Lawrence of Arabia on insurgency

The Carl von Clausewitz of insurgency is T. E. Lawrence. From an article by James J. Schneider, professor of military theory at the School of Advanced Military Studies, U.S. Command and Gen. Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas (pdf here):

". . . Lawrence distilled six fundamental principles of insurgency that even today have remarkable relevance. First, a successful guerrilla movement must have an unassailable base - a base secure not only from direct physical assault, but from attack in other forms as well, including psychological attack. Second, the guerrilla must have a technologically sophisticated enemy. The greater this sophistication, the greater this alien force would rely on forms of communications and logistics that must necessarily present vulnerabilities to the irregular. Third, the enemy must be sufficiently weak in numbers so as to be unable to occupy the disputed territory in depth with a system of interlocking fortified posts. Fourth, the guerrilla must have at least the passive support of the populace, if not its full involvement. By Lawrence's calculation, 'Rebellions can be made by 2 percent active in striking force and 98 percent passively sympathetic.' Fifth, the irregular force must have the fundamental qualities of speed, endurance, presence and logistical independence. Sixth, the irregular must be sufficiently advanced in weaponry to strike at the enemy's logistics and signals vulnerabilities."

Schneider goes on to explain how an insurgency can be defeated. What is remarkable is how closely Lawrence's principles apply to the Americans in Iraq. Most notable is the technologically sophisticated - and dependent - army that, thanks to Rumsfeld's faulty calculations, is of insufficient strength in numbers to secure the territory it must cover.

The birth of the Shi'ite Empire

There is an article (or here) by Clayton Hallmark in which he ties together Karl Rove, Michael Ledeen, the Niger uranium scandal, and even Robert Lady, the Milan-based CIA agent who is wanted in Italy for the kidnapping, rendition and torture of Abu Omar (the Italians gave everybody a heads-up that they were going to arrest a bunch of CIA agents, allowing the agents, including Lady, to flee the jurisdiction). Lady possibly used to be in charge of a covert American unit in Honduras, El Salvador, and Nicaragua which infiltrated anti-American groups. I don't know the timing of this, but if it goes back twenty years ago - Lady is supposed to be 51 - it might tie into Iran-Contra, and through Iran-Contra to Ledeen. That would make for a huge Unified Theory of American Political Corruption, tying everything from Iran-Contra to the Niger forgeries (did Ledeen actually get Jonathon Pollard his job in the Navy?), to the rendition of Abu Omar, all back to Michael Ledeen, making him the most powerful living American! This is all very interesting, but I was struck by a comment made on this article by Jebelia at the Portland Indy Media site, and I reprint it in full:

"Ledeen may say he wants the US to attack Iran, but when you are as corrupt as Michael Ledeen, words are meaningless. Watch what the neocons do; don't put too much faith in what they say. And keep in mind that when Ledeen was on Reagan's National Security Council his major responsibility was to supply US arms to Iran through Israel.

Bush and his collective brain used the pretext of an attack on the US by Islamic extremists to overthrow a secular Arab government - that of Iraq. The entirely predictable result of the Iraq invasion is that the Arab consensus which was always the source of whatever integrity and stability Iraq possessed has broken down. This breakdown inevitably resulted in a civil war between the Arab Shi'ite and Sunnite communities in Iraq which will negatively affect all of Iraq's Arab neighbors. (Actually a civil war was not the inevitable consequence of the fall of Saddam's government. If the US had not disbanded the Iraqi military, or if it had quickly organized a large peacekeeping force from surrounding Arab countries as Dilip Hiro urged, the disaster we are seeing could have been avoided, but either of those options were anathema to the neocons.) For decades the main goal of Israeli foreign policy has been to prevent the Arabs from getting together economically politically, and secular Arab nationalism has been seen as the greatest threat to Israel.

The Shi'ite clerical hierarchy that has controled Iran for 26 years now controls Iraq as well, thanks to the US of A. I foresaw this result before the invasion, and I am not psychic, terribly bright or especially well-informed. It is therefore difficult for me to believe that the experts at the Pentagon and Herzliya who planned this operation did not foresee it as well. It must be that either 1) there was a deal made between Iran, Israel and the Bushies in advance of the invasion of Iraq (even in advance of 911?), or 2) that the Israelis and neocons believed that the chaos caused to the Arab world would be worth the danger of empowering the Shi'ite theocrats without striking a deal.

So maybe the end game of the War on Terror/Clash of Civilizations will include a nuclear attack on Iran, but we're now just in the early stages. The next target is the only country in the region that has not surrendered to the US or Israel and has remained true to non-sectarian Arab nationalism - Syria."

I agree with this ten thousand percent. Ledeen writes a column in the National Review each week advocating an American attack on Iran ("faster, please"). Do you think he wants an American attack on Iran? He was heavily involved in Iran-Contra, which involved illegally supplying the leaders of Iran with arms. He hangs out with Manocher Ghobanifar, a man connected with the people who run Iran. The Americans have now clearly manipulated the situation in Iraq - through disbanding the Iraqi army, setting up an election guaranteed to disenfranchise Sunnis and create a wider Sunni-Shi'ite rift, provoking a civil war through failing to provide security and probably through faked terrorist attacks on Shi'ites, and installing a very Iran-friendly Iraqi government, including neocon friend Chalabi - to lead to a de facto annexation of Iraq by Iran. Are we to believe this was an accident or a mistake?

It's clear that calls by various neocons, including Ledeen, for an attack on Iran are not directed at the American people or lawmakers, but at the people and leaders of Iran. The talk of war, even nuclear attack, coupled with other American actions, including the neocon support of the anti-Iranian MEK terrorist group, probable CIA incursions into Iran to create havoc by setting off bombs, and the recent highly publicized crash of a U-2 obviously spying on Iran, are intended to create a strategy of tension in Iran, pushing the country into the hands of religious leaders. The results of the recent Iranian elections prove the success of this strategy. Why would the Zionist neocons want to create an Islamic dictatorship in Iran, led by Shi'ite clergy, with effective control over Iraq?

The Israelis and their agents in the American government tricked the Americans into the attack on Iraq, in part through the use of the forged Niger documents. The long-term Israeli plan has to answer the question of how Israel will build 'Greater Israel' when faced with a completely hostile Muslim world. The only answer is based on three principles:

1. The divide-and-conquer approach as set out by Oded Yinon (and written about here many times);


2. The 'doctrine of the periphery', the idea that Israeli interests can be advanced by making alliances with those non-Arab states like Turkey and Iran which are not adjacent to Israel; and


3. The Shi'ite-Sunni rift within Islam.

Israel's obvious enemies are mostly Sunnis. If you're going to be fighting Sunnis, the obvious trick is to create a new ally, a Shi'ite empire consisting of Iran and Iraq. The minor annoyance of Iranian support to Hezbollah is far outweighed by the advantages of creating a new and very powerful player in the Middle East, a player who, for religious reasons, probably hates your enemies more than it hates you. 'Greater Israel' can extend all the way to the Euphrates over Sunni lands, and your new friend may even help you (it will be a much bigger challenge heading towards the Nile!). In connection with this, watch the American media to sharpen its distinctions within Islam and concentrate on the fact that 'terrorists' are mostly Sunnis.

Looked at in terms of the necessary arrangements in the Middle East for the creation of 'Greater Israel', the neocon plan is rather obvious (although it took this constant pushing of the idea of a war on Iran coupled with the contradictory action of Americans in Iraq to make it obvious to me). Neither Ledeen nor any other neocon has any intention of actually attacking Iran. The talk of attacks is merely intended to keep Iran in the hands of the radical theologians, who have been given a Shi'ite Empire through the handing over of Iraq. You need no other proof than the forced presence of the detested Chalabi, whose job all along was to forge an alliance with Iran. The new Shi'ite Empire will completely mess up the Middle East, and create tensions that will keep Israel's enemies busy for years, while Israel slowly builds 'Greater Israel'. It is a brilliant plan, which can only be foiled if pan-Arab nationalism can win out over fractures within Islam. The two countries most in danger of an American attack are Syria and, eventually, Egypt, and it is not a coincidence that these are the two countries most associated with pan-Arab nationalism. Nasser's version of pan-Arab nationalism led to the first American support of his enemies in the Egyptian Brotherhood, the most notorious manifestation of which is now called al Qaeda, so you can see how the world fits together.

