Ex-British Ambassador: ''The UK Terror plot: What's Really Going On?''

[Octafish]

Here's an outstanding effort to paint a true picture of what the London Liquid Bomber Plot is about. The author of this article was British Ambassador to (the oil-rich nation of) Uzbekistan from 2002-2004. Craig Murray says beware of the mass media making hay off the terror plot. The hired hands in Corporate McPravda are only doing Bush and Blair's dirty work of distracting two nations from seeing the true nature of the political "leadership."

The UK Terror plot: What's Really Going On?

by Craig Murray
Published on Tuesday, August 15, 2006

I have been reading very carefully through all the Sunday newspapers to try and analyse the truth from all the scores of pages claiming to detail the so-called bomb plot. Unlike the great herd of so-called security experts doing the media analysis, I have the advantage of having had the very highest security clearances myself, having done a huge amount of professional intelligence analysis, and having been inside the spin machine.

SNIP...

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.

What is more, many of those arrested had been under surveillance for over a year - like thousands of other British Muslims. And not just Muslims. Like me. Nothing from that surveillance had indicated the need for early arrests.

Then an interrogation in Pakistan revealed the details of this amazing plot to blow up multiple planes - which, rather extraordinarily, had not turned up in a year of surveillance. Of course, the interrogators of the Pakistani dictator have their ways of making people sing like canaries. As I witnessed in Uzbekistan, you can get the most extraordinary information this way. Trouble is it always tends to give the interrogators all they might want, and more, in a desperate effort to stop or avert torture. What it doesn't give is the truth.

CONTINUED...

http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0815-36.htm

Murray writes what we know and puts it together in a way that makes sense.

Poodle and his Smirko are in deep doo-doo and need an uptick bad.

DIM KAKISTOCRAT

[The_Casual_Observer]

1. The is the first sensible article about this written so far.

[Octafish]

2. 'Bush's Political Survival Depends on Terror Threats'

Agree completely, The_Casual_Observer. William Greider hits the little turd from Crawford square on the political impolications of their devious spin:

Bush's Political Survival Depends on Terror Threats

By William Greider, TheNation.com
Posted on August 14, 2006, Printed on August 15, 2006

An evil symbiosis does exist between Muslim terrorists and American politicians, but it is not the one Republicans describe. The jihadists need George W. Bush to sustain their cause. His bloody crusade in the Middle East bolsters their accusation that America is out to destroy Islam. The president has unwittingly made himself the lead recruiter of willing young martyrs.

More to the point, it is equally true that Bush desperately needs the terrorists. They are his last frail hope for political survival. They divert public attention, at least momentarily, from his disastrous war in Iraq and his shameful abuses of the Constitution. The "news" of terror -- whether real or fantasized -- reduces American politics to its most primitive impulses, the realm of fear-and-smear where George Bush is at his best.

So, once again in the run-up to a national election, we are visited with alarming news. A monstrous plot, red alert, high drama playing on all channels and extreme measures taken to tighten security.

The White House men wear grave faces, but they cannot hide their delight. It's another chance for Bush to protect us from those aliens with funny names, another opportunity to accuse Democrats of aiding and abetting the enemy.

This has worked twice before. It could work again this fall unless gullible Americans snap out of it. Wake up, folks, and recognize how stupid and wimpish you look. I wrote the following two years ago during a similar episode of red alerts: "Bush's 'war on terrorism' is a political slogan -- not a coherent strategy for national defense -- and it succeeds brillantly only as politics. For everything else, it is quite illogical."

CONTINUED...

http://www.alternet.org/story/40280/

AN EVIL, EVIL DRUNK
THANKS NINO THE FIXER

[Peace Patriot]

12. "This has worked twice before...gullible Americans...blah, blah, blah."

