Red Alert – Moon of Alabama

August 10, 2006

Red Alert

Male bovine dropping alert that is.

What is the usefullness or a red alert on flights coming to the U.S. from Britain AFTER an alleged plot to blow up planes has been faulted and AFTER security measures on British flights are in place?

There is no sane operational reason for this, but to frighten the people and to distract them from the Republican candidate’s loss in Connecticut, the ongoing attack of Israel on Lebanon and the civil war in Iraq.

Bush on his Crawford ranch was criticized to have stayed there during the Katrina catastrophe. I would not be surprised if Rove would use this terror crisis to have him show some leadership and to hold some manly speech in Washington.

Developing …

Posted by b on August 10, 2006 at 13:39 UTC | Permalink

Comments

“some manly speech in Washington” – coming right up, 12:30 PM
Eastern Daylight Time

Posted by: mistah charley | Aug 10 2006 14:00 utc | 1

Larry Johnson
In the back of my mind I worry that this threat might be trumped up in order to divert attention from the disastrous US and British policy (or lack of policy) in Lebanon. More likely, we have an informant in the UK that identified a potential plot that was in the dreaming stage but had not progressed to actual implementation. Rather than act like security professionals, the Brits are acting like panicked nannies. Very sad.

Posted by: Cloned Poster | Aug 10 2006 14:36 utc | 2

I was just going to post exactly what Mr. Johnson wrote.

Posted by: cognos | Aug 10 2006 15:00 utc | 3

I have been watching various Cable TV News this morning off and on – it appears that CNN, FOX & MSNBC is doing 100% coverage on the “Red Alert”. I have not seen/heard a single mention of the Iraq and Lebanon tragedies.

Posted by: RIck Happ | Aug 10 2006 15:22 utc | 4

The semiology of politics. Before an epileptic seizure there is in many cases an aura, a prodromal warning. The warning in this London case was that Bush would be in Texas only ten days and that Blair had not gone to Barbados with Cherie and the children. The seizure is beginning now. Will there be some anticonvulsant?

Posted by: jlcg | Aug 10 2006 15:36 utc | 5

No doubt, the GOP needs the diversion for Red Alert. But, Israeli and USA’s basic policy is kill all radical Muslims and to bomb the rest into moderation. It will never happen. A billion people are being radicalized. A counter-strike will occur. The only question is when and how bungled the federal government response will be.

Posted by: Jim S | Aug 10 2006 16:27 utc | 6

Samizdata says:

Apparently the terrorism threat level in the UK has just been raised to ‘critical’. Which we are told means, “an attack is expected imminently”.
Pardon me for being critical, but that is entirely meaningless. It has been raised from ‘severe – an attack is highly likely’ which is also meaningless. When I write “meaningless,” I suppose that is because I want to know what is meant by ‘an attack’, and what probabilities are adduced to distinguish between ‘unlikley’, ‘possible but not likely’ [are not those the same? – no, apparently], ‘a strong possibility’, ‘highly likely’, and ‘imminent’? The announcement is full of meaning, but it is a purely political meaning.
This morning the police announce they have “disrupted a major plot” and arrested 18 people overnight, “as part of a long-running operation”. Unless there is actually someone known to the police to be loose with a bomb as a result of the raids, then disrupting a plot would reduce the actual level of danger, wouldn’t it? Maybe the danger was ‘critical’ (whatever that means) before last night, and they did not know it, so now a misleadingly low level of threat is being corrected.
What is entirely evident is that in the threat levels do nothing to inform the public. They contain no information. Actual threats (those that might succeed) are by definition unknown unknowns, because the security services can (we hope) cope with what they know.

Posted by: Cloned Poster | Aug 10 2006 16:59 utc | 7

Apparently the terrorism threat level in the UK has just been raised to ‘critical’. Which we are told means, “an attack is expected imminently”.
perhaps, based on their behavioural studies & objectives, they’re commanding/expecting an influx of panic attacks directly in response to their manipulations of specific stimuli

Posted by: b real | Aug 10 2006 17:25 utc | 8

I like this warning system from CP’s link.

Posted by: beq | Aug 10 2006 17:33 utc | 9

I agree on the “male bovine dropping” alert, but the mastermind is not at the pig farm but in Downing Street. More than Bush, Blair need a bit of respite from the pounding he feels in his own party.
I’m not so sure it’ll work this time, since the “terror alert” PR device has been used and abused in the last five years. Cynicism is spreading well beyond our own circle of contrarians.

Posted by: ClaudeB | Aug 10 2006 17:47 utc | 10

Lou Dobbs Wakes Up to 9/11 Lies

Lou Dobbs Calls For New 9/11 Investigation
QUOTE
DOBBS: Tonight, we’re one month away from the fifth anniversary of September 11th. A shocking new book by the 9/11 Commission co- chairmen, Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton, says Americans still don’t know the whole truth about their government’s initial response to those terrorist attacks that day.
Christine Romans has the report.

Also, I noted in the OT, The Governator has activated the National Guard in responce to the UK scare. Boo!