Bin Laden's escape from Tora Bora

A recently retired CIA agent named Gary Berntsen is attempting to have a book published on some of his CIA adventures, but is being stalled by the Agency, which is taking its own sweet time over its pre-publication review (I learned about this issue from the excellent book blog Bookninja). Berntsen led a CIA paramilitary team code-named 'Jawbreaker' during the Tora Bora attack in Afghanistan, and reveals that bin Laden was at Tora Bora. This catches Bush in another lie (from the Reuters story):

"The question of the al Qaeda leader's whereabouts played prominently in last year's presidential race, when Democrat John Kerry accused President Bush of making a mistake by not sending U.S. troops into the mountains to capture the al Qaeda leader.

Bush maintained that U.S. forces are not sure bin Laden was at Tora Bora. His contention is backed by the former commander of U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, Tommy Franks, who actively campaigned for the president's reelection."

Bin Laden at Tora Bora is a subject that is very sensitive in Bush Administration circles, especially as it appears that bin Laden was allowed to escape. This is the kind of thing that leads suspicious people to guess that bin Laden still has a good relationship with American officialdom, despite any rumors you might have heard that they were actually trying to kill or capture him. On the almost miraculous Tora Bora escape, see here and here and here; other similar CIA/Pentagon shenanigans in fighting the 'war on terror' in Afghanistan can be seen here and here.

Has anything said by the London police been true?

Yet another (!) cousin of Jean Charles de Menezes has weighed in on his execution, and states that he was not wearing a bulky coat, but just a jean jacket, and did not leap the subway turnstiles (these are issues which could and should be answered by the release of CCTV tapes). If he wasn't wearing a bulky coat, and wasn't identified as one of the terror suspects when he left his flat, British authorities are left with no good reason for treating him as a terrorist, and in particular as somebody who could be subject to summary execution. Letting him get on a bus if they thought he was a potential suicide bomber makes no sense, and then later deciding he needed to be executed in the Israeli style makes even less sense. All the emphasis on Israeli training seems to be misdirection, as they did not follow any of the logic of the Israeli approach. The Israeli method is supposed to permanently incapacitate the bomber before he can do any damage. It is also supposed to protect the police by using a long-distance shot. Instead, the London police gave him a great deal of time to set off his bomb (after giving him a whole bus ride on which to do so), forced him into an area where the bomb would do more damage, fired shots at close range where the police would be in danger, fired shots that had the danger of setting off the bomb, and fired too many shots if the intent was simply to kill him. If they were learning from the Israelis, they didn't learn very well. The only fact which reconciles their allowing him on the bus, but later shooting him at such close range, is that they knew he in fact didn't have a bomb. If they knew he didn't have a bomb, what was their motive in executing him?

Appeasement and legitimate grievances

More clear thinking on fighting the 'war on terror', this time by Abhinav Aima:

"From press reports it seems that many people agree with the slaying of Menezes – better one dead 'terror suspect' than dozens of innocent commuters. And so it is that the logic of colonialism, for this tactic of shooting 'terror suspects' dead comes most recently from Israel, has visited upon British soil. The great colonizer is now treating its own people and its foreign residents exactly as it treated 'terror suspects' in its colonies a mere fifty some years ago.

And the Western press, especially in the United States, has completely accepted this sense of justified colonial preemptive slaughter of civilians. For example, the Western press is quick to recognize every violation of a cease fire by Hamas, but a prior shooting of Palestinians by Israeli forces is not seen as a violation. Why? Because the Israelis are shooting 'terror suspects,' even if they are teenagers out for an evening walk."

and, on the good example facing the British people of a success - at least partial - in dealing with terrorism:

"Northern Ireland is a prime example of how a policy of shooting to kill suspects does not work, but a policy of compromise does. That was another colony that the British tried to keep wrapped up under anti-terror laws and anti-terrorist police action, but it only pushed the targeted population further into radicalism. Up to the point where the quartermasters of the IRA rebelled against the 1997 peace deals and formed the Real IRA, or RIRA, and stooped to the never before seen bloodshed of Omagh. With the promise of genuine peace and freedom in the offing, the IRA distanced itself from the RIRA radicals, whose cause found little support.

History is chock full of examples where brutal and prejudicial anti-terror policies have done more to propel the cause of terrorism than to quell it. The only real way of defeating terrorism is to take away the political agenda of the terrorists – to deny them any reasonable grievance whatsoever.

The reason why the West was largely successful in defeating terrorists such as the Red Brigades, the Baader-Meinhof group or the Symbionese Liberation Army is precisely because their grievances failed to find a sympathetic ear among any sizeable section of their community. But it is exactly these successes that have blinded some thinkers in the West to the inherent flaws in their approach to anti-colonial terrorists, who actually do have a political platform of genuine grievances."

and, on why Israel is such a bad example:

"The West is also quick to follow Israel's lead in its 'successes' against terrorism but, again, they fail to realize that Israel is fighting a war of occupation, aimed at converting large expanses of Arab territories into sovereign Israeli land. Any number of Palestinians killed in the Israeli war can be justified as a necessary part of the politicide of the Arab masses, which coincides with the Israeli need for security.

The West is ill advised to commit such politicide on the aspirations of the entire Muslim masses, unless of course it aims to own all Arab and Muslim lands, as Colin Powell correctly predicted in the case of the American ownership of a broken Iraq."

and, on the only solution when the terrorists have legitimate grievances:

"If the West genuinely wants to defeat terrorism then the need of the hour is to provide for the economic, cultural and political freedom, the sovereignty, which will empower and allow Muslim population states to exercise their will – even if it means the free election of Islamist leaders. As long as the West, and specifically the United States, continue to rule their economic colonies through dictators, kings and rigged elections, they continue to empower the political platform of terrorists."

It is funny how the neocons like to use the example of Hitler and Chamberlain to argue that 'appeasement' with evil never works ('appeasement' is a politically-loaded term that we only use when we don't want to negotiate). It is funny because the analogy is quite good, but they have it backasswards. It is the Occupied Territories and Iraq that are the new Sudetenland. Bush and Sharon are the new Hitler. It's the United States and Israel who are attempting to steal lands from other people, just as Hitler planned to do. If anyone should be worried about the morality of negotiating with pure evil, it should be Osama! The neocons have absolutely no moral right to talk about appeasement until their hands are clean, and their hands won't be clean until they do right by the people they have harmed.

The more they tell us, the less we know

As the Official Story of the killing of Jean Charles de Menezes develops, it gets weirder and weirder:

1. The police were staking out the block of flats in which he was living because the address had been found in documents left in one of the abandoned rucksacks that didn't blow up in the last series of attacks. That's a good place to leave the address of your safe house!


2. There were eight separate flats in the block, and he did not look like any of the suspects, but the police decided to follow him anyway.


3. Although they feared he might be a suicide bomber, they let him get on a bus!


4. For some reason, they decided he must not be allowed to get on the subway platform, even though it was fine for him to take a ten-minute bus ride.


5. His cousin, Alex Alves, claimed in one account that the victim was "playing around with a friend in a game of chase outside the station", although the police story is that he was alone (and playing around in a game of chase is an interesting thing to do before you go and blow yourself up).


6. They claim they gave a shouted warning to him - odd if they really thought he was going to blow himself up so quickly that shoot-to-kill was necessary - although witnesses heard no such warning.


7. The latest version is that he was shot eight times at close range, seven times in the head and once in the shoulder (although this is inconsistent with the original reports of five shots and inconsistent with the report of Alex Pereira, another cousin - ? - who saw the body when he identified it). If a coroner saw a corpse shot seven times in the head at close range, he would assume that the shooter was extremely angry and emotionally involved, and that this was a crime of passion. The overkill is inconsistent with a professional shooter, and was potentially dangerous as an errant shot could have set off the bombs the victim supposedly carried.

As usual, the more they tell us the less we know.

Don't shoot - I'm not Brazilian

In case you missed them, here are two responses to the London bombs, the "London Tube Survival Guide" (Issued by the Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs), and "i am fucking terrified".

