Senate Sleeps As The Middle East Burns

There have been some hilarious goings on in the U.S. over the past few days, and by "hilarious" what I really mean is very, very disturbing. Last night, the Republicrat and Democan members of Washington's permanent big top circus aka "the Senate", staged a "sleep in" in an attempt to convince someone, anyone, that they actually give a damn about the Iraqi people or that US troops should be withdrawn by April 2008.

The debate was scheduled to get so "heated" that cots, pillows, toothpaste and deodorant were shipped for the hard working public servants. Of course, this makes perfect sense, because when you plan an all-night debate on an important issue, the first thing on the agenda is having somewhere comfortable to sleep, or perhaps something soft to faint onto in the unlikely event that a Senator actually says anything meaningful.

Fear spread around the Senate last night when word spread that Mark Foley and Dennis Hastert had been spotted in the building

From the outset, farce was assured by the fact that there was no way that Democans could ever succeed in actually getting past the debate stage because, while they have a majority of 51-49 in the house, Republicrat leaders have the option to use the "procedural hurdle" of requiring 60 votes before the proposal can be moved to the floor.

Not to be dissuaded from a good slumber party, after assorted candy bars and coffee, members bedded down for a few hours to prepare themselves for the expected fracas. Then, on the stroke of 5 hours in, something remarkable happened: lawmakers from both sides, in a startling shift away from the whole point of the publicity stunt, managed to come together to overwhelmingly pass a Republican measure stating that it was "in the U.S. interest that Iraq not become a failed state and a safe haven for terrorists"! Go Democans! You show those Republicrats!

Unfortunately for the Republicrats, in passing this measure they were badly out of sync with their task masters in the White House, because just a few hours before the Senate sleep-over, the White House had released a new (that is to say, "newly cobbled together out of nothing") intelligence report that claimed that "al-CIA-duh" is planning to use use "battle-hardened associates in Iraq to strike inside the United States".

I mean, is it so hard for the Republicrats to get with the program here!? The White House went to all that bother of releasing a fabricated intelligence report claiming that Iraq was already a failed state and had already become a safe haven for terrorists, (aka "al-CIA-duh in Iraq") and the Senate Republicrats go and pass a bi-partisan motion stating that it is in the U.S. interest that Iraq not become a failed state and a safe haven for terrorists"!?

What the hell? Do they not know that Cheney has burst several blood-vessels in his efforts to finally convince U.S. intelligence agencies that there are known knowns, unknown knowns, known unknowns and unknown unknowns and that the CIA just needs to provide the "intelligence" that he tells them to provide? Clearly it is in the U.S. interest that Iraq is a failed state and "a safe haven for terrorists", this was the whole point of the god-damn intelligence report! I mean, how else is the Bush cabal going to justify the next false flag terror attack on America? The terrorists aren't just gonna do it themselves ya know! Come on people! It isn't rocket science!

Understandably, such pusillanimous political posturing is beyond the grasp of the average American, but that doesn't mean that they should feel excluded from true, meaningful participation in the nation's march towards oblivion. Just as Roman leaders provided the masses with the grisly 'entertainment' of the Colosseum, the American government is also attentive to the needs of its subjects, and as the Senators were 'filiblustering' the night away, the DOD was outlining a plan to tap the creative skills of the ordinary American Joe:

Million-dollar prize offered for soldier 'power pack'

Inventors across the country are being asked to find a way to lighten the load U.S. soldiers carry on their backs -- largely due to the high-tech gear that uses batteries -- and the solution will be decided in a $1 million contest. (yay capitalism!)

The Department of Defense is asking a person or team to come up with a way to lessen the weight of the 20-40 pounds of batteries a solider carries on a typical four-day mission. The batteries power everything from soldiers' GPS systems to their night-vision goggles.

'Have a heart, lighten my load and help me kill more Iraqis.'

You see? The success of the "troop surge" is everyone's responsibility, not just that of a bunch of decrepit old buggers in Washington! I mean, come on folks, what true blue American wouldn't feel overcome with patriotic pride knowing that it was their design that helped U.S. troops kill and maim Iraqi civilians more efficiently? Or helped U.S. troops more efficiently seal off an area so that U.S. government-funded death squads could wipe out a few dozen more worthless Iraqis? So don't try and tell me that the American people don't have a choice over Iraq. The U.S. government is making it quite clear: you can shut up and just accept the dictates of the Commander guy, or you can help him out in his divinely-ordained task. The choice is yours.

Quite frankly, it's a little selfish for anyone to complain, because Bush really could do with some help at the moment. For example, two days ago, the decider in chief announced "a U.S.-led international conference which would take place before the end of the year to resolve what he said were all the outstanding issues in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict". I kid you not. This is the Commander guy we're talking about. For a gibbering idiot like him, sorting out all the problems of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a cakewalk, and he's gonna do it in time for Christmas too!

Finally, after years of what newspapers are claiming was a "hands off approach" to the conflict, the Bush administration has now decided to step up to the plate, take the bull by the horns and get a little Palestinian dirt on its hands (to cover up the blood).

This really should be something to see folks, no, really, because for the past 6 years the Bush administration's "hands off" approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has included:

at least $3 billion per year in non-refundable loans to prop up the Zionist state of Israel,

the provision of the latest U.S. military technology to more efficiently murder and oppress Palestinian civilians,

the deliberate political and economic isolation of Palestinian leaders

and in general, the unflinching support of the Zionist agenda to thwart forever the right of Palestinians to self-determination.

There is no doubt therefore that a Bush government "hands on" approach would have been pretty spectacular, sadly however, we shall never know just how much money he was willing offer the Zionists so that he could claim to be 'the man who solved the Israeli-Palestinian conflict', because the Zionists' it seems, are not about to give up their plans for a 'final solution' to the Palestinian problem at this late stage of the game:

Israel rebuffs call for talks on core issues

Israel on Tuesday ruled out negotiations "at this stage" on the borders of a future Palestinian state, rebuffing Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and casting doubt on a U.S. push to tackle the issue.

