Be very skeptical…
South Asia
Aug 18, 2006
[reposted from Asia Times]
COMMENT
Be skeptical … be very skeptical
By M K Bhadrakumar
One of the significant contributions to the “war on terror” by Britain’s home secretary David Blunkett before his abrupt departure from the Tony Blair cabinet last year was his statement on terrorism in the House of Commons that specifically flagged the possibility of a “dirty bomb” being planted in Britain by terrorists.
That was in November 2002, when preparations were already in an advanced stage for the march to Baghdad. We are still waiting for the dirty bomb and its lethal radiation. The dirty bomb genre, however, provoked two years later a brilliant television series on BBC2 by acclaimed documentary producer Adam Curtis, titled The Power of Nightmares: The Rise of the Politics of Fear.
Curtis’s argument was that much of the threat of international terrorism turns out to be in actuality “a fantasy that has been exaggerated and distorted by politicians … In an age when all the grand ideas have lost credibility, fear of a phantom enemy is all the politicians have left to maintain their power.”
Curtis placed al-Qaeda terrorism in a long line of dramatic panics in Britain’s checkered history since the Elizabethan era, which included the arrival of Spanish raiding parties, French revolutionary agitators, anarchists, Bolsheviks, and Irish republicans.
Naturally, Curtis comes readily to mind a week after British authorities arrested some two dozen Muslims on August 10 for plotting to blow up trans-Atlantic flights from United Kingdom to the United States. Not a shred of evidence has since seen the light of day in this Mother of all Dastardly Plots.
Meanwhile, wild stories of new plots in the making are in circulation. The latest was the “breaking news” regarding the emergency landing of an aircraft in Boston on Wednesday due to the tantrums of an “unruly” woman passenger. Last weekend, Michigan police locked up three hapless Palestinian-Americans for allegedly plotting an act of terrorism. The three “terrorists” were caught red-handed purchasing 80 cell phones from a Wal-Mart store.
Michigan police concluded that the cell phones could be used as detonators to blow up the Mackinac Bridge, which connected the peninsula’s upper and lower parts. Subsequently it transpired that the three detained “terrorists” bought and sold cell phones to make a living.
The London plot itself is becoming curiouser and curiouser. Reports have appeared that the British security agencies were feeling increasingly uncomfortable that their American counterparts rushed to make out that the alleged plot was linked to al-Qaeda. More importantly, it appears that sources in London have begun distancing themselves from the plot by claiming that the British side was pressured from Washington to go public with the plot despite a lack of evidence and clear and convincing facts whether any conspiracy in fact existed at all.
Not surprisingly, the loudest voices of skepticism about the alleged plot are heard in Pakistan, where of course the public is habitually cynical over anything that goes to the credit of the establishment. This despite the insistent claim that the UK, US and Pakistani security agencies had actively coordinated in thwarting the plot – a scenario that cast Pakistan as a plucky, feisty partner in the “war on terror”, quite contrary to the prevailing impression that Islamabad is possibly indulging in doublespeak.
The skeptics in Pakistan feel that the entire plot is a crudely executed hoax by the Bush administration. It was not only the so-called “jihadi” circles in Pakistan that ridiculed the plot but even sections of opinion, which usually put primacy on reasoning. The Pakistani newspaper Daily Times commented editorially, “There is a horrible war going on in Lebanon and it is not unfolding in favor of Israel, US and UK. Iraq has gone bad; Afghanistan is getting worse.
“The Bush-Blair duo is in trouble at home and both need something really big to happen to justify their policies and distract attention from their losses … the past record of intelligence agencies everywhere suggests they are quite capable of blowing up or underplaying things for better media management of their respective governments’ performance. So a bit of skepticism is in order.”
