CAFTA Small economies shafted by Big Business US style

Caving in to White House threats and bribes, the Senate approved the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) on June 30, by a vote of 54 to 45 after squeaking through the House 217-215. The argument that these "fledgling" democracies would devolve once again into civil war was hammered home by Republicans who said, "We can send free trade to Central America today, or we will be sending troops tomorrow." It was probably more by reaching into the pork barrel - $286 billion highway spending bill pledges were made to Southern textile and agricultural states - that finally turned the screw. Plus a little “vote jiggling” - Rep. Jo Ann Davis also would have voted against CAFTA, but claimed that a storm prevented her from returning from a cancelled Boy Scout Jamboree.

Deaf and indifferent to farmers, manufacturers, and workers devastated by previous trade agreements, unconcerned about the growing danger these pacts pose to U.S. sovereignty, President Bush pulled out all stops in a major effort to ram CAFTA through the Senate before the July 4 recess. Sometimes to promote the shadowy interests of global business he uses men in uniform, CAFTA uses the men in business suits.

The Central American Free Trade Agreement’s 2000 pages expands NAFTA (the decade-old North American Free Trade Agreement between the U.S., Mexico, and Canada) to include Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua. The Bush administration has been clear that it sees CAFTA approval as essential to building momentum for approval of the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), which would include all the nations of our Western Hemisphere.)Or what we patronisingly call the "New World" even thought the original settlers from the Asian motherland we now know probably populated the the Americas, North and South 30,000 years ago.

Signing the treaty President Bush said;

"...the Bill I'm about to sign is good for America. I'm pleased that Congress has taken a step to eliminate the barriers to America's goods and crops to 44 million customers.

I welcome the opportunity to make our nation more secure by strengthening our ties with democracies that share our belief in free markets and free government.

All of us in this room understand that to keep our economy growing and creating jobs, we need to open markets for American products overseas.

All of us understand that strengthening our economic ties with our democratic neighbours is vital to America's economic and national security interests.

All of us understand that by strengthening ties with democracies in our hemisphere, we are advancing the stability that comes from freedom.

Pete du Pont ex Delaware Governer cheered for the CAFTA cause when he wrote about “Sugar Socialism” in the Wall Street Journal on May 25th , "a spoonful of sugar may be the poison that kills the economic opportunity of free trade between the United States and six nations in Central America and undermines the fundamental concept of international trade." du Pont pointed out that the American sugar industry is so strongly advantaged by quotas, tariffs and subsidies that total sugar imports have declined by about a third since the 1990s. CAFTA would allow additional sugar imports from the Central American nations of 107,000 metric tons in the first year. Annual U.S. sugar production is about 7.8 million metric tons, so the effect of CAFTA is to raise sugar imports into America by about one day's sugar production.

In 1993, as NAFTA was about to be officially launched, Henry Kissinger said of the trade agreement: "It will represent the most creative step toward a new world order taken by any group of countries since the end of the Cold War, and the first step toward an even larger vision of a free-trade zone for the entire Western Hemisphere." NAFTA "is not a conventional trade agreement," he noted, "but the architecture of a new international system." Dr. Kissinger, a high-level Insider and member of the CFR and Trilateral Commission, knew that the trade agreement label was merely a deceptive cover story to mask the truly treasonous intent of the document’s authors: to destroy the national sovereignty of the United States and all other countries of the Western Hemisphere.

NAFTA was launched amid great hoopla and promises that it would bring a continuous wave of progress and prosperity to all three nations involved: Mexico, Canada and the United States

Although Presidents George Bush (the elder) and Bill Clinton were the most visible figures associated with the campaign for NAFTA, they were merely fronting for much more powerful forces operating behind the scenes.

Leaders and members of these two pillars of the Establishment have provided the critical economic and political impetus for NAFTA and the FTAA.

Including the 89 year old David Rockefeller , who combines his fabulous family wealth with business contacts and an array of organizational power bases at the global and hemispheric levels. Founder and chairman of the Council of the Americas, the Americas Society, and Forum of the Americas, influencing US policies and thinking – he founded the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies at Harvard University and has funded the Latin American studies programs at many other institutions. His chairmanship of the Chase Manhattan Bank, provides access to the operations of the IMF, World Bank, Inter-American Development Bank and US AID. His voice is always at the front when Wall Street calls for increasing U.S. taxpayer funding for these globalist institutions.

David Rockefeller is the founder and honorary chairman of the Trilateral Commission, as well as a continuing power within the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR chairman for 15 years) and a major financial angel of the Institute for International Economics, all of which have been at the forefront of the push to establish sovereignty-eroding regional trade pacts.
Thomas “Mack” McLarty — is remembered as President Bill Clinton’s White House chief of staff and counsel (1992-1994). He was a key mover and shaker in the creation of NAFTA. At the 1994 Miami Summit of the Americas, he gave the game away "This summit is much broader than lowering tariffs, ….. This is not a trade summit, it is an overall summit. It will focus on economic integration and convergence."
Kissinger soon took him on board (where he joined Paul Bremer of Baghdad fame) and was beatified as president of Kissinger McLarty Associates . He is also a board member of Rockefeller’s Council of the Americas and Inter-American Dialogue. In 2001 he also co-chaired the Carnegie Endowment panel that recommended adoption of Mexican President Vicente Fox’s so-called migration policies to do away with the U.S.-Mexico border.

Robert Zoellick — U.S. Trade Representative for President George W. Bush, Mr. Zoellick has presided over the most active and aggressive push for multilateral and bilateral trade agreements in U.S. history. He served as a top lieutenant to influence peddlar James Baker III (CFR) in the Reagan and Bush administrations, where he helped negotiate the NAFTA agreements, create the WTO and has since worked assiduously to lay the groundwork for the FTAA. Zoellick was a paid consultant and substantial shareholder on the Enron advisory board before joining the US administration. Currently in China Zoellick and Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Dai Bingguo participated in Sino-US strategic dialogue on Monday 1/8/2005 the first of its kind since the two countries forged diplomatic ties 26 years ago. This formal dialogue resulted from the agreement reached by Chinese President Hu Jintao and US President George W. Bush during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit in Chile last year. (The one where they all wore old bleankets for the Group photoshoot).

Preaching free trade, he trails a long history of private business interests in predatory multinational corporations like Vivendi, Enron, Goldman Sachs, and Alliance Capital. The unvarying tenet in Zoellick's perverse creed is the “manifest US destiny ”to dominate world trade.

Some try military dominance, he is a crusader for monetary hegemony.

Sometimes he supports combining both – In speech in May this year to the Institute for International Economics, he said, "The U.S. seeks cooperation--or better--on foreign policy and security...Given that the U.S. has international interests beyond trade, why not try to urge people to support our overall policies? Negotiating a free-trade agreement with the U.S. is not something one has a right to -it's a privilege." This suggestion is not new, or even untried. Reagan used PL480 agricultural aid and other “trade concessions” to bribe and cajole Honduras into serving as a military base for illegal terrorist aggression against Nicaragua throughout the 1980s. Which enabled Mr Negroponte and friends to use other and more dramatic forms of persuasion.

Robert Bartley — Although he died in 2003 ,as editor of the Wall Street Journal, Mr. Bartley has provided one of the most powerful and strategic voices for the globalism for three decades. Claiming to be a conservative free-market Republican, Bartley used the news and editorial pages of the Journal to promote neoconservative internationalists and to propagandize for NAFTA, FTAA, WTO, IMF, World Bank and other globalist institutions and programs. He was a member of the CFR and Trilateral Commission, as well as a speaker at the annual World Economic Forum and an attendee of the super-secretive Bilderberg meetings. He once said "I think the nation-state is finished" stating simply "There shall be open borders."

Bartley, who died in December 2003, was a member of the CFR and Trilateral Commission, as well as a speaker at the annual World Economic Forum and an attendee of the super-secretive Bilderberg meetings. For more on Robert Bartley’s reign at the Wall Street Journal, see "The Nation-State Is Finished," in the February 23, 2004 issue of TNA. As quoted previously the WSJ maintains the struggle for globalism for it’s readers.

Kenichi Ohmae — Promoted by The Wall Street Journal, Dr. Ohmae received his Ph.D. in nuclear engineering from MIT, he is most famous for his best-selling books on business and economics and his articles in the Wall Street Journal, Harvard Business Review, Foreign Policy and The Economist. Among the more than sixty books the The Borderless World and The End of the Nation State: The Rise of Regional Economies stand out. In his 1993 essay "The Rise of the Region State" for Foreign Affairs, the house journal of the Council on Foreign Relations, He declared the full neo-con one global world "The nation state has become an unnatural, even dysfunctional, unit for organizing human activity and managing economic endeavor in a borderless world." The CFR has effectively promoted his views that nationhood is indeed headed inevitably for extinction, to be replaced by a new order of global governance.

Peter Hakim — As president of Inter-American Dialogue (IAD), Mr. Hakim frequently promotes the agenda of the Left for the U.S. foreign policy Establishment, defending Fidel Castro’s Communist regime and advocating U.S. normalization of relations with Cuba. He currently serves on boards and advisory committees for the Foundation of the Americas, the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank, and Human Rights Watch. He is however a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and frequently appears as a panellist or speaker on CFR programs.