The "gullible Americans" thesis--a.k.a., the "sheeple" thesis--is not only superficial, it is strategically disastrous. The American people have been laughing at the Bush junta's colored-coded "terrorist alerts" since before the 2004 election, when it became obvious that they were just pre-election antics, without substance. The key issue is NOT the intelligence or political savvy of the American people, or even the level of information among them, for they CLEARLY DON'T TRUST the Bush junta even when they DON'T HAVE adequate information--as when 56% of the American people opposed the war on Iraq way back BEFORE the invasion, in Feb. '03, AFTER Powell's speech to the UN but before that 100% pack of lies was fully exposed. 56%! It's over 70% now.

And other stats concur--for instance, 63% of the American people oppose torture "under any circumstances" (May '04.) UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES. 63%! This, despite relentless, 24/7 propaganda aimed at producing paralytic fear of "terrorism" (news propaganda SUPPLEMENTED by "entertainment" propaganda like the TV show "24 Hours" and numerous other productions). The American people are sticking to their sense of ethics, justice and lawfulness, despite all. The propaganda ISN'T WORKING. Another for instance: According to a recent poll posted here at DU, 84% oppose any U.S. participation in a widened Mideast war--a chief Bush junta goal known to those who have read the NeoCons' "Project for a New American Century," but to few others. Some polls put it at 65%, but that is still huge.

And these views hold firm DESPITE gaps in Americans' information--for instance, a slight majority still believes two Bush junta lies: the Saddam-9/11 connection, and the Saddam/WMD fabrication. Apparently, 20% or so of those who oppose Bush foreign policy--the believers of these lies--don't think that a Saddam-9/11 connection or Saddam/WMDs are all that important or threatening.

And if you examine all the polls--corporate and independent polls, issue and approval polls--over the last several years, you will discover, as I did, the amazing fact that the majority of Americans, indeed, the GREAT majority of Americans, disagree with every major Bush policy, foreign and domestic, and have for some time.

In summary, what we are looking at is a great American progressive MAJORITY! Surprise, surprise! The American people are not asleep; they are wide awake. What then is the problem?

And this is where the "gullible American" thesis is so damaging. It seems very, very, very obvious to me that the problem is DISENFRANCHISEMENT. And you don't have to look far to find out how that occurred.

You only have to review what happened to our election system during the 2002-2004 period--the swift, wholesale conversion to extremely insider hackable electronic voting systems, controlled mainly by two Bushite corporations, and run on TRADE SECRET, PROPRIETARY programming code, with virtually no audit/recount controls--a coup that was engineered by the two biggest crooks in the Anthrax Congress, Tom Delay and Bob Ney (both now resigned in bribery scandals), and abetted by 'Bilderberg' Democrat Christopher Dodd. And these two corporations are:

DIEBOLD: Until recently, headed by Wally O'Dell, a Bush-Cheney campaign chair and major fundraiser (a Bush "Pioneer," right up there with Ken Lay), who promised in writing to "deliver Ohio's electoral votes to Bush-Cheney in 2004"; and

ES&S: A spinoff of Diebold (similar computer architecture), initially funded by rightwing billionaire Howard Ahmanson, who also gave one million dollars to the extremist 'christian' Chalcedon Foundation (which touts the death penalty for homosexuals, among other things). Diebold and ES&S have an incestuous relationship; they are run by two brothers, Bob and Todd Urosevich.

These are the people who "counted" 80% of the nation's votes in 2004, under a veil of corporate secrecy.

There are a lot of things wrong with our elections and our political system. This takes the cake--direct corporate control of election results by means of TRADE SECRET programming code--code so secret that not even our secretaries of state are permitted to review it. Just think how much corruption was involved to get that in place in such a short period of time. Delay, Ney and Dodd did not forget to include a $4 billion electronic voting boondoggle, and a shameful lavish lobbying scene, with which to corrupt election officials and legislators from one end of the country to the other.

And none of the other things that are wrong with our elections and our country can be remedied until this highly riggable election system is thrown, lock, stock and barrel, into 'Boston Harbor' by an enraged citizenry.