Adam Curtis had an explanation for the dilemma facing the saner sections of opinion in times of public hysteria. As he explained two years ago, such plots, when blown up in larger-than-life terms and whipping up an atmosphere of…
frank:
I believe that this is precisely why the average American sees a terrorist “under every rock”- until folks unplug the idiot box or start gathering news info from a wide range of sources, the condition will continue ala Black Sabbath, as in “Paranoid”
17 August 2006, 11:52 amJonas:
While not on topic I’ll post it here:
Counterpunch has posted a very important interview with Nasrallah, that should be put on this site too, so as many people as possible read it.
http://www.counterpunch.com/nasrallah08172006.html
It puts the the current conflict in Lebanon in the context of a socialist revolution:
“What we would have liked is for our socialist brothers in Lebanon to fight against imperialism and Zionism shoulder to shoulder. This fight is not only our fight. It is the common fight of all those oppressed across the world. Don’t forget that if the peoples of Palestine and Lebanon lose this war, this will mean the defeat of all the oppressed people of the world.”
17 August 2006, 2:39 pmDeAnander:
Craig murray from the UK (quondam ambassador to Uzbekistan, what a posting eh):
17 August 2006, 5:08 pmDeAnander:
well now someone has said it so I guess I can.
I’ve been kind of not saying it because it’s such a loathesome substance and such a loathesome thought, but
For some real terror, picture twenty guys who understand op-sec, who are patient, realistic, clever, and willing to die, and who know what can be accomplished with a modest stash of dimethylmercury.
You won’t hear about those fellows until it’s too late. Our official protectors and deciders trumpet the fools they catch because they haven’t got a handle on the people we should really be afraid of. They make policy based on foibles and follies, and Hollywood plots.
dimethyl mercury is about the scariest substance I know of, maybe even worse than plutonium.
It is one of the most potent neurotoxins known. It readily crosses the blood-brain barrier, probably due to its formation of a methylmercury-cysteine complex. It causes ataxia (lack of coordination), sensory disturbance and changes in mental state. It inhibits several stages of neurotransmission in the brain. It is a cumulative poison, being very slowly removed (excreted) from the body, and by the time its effects are noted it is too late to do anything about it.
but it doesn’t kill you right away. if you’re inured to dying anyway, and thus don’t give a rat’s about handling precautions, all you’d have to do is register for a convention, carry a wetted rag in pocket, and shake hands with as many targets as you possibly could, coating your hand with a slight smear of the stuff in between encounters. or spritz it on door handles or elevator buttons every time you pass by. I think it’s pretty darned volatile at room temp so you’d have to have a cooler or lab flask for storage, and make continuous rather than lasting distribution. but it takes months to kill, so it would be a Legionnaire’s Disease detective story to figure out — months later — why all your victims were suffering severe neurological trauma.
cheerful, no? and there are chemical companies blithely manufacturing the stuff and shipping it around. a wee bit of identity theft or a hijacked shipment and bob’s yer uncle. your own personal Minamata Incident.
well anyway. again, the only thing that really stops people from committing such horrors is not micromanagerial or technomanagerial control — that’s futile, a death spiral of diminishing returns that only enriches snake oil salesmen and makes fascists happy. it’s the fabric of a healthy society that makes us not inclined to commit such horrors, not motivated, not encouraged, not worth the effort. the children in the average classroom could swarm the podium, overpower and eat the teacher if they were truly feral and nonhuman; what keeps them from doing so — even if it is almost lunch time and they are very hungry and very bored and the teacher is unpopular — is what makes us human…
17 August 2006, 9:04 pmComandante Gringo:
Us staying on message is hammering home the fact that the very people who are screaming that we must give them more and more power & money (and us less and less) are the exact same people who have created this situation in the first place — and all the other ‘situations’ going back as many decades or centuries you want to go.
It’s the System at fault: the capitalist system. Reinforcing this system is actually what is reinforcing all terrorism — state or otherwise.
So let’s get rid of the System. The “Man”.
