commuted to 15 months in jail and five years of supervised release, i.e. parole. You can read the full docket for the 1997 drugs case </span><a href="http://talkleft.com/legal/headleydrugcasedocket.pdf"><span style="font-family:arial;">here</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">, and I strongly recommend TalkLeft's coverage of the Headley story, </span><a href="http://www.talkleft.com/search?string=Headley"><span style="font-family:arial;">here</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">. During his supervised release Headley was allowed to travel to Pakistan on several occasions, having gained permission from a judge to make the trips as part of his spying deal with the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). </span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">The question is, what happened next? In November 2001, two months after 9/11, Headley's lawyer, his parole officer and an assistant US attorney unanimously applied for early termination of his period of supervised release, roughly half way through the five year sentence. I found a transcript of this hearing on PACER and James Corbett has usefully published it on his site, </span><a href="http://www.corbettreport.com/cache/headleytranscript.pdf"><span style="font-family:arial;">here</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">. Check for yourself, but the NY Times's reporting on this hearing appears to me to be very accurate:</span></p><blockquote><span style="font-family:arial;">The transcript of a Nov. 16, 2001, probation hearing in federal court in New York shows </span><strong><span style="font-family:arial;">the government took great pains not to identify which agency was handling Mr. Headley, or whether he worked for more than one</span></strong>.<span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span>Mr. Caso, his former probation officer, recalled that Mr. Headley had been turned over to the D.E.A. Another person familiar with the case confirms this account. It was a world Mr. Headley knew well. After arrests in 1987 and 1998, he cooperated with the drug agency in exchange for lighter sentences. He specialized in the ties between Pakistani drug organizations and American dealers along the East Coast.<span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span>A September 1998 letter that prosecutors submitted to court after an arrest then showed that the government considered Mr. Headley — who had admitted to distributing 15 kilograms of heroin over his years as a dealer — so “reliable and forthcoming,” that they sent him to Pakistan to “develop intelligence on Pakistani heroin traffickers.”<span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span>The letter indicates that Mr. Headley, who faced seven to nine years in prison for his offense, was such a trusted partner to the drug agency in the 1990s that he helped translate hours of tape-recorded telephone intercepts, and coached drug agency investigators on how to question Pakistani suspects. The courts looked favorably on his cooperation, according to records, sentencing Mr. Headley to 15 months in prison, and five years’ probation.<span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span><strong><span style="font-family:arial;">While he was on probation, in October 2001, a woman told the F.B.I. that she believed her former boyfriend, Mr. Headley, was sympathetic to extremist groups in Pakistan</span></strong>, according to a senior American official who has been briefed on the case. The government was flooded with thousands of such tips at that time, in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks.<span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span>William Headley, an uncle, recalled that agents called his sister to ask if her son had terrorist leanings. “She didn’t seem upset at all by the call,” William Headley said. “And I didn’t think much of it either because at that time, I thought the government was checking out anyone who had ties to Pakistan.”<span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span><span style="font-family:arial;">It is unclear how widely disseminated the warning was. But in that probation hearing one month later, the government enlisted Mr. Headley’s help again, suspending his sentence in exchange for what court records described only as “continuing cooperation.” </span><strong><span style="font-family:arial;">According to the transcript, it was a rushed affair</span></strong><span style="font-family:arial;">. The probation officer apologized for not being properly dressed, and the lawyers explained that they had not been able to make their case in writing. Mr. Headley was a potential gold mine, according to an official knowledgeable about the agreement to release him from probation. One person involved in the case said American agencies had “zero in terms of reliable intelligence. And it was clear from the conversations about him that the government was considering assignments that went beyond drugs.” - </span><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/08/world/asia/08terror.html?pagewanted=2"><span style="font-family:arial;">NY Times</span></a></blockquote><p><span style="font-family:arial;">Given that Headley was perfectly useful as a DEA informant even while out of jail on supervised release, what happened that caused the US authorities to rush through this hearing? Why bother? The key is that while he was just an international spy for the DEA, he had to apply through the courts to get permission to travel to Pakistan, thus leaving a paper trail of what he was doing and when. Pakistani drugs gangs are not likely to be sending agents to New York courts to be checking records to confirm the background of a new contact, so it didn't matter, until November 2001. If Headley was, post-9/11, recruited by the CIA or a similar agency, as a terrorism/counterterrorism spy then it would be more important for him to be a deniable agent. </span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">The implication of all this is that Headley was some kind of double agent, working for the FBI and/or CIA on a mission to infiltrate LeT, or possibly a triple agent, working to infiltrate the ISI's infiltration of LeT. Whether Headley was in reality seduced by LeT radicalism, or whether he was just playing along as part of his spying mission, is impossible to ascertain at this point. Nonetheless, that he is/was a US spy has been a relatively common accusation in the Indian media, and in the global independent media. Aside from the odd article, like </span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article6960182.ece"><span style="font-family:arial;">this one</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> in The Times, the Western mainstream media has mostly ignored this allegation. </span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">Until this trial. Headley and Rana were arrested in October 2009 as a plan was coming together to attack the offices of the Jyllands-Posten. The newspaper came to prominence in late 2005/early 2006, after printing cartoons of the Islamic prophet Mohammed. The cartoons '</span><a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/4677976.stm"><span style="font-family:arial;">row</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">' was a cynical ploy on the part of Flemming Rose, the paper's cultural editor, designed to provoke exactly the reaction it got at the time. Rose is an associate of racist Zionist academic Richard Pipes, and was awarded the Sappho award by the Free Press Society of Denmark. All's well until you realise that another recipient of the award is Kurt Westergaard, the cartoonist whose depiction of Mohammed with a bomb in his turban was a focal point for Islamic (and non-Islamic) objectors. And that the Free Press Society was founded by Lars Hedegaard, who </span><a href="http://www.rightsidenews.com/200901043173/life-and-science/culture-wars/the-eternal-danish-optimist.html"><span style="font-family:arial;">co-published a book</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> with cartoonist Westergaard. And that they belong to the same </span><a href="http://www.sappho.dk/english.htm"><span style="font-family:arial;">network</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> as Geert Wilders and, of course, Daniel Pipes. And that even the latest recipient of the award felt obliged to pay </span><a href="http://www.sappho.dk/melanie-phillips-speech-2.htm"><span style="font-family:arial;">lip service</span></a> to the cartoons 'row' in her acceptance speech. Clearly it is not just the CIA and ISI who are playing dark and horrible games.<span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">In the last couple of years a lot of news, most notably Wikileaks documents and the Osama Bin Laden 'death', has steadily turned the notion of ISI complicity in terrorism from a fringe suspicion into headline fact. We're now perfectly happy to believe that 'them', 'over there', the brown-skinned governments, they might sponsor terrorism for political ends with total disregard for the lives of innocent citizens, including their own. But of course our own government, over here, they wouldn't do such a thing. And so it has played out in this trial, with the ISI's role laid out in detail by the key witness, David Headley, but his own relationship to US authorities largely left a mystery. </span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">Rana's lawyer did </span><a href="http://publicintelligence.net/lawyer-says-david-headley-was-a-double-agent-working-for-the-cia-isi-dea/"><span style="font-family:arial;">break the silence</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">, accusing Headley of being a master </span><a href="http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2011/may/23/ranas-defense-lawyer-calls-headley-manipulative/"><span style="font-family:arial;">manipulator</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">, who had duped Rana into playing a fringe role in the conspiracy. He also pointed out that the emails between Headley, Rana and Major Iqbal were a textbook deception on Headley's part:</span></p><blockquote>Swift asked Headley if he "kept compartmentalized secrets." That question was in reference to a series of e-mails Headley exchanged with Rana and co-conspirators Saajid Mir and Major Iqbal discussing a plan to gain access to top leaders of a right-wing Hindu organization in Mumbai. Headley shared piecemeal information with his co-conspirators, so that no one except he knew the whole story.<span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span>"The only person who knew everything was you," Swift said. "You did well in espionage school."<span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span><span style="font-family:arial;">"Thank you," Headley replied. - </span><a href="http://www.investigativeproject.org/2907/defense-attorneys-challenge-headley-credibility"><span style="font-family:arial;">Investigative Project on Terrorism</span></a></blockquote><span style="font-family:arial;">So, what are the major reasons for suspecting that Headley was a US secret agent, who either went rogue, or was on a very ugly mission? Firstly, Headley's father worked for the diplomatic service in the Pakistani embassy in Washington, and for Voice of America, a US sponsored foreign propaganda media organ, a bit like Russia Today. Voice of America has long been a means for the CIA to conduct covert action and recruit assets. It is therefore highly plausible that Headley's father worked for the CIA. His half-brother also worked as a press officer for Pakistan's Prime Minister. </span><p><span style="font-family:arial;">Secondly, Headley was repeatedly </span><a href="http://www.propublica.org/article/newly-discovered-warnings-about-headley-reveal-a-troubling-timeline-in-mumb"><span style="font-family:arial;">reported to the authorities</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> by his numerous wives and girlfriends as a </span><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/05/AR2010110506271.html"><span style="font-family:arial;">possible radical</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> with terrorist sympathies. Though these warnings took place regularly from late 2001 through to December 2008 - just after the Mumbai attack - Headley was not arrested until October 2009. Even that was months after a </span><a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/6654177/British-tip-off-led-to-arrest-of-US-Mumbai-suspect-David-Headley.html"><span style="font-family:arial;">tip</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> from British authorities in July 2009 about the Danish newspaper plot. Headley pleaded guilty after several months of debriefing, in </span><a href="http://www.investigativeproject.org/documents/case_docs/1475.pdf"><span style="font-family:arial;">March 2010</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">. It wasn't until June that he was finally turned over to be interrogated by the Indian authorities. You can download the Indian NIA's interrogation report </span><a href="http://publicintelligence.net/secret-indian-government-david-headley-interrogation-report/"><span style="font-family:arial;">here</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">. The US authorities are </span><a href="http://www.ndtv.com/article/world/after-rana-verdict-us-justifies-headley-deal-111389"><span style="font-family:arial;">defending</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> the deal they struck with Headley, saying that the intelligence they garnered was too valuable not to strike a pact. </span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">So, they ignored warnings about him, even after he was still officially employed by the DEA, and even though they very much had him on their books as a person of interest. They took months to arrest him even when another intelligence service told them he posed a threat, and they then let him plead guilty and 'turn' co-operator for what will presumably be a massively reduced sentence. He was looking at life (30 years+) and a $3 million fine. On the basis of past cases I guess he'll get about 1/3 of that. He has also talked himself out of extradition to Pakistan, India or Denmark to face charges over any of his actions, and will certainly avoid the death penalty. At each stage he has been protected by the authorities in some way or another, and he is now a source of raw intelligence for the Americans alone. They didn't even let the Indian government talk to him until 3 months after he'd pleaded guilty, presumably so he could be adequately prepared to lay all the blame at Pakistan's door. </span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">The November 16th 2001 hearing seems to be the point at which someone bigger than the DEA stepped in and took over running Headley for US intelligence purposes. Both the CIA and FBI deny ever employing Headley, but there are two key issues that bear thinking about. Anyone familiar with the global drugs trade knows that the CIA has some very dirty fingers in that particular pie. Headley, a man born into two worlds, with a drug dependence, with connections and the proven ability to use them, compromised by his criminal history, would no doubt have been on their radar as a possible asset for promotion from the DEA. He also fits the profile of a disposable intelligence asset (i.e. one who can end up being openly blamed and imprisoned) almost perfectly. The other key issues is Headley changing his name. </span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">In February 2006 Daood Saleem Gilani became David Coleman Headley. You can read a copy of the legal decree effecting the change </span><a href="http://ibnlive.in.com/news/when-daood-gilani-became-david-coleman-headley/154537-53.html"><span style="font-family:arial;">here</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">. He also had a </span><a href="http://ibnlive.in.com/news/copy-of-david-headleys-passport/154536-53.html"><span style="font-family:arial;">passport in the name of David Headley</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">, though he did not change his Social Security Number at the time he changed his name. Headley told the NIA that the purpose was to avoid arousing suspicion:</span></p><blockquote><span style="font-family:arial;">The change of name, establishment of Immigration office in India on behalf of Tahawwur Hussain Rana, use of American passport to conceal my identity and so on were my ideas. The LeT appreciated these ideas. - </span><a href="http://ibnlive.in.com/news/read-david-headleys-nia-interrogation-report/154008-53.html"><span style="font-family:arial;">NIA interrogation report</span></a></blockquote><p><span style="font-family:arial;">Note that Headley's actions would only be likely to avoid suspicion in countries like Pakistan and India. A white American man with an English-sounding name was much less likely to attract attention from immigration authorities, airport security and so on in such countries. But changing his name and getting a new passport in his new name would certainly arouse suspicion in the US authorities, assuming they were watching him. Given his prior work as a spy for the DEA, Headley would have been stupid to assume that they weren't watching him, and so the name change only really makes sense if he knew that the US authorities were nothing for him to worry about. </span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">Then there is the media coverage of the trial, which has been almost exclusively either American or Indian, and very much sticks the boot into Pakistan for their role in the Mumbai massacre. There has been virtually nothing in the UK media about the trial, and absolutely nothing looking into his role as a secret agent. As such, there appears to be a tacit but unanimous agenda to only speak of Headley as a terrorist in cahoots with the ISI, and as a witness at the trial. No examination of the bigger questions has taken place. Among those in the independent media who have covered the story is the Corbett Report. </span></p><center><iframe src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/48Dvht_tx3I" allowfullscreen="" width="640" frameborder="0" height="390"></iframe></center><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span><p>I was interviewed for this report and offered my thoughts as to what the hidden agenda is and why there is a refusal to examine the Headley story. Of the possibilities I mentioned, I think an invasion of Pakistan is highly unlikely. It is a huge country with a large population, nuclear weapons and an entrenched military government. A regime change is more likely, as the US seem to be covertly supporting the 'Arab spring' uprising across the Middle East, but would be risky as there is no guarantee of the new government doing as it is told. I think the most likely motive is that this is a chancy move to get into bed with the Indian government, as an economic-military bulwark against China. The Chinese and Indians don't get along, as major regional powers tend not to, and India is a nuclear power with huge economic potential and a massive population. It could be turned into the next Asian 'economic miracle' and usefully provide a new buyer for Western debt.<span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">But the Indians aren't really buying it. The US Director of National Intelligence produced a report into the 'intelligence failure' over David Headley, and </span><a href="http://www.thehindu.com/news/international/article875931.ece"><span style="font-family:arial;">sent</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> a copy to Indian authorities, but they are still prying into the case and attempting their own prosecutions of Rana and Headley. Secretary of Internal Security U K Bansal said of the failure to convict Rana of involvement in the Mumbai attack:</span></p><blockquote><span style="font-family:arial;">I do not see it as a setback as our case (India) is still under investigation... Prosecution in India against Rana and his co-accused David Headley depends on our own investigations which is being done by Indian investigating agencies... In our handling of terrorism in India, we do not rely overtly on prosecution in other countries. We have to rely on our own strength - </span><a href="http://www.timesnow.tv/Rana-judgement-to-be-analysed-by-Indian-agencies/articleshow/4375560.cms"><span style="font-family:arial;">Times of India</span></a></blockquote><span style="font-family:arial;">Indeed, exactly what India have made of the failed Mumbai prosecution is a matter of some contention. There's a very provocative discussion of the issue on the defence.pk forum, </span><a href="http://www.defence.pk/forums/strategic-geopolitical-issues/113816-26-11-tahawwur-ranas-verdict-weakens-indias-case-against-isi.html"><span style="font-family:arial;">here</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">. However, what is for me the most important aspect of this case and the whole Headley story is just how much we know about it. In similar prior cases, Egyptian Islamic Jihad trainer/CIA, FBI and US Special Forces man Ali Mohamed pleaded guilty to training Al Qaeda and helping bomb the African embassies but was never publicly sentenced, and has now pulled a Keyser Soze and disappeared off the map. Mohammed Junaid Babar, the only man to have been held responsible in any way for the 7/7 attacks in London, served a little over 4 years in prison, and a couple of years on parole. Most of the court documents in his case remain sealed. </span><p><span style="font-family:arial;">Yet in the Headley case we have vast quantities of information at our fingertips. The Investigative Project have </span><a href="http://www.investigativeproject.org/case/354"><span style="font-family:arial;">a page</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> of court documents on the case, the Chicago Sun-Times have the Santiago </span><a href="http://www.suntimes.com/photos/galleries/5587711-417/david-headley-calls-terror-suspect-tahawwur-rana-his-closest-friend.html"><span style="font-family:arial;">proffer and response</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> for Rana, where the US government tried to make him a co-operator, IBNLive have a </span><a href="http://ibnlive.in.com/newstopics/Headley-Rana-documents.html"><span style="font-family:arial;">whole batch</span></a> of primary sources too. Much of this story is available to us for the cost of an internet connection and a few hours on a search engine. Despite this, very little qualitative analysis has taken place, and unless there's a diplomatic storm over India's attempts to prosecute Headley, this story will likely be forgotten, save for a lingering suspicion towards Pakistan. And maybe that's the point.<br></p><br /><div style="clear: both;"></div><br />Talkbouthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14408535183177475747noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5734121862980918017.post-36402489007604049192011-05-01T22:00:00.000-07:002013-10-24T11:51:02.908-07:00
Osama Bin Lazarus
<br />Osama Bin Laden is dead. Not exactly a new story, but now President Obama's telling it people are finally believing it is true. Bin Laden was reported dead in <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,41576,00.html">2001</a>, and then again in <a href="http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1538569,00.html">2006</a>, and then <a href="http://news.intelwire.com/2010/07/wikileaks-document-says-bin-laden-died.html">again</a> in 2007 (<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnychOXj9Tg&feature=related">twice</a>), as well as on a <a href="http://www.corbettreport.com/osama-bin-laden-pronounced-dead-for-the-ninth-time/">few other occasions</a>. Virtually nothing has been heard of him recently, with the media preferring to cover the likes of <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-11658920">Anwar Al-Awlaki</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Yahiye_Gadahn">Adam Gadahn</a> - both Americans. There are, of course, the usual doubts and theories as to who <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=enbaEX_7UwI">Awlaki</a> and <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsUtvOW6SR0">Gadahn</a> really <a href="http://redactednews.blogspot.com/2010/11/anwar-al-awlaki-invited-to-pentagon.html">work for</a> and what they represent. One story in particular has Awlaki dining at the Pentagon within months of 9/11:<br><center><p><iframe src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/6_hE2oJK8Oo" allowfullscreen="" width="480" frameborder="0" height="390"></iframe></p></center><p>You can read an extract from FBI documents on this story <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/projects/pdf/awlaki.pdf">here</a>. Awlaki was supposedly invited to dinner as part of an 'outreach program' to 'moderate Muslims', though I would guess that most people's memory of the immediate post-9/11 period was one where all Muslims were branded potential terrorists. As such, this excuse for Awlaki <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9Nm6qRFwBM&feature=related">going to dinner at the Pentagon</a> doesn't make much sense. </p><p>So, how did Osama Bin Laden die? The details aren't clear. He was apparently holed up in a 'compound' in Abbotabad, Pakistan and was tracked to there by US intelligence in the last few days. They launched a dual operation with Pakistani special forces, and somehow Bin Laden died. According to the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-13257330">BBC</a>, a strike team carried out a forty minute assault against the 'compound' and Bin Laden was shot during the fight. A different <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-13256676">BBC</a> story says he was 'shot in the head while resisting'. They note how:</p><p><blockquote>At some point in the operation one of the helicopters crashed, either from technical failure or having been hit by gunfire from the ground. - <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-13257330">BBC</a></blockquote><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-13257330"></a><p><p>So they don't tell us whose helicopter crashed, or when, or why. Remarkably, The Sun (a journalistic entity with far less reach and reputation than the BBC) were more certain:</p><p><blockquote>An American helicopter crashed during a brief firefight at the complex involving Navy Seal Team Six, an elite counter-terrorism unit, and bin Laden's body was carried away on foot. - <a href="http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/3558928/Osama-bin-Laden-dead.html">The Sun</a></blockquote><a href="http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/3558928/Osama-bin-Laden-dead.html"></a><p><p>This implies that in fact Bin Laden's body was in the helicopter when it went down, and was recovered and taken away. There are many other reports to this effect. The Chinese English language news service had different information:<br></p><blockquote><p>At about 1:20 a.m. local time a Pakistani helicopter was shot down by unknown people in the Sikandarabad area of Abbotabad. The Pakistani forces launched a search operation in the nearby area and encountered with a group of unknown armed people. A fire exchange followed between the two sides.<br><br>When the fire exchange ended, the Pakistani forces arrested some Arab women and kids as well some other armed people who later confessed to the Pakistani forces they were with Osama Bin laden when the fire was exchanged and Bin Laden was killed in the firing. - <a href="http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/world/2011-05/02/c_13854920.htm">Xinhuanet</a></p></blockquote><p>As per usual with these sorts of heavily-promoted events, the reporting is at best a bit sloppy and contradictory, and at worst a total sham. Was the helicopter Pakistani or American? Was it shot down early on, which then caused a search and rescue operation, or was it shot down during the firefight? Were forces drawn to the area by the helicopter crash or had they been <a href="http://www.onestopnewsstand.com/phoenix/mesa-made-apaches-used-in-bin-laden-raid">tipped off</a> by an informant? Was Bin Laden shot in the head while resisting, or was he killed as part of the lengthy firefight? Was it even Bin Laden? The BBC casts a bit of doubt citing the AP:</p><p><blockquote>It says CIA experts analysed whether it could be anyone else but they decided it was almost certainly Bin Laden. - <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-13257330">BBC</a></blockquote><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-13257330"></a><p><p>Only almost certain? But according to the <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/pakistan/8488004/Osama-Bin-Ladens-body-identified-by-sisters-brain.html">Telegraph</a> and others, Bin Laden was identified via DNA taken from his sister's brain (she died of brain cancer a few years ago). This does pose the question of how did they get a DNA match so quickly. Again, the officials have cast doubt on the evidence, according to ITN:</p><p><blockquote>US officials say that initial DNA results prove that al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden is dead.<br><br>The officials said the test showed a "very confident match" that it was bin Laden who was killed in the US special forces raid at a luxury compound in Abbotabad, Pakistan. - <a href="http://uk.news.yahoo.com/4/20110502/twl-obama-s-officials-confirm-bin-laden-41f21e0.html">ITN</a></blockquote>Indeed, we have only one decidedly dodgy picture of a dead Bin Laden, being widely used by the mainstream media as part of the story. See for yourself: <p><p> <img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 610px; height: 341px;" src="http://images.mirror.co.uk/upl/m4/may2011/7/8/is-the-bin-laden-picture-fake-140425382.jpg" alt="" border="0"> </p><p> <img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 392px; height: 263px;" src="http://cdn.chillnite.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/osama_dead-body_pic.jpg" alt="" border="0"></p><center><em>Note that in the first picture the major trauma is to 'Bin Laden's' left eye, whereas in the second picture the trauma is to his right eye.</em></center><p>The Defense Dept has apparently admitted that this picture is a photoshopped fake that has been around for a while. A <a href="http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/willheaven/100085835/why-that-photo-of-a-dead-osama-bin-laden-is-almost-certainly-a-photoshopped-fake/">Telegraph</a> article confirms this, <a href="http://i51.tinypic.com/kd7fv6.jpg">linking</a> to a composite of the images used to fake the Bin Laden image above. </p><p>Casting further doubt, it has been unanimously reported that the US dumped Bin Laden's body at sea, <a href="http://www.jihadwatch.org/2011/05/us-ensures-that-bin-ladens-body-handled-in-accord-with-islamic-tradition.html">supposedly</a> in accordance with Islamic rites requiring burial of the dead within 24 hours. This seems to be a ridiculous decision. Islamic scholars are already saying that a burial at sea is a <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/world/2011/05/02/islamic-scholars-question-bin-ladens-sea-burial-1416556677/">violation of Islamic practices</a>, and if Bin Laden was the mass murderer they claim then why pay him such respect? After all, this is a man they admit to summarily executing without any sort of trial whatsoever. The decision to dump the body makes much more sense if this whole thing is a deception operation of some kind, as there would be a need for a cover-up. </p><p>The media also unanimously referred to the location of the firefight as a 'compound'. The video of the building suggests otherwise:<br></p><center><iframe src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/UmAdJiVvB_U" allowfullscreen="" width="640" frameborder="0" height="390"></iframe></center><p>It appears to be nothing more significant than a large house with a wall running round the outside, not unlike many wealthy peoples' houses. </p><p> <img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 468px; height: 376px;" src="http://www.treehugger.com/buckingham-palace.jpg" alt="" border="0"></p><center><em>British Royal Family Compound, London</em></center> <p>The word also has echoes of the state-sanctioned murder of the Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas, in February 1993.<br></p><center><iframe src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/QIUec0mYEMU" allowfullscreen="" width="480" frameborder="0" height="390"></iframe></center><br><p>As noted in this documentary, the use of the word 'compound' helped militarise the situation, making the state's massacre seem more justified. The celebratory speech by Barack Obama admitted that:</p><p><blockquote>A small team of Americans carried out the operation with extraordinary courage and capability. No Americans were harmed. They took care to avoid civilian casualties. <strong>After a firefight, they killed Osama bin Laden</strong> and took custody of his body. - <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/02/barack-obama-statement-bin-laden">Obama Speech in Full</a></blockquote>Despite admitting to extra-judicial murder, and in a foreign sovereign state no less, he claimed:<p><p><blockquote>On nights like this one, we can say to those families who have lost loved ones to al-Qaida's terror: Justice has been done. - <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/02/barack-obama-statement-bin-laden">Obama</a></blockquote><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/02/barack-obama-statement-bin-laden"></a><p><p>It is worth watching Obama's speech, embedded below, alongside Paul Bremer's 'we got him' moment when the US said they caught Saddam Hussein, and Bush's speech on the same.<br></p><center><iframe src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/M_UqenH_ynU" allowfullscreen="" width="640" frameborder="0" height="390"></iframe><br><p><br><iframe src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/S02BHmWPZNs" allowfullscreen="" width="480" frameborder="0" height="390"></iframe><br></p><p><br><iframe src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/aKajq6vBFgc" allowfullscreen="" width="480" frameborder="0" height="390"></iframe></p></center><p>Notice the difference in management styles - the Neocons openly vainglorious and self-congratulatory, the Neolib Obama deferential and authoritarian. As appears to be the Modus Operandi of the Obama military PR strategy, here the celebrating was done by apparently ordinary people. </p><p>Just as in the 'Twitter revolutions', it was the <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2011/TECH/social.media/05/02/osama.twitter.reports/index.html">microblogging site</a> that first broke the news of the assault on the house in Abbotabad. You can read the tweet about a helicopter hovering overhead <a href="http://twitter.com/#%21/ReallyVirtual/status/64780730286358528">here</a>. Citizen journalism, or planted information? You decide. Within minutes of the news reaching America there were hundreds of citizens demonstrating in New York and Washington, at the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdc2EuuVJCI">former site of the WTC</a> and outside the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5lf2lOk2pY">White House</a>. In each case the crowds were large enough to make for good TV, but not so large that they were too obviously a rent-a-mob. Whether these were spontaneous demonstrations or not, they helped ensure the feelgood factor.<br></p><p>As did the details from Obama that there were no civilian casualties, and no US military casualties, in the forty minute firefight. This only begs further questions. If it was that easy, why did the firefight last for forty minutes? If they didn't kill anyone at that stage, including Bin Laden, who were they shooting at for nearly three quarters of an hour? If there were others around, protecting Bin Laden, then what happened to them? Did they just decide to give up? Did they run out of ammunition? Were they also killed and this was studiously unreported? If it sounds too good to be true then it's probably horseshit. From a PR point of view, this couldn't have gone any better. If they are capable of fomenting 'spontaneous' uprisings in the Middle East then they're more than capable of doing it in the comfort of home. </p><p>Nonetheless, they haven't pushed the good news too hard, as the story has come with rumours of revenge attacks by Islamists and another round of hyping the terror threat. British PM David Cameron gave a much briefer statement than Obama, and almost exclusively focused on the 'negative vibe' of the possibility of terrorist reprisals, and the victims of the wave of terrorism supposedly inspired and directed by Bin Laden. </p><center><iframe src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/P1HwNMMUv1c" allowfullscreen="" width="640" frameborder="0" height="390"></iframe></center><p>So what is going on here? Is this all just electioneering PR to give a boost to a vastly unpopular president? This is without doubt the finest point of Obama's administration so far. It also comes only days after the defense reshuffle that saw head of US forces in Afghanistan David Petraeus (a man predicted to run against Obama in 2012) moved over to head the CIA, and Leon Panetta move to replace the retiring Bob Gates as Secretary of Defense. Was this a move to placate Petraeus and give a boost to US defense policy? One must wonder, of course, at why Obama would choose this week of all weeks to make such big changes in the leadership of key institutions, when the US was supposedly involved in its most important covert operation for decades.<br></p><p>There may be more at stake. The execution of a public hate figure is a popular but illegal move, and it is only due to its popularity that its illegality is largely overlooked. We saw this only hours before the Bin Laden news came in, with word that NATO strikes against Libya had resulted in the deaths of one of Col Gaddafi's sons and <a href="http://www.ndtv.com/video/player/news/gaddafi-s-son-killed-in-nato-airstrike/198269">three pre-teen grandchildren</a>. This was not just the extra-judicial assassination of a terrorist, but the premeditated murder of innocent people in the name of 'protecting civilians'. Opposition to the Libya 'intervention' has been swift, cutting and on a large scale, and then along came the biggest victory, at least in terms of public perception, that the Western powers could ask for. So, was this news a vain attempt to curry favour with a disillusioned public, so as to shore up a failed, corrupt foreign policy?</p><p>There is a yet wider possibility. Since at least 1979 the NATO pact have been encouraging, financing, training and facilitating militant Islam as a force of destabilisation and mercenary terrorism. While groups like Al Qaeda have overtly been targeted as a designated enemy, they have covertly been prodded and manipulated in the furtherance of geostrategic goals. It appears with the Libya intervention that this process is being accelerated, and more openly admitted to. 'Revelation of the method', perhaps. Early on in the Obama administration the term 'war on terror' was <a href="http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2009/nov/11/sean-hannity/hannity-says-obama-wont-even-use-term-war-terroris/">dropped</a> in favour of phrases like 'the struggle with violent extremism' - a much broader concept, even harder to define. This struggle has so far taken the form of increased special forces operations (death squads), increased drone strikes against terrorist bases (murder of civilians) and now the decapitation of the major enemy network. </p><p>In fact, even the notion of Al Qaeda as a network has been dropped, it is now a '<a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-13257441">franchise</a>' or just an '<a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/may/02/osama-bin-laden-future-of-al-qaida">ideology</a>'. Perhaps the controlled demolition of Osama Bin Laden is a key step in the redrawing of the lines of sight in this battle. After all, if there's no Bin Laden and Al Qaeda is a decentralised loose-knit bunch of crazy Muslims, then it is a lot easier to justify sponsoring this or that particular group of crazy Muslims for this or that particular goal. As the double deal that is the war on terror becomes ever more apparent to an ever largening number of people, simple denial won't wash. By redefining the enemy as less a paramilitary entity - Al Qaeda - with a general - Bin Laden, and more as an ideological confluence led by Awlaki and the like, the double deal becomes more palatable and acceptable. </p><p>Recall the words of Graham Fuller, former National Intelligence Council member:</p><p><blockquote>The policy of guiding the evolution of Islam and of helping them against our adversaries worked marvelously well in Afghanistan against [the Russians]. The same doctrines can still be used to destabilize what remains of Russian power, and especially to counter the Chinese influence in Central Asia. - <a href="http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?entity=graham_fuller">Fuller</a></blockquote><a href="http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?entity=graham_fuller"></a><p><p>With the great Muslim bogeyman now officially out of the way, this policy can be more fully endorsed and enacted. Consider that the lines between 'us' and 'them' are now so blurred that various newscasts accidentally reported that in fact Obama, not Osama, had been killed.<br></p><center><iframe src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/AUFWaYQk6Mg" allowfullscreen="" width="480" frameborder="0" height="390"></iframe></center><br /><div style="clear: both;"></div><br />Talkbouthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14408535183177475747noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5734121862980918017.post-77999881740144255952011-04-24T22:00:00.000-07:002013-10-24T11:51:02.901-07:00
7/7: Une Question
<br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Progress is being made on a followup film to <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6Vfnn3YZXw">7/7: Seeds of Deconstruction</a> and among the discoveries that will be detailed in the sequel is the fact that July 7th 2005 was not the first time London had suffered a suicide bombing. To many people familiar with the 7/7 issues this may seem like it is a point that has already been made. As we know, within days of the explosions the police had already identified the supposed culprits and were describing the attacks as suicide bombings. This BBC report from the 12th July 2005 sums it up:</span><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span><center><p><iframe title="YouTube video player" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/-Ff6YMTUt4A" allowfullscreen="" width="480" frameborder="0" height="390"></iframe></p><p align="left"><span style="font-family:arial;">Police knowing whodunnit? Check. Suicide bombers? Check. Encouraging of Racial/Cultural/Religious disharmony? Check. Tedious Muslim analyst cowing to the media, being all apologetic, and failing to talk about the real q</span><span style="font-family:arial;">uestions? Check. The piece even says that this was the first suicide bombing in Western Europe, thus making the attacks a categorical game-changer or paradigm-shifter, and of course presuming the West vs Islam Clash of Civilisations idea. Indeed, if you're looking for a 4 minute summary of everything that's wrong about how the conversation on 7/7 progressed, this little video has it all.</span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span></p><p align="left"><span style="font-family:arial;">But hang on a minute. A little over a year before 7/7 we had the Atocha bombings in Madrid, carried out by a bunch of crackpot Islaminformantists, killing nearly 200 people. On the 11th of March 2004 they attacked the Madrid public transport system early in the morning - in many ways identical to the 7/7 bombings. A few weeks later, so we're told, several of the suspects </span><a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2004/04/03/spain_blast040403.html"><span style="font-family:arial;">blew themselves up</span></a> when cornered by the authorit<span style="font-family:arial;">ies, killing themselves and one special forces agent and wounding about a dozen other police. So, presuming that time didn't go backwards between April 2004 and July 2005, then the April 2004 incident was Western Europe's first suicide bombing? Right?</span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span></p><p align="left"><span style="font-family:arial;">Wrong. The first suicide bombing took place over a century earlier, in 1894. In the period 1870-1930 the Western world fought a 'war on terror' against the first red menace - the radical and/or militant aspects of the labour movement, communism and anarchism. The anarchists in particular seemed to like bombing stuff - indeed, the first fatal bombing on the London underground was the work of anarchists, though it seems at the time they blamed the Irish. But their violence was in many ways the product of infiltrators and provocateurs. The head of the Russian secret police in Paris, </span><a href="http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/the_tls/article7160343.ece"><span style="font-family:arial;">Peter Rachkovsky</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">, and senior members of the </span><a href="http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/book_reviews/article7059346.ece"><span style="font-family:arial;">British Special Branch</span></a> ran numerous double agents.<span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span></p><p align="left">As with so many other stories of this kind throughout history, this process did not only produce violence including the death of random citizens, it also produced some woeful miscarriages of justice. The way justice systems deal with the fallout from covert operations will be the main underlying topic of the sequel to 7/7: Seeds of Deconstruction but the best example from the Victorian period is that of the Walsall Anarchists. They were six men arrested in 1892 who were accused of manufacturing bombs and running a bomb factory. Four were convicted and received sentences of up to ten years in prison.<span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span></p><p align="left"><span style="font-family:arial;">The whole thing was a set up. The key evidence at the trial were letters from members of the group to an police provocateur called Auguste Coulon. Coulon was an unemployed dreamer who was obsessed with dynamite and explosions who was recruited by Special Branch man William Melville. Melville went on to head up the forerunner to MI5. The letter included diagrams of possible bomb cases that Coulon provided advice on and encouraged the group to make. They never actually made any cases, though that didn't stop the police making some to be used as evidence at the trial. The judge supported the detectives who testified at the trial when they refused to answer any questions about Coulon, who of course was never arrested and got paid a large sum of money for his role in the plot. A nice summary of the case can be downloaded </span><a href="http://www.walsall.gov.uk/the_walsall_anarchist_bomb_plot.pdf"><span style="font-family:arial;">here</span></a>, in the form of a fact sheet provided by the museum of Walsall.<span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span></p><p align="left">A couple of years later, in February 1894, a young French anarchist called Martial Bourdin blew himself up in Greenwich Park, not far from the Royal Observatory. The explosion blasted off one of his hands and caused a large injury to his stomach but he was found moments after, still alive. He was taken to hospital and died about half an hour later. So what the hell was Bourdin doing? Various theories have been put forward. One is that the anarchists were targeting the Observatory, which the global meridian line runs through. As a symbol of modernity and global organisation, two things anarchists didn't like very much, it isn't a bad target. This became the basis for Joseph Conrad's fictional adaptation of the Bourdin story in his book The Secret Agent.<span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span></p><p align="left"><span style="font-family:arial;">According to this version, Bourdin's brother-in-law HB Samuels, who was then-editor of the anarchist journal The Commonweal, gave the bomb to Bourdin so that he could go and throw it at the Observatory. Bourdin presumably tripped up or had some other accident and so the bomb went off prematurely, killing him. Another similar intepretation is that Bourdin was supposed to be delivering the bomb to other anarchists who were to use it overseas, perhaps in France or Russia, and again that Bourdin died in an accident. This account was put forward by Patrick McIntyre, another Special Branch officer who had fallen out with Melville over his role in setting up the Walsall Anarchists. McIntyre found himself demoted for his protests, so he quit the police and published his memoirs in the newspaper, blowing the whistle on the infiltration operations. </span><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span></p><p align="left"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">When writing about Auguste Coulon he commented:</span></span><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 144px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-T7ORkm7U6gY/TbVzUC1VcJI/AAAAAAAAAGw/MHBr4cF3Rpw/s400/mcintyre%2Bcoulon%2Bquote.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5599508499900231826" border="0"><span style="font-family:arial;">This same description could of course be applied to numerous such provocateurs. On the basis of what informants had told him, McIntyre offered this summary of the Bourdin plot:</span><span style=""><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span></span></p><p align="left"><span style="font-family:arial;"> </span><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 368px; height: 400px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-IuJK0Qwsrio/TbV1NoVV5eI/AAAAAAAAAG4/ZAlFINUDIzI/s400/mcintyre%2Bbourdin%2Bplot.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5599510588730762722" border="0"></p></center><span style="font-family:arial;">A further alternative is that Bourdin did not know he was even carrying a bomb and thought he was delivering something else. This is the interpretation/adaptation of the story that appears in Alfred Hitchcock's film version </span><a href="http://stagevu.com/video/yzwsaffoyois"><span style="font-family:arial;">Sabotage</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">. </span><center><p><iframe title="YouTube video player" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/3eBLqU6PcBU" allowfullscreen="" width="480" frameborder="0" height="390"></iframe></p></center><p><span style="font-family:arial;">A yet further version is that Samuels set up Bourdin in a sting operation and that police were waiting nearby to arrest Bourdin in possession of a bomb. This is suggested by a contemporary </span><a href="http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F00D1EFD345D15738DDDAF0994DA405B8485F0D3"><span style="font-family:arial;">NY Times</span></a> article that details how police had seen Bourdin and another man leaving a house near the Autonomie Club (the London anarchist hub) earlier in the day.<span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;"> </span><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 183px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-gxN1y3LRw9s/TbV7VIucAuI/AAAAAAAAAHA/jnKTGPv0Zb4/s400/NY%2Btimes%2Bbourdin%2Bunder%2Bsurveillance.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5599517314754806498" border="0"><span style="font-family:arial;">So, what happened? For even more on the problems with the Bourdin story I recommend </span><a href="http://rmmla.wsu.edu/ereview/54.2/articles/mulry.asp"><span style="font-family:arial;">this</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> paper, but there is some key information largely overlooked by the existing discussion. For one, confirming suspicion at the time, Bourdin's brother-in-law </span><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/mar/27/world-never-was-alex-butterworth"><span style="font-family:arial;">HB Samuels</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> was an associate of Auguste Coulon and a police agent of some kind. Author Alex Butterworth used the FOIA to obtain a copy of a police ledger of informants that substantiates not only McIntyre's claims but many more. </span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">Perhaps more importantly, there was political pressure for Bourdin's death to be ruled a suicide. From </span><a href="http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1894/feb/20/the-anarchist-bourdin"><span style="font-family:arial;">Hansard</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">, the only mention of Bourdin is from Charles Darling (the 1st Baron Darling) who said:</span></p><blockquote><span style="font-family:arial;">MR DARLING: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department a question of which I have given him private notice. It is whether his attention has been called to the statement that the coroner for Greenwich has been asked to deliver up the body of Martial Bourdin, and that the Anarchists of London propose to make it the occasion of a public funeral; whether there is not reason to suppose that Martial Bourdin came by his death in the course of a felonious act; and whether his own death, resulting from this, would not properly be found to be felo de se? In that case, does not the law provide for the disposal of the body? I wish further to ask whether the right hon. Gentleman will interfere in this matter, having regard to the action which the French Government found it necessary to take in the case of the Anarchist Vaillant?</span></blockquote><p><span style="font-family:arial;">The reason was that at the time suicide was still a crime (felo de se, to be a felon against oneself, a self-murderer). If Bourdin's death were ruled a suicide then the State could confiscate his possessions and decide how to dispose of his body. Darling was concerned that a public funeral for Bourdin would provide a means for public demonstration by anarchists, hence he wanted the Home Secretary to 'interfere in this matter'. In the event, the Home Secretary refused the request, saying:</span></p><blockquote>MR. ASQUITH: That would certainly be a most extraordinary proceeding, considering that the jury have not yet found a verdict of felo de se. I do not know whether the hon. Member proposes that either I or the coroner should keep the body above ground until the jury has found a verdict.<span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span>MR. DARLING: Yes.<span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span><span style="font-family:arial;">MR. ASQUITH: I certainly decline to do anything of the kind.</span></blockquote><span style="font-family:arial;">The funeral took place a few days later, and there was a large demonstration by anarchists who clashed with police. The New York Times </span><a href="http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=950DE4DA1F39E033A25757C2A9649C94659ED7CF"><span style="font-family:arial;">reported</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> that when one senior anarchist tried to deliver an oration when Bourdin's coffin was being lowered, he was seized by police and removed from the cemetery. </span><p><span style="font-family:arial;"> </span><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 375px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-T9XoyGjHuRc/TbWHasfWD-I/AAAAAAAAAHI/hwnCgvZ16oc/s400/NY%2BTimes%2Bbourdin%2Bfuneral.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5599530604394057698" border="0"></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">So what was the inquest verdict? From </span><a href="http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/printArticlePdf/13279158/3?print=n"><span style="font-family:arial;">The Mercury</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">:</span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;"> </span><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 325px; height: 321px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-gRv9DHXMvrc/TbWIbQHmBTI/AAAAAAAAAHQ/x4SvYG-AW04/s400/the%2Bmercury%2Bbourdin%2Binquest%2Bsuicide.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5599531713469744434" border="0"><span style="font-family:arial;">Despite virtually no evidence showing that Bourdin had any intention of dying (and large amounts of money in his pockets suggesting he actively intended to live), the verdict was suicide. That's right, over a hundred years ago Britain suffered its first suicide bombing. Bizarrely, historian David Rooney denied this, saying in a </span><a href="http://www.nmm.ac.uk/explore/podcasts/ontheline/2009/03/david-rooney-talks-about-the-g.html"><span style="font-family:arial;">2009 podcast</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> that 'It wasn't a suicide bomb, it had gone off by mistake'. One wonders if he would have said that before 7/7, or whether he is actually aware of the inquest verdict in Bourdin's case. </span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">So, we have a supposedly radical movement heavily infiltrated by provocateurs and spies. We have a man in London blown to pieces by a bomb, who never explained what had happened and died shortly after the explosion. We have political pressure for a verdict of suicide that is born out at the inquest, and we have widespread ignorance/denial from both academics and the mainstream media. Even though Bourdin almost certainly did not intend to kill himself, by the official record he was Europe's first terrorist suicide bomber. </span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">There is one other possibility, not explored above. Bourdin could have been what the IRA called a 'human bomb' or 'proxy bomb'. Typically, a man's family would be kidnapped and he would be threated with their torture or death and be forced to drive a car-bomb into a military checkpoint or other installation. Along with the 'real' suicide bomber there is the 'unwitting' suicide bomber and the 'unintentional' suicide bomber and the 'unwilling' suicide bomber. To the naked eye, after the explosion, it is virtually impossible to tell the difference which has occurred. Yet, as the video at the top of this article shows, it was only a matter of days before the police had decided not only who was responsible for 7/7, but that it was Britain's 'first' (to the very forgetful/ignorant) suicide bombing. We have to wonder: did they even consider any other possibility? </span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">In a couple of weeks we will have the verdict from the inquests into the 52 certain victims of the 7/7 bombings, at which point Lady Justice Hallett will decide whether to hold inquests in the deaths of the four alleged bombers. </span><span style="font-family:arial;">The J7 group <a href="http://77inquests.blogspot.com/2011/03/j7-submission-for-resumption-of.html">posted</a> a lengthy explanation of the reason why inquests into the four should take place, indeed, must take place. They submitted the same to Hallett, who now has no excuses for deciding against holding them. If the last few months are anything to go by then what we'll get is more gameshow-style inquests where everyone in the audience knows what the answer is but for some reason none of the contestants, I mean witnesses and evidence, seem to be able to remember it.</span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">To finish this time, another little extract from McIntyre's memoirs. He was a very early whistleblower into this sort of police/security service corruption, and therefore is of far more historical significance than he is recognised as being. This is his impression of the actual spirit of the anarchists and the danger they posed (or rather, didn't pose): </span><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 220px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-xwngD7QHGoM/TbWPYuI9GKI/AAAAAAAAAHY/astmls_KK-o/s400/mcintyre%2Banarchists%2Bpeaceful.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5599539366570301602" border="0"></p><br /><div style="clear: both;"></div><br />Talkbouthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14408535183177475747noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5734121862980918017.post-29825944466042291302011-03-24T22:00:00.000-07:002013-10-24T11:51:02.891-07:00
7/7: Our Quest
<br /><span style="font-family:arial;">The Inquests into the July 7th 2005 London bombings are drawing to a close, with a verdict due in several weeks, on <a href="http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/latest/2011/03/23/date-for-july-7-inquest-verdicts-115875-23009925/">May 6th</a>. As expected and predicted, very few of the abundant questions about 7/7 have been answered, and plenty of new questions have emerged. It is now clear that an already patchy official narrative has worn away so that there are only a few strands left, and most of them are incidental. The July 7th Truth Campaign, Bridget in particular, have done absolutely sterling work covering the Inquests. Sadly, very few of the most popular independent news outlets have followed suit. The Corbett Report is an exception, and praise must go to it for this. The recent podcast <a href="http://www.corbettreport.com/episode-178-77-is-still-the-issue/">7/7 Is Still the Issue</a> is a great listen, though I would say that because I'm featured in it. <p>More analysis and commentary will follow, but for now we should look at the ways in which the evidence presented at the 7/7 Inquests contradicts rather than supports the <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/11_05_06_narrative.pdf">Home Office narrative</a>. Despite assurances from habitual liar and war criminal Tony Blair that 'people want to know exactly what happened, and we will make sure that they do' the narrative does concede that 'The account is not yet the full picture.' No shit. The first problem concerns the four alleged bombers' movements on the morning of 7/7. With the <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/5170708.stm">admission back in 2006</a> that the account was in error over the Luton train time, this has been a focus of the 7/7 sceptics for a long time. The Inquests haven't helped clear this up.</p><p>The original narrative told the story that:</p><blockquote>07.15: Lindsay, Hussain, Tanweer and Khan enter Luton station and go through the ticket barriers together. It is not known where they bought their tickets or what sort of tickets they possessed, but they must have had some to get on to the platform.</blockquote><span style="font-family:arial;">Before going on to say that:</span><blockquote><span style="font-family:arial;">07.40: The London King’s Cross train leaves Luton station. There are conflicting accounts of their behaviour on the train. Some witnesses report noisy conversations, another believes he saw 2 of them standing silently by a set of train doors. The 4 stood out a bit from usual commuters due to their luggage and casual clothes, but not enough to cause suspicion. This was the beginning of the summer tourist period and Luton Station serves Luton Airport.</span></blockquote><span style="font-family:arial;">At that time, the only CCTV image of the four at Luton was this one:</span><p><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 630px; height: 430px;" src="http://www.independent.co.uk/multimedia/archive/00471/7_7_471396a.jpg" alt="" border="0"></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">As anyone can see, this picture shows the men entering the station at just shy of 7:22, not at 7:15 as the narrative originally claimed. We also know that no train left Luton at 7:40 that morning. This led to former Home Secretary John Reid admitting the narrative was in error, and to the goverment publishing an update to the report. If we include the </span><a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/34873973/2008-08-10-Amendment-to-the-Report-of-the-Official-Account-of-the-Bombings-in-London-on-7th-July-2005-HC-1087-Session-2005-2006-ISBN-0-10-293774-5"><span style="font-family:arial;">2008 amendment</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> to the official narrative, the story of the movements of the four alleged bombers at Luton station now reads as follows:</span></p><blockquote><p><span style="font-family:arial;">05.07: A red Fiat Brava arrives at Luton station car park. Jermaine Lindsay is alone in this car. During the 90 minutes or so before the others arrive, Lindsay gets out and walks around, enters the station, looks up at the departure board, comes out, moves the car a couple of times. There are a handful of other cars in the car park. A few more arrive during this period.</span></p></blockquote><blockquote><p>06.49: The Micra arrives at Luton and parks next to the Brava. The 4 men get out of their respective cars, look in the boots of both, and appear to move items between them. They each put on rucksacks which CCTV shows are large and full. The 4 are described as looking as if<span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span>they were going on a camping holiday. One car contained explosive devices of a different and smaller kind from those in the rucksacks. It is not clear what they were for, but they<span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span>may have been for self-defence or diversion in case of interception during the journey given their size; that they were in the car rather than the boot; and that they were left behind. Also left in the Micra were other items consistent with the use of explosives. A 9mm handgun was also found in the Brava. The Micra had a day parking ticket in the window, perhaps to avoid attention, the Brava did not.<span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">07.14: Lindsay walks through the entrance foyer of the station, walks to the ticket hall and appears to check the departure board. Lindsay then walks back out of the station to rejoin Tanweer, Khan and Hussain at the rear of their vehicles. The 4 then put on their rucksacks and walk towards the station. They enter Luton station and go through the ticket barriers together. It is not known where they bought their tickets or what sort of tickets they possessed, but they must have had some to get on to the platform.</span></p><p>07.21: The 4 are caught on CCTV together heading to the platform for the King’s Cross Thameslink train. They are casually dressed, apparently relaxed. Tanweer’s posture and the way he pulls the rucksack on to his shoulder as he walks, suggests he finds it heavy. It is estimated that in each rucksack was 2-5 kg of high explosive. Tanweer is now wearing dark tracksuit bottoms. There is no explanation for this change at present.<span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">07.25: The London King’s Cross train leaves Luton station. There are conflicting accounts of their behaviour on the train. Some witnesses report noisy conversations, another believes he saw 2 of them standing silently by a set of train doors. The 4 stood out a bit from usual commuters due to their luggage and casual clothes, but not enough to cause suspicion. This was the beginning of the summer tourist period and Luton Station serves Luton Airport. - </span><a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/11_05_06_narrative.pdf"><span style="font-family:arial;">Home Office narrative account, amended</span></a></p></blockquote><p><span style="font-family:arial;">The amended narrative doesn't explicitly say when the four entered the station together, thus avoiding the issue. At the trial where the Luton station CCTV footage was first shown the prosecutors explained that the timecodes on the videos were wrong. Taking the time from the original narrative (the four entering at 7:15 when the frame shows nearly 7:22) we get a discrepancy of around 7 minutes, from the amended narrative it is unclear what the discrepancy is. The obvious question is how well does the CCTV match up to this timeline of events? The original version of the Luton CCTV was initially downloadable from the Met Police's website but not anymore, and then it was available to view on Channel 4's website, but </span><a href="http://www.channel4.com/search/?q=theseus+cctv"><span style="font-family:arial;">not anymore</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">. You can of course view the footage in its entirety via the </span><a href="http://vimeo.com/13184562"><span style="font-family:arial;">J7 Truth Campaign on Vimeo</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">, and it isembedded below. </span></p><center><iframe src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/13184562" width="400" frameborder="0" height="320"></iframe></center><p><span style="font-family:arial;">That version has many of the timecodes blurred out whereas the version show at the Inquests shows the timecode of every frame. You can watch the new CCTV below: </span></p><center><iframe title="YouTube video player" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/sKP7svXoFOo" allowfullscreen="" width="480" frameborder="0" height="390"></iframe></center><p><span style="font-family:arial;">Regardless, from all versions of the CCTV it appears that every one of the cameras at Luton station were showing incorrect times. The section showing continuous activity (alleged bombers putting on rucksacks in car park, walking into station, walking to platform and getting on the train) show continuous and consistent timecodes from camera to camera. This would also make sense in a large building with a centralised CCTV system on one recorder which 'stamps' the frames of video with the same timecode. Why a train station, so reliant on accurate timing, would have a CCTV camera system showing a time as much as 7 minutes fast, without correcting it, is a bit of a mystery. </span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">Taking the narrative point by point, at 5:07 Lindsay arrived. Both the old and the new CCTV has a timecode, but the new frames have helpful arrows to ensure you don't miss the riveting action. </span></p><p><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-h8onGWHHc1M/TYykGorD_wI/AAAAAAAAAEo/yHyZruLHeoA/s400/vlcsnap-2011-03-25-13h28m45s250.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5588021671564148482" border="0"><span style="font-family:arial;">The image does show Lindsay arriving at 5:07, but if this camera is on the same system (which it appears to be given the designation 'camera 24') then this timecode is up to 7 minutes fast, so the time could actually be as early as 5:00 a.m. on the hour. The other three alleged bombers, according to the narrative, arrived at 6:49, presumably having left Lindsay sat around for nearly two hours so he could get some last minute praying done, or maybe an early morning crossword. The CCTV from 'camera 26' shows their arrival happening at 6:52, three minutes later than the narrative states. </span><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-eDVmylN29h0/TYytm2aKulI/AAAAAAAAAEw/hDlT2OOQeeI/s400/vlcsnap-2011-03-25-14h17m11s158.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5588032120611846738" border="0"><span style="font-family:arial;">So, is the discrepancy 7 minutes or 3 minutes? Comparing the CCTV timecodes to the original and amended narratives either option is plausible. There has also been some suspiciously heavy handed editing going on. The original CCTV from Luton stops at 6:50:11 and begins again 6:51:39. It also cuts out at 6:52:38 and starts again at 6:53:54. As noted by the July 7th Truth Campaign blog, this rather obvious editing appears to be a means of covering up a </span><a href="http://77inquests.blogspot.com/2010/10/curious-case-of-jag-that-parked-in.html"><span style="font-family:arial;">suspicious Jaguar</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> in Luton station car park at the same time as the alleged bombers on both 7/7 and on 28/6, during the so called 'dummy run'. </span></p><p>The director's cut shown at the inquests includes these ommissions and also stops at 6:54:17 and begins again at 7:15:40, as though the footage covering those 20 minutes does not exist. Thus, if one were only aware of the evidence presented at the Inquests, the amended section of the narrative describing Lindsey going into the station and looking at the departure board at around 7:14 never actually happened. The original cut of the CCTV does show this, but shows it happening at 7:14, providing no discrepancy with the narrative. How could the cameras be 3 minutes fast and hence show the 6:49 arrival taking place at 6:52, but be on time at 7:14 to show Lindsay entering the station at that time? Did they cut this sequence out of the Inquests CCTV footage to try to cover up the mistake/deceit of saying the timecodes were wrong at the same time as saying the timecodes were right?<span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span></p><p>The original narrative, in a section unchanged by the amendment, says that at 7:21 the four were 'caught on CCTV together heading to the platform for the King’s Cross Thameslink train.' However, the timecoded frames show them entering the station just before 7:22, and so by the timecode they are not and could not have been pictured walking towards the platform at 7:21. They arrive on the platform at, by the timecode, 7:23:30.<span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span></p><p><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Rg0REG9IFRw/TYy2EDHoXDI/AAAAAAAAAE4/ihXVHFJNaE4/s400/vlcsnap-2011-03-25-13h11m28s224.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5588041418332986418" border="0"><span style="font-family:arial;">Hence, even if we adjust the timecodes in accordance with previous discrepancies, the four still could not have been pictured heading towards the platform at 7:21. If the clock is three minutes fast then they arrived on the platform by 7:20. If the clock is 7 minutes fast then they arrived on the platform by 7:16. Either way, they could not have got to the platform before being captured heading towards the platform, and so they could not have been heading towards the platform at 7:21. </span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">The CCTV shows the four men then waiting for a few minutes for the train to arrive, which it does so at 7:24:21, before departing at 7:25:36. </span></p><p><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-urGcZzbEYHA/TYy27l159OI/AAAAAAAAAFA/PUqa1RJVj5w/s400/vlcsnap-2011-03-25-13h25m39s153.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5588042372546688226" border="0"></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">This poses huge problems for the narrative, whichever version one reads. Originally the four were said to have taken the 7:40 train, when the police had CCTV showing the four catching a train at 7:24 to 7:25. Then the Home Office published their amendment saying the four caught the 7:25 train, but officials have since claimed that the times on the CCTV at Luton are wrong. Again, if the timecode is 3 minutes fast then the train left at 7:22, and if it is 7 minutes fast then the train left at 7:18. In reality, the train left at 7:25, suggesting that there was in fact no problem with the CCTV timecodes from Luton. </span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">The next major problem is the evidence concerning the four men's presence at the four (admitted) explosion sites. The CCTV at Kings Cross was supposedly </span><a href="http://77inquests.blogspot.com/2010/10/final-curtain-cctv-rich-to-cctv-fail.html"><span style="font-family:arial;">not working</span></a> for the exact 20 minute period when the four should have been moving through the station to catch the tube trains they allegedly bombed. Likewise, though the Inquests showed abundant exterior CCTV footage of the number 91 and number 30 bus Hasib Hussain supposedly caught and bombed, respectively, there was no CCTV from inside either bus. So, there isn't a single image showing the four accused heading towards the trains/bus, getting on the trains/bus, or riding on the trains/bus. We are left with the reports of the physical evidence at the scenes after the explosions had happened.<span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">With regard to this the Home Office narrative says that at 8:50:</span></p><blockquote><p>CCTV images show the platform at Liverpool Street with the eastbound Circle Line train alongside seconds before it is blown up. Shehzad Tanweer is not visible, but he must have been in the second carriage from the front. The images show commuters rushing to get on the train and a busy platform. Some get on, some just miss it. The train pulls out of the station. Seconds later smoke billows from the tunnel. There is shock and confusion on the platform as people<span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span>make for the exits.<span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">Forensic evidence suggests that Tanweer was sitting towards the back of the second carriage with the rucksack next to him on the floor. The blast killed 8 people, including Tanweer, with 171 injured. - </span><a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/11_05_06_narrative.pdf"><span style="font-family:arial;">Home Office narrative</span></a></p></blockquote><p><span style="font-family:arial;">There are several problems with this. Firstly, the description of where Tanweer was on the train says he was 'sitting towards the back of the second carriage with the rucksack next to him on the floor.' However, when the </span><a href="http://vodpod.com/watch/2691535-bbc-the-editors-the-conspiracy-files-77"><span style="font-family:arial;">BBC Conspiracy Files show</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> interviewed a witness from inside the Aldgate train carriage, </span><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OcwOUJNQ_2w"><span style="font-family:arial;">Bruce Lait</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">, he told them that the hole he saw in the floor of the carriage was in the standing area between rows of seats. </span></p><p><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-UfwzqJ4RxHQ/TYzGrUXFjSI/AAAAAAAAAFI/E-blNp--MEM/s400/vlcsnap-2011-03-25-16h43m49s8.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5588059685162159394" border="0"></p><p>Lait also explicitly said in an interview following 7/7 that he hadn't seen anyone standing where the hole was. Nonetheless, the Inquests did manage to dig up a witness, Michael Henning, who was in the next carriage along, and he remembers someone sitting where the narrative describes Tanweer as sitting. He drew a diagram, marking himself with an X and 'Tanweer' with a circled X.<span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span></p><p><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 286px; height: 320px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-GXIAW_8Aq7M/TYzInygLXII/AAAAAAAAAFQ/zzor8oPa-RQ/s320/henning%2Bdiagram.PNG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5588061823557131394" border="0"></p><p align="center"><a href="http://7julyinquests.independent.gov.uk/evidence/docs/INQ8352-2.pdf"><span style="font-family:arial;">July 7th Inquest exhibit INQ8352-2</span></a></p><p align="left"><span style="font-family:arial;">Henning described the man he saw in extremely vague terms, saying:</span></p><blockquote><span style="font-family:arial;">I couldn't say with great detail his features, etcetera. It's more those soft focus of the people that you normally see on the Tube and haven't paid attention to. - </span><a href="http://7julyinquests.independent.gov.uk/hearing_transcripts/18102010am.htm"><span style="font-family:arial;">July 7 Inquest transcript, Oct 18th 2010</span></a></blockquote><p><span style="font-family:arial;">As noted on the </span><a href="http://77inquests.blogspot.com/2010/11/77-inquests-disintegration-of-shehzad.html"><span style="font-family:arial;">J7 blog</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">, his description of 'Tanweer' did not match the CCTV images purportedly showing Tanweer on 7/7, and in general Henning could hardly be said to have made a positive ID of Tanweer in that location. Still, this is the closest the Inquests got to substantiating the narrative on this particular question. </span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">That said, they did manage to spectacularly contradict the narrative, and to some extent support Bruce Lait's account. The police presented as evidence at the Inquests complex computer generated models showing exactly where everyone was in the affected carriages (though each one says it is 'approximate'). For simplicity's sake I'll use the BBC's dumbed down version, but you can see the Aldgate train diagram presented at the Inquests </span><a href="http://7julyinquests.independent.gov.uk/evidence/docs/INQ10280-8.pdf"><span style="font-family:arial;">here</span></a>. The BBC's version of the diagram is below:<span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span></p><p><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 624px; height: 501px;" src="http://news.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/spl/hi/uk/10/aldgate/img/aldgate/aldgate_plan_624.gif" alt="" border="0"></p><p>As you can see, 'Tanweer' is located towards the back of the carriage, but he is in the standing area where Bruce Lait identified the hole in the floor, not sitting down. This not only contradicts the narrative, it substantiates a witness who claims that no one was standing there, and that the hole he saw looked like that caused by an explosion coming up through the floor of the train. So, far from supporting the Home Office narrative, the Inquests actually supported one of the witnesses whose account has consistently suggested a very different event.<span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">There are nearly identical issues with the account of the Edgware Road explosion. The Home Office narrative says that:</span></p><blockquote><span style="font-family:arial;">At Edgware Road, Mohammad Sidique Khan was also in the second carriage from the front, most likely near the standing area by the first set of double doors. He was probably also seated with the bomb next to him on the floor. Shortly before the explosion, Khan was seen fiddling with the top of the rucksack. The explosion killed 7 including Khan, and injured 163 people. - </span><a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/11_05_06_narrative.pdf"><span style="font-family:arial;">Home Office narrative</span></a></blockquote><span style="font-family:arial;">Now, this gets a little complicated, because the narrative is (intentionally?) unclear. Khan was supposedly sat down, but sat down near the standing area by the first set of double doors, with his rucksack on the floor. This is indeed how the BBC's diagram portrays the scene:</span><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 624px; height: 497px;" src="http://news.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/spl/hi/uk/10/edgware/img/edgware_road/edgw_rd_plan_624.gif" alt="" border="0"><p><span style="font-family:arial;">The problem is that the centre of the explosion would appear to be in the middle of the standing area, where all the people who died are stood. Khan is sat down some distance away. The police </span><a href="http://7julyinquests.independent.gov.uk/evidence/docs/INQ10282-8.pdf"><span style="font-family:arial;">diagram</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> makes things even worse:</span><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 226px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-hs6qHa3VpB8/TYzPb22sX3I/AAAAAAAAAFg/v0ULhw4FJf4/s400/police%2Bdiagram%2Bedgware.PNG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5588069315148275570" border="0"></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">While Khan is sat down essentially as described in the narrative, the explosion seems to be taking place not on the floor next to him, but around the corner in the standing area. In order to set off the bomb, Khan would have had to be leaning and stretching at an absurd angle, and presumably pushing his rucksack between the legs of person number 9 in the diagram, Jonathan Downey. PC Potter of the British Transport Police attended the scene and drew a </span><a href="http://7julyinquests.independent.gov.uk/evidence/docs/INQ8708-2.pdf"><span style="font-family:arial;">sketch</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> portraying the bomb crater even more centrally:</span><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 247px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-gUAGFvkkm9I/TYzQs_VcdfI/AAAAAAAAAFo/uU6dMshYoYI/s400/potter%2Bdiagram%2Bedgware.PNG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5588070708994143730" border="0"></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">For the bomb to have gone off where this sketch shows, it cannot have been manually detonated by Khan sat where the narrative and the police diagram say he was. So, why did they say Khan was sat there? Because of Danny Biddle, the only person who has consistently claimed that he saw Khan on the Edgware Road train. Biddle, however, is a highly unreliable witness whose account is not confirmed by anyone else. He was severely injured in the explosion, losing an eye and both legs, and was in a coma for weeks after the attacks. It was after recovering from the coma and seeing Khan identified on TV as the bomber that he made his identification. In his </span><a href="http://7julyinquests.independent.gov.uk/hearing_transcripts/08112010am.htm"><span style="font-family:arial;">Inquest testimony</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">, Biddle claimed that he saw Khan sat down, with a rucksack </span><a href="http://77inquests.blogspot.com/2010/11/77-inquests-danny-biddle-rucksack-on.html"><span style="font-family:arial;">on his lap</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">, and that he saw Khan pull a cord in the rucksack just before the explosion, rather than stood up, with the rucksack on the floor, as the police descriptions and diagrams have consistently maintained. </span></p><p>This has serious implications, not just for the narrative but for the veracity of what has been presented at the Inquests. The evidence presented by the police fundamentally contradicts the Home Office story, and contradicts Biddle's account. One can only assume they took the risk of allowing him to testify at the Inquests because his account of having seen 'Khan' fiddling with his rucksack just before the explosion was a key part of the Home Office narrative. Not only is it mentioned in the description of the Edgware Road explosion, but is listed as one of only 7 bits of 'key evidence indicating that these were co-ordinated suicide attacks by these 4 men.' The narrative notes that:<span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-family:arial;">Witness accounts suggest 2 of the men were fiddling in their rucksacks shortly before the explosions. - </span><a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/11_05_06_narrative.pdf"><span style="font-family:arial;">Home Office Narrative</span></a></blockquote>So, in two places the narrative tacitly refers to Biddle's account, making it impossible for the authorities to deny him a voice at the Inquests, no matter how much his version contradicted the evidence. The other witness who apparently saw one of the accused fiddling in his rucksack was Richard Jones, who got off the number 30 bus shortly before it was blown up. In the days immediately after 7/7, Jones was widely interviewed due to this compelling testimony that supported the notion of suicide bombings. The fact that he gave varying description of what he saw 'Hasib Hussain' wearing, and varying accounts of whether he was in a position to identify Hussain, and was sat on the lower deck of the bus when the explosion took place on the upper deck, were all conveniently ignored.