What? No "Aren't our police wonderful" thread ... ???

[Bernie Gunther]

<snip> Terrorism isn't about damage in absolute terms.

No, it's about fear. As you correctly point out.

As far as achieving their declared objectives went, the London tube bombers failed utterly.

They did not change government policy on Iraq one iota. Compare them say with the IRA when they blew up the City of London and they look like utter failures.

Instead, their stupid mindless atrocity significantly helped our horrible government via the slavish media to play the race card in ways that would make even Maggie fucking Thatcher puke with self-disgust.

One only has to look at John Reid, frantically whipping up tabloid racial hysteria with blatantly staged media events like the one with that islamic radical heckler. A media stunt which he used to such great effect at the party conference a week or two later to bravely proclaim that he wouldn't be allowing any 'no go areas' in the UK. Does he give a shit how many lives are fucked up by the racial hatred he's deliberately whipping up to score a few more votes from credulous right-wing dimwits? Does he fuck. Is he thinking ahead of his leadership bid to the long-term consequences of the mass hysteria he's trying to whip up against muslims?

Is he fuck. He just wants to get some personal advantage out of it and doesn't care what damage he causes in the process. Fucking wanker.

 

[Backatcha Bandit]

No, it's about fear. As you correctly point out.

...their stupid mindless atrocity significantly helped our horrible government via the slavish media to play the race card in ways that would make even Maggie fucking Thatcher puke with self-disgust.

One only has to look at John Reid, frantically whipping up tabloid racial hysteria...

Call me 'crazy' if you like, but...

...I don't consider it anything to be proud of to be considered 'sane' on this planet.

 

[Backatcha Bandit]

I mean, this is a planet where (as I alluded to above) the Judge sentencing Barot tells us that he had “plans to bring indiscriminate carnage, bloodshed and butchery [to] the UK on a colossal and unprecedented scale” that would in reality have required him to purchase TEN MILLION SMOKE DETECTORS

Yet:

The UK Ministry of Defence tell us that there is no evidence that the countless tonnes of Uranium 238 with a half-life of 4.5 billion years spewed fourth onto and into the people of Iraq and into our own atmosphere in ceramic aerosol form is linked to ill health.

I mean, What The Fucking FUCK?

 

[Jazzz]

What the fucking hell do you twats want? Enough evidence to convince the defendant, advised by the defence lawyers, to plead guilty. That not "solid" enough evidence for you? That not "independent" enough for you? The plea guilty (i.e. agreement it is correct) not "corroboration" enough for you?

No, frankly it's not.

Newsnight carried a feature on the Bobby Kennedy assassination last night - a researcher had recently identified CIA operatives in the pictures - the point being though that Sirhan Sirhan was persuaded to plead guilty by his defence counsel, although the evidence overwhelmingly proved his innocence. He's still doing time for it now.

e2a - James Earl Ray is another case in point.

A friend of mine had a court case against the Bank of Scotland which was notable because he ran into a web of corruption, presumably masonic. Every solicitor he contacted said 'yeah don't worry, we'll write some letters get them off your back' then they would reply a few days later and say 'er sorry we can't help you.' He tried to auction the flat (subject of the case) and he'd get a bid, only to be later phoned by the auction house that the bid was 'a mistake'. The phone number would be misprinted in adverts. It was comical! But the most comical bit was that his defence team, when he got one, made several attempts to get him to drop his strong defence in favour of one which was totally hopeless. He refused, and his barrister (to his credit) pulled off a blinder on the first day of his hearing. He turned up on the second day to find that the judge had been 'double booked'.

It is far from impossible for a defense counsel to be subject to other influences than their client's best interests.

Or, they might just be hopeless.

 

[Jazzz]

The other problem with 'terror' cases like this with no actually hard stuff is that they are so easy to set up a patsy. Just get one impressionable chap to dream up a hare-brained scheme that he would never the ability or inclination to actually carry out, then get the police to nab him. Or indeed, simply plant the files. Job done.

 

[detective-boy]

It is far from impossible for a defense counsel to be subject to other influences than their client's best interests.

So sack him then. You instruct your lawyers, they take instructions from you.