And hardly anybody knows about it. It is the most black-holed, critically important news story in the history of American journalism.

People who call Americans stupid are themselves stupid. People who call them gullible and "sheeple" are themselves gullible and "sheeple." They think that Karl Rove is an effective, talented propagandist. He is nothing of the kind. It does not take much talent to write the copy for pre-determined events.

The American people sometimes remind me of an abused wife, whom certain kinds of leftist writers love to berate and beat up on. They get called stupid, gullible, sheeple, lazy, selfish, and worse. But they are not these things. They are a people who are STRUGGLING with disinformation and vital, black-holed stories, such as their own disenfranchisement. They are reduced almost to word of mouth communication. And it's time that well-intended leftist writers inform themselves about how this fascist coup occurred, and suggest strategies for restoring our right to vote.

One strategy is massive Absentee Balloting this fall. Boycott the machines! Let them sit idle! Flood local/state election officials with MOUNTAINS of paper ballots to deal this, create panic and crisis in the election theft industry, and FORCE reform NOW. This protest will NOT give us accurate counts this November (AB votes are not "safe" either), but if enough people do it (and many are--it's up to 50% in Los Angeles), it CAN create the CONDITIONS needed for reform.

It's time to DO SOMETHING! I think this is IT. A massive citizen revolt against these election theft machines.

[evox]

3. Great Insight! - k&r - n/t

[Octafish]

5. 'London Fog: Doubts Hang Over Terror Plot'

Thanks, evox! Here's more light from Christopher Reed, who points out how quick the UK's Home Minister John "The Commie Enforcer" Reid was to call the suspects "fascists," a term of art employed by George "My Pet Goat" Bush.

London Fog

Doubts Hang Over Terror Plot

By CHRISTOPHER REED
Counterpunch August 14, 2006

EXCERPT...

Actually the "Blair-Bush duo" has been on vacation during the alleged plot disclosure. Blair's stand-in, the minister for home affairs, John Reid, spoke in London in a manner that the Arab newspaper would find familiar. He said police had caught the "main players" in the plot, without using the word "alleged" and thus possibly jeopardizing any trial by "prejudging" the evidence in Britain's far stricter rules of criminal justice proceedings. He also dismissed with contempt the charge that Britain's recent foreign incursions into Muslim nations had exacerbated extremist hatred of its policies.

More suspiciously, he suddenly changed his mid-week schedule to deliver an extraordinary speech, on Wednesday itself. Instead of an address about immigration and the justice system, he switched to "protecting the public" from "fascists with unconstrained capability" because of their "access to modern chemical, biological, and other means of mass destruction." He could have been talking about the new case -- but the arrests did not happen for another 12 hours. No official explanation was offered for the changed speech but "something changed" a ministry spokesman admitted, without saying what.

Reid is responsible for the police forces of Britain, and under his jurisdiction were the disgraceful events of two months ago in the neighborhood of Forest Gate, East London. The two brothers arrested were later released and no charges were brought. The police who shot and wounded one have been exonerated. Also exonerated is the police officer who shot and killed an innocent Brazilian immigrant aged 27 on a subway train after an earlier "terrorist" raid in London last year. The man's parents are being forced to seek justice over their son's death through a private legal action. Meanwhile, the police officer in charge of the death raid has put in for her promotion, which is under "consideration."

The record gets worse. It is an established and much criticized fact in the US and elsewhere that the most suspicious kind of tips on alleged crimes come from a committed "informant" who clearly has reason to gain from the information. In the Forest Gate case the tip was from an informant, as it was in Wednesday's arrests. Overall, the Guardian of London reported recently, of the 701 people arrested under Britain's Terrorism Act since the September 11 2001 attacks, half have been released without charge and only 17 convicted. Only three of those cases relate to allegations of Islamist extremism. The US conviction record over 9-11 is even worse.