George Soros — One of the world’s wealthiest men, multi-billionaire currency trader, his secretive Soros Foundation and Open Society Institute operate in more than 50 countries in Europe, Central Asia, Africa and Latin America, friend of Mikhail Gorbachev, member of the Trilateral Commission also a CFR director, his Soros Fund Management is a CFR corporate member, providing generous funding for the globalist agenda.

C. Fred Bergsten —Leaving the Carter administration in 1981, he took over as director of the newly founded David Rockefeller’s Institute for International Economics (IIE), "the most influential think-tank on the planet,", the chairman of the IIE is Peter G. Peterson, who also chairs the CFR. Bergsten is a director of the CFR as well as a member of the Trilateral Commission.

Alan Greenspan — Chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve System, Mr. Greenspan one of the most powerful men on Earth who can move world financial markets with a casual and often enigmatic aside. He has been one of the most influential advocates of NAFTA and the FTAA.

Longserving CFR member a former director (and currently an honorary director) of the IIE. Other current and former Federal Reserve officers who are in lock-step.. Former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker (CFR, TC, IIE), New York Federal Reserve President William McDonough (CFR director), New York Federal Reserve Chairman Peter G. Peterson (CFR chairman), Chicago Federal Reserve Chairman Michael Moskow (CFR director), are all active in lobbying for the NAFTA-FTAA agenda among U.S. leaders as well as their central bank counterparts in Latin America. …Arminio Fraga, former president of Brazil’s Central Bank is now MD of Soros Fund Management.

Roberto Mangabeira Unger —Brazilian and radical Marxist who has spent the last 30 years teaching and writing at Harvard University’s Law School and at the David Rockefeller Center for the Study of Latin America. Unger became the mentor and ideological guru of President Vicente Fox, and was for a period, Fox’s foreign minister.

Zbigniew Brzezinski — The eminence grise of globalism. As early as 1970 in his book Between Two Ages, Zbigniew Brzezinski (CFR) was identifying the Government of the US as obsolete, that "national sovereignty is no longer a viable concept," and that world leaders must work toward gradual economic and political "convergence" of nations, with the final aim being "the goal of world government." In 1972, while at a Bilderberg conference, David Rockefeller and Mr. Brzezinski formed the Trilateral Commission as an elite new body of globalists from three continents (Europe, Asia and North America — hence the "Trilateral" designation). Brzezinski was appointed as the commission’s first director.

In 1995 he lamented that with only five years to the start of the new millennium, "We do not have a new world order." "We cannot leap into world government in one quick step” …." This requires a process of gradually expanding the range of democratic cooperation as well as the range of personal and national security, a widening, step by step, stone by stone, [of] existing relatively narrow zones of stability in the world of security and cooperation. In brief, the precondition for eventual globalization — genuine globalization — is progressive regionalization, because thereby we move toward larger, more stable, more cooperative units." This describes precisely the gradualist regional approach to global government proposed through the FTAA.

In the real world, The US is a mercantilist nation, just as the one that emerged from the contretemps about tea taxes with the hated British colonialists and relies heavily on protective tariffs and internal subsidies.

For sheer hyposcrisy and double standards consider cotton. In 2001, the US Commodity Credit Corporation spent $4bn subsidising the income of cotton producers, a total of some 25,000 corporate farms in California, Texas, Alabama, and Mississippi.

The world market value of the cotton crop for that year about $3bn. It is a problem to decide whether the Bush pork barrel farm policies owe more to the command principles of Bolshevik state planning or the market principles espoused by Zoellick. As the world’s largest cotton exporter, US domestic trade policy has global consequences. The International Cotton Advisory Committee, said they lowered world prices by around one-quarter, plunging world cotton markets into the deepest and most protracted depression in since the Great Depression.

Jump from subsidy heaven in Texas, to West Africa and examine the result. 1 region has 11 million households depending on cotton cultivation for their livelihoods, and their nations where cotton is a crucial source of foreign exchange.. At a conservative estimate, it lost some $200m in 2001 as a direct consequence of American corporate farm subsidies.

To put this figure in context, it dwarfs the amount that governments in the region receive in the form of US aid or debt relief under the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative. The sheer numbers hide the people, ‘agricultural labourers who get lower wages, small farmers who have less to spend on food and health, and children being taken out of school because their parents can no longer afford the fees.’

Robert Zoellick likes to wax lyrical about the merits of a ‘level playing field’ in agriculture. President Bush wasted no opportunity to press on African producers the benefits of open markets when he visited Africa last January. No doubt he rehearsed his speeches again at G8. What sort of level playing field is it when cotton farms in America receive more subsidy than the entire national income of cotton-producing countries such as Burkina Faso and Mali?

Bologna August 2nd 1980. NATO bombs railway Station

Gunpowder, Terrorists and Uncle Jack's idea of Religious Extremism

To the delight of political historians everywhere, the man called the Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, told the Financial Times that he had been talking to Muslim leaders at home and abroad about the Guy Fawkes plot, to remind them that the UK has faced a long history of religious-based terrorism. He said it was important Muslim leaders realised religious-based extremism was not unique to Islam.

He might well have swapped tales about the terrorist attacks on the British Army in Palestine, when the Stern Group, Haganah and Irgun terrorist groups whose goal was the eviction of the British and their Army from Palestine and the formation of a Jewish State.

He could explain how these terrorist groups assassinated Britsh soldiers, and police , sent bombs in the mail to British politicians, sabotaged industrial plant, transport infrastructure extorted funds and robbed banks. No doubt he could tell them how the leaders such as Menachim Begin and Itzak Shamir , and their supporters such as Golda Meir, later became Prime Ministers of Israel. … but then they may have heard it all before.

Perhaps he could tell them about the way they killed public figures such as Lord Moyne in Cairo and the UN representative Count Bernadotte in Jerusalem – whose killers were later released. … but then they may have heard it all before.

He could tell them of the massacre at the village of Deir Yassin by Jewish terrorists … but then they may have heard it all before.

He could tell them of the Stern gang’s cry of justification for their campaign of bloody terror…”primarily terror is part of our political battle under present conditions and its role is large and great”.

…. but then they may have heard it all before.

Police introduce body searches on London Transport

Condi's new whipping boy at UN

The North Koreans called him,” human scum and a bloodsucker”. His President says today when appointing him on a recess directive to be the US Ambassador to the UN, “John Bolton has … been a tireless defender of our nation's values,… he brought people together to achieve meaningful results at the United Nations …. repealing a shameful resolution that equated Zionism with racism.”..”This post is too important to leave vacant any longer, especially during a war (sic) "

Larry Flynt publisher of Hustler magazine who stood against Schwarzenegger in the CA Gubernatorial race in 2003 as the “Smut-Peddler Who Cares” says Bolton’s first wife divorced him because he took her to “swingers parties” at Plato's Retreat. A popular swingers club that operated in New York City in the late 1970s and early 1980s and he encouraged her to indulge in public sex. He cannot get anyone to refute the stories he has widely published and for which he claims he has corroborated witness statements.

Flynt has a successful history of outing Republicans, famously at the time of the Clinton impeachment hearings. Henry Hyde, a Congressman who cried for Clinton's impeachment was disgraced after carrying on a five-year affair with a married mother of three. He sunk Bob Barr, a leader for the effort to impeach Clinton, who paid for his wife's abortion, left her while she struggled with cancer and married another woman (a woman with whom he had been having an affair while his wife was sick). Flynt also ended the career of Dan Burton, chairman of the House Government and Oversight Committee who called Clinton a scumbag while being himself investigated for fundraising irregularities. (It was later revealed that Burton had fathered an illegitimate child in the 80s while cheating on his wife.)

This prompted the joke at the time …
Q: How many Republicans does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
A: Republicans don't screw in lightbulbs, they screw in nightclubs.

Senate Chairman Livingston was infamous for standing up and railing at Clinton with shock and outrage for having an affair, going on about the sanctity of marriage. Flint exposed his numerous affairs in Livingstone's own private life, which resulted in his shock retirement at the height of the impeachment hearings.

Flynt is perhaps most famous in all his court battles when he lost the case against rival Penthouse editor, Bob Guccione’s girlfriend (Keeton v Hustler , 465 US 770)which he lost. During the proceedings he shouted "Fuck this court!" and called the justices "nothing but eight assholes and a token cunt". Chief Justice Warren Burger had him arrested for contempt of court but the charge was later dismissed.

Bolton , a lawyer, like the President missed the call up for Vietnam and served in the National Guard …"I confess I had no desire to die in a Southeast Asian rice paddy. I considered the war in Vietnam already lost" he said.

“Bring ‘em on”
Link for assistance as a result of this appointment

WHAT TO DO IF A NUCLEAR DISASTER IS IMMINENT!

This guide is for families preparing for imminent terrorist or strategic nuclear attacks
with expected severe destruction followed by widespread radioactive fallout downwind.