Shoot-to-kill

Shoot-to-kill:

1. The Official Story for the London police actions is set out in the Daily Record:

   "THE young man killed in Stockwell yesterday was subjected to summary execution by police operating a shoot-to-kill policy.
   
   It is a controversial tactic deployed only in the most extreme circumstances but one police have been preparing to use for the last two weeks.
   
   Minutes after first news of the four bombs ripping through the underground and the No 30 bus reached Scotland Yard on July 7, a message was sent to the Met's elite SO19 firearms unit.
   
   They were instructed to launch 'Operation Kratos' - codename for the secret guidelines which tell officers how to react to suicide bombers."

   
   and:

   "The marksmen were briefed by officers who had been to Israel to meet their counterparts there and pick up tips gleaned from the experience of dealing with Hamas bombers."

   
   and:

   "During the Kratos briefings, the Met team were told that, contrary to their normal arms training, they should fire at the head rather than the chest.
   
   Although the chest is easier to hit, it is not as reliable in causing instant death, giving a bomber a chance to detonate his device.
   
   A blow to the torso also risks setting off any explosives that are strapped to the body."



2. The shooting would therefore be the act of a part of an elite London police firearms unit called SO19. As Michel Chossudovsky writes:

   "Essentially what we are dealing with is the formation of a death squadron mentality under the auspices of what is still officially considered a 'civilian police force'."

   
   Bad enough, but it might even be worse. Some are questioning whether this is actually a police operation, and wondering whether it might be an SAS operation (i.e., a British military special operations unit which seems to regard itself as completely unaccountable to civilian oversight). The question of who is involved may, or may not, be answered as a result of official inquiries:

   "The shooting is being investigated by officers from Scotland Yard's Directorate of Professional Standards, and will be referred to the Independent Police Complaints Commission."

   
   I would expect nothing to come of this except for congratulations for heroic police work, so the question of military involvement in policing may never be answered.


3. We have received a rather elaborate justification for the 'shoot to kill' strategy. One problem I have with this is the fact that the execution of Jean Charles de Menezes followed none of the new guidelines. The theory is that rapid shots to the head are necessary to instantly kill a bomber before he can trigger his payload, something he could do even after shots to the torso which would normally be considered sufficient to incapacitate, or even quickly kill, a threatening person. In the case of Jean Charles de Menezes, the authorities pursued him from a place of relatively few people into a crowded subway train, apparently made no attempt to fire at him until he was on the ground (witnesses reported no shots until the five fatal ones), and only killed him when he was closely surrounded by a number of official shooters. In other words, they followed absolutely no part of the protocol apparently learned from the Israelis on how to deal with suicide bombers. Had he been a real suicide bomber, they had given him ample time to set off his bomb, forced him to a place where the bomb would have done the maximum harm, and might even have accidentally triggered the bomb by their firing at him at close range, surrounded by policemen who would have been victims of the bomb. I'm always suspicious when I read elaborate explanations for official behavior that don't match what the officials actually did.


4. There is still no logical explanation of how Jean Charles de Menezes even ended up under police surveillance. Officials claim that he was living in an apartment in the same building or in a building close to the building which the police were watching as the residence of someone suspected of being connected to the bombings. At least, that's the Official Story. It makes no sense. Did they not know what the person they were supposedly watching actually looked like? Would any person living in the building, or even in the area of the building, become a suspect? From the Telegraph (my emphasis in bold):

   "The officer can open fire only if authorised to do so by a chief police officer - either at the start of a pre-planned operation, as seems to have been the case at Stockwell, or by police radio during a 'spontaneous' incident.
   
   The suspect shot dead had been under surveillance and officers from the Metropolitan Police's firearms squad are understood to have been briefed that he posed a grave risk to safety."

   
   Pre-planned? If they thought he was a suicide bomber, why did they let him walk into a subway station? Why did they only challenge him - if in fact they did - or run after him after he was in a place where he could do real damage? The Official Story has so many holes in it that it appears that at least part of it was made up after the fact, in order to justify what seems to be an unjustifiable shooting.


5. Shoot-to-kill makes some sense in the twisted world of Israel. After all, in the Occupied Territories, if you shoot someone in the head who you think just might be a suicide bomber, you've either stopped a suicide bombing or killed a Palestinian. It's a win-win situation! In London, however, the odds are against you. You have to weigh a very, very tiny chance of stopping a suicide bomber against the huge probability of allowing the police - or military - to be judge, jury and executioner of an innocent man. On top of that, you have to consider that the fear and anger caused by a mistake could be the cause of real suicide bombings in the future (this side effect is another thing that is considered a bonus in Israel, as the provocation of terrorism allows for the Israeli state terrorism which is being used in the ethnic cleansing of the Occupied Territories). How are young Asian men going to feel riding the subway, or even walking down the street, knowing that at any instant they might be fatally shot by plainclothes policemen? Unless the British authorities want to start a race war against a significant portion of the British population, shoot-to-kill is dumb as a practical response to terror, as well as being immoral and politically fascist. It is extremely dangerous as it is subject to abuse by the type of right-wing factions you always seem to find in the military and police who would like nothing better than to provoke a race war (which is exactly what this incident looks like).


6. Shoot-to-kill is still official British government policy.

Jean Charles de Menezes

From the Associated Press story on the execution of Jean Charles de Menezes:

"Hours after the shooting, Police Commissioner Ian Blair said the victim was 'directly linked' to the investigations into attacks Thursday and July 7. In the latter, suicide bombings on trains and a bus killed 56 people, including four attackers.

Police initially said the victim attracted police attention because he left a house that was under surveillance after Thursday’s bungled bombings, in which devices planted on three subway trains and a double-decker bus failed to detonate properly. Stockwell is near Oval station, one of those targeted.

'He was then followed by surveillance officers to the station. His clothing and his behavior at the station added to their suspicions,' police said Friday."

Unbelievable! Clear lying by the Police Commissioner and the police. Note the elaborate details in the police lies from the Knight Ridder story:

"Paul King, a 37-year-old administrator who was politely told to get out of his apartment by armed police as they searched his building, noted that, 'it makes you feel a bit jittery.'

According to the official version of de Menezes' death, police had been watching his apartment block as part of their search for Thursday's would-be bombers. When the man emerged, plain-clothes police followed him from Tulse Hill to the Stockwell station in south London.

Police said they ordered him to halt. Instead, he vaulted the turnstiles and ran onto a train, with police close behind.

The official report simply states: 'He was then followed by surveillance officers to the underground station. His clothing and behavior added to their suspicions.'"

Complete fiction! Had the victim turned out to be Muslim, we would no doubt have heard the whole constructed story of his connection to the bombings, the bombs he had strapped to his body, the excellent work of the police in following him to the scene of his planned attack, their heroism in stopping it, and a long and involved tale of how this nice young man was lured into Islamic extremism by radical Muslims he met at his local mosque. Unfortunately, he was a Brazilian, picked at random by the British paramilitary police unit based on the fact that he looked Asian and was wearing a heavy coat. It appears that they pursued him towards the train and thus towards people who could have been hurt, forced him onto the train, and then executed him - with a theatrical five shots - in front of witnesses. The Israelis aren't just teaching them how to fight terrorism, they're also teaching them how to fake it. The motive can only be to inflame Muslim opinion and attempt to create a race war in Britain. Obviously, this would help the cause of right-wing racists and the cause of the police, who would gain immense power in the ensuing panic. It would be interesting to see if there are direct connections between the paramilitary unit involved in this murder, and extreme right-wing British racist groups.

The murder of an Asian man

A lot of people have noted the execution of an Asian man in London as recounted by witness Mark Whitby to the BBC (my emphasis in bold):

"'I saw an Asian guy. He ran on to the train, he was hotly pursued by three plain clothes officers, one of them was wielding a black handgun.

'He half tripped... they pushed him to the floor and basically unloaded five shots into him," he told BBC News 24.

'As [the suspect] got onto the train I looked at his face, he looked sort of left and right, but he basically looked like a cornered rabbit, a cornered fox.

'He looked absolutely petrified and then he sort of tripped, but they were hotly pursuing him, [they] couldn't have been any more than two or three feet behind him at this time and he half tripped and was half pushed to the floor and the policeman nearest to me had the black automatic pistol in his left hand.

'He held it down to the guy and unloaded five shots into him."