 

[London_Calling]

Sayeth the beloved BBC:

Some people questioned how he can get such a heavy sentence when the explosives weren't actually found and it's not hard and fast proof that he actually had the funding in place.

But the overwhelming evidence that he's been convicted on is what's been found on hard drives of computers - often deleted files.

He'd done nothing in 10 years (since becoming involved with extremist groups) except write up some notes - or fantasies - on a PC.

And the best he'd come up with was Limo > gas cylinders > basement ?


Not exactly The Terminator, is he ?

 

[Jazzz]

So sack him then. You instruct your lawyers, they take instructions from you.

It's all very well to say that - but you will absolutely need to have your wits about you to do that. Who is going to advise you to do that? The type who makes a good patsy is not going to fire his defense team. He will follow their instructions whether good for him or not.

 

[detective-boy]

It's all very well to say that - but you will absolutely need to have your wits about you to do that. Who is going to advise you to do that? The type who makes a good patsy is not going to fire his defense team. He will follow their instructions whether good for him or not.

Whatever. It's pointless debating this issue with you. You see conspiracies everywhere. Do you ever believe anyone has ever done anything they are accused of?

 

[Bernie Gunther]

I do.

Pity that the guilty plea means none of this "overwhelming evidence" will be tested in court. The conspiracy he may be guilty of could be nothing more than wishful thinking. If there was any real plans or even the wherewithal to procure the ingredients for a "dirty bomb", he surely would have been charged with more than conspiracy.

There was no "plan" in any meaningful sense.

I don't think it necessarily means he's a patsy, but it doesn't really seem like he was a particularly credible threat, on the basis of the evidence we are allowed to see (which in my opinion is the only kind that should count because secret evidence it so open to abuse and severely undermines public confidence)

He's possibly the most plausible wannabe terrorist they've tried so far, but as far as I can tell he was still just dreaming about it.

I'd be much more impressed if they brought to trial someone who looked like a credible threat, for example because they demonstrably had the means as well as the intention.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

The key point seems to me to be the claim that this guy was hooked up with al Qaeda and hence plausibly had access to the means, including other people to work with him and the training to pull something off. I know we've been told by the powers that be that he had, but to what extent are these claims actually verifiable?

What evidence do we, the understandably sceptical general public, actually have that this is the case?

I'm willing to be convinced here, but I'm not seeing anything so far that I find particularly compelling.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

Here are a few points pro and con. I'm assuming here that the police actually have any physical evidence that they say they have and aren't simply making it up to please their political masters, as the intelligence community seem to have done with all those dodgy Iraqi WMD stories they told us.

In support of the case.

He had a false passport.

He was evidently a lot more together in his research and his planning that the guys with no passports at all involved with the baby-bottle-bomb airline plot that was trumpeted the other week.

Against the claim that he was doing more than dreaming about terrorism.

Where are the associates with whom he was going to do this stuff?

Where is the material that they'd need to carry any of those plots forward?

 

[Bernie Gunther]

Now on balance, I tend to believe that this guy probably was quite serious and probably was plausibly going to kill a whole lot of people if he got a chance.

Perhaps I would have found the evidence that the prosecution were going to present if he'd pleaded not guilty more compelling than what we've so far been told, but it does seem to me that this guy was nowhere near actually doing anything.

While I'm willing to believe that this guy probably was a serious risk and that we're better off without him running around loose, my level of trust in the government, security services and the police is at an all time low, as a result of the lies about WMD, various ridiculously implausible 'terror plots' we've so far been subjected to loud propaganda about and various stuff that we're not allowed to talk about because the court cases have been deferred to some distant time in the future. So while I'm not quite ready to sign up for the Dr Jazz version of reality yet, I don't actually discount the possibility that this is completely bogus, although I think it's unlikely.

What really worries me about this is the propaganda context in which it becomes highly serviceable, for agendas like that of the odious John Reid.

The most basic reason why on balance, I'm willing to believe this guy was serious is that there is every reason to expect people to be trying to commit acts of terrorism in the UK, due to our government's complicity in the stuff that evidently motivates such acts. It would seem however, that the government in question is extremely reluctant to admit any causal connection between their policies and nutcases deciding to murder our citizens in retailation.