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Aug 10 2006 17:52 utc | 11

Craig Murray says:

I am reminded of the Forest Gate arrests and the notorious “Chemical weapon vest” which was threatening London and required 270 policemen and a four mile air exclusion zone to deal with. The media was shoving that out just as uncritically as it is shoving out this air attack, even though it made no sense. Anyone who knows anything about weapons knows that for a chemical weapon you want maximum dispersal – the last thing you are going to do is wrap it in fabric around a human body. And why the air exclusion zone? Were they going to throw the vest at a passing jet? The media never did ask any of those questions.
Similarly, I recall the famous ricin plot, where again police and the professional pundits said millions could have been killed. In the event, of course, it turned out there was no ricin and no plot.
And I remember Jean Charles De Menezes, the “suicide bomber”, with his “bulky jacket”, with “wires sticking out”, who “leapt” the ticket barriers and “raced” onto the tube. All lies.
So I am waiting with a little healthy scepticism to see the truth of this “al-Qaida plot” bringing “Mass murder on an unprecedented scale”.
Of course, it helps New Labour look Churchillian, and explains why Israel had to be supported in the ethnic cleansing of South Lebanon, part of the “Arc of extremism”. it is interesting that the timing of these arrests exactly today, after “months” of surveillance, was determined by the Prime Minister – the CO in COBRA, the operational command, stands for Cabinet Office.
The political timing could not have been more convenient – a junior minister had resigned over arms to Israel, and the backbench rebellion demanding a recall of parliament over Lebanon will now be containable in the name of standing together in the War on Terror. And the news agenda has been seismically shifted. The public mood is instantly tilted from sympathy for the people of Lebanon, leading to questioning of the War on Terror, to renewed fear that “Islamic fascists” are planning to kill us all.

Posted by: Cloned Poster | Aug 10 2006 19:45 utc | 12

Get ready for many more red alerts. The election takes place in November. Duh!

Posted by: ben | Aug 10 2006 20:05 utc | 13

It certainly was a good day to manufacture an eye-candy to bury bad news with the cabinet in revolt, a resignation of a junior government member in ministry of Defence yesterday over guns to Israel, and ME in flames, whilst Tone holidays and schmoozes the Dirty Digger.

Posted by: jp | Aug 10 2006 20:21 utc | 14

The terror alerts have become pathetic appeals to local vigilantes. Well there is money in it – the money distributed keeps some flunkeys on board, mouthing the empty talking points, going for alerts, hassle and control, arbitrary arrests, showing off ersatz power..
There, the US Gvmt. made a bad mistake. It would have done better to blow the clarion of freedom, insist that the free are better than crazed towel-heads or the poor, and that Americans can stand up to anything, they are tough, true, strong and caring, the best in the world.
Both the Brits and the Germans made hay with that kind of line in WW2. In their own way, with shades of meanings…
The US Gvmt. has shown that it considers its own people to be the enemy.

Posted by: Noirette | Aug 10 2006 20:29 utc | 15

Damn, I missed the manly speech. Perhaps there will be another one. Oh, please.
When your first response to news of this kind is “Oh, mule fritters” (in honor of Mash’s Col. Potter), you realize your trust in the veracity of official statements has plummeted. It is very troublesome, however, that so many people, after having been lied to over and over again, go right back into the process.
Sign a petition against me, will you? Vote down my buddy in the Democratic party, will you? We’ll show you. And people keep dying.
And if it turns out to be true, or have some truth to it, can anyone be surprised?

Posted by: catherine | Aug 10 2006 21:51 utc | 16

I work for the UK government in Central London- and our security status had not been raised. I doubt that was an oversight as they are pretty tight on such changes. I was also curious that there were not the hoards of armed police at the major train stations, as there were last July (but only on Thursdays as is seems Terrorists only attack once a week and on the same day).
Ok there, perhaps I am just being hyper sensitive, but when I hear that the police had these people under watch since December, and that Bush-Blair had discussed this issue over the past few days, I do feel a measure of skepticism. After all, I remember when Heathrow was surrounded by tanks, supposedly to prevent a surface to air missle attack (though quite how they were going to stop this is another matter) and it seemed the security (hysteria) response was inverse to Blair’s polls ratings.
To be fair, the police/MI5 did say that although they had stopped this attack, they did not know whether its failure would trigger others to attempt a terrorist attack of some sort- and that does seem a reasonable explanation for their actions, including raising the threat level, but then if his was the case, wouldn’to I expect to see a see a few more police on the streets in anticipation- especially given that the train system/underground is such a potential target during the tourist season ? I still think there is a strange smell around all this.

Posted by: Andrew | Aug 10 2006 22:23 utc | 17

Opps, I just droppped my iPod in my Gatorade
Oh fucking please:

WASHINGTON (CNN) — Terrorists planned to use MP3 players and sports drinks to blow up as many as 10 jetliners bound for the United States, authorities said Thursday.
A senior congressional source said it’s believed the plotters planned to mix a British sports drink with a gel-like substance to make an explosive that they would possibly trigger with an MP3 player or cell phone.

Can they get any more absurd? Jesus fucking Christ, and the sad thing is the sheeple will just suck it up…

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Aug 10 2006 22:27 utc | 18

The BBC is saying that the Brits had been working with Pakistan on this investigation and that some individuals have been arrested there as well.

Posted by: Ensley | Aug 10 2006 22:30 utc | 19

Uncle, they don’t REALLY expect us to believe that, do they?

Posted by: Ensley | Aug 10 2006 22:31 utc | 20

I am concerned that every time something happens that’s not good for President Bush he plays this trump card, which is terrorism. His whole campaign is based on the notion that “I can keep you safe, therefore at times of difficulty for America stick with me,” and then out comes Tom Ridge.
It’s just impossible to know how much of this is real and how much of this is politics, and I suspect there’s some of both in it.
– DNC Chair Howard Dean, August 1, 2004.
I know most of you are to my and his left, but I think Dean said it all here. Surely there are British politicos saying the same?

Posted by: Brian J. | Aug 10 2006 22:41 utc | 21

Andrew,
“Ok there, perhaps I am just being hyper sensitive, but when I hear that the police had these people under watch since December, and that Bush-Blair had discussed this issue over the past few days, I do feel a measure of skepticism.”
Classic British understatement at its finest.