Israel gave its response a day after U.S. President George W. Bush said "serious negotiations toward the creation of a Palestinian state" could begin soon.

Bush said the talks should lead to a deal on Palestinian borders, suggesting other final-status issues such as Jerusalem and refugees wait until later.

Lest some readers should it inflammatory of me to refer to the Zionists "final solution to the Palestinian problem", let's consider for a moment the actual details of Bush's plan for peace between Palestine and Israel that was so quickly rejected by the Zionists.

Bush insisted that, before any agreement could be reached, the Palestinians and their leaders must first "reject violence" and "accept Israel's right to exist", while at the same time neglecting to insist that Israel stop its ongoing policy of manufacturing fake Palestinian terrorism which is used to demonise the Palestinians as terrorists and provide justification for the arbitrary arrest, imprisonment, torture and murder of Palestinian political leaders and civilians.

Bush's plan therefore was that Palestinians must, as a prelude to peace, stop committing acts of violence that are actually carried out by Israeli provocateurs - an impossibility. At the same time, Bush requires that Palestinians "accept Israel's right to exist", which naturally means Israel as it exists today, which means Palestinians must accept Israel's "right" to hold on to large tracts of stolen Palestinian land. Would you agree to such conditions? To use an analogy: Bush's demands are akin to asking a person whose house has been stolen by a neighbor to accept the thief's "right" to keep the stolen house before the person will be allowed to enter into negotiations about reacquiring his house, which will never happen if he agrees to this condition. Meanwhile, the Zionists will be facilitated in their continued efforts to find a way to plausibly exterminate the Palestinians.

Basically, Bush's "Middle East Peace Summit", is cut from the very same cloth as the Republicrats and Democans sleep-over last night - it is a charade, nothing more, and it is designed to placate the American and world population into giving the ZioNazis and the Bush cabal more time to finalise the planning of their next "spectacular" false flag terror attack, which will possibly involve several countries at once but will, however, on close examination, bear the clear signature of the real terrorists: Mossad, the CIA and MI5/6.

All in all then, a 'hilarious' few days here on old planet earth, and I really would be laughing if it were not so utterly depressing.

Bush Overrules US Judicial System, Frees Libby, Can We Say Fascism Now?

©Monte Wolverton

On Monday 2nd July 2007, the decider in chief of America over-ruled the decision of a U.S. court in June this year to jail Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, for two and a half years. Libby was convicted in March this year of lying to investigators probing the 2003 leak of CIA official Valerie Plame's identity.

Plame's identity was leaked to the press by the office of the Vice President in retaliation for Plame's efforts to expose the U.S. government as having lied about its reasons for the invasion of Iraq and the murder, to date, of approximately 1 million Iraqi citizens. Dick Cheney, the instigator of the leak, was not charged because he, unlike Libby, had more 'pull' to avoid jail time for his part in the conspiracy. Libby was the fall guy, but as today's news makes clear, he was always going to have a soft landing.

In his statement, Bush justified the move by stating: "with incarceration imminent, I believe it is now important to react'' to the appeals court's refusal to let Libby remain free.

H. Christopher Bartolomucci, a lawyer at Hogan & Hartson in Washington who worked on pardons in the White House from 2001 to 2003 agreed:

"This is a president who is not cowed by public opinion. This was a case involving a member of his administration, [...] so the normal rules go out the window.''

Is that clear enough?

When an American president feels confident that he can brazenly and without fear of retribution "pardon" a former member of his administration for committing treason against the State in a case the implicates the entire government in what amounts to crimes against humanity, there really is only one word to describe such a situation: dictatorship.

Just don't expect the mainstream media to use such an "inflammatory" word in tomorrow's "fair and balanced" news coverage.

MI5's Proxy War Of Terror

MI5's "Terror Alert" Generator

Just in case anyone thought that Gordon Brown's arrival at 10 Downing Street and his subsequent shuffling of apparently anti-war doves into the British cabinet might mark a sea change in British grovelling at the altar of the Amero-Israeli war of terror, the last few day's events in the UK have shown otherwise. In fact, what Friday's almost bombing of a UK nightclub and the bizarre events at Glasgow airport yesterday actually show is that the public face of the UK government, regardless of whose face it is, has little relevance to or input on how the war of terror evolves.

As regular readers of the Signs of the Times website already know, worldwide Islamic terrorism in the terms presented by Western governments is a myth. Simply stated, it does not exist. There are no extremist Muslim groups with the capability to carry out large scale attacks such as 9/11 or the Madrid or London bombings, those attacks (and many others like them) were perpetrated by a combination of American, Israeli and British intelligence agencies.

This week's excitement at Glasgow airport, where two men, in a poorly planned attack, drove a Cherokee Jeep into the main doors of the airport terminal and then set it alight, should have been seen for what it was: the work of two deranged nut cases, and an example of the extent of the true capabilities of any Islamic extremist groups to effectively attack the civilian populations of Western nations, i.e. almost nil. Critical analysis of alleged "Islamic terror attacks" however is virtually illegal in the UK these days, and the pathocracy in power in the UK demands that knee jerk emotionally-based responses are required from the great British public.

Flaming Jeep aka Proxy bomb at Glasgow airport

Mind controlled patsy?

It was for this reason that top UK (in)security chief "Lord" John Stevens wasted no time in responding to the event by stating: "Make no mistake, this weekend's bomb attacks signal a major escalation in the war being waged on us by Islamic terrorists" and linking the Glasgow event to the car bomb at the London nightclub the day before (without any evidence of course). Stevens waxed hysterical as he spoke of "al-Qaeda Mr Big's" planning a new series of attacks and that "the seeds of Muslim terrorism" beginning to "sprout". He closed with "make no mistake - strike again they will", leaving the reader with the uncomfortable feeling that he knows just a little too much about upcoming "Islamic terror attacks".

MI5 were quick to echo Stevens hyperbole by upping the "terror threat alert" to "critical", meaning an attack is "imminent".

The fact of the matter is that "they" will strike again, but if an attack is imminent, it's only because Steven's and his spook friends have just crossed the "T's and dotted the "I's" on the final planning.

