Anti-terror police stop children’s TV stars… for carrying glittery hairdryers

UK Daily Mail
Tuesday, January 26th, 2010

Police questioned two children’s TV presenters under anti-terrorism laws – for carrying glittery hairdryers.

Four officers swooped on Anna Williamson and Jamie Rickers, who front ITV1’s hit show Toonattik, while they were filming in central London.

The pair – who were being followed by a film crew – were performing a skit on the South Bank wearing fake combat clothing and holding children’s walkie-talkies, hairbrushes and brightly coloured hairdryers.

But their outfits aroused the suspicions of patrolling police, who pulled them aside for questioning before issung them with a warning ‘under the act of terrorism’.

Full article here

Terror alert: Two men on ‘no-fly’ list stopped at Heathrow

Vincent Moss
UK Mirror
Monday, January 25th, 2010

Two men were stopped boarding US-bound planes at Heathrow days before Britain’s terror threat was raised to “severe”.

News of the incidents came hours after Home Secretary Alan Johnson lifted the threat level amid fears that al-Qaeda is planning an attack.

The new level, which means an attack is reckoned “highly likely”, is second only to “critical”.

Security sources say an Egyptian was stopped last Saturday as he tried to board an American Airlines flight to Miami. A man from Saudi Arabia was banned from boarding a United Airlines flight to Chicago the next day and sent back to Saudi.

The incidents and the raised threat level follow the failed Christmas Day bombing on a plane over Detroit.

Full article here

National Security: The Big Fraud

Sheldon Richman
Campaign For Liberty
Saturday, January 16th, 2010

The handwringing about the would-be Christmas Day airplane bomber and the politicians’ tiresome declarations that it will never happen again miss the point: As long as the U.S. government pursues its imperial program of invasion, regime change, occupation, and sponsorship of corrupt governments in the Muslim world, Americans will be targets for avengers. This does not excuse the killing of innocents — it merely points out an inevitable chain of events.

It’s either foreign intervention and retaliatory terrorism or nonintervention and security. There’s no third way.

We can’t eat our cake and have it too. Every empire has reaped a terrorist whirlwind. “Terror” is the tactic that the weak use against the strong. The U.S. government unleashes the most powerful “conventional” weapons known to man, including pilotless killer drones operated like videogames thousands of miles away. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab sewed an explosive into his underwear and ended up burning himself.

It is disgraceful that the choice between terrorism and security is rarely publicly discussed in terms of the choice between American imperialism and nonintervention. The empire is treated as a given — even by most so-called progressives — as though it were ordained by history. The American people are expected to believe that the very existence of their society depends on the U.S. government’s policing the globe and using whatever violence it deems appropriate (that is, whenever things do not suit the interests of U.S. policymakers and their economic partners in the “private” sector).

But this picture is precisely upside down. It is the imperial program and the inevitable “war on terror” that threatens Americans’ way of life — not to mention the very lives of people in the lands that “our” government tramples. Government in the United States has long regarded the liberties of Americans as inconveniences standing in the way of bigger, nobler projects. Since the attacks of September 11 — not a bolt from the blue but a roughly predictable consequence of U.S. foreign intervention — the usurpations have accelerated. The “war on terror” functions like a blank check both to justify curtailment of particular freedoms (such as freedom from surveillance) and to instill an embarrassing submissiveness in a people whose predecessors rebelled against similar oppression. Imagine the first few generations of Americans letting themselves be treated the way we are treated at airports. “You may not leave your seat beginning one hour before landing.” “Oh, okay. Whatever you say, dear leader, as long as you protect me.” When the TSA begins requiring passengers effectively to strip in front of the newest inspection devices, who will raise a word in protest?

The sad irony is that none of these measures — and nothing even more severe — will make us safer. What we call terrorism will always be cheap, flexible, and at least one step ahead of the plodding, clueless authorities. Al-Qaeda is not an organization. It’s an idea and an open-ended set of tactics. Clear it out of Afghanistan — and it appears in Pakistan or Yemen or New Jersey. When you step back and take a broader view, the U.S. government looks like a big, pathetic, stupid giant trying to catch a pesky, clever mouse.

The terrorists’ advantage lies in the fact that bureaucracies are institutionally stupid. Do we really need more proof after the Christmas Day incident? Just as the SEC couldn’t see Bernie Madoff’s fraudulent activities even when handed reams of evidence, so the vaunted “national security apparatus” — for which Americans are compelled to pay hundreds of billions of dollars every year — couldn’t stop a kid from Nigeria wearing explosive briefs from getting on a plane, despite warnings from his own father as well as other solid information.

