Right Wing Terrorism Is Re-Classed As Extremism And Discreetly Ignored

At Lenin’s Tomb there is a post about the Europol report into terrorism in the EU, he covers the main points well revealing the fear of islamist terrorism far outstrips the reality. But something leapt out at me when I went and downloaded and read Interpol’s report, and here it is:-

Right-wing extremist violence is a serious, increasing problem in a number of Member States. However,reporting on right-wing terrorism is random as right-wing violence and other politically motivated crimes are mainly investigated as right-wing extremism and not as terrorist offences. [page 37 Europol Telsat 2007]-

Yeah, read it again. This does explain why the BNP connected terrorists found with a rocket launcher, explosives, weapons and a nuclear chemical biological suit were not treated as terrorists and the press coverage was lackluster:-

There were 498 incidents in eleven EU countries last year labelled as “terrorist attacks.” The Basque separatist group ETA did best (136 terrorist attacks) and was responsible for the only deadly attack, killing two in Madrid. The remaining 497 fortunately cost no human lives.

How about the Islamic terrorists then? Considering the perpetual warnings in our daily papers, the findings in the Europol report is, to say the least, surprising. The truth is that Islamists only carried out one out of the 498 terrorist attacks in the European Union in 2006. Don’t believe me? The entire report is available on Europol’s website http://www.europol.europa.eu/publications/TESAT/TESAT2007.pdf.

Had Islamic fundamentalists been behind a higher number of attacks – say 136 – it would have been front page news at every big daily. One attack is simply too few – it won’t do if the image of an “Islamic threat” is to live on.

The Europol report devotes several pages to Islamist terrorism, despite the low number. Except for the one attack in Germany this group was responsible for (which, by the way, failed and resulted in no victims), also Denmark and the United Kingdom reported that Islamists plotted to carry out one attack in each country respectively (incidentally, all three countries are accessory to the illegal occupation of Iraq). –

Now the right word for this isn’t exactly favouritism but if all other varieties of terrorist are subjected to the enhanced state apparatus of surveillance, interrogation and imprisonment but the right wing loonies get treated as run of the mill offenders, it does suggest shaping of policy and public perceptions to regard certain groups as dangerous enemies. But other groups who are equally dangerous are actively kept insulated from the paranoia factory of our Governments ‘War on Terror’ by a discreet policy of not treating right wing terrorists as terrorist but simply as poor misguided extremists. The next question is why? To further policy in the oil rich middle east? Because America told us so? Because Nick Griffin has pictures of Blair fist fucking Tessa Jowell over a pile of the 7/7 dead?

Do Not Adjust Your Set

WordPress for reasons best known to itself is not loading all the elements of the blog, this kind of thing happens periodically (I think they are tinkering) and it usually rights itself within 24 hrs. The main body of posts seems ok so it’s not the end of the world, although it is annoying.

Prisons Of The Rich & Famous

Oh America, is there anything you can’t make subservient to money? Hell No!

For offenders whose crimes are usually relatively minor (carjackers should not bother) and whose bank accounts remain lofty, a dozen or so city jails across the state offer pay-to-stay upgrades. Theirs are a clean, quiet, if not exactly recherché alternative to the standard county jails, where the walls are bars, the fellow inmates are hardened and privileges are few.

Many of the self-pay jails operate like secret velvet-roped nightclubs of the corrections world. You have to be in the know to even apply for entry, and even if the court approves your sentence there, jail administrators can operate like bouncers, rejecting anyone they wish. For roughly $75 to $127 a day, these convicts — who are known in the self-pay parlance as “clients” — get a small cell behind a regular door, distance of some amplitude from violent offenders and, in some cases, the right to bring an iPod or computer on which to compose a novel, or perhaps a song.

Many of the overnighters are granted work furlough, enabling them to do most of their time on the job, returning to the jail simply to go to bed (often following a strip search, which granted is not so five-star). The clients usually share a cell, but otherwise mix little with the ordinary nonpaying inmates, who tend to be people arrested and awaiting arraignment, or federal prisoners on trial or awaiting deportation and simply passing through.