Instead, it seems to me that Blair and Reid are trying to obfuscate such causal links, while exploiting the opportunity for all its worth to distract us from both their culpability and from various draconian powers that they're giving themselves on the basis of whipping up a terror panic, that have obvious applications in quashing all kinds of legitimate dissent.

So while I think on balance the cops have probably made us slightly safer by getting this chap off the streets, I am still keenly aware that our so-called leaders have made us much less safe by their policies and are now thrashing around in denial, willing to do almost any crazy irresponsible shit in order to score a few more votes, distract people from their guilt and to give themselves a whole lot more sinister powers to protect themselves from the tiresome inconvenience of legitimate dissent.

So please excuse me if I don't cheer too hard.

 

[Jazzz]

Whatever. It's pointless debating this issue with you. You see conspiracies everywhere. Do you ever believe anyone has ever done anything they are accused of?

It's far from being just me that think this one is another farce detective-boy. One has to judge the evidence for oneself. I'm sorry but your argument that he pleaded guilty therefore there was this doom-laden terror plot just doesn't wash. More to the point, do you think this was a real plot that was ever going to be carried out? Or was it pie-in-the-sky nonsense?

 

[Azrael]

The most basic reason why on balance, I'm willing to believe this guy was serious is that there is every reason to expect people to be trying to commit acts of terrorism in the UK, due to our government's complicity in the stuff that evidently motivates such acts.

While I hate the war against terror as much as the next man, it didn't "motivate" these murderers (and would-be murderers). Their fanaticism/brainwashing/cause unknown did that. If they're capable of doing it in response to government policy they didn't like, they have to be pretty far gone to begin with. Anything could have set them off.

Rather like those gangs who dressed as Droogs after watching A Clockwork Orange: they'd still have kicked the shit out of some poor blighter; they'd just have been wearing different togs at the time.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

While I hate the war against terror as much as the next man, it didn't "motivate" these murderers (and would-be murderers). Their fanaticism/brainwashing/cause unknown did that. If they're capable of doing it in response to government policy they didn't like, they have to be pretty far gone to begin with. Anything could have set them off.

Rather like those gangs who dressed as Droogs after watching A Clockwork Orange: they'd still have kicked the shit out of some poor blighter; they'd just have been wearing different togs at the time.

You know, I just don't believe that. I think that they did it for the reasons that they went on video with.

Perhaps some personality defects were involved, but we've presumably had approximately the same number of people with fucked up personalities for a long time, and yet we've not had a bunch of people blow themselves up on the tube after making videos to tell us all that they did it due to our governments foreign policy.

Meanwhile, your theory is entirely serviceable for those who would wish to deny that our government's foreign policy had anything to do with it. I'm sure Tony Blair is very happy that you think that way and hopes profoundly that you'll convince as many people as possible.

Please excuse me if I decline to find it particularly plausible.

 

[Backatcha Bandit]

While I hate the war against terror as much as the next man, it didn't "motivate" these murderers (and would-be murderers). Their fanaticism/brainwashing/cause unknown did that. If they're capable of doing it in response to government policy they didn't like, they have to be pretty far gone to begin with. Anything could have set them off.

Since we are in a Country that appears to be currently fighting a 'War' or two, it's not surprising we have 'enemies'.

I sometimes wonder what sort of conversations we would be having were there Iraqi or Afghan troops outside our windows in a scene resembling a recent photo [that I have more taste than to post here].

Anyway...

Khan's words are directed at Muslims in the West. Khan makes various points, in clear English devoid of religious rhetoric, reference to the Koran or Islamic history. He explains why civilians are targets, saying that in a democracy everyone bears responsibility for the government's actions. These, in this case, involve 'the bombing, gassing, imprisonment and torture' of Muslims. He rejects national identity in favour of the ummah, the global community of believers, explaining that the violence will continue as long as the government continues to 'perpetuate atrocities' against 'his Muslim brothers and sisters'. He also makes an important theological point often overlooked by Western observers but deeply relevant to activists who might be considering violence. He says bombs are justified because the ummah is under attack, violent resistance is an obligation on all believers and 'collateral damage' in the form of the death of innocents is thus acceptable.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/attackonlondon/story/0,,1562411,00.html

 

[Azrael]

You know, I just don't believe that. I think that they did it for the reasons that they went on video with.