The “protection” forced on us by the U.S. government is an outright fraud. It can never deliver on its promise to keep us safe because big organizations like the Department of Homeland Security (!) are too riven by interagency rivalries, informational distortions, and hierarchical tone-deafness to work effectively. (The same is true for businesses that grow large because of anti-competitive government privileges.) Letting private companies protect themselves at their own expense would have to work better.

Does this mean we must remain vulnerable? No. We’ll find a reasonable degree of safety when America comes home.

“When the people find they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic.” – Fall Of The Republic – Buy the DVD here

View the original article at Campaign For Liberty

Danish neocons stage phony terrorist plot

Wayne Madsen
Online Journal
Friday, January 8th, 2010

The psychological warfare operations by neo-conservatives, who have Denmark under a virtual occupation government reminiscent of the pro-Nazi government during World War II, to stoke anti-Muslim feelings in Denmark, reached another zenith in the “axe attack” on Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard.

In 2005, Westergarrd inflamed Muslim passions around the world when he drew cartoons portraying the Prophet Mohammed as a terrorist. Westergaard said he was instructed by his newspaper, Jyllands-Posten, to draw the cartoons. The editor who was instrumental in publishing the cartoons is the cultural editor of the Aarhus-based Jyllands-Posten, Flemming Rose, who worked in Washington, DC, as a correspondent of the Copenhagen newspaper Berlingske Tidendeand has been a habitué of the neocon citadel in Washington, the American Enterprise Institute (AEI). Rose has denied being Jewish.

On January 1, Danish police arrested a Somali national, Mohammed Muhideen Gelle, who appeared on a Kenyan terrorist watch list, for breaking into Westergaard’s Aarhus home and trying to kill the cartoonist with an axe. Gelle, who has a residency permit for Denmark, was arrested by Kenyan police last July for immigration violations. Gelle was later released after pressure was exerted by Danish authorities and charges were dropped against him by Kenya. Kenya believed that Gelle was involved in a plot to attack Secretary of State Hillary Clinton during a visit to Kenya.

However, according to the Somali man’s sister, the attack on Westergaard may have been part of an elaborate plot by the Danish Security Intelligence Service (Politiets Efterretningstjeneste or PET), to ratchet up tensions between Muslim and non-Muslim Danes and feed the current propaganda effort to breathe new life into the ”all Muslims are potential terrorists” campaign by neocons and Israeli propaganda operatives around the world, especially in the wake of the Christmas Day ”underwear bomb” plot on Delta/Northwest Airlines flight 253 over Detroit. WMR previously reported the airline plot was yet another neocon false flag event.

Gelle’s sister, Fatima, told Danish TV 2 Nyhederne network that a year or two ago, the PET tried to recruit her brother as an undercover agent. Fatima said that she does not believe that her brother carried out the attempted axe attack on Westergaard alone. She considers that pressure by the PET on Gelle may have resulted in the attack on the cartoonist.

The Somali woman and her brother came to Aalborg, Denmark 13 years ago. Gelle moved to Copenhagen and his sister remained in Aalborg. Fatima, who did not disclose her last name in the television interview, said her brother was “stressed” by PET agents.

The Aarhus incident represents yet another “false flag” attempt by neocons and Israeli provocateurs to feed into the current frenzy of fear gripping Europe and the United States.

View the original article at Online Journal

Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport gets 60 full-body scanners

DPA
Tuesday, January 5th, 2010

Amsterdam – Schiphol airport in Amsterdam has acquired 60 new full-body scanners as part of efforts to boost security at the airport. Twenty of the new-generation scanners are expected to be available in the near future for use in processing passengers on flights bound for the United States. They are to be used alongside 16 older full- body scanners, which have already in use for several months.

The decision to use the devices was prompted by an incident on December 25, in which a Nigerian man on board a flight from Schiphol to the US city of Detroit tried to detonate explosives shortly before landing.

The 60 scanners cost “several million euros,” Schiphol Airport director Jos Nijhus said. He said he hoped the government would bear the cost given that it was a matter “of the security of the entire community.”

Schiphol currently spends in the region of 240 million euros (344 million dollars) a year on security.

Nijhus meanwhile dismissed a report by a London-based tabloid that Schiphol has been designated a “terrorist airport.” The newspaper said its reporters had made it through airport security checks with a syringe filled with fluid and onto a plane bound for London.

Such reports “are not a witness to technical know-how,” Nijhus said.