“I have never run into this,” said Ken Kerle, managing editor of the publication American Jail Association and author of two books on jails. “But the rest of the country doesn’t have Hollywood either. Most of the people who go to jail are economically disadvantaged, often mentally ill, with alcohol and drug problems and are functionally illiterate. They don’t have $80 a day for jail.” The California prison system, severely overcrowded, teeming with violence and infectious diseases and so dysfunctional that much of it is under court supervision, is one that anyone with the slightest means would most likely pay to avoid.-

So in the unlikely event that a rich person has to go to jail, they get to buy a place in a swanky one and maybe watch ‘Oz’ DVD’s on their laptop so they’ll have some stories for their friends.

The Mysterious Death Of LaVena Johnson

I remember reading a short report on LaVena Johnson’s death that smelled fishy even with the few details released, at the hearings where Tillman and Lynch got most of the attention it is terrible that the ‘missing white woman’ factor came in and a black woman’s death was overlooked:-

Young Pvt. Lavena Johnson, a St. Louis Missouri area soldier, was killed in Iraq on July 19th, 2005. Evidence in the case points to assault and murder. However, the Army has been covering up the murder, calling the soldiers death a suicide instead.

1. Lavena Johnson was not a candidate for suicide, based on all of the accounts that described her personality, demeanor, her spirit, etc. None of that pointed to suicide. Also, she was nearing the time when she would be coming home and had been making plans with her family.

2. Secondly, from a physical/scientific standpoint it would have been nearly impossible for her to shoot herself in the side of the head with an M-16 with her weak hand. The bullet wound was on the left side of her head, but Lavena was right handed. Typically this is not how a suicide would be done with an M-16 rifle. In addition, weapons residue & forensics tests showed that she did not even fire the weapon.

3. Her face and upper body showed signs that she had been beaten. She had a broken nose, a busted lip, and her front teeth had been knocked loose. The funeral service workers had to repair her face before her funeral. Other parts of her body also showed signs of trauma.-

There are already well documented problems with rape within the US forces in Iraq:-

OR an alternate scenario could be that Lavena was a witness to or knew of serious criminal activity involving officers or senior enlisted folks over there. She must have saw something or heard something, and her superiors knew that she could be a witness against them. In an effort to guarantee that she would not tell what she knew, someone decided to have her killed.-

In amongst all the death of the illegal invasion her murder shows the real monster that is unleashed here, a murdering beast that serves only the elites who are insulated from any consequences. The best way of describing war is this- take all the crimes you can think of, all of them. They are then committed every day many times endlessly until such time as the war is stopped. That’s why it must be only as a last resort in self defence. This war was chosen and it serves no higher purpose other than imperial game playing for control of people and resources. Where is the honour in being in this military?

Doing A Heck Of A Job Of Ethnic Cleansing

As the winds and water of Hurricane Katrina were receding, presidential confidante Karen Hughes sent a cable from her State Department office to U.S. ambassadors worldwide.

Titled “Echo-Chamber Message” — a public relations term for talking points designed to be repeated again and again — the Sept. 7, 2005, directive was unmistakable: Assure the scores of countries that had pledged or donated aid at the height of the disaster that their largesse had provided Americans “practical help and moral support” and “highlight the concrete benefits hurricane victims are receiving.”

Many of the U.S. diplomats who received the message, however, were beginning to witness a more embarrassing reality. They knew the U.S. government was turning down many allies’ offers of manpower, supplies and expertise worth untold millions of dollars. Eventually the United States also would fail to collect most of the unprecedented outpouring of international cash assistance for Katrina’s victims.

Allies offered $854 million in cash and in oil that was to be sold for cash. But only $40 million has been used so far for disaster victims or reconstruction, according to U.S. officials and contractors. Most of the aid went uncollected, including $400 million worth of oil. Some offers were withdrawn or redirected to private groups such as the Red Cross. The rest has been delayed by red tape and bureaucratic limits on how it can be spent.-

Incompetence and mistakes only get you so far, after that there is intent.

More North Wales Police Idiocy & Nu-Labour ‘Respect’

Two teenage girls were fined £80 for drawing chalk pictures on a pavement in Bangor, Gwynedd.
Hazel Mercer and her friend Charli Lyth, both 16, were given fixed penalties when a police officer saw them drawing hearts and rainbows.