20 August 2006, 1:40 amskol:
relatively small numbers, no media, little catalyzing (amongst all people), little consolidating, too many things to fight. IANAE, but there are so many indicators, and I’m not seeing many. I felt a little confused/miffed/wronged when Neil Young came out with “Let’s Impeach the President”; the culture comes from the movement, not the other way around. It’s just stranded on CD, played over a vacuum. There’s nothing to hang onto when it’s over.
I mean, yeah, there is, but most people don’t know. I get angry at Buzzflash reporting at all the bad things the Bushies have done (as though they’re independent of the system they don’t see), and never report on the movements taking hold and what they’re doing. Buzzflash is The Site for a lot of people (liberals & progressives, in particular, and I believe they know in their heart that something is fundamentally wrong). The same goes for The Daily Show, et cetera et cetera et alia. If only, if only, if only…hmm
As for the Water Bottle kerfuffle, I think a lot of America has become adept at smelling rats. There are pockets and swaths of people everywhere experiencing this collective angst, I’m sure of it. I’ve come to the personal conclusion that, in this highly atomized/individualistic society, what people are really looking for is community. They don’t know where the community is at. Can they trust it? Can they stay with it, etc.? Marginalized masses, unite! Mission Pomposity, complete!
Anyways, I think people are looking for community above all else, especially one with a cause. The alienation is palpable. This is self-evident to most of you, but the untapped reserve is immense. I vaguely understand “material conditions” and how they apply to our lives (e.g., I can’t afford to drive across the nation to get to some protest, I have cats and kids, I couldn’t afford the expense of staying), but that’s where I reach a blank: logistics and stuff like that. I think there is real and true hope, though.
2 cents. Seriously, though: hope.
20 August 2006, 10:54 amStan:
The Liquid Bomb Hoax: The Larger Implications
by James Petras
http://www.dissidentvoice.org
August 25, 2006
The charges leveled by the British, US and Pakistani regimes that they
uncovered a major bomb plot directed against nine US airlines is based on
the flimsiest of evidence, which would be thrown out of any court, worthy of
its name.
An analysis of the current state of the investigation raises a series of
questions regarding the governments’ claims of a bomb plot concocted by 24
Brits of Pakistani origin.
The arrests were followed by the search for evidence, as the August 12, 2006
Financial Times states: “The police set about the mammoth task of gathering
evidence of the alleged terrorist bomb plot yesterday.” (FT, August 12/,
2006) In other words, the arrests and charges took place without sufficient
evidence — a peculiar method of operation — which reverses normal
investigatory procedures in which arrests follow the “monumental task of
gathering evidence.” If the arrests were made without prior accumulation of
evidence, what were the bases of the arrests?
The government search of financial records and transfers turned up no money
trail despite the freezing of accounts. The police search revealed limited
amounts of savings, as one would expect from young workers, students and
employees from low-income immigrant families.
The British government, backed by Washington, claimed that the Pakistani
government’s arrest of two British-Pakistanis provided “critical evidence”
in uncovering the plot and identifying the alleged terrorist. No Western
judicial hearing would accept evidence procured by the Pakistani
intelligence services that are notorious for their use of torture in
extracting ‘confessions’. The Pakistani dictatorship’s evidence is based on
a supposed encounter between a relative of one of the suspects and an Al
Qaeda operative on the Afghan border. According to the Pakistani police, the
Al Qaeda agent provided the relative and thus the accused with the
bomb-making information and operative instructions. The transmission of
bomb-making information does not require a trip half-way around the world,
least of all to a frontier under military siege by US led forces on one side
and the Pakistani military on the other. Moreover it is extremely dubious
that Al Qaeda agents in the mountains of Afghanistan have any detailed
knowledge of specific British airline security, procedures or conditions of
operations in London. Lacking substantive evidence, Pakistani intelligence
and their British counterparts touched all the propaganda buttons: A
clandestine meeting with Al Qaeda, bomb-making information exchanges on the
Pakistani-Afghan border, Pakistani-Brits with Islamic friends, family and
terrorist connections in England . . .
