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The official story on the final denouement of the Toulouse shootings drama is in. Like so many other official narratives around 'Muslim terror attacks', it's full of holes and requires anyone attempting to believe it to engage in some serious mental gymnastics.

Mohamed Merah, was a 23-year-old French guy of Algerian descent who loved cars, worked in a car repair/supply store, wanted to join the French army to "defend the French flag" but was refused, was partying in a nightclub three weeks before his alleged shooting spree, had a history of petty criminal offences and was due in court in April for driving without a license. He also had, allegedly, visited Israel, Afghanistan and Pakistan for some, as yet, unknown reason, perhaps "ideological indoctrination".

That's about as much as we can say about him without disseminating dubious government propaganda, specifically the claim that he was the author of the recent shootings in Toulouse. That particular claim is in serious doubt given that an eyewitness at one of the shootings stated clearly that the gunman, who always wore a motorbike helmet, was "quite fat". Other eyewitnesses said the the man they saw shooting was "of European descent". Here's a recent picture of Mohamed Merah:

[Author Note] As this is a developing story, updates are posted at the end of the article:

French President Sarkozy's 2012 re-election bid has been faltering almost since he was 'elected' in 2007. Long viewed by a majority of the French public as a latter-day Napoleon wannabe, some were perplexed as to how he won the 2007 presidential race, given that one year before the election, opinion polls placed him a definite second, and between then and the election he did nothing to justify his alleged increase in popularity, with his 'Bling Bling' approach to electioneering turning the stomachs of many French people. In addition, within a few months of his 'victory' in May 2007, Sarkozy's popularity had plummeted to around 30% as people reacted to his austere economic reforms, on which he had openly campaigned, mind you. How to explain such a sudden turnaround so soon after his victory? It was only on election day that, somehow, the diminutive son of a Hungarian immigrant and his 'princes of Paris' were gifted 5 years in the Elysee palace.

In response to the February 25th killing of two US soldiers by an unidentified Afghan, who was angered by the most recent "Koran burning" episode by the always sensitive US army, the Commander of US forces in Afghanistan, General John Allen, told US troops:

"There will be moments like this when you're searching for the meaning of this loss. There will be moments like this, when your emotions are governed by anger and a desire to strike back. Now is not the time for revenge, now is not the time for vengeance, now is the time to look deep inside your souls, remember your mission, remember your discipline, remember who you are."

This little detail, as motive, seems to have been 'forgotten' by the mainstream media in their coverage of the recent massacre of 16 Afghan villagers by up to 20 drunken US soldiers. Indeed, the reports that up to 20 'drunken' troops were involved in the massacre have also been conveniently ignored by the Western media, who have chosen to go with the US military-provided "lone crazed assassin" lie that has served so well to cover up previous planned murders by US forces of Empire. The fact of the matter is, General Allen knew that his troops were planning 'revenge', but obviously could do nothing to stop it.

A British teenager has been arrested and will appear in a UK court as a result of a comment he posted on Facebook about the deaths last week of six British soldiers in Afghanistan.

On March 8th, 19 year old Azhar Ahmed posted a comment on his Facebook page about the deaths of 6 British soldiers in Afghanistan on the 6th March. On the same day as Azhar's post, a Facebook group entitled Azhar Ahmed Scumbag!!! was created (with large Union Jack flag as its logo) and, someone (perhaps the creator of the FB page) reported his comment to the police. The following day, Friday, Azhar was arrested and charged over the weekend. He was then released on bail and will appear in Dewsbury magistrates' court on March 20th. An online petition has also been created that demands that Azhar be "sent to prison for hate crimes against British soldiers".

Most disturbing here is not that there are many rabid Right Wing Authoritarian types on Facebook, but that the British police clearly took the complaint seriously and took the time and effort to investigate the matter and saw fit to send a squad car to Azhar's house to arrest him.

The people behind this campaign are MASSIVELY misguided. Or it's a CIA-sponsored psy-ops.

Take for example the fact that one of the 12 'policy makers' (US politicians) that they are targeting to help them ensure Joseph Kony is arrested is George 'Dubya' Bush. The puppet president who presided over the murder of 1.5 million Iraqi civilians. And we're all meant to believe that people like him are going to care about the plight of Ugandan children? Kony is Bush's ideological brother for god's sake.