<span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span><p><span style="font-family:arial;">Jones was even selected as one of the BBC's 'victims of conspiracy theories' for their Conspiracy Files </span><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gX_m9QS6eDk&feature=related"><span style="font-family:arial;">episode</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> dedicated to 7/7. Rather than challenging Jones over his wildly conflicting interviews and his helping to advance the official conspiracy theory of 7/7, the BBC chose to refute the poorly-sourced claim that it was he who had bombed the bus. Virtually every independent documentary exploring 7/7 has criticised Jones, as have many of the bloggers, and perhaps it is because of this that the establishment finally admitted defeat and </span><a href="http://77inquests.blogspot.com/2011/01/something-is-happening-here-you-dont.html"><span style="font-family:arial;">abandoned Jones</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> as a witness. Perhaps this is why they had Biddle testify, because to lose one witness cited as key evidence could be considered unfortunate, but to lose two would look like carelessness. </span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">In his Inquest testimony Jones claimed, ridiculously, that he had never actually claimed to have seen 'the bomber'. Yet the BBC ran his story the day after 7/7 in a piece titled 'Passenger believes he saw bomber' and Jones not only made no objection, he helpfully appeared on a feature-length BBC show about 7/7 a couple of years later. Despite this, the Inquests expressed sympathy for Jones, saying, 'Your statement, I'm afraid, has been open to conjecture and surmise in the way of these things in the public domain.' Reading Jones's testimony, available for handy PDF </span><a href="http://www.julyseventh.co.uk/j7-inquest-transcripts/2011-01-10-14-week-12/7_july_inquests_2011-01-12_pm-session.pdf"><span style="font-family:arial;">download here</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">, courtesy of J7, it is unclear what purpose they had in calling him as a witness, except to perform this epic act of revisionism. </span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">As such, the Home Office narrative now reads:</span></p><blockquote><p><span style="font-family:arial;">09.00: Hussain goes back into King’s Cross station through Boots and then goes into W H Smith on the station concourse and, it appears, buys a 9v battery. It is possible that a new battery was needed to detonate the device, but this is only speculation at this stage.</span></p><p><a href="http://77inquests.blogspot.com/2010/10/final-curtain-cctv-rich-to-cctv-fail.html"><del><span style="font-family:arial;">09.06: Hussain goes into McDonald’s on Euston Road, leaving about ten minutes later.</span></del></a><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">09.19: </span><a href="http://77inquests.blogspot.com/2011/01/notable-absence-of-hasib-hussain.html"><del><span style="font-family:arial;">Hussain is seen on Grays Inn Road. Around this time, a man fitting Hussain’s description was seen on the no 91 bus travelling from King’s Cross to Euston Station, looking nervous and pushing past people.</span></del></a></p><p><del><span style="font-family:arial;">It was almost certainly at Euston that Hussain switched to the no 30 bus travelling eastwards from Marble Arch.</span></del><span style="font-family:arial;"> The bus was crowded following the closures on the underground. Hussain sat on the upper deck, towards the back. Forensic evidence suggests the bomb was next to him in the aisle or between his feet on the floor. </span><a href="http://77inquests.blogspot.com/2011/01/something-is-happening-here-you-dont.html"><del><span style="font-family:arial;">A man fitting Hussain’s description was seen on the lower deck earlier, fiddling repeatedly with his rucksack.</span></del></a><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">09.47: The bomb goes off, killing 14 people, including Hussain, and injuring over 110. It remains unclear why the bomb did not go off at 08.50am alongside the others. It may be that Hussain was intending to go north from King’s Cross but was frustrated by delays on the Northern Line. Another possibility, as he seems to have bought a new battery, is that he was unable to detonate his device with the original battery. But we have no further evidence on this at this stage. - </span><a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/11_05_06_narrative.pdf"><span style="font-family:arial;">Home Office Narrative</span></a></p></blockquote><p><span style="font-family:arial;">Though the </span><a href="http://7julyinquests.independent.gov.uk/evidence/docs/INQ10285-6.pdf"><span style="font-family:arial;">diagrams</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> and other evidence does essentially confirm the narrative's version of where the explosion took place, there was no evidence that showed that Hasib Hussain was even on the bus, let alone responsible for the bombing. </span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">The final scene is the Kings Cross-Russell Square bombing, supposedly carried out by Jermaine Lindsay. The narrative states that:</span></p><blockquote><p>On the Piccadilly Line, Jermaine Lindsay was in the first carriage as it travelled between King’s Cross and Russell Square. It is unlikely that he was seated. The train was crowded, with 127 people in the first carriage alone, which makes it difficult to position those involved. Forensic evidence suggests the explosion occurred on or close to the floor of the standing area between the second and third set of seats. The explosion killed 27 people including Lindsay, and injured<span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span><span style="font-family:arial;">over 340. - </span><a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/11_05_06_narrative.pdf"><span style="font-family:arial;">Home Office Narrative</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span></p></blockquote><p><span style="font-family:arial;">Again the Inquests served up a pretty diagram, and it does essentially reflect the narrative's claims about the location of the explosion.</span><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 174px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-z6-x2cWaeUo/TYzujjFV8-I/AAAAAAAAAFw/XUBE3aI4-Tk/s400/picadilly%2Bdiagram.PNG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5588103532140426210" border="0"></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">According to this, the explosion took place in the standing area by the rear set of double doors. This is reflected in other diagrams, such as </span><a href="http://7julyinquests.independent.gov.uk/evidence/docs/INQ10283-11.pdf"><span style="font-family:arial;">this</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> and </span><a href="http://7julyinquests.independent.gov.uk/evidence/docs/INQ10283-9.pdf"><span style="font-family:arial;">this</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">. But certain other evidence was not so clear cut. </span><a href="http://7julyinquests.independent.gov.uk/evidence/docs/INQ9938-2.pdf"><span style="font-family:arial;">One diagram</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> bears a handwritten note saying that there was another hole in the floor, and one in the roof, right towards the back of the carriage. </span><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 325px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-hsAxoOduvKI/TYzvwe0D6WI/AAAAAAAAAF4/TpG0QB5mHTo/s400/picadilly%2Bdiagram%2Bhole%2Babove%2Band%2Bbelow.PNG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5588104853844126050" border="0"></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">Yet </span><a href="http://7julyinquests.independent.gov.uk/evidence/docs/INQ10164-2.pdf"><span style="font-family:arial;">another</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">, along with </span><a href="http://77inquests.blogspot.com/2010/12/jermaine-lindsay-circuit-board-and.html"><span style="font-family:arial;">testimony</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> from Detective Inspector Brunsden, shows that Lindsay's body was found some distance away from the explosion, and closer to the holes mentioned in the above diagram. Brunsden explained that in the following image, the bomb crater is noted, the area marked 'Z' is where they found Lindsay's body and a plastic bottle suspected of being part of the bomb, and area 'Y' is where they found identification documents belonging to Lindsay.</span><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 255px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-6BF7cyrmCYc/TYzwxVTdKWI/AAAAAAAAAGA/tawCb9YCn_E/s400/picadilly%2Bdiagram%2Bareas%2Bx%2By%2Bz.PNG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5588105967982946658" border="0"></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">As such, the official story of the Piccadilly line explosion is born out by some of the evidence at the Inquests, but not other evidence.</span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">There are numerous other fundamental issues with the evidence presented at the Inquests, including the fact that the </span><a href="http://77inquests.blogspot.com/2011/02/colonel-mahoney-in-porton-down-with.html"><span style="font-family:arial;">neither the detonator nor the main charge of the explosive</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> used has been forensically identified. There is also the question of the pronouncement of '</span><a href="http://77inquests.blogspot.com/2010/11/july-7th-inquests-life-extinct.html"><span style="font-family:arial;">life extinct</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">' (i.e. the confirmations by a doctor of the number of people who died) either did not take place, or did take place but did not include the alleged bombers. The above is just a quick look at how the narrative has fallen apart in a couple of important places. A fuller analysis is coming in various formats, and one is already available via the J7 blog, but for the time being consider that slap bang in the middle of the 7/7 Inquests the police launched a </span><a href="http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/latest/2010/12/13/terror-threat-reminder-campaign-115875-22780059/"><span style="font-family:arial;">PR campaign</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> aimed at reminding the public that the terrorist threat is real and very, very scary. A few weeks later, the </span><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-12133290"><span style="font-family:arial;">terrorist threat level for major transport hubs was raised</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">, though as per usual the BBC reported that, 'there is no suggestion of any intelligence of an imminent attack.'</span> </p><p> </p></span><br /><div style="clear: both;"></div><br />Talkbouthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14408535183177475747noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5734121862980918017.post-74778213712208378132010-10-17T22:00:00.000-07:002013-10-24T11:51:02.880-07:00
Debunking 7/7 Debunking Part Three
<br /><p><span style="font-family:arial;">The July 7th Inquests got underway last week and have so far provided a pantomime of disinformation and farcical arguments. Just as with the 2009 Intelligence and Security Committee report and the BBC Conspiracy Files episode on the London bombings of the same year, one of the primary concerns of the inquests has been to debunk and oppose 'conspiracy theories'. Hence, it is time for a new installment of the popular 'debunking 7/7 debunking' series, dealing with the fatuous and misleading arguments used in opposition to such 'conspiracy theories'. Those readers looking for a comparatively dispassionate analysis of the inquests should check out the <a href="http://77inquests.blogspot.com/">dedicated blog</a> from the July 7th Truth Campaign. Those looking for intelligent outrage at the pure codswallop we are expected to keep swallowing regarding 7/7 should take a look at <a href="http://stefzucconi.blogspot.com/">Famous for 15 Megapixels</a>. Both have provided far more sincere and earnest coverage of the inquests than anyone working in the mainstream media. </span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">The 7/7 Inquests are taking place under the Coroners and Justice Act of 2009, which outlines exactly what are the purposes of such an investigation:<br></span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;"><p><blockquote>Purpose of Investigation<br>5<br>Matters to be ascertained<br>(1)<br>The purpose of an investigation under this Part into a person's death is to ascertain—<br>(a) who the deceased was;<br>(b) how, when and where the deceased came by his or her death;<br>(c) the particulars (if any) required by the 1953 Act to be registered concerning the death. - <a href="http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2009/25/part/1/crossheading/purpose-of-investigation">Coroners and Justice Act 2009</a></blockquote></span><span style="font-family:arial;">However, the 7/7 Inquests have systematically failed from the very opening day to fulfill these requirements. In the <a href="http://7julyinquests.independent.gov.uk/hearing_transcripts/11102010am.htm">morning of 11th October</a> the hearing opened with a statement by Lady Justice Hallet referring to "the deaths of the 52 innocent people who were killed as a result of the bombs in London on 7 July 2005." Before any investigation had taken place, a conclusive verdict on the cause of death of all 52 victims had been presented. Given that one of the questions the inquest is meant to be objectively examining is whether the emergency services could have responded more quickly and effectively, this opening statement is misleading at best. Even if we presume that the official version of events is true, there remains the possibility of some of the victims having died due to the delay in getting them emergency medical treatment. This would mean that they did not die just as a result of bombs going off, but also as a result of not being attended to sufficiently quickly. Beyond that, there is the issue of the inquests into the deaths of the four alleged bombers having been postponed until after the present inquests into the other 52 deaths. There is only a slim possibility of this happening, but if the inquests into the alleged bombers' deaths concludes anything other than that they died in intentional self-inflicted suicide bombings, the present inquests would prove to be a load of nonsense. </span><p><span style="font-family:arial;">The inquests continued with a re-affirmation of the official version of events, namely that four British Muslims travelled to London and intentionally blew themselves up using homemade explosives. This re-affirmation was done using the sort of editorialised language more appropriate for a tabloid newspaper than a legal proceeding. Again, from the opening morning of the inquests, the counsel for the inquests (i.e. the government's lawyer) Hugo Keith QC, said:</span></p><blockquote><span style="font-family:arial;">The slaughter caused by the bombs caused not only<br>death, devastation and mutilation, but </span><strong><span style="font-family:arial;">unleashed an<br>unimaginable tidal wave of shock, misery and horror</span></strong><span style="font-family:arial;"> for<br>their families and loved ones. Just as the lives of the<br>52 victims were <strong>callously and brutally</strong> ended, the lives<br>of many others have been, and continue to be, </span><strong><span style="font-family:arial;">tortured<br>and wrecked</span></strong><span style="font-family:arial;">. The bombs could only have had one purpose.<br>They were intended to kill and to injure. They were<br><strong>acts of merciless savagery</strong> and </span><strong><span style="font-family:arial;">one can only imagine at<br>the sheer inhumanity of the perpetrators</span></strong><span style="font-family:arial;">. - <a href="http://7julyinquests.independent.gov.uk/hearing_transcripts/11102010am.htm">July 7th Inquests, 11th Oct</a></span></blockquote><span style="font-family:arial;">While it is true that the death of loved ones is immensely painful for the bereaved, and they are more than worthy of our sympathy, this sort of language is not about expressing common human empathy and consideration. It is about writing the mainstream media's headlines for them, as demonstrated by <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/terrorism-in-the-uk/8056134/77-inquest-London-bombings-were-unimaginable-wave-of-horror.html">this</a> Telegraph story titled '7/7 inquest: London bombings were 'unimaginable wave of horror' and <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/oct/11/7-7-inquest-victims-merciless-savagery">this</a> Guardian story titled '7/7 inquest: victims killed by 'merciless savagery'. The use of words like 'carnage', 'horror' and 'merciless savagery' is designed to encourage those following the inquests to become lost in psychological disgust and not to engage their critical faculties and question what they are being told. Philosopher David Hume <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/4705/4705-h/4705-h.htm">claimed</a> that "reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions." While the truth of this may be disputed, what is clear is that passions can be manipulated to cloud or even prevent reason from having an influence on what people end up believing. </span><p><span style="font-family:arial;">This editorial rhetoric continued as the inquests progressed. On the <a href="http://7julyinquests.independent.gov.uk/hearing_transcripts/12102010am.htm">secon</a></span><span style="font-family:arial;"><a href="http://7julyinquests.independent.gov.uk/hearing_transcripts/12102010am.htm">d day</a> of hearings, new footage was released on the inquests' <a href="http://7julyinquests.independent.gov.uk/evidence/list.htm#oct12">website</a>, and can be watched <a href="http://clients.mediaondemand.net/judiciary/7julyinquests/">here</a>. The video clips are taken from film shot in the hours and days immediately following the bombings, by emergency service workers, and show the aftermath of the explosions on the trains and bus. The videos have been <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11520611">reproduced</a> by media outlets, capitalising on Keith's characterisation of the footage as 'distressing' and even going further, <a href="http://itn.co.uk/3aa528c66ef942f9aaba47ce7cc7ccba.html">this</a> ITN article describing it as a 'shocking video of carnage'. In reality the videos show very little and for a public who've experienced such horrific cinematic products as the <a href="http://stagevu.com/search?for=saw&in=Videos&x=0&y=0">Saw</a> film franchise and recent <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/filmblog/2010/aug/23/human-centipede-most-horrific-film">gore</a> fest <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IX8fKLjC__c">The Human Centipede</a> the images are relatively tame. For those who were on the trains and bus, or lost loved one, any such pictures would be distressing, regardless of what they actually showed or didn't show. Furthermore, Keith admitted that the clips had been 'edited and re-edited' to ensure none of the deceased can be seen, sharply contradicting the portrayal of this footage in the major media as 'horrific' and 'shocking'. Not only is this manipulative to the point of outright deception, it is also potentially illegal. The Coroners and Justice Act says explicitly that:</span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;"><p><blockquote>Neither the senior coroner conducting an investigation under this Part into a person's death nor the jury (if there is one) may express any opinion on any matter other than—<br>(a) the questions mentioned in subsection (1)(a) and (b) (read with subsection (2) where applicable);<br>(b) the particulars mentioned in subsection (1)(c). - <a href="http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2009/25/part/1/crossheading/purpose-of-investigation">Coroners and Justice Act 2009</a></blockquote>While this provision only prohibits the coroner and jury from expressing such opinions, the spirit of the law means that it also covers the legal team advising the coroner. The sorts of comments made by Hugo Keith clearly involve expressing opinions on far more than just the issues of who died, when, where and how, in that they seek to describe the emotional reactions of the survivors and bereaved. One might even say that such inflammatory language glorifies terrorism, turning it from acts of violence motivated by desperation or prejudice or stupidity into acts that define our politics, our emotions and our way of life. Glorification of terrorism is contrary to the <a href="http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2006/11/contents">2006 Terrorism Act</a>, though I wouldn't recommend holding your breath and waiting for Keith to be charged. If, as then Prime Minister Tony Blair said on the afternoon of 7/7, the purpose of terrorism is to terrorise people, then Hugo Keith is doing the terrorists work for them.<br></span><p><span style="font-family:arial;">Another bizarre story emanating from the opening week of the Inquests was that the alleged 7/7 ringleader Mohammed Siddique Khan sent a text message to his supposed co-conspirators on the 6th of July. This allegedly delayed the attacks by a day because Khan's wife was having complications with her pregnancy:<br></span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;"><p><blockquote>Examination of Khan's mobile telephone<br>which was recovered from the tunnel between Kings Cross<br>and Russell Square showed that he sent a text message at<br>04.35 in the morning of 6 July saying:<br>"Having major problem. Can't make time. Will ring<br>you when I get it sorted. Wait at home."<br><br>So it may have been that the attack was originally<br>planned for a different day. - <a href="http://7julyinquests.independent.gov.uk/hearing_transcripts/11102010am.htm">July 7th Inquests, 11th October</a></blockquote>As with so many stories floated as part of the War on Terror, there is much about this that doesn't ring true, or at least doesn't support what officials have advanced. For one, why was Khan's phone found in the tunnel between Kings' Cross and Russell Square tube stations when he is meant to have been responsible for a different explosion, miles away at Edgware Road? Just as his property and ID were found at three of the blast locations, this will appear to many people to smack of planted evidence. For another, why would a man supposedly following a jihadi ideology to the extent of killing himself and others care so much about his pregnant wife and unborn child? If the original plan was to carry out a 'martyrdom operation' on the 6th of July then why delay it for the sake of a wife he was never going to see again, and a child he would never see? Looked at the other way, if he was so concerned about his wife and unborn child that he delayed the mission then why did he kill himself? It doesn't add up. Just as it doesn't add up that Khan, a British Pakistani and alleged Islamic fundamentalist, would have married a Westernised woman of Indian descent. Given the animosity felt by both Pakistanis and Indians over the disputed region of Kashmir, this appears a highly unlikely union if Khan was what the police and government have told us he was.<br></span><p><span style="font-family:arial;">Rather than acknowledge these problems, let alone discuss them, Hugo Keith preferred to adopt a strategy utilised by the 9/11 Commission. The opening day of the Inquests provided ample evidence that debunking 'conspiracy theories' was a crucial aim of the proceedings.<br></span></p><blockquote><p><span style="font-family:arial;">Thus it is<br>to be hoped that these inquests, however unpleasant and<br>distressing, as they will be, will assist in answering<br>the families' questions in allaying some of the rumours<br>and suspicion generated by conspiracy theorists...<br></span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">..My Lady, I have mentioned this evidence because<br>a number of unlikely conspiracy theories have been aired<br>in the press and on the internet...<br></span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">...We consider it important that such claims are<br>identified and addressed...</span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">...Where such claims do not appear to be supported by<br>the evidence that has been gathered, there is, we feel,<br>a danger that the continuation of such claims might<br>needlessly distress the bereaved families as well as<br>detracting attention away from the issues that you have<br>identified as being worthy of further investigation. - <a href="http://7julyinquests.independent.gov.uk/hearing_transcripts/11102010pm.htm">July 7th Inquests, October 11th</a></span></p></blockquote><p><span style="font-family:arial;">While it may be true that unfounded speculation by 'conspiracy theorists' has caused distress to the survivors and bereaved, this pales in comparison to the distress caused by the unfounded speculation of the official versions of events; the fact that the government, police and MI5 have consistently failed to release evidence proving the truth or falsehood of the official version; the fact that every key element of the official story has been revised (except that Khan et al were responsible); the fact that it has taken over five years for inquests to be held; and the fact that every request and demand for a proper inquiry has been refused and ridiculed. A few 'conspiracy theorists on the internet' simply cannot have caused anything close to the degree of frustration and confusion caused by the actions of the authorities of the state, no matter how whacky or speculative their claims might be.  </span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">Despite this, the above comments show that debunking 'conspiracy theories/theorists' is very much what the Inquests are hoping to achieve, certainly more so than their legally mandated duties outlined above. Keith even admitted that:</span></p><blockquote><p><span style="font-family:arial;">It is not a proper<br>function of an inquest to attribute blame or apportion<br>guilt, or a proper function of mine to express opinions<br>on impermissible areas. - <a href="http://7julyinquests.independent.gov.uk/hearing_transcripts/11102010am.htm">July 7th Inquests, 11th October</a></span></p></blockquote><p><span style="font-family:arial;">This did not stop him from devoting a large proportion of his opening day statement to apportioning blame, to reaffirming the official narrative, and in general to using a supposedly unbiased judicial process for the political purpose of opposing and criticising 'conspiracy theories'. This perception of such theories, or even just the well-founded questioning and analysis offered by those such as the July 7th Truth Campaign, is entirely in keeping with the <a href="http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1084585">work</a> of Cass Sunstein, and the more recent <a href="http://www.demos.co.uk/publications/thepowerofunreason">report</a> published by the DEMOS thinktank. Both view 'conspiracy theories' as a political problem, a threat to public confidence in the powerful institutions of the state (and presumably their bosom buddies in the corporate world). Both advocate covert and overt opposition to such theories as a means of restoring such confidence. In Sunstein's list of possible government activites against 'conspiracy theories' he wrote:</span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;"><p><blockquote>(3) Government might itself engage in counterspeech, marshaling arguments to discredit conspiracy theories. (4) Government might formally hire credible private parties to engage in counterspeech. (5) Government might engage in informal communication with such parties, encouraging them to help. - <a href="http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/Susstein1.pdf">Sunstein, 2008</a></blockquote>Likewise, DEMOS also put forth a policy of infiltration:<br></span><p><span style="font-family:arial;"><p><blockquote>Government agents or their allies should openly infiltrate the<br>Internet sites or spaces to plant doubts about conspiracy theories,<br>introducing alternative information. - <a href="http://www.demos.co.uk/files/Conspiracy_theories_paper.pdf?1282913891">DEMOS, The Power of Unreason</a></blockquote>If Hugo Keith QC has been officially or unofficially tasked with infiltrating the space that is the July 7th Inquests with the specific mission of trying to debunk 'conspiracy theories' about 7/7, it would not be much of a surprise. As noted on the July 7th Truth Campaign's Inquest blog, Keith's background is very much one of a state-sponsored legal hatchet man. A quick glance at his background, detailed <a href="http://www.3rb.co.uk/barristerDetails.aspx?mid=28">here</a>, shows that he defended the Queen at the inquests into the deaths of Princess Diana and Dodi Al-Fayed, perhaps the highest profile effort by the British state to debunk the 'conspiracy theory' that they were killed by MI6 at the behest of the Royal family. Keith also represented David Mills and Silvio Berlusconi in a major money laundering and tax fraud case in Italy. Among his other work was helping the Secretary of State extradite <a href="http://freegary.org.uk/">Gary McKinnon</a>, who hacked into the Pentagon looking for evidence of UFOs and extraterrestrials. Keith also helped the Director of Public Prosecutions resist prosecuting anyone in the police for the murder of <a href="http://www.justice4jean.org/">Jean Charles de Menezes</a>. He also helped the Serious Fraud Office defend the decision to <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6180945.stm">end the investigation into corruption</a> in deals between the major British arms manufacturer BAE Systems and one of their major clients, the state of Saudi Arabia. Most recently, Keith's skills were put to helping the police justify shooting barrister Mark Saunders <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/oct/07/mark-saunders-inquest-police-failings">five times</a>, a decision the inquest into Saunders' death judged to be '<a href="http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/UK-News/Mark-Saunders-Barrister-Inquest-Head-Shot-Lawfully-Fired-Jury-Rules/Article/201010115754004?f=rss">self defence</a>'. When it comes to defending the violence and corruption of the state, Keith is more than happy to take public money and use his status and education to further that aim. As such, if there was state involvement in the bombings of 7/7 then it is no surprise to see Keith once again turn up and perform his 'duty'.<br></span><p><span style="font-family:arial;">The QC's pièce de résistance in the July 7th Inquests, at least so far, came in his efforts to oppose the idea that the four alleged bombers may have been set up as patsies - a possibility considered in the recent film <a href="http://veehd.com/video/4509871_7-7-Seeds-of-Deconstruction">7/7: Seeds of Deconstruction</a>, which was submitted to the counsel for the Inquests and all the lawyers representing survivors and the bereaved. Keith said:</span></p><blockquote><span style="font-family:arial;">There is no evidence at all that we have seen to<br>suggest that the bombers were duped in some way so that<br>they did not know that they were going to die or, even<br>more absurdly, that they did not know that they were<br>carrying explosives at all. Indeed, such claims run<br>entirely contrary to all the evidence that I have<br>summarised so far.<br>It is right to say that the bombers were<br>surprisingly effective, it would seem, in concealing<br>their intentions from those around them. Tanweer played<br>cricket in the evening before putting the terrible plot<br>into effect and seemed more concerned, according to his<br>family, by the loss of his mobile phone.</span><span style="font-family:arial;"> - <a href="http://7julyinquests.independent.gov.uk/hearing_transcripts/11102010pm.htm">July 7th Inquests, 11th October</a></span></blockquote><span style="font-family:arial;">Again pinching his lines from the 9/11 Commission, Keith claimed there 'is no evidence at all that we have seen' indicating that the alleged bombers were unintentional victims of the bombings. Employing a truly remarkable degree of doublethink, he then cited just the sort of evidence that does indicate this, i.e. that Shehzad Tanweer played cricket on the evening before 7/7.  By contrast, one might expect a jihadi fundamentalist on the verge of a suicide mission to be spending that time making last minute checks and preparations, or praying. This is the same Tanweer who in the supposed 'dummy run' CCTV footage showing only three of the alleged bombers going to London a few days before 7/7 is seen wearing a t-shirt branded by the Western sportswear firm Puma.<br></span><object height="370" width="450"><embed src="http://www.liveleak.com/e/c92_1209664927" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" allowscriptaccess="always" height="370" width="450"></object><br><p><span style="font-family:arial;">However, even though Keith says they have seen no such evidence he tacitly admits that Tanweer playing cricket is such evidence, by describing this and other indications as part of an effort at 'concealing their intentions'. This is purely circular, and complete balderdash.  Evidence that the men weren't knowing suicide bombers isn't actually evidence they weren't knowing suicide bombers, but evidence that they were concealing the fact that they were suicide bombers. The notion that they were suicide bombers is both a premise of the argument, and the argument's conclusion. It is only if you believe they were guilty that you could possibly interpret Tanweer's behaviour in this light, and claiming it as evidence of their guilt is a remarkable feat of twisted logic. This was not the only self-contradictory argument employed. The less than integral QC also cited as evidence of the alleged bombers intent videos that appeared at highly convenient times for the official narrative:</span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span></p><blockquote><p><span style="font-family:arial;">If there were any residual doubts, these are further<br>answered by two other pieces of evidence: Tanweer's<br>so-called last will and testament, which appeared a year<br>later on the internet, in which he seeks to justify<br>attacks, and the footage of Khan which appeared on<br>Al Jazeera, on 1 September 2005, to similar effect.<br>Those parts of the videos that showed them at any<br>rate must of course have been prepared prior to 7 July,<br>and thus, on account of their content, demonstrate that<br>their views had been held for some time. Indeed, the<br>release of the videos reinforces the terrorist dimension<br>of the attacks. They were made to be released following<br>the attacks themselves. - <a href="http://7julyinquests.independent.gov.uk/hearing_transcripts/11102010pm.htm">July 7th Inquests, 11th October</a><br></span></p></blockquote><p><span style="font-family:arial;">The two videos referred to are so-called 'martyrdom tapes', the first of which appeared at the beginning of September 2005, just as questions began circulating in the major media about whether the bombings were in fact suicide attacks. The second appeared on the day before the first anniversary of the attacks, on the <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/5154714.stm">6th of July 2006</a>. Though Keith went to great lengths to cast doubt on 'conspiracy theorists on the internet', he evidently had no qualms at all about citing videos of unknown provenance that appeared on the internet and used to help advance the official conspiracy theory. In this context, his comment that 'the release of the videos reinforces the terrorist dimension of the attacks' is perhaps an ironic confession. Though the authenticity of both videos has been questioned, let us assume for the sake of argument that they are genuine.<br></span></p><object height="505" width="640"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/jHXLaio8G3I?fs=1&hl=en_GB&color1=0xe1600f&color2=0xfebd01" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" height="505" width="640"></object><p><span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span></p><object height="505" width="640"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/7iBEBMrzHpc?fs=1&hl=en_GB&color1=0xe1600f&color2=0xfebd01" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" height="505" width="640"></object><br><p><span style="font-family:arial;">Neither video contains any mention of attacking the London public transport system, suicide bombings, or indeed any terrorist attack of any kind. As the above clips show, the mainstream media instantly seized upon the videos as evidence of the four alleged bombers guilt, even though they are at best evidence of only two of the four having vaguely jihadish beliefs. Not a single mainstream outlet has bothered to ask 'where are the equivalent videos for Hasib Hussein and Germaine Lindsay?' Put another way, Khan and Tanweer making such videos is not evidence of the guilt of others who knew them, yet this is exactly the argument the rogue QC has employed. What is particularly strange about the second item above, courtesy of the BBC, is that they interviewed Azzam Tamimi, an 'Islamic academic'. Tamimi trotted out the BBC's desired script about the videos, but he himself is an open supporter of Hamas, and has praised suicide bombers. He did this both before 7/7, in a 2004 interview for the BBC show Hardtalk, and after 7/7, in a speech where he said:<br></span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;"><p><blockquote>The greatest act of martyrdom is standing up for what is true and just. - <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-401481/Firebrand-Islamic-academic-dying-beliefs-just.html">Daily Mail, 2006</a></blockquote>As such, Tamimi has made far more incriminating statements (however true or untrue they may be) than either Khan or Tanweer made in their 'martyrdom videos', and yet the BBC are happy to <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCG3qYwYcxU">continue using</a> Tamimi as a pundit, all the while reporting on the Khan/Tanweer tapes as proof of their guilt. This goes beyond mere doublethink and double standards. It is the height of journalistic hypocrisy and propaganda. </span><p><span style="font-family:arial;">So, given that the opening of the July 7th Inquests has proven to be a huge disappointment for anyone seeking the truth about what happened, what are we to expect from the next few months of proceedings? The <a href="http://7julyinquests.independent.gov.uk/docs/provisional-index-of-factual-issues-update-230610.pdf">Provisional Index of Factual Issues</a> and the <a href="http://7julyinquests.independent.gov.uk/sitting_days/index.htm">timeline</a> for what the Inquests will cover in the next four or five months are both weighted heavily on the question of 'preventability', i.e. the title of the 2009 ISC report '<a href="http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/media/210852/20090519_77review.pdf">Could 7/7 Have Been Prevented?</a>' Having presumed what happened and who was responsible, this final part of the Inquests will examine whether or not the police and MI5 had enough information to have interdicted the bombing plot, and will serve to determine the boundaries of future discussions about 7/7 in the same way as the opening statements analysed above. In all likelihood, the Inquests will conclude that MI5 and the police were not sufficiently vigilant in their battle against the great terrorism menace. </span><span style="font-family:arial;"> The upshot of asking the questions in this way is that MI5 in particular will be portrayed as not being paranoid enough to confront the 'real and serious' threat that we are facing. Even though their investigations have led to such ridiculous and corrupt convictions as that of paintballer <a href="http://www.petitiononline.com/Hamid/petition.html">Mohammed Hamid</a>, they will be encouraged to become ever more suspicious of British Muslims in the name of stopping another attack from happening. </span><span style="font-family:arial;">The likely outcome is that this will then be exploited by our political masters to justify increasingly vicious counterterrorism policy and legislation, as has consistently been the case over the five years since the London bombings. </span></p><br /><div style="clear: both;"></div><br />Talkbouthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14408535183177475747noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5734121862980918017.post-41448171448346137602010-09-02T22:00:00.000-07:002013-10-24T11:51:02.864-07:00
A Tale of Two Leaks
<br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Perhaps the two biggest and most-disputed news stories of 2010 have been the </span><a href="http://www.google.co.uk/search?client=opera&rls=en&q=deepwater+horizon"><span style="font-family:arial;">Deepwater Horizon</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> oil spill, and the Wikileaks publication of the </span><a href="http://wardiary.wikileaks.org/"><span style="font-family:arial;">Afghan War Diary</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">. The exact nature of both events is uncertain, and their motives and causes are the subject of some speculation. For the most part the mainstream media have portrayed the Deepwater oil spill as an accident. The dispute within the mainstream media has largely revolved around nationalistic prejudices - the US media blaming BRITISH petroleum for the largest oil spill in history, the British media objecting. This particular spin appears to have been an attempt by Barack Obama to appear more nationalistic, to recover some of the centre ground the 'right wing' have gained since the 2008 election. As this chart from </span><a href="http://www.pollster.com/polls/us/jobapproval-obama.php"><span style="font-family:arial;">pollster.com</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> shows, the Obama-fronted administration is suffering from serious mid-term ratings trouble. </span><p><embed src="http://www.pollster.com/flashcharts/flash/swfs/chart.swf?xml=http://www.pollster.com/flashcharts/content/xml/Obama44JobApproval.xml&choices=Disapprove,Approve&phone=&ivr=&internet=&mail=&smoothing=&from_date=&to_date=&min_pct=&max_pct=&grid=&points=&trends=&lines=&colors=Disapprove-BF0014,Approve-000000,Undecided-68228B&e=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="false" allowscriptaccess="always" width="450" height="346"></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">Traditionally, two years into an administration is a difficult time for new presidents, but given the success of the populist, cult of personality election campaign (that won </span><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/jun/29/barack-obama-cannes-lions"><span style="font-family:arial;">awards</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> from the advertising industry) times look tough for Barack. Nonetheless, he came out fighting. He </span><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/may/02/obama-visits-louisiana-oil-spill"><span style="font-family:arial;">visited</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> Louisiana, the area most heavily afflicted by the spill, taking care to be pictured on the beach, literally getting his hands dirty. </span></p><p><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 112px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_ru_ILHZRbr0/TIE2MNL4A_I/AAAAAAAAADw/dwo5mxJR71Y/s200/_47950936_jex_707602_de27-1.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5512747002203997170" border="0"></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">This was in stark contrast to George W Bush's visit to New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. He was </span><a href="http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jol1cIYx63Ww92Is_qBa_N_056Qg"><span style="font-family:arial;">criticised</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> for a doing a flyover of the flood-stricken city from Air Force One. </span><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 136px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_ru_ILHZRbr0/TIE2bmGp1KI/AAAAAAAAAEA/LGr9aAvDSHg/s200/george-w-bush-neworleans.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5512747266591020194" border="0"></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">Obama's 'tough' approach to the problem of the oil spill included a highly embarrassing moment when the </span><a href="http://quicksilverscreen.com/watch?video=268911"><span style="font-family:arial;">niggercommunistmuslimantichrist</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> claiming he visited the area because the locals could tell him 'whose ass to kick'.</span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span></p><object width="640" height="385"><p><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/CBKeB5tyigk?fs=1&hl=en_GB&color1=0xe1600f&color2=0xfebd01" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="640" height="385"></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span></p></object><span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span><p><span style="font-family:arial;">Very shortly, and not inspired at all by Gulf of Mexico fisherman put out of work by the spill, Barack started to kick some ass, and he opted for BP. Labelling them a British company and saying it was entirely their '</span><a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/oilandgas/7839841/Reckless-BP-blamed-by-partner-for-oil-spill.html"><span style="font-family:arial;">recklessness</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">' that had led to the disaster, he adopted a policy not dissimilar to that of the Bush administration when launching the </span><a href="http://www.dailyfunnystuff.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/twat.jpg"><span style="font-family:arial;">War on Terror</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">. He turned BP, and in particular chief executive Tony Hayward, into the villains of the story he helped paint himself as the hero. However, as the chart above shows, his ratings continue to fall. Now, Hayward deserves no sympathy, he is, or at least was until the scandal forced him to step down, an overpaid executive of one company in an elite oil cartel who control the West's energy supplies. The arrogance of being a 'member of the club' was amply demonstrated by BP Chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg referring to the afflicted as '</span><a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/oilandgas/7834577/Oil-spill-BP-chairman-apologises-for-referring-to-Americans-as-small-people.html"><span style="font-family:arial;">small people</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">'. For all they have had to play the villains in this pantomime, the company is ultimately protected, and will no doubt recover its </span><a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1294215/BP-shares-rise-6-hours-firm-say-closer-capping-oil-leak-rival-Exxon-plans-takeover-bid.html"><span style="font-family:arial;">share price</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> and position in the 'market'. </span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">The whole story is ridiculous. 'BP' is only </span><a href="http://www.google.co.uk/search?client=opera&rls=en&q=BP+only+40%25+British+owned"><span style="font-family:arial;">40% British owned</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">, and an equal share is held by Americans. BP's partner in the deep-drilling rig operation was the Texas-based </span><a href="http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/jun2010/2010-06-18-091.html"><span style="font-family:arial;">Anadarko</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">. In a memo obtained by </span><a href="http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/06/exclusive_bp_bills_anadarko_272_million_for_gulf_s.php"><span style="font-family:arial;">TPMMuckrake</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">r BP attempted to bill Anadarko for $272 million, but the American company refused to pay. They claim it was entirely BP's recklessness that was to blame. However, the much-maligned </span><a href="http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/62899,business,dick-cheney-halliburton-implicated-in-bp-deepwater-horizon-oil-spill"><span style="font-family:arial;">Halliburton</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> were at least partly responsible for the safety procedures that allegedly failed, and so we have a triumvirate of not particularly British companies in the firing line. But there are indications, largely buried by the transatlantic dick waving, that it was no accident, and this isn't just about corporate greed.</span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">Several weeks before the 'blowout' Tony Hayward </span><a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/oilandgas/7804922/BP-chief-Tony-Hayward-sold-shares-weeks-before-oil-spill.html"><span style="font-family:arial;">sold</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> £1.4 million in BP shares, at the same time as the company were </span><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jun/28/bp-plans-offshore-drilling-expansion"><span style="font-family:arial;">officially</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> pinning their future on deepwater drilling. In the three months prior to the explosion, </span><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/apr/18/goldman-sachs-regulators-civil-charges"><span style="font-family:arial;">insider trading</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> specialists Goldman Sachs sold </span><a href="http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard-business/article-23847193-goldman-sachss-shares-sell-off-beats-gulf-oil-spill-debacle.do"><span style="font-family:arial;">58%</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> of their holdings in BP, worth around a quarter of a billion dollars. When you factor in that Goldman Sachs chairman and managing director </span><a href="http://truthrss.com/2010/06/16/bp-bilderberg/"><span style="font-family:arial;">Peter Sutherland</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> is a former chairman of BP, as well as a Bilderberg attendee, European Chairman for the Trilateral Commission and financial advisor to the Vatican, the possibility of an inside job looks very plausible. Why did BP bend over backwards to pay up the </span><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvJDUYu5Ar8"><span style="font-family:arial;">$20 billion</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> demanded by the US congress? Just as the insurance companies paid out after 9/11 for the destruction of three World Trade Center skyscrapers without the slightest investigation, BP have simply folded and given in. </span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">Why might they have done this? According to Japan-based journalist Ben Fulford it was a reaction to the Chinese slowing down their buying of US debt. In </span><a href="http://benjaminfulford.typepad.com/benjaminfulford/2010/05/%E7%B1%B3%E9%80%A3%E9%8A%80%E3%81%AE%E3%83%90%E3%83%BC%E3%83%8A%E3%83%B3%E3%82%AD%E8%AD%B0%E9%95%B7%E3%81%8C%E7%B1%B3%E9%80%A3%E9%8A%80%E3%81%AB%E3%81%AF%E8%B3%87%E9%87%91%E3%81%8C%E3%81%AA%E3%81%84%E3%81%A8%E7%99%BD%E9%BE%8D%E4%BC%9A%E3%81%AE%E3%83%A1%E3%83%B3%E3%83%90%E3%83%BC%E3%81%AB%E5%91%8A%E7%99%BD.html"><span style="font-family:arial;">his view</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">, the blowing up of the rig and the initial failure to do much about it was the US saying 'if you do not give us the money, we will destroy the planet’s eco-system.' There are other possible reasons, and some distinct parallels with 9/11 that bear thinking about, aside from the insider trading that betrayed foreknowledge, and the apparent acceptance of financial liability after the event of a company powerful enough to fight their corner. Just as military and counterterrorism exercises were apparently exploited to help facilitate the 9/11 attacks, </span><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jul/23/deepwater-horizon-oil-rig-alarms"><span style="font-family:arial;">alarms and safety mechanisms</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> on the Deepwater Horizon rig were switched off. This was done 'to help the workers sleep', but left the rig open to accident or sabotage. </span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">There is also the visual nature of the event. On </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_Deepwater_Horizon_oil_spill#May"><span style="font-family:arial;">May 12th</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">, weeks after the initial explosion and sinking of the rig, BP released footage of the spill as it progressed underwater. By May 21st they 'bowed to pressure' and produced a live feed of the spill. For weeks people could tune in to youtube and watch as underwater clouds of mud and oil flowed from the busted pipes. The comparison with 9/11 is quite simple. Though the timeframes for the oil spill were much longer, a simple pattern was followed. An initial explosion on the rig (the 'plane' hitting the South Tower) followed by the rig sinking and collapsing (the twin towers 'collapsing') followed by a billowing pyroclastic flow of oil and mud (the flow of the debris from the towers covering lower Manhattan). </span></p><span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span><object width="640" height="505"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/sA6Fx7ZEST0?fs=1&hl=en_GB&color1=0xe1600f&color2=0xfebd01" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="640" height="505"></object><span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span><object width="640" height="505"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/ULLHYmz98P0?fs=1&hl=en_GB&color1=0xe1600f&color2=0xfebd01" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="640" height="505"></object><span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span><p><span style="font-family:arial;">On June 14th, President Obama explicitly compared the spill to the terrorist attack, calling it an 'environmental 9/11'. </span></p><blockquote><span style="font-family:arial;">The disaster will "shape how we think about the environment... for years to come", he told US website Politico. - </span><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10307782"><span style="font-family:arial;">BBC</span></a></blockquote><p><span style="font-family:arial;">This is entirely in keeping with comments made in the aftermath of the failure of the Copenhagen conference to reach anything even approaching a binding agreement on emission reductions. The failure of that much-hyped conference, along with the increased scepticism of climate science in the wake of the climategate scandal, meant that getting the carbon economy back on the agenda was going to be difficult. Back in January, things were looking so bad that banks were </span><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jan/24/carbon-emissions-green-copenhagen-banks"><span style="font-family:arial;">withdrawing from the carbon market</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> that had seen such heavy </span><a href="http://carbonoblog.wordpress.com/2007/06/16/investment-banks-getting-involved-in-booming-carbon-trade/"><span style="font-family:arial;">investment</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> over the previous two years. By June, and shortly before Obama's 9/11 comment, </span><a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6512OZ20100602"><span style="font-family:arial;">Reuters</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> reported that they were once again actively investing. Not long afterwards, it was </span><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10271881"><span style="font-family:arial;">reported</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> that a ban on offshore drilling enacted in response to the spill was going to result in a rise in the price of oil. </span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">The need for a crisis to help reinvigorate this long-held agenda was flagged by prominent academics just prior to the events in the Gulf of Mexico. James Lovelock, the author of the </span><a href="http://www.physicalgeography.net/fundamentals/5d.html"><span style="font-family:arial;">Gaia hypothesis</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> (which in most respects contradicts the climate change doommongers) gave a highly convenient interview to the Guardian:</span></p><blockquote><span style="font-family:arial;">Humans are too stupid to prevent climate change from radically impacting on our lives over the coming decades. This is the stark conclusion of James Lovelock, the globally respected environmental thinker and independent scientist who developed the Gaia theory.<br><br>It follows a tumultuous few months in which <strong>public opinion on efforts to tackle climate change has been undermined by events such as the climate scientists' emails leaked from the University of East Anglia (UEA) and the failure of the Copenhagen climate summit</strong>.<br><br>"I don't think we're yet evolved to the point where we're clever enough to handle a complex a situation as climate change," said Lovelock in his first in-depth interview since the theft of the UEA emails last November. "The inertia of humans is so huge that you can't really do anything meaningful."<br><br>One of the main obstructions to meaningful action is "modern democracy", he added. "Even the best democracies agree that when a major war approaches, democracy must be put on hold for the time being. I have a feeling that climate change may be an issue as severe as a war. <strong>It may be necessary to put democracy on hold for a while</strong>."<br><br>Lovelock, 90, believes the world's best hope is to invest in adaptation measures, such as building sea defences around the cities that are most vulnerable to sea-level rises. <strong>He thinks only a catastrophic event would now persuade humanity to take the threat of climate change seriously enough</strong>, such as the collapse of a giant glacier in Antarctica, such as the Pine Island glacier, which would immediately push up sea level.<br><br>"<strong>That would be the sort of event that would change public opinion</strong>," he said. "Or a return of the dust bowl in the mid-west. Another Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report won't be enough. We'll just argue over it like now." - <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/mar/29/james-lovelock-climate-change">Guardian</a></span></blockquote><span style="font-family:arial;">This followed on from comments made by BBC climate correspondent Richard Black and Financial Times Environment correspondent Fiona Harvey. During a question and answer session at Oxford University on February 26th they were asked about Met Office forecasts, and what would convince 'sceptics and deniers':</span><blockquote><span style="font-family:arial;">Q: What will persuade sceptics and deniers?<br><br>BJ: It’s curious how Met Office and WMO predictions on AGW came out in the week of CH (some audience disagreement as to whether there had been a change from their normal timetable). It was at least bad timing for organisations that value integrity. They should distance themselves from advocacy. The Met Office is ahead of the science.</span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span><span style="font-family:arial;">FH: FT readers are versed in risk and probability which are difficult to communicate in the rest of the media. Climate scientists aren’t generally newsworthy; sceptics, IPCC problems and emails are making the news. “Climate – guess what? Still changing” is an unlikely headline. </span><strong><span style="font-family:arial;">A short-term disaster is needed to guarantee coverage as people aren’t good at processing information about there being no ice at the poles in 30 years</span></strong>. <span style="font-family:arial;">Or get David Attenborough as the front man because everyone trusts him.</span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span><span style="font-family:arial;">RB: </span><strong><span style="font-family:arial;">I agree that a short term disaster would be effective in persuading people</span></strong><span style="font-family:arial;">. - </span><a href="http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2010/2/27/how-to-report-climate-change-after-climategate.html"><span style="font-family:arial;">Bishop Hill blog</span></a></blockquote><span style="font-family:arial;">Much like PNAC called for a 'New Pearl Harbour' and Zbigniew Brzezinski spoke of the need for a 'widely perceived direct external threat' for the US to adopt a more aggressive foreign policy, these statements evoke the need for a climate catastrophe to get the carbon economy and emissions policies back in the public minds. The world's biggest ever oil leak? Not a bad effort. There was steady increase in stories of how bad it was, from initial estimates of </span><a href="http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2010/05/02/www.cbc.ca/m/rich/world/story/2010/05/07/www.cbc.ca/m/rich/world/story/2010/04/24/deepwater-horizon-oil-rig-leaking.html"><span style="font-family:arial;">1,000</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> barrels a day soon becoming up to </span><a href="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=126809525"><span style="font-family:arial;">100,000</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> barrels per day. Oil industry whistleblower Lindsey Williams got in on the act, going on the </span><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAPSOeBdSDA"><span style="font-family:arial;">Alex Jones show</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> saying his contacts in the industry were worried about poisonous gases emanating from the site of the spill. He appeared on the </span><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcQBZ7P-li8"><span style="font-family:arial;">Jeff Rense show</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> with much the same </span><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhwmWTRQH74&feature=channel"><span style="font-family:arial;">story</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">. In keeping with his somewhat curious religious views he portrayed the disaster as being of biblical proportions, and that it would require a nuclear explosion to seal up the ocean floor. The possible use of a nuke was officially </span><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/03/us/03nuke.html"><span style="font-family:arial;">denied</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> just as Williams was feeding the story to the alternative media. This was in June, and he was talking about four months being required to do the preparatory work before the nuke would be detonated. A couple of weeks later, </span><a href="http://abcnews.go.com/WN/gulf-oil-spill-bps-cap-success-oil-stops/story?id=11173330"><span style="font-family:arial;">BP</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> announced that they'd </span><a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/oilandgas/7893563/BP-stops-oil-leaking-into-the-Gulf-of-Mexico.html"><span style="font-family:arial;">stemmed</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> the flow of oil. By August Obama and his daughter were pictured on holiday, swimming at Alligator Point in Florida. It seems unlikely that if toxic gases were spewing up out of the water than the President would be allowed to go swimming on the Northern shore of the Gulf of Mexico. That said, BP are allegedly still spending nearly </span><a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/oilandgas/7980549/BP-spill-costs-still-90m-a-day-after-oil-leak-sealed.html"><span style="font-family:arial;">$100 million a day</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> on dealing with the leak, so though it appears Lindsey Williams had been given misinformation it remains to be seen what happens. </span><p><span style="font-family:arial;">By the end of July the mainstream was reporting that the oil spill, though huge, may not have been as </span><a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1298932/Was-Tony-Hayward-right-BP-oil-spill-all.html"><span style="font-family:arial;">catastrophic</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> as previously thought. Perhaps as a bolster against this, at the same time a joint report by the UK Met Office and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in the US </span><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jul/28/global-temperatures-2010-record?CMP=AFCYAH"><span style="font-family:arial;">declared</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> itself the 'best evidence yet' of global warming, and that the evidence was '</span><a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/7914611/Met-Office-report-global-warming-evidence-is-unmistakable.html"><span style="font-family:arial;">unmistakable</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">'. In the midst of the oil spill Professor Phil Jones, who was sacked to help manage the PR during climategate, was </span><a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/7876999/Climategate-professor-gets-his-job-back.html"><span style="font-family:arial;">reinstated</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> after yet another inquiry found he'd done no wrong in refusing FOIA requests, suggesting colleagues destroyed the data, and generally refusing to make public any of the information or analysis that had produced 'evidence' of global warming. A month later, as it appeared that oceanic bacteria were </span><a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/new-bacteria-degrades-oil-faster-in-deep-cold-water-study-2061909.html"><span style="font-family:arial;">degrading</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> the spilled oil much faster than anticipated, the EU's top climate official called for a reworking of the carbon markets. Connie Hedegaard, another Bilderberg attendee, </span><a href="http://www.eubusiness.com/news-eu/climate-warming-gas.5ws"><span style="font-family:arial;">called</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> for an overhaul of the 'Clean Development Mechanism' to 'make the carbon market an even more powerful instrument to reduce emissions'. If the </span><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-10851837"><span style="font-family:arial;">stories</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> about the oil spill not being as bad as it was portrayed are true, that may help explain why </span><a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/oilandgas/7978726/Second-Gulf-of-Mexico-rig-explodes-and-leaks-oil-into-ocean.html"><span style="font-family:arial;">another rig</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> has just exploded. </span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">The second biggest leak of the year was Wikileaks' publication of the </span><a href="http://wardiary.wikileaks.org/"><span style="font-family:arial;">Afghan War Diary</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">. The 'compendium' of around 91,000 documents largely consisting of basic military intelligence reports has offered a more detailed view of the Afghan War than any prior coverage. The simultaneous reporting 'scoop' by the Guardian, Der Spiegel and the New York Times catapulted Wikileaks, and Julian Assange, into the limelight. Disputes began immediately. The Pentagon </span><a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1298966/WikiLeaks-blood-hands-U-S-anger-Afghan-revelations-FBI-joins-inquiry.html"><span style="font-family:arial;">responded</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> in typical fashion, saying that Wikileaks had '</span><a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE66S5WT20100730"><span style="font-family:arial;">blood on their hands</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">' because they'd exposed sensitive information. Given the actual tedium of sifting through the documents to try to find strategically useful information, this is complete horseshit. The insurgency in Afghanistan, now 'spilling' into Pakistan, would be better off just looking on the ground with their own eyes than spending weeks poring over files on the internet. If Wikileaks starts broadcasting a live feed from the US's Predator drone aircraft then that's a different matter, and I for one would find it a lot more riveting than the oil spill. And herein lies one of the more prominent criticisms of the Wikileaks War Diary story, that it may in fact be a carefully manipulated internet-era psychological operation, carried out by the very people who it apparently damages. </span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">Suspicions were raised by the fact that two themes are relatively prevalent throughout the documents - ISI sponsorship of the insurgency, and intelligence maintaining the idea that Osama Bin Laden is actually still alive. To anyone who has actually been following the War on Terror with any integrity or critical faculties, that the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence bureau are in the habit of sponsoring various militant/terrorist groups comes as no surprise. And yet, the </span><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jul/25/pakistan-isi-accused-taliban-afghanistan"><span style="font-family:arial;">Guardian</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">, </span><a href="http://www.ufppc.org/us-a-world-news-mainmenu-35/9845-news-der-spiegel-presents-afghan-war-documents-with-aggressive-indignation.html"><span style="font-family:arial;">Der Spiegel</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> and the </span><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/26/world/asia/26isi.html?_r=2"><span style="font-family:arial;">NY Times</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> all presented the story as though it were something new and outrageous. Of apparently </span><a href="http://qwstnevrythg.com/2010/08/task-force-373/"><span style="font-family:arial;">less concern</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> was the actions of a US Special Forces group called Task Force </span><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47a7PKhpFJ0"><span style="font-family:arial;">373</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">, basically a commando unit used for assassination missions. This is extra-judicial murder, like killing senior Nazis at the end of World War 2 instead of capturing them and putting them on trial. The </span><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/26/world/asia/26warlogs.html?_r=2"><span style="font-family:arial;">NY Times</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> reported that these missions frequently 'go wrong' and end up killing civilians. The net effect of this coverage is to maintain the notion of an 'us' and a 'them'. Now the 'them' who are inflicting the dreadful threat of terrorism on the West (not actual terrorism, just the threat of it) has been expanded to include Pakistan. </span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">In all likelihood, the Brzezinski plan for Pakistan is to use them against Iran. Though there are fresh murmurs of a war against Iran, it remains highly unlikely given the US deficit and given how badly the existing wars are going. However, the murmurs do indicate that the neocons are taking ground from the Obama administration, since invasion of Iran is their policy. Brzezinski, ever the chess player, favours hiding behind proxies and manipulating the situation geopolitically, and hence wants to use the only existing Muslim nuclear power (Pakistan) to counter Iran's rather obvious efforts to become a nuclear power. So, they ratchet up the sponsorship of groups like Jundullah and Jaish-e-Mohammed to try to destabilise Iran and monopolise their military intelligence assets in fighting a dirty war. The problem with this is that the insurgency in Afghanistan becomes more powerful. In trying to deal with the Iran problem, the Obama administration has made the war in Afghanistan unwinnable. Hence, the neocons are able to seize some power saying that the only option is an all-out strike on Iran to take them out of the picture. </span><span style="font-family:arial;">In the midst of this struggle, Obama <a href="http://en.rian.ru/analysis/20100901/160425665.html">announced</a> the 'end of combat operations' in Iraq. Not the end of the war. Not the end of the US occupation. But the end of 'combat operations'. Remind you of anything?</span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span></p><p><object width="640" height="505"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/voyjTC0FuE8?fs=1&hl=en_GB&color1=0xe1600f&color2=0xfebd01" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="640" height="505"></object><span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span></p><span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span><object width="640" height="505"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/0tEHBVzZY4E?fs=1&hl=en_GB&color1=0xe1600f&color2=0xfebd01" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="640" height="505"></object><span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span><p><span style="font-family:arial;">The other common criticism of the Wikileaks War Diary is that it promulgates the myth that Osama Bin Laden is still </span><a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1297916/Wikileaks-reveals-Osama-Bin-Laden-seen-village-meetings.html"><span style="font-family:arial;">alive</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> and causing trouble, and is a reason to be as afraid as you can manage. Even </span><a href="http://www.boingboing.net/2010/08/27/fidel-castro-believe.html"><span style="font-family:arial;">Fidel Castro</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> got involved, saying that the Wikileaks documents 'prove' Bin Laden is a US spy. Either Castro is just being a cantankerous old Commie or he's being very clever in suggesting the presence of Bin Laden in the documents is reason to believe that his reputation as an international terrorist is one created and advanced by Western intelligence for their own ends. Either way, good on him. The world won't be quite the same when Fidel Castro isn't in it anymore. </span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">One of the better critiques of this story is offered by Brendon O'Neill of Spiked:</span></p><blockquote><p><span style="font-family:arial;">[I]t’s worth noting that the documents reveal little that we didn’t already know, or couldn’t have guessed was happening...</span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">...Truth is not something that is handed to us on a silver platter by know-it-all whistleblowers. It is something we discover for ourselves through a process of critical investigation and by quizzing and querying received wisdoms. The media’s pant-wetting excitement about these leaked documents only shows what a parlous state journalism is in, and how much journalists have become the passive recipients of information rather than active seekers of the truth...</span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">...In equating Truth with exposure – so that Truth becomes something which is revealed to us by a supposedly heroic individual in the corridors of powers – journalists and editors are compliant in the denigration of the meaning of Truth. Truth becomes, not something we find out through critical study and investigation, but something we are handed by external forces who apparently have always pure, unimpeachable motives...</span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">...Waiting for the Truth to be revealed is always a fool’s errand – whether you’re waiting for God to reveal it, or, even worse, some sap in a suit in the Pentagon who one morning has a very belated pang of guilt about his role in the destruction of Afghanistan. - </span><a href="http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/site/article/9348/"><span style="font-family:arial;">Spiked</span></a></p></blockquote><p><span style="font-family:arial;">Giving credence to the notion that Wikileaks is an earnest website, working to put information in the public domain, who are seen as a threat by the CIA and Pentagon, is the treatment of Assange. On August 2oth, he was </span><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCJNTlOkF40"><span style="font-family:arial;">charged</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> with rape in Sweden. However, within a day the arrest warrant was </span><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-11049316"><span style="font-family:arial;">canceled</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> and the charges </span><a href="http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/world/europe/wikileaks+founder+assange+accused+of+rape/3750082"><span style="font-family:arial;">dropped</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">. Then at the beginning of September a 'top Swedish prosecuter' said that the case had been </span><a href="http://uk.news.yahoo.com/18/20100901/twl-sweden-to-reopen-rape-probe-of-wikil-1a2730a.html"><span style="font-family:arial;">re-opened</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">. So, is Assange being stigmatised and branded a rapist in order to try to discredit Wikileaks? It's possible. However, if anything the stories about Assange being charged, then the charges being dropped, then being potentially brought up again, all mentioned the War Diary as part of their coverage. It's almost as if they wanted us to make the connection, and presume the rape allegation false, and a concoction of Assange/Wikileaks apparent enemies. </span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">A couple of days after the charges were dropped, Wikileaks published a new CIA document on their website. They pre-announced the publication on Twitter. The entries (reverse chronological order) read:</span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;"> </span></p><blockquote><span style="font-family:arial;">The possible prosecution of WikiLeaks | Antiwar http://bit.ly/dx2nc3<br>9:53 AM Aug 25th via bitly<br><br>WikiLeaks to release CIA paper tomorrow.<br>11:53 PM Aug 24th via bitly - <a href="http://twitter.com/wikileaks">Wikileaks on Twitter</a></span></blockquote><span style="font-family:arial;">Clearly Wikileaks wanted the publication of the CIA document to help distract from Assange's legal trouble, and firmly placed it in the context of them fighting back against 'prosecution' from outside. The </span><a href="http://wikileaks.org/wiki/CIA_Red_Cell_Memorandum_on_United_States_%22exporting_terrorism%22,_2_Feb_2010"><span style="font-family:arial;">document</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> itself is from the CIA's 'Red Cell', supposedly responsible for 'outside the box' thinking. It's subject is the US 'export of terrorism', i.e. US citizens who'd gone and been involved with terrorism in other countries. The memo mentions several examples, and concludes that the PR damage of the rest of the world recognising that terrorism can originate in the US could undermine legal efforts to get foreign nations to extradite suspects to the US, and in general make US agents abroad into targets for retribution. </span><p><span style="font-family:arial;">Perhaps the most interesting and revealing aspect of this memo is what it doesn't say. It talks of the US 'export' of terrorism. Not sponsorship. Not control or manipulation. 'Export'. One of the examples mentioned is that of David Headley from Chicago, who helped Lashkar-e-Taiba carry out the 2008 Mumbai attacks. However, the US refused to let Headley be interrogated by Indian authorities investigating the attacks, </span><a href="http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article6960182.ece"><span style="font-family:arial;">leading</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> them and many others to </span><a href="http://aangirfan.blogspot.com/2010/03/mumbai-attacks-mastermind-david-headley_18.html"><span style="font-family:arial;">believe</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> he is in fact a </span><a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/6826571/Mumbai-suspect-is-US-double-agent-India-claims.html"><span style="font-family:arial;">CIA operative</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">. They did eventually hand him over to the Indian authorities, but only after extensive interrogation (or debriefing) by US agents. Headley certainly </span><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/22/us/22terror.html?pagewanted=2"><span style="font-family:arial;">worked</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> for the Drug Enforcement Administration as an informant for years, including paying visits to </span><a href="http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/world/asia_pacific/david+headley+stranger+than+fiction/3511057"><span style="font-family:arial;">Pakistan</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> on their behalf and he may have been recruited from their by intelligence agencies higher up the food chain, such as the </span><a href="http://rt.com/Top_News/2009-12-22/terrorist-cia-mumbai-attack.html"><span style="font-family:arial;">CIA</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">. Though he ended up </span><a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/8575542.stm"><span style="font-family:arial;">pleading guilty</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">, just like Ali Mohamed there is no report of him actually being sentenced, and </span><a href="http://www.gg2.net/headley-is-expected-to-be-sentenced-early-next-year-2559.aspx"><span style="font-family:arial;">according</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> to his lawyer this won't happen until next year when the trial of one of his co-accused is completed. </span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">While it is not surprising to find the CIA not explicitly referring to their own sponsorship of terrorists, if Wikileaks were honest in their coverage of the issue of terrorism you would expect them to mention that Headley was probably CIA, and certainly a secret agent of some type. But they didn't. This suggests that the publication of the CIA memo was part of a media campaign aimed at taking attention away from the rape allegations, and restoring credibility to Wikileaks in a period of criticism. But who is ultimately pulling the strings? Was this just a self-protectionist move by Wikileaks, or a more subtle propaganda strategy? Is the aim to grant credibility to Wikileaks only insofar as they continue to ignore the very biggest questions? Are they a product of the people they supposedly seek to expose? Certainly Webster Tarpley thinks so.