US intelligence claimed, and London repeated, that sums of money had been
wired from Pakistan to allow the plotters to buy airline tickets. Yet air
tickets were found in only one residence (and the airline and itinerary were
not stated by the police). None of the other suspects possessed plane
tickets and some did not even have passports. In other words, the most
preliminary moves in the so-called bomb plot had not been taken by the
accused. No terrorist plot to bomb airplanes exists when the alleged
conspirators are lacking travel funds, documents and tickets. It is not
credible to argue that the alleged conspirators depended on instructions
from distant handlers ignorant of the basic ground level conditions.
Initially the British and US authorities claimed that the explosive device
was a “liquid bomb,” yet no liquid or non-liquid bomb was discovered on the
premises or persons of any of the accused. Nor has any evidence been
produced as to the capability of any of the suspects in making, moving or
detonating the “liquid bomb” — a very volatile solution if handled by
unskilled operatives. No evidence has been presented on the nature of the
specific liquid bomb question, or any spoken discussion or written documents
about the liquid bomb, which would implicate any of the suspects. No bottle,
liquid or chemical formula has been found among any of the suspects. Nor
have any of the ingredients that go into making the “liquid bomb” been
uncovered. Nor has any evidence been presented as to where the liquid was
supposed to come from (the source) or whether it was purchased locally or
overseas.
When the liquid bomb story was ridiculed into obscurity, British Deputy
Assistant Commissioner Peter Clark claimed that, “bomb making equipment
including chemicals and electric components had been found,” (BBC News,
8/21/2006)
Once again there is no mention of what “electronic components” and
“chemicals” were found, in whose home or office and if they might be related
to non-bomb making activities. Were these so-called new bomb-making items
owned by a specific person or group of persons, and if so were they known by
the parties implicated to be part of a bombing plot. Moreover, when and why
have the authorities switched from the liquid bombs to identifying old
fashion electronic detonators? Is there any evidence — documents or taped
discussions — that link these electronic detonators and chemicals with the
specific plot to “blow up 9 US bound airliners”?
Instead of providing relevant facts clearing up basic questions of names,
dates, weapons, and travel dates, Commissioner Clark gives the press a
laundry list of items that could be found in millions of homes and the large
number of buildings searched (69 so far). If stair climbing earns
promotions, Clark should be nominated for a knighthood. According to Clark
the police discovered more than 400 computers, 200 mobile telephones, 8,000
computer media items (items as catastrophic as memory sticks, CDs and DVDs);
police removed 6,000 gigabytes of data from the seized computers (150 from
each computer) and a few video recordings. One presumes, in the absence of
any qualitative data demonstrating that the suspects were in fact preparing
bombs in order to destroy nine US airliners, that Commissioner Clark is
seeking public sympathy for his minions’ enormous capacity to lift and
remove electronic equipment from one site to another in up to 69 buildings.
This is a notable achievement if we are talking about a moving company and
not a high-powered police investigation of an event of “catastrophic
consequences.”
Some of the suspects were arrested because they have traveled to Pakistan at
the beginning of the school year holidays. British and US authorities forget
to mention that tens of thousands of Pakistani ex-pats return to visit
family at precisely that time of year.
The wise guys on Wall Street and The City of London never took the liquid
bomb plot seriously: At no point did the Market respond, nose-dive, crash
or panic. The announced plot to bomb airlines was ignored by all Big Players
on the US and London stock markets. In fact, petrol prices dropped slightly.
In contrast to 9/11 and the Madrid and London bombings (to which this plot
is compared) the stock market ‘makers’ were not impressed by the governments’
claims of a ‘major catastrophe.’ George Bush or Tony Blair, who were
informed and discussed the “liquid bomb plot” several days beforehand, didn’t
even skip a day of their vacations, in response to the catastrophic threat.