Their families claimed the pair were told they would be threatened with ASBOs if their graffiti continued. Keith Marsh, Hazel’s father, said he had been told to pay the fine within 28 days. He said North Wales Police had since telephoned him and offered to reduce the fine to £40, but he told them to “forget it”.

A North Wales Police spokeswoman said: “Chalk graffiti has been a persistent problem in upper Bangor for quite some time, particularly around the university buildings. “Whilst on patrol an officer found two teenage girls drawing pictures and symbols on the road. Both were dealt with by means of a fixed penalty.” She added there had been a problem near Bangor’s university where a heavy-duty type of chalk had been used, requiring the use of special equipment to remove it.- 

‘hearts and rainbows’? Thank God someone stopped them before they got to the ponies and unicorns. Hmm, so they phoned up and offered a reduced fine, sounds like they know it’s a wrong un. I’m guessing this was a bit of a jobsworth and the girls rightly protested their position so the plod used his Nu-Labour approved “respect’ powers and fined them. But does this mean hopscotch is outlawed? And what is ‘heavy duty’ chalk? Sounds like Al Qaeda might be involved, quick call in the armed response unit!

David Maclean’s Pro-Sleaze Zombie Bill

Remember how a private members bill by ex-tory whip David Maclean which sought to cover up MP’s expenses and insulate our elected representatives from freedom of information requests? Y’know the one that was heroically defeated by Lib Dem MP Norman Baker and a handful of MPs by talking it out for 5 hours. Then strangely (as in secretly backed by the govt and senior scumbags of all stripes) reappeared to be debated again this Friday. Well shit, what happened?-

A PARLIAMENTARY showdown over a Cumbrian MP’s bid to exempt the House of Commons from freedom of information laws was deferred at the eleventh hour. A controversial Bill granting MPs and peers immunity from the Freedom of Information Act had been expected to come before the Commons yesterday.

But in a surprise move, Penrith and the Border MP David Maclean’s Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill was dropped from the Order Paper for debate. Commons officials confirmed that the debate had been withdrawn until Friday May 18. Opponents of the measure suggested the former Tory chief whip had deferred it until after next week’s local authority elections to draft in more support.

They thought they had killed off the Bill after a marathon debate in the Commons last Friday, but a quirk of parliamentary procedure revived its chances. The government has insisted it has no position on the Bill, but its lack of opposition to date has been interpreted by some as tacit support.
Several ministers – including Tessa Jowell, Tony McNulty, Andy Burnham, Ian Pearson and John Healey – are reported to have voted for the legislation last Friday.-

Hmm, so the fight is deferred to mid-May because they perceive they have a better chance of slipping it through, motherfuckers. Eyes will be kept peeled.

History Repeating

The Sunday Times rich list for this year is out and not only are the rich in Britain getting richer, more swanky pants moneybags are coming here because we are so nice to them and that would be after ten years of a so-called labour govt. Crap nuts:-

The fortunes of Britain’s wealthiest 1,000 people grew 20% in a year, the Sunday Times Rich List has revealed. It shows the combined wealth of the top 1,000 now stands at £360bn and there are 68 billionaires in the country – three times as many as in 2003.

The Sunday Times said Britain’s richest had seen their fortunes grow faster than their equivalents in Europe and worldwide. The list compilers said the 20% rise in the UK’s most wealthy compared to 14.8% rise in wealth of Europe’s top 50 and an 8.3% increase in wealth of the world’s richest people over the past 12 months.

The boom was underpinned by the “continued buoyancy of the property market”, with 221 of the richest having made their money from property, the Sunday Times analysts said. This was up from 211 who made their money from property in 2006, they said.
They are led by the Duke of Westminster whose fortune grew from £6.6bn to £7bn, based on his property in London’s Mayfair, Belgravia and estates in Cheshire, Lancashire and Scotland.

