London Car Bomb Story Stinking Up Already
The official story has moved from the the car was driven erratically before crashing into bins, the driver fled the scene, and then the police were called, to: an ambulance crew noticed fumes in the car and alerted police.
Can't have it both ways, can we?
In any case, I suppose the authorities like the idea of "dumb" terrorists very much-- it makes them look like they are keeping the really bad guys from attacking while there is still a threat from these stupid-terrorist tricks that they can keep playing up for the fear factor.
Can't have it both ways, can we?
In any case, I suppose the authorities like the idea of "dumb" terrorists very much-- it makes them look like they are keeping the really bad guys from attacking while there is still a threat from these stupid-terrorist tricks that they can keep playing up for the fear factor.
posted by spooked at 2:54 PM
16 Comments:
Of course just a coincidence that Gordon Brown took over from Blair this week and almost immediately got his big chance to speak out against 'terrorism'. No doubt new legislation to follow.
MI5 were quick off the blocks with this one...
anipoids did 9/11!
Excellent point about Brown just taking over-- no better way to reinforce the agenda then a major terror scare.
When are countries around the world going to see that Islam is not a religion? It is an idealogy. It should not be treated legally as a religion. Any religion that promotes hurting and killing to eradicate others should not be considered a religion. Are we still in the dark ages? An "agenda" is not a modern religion.
wow good point 7:44!
we should just wipe out all muslims!
then who would be the bad guy?...
9:55:
1) No, that is not what he is saying. That is what you are saying. Nice job.
2), if the islamic fascists go away, then who would be the enemy?
You.
7:19,
1. how do you know that is not what he is saying? unless he was you.
2. my neighbor is muslim and says that the muslim faith actually forbids the killing of others and that he wouldn't dream of hurting or killing anyone.
i wonder what religion the neocons have cloaked themselves with while their *agenda calls for the spreading around of depleted uranium?
When are countries around the world going to see that Islam is not a religion? It is an idealogy. It should not be treated legally as a religion. Any religion that promotes hurting and killing to eradicate others should not be considered a religion. Are we still in the dark ages? An "agenda" is not a modern religion.
One could easily say the same thing about Christianity, really. That being said, I have no fondness for Islam-- or any religion. I think the vast majority of people of any religion are basically peaceful, good people, but there are evil and sick people found in any religion.
7:19
I didn't say that all Muslims should be killed. Whomever it was who DID post that comment should come forward and acknowledge their beliefs - whether it be h is for dumbshit, Early baby, or one of the other full-time Spooky-toe suckers here.
I don't expect that to happen in any way, shape or form, which just contributes to the notion that this is a piece of shit webpage where its supporters don't have the balls/guts to say anything that can be attributed to themselves.
" think the vast majority of people of any religion are basically peaceful, good people, but there are evil and sick people found in any religion."
These muslims would disagree with you....
http://inshallahshaheed.wordpress.com/
who are the real islamic fascists?
the poor people being blown to hell in iraq and afghan?
or the saudi bush pals?
i submit that the saudi bush pals are the one's keeping their people in the dark ages.
Imagine a plot device in a novel in which a terror attack is foiled because the car in which the bomb was placed was parked illegally and towed away. Would a publisher buy it? Maybe not. They would call it far-fetched, implausible, a little too cute. But sometimes the implausible happens. As Scott Macmann observed, “Truth makes better fiction.”
There are several lessons to be learned from the failed terrorist attacks in Britain. Some are obvious, such as the fact that the terrorists are still a threat, the war is still on. Also that the terrorists are seeking softer targets, which speaks to the effectiveness of hardening others. The Glasgow airport attack in particular illustrates this — despairing of actually getting on an airplane, the bad guys just rammed the gate with a Jeep Cherokee with a bomb in the back. It was not a well-planned or thought-out attack; the vehicle was hung up on the static defenses, which worked as intended. And did one of the perps really as was reported pour gasoline directly on an open flame? No wonder he ignited. These are not superstars.
