I'm by disposition a conspiracy sceptic, especially when it comes to acts carried out by governments, and even more so by my government. The main objection is that conspiracy theories always imply a high level of both competence and security - characteristics lacking in most things the State does. When something bad happens which CAN be laid at the State's door, Mr Cock-Up rather than Mr Conspiracy is nearly always responsible.
Nonetheless I have a couple of niggling questions at the back of my mind.
The July 7th attacks.
Soon after the attacks the press was full of stories to the effect that
a) the bombs were home-made TATP explosive
b) there was a fully-equipped cookshop in Hyde Park, Leeds, where the TATP was brewed.
c) said cookshop belonged to an Egyptian chemist who happened to have gone to Egypt. The chemist was named.
What happened to the chemist ? I've heard nowt about him since.
The other case is the "Lancastrian BNP bomb plot"
At the time it sounded a big deal, and the blogosphere rightly asked why so little was made of it.
Then the police started backtracking.
Supt Smith added: "We are making inquiries in relation to what we have found at his address and to establish what offences he may have committed.
"He's not a terrorist and it's not a bomb factory but we are interested in what we have seized from his house. It will take expert advice to establish exactly what he has got."
If they're not terrorists and it's not a bomb factory, then why have both men been remanded in custody until a trial date in February next year ? People get remanded on bail for quite serious offences these days, the 'prisons are full' - why bang up two elderly chaps with large chemistry sets ?
At Majority Rights, Guessedworker kicks a few straw men around a blue sky.
The rules of the Grand Game are changing. The spooks have been dumped in an unfamilar, new racio-political landscape. On 6th October - one day after the appearance of The Pendle Two in court - Jack Straw sparked the opening debate on deculturing Moslems (in public life at least). Who needs “tension” now? The patsy and sting operations are no longer valid, or at least not in the way they were for so many years. They have to be memory-holed, and new methodologies created to keep the elements in the game of power at play. What those methodologies will be and how they will impact nationalist politics is far from clear. But it will be, if you know how to look.
Is any of this really true? Who knows? But have you got a better explanation for the done and dusted Pendle affair?
So the Pendle Two were being watched, maybe even encouraged, by security services until our rulers decided multiculturalism was dead and integration was in ? I suppose it's possible. And despite hiring David Shayler and Katherine Gunn (OK, that was GCHQ), our security services are probably one of the more competent bits of Government. But I'm still sceptical. It's strange though.
I'll take the hat off now. That's better.
Well, Of Course We Will, Emma…
20 hours ago
5 comments:
http://foil-hat.com/
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Laban,
The Egyptian chemist was detained in Cairo by Egyptian police and interviewed by a couple of Special Branch officers who flew out for the occasion.
After a week or so it was quietly announced in the British press that no charges would be brought.
The Pendle Two are a different problem because the local plod (never forget that for diversity-sickness and PeeCee plague Lancashire Police is second only to the Met) steamed in without realising that this was an MI5 op. They do now!
The men have been put out of harm's way until either the prosecution can be safely dropped or, if not, they can be handed an ultra-light sentence equal, with the tariff, to the time they've already spent behind bars.
What is this MI5 op doing GW?
Dave,
A Multicultural society is, in one sense, like the universe in the first seconds after Big Bang. It is filled with a natural energy that forces things apart. This is manifested in myriads of political, social and religious ways, and some of these have the potential to overwhelm the whole process. Islamic fundamentalism has, with 7/7, in fact done so.
The spooks remit is to try to control the destructive forces in such a way that they are dissipated harmlessly. There are two ways to accomplish this. Looking at nationalist politics, for example, spooks can create disaffection with nationalism among the public by creating an association between it and individual extremist actions.
However, as a single means of control, repeated ad infinitum, this would be very dangerous. It would create a certain expectation among likely militants, even the inevitability that violence will be taken up.
So a second, modulative string to the bow is required. That, of course, can only be a nationalism that appeals to the perectly ordinary and decent, much put upon sort of Brit who has "finally had enough". It is a classic safety valve and, ultimately, it is harmless to the status quo.
These two strategies do nothing more than exploit the inner tensions of Multiculturalism. But they cannot go forward into an Integrationist era.
Pendle certainly seems to indicate that.
By way of explaining the other, Islamic side of the coin ...
As French Intelligence, the DPSD, repeatedly leaked to the British Press, violent fundamentalists were tolerated in this country for more than a decade on the premise that they would not shit on their own doorstep. Abu Hamza, who is at the Appeal Court right now, could have been prosecuted seven years before he finally was.
The reason was that such extremists were useful - not in respect of Multiculturalism so much as in the global theatre.
During the Kosovan War, Omar Bakri and al-Muhajiroun were used by MI6 as recruiting agents for covert British operations. Some joined the KLA. Some fought in Chechnya. About 200 "British" Pakistanis joined the Harkat-ul-Ansar terrorist organisation and fought in Bosnia.
While the immediate "enemy" were Serbs, it was the influence of the power behind them - Russia - that British Intelligence sought to contain and disadvantage.
That goose was thoroughly cooked on 7/7 and, again, in the Integrationist age new security strategies will have to be developed.
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