Pursued by a group of men without uniforms, at least one of who has a gun, who wouldn't run? The authorities will claim they had to shoot him as they were afraid he was going to set off a bomb, but since they had him under surveillance, why did they let someone they suspected of carrying a bomb onto a crowded subway train? Did they want him to set off a bomb? It is also highly unlikely that the police would put themselves in that much risk by getting close to him if they really thought he had a bomb he could trigger (watch for them to be lauded as 'heroes').

It is important in creating this kind of strategy of tension to have all the gory details immediately shown to the target community. This will create the anger which will either lead to retaliation or to a plausible claim that retaliation has occurred once the next attack takes place. Thus the violence is rapidly ratcheted up. People like Rudy and Bibi will be around to offer expertise on how to deal with the problem, expertise which can be sold for a lot of money, and which will only make the problem worse.

It appears that the Israeli technical advice involved in Operation Kratos is already in full force, and it is even possible that this whole incident, with so many duds, was just a training exercise for the British police. Asking Israel for advice on how to deal with this problem is particularly funny. I understand why Israel does what it does: it wants to create terrorism so it can use its state terrorism in 'self defense' to eventually drive the Palestinians off the Occupied Territories. But why would the British want to go down this sorry road? With each incident the problem is made worse, and it will take years and years to undo the damage. The domestic security measures taken to attempt to deal with the insecurity, up to an including murdering people who wear coats too heavy for the weather, make life worse for everybody (and the British problems just helped the Americans make the Patriot Act a permanent affront to American civil liberties). Wouldn't it be easier to get rid of Tony, pull out of Iraq, take some steps to alleviate the plight of the Palestinians, and start the process of mending bridges with the Muslim community? Is fighting the 'war on terror' so much fun that it is worth living in fear for the rest of your life?

London duds

Two weeks ago: four bombs, four spectacular successes. Yesterday: four bombs, four duds. But lots of evidence left behind so the London police can get untracked from their bozo investigation and find some people to frame (to be fair to the police, I think they started a legitimate criminal investigation which became corrupted by Blair's political considerations and the need to find guilty Muslims). Hasib Hussain, the owner of magic pants, also had a magic passport, and didn't in fact go to Pakistan (yet another case of a convenient mistake). Two full weeks of snooping and still no clue as to what kind of explosive was used, or even whether the bombers knew what was going on. The complete failure of the investigation was starting to make people suspicious, and this little dud reminder will keep the legislative agenda on track. From what I've been able to gather, despite all the hoopla, British authorities have arrested a net total of one suspect from the first attack (who I suspect will be quietly released). In order to do that, they have established the precedent of blowing up the houses and cars of Muslims. The personal property of real people is blown up, and real people are left homeless, but hey, they're only Muslims. What does that remind me of? The West Bank.

Turki Bush

As SmartActivist points out (headline for July 21 linking to this article):

"'Bandar Bush' is being replaced by Saudi Arabia's former intelligence chief, Prince Turki al-Faisal, to be known from now on as 'Turki Bush'."

That's like replacing the most spectacularly successful ambassador in Washington in recent years with Darth Vader. Bandar is leaving for what is described as 'private reasons', which is what you'd say if the departure wasn't voluntary. Prince Turki al-Faisal mysteriously resigned as Saudi intelligence chief on September 1, 2001.

The Israelification of Britain

From the Evening Standard (my emphasis in bold; see also here):

"Police are preparing specific shoot-to-kill orders to combat suicide bombers.

Marksmen will be told to aim for the head rather than the body.

This is because a shot to the head causes the muscles to go limp and could prevent the bomber detonating his device.

Shooting at the chest could set off an explosives-packed vest.

It is part of a pre-planned response to suicide bombers drafted last year which is named Operation Kratos and draws on Israeli experience."

So let me see if I've got this straight:

1. Suicide bombers are caused by foreign occupation of Middle Eastern lands.


2. Neither Britain, the United States nor Israel intends to withdraw from such Middle Eastern lands.


3. Therefore, Britain and the United States are going to be subject to increasing numbers of suicide bombers.


4. Israel is considered to be the world expert at containing the terrorism caused by occupation through the use of peculiar Israeli methods of state violence (Kratos is the god of strength).


5. Rudy, associated with the American response to terror, and Bibi, associated with the hardest-line Israeli approach to terror, were at, or soon going to be at, the same (or here) London hotel (much of this information, along with a vast number of other details, comes from the Team 8 + forum on this issue), just a short distance from one of the bomb attacks. The day before, Rudy had been speaking in the area where the bombers were from.
   


6. Tony Blair takes the opportunity to blame the whole thing entirely on Muslim extremism, and will use it to push through draconian restrictions on civil liberties, particularly on British Muslims.

By George, I think I've got it! It's the Israelification of British (and American) society.

Hasib Hussain's magical pants

There is a posting at WagNews - based on the excellent work at Team 8 + (scroll down to "Clothes" by John Doe II, and also see more good questions by John Doe II further down the page) - on the big discrepancies between the eyewitness descriptions of the bomber on the bus and the appearance of the man who is said to be that bomber, Hasib Hussain, from the CCTV footage. The differences are so striking that Hussain couldn't have been the guy on the bus. The differences probably also explain why all four video cameras on the bus mysteriously decided to stop working at the most inopportune time! So what happened to Hasib Hussain? Do you think he went to Canary Wharf and got shot? That shooting is said to have occurred at 10:30 a. m., which would be just about the right time for him to have shown up after being in central London earlier in the morning. His not being dead would be very problematic for the conspirators, particularly as he had been videotaped with the other three, so he had to be killed. His killing was an embarrassment, which would explain why we have heard no more about it.

Who provided the London warning?

Despite quite a lot of discussion on the issue, it seems clear now that the Mossad office in London received six minutes warning from British authorities of the London bomb attacks. This isn't surprising, as Netanyahu was in town and would have been guarded with extreme caution by both British and Israeli officials. Bibi is one of the most likely assassination targets in the world, and is a pain in the ass to look after wherever he goes. Six minutes warning was also presumably not enough time to shut down the subway system, if in fact the warning was even sufficiently precise to refer to a subway attack (it is unclear how specific Bibi's warning actually was, although it is odd that the conference he was to attend was in a hotel over one of the attacked subway stations). This leaves a startlingly big unanswered question: where did the warning come from? We're now definitively told that the non-suicide bombers/suicide bombers/non-suicide bombers were actually suicide bombers - and this time we mean it, dammit!, though the 'fifth man' seems to have again disappeared, the 'mastermind' isn't the mastermind, the real 'mastermind' is one of the bombers, and the whole nature of the explosives is inexplicably still being investigated - meaning that four unremarkable guys wandered into the London subway system all by themselves, leaving behind a car full of explosives (if there was no 'fifth man' or 'mastermind', was going to use these explosives?), and simply blew themselves up. Who then provided the warning? And why provide a warning so late that it was not useful?

More headline wars

Left I on the News notices another egregious example of burying the lede, and burying it under an obscenely misleading headline, in the Washington Post. The headline is "Israeli Strikes Kill 7 in Hamas As 5-Month Truce Comes to End". Buried at the end of the second paragraph is the sentence: "More than a dozen bystanders were also killed, according to hospital officials here." Needless to say, if this had occurred anywhere else in the world besides Israel, the headline and the main thrust of the story would be that innocent civilians were killed in an illegal targeted assassination attack. If the story is about Israel, everything is turned upside down. More than a dozen dead Palestinian civilians are barely worth a mention. This type of thing is so ubiquitous in the American media that it is no longer noticeable. Can you imagine a similar approach being taken to the London bombs? The headline would be: "Four die in bomb attack in London." At the end of the second paragraph there would be the sentence: "More than fifty bystanders were also killed, according to hospital officials here."

The reason for suicide bombers

Two more studies have produced results consistent with the research of Robert Pape regarding suicide bombers. From an article by Bryan Bender:

"New investigations by the Saudi Arabian government and an Israeli think tank - both of which painstakingly analyzed the backgrounds and motivations of hundreds of foreigners entering Iraq to fight the United States - have found that the vast majority of these foreign fighters are not former terrorists and became radicalized by the war itself."

and (my emphasis in bold):

". . . interrogations of nearly 300 Saudis captured while trying to sneak into Iraq and case studies of more than three dozen others who blew themselves up in suicide attacks show that most were heeding the calls from clerics and activists to drive infidels out of Arab land, according to a study by Saudi investigator Nawaf Obaid, a US-trained analyst who was commissioned by the Saudi government and given access to Saudi officials and intelligence.