<object width="640" height="505"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/brGAgrxscOg?fs=1&hl=en_GB&color1=0xe1600f&color2=0xfebd01"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/brGAgrxscOg?fs=1&hl=en_GB&color1=0xe1600f&color2=0xfebd01" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="640" height="505"></object><p><p>If the aim here is to promote and cultivate Wikileaks in such a way as to discredit and marginalise 'conspiracy theorists' then this leak is an excellent means of doing that. In the second part of the above video, Tarpley rightly asks of Assange 'who pays you?' Similar document-publishing, whistleblowing website Cryptome recently </span><a href="http://cryptome.org/0001/wikileaks-mess.htm"><span style="font-family:arial;">published</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> a series of messages purportedly posted by Wikileaks insiders on an encrypted messageboard. Though cryptome cast doubt on the authenticity of the messages, but they include </span><a href="http://cryptome.org/0001/wikileaks-buck.htm"><span style="font-family:arial;">demands</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> for a full </span><a href="http://cryptome.org/0001/wikileaks-audit.htm"><span style="font-family:arial;">audit</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> of Wikileaks finances, allegations of Wikileaks </span><a href="http://cryptome.org/0001/wikileaks-acts.htm"><span style="font-family:arial;">manipulating</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> their releases, and of the organisation having a '</span><a href="http://cryptome.org/0002/wikileaks-clarify.htm"><span style="font-family:arial;">pyramid structure</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">'. How Wikileaks has determined that it needs $5 million a year is a question worth asking when all they ostensibly do is host a website and pay for Assange's travelling expenses. Whether these messages are authentic is virtually impossible to say, but they do make some important points. Nonetheless, Cryptome officially </span><a href="http://blather.net/zeitgeist/archives/2010/04/cryptome_definitively_supports.html"><span style="font-family:arial;">supports</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> Wikileaks. </span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">If Wikileaks has been created, infiltrated, or otherwise been manipulated by Western military intelligence then it is in keeping with strategies outlined in various significant reports. As outlined in David Ray Griffin's new book '</span><a href="http://911blogger.com/news/2010-08-31/traitor-betrays-himself-review-cognitive-infiltration-david-ray-griffin"><span style="font-family:arial;">Cognitive Infiltration</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">', Obama appointee Cass Sunstein advocated the covert infiltration of groups and movements deemed 'conspiracist' and therefore a threat. He did this in a 2009 paper published in the Journal of Political Philosophy titled '</span><a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-9760.2008.00325.x/abstract"><span style="font-family:arial;">Conspiracy Theories: Causes and Cures</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">'. I've yet to find a fully available copy of the paper, but it is likely a rehash of his 2008 paper '</span><a href="http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/Susstein1.pdf"><span style="font-family:arial;">Conspiracy Theories</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">'. In it, Sunstein attributes belief in conspiracy theories largely to psychological bases. The paper trots out the usual crap about how difficult it is for conspiracies to be real in an 'open society':</span></p><blockquote><span style="font-family:arial;">Consider all the work that must be done to hide and to cover up the government’s role in producing a terrorist attack on its own territory, or in arranging to kill political opponents. In a closed society, secrets are not difficult to keep, and distrust of official accounts makes a great deal of sense. In such societies, conspiracy theories are both more likely to be true and harder to show to be false in light of available information. But when the press is free, and when checks and balances are in force, government cannot easily keep its conspiracies hidden for long. These points do not mean that it is logically impossible, even in free societies, that conspiracy theories are true. But it does mean that institutional checks make it unlikely, in such societies, that powerful groups can keep dark secrets for extended periods, at least if those secrets involve important events with major social salience. - </span><a href="http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/Susstein1.pdf"><span style="font-family:arial;">Sunstein, 2008</span></a></blockquote><span style="font-family:arial;">What this commonly repeated attempt to refute conspiracy theories in general is missing is that in fact, even in open societies, secrets are kept as a matter of routine. As the CIA loves to remind us, we know about their failures, but we'll never hear about their successes. Military secrets are routinely kept not only from opponents on the battlefield but from the very public they are supposedly protecting. Leaks such as the Wikileaks Afghan War Diary are 'sexy' media stories precisely because we live in a society where we basically know sod all about what our soldiers and spies are really up to. On the contrary to sort of argument put forth by Sunstein, in an open society where you can obfuscate, bury bad news, or just flood people with information so they can't process it in a meaningful way, it's actually rather easy to plan and carry out (for example) false flag terrorist attacks. In the case of 7/7, virtually no forensic evidence has been leaked into the public domain, making it impossible to draw any evidence-based narrative of what happened. Those claiming to know that 7/7 was an inside job are making a leap, but no greater leap than those who claim to know that it wasn't. </span><p><span style="font-family:arial;">Sunstein moves on to the general ignorance of people, and finds in this another cause for conspiracy theories to be believed. </span></p><blockquote><span style="font-family:arial;">Some beliefs are also motivated, in the sense that people are pleased to hold them or displeased to reject them.35 Acceptance (or for that matter rejection) of a conspiracy theory is frequently motivated in that sense. Reactions to a claim of conspiracy to assassinate a political leader, or to commit or to allow some atrocity either domestically or abroad, are often determined by the motivations of those who hear the claim. These are points about individual judgments, bracketing social influences. But after some bad event has occurred, those influences are crucial, for most people will have little or no direct information about its cause. How many people know, directly or on the basis of personal investigation, whether Al Qaeda was responsible for the 9/11 attacks, or whether Lee Harvey Oswald killed President Kennedy on his own? - </span><a href="http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/Susstein1.pdf"><span style="font-family:arial;">Sunstein, 2008</span></a></blockquote><span style="font-family:arial;">In fact, the majority of people who believe that Al Qaeda were not responsible for 9/11 and that Oswald didn't kill JFK believe so on the basis of investigation. How rational that investigation is, how sound the evidence and how logical their conclusions are as to what really happened are all a matter of considerable dispute. But the sorts of people who affirm that 9/11 was an inside job typically have far more information about the event than they do about any other given major news event. They even have a tendency to bombard those who are unconvinced with information and arguments in attempts to convince the '9/11 truth sceptics'. So, the answer to Sunstein's rather rhetorical question is 'quite a lot, actually'. </span><p><span style="font-family:arial;">Sunstein goes on to describe several possible responses by governments concerned about conspiracy theories. </span></p><blockquote><p><span style="font-family:arial;">What can government do about conspiracy theories? Among the things it can do,<br>what should it do? We can readily imagine a series of possible responses. (1)<br>Government might ban conspiracy theorizing. (2) G</span><span style="font-family:arial;">overnment might impose some kind of tax, financial or otherwise, on those who disseminate such theories. (3) Government might itself engage in counterspeech, marshaling arguments to discredit conspiracy theories. (4) Government might formally hire credible private parties to engage in counterspeech. (5) Government might engage in informal communication with such parties, encouraging them to help. Each instrument has a distinctive set of potential effects, or costs and benefits, and each will have a place under imaginable conditions. However, our main policy idea is that government should engage in cognitive infiltration of the groups that produce conspiracy theories, which involves a mix of (3), (4) and (5). - </span><a href="http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/Susstein1.pdf"><span style="font-family:arial;">Sunstein, 2008</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span></p></blockquote><p><span style="font-family:arial;">The idea of a tax on conspiracy theorists is truly wonderful, and could only ever be the product of a mind reaching for a predetermined conclusion with all its might, without caring how stupid the person it belongs to ends up looking. It would lead to a lengthy legal battle on the definition of a conspiracy theory, since there are dozens of official conspiracy theories that presumably would deserve to be taxed too. Maybe it isn't such a stupid idea after all. </span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">He goes on to explain what this strategy of 'cognitive infiltration' might look like. </span></p><blockquote><p><span style="font-family:arial;">By this we do not mean 1960s-style infiltration with a view to surveillance and collecting information, possibly for use in future prosecutions. Rather, we mean that government efforts might succeed in weakening or even breaking up the ideological and epistemological complexes that constitute these networks and groups...</span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">...We suggest a role for government efforts, and agents, in introducing such diversity. Government agents (and their allies) might enter chat rooms, online social networks, or even real-space groups and attempt to undermine percolating conspiracy theories by raising doubts about their factual premises, causal logic or implications for political action. - </span><a href="http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/Susstein1.pdf"><span style="font-family:arial;">Sunstein, 2008</span></a></p></blockquote><p><span style="font-family:arial;">As I imagine Griffin's book will discuss, infiltrating perceived dangerous social movements is not a new strategy, and if anything the likes of Sunstein talking about it so explicitly is itself an attempted psychological operation. By advocating the policy in such clear terms he is trying to make it seem normal, rational, and inevitable. It is the just response of a sensible government in the face of a menace. </span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">The same basic thesis can be found in more recent report, which reference Sunstein's work. Supposedly 'third way' think tank DEMOS recently </span><a href="http://www.demos.co.uk/publications/thepowerofunreason"><span style="font-family:arial;">published</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> 'The Power of Unreason: Conspiracy Theories, Extremism and Counter-Terrorism'. Even more so than Sunstein, they identify belief in conspiracy theories with 'extreme' beliefs and ultimately with terrorism. They note how groups from the Ku Klux Klan to Aum Shinrikyo have believed they were the targets of persecution, or that they were a vanguard against the onslaught of tyrannical government. They note how anarchist group the Angry Brigade sent communiques 'bursting with conspiracy':</span></p><blockquote><p><span style="font-family:arial;">Communique 7: …THEY shoved garbage from their media down our</span><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span><span style="font-family:arial;">throats. THEY made us obscure sexual caricatures, all of us men and</span><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span><span style="font-family:arial;">women. They killed, napalmed, burned us into soap, mutilated us,</span><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span><span style="font-family:arial;">raped us. It’s gone on for centuries. Slowly we started understanding</span><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span><span style="font-family:arial;">THE BIG CON </span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">Communique 9: We are slowly destroying the long tentacles of the</span><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span><span style="font-family:arial;">oppressive state machine…bureaucracy and technology used against</span><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span><span style="font-family:arial;">the people…to speed up our work, to slow down our minds and actions,</span><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span><span style="font-family:arial;">to obliterate the truth. </span><span style="font-family:arial;">- </span><a href="http://www.demos.co.uk/files/Conspiracy_theories_paper.pdf?1282913891"><span style="font-family:arial;">Angry brigade communiques, cited in The Power of Unreason</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span></p></blockquote><p><span style="font-family:arial;">Frankly, however stupid and counterproductive and needlessly violent I think terrorism is, there's a lot to identify with in the statements, however 'conspiratorial' their tone. DEMOS show much the same sort of intellectual dishonesty as Sunstein, describing the story of US group MOVE thus:</span></p><blockquote><span style="font-family:arial;">MOVE – an anarcho-primitivist group <strong>involved in a police<br>shooting in 1985</strong> in the United States – spoke of government<br>corruption and blamed all the world’s ills on technology. - <a href="http://www.demos.co.uk/files/Conspiracy_theories_paper.pdf?1282913891">The Power of Unreason</a></span></blockquote><span style="font-family:arial;">DEMOS's analysis is almost entirely inaccurate.  Several members of the commune were involved in a shootout where a police officer was killed, but that was in 1978, not 1985.  Completely ommitted from the analysis above is the fact that the MOVE commune in was subjected to a horrific siege by </span><a href="http://library.temple.edu/collections/urbana/psic-01.jsp;jsessionid=37123BB5A119404917F0EFD3AFF4CA7B?bhcp=1"><span style="font-family:arial;">Philadelphia</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> police in 1985. Tear gas canisters were hurled in, the house was drenched with water cannons, thousands of rounds were fired at the building and then to cap it all a helicopter dropped a bomb primarily made of C-4 on top of them, killing 11 people including 5 children, and causing fire and destruction that ultimately consumed 65 houses. That's a pretty good psychological motivation for people to believe the state is capable of terrorism against its own people. Echoing Sunstein once more, DEMOS cite the Wikileaks War Diary as an example of how hard it is to keep secrets:</span><blockquote><p><span style="font-family:arial;">It is also becoming more difficult for security services to operate<br>behind a veil of secrecy. The recent leaking of thousands of<br>classified US intelligence documents to Wikileaks highlight</span><span style="font-family:arial;">s</span><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span><span style="font-family:arial;">mounting challenges. - </span><a href="http://www.demos.co.uk/files/Conspiracy_theories_paper.pdf?1282913891"><span style="font-family:arial;">The Power of Unreason</span></a></p></blockquote><p><span style="font-family:arial;">To respond to this, DEMOS advocate policies entirely similar to those offered by Sunstein:</span><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span></p><blockquote><p><span style="font-family:arial;">Government agents or their allies should openly infiltrate the</span><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span><span style="font-family:arial;">Internet sites or spaces to plant doubts about conspiracy theories,</span><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span><span style="font-family:arial;">introducing alternative information. - </span><a href="http://www.demos.co.uk/files/Conspiracy_theories_paper.pdf?1282913891"><span style="font-family:arial;">The Power of Unreason</span></a></p></blockquote><p><span style="font-family:arial;">However, they did add a new policy:</span></p><blockquote><p><span style="font-family:arial;">As the government conducts its review of counter-terrorism powers,</span><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span><span style="font-family:arial;">it should consider how the intelligence agencies and other counterterrorism</span><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span><span style="font-family:arial;">operations could be more transparent...</span><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">---Make intelligence announcements more explicit.</span><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span><span style="font-family:arial;">In Denmark, intelligence agencies publish an unclassified</span><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span><span style="font-family:arial;">assessment of their judgement of the threats facing the country.- </span><a href="http://www.demos.co.uk/files/Conspiracy_theories_paper.pdf?1282913891"><span style="font-family:arial;">The Power of Unreason</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span></p></blockquote><p><span style="font-family:arial;">Not only do they suggest the infiltration of 'undesirable' groups, in physical and cyberspace, but also that the intelligence agencies </span><a href="http://uk.news.yahoo.com/5/20100829/tuk-secret-services-should-be-less-secre-45dbed5.html"><span style="font-family:arial;">should</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> provide more information and be more explicit about the threats we face. Now, if this were done in anything even approaching an honest fashion, it might be a somewhat sensible strategy. Stability via transparent government. But in reality, that isn't going to happen, and what DEMOS is really advocating is that intelligence agencies see conspiracy theories as an ideological enemy, to be confronted and eliminated. I'm no fearmonger, but this is all getting a bit KGB for my liking. </span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">One final document also suggests that the Wikileaks storm might be taking place in the Pentagon's teacup. The Joint Special Operations University published a report in 2006 called Blogs and Military Information Strategy. It outlines how the blogosphere, as a synecdoche of the internet in general, is a new battleground for the US Army, and in particular the implications blogs have for 'influence operations', one category of psychological operations. It includes some rather natty diagrams and graphs, including W.L. Bennet's model of the infosphere. </span></p><p><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 159px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_ru_ILHZRbr0/TIkV4hElJMI/AAAAAAAAAEQ/NCMNDniiaUo/s320/the+infosphere.bmp" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5514963279386322114" border="0"></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">The JSOU report explains a complex set of strategies to deal with the problems posed by blogs (and therefore all independent news sites) with regard to 'influence operations. It says:</span></p><blockquote><p><span style="font-family:arial;">Information strategists can consider clandestinely recruiting or hiring prominent bloggers or other persons of prominence already within the target nation, group, or community to pass the U.S. message. In this way, the U.S. can overleap the entrenched inequalities and make use of preexisting intellectual and social capital...</span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">...An alternative strategy is to “make” a blog and blogger. The process of boosting the blog to a position of influence could take some time, however, and depending on the person running the blog, may impose a significant educational burden, in terms of cultural and linguistic training before the blog could be put online to any useful effect. Still, there are people in the military today who like to blog. In some cases, their talents might be redirected toward operating blogs as part of an information campaign. If a military blog offers valuable information that is not available from other sources, it could rise in rank fairly rapidly...</span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">...There are certain to be cases where some blog, outside the control of the U.S. government, promotes a message that is antithetical to U.S. interests, or actively supports the informational, recruiting and logistical activities of our enemies. The initial reaction may be to take down the site, but this is problematic in that doing so does not guarantee that the site will remain down. As has been the case with many such sites, the offending site will likely move to a different host server, often in a third country. Moreover, such action will likely produce even more interest in the site and its contents. Also, taking down a site that is known to pass enemy EEIs (essential elements of information) and that gives us their key messages denies us a valuable information source. This is not to say that once the information passed becomes redundant or is superseded by a better source that the site should be taken down. At that point the enemy blog might be used covertly as a vehicle for friendly information operations. Hacking the site and subtly changing the messages and data—merely a few words or phrases—may be sufficient to begin destroying the blogger’s credibility with the audience. Better yet, if the blogger happens to be passing enemy communications and logistics data, the information content could be corrupted. If the messages are subtly tweaked and the data corrupted in the right way, the enemy may reason that the blogger in question has betrayed them and either take down the site (and the blogger) themselves, or by threatening such action, give the U.S. an opportunity to offer the individual amnesty in exchange for information...</span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">...There will also be times when it is thought to be necessary, in the context of an integrated information campaign, to pass false or erroneous information through the media, on all three layers, in support of military deception activities...</span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">...Credibility is the heart and soul of influence operations. In these cases, extra care must be taken to ensure plausible deniability and nonattribution, as well as employing a well-thought-out deception operation that minimizes the risks of exposure. Because of the potential blowback effect, information strategy should avoid planting false information as much as possible. - </span><a href="http://www.au.af.mil/info-ops/jsou/blogbook06june.pdf"><span style="font-family:arial;">JSOU Report 06-5 Blogs and Military Information Strategy</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span></p></blockquote><p><span style="font-family:arial;">So even if Wikileaks is not a pure creation of military intelligence, the question remains as to whether it has been given undue prominence via the publication of the Afghan War Diary as part of an influence operation. To take the website offline would be a relatively simple matter for the US Army, but as noted in this paper that wouldn't solve the problem, and manipulation of the website, its content, and how it is perceived is a more sophisticated and effective strategy. Nonetheless, Assange might not even be aware of this, and might be perfectly honest in saying he is 'annoyed' by the 9/11 Truth movement. He may simply be an egotistical, unwitting pawn in a propaganda game that extends far beyond his influence. </span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">In both of these stories there is much that remains uncertain, and while the people pulling the strings may still be in the shadows, the agendas being advanced via these major news events are quite obvious. What is certain is that these are stories of and for the internet age. Though they affect very real events, the video stream of the oil spill that turned it into an issue of global opinion, and the documents published by Wikileaks are things that happened online, and could only have happened online. Given the open concern about 'conspiracy theories' and the policies already adopted by military intelligence institutions, we need new strategies to counteract the effects. To that end we need 100 sites like Wikileaks, offering places for the disaffected who work in these institutions to help lay bare how they really work. Thus whether or not Wikileaks is a CIA operation would be irrelevant, because they would be but one site among many, rather than the world's premier online resource for whistleblowers. What we must also do as a critically concerned public is to remember that any individual news story produces easy, comfortable heroes and villains. We need to study these stories in context, because no one story ever explains that much, however big it is. We need to look for trends, connections across time and space, use our lateral thinking skills to always be able to consider what it beyond what we're being told. We also need to demand and expect more of investigative journalists, who will pro-actively seek out secret information rather than waiting to copy-paste it from Wikileaks. It is a dying art, but one absolutely crucial if democracy is to mean anything at all. Ultimately, we cannot trust the authorities who dominate the airwaves, because by their own confession they are more interested in deception than they are in truth.</span><br></p><br /><div style="clear: both;"></div><br />Talkbouthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14408535183177475747noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5734121862980918017.post-23799218239658748922010-08-05T22:00:00.000-07:002013-10-24T11:51:02.853-07:00
Mendacious metaphors
<br /><p><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z75o-F6ja2I"><span style="font-family:arial;">Inception</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">, this summer's sci-fi thriller blockbuster, ranks at the time of writing at number 3 in the all-time movie rankings on </span><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1375666/"><span style="font-family:arial;">IMDB</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">. A similar phenomenon was seen two years ago with director Christopher Nolan's Batman relaunch sequel The Dark Knight, which reached similarly dizzying heights on IMDB and has only now fallen out of the top 10. While The Dark Knight does not pretend to be anything but a well thought out take on a classic comic book action story, Inception broaches far more philosophical topics and has loftier ambitions. Though it is a textbook example of narrative complexity, and derives tremendous tension from its pinnacle of quadruple jeopardy, in essence it says absolutely nothing. Though the script is full of references to the subconscious, and the entire story takes place in a </span><a href="http://www.cinemablend.com/new/Inception-Explained-Unraveling-The-Dream-Within-The-Dream-19615.html"><span style="font-family:arial;">multi-layered dream</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">, the movie makes no effort to discuss the importance or relevance of dreams or what psychologists call the subconscious, they are mere tools and excuses used to create dramatic tension. It is an outstanding example of modernist filmmaking, concerned only with form, only with the cinematic experience of watching it. Philosophically speaking, it is totally vacuous. The concepts and references are just there for the sake of creating a point in the story where the success or failure of the protagonists rests not on a single or dual factors, but on a succession of well-sychronised 'kicks' that wake our heroes from several successive 'levels' of 'dream state'. The twist at the end appears to be the rather obvious in-story joke that the entire thing is one big dream of Leonardo Dicaprio's character. As far as cop-out, obviously leaving it open for a lucrative sequel endings go, it was a tour de force of which Nolan is presumably very proud. </span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">The movie is a well designed trick. It convinces people that it must be about something, because there's always something going on and you have to add it all up to make sure you follow the plot correctly. But that is all it is about - the plot itself. As an intellectual experience, it is completely insular. An analysis of the essential plot points and creative decisions made in the story telling process illustrate that this can only be intentional. The movie is ostensibly set in a world different to ours, but the only exploration of the way in which it is different is the existence of a technology that allows people to enter other people's dreams. Basically they all sit in a room together, wired up to a silver suitcase. The only other information that we're offered about the world is when a Japanese businessman (cliche alert!) hires Dicaprio and his anonymous, one dimensional band of associates to attempt 'inception', the use of the technology to try to plant an idea in a rival businessman's head. </span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">Briefly, it is explained that the rival is about to inherit a monopolistic energy company with which no one can compete, and so the Japanese businessman wants to implant the idea that the rival should split up the monopolistic company and sell it off. This is the only other information we're given about the 'real' world in which the story occurs. Unlike virtually every other sci-fi story set in a different world, the narrative conceit of setting isn't used to say anything about our own world. It simply isn't part of the story. </span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">Instead we are invited to try to get interested and engaged by Dicaprio having a dead wife, who for reasons that are too tedious to get into, he is wrongly thought to have killed and hence he is separated from his children. The last Dicaprio movie I watched was Shutter Island, which also involved having to sit through two hours of his shitly-bearded face try to convey the emotion of having a dead wife. The central character in Memento (which is identical to Inception in several regards) also has a dead wife. As does as least one contestant on The X-Factor every year. Indeed, the story of 'man with dead wife' is about as overused as having a fat black guy play the busdriver. There is, incidentally, a lovely moment in season two of The Wire where McNulty jokes about having a dead wife in a playful attempt to curry interest from Beadie. Nolan himself shows that he knows this is a cliche by making this plot element entirely subservient to the story. That is to say, there is no exploration of the experience of a man who has lost his wife, it is merely a fact that is necessary for the climax to happen in the way that it does. </span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">Indeed, several other factors are likewise subservient, to the extent that the entire plot is supporting one climactic sequence of cutting between successfully dependent events. Ignoring the storyteller's mantra to 'show' rather than 'tell', we are told virtually the whole story explicitly through dialogue to make sure that even the thickos at the back can grasp what's going on. We are told that in order to plant the idea (incept? inceive?) in the business rival's head they need a three-layered dream - a dream within a dream within a dream - so they can ensure the idea goes 'deep' enough. (This is only one of a dozen different uses of the word 'deep' in the script, more on that lower down) Why is this the case? Why a three-layered dream? Purely because the plot demands it. We are told that three layers is highly unstable. Why is this the case? Why would dreaming within dreaming within dreaming involve experiencing a reality that is less stable than mere dreaming within dreaming? No explanation is given. It is purely because the plot demands it. </span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">So, they drug the target with a powerful sedative, and drug themselves with it too. Once in the first level of the dream, we are told that because of the sedative if they 'die' in the dream that they won't wake up, but will go into another, apparently parallel, dream state they call 'limbo'. No one bothers to ask 'what happens if you die in limbo, do you wake up then?' which is important, because the film has no answer for that rather obvious question, at least at that point in the story. Again, the whole 'limbo' diversion is an excuse for something else that needs to happen so that the narrative conclusion can be what the writers want it to be. It isn't saying anything about the nature of experiencing death within a dream, or being conscious of experiencing death in a dream, and it sure as hell isn't saying anything about humans being the only creatures that know that they are going to die. It's just a piece of a jigsaw. If people are satisfied with themselves for having put the jigsaw together by the end of the movie then they will go home happy with the cinematic experience, happy to have consumed Inception as a product. </span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">And here is the crucial factor in the deception of Inception. It isn't even Titanic. Titanic was a largely meaningless blockbuster, also starring Dicaprio, but at least it gave its audience a good emotional work out. It may not have taught them anything, it may not have informed them, it may not have inspired them, but at least it made people feel something. Inception doesn't even accomplish that. All it is offering its audience is the prize of being able to follow the plot, which isn't even that complex relative to, just for example, The Spy Who Came in From the Cold. It is the cinematic equivalent of a Sudoku puzzle. In many tabletop games, in particular most board games, the multiplayer aspect means that one is testing oneself against other people within the framework of the rules. There is an unpredictable exchange that requires an ad hoc mental process. In Sudoku, either one 'gets' it and completes the puzzle, or one doesn't. In Inception, either you follow the plot, or you don't. In a movie where so much is at stake for the characters, virtually nothing is at stake for the watching audience. </span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">Indeed, even the title is misleading gibberish. The word 'inception' </span><a href="http://www.thefreedictionary.com/inception"><span style="font-family:arial;">means</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> the beginning of something. It does not mean planting an idea in someone's mind through their subconscious. 'Insertion' would be more accurate. However, Nolan clearly isn't concerned with actually using words to mean what they mean, but solely with finding a single-word, cool sounding title for a movie that says nothing about anything. Calling a movie 'insertion' would make it sound like an unimaginative porn film, presumably based around people placing objects in their bodily orifices. The title 'Inception' plays the same role as the sunglasses and long leather jackets in The Matrix. It is almost empty data - signifying nothing other than the filmmaker's desire to be thought of as having made a cool movie. All the talk, in both films, of perception of reality is not an effort to explore ontology through cinema, but as part of a carefully arranged group of symbols which are collectively meaningless but individually compelling enough to appear meaningful at least for the duration of the film. The film is not only driven by almost pure formalism, it engages in a form of psychological deception. </span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">That is not to say people shouldn't find the movie enjoyable, more so that they should realise what it is that they are enjoying. That is, their own ability to follow a reasonably complex plot, their own capacity to solve a puzzle so that they can buy into the dramatic tension of the climactic sequence. Inception does make its audience work a little harder than most mainstream action thrillers, but this is only to make the film more compelling as a physical, formal experience. It's the equivalent of using more contrasting colours in a painting, or slightly cruder language in a sitcom. Not subtle, not particularly clever and most certainly not philosophical. David Denby of the New Yorker twigged this:</span></p><blockquote><p><span style="font-family:arial;">Christopher Nolan(...) appears to believe that if he can do certain things in cinema—especially very complicated things—then he has to do them. But why? To what end? His new movie, “Inception,” is an astonishment, an engineering feat, and, finally, a folly...</span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">...“Inception” is a stunning-looking film that gets lost in fabulous intricacies, a movie devoted to its own workings and to little else...</span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">...Bizarre oddities, which complicate the puzzle but are meaningless in themselves, flash by in an instant. The actors, trying to suggest familiarity with the task of dream invasion, spin off gibberish in the most casual way. Parodies, I assume, will follow on YouTube...</span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">...But who cares if Cobb gets back to two kids we don’t know? And why would we root for one energy company over another? There’s no spiritual meaning or social resonance to any of this, no critique of power in the dream-world struggle between C.E.O.s. - </span><a href="http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/cinema/2010/07/26/100726crci_cinema_denby?currentPage=2"><span style="font-family:arial;">Inception review, New Yorker</span></a></p></blockquote><p><span style="font-family:arial;">There is something much more important at stake than Nolan's aesthetic philosophy, and that is that Inception works as a corporate psychological operation, as mass propaganda. This is most obvious in its treatment of dreams-within-dreams. The characters are seen entering a dream, and then falling asleep within it and entering another dream, and then falling asleep within that and entering another dream. These dreams are arranged in a linear, vertical formation so to fully wake up they need to wake up from the 'deepest level' (3rd dream) to the 'deeper level' (2nd dream) to the merely 'deep level' (1st dream) and from there wake up to reality. The neat planning and execution of these four successive 'wake ups' is what creates the quadruple jeopardy - to successfully wake up, all four must work in the right way and the right order. </span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">However, this isn't how dreams work. No one falls asleep in a dream and finds themself in another dream. Sometimes, people experience 'waking up' in a dream but that is usually the beginning of the dream (insofar as they remember it), not a transition from a prior dream state, and certainly not a passage up some imaginary ladder of different dream states. No one actually experiences lucid dreaming in the manner portrayed in Inception. The film is also asexual. Aside from Dicaprio's dead wife, there is no indication that any of the characters even have a sexuality or any kind of romantic emotion whatsoever, and yet this is perhaps the number one topic for real dreams. This confirms that Nolan has no interest in discussing people's real experience of dreams. </span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">In reality, most people experience dreams within dreams laterally, not vertically. As is portrayed in the far superior film based on a very, very similar premise Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, we tumble sideways, never in full control, finding the world of our own mind a constantly shifting, unsteady ground, rather than the rigid military formation demanded by Nolan's plot. But Nolan could have created the same quadruple jeopardy without arranging the dreams vertically. Had the various dreams been parallel, he could have simply had the characters explain with their psychobabble that they needed to exit the dreams simultaneously at the same time as the target, the rival businessman, so he didn't realise he'd been in a dream all along while they were planting the idea. Or whatever. It could have not been dreams at all, but three or four events needing to happen in different places for the desired conclusion to happen. Instead of parallel dream states one could have </span><a href="http://stagevu.com/search?for=sliders&in=Videos&x=0&y=0"><span style="font-family:arial;">Sliders</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">-style parallel universes, causally interconnected. There are an infinite number of possible scenarios where four stories or situations have mutually dependent influence. </span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">So why all the crap about dreams, the subconscious, perception of reality, and saying 'levels' and 'deep' like there's a legal quota to be hit? Two key reasons springs to mind. The first is to make the film appear to be about far more than it really is. Bombard people with words that sound clever, and a fair number of them will think you are being clever. Whether you are saying anything meaningful is irrelevant. It's akin to the infamous </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment"><span style="font-family:arial;">Milgram Experiment</span></a> in the 1960s, where participants were told they were to give electric shocks to subjects. The experiment found that in a scientific setting, told to do so by an apparent authority figure, the majority of people would gladly administer what they believed were lethal electric shocks. This experiment has been recreated several times, including by the BBC:<span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span><object width="480" height="385"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/BcvSNg0HZwk&hl=en_GB&fs=1?color1=0xe1600f&color2=0xfebd01" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></object></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">In these experiments, the symbols of authority are that of science. The authoritarian white, middle aged male wearing a lab coat, in a room with the sort of functional equipment one would expect in a lab experiment. In Inception, the symbols of authority are those of science fiction, pseudo-psychological and technical dialogue, paradoxically complex plots reminiscent of those in the Back to the Future films, and pretty young things/swarthy middle aged hacks doing the walking and talking. But Inception is solely concerned with its own exposition, with blending the established elements of the sci-fi thriller in a sufficiently familiar but sufficiently fresh way to attain blockbuster status. It is an exercise in the balance of entropy and redundancy, the predictable and the unpredictable. </span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">As such, using metaphors like 'deep' and 'levels' to describe different dream states/parts of the story is a reasonably cunning move. These are extremely common metaphors, the Swiss Army Knives of critical language. 'On one level' 'an another level' 'on different levels' are used to fill in spaces in sentences where the analysis is lacking, or even where it fails. Commonly, 'deep' is used to mean 'profound' but, significantly, it is also often used to mean 'compelling'. The two meanings are quite different. An illusion can be compelling, people who think they've seen </span><a href="http://www.hinduonnet.com/fline/fl2123/stories/20041119007712800.htm"><span style="font-family:arial;">ghosts</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> and UFOs (or maybe actually have seen ghosts and/or </span><a href="http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&safe=off&client=opera&hs=Qe&rls=en&q=UFO+google+earth&aq=f&aqi=g5g-m5&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai="><span style="font-family:arial;">UFOs</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">) find their visions compelling. Whether those visions are profound, or the results of a superficial failure of the senses, or a deliberate illusion, or of a willing mind seeing what it wants to see, remains uncertain. Inception plays on this dual meaning, as it is very compelling to watch, but ultimately lacks any kind of profundity. Its adherents will defend it, claiming to see all sorts of fabulous and wonderful meanings (or just appreciating it technically) but the conjunction of the signs in the film show that this is probably not the case. </span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">'Subconscious' and 'subconsciously' are likewise overused, from pop-psychological </span><a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1205003/Want-lose-weight-Women-eat-dine-company-men.html"><span style="font-family:arial;">studies</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> of why women eat less when men are around to highly convenient and misleading </span><a href="http://www.barrylong.org/statements/terrorism.shtml"><span style="font-family:arial;">explanations</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> of what motivates terrorists. Again, the 'sub' prefix implies a vertical arrangement, a hierarchy, though ironically most claims about the subconscious grant it great authority. The word 'subconscious' is mentioned throughout Inception, but no notable exploration of its role takes place. It is merely the place where the anonymous team of nubiles and veterans have to plant the idea in the target. All this language firmly encourages the audience to phrase their thoughts, not just about the film, in a language which presumes hierarchy, which presumes authority, which assumes some kind of chain of command. Shit rolls downhill. </span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">Of course, people repeat this nonsense, further encouraging these thought patterns. People come to accept the hierarchy, because they find it difficult to articulate thoughts in the absence of such hierarchical metaphors. Not only does Inception dupe its audience into thinking it is about far more interesting and complex things than it really is about, it further encourages them to accept a top-down order of things, by further propagating and entrenching a vocabulary that wholly presumes and affirms such an order. That it does so while satisfying people through the use of their own minds, feeling as though they are getting a mental workout when they are actually being blinded by propaganda, makes Inception a work of supreme doublethink. It rewards you for accepting its precepts and presumptions, which themselves entail you thinking in such a way that is wholly unrewarding. Well done for staying in your designated place. We thank you for not smoking. </span></p><p>I refer again to George Orwell's essay Politics and the English language. In the essay, Orwell criticises several passages of writing for their 'staleness of imagery' and 'is lack of precision'. <span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span></p><blockquote><p>The writer either has a meaning and cannot express it, or he inadvertently says something else, or he is almost indifferent as to whether his words mean anything or not...<span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">...As soon as certain topics are raised, the concrete melts into the abstract and no one seems able to think of turns of speech that are not hackneyed: prose consists less and less of WORDS chosen for the sake of their meaning, and more and more of PHRASES tacked together like the sections of a prefabricated hen-house. - </span><a href="http://www.george-orwell.org/Politics_and_the_English_Language/0.html"><span style="font-family:arial;">Orwell, Politics and the English language</span></a></p></blockquote><p><span style="font-family:arial;">Inception is guilty of many of the charges Orwell was levelling at writers several decades ago, in particular 'dying metaphors' ('deep') and 'pretentious diction' ('subconscious'). My interpretation of the film outlined above is not an exposition of a meaning contained within it, but of the role it plays linguistically. It has a carefully arranged veneer of appearing meaningful, but is ultimately meaningless. Yet in duping its audience in this way, it makes use of words (and indeed, images and plot elements) that maintain in the audience habits of thinking that keep them susceptible to this sort of deception. Indeed, 'deception' would be a far more accurate title for the film. </span></p><p>Ultimately, Inception makes a philosophical error common to many sci-fi films, namely of upholding the dualism and binary opposition of appearance and reality. The danger implicit (and sometimes explicit) in the movie's dramatic height is that while the characters could simply be woken from their dream state, that they would have lost their grip on reality. The conceit at the end of the film indicating that Dicaprio is still in a dream, having lost that grip, firmly upholds this opposition and dualism. But dreams are not mere appearance, they are compelling fantasy, apparent visions that we generate for ourselves when asleep. They conform to a different logic to waking life, but they aren't the opposite of waking life. They are experienced in much the same way, and have very real effects, perhaps more than we presently understand. It is an opposition of convenience - asleep/awake appearance/reality falsity/truth - but not one that is easily upheld. You can dream and know you are dreaming. You can be awake and think you are still dreaming. The line is far from clear, without the need for any ludicrous, convoluted, jargon-laden exposition through cinema. <span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">The most famous assault on this binary opposition came a century before poststructuralism in the works of Friedrich Nietzsche. He argued that there is only appearance, that when we replace one 'appearance' with 'reality' (for example, due to a new observation or deduction) then all we are doing is replacing one appearance with another. The metaphysical realism and rationalism of Immanuel Kant in particular would have us believe that if only we use our faculty of reason to disengage from our particular subjective motives and interests is the knowledge we produce an adequate presentation of reality. This understanding has reality as a </span><a href="http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/592145/thing-in-itself"><span style="font-family:arial;">thing in itself</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">, out there, which we generally only understand through the veil of our subjective perceptions of it. For </span><a href="http://www.ul.ie/~philos/vol9/Nietzsche.html"><span style="font-family:arial;">Nietzsche</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">, this distinction is a nonsense, an attempt by philosophers to look round a corner they haven't reached. Appearance is reality, as far as we can ever know. While this idea is contested and explored through Nietzsche's work, perhaps his most simple deconstruction of the opposition of appearance and reality came in Twilight of the Idols:</span></p><blockquote>HOW THE "TRUE WORLD" FINALLY BECAME A FABLE. The History of an Error<span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span> 1. The true world — attainable for the sage, the pious, the virtuous man; he lives in it, he is it.<span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span> (The oldest form of the idea, relatively sensible, simple, and persuasive. A circumlocution for the sentence, "I, Plato, am the truth.")<span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span> 2. The true world — unattainable for now, but promised for the sage, the pious, the virtuous man ("for the sinner who repents").<span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span> (Progress of the idea: it becomes more subtle, insidious, incomprehensible — it becomes female, it becomes Christian. )<span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span> 3. The true world — unattainable, indemonstrable, unpromisable; but the very thought of it — a consolation, an obligation, an imperative.<span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span> (At bottom, the old sun, but seen through mist and skepticism. The idea has become elusive, pale, Nordic, Königsbergian.)<span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span> 4. The true world — unattainable? At any rate, unattained. And being unattained, also unknown. Consequently, not consoling, redeeming, or obligating: how could something unknown obligate us?<span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span> (Gray morning. The first yawn of reason. The cockcrow of positivism.)<span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span> 5. The "true" world — an idea which is no longer good for anything, not even obligating — an idea which has become useless and superfluous — consequently, a refuted idea: let us abolish it!<span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span> (Bright day; breakfast; return of bon sens and cheerfulness; Plato's embarrassed blush; pandemonium of all free spirits.)<span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span> 6. The true world — we have abolished. What world has remained? The apparent one perhaps? But no! With the true world we have also abolished the apparent one.<span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span><span style="font-family:arial;"> (Noon; moment of the briefest shadow; end of the longest error; high point of humanity; INCIPIT ZARATHUSTRA.) - </span><a href="http://www.handprint.com/SC/NIE/GotDamer.html#sect4"><span style="font-family:arial;">Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols</span></a></blockquote><span style="font-family:arial;">And so, as he concluded:</span><blockquote><span style="font-family:arial;">The antithesis of the apparent world and the true world reduced to the antithesis "world" and "nothing." - </span><a href="http://evans-experientialism.freewebspace.com/nietzsche_wtp03.htm"><span style="font-family:arial;">Nietzsche, Will to Power §567</span></a></blockquote><p><span style="font-family:arial;">As such, I am not calling Inception 'shallow' or 'superficial' as these are analogies of the same type, language from the same wrongheaded conceptual scheme Nolan seems to subscribe to. Rather, the film is vapid, meaningless and willfully deceitful, a carefully constructed psychological operation that will only contribute to a world of mendacious metaphors that make clarity of thought and word that much harder.</span> </p><br /><div style="clear: both;"></div><br />Talkbouthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14408535183177475747noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5734121862980918017.post-78351636895630044442010-05-22T22:00:00.000-07:002013-10-24T11:51:02.841-07:00
Putting the 'Man' in Disaster Management
<br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;">Recently, a new HBO series called Treme begun broadcasting in the US. From the creators of the epic political police show The Wire, Treme explores the aftermath of hurricane Katrina, showing the New Orleans locals struggle not only to re-establish their lives economically, but also to reinvigorate the city's world famous music scene. As such, the show moves beyond the analysis of failed institutions that comprised most of the content of The Wire, to the question of how to restore a cultural identity damaged by the same winds and water that flooded thousands of homes and businesses. While fans of The Wire will find familiar the rants of John Goodman's lecturer/novelist about the failings of FEMA and other disaster management agencies, Treme offers a more intimate spiritual journey to its audience. It is not aiming to merely garner sympathy for the victims of a natural disaster, indeed, an </span><a href="http://stagevu.com/video/xqvlgcxnmsaa"><span style="font-family:arial;">early episode</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> includes a scene of a street musician laying into some young Christian whitebread do-gooders for their condescension and lack of realism. The intent appears to be to show the power of human resolve even in the face of the awesome power of nature, and horrific institutional incompetence. </span><br><p><span style="font-family:arial;">By contrast, last year's epic disaster movie 2012 was a by-the-numbers film seeking to capitalise on a huge, and growing, alt-culture obsession with Mayan calendars and predictions of an apocalypse on December 21st, 2012. Director Roland Emmerich, who brought up the spectacular Independence Day and The Day After Tomorrow, alongside the less impressive Godzilla, took well over two hours to tell an extremely hackneyed and unoriginal story. The disaster scenario itself is relatively original - a huge solar flare heats up the earth's core, causes the crust to destabilise and ultimately displace. This causes huge landslides, </span><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1c-nwrStLdY"><span style="font-family:arial;">earthquakes</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">, </span><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJweDSmuQu4"><span style="font-family:arial;">volcanic eruptions</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> and, once the crust displacement stops, massive </span><a href="http://www.vidoemo.com/yvideo.php?i=U3NFOURTcWuRpUVBvN1E&recent-giant-huge-big-biggest-mega-tsunami-tidal-wave-white-squall-destructive-disaster-damage-tibet-himalayas-mountains-2012-2013-end-of-the-world-time-movie="><span style="font-family:arial;">tidal waves</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> a bit like when you move too quickly in the bath and a load of water slops over the end. This is all portrayed through exceptional CGI, including a wonderful 9/11-inspired shot where a plane carrying our protagonists flies in between two collapsing buildings. </span></p><br><p><span style="font-family:arial;"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 595px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 333px; CURSOR: hand" border="0" alt="" src="http://www.shoppingblog.com/pics/2012_plane_buildings_collapse.jpg"></span></p><br><p><span style="font-family:arial;">However, the creativity ends there. The story itself has been almost entirely lifted from previous movies - a man somewhat estranged from his wife/family - see Jeff Goldblum in Independence Day or Dennis Quaid in The Day After Tomorrow - leads a small group of survivors against the odds and ultimately rescues them from ever-impending doom. This basic story goes back millenia, at least as far as the Jewish exodus from Egypt (the probable reference point given the pre-eminence of Jewish writers and directors in Hollywood) and before that when nomadic civilisations travelled and travailed the earth's surface. As a story structure it isn't bad, but in the disaster movie genre it is a staple to the point of being hackneyed and tedious. </span></p><span style="font-family:arial;">However, it is the movie's sexist and racist subtext which is most telling, in terms of what this highly unrealistic film tells us about how humans truly respond to crises. John Cusack plays the protagonist, the estranged husband and father whose former wife has married a plastic surgeon who is usefully and utterly predictably killed off so as to enable the reunification of the family unit by the movie's end. Anyone with half a brain, or who has seen prior Emmerich films or others in the genre, sees this resolution coming at least an hour before it happens. The family themselves are a pissy, whining, patronising mess. Beyond occasionally screaming 'mommy' or 'daddy' the children do absolutely nothing, and aside from a couple of feeder lines to allow Cusack to deliver punchlines used in the trailer, the wife does much the same. Throughout the film the wife and kids are treated as a composite unit, a thing that needs to be rescued because it is so incapable of self-determination. This is the classic 'women and children first' mentality - save the weakest because they cannot save themselves.  </span><span style="font-family:arial;">This is particularly evident in all of the vehicle sequences. The protagonists initially escape a huge earthquake, which destroys California and sees it break up and fall into the Pacific ocean, by Cusack driving them to an airport in the limousine he uses for work. The sequence involves a dozen near-misses, a tactic repeated so often that by the end it fails to have any dramatic impact because you know the clean white middle class picket fence family will survive. In particular, one moment sees Cusack drive the limo through a collapsing building and out the other side. The implication is that his macho bravado at confronting the unknown (he can have no idea if the building will last long enough for the car to get through it) is rewarded, that it is brave men who do the saving of incapable women and children. After the family get to the airport, they acquire a small plane, and then later a larger plane with a few more passengers including a moderately entertaining Russian billionaire apparently based on oligarch Alisher Usmanov, part owner of Arsenal football club and a close friend of Vladimir Putin. In every section where the plane is in flight, the men are up front doing the piloting while the women and kids hide in the back/belly of the plane as they continue to contribute nothing to the rescue attempt. At one moment, where the pilots discover that Hawaii (where they intended to refuel) is on fire and seemingly sinking into the ocean, the men are called up to the cockpit and the women and children left downstairs with Russian oligarch's collection of automobiles, again implying the family is merely an object in need of being rescued rather than a group of autonomous humans.  </span><br><p><span style="font-family:arial;">This prejudice extends beyond the principal group of characters. Among the geologists and other officials who predict and attempt to manage the crisis there is not a single female of any note. They are exclusively male, barking orders and engaging in egotistical battles over authority and jurisdiction. Just in case the implicit message (that only men are useful and capable) wasn't clear enough, the opening scene offers one more slap in the face to anyone seeking to question the established order of disaster management. We see the chief geologist visiting India and meeting up with another geologist who has discovered dramatically increasing temperatures under the earth's surface. Our principle initially says hello to the Indian geologist's wife, who informs him that she has (in her dutiful, subservient role as female) made 'that fish curry you love'. Once she is out of the way, the Indian geologist returns her to 'her place' saying 'her fish curry is still awful'. Even the one moment where a woman contributes something, albeit in her domesticated role as food-preparer, she is derogated and sidelined. Even the newsreaders who appear sporadically are all male, ensuring all authoritative voices are those of men. Every woman is a supplemental character to a male - the president's <em>daughter</em>, the protagonist's <em>wife</em> and so on. One has to wonder at the personal background of the screenwriter, Harald Kloser, that he is so aggressively against any sign that women actually have something to offer the world. </span></p><span style="font-family:arial;">The bias also extends to racism. Though there is the occasional black or Chinese face in the film, it is almost exclusively a tale of global crisis affecting white people. While the president and the chief geologist are played by black men (the sight of </span><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q37xJtuQ24w"><span style="font-family:arial;">Danny 'I'm getting too old for this shit' Glover</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> as the president is an amusing highlight), they are both suave, clean, articulate black men, obviously inspired to some extent by Barack Obama. They are the acceptable face of black men, in that they are bourgeois whites in everything but the colour of their skin. Similarly, the Indian geologist who discovers the phenomena in the first place is killed in a giant tsunami after playing a very minor role, and the Chinese are portrayed almost exclusively as labourers. The governmental plan for surviving the disaster is to build gigantic ships - essentially ferries - in the Himalayas, so that they can ride out the tsunamis. Though financed by selling tickets to the Russian billionaire and the like, the construction is done by the Chinese. When the American party arrives in the Himalayas to begin boarding the ships, there is a wide shot showing several ships side by side, and the US crisis manager mutters 'leave it to the Chinese'. The implication is that the autocratic, collectivist Chinese state is actually something to be praised, due to it being useful to the world's elite. Only passing reference is made to the right of the workers who produced the ships to a ticket on board them.  <br></span></div><div><span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span></div><div><span style="font-family:arial;">Almost completely ignored is Latin America, alluded to through images of Christ the Redeemer crumbling and falling down, and the whole Arab world. The former is a particularly gross oversight, given that the whole story is based on the predictions of Mayan Indians, the 'aboriginal' population of the Southern American continent. Without the Mayan '</span><a href="http://www.sciforums.com/The-Mayan-Long-Count-System-t-24291.html"><span style="font-family:arial;">long count</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">' calendar there would be no 2012 subculture, and therefore no movie. Despite this, Roland Emmerich saw fit to only make a fleeting reference to the inspiration for his work, through a news story playing on John Cusack's TV about a group of (white) 2012 obsessives committing suicide at an ancient Mayan site in a South American jungle. The treatment of Arabs is even more laughable. Though Mecca appears in the movie's trailer, Arabs are only referred to in a disparaging way. One of the billionaires who is sold a ticket is an apparent oil sheikh, who aside from buying a ticket only appears elsewhere in the film towards the end when the black geologist is expressing his disgust at the selections of passengers for the 'arks'. Putting that clearly in an anti-Arab context, the Russian oligarch is shown as a hero, sacrificing his life to save those of his sons, as he falls to his death ensuring they get on board just in time. That screenwriter Harald Kloser and director Roland Emmerich maintain this racist bias was admitted by Emmerich in an interview. He discussed why the film shows the destruction of other religious sites, including Christ the Redeemer and the Sistine Chapel, but does not show any damage to the Kaaba (commonly known as 'the big square thing in Mecca'). He said:</span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br><blockquote><span style="font-family:arial;">Well, I wanted to do that, I have to admit," Emmerich says.<br>But my co-writer Harald said I will not have a fatwa on my head because of a<br>movie. And he was right. ... We have to all ... in the Western world ... think<br>about this. You can actually ... let ... Christian symbols fall apart, but if<br>you would do this with [an] Arab symbol, you would have ... a fatwa, and that<br>sounds a little bit like what the state of this world is. So it's just something<br>which I kind of didn't [think] was [an] important element, anyway, in the film,<br>so I kind of left it out. - </span><a href="http://scifiwire.com/2009/11/5-best-things-2012s-direc.php"><span style="font-family:arial;">SciFiWire</span></a></blockquote><span style="font-family:arial;">This logic has been criticised by </span><a href="http://www.blackbookmag.com/article/fear-of-fatwa-roland-emmerich-chickens-out/12354"><span style="font-family:arial;">some</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> as cowing to Islam, but a semiotic study of the movie itself suggests the opposite. Rather than being intimidated by Muslims, Kloser and Emmerich show a clear racism towards Muslim and Arab peoples, assuming that the CGI destruction of the Kaaba would result in a fatwa. Nowhere is there any indication that they sought out the opinion of Muslim leaders to see how they would respond to the on-screen destruction of the Kaaba, they simply assumed that a fatwa would be the response. In the context of a movie which portrays everyone but white ruling class males (along with the occasional non-white useful pawn) as useless, this editorial decision, and the conversation Emmerich reports having with Kloser, is clearly motivated by racism rather than a rational or sincere fear of Islam or Muslims. </span><br><p><span style="font-family:arial;">As a result, the movie is at base one huge sexist, racist, macho, technocratic narrative, leaving no pejorative stereotype unused, no blind prejudiced stone unturned. Even the English member of the scientific investigation and advice team speaks in that accent that only exists in the minds of Hollywood directors, because I assure you no one in England actually talks like that. Characters are invariably killed off as their dramatic purpose comes to an end, and the survivors are only those who conform to the precepts and biases of the writer and director. Despite this, the Daily Star provided the 2012 movie </span><a href="http://www.dvdactive.com/news/releases/20124.html"><span style="font-family:arial;">DVD release</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> with the ideal reviewer tagline, calling it 'the best disaster movie ever'. Thought the paper has a female editor, it is owned by superrich pornographer Richard Desmond, so perhaps praising a remarkably misanthropic film is to be expected. The Daily Mirror, a tabloid newspaper supposedly aimed at a left-leaning readership, reviewed the movie very positively. Completely betraying the standards they like to claim they stand for (the 2003 anti-Iraq War march in London was partly sponsored by the paper), they gave 2012 a glowing review, bizarrely even </span><a href="http://www.mirror.co.uk/tv-entertainment/film/film-reviews/mark-adams/2009/11/08/apocalypse-wow-in-2012-115875-21805780/"><span style="font-family:arial;">praising</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> the abysmal script. </span></p><span style="font-family:arial;">Ironically, though Emmerich also told </span><a href="http://scifiwire.com/2009/11/5-best-things-2012s-direc.php"><span style="font-family:arial;">SciFiWire</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> that he is 'against organized religion' he chose major story elements - the apocalypse, using 'arks' to save people and animals from a flood, focusing on a small group battling against the odds, an everyman prophet (played by Woody Harrelson) - that are more than familiar to readers of the Bible. In particular, the flood/ark narrative dominates the entire second half of the film. In the </span><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3okAimwWp4"><span style="font-family:arial;">alternate ending</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">, a cruise ship carrying the chief geologist's father is found perched on top of a rocky outcrop in the sea. This is reminiscent of a common story in conspiracy/alt history folklore - that the remains of Noah's Ark can be found on Mt Ararat in Turkey, near the border with Iraq. Though this has been common knowledge among those who care to look (see, for example, </span><a href="http://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=3781&st=75"><span style="font-family:arial;">this thread</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> from 2004), British tabloid The Sun reported on the story as a new one as recently as </span><a href="http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/2949640/Noahs-Ark-found-in-Turkey.html"><span style="font-family:arial;">last month</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">. As ever, the fringe is years ahead of the mainstream. </span><br><p><span style="font-family:arial;">More significant that Emmerich's personal hypocrisy, or Kloser's sexism and racism, is the philosophy underpinning the whole story portrayed in 2012, which is also the philosophy of real life disaster management. In the film, those that survive do so due to making it to a dam on the Chinese side of the Himalayas that contains the arks. It is a parable of technology as our saviour, rather than the resilience of the human spirit as in the grand narrative of Treme, or Robocop as discussed </span><a href="http://howardbealesnewshour.blogspot.com/2009/10/trans-human-express.html"><span style="font-family:arial;">earlier</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> on this blog. But this is not just a technocratic philosophy, as the semiotic prejudices of 2012 demonstrate, it is above all a masculine ideology. That is not to say it is a male ideology, though it is one that conforms to the roles men have historically dominated far more that women.<br></span></p><span style="font-family:arial;">Particularly instructive on this front is the work of French-Algerian philosopher </span><a href="http://www.colorado.edu/English/courses/ENGL2012Klages/cixous.html"><span style="font-family:arial;">Helene Cixous</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">, who followed on from Lyotard's critique of grand narratives and Derrida/Lacan's critiques of language. In </span><a href="http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=-8GzFNJZtR8C&lpg=PP1&ots=HmWnOIXyhN&dq=deconstruction%20reader&pg=PA8#v=onepage&q&f=false"><span style="font-family:arial;">Deconstruction: A Reader</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">, a collection of essays on poststructuralist theory covering many topics, editor Martin McQuillan wrote about Cixous' attack on the binary opposition of masculine/feminine. In his introduction, 'five strategies for deconstruction', he outlined Cixous' analysis of how a great many values are placed into such oppositions, typically privileging the male over the female, and the masculine over the feminine. The entire section on Cixous is worth reading, so is reproduced here. </span><br><p><span style="font-family:arial;"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 364px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 400px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5475606855258313266" border="0" alt="" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_ru_ILHZRbr0/S_1DbIFdkjI/AAAAAAAAACo/4LWhgNBj6qY/s400/deconstructionreader1.jpg"></span></p><br><p><span style="font-family:arial;"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 265px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 400px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5475607654454260354" border="0" alt="" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_ru_ILHZRbr0/S_1EJpUn8oI/AAAAAAAAADI/M7qgs7siQfk/s400/deconstructionreader2.jpg"><br></span></p><br><p><span style="font-family:arial;"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 265px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 400px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5475607878344239586" border="0" alt="" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_ru_ILHZRbr0/S_1EWrYJ6eI/AAAAAAAAADQ/8bQWYh3zyhk/s400/deconstructionreader3.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 265px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 400px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5475608369361259970" border="0" alt="" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_ru_ILHZRbr0/S_1EzQjvDcI/AAAAAAAAADY/fq-VIKrx560/s400/deconstructionreader4.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 214px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5475608572555628450" border="0" alt="" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_ru_ILHZRbr0/S_1E_FhDD6I/AAAAAAAAADg/xMkM3SVnA7Q/s320/deconstructionreader5.jpg"> What Cixous' essay Sorties ultimately showed is that the masculine prejudice of the monetary/labour economy examined in detail by feminists, postcolonialists and people who don't fit an '-ist' description are continued in the economy of spoken and written language. Expanding on Derrida's assertion that speech is privileged over writing, Cixous developed a theory where the masculine (and hence the Western, the rational, the cultural, the scientific) is historically privileged over the feminine (and hence the Eastern, the irrational, the natural, the mystical). </span></p><span style="font-family:arial;">This is an evolution of what Derrida dubbed 'the metaphysics of presence', the linguistic tradition of privileging speech over language due to spoken meaning allegedly being 'present' at the moment of expression, an aspect absent from written meaning. What Derrida demonstrated, in his typically convoluted and obscure way, is that all language involves a deferral of meaning, most simply that the words used (in speech or writing) are necessarily distinct from other words. One would have to know the meaning of the words not being used in order to be certain of the meaning of the words that are being used, and hence meaning is deferred onto words that are not part of the sentence being spoken or written. Rather than meaning being simply present or absent, a common binary opposition in Western philosophy, meaning is suspended, neither entirely present nor entirely absent, like a ghost or spectre. This is the reason why Derrida uses spectral metaphors in so much of his work, including in the title of perhaps his most politically themed work </span><a href="http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=sEENbAP5FZsC"><span style="font-family:arial;">Spectres of Marx</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">. </span><br><p><span style="font-family:arial;">As Derrida deconstructed the binary opposition of meaning being present/absent, Cixous expanded this to the binary oppositions of masculine/feminine, rational/irrational and so on. Her work showed not only how such values are bound into binary oppositions with one privileged term and one subservient term, but that each opposition is supported by many others. Hence, man is Western, rational, scientific, ordered, in control and woman is Eastern, emotional, mystical, chaotic and needs to be controlled. A further opposition - convex/concave is of particular relevance to the issue of how humans manage catastrophe. The masculine is convex - protruding, penetrative, a 'presence' in the world. The feminine is concave - receeding, enveloping, an 'absence' from the world. Though these words most obvious describe the difference between male and female genitals (the shaft vs. the crevice, crudely put) it is also a question of roles within the world. </span></p><span style="font-family:arial;">The masculine answer to a problem is to create something anew, typically a technology or feat of engineering. In 2012, the answer to the global crisis is gigantic boats designed to preserve human life, ironically acting like protective wombs for those lucky, or white and male, enough to make it to the Himalayas. Likewise, when faced with a security issue in a specific country the stock response is a military invasion (the contemporary euphemism being 'intervention'). Space in the world is defined by the masculine by building stuff on it, ownership is declared by planting a flag. The feminine response is subversion and adaptation, seeking to alter conceptions of the problem, to dissolve the intellectual limitations on how we see the issue so that there is the possibility of an unexpected solution rearing its head. Space is defined by the feminine by clearing it of obstruction in the hope that something new presents itself in time to deal with whatever the problem is. The former is a rational process, beginning with standard premises and with the explicit aim and assumption of working to a solution. The latter is an irrational process, beginning without premises to avoid the limitations they inevitably present, and hoping that removal of limitations will allow human ingenuity to come up with something that would otherwise appear counter-intuitive.  </span><br><p><span style="font-family:arial;">In 2012, women (and likewise all non-Western races, ideas, cultures, traditions, contributions) are sidelined in favour of an entirely masculine, technocratic solution that willingly trades billions of people's lives for the security of the elite few. Rather than try to adapt to the crisis, they seek to rise above it and prove man's superiority over nature. In reality, this approach and pursuit often fails, as seen in the Iraq and Afghan wars, and the response to Hurricane Katrina. One moment in the coverage of the rescue efforts after the recent Haiti earthquake was particularly telling. A seven year old boy named Kiki was dug out of the rubble after being trapped for nearly eight days. The </span><a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1244660/Haiti-earthquake-Schoolgirl-looter-Fabienne-Geismar-killed-bullet-head.html"><span style="font-family:arial;">image</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> of Kiki, arms outstretched, was broadcast around the world as a triumphant message that the US-led rescue efforts were succeeding, and portraying the aggressive giant rogue state as a benevolent patriarch. However, the video tells another story.</span></p><span style="font-family:arial;">With the cameras already in place, Kiki was presented to the world by US firefighters. Though his mother stood nearby, the firemen cheered as they pulled the child away from her and handed him over to his father. Once again, the woman was sidelined in favour of the man. Once the boy had been placed in the arms of his father, one of the fireman can be seen explicitly directing the father to face the onlooking international media, so as to ensure that the PR value of the rescue was capitalised on fully. Only then was the boy handed over to medical officials to check him for injuries and other damage caused by his ordeal. This footage from Sky News shows the fuller picture.<br><br><br><object width="640" height="385"><br><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/OTa65aIifto&hl=en_GB&fs=1&color1=0xe1600f&color2=0xfebd01" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="640" height="385"></object><br></span><br><p><span style="font-family:arial;">The implication of this is that the firemen, far from being the brave, noble, beneficent rescue service solely concerned with other people's welfare that they were portrayed as being, were in fact primarily concerned with the public image, with reinforcing the US's international image. They appear to have waited for the media cameras to show up before completing the rescue operation, or at least to have ensured media presence for the moment when Kiki was actually removed from the rubble. They largely ignored his mother, and made sure of the friendly image of a father lifting his boy aloft before he was given medical treatment. Largely ignored by the trumpeting Western media is that while Kiki and his sister were rescued, </span><a href="http://alyahya.blogspot.com/2010/01/haiti-earthquake-miracle-boy-kiki-i.html"><span style="font-family:arial;">three</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> of their siblings died in the aftermath of the quake, and the family now lives in </span><a href="http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/World-News/Haiti-Earthquake-Sky-News-Finds-Kiki-And-Sabrina-Joachin-Who-Survived-Seven-Days-Under-Rubble/Article/201001415533287"><span style="font-family:arial;">destitution</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> in a shanty town on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince. While Kiki's story has been widely presented as an example of the success of the masculine rescue efforts of the US-led services in Haiti, the reality is that the same failings that meant Haiti's infrastructure could not withstand the earthquake remain, and affect ever more people in one of the world's poorest countries. </span></p><span style="font-family:arial;">A further example of this masculine logic was on display in the recent British General Election. While the result was a hung parliament, and ultimately a tenuous Conservative-Liberal coalition, the most notable feature of the </span><a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/election2010/results/"><span style="font-family:arial;">voting results</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> was the concern with race, nationality and immigration. The parties that gained the most votes compared to the last election were largely right-wing nationalists - the BNP, UKIP, the 'English Democrats' and the Conservative Party. With immigration being blamed for everything from economic problems (they take our jobs) to security issues (every immigrant is a potential suicide bomber), a racist obsession with immigration by the country's most popular newspapers just about achieved the desired result of a Tory government. With the government running a huge deficit, the Conservatives and nationalists promised to 'get tough' on the problem, exhibiting the same confrontational, domineering, masculine philosophy of 2012, FEMA and the rest. </span><span style="font-family:arial;">Only a matter of days before the election took place, one event in particular lent yet more weight to the narrative that demanded that 'someone do something' about the problems. On May 1st a car bomb was found and defused in Times Square, New York. The following day it was widely reported that another bomb had been </span><a href="http://cnmnewsnetwork.com/111198/pittsburgh-bomb-2010-bomb-found-at-half-marathon-microwave-bomb-found/"><span style="font-family:arial;">found</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> in Pittsburgh 'in a microwave, near a half marathon'. As far as terrorism goes, this is pretty surreal. However, like so many of these stories, it turned out to be nothing of the sort. After the microwave was largely destroyed in a controlled explosion by bomb disposal officers, it became abundantly clear that the early reports of it containing a pipe bomb were </span><a href="http://www.thepittsburghchannel.com/news/23411996/detail.html#"><span style="font-family:arial;">wide of the mark</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> - the microwave actually contained a tin of ravioli. Some amusing pictures can be seen </span><a href="http://www.thepittsburghchannel.com/slideshow/news/23423157/detail.html"><span style="font-family:arial;">here</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">. The 'bomb' in New York has been widely called '</span><a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/05/01/national/main6451836.shtml?source=related_story&tag=related"><span style="font-family:arial;">amateurish</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">', comprised of propane gas cylinders and low-grade fireworks. </span><br><p><span style="font-family:arial;"><br><object width="480" height="385"><br><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/s-E11waXsTE&hl=en_GB&fs=1&color1=0xe1600f&color2=0xfebd01" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></object></span></p><br><p><span style="font-family:arial;">The </span><a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8670973.stm"><span style="font-family:arial;">car</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> had been left in Times Square, one of the busiest parts of perhaps the busiest city in the world, with its engine running and its hazard lights switched on. Either the man arrested, Faisal Shahzad, was a total incompetent, or he never had any intention of the car blowing up. The aim appears to have been to remind people once again of the great brown threat of Islamic terrorism, at a time when it would have maximum impact on the British election. Suggestive of this event being a provocation of intelligence services, a </span><a href="http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-pakistan-major-20100519,0,1667275.story"><span style="font-family:arial;">Pakistani Army Officer</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> reported to be in contact with Faisal was arrested in connection with attempted bombing. </span></p><span style="font-family:arial;">There are two further aspects to this story that provide indications of something more elaborate than one man with a poorly constructed car bomb. The accused, Faisal Shahzad, is Pakistani-American, though different reports have him as either </span><a href="http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1987126,00.html?xid=rss-topstories#ixzz0nTzBHkqQ"><span style="font-family:arial;">Kashmiri</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> or </span><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/16/nyregion/16suspect.html?pagewanted=all"><span style="font-family:arial;">Pashtun</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">. But the </span><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrsJgURYrmE"><span style="font-family:arial;">CCTV</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> footage released of a </span><a href="http://www.merinews.com/article/times-square-bomb-plot-cctv-footage-a-huge-clue/15806063.shtml"><span style="font-family:arial;">man</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> supposedly responsible for parking the car in Times Square is a </span><a href="http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/2957659/Is-this-the-Times-Square-bomber.html"><span style="font-family:arial;">middle aged white man</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">. Also, another man named Sheikh Mohammed Rehan was arrested in Pakistan due to his connection with Faisal Shahzad. Rehan is reportedly a member of Jaish-e-Muhammad, one of numerous Pakistani militant groups with long-standing ties to the ISI, CIA and MI6. As </span><a href="http://www.blacklistednews.com/news-8570-0-20-20--.html"><span style="font-family:arial;">noted</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> by Paul Joseph Watson, the group was founded by Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, the man who gave $100,000 to alleged 9/11 ringleader Mohammed Atta at the behest of the ISI's General Mahmud Ahmed. At this stage, the indications are that this was either a thoroughly incompetent attempt at a car bombing, or a psychological operation sponsored by intelligence services. Either way, it helped reinforce the prejudices and misconceptions that influenced the British General Election result. </span></span></div><div><span style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-family:arial;">There are alternatives to this masculine ideology of tackling all threats and problems by 'getting tough' and declaring some sort of war on a range of collective and abstract nouns that cannot be targeted by bullets and missiles. A more mature, careful ideology would be to adapt to new threats and problems, using both the masculine approach of looking for innovations given the framework of knowledge we have and the feminine approach of avoiding the solution being a self-fulfilling prophecy of our precepts. Rather than try to destroy the problematic through the violence of a head-on confrontation (whether that violence be technological innovation, military invasion or something else) we should seek to reach accommodations with problems where it is possible to do so, and seek out the true causes of problems where an accommodation cannot be reached. Waiting for a natural disaster like the Haiti earthquake (or, if you're a raging conspiracist, creating them with </span><a href="http://www.nowpublic.com/strange/haiti-earth-quake-haarp-diversion-martial-law-executive-order-signed-obama"><span style="font-family:arial;">HAARP</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">) and then leaping in and showing our 'strong hand' via the rescue effort, we should have been helping Haiti develop the economy and education to build infrastructure that can withstand earthquakes. As the Kiki story shows, this has been completely ignored by mainstream politicians and press alike, in favour of cuddly pictures of a small black boy being rescued by noble white firemen. In that vein, to finish this time I have included one of my favourite videos regarding the 2012 phenomenon, showing Ian Xel Lengold explains some of the reasons why people are predicting not an apocalypse, but some kind of cosmic ontological-perceptual shift in a couple of years time. While I don't necessarily subscribe to Lengold's interpretations or conclusions, what I do subscribe to is that he offers a far more inspiring and multi-faceted view of human potential than Roland Emmerich's movie, etc. </span><br><p><span style="font-family:arial;"><embed style="WIDTH: 600px; HEIGHT: 420px" id="VideoPlayback" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docid=" hl="en&fs=" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always"></span></p><br><p><span style="font-family:arial;"><embed style="WIDTH: 600px; HEIGHT: 420px" id="VideoPlayback" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docid=" hl="en&fs=" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always"></span></p><br></span></div><br /><div style="clear: both;"></div><br />Talkbouthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14408535183177475747noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5734121862980918017.post-9453816292725073632010-04-26T22:00:00.000-07:002013-10-24T11:51:02.828-07:00