And each and every claim and piece of ‘evidence’ put forth by the police and
the Blair and Bush security authorities runs a cropper. Some of the alleged
suspects are released, and new equally paltry ‘evidence’ is breathlessly
presented: two tape recordings of “martyr messages” were found in the
computer of one suspect, which, we are told, foretold a planned terrorist
attack. The Clark team claimed with great aplomb that they found one or a
few martyr videotapes, without clarifying the fact that the videos were not
made by the suspects but viewed by them. Many people the world over pay
homage to suicide martyrs to a great variety of political causes. Prime
Minister Koizumi of Japan visits a shrine dedicated to World War II military
dead — including kamikaze suicide pilots, defying Chinese and Korean
protests. Millions of US citizens and politicians pay homage to the war
heroes in Arlington cemetery each year, some of whom deliberately sacrificed
their lives in order to defend their comrades, their flag and the justice of
their cause. It should be of no surprise that Asians, Muslims and others
should collect videos of anti-Israeli or anti-occupation martyrs. In none of
the above cases where people honor martyrs is there any police attempt to
link the reverent observer with future suicide bomb plots — except if they
are Muslims. Hero worship of fallen fighters is a normal everyday
phenomenon — and is certainly no evidence that the idolaters are engaged in
murderous activity.
A “martyr message” is neither a plot, conspiracy nor action, it is only an
expression of free speech — one might add, ‘internal speech’ (between the
speaker and his computer) which might at some future time become public
speech. Are we to make private dialogue a terrorist offense?
As the legal time limit expires on the holding of suspects without charges,
the British authorities released two suspects, charged eleven, and eleven
others continue to be held without charges, probably because there is no
basis for proceeding further. As the number of accused plotters thin out in
England, Clark and company have deflected attention to a world-wide plot
with links to Spain, Italy, the Middle East and elsewhere. Apparently the
logic here is that a wider net compensates for the large holes. In the case
at hand, of the eleven who have been remanded to trial, only eight have been
charged with conspiracy to prepare acts of terrorism; the other three are
accused of “not disclosing information” (or being informers . . . of what?)
and “possessing articles useful to a person preparing acts of terrorism.”
(BBC News, 8/21/06) Since no bombs have been found and no plans of action
have been revealed, we are left with the vague charge of ‘conspiracy’, which
can mean a hostile private discussion directed against US and British
subjects by several like-thinking individuals. The reason that it appears
that ideas and not actions are in question is because the police have not
turned up any weapons or specific measures to enter into the locus of attack
(air tickets to board planes, passports and so on). How can suspects be
charged with failing to disclose information, when the police lack any
concrete information pertaining to the alleged bomb plot. The fact that the
police are further diluting their charges against three more plotters is
indicative of the flimsy basis of their original arrests and public claims.
To charge a 17 year-old-boy with “possessing articles useful to a person
preparing acts of terrorism” is so open-ended as to be laughable: Did the
article have other uses for the boy or for his family (like a box cutter).
Did he ‘possess’ written articles because they were informative or
fascinating to a young person? Since he still possessed the article, he had
not passed these articles to any person making bombs. Did he know of any
specific plans to make bombs or any bomb-makers? The charges could implicate
anyone possessing and reading a good spy novel or science fiction thriller
in which bomb making is discussed. The eleven have already pleaded innocent;
the trial will begin in due time. The government and mass media have already
convicted the accused in the electronic and print media. Panic has been
sown. Fear and hysterical anger is present in the long security lines at
airports and train stations . . . Asian men quietly saying prayers are being
pulled off of airplanes and planes diverted or airports evacuated.
The bomb plot hoax has caused enormous losses (in the hundreds of millions
of dollars) to the airlines, business people, oil companies, duty free
shops, tourist agencies, resorts and hotels, not to speak of the tremendous
inconvenience and health related problems of millions of stranded and
stressed travelers. The restrictions on laptop computers, travel bags,
accessories, special foods and liquid medicines have added to the ‘costs’ of
traveling.
