Best of the Web:


Vader

Best of the Web: The spectacle of terror and its vested interests

Naomi Wolf
The Guardian
Thu, 10 May 2012 15:44 UTC
Image
The news stories, which quickly surface, long enough to cause scary headlines, then vanish before people can learn how often the cases are thrown out. These are stories about "bumbling fantasists", hapless druggies, the aimless, even the virtually homeless and mentally ill, and other marginal characters with not the strongest grip on reality, who have been lured into discourses about violence against America only after assiduous courting, and in some cases outright payment, by undercover FBI or police informants.

They have become a litany in recent years. The terrifying 2003-2004 national news stories that a Detroit "sleeper cell" had sent Muslim terrorists to blow up Disneyland and other landmarks, including in Las Vegas, was later thrown out of court, with accusations of prosecutorial misconduct, to almost no press attention - the same cycle of hype and failed convictions that have characterized many such stories. The evidence had included a home video taken in Disneyland, "doodles", and a guy with a credit card fraud problem, who had been pressured to diminish his own sentence by accusing his buddies.

Comment: For a history of the many similar cases of the FBI entrapping intellectually challenged Americans to frame as 'terrorist' patsies, check out the following Sott Report.


The ex-FBI informant with a change of heart: 'There is no real hunt. It's fixed'

FBI Linked to Yet Another Domestic Terrorism Plot

FBI Tries To Coax Muslim Into Bombing US Capitol

FBI Organizes Almost All Terror Plots in the US

Washington DC: FBI Foils Own Terror Plot (Again)

Fake terror plots, paid informants: the tactics of FBI 'entrapment' questioned

Read More...
Propaganda

Best of the Web: Did Obama Really Kill Osama?

Ralph Cinque
LewRockwell.com
Wed, 09 May 2012 10:33 UTC
We just passed the one-year anniversary of the (alleged) execution of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan. But, did he really live until 2011? Ten years earlier, in 2001, his kidneys were failing, and he was on dialysis. Do you know what the life expectancy is for dialysis patients in the United States? Unless you get a kidney transplant (and Osama did not) the average life expectancy is 5 years. And that presumes that top-notch medical care is provided, which may be hard to come by in places like Afghanistan and Pakistan. And being on the run and living in hiding can't possibly help the situation.

However, Osama bin laden had a lot of other health problems besides kidney disease. They included insulin-dependent diabetes, hepatitis, osteoporosis, an enlarged heart, anemia, abnormally low blood pressure, and Marfan's syndrome. [See Nicholas Kollerstrom, "Osama bin Laden: 1957-2001" which can be found on jamesfetzer.blogspot.com, and David Ray Griffin, Osama bin Laden: Dead or Alive? (2009).]

The picture below is of Osama bin Laden from 2001, and below it is an image of him from 2011 which was released by the Pentagon immediately after the raid. I think you'll agree that in the first picture, he looks rather pale and ashen and quite sickly, and in the second picture he looks quite robust.

bin laden 1
© n/a
bin laden 2
© n/a
Read More...
Bad Guys

Best of the Web: The Yemen Underwear Bomb and Other Hobgoblins

James E. Miller
ZeroHedge
Tue, 08 May 2012 00:11 UTC
threat level chart
© DHS

Today it was widely reported that the CIA thwarted a "plot by al Qaeda's affiliate in Yemen to destroy a U.S.-bound airliner using a bomb." This bomb, which was to be concealed in a pair of underwear, was designed as an improvement over what Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab attempted to use to blow up an airliner over Detroit on Christmas Day of 2009. This bomb was upgraded and designed to specifically avoid metal detectors.

At first glance it would appear to be a job well done by the world's leading domestic affairs meddlers.

But like all of these instances, it was routinely denied "there was ever any immediate threat to the public." It was also revealed that:
The bomb plot had allegedly advanced to the point that a would-be suicide bomber was told to buy a ticket on the airliner of his choosing and decide the timing of the attack. It's not immediately clear what happened to the would-be bomber.
It would seem that what the CIA recovered was essentially just a crudely made bomb. The supposed bomber was nowhere to be found. There is no evidence presented as to a real threat or plan to use it.

The truth was finally revealed as the would-be bomber was, in fact, a double agent of the CIA.

When considering the nature of the state, this new instance of government supported terrorism is unsurprisingly comparable to previous cases.

Comment: See also: The Underwear Bomber - Crushing Freedom With Phony Arab Terrorism

Read More...
Whistle

Flashback Best of the Web: Attorney Haskell Blows Whistle on Underwear Bomber, Government Op

PoliceStateWatch
YouTube
Wed, 26 Jan 2011 10:39 UTC
I contend that this story is just the tip of the iceberg into the US government's black operations to further the Patriot Act, funding for Homeland Security and the TSA, and to keep intensity up for the so called War on Terror.