Other than their complete ignorance of the fact that the US political elite is populated by the world's worst war criminals, the makers of this video are also massively ignorant of the truth about WHY Uganda, and many other African nations, are subjected to the brutal excesses of war lords and have been for so many decades.

Let's face it, most people don't have the time, energy or inclination to try to separate truth from lies in our world today. The ability to do so is, however, crucial for many reasons. For over ten years, we here at Sott.net have been analysing and writing on what passes for the 'news' and we've come to a conclusion that may be of help to those who can't, or won't, do their own digging for the truth.

The conclusion is that you can, with a reasonable degree of certainty, assume that the truth about any major political event can be found more or less 180 degrees from what politicians or the media (especially US and European politicians and media) claim. Try it out. To do this, you have to do it consciously. So take any current major political news item in the media and, in your mind, flip it 180 degrees. When reading the headline or summary of a news item, simply reverse the statement that it makes. I can assure you that this 180 version will be a lot closer to the truth.

Take for example Vladimir Putin's recent election victory. Check the headlines from major Western 'news' corporations and you'll see that they all smear, subtly and not so subtly, Putin's win with allegations of 'corruption'. Rupert Murdoch's Sky News went so far as to put 'scare quotes' around the words 'wins election'. Virtually all other media outlets carried the same disparaging headline in one form or another, which is not surprising since there are about 3 or 4 actual Western 'news' agencies that report on events and then simply share the information with their subsidiaries. In this case, our 180 degree approach works rather well.

A series of bizarre coincidences has left several African countries experiencing significantly reduced Internet traffic. The Register reported 28 February that an undersea cable was cut off the coast of Kenya on 25 February, severely reducing Internet traffic along the Eastern side of the African continent. The East African Marine Systems (TEAMS) cable pipes Internet and telecommunications from its landing points in Fujairah in the UAE to Mombasa, Kenya. A ship had apparently "dropped anchor in a restricted area", though no further details, in particular the ship's name, were provided. But what had apparently gone unnoticed up until this incident, at least in Western media, was the severance of three other submarine communications cables further north in the Red Sea on 17 February. The three cables in question were the Eastern Africa Submarine Cable System (EASSy), the Europe India Gateway (EIG) and the South East Asia Middle East Western Europe-3 (SEA-ME-WE-3). EASSy issued a press release on 29 February stating that:

• The EASSy cable was cut on 17 February 2012 at 14:27
• The cable cut is at a depth of 165m
• The cut section of cable is located in the Red Sea between the EASSy landing stations at Port Sudan and Djibouti
• The vessel believed to be responsible for the cable cut has been identified.
• The cut is believed to have been caused by the anchor of this vessel, a cargo ship, being dragged more than 150km along the sea bed

OK, it's time for more weirdness. As we covered in a recent SOTT Report, accounts and recordings of strange noises heard all over the world went semi-viral on YouTube in January this year, and some are even receiving mainstream media coverage. Some YouTube pundits claim they're all faked, a couple of scientists say they're 'normal' and nothing to worry about, and many are freaking out as the phenomenon is feeding the '2012-apocalypse-oh-my-God-we're-all-gonna-die' hysteria. So what's really going on?

The hype appears to have started with these videos from Kiev, Ukraine, posted on 3 August and 11 August 2011, respectively. (Although, as we'll see later, these were not the first accounts.)



(See here for a translation of the uploader's account of the sounds and analysis and here for a summary of the associated thread, with additional analyses and accounts.)

Dozens of videos have been uploaded since then, some obviously faked, others perhaps not. For example, at least 28 videos posted in the months since Kiev obviously use the sound from the original video played over random video footage, sometimes with staged 'Oh-my-God-what-is-that?' dialogue. And, no, as far as I can tell, none of them use samples from the films Red State or War of the Worlds, as some have claimed. The similarity is striking (trumpet-like blasts, metallic rumbles and such), but truth has been known to resemble fiction. And it wouldn't be the first time that similar strange noises have been heard, both in recent times and the murky depths of history recorded in myth and legend.