Posted by: Night Owl | Aug 10 2006 23:03 utc | 22

As long as the US/UK policy on Iraq, Lebanon, Iran and the greater Middle East continue as they are, nobody will be safe in the air. Al Qaeda can only be defeated by pumping billions into the Middle East to educate and modernise wartorn countries, as well as criticising Israel’s awful actions and not being seen as anti-Islam.
Islamic extremism is a kneejerk reaction to a problem of injustice. Al Qaeda and their type are evil people who abuse Islam but the West is playing into their hands with its actions of the last 100 years. Clever politicians ranging from Nasser and Ayatollah Khomeini to Saddam Hussein and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad have used Islamic fundamentalism as a weapon to become more powerful when needed (but also all 4 above have stamped out Islamism when it was of no use to them, too). Bin Laden, too, was a clever guy who grasped on the power of radical Islam. Indeed, no politician in the Middle East can risk ignoring Islamism today (with Hamas and Hezbollah among the only people the Lebanese and Palestinians see any hope from).
As regards the West: Sunni extremism poses a much greater threat to them. Why make enemies of Iran and Hezbollah when you could use these as allies against the al Qaeda organisation? The US has tended to side with Sunnis against Shia everytime yet it is the Sunnis who most damaged them.
Radical Islam can only be quenched by a dramatic change of policy. Like the IRA in Northern Ireland, these guys will not give up until the West changes its ways. True, there are some Islamists who want to see the West bombed to shreds and others who want to destroy all the world and herald the apocalypse. There were IRA who felt the same. Most, however, want the West to stop attacking their nations, condoning Israeli aggression and imposing sanctions that only cause unemployment and poverty. It is only the poor that turn to this kind of fanatic religion and there’s not a single Middle East or African country that is “rich”. Yes, and when Africa gets radical (tired of all that starvation and disease), it will make the Arab descent look mild. Now is the time to act, the time to change. Rid the world of poverty and inequality and you win the war on terror. Bombing countries into submission will only increase resistance.

Posted by: Sehguh Ellehcim | Aug 10 2006 23:49 utc | 23

Has anyone considered that this might be the ‘new 9-11’–all the fear and heightened police presence but none of the violence? In which case this is an improvement.
Or it could be the real thing. We’ve heard Wolf cried so often that it’s impossible to take anything seriously anymore, unless you are trying to fly. Since my braissiere regularly sets off their alarm system, watch for ‘no underwear’ to be the next ban. I wouldn’t put it past them.

Posted by: hopping madbunny | Aug 10 2006 23:58 utc | 24

“We’ll show you.”
Yes the sheeple are sucking it up.
But there is more to it than that.
The overwhelming majority of the population, and that includes us who post here, are consenting to an authoritarian set-up in our society where a Big Brain thinks for all of us about the really big issues and determines what is best and what needs to be done.
The famous question “qui custodet ipsos custodies” has an answer: it is the Big Central Brain. Who is this Brain: a conclave of people, some elected some not, The Powers that Be. Its composition evolves over time, and so does its collective wisdom. But its power does not.
Underlying our form of authoritarianism is the notion that the popular will is the true sovereign of the country. The popular will has to sign off on the desirable course, else the population cannot be mobilized in the necessary direction. Societal set-ups such as Communism that were overtly much more authoritarian, failed, because they had to coerce their subjects into motion.
That proved to be incredibly wasteful.
So our Big Brain takes stock of popular opinion and determines the appropriate PR to rally support for what it has decided needs to be done. If words and arguments can conjure up the necessary popular mind-set, then so be it. If not, a didactic happening must be staged. And is staged.
The basic modus operandi hasn’t really changed in Anglo countries since it was pioneered by the British Crown in the “Guy Faulkes plot”. And in the centuries that have followed, this “authoritarianism by PR” has proven globally to be the most successful, because it allows the subjects maximum freedom, manufactures maximum consent and hence maximum mobilization.
I am finally coming to my point: It simply doesn’t matter whether an “event” is staged. What matters is what the Big Brain is communicating.
Resisting a course determined by the Big Brain, is in many ways counter-productive, as long as the Big Brain is not denounced per se. Reason: all you achieve by “succeeding” is forcing the Big Brain to become more drastically didactic and coercive.
So what do you do when the Big Brain goes mad? How do you challenge the inherently unaccountable? I don’t know and am running out of concentration. But any really libertarian strategy needs as departure point, the recognition of the overwhelmingly authoritarian nature of our society.
Billmon was daydreaming about a “benign Junta” the other day. Well in my view, we have had that in this country, since at least World War One.
Yes currently things are a bit controversial, but the Orwellian set-up has existed all along: with our tacit consent.
“We’ll show you!” Yes, that’s what the Big Brain is for.

Posted by: Guthman Bey | Aug 11 2006 0:14 utc | 25

As regards the West: Sunni extremism poses a much greater threat to them. Why make enemies of Iran and Hezbollah when you could use these as allies against the al Qaeda organisation?
Hey we did that in Iraq. The old neocon plan to put the Hashemites in power and solve the Shia problem! But then Chalabi just didn’t deliver on that pipeline to Haifa. (Just think, at least it could have been built and used as a decoy for all the warriors of the Middle East to keep them away from the other pipelines.) And that set off the neocons.
The same way that Hussein once got a delivery of chemical weapons from our current Defense Secretary, who later had to shock and awe the whole country.
I’m still waiting for Ollie North to get around to appearing in this mess somehow.