Your mission should you choose to accept it:-

1. Lakshmi Mittal…£19.2bn
2. Roman Abramovich..£10.8bn
3. Duke of Westminster…£7bn
4. Sri & Gopi Hinduja…£6.2bn
5. David Khalili…£5.8bn
6. Hans Rausing….£5.4bn
7. Sir Philip and Lady Green..£4.9bn
8. John Fredriksen…£3.5bn
9. David and Simon Reuben..£3.4bn
10. Jim Ratcliffe…£3.3bn

Pig In A Poke

Here on the island we live under the squinty gaze of Chief constable Richard Brunstrom who while having some interesting ideas about drug de-criminalisation is pathologically obsessed with traffic policing. We learn to live with it, while violence is regularly a problem in the towns police are sent to hide beside the road to make those all important revenue raising traffic offences stick.  However this has turned into quite a bad week for one of Nu-labours top cops:-

Up to 3,000 motorists are to get their speeding convictions on the A5 in Bangor, Gwynedd quashed after a council failed to follow proper procedures.
The drivers were caught when a speed limit was dropped from 40mph to 30 mph near the Maes Geirchen estate on the outskirts of Bangor in July 2006.
A review of the cases found however the speed limit had not been properly put in place by the council.
The decision to drop the cases came after a review of the cases against 38 motorists, who challenged their speeding tickets. But the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said it had also advised North Wales Police that the decision applies to all others convicted of speeding offences on the stretch of road since 26 July 2006.-

Not too bad after all the council was also to blame but his force was very eager to start fining people the instant the speed limit was lowered, almost like it was a coordinated ambush to raise revenue, hmmm.

But then it got a lot worse:-

The father of a decapitated biker has called for a chief constable to be “sacked” for displaying pictures of his dead son without asking permission.
Images of Mark Gibney, 40, from Merseyside, were shown at a road safety briefing held by North Wales Police.

Now there’s a bit more to this story:-

He failed to spot the oncoming Vauxhall Astra in a dip and collided head-on at an estimated 95mph in a 60mph zone. He was decapitated and the driver suffered serious injuries.
A coroner later branded Mr Gibney’s riding “reprehensible.” The roofer had no licence, no insurance, no training and had a false number plate.

It was revealed last night that the controversial North Wales Chief Constable, Richard Brunstrom, showed gruesome pictures of the aftermath of the accident to journalists and local authority representatives at a conference to promote his anti-speeding policy.
Although his identity was not given, the presentation also included details of a distinctive T-shirt worn by the motorcyclist, which mocked traffic police with the message: “P–s off and catch some real criminals.”

So the rider is an idiot who was already breaking several laws, but from the description of the accident, a head on collision with a car, even if he had been doing the speed  limit he would still be dead. Brunstrom repeatedly stresses that breaking the speed limit is an antisocial act and is morally wrong, his enforcement of traffic violations is very proactive (utilising the latest Big Brother tech available, he’s now looking at putting cameras in cat’s eyes) with a dash of zero tolerance. However this case does not demonstrate that, bad driving caused this not breaking the speed limit (he had passed no test, if you want to reduce accidents then keep making the tests better and stronger, not everyone is suited to driving whatever the car industry would like you to think -and force manufacturers to make cars more pedestrian friendly with external crumple zones- and utilise the training advanced drivers get, now that’s a tough test, over an hour in a car with a traffic cop). What it does demonstrate is- someone with a t-shirt that takes the piss out of the police will have their death used by this obsessional Chief constable to feed his neuroses.

Brunstrom is not as terrible as some chiefs, after all I lived under James Anderton, ‘God’s cop’ in Manchester who thought Aids was god’s punishment. I was at a funeral for an officer once and he gave the eulogy, clearly enjoying the audience and the religious setting, his huge beard giving him the aspect of the icons that looked down on us from the stained glass windows, he’s in the sally army now (Lloyd Cole & the Commotions wrote a song about him don’t you know). Brunstrom is nowhere near as offensive but he does enjoy his power and the police authority are in his pocket. If this latest scandal forces him out, the surveillance industry will lose a friend but the people of North Wales will breathe a collective sigh of relief.

nb. and no, I’m not one of the people who was fined in Bangor.