In a national crisis of imminent nuclear weapon attacks, read all the way through this guide first,
THEN TAKE EFFECTIVE PROTECTIVE ACTION WITH CONFIDENCE... FAST!
WHAT TO DO IF A NUCLEAR DISASTER IS IMMINENT!

China buys up Africa .....

When Mugabe took power in Zimbabwe the Zim dollar was trading at about the value of the US dollar. By 2000, just before the farm invasions began, the Zim dollar was trading at Z$55.00 to US$1.00. It was then a net exporter of food - the "breadbasket of southern Africa". At independence Air Zimbabwe had 18 planes, they now have six. When the geriatric but nonethe less still sprightly Mugabe flew to China the Boeing 767 plane, which he normally uses on his international trips, should have been grounded because it is due for a service. Forex problems prevented them from buying parts to perform the service. As a result a plane was sought in Thailand – on top of this fuel shortages have played havoc with Air Zim flights since last week to London, China and Dubai.

A week ago the Zim dollar was trading at about Z$25,000 to US$1 on the parallel (black) market where many manufacturers source foreign currency to fund imports. On Thursday it had touched Z$45,000 to US$1. The rand was selling at Z$6,000 but buyers were paying Z$7,000. The official exchange rate was set last week at Z$17,000 to US$1, a 40% devaluation. Zimbabwe needs a minimum of about 30 million litres of fuel a month for basic needs. This week, the beginning of an 11 million litre consignment of fuel from Sasol bought by the government is due to start moving across the border, barely enough for the government's needs.

Meanwhile traipsing round China on a six day visit, hoping for help in repaying a $300m debt to the IMF, proved fruitless for Mugabe as Beijing granted him only $6m for grain imports.

Failure to pay the outstanding loan would could result in Zimbabwe facing expulsion from the IMF.

China has long had interests in Zimbabawe and have invested in many areas and is Harare’s biggest inward investor. It has helped to construct the Harare stadium, hospitals, dams, schools, wells, clothing factories, and in the reconstruction of the Iron and Steel Corporation. China’s International Water and Electric company is contracted to farm 250,000 acres of agricultural land and are paid in return for, it is rumoured, in tobacco. (The Chinese smoke more tobacco per head than any other country).

China has offered credit lines to Zimbabwe’s small and medium enterprises, usually cronies of Mugabe, they also finance and provide mining equipment to Zimbabwe’s Electricity Supply Authority and Hwange Colliery, in return for which China has coal and coke concessions. Militarily, China has provided Zimbabwe with six K8 jet aircraft, a radar system for Mugabe’s personal residence and other military hardware estimated to cost around US$240m.

Rumour in Harare says the concessions made by Mugabe on this trip to China for platinum reserves are not a sufficient incentive for China to grant funds on the scale requested by Mr Mugabe. Mr Jintao plays hard ball. China is currently the leading consumer of the “white gold”, using almost 20% of world production a critical component in exhaust catalysers and many chemical / industrial processes.

The Chinese have also shown interest in setting up a smelter in Zimbabwe to refine the mineral. The final processing of platinum is done in South Africa. Financial benefits are are long way off for the Chinese however.

The Chinese were quick last Wednesday however to offer help by trying to block UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan's envoy Anna Tibaijuka, who spent 2 weeks in Zimbabwe investigated the demolitions, ( Operation Murambatsvina (Drive Out Rubbish) resulting in some 700,000 homeless in Harare and surrounding areas), from appearing before the Security Council to discuss her report.

China, supported by Russia and , Algeria, Benin and Tanzania voted against, while Brazil abstained, lost the motion and Tibaijuka duly appeared to explain her report and take questions from the floor in a closed door session.

We are seeing, quietly, that without fanfare, without military conquest, China has been moving into Africa. Africa has relatively untapped reserves, of fossil fuels and minerals. Targets have been Sudan, Nigeria, and Angola to date . China needs oil, and has been getting it. Sudan supplies 5% of China’s oil imports. Nigeria not only has oil, it is also a mass market in a country where manufacturing is undeveloped and provides a mass market for cheap Chinese consumer goods.

In just three years, from 2001 to 2004, China's trade with Africa has more than doubled from $US10 billion to $US 20 billion.

Unexpected help has arrived from the Middle East. The Iranian Ambassador to Zimbabwe Hamid Moayyer was quoted as saying that "the Republic of Iran continues to work with the Zimbabwean government to avail more lines of credit which are crucial for business growth”, when agreeing a £25Mn trade backed loan."In 1999, trade figures stood at 13 million US dollars and this has since risen to 25 million US dollars presently and we envisage that this will soar to about 1.5 billion US dollars by 2010," the Iranian ambassador said, presumably with his tongue very firmly in his cheek.

The Zimbabwe Protest Vigil, outside the Zimbabwe Embassy, London, takes place every Saturday from 14.00 to 18.00 to protest against gross violations of human rights by the current regime in Zimbabwe. The Vigil will continue until internationally-monitored, free and fair elections are held in Zimbabwe.

London "Bombs" ...the Italian Connection

In buon italiano, Osman Hussain ha raccontato
la pianificazione artigianale del secondo attacco in Inghilterra
"Non volevamo colpire l'Italia"
la lunga confessione nella notte
di CLAUDIA FUSANI

The interrogation of Osman Hussein, speaking in good Italian, he explains the bombs were meant to be duds. Click on logo for original and Nur al Cubicle for English translation

Flying the Flag for ...er... Freedom ?

Is this the flag of the ;

1. The Democratic Republic of Iraq
2. The Muslim Republic of Iraq
3. Something else...
4. Yet another flag design for the Memory Hole

Hidden hands at work in Andijan revolt ?

In Washington and Tashkent dips and diarists say there is mounting agreement that Pentagon special forces teams helped stir up the Islamist revolt on May 17 in the town of Andijan, in Uzbekistan's fertile, populous and now very volatile Ferghana Valley. U.S. Special Operations forces are said to have made contact with opposition forces in the area during operations Balance Ultra 03 and Balance Ultra 04 joint operations exercises with Uzbek military forces.

This explains the US / UK coalition unwillingness to contemplate a thorough investigation into the Andijan revolt. A monitoring group from China, India, Pakistan, Iran, Turkmenistan and Russia amongst others has commenced its investigation. But the U.S. has refused to join in saying that any enquiry must include "an international partner"; U.S. will not take part in the
current investigation "as we do not see that as a substitute for an international investigation; we are considering all of our diplomatic options, including at the U.N ... meantime, we're talking to member states of various international organisations to try to generate support for an international investigation ... and we are actively working within the international community to try to generate support."

The High Commissioner for Human Rights, Louise Arbour expressed renewed concerns in Geneva on July 12th and reiterated the need for an international commission enquiry to be set up in order to look into what happened in Andijan on May 13. The absence of an independent investigation into the violent events in the Uzbek city that cost the lives of unknown numbers of people has made the job of status determination for Uzbek asylum seekers for UNHCR especially difficult.

It may also explain the precipitate action by Karimov to close the US base ...earlier post.

It may also explain the total silence from the UK Government about the need for an enquiry and also the silence of the Opposition parties.....Dogs that have learnt not to bark.

The Uzbek state controlled press has been saying that Pentagon special operations teams secretly met in Afghanistan with Tohir Yoldashev (who the US claimed to have killed in 2001) and members of his Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), a group the U.S. State Department lists as terrorist organization allied to "Al Qaeda." This loose amalgam has an interesting track record having in May 2003, been disrupted by Kyrgyzstani security forces when trying to to bomb the US Embassy and a nearby hotel in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. They targeted Uzbeki interests in October 2001 and are said to have planted 5 car bombs in Tashkent in February 1999. IMU Militants also took foreigners hostage in 1999 and 2000, including four US citizens who were “mountain climbing” in August 2000 and four Japanese geologists and eight Kyrgyzstani soldiers in August 1999 .

Of course the “success” in Afghanistan has resulted, as President Mushariff has pointed out, in an export of terrorism , such as the IMU , Uighur militant groups, and Chechen militants who all appear (diplomatic chat) have set up shop in Tajikistan (where most of the country consists of the Pamir mountain ranges) and parts of the Ferghana Valley. The Afghan-Tajik border region, is a mmajor smuggling area and so is always subject to foment, but it has become highly volatile recently . Last Tuesday, a bomb attack in downtown Dushanbe flagged how tenuous the eight-year-old Tajik peace settlement has become.

As well as US air Force personnel and planes, 200 French Air Force personnel and 2 transport aircraft are also based at Dushanbe airport in support of International Security Assistance Force operations in Afghanistan.

Evidently, the U.S.-led "war on terror" in Afghanistan has spilled over to the Central Asian region. The Central Asian region is getting destabilised which no doubt prompted Rummy’s brief excusion to Kyrgistan and Takikistan on the way to give Gen. Casey a good kicking in Baghdad.. (see earlier post)

The meetings between the US / IMU were reported to have occurred before and after the Andijan revolt, The US-IMU meetings in Afghanistan were also referenced in an article in Asia Times by India's former ambassador to Uzbekistan and Turkey, M. K. Bhadrakumar.

