Extemely Sharp Analysis of "Terror Plot" by former UK Amb. to Uzbekistan

[BurtWorm]

Craig Murray, who *was fired for refusing to go along with* <----corrected on edit> his government's tolerance of human rights abuses in that country.

http://www.craigmurray.co.uk/archives/2006/08/the_uk_terror_p.html


August 14, 2006
The UK Terror plot: what's really going on?

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.

So this, I believe, is the true story.

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.

The gentleman being "interrogated" had fled the UK after being wanted for questioning over the murder of his uncle some years ago. That might be felt to cast some doubt on his reliability. It might also be felt that factors other than political ones might be at play within these relationships. Much is also being made of large transfers of money outside the formal economy. Not in fact too unusual in the British Muslim community, but if this activity is criminal, there are many possibilities that have nothing to do with terrorism.

We then have the extraordinary question of Bush and Blair discussing the possible arrests over the weekend. Why? I think the answer to that is plain. Both in desperate domestic political trouble, they longed for "Another 9/11". The intelligence from Pakistan, however dodgy, gave them a new 9/11 they could sell to the media. The media has bought, wholesale, all the rubbish they have been shovelled.

...

[Oceansaway]

1. Yep, the Bush Cabal

served up 'shit sandwiches' and the the MSM was hungy....

and they wonder why viewership/ratings are down....sheeeesh

[tocqueville]

2. basically same analysis here

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.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/HH18Df03.html

[BurtWorm]

4. You'd like to think the Enlightenment might have put an end

to governmental susceptibility to pure bullshit. But it really has not been very long since they were warning us of Reds under our beds, has it?

Actually, in reading about some of the characters involved in the Abramoff and Duke Cunningham scandals here in the US, I was reminded of what gullible fools we elect to high office here--fools like Cunningham and his pal/rival from San Diego Duncan Hunter, who had talked themselves into believing in Chinese commie spooks in Panama setting up a beachhead on which eventually to launch attacks on places like San Diego. In their House committees, these nuts would earmark shit loads of money to set their cronies up investigating this fantasy Chinese/Panamanian connection, And these were earmarks tacked onto bills having nothing to do with Pentagon appropriations, but which sent appropriations to the Pentagon and created Congressional "mandates" to sniff out the Chinese/Panamanian spooks.

So in essense, you have grown (albeit idiotic) men playing GI Joe AND ripping off taxpayers AND enriching their friends.

And these idiots are our "leaders."

Help us, someone.

[survivor999]

3. Yup, there was too much talk of November trouble

during the week of the 7th. Remembers? it was all about November disaster for the Repugs. Until the "terror" alert.

[BurtWorm]

5. Murray questions whether liquid explosives can be made on a plane

The plot thickens. (Or the "plot" thins, as the case may be...)

http://www.craigmurray.co.uk/archives/2006/08/hitting_a_nerve.html

This brings us to one particuarly sinister aspect of the allegations - that the bombs were to be made on the plane.

The idea that high explosive can be made quickly in a plane toilet by mixing at room temperature some nail polish remover, bleach, and Red Bull and giving it a quick stir, is nonsense. Yes, liquid explosives exist and are highly dangerous and yes, airports are ill equipped to detect them at present. Yes, it is true they have been used on planes before by terrorists. But can they be quickly manufactured on the plane? No.

The sinister aspect is not that this is a real new threat. It is that the allegation may have been concocted in order to prepare us for arresting people without any actual bombs.

Let me fess up here. I have just checked, and our flat contains nail polish remover, sports drinks, and a variety of household cleaning products. Also MP3 players and mobile phones. So the authorities could announce - as they have whispered to the media in this case - that potential ingredients of a liquid bomb, and potential timing devices, have been discovered. It rather lowers the bar, doesn't it?

[BurtWorm]

6. kick