Caveat lector: Nothing in the following investigative report should be construed as evidence that Sott.net condones the manipulative activities of organisations like Scientology or any other organisation that preys upon human frailty. Not only do we accept the need to protect the vulnerable in society from such 'New Age' con-artists, over the past 10 years we have repeatedly sought to expose such predators. It is the very New Age con artists that we exposed who then began to smear us with the "cult" label. The problem however, is that state-funded bodies that have been created supposedly to protect citizens from 'mental manipulation' have their own agenda that is, in the long run, just as pernicious as the spiritual snake oil-peddling groups they claim to stand against. This is revealed in the fact that MIVILUDES has only undertaken a token attack on Scientology; they were never raided nor interrogated (as many harmless groups have been), and at the end of a long, well-publicized legal action, were fined only 600,000 euros, a veritable slap on the wrist for such a wealthy organization. Meanwhile, France's president, Sarkozy, cosied up to Scientology's representative, Tom Cruise on several occasions. In short, MIVILUDES' actions against Scientology are merely for show.

Since the 1970s, successive French governments have used, abused and exaggerated the danger posed by New Age groups to enforce an oppressive conformity of belief in the state itself on the French people. This simply supplants one destructive and manipulative cult ideology for another. As the preeminent anti-cult organisation in France, MIVILUDES, has stated: "State repression must take place when a certain number of elements are gathered [...] when one or several people start getting fond of ideas not commonly shared and agreed upon by society." That is to say, when ordinary people start to get fond of ideas that could, in a general way, threaten the control of the psychopaths in power over the masses of normal human beings.

The troubling state of affairs that we outline in the following paragraphs does not, however, concern only the French people. It is global in scope and has its roots in the 1960s and '70s and the efforts by Western 'intelligence agencies' and elements within Western governments to co-opt and discredit what was known as the 'Human Potential Movement' and the subsequent 'New Age' movement and enforce a conformity of thought and belief on hundreds of millions of people.

Initially the strategy involved the infiltration and co-opting of any group that was beginning to see (and speak about) the problems with big governments and big corporations dominating (and destroying) the world. It was, and is, about control of the population - mind, body and soul - of any given country. But the agenda was not limited to mere infiltration of such groups. After all, it would take a lot of effort and manpower to continually keep tabs on each new group and try to subvert them. What was needed was the ability to automatically demonise any group that 'deviated' from social norms or proposed ideas that were at odds with the agenda of big government and big corporations. Within the process of subverting such groups, the logical answer was found.

Once a group had been infiltrated (or created from scratch by an intelligence agency), they could, quite easily, be made to appear quite insane. Groups that have lost touch with reality ultimately resort to extreme measures, like suicide, or so the logic goes. What better way to demonise the very idea of 'alternative lifestyles' than to create some high-profile cases where such groups commit 'collective suicide'?

But people involved in such subterfuge are always on the lookout for an opportunity to maximise their gains with the least effort. Groups that have been targeted for transformation into a 'cult' are ultimately expendable, and expendable assets of intelligence agencies are traditionally used as cover for highly illegal activities on the part of government and corporate leaders.

If certain influential and well-connected individuals want to engage in illegal money-making activities, they organise themselves in secret and attempt to ensure a significant level of deniability. If they want to engage in some HIGHLY illegal activity (like weapons sales prohibited under international law, money laundering, overthrowing governments, phony terrorist attacks, pedophilia rings, etc.) they organise themselves under the cover of an organisation that can, if necessary, be denounced as a 'suicide cult'. After all, 'suicide cult' members tell no tales and few questions are asked about their motives because, clearly, they were just insane.

In addition, such 'cult suicides' very effectively establish the 'reality' of dangerous cults in the public mind and that 'reality' can then be used to defame, threaten and, if possible, destroy any group that threatens the status quo of psychopaths in power and the general population as their slaves.

The 'Jonestown' cult and 'collective suicide' (which was clearly a CIA operation) is an example of this very strategy, but there have been many other such operations, which together have produced the 'cult' meme in modern society. But it has been in France, where adherence to, and admiration for, 'normal' French cultural values is seen as the quintessence of sanity, that the 'cult' meme has been used to such great effect in the modern world.