View the original article at Earth Times

Obama to Adopt More Air-Security Steps as Screening Increases

John Hughes, Mary Schlangenstein and Roger Runningen
Bloomberg
Tuesday, January 5th, 2010

President Barack Obama today will announce changes to the government’s terrorist watch-list system as well as additional steps to improve airline safety, an administration official said.

More than half of U.S.-bound international fliers already are undergoing tighter screening such as pat-down searches and full-body scans after the Christmas Day attempt to blow up a Northwest Airlines jet, a Transportation Security Administration official said yesterday.

Those getting extra scrutiny include all passengers flying from or through 14 countries as well as other travelers chosen at random, said the official, who asked not to be identified because the agency hasn’t disclosed the scope of the effort.

Obama will meet in the White House with 20 top advisers from his security, defense, legal and intelligence teams before making a public statement at 4 p.m. Washington time on plans to improve the country’s ability to thwart future terrorist attempts, the administration official said.

View the original article at Bloomberg

Charlie Sheen and the 9/11 investigation

By Dark Politricks

With the anniversary of 9/11 just gone past for another year and the war still rumbling on in Afghanistan it is worth once remembering those events in New York and Washington to see if we have learnt anything new or answered any of those questions that have been lingering ever since. Although a large percentage of the population in the US as well as any other country believe that the official story of the events of 9/11 is a pack of lies the main stream media is still following the official line and proponents of alternative theories are always labelled conspiracy theorists.

A recent article in Physcology today labelled the anti NWO personality Alex Jones and all other conspiracy theorists as borderline mentally ill for believing in theories that accuse the government of conspiring to cause harm to its citizens. This blatantly ignores the many historical incidences of governments doing just that (Reichstag fire, Operation Northwoods, Operation GLADIO and the first World Trade Center attacks to name just a few).

Opponents of conspiracy theories seem quite happy to ignore any facts or pieces of evidence that contradict their view of the state as a benevolent force at the same time of accusing proponents of such widely known false flag theories of doing the same. This hypocrisy can be seen with the recent media onslaught against Charlie Sheen who has bravely risked his career to question the “official conspiracy theory” of 9/11. People have accused Sheen and other 9/11 truthers of being on the same level as holocaust deniers however I would say that people who refuse to question authority or ask questions of their government when questions need answering are worse than holocaust deniers. They are the people who allowed the holocaust to happen, they guarded the camps, drove the trains or kept the books of the Nazi regime. They refused to believe that such evil could happen and because they refused to question authority and confront the evil in their midst they allowed an evil to be perpetrated.

If you claim to support the official government story of 9/11 that hijackers flew planes into the WTC and Pentagon and that the US government had no knowledge of the attacks before hand and did all they possible could to prevent those attacks from happening then fine. However if you believe this explanation without having investigated the matter for yourselves and then ridicule others as conspiracy theorists without knowing the facts or questions that led to alternative theories then shame on you. You are no better than creationists or young earthers who believe an official story because it either comforts you or because an authority told you what to believe in. At least have the decency to look into any alternative story so that you can combat it with logic and reason rather than faith.

Here is a short video by Charlie Sheen which accompanies his letter to President Obama asking for a re-opening of the 9/11 enquiry. Even if you do not read the letter please watch the video and send it on. All the clips from the video are from news reports taken from the day of the attacks.

Even if you do not agree with the evidence presented or the questions he asked you should admire his guts in asking those questions as he is currently being vilified by the US media. He is risking his career to uncover answers to questions about that day that the US government seems unwilling to answer. The only investigation into 9/11 was a white wash and we now have 6 of the 10 commissioners who held that enquiry have gone on record to say that the official story is a lie.

Those 9/11 commission members have said:

The co-chairs of the 9/11 Commission (Thomas Keane and Lee Hamilton) said that the CIA (and likely the White House) “obstructed our investigation”.

The co-chairs of the 9/11 Commission also said that the 9/11 Commissioners knew that military officials misrepresented the facts to the Commission, and the Commission considered recommending criminal charges for such false statements, yet didn’t bother to tell the American people (free subscription required).

Indeed, the co-chairs of the Commission now admit that the Commission largely operated based upon political considerations.

9/11 Commission co-chair Lee Hamilton says “I don’t believe for a minute we got everything right”, that the Commission was set up to fail, that people should keep asking questions about 9/11, that the 9/11 debate should continue, and that the 9/11 Commission report was only “the first draft” of history.

9/11 Commissioner Bob Kerrey said that “There are ample reasons to suspect that there may be some alternative to what we outlined in our version . . . We didn’t have access . . . .”