History of a Hunter
<br /><a style="font-family: arial;" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos.upi.com/topics-Watergate-Burglar-E-Howard-Hunt/9a58559cc697df0956af766f38763949/E_1.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 416px; height: 575px;" src="http://photos.upi.com/topics-Watergate-Burglar-E-Howard-Hunt/9a58559cc697df0956af766f38763949/E_1.jpg" alt="" border="0"></a><span style="font-family: arial;font-family:arial;">Everette Howard Hunt was born in October 1918, in Hamburg, New York. He would go on to lead a life which perhaps more than any other represents the darker truths underpinning the history of the 20th Century. He would become known as E Howard Hunt, or just Howard Hunt, an author of spy novels, CIA agent, Watergate burglar and eventually John F Kennedy assassination accomplice. The true life legend that is his biography lives on, as do the debates about many of the events with which he was involved.</span><p style="font-family: arial;">Hunt graduated from Brown University in 1940, and shortly afterwards joined the US military to fight in World War 2. He served in the navy and air force, before getting involved with the Office of Strategic Services. The OSS was a nascent proactive military counterintelligence agency, and was effectively reorganised after the war had finished to become the Central Intelligence Agency. The National Security Act of 1947 solidified a process that had been happening for some time in the United States. Ground was broken for the construction of the Pentagon on September 11th 1941, a symbol of the development of a permanent large scale military industrial complex in America. The National Security Act set up America's first peacetime intelligence agency - the CIA - and merged the Department of War and the Department of the Navy into one entity, the National Military Establishment. Two years later, this would become the Department of Defense. It also created the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and took effect on September 18th 1947, the same day that the first US Secretary of Defense, James Forrestal, took office. It was signed by President Truman, a <a href="http://www.biblebelievers.org.au/33rd.htm">33rd degree freemason</a>, aboard the Presidential aircraft Sacred Cow, the prototype for Air Force One.<br></p><p style="font-family: arial;">Forrestal's life and death proved highly controversial, and serve as a suitable introduction to the story of Hunt's life. Despite his military background, Forrestal lasted only 18 months in the job as Secretary of Defense. Truman lost faith in him and asked him to resign, and amid fears over his mental state the administration had him sectioned and incarcerated at Bethesda Naval hospital. The same Bethesda Naval hospital where a little over 10 years later the secret autopsy of John Kennedy was carried out. Within weeks Forrestal had died in mysterious circumstances, falling from a kitchen window across from his bedroom at the hospital, a bathrobe sash knotted tightly round his neck. Though it was quickly ruled a suicide, there are a number of theories claiming he was murdered. According to Henry Makow:<br></p><blockquote style="font-family:arial;"><span style="color:#000000;">When he realized Masonic bankers controlled Communism as well as Capitalism, he couldn't keep quiet. He was deemed "insane" and thrown from the window of Bethesda Naval Hospital. He was a good guy. He lost.</span> - <a href="http://www.rense.com/general75/QUEEN.HTM">Makow, Rense.com</a></blockquote><p style="font-family: arial;">This story appears to originate in conspiracy theory classic Pawns in the Game by William Guy Carr. Citing unspecified sections of Forrestal's diaries, Carr explains that:</p><blockquote style="font-family:arial;"><span style="color:#000000;">In 1945 Forrestal had been convinced that the American Bankers were closely affiliated with the International Bankers who controlled the Banks of England, France and other countries. He was also convinced, according to his diaries, that the International Money-Barons were the Illuminati and directly responsible for the outbreak of World Wars One and Two. He tried to convince President Roosevelt, and other Top Level Government officials, of the truth. Either he failed, and committed suicide in a fit of depression, or he was murdered to shut his mouth for ever.</span> - <a href="http://www.lovethetruth.com/books/pawns/02.htm">Pawns in the Game</a></blockquote><p style="font-family: arial;">However, this is profoundly contrasted by somewhat substantiated claims made during Forrestal's lifetime by journalists including Drew Pearson. Forrestal's background was in the same elite banking circles (he was also a corporate lawyer) as the stories above say he was warning Roosevelt against. During his time at Dillon, Read & Co the firmed loaned considerable money to Germany, which helped revive the industries that formed Hitler's war machine. Anthony Sutton's <a href="http://www.reformed-theology.org/html/books/wall_street/chapter_01.htm">Wall Street and the Rise of Hitler</a> details Dillon, Read & Co loans of over $70 million dollars to German industrial cartels and 'Participation in German industrial issues in [the] U.S. capital market' of around a quarter of a billion dollars. The firm were also a Big Oil banker, and <a href="http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAforrestal.htm">during</a> Forrestal's tenure in charge of procurement and production for the US Navy in World War 2, he vastly overpaid the Arabian-American Oil Company to fuel the ships. The same Arabian-American Oil Company that was controlled through the Rockefeller family's Standard Oil monopoly. Was he a genuine whistleblower, or a shill, or a depressive?</p><p style="font-family: arial;">There are other allegations. Forrestal opposed the partitioning of Palestine to create the Jewish State of Israel. <a href="http://www.paragoy.com/forrestal.html">Some</a> consider this to also be a concession to the oil barons who had more to lose through alienating oil-rich Arab states through the creation of Israel than they did to gain from it. However, many of those same oil barons, and the bankers who form part of the same group, were and still are Jewish Zionists. Sometimes, religious conviction outweighs the desire for money and power. So it is hard to say whether Forrestal's opposition to the creation of Israel would have been seen as useful or problematic by those elite powers. It is thus a leap too far to isolate this as the reason for murdering him. The most esoteric of all the Forrestal murder-suicide theories is that he passionately opposed the secrecy of the MJ-12 group who were looking into UFOs and extraterrestrial life. <a href="http://www.thewatcherfiles.com/cooper/secret_government.htm">William Cooper</a> claims that this is the reason Forrestal was sectioned and imprisoned in a naval hospital, and notes that the day before his death his brother had notified authorities of his intention to remove James from Bethesda. </p><p style="font-family: arial;">Whatever the truth, the end of Forrestal's life coincided with the rise of the permanent US military capacity, one able not just to defend the lands of the US but also able to launch offensive operations all over the world. This made possible the creation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation in 1949, and the permanent disabling of the German military industrial capacity and thus the necessity of a huge US military presence there. President Eisenhower, who was one of NATO's first Supreme Commanders, warned about this historical development in his farewell address some years later. He said:</p><blockquote><span style="color:#000000;"><span style="font-family:arial;">This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence – economic, political, even spiritual – is felt in every city, every Statehouse, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.<br><br>In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.</span></span></blockquote><p style="font-family: arial;"><embed id="VideoPlayback" src="http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docid=-2465144342633379864&hl=en&fs=true" style="width: 600px; height: 480px;" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"></p><p style="font-family: arial;">If Forrestal's comments to Roosevelt were blowing the whistle, then Eisenhower's farewell address was blowing a trumpet. </p><p style="font-family: arial;">It was during the Eisenhower presidency that Howard Hunt participated in perhaps the textbook example of a CIA-sponsored coup. As the OSS became the CIA, its staff were almost entirely comprised of people who had fought counterintelligence battles during the war. Though the USSR and the Warsaw Pact presented a somewhat different challenge, the likes of Howard Hunt and Allen Dulles proved themselves capable Cold Warriors. </p><p style="font-family: arial;">Guatemala in the years leading up to the 1950s was politically unstable, a succession of regimes had been quickly installed and removed and the weakness of the state apparatus had allowed the United Fruit Company to dominate the country. John Perkins' <a href="http://www.filestube.com/2dcd93ffda8afdc603ea,g/John-Perkins-Confessions-of-an-Economic-Hitman.html">Confessions of an Economic Hit Man</a> discusses the influence of the 'corporatocracy' on this part of the world in detail, as he worked there for years. The incremental colonisation of Guatemala by United Fruit definitely fits the profile he describes.<br><br>The company owned vast tracks of land in the essentially agrarian country, and also the railways by which the produce was moved about, and the ports by which it was exported. Guatemala was the epitome of a 'banana republic': The people were poorly educated, there was little by way of national independent media, but they tried to stand their ground in the face of an economic and political invasion by a US company. They elected Jacobo Arbenz, a middle class man of Swiss heritage who promised massive economic reform. He assumed control in March 1951.<br><br>Arbenz issued Decree 900, the land reform bill. It enabled the government to seize uncultivated land from large plantations and turning it over to peasant farmers. Even Arbenz gave up land himself. While this may sound like communism, Arbenz was only influenced by Marxism. He still believed in private property, and the peasants to whom the land were given were to be private farming landowners able to sell their goods for a profit and potentially buy more land or advance their lives in other ways. Arbenz wasn't a member of the Communist Party, he had no significant association with the USSR.<br><br>However, United Fruit were mightily angry because he took over 200,000 acres off them and paid approximately $600,000 for it, in 25 year government bonds. This sort of 'play you at your own game' economic strategy is very similar to what Hugo Chavez has been doing in Venezuela. Arbenz paid what the company declared the land was worth for tax purposes, though when the US State Department got involved they were throwing around the figure of $15 million. Given that United Fruit barely paid for the land in the first place as far as I am concerned they were lucky to get the $600,000. If Arbenz was a 'proper' communist he probably would have had them shot.<br><br>So, United Fruit enlisted the help of the US State Department and the CIA. There were obvious reasons why their pleas found receptive ears. Allen Dulles, the director of the CIA, was a former President of the company's board, and a stockholder. His brother John Foster Dulles, Sec. of State, had worked as the company's legal counsel. Walter Bedel Smith was on the company's board of directors throughout this period, during which he was director of the CIA up until February 1953, when he was replaced by Allen Dulles and took the job immediately under John Foster Dulles at the State Department. Smith also helped found the Bilderberg Group and the National Security Agency. Ambassador to the UN Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. was a stockholder, as was Assistant Sec. of State for Latin American Affairs, John Moors Cabot. Just in case that wasn't enough, Eisenhower's personal secretary Ann Whitman was married to United Fruit's chief of Public Relations. </p><p style="font-family: arial;">A fuller story of the coup that overthrew Arbenz and replaced him with a military dictator called Castillo Armas is told by the <a href="http://www.foia.cia.gov/guatemala.asp">CIA's declassified documents</a>. Over 14,000 pages explain how they recruited Armas to lead a small band of rebels and mercenaries and used covert and overt propaganda to spread distrust of Arbenz within both Guatemala and the US. Hunt played a central role as Chief of Propaganda for the operation, codenamed PB/Fortune and later PB/Success. In his memoir American Spy, Hunt describes his unease at being United Fruit's 'lapdog' but says he says the issue of 'stopping the spread of Communism' motivated him to take up the role offered to him. </p><blockquote><span style="color:#000000;"><span style="font-family:arial;">While still an embroyonic field at the time, psychological warfare was going to be one of the main ingredients of PB/Success. The foundation of the campaign would be guerrilla radio broadcasts blared over frequencies close to the Guatemalan national channel. Relatively few Guatemalans owned a radio at that time, but it was considered to be an authoritative source of information, and we knew that wherever interested ears tuned in, gossiping lips would soon follow, spreading the message...<br><br>...On D-Day, the station would direct a powerful blast directly at the Guatemalan government's radio beacon, overriding their transmitter with prerecorded fictional radio broadcasts in which non-existent Guatemalan military officers would spread terror by announcing that battalions of soldiers were streaming across the border. Additionally, we hired a group of Guatemalan newspaper reporters to bang out reams of anti-Communist articles for publication in Latin American countries. They wrote pamphlets that were passed out in the streets and leaflets that were airdropped to remote towns and villages in the mountains and jungles. Phillips also devised another interesting anti-Communist technique in Chile that we duplicated in Guatemala in which housewives were taught to riot in the streets banging pots and pans to protest Communist programs.</span></span><span style="font-family:arial;"> - <a href="http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=96UjNz1lBV4C&lpg=PP1">American Spy, p74-75</a></span></blockquote><p style="font-family: arial;">The operation was heavily leveraged - the army under the command of Armas numbered less than 400, and possibly even less than 200. If it had come to a direct military confrontation, Arbenz's army would definitely have won. However, the propaganda achieved two key purposes, enabling the coup attempt to succeed. Firstly, it focused on the rural population who had most benefited from Decree 900, portraying Arbenz as untrustworthy, a Soviet puppet, and a traitor. This was Arbenz's electoral base, but as the pots and pans tactic demonstrates, large numbers were turned against him. The propaganda also convinced Arbenz that the tiny army led by Armas was much larger and posed a realistic threat. On 'D-Day' this impression was exacerbated as ex-WW2 bombers piloted by CIA agents attacked Guatemala City. They dropped bombs, lumps of explosive attached to hand grenades, bottles filled with gasoline, and even empty Coca-Cola bottles. Anything that would make a noise and give the appearance of a much larger attacking force. </p><p style="font-family: arial;">In the end, Arbenz resigned and fled the country while Armas's army sat about in a small village just inside the Guatemalan border with Honduras. They smoked cigarettes, told jokes, leered at the locals and showed off a Guy Fawkes-style effigy of Arbenz to the press. The crude dummy had a sign hanging around its neck saying 'go back to Russia'. This was a tiny part of what was an elaborate PR campaign designed just as much for the US population as it was for the Guatemalans. The faction leading the coup hired Tommy the Cork - Thomas Corcoran - a 'superlobbyist' who set about drumming up support in the US congress for the ousting of Arbenz. They also recruited Edward Bernays, who took a group of journalists to Guatemala to meet with anti-Arbenz officials who told them horror stories which they naively repeated in their articles. </p><p style="font-family: arial;">Once Arbenz had been ousted the propaganda continued. Armas was invited to America, given a tickertape parade in New York City and awarded honorary degrees by US universities. Not long after, the US sent in Vice President Richard Nixon. Ironically, his role was effectively subservient to the program devised by Hunt, who as one of the Watergate burglars would also be partly responsible for the downfall of the Nixon presidency. Nixon flew into Guatemala and held a press conference with Armas, offering a public US endorsement of the new leader. They showed off Communist leaflets and books supposedly found in the Presidential palace, claiming this proved that the Arbenz 'regime' was 'controlled by foreigners' i.e. by the Soviets. Nixon praised Armas as a popular revolutionary and a democrat, though at the election which saw Armas returned as President, he was the only candidate. However, given some of Nixon's public statements he probably considered this a 'white lie'. In an amusing footnote, Hunt's CIA career took him to Uruguay some years later, where he lived just down the road from the exiled Arbenz, even meeting him occasionally at diplomatic functions. </p><p style="font-family: arial;">The next major operation in which Hunt was involved was the notoriously scandal-ridden Bay of Pigs affair. In 1959 Fidel and Raul Castro overthrow the dictator Fulgencio Batista after two years of guerilla warfare fought from the Sierra Maestra mountain range. The CIA even provided some funding to Castro's rebels, among them Che Guevara, to try to get intelligence on the progress of the struggle. After the coup, Richard Nixon went to visit Fidel in Havana, and they had an apparently intelligent, peaceful exchange. However, as Castro later mentioned in an <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D22Nv6nnfAI">interview</a> with highly respectable journalist Bill Moyers, Nixon wrote a memo to Eisenhower as soon as he returned to Washington. According to Castro the memo said that he was 'a Communist' who 'had to be eliminated'. Nixon's <a href="http://www.gwu.edu/%7Ensarchiv/bayofpigs/19590425.pdf">memo</a> summarising his meeting with Castro, available courtesy of the <a href="http://www.gwu.edu/%7Ensarchiv/bayofpigs/press2.html">National Security Archives</a>, doesn't say this explicitly. However, it does liken Castro to Sukarno, the popular quasi-socialist leader of Indonesia who was overthrown in a CIA coup in 1965. It says Castro is 'naive' about Communism or 'under Communist discipline' and that he showed no concern about Communism coming to power in China. Nixon's concern is clear, and he went on to be a 'strong supporter' of the CIA's attempt to oust Castro. </p><p style="font-family: arial;">The CIA recruited <a href="http://aftermathnews.wordpress.com/2009/10/27/fidel-castros-sister-was-a-cia-agent/">Castro's sister</a> to inform on how the nascent government was developing. However, it appears Cuban machismo may have kept her in the dark about Cuban counterintelligence, which functioned very well. Thousands of Cuban citizens had fled the country not long after the regime, including many who had supported Castro and felt betrayed by him as he sought to take wealth and power from the middle class. They became exiles in Miami and this is where Howard Hunt came in. As the CIA trained a couple of thousand men in a camp in Guatemala to conduct the paramilitary operation, Hunt was in Miami in charge of the political operation. His job was to find a way to unify the hundreds of disparate Cuban exile groups, some consisting of only one or two people, under one leader. He chose Manuel Artime, a well educated man in his 20s, who would help lead the new government once Castro was toppled. However, the coup attempts failed for a dozen different reasons. Though the CIA had recruited Castro's sister, they had very little by way of reliable intelligence on the domestic opposition to the Cuban government. The exiles in Miami <a href="http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=96UjNz1lBV4C&lpg=PP1&dq=american%20spy&pg=PA114">boasted of having far more contacts and support</a> on the island than they actually had, as the more important they made themselves out to be the more money the CIA threw at them.<br></p><p style="font-family: arial;">Hunt developed strong relations with the Cubans, and when the invasion at the Bay of Pigs failed he sympathised with the Cuban sense of betrayal by President Kennedy. In particular several of his close friends, including Artime, were captured and imprisoned by Castro. When the Americans finally paid a ransom for the release of the prisoners, Artime called up Hunt to tell him the good news.<br></p><blockquote><p style="font-family: arial;">"Feliz Navidad, amigo," said Artime. "I'm at Miami airport."<br></p><p style="font-family: arial;">It felt so good to hear his voice that I cried...<br></p><p style="font-family: arial;">...A few day later, President Kennedy visited Miami where he met the survivors of the 2506 [the exile brigade] at a televised ceremony at the Orange Bowl. There, Pepe San Roman gave JFK the brigade's flag to hold for 'safekeeping'.<br></p><p style="font-family: arial;">Kennedy responded with the faulty promise, 'I can assure you that this flag will be returned to the brigade in a free Havana.'<br></p><p style="font-family: arial;">Manolo visited me in Washington shortly after the beginning of 1963...<br></p><p style="font-family: arial;">... He confided in me that the flag was a replica and that the presentation nearly didn't take place because of the animosity of the brigade members toward JFK. - <a href="http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=96UjNz1lBV4C&lpg=PP1&dq=american%20spy&pg=PA122#v=onepage&q&f=false">American Spy, p122</a><br></p></blockquote><p style="font-family: arial;">Why did the Cubans, and by extension the CIA, hate Kennedy so much? He had made support for the Cuban exiles a major part of his electoral platform in the election of 1960, where he narrowly defeated Nixon. He made it virtually impossible for the CIA to conduct the covert operation (codenamed Zapata) by insisting on iron-clad deniability. When they launched an air raid against Castro airfields in the run up to the invasion, using planes painted to look like Cuban air force bombers, the cover was blown. The planes landed back in Miami, but one of the pilots was quickly identified as a member of the exile brigade, and the plane had nose guns demonstrating that it was in fact an American B-26, not a Cuban one. Kennedy called off the second air raid, which could have completely destroyed what was left of the Cuban air force. As it was, they still had three Mig fighters.<br></p><p style="font-family: arial;">When the invasion came the exile-piloted B-26s circled over the beach where the brigade landed. This made it impossible for Castro to bring up tanks, heavy artillery, and large numbers of troops in case they were bombed en route to the battle. The handful of remaining fighters were launched shortly after dawn, and took on the sluggish and large targets that the B-26s presented. Five were shot down and the rest so badly damaged that they had to retreat. The brigade's communcations ship and supply ship were sunk, leaving them desperately short of supplies. Kennedy refused to send in the US armed forces, nestled a few miles away for a 'training exercise' in the Carribean. The Cubans, the CIA and the US military all had grudges to bear with Kennedy, blaming him for the brigade's failure and subsequent surrender. Any one, or possibly all of them, may be to blame for Kennedy's assassination two and half years later.<br></p><p style="font-family: arial;">Kennedy forced the resignations of or just fired the top three men at the CIA - Allen Dulles, Richard Bissel and Charles Cabel. Cabel's brother was the mayor of Dallas at the time of the Kennedy assassination, and Dulles went on to serve on the Warren Commission. Many of those still in the CIA who were somehow responsible for the failure, including Hunt, were moved to the newly created domestic operations division. This included the interception of phonecalls within the US, which is illegal. The responsibility for domestic law enforcement resides with the Department of Justice, the FBI and the police agencies, and a judge decides whether or not they can monitor phonecalls, at least until the Patriot Act was brought in. The domestic operations division were also involved in domestic propaganda, using journalists and publishers both to gather information and to try to manipulate public opinion. According to the 1975 <a href="http://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/contents/church/contents_church_reports.htm">Church Committee</a>, which investigated the 'dirty laundry' of US intelligence agencies, Operation Mockingbird cost $265 million a year. According to a 1977 <a href="http://carlbernstein.com/magazine_cia_and_media.php">article</a> by Carl Bernstein the operations included Joseph Alsop, Williarn Paley, Henry Luce, Arthur Hays Sulzberger, Barry Bingham Sr. and James Copley. Luce, most notably, was also a <a href="http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/sociopolitica/esp_sociopol_skullbones04a.htm">member</a> of Skull n Bones and according to Hunt a '<a href="http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=96UjNz1lBV4C&lpg=PP1&dq=American%20spy&client=opera&pg=PA150#v=onepage&q=hearst&f=false">good friend</a>' of Allen Dulles. The media organs in some way used by the CIA included ABC, the NBC, the Associated Press, United Press International, Reuters, Hearst Newspapers, Scripps‑Howard, Newsweek magazine, the Mutual Broadcasting System and the Miami Herald. According to the CIA's <a href="http://nsarchive.chadwyck.com/marketing/fj/displayItemPdf.do;jsessionid=A60C3F8892014EEF7E2804D93AEF3998?id=FJ00051">Family Jewels</a> the operations also involved <a href="http://nsarchive.chadwyck.com/marketing/fj/displayItemId.do;jsessionid=AAF2F021919973C0CE2BE0B1F6D7E73A?ItemID=FJ00051">bugging</a> journalists' telephones. It is interesting that the kinds of activities that would bring down the Nixon presidency began under JFK.<br></p><p style="font-family: arial;">Hunt retired from the CIA in 1970 and the following year was approached by Charles Colson, special counsel to President Nixon. They asked him to join the President's Special Investigation Unit, now more commonly known as the White House Plumbers, so called because they were there to stop the leaks. Of particular concern was the <a href="http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/pentagon/pent1.html">Pentagon Papers</a>, a classified history of US political and military involvement in Vietnam prepared by the Department of Defense. It had been leaked to the New York Times by one of its contributing authors, Daniel Ellsberg, who made copies of the classified documents and the study based on them and handed them to reporter Neil Sheehan. The Times prepared a series of articles of extracts from the papers and commentaries on what they indicated, but Nixon got a court order to prevent them from publishing. Ellsberg then leaked the documents to over a dozen other newspapers, and the Supreme Court overruled the White House and allowed the Times to publish their work.<br></p><p style="font-family: arial;">The Plumbers hit back. They investigated Ellsberg and found he was educated at Cambridge University, historically a prime location for Soviet recruitment of spies, and had visited Sweden, which was a key entry point for Soviet agents looking to infiltrate Western Europe, and was a prolific womaniser. All this made Colson and Hunt suspect that Ellsberg was a Soviet spy and had leaked the full Pentagon Papers to the USSR. Keen to find confirmation of this, they broke into his psychiatrist's office with the intention of photographing his medical files. Hunt teamed up with Gordon Liddy, a Nazi-sympathising nutter who had worked for the FBI. They two donned disguises and cased the office of the psychiatrist, named Lewis Fielding. They wore wigs and inserted insoles in their shoes to alter the way they walked, and managed to gain entry to the office to take pictures of the interior using a camera disguised as a tobacco pouch. However, the mission was not without it's problems, as Hunt described:<br></p><blockquote><span style="font-family:arial;">All in all, everything went as planned, except for an amusing event in the park. Liddy told me that he had been sitting on a park bench when he was cruised by a gay 'seven-foot Navajo' who apparently found Liddy so inviting in his longish wig that Liddy almost had to fight off the large, amorous suitor. - <a href="http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=96UjNz1lBV4C&lpg=PP1">American Spy, p185</a></span></blockquote><span style="font-family:arial;">For the burglary itself Hunt recruited Bernard Barker, and two Cubans named Felipe De Diego - a Bay of Pigs veteran - and Rolando Martinez - who had run sabotage operations inside Cuba as part of <a href="http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=96UjNz1lBV4C&lpg=PP1">Operation Mongoose</a>. Ultimately, the mission failed because though they successfully broke into the office, Barker and the Cubans were unable to find any files relating to Ellsberg. The burglary crew opened medicine cabinets and had strewn materials all over the floor and a few days later the local police arrested a drug addict who conveniently confessed to the Plumbers' crime.</span><p style="font-family: arial;">That was in 1971, and the following year was a presidential election year. Nixon had taken the White House at the second attempt. Having been beaten by JFK in 1960 he also he failed in a 1962 attempt to become governor of his home state of California, then <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kb5NV4KtTC8">announced his retirement</a> from politics, before staging a comeback to take the big job. However, he had steadily become intensely paranoid, and though he retained a large amount of the support that had seen him elected President, he believed there were dark forces working against him. The Plumbers were enlisted to try to help Nixon, and were largely funded by the Committee to Re-Elect the President, also known as CREEP. Project Gemstone was born - a multi-facted covert operation designed to not only gather intelligence on what the Democratic party were up to, but also to try to influence public opinion and therefore the election result. This included various subprojects named after precious stones.<br></p><blockquote><span style="font-family:arial;">Our highest priority, 'Diamond', was the counterdemonstration plan for San Diego, where the Republican convention was scheduled to take place. 'Garnet' was abother counterdemonstration program, in which we planned to hire various distasteful people to demonstrate against the Republicans, with the hopefull fallout that the American public would find their antics so repulsive that they would vote for Nixon, just to thumb their nose at the demonstrators (much like how today's American Idol television audiences often seem to vote for contestants whom Simon Cowell ridicules). - <a href="http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=96UjNz1lBV4C&lpg=PP1">American Spy, p195</a></span></blockquote><span style="font-family:arial;">Gemstone culminated in the break-ins at the Watergate hotel and office complex in Washington DC, where the Democratic Party's National Committee (DNC) had its headquarters. The <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/23/AR2007012301012.html">team</a> comprised Hunt, Barker and Liddy, two anti-Castro Cubans named Virgilio Gonzalez and Eugenio Martinez, a former CIA security specialist Jim McCord, and former CIA agent Frank Sturgis. Hunt, Barker, the Cubans and Sturgis all went back to Operation 40 and the Bay of Pigs invasion. The aim of the break-in was to photograph documents detailing Democratic campaign contributions in the hope of finding a connection to Castro or the Soviets, and to bug the office and phone of Larry O'Brien, the chairman of the DNC. The first attempt failed because Gonzalez, a locksmith by trade, didn't have the right tool to pick the locks and allow access to the DNC offices. The second attempt largely succeeded, but the entry team photographed the wrong documents and McCord cocked up the bugging part of the operation.</span><br><p style="font-family: arial;">The third attempt was the big one. Not only were the entry team arrested, the entire White House covert operations team was uncovered, eventually forcing Nixon to resign and precipitating a series of inquiries into the actions of the US intelligence services. The team broke in on the night of 17th June 1972 and were discovered due to a sloppy mistake. The technique developed during the earlier break-ins was to have McCord sneak into the Watergate complex through the garage doors, and tape open the locks on doors allowing the others access to a staircase and thus the floor containing the DNC's offices. This was common practice among cleaners and maintenance crews, but a security guard found the doors taped open, removed the tape and then found them re-taped again hours later. He alerted the police, who located and arrested the entry team. Liddy and Hunt escaped that evening but phone numbers and the money trail led the FBI to both of them. Though Nixon was allowed to retire and his successor, Gerald Ford, gave him a full pardon the Watergate burglars were imprisoned. Hunt served 33 months, by which time his wife had died in a plane accident and he had essentially been bankrupted. Also imprisoned were several White House staffers, including White House counsels John Dean and John Ehrlichman, Nixon's Chief of Staff HR Haldemann, deputy director of CREEP Jeb MacGruder and Attorney General John Mitchell.<br></p><p style="font-family: arial;">The Watergate scandal not only brought down a presidential administration and virtually ruined Hunt's life, it was also the basis for the <a href="http://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/contents/church/contents_church_reports.htm">Church Committee</a>'s investigation into <a href="http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKintelligence.htm">illegal activities</a> by US intelligence services and the Rockefeller's Commission's investigation into CIA activities within the US, both in 1975. President Ford reacted to the discoveries of these inquiries by enacting <a href="http://www.fordlibrarymuseum.gov/library/speeches/760110e.htm">Executive Order 11905</a>, which amended the National Security Act of 1947 by providing greater oversight of intelligence agency activities and banning political assassinations. Whether the CIA and the rest of the US 'intelligence community' really paid any attention is a matter of some dispute. The public pressure arising from the information reported by the two inquiries, particularly the Church Committee, led to the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA), formed in 1976 and lasting until 1979. The HSCA looked into the killings of President John F Kennedy in Dallas in November 1963, and Martin Luther King Jr. in Memphis in April 1968.<br></p><p style="font-family: arial;">Hunt testified before the Rockefeller Commission and the HSCA about his alleged role in the Kennedy assassination. Writers, in particular <a href="http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKszulc.htm">Tad Szulc</a>, had written about infamous photographs taken in Dealey Plaza of three men that were arrested shortly after the shooting of JFK. The photos of these tramps have been the subject of tremendous debate.<br></p><p style="font-family: arial;"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 597px; height: 408px;" src="http://www.garyrevel.com/News/JFK/tramps.PNG" alt="" border="0">Howard Hunt is allegedly the third man (L-R), the one wearing a hat. The first two men have been widely <a href="http://www.chrisneuendorf.com/freelee/ehoward.htm">identified</a>, perhaps correctly, as Frank Sturgis and Daniel Carswell (Carswell was also CIA). Sceptics, including Oliver Stone in his movie JFK, have pointed out that two of the men look quite young to be homeless in 1960s America, that all three men are clean shaven and the two whose hair can be seen shows it to be well kept. They appear to be wearing mostly new clothes with little or no sign of dirt, wear or fraying, and that if you were not told they were vagrants they wouldn't stand out as such. That they were arrested, questioned, and then released has caused some to suspect they were protected assets of the intelligence services involved in the assassination. </p><p style="font-family: arial;">Hunt denied that he was in Dallas that day, <a href="http://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/jfk/hsca/secclass/Hunt_11-3-78/html/Hunt_0008a.htm">affirming</a> to both the Rockefeller Commission and the HSCA that he was at home in Washington on the day in question. He tells a tale of being out shopping for groceries when he and his wife heard about the shooting. They then collected their son from school, went home and watched the rolling TV coverage as events unfolded into the evening. However, this now appears not to be true. Though Hunt re-affirmed this version of events in his autobiography, published shortly after his death in January 2007, he sent his son St John Hunt a tape recording in 2004 making an extensive confession, and telling his son to release the recording after his death. Howard Hunt claims that he was in fact in Dallas that day, as a 'benchwarmer' rather than a key player in the assassination. He named then vice-President Lyndon Johnson as one of the main men behind the plot, and identified Cord Meyer and William King Harvey of the CIA as its progenitors. Harvey in particular played a key role in Operation Mongoose, the Pentagon-CIA plan to kill Castro (among other things). As picked up by Oliver Stone's movie <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0-mJZ9ur_8">Nixon</a>, there is a suspicion that Mongoose 'got turned around' and became the vehicle for the Kennedy assassination, a suspicion held by Richard Nixon himself. </p><p style="font-family: arial;">The story of Hunt's confession was first picked up by <a href="http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3557777233419949143">Prisonplanet</a> and then by <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OlpL7qZxPhA">Coast to Coast</a> radio. However, it has not gained any notable coverage in mainstream news media. His son St John offered his opinion on the tramp photographs, saying that the third man looked much like his father did in the early 1960s. But people quite often confess to crimes they haven't committed, such at the LA drug addict who said he broke into Ellsberg's psychiatrist's office. There is also the issue of why Hunt went to such lengths in his 2007 book to deny his involvement in the assassination when he knew he was dying and therefore that soon after his son would make his recorded confession a matter of public knowledge (at least to those who bother to look for such things). Most publishers would jump at the chance to publish an irrefutable posthumous confession by a CIA agent. It's ideal from a legal point of view because it can't be proven true or false because the guy making the confession is dead, the publisher doesn't even have to claim the confession as true in order to get people interested. Kennedy assassination theories are the most commonly believed type of conspiracy theory, with the possible exception of those concerning 9/11, so it is a guaranteed money maker, a very rare thing in publishing. </p><p style="font-family: arial;">However, put against that Hunt knew of the CIA's infiltration of the publishing industry, and so if he had told his book publisher what he told his son then there was a reasonable chance of the CIA finding out his intentions. In any case, his book was edited by the CIA before publication, and so is perhaps not an authentic representation of Hunt's view of his own life. Hopefully some of these issues will be discussed in Alex Jones's forthcoming Kennedy assassination movie, which features St John Hunt in extensive interviews, alongside long-term investigator Jim Marrs. Though there is no release date available yet the preview indicates that it expands on the theories put forth in the mainstream films <a href="http://stagevu.com/video/uymvxdvwabtr">Executive Action</a> and <a href="http://stagevu.com/video/gqyxduaqlkdw">JFK</a>.<br></p><p style="font-family: arial;"><embed id="VideoPlayback" src="http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docid=814878811890087473&hl=en&fs=true" style="width: 640px; height: 480px;" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"><br></p><p style="font-family: arial;"><br></p><br /><div style="clear: both;"></div><br />Talkbouthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14408535183177475747noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5734121862980918017.post-91323388109460206902010-01-28T22:00:00.000-08:002013-10-24T11:51:02.814-07:00
The Fabrication of Crisis
<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://i48.tinypic.com/149cth1.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 395px; height: 369px;" src="http://i48.tinypic.com/149cth1.jpg" border="0" alt=""></a><span style="font-family:arial;">The dramatic failure of the Copenhagen Climate Conference Proceedings was succeeded by a significant 'cold air mass'. The Northern hemisphere winter was already looking cold while the conference was taking place, and temperatures rapidly plummeted once the delegates had flown home.  </span><a style="font-family: arial;" href="http://www.gadling.com/2010/01/10/uk-blanketed-under-record-snowfall-but-dont-just-take-our-wor/">Record snowfall</a><span style="font-family:arial;"> hit locations as far South as </span><a style="font-family: arial;" href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/8438871.stm">Beijing</a><span style="font-family:arial;"> and </span><a style="font-family: arial;" href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jan/04/beijing-south-korea-record-snow">Seoul</a><span style="font-family:arial;">, while sunny Florida was struggling to reach positive temperatures. </span><br><p style="font-family: arial;"><object height="385" width="640"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/TWbctKJENUI&hl=en_GB&fs=1&color1=0xe1600f&color2=0xfebd01" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" height="385" width="640"></object></p><p style="font-family: arial;">Once again, the <a href="http://objectivistindividualist.blogspot.com/2010/01/britains-met-office-predicted-mild.html">Met Office</a>'s predictions were wrong, and not just wrong in the sense of being inaccurate, wrong in the sense of identifying a trend that clearly wasn't really there. This is a common failing of statistical methods. Despite this the pro-AGW scientists are still trying to sell global warming theory. The World Meteorological Organisation have denied that the cold weather in any way questions the AGW theory of climate change. Secretary General Michel Jarraud said:</p><blockquote>"We cannot explain any single phenomenon by one single cause." - <a href="http://www1.voanews.com/english/news/a-13-2009-01-14-voa5-68761472.html">VOA News</a></blockquote><p style="font-family: arial;">Except, presumably, for explaining climate change by human activity. The Met Office followed suit, finding a way to argue that the cold weather is in fact a <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/topics/weather/4436934/Snow-is-consistent-with-global-warming-say-scientists.html">result</a> of global warming, demonstrating how the entire investigation of the climate is led by a desired conclusion. Stephen Dorling of the disgraced University of East Anglia gave interviews to two newspapers, both of which came out with astoundingly unscientific nonsense as a result:</p><blockquote style="font-family: arial;"><p>But Stephen Dorling, of the scandal-hit University of East Anglia’s school of environmental sciences, remained adamant that the weather should not be used as evidence against climate change. - <a href="http://www.dailyexpress.co.uk/posts/view/149966">Daily Express</a></p><p>But he said it was wrong to focus on single events - whether they were cold snaps or heat waves - which were the product of natural variability. - <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/6937019/Cold-weather-doesnt-undermine-global-warming-science.html">Telegraph</a></p></blockquote><p style="font-family: arial;">The former betrays the hoax that underpins this sort of science, that empirical evidence is discounted in favour of '<a href="http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/secondhandsmoke/2009/12/16/climategate-2-russians-claim-scientists-manipulated-russian-temperature-data-to-falsely-show-warming/">value added</a>' statistics, though the process which produced those statistics is kept secret. The latter is genuinely bizarre because it seems to imply that single events are naturally occurring but longer trends are the result of some 'unnatural' activity, presumably by humans. The global warming in the mind of that article's author is truly anthropogenic or 'man made', in that it an invention of the imagination, not the conclusion of an investigative process. </p><p style="font-family: arial;">It should also be noted that single events, in particular heat waves, are often used to advance the vision of catastrophic anthropogenic climate change. When a very hot summer struck <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_European_heat_wave">Europe</a> in 2003, killing Parisian pensioners, it was consistently used as <a href="http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&safe=off&client=opera&rls=en&hs=3f4&q=2003+heat+wave+global+warming">evidence</a> for global warming. Two years afterwards the Guardian ran an <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2005/sep/22/climatechange.climatechangeenvironment">article</a> saying the knock-on effect of this 'single event' could contribute to global warming on a large scale. Continuing their beautifully contradictory coverage the Telegraph published an <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/globalwarming/6965342/Big-freeze-could-signal-global-warming-pause.html">article</a> suggesting the cold weather might signal a 'pause' to global warming, and that we may see a cooling period. A very similar <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/7329799.stm">piece</a> appeared in the BBC's coverage in April 2008 after a particularly cold winter. </p><p style="font-family: arial;">For those advancing the global warming theory any argument will do. Weather that might support the desired conclusion is cited as evidence that the theory is correct. Weather that doesn't support the desired conclusion is dismissed as 'single events' that are part of natural fluctuations. These single events aren't significant compared to the long term trend, except when they can find a reason to suggest the single events have helped cause the long term trend that is the desired conclusion. Any concessions to a short term trend is always contrasted with a reference to the long term trend that is the desired conclusion. This is political logic.</p><p style="font-family: arial;"><object height="505" width="640"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/vidzkYnaf6Y&hl=en_GB&fs=1&color1=0xe1600f&color2=0xfebd01" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" height="505" width="640"></object></p><p style="font-family: arial;">These contradictions are typified in <a href="http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80beats/2010/01/08/once-again-cold-weather-doesnt-disprove-global-warming/">this</a> Discover Magazine blog, which predictably features a Greenpeace banner advert at the top of the page with a picture of a polar bear stating 'give £3 a month to stop climate change'. Given that 'single events' can naturally occur which then add up to a short term trend, which can turn into a long term trend, it's probably fair to say that regardless of what humans do there will always be some climate change happening. </p><p style="font-family: arial;">Perhaps because of the failure of Copenhagen, and the failure of this mishmash of causality myths and ideology to convince the desired number of people, the crisis-salesmen have resorted to somewhat cruder methods. On the evening of Christmas day Omar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a passenger on Flight 253 from Schipol to Detroit, set fire to his trousers, allegedly trying to detonate plastic explosives in his <a href="http://juergenelsaesser.wordpress.com/2010/01/06/der-unterhosen-bomber/">underwear</a>. Though the precise nature of the device is unclear, it is <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umar_Farouk_Abdulmutallab#Attack">variously reported</a> to have involved unmixed PETN powder and some form of Acetone Peroxide, along with a syringe full of acid. This is allegedly the <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/27/AR2009122702021.html">same mixture</a> of explosive compounds used by so-called 'shoe bomber' Richard Reid. In both cases, whether they constituted a viable explosive device is not apparent. Whether young Mutallab could have actually downed the plane over the city, and hence deserve the already appointed titled of the '<a href="http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&source=hp&q=detroit+bomber">Detroit Bomber</a>' or would have just blown off his balls, is yet to be established. </p><p style="font-family: arial;">The <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/12/25/national/main6022161.shtml">incident</a> was initially reported as a passenger trying to light fireworks on the plane, but soon after the story evolved to include another passenger, a Dutchman named Japser Schuringa, who subdued Mutallab when he tried to do whatever it was he was trying to do. </p><blockquote>Mr Schuringa said Abdulmutallab seemed “out of it” and was “staring into nothing”. - <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/6891345/Detroit-terror-attack-how-the-bomber-tried-to-blow-Flight-253-from-of-the-sky.html">The Telegraph</a></blockquote><p style="font-family: arial;">In the following days and weeks there were a series of other 'security scares' on similar flights. Two days after Christmas the <a href="http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE5BQ1NL20091227">same flight</a> (Northwest Airlines flight 253) was 'involved in an emergency incident' coming into Detroit. The <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/27/second-northwest-airlines_n_404349.html">cause</a> was that a Nigerian passenger had apparently become sick and had spent a long time in the plane's bathroom. The day after it was reported that Mutallab had <a href="http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article2785733.ece">bragged</a> to the FBI that there were more willing plane bombers waiting in the wings. Indeed, the young man was <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/6957485/Detroit-bomber-singing-like-a-canary-before-arrest.html">apparently</a> very keen to talk about terrorism until his government-appointed lawyer 'reduced' his 'co-operation'. </p><p style="font-family: arial;"><a href="http://uk.news.yahoo.com/22/20100113/tts-uk-netherlands-airline-threat-ca02f96.html">Another</a> plane out of Amsterdam, this one going to Aruba, was diverted after an unruly passenger made bomb threats, about two weeks into the New Year. However, the <a href="http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/302404,honey-named-as-hazardous-material-that-closed-california-airport.html">prize</a> goes to Meadows Field Airport in California which was closed after yet another security scare in the wake of the Flight 253 incident. Two baggage handlers were taken to hospital complaining of feeling nauseous after opening bottles they believed contained a suspicious liquid. The bottles tested <a href="http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/us/Bottles-of-honey-cause-US-airport-shutdown/articleshow/5414833.cms">positive</a> for traces of explosive, <a href="http://www.shanghaidaily.com/sp/article/2010/201001/20100107/article_424946.htm">both</a> TNT and TATP, so the airport was evacuated and shut down. The only problem was that they contained honey. Not explosives, not acid, not underwear, not misguided Nigerians. Honey. Similarly, Minneapolis St Paul airport was closed after a 'suspicious' bag was identified by a bomb-sniffing dog. It <a href="http://wcco.com/travel/international.airport.minneapolis.2.1406626.html">turned out</a> to be the bag the handlers put on the carousel to indicate the end of a batch, that all of the luggage from a particular flight has been unloaded. Likewise the comic Joan Rivers was kept off a flight from Costa Rica to Newark after a gate inspector was <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/6942934/US-airport-closed-after-security-scare-caused-by-bottles-of-honey.html">concerned</a> about her passport containing both her married and professional names. </p><p style="font-family: arial;">Perhaps in response to bottles of honey or the use of stage names, MI5 took the decision to raise the UK threat level from 'substantial' to 'severe'. The non-specific, unconfirmable international terrorist threat strikes again, leading Sky News to begin their piece on the story saying:</p><blockquote>It is the threat that won't go away. The chance of an international terrorist attack on the UK has increased again. - <a href="http://uk.news.yahoo.com/5/20100122/video/vuk-uk-terror-threat-level-raised-to-sev-37e89e1.html">Sky News</a></blockquote><p style="font-family: arial;">However, it is the threat level (supposedly an assessment derived from the available intelligence) that has been raised, not the chance of an attack. Heightened security and 'vigilance' on the part of the public as a result of publicly raising the threat level should, if anything, make an attack less likely, not more likely. But Sky News know what they're doing, and know that it butters a lot of bread to keep making out that at any moment a confused young man from Africa might set fire to his underpants. Accompanying the hiking of the threat level came Home Secretary Alan Johnson, who assured us that we still face a '<a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8476238.stm">real and serious</a>' threat from terrorism. 'Real and serious' is the same phrase used by Johnson's half a dozen predecessors in the job of primary domestic propagandist for the War on Terror, which indicates the threat is manufactured and farcical. </p><p style="font-family: arial;">Indeed, as far as bombers go, Mutallab was pretty poor, down there with <a href="http://flapsblog.com/2007/06/30/uk-terror-watch-flaming-car-rams-into-glasgow-airport/">those</a> who set fire to themselves in a jeep and then drove into a bollard at Glasgow airport a couple of years ago. However, these aren't particularly isolated incidents in the history of Islamic terrorism. Ramzi Yousef, the designer of the bomb used to attack the WTC in 1993, was known for a series of accidents. <a href="http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=5QWzZXb1D7QC&lpg=PP1&dq=bill%20gertz%20breakdown&pg=PA211#v=onepage&q=&f=false">One in particular</a> saw him accidentally drink sulphuric acid from a bottle thinking it was a soft drink he'd poured into the same kind of bottle. Soft drinks were also to blame for the closure of New York's Penn station in <a href="http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/archives/officials_shut_down_part_of_penn_station_-_yahoo_news/">2005</a> after a 'suspicious' soda can had to be investigated by National Guardsmen and HAZMAT teams. </p><p style="font-family: arial;">Another story from 1993 is telling, when Osama Bin Laden purchased an aircraft to help him ship weapons from Afghanistan to Sudan, where he was based at the time. A former mujahid who had fought in Afghanistan against the Soviets, was enlisted to help. Essam al-Ridi lived in Texas and acquired an ageing ex-US military plane from the Tucson '<a href="http://googlesightseeing.com/2005/04/07/boneyard-tucson-az/">Boneyard</a>'. </p><blockquote style="font-family: arial;"><p>The saga of the T-39 is a rare amusement in the Bin Laden chronicle. Because of a shortage of cash, the Saudi insisted on spending no more than $250,000. What he got was a 1960s vintage aircraft with a range of about 1500 miles. To get the plane from the southwestern US to Khartoum, Al-Ridi had to make a seven-leg journey, beginning in Dallas-Forth Worth and flying via Sault Sainte Marie in Ontario to an airstrip in Frobisher bay, just below the Arctic Circle, then to Iceland, next to a couple of stops in Europe, on to Caire, and finally to its destination. Al-Ridi expected the journey to take a couple of days. When he go to Frobisher Bay, -65 degree weather cracked a window and the plane lost its hydraulic system, forcing a stopover. After a week in Canada's frozen north, Air Mujahid was up and running again, and Al-Ridi delivered the plane...</p><p>...About a year and a half after his epic journey, Al-Ridi was summoned to Sudan to fly the plane again. It had been poorly maintained, he arrived at the airport to find that the tires had melted on the runway, the engines were filled with sand and the keys were missing. After repairs by an airport mechanic, Al-Ridi took the plane up for a brief test. He made several circuits around the airport, performed a touch-and-go, and then brought the plane in for a landing. While it was hurtling down the tarmac, all the brake systems failed. Al-Ridi shut off the engines but with the plane still plowing forward at sixty knots, the runway ran out, and the plane slammed into a sand pile. Al-Ridi, an Egyptian who worked for Bin Laden as a business matter, not out of ideological conviction, was fearful of being identified with the Saudi's plane. He sprinted from the runway and caught a flight out of Sudan as fast as he could. - <a href="http://books.google.co.uk/books?client=opera&cd=1&id=yavcAAAAIAAJ&dq=age+of+sacred+terror&q=al-ridi#search_anchor">The Age of Sacred Terror</a></p></blockquote><p style="font-family: arial;">Nonetheless, that the young Nigerian posed a 'real and serious' threat to the security of our way of life doesn't seem to be in question by any officials. Instead the authorities have been having a dispute over 'intelligence failures', in essence the same dispute that took place after <a href="http://www.gpoaccess.gov/serialset/creports/911.html">9/11</a> and <a href="http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/intelligence/special_reports.aspx">7/7</a>, and after <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2001/dec/30/terrorism.september11">Richard Reid</a>'s attempt to set fire to his shoes. <a href="http://www.thenational.ae/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20091230/FOREIGN/712299856">Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab</a> came from a wealthy family, his father is a banker and former government official. He was educated at an international school in Togo, and studied engineering and business finance in London. He broke off ties with his family and apparently moved around, living in Yemen, Egypt and/or Dubai. </p><p style="font-family: arial;">In May 2008 he applied for a student visa to enter the UK putting bogus course details on his application. It was <a href="http://www.capitalfm.com/news-travel/london/london-based-student-on-plane-bomb-charge/">denied</a>, and he was added to the British terrorist watch list. Despite this in June 2008 he applied for and received a US entry visa through the US embassy in London. In August he attended a course held by an Islamic centre in Texas, though his movements between then and the following summer are not known. Umar then turned up in Yemen, and by November 2009 his father was appealing to the US embassy in Abuja telling them to retrieve his son. Mutallab's father also <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/barackobama/6942865/US-intelligence-chiefs-face-sack-over-Detroit-bomber.html">warned</a> the CIA station in Abuja that his son had got involved with <a href="http://thenationonlineng.net/web2/articles/30556/1/Mutallab-I-warned-US-about-my-sons-activity/Page1.html">Islamic extremists</a> and might do something stupid. </p><p style="font-family: arial;"><a href="http://www.rightpundits.com/?p=5251">At this point</a> the US added his name to the Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment (TIDE) list, but not the no-fly list. The entry visa issued in June 2008 was not revoked. Between then and a month later, when Mutallab boarded a plane in Lagos, Nigeria on its way to Holland, no effort was made to track Umar or find out what he was doing. According to this version of events the relevant agencies didn't share information or ensure it was investigated. Even Obama got in on the act, <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/dec/30/obama-intelligence-abdulmutallab-detroit-plane?CMP=AFCYAH">criticising</a> 'intelligence failures' and apparently <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/barackobama/6942865/US-intelligence-chiefs-face-sack-over-Detroit-bomber.html">threatening</a> to fire the chiefs of various agencies. While Downing St. claimed they had shared a file on Mutallab with the CIA in <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/barackobama/6938334/Pressure-on-Barack-Obama-to-reveal-what-Britain-said-about-Detroit-bomber.html">2008</a> the Americans reacted furiously to any suggestion that they had intelligence indicating he was a terrorist. The UK government went into reverse gear, giving a wonderfully contradictory press conference: </p><blockquote>During a briefing to journalists on Tuesday, Prime Minister's spokesman said: "There is no suggestion that the UK passed intelligence to the US that they did not act on."<br><br>Sky's political correspondent Joey Jones said it had been an "awful" briefing.<br><br>"He tried to clear things up but only succeeded in muddying the waters still further," Jones said.<br><br>"After he read Downing Street's statement, the spokesman said there would be no further comment on intelligence issues.<br><br>"However, he continued to answer questions from journalists on the subject even saying: 'Whatever information was passed to the US, they did what they needed to do with it.'<br><br>"When I pointed out the contradiction, the spokesman said: 'It's not for me to comment on what the US should do with intelligence.'" - <a href="http://video.news.sky.com/skynews/Home/Politics/Detroit-Bomber-PMs-Spokesman-Says-No-Suggestion-US-Did-Not-Act-On-Intelligence/Article/201001115514578?lpos=Politics_Second_Politics_Article_Teaser_Region_5&lid=ARTICLE_15514578_Detroit_Bomber%3A_PMs_Spokesman_Says_No_Suggestion_US_Did_Not_Act_On_Intelligence">Sky News</a></blockquote><br><p style="font-family: arial;">Assuming the truth of this interpretation, whereby intelligence agencies failed in their role to act on information given to them to deter threats to the public they supposedly protect, it is an act of truly horrific doublethink for officials to react by insisting on <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1238574/Aircraft-passengers-face-heightened-security-measures-emerges-London-educated-syringe-bomber-Flight-253-exploited-loophole.html?ITO=1708&referrer=yahoo">tighter security at airports</a>. In particular the use of full-body scanners, which are in no way a solution to the apparent failure of intelligence bureaucracies. </p><p style="font-family: arial;"><object height="385" width="640"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/qNFY-s_vLVA&hl=en_GB&fs=1&color1=0xe1600f&color2=0xfebd01" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" height="385" width="640"></object></p><p style="font-family: arial;">The <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNi-n7jk8FU">images</a> produced by these machines are so lifelike that there is already an outcry over the invasion of privacy, and concerns that <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/jan/04/new-scanners-child-porn-laws">they break child pornography laws</a> in making images of nude children. In all likelihood making nude images of anyone without their permission is illegal, child or adult. However, given that the FBI has recently been accused by its parent Department of Justice of '<a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jan/19/fbi-terror-emergencies-phone-calls">fabricating terror emergencies</a>' to obtain phone records, it remains a real possibility that such invasive and explicit scanners could become the norm at Western airports. </p><p style="font-family: arial;">If this happens, it will be another blow to the already struggling airline industry. Japan Airlines recently <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wx3S5SeMPqs">filed</a> for bankruptcy <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6053F920100107">despite</a> a state bailout, capping a <a href="http://www.filife.com/forums/airline-economy-still-str/181">very bad</a> couple of years <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-UTM46o9Y0">for</a> the travel business. In particular, <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/jun/02/theairlineindustry.britishairwaysbusiness1">oil prices</a> and the impact on budget airlines of a drop in demand due to the <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1083888/Pictured-The-graveyard-credit-crunched-budget-airlines-send-unwanted-passenger-jets.html">recession</a> have caused greater problems to carriers than 9/11. As discussed by Bilderberg report <a href="http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-179887543378013649#">Daniel Estulin</a>, this may have its origins in the peak oil scenario. This may also explain why the West is so keen to get involved in <a href="http://www.openyoureyesnews.com/2010/01/24/haiti-has-massive-oil-reserves-say-local-scientists/">Haiti</a>, though the US Geological Survey recently stated that <a href="http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=2386">Venezuela</a> is now estimated to have the largest recoverable reserves in the world.<br></p><p style="font-family: arial;">Back to the PG-13 terrorism, it is strange that while Mutallab himself is <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bnqa-0QZfhM&feature=related">pleading not guilty</a> that a recording allegedly made by Osama Bin Laden <a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35042867/ns/world_news-mideastn_africa/">takes credit</a> for the operation. For one, Mutallab is opening himself up to cross-examination by entering a not-guilty plea and is contradicting the 'willing martyr' ideology supposedly subscribed to by Islamikaze terrorist. Secondly, why is Bin Laden taking credit for what, if one presumes the whole narrative and mythology behind Osama, was a failed attack? In terms of psychological impact, a key concern of the '<a href="http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/jihad10chap1.html">Al Qaeda Manual</a>', Osama taking credit for it only really suits the Americans (etc.) in bolstering the enemy image. It makes Al Qaeda look ridiculous if this is their best attempt against an airliner. </p><p style="font-family: arial;">However, were the 'intelligence failures' in fact intelligence successes? The allegation has been made by several publications, most obviously Alex Jones's Infowars but also the Russian <a href="http://english.pravda.ru/opinion/columnists/111547-0/">Pravda</a>. In particular, Infowars picked up on three issues which indicate that Mutallab is something other than what he's cracked up to be. Firstly, when Mutallab tried to board in Amsterdam he apparently had <a href="http://www.prisonplanet.com/bomber-had-no-passport-helped-to-board-plane-by-sharp-dressed-man.html">no passport</a>, but was allowed to board due to a 'well dressed Indian man' getting involved and apparently helping Mutallab to bypass security. This is based on eye-witness testimony from lawyer Kurt Haskell and his wife. </p><p style="font-family: arial;"><object height="385" width="640"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/mAtK7FFDukQ&hl=en_GB&fs=1&color1=0xe1600f&color2=0xfebd01" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" height="385" width="640"></object></p><p style="font-family: arial;">Further allegations of a <a href="http://www.620wtmj.com/news/local/80201152.html">cameraman</a> filming the entire flight including the attempt by Mutallab to do whatever he was trying to do let infowars to conclude that the event was <a href="http://www.infowars.com/man-videotaped-underwear-bomber-on-flight-253/">staged</a>, that Mutallab is a patsy and that there may even have been <a href="http://www.infowars.com/will-the-real-underwear-bomber-please-stand-up/">two different</a> Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab's. The reason <a href="http://www.infowars.com/911-commission-chairman-plane-bomber-did-us-a-favor/">given</a> for this is so that the War on Terror can be expanded to include Yemen, itself a potential staging base for forays into East Africa. Either diplomatic pressure or the threat of military force will enable the US to treat the Yemeni territory as their own, and given the Chinese <a href="http://www.eastafricaforum.net/2009/02/07/steadily-rising-chinese-investment-projects/">investment</a> in East Africa the aim could be to destabilise the threat of progress for a region of the world that has been starving for a long time. </p><p style="font-family: arial;">Running alongside the Mutallab story has been the saga of the delightfully named Islam4UK (<a href="http://www.phones4u.co.uk/">phones4U</a>). <a href="http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?entity=anjem_choudary_1">Anjem Choudary</a>, spokesman for the organisation, is a long term associate of <a href="http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?entity=sheikh_omar_bakri_mohammed">Omar Bakri</a> and helped found Al-Muhajiroun, of which Islam4UK is a splinter group. Shortly after Mutallab's adventure a story hit the national British press that the group were planning a <a href="http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=1191478">march</a> in honour of the Muslims who have died in Afghanistan. The location chosen for the march was Wootton Bassett in Wiltshire, which has become a centre for British mourning of dead due to its proximity to <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8451014.stm">RAF Lyneham</a>. The British <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yoNe9_cVw5c">reaction</a> was <a href="http://newsforums.bbc.co.uk/nol/thread.jspa?sortBy=1&forumID=7408&start=0&tstart=0&edition=1&ttl=20100126134048#paginator">predictably</a> xenophobic, with <a href="http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=228021139869">facebook</a> pages being set up to demand the group be banned. For the most part the fact that the British were among the invaders and instigators of the war has been conveniently ignored, with the proposed march being dismissed as a '<a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/religion/6945946/To-what-extent-does-Anjem-Choudary-represent-the-Muslim-population.html">stunt</a>'. </p><p style="font-family: arial;">By January 10th the media coverage led Islam4UK to announce that they were cancelling plans for the march. They also stated that the much-publicised detail that they were intending on carrying 500 coffins to represent the dead Muslims in Afghanistan was a fabrication, a <a href="http://www.webcitation.org/query?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.islam4uk.com%2Fpr_2.html&date=2010-01-12">conflation</a> of details about the number intending to join the march and a comment made by Choudary. However, <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE60B1SE20100112?feedType=RSS&feedName=worldNews&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:%20reuters/worldNews%20%28News%20/%20US%20/%20International%29">two days later</a> the government decided 'if in doubt, ban al-muhajiroun', which is becoming the <a href="http://www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?item=a071906namechangeagain#a071906namechangeagain">default policy</a> for dealing with Muslim-oriented dissent. This ludicrous decision was rightly criticised by Liberal Democrat shadow home secretary Chris Huhne:<br></p><blockquote>“There is a real risk they will paint themselves as martyrs while simply changing their name and carrying on, or going underground.” - <a href="http://www.libdems.org.uk/press_releases_detail.aspx?title=Banning_Islam4UK_plays_into_its_hands_says_Huhne_&pPK=ae3c88b3-3638-41fe-b80d-715518adaddf">Libdems.org.uk</a></blockquote><p style="font-family: arial;">There is more than a 'real risk' - if history is anything to go by then the group will reform under a new name while gaining support and credibility. While precisely what Choudary is remains unclear (he <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1161909/Swilling-beer-smoking-dope-leering-porn-hate-preacher-Andy-Choudary.html">may not</a> be a fundamentalist of any kind) the role of such organisations is to exploit the quite justified and reasonable outrage of ordinary Muslims at their treatment both by governments in the West and our military forces in the Middle East. However, just as banning the organisation plays into the hands of the organisation's leader, their exploitation of this outrage plays into the hands of the UK government who are trying to regain the support of the white working class. Oposition to immigration, multiculturalism and the right of religious peoples to believe different things is a frequent theme amongst poorer white British people, with Muslims a convenient scapegoat. By looking like they are 'cracking down on the extremists', the government gets a welcome boost from the conservatives and casual racists. </p><p style="font-family: arial;">Crisis is often fabricated, whether it is through the semantic manipulation of the difference between single events, short term trends and overall patterns, or through incompetence dressed up as catastrophe, or through success being reported as failure. In all cases authorities not only fail to hold themselves to account, but seek to gain further power for themselves in the name of 'solving the problem'. The institutions of power not only provide a means for protecting their own, and scapegoating the odd rebel where necessary, but also for turning their own corruption and conspiracy into a reason to enhance, rather than disband, them. The real problems (pollution, postcolonialism and so on) remain because the policies being employed are never designed to tackle the real problems. Whether by accident or by design, they are designed to solve imaginary or misconceived problems, and so create new problems of their own which will in years to come have the public clamouring for a solution.<br></p><br /><div style="clear: both;"></div><br />Talkbouthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14408535183177475747noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5734121862980918017.post-85414737460598812432009-12-20T22:00:00.000-08:002013-10-24T11:51:02.790-07:00
Anthropogenesis