Perhaps some personality defects were involved, but we've presumably had approximately the same number of people with fucked up personalities for a long time, and yet we've not had a bunch of people blow themselves up on the tube after making videos to tell us all that they did it due to our governments foreign policy.

Meanwhile, your theory is entirely serviceable for those who would wish to deny that our government's foreign policy had anything to do with it. I'm sure Tony Blair is very happy that you think that way and hopes profoundly that you'll convince as many people as possible.

Please excuse me if I decline to find it particularly plausible.

I defer to no one here in my hatred of Mr Blair, but I'm not going to support a theory I find unconvincing because it's politically convenient.

OK, you have a point about these people being around since year dot, but there's other ways they could have actualised their instincts. Perhaps not bombing people, but common murder, or joining up and shooting some poor beggar in the name of the Empire.

Even if something is tipping people over the edge into would-be Mahdi's, Iraq alone isn't the most convincing explanation. Islamist brainwashing/indoctrination clearly gets these people along the right path, and if it wasn't Iraq, another trigger-cause could doubtless have been found. (The 11 September bombers, many "Westernised", used other excuses, as have their predecessors.)

Even if it is Iraq that's setting off these human bombs, no country can be hostage to them. They could be provoked by a perfectly just war, or God-knows-what piece of foreign policy they disapprove of.

 

[Azrael]

Since we are in a Country that appears to be currently fighting a 'War' or two, it's not surprising we have 'enemies'.

I sometimes wonder what sort of conversations we would be having were there Iraqi or Afghan troops outside our windows in a scene resembling a recent photo [that I have more taste than to post here].

These people are British born-and-bred though. It's not the same as an Iraqi who's just watched his neighborhood flattened by cruise missiles, or a Frenchman who's just watched the Nazis butcher half his village. It's an ideology that's radicalising them.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

I defer to no one here in my hatred of Mr Blair, but I'm not going to support a theory I find unconvincing because it's politically convenient.

OK, you have a point about these people being around since year dot, but there's other ways they could have actualised their instincts. Perhaps not bombing people, but common murder, or joining up and shooting some poor beggar in the name of the Empire.

Even if something is tipping people over the edge into would-be Mahdi's, Iraq alone isn't the most convincing explanation. Islamist brainwashing/indoctrination clearly gets these people along the right path, and if it wasn't Iraq, another trigger-cause could doubtless have been found. (The 11 September bombers, many "Westernised", used other excuses, as have their predecessors.)

Even if it is Iraq that's setting off these human bombs, no country can be hostage to them. They could be provoked by a perfectly just war, or God-knows-what piece of foreign policy they disapprove of.

Well, there is plenty of research on suicide bombings, I'm thinking in particular of the long-term project run by Robert Pape at Chicago, which has analysed all the available evidence, going back to the earliest modern examples. He's got some pretty clear conclusions about what such bombings have in common, whatever the other contributing factors may be.

Ninety-five percent of such attacks in recent times have the same specific strategic goal: to cause an occupying state to withdraw forces from a disputed territory. Pape notes that in recent decades suicide attacks as a political tactic are used against democratic countries in which public opinion plays a role in determining policy

source

So, given that the London bombers videos said that's why they were doing it, and that 95% of all the known suicide bombings were for those sort of reasons, I think there would have to be some very strong new factor that made it a necessity to doubt, that this is precisely why they did what they did. I don't see such a factor. So as far as I can see the overwhelmingly most plausible reasons they did it, are the reasons that they gave by video.

Clearly ideology plays some sort of role, because otherwise why are UK citizens killing other UK citizens on behalf of people in other countries?

I do think though, that the 'they did it only because they were evil/crazy/brainwashed' argument flies in the face of strong factual evidence and has to be justified against the weight of that evidence before I can take it a bit seriously as anything other than a denial/propaganda tactic.

In a situation like this, where some very obvious motives exist for denial and obfuscating propaganda, I think it's especially important for people to think clearly and to pay attention to the evidence. In this case, I think the evidence clearly suggests that they did it as a asymmetrical warfare tactic aimed at changing government foreign policy, just like the other 95% did.

