- A huge case of media hysteria was the only serious consequence
of the London/Scottish would-be car bombs. Upon close analysis none of
these "car bombs" would have done anything except burn up a car.
That's it--no explosions, no deaths, and no big plot. One difference though:
As compared to other recent plots, riddled with government informers and
agent provocateurs, these wanna-be terrorists seem to be of the amateur
variety.
-
- In short, police discovered a Mercedes vehicle parked
outside a London night club with some 20 gallons of gasoline inside. Shortly
afterward another similar vehicle was discovered. Then, in seeming coordination,
a burning Jeep was driven into a terminal building at Glasgow Airport.
It failed to explode and the driver had to get out and try and manually
light the vehicle on fire. Sounds like the would-be terrorist Richard Read
trying to light the plastic explosive in his shoe with a match (which would
only have burned the material--no explosion. It takes a blasting cap to
set off C-4 explosives).
-
- As PrisonPlanet.com reported, Ex-CIA agent Larry Johnson
put the threat into perspective when he spoke with commentator Keith Olbermann.
"This is not one of the truck bombs or car bombs we see going off
in Iraq - what's really striking about this today is that you had two non-bombs
in London when we had at least five bombs in Baghdad in which U.S. soldiers
were killed in one of those so I think it's just out of proportion - this
was an incendiary, this was not a high explosive... Johnson said that had
the gas been ignited properly, there would have been a loud boom that would
have split the tank but that no projectiles would have even exited the
vehicle."
-
- Fear-mongering leaders in both the UK and the US made
the most of the media hype and raised terror threat levels to their highest
levels, just in time to inconvenience travelers in the US on their July
4 holiday. Arianna Huffington takes note of the various players working
this angle: "In Washington, opportunistic politicians donned their
curled lips and went on the Sunday shows to use the attacks as an excuse
to allow the president a freer hand to spy on the American people.
-
- "First up we had Joe Lieberman, appearing on This
Week with George Stephanopoulos. Lieberman established that he is not only
independent of any political party but, increasingly, of reality itself
by claiming that 'the surge is working' in Iraq. And he made his case that
the smoking Mercedes in London and the flaming Jeep Cherokee, apparently
driven by a Jordanian physician, aimed at the Glasgow airport are a justification
for more warrantless wiretaps here at home. 'I hope these terrorist attacks
in London wake us up here in America to stop the petty partisan fighting
going on about...electronic surveillance,' he said. 'We're at a partisan
gridlock over the question of whether the American government can listen
into conversations or follow email trails of non-American citizens.'
-
- "Of course, as Lieberman must know, the 'gridlock'
in Congress is not over whether the administration should be able to listen
in, but over whether it should be able to listen in without following the
law. Plus, the NSA program covered spying on U.S. citizens, not just 'non-Americans.'
But why worry about facts when there's a fallacious point to be made?
-
- "Also making the pitch for an unfettered president,
free to eavesdrop on whomever he wants, whenever he wants, was Rep. Peter
King, ranking Republican on the House Homeland Security Committee. Appearing
on CNN's Late Edition, King said that the failed British attacks show that
the best way to fight 'the war on terrorism' is 'to not allow people to
cut into electronic surveillance, to stop that, to not be tying the hands
of the president, neither here or in foreign policy.'
-
- "The thinking of people like Lieberman and King
(to say nothing of Bush and Cheney), when it comes to terrorism is as illogical
as it is entrenched. It goes something like this: When someone attacks
-- or tries to attack -- us or one of our allies because we are a free
society, we should respond by making ourselves less free. That'll show
the bastards!"
-
- NPR news also ran an interview with London police authorities
waxing eloquent about their massive camera surveillance system in London,
and how much help it will be in this investigation. Their biggest trouble
is having way too much video footage to sort through. Apparently their
license plate cameras with plate reading software were able to track down
one of the doctor suspects involved. No doubt these technologies can be
effective in crime work, but the larger question for civil libertarians
is, can and will these system be used to violate people's privacy and those
who actively dissent from the government's new found sense of tyranny?
-
- Paul Joseph Watson of Prison Planet thinks British intelligence
had a hand in these latest bombings. I do not at this point, which I'll
explain shortly. He bases his view on the long history of governments using
agent provocateurs to commit acts of terror in the US and Britain, which
is true:
-
- "Intelligence sources are refusing to rule out an
Irish connection to a massive [hardly] car bomb that was discovered in
the heart of London this morning. Though at this early stage the facts
are sketchy, any link to the IRA or its offshoots would re-open a can of
worms concerning the MI5's role in past terror attacks, and specifically
car bombings, over the last few decades in Britain and Northern Ireland.
-
- "It is important to stress that not every terror
attack is necessarily part of some elaborate scheme or conspiracy - indeed
it is usually small scale incidents such as this that are the work of lone
extremists or Islamic fundamentalists who hate the west, of which Britain
is inundated with [my point, exactly. As our governments continue to provoke
hatred of the West around the world, real amateur terrorists are bound
to arise]. But as the facts emerge we would be foolish to overlook the
fact that the British security services were intimately involved in numerous
terror attacks in Britain over the past few decades, namely car bombings,
that were blamed on the IRA or its offshoots. This is particularly relevant
considering that officials have refused to rule out an Irish connection
in this case.
-
- "Every major IRA bombing in England and Northern
Ireland has had the fingerprints of the British government and the FRU
all over it. Starting from at least the 1980's, SAS and British military
intelligence agents were routinely ordered to embed themselves within violent
branches of the IRA and aid terrorists in carrying out attacks. How do
we know this happened? Because one of the individuals who was ordered to
do so, Kevin Fulton, blew the whistle on the fact that he was told he had
the Prime Minister's blessing to aid terrorists in bomb making and political
assassinations...