Clearly the decision to cook up the phony bomb plot was not motivated by
economic interests, but domestic political reasons. The Blair
administration, already highly unpopular for supporting Bush’s wars in Iraq
and Afghanistan, was under attack for his unconditional support for Israel’s
invasion of Lebanon, his refusal to call for an immediate ceasefire and his
unstinting support for Bush’s servility to US Zionist lobbies. Even within
the Labor party over a hundred backbenchers were speaking out against his
policies, while even junior cabinet ministers such as Prescott stated that
Boss Bush’s foreign policy smelled of the barnyard. Bush was not yet
cornered by his colleagues in the same way as Blair, but unpopularity was
threatening to lead his Republican party to congressional defeat and
possible loss of a majority of seats.
According to top security officials in England, Bush and Blair were
“knowledgeable” about the investigation into a possible “liquid bomb” plot.
We know that Blair gave the go-ahead for the arrests, even as the
authorities must have told him they lacked the evidence and at best it was
premature. Some reports from British police insiders claim that the Bush
Administration pushed Blair for early arrests and the announcement of the
‘liquid bomb’ plot. Security officials then launched a massive, all-out
‘terror propaganda’ campaign designed to capture the attention and support
of the public with the total support of the mass media. The security-mass
media campaign served its objective — Bush’s popularity increased, Blair
avoided censure and both continued on their vacations.
The bomb plot political ploy fits the previous political pattern of
sacrificing capitalist economic interests to serve domestic political and
ideological positions. Foreign policy failures lead to domestic political
crimes, just as domestic policy crises lead to aggressive military
expansion.
The criminal frame-up of young Muslim-South Asian British citizens by the
British security officials was specifically designed to cover up for the
failed Anglo-American invasion of Iraq and the Anglo-American backing for
Israel’s destructive but failed invasion of Lebanon. Blair’s “liquid
bombers” plot sacrificed a multiplicity of British capitalist interests in
order to retain political offices and stave off an unceremonious early exit
from power. The costs of failed militarism are borne by citizens and
businesses.
In an analogous fashion Bush and his Zioncon and other militarists exploited
the events of 9/11 to pursue a militarist multi-war strategy in Southwest
Asia and the Middle East. With time and scientific research, the official
version of the events of 9/11 have come under serious questioning — both
regarding the collapse of one of the towers in New York, as well as the
explosions in the Pentagon. The events of 9/11 and the wars in Afghanistan
and Iraq sacrificed major US economic interests: Losses in New York,
tourism, airline industry and massive physical destruction; losses in terms
of a major increase in oil prices and instability, increasing the costs to
US, European and Asian consumers and industries.
Likewise the Israeli military invasion of Gaza and Lebanon, backed by the US
and Great Britain, were economically costly destroying property, investments
and markets, while raising the level of mass anti-imperial opposition.
In other words, the politics of US, British and Israeli (and by extension
World Zionist) militarism has been at the expense of strategic sectors of
the civilian economy. These losses to key economic sectors require the
civilian-militarists to resort to domestic political crimes (phony bomb
plots and frame-up trials) to distract the public from their costly and
failed policies and to tighten political control. On both counts, the
civilian militarists and the Zioncons are losing ground. The “liquid bomb”
plot is unraveling, Israel is in turmoil, the Zioncons are preaching to the
converted, and the US is, as always, the United States: The Democratic
civilian militarists are capitalizing on the failures of their incumbent
colleagues.
James Petras, a former Professor of Sociology at Binghamton University, New
25 August 2006, 7:31 pmYork, owns a 50-year membership in the class struggle, is an adviser to the
landless and jobless in Brazil and Argentina, and is co-author of
Globalization Unmasked (Zed Books). His latest book is, The Power of Israel
in the United States (Clarity Press, 2006). He can be reached at:
jpetras@binghamton.edu.