A separate Israeli analysis of 154 foreign fighters compiled by a leading terrorism researcher found that despite the presence of some senior Al Qaeda operatives who are organizing the volunteers, 'the vast majority of [non-Iraqi] Arabs killed in Iraq have never taken part in any terrorist activity prior to their arrival in Iraq.'"

and:

"American intelligence officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, and terrorism specialists paint a similar portrait of the suicide bombers wreaking havoc in Iraq: Prior to the Iraq war, they were not Islamic extremists seeking to attack the United States, as Al Qaeda did four years ago, but are part of a new generation of terrorists responding to calls to defend their fellow Muslims from 'crusaders' and 'infidels.'"

The issue is foreign occupation of Arab land, whether it be Iraq or Palestine. If you really want to end terrorist attacks, the only way to do so is to stop the occupations. The constant Zionist - and I call it Zionist because I'm afraid that that it what it is - exhortations to fight the 'war on terror' by engaging in more wars and more occupations will simply make the problem worse.

Who are the British authorities trying to protect?

Since even British officials are now backing off from the theory that the London bombs were the work of men who intended to be suicide bombers, we are left with trying to determine what the four of them thought they were doing.

The authorities would like us to believe (or here) that their Islamic terrorist handler misled them into believing that the timers in the bags was set so that they could get away before the bombs went off. That still doesn't explain why they seemed so cavalier about being seen together in video cameras.

Some conspiracy theorists believe that the four were tricked by an intelligence agency handler into believing that they were participating in some sort of terrorism preparedness drill in the London Underground. While it is possible that they were tricked that way, it seems to me that it would be very implausible to them that they would be picked out of Leeds to perform a job which could easily be done by some intelligence operatives working out of London.

I think the most likely scenario is that they were tricked into thinking they were involved as drug mules in the movement of drugs from Leeds to London (see also here). They would have no need to be concerned about the video cameras, as they would have no fear of being seen together and leading authorities back to their 'cell' (which of course doesn't exist). The rucksacks too big for the bombs inside might have been filled with stuffing intended to feel that they were filled with drugs. Their instructions would have been to meet with someone either on a particular subway car or bus, or at the end of a particular subway or bus route, and hand over the rucksack. Then they would all assemble at a central location in London to receive their payments.

No Islamic will or video celebrating suicide, no public celebration of the 'martyrs', unsatisfactory assumption of responsibility, overly large rucksacks, happy-go-lucky bombers with no concerns about being videotaped together or leaving behind identification that would lead back to the 'cell' which supposedly had plans for future attacks, uncharacteristic candidates for suicide bombers - it all adds up to one thing. Someone tricked the four into believing they were drug mules. Once we accept that fact, we have to accept that there is absolutely no reason to believe the Official Story that this violence was connected to Islamic terrorism. It could have been set up by anybody, including the intelligence organization of any country. Of course, the fact that four Muslim men were chosen as the patsies gives us a clue as to who might have been involved.

Unfortunately, British authorities seem to be in on the cover-up. The peculiar transformation of the original certainty that the bombs used were military plastic explosives - and this would be a certainty as their analysis would be based on chemical residues - to the theory that they were a home-made mix in the Egyptian patsy's bathtub, indicates that the British investigation has become completely corrupted. Military explosives were in the rucksacks, but since the investigators couldn't tie military explosives to the four bombers they had to attempt to frame the Egyptian by claiming he made the explosives in his bathtub. Now that the frame-up of the Egyptian has fallen apart, the whole cover-up has also fallen apart. Who are the British authorities trying to protect?

The corn ethanol scam

North American agribusinesses grow massive amounts of corn, based not on any sane economic rationale but on subsidies they extort from governments. Much of that corn is turned into cheap sweeteners, which make their way into the food system and explain much of the North American obesity epidemic. Since there is still too much corn left, they came up with the ethanol scam:

". . . researchers at Cornell University and the University of California-Berkeley say it takes 29 percent more fossil energy to turn corn into ethanol than the amount of fuel the process produces. For switch grass, a warm weather perennial grass found in the Great Plains and eastern North America United States, it takes 45 percent more energy and for wood, 57 percent.

It takes 27 percent more energy to turn soybeans into biodiesel fuel and more than double the energy produced is needed to do the same to sunflower plants, the study found.

'Ethanol production in the United States does not benefit the nation's energy security, its agriculture, the economy, or the environment,' according to the study by Cornell's David Pimentel and Berkeley's Tad Patzek. They conclude the country would be better off investing in solar, wind and hydrogen energy."

There is even a neocon aspect to this (note the name Frank Gaffney), the thinking being that use of ethanol will reduce dependence on Middle Eastern oil and thus remove any political influence that Muslim countries might have on American foreign policy in the Middle East. Fuel from corn is a neocon/agribusiness fraud, and just encourages the agricultural subsidies that are the real reason for much third-world poverty. There is still the possibility that fuel can eventually be produced economically from straw and agricultural waste (cellulose ethanol, the energy for which comes from the plant waste itself), but the research has not yet been done (see here).

Thomas Friedman, Zionist Liar

From Thomas Friedman:

"But virtually all suicide bombers, of late, have been Sunni Muslims. There are a lot of angry people in the world. Angry Mexicans. Angry Africans. Angry Norwegians. But the only ones who seem to feel entitled and motivated to kill themselves and totally innocent people, including other Muslims, over their anger are young Sunni radicals. What is going on?"

It's those angry Norwegians you have to watch out for. Friedman goes on to provide the usual crap pseudo-psychological explanations, perhaps forgetting that the Tamil Tigers aren't Sunni Muslims, and perhaps forgetting that Norway isn't overrun by an invading army of American or Israeli troops. As we have recently seen, a real expert has answered the question, and has determined the real reason for suicide bombing. Friedman is just providing more of his Zionist lies, part of a disturbing pattern. You can see why the United States has fallen into such a mess when disinformation agents like Friedman can pass for 'experts'.

Cultural differences

From an article (or here) by Trish Schuh on an American military base south of Baghdad called Camp Lima:

"On the way out of Camp Lima Base were two latrines, one marked 'Iraqis Only' and the other 'No Iraqis - Americans Only'. Asked for an explanation, Major Booth replied that this was due to 'cultural differences'."

The Unified Theory of the Corruption of the Bush Administration

You can pretty much assume that journalists handling secret sources don't talk to each other, and can also assume that the Vice President's Office and Rove don't talk much, out of motives of possible personal animosity and to avoid the type of Watergate and Iran-Contra problems of which they are fully aware through bitter personal experience. What if Cheney or Libby found out about Plame (possibly from the memo referred to here, but it could have come from anywhere), and, rather than tell Rove directly, told Miller? There seems to be a Cheney-Miller connection, as evidenced by the fact that the Miller aluminum tubes story was immediately followed by Cheney using it in his build-up to war. Once Miller has the info, Cheney or Libby could hint to Rove that he might want to call Miller, and Miller would then pass on the information to Rove. Rove is then off the hook, as he is just the recipient of the scuttlebut of journalists, and can safely pass the information to Pincus, Cooper and Novak. The Rove e-mail message to Stephen Hadley about his conversation with Cooper, saying he 'didn't take the bait' when Cooper suggested that Wilson's criticisms had been damaging to the administration, is just papering the file for Rove's eventual legal defense. Cheney and Libby have cleverly used Miller to launder the information which Cheney wants to get to the press without having his fingerprints on it. Miller uncharacteristically didn't write about the story, which may be evidence that she was in on the scheme. As long as she keeps quiet, Cheney and Libby are safe. Once she is out of jail, they can arrange for her to have a nice book deal, funded by the usual scam of wholesale buying of books by right-wing operators to make the book seem more popular than it actually is.