Posted by: 2nd anon | Aug 11 2006 0:27 utc | 26

Guthman Bey —
“Resisting a course determined by the Big Brain, is in many ways counter-productive, as long as the Big Brain is not denounced per se.Reason: all you achieve by “succeeding” is forcing the Big Brain to become more drastically didactic and coercive.”
“..as long as the Big Brain is not denounced per se” Yes — Yes — And so here we are, eh?
My only hope is that of course, our continued push back keeps forcing them to keep upping their coercion. And that risks fight back — but maybe not for a long while. Seriously, I continue to be surprised by the willingness of average citizens to believe the shit.

Posted by: Elie | Aug 11 2006 1:06 utc | 27

The Big Brain is Staged Theater.
It is Debord’s Spectacle personified.
It is the Wizard behind the curtain.
What did Dorothy do?
She pulled back the curtain.
Watching the old man scream into the microphone was bathetic.
The Big Brain is control of the Public Space.
We are turned into spectators watching the Public Space on TV.
We are controlled by the News Cycle.
What can we do?
Turn off the News Cycle.
Take a Deep Breath.
Watch the News Cycle, not as a Spectator, but as an outside observer from another planet.
Analyze the News Cycle.
It is already losing Power over You.
Teach others to do the same.
Now –
Create a Public Space.
Create your own Spectacle as Live Theatre.
Take back Your own Personal News Cycle.
Pull others in to your Shared Public Space.
Create a Shared News Cycle.
Become a Participant in Your Shared News Cycle.
Become a Participant in Your Shared Live Theatre.
Expand your Shared Public Space.
Expand your Shared Live Theatre.
Keep up the work and
The Big Brain will die on its own.
When Their Theatre is empty,
They will have nothing to stage.

Posted by: Malooga | Aug 11 2006 1:56 utc | 28

“Create a Shared Space.”
That’s definitely where it’s at.

Posted by: Guthman Bey | Aug 11 2006 2:06 utc | 29

Hey Malooga, don’t forget: the real difference between the viral meta-narrative soundbite and the shared space that is desired is (ta! da!) truth.
Ya know, back to those old Orthodox monks – if you don’t accept Augustine’s version of “stain” of original sin (which they didn’t in the East), then what you have is a sense that sin is in fact a “shared meme” if you will, a whole collection of them replicating and programming our brains – beginning from the “first sin” (like the Pandora’s Box metaphor). It was this basis that shaped the idea of fighting one’s own demons in the desert, created monastics whose job it was to forge a different identity away fronm those memes, etc.
“Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.” John 8:44

Posted by: 2nd anon | Aug 11 2006 2:15 utc | 30

“And the lusts of your father ye will do.”
“Monastics whose job it was to forge an identity away from those memes.”
How interesting. With my background, I wouldn’t have made this association in a lifetime.
That’s one thing an intelligent “shared space” can bring about.
I am somewhat bewildered: Why are there seemingly no idiots here (that I have noticed)?

Posted by: Guthman Bey | Aug 11 2006 2:35 utc | 31

The one thing this DOESN’T do is justify our and the UK’s presence in Iraq. Early reports tie this plot back to Pakistan and Afganistan.
More proof we should have finished the job instead of going off on the neocon folley.

Posted by: Mr Avid | Aug 11 2006 3:02 utc | 32

@Mr Avid
“Finished the job”…? In Afghanistan, you mean? Yeah, because even if 9/11 and similar conspiracies actually were carried out exclusively by radical Muslim sects, history has shown us how easy it is to occupy and pacify Afghanistan. Let’s ask the former Soviets or our UK allies how they would handle Afghanistan, shall we…? The only way to “finish the job” in Afghanistan or Pakistan would be to kill every single Afghan or Pak (and probably every Uzbek, Iranian and Kyrg just to be safe), since we’ve seen that mujahadeen membership only grows in response to military occupation. Is that what you had in mind?

Posted by: Monolycus | Aug 11 2006 3:14 utc | 33

Why are there seemingly no idiots here
oh, we’re around

Posted by: annie | Aug 11 2006 3:33 utc | 34

oh, we’re around
Oh you are? Damn… if only we had finished the job at Torah Borah…

Posted by: Guthman Bey | Aug 11 2006 3:51 utc | 35

My only hope is that of course, our continued push back keeps forcing them to keep upping their coercion.
kind of a reverse of uncle’s ratchet effect. certain fables are so engrained in our psyche (boy who cried wolf) and woven into the fabric of our beings (don’t trust liars) that even the village idiot catches on eventually. this core group of neocon followers become more and more fanatical as the lies become more fantastical eventually revealing themselves for all they are worth. or lets hope anyway.
the down side of course is the people who die as a result of ‘upping the coercion’

Posted by: annie | Aug 11 2006 3:54 utc | 36

GB, i’m not that stupid!

Posted by: annie | Aug 11 2006 3:56 utc | 37

RE: Finishing the job in Afganistan
Speaking of idiots -Somehow I missed the decision to occupy Afganistan. Stupid me, I thought the U.S. was just going to clean up some terrorist training camps and get OBL. (sorry for the use of initials – I never see his name in print anymore and forgot how to spell OBL’s full name!)
P.S. Somehow I also missed any U.S. decision to occupy Iraq also.

Posted by: Rick Happ | Aug 11 2006 3:57 utc | 38

Annie,
No insult intended.
Just past my bedtime.
That’s when children get cranky.

Posted by: Guthman Bey | Aug 11 2006 4:05 utc | 39

b-, Noirette, HKOL, SKOD, et al – how’s this garbage playing on the Continent? Monty Python stuff, or worries that a local State Political Police Branch near you will be kicked onto the bandwagon, or what?
Also, any info. on how Israel latest is playing in yr. press would be interesting…

Posted by: jj | Aug 11 2006 4:36 utc | 40

Red Alert
Oops wrong red alert -but this one happened and it looks pretty bad.
“Saomai is the eighth storm to hit China this year. Tropical storm Bilis killed more than 600 in China last month.”

