Crying Wolf

According to 'Information Clearing House', 4 days of joint US/European simulated nuclear terrorist attack scenarios involving a 10Kt device exploding in Virginia Harbour on a ship inbound from Europe, start today.

Stand by for more scare stories - or something worse.

http://tinyurl.com/29arza

Sabretache Blog

OK, let's give "Doctor"  Reid - oh - 36 hours? - to tell us that ID cards will take this risk away.

"...experts suggest that Iran’s leaders may be turning a blind eye to the terrorist organisation’s activities".

Hmmm, would that be like the way the USA's leaders turned a blind eye to the IRA's activities? Or, for that matter, to the 9/11 attackers' activities?

It seems that countries which the USA actively harasses and libels are not just obliged to refrain from taking any counter-action; apparently it is also wrong for them to remain neutral.

On the other hand, it is fine for US presidential candidate (and war hero) John McCain to sing, on broadcast media, "Bomb bomb bomb, Bomb bomb Iran" to the tune of the Beach Boys' "Barbara Ann".

So the US establishment's position can be summed up as "We can bomb you whenever we want to, without fear of retribution or even criticism. But you must not even allow anyone else to plan to attack us".

Ok, lets get a few things straight. Al-Qaeda was created by the US/British in the eighties in the Pakistan Madrases in order to fight the Russians in Afghanistan. They were funded and trained by the west through the pakistan security service ISI. This funding has never stopped, and the intricate links between Al-Qaeda and the western intelligence services are numerous and well documented... all you have to do is look. Al-Qaeda is in effect a tool of western statecraft.

Look at some of the patterns emerging....
Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan -> US invades
Alleged Al-Qaeda links to Iraq -> US invades
Alleged Al-Qaeda links to Iran -> ????

Stories like this are just part of a pattern to support various strategic goals outlined presumably by the US Administration's. Don't believe me? Then educate yourself.

Incorrect Comment Deletion

Paul, I'm sorry but when I deleted the post you requested it also deleted your other post. Please accept my apologies. If you don't mind posting it again, I would appreciate that.

Is it just me or are all of Murdoch's fronts slowly becoming Fox-ified.

This would of course be the same al-Qaida in Iraq which is currently massacring Shias in repeated suicide bombings, who they've denounced as kafir, and who regularly kill militants from both the Badr brigades (directly backed by Iran) and the Mahdi army, which may have some funding from Iran.  It all makes perfect sense.

Stand by for more scare stories

8:30am 24th April (first day of excercise) BBC reports that six men have been arrested on terrorism charges.

Paul, I'm sorry but when I deleted the post you requested it also deleted your other post. Please accept my apologies. If you don't mind posting it again, I would appreciate that.

No problem,
I think I said that if it takes a state ( with its attendant advantages and resources over a bunch of peripatetic videographers) such as iran until 2015 to develop a weapon of mass destruction where on earth are they going to get a 10megaton nuclear weapon?
Perhaps the aq khan network is under new management?

In the context of this scare story it's worth reading the piece by Naomi Wolf in the Guardian here www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,2064157,00.html

Looking at what is happening in the UK from my side of the world, it seems that Britain is not too far behind the USA in closing down democracy.

Naomi Wolf's article is well-written and thoroughly sound; I look forward to reading her book.

I notice, however, that she has fallen into the same trap as many, many Americans down the years. She writes:

'It was brave of the conservative pundit William Safire to quote the anti-Nazi pastor Martin Niemöller, who had been seized as a political prisoner: "First they came for the Jews."'

The correct quote is:

Als die Nazis die Kommunisten holten, habe ich geschwiegen; ich war ja kein Kommunist.
Als sie die Sozialdemokraten einsperrten, habe ich geschwiegen; ich war ja kein Sozialdemokrat.
Als sie die Gewerkschafter holten, habe ich geschwiegen; ich war ja kein Gewerkschafter.
Als sie die Juden holten, habe ich geschwiegen; ich war ja kein Jude.
Als sie mich holten, gab es keinen mehr, der protestieren konnte.
- Martin Niemöller, Der Weg ins Freie, (F.M. Hellbach, Stuttgart, 1946)

When the Nazis arrested the Communists, I said nothing; after all, I was not a Communist.
When they locked up the Social Democrats, I said nothing; after all, I was not a Social Democrat.
When they arrested the trade unionists, I said nothing; after all, I was not a trade unionist.
When they arrested the Jews, I said nothing; after all, I was not a Jew.
When they arrested me, there was no longer anyone who could protest.
- translated by Bob Berkovitz ().

Revealingly, Americans who choose to quote Niemoeller's stirring lines edit them (consciously or otherwise) to remove the communists, social democrats, and trade unionists, and promote the Jews to first place in the list of victims (Niemoeller did not use the word "first" at all). In today's America, Jews are approved official victims, whereas the other categories of people are, at best, of no special interest. Indeed, one wonders in some cases if modern Americans do not feel exactly the same way about communists as the Nazis did.

...and promote the Jews to first place in the list of victims

Yes, when they kill Palestinian women and children they are still the victims. When they bomb the crap out of Lebanon they are still the victim. When they totally abuse and debase humanity, they are the victims.

I'm constantly amazed at how naive and ignorant the average Joe is. Do they not see that US/UK/Israeli governments are driven by the same forces?

The west is dominated by FASCISM and RACISM at it's most devious and dangerous. Wake up you debt ridden people - you are the slaves of the banks - working your butts off to pay for something that has an artificially inflated price. If one excludes house price rises the real level of personal wealth has dropped significantly in the west over the last 7 years. People are WORSE OFF, but because their trap, er house, is worth X they believe that that money is their 'wealth' - it's a massive con.

Oh well, bring on the global thermo-nuclear war that the US seems so keen to get started.

Yes, one of the many fallacies that thrive in popular discourse is the halo effect - the belief that, if someone is good in some way, they must be good in all ways; likewise if they are bad in some way they must be bad in all ways ("evil").

One symptom of this is the foolish idea that, just because a person or a class of people has been the victim of some outrage, the victim(s) must be specially good and deserving. Sadly, there are many crimes whose victims tend (on the whole) to be harmed rather than improved by their experiences. Someone who has been repeatedly beaten up is quite likely to do the same to others in future.

It may not be entirely coincidental that Israel so quickly became one of the world's leading exponents of blitzkrieg - although, admittedly, that may just have been because it needed to defend itself and blitzkrieg was the state of the art.