Blame The Messenger

So a student fulfills an essay assignment where:-

Students were told to “write whatever comes to your mind. Do not judge or censor what you are writing,”-

And he writes a load of adolescent violent fantasies, proving he is no loss to the world of literature:-

“Blood, sex and booze. Drugs, drugs, drugs are fun. Stab, stab, stab, stab, stab, s…t…a…b…puke. So I had this dream last night where I went into a building, pulled out two P90s and started shooting everyone, then had sex with the dead bodies. Well, not really, but it would be funny if I did.”-

So the school reports him and he is arrested and could stand trial for something he wrote:-

The teenager’s father, Albert Lee, has defended his son as a straight-A student who was just following instructions and contends the school overreacted. But he has also said he understands that the situation arose in the week after a Virginia Tech student gunned down 32 people before committing suicide.-

The kid is 18 and has just enlisted to join the marines. So there it is, a violent culture that denies free speech and artistic expression, ironically when the work reveals the violent mind of someone who wants to become a conditioned killer at a time his country is involved in a genocide (Darfur with 200,000 dead at that time was described as genocide by the US. Iraq, using the same methodology that was accepted in Darfur to calculate casualties has over 655,000 dead, so by their own standard Iraq is a genocide.) and a father who won’t stand up to the authorities, teaching his son to submit.

So the school and community are wrong to threaten someone with jail for something he wrote and the student is wrong for joining up in perpetrating a genocide. The moral of the story? America can’t stand to face the truth of what it is and if you wanna kill people, make it brown people ‘over there’. Out of sight, out of mind.

Clamping Down On Gitmo Lawyers Is Covered Up By Al Qaeda Captive Story

So out of the two stories about Gitmo which one have you heard of?

The ‘high value’ Al Qaeda operative now ensconced in Gitmo.

or

The Bush crime family trying to stop lawyers from visiting and communicating with the inmates?

Huh? C’mon which? Now be honest. I know which one is No.1 story on most MSM outlets. And funny how this gets reported now considering:-

A US intelligence source told the BBC he was arrested late last year in an operation which involved the CIA. It was not clear where he was detained, or where he has been held since.

This is class A bullshit fear-mongering manipulation to cover up whet they are actually doing:-

Under the proposal, filed this month in the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, the government would limit lawyers to three visits with an existing client at Guantánamo; there is now no limit. It would permit only a single visit with a detainee to have him authorize a lawyer to handle his case. And it would permit a team of intelligence officers and military lawyers not involved in a detainee’s case to read mail sent to him by his lawyer.

The proposal would also reverse existing rules to permit government officials, on their own, to deny the lawyers access to secret evidence used by military panels to determine that their clients were enemy combatants.

Many of the lawyers say the restrictions would make it impossible to represent their clients, or even to convince wary detainees — in a single visit — that they were really lawyers, rather than interrogators.-

Plus the bullshit story is chock full of grade A war on terror talking points- Iraq is violent because Al Qaeda are doing it, if he’s in Gitmo gosh then that must mean only real evil terrorists are kept there so all the other inmates must be guilty.

Hey if he’s so guilty, put him in open court, show us how bad this AQ ‘mastermind’ is.

PS. Not to mention distracting attention from this:-

Army Gen. David Petraeus, the top commander in Iraq, said Thursday that the surge of U.S. and Iraqi troops into Baghdad hadn’t reduced overall violence in the country and that the situation was “exceedingly complex.”-

Lucky their Saudi chums helped out too with all those arrests of AQ foot soldiers.

FNT: Armando Iannucci- Happiness Is Precise Excess

One of the best conceits from his genius little known Ch4 show now out on DVD.

Now Say ‘Bottle Of Beer’.

The Iraqi government has criticised the US Senate’s approval of a bill requiring US troops to leave Iraq.
Ali al-Dabbagh, the main government spokesman, said the decision was “negative” and sent the wrong signals to insurgents.

Refugess & Invaders

I was gestating a post about the Iraqi refugee situation then Riverbend declares they are leaving Iraq. I was thinking how the consequences of a war go on for many generations and many decades, like ripples spreading uncontrollably. The disaster of Iraq is still only in its first act, 4 million Iraqis now live away from their homes, roughly split 50/50 between internally displaced and refugees abroad. Most disgusting is the pitiful numbers the UK and US are taking and the conditions they put on those seeking refuge.