Getting back to Glasgow, the event bore strong similarities to a long-standing tactic of British counter-insurgency task forces: the "proxy bomb". A proxy bombing involves a member or members of the civilian population who are forced, paid, mind-programmed or otherwise compelled to drive a vehicle carrying some kind of explosive to a specific target, at which point the explosive is detonated by remote control or timer killing the proxy driver(s) and members of the civilian or military population, depending on the situation. In Northern Ireland, during the last 30 years of the 800-year-long Irish war against the British establishment, this tactic was used on several occasions to attack British military or security installations, but it wasn't the IRA's idea. No indeed, to come up with a strategy that involved such a callous disregard for innocent human life, the cold-blooded services of the empire were needed:

UK agents 'did have role in IRA bomb atrocities'

Henry McDonald, Ireland editor
Sunday September 10, 2006
The Observer

The controversy over claims that Britain allowed two IRA informers to organise 'human bomb' attacks intensified this weekend.

A human rights watchdog has handed a report to the Police Service of Northern Ireland, which concludes that two British agents were central to the bombings of three army border installations in 1990. [...]

The 'human bomb' tactic involved forcing civilians to drive vehicles laden with explosives into army checkpoints and included deadly sorties near Newry and Coshquin outside Derry. Six British soldiers and a civilian worker at an army base died in the simultaneous blasts on either side of Northern Ireland. [...]

British Irish Rights Watch said: 'This month BIRW sent a confidential report to the Historical Enquiries Team on the three incidents that occurred on 24th October 1990... at least two security force agents were involved in these bombings, and allegations have been made that the "human bomb" strategy was the brainchild of British intelligence.

Of course, the revelation that "forced suicide bombing" was the brainchild of British intelligence puts a very different spin on the massive number of "suicide car bombings" that have occurred in Iraq since the American and British invaded. The Iraq bombings are designed to have the very same effect in Iraq as in the UK, America or Spain - a population too traumatised to question the increasingly authoritarian dictates of their 'leaders'.

9/11, the Madrid train bombings of 2004 and the London underground and bus bombings of 2005 were designed to convey to the Western public the general falsehood that worldwide manic Islamic terrorism against innocent civilians is real. The most recent "attacks" in London and Glasgow on the other hand, were designed as a prelude or a setup for what is to come later this year.

At present, the situation is that Iran will be attacked, and the British intelligence establishment is eager for the British and world public to understand that the "logical" response to such a brutal act will be a wave of individual "suicide attacks" against the British public by British Muslims furious at the massive slaughter unleashed on the Iranian people - attacks similar to the half-baked attack at Glasgow yesterday - but with the addition of significant numbers of dead civilians just to drive the trauma home.

You see, the psychopaths in power are sincere in their desire to murder many members of the British public in an attempt to turn them into little more than Pavlovian dogs, 'salivating' not at the ring of a bell but the sound of an explosion or reports of one on their nightly mainstream media news broadcasts. As to what what the final outcome of such a Orwellian nightmare may be, the best guess at this stage does not paint a pretty picture. To answer this question, perhaps it is best to reference again Pavlov and his dogs. When Pavlov was finished with his cruel mind-control experiments into finding the best way to compel his subjects to respond automatically to basic stimuli - or to put it another way, when the subjects of the experiment were no longer useful - they were put down.

Psychopathic Morals And The Fantasmagorical War On Terror

There's been a trial ongoing in the UK since late 2005 concerning a leaked memo that detailed Bush and Blair's plan to bomb al-Jazeerah offices in Qatar. Civil servant David Keogh and MP's researcher Leo O'Connor are accused of breaching the official secrets act, a concept that one would think has no place in any bone fide democracy.

Keogh is said to have passed the record of the meeting to researcher O'Connor. The details of the minutes, deemed too "secret" to reveal in court, include Bush and Blair's chat about how best to bomb the offices of al-Jazeerah and make it appear as a justifiable act under the bogus war on terror.

In making the case against the two men, (who in any just society would be lauded as heroes) Blair's foreign policy adviser Sir Nigel Sheinwald said a leak would have "sparked worldwide anger, put UK forces at risk, and had the potential to "raise international tensions", to which I can only reply "no shit sherlock, and for very good reasons!" You see, in Blair's fascist state, black is white, up is down and anyone revealing that the government is planning to engage in what amount to war crimes is the criminal, rather than those who are planning to engage in the war crimes. Get it? Do you understand now? Perhaps the point needs to be clarified.

Over in Iraq, the same psychopathic 'morality' is being passed off as 'normal' where a US commander of the appropriately named 'Camp Cropper' has been arrested for "aiding the enemy". Camp Cropper is a US military gulag and torture center for innocent Iraqi civilians outside Baghdad and Lt Col William Steele apparenlty had the audacity to give Iraqi detainees there free use of a mobile phone. String him up I say! I mean, we can't have US military personnel showing ANY human kindness to the tens of thousands of desperate Iraqis languishing at Bush's pleasure in Iraq or any other 'theatre' of the war on terror.

Meanwhile the global propaganda campaign that is designed to create the 'reality' of a 'clash of civilisations' proceeds apace with a different "leaked report", this time one that does not result in the leakers appearing in court, mainly because this one helps to prop up the Israel-US-British war on terror rather than expose it for psychopathic war-mongering that it is.

The report, carefully concocted out of thin air by the British Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre (JTAC), which is basically MI5's false flag terror central, claims that Al-Qaeda leaders in Iraq are planning the first "large-scale" terrorist attacks on Britain and other western targets. The "leakers" were, of course, careful to include the claim that the "al-Qaeda" operation was to be carried out "with the help of supporters in Iran. Surprise surprise.

Just for good measure, the back room boys at MI5 thought it would be a good idea to claim that "one operative had said he was planning an attack on a par with Hiroshima and Nagasaki", just to tie in the nuke connection and therefore Iran. Of course, the terror masters at MI5 are confident that the news just in that Iran is at least 8 years from making ONE nuke is no threat to the British and world public swallowing this latest piece of nonsense. In a final attempt to validate the claim, one UK "counter terrorism source" said

"It could be just a reference to a huge explosion," said a counter-terrorist source. "They (al-Qaeda) have got to do something soon that is radical otherwise they start losing credibility.