Posted by: Rick Happ | Aug 11 2006 4:37 utc | 41

Red Alert
Oops wrong red alert -but this one happened and it looks pretty bad.
“Saomai is the eighth storm to hit China this year. Tropical storm Bilis killed more than 600 in China last month.”

Posted by: Rick Happ | Aug 11 2006 4:38 utc | 42

@Rick Happ
It’s entirely possible that I missed Herr Avid’s meaning entirely, but I couldn’t wrap my head around what “job” we were supposed to have “finished” if he wasn’t referring to ousting the Taliban. As to whether or not “occupation” was explicitly stated as a US goal there, deposing an unfriendly regime is only half the job. Installing a friendly puppet government in place of the old one should be tacit enough not even to make it into the fine print.
Looks like we’re going to have to keep those “Mission Accomplished” banners in mothballs for a good long while yet.

Posted by: Monolycus | Aug 11 2006 4:55 utc | 43

Watching “Israeli Citizen” Chertoff and
his toadie Gonzales lick their razor sharp
lizard teeth with stubby stickey tongues,
and issue yet another fatwah against yet
another false flag deception, I realized
with small humor a gorging of cannelloni
for Monica Lewinski, back when the only
thing we had to worry about was a spuzz-
stained dress, and our stock portfolio.
Monica … Monica … M-o-n-i-c-a ….
I’m sure if Mom and Pop were still alive
they’d agree with me, it’s time to move
the crapper and start shoveling the shit.

Posted by: Harley Freeburn | Aug 11 2006 5:32 utc | 44

Annie, he might be referring to the people who didn’t get the D/s reference a few threads back. Hell, it amused ME.

Posted by: Rowan | Aug 11 2006 5:40 utc | 45

Cutting the head off of al Quada is what I was (and am) refering to.
Would that “solve” the problem?
Most likely not.
But it would go a long way. Much further than than occupying Iraq and installing a pro Iranian/Pro Hezbolla governement has done.
Tora Bora was certainly a “job” left undone…and to add insult to injury, nothing of signifigance has been done toward finishing that job since.

Posted by: Mr Avid | Aug 11 2006 5:51 utc | 46

oh, i’m taking it all in jest. sometimes i let my imagination run away w/me and i’ve made a few far fetched predictions around here. then of course there was that urban myth episode. sometimes i actually avoid my computer in the morning for fear of running into my own postings from the night before, no worries.
i’m so lucky to have this bar and be able to hang w/you brilliant types, lucky me.

Posted by: annie | Aug 11 2006 5:52 utc | 47

Thank you for clarifying, Mr Avid. I didn’t naturally make the leap from point A to point B with you, but then, I don’t believe in the existence of al Qaeda, either.

Posted by: Monolycus | Aug 11 2006 6:08 utc | 48

Damn, Mono-, Al Q- exists. Just ask its creators, the CIA.
This could be a way or rehabilitating the thoroughly discredited color-alert bullshit…anyway, it does seem to be the Fascists way of announcing the opening of the Election Season.

Posted by: jj | Aug 11 2006 6:11 utc | 49

Guthman Bey, thank you deeply for the compliment. (However, I can assure you that if you will continue reading you will find I can most assuredly be an idiot. But people are nice enough to enlighten me without flames.) The thing is, around here, my theory is that what draws us together, and gives us respect for one another, is basically a passion for truth, despite disparate belief systems or starting points. So, independent thinkers rule this place – well, we have Billmon to draw us. I also think that spooks the spooks if you know what I mean. People aren’t really into adversarial flaming because mostly they’re comparing ideas, trying to learn something, even when we disagree. It’s a cool place – even if you leave for awhile and come back later.

Posted by: 2nd anon | Aug 11 2006 6:36 utc | 50

Do you all remember the 200+ police who cordoned off a block in London, broke into a house and shot Mohammed Abdul Kahar and locked him up together with his brother… for being Muslims?
They let the cops walk who shot Mohammed Abdul in his own home.
And, taking a page out of Rumsfeld’s book, the charged Mohammed Abdul with “suspicion of child pornography”. They slimed him. Just like they slimed Jean Charles de Menezes. Just like Rumsfeld slimed Captain James Yee. An old police trick… “he had it comin’ anyway”.
Dollars to doughnuts the “porn” charge is dropped.
Just like the porn charge and every other charge against Captain James Yee was dropped.
Everyone remembers the charge. No one knows or cares that it was dropped. That it was wholly fictitious to begin with.
I expect the same sort of play with the five poor guys the Department of Fear arrested in Miami.
And I imagine, as so many of you do, that there’s a lot less to this story than the Evil Twin B’s have made it out to be.