One should also credit the intangibles. It was fortunate one car was towed, and that both bombs failed to detonate when they were supposed to. Luck was aided by the sloppiness of the terrorists who parked the car illegally and manufactured the faulty bombs. Heroism was also a factor, in the bravery of the policeman who defused the bomb still on site. Those who think that terrorism can be countered with cookie-cutter precision should note well the role chance plays in almost every such operation.
Some alleged lessons should not be learned. For example newly appointed international security advisor Lord Stevens said that the techniques were “imported from Baghdad,” since one of the alleged plotters (still at large) is an Iraqi. But surely car bombing is nothing new to London. The Israeli embassy in London was car-bombed on July 26, 1994. On June 25, 1992, the Provisional IRA used a car bomb near the London branch of the Chase Manhattan Bank. A car bomb was discovered near Harrods on December 17, 1983. The IRA frequently used car bombs in Northern Ireland, and an IRA splinter group car-bombed downtown Birmingham on November 2, 2001. The car bomb per se is not an Iraqi export.
What drew my attention was the intended set of targets in London, nightclubs and their patrons. This has been compared to the club bombings in Bali in 2002 and 2005, but the comparison is inexact. The Bali bombings were aimed at killing foreigners, and clubs happened to be where they congregated. An al Qaeda statement after the 2002 bombing stated that they were targeting “nightclubs and whorehouses in Indonesia” that are part of a “Jewish Crusader” alliance, and two of the bombers later stated that they sought vengeance for deaths of Muslims worldwide. But last week the targets were not foreigners clubbing in “Muslim lands,” they were young Londoners out having a good time. That alone was enough to condemn them in the eyes of the terrorists.
It is important to understand the contempt for life at the root of the jihadists’ ideology. Simply enjoying oneself is a capital offense. This was illustrated in the planned attacks of the al Qaeda-connected “Crevice” gang. Five cell members were sentenced to life this April for plotting mass mayhem in London, in particular targeting nightclubs with fertilizer bombs. Surveillance audio captured one conversation on February 22, 2004 in which cell members Omar Khyam and Jawad Akbar discuss potential targets and methods.
JAWAD AKBAR: “You could get jobs like this, yeah, like for example the biggest nightclub in central London. Where now here, yeah, now no one can even turn around and say ‘Oh they were innocent,’ — those slags dancing around.”
OMAR KHYAM: “If you got a job in a bar, yeah, or club, say the Ministry of Sound, what are you planning to do there then?”
JAWAD AKBAR: “Blow the whole thing up.”
OMAR KHYAM: “Right.”
Their target was “those slags dancing around.” This tells us that their objectives are not simply political, they go much deeper than that. The jihad is not about Britain’s Iraq policy, not some form of revenge for lack of economic opportunity, but is rooted in a basic rejection of the human spirit as expressed in any life-affirming activity.
This is a lineal extension of the beliefs of Sayyid Qutb, the Egyptian godfather of the contemporary jihadist movement. Qutb preached a form of radical asceticism which sought to negate most forms of earthly pleasure. He recorded his anti-fun epiphany in a 1951 book, The America I Have Seen, an account of his experiences while earning a master’s degree at the Colorado State College of Education, 1948-1950.
The scene was a church dance in the town Greely, Colorado in 1949. Someone put on a recording of “Baby, It’s Cold Outside,” which had just hit the charts that year. As Qutb described it, “The dance hall convulsed to the tunes on the gramophone and was full of bounding feet and seductive legs ... Arms circled waists, lips met lips, chests met chests, and the atmosphere was full of passion.”
Looks like everyone was having a great time. But, alas, not poor Sayyid, who already held his fellow students in contempt. The young men he considered sports-obsessed oafs. The women clearly intimidated him. “The American girl is well acquainted with her body’s seductive capacity,” he wrote. “She knows it lies in the face, and in expressive eyes, and thirsty lips. She knows seductiveness lies in the round breasts, the full buttocks, and in the shapely thighs, sleek legs — and she shows all this and does not hide it.”
Sounds like he needed a date badly. But from this point on Qutb was at war with what he defined as immorality. His followers have sought to externalize his biases and impose a rigid code of behavior on any people unfortunate enough to come under their sway.
