Be sceptical. Be very, very sceptical.

In response to Dave's contribution about the ricin that wasn't , perhaps 
Craig Murray theory on the present situation  is totally on the wrong track 
and there was a serious conspiracy to blow up planes with liquid explosives 
but it is an antidote to the tabloids and so -called respectable press 
hysteria by someone who was once in the loop .We shall wait and 
see -------alan johnstone , edinburgh br


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.

We then have the appalling political propaganda of John Reid, Home 
Secretary, making a speech warning us all of the dreadful evil threatening 
us and complaining that "Some people don't get" the need to abandon all our 
traditional liberties. He then went on, according to his own propaganda 
machine, to stay up all night and minutely direct the arrests. There could 
be no clearer evidence that our Police are now just a political tool. Like 
all the best nasty regimes, the knock on the door came in the middle of the 
night, at 2.30am. Those arrested included a mother with a six week old baby.

For those who don't know, it is worth introducing Reid. A hardened Stalinist 
with a long term reputation for personal violence, at Stirling Univeristy he 
was the Communist Party's "Enforcer", (in days when the Communist Party ran 
Stirling University Students' Union, which it should not be forgotten was a 
business with a very substantial cash turnover). Reid was sent to beat up 
those who deviated from the Party line.

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

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

Be sceptical. Be very, very sceptical.



      August 17, 2006
      Hitting a nerve

      I appear to have hit a nerve with my call for a sceptical view of the 
alleged "bigger than 9/11" plot. Over 50,000 people so far have read the 
item on my own blog, and it has been quoted and reposted all over the web.

      In the UK, at least, the more serious wing of the mainstream media is 
beginning to catch up with the idea that all is not well here.

      Still, after eight days of detention, nobody has been charged with any 
crime. For there to be no clear evidence yet on something that was 
"imminent" and "Mass murder on an unbelievable scale" is, to say the least, 
rather peculiar. The 24th person, who was arrested amid much fanfare 
yesterday, has been quietly released without charge today. Breaking news, 
another "suspect" has just been released too.

      The drip, drip of information to the media from the security services 
has rather dried-up. The last item of any significance was that they had 
found a handgun and a rifle - neither of which could have been in any use in 
the alleged plot. If you were smuggling undetectable liquid explosive onto a 
plane, you would be unlikely to give the game away by tucking a rifle into 
your hand baggage.

      As with the murder some years ago of the uncle of the suspect held in 
Pakistan, it remains a possibility that there could be some criminal 
activity here involving a few of the suspects, which is not terrorist 
linked.

      As the Police immediately told the press about the guns, it is a 
reasonable deduction that it remains true that they still have found no 
bombs or detonators, or they would have told us, particularly as they 
haven't charged anyone yet. They must be getting pretty desperate to 
announce some actual evidence by now.

      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?

      This has a peculiar resonance for me. I spoke at the annual Stop the 
War conference a couple of months ago. I referred to the famous ricin plot. 
For those outside the UK, this generated the same degree of hype here two 
years ago. It was alleged that a flat in North London inhabited by Muslims 
was a "Ricin" factory, manufacturing the deadly toxin which could kill 
"hundreds of thousands of people". Police tipped off the authorities that 
traces of ricin had been discovered. In the end, all those accused were 
found not guilty by the court. The "traces of ricin" were revealed to be the 
atmospheric norm.

      The "intelligence" on that plot had been extracted under torture in 
Algeria - another echo here, as the "intelligence" in this current case has 
almost certainly been extracted under torture in Pakistan. Another police 
tip-off to the media was that the intelligence had been stored in plastic 
jars, and they had indeed found plastic jars containing a suspicious 
substance. It turned out the containers in question were two Brylcreem tubs. 
What was in them? In the first, paper clips. In the second, Brylcreem.

      I told the story in my speech, and concluded with a ringing "So we 
must congratulate the government for saving us from a dastardly Islamic plot 
to take over the World using hair styling products."

      I fear the government may have taken me seriously!

      I do not discount the possibility that there is a germ of something 
behind the current alleged plot. Will it be anything like the hype? No.

      The hype scarcely lowers. On the flagship ten o'clock news last night, 
the BBC reported breathlessly on the United flight diverted from Washington 
to Boston last night, and its fighter escort. We had very earnest besuited 
security experts terrifying us about the dangers.

      The extraordinary thing was that, by this stage, we knew definitely 
that this was a 60 year old woman with claustrophobia, who had a few loose 
matches and some Vaseline intensive care hand lotion in the bottom of her 
handbag. The facts reported were totally at odds with the whole manner of 
the "be terrified" report and the analysis being built on it. But that 
didn't stop them.

      It has, of course, worked. When did you last see Iraq on the news? 
Where is Liebermann's defeat now on the news agenda?

      A blog like this is much too small a player to affect the public mood. 
What it can do is tap into it. The extraordinary response to these posts 
shows that there is a very significant section of the public not prepared to 
buy more Bush/Blair propaganda.



http://www.craigmurray.co.uk/



From: "balmer_dave" <balmer_dave@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <WSM_Forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>