9/11 Commissioner Timothy Roemer said “We were extremely frustrated with the false statements we were getting”

Former 9/11 Commissioner Max Cleland resigned from the Commission, stating: “It is a national scandal”; “This investigation is now compromised”; and “One of these days we will have to get the full story because the 9-11 issue is so important to America. But this White House wants to cover it up”.

9/11 Commissioner John Lehman said that “We purposely put together a staff that had – in a way – conflicts of interest”.

The Senior Counsel to the 9/11 Commission (John Farmer) who led the 9/11 staff’s inquiry, said “I was shocked at how different the truth was from the way it was described …. The tapes told a radically different story from what had been told to us and the public for two years.. This is not spin. This is not true.”

The co-chairs of the 9/11 Commission (Thomas Keane and Lee Hamilton) said that the CIA (and likely the White House) “obstructed our investigation”.

The co-chairs of the 9/11 Commission also said that the 9/11 Commissioners knew that military officials misrepresented the facts to the Commission, and the Commission considered recommending criminal charges for such false statements, yet didn’t bother to tell the American people.

Indeed, the co-chairs of the Commission now admit that the Commission largely operated based upon political considerations.

9/11 Commission co-chair Lee Hamilton says “I don’t believe for a minute we got everything right”, that the Commission was set up to fail, that people should keep asking questions about 9/11, that the 9/11 debate should continue, and that the 9/11 Commission report was only “the first draft” of history.

9/11 Commissioner Bob Kerrey said that “There are ample reasons to suspect that there may be some alternative to what we outlined in our version . . . We didn’t have access . . . .”

9/11 Commissioner Timothy Roemer said “We were extremely frustrated with the false statements we were getting”

Former 9/11 Commissioner Max Cleland resigned from the Commission, stating: “It is a national scandal”; “This investigation is now compromised”; and “One of these days we will have to get the full story because the 9-11 issue is so important to America. But this White House wants to cover it up”.

9/11 Commissioner John Lehman said that “We purposely put together a staff that had – in a way – conflicts of interest”.

The Senior Counsel to the 9/11 Commission (John Farmer) who led the 9/11 staff’s inquiry, said “I was shocked at how different the truth was from the way it was described …. The tapes told a radically different story from what had been told to us and the public for two years.. This is not spin. This is not true.”

If even the people who held the only enquiry into those events believe that the official story is a lie then surely another one should be held. Numerous enquiries were held into the Pearl Harbour attacks even though the Japanese were known to have commited them. Bin Laden who was accussed of the attacks denied responsibility in an interview carried out a few weeks later. However he was used as  the reason to start almost a decade of war and has never been brought to justice.

The people who believe that the attacks were either a false flag or allowed to happen for political gain do not only contain numerous politicians, military members, journalists, architects, pilots and scientists but also the majority of the public when questioned. On most polls taken roughly 6 out of 10 people do not believe the offical story behind 9/11 in one way or another and I am guessing here that out of the remaining 4 the majority have not spent any time investigating the facts or unaswered questions themselves. We also now have many family members and survivors of those attacks demanding a new investigation but still one of the most common attacks made by those unwilling to even consider an investigation is that we must shut up to respect the victims of those attacks.

The best way to show our respect to the 3000+ victims of the 9/11 attacks is to hold a full public enquiry to answer every single one of the many questions that remain about that day. If the result shows that Arab Terrorists hijacked the planes and carried out the attacks and there was no knowledge before hand by any government agency that could have prevented the attacks then that is fine but we have not had such an enquiry and until we do questions will remain. Questions such as:

-Why did the CIA allow 15 of 19 suspected hijackers into the country on the fast track VISA scheme out of Jeddah.

-Were these Arab pilots engaged in smuggling drugs for the CIA or with a green light from the CIA from the Venice airport in Florida. Sibel Edmonds the most gagged person in history since 9/11 claims that

“The 9/11 terror plot intersected with the activities of a drug trafficking network of international scope, in ways that form a “crystal clear” picture of what was going on.”

-Did the Mossad agents posing as Art Students who lived “only a stones throw away” from these hijackers in Florida know of the plot before hand. If so did they inform the US government and did the US government ignore the warning or allow the attacks to occur for political reasons.

-Was the CIA or the USA in general still maintaining a close and intimate relationship with Bin Laden and the Taliban right up until 9/11 as Sibel Edmonds claims in a recent interview after breaking her gag order. If so what were the nature of these ties? When was the last time any member of the CIA, FBI, NSA or any other agency meet face to face with Bin Laden?