<br /><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><span style="font-family:arial;">  <object height="340" width="560"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/Ydo2Mwnwpac&hl=en_GB&fs=1&color1=0xe1600f&color2=0xfebd01" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" height="340" width="560"></object><span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span><p><span style="font-family:arial;">The only story in the news last week, that the Copenhagen Climate Conference Proceedings (CCCP) continued unabashed, illustrates just how the entire dialogue on environmentalism has been usurped for cold, calculating political purposes. Two weeks back, in an unprecedented move 56 of the world's newspapers, using 20 languages, published a common </span><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/dec/06/copenhagen-editorial?CMP=AFCYAH"><span style="font-family:arial;">editorial</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">. </span></p><p><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 460px; height: 87px;" src="http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2009/12/6/1260124503563/Editorial-logo-001.jpg" alt="" border="0"></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">The article states that 'humanity faces a profound emergency' and that unless we do what's already been decided we should do that 'climate change will ravage our planet, and with it our prosperity and security'. This is the same conclusive, didactic tone that dominates most major media coverage of such questions and issues, a tone that can never be supported by scientific evidence, largely because scientific evidence just doesn't work that way. That evidence can be used to support a theory and make predictions on the basis of that theory, but it can't tell you the future behaviour of complex systems with any guarantee of accuracy. This is commonly known as the </span><a href="http://stagevu.com/video/eyislultifso"><span style="font-family:arial;">butterfly effect</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">. A butterfly flaps its wings in New York and ten hours later the weather in Peking changes. </span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">So why did 56 of the world's newspapers do this? Newspapers are very much in competition with one another for readership and advertising revenue. This, rather than any sense of democratic responsibility, is the reason why the same story will be told differently by different outlets. Guardian readers will as a rule not touch the Daily Mail, and vice versa, though to someone with no affiliation they're both pretty poor. This latest move is only the culmination of a longstanding policy of unanimity amongst the mainstream media when it comes to discussing the possibility of an anthropogenic origin of climate change and therefore the need for widespread economic policies to counter the deadly climate change that will allegedly result. The epistemological basis for such claims doesn't exist, and the economics of running a newspaper would dictate that at least a token difference in content is a good idea, and yet some force was at play that overcame that.  </span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">Some versions of the editorial made mention of the awfully-named 'climategate' scandal, where the Climate Research Unit (CRU) at East Anglia university was </span><a href="http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/11/the-cru-hack/"><span style="font-family:arial;">hacked</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">. Various </span><a href="http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/21/cru-emails-search-engine-now-online/"><span style="font-family:arial;">e-mails</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> and </span><a href="http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/5171206"><span style="font-family:arial;">other files</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> that were obtained by the hacker(s) are now widely available online, and despite the attempts to deny their significance they have given a boost to many of those people who are skeptical about whether global warming is taking place, or whether it has a human cause.  </span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">The most obvious aspect of the e-mails is their vocabulary in discussing anyone who is even skeptical about the CRU's conclusions. While science is meant to proceed in an atmosphere of mutual skepticism and questionning, anyone deviating from the 'global warming is real and serious and caused by humans' belief is evidently seen as </span><a href="http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=1045&filename=1255100876.txt"><span style="font-family:arial;">hostile</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">, an </span><a href="http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=793&filename=1177534709.txt"><span style="font-family:arial;">opponent to be overcome</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">. One e-mail from Phil Jones, the head of the CRU, describes the death of sceptic John Daly as '</span><a href="http://climate-gate.org/email.php?eid=393"><span style="font-family:arial;">cheering news</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">'. Though this was said in a once-private email, it betrays an ugly attitude on the part of people whose professional obligation is towards careful questionning, not rejecting disagreement in all its forms. </span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">The same attitude is seen in the emails discussing those who were using the Freedom of Information Act to get the data and models on which the CRU formed their conclusions, including the infamous hockey stick graph. In </span><a href="http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=490"><span style="font-family:arial;">one</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">, Phil Jones talks about how he'd rather delete the data than give it out (which is a crime), and about finding ways to hide behind the Data Protection Act. He also mentions an e-mail sent to him by former head of the CRU Tom Wigley, 'worried' that he'd have to give up the source code for his model. Wigley is now retired, and Jones suggests that this should be enough to protect him and his contribution. In </span><a href="http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=891&filename=1212063122.txt"><span style="font-family:arial;">another</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">, Jones asks another member of CRU staff to delete emails that were also subject to FOIA requests. </span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">The Canada Free Press recently published an </span><a href="http://www.canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/17364"><span style="font-family:arial;">article by Tim Ball</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">, the man in the video above, profiling Jones and Wigley and how they'd been at the centre of the CRU and the IPCC throughout the period when climate science became so politicised. Indeed, <a href="http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=1067&filename=1257546975.txt">one</a> of the most recent e-mails of all is from Wigley to Jones, stating that land warming since 1980 is double the ocean warming, and that sceptics might use this to argue that the urban heat island effect is more influential than is accounted for in the models. Other e-mails from Wigley to Jones illustrate that despite his retirement, Wigley is very much still running the show at the CRU, including <a href="http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=1016&filename=1254108338.txt">this</a> e-mail in which he expresses concern at the 1940s warming 'blip' which they cannot explain. Ultimately, concern is at how to make the 'blip' disappear so as to not threaten the desired conclusion, rather than a genuine scientific concern that their conclusion might be wrong. </span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">Another </span><a href="http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=485&filename=1106338806.txt"><span style="font-family:arial;">exchange</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> from 2005 shows considerably more dissent and disagreement within the scientific community that the 'consensus' would have us believe. This gives credence to the over </span><a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/2053842/Scientists-sign-petition-denying-man-made-global-warming.html"><span style="font-family:arial;">30,000 scientists</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> (including 9000 PhDs) who have signed a petition saying they are not part of the consensus. Going back to 1997 we find an email discussing how to manipulate media coverage to make it seem like the scientific community were far more unified that they were in reality:</span></p><blockquote><p><span style="font-family:arial;">Mike, Rob,</span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span><span style="font-family:a<br /> style=" "=""></span></blockquote></span>Talkbouthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14408535183177475747noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5734121862980918017.post-76229365538817485252009-11-15T22:00:00.000-08:002013-10-24T11:51:02.778-07:00
Sheikh, Rattle and Roll
<br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><object height="340" width="560"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/0NSmMBUhFXU&hl=en_GB&fs=1&color1=0xe1600f&color2=0xfebd01" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" height="340" width="560"></object></span><p><span style="font-family:arial;">In the build up to next month's UN-sponsored </span><a href="http://en.cop15.dk/"><span style="font-family:arial;">Climate Change Conference</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> in Copenhagen, President Obama is continuing a global tour which rivals anything the Rolling Stones have accomplished. With the president of the Maldives alleging that failure to negotiate an emissions reduction treaty constitutes a '</span><a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20091109/wl_sthasia_afp/maldivesenergyclimatewarming"><span style="font-family:arial;">global suicide pact</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">', the philosophy of making humans look like a planetary disease is becoming ever more firmly entrenched in the minds of global leaders. Climate Change hodbearer and UK Climate Secretary Ed Miliband has told us that a final treaty </span><a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8345501.stm"><span style="font-family:arial;">will probably not be signed</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> at Copenhagen. Nonetheless, enhancements to the global governmental infrastructure are to be expected. Agreements will be made 'in principle' without any form of democratic representation, at a time when </span><a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1227745/Most-Britons-dont-believe-climate-change-man-made.html"><span style="font-family:arial;">not even a bare majority</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> believe that climate change is man-made. As detailed by former adviser to the PM </span><a href="http://www.globalwarmingheartland.com/expert.cfm?expertId=349"><span style="font-family:arial;">Lord Monckton</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">, a stern critic of climate change propaganda:</span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;"></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-family:arial;">"I read that treaty. And what it says is this, that a world government is going to be created. The word 'government' actually appears as the first of three purposes of the new entity. The second purpose is the transfer of wealth from the countries of the West to third world countries, in satisfaction of what is called, coyly, 'climate debt' - because we've been burning CO2 and they haven't. We've been screwing up the climate and they haven't. And the third purpose of this new entity, this government, is enforcement." - </span><a href="http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/2302785/lord_monckton_warns_of_global_climate.html?cat=9"><span style="font-family:arial;">Christoper Monckton</span></a></blockquote><a href="http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/2302785/lord_monckton_warns_of_global_climate.html?cat=9"><span style="font-family:arial;"></span></a><p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">The road to hell is paved with (seemingly) good intentions. It is </span><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/nov/10/barack-obama-will-go-copenhagen"><span style="font-family:arial;">unclear</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> if Obama will attend the Copenhagen conference, as he's stated that he will only turn up if his presence will help clinch the deal. This betrays the true purpose of the Obama administration, to use an easily accepted figurehead to help grease the wheels of processes that go far beyond his authority. Nonetheless, he has been in China greeting the natives and criticising the nation for its </span><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/nov/16/barack-obama-criticises-internet-censorship-china"><span style="font-family:arial;">censorship of the internet</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> and </span><a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/8361471.stm"><span style="font-family:arial;">poor human rights record</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">. Just as the West wallows in hypocrisy over the issue of Chinese industrialisation and pollution, it makes frequent use of the portrayal of China as a totalitarian dictatorship while conveniently ignoring what's going on at home. </span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">While Obama has been visiting Asia and saying he'll lend his pretty face to the advance of world government if required to do so the rebranded War on Terror is continuing on the home front. The alleged mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed (KSM), along with four of his co-accused, will finally face a trial. The location? </span><a href="http://blog.nj.com/njv_editorial_page/2009/11/khalid_sheikh_mohammeds_trial.html"><span style="font-family:arial;">New York</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">, which makes finding an impartial jury virtually impossible. Also significant is that according to the </span><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/16/bush-torture-memos-releas_n_187867.html"><span style="font-family:arial;">CIA torture</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> memos released earlier in 2009 Khalid Shaikh Mohammed was </span><a href="http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2009/04/18/khalid-sheikh-mohammed-was-waterboarded-183-times-in-one-month/"><span style="font-family:arial;">waterboarded 183 times</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">. This will not only cause a legal problem for the prosecution, as Mohammed's confessions were given while he was being tortured, but is a grotesque human rights abuse on the part of the US government, as bad as anything China has done. </span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">Numerous defences of the CIA rendition and interrogation (torture) program have been offered, including one from former head of the CIA and the NSA Michael Hayden:</span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;"></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-family:arial;">If you want an intelligence service to work for you, they always work on the edge. That's just where they work," - </span><a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8003537.stm"><span style="font-family:arial;">Hayden, BBC</span></a></blockquote><a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8003537.stm"><span style="font-family:arial;"></span></a><p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">Apparently buying into this view, Obama granted </span><a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/04/16/torture.cia.immunity/index.html"><span style="font-family:arial;">immunity</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> to all CIA staff involved, in effect endorsing the very security policy from which his administration claims to be a departure. However, the treatment of KSM (and others) does not constitute merely 'working on the edge'. Even the </span><a href="http://documents.nytimes.com/c-i-a-reports-on-interrogation-methods#p=18"><span style="font-family:arial;">report</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> of the Inspector General of the CIA states that after 'several applications' such 'enhanced interrogation techniques' are ineffective. One can only assume that the interrogators continued to torture Mohammed for fun, or out of a sense of professional responsibility. Either way, it is sadistic. </span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">If the investigations and trial of the previous major terrorist attack on New York are anything to go by, the KSM and co. trial should provide some fireworks for those examining the 'intelligence failures that led to 9/11'. Shortly after midday on February 26th, 1993, an explosion rocked the basement of the North Tower of the WTC. Initially thought to be an electrical transformer explosion, it killed six people and injured over 1000. It is now widely considered to be the first stateless international terrorist attack on the US, carried out by Islamic fundamentalists. However, various details have emerged which cast quite a different light on what happened.<br></span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">The NY 'cell' were <a href="http://www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?item=a042492bombersalkifah#a042492bombersalkifah">based</a> in the Al Kifah refugee centre at the Al Farooq mosque in Brooklyn. This building was one of dozens of worldwide branches of the <a href="http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?entity=al-kifah_refugee_center">Maktab al-Khidamat</a>, a network of charitable and religious organisations which serve as recruiting and fundraising hubs for the mujahideen. Founded by Abdullah Azzam in the mid 1980s, this network was a vital part of the <a href="http://www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?item=a86kifahcenter#a86kifahcenter">CIA's misadventures</a> in the Soviet-Afghan war as it provided many wild-eyed young men to fight to the death against the Commies. Assets of the CIA took it over at the end of the Afghan war when Azzam was killed in a car-bombing in Afghanistan, followed by the <a href="http://www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?item=a022891shalabikilled#a022891shalabikilled">assassination</a> of the Imam of the Al Farooq mosque, Mustafa Shalabi, in 1991. Bin Laden and Zawahiri came to dominate the mujahideen and a new Imam was installed in the NY mosque.<br></span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">That man was Omar Abdul Rahman, commonly known as the <a href="http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?entity=sheikh_omar_abdul-rahman">Blind Sheikh</a>. He was the leader of Al Gama'a al-Islamiyya, the Islamic Group of Egypt. The Islamic Group was one of two main terrorist splinter organisations from the Muslim Brotherhood, the other being Zawahiri's Islamic Jihad. The Blind Sheikh came to the USA several times throughout the late 1980s on visas <a href="http://www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?item=western_support_for_islamic_militancy_2826#western_support_for_islamic_militancy_2826">arranged for him by the CIA</a>, with whom he was working as a recruiter and 'spiritual leader' for the mujahideen in Afghanistan. Despite being on the State Department's terrorist watchlist he entered the USA on a new visa in <a href="http://www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?item=a0790abdulrahman#a0790abdulrahman">July 1990</a> and gained permanent residence status within two years. Despite his conviction for his role in a 'seditious conspiracy' in 1995 his visas were not revoked until <a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/13484742/State-Department-Cable-Revoking-Blind-Sheikhs-US-Visa">five years </a>after that. After Shalabi's death he took over the Al Kifah centre, and became notorious in New York for his rabid fundamentalist preachings. He is considered to be the ideological leader of the group initially convicted of the WTC bombing. </span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">By the time of the 1993 bombing two significant events happened that strongly indicate ongoing protection for the Blind Sheikh from within the US security services, and their culpability in the attack. The first was the <a href="http://www.experiencefestival.com/a/Meir_Kahane_-_Assassination/id/5287656">murder</a> of racist Rabbi Meir Kahane by El Sayyid Nosair, a protege of the Blind Sheikh. In <a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/22610089/1992-xx-nosair-fbi-302s">November 1990</a> Kahane was giving a speech at the Marriot Hotel in New York when Nosair shot him twice, fatally wounding the Rabbi. Kahane was leader of the militant Jewish Defence League, in effect the Zionist equivalent of the Blind Sheikh's Islamic Group. T</span><span style="font-family:arial;">wo other members of the Al Kifah 'cell' were waiting in a taxi outside the hotel but were moved along shortly before Nosair came running out. Nosair set off down the road but was halted by an armed postal worker who took a bullet in the shoulder before shooting Nosair in the neck. Doctor's saved the Egyptian's life and he was remanded in custody. Though his two cohorts Mahmud Abouhalima and Mohammed Salameh were arrested, they were quickly released and the FBI ignored all evidence of a wider plot and pursued Nosair as a <a href="http://www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?item=a110590lonegunmantheory#a110590lonegunmantheory">lone gunman</a>. W</span><span style="font-family:arial;">hile Nosair was acquitted of murder (no witness had actually seen him pull the trigger, and there were others in the room who were armed) he was convicted on gun charges and sentenced. However, the FBI's investigation didn't sprawl into the role of the Blind Sheikh, who used Al Kifah money to contribute to Nosair's legal defence, or Abouhalima and Salameh, who would go on to be convicted for the 1993 WTC bombing. </span><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 323px; height: 400px;" src="http://www.historycommons.org/events-images/425_middle_east_focus2050081722-9741.jpg" alt="" border="0"></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">Also ignored was <a href="http://www.historycommons.org/timeline.jsp?complete_911_timeline_possible_moles_or_informants=aliMohamed&timeline=complete_911_timeline">Ali Mohamed</a>, an Egyptian army officer who had been thrown out because of he was a member of </span><span style="font-family:arial;">Egyptian Islamic Jihad. He then worked for the CIA as an informant, though officially they fired him because his mistakes ruined the operation. However, he then went to the </span><span style="font-family:arial;">US in 1985 on a similar <a href="http://www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?item=a85mohamedvisa#a85mohamedvisa">CIA-sponsored</a> visa as the Blind Sheikh. In 1986 he joined the US Army and was posted to the JFK Special Warfare Center at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, where the US Special Forces are trained. Given the rank of Supply Sergeant he was also responsible for running a series of lectures explaining MIddle Eastern history and politics. In 1988 he told his superiors, including Lt.Col. Robert Anderson, that he was planning to use his vacation time to go and fight in Afghanistan. He returned after a month claiming to have killed two Spetsnaz Russian special forces soldiers, and showed off two army uniform belts he claimed to have taken from them. This should have caused great controversy as officially no American-enlisted soldier fought in the Soviet-Afghan war. Mohamed's superior Anderson wrote reports to try to get him investigated by Army intelligence and potentially court-martialed, but they were ignored. </span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family:arial;"><p><blockquote>Anderson said all this convinced him that Mohamed was "sponsored" by a U.S. intelligence service. "I assumed the CIA," he said. - <a href="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2001/11/04/MN117081.DTL">San Francisco Chronicle</a></blockquote><a href="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2001/11/04/MN117081.DTL"></a>Ali Mohamed completed his term of service in 1989 but remained part of the US Army reserve for a further five years. In 1990 he became an FBI informant and remained one until his eventual arrest in 1998 after the African Embassy bombings. Though he then confessed to his role as an 'Al Qaeda operative' who was so close to Bin Laden that he trained the 'emir's' personal security men, Ali Mohamed has apparently never been <a href="http://www.bop.gov/iloc2/InmateFinderServlet?Transaction=NameSearch&needingMoreList=false&FirstName=Ali+&Middle=&LastName=Mohamed&Race=U&Sex=U&Age=&x=28&y=19">sentenced</a> and full details of his <a href="http://cryptome.org/usa-v-mohamed.htm">plea</a> bargain are sealed.<br></span><p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">Mohamed had various connections with the Blind Sheikh's group in New York, having met with them <a href="http://www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?item=a87mohamedalkifah#a87mohamedalkifah">regularly at the Al Kifah centre</a> during his time at Fort Bragg. He brought with him <a href="http://www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?item=asummer89alialkifah#asummer89alialkifah">training materials</a> - manuals, documents and videos - and taught the recruits the essence of guerilla warfare. Nosair was only one of his trainees, others included <a href="http://intelwire.egoplex.com/unlocking911-1-ali-mohamed-wtc.html">virtually the entire group</a> responsible for the 1993 WTC bombing. However, Ali never faced any investigation for his involvement with the NY 'cell'. When Nosair, the Blind Sheikh and others were prosecuted for a 'seditious conspiracy' including the 1993 bombing and the assassination of Kahane, Ali was subpoenaed as a witness for the defence by Nosair's lawyer <a href="http://www.gdblaw.com/bio_Stavis.htm">Roger Stavis</a>, but couldn't be found. </span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">As if those military and intelligence service connections weren't enough, the second major event on the road to the WTC bombing was the recruitment by the FBI of an informant called Emad Salem. Like Ali Mohamed he had been in the Egyptian army, though he had no affiliations with the Muslim Brotherhood. He was first recruited in the late 1980s, though the FBI didn't entirely trust him as they suspected he was working as a double agent for Egyptian intelligence so soon stopped using him as an asset. Eventually he came to work under a Texan agent, Nancy Floyd, initially providing information on KGB and Russian Mafia activities in New York. Salem then convinced Floyd that the greater danger came from the Blind Sheikh and his followers, and was transferred over to two members of the Joint Terrorism Task Force, a multi-agency group in New York.<br></span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">According to Peter Lance's <a href="http://www.peterlance.com/TRIPLE%20CROSS%20Timeline.pdf">lengthy accounts</a> of this story Salem never got along too well with John Anticev and Lou Napoli, his two handlers, and was often debriefed by Floyd even though she was not officially responsible for him and worked in a different department. He successfully penetrated the Sheikh's group but he refused to wear a wire and insisted on not having to testify in court. Throughout this second period, from his first contact with Floyd in August 1991 to July 1992, when the FBI formally ended contact with him, Salem was largely unsupervised and the information he provided unconfirmed. </span><span style="font-family:arial;"> He was <a href="http://www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?item=a0792salemfired#a0792salemfired">let go</a> by the FBI in the summer of 1992, apparently due to the new head of the JTTF not approving of Nancy Floyd's involvement in the case. Salem was recruited a third time to inform on the Blind Sheikh after the bombing in February 1993. Floyd, however, was hit with an internal investigation by the FBI's Office of Professional Responsibility, and accused of various charges including having an affair with Salem and cooking the books on her expenses. </span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">During his third period working for the FBI, Salem was paid <a href="http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=VQjpziNmoE4C&pg=PA61&lpg=PA61&dq=emad+salem">over a million dollars</a> and agreed to wear a microphone to record his conversations with the Blind Sheikh and his merry band of mujahideen. However, he also covertly recorded many of his conversations with his FBI handlers, and openly discussed just how involved he was with the WTC bombing plot. One particular dialogue between Salem and Anticev caused tremendous controversy.</span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;"></span></p><blockquote><p><span style="font-family:arial;">Anticev: But, uh, basically nothing has changed. I'm just telling you for my own sake that nothing, that this isn't a salary, that it's—you know. But you got paid regularly for good information. I mean the expenses were a little bit out of the ordinary and it was really questioned. Don't tell Nancy I told you this.<br>Salem: Well, I have to tell her of course.<br>Anticev: Well then, if you have to, you have to.<br>Salem: Yeah, I mean because the lady was being honest and I was being honest and everything was submitted with a receipt and now it's questionable.<br>Anticev: It's not questionable, it's like a little out of the ordinary.<br>Salem: Okay. Alright. I don't think it was. If that's what you think guys, fine, but I don't think that because <strong>we was start already building the bomb which is went off in the World Trade Center. It was built by supervising supervision from the Bureau and the D.A. and we was all informed about it and we know that the bomb start to be built. By who? By your confidential informant.</strong> What a wonderful, great case!<br>Anticev: Well.<br>Salem: And then he put his head in the sand and said "Oh, no, no, that's not true, he is son of a bitch." [Deep breath.] Okay. It's built with a different way in another place and that's it.<br>Anticev: No, don't make any rash decisions. I'm just trying to be as honest with you as I can.<br>Salem: Of course, I appreciate that.<br></span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;"></span></p></blockquote><p><span style="font-family:arial;">You can listen to the except <a href="http://nwo.media.xs2.net/tape/emad%20salem.mp3">here</a>. Note that not only does Salem state that he started the building of the bomb that went off in the World Trade Center, but his FBI handler does not contradict him. Not only is Salem, and therefore the FBI, implicated in helping produce the bomb, but other tapes indicate he was also the origin of the New York Landmarks plot, of which the Blind Sheikh and several others were eventually convicted. In a 1993 interview with William Kunstler, a defence lawyer for members of the NY 'cell', he told WBAI's Paul DeRienzo:</span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;"></span></p><blockquote><p><span style="font-family:arial;">He [Salem] is the only real conspirator in this case...<br></span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">...I’ve read a lot of the tapes by now–transcriptions of the tapes, which were just furnished to me today. Before I came here, I read some of them, and they are things like… having him [Salem] say:<br>"Well, I think we ought to bomb the George Washington Bridge. That’s a very good target. It would make the commuters raise hell with this Government of ours."<br>And so then Siddig Ali says:<br>"Yeah?"<br>[Salem]: "And I think" so and so…<br>[Ali]: "Yeah?"<br>…. and so on. That’s the way it goes, virtually throughout these hundreds of pages of transcriptions. - <a href="http://pdr.autono.net/kunstler_wtc.html">WBAI interview with William Kunstler</a></span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;"></span></p></blockquote><p><span style="font-family:arial;">However, the man apparently responsible for finishing the job of building the WTC bomb was freelancing international terrorist and all round ladies man Ramzi Yousef. Educated in electrical engineering in the UK, Yousef apparently finished his training as a bomb maker in Afghanistan in between semesters at college. The nephew of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, he was perhaps the most 'successful' terrorist of the 1990s and now resides in a maximum security prison serving a 240 year sentence.<br></span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">Ramzi came to New York in <a href="http://www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?item=a090192ajaj#a090192ajaj">September 1992</a>, a couple of months after Salem's second FBI-sponsored involvement with the Blind Sheikh came to an end. He flew in with Ahmed Ajaj, a Palestinian, who was holding a <a href="http://www.investigativeproject.org/profile/105">blatantly forged</a> Swedish passport in the name of Khurram Khan. Ramzi's passport identified him as Azan Mohammed. When asked for further identification by the INS official, he produced an ID card in the name of Khurram Khan, the same nom de guerre as in Ajaj's passport. When asked his full true name he said it was 'Ramzi Ahmed Yousef', itself a pseudonym for a man born Abdul Basit Mahmoud Abdul Karim. He stated his intention to claim political asylum and after a brief detention and filling in a form he was turned loose. According to Peter Lance's narrative in 1000 Years for revenge, this is <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramzi_Yousef#Yousef_arrives_in_America">because</a> Ajaj's arrest had taken up the last available bed in the INS detention facility. However, according to Simon Reeve's version in The New Jackals, it was because Yousef had help from the <a href="http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=VQjpziNmoE4C&lpg=PA61&ots=H3MGGwa82g&pg=PA137#">Pakistani ISI</a>. </span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">For the following five months Ramzi Yousef, Mahmud Abouhalima, Mohammed Salameh, Nidal Ayyad and Abdel Yasin obtained the ingredients for and built a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1993_World_Trade_Center_bombing#Bomb_characteristics">Urea Nitrate Fuel Oil</a> bomb, enhanced by large gas cylinders packed around the main charge. However, this US prosecution story is far from conclusive. In 1995 the Department of Justice, of which the FBI is a part, began investigating their crime laboratory amid allegations that forensic investigations had been <a href="http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1P2-849963.html">manipulated</a> to support desired prosecution cases. After an eighteen month investigation the DOJ concluded that the problems were 'extremely serious and significant', and that in the WTC bombing investigation the investigator <a href="http://www.justice.gov/oig/special/9704a/04wtc97.htm">David Williams</a>:<br></span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">"gave inaccurate and incomplete testimony and testified to invalid opinions that appeared tailored to the most incriminating result." - <a href="http://www.thefreelibrary.com/FBI+CRIME+LAB+METHODS+SUBSTANDARD,+REPORT+SAYS+:+ANOTHER+BLOW-a083864348">NY Times</a><br></span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">You can read the DOJ's Office of the Inspector General's report <a href="http://www.justice.gov/oig/special/9704a/">here</a>. At the 1994 WTC bombing trial of four conspirators (Salameh et al.) the most specific allegations came from Special Agent Frederic Whitehurst:</span></p><blockquote><p><span style="font-family:arial;"></span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">Q: "During your examination of the bomb residue materials and the chemicals associated with the defendants, you became aware that the FBI agents investigating the case had developed a preliminary theory that the bomb that blew up the World Trade Center was a urea nitrate bomb?"<br>A: "Yes, that is correct."<br>Q: "Did there come a time when you began to experience pressure from within the FBI to reach certain conclusions that supported that theory of the investigation?"<br>A: "Yes, that is correct."<br>Q: "In other words, you began to experience pressure on you to say that the explosion was caused by a urea nitrate bomb?"<br>A: "Yes, that is correct."<br>Q: "And you were aware that such a finding would strengthen the prosecution of the defendants who were on trial, who were going on trial in that case, correct?"<br>A: "Absolutely." - <a href="http://www.serendipity.li/wot/adam.htm">Testimony of Frederic Whitehurst</a></span></p></blockquote><p><span style="font-family:arial;"><a href="http://www.serendipity.li/wot/adam.htm"></a><br></span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">As such, any conclusion about exactly who built the bomb that was used to attack the World Trade Center in 1993 is questionable. In <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/february/26/newsid_2516000/2516469.stm">May 1994</a> Salameh, Ayyad, Abouhalima and Ajaj were convicted of carrying out the attack. In <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/february/26/newsid_2516000/2516469.stm">October 1995</a> the Blind Sheikh was convicted of masterminding a 'seditious conspiracy' including the 1993 bombing and the Kahane murder. Ramzi Yousef remained at large until <a href="http://www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?item=a020795ramzi#a020795ramzi">February 1995</a>, and was convicted in January 1998. It was at this time that KSM was <a href="http://www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?item=ksmrevealed#ksmrevealed">first announced</a> as a 'major Al Qaeda operative'.<br></span></p><p><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 260px; height: 216px;" src="http://www.historycommons.org/events-images/009_bojinkacasio_2050081722-8416.jpg" alt="" border="0"><span style="font-family:arial;">While Yousef was on the run from US authorities investigating the WTC bombing, one of his various activities was to develop 'Project Bojinka'. This included the creation of an improvised explosive device that could be smuggled past airport security. It used a Casio watch as the trigger so the alarm could be set hours or even days in advance, and a nitroglycerine main explosive charge designed to rupture the fuel tanks of an airliner and thus destroy the whole craft. This was 'successfully' tested in December 1994 on <a href="http://www.knowledgerush.com/kr/encyclopedia/Bojinka/">Philipines Airline flight 434</a>. The aircraft wasn't destroyed, probably due to the bomb being put under the wrong seat, but a Japanese businessman was killed by the explosion. Another element of Bojinka, the <a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/14353717/DH-B7-Planes-as-Weapons-1-of-2-Fdr-Clues-Pointed-to-Changing-Terrorist-Tactics-51902-WaPo-168">plan to crash a small plane</a> laden with explosives into the CIA headquarters at Langley is identified by <a href="http://97.74.65.51/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=11659">some</a> as a smaller version of the eventual 9/11 plot several years later. </span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">Bojinka became known to US authorities after a fire in the block that Ramzi and his partner in crime Hakim Murad were using as a 'bomb factory'. After they fled the apartment block, Ramzi sent Murad back into the building to retrieve his laptop, and in the course of doing so Murad was arrested. During his interrogation he explained both <a href="http://www.thesmokinggun.com/fall/murad2.html">a plan</a> to destroy up to 11 Asian-Pacific airliners simultaneously using the Casio-Nitroclycerine bomb, as well as a plot to steal or hijack a plane and crash it into the CIA headquarters. All of this information was passed to the <a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/16981216/T1-B24-Various-Interrogation-Reports-Fdr-41295-FBI-Investigation-Murad-579">FBI</a> by the Philippines National Police, including details suggesting an expansion of the latter plot to include targeting the Sears Tower, the Pentagon and the World Trade Center. </span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">One of Ramzi's <a href="http://www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?item=a0105confessionksm#a0105confessionksm">co-conspirators</a> in Bojinka was his uncle, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. KSM was initially indicted in <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/2811855.stm">1996</a> but the indictment remained sealed until 1998, when Yousef was convicted. Despite the then $2 million bounty on his head an arrest warrant for KSM wasn't issued until over two and a half years later, in <a href="http://www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?item=a111700ksmwarrant#a111700ksmwarrant">November 2000</a>. In the summer of 2001, at the <a href="http://www.fas.org/irp/agency/doj/oig/fbi-911/chap5.pdf">same time</a> as the CIA was continuing to keep the FBI in the dark about Nawaf Al-Hamzi and Khalid Al-Mihdhar, the NSA <a href="http://web.archive.orghttp://www.bayarea.com/mld/bayarea/3416632.htm">intercepted communications</a> between KSM and alleged lead 9/11 hijacker Mohammed Atta but didn't bother to tell the FBI. Given the past history of protecting the Blind Sheikh as long as he remained useful it is a fair bet that similar treatment was being extended to Mohammed.<br></span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">The 9/11 Commission largely ignored Bojinka and identified the genesis of the 9/11 plot as taking place around the time of the African embassy bombings in August 1998. </span><span style="font-family:arial;">Indeed, the Commission concluded that the attacks happened due to a <a href="http://govinfo.library.unt.edu/911/report/911Report_Ch11.pdf">failure of imagination</a>, which along with their portrayal of KSM as the mastermind of the plot presumably means we're supposed to think that Mohammed's imagination was greater than that of the entire Western military and intelligence infrastructure. </span><span style="font-family:arial;">In the Executive Summary the report states:</span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;"></span></p><blockquote><p><span style="font-family:arial;">By late 1998 or early 1999, Bin Ladin and his advisers had agreed on an idea brought to them by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM) called the "planes operation". It would eventually culminate in the 9/11 attacks. - <a href="http://govinfo.library.unt.edu/911/report/911Report_Exec.htm">9/11 Commission Report</a><br></span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;"></span></p></blockquote><p><span style="font-family:arial;">On the basis of reports of interrogations with KSM, the Commission did briefly acknowledge Yousef but tells an elaborate tale of Mohammed's plan for a 'new kind of hijacking', including the following comment:<br></span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;"></span></p><blockquote><p><span style="font-family:arial;">Beyond KSM's rationalizations about targeting the U.S. economy, this vision gives a better glimpse of his true ambitions. <strong>This is theater, a spectacle of destruction with KSM as the self-cast star-the superterrorist</strong>. - <a href="http://govinfo.library.unt.edu/911/report/911Report_Ch5.htm">9/11 Commission Report, ch5</a><br></span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;"></span></p></blockquote><p><span style="font-family:arial;">This is not just KSM's apparent 'true ambition', but one shared by the Bush and Obama administrations. However, in making the 'superterrorist' the focus of all the blame the 9/11 Commission did not only skip over Bojinka. Prior to Murad's arrest in January 1995 there were a series of events which may have, directly or indirectly, inspired what happened on 9/11. </span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">In February 1993, while Ramzi Yousef was still in New York apparently building the UNFO bomb for the WTC attack, Lufthansa Flight 592 was hijacked. The perpetrator was initially identified as 31 year old Somalian <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/plane-hijack-by-somali-ends-peacefully-in-us-1472474.html">Shuriye Farah Siyad</a>, though this was a <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/innocent-passenger-named-as-hijacker-1472669.html">mistake</a>. The actual hijacker was 20 year old Ethiopian <a href="http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-932230.html">Nebiu Zewolde Demeke</a>, who was apparently seeking asylum and US intervention in <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1993/02/12/nyregion/jet-diverted-to-kennedy-by-hijacker.html?pagewanted=2">Bosnia</a>. The young man clearly didn't know that via the likes of the Blind Sheikh that the US was already deeply involved in Bosnia. Demeke had smuggled a <a href="http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=19930212&slug=1685034">starting pistol</a> on board by putting the gun in an <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1993/02/13/nyregion/us-details-careful-plan-of-hijacker.html">Indiana Jones</a>-style hat on a table as he walked through the metal detectors. After he ordered the plane to 'the West' it flew to JFK airport in New York, where after a long negotiation Demeke surrendered. At the time both passengers on the plane and officials were <a href="http://www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?item=a021193hijacking#a021193hijacking">concerned</a> that the plane would be crashed into Manhattan. It is highly likely that Ramzi Yousef was aware of this event. P</span><span style="font-family:arial;">erhaps in response, an expert panel was commissioned by the Pentagon in 1993 which discussed the possibility of airplanes being used to bomb national landmarks. Though a report was issued to Congress, the State Department and FEMA in <a href="http://www.papillonsartpalace.com/clinCtMon.htm">June 1994</a>, it was never made public, partly <a href="http://911research.wtc7.net/cache/wtc/info/wp_011001.html">in fear of inspiring terrorists</a>.<br></span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">In </span><span style="font-family:arial;"><a href="http://www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?item=a94fedexpress#a94fedexpress">April 1994</a></span><span style="font-family:arial;"> a disgruntled Federal Express employee hijacked a plane, apparently aiming to crash it into a company building in Memphis. In August 1994 Tom Clancy published Debt of Honor. In that story a Japanese airline pilot, angry at the deaths of his son and brother in a fictional war between Japan and the US, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debt_of_Honor">crashed his Boeing 747</a> into the US Capitol building. Though Clancy's novel had a much wider readership than any Pentagon-commissioned report in history he apparently had no trouble getting this content published. On <a href="http://www.check-six.com/Crash_Sites/WhiteHouse_Corder.htm">September 11th 1994</a> an alcoholic cocaine user and depressed US Army veteran <a href="http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?entity=frank_corder">Frank Corder</a> stole a tiny Cessna 150 aircraft from Churchville, Maryland. After flying it around for a couple of hours he ended up crashing it into a tree on the White House lawn at about 2 a.m., <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1994/09/13/us/crash-white-house-overview-unimpeded-intruder-crashes-plane-into-white-house.html?pagewanted=all">killing himself</a> in the process. </span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">Then in <a href="http://www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?item=a122494eiffelcrash#a122494eiffelcrash">December 1994</a> members of Algeria Armed Islamic Group hijacked an Air France airliner and demanded it be taken to Marseille. There, they demanded it be heavily fuelled and while this was taking place the plane was stormed by French special forces who killed the hijackers. French authorities later said that the hijackers' intention was to either blow up the plane in midair, or to crash it into the Eiffel Tower. However, by this time the GIA were <a href="http://www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?item=a122494eiffelcrash#a102794zitouni">heavily infiltrated</a> and manipulated by the Algerian intelligence services, and their leader <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2005/sep/08/france.comment">Djamel Zitouni</a> was a double agent. </span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">As such, even prior to the Bojinka plot being uncovered in the Philippines there were several examples of the sort of planes-as-weapons attack that occurred on 9/11, mostly involving people connected to military or intelligence institutions. Indeed, Tom Clancy's novel was obliquely referred to during <a href="http://www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?item=a500clancyparallels#a500clancyparallels">CNN</a>'s live coverage of the 9/11 attacks. From novelists to state-sponsored terrorists, if indeed Ramzi Yousef was the true origins of the planes-as-weapons plot of 9/11 then he had more than enough inspiration. The above examples also demonstrate how the 9/11 Commission's version of events, where the plot was purely the brainchild of KSM, is at best an incredibly partial explanation, and at worst a total fabrication.<br></span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">So what can we learn from the WTC bombing in 1993 in terms of how this trial is likely to proceed? Most obviously, the butchering and bastardisation of science. It is unlikely that the government will seek to build a strong forensic case against KSM and his co-accused, after all, if the FBI has <a href="http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=2623">no hard evidence</a> connecting Bin Laden to 9/11 then the Department of Justice probably has no hard evidence connecting KSM to 9/11. T</span><span style="font-family:arial;">hey will be aware that his apparent confession under torture might not even be admitted as evidence, so it is likely that they'll trot out a few so-called experts to try to provide an intellectual basis for a prejudice (towards conviction) already present in the jury. This will likely consist of the same tired nonsense about how the planes caused the towers to collapse and the discovery of passports belonging to the alleged hijackers. The primary role of such experts is not to maintain standards of investigation and proof, but to give credence to a desired narrative. </span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">This was displayed once again with the convenient pre-Copenhagen publication of a report speculating that global temperatures could rise by six degrees centrigrade by the end of the century. <a href="http://www.google.co.uk/search?client=opera&rls=en&q=global+temperature+6+degrees">Initially</a> published by the Guardian under the headline 'Global Temperatures <strong>will</strong> rise by 6C by end of century, say scientists' they <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/nov/17/global-temperature-rise">modified</a> the online version so it now reads '<strong>could</strong> rise by 6C'. Nonetheless, the 'scientists' who are saying this aren't identified until the fifth paragraph, by which time the paper in which this speculation was made has been categorised as 'a major new study' and 'the most comprehensive analysis to date'. Before any explanation of who these scientists are and what they've done the reader is set up not only to accept them as an authority, but by extension accept the narrative that there's a need for 'for urgent action by leaders at the UN climate talks in Copenhagen to agree drastic emissions cuts in order to avoid dangerous climate change.' However, the Guardian does quote one of the scientists as saying:</span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">"The global trends we are on with CO2 emissions from fossil fuels suggest that we're heading towards 6C of global warming. This is very different to the trend we need to be on to limit global climate change to 2C."</span><span style="font-family:arial;"> - <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/nov/17/global-temperature-rise">Corinne Le Quéré, Guardian</a></span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">Someone should tell <a href="http://www.blogger.com/c.lequere@uea.ac.uk">this</a> scientist that centigrade is a unit for measuring temperature, and at best temperature change, but not climate change. Moreover, the Climate Research Unit where the scientist works has become embroiled in a major scandal after a hacker obtained e-mails and other material. The files, which are widely available to download, apparently show that in private the scientists are deeply concerned by the difference between their data and models and the actual temperature in recent months and years, and have colluded to delete and manipulate information, and corrupt the peer-review process on which the 'consensus' is built. So far only the <a href="http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100017393/climategate-the-final-nail-in-the-coffin-of-anthropogenic-global-warming/">Telegraph</a> have managed anything like adequate coverage of this story, with many outlets' coverage being truly <a href="http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100017451/climategate-how-the-msm-reported-the-greatest-scandal-in-modern-science/">embarassing</a>. </span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">Back to the KSM trial, if the comments of various officials are anything to go by, the trial will also proceed on the assumption of guilt, rather than of innocence. This is despite there being no straightforward account of what happened on 9/11, let alone who was responsible, just as with the 1993 WTC bombing. Though the BBC reported there being a 'row' about whether the 9/11 attacks constitute a crime or an act of war, the underlying assumption was that the accused will be found guilty, and presumably sentenced to death. </span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;"></span></p><blockquote><p><span style="font-family:arial;">Senator John McCain: </span><span style="font-family:arial;">'They are war criminals, who committed acts of war against our citizens and those of dozens of other nations.'<br></span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">John Boehner, House of Representatives Republic Leader: "The possibility that Khalid Sheik Mohammed and his co-conspirators could be found not guilty due to some legal technicality just blocks from Ground Zero should give every American pause [for thought]."<br></span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">Howard McKeon, Senior Republic on the House Armed Services Committee: "The president's decision to bring 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to the United States for trial in the United States federal courts will once again delay bringing justice to the victims and their families."<br></span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">Carolyn Maloney, NY Democratic Representative: "I thank President Obama for his leadership and for taking this important step to hold these terrorists accountable for their despicable actions." - <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/8359789.stm">BBC</a><br></span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;"></span></p></blockquote><p><span style="font-family:arial;">The comments of Debra Burlingame, sister of the pilot of American Airlines Flight 77 which allegedly hit the Pentagon, illustrate how the grief of relatives has been turned into a vicious hatred by those seeking to capitalise on it:<br></span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;"><p><blockquote>"We have a president who doesn't know we're at war"...<br>...She told AP news agency she was sickened by "the prospect of these barbarians being turned into victims by their attorneys" if the trial focused on torture allegations. - <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/8360018.stm">BBC</a></blockquote><a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/8360018.stm"></a></span><p><span style="font-family:arial;">I'm sure that she has suffered immensely because of what happened on 9/11, but in turning that pain into a disregard for someone that a propaganda campaign has convinced her was responsible she has become a megaphone for those selling the Commission's story. </span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">The final thing we should expect from this trial is that no matter what evidence is brought forward, no matter what connections are demonstrated between the accused and the accusers, no matter how obvious the participation of US authorities in what happened, and continues to happen, there will be a steadfast refusal to acknowledge it. The purpose of this trial is not justice. The purpose of this trial is not to find out the truth. The purpose of this trial is not to hold responsible the truly guilty. The purpose of this trial is to reinforce the telling of a story, a version of events, which continues to be conducive to the political, economic and social forces dominating America.</span><span style="font-family:arial;"> <br></span></p><br /><div style="clear: both;"></div><br />Talkbouthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14408535183177475747noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5734121862980918017.post-48312454713176572932009-10-08T22:00:00.000-07:002013-10-24T11:51:02.765-07:00
Trans Human Express
<br /><embed type="video/divx" src="http://n48.stagevu.com/v/27f278c748dcb508cbace8cce3d7520a/wtniijpevgwv.avi" autoplay="false" custommode="Stage6" movietitle="Robocop%20%281987%29" bannerenabled="false" previewimage="http://stagevu.com/img/thumbnail/wtniijpevgwvbig.jpg" statuscallback="statuscall617969407" pluginspage="http://go.divx.com/plugin/download/" id="embed617969407" height="406" width="640"><span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span><span style="font-family:arial;"> </span><p><span style="font-family:arial;">Robocop was released in 1987, at the tail-end of the Reagan years. Directed by Paul Verhoeven, it adopts a similar aesthetic and themes to two of his other dystopian action movies - Total Recall and Starship Troopers. The story centres around a futuristic Detroit, a city where a privatised police force fight against sadistic organised criminals for control of the streets. Into this context comes Murphy, a cop who transfers in from another district to Old Detroit, a particularly violent and crime-ridden area due to be torn down and replaced by newly built skyscrapers. One firm, Omni Consumer Products, are in charge of the policing and the construction of the new 'Delta City'.  As such, the movie is probably Verhoeven's most prescient, foreseeing the </span><span style="font-family:arial;">kind of corporate monopoly over entire cities which is now the norm in America and the militarisation and privitisation of domestic security which is becoming the norm the world over. </span></p><p><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 431px; height: 300px;" src="http://www.virginmedia.com/images/robocop-431x300.jpg" alt="" border="0"><span style="font-family:arial;"> Early on in the movie, Murphy and his partner pursue a group of bankrobbers in a disused factory, a setting used numerous times in the course of the film and presumably a reference to Detroit's gradually dying heavy industry. He is caught by the gang and slain in the graphic manner that has become typical of Verhoeven's movies, though it passes over into humour in some of the 'bug battles' in Starship Troopers. Meanwhile, Omni Consumer Products test out their ED-209, a fully automated policing robot not at all unlike </span><a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6852832/ns/technology_and_science-tech_and_gadgets/"><span style="font-family:arial;">those</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> being deployed in </span><a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4199935.stm"><span style="font-family:arial;">Iraq</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">. More up to date </span><a href="http://hyerstandard.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/prome.jpg"><span style="font-family:arial;">images</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> bear an even more uncanny resemblance. Indeed, contemporary robot soldiers can even be </span><a href="http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,532492,00.html"><span style="font-family:arial;">fuelled</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> by biomass, leading to the company's CEO stating:</span></p><blockquote><span style="font-family:arial;">“We completely understand the public’s concern about futuristic robots feeding on the human population, but that is not our mission.” - </span><a href="http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2009/07/company-denies-its-robots-feed-on-the-dead/"><span style="font-family:arial;">Harry Schoell</span></a></blockquote><p><span style="font-family:arial;">The ED-209 test goes horribly wrong, leading to the slaughter of a corporate executive (yay) in a manner very similar to Murphy's death. Subsequently, the dead Murphy's body is then used as the basis for a cyborg, an organism comprising both artificial and organic elements, supposedly the 'best of both worlds' in terms of robotic policing. He becomes the eponymous Robocop, created by a corporation to serve its interests. Although Murphy's memory is supposedly erased and replaced by four directives he rapidly starts showing residual signs of humanity, dreams and memories in particular. After a flashback to being killed he sets out to wreak revenge on the criminal gang. </span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">Around halfway through the film it emerges that a senior executive at OCP is in cahoots with the leader of the gang, when he hires him to kill to the young upstart executive (yay) who masterminded the Robocop product which rivalled the senior executive's ED-209. As such the movie is not only a tale of privatisation, media and corporate monopolies and transhumanism, it is also contains elements of the conspiracy thriller. It resists easy generic classification, which is in my view very much part of its charm. It culminates in the OCP boardroom, with Murphy unable to arrest the senior executive due to a directive in his programming. Murphy presents his recorded memory of the executive admitting his guilt, so the executive takes the chair of the board hostage. The chair then fires the executive, allowing Murphy to summarily execute him (yay) by shooting him through a window. </span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">Of all the themes the one this movie speaks about most is transhumanism, the development of artificial intelligence and the like which will enhance or replace human functions. In Robocop the principal message is that technology can spin out of control, not just in terms of the protagonist turning against his masters in the form of OCP. Interjecting at various points in the film are brief news bulletins which tend to feature three stories - an ongoing foreign war, domestic crime, and the constant problems with an earth-orbiting space station. One of these bulletins features a story of a misfiring laser aboard the space station which killed over a hundred people on the ground, including two former presidents. While Murphy is ostensibly the hero of the piece it is his humanity which ultimately wins, not just his technology. In one sequence towards the end he fights against an ED-209, which has no organic parts, and is mostly beaten by its superior weaponry until it tries, and fails, to follow him down a flight of stairs. Robocop is later seen easily destroying an ED-209, firmly placing the partly organic and human over the purely robotic and inhuman. Indeed, the apparent aim of the movie is to warn against the potential dangers of technological advancement, particularly in terms of military cyborgs and the automising of domestic security i.e. policing.</span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">The year after Robocop's release postmodern philosopher Jean Francois Lyotard published </span><a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=9i5VB0ejI58C&pg=PT1"><span style="font-family:arial;">The Inhuman</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">, a series of essays on what he terms 'development' through 'techno-science', or the </span><span style="font-family:arial;">the collaboration between elite technological and capitalistic interests and institutions. The opening chapter queries</span><span style="font-family:arial;"> how human thought could continue beyond the lifespan of the sun, estimated at 4.5 billion years. Lyotard was being literal in describing this quandary as to him it represents the only logistical barrier to the unfettered progress and expansion of this 'development' if we humans do not provide resistance to it. However, for most people n</span><span style="font-family:arial;">ot only is this development largely free from criticism, it is often seen as an achievement. </span><span style="font-family:arial;"> As described by Stuart Sim in the Postmodern Encounters book on this subject:</span></p><blockquote><p><span style="font-family:arial;">"Development has become an end in itself in this reading...</span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">...Nor will development ever be satisfied: it will always want to push on to a higher level than the one it has already attained. If left unchecked, development will lead to a culture based on inhuman principles - hence Lyotard's call for mass resistance to its plans." - </span><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Lyotard-Inhuman-Postmodern-Encounters-Stuart/dp/1840462353"><span style="font-family:arial;">Stuart Sim, Lyotard and the Inhuman, p28</span></a></p></blockquote><span style="font-family:arial;">This call for resistance is somewhat out of character given the 'type' of philosopher Lyotard is recognised as being. In much of postmodern and poststructuralist philosophy, of which Lyotard is firmly a part, humanism is largely torn to shreds. Subject to particular criticism was the secular humanism of the 19th and 20th centuries, whereby belief in metaphysical destiny (heaven, the afterlife) was replaced by belief in scientific fate, that the human purpose is not to worship a god or gods, but worship future technological development as a manifestation of our own greatness, our own virtue. However, a running theme in Lyotard's work, made explicit in The Inhuman, is the failure of this '</span><a href="http://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/g/r.htm"><span style="font-family:arial;">grand narrative</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">' of humanism, that rather than these narratives explaining why we believe what we do, they seek only to legitimise it. In The Postmodern Condition (1979), Lyotard explained how the narrative of the spirit (science, discovery, revelation) is legitimised not through a logical explanation of what empirical evidence can provide, but through the institutionalising of such beliefs through a </span><a href="http://www.garretwilson.com/books/reviews/postmoderncondition.html"><span style="font-family:arial;">consensus</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> of people taken to be experts. </span><p><span style="font-family:arial;">To see this in action one only has to look at how anthropogenic global warming theory advocates such as George Monbiot treat those experts who disagree. Renowned botanist </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Bellamy"><span style="font-family:arial;">David Bellamy</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">, also a long-serving broadcaster, is a perfect example. In March 2009, Monbiot wrote a hit piece on Bellamy that sought to attack him personally and involved very little by way of describing and presenting evidence. Numerous references to Bellamy as the 'bearded bungler' and as a 'climate change denier' in the article's </span><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/georgemonbiot/2009/mar/16/monbiot-bellamy-climate-change-denier"><span style="font-family:arial;">URL</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">, betray the accuracy of Lyotard's analysis. If Monbiot's aim were driven by a desire to investigate and explain then he would have made more effort to present the evidence. However, his article is littered with comments like:</span></p><blockquote>Fact:<span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span><span style="font-family:arial;">The evidence suggests that global average temperatures between 900 and 1100AD were warmer than in subsequent centuries but cooler than today's. Most of the recent hockey stick graphs do in fact show a medieval warm period, but the temperature anomaly was smaller than that of the past 30 years - see the IPPC and this graph. - </span><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/georgemonbiot/2009/mar/16/monbiot-bellamy-climate-change-denier"><span style="font-family:arial;">Monbiot, The Guardian</span></a></blockquote><p><span style="font-family:arial;">Note firstly that Monbiot labels what he's about to say a 'fact' yet opens with 'the evidence suggests', when what the evidence suggests depends on how it is interpreted, and a 'suggestion' has a very different status to a 'fact'. He goes on to cite two authorities, the IPCC (which he mistakenly calls the IPPC) and a graph courtesy of globalwarmingart.com. Ultimately, he defers his argument not to the evidence, but to interpretations of the evidence by the IPCC and others. Thus, his narrative is one of granting authority to those experts who say what Monbiot wants to hear, and using such experts to decry others who say what he doesn't want to hear. The evidence is mere detail to be subjected to human authority. </span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">Despite Lyotard's near-rejection of humanism as one grand narrative that had been shown to have failed, in The Inhuman he turns from the past to the future, where humankind's present indicates we are going, and how the failings of the past might be repeated.</span></p><blockquote><span style="font-family:arial;">Inhumanism calls for a reassessment of the significance of the human, and a realignment of our relationship to technology. It is just such a process that Lyotard, for all his post-humanist bias, was so afraid of, and which he was repeatedly warning us against in his late career. - </span><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/403469.Lyotard_and_the_Inhuman"><span style="font-family:arial;">Sim, Lyotard and the Inhuman p12</span></a></blockquote><p><span style="font-family:arial;">Technology as it is presented in the mainstream is almost entirely shown to be an enabler and liberator, something that benefits humankind. Only a couple of weeks ago renowned scientist and futurologist Ray Kurzweil </span><a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/6217676/Immortality-only-20-years-away-says-scientist.html"><span style="font-family:arial;">predicted</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> that immortality was only 20 years away via to developments in nanotechnology. However, it is not just our medical condition that Kurzweil thinks will improve:</span></p><blockquote>"Nanotechnology will extend our mental capacities to such an extent we will be able to write books within minutes.<br><br>"If we want to go into virtual-reality mode, nanobots will shut down brain signals and take us wherever we want to go. Virtual sex will become commonplace. And in our daily lives, hologram like figures will pop in our brain to explain what is happening.<br><br>"So <strong>we can look forward</strong> to a world where humans become cyborgs, with artificial limbs and organs." - <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/6217676/Immortality-only-20-years-away-says-scientist.html">The Telegraph</a></blockquote><p><span style="font-family:arial;">Kurzweil is another example of the narrative of the spirit described and criticised by Lyotard, in that he sees such potential developments as a good thing, and only a good thing. However, the possibilities for social control and indoctrination are clearly advanced by such technologies, making it more possible to predict and dictate to the population. As noted by Edward Bernays:</span></p><blockquote>Universal literacy was supposed to educate the common man to control his environment. Once he could read and write he would have a mind fit to rule. So ran the democratic doctrine. But instead of a mind, universal literacy has given him rubber stamps, rubber stamps inked with advertising slogans, with editorials, with published scientific data, with the trivialities of the tabloids and the platitudes of history, but quite innocent of original thought. Each man's rubber stamps are the duplicates of millions of others, so that when those millions are exposed to the same stimuli, all receive identical imprints. - <a href="http://sandiego.indymedia.org/media/2006/10/119695.pdf">Bernays, Propaganda</a></blockquote><p><span style="font-family:arial;">While the Telegraph's article on Kurzweil contains an image from the popular Terminator films a more responsible comparison would be to 1974 film </span><a href="http://www.ovguide.com/movies_tv/the_terminal_man.htm"><span style="font-family:arial;">The Terminal Man</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">, adapted from an early Michael Crichton novel. In that story, an epileptic psychotic is given brain implants which are designed to prevent violent seizures by detecting their early stages and stimulating pleasure centres in the nervous system to prevent the seizures from taking hold. In reality the patient becomes gradually more and more prone to seizures as his body becomes addicted to the stimulation of the pleasure centres. This sort of foreseeable consequence is typically not discussed by those whose authority derives almost entirely from technological 'progress'. </span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">A technology that is supposedly a progressive move can end up regressive - allowing greater dominion by the ruling class while exacerbating instead of solving social problems. Through the 20th century the masses have not become better educated, more rational beings more capable of participating in a peaceful and democratic society. They have become ever easier to manipulate, to set upon each other in often violent ways and to subject to ideological and psychological conditioning. </span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">In spite of this, or probably because of it, humans still widely believe in the grand narratives, though the narratives have undergone something of a shift. Modernity would have it that technology is an example of human ingenuity and achievement, that progress is a good thing because it demonstrates that humans are virtuous. The postmodern shift on this story is that technology is the means for liberation, combing the narratives of spirit and emancipation into one. Under modernity, humans are the origin of technology, its master and creator and they are largely given the god-image of the pre-Enlightenment period. Technology is merely the means to an end defined by humans. Under postmodernity, technology is our master, as it is capable of much more than we are alone, and we are a means to developing it as far as possible, potentially even to the extent where AI becomes capable of developing itself (the </span><a href="http://singinst.org/overview/"><span style="font-family:arial;">singularity</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">). </span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">Lyotard broached this question in The Inhuman, outlining his two main concerns in the introduction:</span></p><blockquote><span style="font-family:arial;">What if human beings, in humanism's sense, were in the process of, constrained into, becoming inhuman? And, what if what is 'proper' to humankind were to be inhabited by the inhuman? - </span><a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=9i5VB0ejI58C&lpg=PP1&pg=PA2#v=onepage&q=&f=false"><span style="font-family:arial;">Lyotard, The Inhuman, p2</span></a></blockquote><p><span style="font-family:arial;">Before going on to ask:</span></p><blockquote><span style="font-family:arial;">What else remains as 'politics' except resistance to this inhuman? - </span><a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=9i5VB0ejI58C&lpg=PP1&pg=PA7#v=onepage&q=&f=false"><span style="font-family:arial;">Lyotard, The Inhuman, p7</span></a></blockquote><p><span style="font-family:arial;">The tale told in Robocop in part answers these questions. Murphy is classed as legally dead and so what remains of his mind and body is converted by OCP into a tool for their political machinations and desires. When he starts showing signs of residual humanity it is seen as a crisis because he cannot be controlled, is no longer subject to OCP's whims. The more reliant we become on technology, the more subservient we are to it and to who ultimately control it. As such, resistance to the imposition of technology has become of paramount importance. </span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">The rise of abortion is one of the best examples of how these shifts and tensions are playing out, and hint at the possible dangers to come if we fail to heed the warning of Lyotard and others. Abortion was 'sold' to women as a liberating technology, as was the contraceptive pill and ultimately the abortion pill too. Instead of having to be bound by biologically determined (but very human) processes of gestation and childbirth, women could now have as much sex as they liked, thanks to the new technology. However, as medical technology has got 'better' it is now possible not only to keep alive a child born below </span><a href="http://faculty.cua.edu/Pennington/Law111/GreatBritain.htm"><span style="font-family:arial;">24 weeks</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> of age, but also to </span><a href="http://www.prochoice.org/Pregnant/options/surgical.html"><span style="font-family:arial;">perform abortions</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> later and later in pregnancy, thus getting ever closer to the naked, systematic slaughter of babies. </span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">In defence of this is the essentially humanist notion of 'the woman's right to choose', and the debate is phrased in terms of largely Christian/other religious 'pro-life' groups versus largely secular 'pro-choice' groups, as though one can either be in favour of human life or in favour of human choice, but not both, never both. In a return to a modernist philosophy, 'freedom' is the end aim of the grand narrative of emancipation, and if that means life is less important than choice then so be it. It is precisely this sort of logic that, without hyperbole, led to the Nazi holocaust, as the self-determination of Germany rendered the lives of Jews, homosexuals, blacks, the homeless and so on less important than the Nazi's state's 'right to choose'. Even the humanist concept of individual choice is subjugated to the pressures of the advance of the inhuman, though by a twisted logic it is largely humanists who are acting as apologists for this. </span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">Why should we have to 'choose' between 'choice' and 'life'? There is a third option, as indicated by Aldous Huxley's </span><a href="http://www.aprendendoingles.com.br/ebooks/BraveNewWorld.pdf"><span style="font-family:arial;">Brave New World</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">. In that story children are produced artificially, in wombs outside of the body. If no one gets pregnant, there is no need for abortion, thus allowing for the potential reconciliation of the tensions in the combined postmodern narrative of technology as liberator. However, it would be the ultimate invasion by the inhuman of the human, particularly for women who are distinguishable from men largely in the sense that they have the capacity to carry children in their bodies. No doubt if such a technology did become the norm, this would be accomplished by convincing women that it was setting them free from the trammels of having to bear children. However, what would then remain of female identity to distinguish it from male? </span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">The difference between genders is crucial in many ways to a healthy society, it helps provide for dispute and disagreement and ultimately helps people to accept that not everyone is the same nor should be the same. We can have equality (of sorts) while being different to one another. But</span><span style="font-family:arial;"> some feminists don't see it that way. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donna_Haraway">Donna Haraway</a> is a philosopher with a predominantly <a href="http://www.stanford.edu/dept/HPS/Haraway/CyborgManifesto.html">scientific, evolution-based</a> background so perhaps it is unsurprising to find her seeing <a href="http://www.egs.edu/faculty/haraway.html">cyborg technology</a> as a useful tool for <a href="http://www.cyberartsweb.org/cpace/cyborg/kayfetz8.html">feminism</a>. </span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;"><p><blockquote>'The cyborg is created in a post-gender world', Haraway declares, leading her to conclude 'I would rather by a cyborg than a goddess.' - <a href="http://www.shef.ac.uk/psychopathologysymposia/2005/sim.html">Stuart Sim, Lyotard and the Inhuman, p46</a></blockquote></span><p><span style="font-family:arial;">To Haraway, quoted from her tract <a href="http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/students/envs_5110/siamanscyborgs.pdf">Simians, Cyborgs, and Women</a>, cybernetic organisms would be a way for women to overcome their biologically determined roles. However, she does concede that in many ways the cyborg is already here, with bionic limbs and organs. As such her contention that the cyborg is 'created in a post-gender world' is simply not true, if we create a cyborg now or in the near future it will very much be in a gendered world, where the differences between men and women are used to subjugate one, the other, or both. Just because a cyborg is conceptually genderless does not mean the world it inhabits will be too, and this is a recurring flaw in Haraway's otherwise compelling arguments. </span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">So, what does it mean that we are willing to place human life and identity in a binary opposition to the techno-liberation imperatives? What does it mean not only to place them in a binary opposition but to rank the latter as the preferred of the two? As we become more accustomed to technological involvement in our everyday lives, we become ever more like the technology we use. We think in modes taught to us by television broadcasts, we run our businesses according to spreadsheets, we converse with one another only within the limitations dictated by our communications devices. </span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">Consider as a final example that of mobile phones and other <a href="http://dashboard.aim.com/aim">near-instant messaging</a> technology. In the past a friend, or partner, or parent could not expect someone to be available to them on a minute by minute basis, and so if a child came home after curfew or a boyfriend was unavailable it was mostly accepted as going to happen, though obviously lots of arguments did take place. However, we now have the same expectation of our friends and relatives that a computer has of its processors - that they will simply act as required, when required. Instead of bollocking their kids when they come home late with the typical 'you could have called', the parent sits and calls their child's mobile, getting increasingly worried and frustrated each time the kid fails to answer because they're up to whatever it is they're doing. Likewise, the inconsiderate boyfriend who doesn't call his girl to tell her he's going to be home late has been replaced by the near constant suspicion of cheating. Again, 'you could have called' turns into 'he isn't answering his phone, he must be with that slut' or 'he isn't answering his phone, he <a href="http://howardbealesnewshour.blogspot.com/2009/03/wider-strategy-of-tension.html">must be on match.com</a>'. </span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">One question largely not answered by the postmodernists, whether it be apparent neo-humanists like Lyotard or ardent transhumanists like Haraway, is why this 'invasion of the inhuman' is taking place, precisely what it is behind it. According to the story in Robocop the technology can spin out of control, whether automated or cyborganic, but this is accidental and unintended. In Haraway's narrative the use of technology is very deliberate, as a means of creating a less gendered, more equal society. In Lyotard's view, technology is subservient to capitalist motives in what he calls 'development'. Each involves its own understanding of cause and effect, and in reality none are full explanations of what is happening. As the 'most conspiratorial' end of the scale is Aldous Huxley, who explicitly outlined the transhumanist movement's motives in a 1962 lecture at Berkeley.</span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;"><p><blockquote>A number of techniques about which I talked seem to be here already. And there seems to be a general movement in the direction of this kind of ultimate revolution, a method of control by which a people can be made to enjoy a state of affairs by which any decent standard they ought not to enjoy. This, the enjoyment of servitude. - <a href="http://www.infowars.com/articles/nwo/huxley_ultimate_revolution_032062.htm">Huxley, The Ultimate Revolution</a></blockquote></span><p><span style="font-family:arial;">In Huxley's analysis the sort of scientific dictatorship envisioned in Brave New World (contrasted with Orwell's 1984 where people are motivated by fear rather than pleasure) occurs as means by which a ruling class can placate those it limits and enslaves, that this is intended, even premeditated. He went on to explain that the scientific dictatorship is in his opinion more likely to follow the Brave New World model than the 1984 model:</span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;"><p><blockquote>[N]ot because of any humanitarian qualms of the scientific dictators but simply because the BNW pattern is probably a good deal more efficient than the other. - <a href="http://www.infowars.com/articles/nwo/huxley_ultimate_revolution_032062.htm">Huxley, The Ultimate Revolution</a></blockquote></span><p><span style="font-family:arial;">He concluded, in a statement similar to the concerns outlined in Lyotard's The Inhuman:</span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;"><p><blockquote>Our business is to be aware of what is happening, and then to use our imagination to see what might happen, how this might be abused, and then if possible to see that the enormous powers which we now possess thanks to these scientific and technological advances be used for the benefit of human beings and not for their degradation. - <a href="http://www.infowars.com/articles/nwo/huxley_ultimate_revolution_032062.htm">Huxley, The Ultimate Revolution</a></blockquote></span><p><span style="font-family:arial;">You can download the entire lecture via <a href="http://www.archive.org/details/AldousHuxley-TheUltimateRevolution">archive.org</a>, or listen to it below. </span></p><br><embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" src="http://www.archive.org/flow/flowplayer.commercial-3.0.5.swf" w3c="true" flashvars="'config=" height="24" width="350"><br /><div style="clear: both;"></div><br />Talkbouthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14408535183177475747noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5734121862980918017.post-80112506422901320012009-09-07T22:00:00.000-07:002013-10-24T11:51:02.750-07:00
TerrorBall
