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Fake Terror
Craig Murray and Christopher Reed are very suspicious about the foiled terror plot in the UK. I personally think the whole thing is fake. Says Murray:
None of the alleged terrorists had made a bomb. None had bought a plane ticket. Many did not even have passports, which given the efficiency of the UK Passport Agency would mean they couldn’t be a plane bomber for quite some time.
In the absence of bombs and airline tickets, and in many cases passports, it could be pretty difficult to convince a jury beyond reasonable doubt that individuals intended to go through with suicide bombings, whatever rash stuff they may have bragged in internet chat rooms.
It is another 20 some days until the British police will have to come up with something indictable. Until then the pols and the media can go on to push this particular terror button.
After that, another one will be needed. Any ideas yet?
And yet . . . the Cheney, Ledeen, Kristol crew, with their “movement conservative” supporters, appears deliberately intent upon inciting a conflagration of cultures; radical themselves, bent upon radicalizing a whole generation of young muslims; putting out this fire with gasoline; our fundies proclaiming “Bring it on!” to their fundies, and vice versa; a fratricidal bloodbath between the sons of Abraham; all scripted by the ancient, tribal, viral hooey of the Torah, the Bible, and the Koran . . . If we bomb Iran, more fiery than all the munitions and more devastated than all the “targets” — millions hearts and minds will explode.
This probably isn’t really the forum for this sort of suggestion, but some sort of heavy, global, interfaith fatwah is in order. Old Testament and Koranic literalists (among others) are poisoning the hearts and minds of the faithful billions. The Rumi-wing of Islam needs to confab with some New Testament types, some Advaitists, Kabbalists, and masters of Dzogchen, and remind us all — with a huge Heart Shout — that God is Love.
Yes to all this secular, green-meme debate here in Left Blogistan. But, culturally, politically, so much of the onus of this accelerating descent into madness rests in the sway of the priests and yogis, imams and rabbis to whom so many turn for guidance.
As “spiritual” or irreligious or whatever any of us here may be, I think we need to recognise that the place that our collective fate is being hammered out — more than in forums like this, the “media,” or even legislative halls — is the local church, mosque, synagogue, and ashram.
We tend to emphasize politics and political stewardship here. But I wonder if it isn’t more our collective religious leadership that will hurl us or prevent us from tumbling beyond the brink into global war. Generally, we tend to direct our ire and craft our considered suggestions here toward secular leaders, especially politicians. I wonder if the real game won’t depend upon whether or not we light a fire under the asses of the “shepherds” — not a “write your congressperson” campaign, but a concerted, collective, global and mainstream movement to urge religious and spiritual guides everywhere to pull their heads out.
“Interfaith dialogue” or “religious tolerance” doubtless isn’t even a blip on a poll of pressing, political problems — nothing like “wise energy policy” or “health care” or any of a hundred “top” issues. But I’m wondering if it shouldn’t be.
Ask your congressperson to save the Arctic, raise the minimum wage, AND promote interfaith dialogue and religious tolerance!
“Nuclear exchange” is in the wind, my friends. Somebody needs to pull their head out.
Posted by: manonfyre | Aug 15 2006 19:42 utc | 17
Liquids in airplanes is a far from new paranoia.
In February 1995 I had to board a 747 flying out of Sydney to Auckland. I remember the whole thing vividly because it was one of those trips from hell that seem to happen to peripatetic types intermittently, completely out of the blue. I had been flying all night from the Top End of Australia where I had grabbed a connection to Sydney after hopping off a Garuda Flight from Jakarta. Not only was there a mob of different airlines involved in this urgent dash, the flights had been cobbled together individually so that I had to pull our bags off, drag em through customs then recheck them at each border crossing.
“Us” was myself and my 3 year old daughter and 15 month old son.
Anyway by the time we got to Sydney we were pretty stuffed, the kids had been really good but they were tired and I was getting very bored with standing in line, holding my daughter’s hand with H… on my shoulders trying to push a luggage kart that had only three wheels, when TV crew came and stuffed a TV camera in my face and asked me how I was coping with the strike?
Apparently Sydney airport was under strike by ground staff and siege from the local residents all pissed that a third runway was being built to cope with the extra traffic for the 2000 Olympics. That would mean that a heavily populated swath of suburban Sydney was going to be turned into an approach path.
I may have sympathised with the protestors but had far more urgent things on my mind as I had to move kids, bags, and me from one end of the airport to another. The flight into Sydney was a domestic one and since the flight to Auckland was “International” I had to move to another terminal miles away with no taxis, shuttle buses or the like running. A definite steam out the ears moment, but still endeavouring to maintain a cheerful and informative demeanor for D…. and H…..
So after politely telling the newscrew if they didn’t want to help they should fuck off I wheeled the teetering pyramid of luggage towards the international terminal.
When I got there I discovered that there was a full blown security exercise going on.
It was weird because they kept telling us “This is just an exercise” but given all of the other shit going on ( the strike and the blockade of the roads so that commercial traffic couldn’t pass, very lightly policed for complex party political reasons that would take a doctorate in the relationship between the right wing of the Australian Labor Party, organised crime and the NSW Police to fully comprehend) why would anyone in their right mind lay on a full blown training exercise in the middle of all that?