Outsourcing Torture - The grip is tightening on Gonzales genitals

A former New York City prosecutor, who was a supervisory special agent from the FBI’s behavioural analysis was sent to Guantanamo Bay to advise on interrogation techniques.

On Nov. 27, 2002 he forwarded to a senior FBI lawyer a legal analysis of Pentagon approved interrogation techniques for use against a high-value Qaeda detainee. The memo kicked off with objections to exploiting "phobias" like "the fear of dogs" or dripping water "to induce the misperception of drowning,". It went on to consider a plan to send the detainee to Jordan, Egypt or an unspecified third country for interrogation.

A senior unnamed FBI official, told Newsweek the memo was "not an official bureau legal conclusion".

The memo continued the Newsweek report, to consider a plan to send the detainee to Jordan, Egypt or an unspecified third country for interrogation and said, "In as much as the intent of this category is to utilize, outside the U.S., interrogation techniques which would violate [U.S. law] if committed in the U.S., it is a per se violation of the U.S. Torture Statute," the agent wrote. "Discussing any plan which includes this category could be seen as a con-spiracy to violate [the Torture Statute]" and "would inculpate" everyone involved. (See details below)

A senior U.S. law-enforcement official familiar with the memo and it’s contents is quoted , as saying the memo reflects concerns among many agents and lawyers about "rendition." Over 100 terror suspects are said to have been rendered to foreign countries by the CIA under a classified directive signed by President George W. Bush after 9/11. A senior U.S. intelligence official, again anonymous, is quoted as saying rendering suspects to their country of origin where local interrogators speak the language better and understand the cultural sensitivities of the suspects can aid intelligence.

"No one is sent anywhere for the purpose of being tortured," the unnamed official said.

The Pentagon has denied involvement in renditions, but officials have confirmed the now well documented story that 65 detainees have been transferred from Guantanamo for further detention or prosecution by foreign governments, including 29 to Pakistan, seven to Russia, five to Morocco and four to Saudi Arabia, all countries that the US State Department criticizes for practicing torture. Link

Craig Murray the ex UK Ambassador to Uzbekistan saw Intelligence reports resulting from such interrogations in Uzbekistan cross his desk – which he raised with the FO in London and his protests ultimately resulted in his removal from Tashkent and eventually the FO

"Tortured dupes are forced to sign confessions showing that the Uzbek government wants the US and UK to believe - that they and we are fighting the same war against terror. This is morally, legally and practically wrong."

His colleagues argued that they did not know for a fact whether informants had been tortured: "I will not attempt to hide my utter contempt for such casuistry, nor my shame that I work for an organisation where colleagues would resort to it to justify torture." Link
Link to CBS story 25/7 and script of 60 Minutes show about renditions

President Bush, in a January 25th 2005 interview with The New York Times, said: "Torture is never acceptable." He added, "nor do we hand over people to countries that do torture." he also repeated it in his State of the Union address.

US Statute § 2340A. Torture
Release date: 2004-08-06
(a) Offense.— Whoever outside the United States commits or attempts to commit torture shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both, and if death results to any person from conduct prohibited by this subsection, shall be punished by death or imprisoned for any term of years or for life.
(b) Jurisdiction.— There is jurisdiction over the activity prohibited in subsection (a) if—
(1) the alleged offender is a national of the United States; or
(2) the alleged offender is present in the United States, irrespective of the nationality of the victim or alleged offender.
(c) Conspiracy.— A person who conspires to commit an offense under this section shall be subject to the same penalties (other than the penalty of death) as the penalties prescribed for the offense, the commission of which was the object of the conspiracy.

Pic ? A white Boeing 737 registration number N313P filmed at Glasgow Airport for refuelling in February 2005.

Inculpate? What lawyers say when they mean incriminate.

U.S. Evicted From Air Base In Uzbekistan

The Washington Post and New York Times have just reported Uzbekistan formally evicted the United States yesterday from Karshi-Khanabad air base, known as K2, a military base that has served as a hub for combat and humanitarian missions to Afghanistan since shortly after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The United States has paid $15 million to Uzbek authorities for use of the airfield since 2001 Pentagon and State Department officials said yesterday.

The notice of eviction, was delivered by a courier from the Uzbek Foreign Ministry to the U.S. Embassy in Tashkent said an Embassy official. No reason was given and Uzbekistan will give the United States 180 days to move aircraft, personnel and equipment, U.S. officials said.

"We always think ahead. We'll be fine," Rumsfeld said last Sunday when asked how the United States would cope with losing the base in Uzbekistan.

Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman in May said access to the K2 airfield "undeniably critical in supporting our combat operations" and humanitarian deliveries. The United States has paid $15 million to Uzbek authorities for use of the airfield since 2001, he said.

Pentagon spokesman Lawrence T. Di Rita said that the U.S. military does not depend on any single airbase in any part of the world. "We'll be able to conduct our operations as we need to, regardless of how this turns out. It's a diplomatic issue at the moment,"

The eviction notice came four days before Undersecretary of State R. Nicholas Burns was due to arrive in Tashkent for talks with the government of President Islam Karimov principly to discuss issues arising from the wholesale slaughter of civilians in cold blood by State Police and troops during the bloody protests in the province of Andijan in May. Burns was said to be threatening (in the politest possible way) that unless Karomiv opened up politically – he risked the kind of upheavals witnessed recently in Ukraine, Georgia and Kyrgyzstan. The trip he planned with 3 Senators has been called off.

Karimov has refused an international probe into the bloody massacre at Andijan. As U.S. pressure has mounted, he cut off U.S. night flights and some cargo flights, forcing Washington to move search-and-rescue operations and some cargo flights to Bagram air base in Afghanistan and Manas air base in Kyrgyzstan and also Incirlik in Turkey where permission for more flights were granted in early June. (see earlier posts in May)

This action was predicted by ETHAN WILENSKY-LANFORD in the New York Times on July 8, 2005. It also emphasises Rummy’s roundabout routing to Kyrgistan and Tajikistan in the week ending up by trip in Baghdad to overse the preparations for the forthcoming reduction if US forces in Iraq. (see previous Blog - Mien Kampf) Pic for the memory hole as Dubya presses the flesh with butcher Karimov - play with the bully boys George - feel at home.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was making herself busy on the phone on Thursday and Friday with Kyrgyz leaders to arrange for the flight out of 450 Uzbek refugeesfrom Kyrgistan. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees airlifted them to Romania on Friday. She had been busy earlier in the week with Burns stitching up a deal Congress to change a 1978 law barring U.S. nuclear energy aid to nuclear-weapons states, as well as an accord of a coalition of countries known as the Nuclear Suppliers Group including European countries that India can buy supplies for civil nuclear power without surrendering to International inspection of their military reactors. This deal ditches 40 years of Anti Proliferation control but opens up the lucrative and prosperous Indian Civil nuclear energy market to all.

"We always think ahead" says Rummy ... well you could have fooled me.

How very odd! Joining the dots in Luton ?

Royston and Buntingford Mercury 29 July 2005Muktar Saed Ibrahim, also known as Muktar Mohammed Saed, 27, was named by police in connection with the attempted attack on the No 26 bus in Hackney, East London, last Thursday.

In 1996 he was jailed for a series of street robberies (he was then 18), including one in Melbourn Street, Luton in May 1995 (Melbourn is a village outside Royston), and may also have been involved in incidents in Stevenage, Letchworth and Welwyn Garden City.

The Mercury learnt that the alleged would-be bomber was part of a gang who appeared at Luton Crown Court in February 1996 and pleaded guilty to several charges.

It is believed that when Ibrahim appeared in court with two of his accomplices he had already received a three-year prison sentence from a court in north London for similar offences.
At Luton, he pleaded guilty to a charge of attempted robbery, one charge of robbery and another count of handling stolen goods.

He got one year, two years and another two years respectively to run concurrently, but in addition to the previous sentence.

Jermayne Lindsay died in the worst of the suicide attacks -- a subway bomb that killed at least 26 people between King's Cross and Russell Square stations. Former schoolfriends of Lindsay, who grew up in Rawthorpe, Huddersfield, said that he visited Afghanistan four years ago and returned to Britain as a hardline Muslim. The police are known to have been looking losely at Lindsay’s connections in the Luton area.

Abdullah Shaheed Jamal when he converted to Islam at the same time as his mother when he was sixteen, it is said he may have may have been the most senior of the four bombers.There are reports (unconfirmed) that Lindsay / Jamal was tracked by federal authorities to the United States in 2000. His mother had been living in Cleveland, Ohio, in the late 1990s.For the last six months he was living with his partner in a small rented semi-detached house in Aylesbury. Jermaine Lindsay's partner Samantha Lewthwaite, 22, mother of his one-year-old son, is expecting her second baby very soon.

It is known that the three other bombers travelled from West Yorkshire to London via Luton in a hire car. After they detonated their devices to deadly effect, further bombs were found at Luton station in Jamal's red Fiat car.

One officer said that Lindsay appeared to have links with criminal activity in the town.