Respected lawyer and community leader, Kurt Haskell, has nothing to gain from pointing his finger at the federal government. He witnessed the underwear bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, being whisked past security and led onto NorthWest Airlines flight 253, by a well-dressed man with an American accent- all without the passenger's proper visa and passport documentation. What the news piece doesn't mention is that the State Dept did indeed put Mutallab on the plane, at the behest of "an unnamed US intelligence agency." Undersecretary Patrick F. Kennedy (Detroit news article was removed from web!).

Comment: The Underwear Bomber - Crushing Freedom With Phony Arab Terrorism

Read More...
Red Flag

Best of the Web: Fake War on Terror: Underwear Bomber 2.0 was CIA Double Agent

Scott Shane and Eric Schmitt
The New York Times
Tue, 08 May 2012 18:31 UTC
Image
The would-be suicide bomber dispatched by the Yemen branch of Al Qaeda last month to blow up a United States-bound airliner was actually an intelligence agent for Saudi Arabia who infiltrated the terrorist group and volunteered for the suicide mission, American and foreign officials said Tuesday.

In an extraordinary intelligence coup, the double agent left Yemen, traveling by way of the United Arab Emirates, and delivered both the innovative bomb designed for his air attack and critical information on the group's leaders to the C.I.A., Saudi and other foreign intelligence agencies.

After spending weeks at the center of the terrorist network's most dangerous affiliate, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the agent provided critical information that permitted the C.I.A. to direct the drone strike on Sunday that killed Fahd Mohammed Ahmed al-Quso, the group's external operations director and a suspect in the bombing of the American destroyer Cole in Yemen in 2000.

He also handed over the bomb, designed by the group's top explosives expert to be invisible to airport security, to the F.B.I., which is analyzing its properties.

Comment: Hooray for the CIA and the FBI and Saudi Intelligence and "other" intelligence agencies (wink, wink, M o s s a d), making the world safe for pedophile networks, wage slavery, drug trafficking, money-laundering and weapons smuggling!

That now makes TWO 'Underwear bombing plots' exposed as state terrorist plots:

The Underwear Bomber - Crushing Freedom With Phony Arab Terrorism

Underwear Bomber Redux - Was Mutallab An Israeli "Secret Weapon"?

Haskell Blows Whistle on Underwear Bomber, Government Op

Read More...
Bomb

Best of the Web: FBI Informer Entraps Occupy Protestors Into US Government Plot to Blow Up Cleveland Bridge

Stephen Lendman
Global Research
Mon, 07 May 2012 09:18 UTC
FBI ctime creation graphic
© n/a
The latest plot involves five subjects allegedly planning to bomb a Cleveland area bridge. More on it below.

Entrapment occurs when law enforcement officials or agents induce, influence, or provoke crimes that otherwise wouldn't be committed.

It doesn't apply if subjects willingly act lawlessly. Government aiding, abetting, or facilitating them is considered lawful.

Entrapment involves government operatives initiating the idea. If individuals go along under pressure despite no intent or desire to do so, they committed no crime. To convict, prosecutors must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that subjects weren't entrapped. Otherwise, judicial fairness requires exoneration.

That's not how things turn out today. Innocence or guilt doesn't matter. Once charged, prosecutorial misconduct and right-wing courts convict. Juries are pressured and intimidated to go along even in cases with no plot, no crime, or intent to commit one.

Attorney Eric Holder defends the practice. He calls stings a vital tool. He stops short of admitting entrapment. He must because it's illegal. It's nonetheless repeatedly used to convict innocent people. As a result, hundreds rot unjustly in America's gulag.

Gerald Celente calls cops enforcers for crime bosses. So are FBI agents. They serve wealth and power. Corporate crooks are rewarded. Ordinary people are targeted. Familiar story lines repeat. They sound more like film plots than real ones.

Comment: So the FBI is at it again. This time trolling the OWS movement for the most gullible people to set up as patsies to keep the bogus 'terror threat' alive, and even expand it to 'homegrown terrorism' and anyone "angry at corporate America".

For a history of the many similar cases of the FBI entrapping intellectually challenged Americans to frame as 'terrorist' patsies, check out the following Sott Report.


The ex-FBI informant with a change of heart: 'There is no real hunt. It's fixed'

FBI Linked to Yet Another Domestic Terrorism Plot

FBI Tries To Coax Muslim Into Bombing US Capitol

FBI Organizes Almost All Terror Plots in the US

Washington DC: FBI Foils Own Terror Plot (Again)

Fake terror plots, paid informants: the tactics of FBI 'entrapment' questioned

Read More...
Ambulance

Best of the Web: Up to half of all Palestinian prisoners now on hunger strike, 10 transferred to Israeli hospitals

Ilan Ben Zion
Times of Israel
Sat, 05 May 2012 16:40 UTC
Palestinian protesters
© Noam Moskowitz/Flash90Palestinian protesters clash with Israeli troops during a demonstration on Friday at Qalandiya checkpoint in solidarity with Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.