Get this, Iraqi’s are being stopped from entering America because the patriot act defines them as having materially supported terrorism. How does it do that? Well if you at any time paid a ransom to free a loved one, that’s giving money to terrorists, you are denied entry, if your cell phone was stolen and used by non US forces, that’s aiding terrorism. Put simply they are using bureaucratic evil to make sure as few refugees as possible get to settle:-

The liquor store owner is a Christian Iraqi. In July, he found a threatening note slipped under the door of his store in Baghdad. (Selling alcohol violates Islamic law.) The police could not help. With no other means of supporting his wife and seven children, he kept the shop open. The next week, five men entered the store, beat him, emptied the cash register, took his cell phone and demanded $10,000. Four days later, kidnappers snatched his 1-year-old son and demanded a ransom of $30,000. With the help of an adult son in Australia, he raised $10,000 and delivered it as instructed. The next morning he found a package on the porch: one plastic bag with the head of his son and another with his little beheaded body. The liquor store owner buried his son, and the whole family fled Iraq as soon as they got their travel documents.
What the Americans will want to know is whether the kidnappers were just after cash. Those who act “for mere personal monetary gain” have not committed “terrorist activities.” Then – and only then – would paying them a ransom not be considered “material support of terrorist activities.”

The civil engineer is a Sunni Iraqi whose family lived in a Shiite neighborhood. After the U.S. invasion, he got a job with an American company doing reconstruction work. He was abducted by Shiite militiamen. For 21 days, his family searched desperately for him, calling anyone who might pull strings to get him back. To thank those who came to their aid, they gave out prepaid minutes for cell phones, sent by text-messaging a code that could be redeemed with the phone company. In all, they gave out $3,000 worth of credits, some of which went to the kidnappers.
That may have helped get the engineer released. The engineer also used his own cell phone while he was held captive – an important detail. He was freed unharmed and left the country.
The critical question here will be: Were the cell phone minutes to the kidnappers sent from the engineer’s phone or from that of a relative? To transfer any form of payment to a terrorist is to “materially support terrorist activities.” If the bribe came from a relative, the engineer probably won’t be accused of “supporting terrorism” – unless he asked the relative to give the bribe.

The hairdresser is a single mother. She received threats by phone and in writing. She was told to close her salon, judged as unacceptable by Muslim extremists. In 2005, a man in a black hood entered her shop, beat her, pulled the crucifix off her neck and raped her. A week later, her son was kidnapped and the same man called; she recognized his voice. He demanded $10,000. She gathered $7,000 and paid the ransom. Her son was returned, and she fled the country with him.
At issue here is whether the rapist/kidnapper is a member of a U.S. government-documented terrorist group. Even ransom can constitute “material support” of terrorists. But if money is given “under duress” to a group that is not on either of the two State Department lists of foreign terrorist groups, the “material support” restriction can be waived.
Over the past year, I traveled to half a dozen countries in Africa and Asia and saw bona fide refugees barred from entering the U.S. because of obstacles that seem similarly absurd. But the U.S. government bears special responsibility for the war in Iraq, so the mindless application of “material support” provisions to Iraqi victims of terrorism would be particularly deplorable.
The 7,000 Iraqi refugees to be resettled this year in the United States have yet to arrive. So there is still time to pass legislation, or reform the Immigration and Nationality Act, to apply definitions that don’t turn victims of terrorism into supposed terrorists themselves-

For The Stupid- Blair Will Only Go After He Has His Ten Year Record

A re-post in light of some rumours and this dossier crowing about the bastard’s achievements-

Look I know you get paid to write these stupid articles and you get to claim expenses when ‘westminster insiders’ take you for dinner and whoring-BUT- Anthony will only choose to go after he has his historic ten year record in office. All he has got left is history and however big a murderous tyrant he was, dates and length of reign get the most attention. Julius Caesar? Genocide in Gaul is not the first thing most people will mention.

As the recent deaths of US presidents Reagan and Ford show, the fawning over the ‘great’ men has no relation to actual activities, a ten year reign as PM is a big legacy. So in future just print – all speculations over Blair’s departure are pointless until May 1st- . Maybe you should be writing about how a clearly criminal man cannot be removed from power in a so called democracy, or would that require stirring the mushroom soup too dangerously?