Luton has also been a hotbed of radical Islamist activity for several years, with extremist groups such as al-Muhajiroun having an influence over young Muslims there.

Last year several arrests were made in Luton in connection with another anti-terrorist operation in August 2004 when 13 arrests were made across the country. Details cannot be reported because it is the subject of a forthcoming criminal trial.

Lindsays bank became suspicious before the 7/7 attacks and hired a private firm to examine his finances, said detective Noel Hogan, managing director of Hogan and Co. Intl. Hogan said one of the purchases he examined was a large amount of perfume (said to be £900). He said the company contacted police once Lindsay's name was publicly linked to the attacks.

---------
The men arrested and charged in the August 2004 Anti - terror raids were ;

A - Dhiren BAROT (19/12/71 - aged 32) of Willesden, London.

B - Omar Abdur REHMAN (17/12/83 - aged 20) of Bushey, Hertfordshire.

E - Mohammed Ul HAQ (7/10/78 - aged 25) of Paddington, London.

F - Abdul Aziz JALIL (22/4/73 - aged 31) of Luton, Bedfordshire.

H - Nadeem TARMOHAMED (19/5/78 - aged 26) of Willesden, London.

I - Mohammed Naveed BHATTI (16/1/80 - aged 24) of Harrow, Middlesex.

J - Quaisar SHAFFI (30/8/78 - aged 25) of Willesden, London.

L - Junade FEROZE (18/8/75 - aged 28) of Blackburn, Lancashire.

All eight appeared in custody at Bow Street Magistrates‚ Court, sitting at Belmarsh, on Wed. 18 August 04. On conspiracy charges to commit murder and possession of illegal substances.Details

A ninth man [D] - Matthew Philip MONKS (3/10/71 - aged 32) of Sudbury, London - is being charged with possession of a prohibited weapon - apparently a Brocock air pistol, a favourite amongst low level criminals since it works with individual pressurised gas cartridges, and can be converted to fire real pistol ammunition. (BBC Radio Manchester web page withdrawn)

Be There in the Square

Parliament Square August 1, 2pm
The government has introduced, from 1st August an exclusion order for the area around Parliament under the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 This zone prohibits demonstrations, even one-person demonstrations, unless the police expressly permit them. Failure to comply can lead to arrest. The zone covers a very wide area around Parliament as far as the London Eye, Charing Cross embankment and up to (although not including) Trafalgar Square.

The new zone is ostensibly to deal with th protest since June 2001, of anti war protester Brian Haw who is camped in Parliament Square. That in itself is a denial of his right to protest and should be opposed. But the exclusion order’s range will prohibit a large number of other protests outside Parliament, Downing St and government buildings.

Note - Guradian - Westminster war protester wins right to stay: The court ruled that legislation being brought in to control demonstrations around the Houses of Parliament did not apply to 56-year-old Mr Haw. The new rules state that, from August 1, anyone wanting to demonstrate in the area must have authorisation from the police "when the demonstration starts". Lawyers for Mr Haw pointed out that his demonstration had actually "started" four years ago and therefore he did not have to apply for authorisation.

To add your support for this protest please call / email the office on 0207 278 6694 or office@stopwar.org.uk and turn up.See also Bloggerheads for more details

Qat - a Somali / Ethiopian / Yemen problem

Herbal Stimulant Use Increases in the U.K.

May 7, 2001: Qat (Catha edulis) is a perennial shrub traditionally cultivated in Ethiopia, The Yemen and Kenya, where it is an important cash crop.

The fresh leaves, when chewed, release a complex of alkaloids, which are known as pseudoephedrines because they have effects resembling those of the stimulant ephedrine (adrenalin). Two main constituents have been isolated, canthin and canthinone, both of which have a molecular structure similar to that of amphetamine.

Ethiopians and Somalis living in the UK can buy qat leaves in various parts of London and Manchester for about £4 (US$6) per bunch. Use of qat is often a social affair, traditionally restricted to single sex groups. It is now common for mixed groups to partake, although this is frowned on by elders in the Somali community who believe that it may lead to lewd behavior.

Is it legal to buy, sell and own qat?
The UK Government issued a report in 1998 examining the use of qat by members of Britain's immigrant Somali and Ethiopian communities (Griffiths, 1998). Use of qat in Britain was not banned following this report, although it is banned in the US, Canada, Norway and Sweden, where it is sold illicitly.

It is said that over 7 tons of qat pass through Heathrow airport each week,(this was 2001 when I reserached this) mainly from Kenya, and is on sale in London within 24 hours of harvesting.

Cathin and cathinone are controlled drugs and covered by the UK Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. So in the UK the use of qat is an anomaly. Participants do not think it should be illegal and research suggests that chewing leaves for about 3 hours has about half the effect of medically administered amphetamines.

History
Recorded since the 13th Century in Arabian writings, it has been used in the way that coca leaves have been used by working people in Latin America to aid them in manual work. It is especially popular in Muslim nations where alcohol is forbidden.

Risks
About 6% of the UK's Ethiopian and Somali immigrant community members use qat daily and have a dependent habit. Griffiths (1998) found that 85% of 207 respondents reported tiredness, depression and difficulty sleeping after using qat. A study by Krikorian (1983) found qat use associated with dental and oral problems, gastro-intestinal disturbances, increased risk of liver disease, cardiovascular effects and complications in pregnancy and childbirth. Anecdotal evidence suggests that qat causes consitipation. Thus, it is said that when qat-use in Aden was banned by British military authorities during the 1950's there was a huge reduction in over the counter sales of laxatives.




References
(1) Paul Griffiths. 1998. Qat use in London: a study of qat use among a sample of Somalis living in London. Drugs Prevention Initiative Paper No. 26. Home Office, Central Drugs Prevention Unit. London, 101 p.

(2) Krikrian, A.D. 1983. Khat and it's use: An historical perspective. In The Health and Socio-economic Aspects of Khat Use. Eds. Shahandeh, B., R. Gaeda and A. Tongue. Conference proceedings, Madagascar. Lausanne: ICAA

Interestingly this was raised in the House of Commons in early June as follows ;


Hansard 8 Jun 2005 : Column 183WH
Mike Gapes (Ilford, South) (Lab/Co-op): I draw attention to this issue because of constituency reasons. Eight weeks ago, I was on a tube train on the Jubilee line in central London in the middle of a weekday afternoon when three young men who were probably 14, 15 or 16 years old got on to the train, carrying between them a large plastic bag containing stalks with leaves. They proceeded to spend the whole journey picking the leaves and chewing them. It was the first time that I had ever seen that on a tube train, and I wondered what the significance of it was. The three young men were clearly intoxicated and in their own world, taking part in something that was important to them.

The young men were Somali. During the recent election campaign, I had lots of discussions with members of my local Somali community. After that, I thought that it was important to raise this issue as early as possible in this Parliament. People in my Somali community in Ilford tell me that the consumption of khat—there are at least 40 different words for the substance in different languages—is a growing social and community problem. It is not just a problem for the Somali community, because it is not only Somalis who are chewing the leaves of this shrub. It is a wider problem, which could become serious unless the Government take some action to deal with it.

A newspaper in Milton Keynes reported on 3 February that people from Milton Keynes had been arrested in the United States. It said:

"Travellers from Milton Keynes have been turned back at US airports after trying to smuggle in the drug qat . . .
.....It is understood armed American customs officers caught at least five "mules"—recruited in Milton Keynes—with the leafy narcotic in their luggage during the last 12 months."

Those interested may read the debate - apparently a Home Office report is due later this year although promised for "Summer 2005".

Basic Instincts in the struggle with evil ideology

The Soaraway Sun 29/7/05

Sir Ian Blair seizes sword from terrorists unarmed and alone

Yahoo ran a wonderful story last week “London Police Chief Reaches Out to Muslims”
Sir Ian Blair appealed to Muslims to join the police but then went on to explain somewhat paradoxically "It is not the police, it is not the intelligence services who will defeat terrorism, it is communities who will defeat terrorism." Metropolitan Police Commission Ian Blair told a gathering at the Minhaj-ul-Quran Mosque.

"We've got nearly a million Muslims in London ... I've only got 300 Muslim police officers in London. I'm afraid that's not good enough.”

"I need your mothers and your fathers, your brothers and your sisters, your sons and your daughters."

Blair urged the Muslim community to change its attitude toward radical clerics such as Abu Hamza al-Masri, who is in prison awaiting trial for allegedly encouraging the murder of Jews and other non-Muslims, and Syrian-born Sheikh Omar Bakri Mohammad, spiritual leader of the radical Muslim movement Al-Muhajiroun.

"You're going to have move away from the very understandable position that lunatics like Bakri and Hamza are just lunatics and they're not important," Blair said.

“We have to find ways in which we identify the young men and sometimes women who are vulnerable to extremism. That is a great challenge."

Blair said there was "nothing wrong with being a fundamentalist Muslim," or a fundamentalist of another faith.

"The key issue is the slide into extremism," he said…. Which to many listening probably includes calling people who represent dissenting voices, .. er .. “lunatics”. Of course it may require a lawyer to explain why the Chief of the Metropolitan Police finds it necessary to describe the defendent in a current court case a "lunatic" or if it might be considered to be seen as prejudicial to the defendents case.