The other weird thing was that it was just our flight. If a bomb threat had been made as part of anti runway action, even if only our flight had been threatened, the security services would normally check out all flights.
This was a long time before 911 and the Keating Govt had a fairly good relationship with Islamic nations in the region, after all that was what I had been doing in Asia. So bomb threats were taken seriously enough for all authorities to be able to cover their ass if something did happen. However no one really thought there was much chance they were real, so the checks could get fairly perfunctory.
Not on this one though. The blokes in charge spoke with North Amerikan accents which was strange in itself. Even stranger was the way they went through everything and confiscated all liquids. We had grabbed drinks after our trek, bottled water and choc milks, they made us finish the drinks we had opened and confiscated the others.
I used to carry a toilet bag with general blokey stuff in it in my shoulder bag hand luggage thing-ummy and had a few bottles of politically correct (non French, -nuclear testing, non animal tested) aftershave. I was fairly outspoken about losing them, unaware at the time of the impending change of status to full time parent that fate had been brewing. Full time parent would make such indulgences far more hassle than they were worth but that’s something else altogether.
Worst of all was the fine tooth comb these types were running through the children’s hand luggage, more correctly the bag of stuff I was taking on board for them. H….’s condition hadn’t really been noticed much less diagnosed but he had a couple of accidents in his mother’s care and there was a bottle of liquid kidstuff antibiotics amongst his gear. It had a prescription on it made out to him in exactly the same name as was in his passport.
They took it. I blew it because the whole journey had been a disaster. It has been totally unplanned and I thought I was going to be doing a tag with their mother; handing the children over so I could go back to Asia and take up a new gig. That was extremely stressful in itself as I had been determined that I wasn’t going to lose contact with these children. The trip had been a nightmare relieved only by the fine time the three of us had been having, but all the weirdness had started to sink in with L who had traveled with me a few times by now, and had sussed that what was happening wasn’t ‘normal’, so she was becoming unusually tetchy, as was H who could normally spend hours on my shoulders, even falling asleep but still hanging on.
Some little septic tank prick in a suit was telling me I couldn’t carry prescription antibiotics from Australia to NZ. We were citizens of both countries and I doubted he was a citizen of either. It was just too much to take and totally beyond the pale. Anyway after my mini-explosion a bigger seppo in a newer suit came up to ‘see what the problem was’. I told him and after he checked the medicine label and bottle for the 57th time, and our passports for the 104th he took his underling to the side and told him to let us keep the medicine.
We got a receipt for all the rest of the stuff, so we could pick it up the next time we flew thru Sydney I suppose. Anyone who has traveled with children will know the sort of physical osmosis that much of their ‘necessities’ undergo. Everything moves from the baggage, suitcases and boxes into your carry-all as the trip progresses. Things like children’s non-irritant shampoo, conditioner, mouthwash for sore gums, all sorts of shit. We lost the lot.
I was so tired the whole thing took on a weird sort of surreal tone, but I do remember one thing and that was that while a handful of ordinary bourgeois travelers were going absolutely apeshit , the vast majority were extremely pliable sheep. This was before 911 and the Auckland Sydney flight is only about 1600 kilometres and a very long way from anywhere else. This means that not only would the 737 only be gassed up enough to do that trip and no more, there wasn’t any other country (other than Oz or NZ) within flight range, so a hi-jacking was unlikely.
It wasn’t a training exercise and an actual bomb threat was pretty unlikely judging by the way all other flights were ignored, hi-jacking was improbable, the fact that we had just come through from the most populous Islamic nation in the world was a non-issue, and where did the amerikans come from?
My best guess was this
The groundcrew strike and airport blockade must have made it too difficult for Carol to use the Popeplane. The feeling may have been that the third runway protests could drag on for a few days so his ‘olinesses goons may have decided to take their chances with NZ’s Presbyterians and get him out from there.
It’s the only thing that fits. “Upstairs” was closed off but the plane wasn’t that full so that wasn’t particularly surprising but I remember being miffed because in those days the upper level of Qantas planes were the only berths with individual video screens.
Anyway aside from alla the guff, the thing is that authorities were wise to the problems associated with liquids on planes years ago and were making sure that none of the elite could be exposed to them. As for the rest of us? well tough shit unless we need to distract ya.
There is also one other outcome from this whole episode which hasn’t been considered AFAIK.
That is the fuel savings that airlines will make now they have specious grounds to restrict peoples hand baggage. I understand they have already ‘found’ much smaller slots you have to be able to push yer bag thru in order to comply, so mebbe this wasn’t such a surprise for the airlines after all. Remember that what ever you can’t take on board with you is likely to be excess baggage and charged as such.
There’s a whole slew of other issues about the timing of the ‘scare’ especially since ‘the authorities’ have admitted that it wasn’t intelligence of an impemding attack that made them move when they did.
This would have to be the busiest time that would inconvenience the most people. As you can see from my spiel above I still remember the whole episode vividly 10+ years later and yet I doubt I can remember anything else about that trip.
By staging this farce when they did the poms have ensured that the largest possible number will remember the event and hopefully blame the towel jowls.
Posted by: Debs is dead | Aug 16 2006 6:31 utc | 27
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