We're now getting very close to a Unified Theory (or here) of the Corruption of the Bush Administration, tying together Plamegate, the forged Niger documents, the AIPAC scandal, Miller's 'journalism', John Bolton's work undermining the State Department (Bolton also ties into the creation of the original yellowcake story, and don't forget Frederick Fleitz, his chief of staff, with an odd double posting between Bolton and WINPAC in the CIA, where he would know about Plame, and a guy who parrots the Israeli line that UN peacekeepers wouldn't work in the Occupied Territories), the information in the Downing Street Memos, David Wurmser and John Hannah and their Israeli connections within the Vice President's Office, and the machinations of the Office of Special Plans. All this concerns the lies which led to the attack on Iraq, lies which were primarily funneled out of the Vice President's Office. This information included lies from the Iraqi National Conference (through Miller) and Sharon's office (through Feith, and no doubt the assistance of AIPAC). The information battle was with the CIA, which was consistently trying to meddle by attempting to present the truth. Cheney actually had to go and attend at the CIA offices in order to shut the CIA up. The Office of Special Plans was created expressly to route the lies around the truth which the CIA was trying to present. Plamegate was just another shot across the bow of the CIA, a warning that the Vice President was fully capable of fighting dirty if the CIA wasn't ready to play along. It may also reflect, in miniature, the same conspiracy that led to the disastrous attack on Iraq.

Phony terrorists

Professor Torture himself, John Yoo, is advocating that the United States set up a phony terrorist organization in order to assist in fighting the 'war on terror'. I thought the United States already had such an operation. I think it's called something like 'al Qaeda'. By the way, advocating some kind of intelligence operation in a newspaper article when the author has lots of ways to suggest it to the proper authorities through the regular channels is itself evidence that the article is intended to do something different than what it suggests.

A sandwich for Allah

Here's a good photo of the suicide bombers. Note the plastic bag. Why do you carry a plastic bag with you if you're going to blow yourself up? Do you think he's bringing Allah a sandwich?

London oddities

There is an article by Jeff Edwards in the Mirror on some of the oddities in the London bombings (official response to the article is here or here):

"The terrorists bought return rail tickets, and pay and display car park tickets, before boarding a train at Luton for London. None of the men was heard to cry 'Allah Akhbar!' - 'God is great' - usually screamed by suicide bombers as they detonate their bomb.

Their devices were in large rucksacks which could be easily dumped instead of being strapped to their bodies. They carried wallets containing their driving licences, bank cards and other personal items. Suicide bombers normally strip themselves of identifying material."

and:

"Bomber Hasib Hussain detonated his device at the rear of the top deck of a No 30 bus, not in the middle of the bottom deck where most damage would be caused.

Additionally, two of the bombers had strong personal reasons for staying alive.

Jermaine Lindsay's partner Samantha Lewthwaite, 22, mother of his one-year-old son, is expecting her second baby within days. Mohammed Sidique Khan's wife Hasina, mum of a 14-month-old daughter, is also pregnant."

You can see more evidence that the bombers didn't know what was going on in the account of a witness (or here):

"Accounts from eyewitnesses on the No. 30 bus raise the spectre of a suicide bomber.

Richard Jones, 61, a computer specialist from Bracknell, told reporters he had left the bus after seeing a young man in great agitation fiddling with something in his bag: 'He kept going down in his bag,' said Mr Jones.

'I didn't actually see his face but he was becoming more and more anxious.'"

He would have become more and more anxious as it slowing dawned on him what he was actually carrying. Once you accept the theory that the bombers were tricked, you also have to accept the possibility that they were tricked by someone other than Islamic terrorists. You also have to accept the possibility that none of the bombers had any idea that they were carrying bombs. Now that the attempted frame-up of the Egyptian biochemist is falling apart - a frame-up which bizarrely led to the British police completely revising their theory, based presumably on chemical residues, that sophisticated military explosives were used when they found some cleaning materials in the bathtub! - we are starting to see the Official Story slowly fall apart. It will be interesting to see whether the British press falls in line like the American press did after September 11, or strikes out on its own into the world of truth like the Spanish press did after the Madrid bombings.

The insane war on terror

From an interview by Scott McConnell in The American Conservative of Robert Pape, a man who has studied suicide bombers all over the world and has written a book about suicide bombing called "Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism", here are a few comments by Professor Pape:

"Over the past two years, I have collected the first complete database of every suicide-terrorist attack around the world from 1980 to early 2004. This research is conducted not only in English but also in native-language sources - Arabic, Hebrew, Russian, and Tamil, and others - so that we can gather information not only from newspapers but also from products from the terrorist community. The terrorists are often quite proud of what they do in their local communities, and they produce albums and all kinds of other information that can be very helpful to understand suicide-terrorist attacks.

This wealth of information creates a new picture about what is motivating suicide terrorism. Islamic fundamentalism is not as closely associated with suicide terrorism as many people think. The world leader in suicide terrorism is a group that you may not be familiar with: the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka."

and (my emphasis in bold):

"The central fact is that overwhelmingly suicide-terrorist attacks are not driven by religion as much as they are by a clear strategic objective: to compel modern democracies to withdraw military forces from the territory that the terrorists view as their homeland. From Lebanon to Sri Lanka to Chechnya to Kashmir to the West Bank, every major suicide-terrorist campaign - over 95 percent of all the incidents - has had as its central objective to compel a democratic state to withdraw."

and:

"Since suicide terrorism is mainly a response to foreign occupation and not Islamic fundamentalism, the use of heavy military force to transform Muslim societies over there, if you would, is only likely to increase the number of suicide terrorists coming at us."

and:

"I not only study the patterns of where suicide terrorism has occurred but also where it hasn't occurred. Not every foreign occupation has produced suicide terrorism. Why do some and not others? Here is where religion matters, but not quite in the way most people think. In virtually every instance where an occupation has produced a suicide-terrorist campaign, there has been a religious difference between the occupier and the occupied community. That is true not only in places such as Lebanon and in Iraq today but also in Sri Lanka, where it is the Sinhala Buddhists who are having a dispute with the Hindu Tamils."

The West's current problem with terrorism has only one solution, the withdrawal of Western troops from the Middle East and the withdrawal of Israeli troops from the Occupied Territories. Any time you read somebody writing about the necessity of fighting the 'war on terror', and of the dangers of 'appeasement', you are reading somebody who has a hidden agenda that has nothing to do with stopping terrorism, and everything to do with keeping the occupying troops in place. If it is so important to keep the troops in place - whether it be for American corporate control of the oil fields or the building of an Israeli Empire - the West is going to have to get used to accepting the cost of increasingly severe terrorist attacks. The 'war on terror' as conceived by the neocons is:

• immoral, as it further punishes the victims of Western aggression;


• insane, as it advocates stopping terrorism by increasing the activity that caused the terrorism in the first place; and


• senseless, as it simply cannot be won.

Yet more on the London bombs

Yet more on the London bombs:

1. This summary from Prison Planet is about as good a reconstruction as possible on how the deception was pulled (but note my comments on Peter Power below).


2. The main problem remains that it is completely ludicrous for the alleged terrorists to have behaved the way they did. London is the most notoriously videotaped city in the world, truly like something out of an Orwellian nightmare (and to add insult to injury, British authorities get to gloat over how helpful the cameras were in solving the crime). We are to believe that this was part of a larger operation that intended to make more terrorist attacks. And yet the four alleged terrorists took not the slightest steps to avoid leading police right back to their terrorist base. They allowed themselves, together with the mysterious fifth man (who now no longer exists, begging the question of who was on the video), to be seen in the same car, took the same commuter train into London (the car could easily have dropped disguised men at separate stations), allowed themselves to be videoed together at King's Cross station, and carried identification with them that made the work of the authorities remarkably easy. With just the slightest effort, they could have made it practically impossible to track their traces back to their base. The authorities want us to believe they were part of an operation that intended more attacks, and that they were so proud of themselves that they wanted to be identified by their ID's (as Kurt Nimmo points out, carrying an ID when you sit beside a bomb is a dumb way to ensure that your identity will become known to the authorities). These goals are completely inconsistent.


3. The ID's themselves are also problematic. The identity documents of at least one terrorist was apparently found at two attack sites, blocks away from each other. Of the three sites that the authorities were able to investigate, they found identities at each one, from terrorists supposedly sitting beside the bombs. No way!


