August 21, 2006
Pakistanis find no evidence against 'terror mastermind’
From the Daily Mail: Rashid Rauf, whose detention in Pakistan was the trigger for the arrest of 23 suspects in Britain, has been accused of taking orders from Al Qaeda’s 'No3’ in Afghanistan and sending money back to the UK to allow the alleged bombers to buy plane tickets. But after two weeks of interrogation, an inch-by-inch search of his house and analysis of his home computer, officials are now saying that his extradition is 'a way down the track’ if it happens at all.
It comes amid wider suspicions that the plot may not have been as serious, or as far advanced, as the authorities initially claimed. Analysts suspect Pakistani authorities exaggerated Rauf’s role to appear 'tough on terrorism’ and impress Britain and America.
A spokesman for Pakistan’s Interior Ministry last night admitted that 'extradition at this time is not under consideration’.
Wow, who would have thought it? You mean there might be less than meets the eye about the Great London Bomb Plot, when George W. Bush singlehandedly foiled the imminent death of thousands of people by using his super-president powers of warrantless wiretapping? (That is how the story is being pitched by Bush minions like the cadaverous Michael Chertoff and the chubby-cheeked enabler of torture Al Gonzales, right?)
But if even the CIA's old running buddies in the Pakistan secret services can't wring enough plausible evidence out of Rauf with their renowned methods of information extraction, could it be that the whole great googily-moogily is about to unravel? Wise man William Blum has this take:
"Our government has kept us in a perpetual state of fear -- kept us in a continuous stampede of patriotic fervor -- with the cry of grave national emergency. Always there has been some terrible evil at home or some monstrous foreign power that was going to gobble us up if we did not blindly rally behind it by furnishing the exorbitant funds demanded. Yet, in retrospect, these disasters seem never to have happened, seem never to have been quite real." -- General Douglas MacArthur, 1957.....From what is typical in terrorist scares, it is likely that the individuals arrested in the UK August 10 are guilty of what George Orwell, in 1984, called "thoughtcrimes". That is to say, they haven't actually DONE anything. At most, they've THOUGHT about doing something the government would label "terrorism". Perhaps not even very serious thoughts, perhaps just venting their anger at the exceptionally violent role played by the UK and the US in the Mideast and thinking out loud how nice it would be to throw some of that violence back in the face of Blair and Bush. And then, the fatal moment for them that ruins their lives forever ... their angry words are heard by the wrong person, who reports them to the authorities. (In the Manhattan flood case the formidable, dangerous "terrorists" made mention on an Internet chat room about blowing something up.)Soon a government agent provocateur appears, infiltrates the group, and then actually encourages the individuals to think and talk further about terrorist acts, to develop real plans instead of youthful fantasizing, and even provides the individuals with some of the actual means for carrying out these terrorist acts, like explosive material and technical know-how, money and transportation, whatever is needed to advance the plot. It's known as "entrapment", and it's supposed to be illegal, it's supposed to be a powerful defense for the accused, but the authorities get away with it all the time; and the accused get put away for very long stretches. And because of the role played by the agent provocateur, we may never know whether any of the accused, on their own, would have gone much further, if at all, like actually making a bomb, or, in the present case, even making transatlantic flight reservations since many of the accused reportedly did not even have passports. Government infiltrating and monitoring is one thing; encouragement, pushing the plot forward, and scaring the public to make political capital from it is quite something else.
For more on the Bush Gang's penchant for manufacturing terror for fun and profit, see:
Into the Dark: The Pentagon Plan to Foment Terrorism
Darkness Visible: The Pentagon Plan to Foment Terrorism is Now Operative
The original Daily Mail story came to us via Kurt Nimmo, who adds this telling gloss:
How fortuitous, especially for the neocons and Bush’s Ministry of Homeland Security, busily working to trounce the Constitution and turn America into a snoop and police state.
"Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff called on state legislators Thursday to embrace new federal driver’s license requirements to strengthen security," reports the Associated Press. "Starting three years from now, if you live or work in the United States, you’ll need a federally approved ID card to travel on an airplane, open a bank account, collect Social Security payments, or take advantage of nearly any government service. Practically speaking, your driver’s license likely will have to be reissued to meet federal standards," explained CNet News in March. In addition to name, birth date, sex, ID number, a digital photograph, and address, "Homeland Security is permitted to add additional requirements—such as a fingerprint or retinal scan—on top of those." In short, without this new card, slotted to go online by 2008, you will be unable to function in society.
Yeah, but with all the extra security keeping us so safe, they'll probably let you take your Metamucil on a plane. That's enough freedom for anybody, right?
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