SNIP...

Britain's Tony Blair has also, like George W. Bush, already exploited fear of terrorism to pass repressive new legislation severely threatening or curtailing traditional personal and civic freedoms. He is currently seeking to extend to 90 days the period -- already lengthened once to 28 days -- during which terrorist suspects can be detained. Blair was prevented from doing that by his parliament, but now perhaps the mood might change...

CONTINUED...

http://www.counterpunch.org/reed08142006.html

Most important, if I haven't said so: Here's a hearty, if belated, welcome to DU, evox!

Here's someone who's not as important as he thinks...

DIM DRUGGED WARMONGER

[leesa]

4. And none could be charged with a crime, prompting Tony Blair to beg

for reinstatement of an old terror law giving him permmission to hold them without charges for 90 days. More political BS.

[Octafish]

8. 'Neo-Cons, Nabobs and Empire: It's Bigger Than the Neo-Cons'

Thanks for the info, leesa. Poodle Boy is getting worried the facts may catch up with the case before they can find some real evidence.

Like Bush worrying he'll have to face trial in The Hague, Poodle's in a race to keep the lid on the Liquid Bomb terror plot.

My guess is Poodle's worried the plotters will all go free before the Press Corpse can turn the world's attention to their much-needed Attack on Iran.

Chris Floyd, a guy who knows how to use a keyboard, names the real crooks in all this mess, those who have little use for the Rule of Law or the Constitution of the United States.

Neo-Cons, Nabobs and Empire

It's Bigger Than the Neo-Cons

By CHRIS FLOYD
Counterpunch August 15, 2006

It's a dirty job, but someone's got to do it: it's time to take up the cudgels for the poor neo-cons.

Day after day, these dedicated public intellectuals and hardworking federal officials are calumnied from coast to coast, accused of every crime under the sun. Who misled us into the bloodsoaked mire of Iraq? Who's pulling strings to foment a new war with Iran? Who's fanning the flames of Israel's assault on Lebanon, hoping to turn the entire Middle East into an arc of "creative destruction" that will transform the region into a pacified, profitable oasis of American power? Why, the neo-cons, of course, guilty on every count--or so we're told.


SNIP...

Shakespeare pegged the neo-cons' true place in the scheme of things more than 400 years ago in Julius Caesar. Listen to Marc Antony dismissing his fellow triumvir Lepidus, and you will hear the authentic voice of Great Gamesters like Cheney, Rumsfeld and James Baker, dicing for world empire and using anything at hand--neo-cons, evangelicals, Caucasian despots, Arab tyrants, Israeli proxies, British lapdogs, Shiite death squads--to further their ambitions: "This is a slight unmeritable man, meet to be sent on errandsand though we lay these honours on this man, to ease ourselves of divers slanderous loads, he shall but bear them as the ass bears gold, to groan and sweat under the business, either led or driven as we point the way. And having brought our treasure where we will, then we take down his load and turn him off, like to the empty ass, to shake his ears and graze in commons." Or at the World Bank, as the case may be.

Again, this is not to deny that neo-con fingerprints are all over the various shivs and bludgeons that the Bush Regime has used in its whack jobs on the Constitution, the Geneva Conventions, the UN Charter, the Magna Carta and the Ten Commandments. After all, the veritable blueprint for the whole godawful shebang--the infamous "Rebuilding America's Defenses" document of September 2000--was concocted under the aegis of that quintessentially neo-con think tank, the Project for the New American Century. It was all spelled out there, long before 9/11: the invasion of Iraq (regardless of whether Saddam Hussein was still in power); the vast explosion in military spending; planting new U.S. bases in Central Asia and the Middle East to secure dominance over world energy sources; embracing aggressive war as national policy--and the openly stated notion that only a "new Pearl Harbor" could "catalyze" the American people into readily accepting the need for these radical measures.