4. The second problem involves the use of suicide bombers in cases where suicide bombers are unnecessary. The only reason suicide bombers are used as that it is otherwise impossible to get near the target. Suicide bombers are hard to come by, and terrorist organizations won't waste them unless they are completely necessary. They weren't necessary here, so why were they wasted? I note also that the supplied biographies of at least some of the alleged terrorists don't (or here) ring true as the biographies of suicide bombers.


5. The third problem concerns the change in the Official Story, which I've already been over. It is amusing to hear people talk of 'conspiracy theories', when we can clearly see that all theories are conspiracy theories. Jack Straw was musing about an al Qaeda attack before he could possibly have known enough to make a reasonable guess. The police kept coming up with reports expressed as certainties which they now claim are all wrong. If every theory is a conspiracy theory, including the Official Story, you owe it to yourself to make a reasonable judgment of your own, based on common sense, as to what really happened.


6. The French reported that the terrorists had all been arrested as part of a scheme to turn them and infiltrate the cell. This was immediately denied by the British (the two Reuters stories are nine minutes apart). Of course, this is the most terrifying claim that can be made against an intelligence or police service, that its own double agents were actually triple agents and fooled the foolers. Timothy McVeigh is probably an example of this. We have also seen hints of it in the investigation of September 11. MI5 has even used the technique with al Qaeda.


7. I still think Peter Power is just hyping his product, which is just the usual management bullshit where a bunch of middle managers sit around a boardroom table and brainstorm a case study involving bombs placed in London and what effect it would have on business. I see nothing in what he has said to indicate there was any tactical or operational aspect to what he does. What is interesting is that he seems to have business connections to Giuliani, who was in London at the time of the bombings (the connection was through the Canadian Centre for Emergency Preparedness which, by happy coincidence, held its World Conference on Disaster Management in Toronto from June 10 to 13). You have to wonder whether the point of his interview was to plant the seed of the idea that suicide bombers were involved, an idea that was still being rejected by the authorities at the time. The thesis that suicide bombers were involved fits nicely into the 'war on terror' that Giuliani now makes a good living talking about (he also hopes to parlay it into a bid to become President).


8. The British police have a history of framing people for bombing. At least it resulted in one of the best songs by The Pogues:

   "There were six men in Birmingham
   
   In Guildford there's four
   
   That were picked up and tortured
   
   And framed by the law
   
   And the filth got promotion
   
   But they're still doing time
   
   For being Irish in the wrong place
   
   And at the wrong time"

   
   If you read Cryptome regularly, you'll see that British spies are still up to their old tricks.


9. Pakistan had a double agent in al Qaeda, whose cover was blown by Tom Ridge when he gave out too much information about the guy (as part of the ongoing Republican plan to use terror alerts for partisan political purposes). At the time, Pakistan was reported to be angry about the matter. The supposed 'mastermind' of the London bombs was connected to an al Qaeda official who attended an al Qaeda summit at which the bombing was supposedly planned. Had Ridge not opened his big mouth it is possible that the double agent might have helped lead to the arrest of the bombers. If you buy all this al Qaeda background - and it may just be part of the mythology - Tom Ridge and the Republicans may be responsible for the London bombings.

What is the motive for this attack? Cui bono? Anyone who wishes to support the Zionist lies that all Muslims are terrorists and the only way to fight terrorism is for more state terrorism and war against Muslims (a 'world war' 'until the enemy is eliminated'), anyone who wishes to further curtail civil liberties in the guise of protecting people from terrorism, anyone who wants to sell arms, anyone who wants to justify the Israeli treatment of the Palestinians and the Anglo-American treatment of the people of Iraq, and anyone who wants to use the 'war on terror' as a disguise for neocolonial geopolitics in the Middle East and around the world.

Tony and George G-8 Comic

Via Robot Wisdom and LinkMachineGo, a swell comic on Bush and Blair and the G-8 conference. Do you think it gives Blair too much credit? It puts in Bush's mouth essentially the same argument made by CIA agent Higgins - played by Cliff Robertson - at the end of Three Days of the Condor (see page 129 of pdf of the screenplay). I assume that these monsters must have some rationalization for the things that they do.

The birth of the London bomb Official Story

You can practically hear the click at that moment in the life of every conspiracy when the police investigation turns into the Official Story. At that point, the investigation is intended to 'fix the facts' to the Official Story, and the cover-up begins. The story of the London bombs has made this transformation within the last twenty-four hours. The authorities thought it was small bombs with timers or triggered by cell phones and almost certainly not a suicide bomb attack; now they claim with certainty that the bombs were accompanied by handlers, some or all of whom may have died in the blasts, possibly by accident and probably intentionally (which means they were suicide bombers, as it is extremely unlikely that all four made a mistake). The original story was that it was an international al Qaeda operation; now it is British Muslims. In just a day or two, everything has changed.

The British government has managed to fashion the least damaging story possible under the circumstances. Cell-phone triggered bombs are out, as that might lead to calls for cell-phone jammers near transportation routes, a prospect that would cost rich people who own cell-phone companies money. Small bags with explosives and timers are out, as that is just too scary. The prospect of an unlimited quantity of small bombs was causing too much panic. Suicide bombers are in, as it will be thought that the likelihood of there being a lot of available suicide bombers is small, and thus the level of concern can be reduced in the general population. Of course, there will still be enough tension to lead to more video cameras and more call for national ID cards and increased police powers. International al Qaeda is out, as it brings up too many associations of how Blair's alliance with Bush in Iraq put the British people in direct danger (but watch for the 'mastermind' to eventually be connected to the governments of Syria or Iran). Any connection between British government wrong-doing and terrorism must be broken. Local Muslims are in, as there appears to be a new campaign to demonize British Muslims as part of the ongoing Zionist program to associate terrorism with calls for the Islamification of British society. This fits in with the general idea that terrorists are Evil and have impossible demands which can't possibly be met, and thus terrorism has to be fought with the 'war on terror', and not with negotiations and concessions. All these wars suit Israel and the arms dealers. For that reason, British Muslims are going to be in for a difficult time, and the 'Londonistan' meme is the start of that process.

Just a few early questions:

1. Why would suicide bombers need timers? Are we to believe that all four of them died when they mistakenly set off their bombs?


2. Why would suicide bombers carry identification which would lead the authorities directly to their colleagues? How did it survive in at least three of the bombs? I am reminded of the convenient passport found at the World Trade Center.


3. If all four video cameras on the bus were not working, how do the police know what happened on the bus? The witness who saw someone fiddling with a bag just begs the question of whether the fiddler was a bomber. Why do video cameras on buses need to be switched on by the drivers?


4. Why did Jack Straw state so quickly that it was al Qaeda? Is the theory that it is still al Qaeda, or some other group?


5. How did the British know to warn Netanyahu so quickly? If they knew enough to warn Netanyahu, why didn't they have enough time to shut down the subway system? Or did they?


6. Why was the transportation system still operating when the bus bomb went off, nearly an hour later than the subway bombs? One theory is that the last bomber got on the bus after the subway system was closed!


7. How easy would it be to pay some Muslim British men, who are told to carry identification, to drive to London and sit in specific places on specific subway trains or buses? When the bombs go off and the identification is found, you have instant patsies, and British Muslims in the frame. The fact they were seen together on video footage then becomes just part of the set-up. With so many known video cameras in London, why wouldn't they take care not to be seen together? They could have entered London separately if they did not want to be identified as part of a 'cell', and avoid giving the police information that could be used to trace their colleagues. As is often the case with these stories, we are asked to believe that they would be technically proficient ('military grade' explosives), but make the dumbest small mistakes.


8. What happened to the story, out of Canada and New Zealand, that the police shot one or two men near Canary Wharf?

The bombers are all dead, and dead men tell no tales. They were kind enough to leave enough identification, and enough video footage, to tie them to British Muslim colleagues. Once the 'cell' is broken everybody can rest easy, with no more inconvenient questions about the sanity of the 'war on terror' or the fact that Blair's lies led to the attack. Nothing to see here; please move along (oh, and may I see your ID card please?).

Right-wing bombing in London?