-
- "Documents, lodged as part of a court action being
taken against the British government by a disgruntled military intelligence
agent, also revealed that an FRU (Force Research Unit) major was the officer
who was the handler of the British army's most infamous agent inside the
IRA -- a man code named Stakeknife. Stakeknife is one of Belfast's leading
Provisionals. His military handlers allowed him to carry out large numbers
of terrorist murders in order to protect his cover within the IRA.
-
- "The London Observer further revealed some of the
methods employed by the FRU in Northern Ireland, including the 'human bomb'
technique, which involved 'forcing civilians to drive vehicles laden with
explosives into army checkpoints.' Former MI5 counter-terrorism officer
David Shayler also saw documents indicating that the Israeli's bombed their
own embassy in London in 1994 after a car bomb exploded outside the building
in Kensington. He also presented evidence that MI5 had foreknowledge of
the 1993 Bishops gate car bombing that was blamed on the IRA, and could
have apprehended the bomb squad but let the attack go ahead."
-
- "To forget the proven history of the security service's
involvement in car bombings and other terror attacks in Britain and Northern
Ireland in light of this latest incident would be very naive, and as more
information about the culprits behind this morning's attempted attack is
released, that history is likely to become more prescient."
-
- Commentator Kurt Nimmo has additional insights on British
foreknowledge of the actors in these amateur bombs: "As it turns out,
however, the London and Glasgow bomb fumblers were 'watched' by Britain's
master terror organization, MI5. 'Several doctors arrested over the London
and Glasgow car bomb plot were on the files of MI5,' reports the UK Telegraph.
'At least one was on a Home Office watch list after being identified by
security services-meaning their travel in and out of Britain was monitored
by immigration officers.. Others were found to be on the MI5 database,
which contains an estimated 2,000 suspected jihadists or supporters of
terrorism."
-
- [The dragnet has now been expanded to Australia, involving
other doctors from India, all under previous surveillance. Much is made
in the media of Internet chatter and recruitment. However, I find this
implausible for real terrorists. The internet is never secure and real
terrorists know this. I suspect we have British informers driving the internet
chat rooms and reeling in these disgruntled Indian doctors, who are then
arrested based on some indirect connection with the amateur bombers who
were also health care professionals.]
-
- "Recall that Mohammed Siddique Khan, the alleged
ringleader of the 7/7 London bombings, was working for British intelligence
agency MI5 as an informant at the time of the attacks, according to Charles
Shoebridge, a 12-year veteran detective of the London Metropolitan Police.
-
- "And then there is the strange case of Abu Qatada,
'a Muslim cleric believed by several European countries to be a pivotal
figure in international terrorism,' according to the Guardian, who 'disappeared
from his west London home before a round up of alleged terrorist suspects.
It was rumored that he had 'fled abroad.' However, according to 'senior
members of European intelligence services,' Abu Qatada was 'fed and clothed
by British intelligence,' that is to say he was protected as an asset.
-
- "Relatives of two brothers suspected of plotting
a terrorist bombing outrage in Britain today made extraordinary claims
that they were visited by an MI5 agent in the weeks before they were arrested,'
the Scotsman reported on April 1, 2004. 'The eight suspects, all British
citizens and Muslims, were held under the Terrorism Act as police found
half a ton of ammonium nitrate fertilizer which they believe could have
been used in a devastating blast.'
-
- "Finally, it appears Bisher al-Rawi, sweating it
out in Camp Gitmo, claims 'he acted as a go-between for British intelligence
and an alleged leading member of al-Qa'ida in London,' according to London
Independent. 'Mr. Rawi claimed he had acted as an intermediary between
Abu Qatada, a Palestinian refugee, and MI5. He named three MI5 agents,
Alex, Matthew and Martin, and asked for them to be called as defense witnesses.
Although the tribunal agreed, the British Government refused to allow them
to give evidence.'
-
- "Of course, the story of the 'al-Qaeda' patsies,
neurologists and well-educated medical students, clueless when it comes
to making bombs-while no shortage of bored teenagers are able to do so
using household chemicals-is not intended to be believable but rather is
designed to augment the incessant corporate media campaign to demonize
Muslims, part and parcel of the 'clash of civilizations,' that it to say
the plan to attack Muslim and Arab countries, kill their grandmothers and
toddlers, and balkanize the region, as long ago planned."
-
- I think what we are dealing with is the growing rise
of Muslim hostility world wide. Muslims don't hate our freedom, or even
our worldly goods (which they often covet). They hate our government and
its constant interference in the Middle East. Government is so busy trying
to provoke terrorism through their agent provocateurs on the internet and
at mosques that it is little wonder some uncontrolled form of terrorism
will spill out of the process.
-
- More and more Muslims are realizing that government intel
agencies are infiltrating chat rooms on the internet and goading angry
and resentful Muslims into talking about "doing terrorism" and
they are angry about it. Some are undoubtedly trying to give the Brits
a bit of their own provocation medicine. Whether or not the people arrested
were actually involved remains to be seen. We may never know for sure since
the government controls all the information and evidence. Often the secret
services "round up the usual suspects" (Casablanca style) just
to make it appear as if they are doing something in response to the incidents.
-
- Sadly, without an honest court system to keep the police
and their evidence honest, we have no way of determining if what the government
claims is true. Real terrorism that performs high profile and damaging
attacks always involves government money and arms flowing into the process,
whether directly or through third parties (often unbeknownst to the terrorists
themselves) to buy the arms, and explosives.
-
-
- World Affairs Brief
-
- Commentary and Insights on a Troubled World.
-
- Copyright Joel Skousen. Partial quotations with attribution
permitted.
-
- Cite source as Joel Skousen's World Affairs Brief
- http://www.worldaffairsbrief.com
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