It's strange, but for some reason I imagined the words "Bush-Blair-Olmert) in the brackets in the paragraph above and suddenly it all made sense.

The claim, it is claimed, was contained in a letter, allegedly written by someone called Abdul al-Hadi al-Iraqi, "an Iraqi Kurd and senior al-Qaeda commander", or so we are told, and asked to believe wholesale with no real evidence. In fact, the only yardstick we have for assessing scary letters from terrorists is when Bush and the CIA were caught fabricating a letter from "al-qaeda" that claimed that they were nearing defeat.

Of course, all of this talk of leaked memos also reminds us the infamous leaked Downing street memo, where Blair's war fanatics decided to fabricate all sorts of claims about Saddam, including the ridiculous assertion that Saddam could attack Britain with a long range missile within 45 minutes!

To complete the recent glut of bogus 'terror alerts', a senior commander of the Taliban stated a few days ago that Osama bin Laden is orchestrating militants' operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"He is drawing plans in Iraq and Afghanistan ... Praise God he is alive," Mullah Dadullah told Al Jazeera television.

The first problem here is that it is very, very probable that Bin Laden has been doing little more than pushing up daisies in some remote area of an Islamabad or Riyadh graveyard for the past few years, at least Saudi intelligence appears to be convinced of that fact. But they're not the only ones.

Back in November 2001, French intelligence reported that in July that year, Osama had checked into the American hospital in Dubai for Dialysis, where he was visited, incidentally, by the local CIA station chief. Such was the state of the health of Bush's nemesis, that in 2000 he had his own personal dialysis machine shipped to his "base" (a nice two story house) at Kandahar in Afghanistan.

One month later, citing a Taliban leader, the Pakistan Observer stated that Osama had died a peaceful death due to an untreated lung complication.

On the airing of a tape of Bin Laden in early 2002, CNN "terrorism expert" didn't need his "terrorism expert" credentials to be enable him to state the obvious:

This is a man who was clearly not well. I mean, as you see from these pictures here, he's really, by December he's looking pretty terrible. But by December, of course, that tape that was aired then, he's barely moving the left side of his body. So he's clearly got diabetes. He has low blood pressure. He's got a wound in his foot. He's apparently got dialysis ... for kidney problems

Apparently reluctant to take the word of a "terrorism expert" on medical matters, CNN decided that they needed an honest to god doctor, so they dragged one, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, who opined:

You can look [at pictures from a December 2001 video] and notice that he has what some doctors refer to as sort of a frosting over of his features -- his sort of grayness of beard, his paleness of skin, very gaunt sort of features. A lot of times people associate this with chronic illness. Doctors can certainly look at that and determine some clinical features.

But even more than that, it's sometimes possible to differentiate the specific type of disease or illness that he may be suffering from. The sort of frosting of the appearance is something that people a lot of times associate with chronic kidney failure, renal failure, certainly someone who is requiring dialysis would have that.

Later that year (2002) even US puppet President of Afghanistan (or should that be mayor of Kabul) couldn't hold his tongue any longer and blurted out that Osama was a goner.

Then it was the turn of FBI Terrorism... I mean eh...Counter-Terrorism Chief US Federal Bureau of Investigation's counter-terrorism chief, Dale Watson, to state the frustratingly obvious:

"Is (Bin Laden) alive or is he dead?" Mr Watson said. "I am not really sure of the answer... I personally think he is probably not with us anymore but I have no evidence to support that."

Still, the skeptics were not convinced, so close friends and confidants, understandably miffed at the repeated knocks to the credibility and mortality of their departed brother, decided to send Bin Laden's will to a few news agencies in an attempt to close the case.

Finally, the CIA took the hint last year and, according to the NY Times, closed a unit that for a decade had the mission of hunting Osama bin Laden and his top lieutenants. The unit, known as Alec Station, was disbanded late last year and its analysts reassigned within the C.I.A. Counterterrorist Center, the officials said.

Despite all of this, Mullah Dadullah (is that really his name, or is that his CIA pet name?) had no qualms about waxing flowery about the exploits of Osama's ghost:

"Do you remember the martyrdom operation inside the Bagram base which targeted a senior American official ... this operation was the result of blessed plans put by him," Dadullah said. Jazeera said the U.S. official Dadullah was referring to was Cheney.

"He (bin Laden) guided us through it," he said, adding that no Afghan would have been able to penetrate the base if it was not for the world's most wanted militant.

Yes, you see Osama is the only Islamic militant who drags a dialysis machine behind him. He is also dead. A dead guy dragging a dialysis machine is a very effective way to create a distraction while the other more corporal militants get on with the job of trying to off the walking hate-sack Dick Cheney. Seriously who is this "Mullah Dadullah"?

Funny you should ask.

He was captured in May last year by international troops (i.e. US troops), and probably given the run down on what was expected of him for the coming 2006-2007 WOT season in his role as scariest terrorist in Afghanistan. Then he was let go again.

Funnily enough, two days before Mullah Dadullah's implausible claims about Bin Laden were broadcast, he was busy being surrounded by 200 "coalition" troops as he and others gathered for a meeting in the mountain village of Keshay in Uruzgan province on Saturday last. The result of the apparently short-lived siege, according to the Pakistani press, was 11 members of the Taleban killed, including Mullah Dadullah.

All of which sets the scene for even more fake war on terror hilarity when we find ourselves reading reports (which we surely will) about two dead men vouching for each others unbelievable feats of derring-do in the ZioCons fantasmagorical war on terror.

"Suicide Bombings" - The Cover Story For US Military Ops In Iraq

Al-sarafiya bridge which, until two days ago, spanned the Tigris in Baghdad, linking Shia and Sunni neighborhoods of the city.

"Suicide bombings" are a daily occurrence in Iraq, and are the major propaganda tool used by the US government and its mainstream media to convince the world that there is still some "freedom and Democracy" work to be done by US troops in Iraq. But what if they are a cover for something else?

