[continued from previous message] 
  
 The wise guys on Wall Street and The City of London never took the liquid 
 bomb plot seriously:  At no point did the Market respond, nose-dive, crash 
 or panic. The announced plot to bomb airlines was ignored by all Big Players 
 on the US and London stock markets. In fact, petrol prices dropped slightly. 
 In contrast to 9/11 and the Madrid and London bombings (to which this plot 
 is compared) the stock market 'makers' were not impressed by the 
 governments' claims of a 'major catastrophe.'  George Bush or Tony Blair, 
 who were informed and discussed the "liquid bomb plot" several days 
 beforehand, didn't even skip a day of their vacations, in response to the 
 catastrophic threat. 
  
 And each and every claim and piece of 'evidence' put forth by the police and 
 the Blair and Bush security authorities runs a cropper. Some of the alleged 
 suspects are released, and new equally paltry 'evidence' is breathlessly 
 presented: two tape recordings of "martyr messages" were found in the 
 computer of one suspect, which, we are told, foretold a planned terrorist 
 attack. The Clark team claimed with great aplomb that they found one or a 
 few martyr videotapes, without clarifying the fact that the videos were not 
 made by the suspects but viewed by them. Many people the world over pay 
 homage to suicide martyrs to a great variety of political causes. Prime 
 Minister Koizumi of Japan visits a shrine dedicated to World War II military 
 dead -- including kamikaze suicide pilots, defying Chinese and Korean 
 protests. Millions of US citizens and politicians pay homage to the war 
 heroes in Arlington cemetery each year, some of whom deliberately sacrificed 
 their lives in order to defend their comrades, their flag and the justice of 
 their cause. It should be of no surprise that Asians, Muslims and others 
 should collect videos of anti-Israeli or anti-occupation martyrs. In none of 
 the above cases where people honor martyrs is there any police attempt to 
 link the reverent observer with future suicide bomb plots -- except if they 
 are Muslims. Hero worship of fallen fighters is a normal everyday phenomenon 
 - -- and is certainly no evidence that the idolaters are engaged in 
 murderous 
 activity. 
  
 A "martyr message" is neither a plot, conspiracy nor action, it is only an 
 expression of free speech -- one might add, 'internal speech' (between the 
 speaker and his computer) which might at some future time become public 
 speech. Are we to make private dialogue a terrorist offense? 
  
 As the legal time limit expires on the holding of suspects without charges, 
 the British authorities released two suspects, charged eleven, and eleven 
 others continue to be held without charges, probably because there is no 
 basis for proceeding further. As the number of accused plotters thin out in 
 England, Clark and company have deflected attention to a world-wide plot 
 with links to Spain, Italy, the Middle East and elsewhere. Apparently the 
 logic here is that a wider net compensates for the large holes. In the case 
 at hand, of the eleven who have been remanded to trial, only eight have been 
 charged with conspiracy to prepare acts of terrorism; the other three are 
 accused of "not disclosing information" (or being informers . . . of what?) 
 and "possessing articles useful to a person preparing acts of terrorism." 
 (BBC News,  8/21/06)  Since no bombs have been found and no plans of action 
 have been revealed, we are left with the vague charge of 'conspiracy', which 
 can mean a hostile private discussion directed against US and British 
 subjects by several like-thinking individuals. The reason that it appears 
 that ideas and not actions are in question is because the police have not 
 turned up any weapons or specific measures to enter into the locus of attack 
 (air tickets to board planes, passports and so on). How can suspects be 
 charged with failing to disclose information, when the police lack any 
 concrete information pertaining to the alleged bomb plot. The fact that the 
 police are further diluting their charges against three more plotters is 
 indicative of the flimsy basis of their original arrests and public claims. 
 To charge a 17 year-old-boy with "possessing articles useful to a person 
 preparing acts of terrorism" is so open-ended as to be laughable: Did the 
 article have other uses for the boy or for his family (like a box cutter). 
 Did he 'possess' written articles because they were informative or 
 fascinating to a young person?  Since he still possessed the article, he had 
 not passed these articles to any person making bombs. Did he know of any 
 specific plans to make bombs or any bomb-makers? The charges could implicate 
 anyone possessing and reading a good spy novel or science fiction thriller 
 in which bomb making is discussed. The eleven have already pleaded innocent; 
 the trial will begin in due time. The government and mass media have already 
 convicted the accused in the electronic and print media. Panic has been 
 sown. Fear and hysterical anger is present in the long security lines at 
 airports and train stations . . . Asian men quietly saying prayers are being 
 pulled off of airplanes and planes diverted or airports evacuated. 
  
 The bomb plot hoax has caused enormous losses (in the hundreds of millions 
 of dollars) to the airlines, business people, oil companies, duty free 
 shops, tourist agencies, resorts and hotels, not to speak of the tremendous 
 inconvenience and health related problems of millions of stranded and 
 stressed travelers. The restrictions on laptop computers, travel bags, 
 accessories, special foods and liquid medicines have added to the 'costs' of 
 traveling. 
  
 Clearly the decision to cook up the phony bomb plot was not motivated by 
 economic interests, but domestic political reasons. The Blair 
 administration, already highly unpopular for supporting Bush's wars in Iraq 
 and Afghanistan, was under attack for his unconditional support for Israel's 
 invasion of Lebanon, his refusal to call for an immediate ceasefire and his 
 unstinting support for Bush's servility to US Zionist lobbies. Even within 
 the Labor party over a hundred backbenchers were speaking out against his 
 policies, while even junior cabinet ministers such as Prescott stated that 
 Boss Bush's foreign policy smelled of the barnyard. Bush was not yet 
 cornered by his colleagues in the same way as Blair, but unpopularity was 
 threatening to lead his Republican party to congressional defeat and 
 possible loss of a majority of seats. 
  
 According to top security officials in England, Bush and Blair were 
 "knowledgeable" about the investigation into a possible "liquid bomb" plot. 
 We know that Blair gave the go-ahead for the arrests, even as the 
 authorities must have told him they lacked the evidence and at best it was 
 premature. Some reports from British police insiders claim that the Bush 
 Administration pushed Blair for early arrests and the announcement of the 
 'liquid bomb' plot. Security officials then launched a massive, all-out 
 'terror propaganda' campaign designed to capture the attention and support 
 of the public with the total support of the mass media. The security-mass 
 media campaign served its objective -- Bush's popularity increased, Blair 
 avoided censure and both continued on their vacations. 
  
 The bomb plot political ploy fits the previous political pattern of 
 sacrificing capitalist economic interests to serve domestic political and 
  
 [continued in next message] 
  
 --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05 
  * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)