Curiously this story was illustrated with picture of Sir Ian visiting the Sikh community at Gurdwara Dasmesh Darbar on the same day.

True to form he has been seduced by political correctness to wear (wholly inappropriately, a turban and so look a complete twat). He is pictured holding the "Kirpan" which is a sign of justice and it was presented to him to help fight the injustices in London. it was presented to him by (left to right:) Harjinder Singh and Gurdeep Singh. (AP Photo / Edmond Terakopian, PA)

A very profitable day all round for our Top Cop…. It shows how he really has his finger on the pulse of multi - cultural, multi - faith Britain. Does he, I ask myself, suggest to the Archbishops those of their flock who call for lady Bishops, or the introduction of gay marriage by the Church, ..er ..”lunatics”.

Does he perhaps suggest to the Roman Catholic heirachy , that those of their followers who object to abortion are "lunatics" ?

I am delighted that the Police in London are led my a man of such vision, tact, understanding and subtlety of expression.

Fucking insanity .. The Killer Cops

I have just watched the BBC 1 debate on terror, fronted by Huw Edwards with Sir Ian Blair, David Davis etc., Janet ( I am the Voice of Unreason and I smoke about 300 cigarettes a week) Daly, the token woman (?) the token American.

We are told that the decision to execute Menezes was a "split nano second decision" - this by legendary mastermind polymath and all round rentagob Daly !

Bollocks Mi Lord ! (Lord Falconer ex flatmate and for all I know bed mate and soul mate of Tony "Dear Leader" Blair and now Lord Hi Pooh Ba etc., ) is of the panel.

It took a team of at least 20 (and probably many more) "highly trained Police / secret service / SAS (?), Israeli Advisors etc 29 minutes to watch the victim's journey. The decision that he was wearing explosive material was made long before the Plain Clothes officers chased him into and through the station, down the escalator and onto the train (which had been kept waiting by the driver with open doors on instruction) and they held him down and shot him eight times in the back of his head.

... Furthermore these "highly trained officers" then chased the poor fucking , driver , no doubt frightened shitless, up the rail tunnel, held him against the wall with a gun (presumably loaded and cocked to fire) to his head.

Four hours later Sir Ian Blair, who sat there on the panel, so quietly cocky and confident, was the same imbecile who 4 hours after the STockwell public execution declared that Menezes (Who hadn't been publicly identified by then - presumably not helped by the 7 exit wounds on the front of what remained of his head) was "connected with the bombing", which he subsequently Jesuitically claimed, (when it became apparent what a complete fuck-up the whole event was) meant he was "involved in the search for the bombers" i.e the poor mutt just happened to live in the same 13 story block of flats as someone , who may or may not have been a "suicide bomber".

It was the same Sir Ian Blair who later apologised and said what hard cheese it was for his family. You make omelettes - you break a few eggs... or at least that's a rough translation from the Hebrew of the Israeli Instruction book.

I reached for the "Off" button.

The Lunatics took over the asylum some time ago..it is evidently public policy that we need reminding ocasionally.

Scotland Yard man promoted

Daily Telegraph Online 17th July 2005 "We do not have hard evidence that the men were suicide bombers," a Scotland Yard spokesman said. "It is possible that they did not intend to die."

17th July 2005 David Harrison

Bus Eyewitnesses 7/7/2005..have they disappeared?

I count 20 people in the picture (Source BBC) , all who look perfectly capable of holding a conversation with an investigative reporter / journalist.

Have you seen any reports of any such conversation - you have of course seen repeatedly stories worldwide of "Mr Jones" who saw an olive skinned man in fancy pants digging into his bag and looking scared. There was a conversation on Radio 4 news on the day from a Dr Buckman who attended from a BMA meeting and reported 12 Dead, 12 seriously injured - since then nothing more.

As has been pointed out the Kingstar company owning the van in the foreground, undertale demolitions in a controlled fashion... go to their website.


The Athens News Report on 15th July says ;

Greek bus driver taken into hiding by police as key witness
The Greek driver of the bus blown up in one of the London attacks last Thursday is under police protection at a secret location the Athens News Agency reported yesterday. Giorgos Psaradakis, 47, survived the blast with minor injuries. The bus’s CCTV system was not working on the morning of the attacks so the Metropolitan Police consider Psaradakis a key witness to events leading to the explosion, which killed 13 people

Pic the Sun.

The Times Online has a remarkable story how Giorgos helped the passengers out and then walked seven miles in his blood spattered uniform before seeking hospital treatment !

All very mysterious - are these people sworn to secrecy ? If so, why ?

The ABC of bomb iconography - True Terror

Last night ABC News in America screened images of the damage left by the London bombs on July 7, and of unexploded devices found in a car parked at Luton railway station.

These pictures obtained by ABC News show the bombs for the first time. The bombs were made of homemade high-explosives. Some were packaged like pancakes. Some had nails for use as shrapnel. An x- ray picture of one of the bombs in the trunk of the car show a deadly concoction.

Take a good look at this picture, you are going to see it very frequently in the future.It is an artful, brilliant graphic icon - the product of a very good design studio.UK

This bomb was found 2 weeks ago and the Police / MI 5 / etc., decided to release the first pictures, not to the BBC, the State Broadcasting Corportaion, not to UK newspapers but an American TV station ... the same people who bought you the stories bollocks about "osmium tetroxide"...see Chemical delusions

Oooops! silly me, these bombs were of course in the boot (trunk to those readers in the ex colony of the US of A) of the 7/7 "suicide" bombers they left there with a 8 hour expiry time on the car park ticket. Now we'll hire this car, stuff it full of bombs drive it to Luton and THEN go and commit suicide?

Mark "Urbam" Myth on Newsnight last night (Wed 27/7) opines that the dupe theory won't work because the bombs exploded in the Underground tunnels which required self detonation - so that's the "duped" theory done with, extinguished, removed from public debate.

It might work ....?

"Mein Kampf " by George Bush & Tony Blair

A major shift in the language of conflict has commenced on both sides of the Atlantic this week. It is a shift we should note with concern, because it helps to mask another rasp on the ratcheting up of control over our freedoms of speech, thoughts and ideas.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and General Myers chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and as such the supreme military commander of US Forces worldwide,( and the guy who was shooting the Breeze with Congressman McLellan in his office whilst Manhattan burned, Across the Hudson river the Pentagon was blitzed and a field in Pennsylvania became the instant grave of hi-jacking Suadi terrorists and their passengers that clear September Morning in 2001) have spoken of "a global struggle against violent extremism" rather than "the global war on terror," which had been the catchphrase, the leitmotif, the cliché for almost any military activity anywhere that the US chose to use it. Hitler of course used the title for his autobiography of "Mein Kampf" ... My Struggle.


“War in Terror “ is evidently a phrase may has outlived its usefulness, not because it doesn’t frame the policy but it exposes the failure of that war, and hence the failure of the Military in fighting that war.

General Richard Myers, told the National Press Club on Monday (25/7) that he had "objected to the use of the term 'war on terrorism' before, because if you call it a war, then you think of people in uniform as being the solution."

He said the threat instead should be defined as violent extremism, with the recognition that "terror is the method they use."


Whilst military might has evidently failed – although that is not what he said, he saw that we need to use "all instruments of our national power, all instruments of the international communities' national power." The solution is "more diplomatic, more economic, more political than it is military," he concluded. i.e after having fumbled the ball too often, we military heroes are passing the ball to the Politicians.


The scuttlebut on the Hill from a swarm of spinners and Presidential apparatchicks says this reflects the evolution in Bush's own thinking nearly four years after the Sept. 11 attacks. It is also said to follow through from Bush's recent utterances emphasizing freedom, democracy and the worldwide clash of ideas.

To emphasise this shift in “thinking” ( a word we don’t often attribute to POTUS) Rumsfeld used the new language of deceit on Friday when addressing a an ausidence , for the retirement ceremony of Admiral Vern Clark as chief of naval operations at Annapolis, Maryland. Rumsfeld described America's heroic efforts as it "wages the global struggle against the enemies of freedom, the enemies of civilization."

Since then “Rummy” has jetted off to Iraq and been seen in photo ops with the token coloured female soldiers , he arrived there on a surprise visit via Tajikistan and Kyrgistan. Prompted by the joint July 5th announcement of Russia, China, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan in recommending a deadline for the withdrawal of U.S. and other foreign troops which the US had used the bases and had air access and overfly rights rights since the 2001 war in Afghanistan.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld held separate meetings with leaders in Kyrgyzstan, who promised continued base facilities in the country, and in Tajikistan, which permits flyover, fueling and emergency operations. The public assurances marked an official turnaround by the countries, both of which on July 5 joined Russia, China, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan in recommending a deadline for the withdrawal of U.S. and other foreign troops.

Most critical in the region was a commitment by Ismail Isakiv , Kyrgistan’s defence Minister Kyrgyzstan that U.S. forces can continue operations at the strategically important Manas (also called Ganci) air base. About 1,000 U.S. troops are stationed at the base, established near a civilian airport outside the capital of Bishkek in December 2001 to carry out refueling, airlift and fighter missions to support the war in Afghanistan.