<br /><span style="font-family:arial;">On December 21st 1988 a bomb exploded aboard Pan Am 103, a transatlantic flight going over Scotland, headed for New York. The plane was destroyed in mid air, and sections of it rained down in and around the town of Lockerbie. 270 people were killed, including 11 on the ground, and as such it was, and remains, the most devastating act of terrorism to occur on British soil. Over a decade later in January 2001, Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al-Megrahi was convicted of murder, though his co-accused was acquitted. Megrahi contested the conviction for years and numerous allegations arose of a corrupt investigation and a biased trial. There are good reasons to believe he is innocent. </span><p><span style="font-family:arial;">One of the key pieces of evidence in the trial was a fragment of a circuit board from a timing device manufactured in Switzerland, a batch of which was said to have been sold to Libya. This turns out to be a complete fabrication. The owner of the Swiss company Mebo who manufactured the MST-13, Edwin Bollier, says that the FBI offered him </span><a href="http://www.canberratimes.com.au/news/opinion/editorial/general/shot-down-in-flames/1607337.aspx?storypage=2"><span style="font-family:arial;">$4 million in 1991</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> to testify that he had sold them to Libya. He refused, but one of his employees </span><a href="http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?click_id=3&set_id=1&art_id=nw20070827213616753C102824"><span style="font-family:arial;">Ulrich Lumpert</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> became a key witness at the trial. However, Lumpert now says that he </span><a href="http://lockerbiecase.blogspot.com/2007/09/from-gulf-news-4-september-2007.html"><span style="font-family:arial;">lied in court</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">, saying he </span><a href="http://archive.gulfnews.com/articles/07/09/04/10151176.html"><span style="font-family:arial;">stole a prototype MST-13</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> and gave it to someone investigating the Lockerbie bombing. Both a retired CIA officer and a former Scottish police chief have given statements that </span><a href="http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=14908"><span style="font-family:arial;">evidence was planted</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> at the scene. Furthermore, the FBI investigator Thomas Thurman, who </span><a href="http://www.trinicenter.com/articles/2009/250809.html"><span style="font-family:arial;">allegedly</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> found the fragment on the ground, has been criticised for failing to properly oversee the </span><a href="http://www.thefreelibrary.com/FBI+CRIME+LAB+METHODS+SUBSTANDARD,+REPORT+SAYS+:+ANOTHER+BLOW-a083864348"><span style="font-family:arial;">forensic investigation</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> of the 1993 WTC bombing, for routinely </span><a href="http://www.freedomsphoenix.com/Article/055975-2009-08-20-lockerbie-bomber-returned-to-libya-to-diebut-you-should-know.htm"><span style="font-family:arial;">altering his scientific reports</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">, and for </span><a href="http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/02/what-the-lockerbie-convict-and-victims-families-told-scotlands-justice-secretary/"><span style="font-family:arial;">lying</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> in American murder trials.</span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">Theories as to who really bombed Pan Am 103, and why, range far and wide, but unsurprisingly the name that keeps cropping up is the CIA. </span><a href="http://www.carpenoctem.tv/cons/pan.html"><span style="font-family:arial;">One story</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> in particular is worth recounting. An attourney for the Pan Am airline hired Juval Aviv, president of a private intelligence firm called Interfor, to investigate the Lockerbie bombing. The airline was facing a lawsuit from victims families, alleging lax security, and needed to know whether to contest or settle. The </span><a href="http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/lockerbie/resources/pdf/interfor_report.pdf"><span style="font-family:arial;">Interfor report</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> alleged that the bombing was carried out by the CIA against their own, to stop them from blowing the whistle. </span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">The report says that Frankfurt was the centre for a CIA-protected Syrian heroin smuggling operation, whereby the CIA would ensure the Syrians could safely get their heroin into the US in exchange for the Syrians providing intelligence. Pan Am 103 was a regular scheduled flight through Frankfurt on the way to New York. This smuggling operation was run by probable </span><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/1999/apr/17/lockerbie"><span style="font-family:arial;">triple agent</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> </span><a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7909411.stm"><span style="font-family:arial;">Monzer al-Kassar</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> and Mossad/PFLP-GC </span><a href="http://judicial-inc.biz/abu_nidal.htm"><span style="font-family:arial;">double agent</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> Abu Nidal. At the same time (summer 1988) a separate CIA team went to Beirut to begin intelligence gathering for a possible hostage rescue. </span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">Aviv goes on to say that Ahmed Jibril, founder of the PFLP-GC, a militant splinter group from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, knew about the Syrian-secured route through Frankfurt and decided to exploit it. He acquired a bomb and smuggled it through airport security by swapping it for luggage in the same manner as the Syrian heroin shipments. While this was in the works the second CIA team in Beirut discovered the protection their colleagues were giving to al-Kasser and Nidal's drug smuggling. They reported this to their superiors but received no word back. </span></p><blockquote><span style="font-family:arial;">According to the report, “The [McKee] team was outraged, believing that its rescue and their lives would be endangered by the double dealing.” - </span><a href="http://www.consortiumnews.com/2009/082109a.html"><span style="font-family:arial;">Lisa Pease, consortium news</span></a></blockquote><p><span style="font-family:arial;">By mid-December 1998, the Beirut team were planning to return to America to expose the smuggling operation. Around three weeks before the bombing Mossad warned the headquarters of the CIA and the German BKA (their equivalent of the FBI) that a major terrorist attack would happen at Frankfurt airport targeting a major US airline. Aviv's report says:</span></p><blockquote><span style="font-family:arial;">"Thereafter, the law enforcement presence, but not airline security, visibly increased around the other American carriers, but not Pan Am." - </span><a href="http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/lockerbie/resources/pdf/interfor_report.pdf"><span style="font-family:arial;">Interfor Report</span></a></blockquote><p><span style="font-family:arial;">Meanwhile, the CIA team in Frankfurt had learned of their being discovered by the group in Beirut through al-Kassar and around the same time both he and Nidal worked out Jibril's plan to bomb Pan Am 103. They wanted to protect their CIA-secured route so in the days prior to the bombing they tipped off the BKA about the danger to these flights, hoping Jibril would be intercepted and that they could carry on their smuggling. The BKA then told the CIA team in Frankfurt, who reported it to their superiors. CIA HQ then sent out warnings to various embassies and so on, but apparently not to Pan Am. By this time Al-Kassar's agents had discovered the Beirut team's plan to return to the US, including their travel plans which involved going through Frankfurt, and on Pan Am 103 to New York. </span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">On the day of the bombing a BKA agent surveilling the baggage loading onto the plane noticed a bag very different to the ones normally used in the drug shipments. Concerned, he reported this to the CIA team on the job, who then reported it to their control. </span></p><blockquote><span style="font-family:arial;">Control replied: Don't worry about it. Don't stop it. Let it go. - </span><a href="http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/lockerbie/resources/pdf/interfor_report.pdf"><span style="font-family:arial;">Interfor Report</span></a></blockquote><p><span style="font-family:arial;">Among the dead at Lockerbie were five of the eight members of the Beirut team, on their way back to America. Also found was $500,000 in cash, an envelope marked '$547,000' containing travellers cheques, papers relating to the location of the hostages the team in Beirut were working to free and, according to local witnesses, large quantities of </span><a href="http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=18871"><span style="font-family:arial;">heroin</span></a>. The Intefor Report concluded that the attack was enabled and allowed to happen by the CIA team in Frankfurt to prevent the exposure of the al-Kassar/Nidal drug smuggling. They considered the lives of their fellow CIA agents as worth less than the intelligence provided by the smugglers they were protecting. This and other stories are explored in Lockerbie and the CIA.<span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span><object height="360" width="425"><embed src="http://mediaservices.myspace.com/services/media/embed.aspx/m=19237382,t=1,mt=video" allowfullscreen="true" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" height="360" width="425"></object><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span><span style="font-family:arial;">Libya is run by the military dictatorship of Col. Gaddafi, which recently celebrated </span><a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/8232934.stm"><span style="font-family:arial;">40 years</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> in power. Despite, or in part due to the country's large oil and natural gas deposits, relations with this country are significant. In the early 1980s the US banned imports of oil from Libya, the start of a </span><a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/3336423.stm"><span style="font-family:arial;">long period of economic sanctions</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> by various White Houses. After Lockerbie, the UN and EU imposed their own set of sanctions. Gaddafi failed to cave. According to the model described by John Perkins, the economic hit men hadn't persuaded him to change his mind, so the jackals were sent in. In this case, </span><a href="http://howardbealesnewshour.blogspot.com/2008/12/libyan.html"><span style="font-family:arial;">MI6 funded Al Muqatila</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">, a Libyan Islamic militant group, to carry out an assassination attempt in 1996. The attempt failed, killing civilians in the process. </span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">However, Gaddafi does seem to have then changed his tactic and sought to reestablish relations with the West. In </span><a href="http://www.indianexpress.com/ie/daily/19990320/ige20037.html"><span style="font-family:arial;">1999</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> Libya handed over the two Lockerbie suspects for trial in Scotland. After Megrahi's conviction in 2001 they negotiated a compensation deal, formally accepting responsibility for Lockerbie and paying billions to the victims. ABC reported at the time:</span></p><blockquote>Libya's Foreign Minister, Abdel Rahman Shalgham, has said that the Government will pay more than $16 million to each of the 270 victims after certain conditions are met.<span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span><span style="font-family:arial;">He says Libya will pay the compensation in instalments after UN sanctions and then US sanctions against Libya are lifted. - </span><a href="http://abc.gov.au/news/stories/2003/04/30/843124.htm"><span style="font-family:arial;">ABC</span></a></blockquote><span style="font-family:arial;">The following year, in </span><a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/blair-accepts-invitation-to-meet-gaddafi-569597.html"><span style="font-family:arial;">February 2004</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> then PM Tony Blair accepted a formal invitation to meet with Gaddafi, which he followed up in March with a </span><a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3566545.stm"><span style="font-family:arial;">visit to Tripoli</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">. A further meeting took place in </span><a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-458415/Blair-arrives-Libya-Gaddafi-talks.html"><span style="font-family:arial;">2007</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">.</span><p><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 468px; height: 328px;" src="http://img.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2007/05_02/blairPA2905_468x328.jpg" alt="" border="0"></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">The most recent chapter in these 'improved diplomatic relations' has seen Megrahi released from jail on 'compassionate grounds' after serving 8 years for the alleged murder of 270 people. Now, he is probably innocent, and so there's no problem with releasing an innocent man so he can live out his final months (he has cancer) in his homeland, but that isn't what has happened. Megrahi dropped his latest appeal against his conviction on </span><a href="http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/politics/international_politics/timeline+megrahi+release/3327717"><span style="font-family:arial;">August 18th</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">, and two days later he was freed by Scotland's Justice Secretary. </span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">This was a vastly unpopular decision among those who believe he is guilty - around </span><a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/8226585.stm"><span style="font-family:arial;">two-thirds</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> of Scots believe he shouldn't have been released. Likewise Ed Balls, the schools secretary who let the taxpayers </span><a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1560057/Taxpayers-foot-bill-for-Ed-Balls-junket.html"><span style="font-family:arial;">foot the bill</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> for his attendance at the 2007 Bilderberg club meeting, said that British ministers did </span><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/sep/07/gordon-brown-fight-libya-compensation"><span style="font-family:arial;">not support</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> the move. Most recently, </span><a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1212647/Obama-blasts-Brown-Lockerbie-40-minute-phone-No-10-said-warm-substantive.html?ITO=1490"><span style="font-family:arial;">details of a phonecall</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> between president Obama and the unelected PM Gordon Brown were leaked, showing that contrary to the 'warm and substantive' conversation portrayed by Downing St. the president 'blasted' the prime minister. </span><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 233px; height: 436px;" src="http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2009/09/10/article-1212647-06600D20000005DC-382_233x436.jpg" alt="" border="0"></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">As part of their coverage of the story the Daily Mail included a cartoon depicting a man rolling a barrel, Guy Fawkes-like, up to the door of 10 Downing Street. The suggestion seems to be that releasing a terrorist from jail is such a terrible decision that the Mail wants people to bomb the Prime Minister's house in protest. Truly ridiculous, even for doublethink. </span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">On </span><a href="http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/politics/domestic_politics/was+megrahi+freed+over+oil+deals/3325997"><strong><span style="font-family:arial;">August 30th</span></strong></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> Jack Straw denied that Megrahi's release had anything to do with an </span><a href="http://www.upi.com/Energy_Resources/2009/08/14/Britain-eyes-Libyan-oil/UPI-54261250271038/"><span style="font-family:arial;">oil deal</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">, though </span><a href="http://uk.news.yahoo.com/4/20090830/tuk-leaked-letters-suggest-government-s-dba1618.html"><span style="font-family:arial;">leaked letters</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> published the same day indicated the opposite was true. By September 5th, Straw had </span><a href="http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/e249adf4-99b2-11de-ab8c-00144feabdc0.html"><span style="font-family:arial;">admitted the connection</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">. Similarly, Gordon Brown initially refused to support the claims for compensation from victims of alleged Libya-assisted IRA bombings, but rapidly </span><a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1211637/Browns-terror-U-turn-Well-help-seek-cash-Libya-bomb-families-told.html?ITO=1490"><span style="font-family:arial;">changed his mind</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> and has now pledged his support. Royal Dutch Shell </span><a href="http://www.afrol.com/articles/11999"><span style="font-family:arial;">signed a deal</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> with Libya at the time of Blair second visit in 2007, as did </span><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/aug/30/shell-libyan-gas-oil"><span style="font-family:arial;">BP</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">, largely to the exclusion of American Big Oil. The Megrahi release is one of Libya's pay-offs for that deal, </span><a href="http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2009/0831/breaking4.htm"><span style="font-family:arial;">reportedly</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> also agreed at the time of Blair's 2007 visit. It will also help put an end to the 'conspiracy theories' about Lockerbie, as Megrahi is no longer appealing against his conviction. </span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">There is another benefit, almost entirely overlooked in mainstream coverage of the case. Megrahi's release coincided with the culmination of the retrial of seven men accused of the airline liquid bomb plot. The Times, however, threw off some of the shackles and made the association. </span></p><blockquote>The guilty verdicts returned against the key figures in the airline plot trial at Woolwich Crown Court were greeted with relief in Whitehall yesterday.<span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span><span style="font-family:arial;">This had become the court case that </span><strong><span style="font-family:arial;">could not be allowed to fail</span></strong>. The courts had to show that juries could handle complex terrorism cases and vindication was needed for stringent security at airports.<span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span><strong><span style="font-family:arial;">The Government also required a public declaration — more than ever now, given the damage done by the release of the Lockerbie bomber — that Britain was not soft on terrorism.</span></strong><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span>Questions persist, however, about why it has taken three years and more than £50 million to bring Abdulla Ahmed Ali and the other bombers to justice.<span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span>Their first trial ended inconclusively a year ago with a jury acquitting one man portrayed by the Crown as a significant terrorist and failing to agree on whether or not the plan to blow up airliners had ever existed.<span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span><strong><span style="font-family:arial;">That state of affairs could not be allowed to stand</span></strong><span style="font-family:arial;"> and a retrial began in March under a new judge who fired off repeated warnings to the media to report the case with great care. - </span><a href="http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article6825421.ece"><span style="font-family:arial;">The Times</span></a></blockquote><p><span style="font-family:arial;">While the Times sees the Megrahi release as a political reason why the trial had to produce guilty verdicts, there is potentially another influence. Megrahi's release may have helped induce the jury to return guilty verdicts, as the obvious backlash against the 'soft' decision to release Megrahi gave the jurors a clear message as to the spirit of the nation. After all, Megrahi was convicted of putting a bomb on a plane. If indeed the Megrahi deal was struck back in 2007, around the time of the oil deals and the Blair visit, then his release happening just as the jury in a terrorism trial retired to consider their verdict is very convenient for those playing Terrorball. The end of the trial also coincided with the run-up to the 8th anniversary of </span><a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/guilty-of-plotting-britains-911-1783387.html"><span style="font-family:arial;">9/11</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">. This provided yet more context in which the jury were supposedly remaining impartial. </span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">Perhaps it is therefore unsurprising that they ended up </span><a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8233954.stm"><span style="font-family:arial;">convicting three</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> of the eight re-accused of the liquid airline bomb plot, and one further on the charge of conspiring to murder persons </span><a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8233954.stm"><span style="font-family:arial;">unknown</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">. Ali, Sarwar and Hussain were all found guilty of this mysterious murder conspiracy with an undeclared, undefined target at the first trial, where the jury couldn't come to a verdict on the main charge of targeting airliners. At the second trial they were found guilty of the airline plot, though how just the three of them could have accomplished such an elaborate scheme isn't clear. The jury was hung on the issue of Umar Islam's involvement in the airline plot, but convicted him for the magical mystical murder conspiracy. </span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">Savant, Khan and Zaman were all found not guilty of the airline plot, after the original trial's jury couldn't come to a verdict, but they may all face yet another trial for the unknown murder conspiracy after the jury in effect repeated the indecision of their predecessors. In off the bench for possible </span><a href="http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/HH15Df03.html"><span style="font-family:arial;">provocateur</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> Mohammed Gulzar, found innocent of everything at the first trial, was Donald Stewart-Whyte. Like many substitutions, it seems he was just there to make up the numbers, and possibly so people would forget about Gulzar. Whyte was also </span><a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8242321.stm"><span style="font-family:arial;">exonerated</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> on all counts and it isn't clear why he wasn't prosecuted at the first trial but was at the second. Indeed, it isn't clear why he was prosecuted at all. </span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">The so-called 'martyrdom' videos of the accused played a strange role in this trial. The defendants said they were for a protest documentary, but according to John McDowall, head of the Met’s Counter Terrorism Command:</span></p><blockquote><span style="font-family:arial;">“They claimed the videos were threats designed to influence the Government and intimidate the public. The jury rejected this, instead accepting the clear evidence that they were a pre-cursor to their attempted martyrdom." - </span><a href="http://cms.met.police.uk/news/convictions/three_men_found_guilty_of_airline_bomb_plot"><span style="font-family:arial;">metpolice</span></a></blockquote><span style="font-family:arial;"> </span><p><span style="font-family:arial;">However, Savant, Khan and Zaman </span><a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/terrorism-in-the-uk/6152159/Airline-bomb-plot-three-defendants-cleared-after-making-martyrdom-videos.html"><span style="font-family:arial;">all made 'martyrdom' videos</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> and they were found not guilty of the airline plot by the same jury. Khan is of particular interest because he was approached by </span><a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/police-watched-the-plot-unfold-then-pounced-1783388.html"><span style="font-family:arial;">MI5</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> who apparently tried and failed to recruit him as an informant. Whether this was Khan or someone else, the Times reported during the original arrests in August 2006 that MI5 may have had a </span><a href="http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article607625.ece"><span style="font-family:arial;">mole</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> within the group. This is supported by the allegation made by </span><a href="http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article6825262.ece"><span style="font-family:arial;">Andy Hayman</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> (former assistant commissioner of the met police) that the US-led arrest of the original alleged mastermind Rashid Rauf nearly bungled the ongoing surveillance of the alleged liquid bomb plotters. This chimes with reports from the time of the arrests saying they were hurried by </span><a href="http://www.dawn.com/2006/08/14/top7.htm"><span style="font-family:arial;">pressure from Washington</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">, and that the </span><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/sep/07/airline-bomb-plot-global-impact"><span style="font-family:arial;">authorities</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> wanted to monitor the men for longer. </span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">Despite this </span><a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1210876/Islamic-extremist-guilty-liquid-bomb-plot-blow-transatlantic-jets.html?ITO=1490"><span style="font-family:arial;">extensive monitoring</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> it is still uncertain where the plot originated, if indeed there was a plot. Evidence introduced at the second trial but not the first was used by the prosecution to intimate that shadowy forces in Pakistan were behind it all. A series of truly bizarre e-mails were presented as 'coded messages' between Ali and Sarwar in Britain and apparent Al Qaeda ringleaders in Pakistan. They were published by the BBC, who said:</span></p><blockquote><span style="font-family:arial;">One of Ahmed Ali's contacts is thought to have been a British man, Rashid Rauf, who helped plan plots for al-Qaeda. It's unclear whether he received any of these e-mails directly. - </span><a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8193501.stm"><span style="font-family:arial;">BBC</span></a></blockquote><p><span style="font-family:arial;">Rashid Rauf was the original alleged mastermind of the plot and seems to disappear, reappear, die and </span><a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1212110/Could-terror-fugitive-Rashid-Rauf-wiped-missile-alive-all.html"><span style="font-family:arial;">resurrect</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> at the behest of the security services, as previously discussed </span><a href="http://howardbealesnewshour.blogspot.com/2009/05/debunking-77-debunking.html"><span style="font-family:arial;">here</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">. He is now once again being reported as </span><a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/terrorism-in-the-uk/6024678/Airlines-plot-al-Qaeda-mastermind-is-still-alive.html"><span style="font-family:arial;">alive</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">, and allegedly plotting a new wave of attacks on Britain involving </span><a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8244065.stm"><span style="font-family:arial;">airliners</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">. Similarly, though he was acquitted at the original trial Mohammed Gulzar was used by the prosecution as part of their argument in the retrial. </span></p><blockquote>From late July the cell's activities intensified, following the arrival of Mohammed Gulzar, a man the police said was the "superintendent" for the plot. He flew into the UK on 18 July on a false passport under the name of Altaf Ravat. At the first trial last year he was cleared of all charges, but the prosecution still maintained in court that he played a key role.<span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span><span style="font-family:arial;">Gulzar, originally from Birmingham and a friend of Rauf, was wanted for questioning over a murder in the UK and had previously fled to Pakistan and later South Africa. He arrived at Heathrow airport with a new wife he had met at Islamabad airport just a few months before, which the crown said was part of his cover. The couple had spent a short holiday in Mauritius as part of their honeymoon. The court heard that </span><strong><span style="font-family:arial;">in the days following Gulzar's arrival, cell members purchased equipment</span></strong><span style="font-family:arial;"> from stores such as Ikea and Tesco, including beakers, syringes, storage jars and suitcases to store materials in the woods near Sarwar's home. - </span><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/sep/07/airline-bomb-plot-global-impact"><span style="font-family:arial;">Guardian</span></a></blockquote><p><span style="font-family:arial;">Exactly what has now happened to Gulzar isn't certain, but that the prosecution were still portraying a vindicated man as the 'superintendent' of the plot during the retrial not only adds weight to the suggestion that he was a provocateur, it also speaks volumes for the ludicrous nature of the retrial. If a man has been found innocent of the charges then the prosecution should not be able to continue to make such allegations. Indeed, the allegations should be classed not only as inadmissable evidence, but potentially as </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_defamation_law"><span style="font-family:arial;">defamation</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">. Gulzar could sue them, though obviously that won't happen if he's working for the same masters as the state prosecution lawyers. </span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">Aside from Rauf and Gulzar, the press have now tried to introduce a third apparent Al Qaeda mastermind - </span><a href="http://www.globalsecurity.org/security/profiles/abu_obaidah_al-masri.htm"><span style="font-family:arial;">Abu Ubaida al-Masri</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">. He is another curious character. The Daily Mail published an article about him on </span><a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1211827/Behind-terror-attacks-Britain-Bin-Ladens-Holy-Warrior.html"><span style="font-family:arial;">September 8th</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">, saying that the end of the liquid bomb (re)trial meant they could 'reveal his role' in orchestrating not only that plot, but apparently also 7/7, the 21/7 'bombings' where there were no bombs and the fertiliser plot. There is very little evidence for this, and al-Masri is conveniently dead as of </span><a href="http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=6f8_1207758137"><span style="font-family:arial;">April 2008</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">, though like Rashid 'Lazarus' Rauf that status may be revised as time goes on. </span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">However, it is worth noting that al-Masri fought in the West's </span><a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2008/apr/02/world/fg-ubaida2?pg=1"><span style="font-family:arial;">dirty wars</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Chechnya, linking him to the long history of involvement of mujahideen in black operations. He turned up in </span><a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2008/apr/02/world/fg-ubaida2?pg=1"><span style="font-family:arial;">Munich in 1995</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> seeking asylum, and though he associated with various local 'Al Qaeda' members he lived there apparently without any problems for </span><a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2008/apr/10/world/fg-masri10?pg=1"><span style="font-family:arial;">four years</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">. In 1999 his claim for asylum was finally rejected and he was jailed pending deportation, but then </span><a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2008/apr/02/world/fg-ubaida2?pg=1"><span style="font-family:arial;">released</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> for no obvious reason. During the same period he also </span><a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/terrorism-in-the-uk/6024678/Airlines-plot-al-Qaeda-mastermind-is-still-alive.html"><span style="font-family:arial;">lived in Britain</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">. Strangely, while the Daily Mail claims that they could only talk about his role after the end of the trial, American news outlets such as </span><a href="http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,348668,00.html"><span style="font-family:arial;">Foxnews</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> and the </span><a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2008/apr/02/world/fg-ubaida2?pg=2"><span style="font-family:arial;">LA Times</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> have been banging on about him for over a year. </span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">In sum, an investigation and prosecution lasting three years, costing over </span><a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/terrorism-in-the-uk/6152185/Airline-bomb-plot-investigation-one-of-biggest-since-WW2.html"><span style="font-family:arial;">£100 million</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">, called the '</span><a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1210876/Islamic-extremist-guilty-liquid-bomb-plot-blow-transatlantic-jets.html?ITO=1490"><span style="font-family:arial;">biggest in British history</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">', using two trials and </span><a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/terrorism-in-the-uk/6152159/Airline-bomb-plot-three-defendants-cleared-after-making-martyrdom-videos.html"><span style="font-family:arial;">four juries</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> (two juries in the retrial were dismissed due to disagreements and fallings out, though the media widely report the fourth jury as the </span><a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8242479.stm"><span style="font-family:arial;">second</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">), still required the 'coincidence' of the 8th anniversary of the world's most famous terrorist attack, and the 'coincidence' of the release of a man accused of blowing up an airliner, to convict three guys of plotting to blow up airliners. </span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">A final 'coincidence' in this recent game of Terrorball is the release of a picture of alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Having been imprisoned, and frequently tortured, in Guantanamo Bay for several years the new image is somewhat different from the old one, and may not even show the same person. KSM was the basis for much of the 9/11 Commission's version of events, or at least statements attributed to him by the CIA. He confessed to his involvement in the attacks, and some other stuff he wasn't even accused of, and dismissed his military-appointed lawyer in the hope of speeding up his 'trial' and execution. </span></p><blockquote><span style="font-family:arial;">He wants to be a suicide defendant if you like, as opposed to a suicide bomber. - </span><a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1212649/The-monster-wants-martyr-9-11-mastermind-Khalid-Sheikh-Mohammed-aiming-execution.html?ITO=1490"><span style="font-family:arial;">Daily Mail</span></a></blockquote><p><span style="font-family:arial;">In keeping with this very convenient persona the new image shows him dressed like Osama Bin Laden, with an extraordinarily long beard. Also, the pictures have been doing the rounds on the internet for some </span><a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1212649/The-monster-wants-martyr-9-11-mastermind-Khalid-Sheikh-Mohammed-aiming-execution.html?ITO=1490"><span style="font-family:arial;">weeks</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> it was only on the </span><a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/8248355.stm"><span style="font-family:arial;">day prior to the anniversary</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> of 9/11 that the mainstream media started publishing the one of his looking like Bin Laden. Just in case you are in any doubt what reaction you are meant to have, the BBC quoted a 'terrorism researcher':</span></p><blockquote><span style="font-family:arial;">What's problematic for me is it really humanises the guy - </span><a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/8248355.stm"><span style="font-family:arial;">BBC</span></a></blockquote><p><span style="font-family:arial;">The last thing the Terrorballers want is for us to see someone like KSM as a human being, because it might undermine the years of effort they've put into treating them like vermin and convincing us that that any concession to human rights for suspected terrorists is '</span><a href="http://www.people.co.uk/news/tm_headline=we-give-osama-suspect--pound-9-000-dole-to-save-his-human-rights---crazy-&method=full&objectid=18466669&siteid=93463-name_page.html"><span style="font-family:arial;">crazy</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">'.</span> </p><br /><div style="clear: both;"></div><br />Talkbouthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14408535183177475747noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5734121862980918017.post-45564909038055553312009-07-29T22:00:00.000-07:002013-10-24T11:51:02.740-07:00
Normalising Conspiracy
<br /><embed style="font-family: arial;" type="video/divx" src="http://n43.stagevu.com/v/4db83e20e443e7d42ee35045314997fb/hejofryjblnt.avi" autoplay="false" custommode="Stage6" movietitle="The%20International%5B2009%5DDvDrip%5BEng%5D-aXXo" bannerenabled="false" previewimage="http://stagevu.com/img/thumbnail/hejofryjblntbig.jpg" pluginspage="http://go.divx.com/plugin/download/" id="embed664799846" height="300" width="640"><br> <br><p style="font-family: arial;">The International, released this year, is a conspiracy thriller very much in the American cinematic tradition. Conspiracy thrillers first became part of the popular mainstream in the 1970s, probably due to the Watergate scandal which took down the Nixon presidency and paved the way for the neoconservatives and their puppet Gerald Ford, but herein lies a tacit but significant distinction - Hitchcock's movies were 'horror' movies, not 'conspiracy thriller' movies, a distinction of genre classification but a telling one. The 'conspiracy thriller' as a genre was invented in the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_conspiracy_thriller_films_and_television_series">1970s</a>. </p><p style="font-family: arial;">While most of Hitchcock's movies contain some sort of conspiracy they aren't referred to as such. The Trouble With Harry is a farcical story where a body discovered on a hill is buried, dug up and reburied several times over and all the characters who (falsely) believe themselves to be responsible for the man's death persuade others not to tell the authorities, which would make them accessories to murder or at least manslaughter. The film is of course a comedy, but this sort of 'domestic conspiracy' is a common theme in virtually every movie Hitch made, and they are some of the most popular and critically acclaimed films of all time. </p><p style="font-family: arial;">When the conspiracy genre began identifying itself as such the influence of Watergate, and probably the assassinations in the 1960s, meant that the majority of such films and TV shows portrayed governmental conspiracies. There were exceptions, such as Chinatown and some other film noir, but All the President's Men, Capricorn One, The ODESSA File and the rest mostly overlooked the role of corporate interests. The International is somewhat different, in that the organisation being investigated is an international bank, mostly based on <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3383461.stm">BCCI</a>, the Bank of Credit and Commerce International, who had connections to everyone from the Triads to Al Qaeda to the Iran Contra affair, though some plot elements appear to be adapted from the <a href="http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,922953,00.html">Banco Ambrosiano</a> scandal. However, the presence of conspiratorial storylines in films beyond the explicitly named genre is widespread. </p><p style="font-family: arial;"><a href="http://www.imdb.com/chart/top">IMDB</a>'s top 250 films include in the upper echelon of the list the first two Godfather films, the mafia being the most widely portrayed conspiracy in film and TV history (though never referred to as such); Pulp Fiction, which is also about organised crime; The Dark Knight, a film where a terrorist conspires to blackmail not only organised criminals but also the hi-tech vigilante fighting them; several Star Wars films, a saga in which two groups of religious fundamentalists wage holy war against each other across an entire galaxy; Goodfellas; Fight Club; The Usual Suspects; Se7en; Leon and so on. We love conspiracy in our entertainment, that much is in no doubt. </p><p style="font-family: arial;">A glance at the top rated movies for the <a href="http://www.imdb.com/chart/1990s">1990s</a> compared the <a href="http://www.imdb.com/chart/2000s">2000s</a> does show that while the immediate post Cold War period was riddled with conspiratainment, the new century is less so. This is in part down to the popularity of 'independent' media producers like Alex Jones, who provide conspiratainment for as many people as vote on IMDB, but aren't recognised by such populist websites. People are still getting their fill of conspiracy, just not so much through Hollywood movies. Nonetheless, the James Bond film franchise (the longest running in western cinema) remains commercially and critically successful. </p><p style="font-family: arial;">One might argue that this is because these stories are fictional, but a great many of them were inspired by real life events. Capricorn One sought to capitalise on very real scepticism about the reality of the Apollo program, Executive Order is about the JFK assassination, 'Jedi' is clearly derived from 'mujahideen' and so on. Beyond that, real life news is full of conspiracies, they just aren't called that. Pop music legend Michael Jackson died around six weeks ago, and the press is still writing almost daily stories alleging some sort of plot or conspiratorial deception. <a href="http://www.mtv.co.uk/artists/michael-jackson/news/133967-michael-jackson">Secret</a> <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,133727,00.html">lovechildren</a>, allegations by <a href="http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/news/402626/I-will-nail-Michael-Jacksons-killers-sister-La-Toya-vows-to-prove-stars-death-was-foul-play.html">close relatives</a> that he was murdered for <a href="http://www.radaronline.com/exclusives/2009/07/jackson-murder-money-conspiracy-says-sister">his money</a>, or by his <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009/jul/15/michael-jackson-death-murder-claims">doctors</a>, or because he was going to make a <a href="http://www.davidicke.com/forum/showthread.php?t=71854">public stand on Iran</a>, and any number of other suggestions have found their way into the reporting on this. Even a relatively minor celebrity, David Carradine, couldn't die without <a href="http://www.newser.com/tag/949/1/organized-crime.html">allegations</a> that he'd been murdered by an organised crime syndicate. </p><p style="font-family: arial;"><object height="340" width="560"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/fUpdoJCaKbM&hl=en&fs=1&color1=0xe1600f&color2=0xfebd01" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" height="340" width="560"></object></p><p style="font-family: arial;">More <a href="http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article6793072.ece">recently</a> a Brazilian TV show host and state legislator has been accused of ordering several murders so he could break the story on his show and boost his <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory?id=8302380">ratings</a><object height="266" width="384">, similar to the co-opted terrorist group in Network. </object>Virtually every <a href="http://www.google.com/search?q=brazilian+tv+show+host+accused+of+murder">major media</a> organ has run this story in the last few days, and not a single one has questioned the plausibility of such a plot, and none have referred to it as a <a href="http://www.google.com/search?client=opera&rls=en&q=brazil+TV+show+host+accused+of+murder+conspiracy">conspiracy</a>. This is typical of the coverage of major crimes, see the equally <a href="http://www.google.com/search?client=opera&rls=en&q=jewel+heist">recent</a> UK <a href="http://www.google.com/search?client=opera&rls=en&q=jewel+heist+conspiracy">jewel heist</a> for example, and betrays a prejudice in how we commonly use the word and react to such events. </p><p style="font-family: arial;">As noted, when applied to films the word is less problematic. This is partly due to the association between 'conspiracy' and 'theory', the ultimate implication being that conspiracies are only ever theoretical. This is nonsense, obviously, but that's the association most commonly driven into people through repetition. As such, fictional stories in films can happily be called conspiracies because they are theoretical, whether applied to governments or corporations. 'It is just a story' is an easy and often repeated response to anyone suggesting the themes of such films might be true. </p><p style="font-family: arial;">However, 'domestic' conspiracy stories aren't referred to as such whether in the fictional realm of horror movies or the real life realm of crime reporting. People lie, cheat, steal, defraud on a virtually daily basis. Not all people, obviously, and not as a constant behaviour, but nonetheless pretty much everyone has planned in secret to do something bad, or forbidden, or illegal along with other people. As such, we're all conspirators, but conspirators unwilling to confront the reality of our behaviour. </p><p style="font-family: arial;">This is particularly obvious in the use of the 'collapse' metaphor, most common when discussing finance and economics. The <a href="http://www.chinastakes.com/2009/3/valuation-council-restructured-amid-global-asset-value-collapse.html">value of assets</a>, the <a href="http://news.goldseek.com/GoldSeek/1223911533.php">markets</a>, <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/confidence-collapse-triggers-selling-in-dollar-and-shares-633266.html">confidence</a> in financial institutions, and even the <a href="http://www.postonline.co.uk/post/news/1258393/aig-collapse-tied-value-collapse-life-sector">financial institutions</a> <a href="http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/aug2009/bank-a10.shtml">themselves</a> have been described as 'collapsing' or 'collapsed' in the last couple of years. Along with describing near-worthless assets as '<a href="http://www.turkishweekly.net/other-news/627867/republic-rsquo-s-toxic-assets-could-collapse-northern-ireland-property-market.html">toxic</a>' the vocabulary for describing the meltdown of the last few years is all organic analogies, all descriptions that imply the economic problems are either accidental, or incidental. No one is to blame, 'shit happens', don't bother trying to hold anyone responsible - that is the message of this vocabulary, adopted by economists, journalists and officials alike. Needless to say, virtually no one uses the word 'conspiracy'. </p><p style="font-family: arial;">A useful parallel can be drawn with what happened to the twin towers of the WTC on 9/11. Their destruction is almost invariably described as 'collapses', even by <a href="http://www.journalof911studies.com/volume/200609/WhyIndeedDidtheWorldTradeCenterBuildingsCompletelyCollapse.pdf">those</a> who advocate the theory that it was a <a href="http://www.dailymotion.com/relevance/search/thermite/video/x1e3og_wtc-collapse-was-controlled-demolit_news">controlled demolition</a>. This is an example of doublespeak, from the mouths of those claiming to be concerned with the truth. Either the buildings collapsed, or they were demolished. Either it was incidental (the unpredictable result of planes flying into them) or it was deliberate. Not just in language, but practically speaking too due to the time necessary to set up such large buildings to be demolished. It would be more accurate to refer to them as demolitions if that is what you believe happened, or '<a href="http://www.mujca.com/debunkingreviews.htm">disintegrations</a>' because 'demolition' implies the use of conventional high explosives, which may not have been the case. </p><p style="font-family: arial;">What this vocabulary conveniently ignores, particularly when talking of a collapse in confidence, is the role of propaganda. It was in <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7096845.stm">August 2007</a> that it became clear that the US sub-prime mortgage market 'collapse' was going to affect the global financial system when it was announced that securities back by these mortgages were found in the coffers of everyone from BNP Paribas to the Bank of China. Officially it took until October 2008, well over a year later, for the <a href="http://www.moneynet.co.uk/Personal-Finance-News/Articles/UK-officially-enters-recession/18988717">UK</a> and <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/3287140/America-enters-start-of-recession-causing-shiver-around-rest-of-world.html">US</a> economies to enter a recession. Note also the doublespeak of describing a 'system' as suffering a 'collapse'. Why do systems collapse? Sabotage. For months and months the words 'meltdown' and 'crisis' appeared in every news outlet on a daily basis, financial analysts were given free reign to make catastrophic predictions. Then we saw the destruction of Lehman which was directly <a href="http://howardbealesnewshour.blogspot.com/2009/03/blame-and-misnomers.html">caused</a> by the same banking cartel who have subsequently profited from buying up Lehman's assets for pennies. </p><p style="font-family: arial;">The <a href="http://www.foxbusiness.com/story/markets/industries/finance/does-hate-goldman-sachs/">Goldman Sachs/Fox News</a> response to suggestions that the bank may be deliberately manipulating markets for profit was to label such claims as 'conspiracy theories'. Back in <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2003/jan/15/foreignpolicy.uk">January 2003</a>, shortly before the UK helped invade Iraq, Bilderberg member Tony Blair likewise said that claims that the war was about oil were a 'conspiracy theory'. The phrase is used as a defence by the very people involved in making such plans that should legally and historically be termed conspiracies. If we refer to the Goldman directors, Rupert Murdoch, Blair and so on as a covert aristocracy (or agents thereof) they would sound ridiculous if they responded saying that was just an 'aristocracy theory', yet 'conspiracy' and 'aristocracy' are words of near identical origins. The <a href="http://wordinfo.info/words/index/info/view_unit/2784/?letter=a&page=1&spage=1&s=cracy">suffix</a> '-cracy' or '-cracies' from Greek simply refers to a structure of power or system of governance, hence autocracy, democracy, meritocracy and so on. 'Conspire' from Latin means 'to breath with' (<a href="http://wordinfo.info/words/index/info/view_unit/528/?letter=a&page=1&spage=1&s=con">con</a> <a href="http://www.wordinfo.info/words/index/info/view_unit/2009">spire</a>) and '<a href="http://wordinfo.info/words/index/info/view_unit/193/?letter=a&page=1&spage=1&s=aristo">aristo</a>' from Greek means the 'best' or 'most qualified' hence Aristotle. </p><p style="font-family: arial;">Nonetheless, it doesn't matter how much banks, insurance and energy companies defraud their customers, their actions will not be referred to in the mainstream as a conspiracy, and people rightly calling them such will be labeled as conspiracy theorists. Destructions will be called collapses, carefully maintained systems will be described using organic metaphors and despite having abundant legal machinery with which to attack the criminal cabal, very few people will approach it realistically, because they lack the vocabulary with which to do so.<br></p><p style="font-family: arial;">Despite this, conspiracy theories are quite widely held beliefs, particularly regarding 9/11. A Time magazine article from September 2006 noted:</p><p style="font-family: arial;"><blockquote><span style="font-family:arial;">A Scripps-Howard poll of 1,010 adults last month found that 36% of Americans consider it "very likely" or "somewhat likely" that government officials either allowed the attacks to be carried out or carried out the attacks themselves. Thirty-six percent adds up to a lot of people. This is not a fringe phenomenon. It is a mainstream political reality. - <a href="http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1531304-1,00.html">Time</a></span></blockquote><a href="http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1531304-1,00.html"></a><p><p style="font-family: arial;">The very fact that Time was reporting on this issue without screaming 'conspiracy theory' is a sign of some progress, that regardless of the truth or falsity of any given allegation or interpretation of events, there is room to discuss them as competing possibilities. The Time article does present it as a binary issue, referring to two worlds, one where people belief the 9/11 Commission's version, and another where they believe in a Bush administration conspiracy, which is fallacious. Within the 9/11 Truth movement there is tremendous variety, both in terms of claims as to what really happened and in terms of the quality of the investigation. However, there being room for discussion and debate does not by itself explain the popularity of conspiracy theories, and associated political/historical viewpoints which are incorrectly labeled as conspiracy theories. As with the arrival of the 'conspiracy thriller' genre in the 1970s, there are reasons why this happened. </p><p style="font-family: arial;">For one, the end of the Cold War circa 1990 was also the end of a certain political paradigm, of duelling superpowers with apparently opposed ideologies. What became abundantly clear was that the notion that the USSR (Communism) had lost and the US (Capitalism) had won was at best simplistic and at worst untrue. The promises of the 'free world' turned hollow, and much of the hatred and paranoia whipped up against the great '<a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/definitive-proof-communist-conspiracy">Communist conspiracy</a>' by free world propagandists became introspective, was refocussed on our own society. </p><p style="font-family: arial;">Alongside this was the coming of age of various rules on declassifying papers. The <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirty_year_rule">thirty year rule</a> in the UK, for example, meant that papers from the early days of the Cold War in the 1950s and 60s became available in the 80s and 90s. For earnest researchers this provided abundant confirmation of official deceptions, felonious plots at high levels of governments and so on. Gladio is a good example of this, as people had long suspected governmental/military involvement in various terrorist acts in the Cold War period. This was confirmed by Giulio Andreotti in August 1990, less than a year after the 'collapse' of the Berlin Wall. </p><p style="font-family: arial;">A faction within the aristocracy responded with a new official conspiracy to replace communism - Islamofascism, and new conspirators to replace the USSR - Al Qaeda. That both are horrendous misnomers, if not outright lies, isn't necessarily important. What is important is that people believe in them in huge numbers. They might quibble over quite what Al Qaeda is and quite what the Islamofascists believe but their existence is mostly undisputed. It has the key facets of a conspiracy theory - a secretive band with agents of influence in dozens of countries is trying to take over the world, and yet you will struggle to find a single mainstream article naming it as such. </p><p style="font-family: arial;">So not only is being involved in (domestic) conspiracy perfectly normal, so is believing in some or other conspiracy theory. Regardless of what you believe about 7/7 or 9/11 or 3/11 or Mumbai, chances are you believe in a conspiracy of some sort. A quick glance at the most <a href="http://www.foia.cia.gov/Top25PhrasesMonthly.asp">commonly searched terms</a> for the CIA's online reading room shows that UFOs by far outstrip any other topic. Alien conspiracies are also very popular, particularly in 1990s hit show The X-Files. The release of yet further British Ministry of Defence <a href="http://uk.news.yahoo.com/4/20090817/tuk-ufo-sightings-amazing-new-details-re-dba1618.html">files</a> this week only adds to the conviction, and the number of people who believe in them. </p><p style="font-family: arial;">However, much of the dispute will revolve around the content of the files, whether or not the witnesses actually saw what they claim, what might cause the phenomena seen in the photos and so on. Very little attention will be paid to the fact that the MOD clearly has thousands if not tens of thousands of previously classified files relating to UFOs, dating from the period when the evidence for such entities (particularly extraterrestrial life) was officially denied and ridiculed. Consider this - if it was so ridiculous and scant, why did they classify it in the first place? </p><p style="font-family: arial;">Consider also the testimony presented in this video, from a presentation by The Disclosure Project at the National Press Club in Washington DC in 2001. Think not only about whether the witnesses are reliable and telling the truth, but also whether such a meeting would have been possible a few decades earlier. </p><p style="font-family: arial;"><object height="385" width="480"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/7vyVe-6YdUk&hl=en&fs=1&color1=0xe1600f&color2=0xfebd01"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/7vyVe-6YdUk&hl=en&fs=1&color1=0xe1600f&color2=0xfebd01" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" height="385" width="480"></object></p><br /><div style="clear: both;"></div><br />Talkbouthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14408535183177475747noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5734121862980918017.post-26201495198834168812009-06-24T22:00:00.000-07:002013-10-24T11:51:02.731-07:00
Manufacturing Counterculture
<br /><embed id="VideoPlayback" src="http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docid=-5631882395226827730&hl=en&fs=true" style="width: 500px; height: 405px;" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"><p>Manufacturing Consent is a documentary supposedly about Noam Chomsky's work of the same name, though ironically it functions as little more than an advert for Chomsky, essentially ignoring the book's other author Edward Herman. This is clear from comparing the subtitles of the book (published 1988) and the film (released 1992). The book's subtitle is 'The political economy of the mass media', the film's is 'Noam Chomsky and the mass media'. The man himself is introduced by the description 'the most important intellectual alive' and it continues in a similar vein. </p><p>The point here is that Chomsky is arguably the most important intellectual alive, because he's probably the most famous, the most widely read, and therefore the most influential. Not because he's got the best ideas and arguments, but because films such as this one have propelled him as close to rock star status as an MIT professor could hope to be. However, this means we should treat his work with the utmost caution, not with fawning praise and uncritical coverage, yet the latter is mostly what happens. However, from his philosophical bases to his advocacy of global government Chomsky appears at best a misguided and outmoded fool and at worst a shill of titanic proportions. Whether knowingly or otherwise, Chomsky is part of a dynamic of deception that affects everything from the shoes people wear to which country gets invaded this year. </p><p>Old Noam's background is in linguistics, and he belongs to a school of thought stretching back through the fraud Rene Descartes all the way back to the first writer of the dialectical method, Plato. This is significant, because Descartes willingly <a href="http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl302/philosophers/descartes.html">suppressed</a> his own work at the behest of the Church during the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copernican_Revolution">Copernican revolution</a>, and Plato was part of an aristocratic <a href="http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/symposium.html">culture</a> of knowledge where intelligent young teenage boys were sodomised by older men as part of their apprenticeship. Neither were men of great fidelity or credibility. </p><p>Descartes committed what I consider the greatest intellectual hoax of all time, and it has become the most quoted bit of philosophy of all time. This is '<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cogito_ergo_sum">cogito ergo sum</a>', in essence 'I think therefore I am'. The argument in Rene's <a href="http://www.wright.edu/cola/descartes/">Meditations</a> is essentially that one can doubt pretty much anything, except that oneself much exist, in order to be doubting the other stuff. 'I think, therefore I am', because I must exist in order to think. At first glance it seems a plausible argument, but it is an ideological confidence trick that makes <a href="http://howardbealesnewshour.blogspot.com/2008/12/being-late-to-end-of-history.html">Fukuyama</a> seem like a parlour game. The most straightforward fallacy is that the argument is circular: '<strong>I</strong> think, therefore I am'. Naturally, if you assume from the off that it is 'I' that is thinking, or that there has to be a 'I' that thinks at all, then you're going to conclude that this thing exists, because without it you're left with a tautology 'If I exist then I exist'. </p><p>Friedrich Nietzsche put forth essentially this sort of criticism in his most famous text Beyond Good and Evil, which is now the name of a popular <a href="http://www.beyondgoodevil.com/">computer game</a> franchise. </p><blockquote><p>There are still harmless self-observers who believe that there are "immediate certainties"; for instance, "I think," or as the superstition of Schopenhauer puts it, "I will"; as though cognition here got hold of its object purely and simply as "the thing in itself," without any falsification taking place either on the part of the subject or the object. I would repeat it, however, a hundred times, that "immediate certainty," as well as "absolute knowledge" and the "thing in itself," involve a CONTRADICTIO IN ADJECTO; we really ought to free ourselves from the misleading significance of words! The people on their part may think that cognition is knowing all about things, but the philosopher must say to himself: "<strong>When I analyze the process that is expressed in the sentence, 'I think,' I find a whole series of daring assertions, the argumentative proof of which would be difficult, perhaps impossible: for instance, that it is _I_ who think, that there must necessarily be something that thinks, that thinking is an activity and operation on the part of a being who is thought of as a cause, that there is an 'ego,' and finally, that it is already determined what is to be designated by thinking--that I KNOW what thinking is</strong>. For if I had not already decided within myself what it is, by what standard could I determine whether that which is just happening is not perhaps 'willing' or 'feeling'? In short, the assertion 'I think,' assumes that I COMPARE my state at the present moment with other states of myself which I know, in order to determine what it is; on account of this retrospective connection with further 'knowledge,' it has, at any rate, no immediate certainty for me."--In place of the "immediate certainty" in which the people may believe in the special case, the philosopher thus finds a series of metaphysical questions presented to him, veritable conscience questions of the intellect, to wit: "Whence did I get the notion of 'thinking'? Why do I believe in cause and effect? What gives me the right to speak of an 'ego,' and even of an 'ego' as cause, and finally of an 'ego' as cause of thought?" He who ventures to answer these metaphysical questions at once by an appeal to a sort of INTUITIVE perception. - <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/catalog/world/readfile?fk_files=4905&pageno=17">Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil</a></p></blockquote><p>While Nietzsche calls believers in such Cartesian horseshit 'harmless observers' it has become clear that he's being too kind (or sarcastic). The assumption of one's own existence, of individual ego as the origin of thought, will, desire has become the dominating belief of the Western world in the 20th century, and on into the 21st. While conformity has in some ways never been more prevalent, the grand irony is that the thing to which the greatest number of people conform is this particular conception of individuality as origin. People cling to their mass produced cultural identities claiming to have chosen them for themselves. If this genuinely were true then the advertising industry would not be worth nearly <a href="http://www.iabuk.net/en/1/0nlineadspendup17percentin2008010409.mxs">20 billion pounds</a> in the UK alone. </p><p>So why is this such a tremendous hoax? For two reasons: firstly, because in allowing this fallacious presumptuous ideology to become dogma philosophy has become about the analysis of internal experience, about chipping away at words and creating ever complex ways of trying to describe the indescribable. All this time we should have been focussing on our role in the world, how we interact and develop as a result of that interaction, instead of some stupid reinvention of the notion of the eternal soul. Secondly, by taking this idea as the explanation for human behaviour people become intensely selfish, introspective and thus spiritually stagnant. The rise of psychoanalysis and psychotherapy has contributed to this immensely, as Cartesianism spread throughout the academy and spawned its own discipline. A sense of isolation followed, with people increasingly seeing others as competitors, or as means to an end for an aim they see as theirs alone. Frightened, distrustful, needy - the perfect citizen. </p><p>Chomsky does nothing to alleviate this, because as part of the same academy he cannot challenge what is so inherent to the intellectual system. In the video above he talks of a Cartesian 'common sense', saying that people just talking to each other demonstrates an inherent creativity that separates us from all other animals. As a critical writer on the left old Noam should be familiar with the work of George Orwell, in particular his essay <a href="http://www.orwell.ru/library/essays/politics/english/e_polit">Politics and the English Language</a>, since Noam is a political writer with a background in linguistics. There, Orwell explains how imprecise use of language encourages imprecise thought, so instead of being masters of language, using it in the way most useful to our needs, it is a means of encouraging anodyne, repetitive thinking and using people's mouths as just another means of spreading propaganda.</p><blockquote>But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought. A bad usage can spread by tradition and imitation even among people who should and do know better. The debased language that I have been discussing is in some ways very convenient. Phrases like a not unjustifiable assumption, leaves much to be desired, would serve no good purpose, a consideration which we should do well to bear in mind, are a continuous temptation, a packet of aspirins always at one's elbow. - <a href="http://www.orwell.ru/library/essays/politics/english/e_polit">Orwell, Politics and the English Language</a></blockquote><p>Noam is someone who should, and probably does, know better. However, his answer of praising '<a href="http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2psqy_pulp-common-people_music">common people</a>' is more about cultivating popularity than it is about a realistic explanation of the philosophical and political relevance of language. </p><p>The film briefly explains Chomsky's contribution to linguistics, and while it flatteringly tries to portray the notion of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_grammar">Universal Grammar</a> as revolutionary it is little more than a reworking of Plato's notion of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Innatism">innate ideas</a>, that the mind has inherent structures common to all people which enable them to learn language. As Noam argues, 'if you took a Japanese child and brought it up in Boston it would grow up speaking Boston English, if you took my child and brought it up in Japan it would grow up speaking Japanese' and therefore it 'logically follows' that there is a structure common to all languages that 'flows from' an inherent structure in all human minds. Of course, Chimpsky is assuming that one can treat languages (and for that matter human minds) as distinct, fixed entities, because otherwise one literally couldn't make the argument that he's making. As such, there are implicit proposition in his argument and his claim that it 'logically follows' is nothing more than arrogant bluster. Put another way, if one defines language as an activity rather than a structured entity then there's no need to confine oneself to a discussion about inherent structures in the mind. Besides which there are rather obvious structural difference between alphabetic languages such as modern (or 'Boston') English and idiogrammatic languages like Chinese, as <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=E-fL65164VgC&pg=PA58&lpg=PA58">Derrida</a> discussed in detail. </p><p>This particular intellectual debate reached something of a pinnacle in 1971 in a recorded live <a href="http://www.megaupload.com/?d=ENSV0HYM">debate</a> between Noam Chomsky and poststructuralist Michel Foucault, a man well versed in the work of anti-Cartesians such as Nietzsche. Foucault consistently pointed out the assumptions Chomsky was making and rephrased a number of his arguments more accurately and acutely. The whole debate was broadcast on Dutch TV, and you can watch a telling extract below:</p><embed id="VideoPlayback" src="http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docid=-1634494870703391080&hl=en&fs=true" style="width: 400px; height: 326px;" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"><p>Foucault explains how Chomsky's narrative of liberation is based in the very social mechanisms that he says he is seeking to overthrow, and that he is using concepts derived from a particular philosophical tradition which itself has much to answer for in the formation of the institutions that should be overthrown, or at least radically altered. As radical as Chomsky might seem in the stuffy corridors of MIT, or in what remains of the progressive Left in America, sat alongside Foucault he comes across as conservative. In terms of being able to critically respond to the models of progressives like Chomsky, a lot depends on one's awareness of other possible ways of looking at the world. Despite being a self-proclaimed anarchist Noam goes on in Manufacturing Consent to state that the 'totalitarian society' that existed in the US during World War 2 'was justifiable due to the wartime conditions'. For all his discussion about inalienable rights, an inherent human need for creative work and the merits of libertarianism when it comes down to it Noam is happy to see fascism fighting against fascism. </p><p>Why is this important? Primarily because Noam is so famous and so widely read, and to a great many people he represents the alternative political perspective. In talking about propaganda in the way he does (<a href="http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Herman%20/Manufac_Consent_Prop_Model.html">five filters</a> and all) he encourages a specific view of it and way of analysing it. The things Chomsky doesn't talk about (false flag terrorism, the creation of money as debt, secret societies and so forth) are widely ignored, or even ridiculed, by those who consider themselves radical and alternative. Control of the mainstream is a given in any system of political propaganda, but control of the fringe is if anything more important, because it enables the distraction and diversion of decent, intelligent people who might otherwise prove difficult for the ruling class. </p><p>One of the more notorious examples of this is the FBI's <a href="http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3729458480013375211">COINTELPRO</a> program, formally run from 1956 to 1971. They targeted and <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=b0kCcHIDf88C&pg=PA48">infiltrated</a> radical groups and either sought to destroy or discredit them or if necessary take out their leadership. Nearly a year before the much-disputed assassination of Martin Luther King FBI director J Edgar Hoover wrote:</p><blockquote>The purpose of this new counterintelligence endeavor is to expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit, or otherwise neutralize the activities of black nationalist hate-type organizations and groupings, their leadership, spokesmen, membership, and supporters, and to counter their propensity for violence and civil disorder. - <a href="http://whatreallyhappened.com/RANCHO/POLITICS/COINTELPRO/COINTELPRO-FBI.docs.html">Hoover memo, August 1967</a></blockquote>Likewise, according to Vincenzo Vinciguerra supposed neo-nazi terrorist group Ordine Nuovo had no <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWiqYqJTP08">political ideology</a>, and were nothing more than an instrument of 'parallel' networks maintained by the intelligence and security services. during the Mossadegh coup in <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2000/04/16/world/secrets-history-cia-iran-special-report-plot-convulsed-iran-53-79.html">Iran in 1953</a> the CIA paid protestors to cause trouble on the streets, adding to the tension and making it appear like a popular insurrection from within. The following year during operation PB/Fortune, the CIA's plan to get rid of Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala veteran covert operative and Watergate burglar E Howard Hunt was the head of propaganda for the mission. Echoing what Orwell said about language, in his memoir he wrote that the mainstay of the psychological warfare part of the operation was a guerilla radio broadcast. Hunt wrote:<blockquote>Relatively few Guatemalans owned a radio at the time, but it was considered to be an authoritative source of information, and we knew that wherever interested ears tuned in, gossiping lips would soon follow, spreading the message. - <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=YUA9AAAACAAJ">Hunt, American Spy p74</a></blockquote><p>Thousands of anti-communist pamphlets were dropped in towns, an Archbishop was persuaded to write a letter urging the people to rise up against the allegedly communist leadership, housewives were even taught to riot in the street, banging pots and pans in protest. Students were coerced into a widespread graffiti campaign, and fake death notices about the president were sent out to local newspapers to disrupt the agrarian community from which Arbenz was given so much support. Under the guise once again of an internal revolution, the CIA ousted a leader who was trying to help peasants, and radical students groups aided the rise to power of the military dictator Castillo Armas. </p><p><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://i43.tinypic.com/2yv18c6.jpg" alt="" border="0">One man fighting in Guatemala on Arbenz's side was Ernesto 'Che' Guevara, a communist revolutionary who would lead the CIA on a chase halfway around the world until his assassination in 1967. Hunt commented that letting Che leave Guatemala after Arbenz had been ousted was the greatest regret of his professional career, however the <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7028598.stm">image</a> of Guevara's face, typically reproduced black on red, dominates a huge range of mass produced products, initially in the counterculture but now in the mainstream.<br></p><p><p><p><br></p><p><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 600px; height: 300px;" src="http://i43.tinypic.com/t62xon.jpg" alt="" border="0"></p><p>Along near identical lines, when punk first because popular in the mid to late 70s certain groups explicitly identified themselves with the symbols of communism, notably lead singer of The Clash Joe Strummer, pictured wearing a Brigade Rosse/Red Army Faction t-shirt. </p><p><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 333px; height: 500px;" src="http://i44.tinypic.com/21jsj0x.jpg" alt="" border="0"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 345px; height: 278px;" src="http://i43.tinypic.com/2z6chaf.jpg" alt="" border="0">These symbols, though typically of the Soviet Union rather than militant groups, became mainstream fashion in the 1990s, with even sportswear giant Addidas getting in on the action. Much like grunge, then into goth/metal, at least in the UK these were the accepted symbols of the youth who wants to look their best while sticking it to 'the system'. What this illustrates is not just how the fringe often becomes the mainstream, but how the very symbols of the old enemy are now the carefully branded, pre-packaged alternative for those who want to conform to non-conformity. </p><p>What it also illustrates is just how easily people can be made to see the very images and emblems of totalitarian regimes as a fashion choice, and therefore an expression of their ego. So much for Chomsky's common sense when you see 'freethinking' adolescents volunteering their bodies as adverts for the symbology of control, in short, when they are so carefully indoctrinated that they see wearing a communist uniform as their own choice. My advice is to get ahead of the game - get a Kosovo Liberation Army uniform and t-shirt with Bin Laden's face on.</p><p>Curiously, when Prince Harry wore a <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4170083.stm">Nazi armband</a> to a friend's party there was enough controversy that an official apology was issued. However, while Nazism is still a little too close to home, Stalin and Mao appear on t-shirts in much the same way Barack Obama does, as is wonderfully satirised at the start of an episode of <a href="http://www.guba.com/watch/2000971343">Peep Show</a>. One particular tale sums up just how easily capitalism and communism, the corporate and state machinery, combine and how their symbols have become 'superbrands', in the sense used by Naomi Klein in <a href="http://www.naomiklein.org/no-logo">No Logo</a>. </p><p>As documented by Anthony Sutton, the Caterpillar Tractor Company was critically involved in a transfer of technology to the Soviet Union which enabled them to develop their tanks. They were involved in the <a href="http://www.reformed-theology.org/html/books/best_enemy/chapter_13.htm#politics%20of%20greed">first</a> five year plan in 1930 and the <a href="http://www.blogger.com/'http://www.reformed-theology.org/html/books/best_enemy/chapter_12.htm#chelyabinsk">Chelyabinsk</a> plant was started in the same year. It would end up producing tractors that were virtually identical to Caterpillar models, and from there adapted the technology for use in <a href="http://www.reformed-theology.org/html/books/best_enemy/chapter_12.htm">tanks</a>. In <a href="http://www.reformed-theology.org/html/books/best_enemy/chapter_13.htm#politics%20of%20greed">1980</a> they were still involved, through the <a href="http://reformed-theology.org/html/books/best_enemy/chapter_09.htm">Russia No. 6</a> project which built a huge pipeline to get Siberian gas to the Western European market. In 1986 the company <a href="http://www.cat.com/corporate-overview/history">changed its name</a> to Caterpillar Inc. and by the 1990s had developed into a fashion label brand. Though they initially broke into the market with rugged-looking footwear, presumably so middle class suburbanites could pretend they worked on oil rigs, they have expanded into a huge <a href="http://www.shoebuy.com/caterpillar-fashion-shoes.htm">range</a> of shoes aimed at an array of markets. They even have their own <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxRi5pST-Os">fashion shows</a>. </p><p>The Rolling Stones, fronted by middle class boys from Kent, with a lead singer who studied business courses at the LSE, were identified as devilish, rebellious and thus icons of 60s counterculture. However, the most satanic thing Mick Jagger ever did was draw a crude image of a goat on his chest which he <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zuTiTfbfy7Q">revealed</a> while performing 'Sympathy for the Devil' at the Rock and Roll Circus in 1968. The Stones have appeared on movie soundtracks for decades, even having a film named after <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfcisnVHtA0">one</a> of their songs, and were the first band to embark on a corporate sponsored stadium rock tour in the 1980s. By 1997 Tommy Hilfiger had taken over from Jovan (a perfume company) and had the rights to clothe not only Mick Jagger but also the support act Sheryl Crow. </p><p>From protest movements to pop music the inside (the mainstream) and the outside (the fringe) are largely defined, mediated and regulated by the same people and institutions. Though corporate branding has taken over much of the propagandist role previously adopted by intelligence services the outcoe is much the same. Whether intentionally or not, Chomsky participates in this by defining the alternative to mainstream political discussion, but when the alternative to arch-globalists is a man who <a href="http://www.venusproject.com/ethics_in_action/Chomsky_A_Controlled_Asset.html">advocates</a> global government it's not surprising to see a backlash of sincere <a href="http://educate-yourself.org/cn/noamchomskyindex.shtml">criticism</a>. </p><blockquote>A study of Chomsky's stands on particularly dreadful actions such as JFK's assassination, 9/11, and with regard to the roles of the CIA and FBI, shows Chomsky to be a de facto defender of the status quo's most egregious outrages and their covert agency engines. He conducts his de facto defence of the Empire he appears to oppose through applying the very propaganda methods against which he has warned, including use of the derogatory phrase "conspiracy theorist," which in one context he has characterized as "something people say when they don't want you to think about what's really going on."<br><br> His recommendation that people practice "intellectual self-defence" is well taken. But how many could dream the person warning you is one of the most perilous against whom you'll need to defend yourself? That he is the fire marshal who wires your house to burn down, the lifeguard who drowns you, the doctor with the disarming bedside manner who administers a fatal injection? If Noam Chomsky did not exist, the diaboligarchy would have to invent him. To the New World Order he is worth 50 armoured division. - <a href="http://www.geocities.com/agent_noam_chomsky/chomsky3.htm">Barrie Zwicker, Towers of Deception</a></blockquote><p>Zwicker, a Canadian journalist and media critic, has written extensively on 'conspiracy theories' and the role of not only mainstream but also more fringe, progressive media in refusing to discuss matters of critical importance. To finish this time here's one example of his work that is widely referenced and admired - The Great Conspiracy: The 9/11 News Special You Never Saw.</p><embed id="VideoPlayback" src="http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docid=-3221571017565436923&hl=en&fs=true" style="width: 400px; height: 326px;" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"><br /><div style="clear: both;"></div><br />Talkbouthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14408535183177475747noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5734121862980918017.post-83535531286614057562009-05-30T22:00:00.000-07:002013-10-24T11:51:02.720-07:00
Please sir, I want some more