Damning stuff. But without the presence of long-time Establishment power players like Cheney and Rumsfeld on the PNAC board, the plan would have remained the pipe dream of a few curdled academics and comb-licking policy wonks. Indeed, it was the Great Gamesters themselves who set the neo-cons to work on devising ways to extend the "unipolar moment" of unchallenged American power that arose after the collapse of the Soviet Union; the first version of the PNAC plan was drawn up at Cheney's order by Paul Wolfowitz and Scooter "Leaker" Libby in 1992, in the last months of the Bush I administration.

CONTINUED...

http://www.counterpunch.org/floyd08152006.html

Floyd ends up pinning the PNAC tail on the real arses: The global ruling elite who horde wealth, impoverish a planet and consider themselves born to lord over the world. They are most unenlightened.

In America, they are most un-American.

Speak of the Devil...

[bluedeminredstate]

6. Very interesting

We will now never know if any of those arrested would have gone on to make a bomb or buy a plane ticket. Most of them do not fit the "Loner" profile you would expect - a tiny percentage of suicide bombers have happy marriages and young children. As they were all under surveillance, and certainly would have been on airport watch lists, there could have been little danger in letting them proceed closer to maturity - that is certainly what we would have done with the IRA.

In all of this, the one thing of which I am certain is that the timing is deeply political. This is more propaganda than plot. Of the over one thousand British Muslims arrested under anti-terrorist legislation, only twelve per cent are ever charged with anything. That is simply harrassment of Muslims on an appalling scale. Of those charged, 80% are acquitted. Most of the very few - just over two per cent of arrests - who are convicted, are not convicted of anything to do terrorism, but of some minor offence the Police happened upon while trawling through the wreck of the lives they had shattered.

Be sceptical. Be very, very sceptical.
http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0815-36.htm

This is the first I've seen or heard of anyone daring to question the details to such a degree. Good for him. Just think of the fear that has been inflicted, the endless hours of "discussion" on TV of so called analysts and news readers parroting the WH and Downing Street narrative, not to mention the enormous inconvenience to travelers across the US and the rest of the world. It took days to find out that the timing might have been directed by the WH, but even that was told carefully so as not to get things too stirred up.

If these people were being watched and had no possible way of getting 10 planes to terrorize due to lack of tickets, passports and materials, then it looks like the "good guys" blew it by eliminating the chance to get more intelligence and make a case. If the writer is right then this was not a case of saving the country from another attack, but a intentional fuckup for political purposes.

What's most infuriating is that our media will ignore the hard questions and continue to let Ken Mehlman et al. flap their gums about how their national security strength is working to save us all and a vote for Lamont will cause terrorism.
:mad:

edit to add link

[Octafish]

20. CNN reported they outted the undercover guy a bit early...

... in order to make the arrests.

Agent infiltrated terror cell, U.S. says

Air travel in chaos after plot to bomb airliners exposed

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Terrorists were in the "final stages" of a plot to simultaneously blow up as many as 10 jets leaving Britain for the U.S., sending the planes and thousands of passengers into the Atlantic Ocean, U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said Thursday.

British and Pakistani authorities teamed up to thwart the attacks, and 24 men were arrested in overnight raids in Britain, authorities said.

An undercover British agent infiltrated the group, giving the authorities intelligence on the alleged plan, several U.S. government officials said. (Watch as neighbors describe the dramatic arrests -- 2:18)

The men had not bought plane tickets, the officials said, but they were in the process of perusing the Internet to find flights to various cities that had similar departure times.

CONTINUED...

It wouldn't surprise me a bit if it turned out the agent was the guy instigating the plot.

Not that they haven't done anything like that before. Recently.