So from this sock hop we get a global ideological struggle with terrorist fanatics? Well, there is more to it, clearly. But when Qutb’s ideological stepchildren seek to bomb nightclubs in London, when they assert that no one could believe that the “slags dancing around” could possibly be innocent victims, we see the same hatred, the same disdain, the same vision of a world in which enjoyment of any kind is by its nature sinful.
I was reminded of a story from Afghanistan in 2001. When the Taliban regime fell, a group of Northern Alliance fighters celebrated by playing music that previously had been banned. Some women soldiers began to dance. One of the younger men watched raptly, and then began to cry. He had never seen a woman dance before — he said it was the most beautiful thing he had ever witnessed. I thought then that this was a microcosm of the war and its meaning, the reason it was being fought and why it must be won. We see it again in London. This war is not simply a contest of grievances, or a difference of opinions, but a defense of the human spirit, of the right of people to express that spirit, to sing, to dance, to live.
— James S. Robbins is the director of the Intelligence Center for Academic Excellence at Trinity (Washington) University and author of Last in Their Class: Custer, Picket and the Goats of West Point. Robbins is also an NRO contributor.
7:47, this whole thing's being exposed and there's NOTHING you can do about it...call us toe-suckers, call us whatever you want...you're a SPOOK, a SHILL, everyone knows it...why should we reveal ourselves? so COINTELPRO or some Fed henchmen can lock us up? not happening...go eat a bowl of dicks, 7:47...i'll be the guy smiling when this whole fucking thing hits true public awareness...
are you sure that the iranians weren't behind this latest failed act of terror?
they are islamo fascists are they not?
Anonymous 1:04, the Iranians angle doesn't pass the 'who benefits?' test. This should be the first question any homicide detective should ask in a simple murder case, let alone something that can be used as a pretext (because it was designed to be). Anyway, nothing is really gained by terrorist acts as they only discredit the ones nominally responsible, so I should say nothing is really gained by the alleged perpetrators of it. (Quite the opposite in regard to the establishment however). It quickly gives the right-wing of a government a ready-made brush to tar usually 1.the alleged perpetrators and 2.more importantly, whatever larger, peaceful movement for change in whatever direction that can be falsely associated with the "terrorist" group. A great example is the "Jemaah Islamiya" group, which means basically "Islamic Community" in Indonesia, it's a group that was formed by the then-director of the Indonesian intelligence agency called BAKIN (then, now called BIN), Ali Murtopo. Originally called "Komando Jihad", it later became known as "Jemaah Islamiya". The formula is rather simple; "J.I." carries out a bombing, then the Indonesian ruling elite gets to condemn the "terrorists" and try to tar the whole peaceful movement for Islamic fundamentalism in Indonesia because it is an existential threat to the ruling elite's way of life, though not a workers' movement, it nevertheless deserves democratic expression at the ballot box if the people there want that. That's their choice if they want it, but it should be democratic, and this scares the Indonesian establishment, so they have BIN orchestrate a "J.I." bombing. The Algerian establishment does the same thing with its group formerly known as the "Salafist Group for Preaching & Combat" [G.S.P.C. in French initials] and now is "Al CIAda in the Maghreb" or some phony nonsense. Anyway it does the same thing for them but most of the people there are wise to it. Other countries do it too, including Britain and not just 7/7 and the pyrotechnics display later in relation to "Islamic terrorists" but also earlier against the I.R.A. British agents would plant bombs and blame them on the I.R.A. quite a few times. France had a phony "terrorist" group in its colonial war in Algeria, to try to tar the genuine resistance. Russia has had the Moscow apartment bombings blamed on "Chechen terrorists" and used as a pretext for Putin to reinvade its Chechnya province. Much further back, in the early 1930s Stalin had Kirov murdered and blamed it on a "terrorist" supposedly working for the "Old Guard" Bolsheviks and used it as an excuse for the purges that followed, complete with show trials just like the Cheney regime does in Guantanamo. And of course anyone who bothers to look into the details can tell that 9/11 was an inside job. So it's not a new idea or anything.
See also: The Manson Family, the "Weather Underground" and the "Symbionese Liberation Army" in the U.S. used for tarring the American Left.
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