Posted by: John Francis Lee | Aug 11 2006 7:11 utc | 51

I don’t think anyone is really buying it. Four or five hours after the red alerts and silent sirens began screaming I wondered how the poms were taking it and went to check out the Guardian news blog.
About half the posts were along the lines of what we have here and the other half was mainly LGF bullies telling the poms to smarten up their act, or stiff upper lip pommie scaremongers saying ‘what about the 7th of july?” blah blah.
It seems to me the only discernable pattern is when the arab fighters are clued up enough to put together a credible attack, the the security services don’t get within a bull’s roar until it’s all over.
The walter mitty types and adolescent anti-authority figures amongst ‘radical islam’ (what a fucking meaningless cliche that is) need the services of an agent provacateur to move off the drawing board.
So if the plan has been sprung it was never gonna happen and if it is able to be pulled off there’s probably no stopping it. And the last is becoming increasingly unlikely as the arab liberationists come to recognise other more fruitful strategies for getting Tony, Dubya and the deputy, the fuck outta their house.
Since the security agencies have much better researchers and access to information they must have calculated the same long ago. So when they carry on as they are at the moment it’s just MI5 (UK) and Chertlifter/Shirtoff (US) taking their turn at the circle jerk, giving Dubya and Bliar a relef massage.
The thing that really pisses me about it is the way that the media buys totally, unquestioningly and cravenly into the whole deal every time.
Being nice and allowing that the reason is terror sells, when are the braindeads going to become immune to the “unshaven arab” stimuli?

Posted by: Debs is dead | Aug 11 2006 7:45 utc | 52

@JJ It seems that official Italy is taking the London plot “at face value”, but not getting very agitated or taking “exceptional measures”.
Travellers are irked at the delays and inconveniences that ensued.
There’s a thread on Eurotrib (“Foiled”) which has some interesting
comments.

Posted by: Hannah K. O’Luthon | Aug 11 2006 7:47 utc | 53

If the US/UK regimes were even half clever, this is what they would do:
1. Forget about Israel: you are on your own from now on. Besides, they are well able to defend themselves without the US. They are no friend of the US. The US has made way too many sacrifies for Israel with little thanks and much harm done to the US’s reputation. Time to change policies. I’m sure, Europe would not have liked it if the US supported Milosevic’s Serbia or Africans would not have liked it if the US supported Apartheid in South Africa. The US should condemn ALL injustice and not just some. And lord knows Israel are as good as the other racial segregation dictatorships when it comes to repression. People will tell you that Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East. That’s a lie. It is democratic for the white Europeans who live there, not for the indigenous Palestinian people. A bit like South Africa.
2. Stop supporting repressive regimes like Saudi Arabia and Kuwait if democracy is what they value. Compared to these 2 places, Iran and Saddam’s Iraq were like European democracies.
3. Side with the Shias against the Sunnis: offer the Shias something in return and remember that Shia Iran is the only thing in the way of connecting the Sunni al Qaeda fanatics of Pakistan and Afghanistan with those of Saudi Arabia and Iraq. Also, Shia Hezbollah, like it or not, is the only organisation that scares al Qaeda. Hezbollah has never attacked US civilians like al Qaeda has.
4. Treat all countries as equal. Iran is no less entitled to its rights than the US or UK.
5. Invest invest invest .. until all world people have equality and are rich. All religion will then be a past thing. If Iran became a US ally and the US treated it equally, and pumped billions into its economy, what would happen? People get rich, educated; government gets liberal; religion is dead; the underground alcohol problem already there goes out of all control once it is legal; all the social problems of the US would emerge. Different problems, but you can’t have it 100% perfect. However, Iran deserves to have a society like the US and not a copy of Saudi Arabia. Afterall, Iran did not in 1979 overthrow a monarchy to have a few gunmen enforce a copycat regime of Saudi sans the monarchy. They ousted the Shah to set up a de Gaullist Republic. Yes, even Ayatollah Khomeini wanted that but was he there in Iran when the Shah was ousted? No. He came back and had to FIT IN TOO. The real control over Iran is not the President or the Supreme Leader, not the Mullahs: it is the religious military (Pasdaran and Basiji). Same in Saudi: not the Royal family, but the Muttaween.

Posted by: Sehguh Ellehcim | Aug 11 2006 9:07 utc | 54

Only traitors try to make us afraid of terrorists
In this mind-blowing, exhaustively researched Cato institute paper by Ohio State University’s John Mueller, the case against being afraid of terrorism is laid out in irrefutable logic, backed with credible, documented statistics about terrorism’s risks. From the number of fatalities produced by terrorism to the trends in terrorism death to the fact that almost no one has ever died from a military biological agent to the fact that poison gas and dirty bombs in the field do only minor damage — this paper is the most reassuring and infuriating piece of analysis I’ve read since September 11th, 2001.
The bottom line is, terrorism doesn’t kill many people. Even in Israel, you’re four times more likely to die in a car wreck than as a result of a terrorist attack. In the USA, you need to be more worried about lightning strikes than terrorism. The point of terrorism is to create terror, and by cynically convincing us that our very countries are at risk from terrorism, our politicians have delivered utter victory to the terrorists: we are terrified.

Much of the current alarm is generated from the knowledge that many of today’s terrorists simply want to kill, and kill more or less randomly, for revenge or as an act of what they take to be The shock and tragedy of September 11 does demand a focused and dedicated program to confront international terrorism and to attempt to prevent a repeat. But it seems sensible to suggest that part of this reaction should include an effort by politicians, officials, and the media to inform the public reasonably and realistically about the terrorist context instead of playing into the hands of terrorists by frightening the public. What is needed, as one statistician suggests, is some sort of convincing, coherent, informed, and nuanced answer to a central question: “How worried should I be?” Instead, the message the nation has received so far is, as a Homeland Security official put (or caricatured) it, “Be scared; be very, very scared — but go on with your lives.” Such messages have led many people to develop what Leif Wenar of the University of Sheffield has aptly labeled “a false sense of insecurity.”

pdf
Questions…w/regards to the lasest booga booga UK plot
So, if the plot was foiled, why was the terror alert raised?
And as a colleague here just asked: if they’d been following this plot for months then why are we only now getting restrictions on carry on items?