Read this excerpt from a news report from July 2006:

Violence may bring partition of Baghdad

UK Telegraph
22/07/2006

Iraq's politicians [i.e. Pentagon and Israeli officials] were reported yesterday to be drawing up provisional plans to divide Baghdad into Sunni and Shia halves after a week of bloodshed that has left the government's security plan to pacify the capital in tatters.

The proposal would mean an acceptance that the country could not be held together and would mark a dramatic failure for the American policy of fostering national unity.

The Tigris river, which would become the dividing line between the predominately Sunni districts of west Baghdad and the majority Shia in the east.

Now read this report of an event that occurred two days ago:

Suicide bomb collapses Baghdad bridge At least 10 killed

Canadian Press
April 12, 2007

BAGHDAD - A suicide truck bomb exploded on a major bridge in Baghdad early Thursday, collapsing the steel structure and sending cars tumbling into the Tigris River below, police and witnesses said. At least 10 people were killed.

The al-Sarafiya bridge connected two northern Baghdad neighborhoods - Waziriyah, a mostly Sunni enclave, and Utafiyah, a Shiite area. After more than a year of massacres of Sunni and Shia civilians by US-sponsored death squads working out of the Iraqi interior ministry, both Sunni and Shia civilians have fled neighborhoods where they were originally in the majority or where there was a mix of the two groups.

Before the al-Sarafiya bridge was destroyed, nine spans across the Tigris linked western and eastern Baghdad. Now there are eight. How long will they last?

The Tigris river now serves as a de facto dividing line between the mostly Shiite east and the largely Sunni west of the city, with the bridges the only connection between them. It's called "counter insurgency strategy" - divide and conquer.

The reports that a "truck suicide bomb" had been detonated on the bridge came from the US military. No independent Iraqi or other source was able to verify this claim. In fact, AP Television News video showed the bridge broken in two places suggesting two blasts.

Other Iraqi eyewitnesses claim that a US attack helicopter fired two missiles at the bridge, but with the mainstream media parroting only the official US military line that it was "suicide truck bomb" these eyewitness reports are never heard.

The fact is, the al-Sarafiya bridge was built by the British in the early part of the 20th century, so since it belonged to the occupation army, it was theirs to blow up.

Suffice to say that, from now on, it would be wise when reading reports about daily bombings in Iraq to replace the words "suicide bomber" with "US military".

Robert Fisk recently commented on the US military plan for "gated communities" in Baghdad:

Faced with an ever-more ruthless insurgency in Baghdad - despite President George Bush's "surge" in troops - US forces in the city are now planning a massive and highly controversial counter-insurgency operation that will seal off vast areas of the city, enclosing whole neighbourhoods with barricades and allowing only Iraqis with newly issued ID cards to enter.

The campaign of "gated communities" - whose genesis was in the Vietnam War - will involve up to 30 of the city's 89 official districts and will be the most ambitious counter-insurgency programme yet mounted by the US in Iraq.

The system has been used - and has spectacularly failed - in the past, and its inauguration in Iraq is as much a sign of American desperation at the country's continued descent into civil conflict as it is of US determination to "win" the war against an Iraqi insurgency that has cost the lives of more than 3,200 American troops. The system of "gating" areas under foreign occupation failed during the French war against FLN insurgents in Algeria and again during the American war in Vietnam. Israel has employed similar practices during its occupation of Palestinian territory - again, with little success.

But the campaign has far wider military ambitions than the pacification of Baghdad. It now appears that the US military intends to place as many as five mechanised brigades - comprising about 40,000 men - south and east of Baghdad, at least three of them positioned between the capital and the Iranian border. This would present Iran with a powerful - and potentially aggressive - American military force close to its border in the event of a US or Israeli military strike against its nuclear facilities later this year.

The latest "security" plan, of which The Independent has learnt the details, was concocted by General David Petraeus, the current US commander in Baghdad, during a six-month command and staff course at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas. Those attending the course - American army generals serving in Iraq and top officers from the US Marine Corps, along with, according to some reports, at least four senior Israeli officers - participated in a series of debates to determine how best to "turn round" the disastrous war in Iraq.

So far, the Baghdad campaign has involved only the creation of a few US positions within several civilian areas of the city but the new project will involve joint American and Iraqi "support bases" in nine of the 30 districts to be "gated" off. From these bases - in fortified buildings - US-Iraqi forces will supposedly clear militias from civilian streets which will then be walled off and the occupants issued with ID cards. Only the occupants will be allowed into these "gated communities" and there will be continuous patrolling by US-Iraqi forces. There are likely to be pass systems, "visitor" registration and restrictions on movement outside the "gated communities". Civilians may find themselves inside a "controlled population" prison.

The senior generals who constructed the new "security" plan for Baghdad were largely responsible for the seminal - but officially "restricted" - field manual on counter-insurgency produced by the Department of the Army in December of last year, code-numbered FM 3-24. While not specifically advocating the "gated communities" campaign, one of its principles is the unification of civilian and military activities, citing "civil operations and revolutionary development support teams" in South Vietnam, assistance to Kurdish refugees in northern Iraq in 1991 and the "provincial reconstruction teams" in Afghanistan - a project widely condemned for linking military co-operation and humanitarian aid.

FM 3-24 is harsh in its analysis of what counter-insurgency forces must do to eliminate violence in Iraq. "With good intelligence," it says, "counter-insurgents are like surgeons cutting out cancerous tissue while keeping other vital organs intact." But another former senior US officer has produced his own pessimistic conclusions about the "gated" neighbourhood project.

"Once the additional troops are in place the insurrectionists will cut the lines of communication from Kuwait to the greatest extent they are able," he told The Independent. "They will do the same inside Baghdad, forcing more use of helicopters. The helicopters will be vulnerable coming into the patrol bases, and the enemy will destroy as many as they can. The second part of their plan will be to attempt to destroy one of the patrol bases. They will begin that process by utilising their people inside the 'gated communities' to help them enter. They will choose bases where the Iraqi troops either will not fight or will actually support them.