-If the war in Afghanistan is a direct result of the 9/11 attacks then why did the USA have detailed plans for an invasion planned for October of 2001 before the attacks had ever happened. If the attacks never happened would we have gone to war anyway and how would the government have gained public support for such a naked war of aggression?

-Is there any truth in the reports that hundreds of millions of dollars worth of gold bullion went missing from the World Trade Center. Who did this gold belong to, who took it and why has no-one complained? Were the attacks used as a cover for this theft.

-If eye witness accounts of planes hitting the Pentagon are used as the main explanation for that attack in defiance of the lack of physical evidence for a jet liner hitting the building then why are the eye witness accounts from Firemen, Policemen, Journalists and other first responders at WTC that claim to have heard numerous detonator charges or bombs go off in the towers dismissed or not taken into account with the same gravitas as those from Washington?

-Why did the Pakistani ISI general order the wiring of $100,000 to lead hijacker Mohammed Atta in the months preceding the attacks?

-The CIA apparently knew about Atta and the other hijackers and that they posed a threat to the country through their secret Able Danger operation. What did this operation consist of and if they knew Atta posed a threat did they or others with control of this information allow the attacks to occur.

-The Project for a New American Century’s report “Rebuilding Americas defences” which was commissioned by the chief Neo-Cons (Dick Cheney, Rumsfield, Wolfowitz, Libby etc) outlined plans to take and maintain control of the Persian Gulf and to model the world to benefit Americas interests.  It advocated the transformation of the US military but realised such a process would be long winded and problematic without “some catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a new Pearl Harbour”. The 9/11 attacks were exactly the type of attacks this report outlined and have indeed been used by those in power to transform the military and place US bases in the Persian gulf. Is it unreasonable to suggest that certain people when reading intelligence reports of an impending attack by Al Qaeda allowed the attacks to occur in some misguided thought that the benefit to the US in a geopolitical sense over the long term outweighed the suffering and pain of the victims in the short term?

-As well as the PNAC document other policy documents were released after the election of Bush jnr that seeked to legitamise going to war in search for oil and gas. There was obviously a desire by those in control of US policy to get the military to the oil rich gulf and the attacks of 9/11 were the perfect way to gain public support for such an act. We must also remember that within hours of the attack Donald Rumsfield wanted plans to strike Iraq even though Iraq had nothing to do with the attack. This seems like war mongering to me, were the 9/11 attacks used as an excuse to implement existing plans of war?

-Why were the FBI who were investigating Bin Laden and other Saudi links to terrorism told to back off once George Bush took power? Bin Laden along with other family members attended his sons wedding in Kandahar early 2001. This proves Bin Laden maintained contact with other members of his family so why were the Bin Laden family allowed to fly out of the US shortly after the attacks of 9/11 without being questioned first.

-All of the terrorist hijackers bought their plane tickets for 9/11 using credit cards and their real names. Two of these people are on “no fly” watch lists due to being suspected terrorists. Why did the FBI, CIA or any other police authority with this information share it with the airports or airliners concerned.

–Why did the plane that hit the Pentagon hit the Pentagon? This is one of the most heavily defended pieces of airspace in the world. Why were no anti-aircraft missiles fired. Why were interceptor planes so slow to respond. What did Dick Cheney mean when he said the orders still stood as the “plane” came hurtling towards the Pentagon and no action was taken to shoot it down. If the orders were to shoot it down then why were no missiles fired. The implication is the order was to let the incoming radar blip hit the target. This was the testimony of Norman Mineta to the 9/11 commission which directly contradicts Dick Cheney’s evidence.

The points I have just raised are a tiny fraction of those publicly available and widely known facts, anomalies or unanswered questions that I personally would like answers to regarding the events that happened on the day of September 11th or in the months leading up to it.

I would urge anyone reading this who is not familiar with the points raised to click any related links provided or to do your own research. I have not even mentioned any theories about bombs in the trade center, controlled demolition, missiles hitting the pentagon, faked phone calls, remote controlled planes, NORAD stand down orders or any other theories that are commonly connected with the attacks.

I feel that I do not need to do this as those few points outlined above are enough I believe to make any logically thinking person who wants to get to the truth of the events of 9/11 say to themselves that maybe we do not know all there is to be known about that day. Maybe the official “conspiracy theory” is just not good enough and maybe only a full comprehensive public enquiry that answers all the questions is good enough to honour the victims and help move forward.

If there is anyone reading this article that does believe that all questions regarding 9/11 have been answered and can help quench my thirst for understanding regarding the points I have raised then please do leave a comment.