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Aug 11 2006 12:50 utc | 55

@Uncle
The last question is really interesting. Bush did new of this plot (if it is one) last week. What did he do? Nothing of course.
Also there is nothing new from the British police. They put names on some of the people, but those look normal. There is nothing about items found, confessions or anything that would make this look like a real thread.

Posted by: b | Aug 11 2006 15:02 utc | 56

I agree with the main points of Guthman above – Big Brain.
The terror alerts and these partly staged and over-hyped terrorist scenarios no longer grip anyone (outside Anglostan?) as far as I can see.
I spent 3 hours at Geneva airport today, waiting for a passenger on a delayed flight. I spoke to about 30 people, including police and security, shop owners in the mall, etc. The general reaction was scornful hilarity, except for one po-liceman who only winked at me, and said, go to Central Command. The arriving passengers were uniformly cheerful and incredulous, these people came from GB, Spain, US, Japan, etc. – it’s a busy airport. One lady arrived with nothing but a transparent plastic bag containing pills, toothbrush, comb and emergency make-up, she was a fashionista, held up her bag, people laughed and cheered. This woke up some of security dogs who had been sleeping, their handlers smoke cigarettes like Poles or prisoners, cupped in their hand.
The electronic sign board at departures reads:
For travellers to the US, only the US, GEL and shampoing (sic) are permitted only in baggage.
jj, the right wing paper ran it on the first page, in a serious way. Their whole today’s issue is going to lose them readers, as the two pages on ‘debating Lebanon’ were over the top – a confused mish-mash. The tabloid ran it as a joke, they count on laughter to boost sales. The more left paper ran it on p. 2 with a bold PANIC! in the headline and was heavy on the ‘allegedly’, ‘reportedly’, etc. They made fun of the ‘unimaginable scale of assassination’ mentioned, bashed John Reid, and more, and then concentrated on practical details, where to park at the airport, etc.

Posted by: Noirette | Aug 11 2006 16:09 utc | 57

unimaginable scale of assassination
I want to see this phrase associated with the Israeli/US created oil spill in the eastern meditteranean.
The single largest intentionally created disaster in history.
Where is the outrage?
This is real terrorism — against all life!

Posted by: Malooga | Aug 11 2006 17:28 utc | 58

Oh my, hahahaha
what a fucking crock
Sir, I’m going to have to take this bottle of water away from you since it might be a liquid explosive, and I’m going to have to mix it with all of these other bottles of possibly liquid explosive, and I’m going to have to dump them all in this trash can… together. Nevermind that the plot specifically mentions mixing chemicals and/or nitroglycerin… which explodes if handled too roughly.
You gotts see this…hehehe

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Aug 11 2006 18:51 utc | 59

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Aug 11 2006 18:53 utc | 60

The Pentagon’s “Second 911”
“Another [9/11] attack could create both a justification and an opportunity to retaliate against some known targets”
In the month following last year’s 7/7 London bombings, Vice President Dick Cheney is reported to have instructed USSTRATCOM to draw up a contingency plan “to be employed in response to another 9/11-type terrorist attack on the United States”. Implied in the contingency plan was the certainty that Iran would be behind a Second 9/11.

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Aug 11 2006 18:58 utc | 61

How to Create the United States of Israel
Send $5 billion annually to Israel , at least two thirds of which is for military expenditures
1. Use for massive purchases from U.S. weapons manufacturers
2. Use in setting up lobbying and media/PR thinktanks for the bribing and/or coercing of government and media officials
3. Increasingly and obscenely wealthy weapons manufacturers recycle profits to politicians, buy broadcast outlets (NBC, etc.)
2. Engineer a spectacular televised suicide bombing on U.S. soil
1. Should unfold gradually and finish with buildings falling in surreal manner on television for maximum distribution of fear
2. Merges Israel’s situation with the U.S. situation: both at war with Muslims (to be referenced as “fanatics who hate our freedoms,” “terrorists,” and, for the really gung-ho “Islamofascists who want to take over the West.”)
3. Use military to invade and occupy Middle East countries that fail to answer to Imperial power in their midst
1. All resistance to occupation becomes “terrorism” (see second bullet point of step “2″)
2. Occupation and war crimes, now a joint venture of the United States of Israel, become a “fight against terrorism.”
3. Always refer to use of overwhelming military technological superiority to bomb helpless civilians and their ragtag armies as a “war” or “conflict.”
4. Use false flag operations (see step “2”) to prevent the diplomacy and peaceful solutions that would stall aggression and implementation of control of region’s resources for Imperial elite.
1. Paint anyone who attempts to expose the criminality as anti-American or an anti-semite.
2. Perpetual war, perpetual security state, perpetual war profiteering and looting – aka The United States of Israel
—
“The basic, fundamental notion that somehow we can retreat behind our oceans and not be actively engaged in this conflict and be safe here at home, which clearly we know we won’t — we can’t be.”
— U.S. Vice President Richard ~~Nixon~~ “Dick” Cheney
Dance with me, 1 and 2 and 3, 2 and 1 and 3….the dance of death.