British “Pseudo-Gang” Terrorists Exposed in Basra

by Kurt Nimmo
September 24, 2005
kurtnimmo.com

Baghdad Dweller, writing for Uruknet, reports two British soldiers held by “Iraqi authorities” in Basra (also described as “Shiite militiamen” in the corporate media), and subsequently freed after the British stormed a police jail, were working undercover as bombers. Baghdad Dweller includes a link to the Washington Post, where the following appears: “Iraqi security officials on Monday variously accused the two Britons they detained of shooting at Iraqi forces or trying to plant explosives. Photographs of the two men in custody showed them in civilian clothes.” The Herald notes the following: “Sources say the British soldiers, possibly members of the new Special Reconnaissance Regiment formed earlier this month to provide intelligence for SAS operations, were looking at infiltration of the city’s police by the followers of the outspoken Shi’ite cleric, Moqtada al Sadr,” thus admitting the soldiers worked undercover.

The “Special Reconnaissance Regiment,” according to Regiments.org, “formed with HQ at Hereford from volunteers of other units to support international expeditionary operations in the fight against international terrorism, absorbing 14th Intelligence Company (formed for operations against Ulster terrorists), Intelligence Corps, and releasing the SAS and SBS for the ‘hard end’ of missions.” Is it possible the “hard end” of the “mission” in Iraq is to discredit the resistance and sow chaos in the country by fronting pseudo-gang terrorist groups (or the variant “pseudo-guerilla operations”), as the British have ample experience with elsewhere, notably in Kenya during the Mau Mau uprising and in Malaya? “Pseudo operations are those in which government forces disguised as guerrillas, normally along with guerrilla defectors, operate as teams to infiltrate insurgent areas,” writes Lawrence E. Cline for the U.S. Army War College External Research Associates Program. “This technique has been used by the security forces of several other countries in their operations, and typically it has been very successful.” Indeed, one long running pseudo op, Gladio, was so successful it managed to render a nominal Italian terrorist group, the Red Brigades (Brigate Rosse), into an excuse (after proper infiltration by agents provocateurs) to increase the power of reactionary forces in Italy and discredit socialist, communist, and even labor movements.

The British SAS honed its “counter-insurgency” techniques in Northern Ireland and there is no reason to believe it has refrained from doing so in Iraq. “Formed to perform acts of sabotage and assassination behind enemy lines during World War 2, the SAS evolved into a counter-insurgency regiment after the war,” writes Sean Mac Mathuna. Mathuna cites a 1969 Army Training manual (British Army Land Operations Manual, volume 3, counter-revolutionary operations) that enumerates several “tasks,” including:

the ambush and harassment of insurgents, the infiltration of sabotage, assassination and demolition parties into insurgent-held areas, border surveillance … liaison with, and organization of friendly guerrilla forces operating against the common enemy.

Examples “were found during the Mau-Mau rebellion in Kenya during the mid-fifties,” Mathuna explains, “when SAS officers commanded some of the infamous ‘pseudo gangs’ that terrorized the civilian population,” and in Borneo, where they used cross-border operations to attack and destroy guerrilla bases; and in Aden in 1967, where they dressed as Arabs and would use an Army officer to lure Arab gunmen into a trap and kill them. To defeat the insurgents counter-terror must be deployed back at them—described by Ken Livingstone as “subverting the subverters”….

In order to “subvert the subverters” and discredit the IRA in Northern Ireland, the SAS formed the Military Reconnaissance Force (MRF), a covert pseudo-gang. “During the 1972 ceasefire the MRF shot civilians from unmarked cars using IRA weapons,” writes Mathuna. “In November 1972 the Army admitted that the MRF had done this one three occasions. One of these incidents happened on 22nd June 1972—the day the IRA announced its intention to introduce a ceasefire. The shootings appear to have been done to discredit the IRA…”

It is clear now, that because elements within the security forces did not want a political deal with the IRA in the mid-seventies, and the military solution was only possible with a change at the top of the Labour leadership, MI5 and the SAS were prepared to use the same methods the IRA are condemned for - civilian deaths, assassinations, bombings and black propaganda—to bring this about.

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=20050924&articleId=992">CONTINUED...