"The American reaction will be to use massive firepower, which will destroy the neighbourhood that is being 'protected'."

So that's what is ultimately in store for the Iraqi people - mass murder by the US military when they finally realise that they are not fighting "terrorists" or even an "insurgency", but the entire Iraqi people who, like occupied peoples throughout history, will never stop resisting illegal and brutal occupation of their land.

The most disturbing fact however, is that the military and civilian architects of this war have always known this.

Peace Pressure and 'Passover'

By now, anyone with two neurons still firing, has understood that "terrorist attacks" have long term benefits for the Israeli, British and American governments. It's not just the fact of a "terror attack" however that can be and is used to scare the public into accepting ever more authoritarianism from their leaders, but also the memory of "terror attacks".

How often have members of the US, UK and Israeli governments reminded us of 9/11, the London bombings or any of the so-called "Palestinian suicide bombings" when attempting to justify their war-mongering? Indeed the rationale for the continuation of the "war on terror" is based entirely on the purported existence of "world wide Islamic terrorism". The reality however is that if Islamic terrorism were ever to be widely and publicly exposed for the fiction that it is, the game would be up and the "leaders of the free world" in Washington, Tel Aviv and London exposed for the psychopathic monsters that they are.

Before "Worldwide Islamic terrorism", what was there?

A desire, a plan, an agenda; that's what.

In Washington, the Ziocons stated it explicitly in a, by now well-known 'thinktank' document entitled: Rebuilding America's Defences: Strategy, Forces and Resources For a New Century, in which the architects of illegal war called for American power to be "projected around the world".

In Israel too there was a need, a desire, an agenda, but there was also fear. Fear that peace might soon break out and Zionist leaders would be forced to the negotiating table with the Palestinians, a table at which they would be forced to provide evidence for their claim that they truly desired peace, and give back the land stolen from the Palestinians. In 1993, there was the Oslo accords. In 2000 there was the Camp David Peace initiative. Both were setting a scene that would see the Zionist dream of domination of all of Palestine and the greater Middle East destroyed.

In both cases then, the need was for an enemy. An enemy so great, so pervasive, so "evil", that an endless war could be launched and endless brutality against innocent people justified in the process of destroying this "evil".

Yet no such enemy existed. What to do? For the psychopathic mind, the answer was clear: create one, give it a name and ideology and, over the course of the following 6 years, perpetrate inhuman attacks against innocent people around the world and blame it all on "Worldwide Islamic Terrorism".

Today, the Israeli internal security service "Shin Bet" announced that in late March, they arrested 19 members of a Hamas "cell" that were planning a major "suicide bombing" over Easter week. A day or two previously (the specific timing is not given) we are told that a "Palestinian suicide bomber" drove his car (or truck, there are conflicting reports) into the outskirts of Tel Aviv, and then for some unknown reason, decided to abandon his mission and return to the West Bank town of Qalqilya from whence he allegedly came. Once there, he parked his car (or truck) behind a house and sometime later the bomb exploded injuring no one. Israeli internal intelligence, Shin Bet, say that the car (or truck) was carrying 100 kilos of explosives. Palestinian police who were on the scene after the explosion state categorically that the car (and it was a car, not a truck) contained no more than 2 pounds of explosives. Hamas, not in the habit of denying anything for which they are truly responsible and often being accused of attacks for which they are not, denied that they had anything to do with the incident.

The point of this latest piece of Israeli government propaganda seems to be to instill suspicion and hatred for Israeli Arabs living in Israel in the minds of Israeli Jews. The would be "suicide bomber", you see, was allegedly the holder of an Israeli ID and was able, we are told, to pass freely across the border into Israel. This fact has been heavily played up in news reports to the extent that it appears to be the main point, with the standard demonisation of Hamas (and indirectly their coalition partners, the Palestinian Authority) coming a close second.

From the Zionist point of view you see, Palestinians can never be allowed to present themselves as an honorable people with a justified grievance against Israel, and they and their political leaders must be continually demonised as "terrorists".

The stench of Deputy Israeli PM Avigdor Lieberman (along with the Shin Bet) is all over this latest episode of Zionist duplicity. It was Lieberman, after all, who suggested that Arab Israelis be forced to swear an oath of allegiance to Israel or have their citizenship revoked, adding that 90 percent of Israel's one million Arabs would "have to find a new Arab entity" in which to live beyond Israel's borders. "They have no place here. They can take their bundles and get lost", he said. It was Lieberman who stated that Palestinians should be given the ultimatum that: "at 8am we'll bomb all the commercial centers...at noon we'll bomb their gas stations...at two we'll bomb their banks...." It was Lieberman who called for thousands of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel (most of them innocent of any crime) to be drowned in the Dead Sea, while kindly offering to provide the buses to take them there.

In November 2006, Lieberman called for the execution of any Arab Members of Knesset who meet with representatives of the Palestinian government, saying:

"World War II ended with the Nuremberg trials. The heads of the Nazi regime, along with their collaborators, were executed. I hope this will be the fate of the collaborators in the Knesset."

And this guy is slated to be the next Israeli PM (unless the equally racist Benjamin Netanyahu is chosen instead).

As for the Shin Bet; according to Uri Avnery, its chief recently declared that the "Israeli Arabs", a fifth of Israel's population, constitute a danger to the state and requested permission for the General Security Service to act against anyone who aims at changing the official designation of Israel as a "Jewish and democratic state" - even if they use nothing but completely legal means. Could it possibly be a coincidence then that this attempted "Passover bombing" presents Israeli Arabs as aiding and abetting terrorism?

The fundamental problem here appears to be the fact that the Zionist regime in Israel had recently received some bad press resulting from its flippant rejection of any chance of talks with the newly formed (March 19th) coalition Palestinian government (Hamas and the PA), and its rejection of the March 27th revived Saudi peace plan.

In relation to Palestinian Coalition, Olmert stated:

"We can't have contact with members of a government that justifies resistance, or in other words, terror" - the right of any occupied people to resistance as laid down by the Geneva convention being the same as "terrorism" in the Zionist lexicon.