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Aug 11 2006 19:35 utc | 62

World to end on August 22
Personally, I believe the pawn on the square that is Southern Lebanon is meant to fall before moving on the knight in Iran, and Hezbollah does not seem inclined to be destroyed in time to keep this schedule. But, I thought the article was interesting anyway, if for no other reason than the source of the date in question happened to be Bernard Lewis.
Quote:

Better cancel those holidays. We now have a date for Armageddon, and it’s a week on Tuesday – August 22.
This information comes from no lesser source than the Wall Street Journal, where Bernard Lewis, President Bush’s favourite historian, provides the details.
“In Islam, as in Judaism and Christianity,” the professor writes, “there are certain beliefs concerning the cosmic struggle at the end of time – Gog and Magog, anti-Christ, Armageddon, and for Shiite Muslims, the long-awaited return of the Hidden Imam, ending in the final victory of the forces of good over evil, however these may be defined.
“Mr Ahmadinejad [the Iranian president] and his followers clearly believe that this time is now, and that the terminal struggle has already begun and is indeed well advanced. It may even have a date, indicated by several references by the Iranian president to giving his final answer to the US about nuclear development by August 22. This was at first reported as ‘by the end of August’, but Mr Ahmadinejad’s statement was more precise.”
Lewis continues: “What is the significance of August 22? This year, August 22 corresponds, in the Islamic calendar, to the 27th day of the month of Rajab of the year 1427. This, by tradition, is the night when many Muslims commemorate the night flight of the prophet Muhammad on the winged horse Buraq, first to ‘the farthest mosque’, usually identified with Jerusalem, and then to heaven and back (cf, Koran XVII.1). This might well be deemed an appropriate date for the apocalyptic ending of Israel and, if necessary, of the world.”
This sort of quasi-religious scaremongering always finds a receptive audience in the United States, especially among Christians of the jihadist persuasion. At 90 years old, Professor Lewis may have completely lost his marbles, but he is still feted by the White House (vice-president Dick Cheney was guest of honour at his birthday party in April), and the Wall Street Journal describes him as “a sage”. He is credited with coining the phrase “clash of civilisations” back in 1990 and now seems intent on making it a reality.
[…]

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Aug 11 2006 22:31 utc | 63

opps, per my #61 link…The Pentagon’s “Second 911”

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Aug 11 2006 22:35 utc | 64

p.s. has anyone else noticed typepad waiting time? i.e. when ever I post something it takes forever to post.
yep

Posted by: annie | Aug 11 2006 23:12 utc | 65

Lewis continues: “What is the significance of August 22? This year, August 22 corresponds, in the Islamic calendar, to the 27th day of the month of Rajab of the year 1427. This, by tradition, is the night when many Muslims commemorate the night flight of the prophet Muhammad on the winged horse Buraq, first to ‘the farthest mosque’, usually identified with Jerusalem, and then to heaven and back (cf, Koran XVII.1). This might well be deemed an appropriate date for the apocalyptic ending of Israel and, if necessary, of the world.”
Bernard Lewis is certainly not the scholar he is kicked up to be by the Bushies. Why would a Muslim holy day, which is based on an event celebrating peace and brotherhood, be appropriate for the end of the world? The guy is pulling straws out of the a$$.
As a very basic explanation:
Laylat Al-Isra wa Al-Miraj (Isra wa Al-Miraj):
Literally “the night journey and ascension,” the 27th of Rajab marks the day Muslims believe that Muhammad traveled from Mecca to Jerusalem, ascended to heaven (from a rock located in the Dome of the Rock), and returned to Mecca all in the same night. On this night Muhammad established Islam’s five daily prayers. He prayed with Abraham, Moses, and Jesus in Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa mosque, demonstrating that Muslims, Christians, and Jews follow the same god.

Posted by: Ensley | Aug 11 2006 23:32 utc | 66

@Unca
Yes, posting through Typepad is a bichon frise (Latin for “frigid bitch”) for us all in the past few days, it seems.
As for your #61/64 link about how a “second 9/11” would create a justification for… blah, blah, blah… I’m having some trouble with the concept (which is, incidentally, why I don’t work in psyops myself. I haven’t the imagination for it). Isn’t that what the first 9/11 was for…?
Whether you accept the official story (in which case, you’re probably still coping with the trauma of having been lied to by your parents in what shall be henceforth referred to as Operation SantaToothBunny), you believe that the Powers-That-Be knew it was in the works and Let It Happen On Purpose (or, any variation of the “-HOP” scenario… Henceforth, Operation HouseOfPancakes) or manufactured it from whole cloth to fulfill the PNAC’s well-documented 1999 musing that “Here’s our Grand Plan for everything that we want to do, but it would take a new Pearl Harbor to make it happen”… there remains one element that nobody really seems to be holding on to for more than thirty seconds at a time:
IT HAPPENED ON THIS ADMINISTRATION’S FRIGGIN’ WATCH!
Now in 2001, they made a good showing of being caught with their pants down and were able to successfully blame their predecessors for the “massive security failures” which led up to this turn of events (blaming one’s predecessor is de rigeur, I suppose, but only really effective in one’s first term of office). But a second “catalysing event” during the same administration would only leave two logical possibilities: this administration is incompetent to prevent these things or this administration is complicit in creating them.
Don’t get me wrong, these guys are clever bastards and all (Sun Tzu: “Although you are capable, display incapability.” George the Younger: “Way ahead of you there.”), and they feign indignance as ell or better than I have ever seen it feigned, but how do you spin either of the above two possibilities (viz. Incompetence or Complicity) a second gorram time???? Even a Freeper would have some problems explaining how the administration that wants to rob everyone of their civil liberties ostensibly to make them safer is making anyone any safer.
There is simply NO WAY to sell a second “terrorist attack” without creating some serious unrest in the population of the “Let’s-get-someone-in-here-who-knows-what-the-fuck-they’re-doing” variety. From this perspective, I almost hope they DO terrorize the American citizens some more. It will catalyze SOMETHING, but I don’t see it being the agent for change they hope it will be if we are all loud and proud about the “Incompetent or Complicit?” meme.
Of course, if we all just roll over and let the MSM, Freepers and Fundies drown us out, then the sheeple will still believe what they have been programmed to believe and none of this makes any difference anyway.

Posted by: Monolycus | Aug 12 2006 5:04 utc | 67

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