In Dushanbe, the capital, of Tajikistan Rumsfeld met with President Imamali Rakhmonov, provided words of comfort for the US “war on terrorism”.
Foreign Minister Talbak Nazarov appeared with Rumsfeld on the lawn of the Presidential dacha and confirmed Tajikistan's. "We intend to continue our active cooperation with the United States and other anti-terrorist coalition in terms of the anti-terrorist struggle,"

So no real change in the “War on terrorism” in central Asia then. Military build up and carrots and sticks for the ruling despots.

In the real world of US and European politics this shift in language is one of the most public changes in the administration's strategy to battle Al Qaeda and its alleged affiliates, and it follows through from Bush's recent speeches emphasizing freedom, democracy and the worldwide clash of ideas. It is also echoed – surprise , surprise by the comments at a Press briefing by Tony Blair, lawyer and Prime Minister on 26th July at No 10 … QUOTE

“Again this is very difficult to say, but I want to say it to you nonetheless, people have got to be prepared to go into the Muslim community and say, what you are saying about America is rubbish. Now that is difficult because look, there are lots of people, there are people who write things in this country saying America has an evil foreign policy and all the rest of it, look leave aside whether it is right or wrong, American foreign policy or not, or British foreign policy, America is not acting to suppress Islam. People who are Muslims in America, or Muslims in this country, are entitled to worship. We have got to confront this in a more fundamental way, otherwise what happens is, and as I say I know this is a difficult thing to say but it has to be said I think otherwise you don't get to grips with this properly, we have got to be prepared to confront the ideas of these people as well as their means, their ends as well as their means. If you don't do that, you never get to the heart of this, because what will always happen is that there will be people there who, if it is accepted as a matter of course, yes of course Israel shouldn't exist, yes American foreign policy is evil, yes what happened in Iraq or Afghanistan was designed to suppress Islam, if people accept those as ideas it is far less of a step into the extremism of terrorism. If you challenge the ideas, you challenge it at its roots”.

Steven Hadley, the US national security adviser is quoted in the International Herald Tribune " It's a global struggle against extremism. We need to dispute both the gloomy vision and offer a positive alternative."

Which is again reflected in our Dear leader’s remarks on Tuesday , in a chilling and telling way, displaying how this Christian zealot aligns with the defenders of Zion.

“There is only one side, it is the side of the people wanting a democracy. Yes of course that is what they want to do, what they want to do everywhere, the people who expound this terrorist ideology, they want to divide us. That is why I don't even agree actually Michael that in the end they just want us out of Arab countries, they don't, it is far more fundamental than that, they want a war between Islam and other religions, that is what they want, that is why they keep to referring to this as the crusader Zionist alliance and all this sort of rubbish. That is what they want, they want a situation in which we end up being divided..”

Again and again he returns to the belief in an ideological struggle..

“There is no justification for suicide bombing ….. the ideology of this evil. Not just the methods but the ideas. When we actually have people going into the communities here in this country and elsewhere and saying I am sorry, we are not having any of this nonsense about it is to do with what the British are doing in Iraq or Afghanistan, or support for Israel, or support for America, or any of the rest of it. It is nonsense, and we have got to confront it as that. And when we confront it as that, then we will start to beat it.”

This declared (and let’s face it, uncontested by anyone ) shift in emphasis won’t change policy one bit but is carefully designed ;

1. To stress to the public that the effort is not only military.
2. The unnerved leadership also wants / needs to reassure those in uniform (and their families) who complain that it is only the armed forces who are making the sacrifice for the war on terror.


Opinion polls highlight that the US voter is increasingly pessimistic about the mess / mission in Iraq, and show that many more now doubt it has anything to do with the much publicised counter - terrorism mission. The Administration (who have better spinners than the Australian Cricket team – and that’s an admission) is therefore trying to force the public to realise the broader, long-term threat to the United States and “put into perspective “, i.e diminish the daily mayhem in Iraq and the mounting military casualties which increasingly form a slice of TV news. Indeed there has been such an emphasis on the events in London , that one suspects this is to blank out the recent carnage in Baghdad. (Incidentally did you see that the first pics, inside the ruined Tube trains was first seen by the US public on ABC TV ?) It also helps of course to internationalise the “struggle” – a modest plus which conspiracy theorists might sieze on as evidence of authorship for the slaughter on London Transport.


Douglas Feith, the under secretary of defense for policy, who with his father were hugely responsible for the Zionist neo-con sea change in US foreign policy which was engineered into place by 9/11 is quoted in an interview that if America's restricted itself "protecting the homeland and attacking and disrupting terrorist networks, you're on a treadmill that is likely to get faster and faster with time." The key to "ultimately winning the war," he said, "is addressing the ideological part of the war that deals with how the terrorists recruit and indoctrinate new terrorists." Which on analysis means , keep up smashing the anti-Zionists in the Middle East – and making there life even more difficult here in the UK.

In the most reported sound and sight bite of his Press Conference, at which he gave a bravura performance, our Dear Leader chose a striking metaphor..

“ (On 9/11 )… a lot of the world woke up for a short time and then turned over and went back to sleep again. And we are not going to deal with this problem, with the roots as deep as they are, until we confront these people at every single level. And not just their methods, but their ideas.”

In a million saloon bars, and golf clubs the heads nodded in agreement..of course it’s their ideas we must attack, extreme views, books, the Internet… and secretly the members of Parliament whose members are elected to protect our interests, .. sit down and tick off the Policemen’s shopping list, at the behest of police men like Blair of the Yard, who can 4 hours after the event, barefacedly lie that a man lying dead with 8 bullets in his head, mercilessly shot by his men was “connected with the terrorist bombings”.

The language not only shifts, but with it the increasing stranglehold on liberty and ideas. For a pessimistic view on the solipsistic universe that our dear leader has connection with, listen to a man who has seen his rise from closer than many… Sir Roy Hattersley, the former deputy Labour leader,

"The ultimate justification for the war in Iraq - when it was no longer possible to pretend that weapons of mass destruction were only 45 minutes away - was that Blair's conscience allowed no other course of action.”

"The notion of accepting a view other than his own has never entered his head."

Mein Kampf indeed

Also on this topic see Pissed off Patricia at Blondesense - Do I have to declare a struggle on you ?

Men on the Moon ? The Ultimate conspiracy

Obsessed with public executions, bombs, Acetone peroxide, the Blair twins PR Roadshow explaining why they haven't er... actually managed to nab any of the miscreants...well shattering new Satellite imagery now available and just released reveals the cause for the concerns expressed about Armstrong and Aldrin's celestial Cook's tour in 1969. One mall step for man ? One BIG lie for mankind ?

“I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important for the long-range exploration of space; and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish.”

“I believe we should go to the moon.”
President John F. Kennedy, Speech to Congress. May 25, 1961


Oh yeah ? Now we have the space shuttle today, to try to (re) launch the flagging NASA budgets.

Goto this Link select Apollo 11 voyage (the first "trip" and using zoom bar on left of screen increase by steps to maximum (more memory the better)for the details that have been kept from us about space exploration.

The truth about the moon which cannot be kept secret any longer.

HM Government announces “No Bomber Left Behind” Policy

In several announcements today the UK Government made it clear that the NBLB (just a bloodied mess) policy which had been covertly introduced by the previous Chief Constable of the Metropolitan Police Lord Stevens, as “Operation Kratos” would continue and if necessary be extended. What this policy involves is what the elite members of London's finest , SO19 , call the "the shot of excellence."
It's a single gunshot through the mouth that snaps the spinal cord and instantly kills a suspected suicide bomber. It is the essence of Operation Kratos, so-named for the Greek god of strength.

The guidelines also call for up to four more shots -- five in total and all to the head -- to immediately immobilize a suspected suicide bomber.

The rationale for this seemingly brutal approach is simple: a twitching, barely alive suicide bomber is still capable of detonating an explosion in the remaining moments of his life even if he has a body full of bullets.


Mr Blair (Prime Minister) said at 10 Downing Street today …

”…we also have to understand the police are doing their job in very very difficult circumstances and I think it is important that we give them every support and that we understand that had the circumstances been different and for example, this had turned out to be a terrorist and they had failed to take that action (i.e wasted the poor struggling bastard as he lay pinned down after 28 minutes of intense observation by “highly trained police”), they would have been criticised …..”

Foreign Minister Jack Straw defended the police involved in the shooting …

"These very brave officers, on behalf of the citizens of London, were pursuing somebody they had good reason to believe was involved in this terrorist outrage,"

he said… apparently they didn’t have good reason to dish out summary justice and execute him publicly. On BBC Radio Straw said,

"It is obviously deeply regrettable but what we have to appreciate is the very intense pressure under which the police officers have to work." Straw added, "We have to ensure that clear rules are operated but we also, tragically, have to ensure that the police do have effective discretion to deal with what could be terrorist suicide outrages about to take place. That's the dilemma."