Olmert also rejected talks with Hamas on the basis that they "do not recognise Israel's right to exist. In doing so, Olmert ignored the fact that the coalition platform of Hamas and the PA implicitly recognizes Israel by calling for a Palestinian state on lands that Israel stole in 1967, in contrast with Hamas' past calls to eliminate Israel altogether. Indeed, there is no moral or conscience-based reason for Palestinians to "recognise Israel's right to exist", since Israel as it is today, is defined by its occupation and brutalisation of Palestinian land and its people. Who, in all conscience, could sanction such inhumanity by recognising its right to exist? Such inhumanity has no place in a just and peaceful world. Stop the persecution of Palestinians and the world will recognise Israel's right to exist. But the Zionist regime will never do so, because Israel does not want peace.

As regards the revived Saudi peace plan. 14 Arab states, including the PA-lead Palestinian coalition, offered normalisation of relations (i.e. peace) with Israel in return for the return to the pre-1967 war borders and the right of Palestinian refugees and their descendants to return to lands they inhabited before the state of Israel was formed.

Flexibility was inherent in the Saudi peace plan and it was designed as a starting point for negotiations. Yet the Zionist regime rejected outright any possibility of the right of Palestinians to return to the lands from which they were cleansed, be it in 1948 or 1967. From this it was clearly understood that Israel not only rejects the right of return but also any idea that it would give back land stolen from Palestinians since the formation of the state of Israel in 1948, and with this any idea of the creation of a viable Palestinian state.

Again, in short, Israel does not want peace.

Of particular note is the fact that this latest "suicide bombing" propaganda, coming as it does immediately after an Israeli PM rejected a peace offer from Arab states, almost exactly mirrors the original Saudi Peace summit offer of Easter week 2002. On that occasion, the print was hardly dry before a "Palestinian suicide bomber" allegedly detonated his explosives in the Park Hotel in Netanya on March 27th 2002, killing 20 old people, almost exactly 5 years ago. Like so many other alleged "Palestinian suicide bombings", the details of that attack are open to interpretation. All that is really known is that a man walked into the Park hotel with a suitcase and the suitcase exploded. It literally could have been anyone, even someone unaware of the fate that awaited him.

How convenient it was then, with the then Israeli government of Ariel Sharon under pressure to accept the Saudi peace plan or face losing the 'moral' high ground, that the Palestinians, yet again, appeared to shoot themselves in the foot and present the Zionists with a way to not only reject the peace plan, but to pitch the Palestinians as the enemy of peace.

The Park Hotel attack in 2002 is remembered as the "Passover Suicide bombing". Today, several Israeli news sources carry a variation of the headline: "Passover massacre foiled".

You see how this works.

March 27th 2002: Pan-Arab Peace Plan offered to Israel. Immediately thereafter: "Passover Suicide bombing"

March 27th 2007: Pan Arab Peace Plan offered to Israel
Immediately thereafter: "Passover Suicide bombing narrowly averted".

There is a definite ominous air around recent events in the Middle East and in particular the pressure on Israel over the Hamas/PA coalition government and the resurrected Saudi peace plan. History seems to be repeating itself. The Zionists do not take 'peace pressure' very well. It disturbs them greatly. As already noted, during the Clinton years, significant efforts had been made to bring the plight of the Palestinian people and the need for a just solution to the Middle East conflict to the attention of the international community. While Israel had successfully scuppered the Camp David peace talks by making demands that they knew the Palestinian people, and therefore Arafat, could not accept, Israel was finding itself increasingly isolated and increasingly pressured to make the concessions that peace required.

Then 9/11 'happened', and all bets were off.

Salvation from a "Passover massacre" has strong religious overtones for Jewish people, evoking as it does, the fictitious original "Passover" when Yahweh passed over the houses of the chosen Israelites in his rampage and murder of the first born of lesser peoples (or so the story goes). To be spared the fate of others, Israelites were instructed to smear the lintels of their doors with the blood of the "Passover sacrifice".

While few Israelis continue with this tradition today, perhaps there are those who privately believe, as the Israeli media seems to be suggesting, that this Passover, 'Yahweh' once again spared them from the carnage that he has been wreaking for the past 60 years on the 'lesser' peoples of the Middle East. After all, enough Palestinian and Arab blood has been spilled by the American and Israeli governments to anoint the door of every Israeli household - but will it suffice to spare the Israeli Jews from the results of the warmongering of their leaders?

The truth of the matter is that history does not repeat itself - history is deliberately repeated, because human beings have still not awoken to the truth of the world that surrounds them, and who, or what, controls it. History is repeated because what worked once, will work again. History is repeated because the psychopaths that were in power, 10, 50, 100, 200 years ago, are still there today. And history will continue to be repeated, until they are removed.

Two-Faced Tony Turns On Tehran

©Martin Rowson

Release of Iranian Diplomat exposes US and British origin of Iraqi death squads and "sectarian" bombings

The 15 British Marines (who were in fact spying on Iran) were barely off the plane yesterday morning before Blair, Smeagol-like, turned on the Iranians and, with no evidence whatsoever, accused them of being responsible for the - timely from Blair's point of view - deaths of 4 British soldiers in Iraq.

As disingenuous as ever, Blair squeaked:

"It's far too early [to point to any Iranian involvement in that particular attack], but the general picture, as I have said before, is there are elements at least of the Iranian regime that are backing, financing, arming terrorism in Iraq."

Blair's "general picture" of Iraq and who is responsible for the daily carnage there is surreal indeed and like all surrealist works, diverges greatly from actual reality. The fact is, there is not one shred of objective unbiased evidence that Iran is involved in any way with attacks on US or any other illegal forces in occupied Iraq, and before anyone suggests it, US intelligence reports have long since ceased to be anything but the deranged imaginings of the Ziocons, so don't even go there.

Along with his contemptible attack on the Iranians, Blair insisted that there had been "no deals" done to secure the release of the 15 British spies, a statement which, you will be unsurprised to learn, is also a barefaced lie and a clear attempt to save his pompous English ass from ending up on the already overflowing scrapheap of British political history and thereby joining the long list of sorry excuses for human beings that define it.