<br /><p><object height="344" width="425"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/hEQDllvuy1I&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" height="344" width="425"></object></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">Charles Dickens' novel Oliver Twist, published in the late 1830s, has been adapted for the screen and TV several times, the above comes from the 1960s musical 'Oliver'. It tells the story of a young boy living in poverty in industrial Britain. The eponymous hero was born into a workhouse, a provision of the 1834 Poor Law (Amendment) Act. The 1830s was supposedly a time of progressive reform by the British Whig government, but that is as misleading as viewing today's liberal reforms in the same light. </span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">1832 saw the </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1832_Reform_Act"><span style="font-family:arial;">'Great' Reform Act</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> which promised to extend voting rights and clean up the electoral system. In truth the franchise was extended to over 600,000 (from a population of around 14 million) and they cleaned out the 'rotten boroughs' of the old system. The rotten boroughs were truly incredible: at the time England and Wales were divided in counties and boroughs, both of which returned (elected) members to parliament. However, there was tremendous inconsistency in the number eligible to vote in each constituency - Yorkshire (a county) had more than 20,000 voters, Westminster (a borough) more than 12,000 but they elected two members to the House of Commons just as did </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunwich_%28UK_Parliament_constituency%29"><span style="font-family:arial;">Dunwich</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> (population 232, voting population of around 30) and </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gatton_%28UK_Parliament_constituency%29"><span style="font-family:arial;">Gatton</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> (population 146, voting population 7). As such, the local baron would tend to in effect elect himself to one of the two seats available, and sell the other to another rich bastard. Just as it is only fair to say it was a step forward for democracy to eliminate these rotten boroughs it is only fair to point out it was ridiculous that it took until the 1830s to do this. </span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">The reality of 'Great' Reform Act was that it did little to amend the functioning of Parliament. This was shown by the persistence over the following decade and a half of a movement known as Chartism, which originated in the London Working Men's Association. They came up with six points of reform, most of which were eventually adopted in later legislation:</span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;"></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-family:arial;">THE SIX POINTS OF THE CHARTER </span><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span><span style="font-family:arial;">1. A vote for every man twenty one years of age, of sound mind, and not undergoing punishment for crime. </span><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span><span style="font-family:arial;">2. The ballot —To protect the elector in the exercise of his vote. </span><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span><span style="font-family:arial;">3. No property qualification for members of Parliament—thus enabling the constituencies to return the man of their choice, be he rich or poor. </span><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span><span style="font-family:arial;">4. Payment of members, thus enabling an honest tradesman, working man, or other person, to serve a constituency, when taken from his business to attend to the interests of the country. </span><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span><span style="font-family:arial;">5. Equal constituencies securing the same amount of representation for the same number of electors,--instead of allowing small constituencies to swamp the votes of larger ones. </span><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span><span style="font-family:arial;">6. Annual Parliaments, thus presenting the most effectual check to bribery and intimidation, since though a constituency might be bought once in seven years (even with the ballot), no purse could buy a constituency (under a system of universal suffrage) in each ensuing twelvemonth; and since members, when elected for a year only, would not be able to defy and betray their constituents as now. - </span><a href="http://www.chartists.net/The-six-points.htm"><span style="font-family:arial;">Chartists.net</span></a></blockquote><a href="http://www.chartists.net/The-six-points.htm"><span style="font-family:arial;"></span></a><p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">Interestingly, not even the Chartists advocated female suffrage and it took almost a century after the 'Great' Reform Act for women to be granted the right to vote, just as it took decades to legislate for the tenuous masquerade of democracy we enjoy in Britain today. </span><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">1833 saw the passing of a long overdue piece of legislation - the </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_Abolition_Act_1833"><span style="font-family:arial;">Slavery Abolition Act</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">. While the trade in slaves had technically been abolished by the </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slave_Trade_Act_1807"><span style="font-family:arial;">1807 Act</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">, slavery itself was allowed to continue perfectly legally. This 'anomaly' was cleared up by the 1833 Act, but only freed slaves under the age of six. Older slaves were redesignated '</span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_Abolition_Act_1833#Main_points_of_the_Act"><span style="font-family:arial;">apprentices</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">' and had to work a given term to gain their freedom. Compensation to around 40,000 slave owners ran to </span><a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=5j-w8NabncUC&pg=PA114"><span style="font-family:arial;">£20 million</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">, a hell of a lot of money in those days, when the total government budget for the year was only </span><a href="http://www.ukpublicspending.co.uk/index.php?year=1835"><span style="font-family:arial;">£51 million</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">. Public debt was over </span><a href="http://www.ukpublicspending.co.uk/uk_year1833_0.html#ukgs302G0"><span style="font-family:arial;">£780 million</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">, the country effectively bankrupted by the </span><a href="http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=10855"><span style="font-family:arial;">Rothschild</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> influence on the Bank of England. </span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">This presented a significant economic problem for the British government, and therefore the British Empire. To keep costs down, they exempted from the Abolition Act all territories under control of the </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_India_Company"><span style="font-family:arial;">East India company</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">, a true prototype for the </span><a href="http://www.oecdobserver.org/news/fullstory.php/aid/539/The_politics_of_globalisation_circa_1773.html"><span style="font-family:arial;">corporatocracy</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">. Much like Halliburton in today's Iraq, the East India Company was an elite conglomerate of commercial interests who monopolised monopolised the bounty offered by what we now just call India. Locals were colonised, authorities bribed and coerced, tax revenues siphened out of the country, private armies hired to quell those who dared oppose corporate rule: it really hasn't changed that much in two centuries. </span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">However, at the same time as allowing slavery to continue in India, the UK government divested the East India Company of its commercial operations when they renewed its charter in 1833. The governmental operations (military provision and so on) continued, retaining colonial control but trade with India was now open to any merchant with the capacity to get ships halfway round the world. This allowed for a greater regulation of </span><a href="http://www.indohistory.com/renewal_of_company%27s_charter.html"><span style="font-family:arial;">Home Charges</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">, whereby the Indians paid for the colonial authority which allowed the continuation of slavery. By centralising the authority responsible for governing India it became easier to levy these charges. As commercial exploitation increased, so did the power of the colonial government. </span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">While this did enable an increase in trade which no doubt contributed to the sustained economic growth of industrial Britain this didn't solve the government's economic problems. In 1834 they passed the Poor Law (Amendment) Act, which reduced expenditure on the domestic poor. Under prior schemes such as the </span><a href="http://www.historyhome.co.uk/peel/poorlaw/speen.htm"><span style="font-family:arial;">Speenhamland system</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">, labourers suffering from spiking food prices would have their wages topped up based on current bread prices. According to the </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Commission_into_the_Operation_of_the_Poor_Laws_1832"><span style="font-family:arial;">Royal Commission</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> this undermined the wages of slightly wealthier workers who didn't qualify for relief, and encouraged employers to pay low wages. Similarly, Malthusians on the Commission argued that such relief only encouraged poor families to have more children, thus exarcerbating the problem. </span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">So the Act established a National Commission who oversaw the running of workhouses, essentially labour camps for the poor. Families were separated, often as soon as they entered the workhouse. The workhouses themselves were designed on the principle of '</span><a href="http://dictionary.babylon.com/Less-eligibility"><span style="font-family:arial;">less eligibility</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">', where conditions for those inside were worse than that of the lowest paid labourer on the outside. This aimed to discourage any but the most desperate of people from entering the workhouse. One notable man who spent some of his youth in such an institution was </span><a href="http://www.shadyoldlady.com/location.php?loc=282"><span style="font-family:arial;">Charles Chaplin</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> and Oliver Twist was in part written as a rejection and protest against the Poor Law system.</span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">One somewhat-overlooked aspect to both the </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1832_Royal_Commission_into_the_Operation_of_the_Poor_Laws#Report_recommendations"><span style="font-family:arial;">recommendations</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> of the Royal Commission set up to study the operation of the Poor Laws, and the </span><a href="http://www.victorianweb.org/history/poorlaw/plaatext.html"><span style="font-family:arial;">1834 Act</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> itself, is the principle of segregating 'different types of paupers'. The old would be separated from the young, able bodied men separated from able bodied women, the infirm and disabled somewhere else. Indeed, while the Poor Law Commission had no authority to build new workhouses it did have far-reaching powers to strictly control conditions within existing ones. What people ate and wore, as well as moral standards (</span><a href="http://dickens.ucsc.edu/OMF/spencer.html"><span style="font-family:arial;">unmarried mothers</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> were treated particularly badly) were all be dictated by the Commission. While the British are credited with creating </span><a href="http://wiki.answers.com/Q/When_were_concentration_camps_created"><span style="font-family:arial;">concentration camps</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> in South Africa at the end of the 19th century the philosophy that brought them about was clearly popular some 70 years prior when dealing with the domestic poor. </span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">Aside from Malthus and utilitarians like Jeremy Bentham, who has propagated such ideas? According to conspiratorial histories of Freemasonry, very similar ideas are to be found among the Illuminati, a Bavarian cult founded by Adam Weishaupt, an agent of Amschel Mayer Rothschild, which took control of the international freemasonic movement in the late 18th century. Detailed in the highly controversial book </span><a href="http://www.yamaguchy.netfirms.com/7897401/carr/pawns_03.html"><span style="font-family:arial;">Pawns in the Game</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> by William Guy Carr is an alleged meeting in Frankfurt in 1773 attended by AM Rothschild and a dozen other wealthy and powerful men. Rothschild apparently outlined a 25 point plan by which they could take over the world.</span></p><p><object height="344" width="425"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/DIaQKnzQzj4&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" height="344" width="425"></object></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;"></span></p><blockquote><p><span style="font-family:arial;">14. He next explained the necessity of having their ‘Agentur’ always come out into the open, and appear on the scene, when conditions had reached their lowest ebb, and </span><strong><span style="font-family:arial;">the masses had been subjugated by means of want and terror</span></strong><span style="font-family:arial;">. He pointed out that when it was time to restore order they should do it in such a way that the victims would believe they had been the prey of criminals and irresponsibles. He said “By executing the criminals and lunatics after they have carried out our preconceived ‘reign of terror’, </span><strong><span style="font-family:arial;">we can make ourselves appear as the saviours of the oppressed</span></strong><span style="font-family:arial;">, and the champions of the workers.” The speaker then added “We are interested in just the opposite ... in the diminution, the killing out of the Goyim."</span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">15. He next explained how </span><strong><span style="font-family:arial;">industrial depressions and financial panics could be brought about</span></strong><span style="font-family:arial;"> and used to serve their purpose saying “Enforced unemployment and hunger, imposed on the masses because of </span><strong><span style="font-family:arial;">the power we have to create shortages of food, will create the right of Capital to rule more surely</span></strong><span style="font-family:arial;"> than it was given to the real aristocracy, and by the legal authority of Kings.” He claimed that by having their agentur control the ‘Mob’, the ‘Mob’ could then be used to wipe out all who dared to stand in their way. - </span><a href="http://www.yamaguchy.netfirms.com/7897401/carr/pawns_03.html"><span style="font-family:arial;">Pawns in the Game</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> </span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;"></span></p></blockquote><p><span style="font-family:arial;">Regardless of whether Amschel Rothschild every actually called this meeting and said these things, it is an apt explanation of how such ideas can be part of a framework of control. Despite much vaunted progress for democracy and the poor, it appears the same philosophy is applied to the poor of numerous countries in the world. </span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">Appropriately, this overarching policy comes with a crisis attached, the </span><a href="http://www.google.com/search?client=opera&rls=en&q=food+crisis"><span style="font-family:arial;">food crisis</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">. In some respects, it is very real, far more so than terrorism or single motherhood or global warming. An average of 24,000 people die every day from hunger or hunger related diseases and the UN reported in </span><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/dec/10/hunger-population-un-food-environment"><span style="font-family:arial;">December 2008</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> that around a billion people now suffer from starvation. These numbers had been </span><a href="http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1309/is_3_38/ai_86062268/"><span style="font-family:arial;">heading</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> in the right direction (slowly) until the 'global financial crisis'. As </span><a href="http://www.peopleandplanet.net/doc.php?id=341&section=3"><span style="font-family:arial;">this peopleandplanet article</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> notes, this isn't about the amount of food available - while population doubled over the last half century, food production tripled and life expectancy increased significantly. It is a </span><a href="http://www.citizeneconomists.com/blogs/2008/08/01/we-grow-enough-food-to-feed-everyone-in-this-world-so-why-dont-we-part-1/"><span style="font-family:arial;">political</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> and </span><a href="http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=cGgeojAN8JcC&pg=PA33"><span style="font-family:arial;">economic</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> decision to let these people starve. </span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">The World Bank, run by a member of the Bilderberg Group, is doing its best to appear to be the 'saviour of the oppressed'. </span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;"></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-family:arial;">"In London, Washington, and Paris people talk of bonuses or no bonuses. In parts of Africa, South Asia, and Latin America, the struggle is for food or no food," Zoellick said...</span><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br></span><span style="font-family:arial;">..."If leaders are serious about creating new global responsibilities or governance, let them start by modernising multilateralism to empower the WTO, the IMF, and the World Bank Group to monitor national policies," Zoellick said. "Bringing sunlight to national decision-making would contribute to transparency, accountability, and consistency across national policies." - </span><a href="http://www.thefinancialexpress-bd.com/search_index.php?page=detail_news&news_id=62661"><span style="font-family:arial;">Financial Express</span></a></blockquote><a href="http://www.thefinancialexpress-bd.com/search_index.php?page=detail_news&news_id=62661"><span style="font-family:arial;"></span></a><p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">So what have the UN and World Bank done to alleviate the food crisis? So far, absolutely nothing to prevent or regulate the </span><a href="http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20080428/un_food_080428/20080428?hub=World"><span style="font-family:arial;">speculation</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> driving the spikes in prices. Derivatives traders can make fortunes betting on the price of wheat or sugar and in doing so can drive prices up to the point that tens of millions more people can no longer afford to eat enough. The UN </span><a href="http://www.alertnet.org/db/an_art/20316/2009/02/26-135304-1.htm"><span style="font-family:arial;">launched</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> a National Basic Food Prices Data and Analysis tool. A self-styled '</span><a href="http://www.fao.org/giews/pricetool/"><span style="font-family:arial;">early warning system</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">' it aims to make information on food prices and markets more accessible, which will only encourage speculation. </span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">The World Bank have seen this as business as usual, making $2 billion available to countries trying to battle the crisis. The countries in question:</span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;"></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-family:arial;">GFRP is disbursing funds to Afghanistan ($8 million), Bangladesh ($130 million), Benin ($9 million), Burundi ($10 million), Central African Republic ($7 million), Djibouti ($5 million), Ethiopia ($275 million), Guinea ($10 million), Guinea-Bissau ($5 million), Haiti ($10 million), Honduras ($10 million), Kenya ($50 million, $5 million), Kyrgyz ($10 million), Laos ($3 million), Liberia ($10 million), Madagascar ($10 million, $12 million), Mali ($5 million), Moldova ($7 million), Mozambique ($20 million), Nicaragua ($7 million), Nepal ($36 million), Niger ($7 million), Philippines ($200 million), Rwanda ($10 million), Sierra Leone ($7 million), Somalia ($7 million), Southern Sudan ($5 million), Tajikistan ($9 million), Togo ($7 million), Yemen ($10 million), and West Bank and Gaza ($5 million). - </span><a href="http://www.worldbank.org/html/extdr/foodprices/bankinitiatives.htm"><span style="font-family:arial;">World Bank</span></a></blockquote><a href="http://www.worldbank.org/html/extdr/foodprices/bankinitiatives.htm"><span style="font-family:arial;"></span></a><p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">Though there are other countries borrowing money from this scheme, this list should show you that these are places which despite an awful history with debt have no choice, other than watching their people starve and having to explain why they didn't take the money. However, by creating this money as debt we perpetuate the inflation which means these countries can never even catch up with the prices of today, let alone get ahead of the prices tomorrow. We also keep these countries beholden to a system which has no intention of letting them develop economic independence, as Zoellick's comments make clear. By making debt and aid a policy we ensure continued control over the colonies and a monopoly on their resources, just as the East India Company did in centuries past. </span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">Then there's </span><a href="http://www.gene.ch/genpost/1999/Jul-Dec/msg00004.html"><span style="font-family:arial;">genetically modified crops</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">, a subject where much of the controversy surrounds a giant company, Monsanto, apparently </span><a href="http://www.dailypaul.com/node/94811"><span style="font-family:arial;">owned</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> by the Rockefellers. It's former Chairman and CEO Robert Shapiro attended the 1999 </span><a href="http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=17214"><span style="font-family:arial;">Bilderberg</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> meeting. In the months prior to the club meeting in November, Monsanto and the Rockefeller Foundation staged a </span><a href="http://www.politicalfriendster.com/showConnection.php?id1=238&id2=2472"><span style="font-family:arial;">PR exercise</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> to deflect attention away from a potentially devastating technology - so called 'terminator' seeds. In June 1999, </span><a href="http://www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?item=gm-115"><span style="font-family:arial;">Dr Gordon Conway</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">, president of the Rockefeller Foundation, gave a speech to the Monsanto directors urging them not to take up terminator technology. By October, Shapiro had publically announced that Monsanto would not 'commercialise' the seeds. </span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">However, this didn't stop Monsanto from making third world farmers sign </span><a href="http://www.law.northwestern.edu/journals/njtip/v3/n2/4//index.htm#IDAP2QWB"><span style="font-family:arial;">contracts</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> promising not to save seeds from their GM crops, effectively ensuring the same economic effect - that farmers have to buy new seeds every year. This sort of policy has the backing of the US Congress, who in </span><a href="http://www.thedailygreen.com/environmental-news/latest/genetically-modified-47122604"><span style="font-family:arial;">2007</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> endorsed a deal by the USDA where they are using public money to subsidise the agricultural insurance of farmers who plant GM crops. </span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">The brutal impact of these policies is already being seen, and India is again one of the battlegrounds. In autumn </span><a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1082559/The-GM-genocide-Thousands-Indian-farmers-committing-suicide-using-genetically-modified-crops.html"><span style="font-family:arial;">2008</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> it was widely reported that up to 200,000 farmers in India had committed suicide due to crop failure. The GM companies like Monsanto had moved in and convinced the farmers that if they bought the seeds they'd see harvests like never before, prompting the farmers to take out large loans to purchase the technology. When the crops failed the farmers were not only left with little or nothing to sell, but huge unrepayable debts. The farmers weren't even told that the GM seeds required twice as much water. Perhaps the most brutal aspect of this is that even the UN said in </span><a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/organic-farming-could-feed-africa-968641.html"><span style="font-family:arial;">October</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> that organic farming is probably the best option for farmers in developing countries. </span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">It seems that scarcity (</span><a href="http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=3704"><span style="font-family:arial;">both real and artificial</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">) has been generated so that the masses, the food producers in the developing world, are forced into accepting economic and technological systems of control. If they haven't planned this then it's gone remarkably well, shoring up an elite system where </span><a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6211250.stm"><span style="font-family:arial;">2% of the population own half of the world's wealth</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">. Howevever, they haven't stopped there. In Svalbard, a desolate rock in the Arctic Ocean, there is a 'doomsday seed vault' supposedly set up to preserve as many seed varieties as possible against threats to biodiversity. Behind blast-proof steel reinforced concrete walls sit </span><a href="http://www.naturalnews.com/022829.html"><span style="font-family:arial;">genebanks</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> containing millions of seed varieties. Essentially unmanned, it is nothing other than a private military installation.</span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">Who has largely funded this project? The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, known depopulation enthusiasts, the Rockefeller Foundation, Monsanto, and European biotech giant Syngenta whose Chairman (who used to work for Barclays) attended the recent </span><a href="http://www.topix.com/forum/world/australia/T0DK9ESJ8IEVLH50M"><span style="font-family:arial;">Bilderberg</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> meeting. </span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;"></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-family:arial;">Now is it simply philosophical sloppiness? What leads the Gates and Rockefeller foundations to at one and the same time to back proliferation of patented and soon-to-be Terminator patented seeds across Africa, a process which, as it has in every other place on earth, destroys the plant seed varieties as monoculture industrialized agribusiness is introduced? At the same time they invest tens of millions of dollars to preserve every seed variety known in a bomb-proof doomsday vault near the remote Arctic Circle ‘so that crop diversity can be conserved for the future’ to restate their official release? - </span><a href="http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=7529"><span style="font-family:arial;">globalresearch</span></a></blockquote><a href="http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=7529"><span style="font-family:arial;"></span></a><p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">The potential for a group of companies and foundations who both monopolise existing seed stocks and possess the technology to render any crop sterile are enormous. If they so chose they could wipe out pretty much the entire harvest of the world and make every food producer in the world pay to access the seed stocks in Svalbard. </span><span style="font-family:arial;">As globalist and depopulationist Henry Kissinger once said:</span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;"></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-family:arial;">"If you control the oil you control the country; if you control food, you control the population." - </span><a href="http://world.mediamonitors.net/content/view/full/62052"><span style="font-family:arial;">Kissinger</span></a></blockquote><a href="http://world.mediamonitors.net/content/view/full/62052"><span style="font-family:arial;"></span></a><p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">To finish off, this documentary 'Controlling our Food' details the history and policies of Monsanto. For those with doubts that these companies and foundations could be capable of such horrific plans this uncompromising depiction will probably dispell such feelings as they tell the story of Monsanto product Roundup, a cancer-causing, non-selective herbicide that can kill just about any plantlife imaginaginable, and the technology produced by Monsanto which makes their plants resistant to its effects. </span><span style="font-family:arial;"> </span></p><p><embed id="VideoPlayback" src="http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docid=6262083407501596844&hl=en&fs=true" style="width: 400px; height: 326px;" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"><p><br /><div style="clear: both;"></div><br />Talkbouthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14408535183177475747noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5734121862980918017.post-85387515433105381802009-04-21T22:00:00.000-07:002013-10-24T11:51:02.709-07:00
Peak Oil and Snouts in the Trough
<br /><span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:100%;">Peak Oil is a highly contentious issue in the realm of conspiracy theories. Either the earth is running out of oil, or about to run out of oil and the oil companies are lying and saying there's plenty left, or there's plenty left and the oil companies are lying and saying oil is scarce. Taken at face value either is plausible given the motive of vast amounts of money. According to the <a href="http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune500/2009/full_list/">Fortune 500 rankings for 2009</a>, Exxon-Mobil are now not only the most profitable company in the world (as they have been for <a href="http://buelahman.wordpress.com/2008/04/23/guess-which-company-is-the-worlds-most-profitable/">years</a>), but also the company with the <a href="http://money.cnn.com/video/fortune/2009/04/17/fortune.koepp.500.fortune/">highest revenue</a> in America, the world's largest economy. Prior recent rankings generally had them in second position for revenue behind retail conglomerate Wal-Mart but this year they've done them on both fronts. With revenues just shy of $443 billion and profits of $45 billion they are a latter day Standard Oil Company.<br><br>Recently published Forbes figures show not only that wanted <a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N11254679.htm">Mexican drug barons</a> can still be included in richlists as long as they are wealthy enough, but that big oil is still big. <a href="http://skorcareer.com.my/blog/petronas-in-worlds-top-10-most-profitable-companies/2008/07/17/">Last year</a>'s figures show 7 of the 10 most profitable firms are oil companies. Petronas of Malaysia made an appearance in 8th position as the most profitable company in Asia. This year, PetroChina had that honour. As the names imply, they are both oil interests.<br><br>In a year where banks and retailers suffered the top 6 <a href="http://www.forbes.com/lists/2009/18/global-09_The-Global-2000_Prof.html">most profitable</a> companies were oil giants, with combined revenues into trillions of dollars and combined profits nearing $200 billion. The two most profitable companies in the US, the most profitable in China (and ultimately Asia), in Russia, the UK and Europe are big oil. So the motive to tell lies is there in abundance, and certainly someone's telling lies. The popular Chinese paper China Daily reported that not just one but three Chinese firms are in the shortlist of the most profitable in the world. Along with PetroChina, the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) and China Mobile were all <a href="http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2009-03/29/content_7627390.htm">reported</a> to be in the top 10.<br><br>They aren't. They're all in the top ten for <a href="http://www.forbes.com/lists/2009/18/global-09_The-Global-2000_MktVal.html">market value</a>, but not profits. Likewise, China Daily cited ICBC as saying they are now the most profitable bank in the world. Again, this isn't true, according to the Forbes figures Banco Santander has that crown, though ICBC is the highest ranked bank for market value. You might think this was just down to confusion but there's a huge difference between market value and profit, and the English edition of People's Daily (another Chinese newspaper), got the <a href="http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90001/90776/6617808.html">story right</a>. So China Daily, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Daily">owned</a> by the Communist Party of China just as <a href="http://www.mondotimes.com/1/world/cn/192/4533/11367">People's Daily</a> is, is lying about the status of its companies, presumably because market value isn't considered as important for propaganda purposes as profits. Doubleplus good.<br><br>Similarly, Peak Oil involves a misapprehension of the potential problem and a lot of deception, by pretty much all of the people involved. It was originally developed as a theory by <a href="http://www.traderslog.com/peak-oil-concept.htm">M King Hubbert</a>, who worked as a researcher for Royal Dutch Shell, a company with long standing ties to the French arm of the <a href="http://www.mega.nu:8080/ampp/rothschild2.html">Rothschild family</a> and the <a href="http://royaldutchshellplc.com/2008/06/05/bilderberg-shadow-super-government/">Bilderberg Group</a>. Indeed, Nathan Mayer Victor Rothschild, the 3rd Baron Rothschild, was <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_Rothschild,_3rd_Baron_Rothschild">head of research</a> for Royal Dutch Shell for several years in the 1960s despite his training being in biology, not hydrocarbon geology.<br><br>These days the theory is little advanced, and is propagated by the likes of Mike Ruppert, a 'former' CIA man who advances the theory that 9/11 was engineered or allowed to happen to enable the mobilisation of the US military to take control of the world's last remain oil and gas reserves in his book <a href="http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ezyLJrAu1SIC">Crossing the Rubicon</a>. The book is full of graphs that look just like the one presented by Hubbert in this short video:<br><br><object height="344" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/ImV1voi41YY&hl=en&fs=1"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/ImV1voi41YY&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" height="344" width="425"></object><br><br>Essentially, the theory is that global oil production will reach its peak approximately now, in the few years following the turn of the 21st century. The graph of production over time is a bell curve, with a rapid rise to the peak and a rapid fall away from it. There are numerous problems with this statistical manipulation.<br><br>Firstly, it assumes to know how much oil there is in the world, often referred to as <a href="http://www.peakoil.net/about-peak-oil/glossary">Total Recoverable Reserves</a>. This is a combination of Recoverable Reserves (oil in the ground that we already know about) and Yet To Find, an estimate of how much oil there's left out there that we don't know about. Once again we see the unknown unknowns of Team B's Communist threat and the more recent terrorist threat, and Iraq's WMD. We don't know how much oil is out there left to be found, so we'll assume there's an amount consistent with the prediction we want to make about when the peak in oil production will happen.<br><br>Secondly, it assumes that the extraction of oil is uniformly difficult, or easy. For example, if it's easy to get 90% of the world's oil but only particularly difficult to get the last 10%, then it's only as we approach having to extract that last 10% that we'll hit the problems identified by <a href="http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/031005_globalcorp.shtml">Ruppert</a> et al. If, by contrast, only the first 10 or 15% of the oil is easy to extract, and there's another 85% of it buried deeper than present technology allows us to get, the problems come much more quickly. This itself is not only dependent on the physical amount and location of the oil, but also the technological development of equipment to locate and extract it, which is again something Hubbert could not know in the 1950s, and we cannot predict now. If we've reached the limit of such technology already then once again, the peak will happen earlier. If we've some way to go on the development then the peak will come later.<br><br>Thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, is the misuse of language by the thousands of people claiming to be experts. 'Peak Oil' refers, in the language of almost everyone who talks about it, to a peak in oil production. However, we don't produce oil. We extract it, ship it around the world, split it up, refine it, and convert it into useful things like petrol and plastic. Nowhere have we actually produced anything that wasn't there before in a modified form. The actual production of oil is something of a contentious issue. While there's a consensus that it is a fossil fuel produced biogenically, i.e. from organic matter, the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenic_petroleum_origin">abiogenic theory</a> has yet to be comprehensively refuted.<br><br>Regardless of what actually makes oil, it must come from somewhere, be produced by some process. The figure never referred to in any calculation of peak oil that I've seen is the amount of oil being produced by the earth over any given period. When you have a system whereby oil is being produced, somehow, and then extracted by us at a certain rate then the point at which we run out, or even begin to run out, is affected by the rate of production as well as the rate of extraction. However, by calling extraction production and ignoring real production altogether, a fixed point in time can be defined in what's actually a dynamic process. This is then endorsed by thousands of scientists who are either so stupid as to not realise what they've missed or are actively participating in a deceit.<br><br>Sadly, the same is true of so many critics, commentators and alternative theorists/conspiracy theorists. In taking peak oil for granted, they use it as an assumption to inform on other topics. Peak Oil was the motive for 9/11, according to Ruppert. Indeed, many in the 9/11 movement buy into this notion without critically examining in the same way they examine the terrorist attacks and the possible culprits. Likewise, many in the environmental movement talk about Peak Oil <a href="http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=peak+oil+climate+change">alongside</a> Climate Change, blaming the world's woes on big oil companies in a vaguely anticapitalist gesture.<br><br>Consider that the Shell CEO Jeroen Van Der Veer (Bilderberg) is now <a href="http://www.greenlivingtips.com/blogs/195/Shell-CEO-admits-peak-oil-reality.html">officially endorsing</a> Peak Oil theory as a reality. Consider that Exxon Mobil in <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSL1441452220070614">June 2007</a> issued an official statement saying it had never doubted the threat from Climate Change. Then, in May 2008 a 'revolt' led by the <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/may/19/exxonmobil.oil">Rockefeller family</a> (major shareholders) led to them <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/may/28/climatechange.fossilfuels">ceasing to fund</a> 'climate change denial', i.e. research countering the finding of the IPCC. In <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/jan/09/exxon-wants-carbon-tax">January 2009</a> the world's largest oil company then joined the ranks of those calling for a worldwide carbon tax. Consider that JP Morgan Chase, the world's largest private derivatives player, have <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/mar/27/jpmorgan.greenbusiness">bought</a> a carbon credits firm. Along similar lines they are even subsidising the production of low-energy stoves to be distributed in Africa, on the face of it a noble and benevolent <a href="http://money.cnn.com/2008/08/11/technology/jpmorgan_carbon.fortune/index.htm">scheme</a>. However, because the stoves use less energy (and thus produce less carbon dioxide), they generate carbon credits. NM Rothschild's Australian branch is also looking to lead the way in the new economy with their <a href="http://www.conspiracyarchive.com/Blog/?p=2008">Carbon Ring Consortium</a>. Similarly, Barclays launched the first index for the developing carbon trading market in <a href="http://lawandenvironment.typepad.com/newcarboncycle/2007/12/the-barclays-an.html">December 2007</a>, following JPMorgan Chase's creation in <a href="http://www.jpmorgan.com/news/jpmorgan/news/JENIlaunch_Feb07">February 2007</a> of the world's first bond index designed to address the risks of climate change. Unsurprisingly, at the heart of Barclays, Exxon Mobil, Royal Dutch Shell, and JP Morgan Chase are the Rothschilds and Rockefellers. To say that the world's leaders are denying the reality of peak oil and/or climate change so they can keep making money is simple ignorance.<br><br>Beyond that, there is the possibility of Peak Oil being an outright lie. <a href="http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3340274697167011147">Lindsay Williams</a> and <a href="http://bettyelders.blogspot.com/2006/06/oil-dependence-et-al.html">others</a> have spoken of vast reserves in Northern Alaska around Prudhoe Bay and Gull Island. The largest untapped field in the world, and fifth largest ever discovered is <a href="http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=4562">Kashagan</a> in Kazakhstan, only discovered in 2000. <a href="http://www.energybulletin.net/node/42785">Carioca</a>, an offshore field near Brazil, has recently been estimated to be the third largest ever discovered. In <a href="http://www.xian.cgs.gov.cn/english/2009/0417/article_250.html">February 2009</a> Permex, the Mexican oil company, announced that the world's biggest oil field had been found but that due to technological constraints it couldn't expect to access most of it until 2040. Obviously these estimates will have to be proven and the extraction of that oil is subject to geological, technological, economic and political constraints but that's exactly the issue at stake, that the amount of oil available to us at what point in time and at what price is dependent on a great many factors outside the statistical estimates of peak oil experts.<br><br>At the Veterans for Peace convention in 2006, when asked whether Peak Oil was an 'oil company conspiracy', author and former economic hit man John Perkins replied:<br><blockquote>"Peak Oil is not only an oil company conspiracy, it's a misconception in economics. Peak Oil, any kind of a calculation like that, is based on assumptions. The old Peak Oil assumption was on the basis of I think 30 or 40 dollars a barrel, and under that assumption the analysis was pretty accurate. But today oil is priced at over 70 dollars a barrel so the old Peak Oil conclusions are totally off the wall...<br><br>...So, Peak Oil, our measurements of that whole theory of Peak Oil and when it comes to an end, is dependent on what price of oil you put. As you increase the price of oil, you increase the places you can get it from." - <a href="http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=7969424888680179897&hl=en">John Perkins, VFP Convention</a></blockquote>The speech and Q and A session is in three parts, <a href="http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=3968544393356669182">here</a>, <a href="http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=3848716298990404813">here</a> and <a href="http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=7969424888680179897&hl=en">here</a>. Pointing out the profits made by Exxon Mobil, Perkins went on to say how the fact that supply is restricted because of the wars in the Middle East is actually to the oil companies' advantage. Canada's reserves are said to be <a href="http://www.rense.com/general37/petrol.htm">second only</a> to Saudi Arabia's, and in the midst of the global recession <a href="http://oilsandstruth.org/nexen-opti-canada-may-be-targeted-tarsands-deals">Shell and Exxon</a> are looking to buy up Canadian firms and therefore a stake in those fields, and again they're not letting a good crisis go to waste.<br><br>This hints at one distinct possibility, which implies Obama's <a href="http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=obama+end+america+dependence+on+foreign+oil">talk</a> about ending America's dependence on foreign oil is actually a real policy, not just election talk. Only this week there has been discussion in the news of the <a href="http://www.usnews.com/articles/opinion/2009/04/22/obama-energy-test-end-foreign-oil-addiction-with-as-few-ugly-trade-offs-as-possible.html">Roan Plateau</a> in Colorado, previously considered a reserve in case of extra demands in wartime. When America put its currency on the Saudi Oil standard in the 1970s, it essentially pinned the value of its currency on continuing supplies of oil from Saudi Arabia, and them denominating their oil trades in dollars. The price of a barrel of oil is almost always quoted in dollars as a result of this deal. However, much as there's reason for scepticism about global Peak Oil, there's a <a href="http://www.btinternet.com/%7Enlpwessex/Documents/SaudiOilAdmission.htm">real possibility</a> that the <a href="http://www.btinternet.com/%7Enlpwessex/Documents/saudidoubts.htm">Saudis</a> are running out.<br><br>At Ghawar, the world's largest oil field until recent developments suggested otherwise, they are injecting millions of barrels a day of sea water into the wells to sustain oil pressure. This is nothing new, injections of water are quite common. But the proportion of water coming back out in the oil is up to <a href="http://www.energybulletin.net/node/1269">30%</a>, which means they're pumping millions of barrels of oil out of the ground that's 30% sea water because they've had to pump in so much water to keep the oil flowing. This is where the North American Union comes in. Canada and Mexico have vast oil reserves, Canada also has a lot of wood and water, and Mexico has a massive labour force.<br><br>If the US stops importing oil from the <a href="http://www.theoildrum.com/node/5154">Saudis</a> then the Saudis no longer have vast revenues with which they can buy the US debt. Without the ability to borrow money, the very real bankruptcy of the US government would become obvious. By combining the US, Canada and Mexico economically, they not only have a much larger tax base to service the debt, making it more appealing to China and India and Japan, but also control of significant oil reserves to replace the Saudi imports. However, this would probably lead to the collapse of the Saudi royal family and regional civil war, so they need an excuse to cover the area in military bases so that they can maintain a certain grip on the region.<br><br>Also this week, Hillary Clinton (Bilderberg) declared that Pakistan poses a '<a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/8013677.stm">global threat</a>' because they're letting the Taleban control parts of the country. In the fallout from the <a href="http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=26&storycode=406288&c=1">release without charge</a> of every person involved in what the authorities told us was a 'very big plot', Pakistani officials have expressed their <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/apr/25/pakistan-terror-slurs">anger</a> at constantly being associated with terrorism and blamed for it. They have a point, in that since the attack on Iran was shelved, Pakistan has taken their place as the country most often associated with the threat from terrorism. On the other hand, the Pakistanis have a long history of collaborating with paramilitary groups that are in effect indistinguishable from terrorists in the rather broad sense that we tend to use the word. The Pakistani ISI was critically involved in Operation Cyclone, the decade-long funding, arming and training of Arabs to fight against the Soviets in Afghanistan. I doubt the Americans will launch a military invasion of Pakistan, though it is possible, but given the influence of Kissinger and Brzezinski I think a less direct approach is planned.<br><br>Of course, all this constitutes a conspiracy theory, but one in keeping with the sorts of plans executed by a globalist superclass over the last decades and centuries. Nonetheless, the future is never set in stone and the potential for change is always here. Peak Oil may prove to be the reason, or the excuse, for <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ClqUcScwnn8">mass depopulation</a>. In an e-mail discussing the debate on the possible abiotic origin of oil, Michael Ruppert admitted:<br></span><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><blockquote style="font-family: arial;">"I advocate an immediate convening of political, economic, spiritual and scientific leaders from all nations to address the issue of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_Oil" target="_blank" class="inline" title="Peak Oil (and Gas)"></a>Peak Oil (and Gas) and its immediate implications for economic collapse, massive famine and climate destruction (partially as a result of reversion to coal plants which accelerate global warming).<br><br>This would, scientifically speaking, include immediate steps to arrive at a crash program - agreed to by all nations and in accordance with the highest spiritual and ethical principles - to stop global population growth and to arrive at the best possible and most ethical program of population reduction<span style="text-decoration: underline;"></span> as a painful choice made by all of humanity." - <a href="http://www.911kemet.co.uk/nwoquotes.html">Ruppert</a></blockquote><a style="font-family: arial;" href="http://www.911kemet.co.uk/nwoquotes.html"></a><span style="font-family:arial;">Ruppert advocates the convening of leaders to develop a program of population reduction but somehow has the gall to call this a 'painful choice made by all of humanity'. No genocidal plan developed by groups of world leaders is even approximate to a choice made by all. It is ludicrous that Ruppert, a man who prides himself on blowing the whistle and critically dissecting propaganda would subscribe to such a horrific view of the world and advance it in such deceptive terms.<br><br>Once again we see people abusing their positions of authority, sometimes due to professional or social context and sometimes due to loyalty to a private network. By advancing such a view, Ruppert is allying himself more with the likes of the Bilderberg Group and the Club of Rome than he is with similar critics and theorists. As noted by <a href="http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2005/03/313305.shtml">Dave McGowan</a> (to whom Ruppert's above e-mail was sent), Fletcher Prouty, a former Air Force Colonel and longtime whistleblower and Kennedy assassination theorist, advances not only that Peak Oil is a myth but that oil is <a href="http://www.prouty.org/oil.html">abiotic</a> in origin. Though Ruppert's From the Wilderness site is part of the independent media that discusses such theories, it consistently ignores such articles from similarly independent websites which contradict the desired view. As Chris Bennett describes on the excellent WorldNetDaily, there is an inorganic theory of oil production worthy of consideration:<br></span><p style="font-family: arial;"><blockquote style="font-family: arial;"><p>The theory is simple: Crude oil forms as a natural inorganic process which occurs between the mantle and the crust, somewhere between 5 and 20 miles deep. The proposed mechanism is as follows: </p><ul><li>Methane (CH4) is a common molecule found in quantity throughout our solar system – huge concentrations exist at great depth in the Earth. </li><li>At the mantle-crust interface, roughly 20,000 feet beneath the surface, rapidly rising streams of compressed methane-based gasses hit pockets of high temperature causing the condensation of heavier hydrocarbons. The product of this condensation is commonly known as crude oil. </li><li>Some compressed methane-based gasses migrate into pockets and reservoirs we extract as "natural gas." </li><li>In the geologically "cooler," more tectonically stable regions around the globe, the crude oil pools into reservoirs. </li><li>In the "hotter," more volcanic and tectonically active areas, the oil and natural gas continue to condense and eventually to oxidize, producing carbon dioxide and steam, which exits from active volcanoes. </li><li>Periodically, depending on variations of geology and Earth movement, oil seeps to the surface in quantity, creating the vast oil-sand deposits of Canada and Venezuela, or the continual seeps found beneath the Gulf of Mexico and Uzbekistan. </li><li>Periodically, depending on variations of geology, the vast, deep pools of oil break free and replenish existing known reserves of oil...<br></li></ul><p>...Could this be true? </p><p>In August 2002, in the "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (US)," Dr. Kenney published a paper, which had a partial title of "<a href="http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/99/17/10976?maxtoshow=&HITS=10&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=&fulltext=genesis+of+hydrocarbons+and+the+origin+of+petroleum&searchid=1085470440708_510&stored_search=&FIRSTINDEX=0">The genesis of hydrocarbons and the origin of petroleum</a>." Dr. Kenney and three Russian coauthors conclude: </p><blockquote> <p><i>The Hydrogen-Carbon system does not spontaneously evolve hydrocarbons at pressures less than 30 Kbar, even in the most favorable environment. The H-C system evolves hydrocarbons under pressures found in the mantle of the Earth and at temperatures consistent with that environment.</i> </p></blockquote> <p>He was quoted as stating that "competent physicists, chemists, chemical engineers and men knowledgeable of thermodynamics have known that natural petroleum does not evolve from biological materials since the last quarter of the 19th century." - <a href="http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=38645">Chris Bennett, WorldNetDaily</a></p></blockquote><p style="font-family: arial;"><a href="http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=38645"></a></p><p style="font-family: arial;">Perhaps it is a lack of willingness to discuss this possibility that leads Peak Oil commentators to so nakedly ignore the question of how much oil is produced, by whatever process, over the timescales discussed for various Peak Oil scenarios. In the absence of certainty over where oil actually comes from all we're left with is speculation and conspiracy theories about what knowledge is reliable bearing in mind the vested interests of the authorities involved. Curiously, a point similar to this is made in a Channel 4 documentary on conspiracy theories by Nafeez Ahmed, himself a Peak Oil theorist who has suggested a cover-up on the part of the oil industry. Ahmed, who is an excellent writer and researcher in many respects, has said he believes we have already passed the peak of oil production, and mostly advances the theory that the US military and/or government were complicit in 9/11.<br></p><span style="font-family:arial;">Ahmed's comment in the show, titled Who Really Runs the World? and narrated by an extra from a cockney gangster movie, is probably ripped out of context because it is presented as a criticism of conspiracy theories in general, and having studied his work for some time I don't believe Ahmed is capable of such immense hypocrisy.<br><br><br></span><br><span style="font-family:arial;"><embed id="VideoPlayback" src="http://video.google.co.uk/googleplayer.swf?docid=-6179282469316965588&hl=en&fs=true" style="width: 400px; height: 326px;" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"> </span><br><br><span style="font-family:arial;"><br><br>The show itself is marginal improvement on the BBC's </span><a style="font-family: arial;" href="http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=conspiracy+files">Conspiracy Files</a><span style="font-family:arial;">, though not as good as Jon Ronson's series for Channel 4 some years ago, </span><a style="font-family: arial;" href="http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=secret+rulers+of+the+world">The Secret Rulers of the World</a><span style="font-family:arial;">. Indeed, only Ronson's tries to break away from the established mainstream media line, that all conspiracy theories are wrong and that all conspiracy theorists are fantasists, loners, idiots and so on. Having interviewed a total of three conspiracy theorists (including crackpot doyen David Icke), they dedicate most of the second half of the show to one of the most laughable, unscientific experiments I've ever seen on a television programme.<br><br></span><span style="font-family:arial;">A professor and a doctor, portrayed as experts on 'conspiracy thinking', are shown conducting a psychological exercise which, while superficially confirming their conclusions actually proves them to be false at closer examination. As they are introduced, they admit that they aren't interested in whether a particular conspiracy theory is true, but from a 'psychological perspective' why some people believe in them and some don't. The suggestion that people might actually believe in conspiracy theories on the basis of evidence is evidently not part of the discussion. </span><br><br><span style="font-family:arial;">30 students were given a rudimentary psychological evaluation, a paper questionnaire, aimed to assess three 'factors' - low levels of trust, feelings of alienation from society, and propensity to make assumptions. The experts predict those who score highly for these factors will be more prone to believing in conspiracy theories. From the results of these tests, two groups of six, the highest scoring and lowest scoring, are drawn. They are then sat down as groups as asked what they think of a 'brand new' conspiracy theory created by the two doctors. The theory? That the government is using mobile phones to track everyone all the time. </span><br><br><span style="font-family:arial;">Herein lies one problem, these two men claim to be experts in conspiracy thinking, and so you'd think they'd have some familiarity with conspiracy theories, if just to get a sense of the range of opinions and views, in which case they'd realise this theory is far from new. Indeed, similar techniques have been depicted in popular spy shows like Spooks for years before the making of this documentary. Furthermore, as psychologists they must have realised that by putting this theory to them as groups instead of individually that their responses would be more likely to develop via what is called 'groupthink', essentially where opinions are voiced more due to them being obviously acceptable in the specific social context rather than on the basis of a rational or impassioned process.<br><br>So they discuss the theory for a bit, kick some ideas around about it's possible limits, and are then asked to vote in the hands up in a crowd way that they used to hold general elections until people pointed out it made it difficult for anyone to dissent. That's why we have secret ballots today, and in some countries have for the better part of two centuries. It's hardly a radical standard to expect of people aspiring to get to people's real opinions. Throughout the discussion and voting in the show, people in the groups are shown looking to others for validation and confirmation of their opinions. When the group predicted to be conspiracy theorists are asked to vote on if they think it is 'very likely or quite likely' to be true, all six voted yes, it was quite likely. When the other group were asked to vote on if they thought it was 'certainly not' true, five of the six voted yes.<br><br>However, given that the original test was meant to assess how prone the students were to making assumptions and leaping to conclusions and that the group who were meant to be sceptical were more certain in their beliefs, that the theory definitely wasn't true, it renders the whole experiment meaningless. Likewise, the group predicted to be more likely to believe in conspiracy theories were discussing the theory not literally in the sense of tracking everyone all the time, but the possibility of tracking people in that way, they weren't really voting on the original statement. Similarly, a dozen middle class students being asked about one poorly articulated conspiracy theory doesn't test anything on a wider scale. Despite this setbacks, or possibly in total ignorance of them, the show declares the experiment's results 'conclusive'.<br><br>Taking the results off to meet David Icke, one of the experts asks for his opinion on a 'large scale survey' they carried out. Responding to the allegation that people believe in conspiracies because it serves a psychological purpose, Icke responds by saying that people have looked at the evidence and realised they're being lied to. The expert responds by saying that for some of Icke's claims there is next to no evidence, but when prompted admits he hasn't actually read Icke's work, only read about it. This invalidates the entire process and the claim to expertise, because one cannot expect to be able to reasonably comment on work which one hasn't actually seen or read, and to seek to assess such beliefs solely through the framework of psychology is a waste of time.<br><br>No doubt, some people's experience and predilections will inform what they believe, perhaps everyone. But belief in conspiracy is as common as eating bread. Banks conspire to award huge bonuses to irresponsible directors, people conspire to murder out of jealousy or revenge, families conspire to keep secrets in the closet - the mainstream press is full of such stories, particularly 'real life story' magazines. However, by defining certain conspiracy theories as such and referring to other conspiracy theories via a different name, one can maintain a false distinction and design fraudulent, circular experiments to try to justify a means of classifying not only beliefs but also the people who believe in them.<br><br>Like the Peak Oil calculations, the aim is not a rigorous and careful investigation of the facts and the use of that information to develop sound policies, but to classify beliefs in ways conducive to political purposes. By tagging anyone who suspects the governmental and corporate elite as a conspiracy theorist they can discourage dissent and suspicion, as well as manipulate discussion of issues so that science and logic are made subservient to political demands. Just about any belief on the subject of Peak Oil, short of flat out denial of it being worthy of discussion, involves a conspiracy theory, in part because of what Nafeez Ahmed identifies, the lack of certainty requires some speculation in order to have a specific view of the world. Anyone who wants to be seen by the mainstream as an expert, or even just an authority, cannot explicitly endorse a conspiratorial worldview, at least not without calling it something else.<br></span><span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:100%;"><br><br></span><br /><div style="clear: both;"></div><br />Talkbouthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14408535183177475747noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5734121862980918017.post-28076993832843750082009-03-23T22:00:00.000-07:002013-10-24T11:51:02.701-07:00
Dirty Wars
<br /><span style="font-family: arial;font-family:arial;">This week the UK government launched its new counterterrorism strategy, called <a href="http://www.google.com/hostednews/ukpress/article/ALeqM5hTVsyhUyXxY8Ux1Wx2pZ9yo-NX4g">Contest Two</a>, though it was leaked weeks ago to the BBC who covered the story in their programme '<a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/panorama/hi/front_page/newsid_7886000/7886578.stm">Muslim First, British Second</a>'. The central policy is to target those Muslims, called 'conservatives', who speak out against democracy or homosexuality, or in favour of misogyny and so on. A central aspect to this strategy is the question of how the four homegrown suicide bombers of 7/7 were motivated to commit acts of mass murder, as noted in the opening paragraph of the BBC article above. The fact that the government's narrative cannot even plausibly explain <a href="http://bridgetdunnes.blogspot.com/">how the four alleged suicide bombers got to London</a> is totally ignored. Perhaps the press were intimidated by the policy of targeting anyone who disagrees with what the government define as '<a href="http://truth-reason-liberty.blogspot.com/2009/02/contest-2-and-thoughtcrime.html">British values</a>'. After all, one of the targeted groups are those who fail to speak out against the killing of coalition soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, the implication being one not only has to accept democracy, capitalism, a specific sexual spectrum and an extremely limited notion of gender equality, but also the paradigm that is the 'war on terror'.<br><br>The BBC Panorama show is a textbook example of how disinformation is used to justify a government agenda, as well as why the policies employed by the government fail to confront the very real associations between our defence institutions and militant Islamic fundamentalists, and hence fail to confront what actually poses a risk to national security. The show's presenter, Richard Watson, essentially tells the same story in <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/panorama/hi/front_page/newsid_7891000/7891612.stm">this</a> BBC article.<br><br>First up 'we haven't had a major terrorist attack since July 7th 2005'. How easy it is to ignore the fact that accounts of what happened vary tremendously and not even dedicated researchers have come up with a comprehensive version, let alone the police or the Home Office. The show goes on to cite the case of Nicky Reilly, who was <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/4399281/Exeter-bomber-Nicky-Reilly-jailed-for-life.html">sentenced</a> to life imprisonment in January 2009. While the show notes that Reilly had a low IQ, and Aspergers Syndrome, and that his apparent terrorist attack was a total failure, injuring him as he prepared a bomb in a restaurant toilet in Exeter, it fails to discuss the nature of the bomb. <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7859887.stm">Kerosene, caustic soda and nails</a> is not a particular potent combination in bomb-making terms, as it contains no explosive material. Such a combination could theoretically be fatal, but given one-third of the bomb only caused relatively minor injuries to Reilly himself this indicates this wasn't designed or built by a 'professional' terrorist. Nonetheless, the BBC show and <a href="http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=nicky+reilly+radicalised">much</a> of the press coverage say that Reilly must have been influenced and <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/devon/7415831.stm">radicalised</a> by some local Al Qaeda member. However, no one seems to have a clue who this person might be, so whether they were indeed a militant fundamentalist or something else, a provocateur for example, is anyone's guess.<br><br>The show then goes on to spend a few minutes with Watson pouring congratulation on himself and trying to build up his credentials with images of him at meetings of Muslim 'extremists' and 'conservatives'. Eventually, he is confronted by a man who'd evidently seen some of Watson's prior shows on the same subject who denounces the BBC man as an 'enemy of Islam', a 'liar and a fabricator'. Watson responds saying this is 'total paranoia' and that 'we report the facts'. As we've already seen, the case of Nicky Reilly is treated by Watson (and many others) in a partial manner that without evidence attributes responsibility to Islam and Muslims.<br><br>Watson shows similar partiality and bias in his depiction of Omar Bakri. Entirely focussing on Bakri's role as a fundamentalist preacher the show ignores that Al-Muhajiroun, the organisation Bakri was deeply involved with, was itself a <a href="http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=10041">tool of recruitment</a> by western intelligence services for mujahideen to fight in the dirty wars in the Balkans. Similarly, no mention is made of Bakri's <a href="http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?entity=sheikh_omar_bakri_mohammed">longstanding association</a> with MI5. Lies of omission, perhaps, but lies nonetheless and therefore far from credible journalism. Likewise, when discussing the lack of trust Muslims have for British institutions the show includes an interview with a man who doesn't believe that Khan, Tanweer, Lindsey and Hussain were responsible for 7/7, to which Watson incredulously responds 'come on'. If the Panorama man was willing to do even the slightest earnest research he'd discover that the case against Khan et al. is extremely slim and circumstantial. This is the entire BBC show, which continues in this misleading vein to its conclusion.<br><br><embed id="VideoPlayback" src="http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docid=-426013737093437579&hl=en&fs=true" style="width: 400px; height: 326px;" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"><br><br>The policy itself is a nonsense. One aspect of it was discussed in a BBC article titled '<a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7957431.stm">Thousands getting terror training</a>'. The title is ironic as it cleverly implies that thousands of terrorists are getting trained when in fact it refers to 60,000 UK workers who have or will receive training which, in the BBC's words, will make them '</span><span style="font-family: arial;">able to deal with an incident'. Presumably the remaining 60 million or so citizens of the UK will just have to make do without. As </span><a style="font-family: arial;" href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7961934.stm">noted</a><span style="font-family: arial;"> by shadow Home Secretary Chris Grayling, the training is a voluntary 3-hour seminar, which is less than half the length of a cycling proficiency course. Though it's probably fair to point out that you're more likely to die on the roads than you are in a terrorist attack, so maybe this is an indication that the government finally realises the disproportionate attention paid to the threat of terrorist attack.<br><br>Maybe not, since the newly updated and enhanced Contest Two strategy was announced with a declaration that, as ever, we're facing an <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7960466.stm">increasing risk</a> of terrorist attack. <a href="http://www.iht.com/articles/2009/03/24/europe/terror.php">The International Herald Tribune</a>, <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/europe/03/24/britain.terrorism/">CNN</a>, <a href="http://english.aljazeera.net/news/europe/2009/03/200932416224491529.html">Al Jazeera</a> and others ran stories headlining the growing risk. In particular the press discussed the threat of a dirty bomb, something that has lapsed in coverage in the last couple of years in favour of ludicrous plots about making liquid chemical explosives in airliner toilets. As covered in The Power of Nightmares, the threat from a radiological dirty bomb is minimal.<br><br><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/8j07C22wJjY&hl=en&fs=1"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/8j07C22wJjY&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></object><br><br>The reformed dirty bomb threat shows at least some awareness of this, in that they're now talking about a <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/mar/24/anti-terror-strategy-government">chemical or biological</a> attack. The Contest Two strategy says:<br></span><blockquote style="font-family: arial;">"Changing technology and the theft and smuggling of chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear and explosive (CBRNE) materials make this aspiration more realistic than it may have been in the recent past." - <a href="http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/UK-News/UK-Terrorism-Threat-Home-Secretary-Jacqui-Smith-Launches-New-Strategy-Contest-2/Article/200903415247802?f=rss">Skynews</a></blockquote><a style="font-family: arial;" href="http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/UK-News/UK-Terrorism-Threat-Home-Secretary-Jacqui-Smith-Launches-New-Strategy-Contest-2/Article/200903415247802?f=rss"></a><span style="font-family: arial;">When asked about whether this sort of attack was now more likely, Home Secretary Jacqui Smith offered a perplexing response.</span><br><blockquote style="font-family: arial;">"There is the potential, given the international situation, what we believe to be the aspirations of some international terrorists, that it could be." - <a href="http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/UK-News/UK-Terrorism-Threat-Home-Secretary-Jacqui-Smith-Launches-New-Strategy-Contest-2/Article/200903415247802?f=rss">Jacqui Smith, Skynews</a></blockquote><a style="font-family: arial;" href="http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/UK-News/UK-Terrorism-Threat-Home-Secretary-Jacqui-Smith-Launches-New-Strategy-Contest-2/Article/200903415247802?f=rss"></a><span style="font-family: arial;">There is the potential that it could be? Not just the ambiguous 'it could be', but even more speculative, 'there is the potential... that it could be'. Top marks to Jacqui Smith for the most meaningless opinion on the terrorist threat that I've read in months. It's almost insulting to (sic) hardoworking advertisers to call this a PR campaign but needless to say it's no coincidence that the same day the govt. rolls out a 'new' anti-terrorism strategy that the news is full of stories about the threat of a dirty bomb. However, Jacqui did stop to praise the work done in the war so far, saying <a href="http://www.euronews24.org/united-kingdom/smith-unveils-anti-terror-strategy/">200</a> people had been 'brought to justice' for 'terrorism related offences.' As previously discussed on this blog, those 200 people were far from hardened terrorists committed to devilish conspiracies, but largely consist of dreamers, incompetents and the outright innocent. Still, it helps make it look like there's a need for what they want to do. In a truly bizarre footnote to this PR, Richard Watson's article on his own Panorama programme would claim:<br></span><blockquote style="font-family: arial;">Judging by the number of terrorist plots under investigation by MI5 - more than 200 - there is no shortage of young Muslims who are learning to view Britain with hatred. - <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/panorama/hi/front_page/newsid_7891000/7891612.stm">BBC</a></blockquote><a style="font-family: arial;" href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/panorama/hi/front_page/newsid_7891000/7891612.stm"></a><span style="font-family: arial;">There's no way in hell the government is monitoring 200 terrorist plots, even its own figures (apparently unaffected by imprisoning terrorists or by the rising threat) consistently repeat the numbers of </span><a style="font-family: arial;" href="http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=2000+people+200+networks+30+plots">2000 people, 200 networks and 30 plots</a><span style="font-family: arial;">. That Watson is either too stupid or ignorant to be able to distinguish between a network and a plot, or is knowingly confusing the two, should disqualify him from being paid for his opinion on such issues. Alas, the BBC is likewise either so incompetently run that people like Watson continue to peddle their crap or is actively involved in precisely these sorts of deceptions that make people like Watson useful. <br><br>The flagship aspect of this policy is that the enemy in this war is redefined not only as terrorists and those who speak or write in favour of violence but those who don't believe in particular versions of sexual and gender equality, or don't recognise the authority of the police and state. I invite you to recall George HW Bush's words at the Jerusalem Conference of '79:<br></span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 100%;"><blockquote>"Lest we blunt our own devotion to individual freedom, we must not close our eyes to the existence of <span style="font-weight: bold;">terror in any form</span> anywhere in the world, for such <span style="font-weight: bold;">tolerance makes us vulnerable</span> to the cancer of international terrorism by weakening our confidence and our resolve...<br><br>...Above all, as free men, <span style="font-weight: bold;">we must assiduously cultivate the habit of fierce and merciless resentment</span> towards all those who disrupt public tranquility; this habit will make us safe and keep us free." - <a href="http://presidentdarkie.blogspot.com/2009/02/conference-part-two-burning-bush_16.html">Bush, International Terrorism</a></blockquote><a href="http://presidentdarkie.blogspot.com/2009/02/conference-part-two-burning-bush_16.html"></a>'Terror in any form' now includes not believing in the right of homosexuals to live, love and marry according to their desires, according to the Home Office. However, consider that California, with its long-established gay communities and generally progressive politics only allowed gay marriage without a court order in <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/01/AR2005090102086.html">2005</a>, and that the vote was 21-15, hardly a glowing endorsement of the policy. Indeed, since 1996 the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_of_Marriage_Act">Defence of Marriage Act</a> has been in force in the USA, which prevents federal treatment of same-sex marriages as valid. The conclusion implied by all this is that the enemy now includes the federal govt. of the USA. <br><br>Also implied by this policy is that targets will also include essentially anarchist groups like the Socialist Party of Great Britain, who oppose the state, including the police and armed forces and therefore the rule of law in its most naked form, at least so long as it continues to '<a href="http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/gbodop.html">serve the monopoly of the capitalist class</a>'. Likewise, those demanding culpability for any of the <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/shot-dead-by-police-30-officers-convicted-0-511859.html">30+ cases</a> of British police officers fatally shooting people in the last couple of decades, who have so far seen not a single prosecution, could be seen as refusing to respect the rule of law. There is the odd exception, as recently shown in the remarkable case of the Cardiff Three when <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/police-officers-charged-over-cardiff-three-miscarriage-of-justice-1636833.html">13 police officers</a> were charged with perverting the course of justice. However, trying to hold the police to account remains very difficult, and this sort of government strategy will only make it more so. <br><br>There has also been considerable <a href="http://www.hizb.org.uk/hizb/resources/leaflets/contest-2-uk-government-leaked-plans-to-label-every-muslim-an-extremist.html">criticism</a> from those most likely to be targeted, ordinary Muslims. The Muslim Council of Britain and the Islamic Human Rights Commission have both warned that it will be counterproductive to the stated aim of producing community cohesion. <br></span><blockquote style="font-family: arial;">MCB expressed serious alarm that the government may be in “danger of adopting misguided notions of extremism as dictated by xenophobic commentators who profit from creating a hostile atmosphere from which bigots of all shades can draw.” <p>“A definition of ‘extremism’ that would classify the overwhelming majority of loyal and law abiding British citizens as extremists would be of no value in our common fight against terrorism,” the umbrella organisation warned after over 200 prominent Muslim civic and religious leaders held a meeting in Birmingham last Saturday...</p>...Contest-2 cannot be viewed in isolation but is just the latest chapter in a trend of creating, promoting and funding Muslim institutions which will promote the government’s version of acceptable Islam, under the guise of community cohesion, said IHRC chair Massoud Shadjareh. - <a href="http://www.globalsecurity.org/security/library/news/2009/03/sec-090324-irna02.htm">Globalsecurity.org</a></blockquote><a style="font-family: arial;" href="http://www.globalsecurity.org/security/library/news/2009/03/sec-090324-irna02.htm"></a><span style="font-family: arial;">It seems that for all the freedom, multiculturalism and diversity we're fighting to protect, it's only the freedom and diversity defined by the state that will be supported, everything else will be opposed. You don't have to actually do anything to manifest your views, just holding the opinion that, for example, homosexuality is immoral is enough to get you targeted by 'community led intelligence efforts'. If someone tries to petrol bomb a gay bar or throw paint at lesbians then it is entirely consistent with laws common to most countries that they be treated as criminals and punished proportionally. But if they merely hold derogatory opinions about people, maybe wave the odd placard or publish the odd article then they're actually just claiming a right that is meant to be one of the foundations of this country - the right to hold opinions and express them, regardless of if they are informed, valid, or true. <br><br>The critical thing missing from this new counter-terrorist strategy, not that I for one moment thought it would actually be included, is the confrontation of the ongoing policy of making use of Islamic militants to further the imperial aims of the Anglo-American axis of evil. One of the more recent examples is that the <a href="http://www.hindu.com/2006/08/12/stories/2006081205941200.htm">group</a> whose training camps were allegedly visited by members of the liquid bomb plot conspiracy, Jundullah, has been a <a href="http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2007/04/abc_news_exclus.html">US proxy</a> in the Middle East, running raids across the border in Iran since 2005. This sponsorship of such militant groups in the Middle East <a href="http://www.muslimnews.co.uk/paper/index.php?article=3699">extends</a> to hundreds of millions of dollars. Following a bombing in Iran in February 2007, several members of Jundullah were arrested. <br></span><blockquote style="font-family: arial;">IRNA quoted an unnamed "responsible official" late Friday as saying that one of those arrested on charges of involvement in Wednesday's bombing, identified as Nasrollah Shanbe Zehi, has confessed that the attacks were part of alleged U.S. plans to provoke ethnic and religious violence in Iran. - <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/02/17/ap/world/mainD8NB523G0.shtml">CBS</a> </blockquote><span style="font-family: arial;">While this policy continues any efforts to discourage radicalisation through community cohesion, or to train everyday shopkeepers in what to do if they hear a bomb go off is, frankly, pissing in the wind. Naturally, government policy isn't actually aimed at putting an end to terrorism because it's such a useful brand, as well as such a useful instrument to destabilise target countries. Plus it's big money, one figure widely quoted in the announcement of the new policy/increasing threat from dirty bombs is that by 2011 the government will be spending </span><a style="font-family: arial;" href="http://uk.news.yahoo.com/22/20090325/tpl-uk-britain-security-strategy-81f3b62.html">£3.5 billion</a><span style="font-family: arial;"> a year on counterterrorism. To help put that in perspective, the total revenue of the English football Premiership this season is estimated by Deloitte Consulting to be in excess of </span><a style="font-family: arial;" href="http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/0,1518,573660,00.html">$3.6 billion</a><span style="font-family: arial;">, which makes fighting terror bigger business than getting your salary from Roman Abramovich's overdraft.<br><br><br>(Government propaganda follows)<br><object width="480" height="295"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/mTMS7IqikL4&hl=en&fs=1"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/mTMS7IqikL4&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="295"></object></span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 100%;"></span><span style="font-family: arial;"></span><br /><div style="clear: both;"></div><br />Talkbouthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14408535183177475747noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5734121862980918017.post-32330636945311305642009-02-21T22:00:00.000-08:002013-10-24T11:51:02.689-07:00
