Secrets and lies

Our secret services act on "information" from various sources. One is the confessions of detainees. We might feel it's a fair trade. A bit of rough handling for Mohammed and he coughs the plans for future attacks.

But if someone is slicing up your penis and feeding you details of a plot, will you not then, to make them stop the pain, confess to whatever they are suggesting?

How many plots are real? How many are invented to put ever more Moslems in detention?

They invented the WMDs. They invented the scientists who told them that the WMDs were there. We couldn't find out the truth because they kept the alleged scientists away from our journalists and would not share the "evidence" they said they had.

They will not make public the evidence that supports their holding the detainees. They will not even tell the detainees why they are being held, and certainly won't allow anyone who might put that evidence up to scrutiny hear what it is.

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There are some who believe that the London bombings were faked, that the young men who are supposed to have been involved were kidnapped by the secret services, murdered and used as patsies. It is rather convenient that their credit cards, birth certificates and so on were found at the scene. It's interesting that eyewitness accounts of the bus bomber don't match the man caught on CCTV.

I doubt that the truth is anything but that four young men, whether directed by others or on their own account, blew up the trains and bus. But the secrecy, the refusal to allow scrutiny, and the many lies that we know we have been told tend to fuel the fire of suspicion. It doesn't help that the official line is that the bombings had nothing to do with Iraq. (I have to confess to laughing out loud when Blair "proved" this by pointing out that we had not invaded Iraq before 9/11. One can only presume he hadn't noticed our meddling in the Middle East or the IDF's tanks shooting up the West Bank.)

Some say that Israel did it. I've been rather surprised, looking around the web, to find out how much of the conspiracy theory out there is plain, common and garden antisemitism, entirely unvarnished. There is, they say, a vast Zionist conspiracy to, erm, rule the world etc.

Now I've no doubt that Zionists are influential in American policy. Too influential. I've no doubt either that the neocons are profoundly influenced by Israel and that Mossad feed intelligence to the West that suits its ends. I've no doubt either that Mossad would happily murder whoever it felt it needed to in pursuit of Israel's "security". (We can be reasonably sure that the Russian secret services faked Chechen terror bombings, so it is not out of the question that Mossad could do it too.)

But a vast Zionist conspiracy? Sorry no. There is a conspiracy, sure enough, but it's your same old, same old greedy bastards want all the money conspiracy. Some of the greedy bastards are Jews, yes, and maybe disproportionately so (testament not to disproportionate greed on the part of Jews but to their having a culture that exalts achievement and prizes education: not for nothing did the Ottoman Sultan, on the expulsion of the Jews from Spain, take them in with glee, asking why the Spanish had been foolish enough to allow such a huge wealth of expertise to leave -- "the Jews know how to do things", he reportedly said). America does not, on the whole, seek to promote Jews to positions of responsibility around the world. Rather, it looks to help greedy bastards. If you're willing to partner American firms in exploiting your people and pilfering your nation's natural resources, you will find your pockets filled with Yankee gold and the CIA happily bumping off your enemies. Ethnicity doesn't come into it.

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But anything is possible. There are many unanswered questions about 9/11: why were there no Arab names on the passenger lists? Why was an Israeli counterhijack specialist on one of the planes? Why are some of the alleged hijackers still alive? Why did Ziad Jarrah phone his live-in gf to tell her he loved her, and not to say I'm doing it for Allah or Don't think badly of me, just before the hijacking? Who was Nick Berg? Why did Moussaoui have his password for his email account? Why were both in the same Oklahoma town? Who killed Berg? Why, when attacked by mostly Saudis, did we invade Iraq, which had nothing to do with it? Why hasn't the US done anything to penetrate terrorist cells in Saudi Arabia? Why hasn't it insisted on being allowed ingress to Saudi Arabia to hunt down those involved? Why don't newspapers ask more questions about the Saudis, who are, it should be remembered, themselves Islamists (Wahhabism is a rather extreme form of Sunnism)?

Some of these questions do not have simple answers. (You would think, given the White House's iron certainty and love of soundbites, echoed in Blair's Britain, that there were no grey in the whole affair.) But when there are no answers, the mind gets to work, and the conclusion that what is hidden is foul is quickly reached.

posted by Dr Zen @ 10:56 am