From Wayne Madsen:

" Some informed British sources believe that the recent London Transport bombings may have been the work of far right-wing British terrorists hoping to stir up tensions with the nation's large Muslim population. There are several reasons for this belief. One is that GCHQ and MI-5 intercepts of the communications of Muslim groups in Britain and abroad - groups suspected of ties to militants - revealed that targeted individuals and organizations were genuinely surprised at the London bombings. Another is the statement of former Metropolitan London police commissioner Sir John Stevens that the perpetrators were 'almost certainly' British. Although many accused Stevens of stirring up racial tensions, he never referred to British Muslims. British Prime Minister Tony Blair ruled out any probe of the bombings claiming it would 'distract' from the investigation."

It might also explain the attempts to stir up racial tensions by playing up the presence of radical Islam in Britain, the fact that the video cameras were mysteriously all not working in the bombed bus, the 'military' source of the explosives, and the odd report of a Canary Wharf shooting by police. It would also make the London attacks similar to the strategy-of-tension attacks in Madrid, where extreme right-wingers attempted to frame Muslims for a police attack in order to create racial tension. The fact that we seem to know less about the bombing now than we did last week is also something to think about.

Peter Power's corporate wargames

There is some good background at WagNews (an excellent blog), which you might want to call debunking, of the rather prominent story concerning a man named Peter Power and his "exercise for a company of over a thousand people in London based on simultaneous bombs going off precisely at the railway stations where it happened this morning". It appears that Power saw a good way to hype his management consultant company based on all the publicity over the London bombs. The war game exercises that may well have been used to allow the September 11 airplanes to fly unmolested to their targets are an important part of the September 11 investigation. The Peter Power story is probably just advertising.

Rove, Luskin and Cooper

There is an excellent analysis here by Josh Marshall on the legal niceties which kept Matt Cooper out of jail, based on an article in the New York Times. Cooper was all ready to go to jail, but didn't want to. However, all he had from Rove was one of those blanket waivers on which journalists have not wanted to rely, based on the assumption that they were obtained based on coercion (I'm not sure why the specific waivers are considered to be less problematic, but that's the position taken by journalists). As a matter of principle, Cooper was prepared to go to jail rather than rely on Rove's blanket waiver, until his lawyer pointed out a statement by Rove's lawyer Robert Luskin published in the Wall Street Journal:

"If Matt Cooper is going to jail to protect a source it's not Karl he's protecting."

The New York Times continues:

"That provided an opening, Mr. Cooper said. 'I was not looking for a waiver,' he said, 'but on Wednesday morning my lawyer called and said, 'Look at The Wall Street Journal. I think we should take a shot.' And I said, 'Yes, it's an invitation.'

In court shortly after 2, he told Judge Thomas F. Hogan of the Federal District Court in Washington that he had received 'an express personal release from my source.'

That statement surprised Mr. Luskin, Mr. Rove's lawyer. Mr. Luskin said he had only reaffirmed the blanket waiver, in response to a request from Mr. Fitzgerald."

The 'express personal release from my source' appears to be Luskin's unnecessary bloviation to the Wall Street Journal. Cooper seems to have decided that he wouldn't allow Rove's attorney to gloat in the protection provided by Cooper's silence, particularly if that silence resulted in the personal cost to Cooper of going to jail. It would be funny if Karl Rove has to resign due to a malfunction in his lawyer's testosterone patch.

The only practical response to the bombs

For the first time in the recent string of terrorist attacks not everyone is taking the bait and falling into the trap of assuming that the West is completely innocent, and the terrorists are representative of all Muslims who are 'Islamofascists' trying to violently convert the whole world to Islam. The fact that Bush and Blair lied and forced their respective countries into an unprovoked and illegal war which has killed at least 100,000 Iraqi civilians just might have something to do with the change in attitude. It has become a little more difficult to play the role of victim when you're totally covered in the blood of the innocent. We are now finally hearing people seriously ask whether there might be something to negotiate about, and whether some of the stated demands of the terrorists might be just.

The worst crime that Zionism has inflicted on the world is to take its immoral analysis of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and impose it on everybody. The Zionist goal is to continue to steal land, and in order to do so has to re-characterize the natural Palestinian resistance to the illegal state terrorism of Israel, state terrorism which is intended to drive the Palestinians out of the Occupied Territories. Therefore, the Palestinian resistance is 'terrorism', and the Israeli attacks are all 'self-defense'. It's an amazing propaganda victory when Palestinian children throwing rocks at soldiers who are illegally occupying their country are terrorists, and the IDF soldier who uses a high powered rifle or a tank shell to shoot them is engaging in self-defense. But that's what we read every day. For this nonsense to fly it is necessary to promote the ogre of Islamic extremists whose sole goal in life is to exterminate the Jews and push Israel 'into the sea'. There are no doubt such people, prompted by years of abuse at the hands of Israel (abuse which we're only finding out about now, but which has characterized the entire history of Israel, and which has to inform our understanding of the real motives behind Israeli actions in the Occupied Territories), but most of us know most people of all races aren't that way, and depicting all Muslims as murderous psychopaths is just part of the racist basis of Zionism.

It is bad enough when this analysis is limited to the Palestinians, but the grim logic of Zionism means that it must be applied to Muslims all over the world. Therefore, each terrorist attack must be entirely unprovoked and motivated by an insane and completely evil desire to kill all non-Muslims except those who accept forcible conversion. The words of many of the crazy Imams support such an analysis, but this is like believing that the words of Hitler represent the views of all white people, or the words of Pat Robertson represent the views of all Christians. The entire Zionist propaganda exercise is based on fooling people into believing there are no moderate Muslims, and thus no one to negotiate with (the world has no 'negotiating partner' - where have we heard that one before?). This is a pretty good trick when you consider that moderate Muslims probably constitute over ninety-nine percent of the world Muslim population. The ubiquity of the Zionist propaganda message is why Israel is a much bigger world problem than its size and population would suggest.

The simple fact is that terrorism is a response to injustice, and that injustice is almost entirely caused by Western colonialists ensuring their plutocrats control the oil business. That desire for control was behind the Balfour Declaration (do you think that a bunch of British anti-Semitic aristocrats gave land to the Zionists because they liked Jews?), it is behind the continued support for corrupt governments in the Middle East, and it is behind the presence of Western troops in Muslim holy lands. Ending these injustices is entirely within the power of Western governments. Starting to end these injustices, and engaging in a meaningful, non-colonialist way with the vast majority of moderate Muslims, is the only way to end terrorism.

The alternative, one recently argued again by Zionists as the smoke was still in the air from the London bombs, is to continue and intensify the new world war against 'Islamofascism'. This is insane. Why would the world even entertain a policy based on the Zionist need to spin Israel's conflict with the Palestinians in such a way as to justify what Israel is up to? Who exactly do you propose to kill in order to stop terrorism? What war will you fight? I thought Afghanistan and Iraq were supposed to stop terrorism. That's what the Zionists told us. Instead, these wars appear to have increased the number of dangerous terrorists in the world, and increased the completely justified anger of many people who otherwise would have just wanted to get on with their normal lives. Is the plan now to kill every single Muslim in the world?

The London bombing was a marvel of efficiency of attack, with an entire city halted with a few small bags full of bombs. The ratio of the cost of the attack to the amount of damages is enormous, which is why the London attacks are much more dangerous than the expensive attacks of September 11. The London attacks are also completely scalable, and could be repeated as often as necessary. The costs, both economic and in terms of civil liberties and general loss of quality of life, would not be a reasonable cost for London, or any other city, to bear, especially given the existence of alternatives.

I can't help but think of the flypaper theory, a favorite of the warbloggers. The idea was that engaging the 'Islamofascists' on their home ground would draw all the terrorists to the flypaper of the local war, where they would pose no harm to the West. There was something deeply immoral and selfish about this, that we would do ourselves good by imposing the terrorists on the people of Iraq and Afghanistan. It was completely inconsistent with the American claims that it had only the best of intentions, and was only trying to help these countries. It was also tactically stupid. Not only has the injustice of the wars reinvigorated the Islamic resistance movement, it has provided excellent training to insurgents who are now free to use their skills all over the world. Consider also that the technology of the improvised explosive devices used in Iraq against the Americans has been developed by trial and error into an important method of insurgent warfare. It would not surprise me if that technology made it as far as the London Underground, or will make it to one of the next terrorist attacks.