Home Secretary Charles Clarke didn’t see any need for a change in policy,

"I don't think that means they are wrong to have a policy to deal with these appalling circumstances. I wish we didn't have to, I wish we didn't have suicide bombers but we do. And we have to find means of combating them."

He probably also wishes he didn’t have to interrupt his holiday plans and stay back in London whilst his family swans off to the sun.

Lord Stevens, previously Chief Constable of the Metropolitan PoliceLondon police commissioner, wrote in Sunday's News of the World (one of Rupe’s rags) that he had sent teams for training to Israel and other countries hit by suicide bombers. There, he said, he had learned that,

"There is only one sure way to stop a suicide bomber determined to fulfil his mission: destroy his brain instantly, utterly."

Sir Ian Blair current Chief Constable of the Met. was pressed in an interview on Rupe’s Sky News about whether a repeat of the killing of Jean Charles de Menezes was possible. He said:

"Well somebody else could be shot.
"Everything is done to make it right, but you know this is a terrifying set of circumstances for individuals to make decisions in.”
"I mean, the important point here is there's nothing gratuitous in what's going on, there's nothing, you know, cavalier here. There's no conspiracy to shoot people.”
"I am very aware that minority communities are talking about a shoot-to-kill policy. It is only a shoot-to-kill-in-order-to-protect policy. There is no point in shooting at someone's chest because that is where the bomb is likely to be.
"There is no point in shooting anywhere else if they fall down and detonate it. The only way to deal with this is to shoot to the head.”
"I think we are quite comfortable the policy is right but these are fantastically difficult times. We have to take this tragedy, deeply regret it and move on to the main investigation which is proceeding at an extraordinary pace."

For those who may be confused, Yes, this is the same man who, hours after the shooting of the inoccent, Jean Charles de Menezes , told the blatant , unequivocal, unambiguous lie, that the shooting was "directly linked to the ongoing and expanding anti-terrorist operation."


Peter Hain, the secretary for Northern Ireland, put it more bluntly in televised remarks on Sunday, offering a message to the police officers: "They have our full support." Government minister Peter Hain said the threat of suicide bombings had put police under "enormous pressure", but added that they were acting responsibly.
Mr Hain The Minister for Northern Ireland (not forgetting Wales) knows all about gun toting terrorists . Last week Craig McCausland, 20, was shot dead at the house he shared with his partner and two children in north Belfast.

Mr McCausland’s mother, Lorraine, was believed to have been beaten to death by members of the loyalist Ulster Defence Association in March 1987 near a drinking club. Craig’s death is said to result from a feud between Ulster Volunteer Force and the rival Loyalist Volunteer Force, which has already claimed two lives in the city.

Earlier this month 25-year-old Jameson Lockhart was gunned down as part of the feud as he worked on a building site in east Belfast.SSShhhhh…we musn’t mention the continuing violence, deaths, massive bank robberies, prostitution and protection rackets, drug dealing, VAT and Excise fraud that is a daily experience in Northern Ireland where the sanction is that the Northern Secretary Peter Hain could say last week, that he “was considering withholding the party’s Assembly allowance for another year following a report in May which indicated the UVF and Red Hand Commando remain involved in organised crime, violent and active.”
So, no 8 slugs in what little brains the Loyalist mad dogs have then.

Ken Livingstone, the London mayor and a longtime champion of civil liberties, and no stranger to the Terrorists in Westminster, defended the police officers involved in the execution of Jean Charles de Menezes, said in a statement released on Saturday night (23/7) that the terrorists, not the police, were to blame.. he said:

"The police acted to do what they believed necessary to protect the lives of the public. This tragedy has added another victim to the toll of deaths for which the terrorists bear responsibility,"

Mr Blair can even look across the House to find allies, as the waggons are circled around Westminster, "I'm proud we have a Prime Minister who knows what he's doing," David Cameron, a leading contender ofe the Conservative Party leadership, told Rupe’s Sky News TV on Sunday. He said this was not a time to play politics, adding, "We are all in this together."

Ann Cryer, a Labour member of the Commons Home Affairs committee told the Financial Times (to her eternal credit) that she was not “knocking” the police officer who killed Jean Charles de Menezes but…

“We mustn’t automatically go down the path of shoot-to-kill. We are taking on the mantle of terrorists if we do that. We are playing by their rules. We can’t lower ourselves to that standard.
“We have to uphold British justice . . . We still have the courts system . . . They [suspects] must be apprehended, prosecuted and where found guilty they must be punished. I would never support a shoot-to-kill policy.”

Calling for clarification of the police guidelines on shoot-to-kill, she sympathised with the officer put in the position of shooting Mr de Menezes in the belief that he was a suicide bomber. Ms Cryer was backed by other colleagues on the committee Gwyn Prosser, another Labour and Nick Harvey, a Liberal Democrat.

Tony Blair will meet U.K. opposition party leaders (26/7) to discuss plans for new anti-terrorism legislation after Parliament returns from its summer recess on Oct. 9. Conservative Party leader Michael Howard and Liberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy have both supported Blair in his response to the London terror attack.

``There is absolutely no doubt that these terrorists will use Iraq as a reason,'' Blair said. ``They used different justifications. The roots of this are deeper. Nothing can excuse or justify what they have done.''

Meanwhile the Met. will have along way to go to meet the achievements of the NYPD (New York’s finest – who maintain a presence in London, which has been beefed up since 7/7 see NYPD Website) in 199 when four NYPD officers shot at Amadou Diallo 41 times, hitting him fatally 19 times, while standing at the door of his house. They thought he was going for gun and was actually taking out his wallet. At the trial which was shifted to upstate Albany NY resulted in the officers being found innocent of any wrongdoing.

On June 4th 2000 in Atlanta, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street band introduced a song "American Skin (41 Shots)". The lyrics do not explicitly mention Diallo, they refer to 41 shots, confusing a wallet with a gun, and suspects being shot for reasons of race. Shortly thereafter, the New York City Patrolmans Benefit Organisation called for a Boycott of Springsteen's concerts in the city.

Let’s hope Chumbawumba don’t decide to write a song.

Stockwell Tube - what happened ?

Bob Crow General Secretary RMT Union

Press release 22nd July 2005

“Their concerns will have been fuelled by the revelation that an innocent Tube driver today found himself with a police gun at his head during the incident in Stockwell station in which a suspect was shot dead.

“No apology could ever be enough ever take away the trauma that that driver has suffered and there should be a full inquiry into the handling of the incident,”

Naturally press / media reports have been confused and confusing. "Official" statements have been minimal.

I saw the story that the train driver escaped from the train and ran into the tunnel and was there held up against the wall, by a highly trained plain clothes "policeman" who drawing on his extensive training, took a split millisecond decision not to pump him full of lead.

I think this driver , has like other eye witnesses, a tale to tell. Who gave the orders to delay the train ? Why ? Who gave orders to shut / open doors. Why ? Why did the driver leg it ?

Urban Myths

This is Mark " I know fucking everything about, spies, spooks, weapons, plots, bombers, plastique etc etc " Urban. Ex Army with the quizzical raised left eyebrow and the mufti shirt and tie.
This man is dangerous, he spreads disinformation / misinformation and unadulerated bullshit (Newsnight Friday 22nd 10.50) e.g Of the "Bomber on the Empty Bus" CCTV pic (courtesy HMG and the Met) he points to the device in the (heavily Photoshopped) left hand as a trigger. This would be a simple device he explains to the simple minded. It would also to the simple minded have to be attached to a fucking long piece of wire to detonate the bomb as Bill the "Blackie" Bomber left the bus and it detonated 13 minutes later. To the even simpler minded it looks like a mobile phone which people may occasionally be seen clutching.

He then points to the picture taken later of the Fitness First bag on the bus and a Gold and Black Duracell battery on the seat (He doesn't mention that this photo is courtesy of a resident and keen photgrpaher (not HMG and the Met) who lived right by the bus and took the picture, and what could be Jiffy bags (and slipping into industrial chemist mode he sagely remarks) "to insulate the unstable acetone peroxide".

Does this guy do sophisticated chemical analysis by mind reading ? 2 weeks and the forensic chappies still don't or won't tell us what the 7/7 bombs were made of.

Remember the BBC is part of the State apparatus - the World Service is funded by the Foreign (and is indeed part of it) Office.

You have beem warned. ... this also applies to every ex member of the Army (especially the SAS / SBS) Diplomat, Civil Servant, Academic they have perform like poodles to promote the party line.

Keeping Score

7/7 4 bombs - 53 deaths 200 injured, 50 seriously
21/7 4 "bombs"

1 man arrested and held for 14 days and released without charge - His name is Nadeem Fiez and he ws in charge of the Hamara centre in Leeds - you will not find his name in any official statements - or on the BBC Website.

2 unknown men from Stockwell area arrested and being held without charge.

1 Brazilian electrician shot five times in the head in public.

1 Inoccent Tube train driver has gun held to head by plain clothes Police at Stockwell tube (added 23/7/05)


``There, of course, will now be the most intense police and security service action to make sure we bring those responsible to justice." Tony Blair Prime Minister 7th July 2005