Thursday, May 03, 2007

The Cat crept into the Crevice, crapped and crept out again

A few of the things about the Crevice trial and its treatment in the media that are bugging me...


Basically, there's been a total absence of rigour in the treatment of the
Crevice trial. At least two or three members of the jury may have anguished about passing a guilty verdict but our media has displayed no such doubts

Which, in a sane world, would be surprising given the frankly awful record of recent terror trials...


Does this mean that I am alluding to some vast establishment conspiracy? A conspiracy designed to perpetuate the War on Terror myth through a series of high profile trials of idiots, nutters and patsies.


Maybe, but it would not have to be as vast as some people who mock 'conspiracy theories' would like to pretend.

It would only take a few people to get the ball rolling. After that, the kind of unimaginative jobsworths and gauleiters who have always found employment and favour in the machinery of state will diligently identify terrorists, whether real or imagined, till the cows come. Aside from that all you need is a morally weak and plain ignorant general public and you're away. After a while, the myth will take on a life of its own and you'll even find there are some lunatic bastards out there claiming that they really are part of some huge, shadowy, non-existent network

Alternatively, you can reject the notion that the World really does works like that sometimes. You could also prefer to believe, along with the Al-Qaeda myth, that Europe really was overrun by witches in the 17th century and that organised Satanic Ritual Abuse continues to take place, nationwide under our very noses.


Waterboarding - 17th Century style. We've come a long way since then ... and golly gee whizz now we're going back again


Personally speaking, there's something moderately ironic about how not buying into the Al-Qaeda conspiracy theory can be scornfully discounted as being itself a conspiracy theory.
Like treason, what is or isn't an acceptable conspiracy theory very often seems to be a matter of dates.


And the fact is that, as with the Troubles in Northern Ireland, the British security services are intimately involved with many of the supposed Jihadist terrorists. So much so that it is absolutely impossible for anyone, including I suspect members of the security services, to tell the terrorists, agent provocateurs and dupes apart.

Of course, that's not how the story has been spun this week.

After the
Crevice trial had ended it was claimed that MI5 had identified two of the 7/7 bombers associating with the alleged Crevice terrorists but decided that their role was insignificant. Later on, after the 7/7 bombings, MI5 claimed that it had no prior involvement with any of the alleged 7/7 bombers.

Which in technical terms is what is known as a lie.

And the reason being given for MI5 not keeping an eye on the two soon-to-be-alleged 7/7 bombers was because it was short of resources.

Maybe

But the reason could also be because MI5 is crap at what it does

Alternatively, maybe MI5 had other, altogether spookier, reasons for letting the two suspects go about their business unmolested and, supposedly, unobserved

Who knows? One thing I do know is that if I were to catch someone out in a lie in my personal life I wouldn't be inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt in anything else they were claiming. However, different rules apparently apply when it comes to the media's treatment of MI5's output.

And it's unlikely that any independent public inquiry into the events leading up to 7/7 will shed any meaningful light on the subject. Independent public inquiries in the UK are now subject to some spiffy new legislation that ensures that they will be neither independent nor public. On top of that, those members of the public calling for an inquiry who are given the most coverage in the media don't seem to have a problem with that.

It's looking like there will be some kind of inquiry eventually and my awesome psychic powers tell me that the line 'tragic failure of intelligence' will be used at some point and that the key conclusion will be that resources allocated to state security need to be increased significantly.

It's easy to forget in the wake of the massive coverage of the
Crevice verdict that this has been just one story amongst a spate of terrorism-related arrests, speeches and news stories that have taken place over the last few weeks. The timing of all these could, of course, just be coincidental, though personally I doubt it. The timings of arrests, speeches or leaking stories to newspapers are the result of conscious decisions not chance.

It is possible therefore that the stage is being set for some kind of major event. I sincerely hope my concerns are unfounded. Having said that it's not just me who is fearful for the future. The undisputed king of jobsworth gauleiters, the head of UK police counter-terrorism said as much just over a week ago...

"Nevertheless, we suffered the appalling attacks of July 2005, and the only sensible assumption is that we shall be attacked again."

"We have nothing to Fear but Fear itself ... and, of course, rag-heads armed with Tupperware"


Or to put it another way '
Give us a free hand and the resources to do what we want to or you will die. Come to think of it, you'll die anyway'




Now the thing is when our own senior policemen take to competing with the terrorists in boasting about the fearsome capabilities of those terrorists I start to have a real fucking problem telling the police and the terrorists apart


...and what are claimed to be warnings start to sound very much like a threats.

.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

"So much so that it is absolutely impossible for anyone, including I suspect members of the security services, to tell the terrorists, agent provocateurs and dupes apart."

It reminds me of "A Scanner Darkly" with Tim Osman (the CIA name given to Bin Laden when he toured US military bases in the early 90s) and Osama bin Laden being agent Fred and Bob Arctor. Not only in the case of Tim/Osama but for lots of other agents down the chain. All very weird. (Sad for the unwitting CIA proxies though, I suppose. Just imagine being rabidly anti-US and being persuaded by some Western paid Mullah to participate in a suicide attack thinking that it will hurt your enemy but all the while it is strengthening them).

"And it's unlikely that any independent public inquiry into the events leading up to 7/7 will shed any meaningful light on the subject."

Another puzzle ... why anyone would trust this or any subsequent govs with a public enquiry.

Anonymous said...

It doesn't have to be a conspiracy, and it doesn't have to be vast. If you believe that there is a distinct sector of society that has superior financial and/or legal status, you will notice they are in a minority, maybe 1-2% of the population.

That gives you up to a million people, a similar ratio of guards to prisoners in abu ghraib and there wasn't any breakouts there.

A professional demolishes a building by strategically placing an adequate minimum of explosive, no need for more or less.

Similarly, if you have strategic control of a society, all you need is a coincidence of interests to maintain the various sections of this elite or class. Like the demolition expert, you just need enough, after all, there's no fun in sharing.

Whether it is an unexamined bureaucracy or some 'private' enterprise, creating a cowed, ignorant population just has too many attractions to resist.

The biggest problem, that despite the many indignities and provocations visited on those we seek to demonise, there just aren't enough real threats to go around.

Hence the show trials of the inadequate.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for overcoming your speechlessness, much appreciated.

My psychic powers (!) suggest West Yorkshire police may get the blame for the 'tragic failure of intelligence'. We have already had them allegedly failing to act upon information given to them by IT expert Martin Gilbertson, and the Chief Constable in 2005, Colin Cramphorn, is now dead and so unable to defend his record.

Anonymous said...

Just a thought about the advocates for using torture ... do you think that they're being duped by the Clever Hans Effect?

Pfungst in eck!!

Anonymous said...

Want to hear about police lies and incompetence leading to people being falsely accused of being paedos? Subsequently, there being a cover up? Yes, well read this Guardian Technology report about how Operation Ore appears to be based on stolen credit card details.

Yep. Someone steals your credit card details, puts them into a paedo site (presumably as a means of extracting the cash) and then the filth come a knocking. One falsely accused has already killed himself. Don't forget to read the blog here. Lives completely destroyed, all due to police incompetence and our societies credulity.

Stef said...

@anon 9.05 - I loved ASD and the connection with the tWoT is a good one - all praises to Philip K. Dick - the Prince of Paranoia

@paul - this audio on the nature of the people who exercise strategic control on our society is kind of relevant...

http://tinyurl.com/2s5z6y

Stef said...

@anon 11.49

um... yes

@anon 12.22

www.youtube.com/watch?v=19tKOFR1Reo