A senior Hamas official warned Israel on Friday of dire consequences if any Palestinian prisoners die as a result of an ongoing hunger strike.

Two imprisoned Palestinians, Bilal Diab, 34, and Thaer Halahla, 27, have refused food for 66 days, and over 1,550 Palestinian security detainees have joined their strike since April 17.

Diab made matters worse on Saturday by refusing medical treatment.

Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian envoy to the UN, said that Diab and Halahla are suffering from "life-threatening conditions, including severe weight loss, nerve damage, dehydration, decreased muscle tone and low blood pressure."

They were reportedly transferred to an Israeli hospital on Friday. In total, 10 Palestinian prisoners were transferred to Israeli hospitals as a result of the hunger strike, according to Mansour.

The 10 men are among 1,500 to 2,500 Palestinian prisoners on hunger strike to demand better conditions and an end to detention without trial.
Read More...
Handcuffs

Best of the Web: The People's Bishop

Chris Hedges
Truthdig
Mon, 07 May 2012 13:33 UTC
Image
© AP/Stephanie KeithPolice arrest retired Episcopal Bishop George Packard during an Occupy demonstration in December. Packard was among those trying to access a vacant lot owned by Trinity Episcopal Church in lower Manhattan.
Retired Episcopal Bishop George Packard was arrested in Vietnam Veterans Memorial Plaza in New York City last Tuesday night as he participated in the May 1 Occupy demonstrations. He and 15 other military veterans were taken into custody after they linked arms to hold the plaza against a police attempt to clear it. There were protesters behind them who, perhaps because of confusion, perhaps because of miscommunication or perhaps they were unwilling to risk arrest, melted into the urban landscape. But those in the thin line from Veterans for Peace, of which the bishop is a member, stood their ground. They were handcuffed, herded into a paddy wagon and taken to jail.

It was Packard's second arrest as part of the Occupy protests. Last Dec. 17 he was arrested when he leapt over a fence in his flowing bishop's robe to spearhead an attempt to occupy a vacant lot owned by Trinity Church in lower Manhattan. The December action by the Occupy movement was a response to the New York City Police Department's storming and eradication of the encampment in Zuccotti Park. Packard will appear in court in June to face the trespassing charge that resulted. Now, because of this second arrest, he faces the possibility of three months in jail.
Read More...
Bizarro Earth

Best of the Web: Analysing Syria - The West's Greatest Fear

Dan Glazebrook
Information Clearing House
Sat, 05 May 2012 00:00 UTC
Image
© Ahmed Jadallah/ReutersFree Syrian Army fighters patrol a street in the Damascus suburb of Saqba.
Western attempts to destroy Syria have not been going to plan, revealing that what the West fears most is a peaceful resolution to the crisis

The strategy was simple, clear, tried and tested. It had been used successfully not only against Libya, but also Kosovo (in 1999), and was rapidly underway in Syria. It was to run as follows: train proxies to launch armed provocations; label the state's response to these provocations as genocide; intimidate the UN Security Council into agreeing that "something must be done"; incinerate the army and any other resistance with fragmentation bombs and Hellfire missiles; and finally install a weak, compliant government to sign off new contracts and alliances drawn up in London, Paris and Washington, whilst the country tore itself apart.

Result: the heart torn out of the "axis of resistance" between Iran, Syria and Hizbullah, leaving Iran isolated and the West with a free hand to attack Iran without fear of regional repercussions.

This was to be Syria's fate, drawn up years ago in the high- level planning committees of US, British and French defence departments and intelligence services. But this time, unlike in Libya, it has not all gone according to plan.

First, there was Russia and China's veto of the "regime change" resolution at the UN Security Council in October 2011, followed by a second veto in February of this year. This meant that any NATO attack on Syria would be denied the figleaf of UN approval, and seen instead as a unilateral act of aggression not just against Syria, but potentially also against China and Russia as well.

Vicious and reckless as they are, even Cameron, Sarkozy and Obama do not necessarily have the stomach for that kind of a fight. That left the burden of destroying the Syrian state to NATO's proxy forces on the ground, the "Free Syrian Army" -- a collection of domestic and (increasingly) foreign militias, mostly ultra-sectarian Salafi extremists, along with a smattering of defectors and Western special forces.

Comment: For a better idea of what is really going on in Syria please read the Sott Focus: Syria's Bloody CIA Revolution - A Distraction? by Joe Quinn.

For additional information read:

Mossad, Blackwater, CIA Led Operations in Homs

Wikileaks: US-led NATO Troops Operate Inside Syria

Read More...
Bell

Best of the Web: Gerald Celente on The Keiser Report: Fascism is here and now

The Keiser Report
Russia Today
Sun, 06 May 2012 12:40 UTC
Gerald Celente joined Max Keiser on The Keiser Report on May Day in New York City to discuss current trends and the collapse of the West.

Read More...