Those British soldiers even killed an Iraqi policemen who tried to stop them because they looked suspicious. Gee. Wonder what else they'd be willing to do for their bosses? It seems the current leadership has no interest in protecting the people, only in protecting their strategic interests.

[savemefromdumbya]

7. I wonder what Prince charles thinks of all this?

Charles being left wing and not a friend of Tony Blair's?

[Octafish]

24. Prince Chuckie doesn't like Tony, FWIU.

Somebody wants to know.

Charles phone-tap probe analysed

If the UK is helping Bolton at the UN, where the US tapped the Security Council prior to the illegal Iraq invasion, who knows what else MI5 and MI6 are doing? Besides impersonating "insurgents" in Iraq?

British "Undercover Soldiers" Caught driving Booby Trapped Car
"They refused to say what their mission was."

"I thought I was prince of the underworld?"

[bleever]

9. Billions to snag up the "aspirational", and not so much on

the historical. He's in a cave, after all.

At what point is American fear more valuable to an administration than American safety?

[Octafish]

25. There's never enough fear: Operation BOJINKA

Bush and company consider the American people expendable. So what if they gotta be scared to death first?

Bojinka II, Pakistan & Musharraf

B Raman | August 12, 2006 | 08:33 IST
Rediff.com India

The plot to blow up US-bound airliners is becoming known as 'Bojinka II,' since it is nearly identical in scope and method to Operation Bojinka, which was foiled in 1995 by Filipino authorities.

But Operation Bojinka II, thwarted by the British authorities at the end of an intelligence-led operation which started in December, 2005, differs in some aspects from the original Operation Bojinka of 1995.

Ramzi Yousef and Khalid Sheikh Mohammad had planned Bojinka 1995 as a timer-triggered operation and not as a suicide mission. They had planned to select US-bound flights from South-East and East-Asia with an intermediate halt. The terrorists chosen for the operation were to leave the plane at the intermediate halt after concealing the timed improvised explosive devices inside life-jackets.

Operation Bojinka II was planned as suicide missions to be undertaken by the terrorists on direct flights from airports in the UK to different destinations in the US.

The second difference is that Ramzi and Khalid had planned to have the liquid explosive smuggled into the aircraft in containers used for keeping contact lens cleaning solution. The planners of Operation Bojinka-2006 had planned to have the liquid explosive smuggled into the aircraft by having it concealed at the false bottom of cans used for keeping power drinks.

CONTINUED...

Doncha just love south Asian journalism? It's the real thing.

BIGGEST SCAREDY-CAT OF ALL

[bleever]

26. Also from this article:

The continued involvement of members of the Pakistani Diaspora in the UK in acts of terrorism committed or planned against Western targets poses a dilemma for the British authorities.

While General Musharraf has been providing to the Western countries all the assistance they require after a particular plot has been detected, he has not been acting against the flourishing terrorist infrastructure in Pakistani territory. How to make him act against Al Qaeda and others without endangering his own position in the army, that is the question they keep asking themselves.

They do not realise that the continuing presence of Al Qaeda and other jihadi terrorist infrastructure in Pakistani territory is the only guarantee for him to ensure his continued importance in the eyes of the West. He will continue to follow his present policy of feeding and sustaining the terrorists and sacrificing only those whose terrorist activities are detected by the West.

Any similarity at all to the modus operandi of our own hoodlum-in-chief?

[NNN0LHI]

10. Someone got Waterboarded n/t

[Octafish]

28. The Smell of Fear

"Only Republicans are allowed to be this incompetent..."

The Smell of Fear

by Koehler, Robert C.
August 16, 2006 at 19:03:12
http://www.opednews.com

That $100-a-bottle perfume that inconvenienced passengers tossed into airport trash cans last week, along with the lip gloss, toothpaste and shampoo, added the missing element of home-front sacrifice to the war on terror, which may explain why initial media coverage was so enthusiastic and skepticism-free.