Two days ago, Jalal Sharafi, the second secretary of the Iranian embassy in Iraq, who was abducted from his car in Baghdad in early February, just happened to walk out of captivity and into the Iranian embassy earlier this week at the height of the "hostage crisis". Coincidence? Why, of course it is!

At the time of his abduction by men wearing Iraqi army uniforms, US military spokesman in Baghdad, US army Lt Col Christopher Garver stated: "we've checked with our units and it was not a [multinational forces - Iraq] unit that participated in that event". Yet Sharafi walks free in Baghdad in the Middle of the negotiations over the 15 British spies.

You 'do the logic', and then realise that lying is standard operation procedure for government officials. For more on the death squads in Iraq and who is behind them, see this SOTT editorial.

Then today, Blair set the damage control spin machine into overdrive with a "news conference" for the 15 released British spies, complete with that heart-warming symbol of centuries of brutality - the Union Jack flag.



At the top of the sheet given to the sailors by the Ministry of Defence the words "READ THIS" in big bold letters was written.

And like the trained monkeys that they are, the Marines had no choice but to comply. Here's what they said:

"On arrival at a small Iranian naval base we were blindfolded, stripped of all our kit and led to a room where I (Lieutenant Carman) declared myself as the officer in charge and was introduced to their local commander.

Two hours later, we were moved to a second location and throughout the night were subjected to random interrogation.

The following morning, we were flown to Tehran and transported to a prison - where the atmosphere changed completely.

We were blindfolded, our hands were bound, we were forced up against the wall. Throughout our ordeal we faced constant psychological pressure.

Later, we were stripped and dressed in pyjamas. The next few nights were spent in stone cells approximately 8ft by 6ft, sleeping on piles of blankets.

All of us were kept in isolation. We were interrogated most nights and presented with two options.

If we admitted we had strayed, we would be back on a plane to the UK pretty soon. If we didn't, we faced up to seven years in prison.

None of the guards spoke English, we were blindfolded at all times and kept in isolation from each other.

Watch the video where Lt. Felix Carman reads from a prepared script at this link.

Does anyone know what 12 days solitary confinement in a stone cell with blindfolds, bound hands, little or no sleep, regular interrogation and "constant psychological and emotional pressure" looks like?

Put it this way, regardless of how staged these pictures were or were not, it doesn't leave you looking like this:

Day 5



Day 7



Day 11



Day 12





A number of people have pointed out the fact that in the photos of the "hostages" in Iran, some were smiling and waving while others were not. This is due to the fact that there were a mix of Marines and Sailors among the 15, and it was, more or less, all of the sailors that were smiling and waving, while the marines were stern faced. This fact reflects the difference in training and job profile between the Sailors and Marines and how aware each group was of the reality of what they were doing in the Persian Gulf.

Basically, the Marines know that their job is to attack and undermine the Iranians. To the Marines, the Iranians are the enemy, which is reflected in their demeanour.

From the sailors POV, they are there to "help" with stopping smugglers, which could also be of benefit to the Iranians. So to the Sailors then, the Iranians were not necessarily the enemy, which is reflected in their demeanour.

The official story that they were just doing their job of searching for "smugglers" is of course, laughable. Such activities are undertaken in countries where normal conditions prevail, NOT in a country like Iraq, which is as war torn as any. "Searching for smugglers" is no one's priority in Iraq, but serves the MOD well as a cover story because it appears to the British public that "their boys" are carrying out innocent, heck! even helpful activities in Iraq, and darn those Iraqis for not being grateful!

So to be convincing, they searched the odd boat that was unloading cars or whatever, and the gormless sailors were there to make it look convincing, and indeed the sailors themselves, dupes that they are, actually believed that this was the extent of what they were involved in, if only as a cover.

The Marines were there to do the real job - spying on Iraq, planning/setting up infiltrations into Iran - keeping in contact with British assassination (SAS) teams already in Iran - passing details to US teams in Iran and to the US government etc.

In short, they are very clearly engaged in hostile acts towards Iran, and if the tables had been turned, and Iranians had been caught in America doing the same thing, they would now be being tortured in Guantanamo. No doubt WHATSOEVER.

The main point at this stage however is that the spin machine has gone into action in an attempt to undo the Iranian "coup de media". For example, the Scotsman reports:

The Iranian soldiers had changed out of military uniforms and were now dressed all in black, their faces masked. For the 14 male hostages, the worst moment of their ordeal had arrived. The belief that they were being taken to the British Embassy in Tehran for imminent release had evaporated. Instead, at a detention centre, blindfolded and with their hands secured with plastic cuffs, they were all made to face a brick wall.

Then guns were cocked and a British captive cried out: "Lads, lads. I think we are going to be executed." At that point, one of the hostages vomited: at least one of the others thought someone had just had their throat cut, and that it was blood hitting the floor.

Hmmmm.... now why would any of the British hostages automatically associate the sound of vomit hitting the floor with someone's throat being cut? Are British children reared to instinctively know and associate these sounds with one another? Of course, I forget! They were in "Arablandia", where people cut each other's throats as a matter of course and on a daily basis.

The poster boy for the gormlessness of the Sailors has to be Sailor Arthur Batchelor. From my brief analysis of the 'cut of his gib', I have decided that this poor misguided child would have cracked if an Iranian Republican Guard has so much as looked at him in the wrong way, and his bright and sunny disposition therefore constitutes reasonable evidence that it is unlikely that there was any mal-treatment.







Indeed, it is exactly Batchelor's likely naivety that we can rely on to get the closest approximation to the truth of what conditions were really like. He stated:

"Iranian behaviour was humane, we were fed, watered 3 times a day"

which is far cry from "constant psychological pressure", blindfolds, handcuffs, stone cells, "gun-cocking" etc. as reported by his superiors who were given the job of spreading lies and disinformation once they arrived home.

On a lighter note; I had to chuckle at the fact that Batchelor was so short and hobbit-like that there wasn't a suit in all of Iran to be found to fit him.