In practice, it failed utterly to achieve its objectives. As far as I can see, the British public, inured to this sort of thing from the IRA days just got on with life and wasn't any more or less likely to demand withdrawal from Iraq as a result. As far as I can make out, the reasons why many people want us out of Iraq are nothing to do with the probability of being blown up on the way to work.

So I don't really see that there is any question of us 'being hostage to them'. If we are hostages to anybody it's the gang of stupid fuckheads in Westminster who got us into this idiotic mess and who are still frantically running around screaming about terrorism in order to introduce repressive legislation that makes them even more immune to public opinion, whether illegitimately expressed with high explosives or legitimately expressed by protest and campaigning, than they previously were.

 

[detective-boy]

More to the point, do you think this was a real plot that was ever going to be carried out?

He pleaded guilty to a conspiracy to murder. I have seen and heard absolutely nothing to lead me to question that plea. On that basis I believe he has agreed that that is what he was doing and, hence, yes, I think it was a real plot. I am not in a position to say how far advanced it was (I would guess not very but legally that does not matter) as it is not the practice of the UK criminal courts to rehearse all the evidence in a case where the defendant accepts guilt, simply providing a short summary of the case (the contents of which ARE agreed by the defence in advance and so we can also be usre that the summary was agreeable to the defendant as well).

 

[Backatcha Bandit]

These people are British born-and-bred though.

Why would that matter to someone who

rejects national identity in favour of the ummah

?

'Ummah' trancends national boundries, in much the same way that Marx envisioned Communism to.

It's an ideology that's radicalising them.

Nail. Head. That's absolutely true.

Have you ever considered the possibility that the 'ideology' in question might be ours?

Azrael; You ain't daft. If you really are interested in getting your head around the fundamentals of this 'ideological battlespace', here's an article that I found useful:

http://pages.britishlibrary.net/smb/printusury.htm


If that wasn't helpful or you find the facts as presented there don't match your own perception of reality, this essay/dialogue is worth the time reading:

http://www.systemfehler.de/en/crusoe.htm


The inevitable consequences of the systemic device described above is a hardwired, immutable dependence upon 'growth', which in turn drives what I'm sure most Ummah would view as 'Western Economic Imperailism' - or our 'ideology'.

This is then seen to manifest itself in the form of 'bombing, gassing, imprisonment and torture' of people such as those suffering the occupation of their countries by 'our' armed forces (and for what reason?) now.

 

[Jazzz]

He pleaded guilty to a conspiracy to murder. I have seen and heard absolutely nothing to lead me to question that plea. On that basis I believe he has agreed that that is what he was doing and, hence, yes, I think it was a real plot. I am not in a position to say how far advanced it was (I would guess not very but legally that does not matter) as it is not the practice of the UK criminal courts to rehearse all the evidence in a case where the defendant accepts guilt, simply providing a short summary of the case (the contents of which ARE agreed by the defence in advance and so we can also be usre that the summary was agreeable to the defendant as well).

okay, well I've seen absolutely nothing to suggest that even if Barot meant to do people harm he had any capability to carry out his plans, if indeed they were at all possible.

 

[detective-boy]

okay, well I've seen absolutely nothing to suggest that even if Barot meant to do people harm he had any capability to carry out his plans, if indeed they were at all possible.

Whilst I disagree with you - there are certainly aspects of the plan that pretty much anyone could get off the ground - it really doesn't matter as there is no need for a conspiracy to have reached the point of being ready to go (or even possible) to be an offence.

Agreeing a plan to murder someone else is enough at that stage, with absolutely no requirement to prove any detailed plan or consideration of how to do it or whether it would work. If contested it may be more difficult to convince a jury that it was a genuine plan as opposed to idle chit-chat if this were the case but that takes us back to my original point - the plea of guilty confirms the plan was true no matter what it actually looks like to us. And I see nothing to suggest that plea is unreliable.

 

[Backatcha Bandit]

Cheeky *bump* as I'm genuinely interested in what Azrael or others think with regard to 'Islamist brainwashing/indoctrination' as compared to 'our own'?

Or is it that our brainwashing and indoctrination are so effective that it renders us unable to recognise the fundamental systemic difference between a debt-based monetary system and one that remains steadfast in it's rejection of usury, let alone the inevitable consequences that such a system as the former generates (in the form of social ills and 'Imperialism').