It was a story everyone understood - us vs. them, wise-cracking stoicism, a big jolt of fear - and for a while the nation could return to its pre-quagmire delusions of Pearl Harbor/Good War redux. That's the story the media have tried to cover all along.

And, oh, they keep trying: "This nation is at war with Islamic fascists who will use any means to destroy those of us who love freedom, to hurt our nation." That was our president, of course, still reading "The Pet Goat" to the nation, still quoted straight up as he simplifies a complex world for us. The fanatics who hate freedom will even try to detonate our Prell, our Crest, our Fiji Water, our Eau de Toilette.

Turns out that those of us who thought something smelled funny about the timing and all - peace had just broken out in Connecticut, for instance - were getting a whiff of more than just discarded aftershave.

SNIP...

Consider how desperate the situation is:

"Republicans have become increasingly alarmed that the war might drag down incumbents," the New York Times reported the other day. "A senior Republican consultant with ties to the White House, who was granted anonymity so he could describe internal research for a Republican member of Congress, said he had recently conducted a focus group in a highly contested Congressional district in the Philadelphia suburbs.

"He was shocked, he said, at the degree of hostility among Republicans toward the war, even accounting for the fact that Northeast Republicans are more moderate than their counterparts in the rest of the country."

CONTINUED...

They're getting scared, all right.

It's about time.

[Kurovski]

11. K&R.(nt)

[Justice Is Comin]

13. My coined phrase;

falling apart quicker than cotton candy in a rainstorm.

[napi21]

14. Bernie Ward was talking about this tonight on his show.

Seems to be yet another false alarm. Not only that, but if there really was GOING TO BE anything to come from this group that was PROVABLE the US screwed it up by demanding that the info be released way too soon!!!!!

As the article says, few had passports, none of the supplies had ben purchased, etc. How the hell can you prove in court that these guys really intended to do ANYTHING?

Oooooh, gotta get that possible support for Leiberman and Shrub's poll numbers right after the election though! Can't miss an opportunity!!!!!!!

[redacted]

15. Best UK Plot analysis I've heard so far:

http://mp3.rbnlive.com/Tarpley/0608/20060812_Sat_Tarpley1.mp3

http://mp3.rbnlive.com/Tarpley/0608/20060812_Sat_Tarpley.ram

[mnhtnbb]

17. Please check your links. I get music

[redacted]

21. You need to advance your slider to the beginning of the program.

You must have only listened for a few seconds to the classical bumper music, then gave up.

Meanwhile, thanks to your post, 90,000 DUers assume the links don't work even though they do. How's about a personal message next time?

[AntiFascist]

16. K&R, great points! Wasn't Smirko in deep doo-doo once before...

in 2001? I'll bet it was the sitcom "That's My Bush" that pushed it over the edge.

[seafan]

18. Reminds me of the "Miami Seven". They didn't even have bus tickets

to ride to Chicago. These were homeless men who were short on clothing as well and they had built nothing incriminating. The FBI infiltrator trying to instigate criminal activity fell flat on his face. Meanwhile this hyped story was played and replayed ad nauseum.

Sheesh.

We should expect all kinds of distractions like this all the way into the elections.

These charlatans are desperate, panicked and have nothing left to lose.

[Karenina]

22. They're also NUTZOID

and will stop at NOTHING to retain their stranglehold.

[mirandapriestly]

19. They try to make it seem like a well organized global threat

but it's just a bunch of berserkers, like the recent US "terrorist plot". I heard someone on AAR who worked for the BBC saying that is what was happening.

[leftchick]

23. excellent article Octafish

thank you! :hi:

[warrens]

27. If this thing blows up

Even a lot of Repukes are going to call for Bush's head. One thing that seems to be in this version's favor: Bush didn't start hogging all the credit. This way, if it falls apart, he can blame the brits and his kool aid brigade will lap it up.