The conference part three: Ends and Means
<br /><span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:100%;">A further speaker at the Jerusalem Conference on International Terrorism (JCIT) was Paul Johnson, a British historian, author of some 40+ books and a former adviser to <a href="http://archive.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2004/6/29/165231.shtml">Margaret Thatcher</a>. George Bush II <a href="http://www.spectator.co.uk/search/author/?searchString=Paul%20Johnson">awarded</a> him the Presidential Medal of Freedom. He has written for The Spectator and was also editor of the New Statesman. One of his sons founded <a href="http://www.newcultureforum.org.uk/home/?q=node/287">Standpoint</a>, a conservative political magazine, another is a <a href="http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/specials/rich_list/article3791261.ece">multi-millionaire</a> greyhound track merchant and <a href="http://www.channel4.com/microsites/F/foia/documents/2008/board-members-executives.pdf">chairman</a> of British <a href="http://www.ofcom.org.uk/media/news/2004/01/nr1_20040128">Channel 4</a> since January 2004. Paul Johnson, a conservative Catholic, spoke of 'seven deadly sins of terrorism', and it is possibly the most lengthy and complex commentary of any speech at the conference.<br><br>Initially, Johnson sought to adopt the clean binary moral oppositions of other speakers.<br></span><blockquote style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">"The truth is, international terrorism is not part of a generalised problem. It is a specific and identifiable problem on its on; and because it can be isolated from the context which breeds it, it is a remediable problem. That is the first thing we must get clear." - <a href="http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=s8Pm37gg5JkC&pg=PA12">Johnson, International Terrorism</a></span></blockquote><span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:100%;">It is a contradiction in terms to think any such problem can be isolated from the context which breeds it, as long as that context continues to exist. One could, theoretically, kill all the terrorists alive today. But that won't stop people becoming terrorists in the future. In fact, it could make it more likely. Implicitly, Johnson is here employing the same philosophy as Pipes, Bush and the rest, of terrorism being an <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Other">other</a>, opposed to the civilisation of the west. He went on to claim:<br></span><blockquote style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">"It is almost impossible to exaggerate the threat which terrorism holds for our civilisation. It is a threat which is in many respects more seriously than the risk of nuclear war, or the population explosion, or global pollution, or the exhaustion of the earth's resources." - <a href="http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=s8Pm37gg5JkC&pg=PA12">Johnson, International Terrorism</a></span></blockquote><span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:100%;">Shortly before leaving office, Bush II warned the incoming Obama that terrorism was the <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7824731.stm">greatest threat</a> to the US, a view endorsed by the US <a href="http://www.defenselink.mil/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=14735">Dept. of Defense</a>, the <a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27703673/">CIA</a> and <a href="http://www.interpol.int/Public/News/2007/SGLetter20070708.asp">Interpol</a>. Similarly, the last head of MI5 and the current one have given speeches and press conferences on the <a href="http://www.mi5.gov.uk/output/the-international-terrorist-threat-to-the-uk-1.html">terrorist threat</a>. Similar sentiments have been expressed regarding <a href="http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,3337494,00.html">Germany</a>, <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/2146063/Terrorism-is-greatest-threat-to-France,-Nicolas-Sarkozy-says.html">France</a> and <a href="http://www.kavkazcenter.com/eng/content/2008/12/01/10355.shtml">Russia</a>. This is once again a kind of doublethink, that it is simultaneously impossible to overestimate the threat from terrorism, yet it is possible to distinctly isolate that threat from the context giving rise to it. It is a unknown known, if you like, something that is affirmed as being known at the same time as an affirmation which makes knowing it impossible. Frankly, it's horseshit.<br><br>The deeply religious and moralistic Johnson would go on to paint a near-apocalyptic vision of that threat, seeking once again to institute a binary opposition, between terrorism and civilisation. After discussing comments by 18th century writer Edward Gibbon, he said:<br></span><blockquote style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">"Now, nearly 200 years later, we cannot be so sure. The principles of objective science and human reason, the notion of the rule of law, the paramountcy of politics over force, are everywhere under growing and purposeful challenge, and the forces of savagery and violence which constitute this challenge are becoming steadily bolder, more numerous and above all, better armed." - <a href="http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=s8Pm37gg5JkC&pg=PA12">Johnson, International Terrorism</a></span> </blockquote><span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:100%;">Also in 1979, the French philosopher Jean-Francois Lyotard published his seminal essay <a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/7820678/Lyotard-The-Postmodern-Condition">The Postmodern Condition</a>, which describes a similar challenge to the Enlightenment notion of civilisation to which Johnson refers. In particular Lyotard identifies two meta-narratives, or grand narratives - orientating ideologies that seek to explain history and justify the existence of institutions. The two in particular that concern him are the narratives of <a href="http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=XgxrixQuYnUC&pg=PA165">emancipation and speculation</a>, which refer to the great Liberal and Marxist political traditions of using the state to improve the lives of the people, and the great logical and scientific traditions which use the discovery of knowledge to progress human society. Both narratives had suffered a tremendous beating by the reality of 20th century politics and history. The narrative of emancipation might tell a great story of liberating Europe from the threat of Nazism, but for all the millions killed and billions indebted what emerged was the Cold War, which would claim millions and billions more. Likewise, the narrative of speculation might tell of tremendous progress in medical technology but we've witnessed the increasing analysis and control of human behaviour and the domination of technology by the few for power and profit.<br><br>It is out of this failure of political and scientific ideologies of the Enlightenment that the institutions of power have seized on this Machiavellian philosophy of manipulating a threat to justify power.<br></span><blockquote style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">"Without a doubt, princes become great when they overcome difficulties and obstacles that are imposed on them; and therefore Fortune, especially when she wishes to increase the reputation of a new prince, who has a greater need to acquire prestige than a hereditary prince does, creates enemies for him and has them take action against him so that he will have the chance to overcome them and to climb higher up the ladder his enemies have brought him. Therefore many judge that </span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:100%;">a wise prince must, whenever he has the occasion, foster with cunning some hostility so that in stamping it out his greatness will increase as a result</span><span style="font-size:100%;">." - <a href="http://www.geocities.com/kstremskyforpresidentusa/machiavellithree.txt">Machiavelli</a></span></blockquote><span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:100%;">While the challenge to conventional power posed in the mid-late 20th century encompassed ideological, institutional and militaristic actions of varying kinds, Johnson sought only to focus on that which inspires the strongest emotions, the 'cleanest' moral response, i.e. violence, specifically terrorism. If they can make the public sufficiently outraged at the violence (real or perceived) of the other then it continues to justify our own violence. Curiously, it's the same strategy they accuse terrorists of using, which further undoes this apparently binary opposition between us and them.<br><br>So, to the seven deadly sins. Sin one:<br></span><blockquote style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">"Terrorism is the exaltation of violence over other forms of public activity." - <a href="http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=s8Pm37gg5JkC&pg=PA12">Johnson, International Terrorism</a></span></blockquote><span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:100%;">Proceeding to blame philosophers from Lenin to Nietzsche, by way of Hitler, Johnson concluded:<br></span><blockquote style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">"The first deadly sin of terrorism is the moral justification of murder not merely as a means to an end, but for its own sake." - <a href="http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=s8Pm37gg5JkC&pg=PA12">Johnson, International Terrorism</a></span></blockquote><span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:100%;">Having spent the previous several minutes talking about various philosophers who spoke of violence as a means to an end, he performs a u-turn of Blairite proportions and tries to talk of violence for its own sake, violence as an end in itself. But how can violence ever be an end in itself? Even sadists are seeking to satisfy some sort of craving or desire, and violence is only ever a means to that end.<br><br>We find this same idea of violence as an end in itself, or violence for its own sake, in the work of openly Zionist professor Louis Rene Beres. <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Freeman_Center_for_Strategic_Studies">Beres</a> is on the board of directors for the <a href="http://www.freeman.org/">Freeman Center for Strategic Studies</a>, who seek to 'aid Israel in her quest to survive in a hostile world' and chairs <a href="http://www.freeman.org/m_online/nov04/beres2.php">Project Daniel</a>, a near identical thinktank. He specifically identifies the Palestinian terrorists as adopting this philosophy.<br></span><blockquote style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">"Rejecting more instrumental views of force, Hamas, PLO and all other movement organizations have now come to regard terrorist violence as an end in itself." - <a href="http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/1150">Beres, Arutz Sheva</a></span></blockquote><span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:100%;">However, the PLO was founded on the basis explained in the Palestinian National Covenant.<br></span><blockquote style="font-family:arial;"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-size:100%;">"The Palestine Liberation Organization, which represents the forces of the Palestinian revolution, is responsible for the movement of the Palestinain Arab peole in its struggle to restore its homeland, liberate it, return to it and exercise the right of self-determination in it. This responsibilty extends to all military, political and finanacial matters, and all else that the Palestinian issue requires in the Arab and international spheres.</span><span style="font-size:100%;">" - <a href="http://www.cyberus.ca/%7Ebaker/covenant.htm">Article 26</a></span></blockquote><span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:100%;">Clearly Beres believes this has changed, yet since 1994 the <a href="http://www.cyberus.ca/%7Ebaker/covenant.htm">PLO</a> have had a Negotiation Affairs Department working to develop and implement the <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/middle_east/israel_and_the_palestinians/key_documents/1682727.stm">1993 Interim Agreement</a>. Despite this, Beres alleges that there is no cycle of violence in the Middle East, talking only of the violence 'for its own sake' of the Palestinians, and 'carefully limited Israeli retaliations'. Essentially repeating Johnson's claim of a threat to civilisation he wrote:<br></span><blockquote style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">"For many of Israel's enemies[...] violence against Jews is deliciously naked, tantalizing only for the sheer pain its can bring to unbelievers. The aggressivity of this violence is disinterested in strategic gains or losses. It is politically unmotivated. It wills only its own will. It is pure irrationality." - <a href="http://www.israelinsider.com/views/articles/views_0110.htm">Beres, Israel Insider</a></span></blockquote><span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:100%;">This categorical idea, that terrorists believe in violence for the sake of violence, is crucial to dehumanising them, making them seem like sociopathic automatons driven solely by the desire to hurt and kill. Out of the academic and into the popular realm, it also appears in MSN's Encarta Encyclopedia <a href="http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761564344_2/terrorism.html">entry</a> on terrorism.<br><br>Johnson's second deadly sin is one of the most perfect examples of doublethink I've yet encountered. Expanding on the baffling notion of motiveless violence he said:<br></span><blockquote style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">"The second is the deliberate suppression of the moral instincts in man." - <a href="http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=s8Pm37gg5JkC&pg=PA12">Johnson, International Terrorism</a></span></blockquote><span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:100%;"><a href="http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=s8Pm37gg5JkC&pg=PA12"></a>Without this, he goes on, it would not be possible for terrorists to indiscriminately slaughter people. Once again this is an extremely limited, self-serving understanding by an absolutist and a moraliser. For one thing, it's probable that the opposite is true - that without a system of moral distinctions, however invalid and psychotic, such violence wouldn't be possible. One of the reasons the US equipped, trained and funded the mujahideen in Afghanistan with such success is that a religious man who believes in the afterlife will happily fight to the death against the invader, in this case the Soviets. In particular we can see this in Brzezinski's visit to Pakistan where he told the fighters 'your cause is right, and God is on your side'.<br><br><object height="344" width="425"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/WaiJtLrEwVU&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" height="344" width="425"></object><br><br>Also, as Kubrick brilliantly portrayed in the boot camp section of Full Metal Jacket, all military and paramilitary organisations, not just terrorist groups, try to suppress the instincts of their recruits that aren't useful for warfare.<br><br><object height="344" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/t8Nf1MK7lts&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/t8Nf1MK7lts&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" height="344" width="425"></object><br><br>Beyond that, one only has to look at the letter from Osama Bin Laden, presumably the amoral terrorist in chief in Johnson's view of the world, to the American people to see that he in fact shares some of the concerns of Catholics, among others:<br></span><blockquote style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">"The second thing we call you to, is to stop your oppression, lies, immorality and debauchery that has spread among you. </span><p><span style="font-size:100%;">(a) We call you to be a people of manners, principles, honour, and purity; to reject the immoral acts of fornication, homosexuality, intoxicants, gambling's, and trading with interest." - <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2002/nov/24/theobserver">Bin Laden, letter to the American People</a></span></p></blockquote><p style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2002/nov/24/theobserver"></a></span></p><p style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">The letter goes on to discuss such issues as women's rights, pollution, wars of occupation, economic empire, usury and international law. While a great many people would disagree with much of what Bin Laden wrote, there's no question it is well within the realms of normal western discourse on politics and morality.<br></span></p><p style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">The third deadly sin of terrorism is linked, as Johnson notes:</span></p><p style="font-family:arial;"><blockquote style="font-family:arial;"><p><span style="font-size:100%;">"The third, following directly from the first two, is the rejection of politics as the normal means by which communities resolve conflicts...<br></span></p><p><span style="font-size:100%;">...Politics is an essential part of the basic machinery of civilisation, and in rejecting politics, terrorism seeks to make civilisation unworkable." - <a href="http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=s8Pm37gg5JkC&pg=PA12">Johnson, International Terrorism</a></span></p></blockquote><p style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><a href="http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=s8Pm37gg5JkC&pg=PA12"></a></span></p><p style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">However, terrorism has a long, complex but well documented history as a tool of statecraft, from direct, open state terrorism like the <a href="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4651126">Move firebombing</a> or the <a href="http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=4298137966377572665">Waco massacre</a>, to the more subtle false flag operations like <a href="http://presidentdarkie.blogspot.com/2009/01/prototype.html">Gladio</a>. Much as the likes of Johnson and Beres would like to characterise Arab and/or Muslim terrorists as anti-human, amoral and anti-political, they too have a lengthy history of cooptation and cooperation with the western military-intelligence institutions, as <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tF3HQIDhfkA">Nafeez Ahmed</a> has relentlessly <a href="http://www.911blogger.com/node/2966">documented</a>. Terrorism has arguably been part of civilisation since its inception, as without the threat of essentially unpredictable violence (whether from without or within) how would any authority ultimately maintain its position?<br></span></p><span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:100%;">Next up an old friend:<br></span><blockquote style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">"The fourth deadly sin of terrorism is that it actively, systematically and necessarily assists the spread of the totalitarian state." - <a href="http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=s8Pm37gg5JkC&pg=PA12">Johnson, International Terrorism</a></span></blockquote><span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:100%;"><a href="http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=s8Pm37gg5JkC&pg=PA12"></a>He goes on to include the fifth along similar lines:<br></span><blockquote style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">"The fifth deadly sin is that terrorism distinguishes between lawful and totalitarian states in favour of the latter." - <a href="http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=s8Pm37gg5JkC&pg=PA12">Johnson, International Terrorism</a></span></blockquote><span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:100%;"><a href="http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=s8Pm37gg5JkC&pg=PA12"></a>As we've already seen, this parallel between terrorism and totalitarianism dominated the JCIT and became part of the ideology of the recent War on Terror. One further example is the use of '<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/01/magazine/01wwln_safire.html">Islamofascism</a>' by Bush and others, which has drawn criticism from widespread sources. </span><p style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;"></span></p><blockquote style="font-family:arial;"><p><span style="font-size:100%;">Security expert Daniel Benjamin of the Center for Strategic and International Studies agreed that the term was meaningless. </span></p><p> <span style="font-size:100%;">"There is no sense in which jihadists embrace fascist ideology as it was developed by Mussolini or anyone else who was associated with the term," he said. </span></p><p> <span style="font-size:100%;">"This is an epithet, a way of arousing strong emotion and tarnishing one's opponent, but it doesn't tell us anything about the content of their beliefs." - <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4785065.stm">BBC</a></span></p></blockquote><p face="arial"><span style="font-size:100%;"><a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4785065.stm"></a></span></p><p style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Indeed, reading the two Bin Laden fatwas (<a href="http://www.pbs.org/newshour/terrorism/international/fatwa_1996.html">1996</a> and <a href="http://www.pbs.org/newshour/terrorism/international/fatwa_1998.html">1998</a>), there is no mention of Nazism, Fascism, Hitler or Mussolini, and though there is an apparently Koran-inspired call to arms there is nothing approximating a fascist ideology. There is lengthy discussion of American oppression and imperialism, so if Al Qaeda terrorists are inspired by totalitarianism, it seems to be that of the United States.<br></span></p><blockquote style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">"The sixth deadly sin of terrorism is that it exploits the apparatus of freedom in liberal societies and thereby endangers it." - <a href="http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=s8Pm37gg5JkC&pg=PA12">Johnson, International Terrorism</a></span></blockquote><span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:100%;">For a bunch of amoral, apolitical sociopaths motivated only by violence 'for its own sake', these terrorists certainly seem to have a complex political strategy, where they seek support, housing and training in totalitarian states only to exploit the freedom of open societies and thus undermine the very institutions which maintain such societies as free and open. There is an element of truth here, that if your aim is to try to turn a (relatively) open society into a (relatively) fascistic one then terrorism, or the threat of terrorism, is a great means to do that. The <a href="http://nafeez.blogspot.com/2007/05/strategy-of-tension.html">strategy of tension</a> employed via the Gladio network illustrates this perfectly, as right-wing terrorists were coopted by NATO to do their dirty work to demonise communists and leftists and advance the authority of the various states over their people.<br><br>Indeed, it is the leaders of supposedly open western societies who are seeking to subvert the institutions of law and restrict the civil liberties on which our nations are supposed to be based. The apolitical, amoral terrorists who only care about violence are apparently going to be fought via a series of increasingly ambiguous and wide-ranging legislative acts. One of the crowning accomplishments of this strategy is the <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4905304.stm">2006 Terrorism Act</a> (UK), which among other things makes it illegal to encourage or glorify terrorism.<br></span><span class="LegDS LegRHS LegP2Text" style="font-family:arial;"></span><blockquote style="font-family:arial;"><span class="LegDS LegRHS LegP2Text">For the purposes of this section, the statements that are likely to be understood by members of the public as indirectly encouraging the commission or preparation of acts of terrorism or Convention offences include every statement which—</span> <p class="LegClearFix LegP3Container" id="pt1-pb1-l1g1-l1p1-l2p3-l3p1" style="font-family:arial;"> <span class="LegDS LegLHS LegP3No">(a)</span> <span class="LegDS LegRHS LegP3Text">glorifies the commission or preparation (whether in the past, in the future or generally) of such acts or offences; and</span> </p> <p class="LegClearFix LegP3Container" id="pt1-pb1-l1g1-l1p1-l2p3-l3p2" style="font-family:arial;"> <span class="LegDS LegLHS LegP3No">(b)</span> <span class="LegDS LegRHS LegP3Text">is a statement <span style="font-weight: bold;">from which those members of the public could reasonably be expected to infer that what is being glorified is being glorified as conduct that should be emulated by them</span> in existing circumstances. - <a href="http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2006/ukpga_20060011_en_2">Terrorism Act 2006</a></span></p></blockquote><p class="LegClearFix LegP3Container" id="pt1-pb1-l1g1-l1p1-l2p3-l3p2" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="LegDS LegRHS LegP3Text"><a href="http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2006/ukpga_20060011_en_2"></a></span></p><span style="font-family:arial;">The outright vagueness of these laws offers two possibilities - either the quality of civil servants has dropped catastrophically to the extent that no one can even draft clear and sensible legislation anymore, or the government is deliberately seeking to pass ambiguous legislation so it becomes easier to charge, prosecute and ultimately convict people so they can get the numbers up. It's worth noting that in the UK the first recent terrorism/anti-terrorism act was passed in 2000, prior to 9/11, yet even under its extremely broad and ranging definition the government they'd only managed to convict </span><a style="font-family: arial;" href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/3590753.stm">6 people</a><span style="font-family:arial;"> from 561 arrests by April 2004. What followed was July 7th 2005, widely blamed on Islamic terrorists though every aspect of the government's narrative is flawed. Then some more legislation, and an upsurge in the charges, prosecutions and convictions. The War on Terror by numbers. </span><br><br><span style="font-family:arial;">Johnson's final deadly sin is perhaps the most baffling, or at least misleading, of them all. </span><br><blockquote style="font-family: arial;">"A free society which reacts to terrorism by invoking authoritarian methods of repressing it necessarily damages itself, as I have argued. But an even graver danger - and a much more common one today - is of free societies, in their anxiety to avoid the authoritarian extreme, failing to arm themselves against the terrorist threat... The terrorists succeed when they provoke oppression. But they succeed far better when they are met with appeasement. The seventh and deadliest sin of terrorism it that it saps the will of a civilised society to defend itself." - <a href="http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=s8Pm37gg5JkC&pg=PA12">Johnson, International Terrorism</a></blockquote><a style="font-family: arial;" href="http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=s8Pm37gg5JkC&pg=PA12"></a><span style="font-family:arial;">Thus, the threat from terrorism is a danger, democratic societies becoming authoritarian in order to fight the threat is a danger, but most dangerous of all is attempting to appease terrorists by not becoming authoritarian. A spectacular piece of scaremongerer's logic, that no matter what the circumstances and the outcome there lies danger. This sort of hall of mirrors argument is basically irrefutable, because no matter what evidence you put against it, your words will be subsumed within its contradictions. One can only beat such an argument with will, with the determination not to be taken in by such fear. </span><br><br><span style="font-family:arial;">Against this backdrop of conceiving of terrorism in a one-dimensional fashion, isolated from the context that gives rise to it one recent story is definitely worth considering. Dr Fadl, an imprisoned former leader of Egyptian Islamic Jihad, has renounced violence and criticised Osama Bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri. </span><br><blockquote style="font-family: arial;">"Every drop of blood that was shed or is being shed in Afghanistan and Iraq is the responsibility of bin Laden and Zawahiri and their followers," writes Dr Fadl. <p> The terrorist attacks on September 11 were both immoral and counterproductive, he writes. "Ramming America has become the shortest road to fame and leadership among the Arabs and Muslims. But what good is it if you destroy one of your enemy's buildings, and he destroys one of your countries? What good is it if you kill one of his people, and he kills a thousand of yours?" asks Dr Fadl. "That, in short, is my evaluation of 9/11." - <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/egypt/4736358/Al-Qaeda-founder-launches-fierce-attack-on-Osama-bin-Laden.html">The Telegraph</a></p></blockquote><p style="font-family: arial;"><a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/egypt/4736358/Al-Qaeda-founder-launches-fierce-attack-on-Osama-bin-Laden.html"></a></p><p style="font-family: arial;">Employing the same singular, one-dimensional mentality as Johnson and others at the JCIT, the article cites Dr Fadl as one of the original leaders of Al Qaeda. However, there's practically no evidence, beyond Fadl's own <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/06/02/080602fa_fact_wright?currentPage=3">boasting</a>, that this is the case. There is, for example, no mention of him in the official <a href="http://intelfiles.egoplex.com/2008/08/al-qaeda-founding-20-years-ago-today.html">memo</a> commemorating the founding of Al Qaeda, as there is no mention of Zawahiri, and <a href="http://www.cdi.org/terrorism/aljihad.cfm">the</a> <a href="http://www.lawrencewright.com/art-zawahiri.html">indications are</a> the two groups - Al Qaeda and Egyptian Islamic Jihad - didn't formally link until some years later. Once again, a loosely affiliated band of radicals is being treated as an organised network. It is important to note that as part of the UK government's attempt to '<a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2623819/BBC-targeted-in-campaign-to-taint-al-Qaeda.html">taint the Al Qaeda brand</a>', reported in July 2008, they sent information out worldwide:</p><p style="font-family: arial;"><blockquote style="font-family: arial;">The first dossier of material being despatched to diplomatic posts worldwide cites condemnation of al-Qaida from Sayyid Imam al-Sharif aka Dr Fadl, a former leader of Egyptian Islamic Jihad. -<a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/aug/26/alqaida.uksecurity"> The Guardian</a></blockquote><p style="font-family: arial;"><br /><div style="clear: both;"></div><br />Talkbouthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14408535183177475747noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5734121862980918017.post-7202002278724185612009-01-25T22:00:00.000-08:002013-10-24T11:51:02.679-07:00
Brand awareness
<br /><span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:100%;">Aaron McGruder, creator of the brilliant and hilarious black animated sitcom <a href="http://www.boondockstv.com/">The Boondocks</a>, has been the subject of some recent misreporting regarding some comments he made about Barack '<a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/nov/05/uselections2008-barackobama">change has come to America</a>' Obama. Now that the 21st of January has been and gone without the crisis <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9_xuUALI2M">predicted</a> by Colin Powell, we can feel safe again to discuss the double standards involved in the coverage of the new President. Though technically <a href="http://www.prisonplanet.com/what-will-obamas-international-crisis-be.html">Joe Biden</a>'s similar prediction may still turn out to be accurate, I don't think we've too much to worry about. McGruder had been reported by pal-item.com, the website of the Richmond Palladium-Item, to have said that Obama wasn't black because he wasn't descended from a slave. Though the <a href="http://www.pal-item.com/article/20090120/NEWS01/901200312">article</a> does initially report McGruder's scepticism accurately, this one misrepresented comment has caused quite a <a href="http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=McGruder+said+that+to+him%2C+Obama+is+not+black+because+he+is+not+a+descendant+of+a+slave">stir</a>. In an interview with the Washington Post he noted that: </span><blockquote style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">"Sadly, it no longer matters how carefully you choose your words -- you said what the dumbest person in the audience said you said...this new kind of 'gutter news' from sites ... [is] going to make it extremely difficult to engage in any sort of intelligent discourse." - <a href="http://voices.washingtonpost.com/comic-riffs/2009/01/obama_talk_boondocks_creator_d.html">Washington Post</a></span></blockquote><span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:100%;">The saddest thing about this is that the controversy over something McGruder never even said have overshadowed the very important things he was saying. </span><blockquote style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">"It was a simple conversation about the differences between race, ethnicity, nationality, and trying to draw distinctions that most of the media and public seemed to be casually ignoring. That somehow became me calling someone who is obviously black not black." - <a href="http://voices.washingtonpost.com/comic-riffs/2009/01/obama_talk_boondocks_creator_d.html">Washington Post</a></span></blockquote><span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:100%;">The majority of the coverage of the new President has made primary reference to his being the <a href="http://news.google.co.uk/news?q=first%20black%20president">first black president</a>. While it is a historical first, and in terms of its symbolism a positive development, this story with McGruder is an allegory for how the issue of his race and what it means has dominated the discussion to the detriment of any genuine attempt to discern what, if anything, Obama can do to alter the course of the world's first and only truly global superpower. This is amusingly illustrated by some commentators who reminded us during the campaign that in 2001 Bill Clinton was <a href="http://www.chocolatecity.cc/politics/black_president.shtml">honoured</a> as the nation's first black president at the Congressional Black Caucus Annual Awards Dinner. It is ultimately policy, not skin colour or blood, that will determine whether or not Obama is black in the same political sense that got Clinton such an honour. Though I'm no great fan of Bill Clinton, I can certainly understand why after twelve years of Reagan and Bush he was considered by some black political circles to be a great improvement.<br><br></span><span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:100%;">The author of the article misquoting McGruder, <a href="http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Rachel+E+Sheeley">Rachel Sheeley</a>, seems to have no great background in reporting on the subject of Obama, so it's unlikely it was a deliberate ploy to skew the media coverage of the new presidency. However, it does reflect the broader emphasis of that coverage, particular here in Europe. The day after Obama was elected, the BBC's flagship news discussion show Newsnight featured Jeremy Paxman interviewing Dizzee Rascal, something of a joke in music circles let alone on the subject of politics.<br><br><object height="344" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/tM1XrVVVBAk&hl=en&fs=1"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/tM1XrVVVBAk&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" height="344" width="425"></object><br><br>Mr Rascal had little of interest to contribute, as one might expect he was full of comments like:<br></span><blockquote style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">"I think a black man, purple man, Martian man can run the country ... as long as he does right by the people." - <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/nov/08/dizzee-rascal-paxman-jeremy-bbc">Dizzee Rascal</a></span></blockquote><span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:100%;">Despite this, Paxman was criticised by some for his treatment of someone who never should have been on the show in the first place. Singer Estelle accused Paxman of treating Mr Rascal '<a href="http://www.nme.com/news/dizzee-rascal/41727">like an idiot</a>'. <a href="http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/authors/paul_moody/">Paul Moody</a> of the Guardian, a music journalist by trade, wrote a lengthy piece slamming Paxman as some sort of 19th century colonialist.<br></span><blockquote style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">"Could you see this happening in Britain ?" barked Paxo, clearly livid at having Britain's premier MC on the show to add some street-level zing to the debate. - <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/musicblog/2008/nov/06/dizzee-rascal-jeremy-paxman-newsnight">Guardian</a></span></blockquote><span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:100%;">The reason why Mr Rascal was on the show was indeed to add 'street level zing'. Not credible opinions from a black commentator, just street level zing. Of course, people on the street are on the street at 10:30 p.m., not at home watching Newsnight. It was a woeful decision by the BBC to even put Dizzee Rascal on the show, so even if Paxman's attitude was dismissive I can sympathise somewhat. Why wasn't Paxman interviewing <a href="http://www.100greatblackbritons.com/bios/trevor_phillips.html">Trevor Phillips</a>, chief of the Commission for Racial Equality? Or what about the young black MP <a href="http://www.davidlammy.co.uk/da/15560">David Lammy</a>? Or <a href="http://www.streathamlabour.org.uk/about-chuka/">Chuka Umunna</a>, an upcoming hope for the 2010 parliamentary election? Or any number of other writers, academics, commentators, political activists? Or, and this is a radical idea I know, some ordinary people who just happened to have some worthwhile things to say?<br><br>No. Instead we get actors and rappers. Not that actors and rappers never had anything interesting to say, but it speaks volumes about the prejudices of the media that when discussing a historic day in the development of African Americans they seek out only people who fit conventional black stereotypes for success. The only thing missing was a few basketballers. Oh, hang on, here's <a href="http://capitolhub.com/video/6623/charles-barkley-endorses-barack-obama">Charles Barkley</a> endorsing Obama. Though it's amusing to read that <a href="http://tastybooze.com/2008/03/dmx-is-mind-bottled-by-barack-obama/">DMX</a> wasn't even aware that there was a presidential election or a black candidate, the absence of credible, interesting, articulate black people talking about what this might mean is doubly frustrating when just such a person, McGruder, is misquoted and consequently the significance of his comments is lost. Likewise when even a relatively respected interviewer like Paxman shows some discomfort at having to interview people who are largely clueless regarding the issues at hand he is criticised for stepping out of the accepted boundaries of this discussion.<br><br>Obama's race (though ambiguous, since technically he is mixed race) is key to what marketers call his brand image, as this Fast Company magazine article shows. Not only does it refer to him initially as a 'black man', it goes on to say:<br><blockquote>"Barack Obama is three things you want in a brand," says Keith Reinhard, chairman emeritus of DDB Worldwide. "New, different, and attractive. That's as good as it gets." Obama has his greatest strength among the young, roughly 18 to 29 years old, that advertisers covet, the cohort known as millennials -- who will outnumber the baby boomers by 2010. They are black, white, yellow, and various shades of brown, but what they share -- new media, online social networks, a distaste for top-down sales pitches -- connects them more than traditional barriers, such as ethnicity, divide them." - <a href="http://www.fastcompany.com/welcome.html?destination=http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/124/the-brand-called-obama.html">Fast Company magazine</a><br></blockquote>New, different and attractive. Certainly, anything other than a white upper middle class male makes him new. Different? Basically the same as 'new'. Attractive? Indeed, in that he's black enough that African Americans will see him as one of their own, but not so black that tacitly racist white liberals will have any problem feeling good about themselves for supporting him. Or arranging for rappers to be seen endorsing him, and so on.<br><br>Not that his race is the only aspect to the Obama brand that succeeded. As noted by Newsweek:<br></span><blockquote style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">"<span class="BlogPostWords">Obama is the first presidential candidate to be marketed like a high-end consumer brand." - <a href="http://www.blog.newsweek.com/blogs/stumper/archive/2008/02/27/how-obama-s-branding-is-working-on-you.aspx">Newsweek</a></span></span></blockquote><span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:100%;"><span class="BlogPostWords">While it's certainly true that marketing techniques have long been used to sell presidents as products, the Obama campaign set a new standard, even using <a href="http://adage.com/campaigntrail/post?article_id=125377">chain-letter</a> style e-mail strategies</span>. As shown in this 1970s feature by John Pilger, we can go back at least as far as Kennedy in the use of advertising to further political careers.<br><br><embed id="VideoPlayback" src="http://video.google.co.uk/googleplayer.swf?docid=6533236200244382401&hl=en&fs=true" style="width: 400px; height: 326px;" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"><br><br>However, the impact of the Obama brand is like nothing seen before. It is now being used to sell a</span><span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:100%;"> huge range of <a href="http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jad4oU0VHRcI-TvA-U2Gvl6hH62A">merchandise</a>, from t-shirt and medallions to barbecue sauce and action figures, and</span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://djkonservo.files.wordpress.com/2008/10/obama-heroin.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 240px; height: 180px;" src="http://djkonservo.files.wordpress.com/2008/10/obama-heroin.jpg" alt="" border="0"></a><span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:100%;"> Ben n Jerry's ice-cream have launched a new flavour, deliciously named '<a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/24/obama-adverts-pecan">Yes Pecan</a>'. Even <a href="http://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2009/01/25/Police_seize_Obama_brand_heroin/UPI-79651232864226/">heroin dealers</a> have got in on the act.<br><br></span><div style="text-align: left;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.sogoodblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/yes-pecan4.jpg"><br></a></div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.sogoodblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/yes-pecan4.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 293px; height: 300px;" src="http://www.sogoodblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/yes-pecan4.jpg" alt="" border="0"></a><span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:100%;"><br><br><br><br><br><br>As amusing as all this might be, it is a brutal indication of how politics by consent in the world's wealthiest democracy is nothing more than a nice sounding idea, and the reality is that even the candidates representing change are as carefully packaged and marketed to us as high fashion or a blockbuster movie. The election itself is more like the Superbowl, in that it primarily consists of adverts and there's no discernible competition.<br><br></span><div style="text-align: left;"><span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:100%;">Another illustration of this increasing symbiosis between politics and marketing is the War on Terror, as it was initially <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2001/sep/21/september11.usa13">labelled</a> by George W Bush. This became '<a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4897786.stm">the long war</a>' after criticism, most beautifully from former Monty Python member Terry Jones:</span><br></div><blockquote style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">TERRY: The “War On Terror” is nothing more than the act of declaring war on an abstract noun. Now you could say, “No, we’re declaring war on terrorists, not on abstract nouns,” but a terrorist doesn’t even exist until he’s committed a terrorist act. Just substitute something else for the word “terror” to make you see how ludicrous this is. Let’s say you declared war on “murder.” “Now we’ve declared war on murder and we’re not going to rest until ever murderer and every would-be murderer has been caught and brought to justice.” This is completely ridiculous! You can’t catch every one! Besides, they’re not even murderers until they’ve actually murdered someone! You can’t stop something happening before it happens! It’s a very dangerous situation that we’re now in and the people behind Bush, with his concepts of pre-emptive strikes around the world. They are a recipe for permanent warfare, disaster, chaos and I’m sorry to say, more terrorism. - <a href="http://www.herecomethewilddogs.com/jones.htm">Herecomethewilddogs</a></span><span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:100%;"><a href="http://www.herecomethewilddogs.com/jones.htm"></a></span></blockquote><span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:100%;">The name 'war on terror' was officially dropped by the US in <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4719169.stm">July 2005</a>, rebranding it then as the '<a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0728/dailyUpdate.html">struggle against violent extremism</a>'. The aim was not to clarify the situation, but to downplay the ongoing <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7829946.stm">military aspects</a> of the war. It was officially dropped in Britain in <a href="http://www.military.com/NewsContent/0,13319,159067,00.html">December 2007</a>, though as the <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6562709.stm">BBC</a> notes the British and European media never took the phrase, often employing quotation marks when using it. Around this same period the portrayal of Al Qaeda changed, from being a hierarchical network to a '<a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7078712.stm">brand</a>', as MI5 head Jonathan Evans called it. The importance of this is that even those with no connection to Bin Laden, Zawahiri or any other leading Al Qaeda figure could still be considered a target in this war. As the Boston Globe pointed out:<br></span><blockquote style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Though distinguishing between groups that are officially part of Al Qaeda and those that are not may seem like splitting hairs, recognizing that not all jihadist groups or individuals are members of Al Qaeda helps us to understand that the "war on terror" is not just a war on Al Qaeda or groups affiliated with it. Rather, the war on terror is a war on a global jihadist movement of which Al Qaeda is only a part, albeit extremely influential. <span>The common thread between all jihadist groups is that they share a similar ideology. Because this ideology does not derive its legitimacy from Al Qaeda or bin Laden, the jihadist movement will continue to exist whether there is a group called Al Qaeda or not</span>. - <a href="http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2007/06/22/franchising_al_qaeda/">Boston Globe</a></span></blockquote><span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:100%;">In August 2008 an internal British government document 'obtained' by the press revealed that it has become official policy to spread propaganda, both online and in more mainstream media, to 'taint the Al Qaeda brand': </span><blockquote style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">The campaign aims to "channel messages" through internet bloggers and chatroom members as well as major media outlets such as the BBC.</span><p><span style="font-size:100%;">It will seek to persuade people that the terrorist group is "in decline", and its operatives are "not heroes".</span></p><p><span style="font-size:100%;">The strategy has been drawn up by the Research Information and Communication Unit (RICU) - which was set up by former Home Secretary John Reid and is staffed by officials from several Whitehall departments...</span></p><p><span style="font-size:100%;">...However, the document stresses that the West should "avoid suggesting that AQ is no longer a threat". - <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1049258/Counter-terrorism-unit-launches-global-propaganda-campaign-taint-Al-Qaeda-brand.html">Daily Mail</a></span></p></blockquote><p style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Indeed, this leaked document came in between Home Secretary Jacqui's Smith's <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7344925.stm">warning</a> in April that the threat was 'growing and severe', and Security Minister Lord West's claim in October that the security services are monitoring a '<a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7344925.stm">great plot</a>' by Al Qaeda. Strangely, Lord West was <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/oct/16/uksecurity-jacquismith">criticised</a> for revealing such sensitive information, but hardly anyone said a word when two heads of MI5 and the Home Secretary essentially did the same thing. Moreover, a clearer example of official doublespeak you will not find - a counterterrorism unit is out spreading the news that Al Qaeda is weakened but all the while we're being warned that the threat is real and menacing. Al Qaeda really does show incredible flexibility as a brand, in that it seems to mean whatever the various vested interests require it to mean at different times.</span></p><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">More consolidated is the Obama brand, though in McGruder's response to being misquoted he showed great brevity and honesty in illustrating that there are cracks in the new president's carefully manufactured image. Initially he posted a brief message on his myspace:</span> <span class="text" style="font-family:arial;"><blockquote>Hey guys, never said Barack wasn't Black... please don't bother me with that bullshit. - <a href="http://www.myspace.com/amcgruder">myspace</a></blockquote><a href="http://www.myspace.com/amcgruder"></a>However, he felt the need to clarify things further, and I for one am glad he did because his comments are right on the money not only regarding how his words have been treated by the media, but also on the corruption of the American democratic process and how little power the president has in the face of elite corporate-governmental institutions like the Federal Reserve.<br></span><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><blockquote><span style="font-family:arial;">For a long time now, I have tried to keep my opinions on the election and Barack Obama to myself. I occasionally do speaking engagements, which are not open to the press, and unfortunately some of my comments have been twisted around in a silly manner. The claim that I asserted our new President was not Black is categorically false. </span> <span style="font-family:arial;">I have seen an endless stream of Black pundits on TV pontificating about the significance of President Obama’s election - many of them making reference to the 3/5th’s clause in the constitution regarding slaves. The point I was making is that this is not an accurate comparison. Barack is the son of an immigrant, not the descendant of slaves. It’s like comparing a half-Japanese man to the oppressed Chinese who built the American railroads. Yes, they are both Asian, but it is not an honest or accurate comparison. We all share the common experiences of being Black in America today - we do not all share a common history. A history that in part makes us who we are - and in some cases (as with the psychological damage that still lingers from slavery) holds us back. These are not, I believe, insignificant distinctions. </span> <span style="font-family:arial;">I did say I was cautiously pessimistic about Obama’s Presidency - but this is simply acknowledging the reality of an American Empire that is out of control and on the verge of collapse. Let us not forget that on the eve of the election, we witnessed a near trillion dollar robbery of the US treasury. That robbery is still taking place. I do not blame President Obama, but I do not believe the financial and corporate interests that own and control this country will fold so easily. I do not question the integrity of the man as much as the power of his office - which I believe has greatly diminished over the years. I believe the Federal Reserve Bank, the Military Industrial Complex, and the massive corporate interests that run this country have more power than our new President. I hope I am wrong.</span> <span style="font-family:arial;">After 9/11, I witnessed most of this country become obsessed with squashing dissent and silencing critics. I hope this election does not turn Black America towards this same, fascist mind state; but already I am starting to see it, and it saddens me greatly. I absolutely wish our new President and his family success and safety. But after all I have witnessed in my lifetime, and especially in the last eight years, I am not ready to lay down my skepticism or my outrage for this government. To do so would be unwise and, ironically enough, anti-American. - </span><a style="font-family: arial;" href="http://dailycartoonist.com/index.php/2009/01/21/mcgruder-denies-report-regarding-obamas-race/">McGruder statement in full, Dailycartoonist</a></blockquote><a style="font-family: arial;" href="http://dailycartoonist.com/index.php/2009/01/21/mcgruder-denies-report-regarding-obamas-race/"></a><span style="font-family:arial;">I have a feeling it will be some time before the mainstream press manages anything as intelligent and succinct as this on the subject of high and deep politics. In the meantime, enjoy one of the best episodes of the Boondocks, where Huey and the rest go to see Soul Plane 2. </span> <span style="font-family:arial;"><object height="360" width="425"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="wmode" value="transparent"><param name="movie" value="http://mediaservices.myspace.com/services/media/embed.aspx/m=20713789,t=1,mt=video,searchID=,primarycolor=,secondarycolor="><embed src="http://mediaservices.myspace.com/services/media/embed.aspx/m=20713789,t=1,mt=video,searchID=,primarycolor=,secondarycolor=" allowfullscreen="true" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" height="360" width="425"></object></span> </span><blockquote style="font-family: arial;"> </blockquote><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span><span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:100%;"> </span><br /><div style="clear: both;"></div><br />Talkbouthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14408535183177475747noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5734121862980918017.post-33729963690832962482008-12-23T22:00:00.000-08:002013-10-24T11:51:02.671-07:00
Semiotics of Paedophilia
<br /><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:arial;font-size:100%;"><br><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dzhW7Ia2fRUII3WdtC60ZFMwNjA5kWuCzG14sM6k-6m2L-QXtGhtJxXBWYQIgeuFUdUaUbL2G3tPKc_2YHRxA' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe><br /><a href="rtsp://v2.cache4.googlevideo.com/ChoLENy73wIaEQkJmAvOUyeOSRMYDSANFEgDDA==/0/0/0/video.3gp" type="video/3gpp"><img width="320" height="266" alt="video" src="http://video.google.com/ThumbnailServer2?app=blogger&contentid=498e2753ce0b9809&offsetms=5000&itag=w160&sigh=DGrvbqCmo5m0wZdoU_rP2gM45vA" class="BLOG_mobile_video_class" id="BLOG_mobile_video-498e2753ce0b9809"></a><br><br>Ten years ago, back when Britney Spears could still sing and dance and wasn't primarily famous for being another messed up white trash celebrity who wanders around with Paris Hilton mutually flashing the paparazzi, Jive Records released ...Baby One More Time. It was the song that turned Britney from a shopping mall-touring <a href="http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=FDclvF1v5-U">ex-Mouseketeer</a> into a superstar. Girls wanted to be Britney, boys wanted to have Britney. Win-win, from a marketing point of view.<br><br>It wasn't just the song that appealed, but the music video that stood out. It features the sixteen year old Britney in a raunchy school uniform, in a school setting, imploring her ex-boyfriend to 'hit' her one more time. Leaving the lyrics aside for a moment, it appears that the original plan for the video was to have Britney superimposed on a cartoon setting, but this was scrapped, apparently at the star's <a href="http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=WdJTXaIaalM">request</a>, in favour of a realistic school environment. Similarly, it was <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...Baby_One_More_Time_%28song%29#Music_video">allegedly</a> Britney's idea to have the school uniform shirts tied up so as to bear her midriff.<br><br>I'm not trying to make out that Britney Spears had some fiendish plan to sexualise schoolgirls, indeed I see her more as victim than villain in this story. But she was, it must be remembered, a product of the Disney corporation. The founder of the company, Walt Disney, attended meetings of the <a href="http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1623/was-walt-disney-a-fascist">Nazi</a> Party, was an <a href="http://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/display.pperl/9780679438229.html">alcoholic</a>, founded the 33 club - a <a href="http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/06/21/secret-societies-yale-and-disneyland/">masonic</a> order and has long been rumoured to be a <a href="http://www.progressiveu.org/002947-subliminal-messages-is-it-mind-control">sexual pervert</a> of varying kinds. The company has a relatively long history of <a href="http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=disney+employee+convicted">employees</a> being convicted of such offences including possession of child pornography and sexual activity with a minor.<br><br>More recently the company has been accused of placing subliminal <a href="http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/41931/sexual_hidden_messages_in_disney_movies.html">sexual images</a> in movies designed for children. This might seem far-fetched but bear in mind they did market underwear associated with the kids movie High School Musical which bore the slogan '<a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1044496/Outrage-High-School-Musical-knickers-young-girls-emblazoned-words-Dive-In.html">Dive in</a>'.<br><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2008/08/13/article-1044496-02446FFE00000578-536_468x286.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 468px; height: 286px;" src="http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2008/08/13/article-1044496-02446FFE00000578-536_468x286.jpg" alt="" border="0"></a>Along similar lines, back in the days when they were preparing Britney for stardom the company<a href="http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/1555/Disney5.html"> opposed</a> a law designed to help protect children from online pornography. They've even got involved with the War on Terror:<br></span><p style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:arial;" align="justify"><span style="font-size:100%;"></span></p><blockquote style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:arial;"><p align="justify"><span style="font-size:100%;">"But now a land grab is about to take place comparable to the ‘purchase’ of Manhattan Island from the Lenapes Indians for $24 worth of beads and trinkets in 1626, the ‘best real estate deal in history.’</span></p> <p align="justify"><span style="font-size:100%;">In an ‘agreement’ with the ‘Mayor’ of Baghdad, the fifty acre Zawra Park is to be developed into a trashy Disneyland by the Tigris, complete with malls, hotels, housing, amusements, entertainment and a museum. Iraq’s National Museum with its millennias of treasures and the National Library’s irreplaceable ancient volumes and manuscripts were looted and destroyed under US watch in 2003. A replacement by a Disneyland version is a concept devised by the seriously psychologically challenged." - Felicity Arbuthnot, <a href="http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=9083">globalresearch</a></span></p></blockquote><p style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:arial;" align="justify"><span style="font-size:100%;"><a href="http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=9083"></a></span></p><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:arial;font-size:100%;">As noted by Michel Chossudovsky:<br></span><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Verdana;font-size:100%;"></span><blockquote style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:arial;"><span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:100%;">"Through the use of motion based simulations and sophisticated entertainment equipment, the harsh daily realities of poverty and military occupation are replaced by a World of fiction and fantasy. </span> <p align="justify"><span style="font-size:100%;">The concept underlying Disney's Imagineering (developed by RSE) is to "overcome the barriers between reality and dreams".<br><br>The objective is to replace reality by a dream world. </span></p> <p align="justify"><span style="font-size:100%;">Iraq's daily realities of death, destruction and torture are replaced by<em> a "Dream World Made in America"</em>.<br><br>The imagery and motion simulations intended for Iraqi children and adolescents provide a "human face" to the American invaders.<br><br>The project constitutes a despicable form of war propaganda. It is a cover-up of the extensive war crimes committed against the Iraqi people in the name of an illusory "American Dream"...</span></p><p align="justify"><span style="font-size:100%;">...The Baghdad Disneyland-style project has all the essential features of a PsyOp. It is intended to instill American values and destroy Iraqi identity. </span></p> <p align="justify"><span style="font-size:100%;"> "The people [of Iraq] need this kind of positive influence. Its going to have a huge psychological impact," said Mr. Werner of C3. </span></p> <p align="justify"><span style="font-size:100%;">In a cruel irony the PsyOp target group are Iraqi Children:<br>“There are all sorts of investment opportunities all over Iraq. But it’s not just hydrocarbons. Half the Iraqi population is under the age of 15. These kids really need something to do,” (Mr. Brinkley, quoted in The Times, April 24, 2008)</span></p> <blockquote> </blockquote> <p align="justify"><span style="font-size:100%;">Iraq's cultural heritage is destroyed.<br><br>The historical memory of Mesopotamia is wiped out.<br><br>US investors are to "bring badly needed fun" to the war theater. </span></p> <p align="justify"><span style="font-size:100%;">The sponsor of project Mr. Llewellyn Werner says the time is ripe for a "fun park":<br>"I think people will embrace it. They'll see it as an opportunity for their children regardless if they're Shia or Sunni. They'll say their kids deserve a place to play and they'll leave it alone."(Ibid)</span></p> <blockquote> </blockquote> <p align="justify"><span style="font-size:100%;">According to a spokesman for the US installed Iraqi regime:<br>“There is a shortage of entertainment in the city. Cinemas can’t open. Playgrounds can’t open. The fun park is badly needed for Baghdad. Children don’t have any opportunities to enjoy their childhood.” Mr al-Dabbagh added that entry to the park would be strictly controlled." (Times, April 24, 2008)" - Chossudovsky, <a href="http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8837">globalresearch</a></span></p></blockquote><p style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:arial;" align="justify"><span style="font-size:100%;"><a href="http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8837"></a></span></p><p style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:arial;" align="justify"><span style="font-size:100%;">Reminds me somewhat of what they did in Germany after the Second World War, when it was deemed necessary to deNazify the population. Indeed, Paul Bremer used <a href="http://www.cfr.org/publication/7853/iraq.html">debaathification</a> as his excuse for disbanding the Iraqi army in 2003, though this did not stop <a href="http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=_6f_3DobpdwC">private military firms</a> (not to mention people looking for potential terrorists) from employing them.</span></p><p style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:arial;" align="justify"><span style="font-size:100%;">Back to Britney, and the song that made her a star, the <a href="http://www.lyricsfreak.com/b/britney+spears/baby+one+more+time_20024608.html">lyrics</a> contain numerous uses of the word 'baby' to refer to (presumably) an ex-boyfriend. This, along with 'babe' has become a very popular idiom, so much so in the case of the latter that it's <a href="http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Babe">new meaning</a> of an attractive person, usually a teenage female, has usurped its <a href="http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=babe">old meaning</a> of a newborn or young baby. This may seem trivial, but when you combine a young but sexually attractive girl dressed in a school uniform with throatily expressions of 'baby baby' and I'd say you've got a pretty comprehensive image of the sexualisation of youth.<br></span></p><p style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:arial;" align="justify"><span style="font-size:100%;">On top of that there's the punchline at the end of the chorus 'give me a sign, hit me baby one more time'. This young, evidently emotionally vulnerable female is imploring the listener, or at least her ex-boyfriend, to give her a 'sign' by hitting her, again. This is the line with the most emphasis in the entire song, and is sung in the most aggressively, so there's not much room for ambiguity that the word 'hit' is intended literally. Indeed, there was some concern from the record studio execs at the time that the song might be seen to be condoning domestic violence. Their answer? To drop the '<a href="http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=2H6W4RR3kq0">hit me</a>' from the title. Not change the lyrics. Not have Britney or the song's writer give an interview saying what the line means. Not downplay the line in the song's production. Just drop the 'hit me' from the title.<br></span></p><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:arial;font-size:100%;">Not that the <a href="http://img259.imageshack.us/slideshow/player.php?id=img259/4580/11819121345gj.smil">sexualisation</a> of <a href="http://images.google.co.uk/images?q=schoolgirl">schoolgirls</a> is anything new. It has recently <a href="http://www.inquisitr.com/10689/japanese-government-banning-used-school-girl-pantie-vending-machines/">been</a> in the <a href="http://www.dcstreetvendor.com/index.cfm/title/Japanese+Ban+Used+School+Girl+Panties+Vending+Machines+">news</a> that Japan has banned vending machines that sell underwear purportedly worn by a Japanese schoolgirl. These machines most definitely do exist, as these <a href="http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=iPqol5Qvq_E">videos</a> and these <a href="http://www.photomann.com/japan/machines/">pictures</a> demonstrate. The Japanese even went so far as to make an advert trying to discredit the product and discourage the customers from buying them: </span><blockquote style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:arial;"> <p align="justify"><span style="font-size:100%;"><object height="344" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/v_X89CbcY2Y&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en&feature=player_embedded&fs=1"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/v_X89CbcY2Y&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en&feature=player_embedded&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" height="344" width="425"></object><br></span></p></blockquote><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:arial;font-size:100%;">I think they're fighting a losing battle. For one thing, the Japanese <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schoolgirl_uniform_fetish#Schoolgirl_uniform_fetish">school uniform fetish</a> is pretty well ingrained, and for another it seems they tried the <a href="http://www.snopes.com/risque/kinky/panties.asp">same thing</a> back in 1993 and clearly failed.<br><br><br>I suppose what I'm asking is this: How can we charge a <a href="http://www.kwch.com/Global/story.asp?s=6731396">14 year old girl</a> with raping a 13 year old boy, particularly one who may have been raped herself, or charge <a href="http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/246370/Three_boys_8_and_9_charged_with_raping_11_year_old_girl">three boys aged 8 and 9</a> with raping an <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2007/11/20/1195321724553.html">11 year old girl</a>, or a <a href="http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=a_Er5X1eFkc&feature=related">12 year old boy</a> with raping two boys aged 8 and 9, or any number of other similar cases when we are the ones who've filled their entertainment culture with aggressive sexual imagery, sounds, ideas and feelings? We create this culture, see it all the time and rarely if ever object, even when something horrific happens. In another recent case a <a href="http://www.newarkadvocate.com/article/20081008/NEWS01/810080302">15 year old girl</a> was accused of possessing and distributing nude photos of herself to other minors and could be placed on the sex offenders register. Apparently a girl now owning a nude picture of herself is a serious criminal offence. Update March 2009 - no 'apparently' about it, today it was reported that a <a href="http://uk.news.yahoo.com/5/20090327/twl-girl-in-nude-myspace-pics-child-porn-3fd0ae9.html">14 year old girl from New Jersey</a> is to be charged with possession and distribution of child pornography after posting nude pictures of herself on myspace for her boyfriend to see, and will in likelihood have to register as a sex offender. <br><br>The same mindset is applied to paedophiles. The news invariably seeks to demonise '<a href="http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=predatory+paedophile">predatory paedophiles</a>' and overlooks the popular culture of making youth an object of sexual desire. Not that I'm in any way seeking to defend paedophiles, they are ultimately responsible for their actions, but it's immensely hypocritical that if a private citizen steals a picture of a topless 14 year old girl and publishes it somehow they are open to serious prosecution but when FHM magazine published a topless picture of a 14 year old girl they were merely '<a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2007/sep/11/pressandpublishing2">rapped</a>' by the Press Complaints Commission, not charged with distributing child pornography. The magazine's publishers of course plead ignorance, claiming the girl looked much older. Why is it so difficult to tell the difference between a 14 year old and an 18 year old? Because of the very culture spread by magazines such as FHM.<br><br>What is a crime for an individual is a mere disciplinary issue for a major publication. Indeed, what is a crime in one country is legal in many others, when <a href="http://www.avert.org/aofconsent.htm">age of consent</a> is the issue. The hypocrisy was reaffirmed to a horrible extent when, in 2001, Channel 4 broadcast a 'Brasseye' special - a spoof new program satirising the media's treatment of the subject of sex offenders. The tabloid response to criticism of their shoddy, hate-inspiring reporting was <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2001/jul/29/film.artsreviews">predictable</a>, with the <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1460805.stm">Sun</a> and the<a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/now-chris-morris-sees-the-funny-side-of-suicide-bombers-440577.html"> Daily Mail</a> branding it the 'sickest TV show ever'. It got worse, as reported by the BBC:<br><br></span><blockquote style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:arial;"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:arial;font-size:100%;"><span class="postxt">"</span></span><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:arial;font-size:100%;"><span class="postxt">The Home Office's child protection minister Beverley Hughes described the show as <i>"unspeakably sick"</i> - then admitted that she hadn't actually seen it.</span></span><span style="color: rgb(255, 255, 255);font-size:100%;" class="postxt"><p style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">At this point, I was feeling pretty sickened myself - not by "Brass Eye", but at the fact that I'd voted Labour and thus helped to put these people in power.</p><p style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Then, some surprising things happened. People refused to be told when to be outraged. True, Channel 4 received hundreds of complaints - but the station also received hundreds of calls supporting the show. Significantly, among those who wrote to politicians and newspapers in support of "Brass Eye" were people who were themselves survivors of child sexual abuse. And suddenly, the government line changed dramatically.</p><p><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Ms Jowell now announced:</span><br><i style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">"I've made it absolutely clear that programme content and regulatory issues that arise from this are a matter for broadcasters and regulators, not government"</i><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">." - </span><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/hub/A603451">BBC</a></p></span></blockquote><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Trebuchet MS,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:100%;" class="postxt"><p>There are two different relevant watchdogs in the UK, and they received <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/alabaster/A676424">numerous</a> complaints and messages of support concerning the show. The Independent Television Commission received 1000+ complaints and 750+ supportive comments, whereas the Broadcasting Standards Commission received 213 complaints and 179 supportive comments. <span><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Trebuchet MS,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:100%;" class="postxt">Sadly, this distaste for hypocrisy didn't extent throughout the BBC as a few years down the line they commissioned and broadcast <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2006/06_june/05/gorgeous.shtml">Drop Dead Gorgeous</a>, a show about a young model growing up in Runcorn. The protagonist, Ashley, is 15 when the show begins but the BBC thought it prudent to cast an <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinead_Moynihan">actress</a> who was around 10 years older.<br></span></span></p>Regardless, when Channel 4 rebroadcast the Brass Eye Special the Daily Star responded with more inflammatory coverage. The irony they perhaps missed was that on the same page as the hit piece on Chris Morris and Channel 4 was an article, complete with picture, about the development of Charlotte Church's breasts, who as the article noted was only 15 at the time.<br></span><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:arial;font-size:100%;"><br></span><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-size:100%;"><a style="font-family: arial;" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1149/1361184202_6ba24edf37_o.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 800px; height: 739px;" src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1149/1361184202_6ba24edf37_o.jpg" alt="" border="0"></a><br><span style="font-family:arial;">I invite you to make up your own mind about the show:</span><br><span style="font-family:arial;"><embed id="VideoPlayback" src="http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docid=9031532194656768989&hl=en&fs=true" style="width: 400px; height: 326px;" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"> </span><br></span><br /><div style="clear: both;"></div><br />Talkbouthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14408535183177475747noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5734121862980918017.post-15027029274855943242008-11-24T22:00:00.000-08:002013-10-24T11:51:02.663-07:00
The Club
<br /><span style="font-family: arial;">El Presidente Negro has now announced his economic team and as expected Geithner is Treasury Sec. and his mentor, Lawrence Summers, will be head of the White House's National Economic Council. The other economic appointment of note is Christina Romer.</span><br><br><span style="font-family: arial;">While the first two have long standing ties to both the world of governmental economics in the US, e.g. Summers used to be Treasury Sec. and Geithner used to work for the treasury, and globalist financial institutions, Geithner with the IMF and Summers with the World Bank, Romer is a lifetime academic. This might inspire a certain degree of confidence that she isn't just another member of the club finding a way to warm their own feet at the fire or toe the party line. As the Wall Street Journal economics blog put it:</span><blockquote style="font-family: arial;">That the Romers are so well-regarded by their peers of both parties has many economists cheered that the Obama administration is going for the top minds in the field rather than those who adhere most closely to party lines. - <a href="http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2008/11/24/who-is-christina-romer/">WSJ</a></blockquote><a style="font-family: arial;" href="http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2008/11/24/who-is-christina-romer/"></a><br><span style="font-family: arial;">However reassuring academic expertise may be to poorly educated people, it is no guarantee of credibility or freedom from corruption. Earlier this year, UK television's Channel 4 broadcast a documentary show titled <a href="http://www.channel4.com/culture/microsites/C/cutting_edge/artful_codgers/index.html">The Artful Codgers</a>. The show told the story of two working class pensioners and their son who successfully defrauded the high class art world of hundreds of thousands of pounds for works faked by the son in the shed of their council house. You can watch part one of the show here, and the rest on youtube:<br><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/S-v3sDXmRHk&hl=en&fs=1"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/S-v3sDXmRHk&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></object><br>This single story illustrates how education and letters following your name can be rendered useless by someone willing and able to deceive and defraud. And there are plenty of more adept deceivers and defrauders in this world than George and Olive Greenhalgh. <br><br>So, is there any sign that Romer's education and credentials are in effect meaningless, and that she too is part of the same club as Geithner and Summers? Well, she's regarded as a mainstream economist, and a glance at the titles of her books on <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/christina-romer/s/qid=1227623269/ref=sr_pg_2?ie=UTF8&rs=&keywords=christina%20romer&rh=i%3Aaps%2Ck%3Achristina%20romer&page=2">amazon</a> certainly suggest that. Talk of 'business cycles' show that she understands the economy as a sort of repetitive progression of peaks and troughs. Nothing particularly suspicious about any of that, until you throw in the fact that she was vice president of the <a href="http://www.vanderbilt.edu/AEA/">American Economic Association</a>, which for a long time has been a propaganda arm of the elite designed to project this idea that no one is ultimately in control of the economy. That peaks and troughs are natural. <br><br>That this is the purpose of the AEA was first noted by historian Anthony Sutton, who explained how the association was set up by Richard T. Ely, a close associate of Andrew Dickson White and Daniel Gilman, both members of The Order, the Yale secret society. <blockquote>Academic associations are a means of conditioning or even policing academics. Although academics are great at talking about academic freedom, they are peculiarly susceptible to peer group pressures. And if an academic fails to get the word through his peer group, there is always the threat of not getting tenure. In other words, what is taught at University levels is passed through a sieve. The sieve is faculty conformity...<br>...We have already noted that member Andrew Dickson White founded and was first President of the American Historical Association and therefore was able to influence the constitution and direction of the AHA. This has generated an official history and ensured that existence of The Order is never even whispered in history books, let alone school texts. An economic association is also of significance because it conditions how people who are not economists think about the relative merits of free enterprise and state planning. State economic planning is an essential part of State political control. Laissez faire in economics is the equivalent of individualism in politics. And just as you will never find any plaudits for the Ninth and Tenth Amendments to the Constitution in official history, neither will you find any plaudits for individual free enterprise. - <a href="http://sandiego.indymedia.org/media/2006/10/119639.pdf">Sutton, How the Order controls Education</a></blockquote><a href="http://sandiego.indymedia.org/media/2006/10/119639.pdf"></a>So, Geithner and Summers are there to manage the economy in the interests of their (and Obama's) Wall Street paymasters. Romer is there to provide confidence (after all, that is the political role of expertise) and to ensure that the myth of an arbitrary, evolutionary economy remains the popular view of what's happened. This in turn ensure there is no demand for the criminal bankers who led us to this position to be held to account for their actions. Along with the Israeli terrorist and people who want to destroy Russia we've now got a man who thinks pollution should be outsourced to countries where the dollar cost of a life is lowest. Wonderful prospects abound for this administration. <br><br>Across the pond in my home country, Gordon is <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7746642.stm#graph">reportedly</a> looking to borrow record amounts of money to spend on the economy. Now, correct me if I'm wrong about this, but Brown in his lengthy time as chancellor mentioned a thing or two about <a href="http://uk.biz.yahoo.com/moneyweekly/budget2005/ukeconomy.html">golden rules</a>. The first of these was that over the course of an economic cycle the government could only borrow money to invest. The oft-repeated example was that borrowing to build a hospital was fine but borrowing to pay the wages of nurses was not. However, Gordon is now borrowing to pay the wages of bankers. In the case of Northern Rock, the pseudo-nationalised British bank, the boss walked away with over <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/banksandfinance/2787258/Northern-Rock-boss-to-get-andpound760,000-payoff.html">three quarters of a million</a> pounds. Now, this dwarfs the <a href="http://uk.reuters.com/article/fundsNews/idUKGRI23998620080702">near $50 millio</a>n the former Chief Exec of AIG managed to extort, but it's still a lot of money.<br><br>The other rule is that public debt should not rise above 40% of national income. According to the <a href="https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/print/uk.html">CIA</a>, we already passed that level by 2007, and according to a report by the Centre for Policy Studies, the true figure is something like 127% of GDP, or </span><a style="font-family: arial;" href="http://www.cps.org.uk/cpsfile.asp?id=1047">£1,854 billion</a><span style="font-family: arial;">. The external debt of over $10 trillion, <a href="https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2079rank.html">the second highest in the world behind the USA</a>, suggests Gordon's rules were outdated before he'd even mentioned them. And it seems Gordon has finally <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financetopics/financialcrisis/3267763/Gordon-Brown-signals-that-golden-rule-on-borrowing-is-to-be-scrapped.html">realised</a> this, though it took a financial panic of biblical proportions to do it. So what is he going to replace them with? Sikh values, apparently:</span><br><blockquote><span style="font-family: arial;"></span><span style="font-family: arial;" class="ver12blkht">"Treating others as you would like to be treated yourself is a rule that I believe has got relevance to every community in this country, building tolerance, building justice, building equality and building fairness," - <a href="http://sify.com/news/fullstory.php?id=14649667">SIFY news</a></span></blockquote><span style="font-family: arial;" class="ver12blkht"><a href="http://sify.com/news/fullstory.php?id=14649667"></a>Doesn't sound too bad if you ask me. We'll see if he follows through, given how strictly he kept to his previous rules...<br></span><br /><div style="clear: both;"></div><br />Talkbouthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14408535183177475747noreply@blogger.com0