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29 November 2005

London 7/7: How to be Good - Part 1

"This is the largest criminal inquiry in English history."

- Sir Ian Blair
The Day the Bombs Came



The heat is on, on the street
Inside your head, on every beat
And the beat's so loud, deep inside
The pressure's high, just to stay alive
'Cause the heat is on

- Glen Frey

A fitting opener to an article about the explosive 7 July story that nobody in the mainstream media wants to touch. Perhaps the mainstream media won't touch it because they, like the authorities, are guilty of a mass-deception of the most egregious and elaborate proportions.

The charges are as follows:

1. All mainstream media stories about the alleged movements of the alleged London bombers on the morning of 7 July are factually incorrect and, thus far, entirely false.

2. The Metropolitan Police statement about the movements of the alleged bombers during their press conference in relation to 7 July was factually incorrect and has remained uncorrected.

3. All of the 'evidence' from which the alleged movements of the alleged bombers as issued and vaunted by the Metropolitan Police and the mainstream media is circumstantial, speculative and, even then, of highly questionable origin and very far removed from any sort of compelling evidence that could turn circumstantial evidence, speculation and presumptions of guilt into what appear to have become generally accepted facts about the days events.


These charges are the result of independently established and officially confirmed facts about the actual movements of the Thameslink train services from Luton on the morning of 7 July and the independently established and officially confirmed facts about the times at which the blast trains left King's Cross.

The remainder of this article presents facts about the events of 7 July that no mainstream media outlet has dared to report, or check for themselves. Those roving newshound journalists in the mainstream media that have bothered to check the first few facts of the 'official' story of what happened on the 7 July have remained incredibly silent about the results of that research, leaving ordinary members of the public to investigate, discover and report the facts that underlie what happened in London that fateful day in July.


The Day of 7/7

First, a brief recap of the generally reported and accepted version of events is called for. The issue here is from whence one should take the overview of what happened on 7 July. In order to avoid any controversy about the source of information for what happened that day, let's take the advice of a Detective Inspector Neil Smith at the Anti-Terrorist Branch of New Scotland Yard who says:
"I would strongly recommend the BBC website, which not only gives the broad information you seek, but also gives written and pictorial accounts of the events of that morning and the days that followed."


From the BBC London Attacks In Depth page, this is the story of 7 July:
TIMELINE OF KEY EVENTS

Early on 7 July, Hasib Hussain, Shehzad Tanweer and Mohammad Sidique Khan travel from their West Yorkshire homes to Luton by hire car.

At Luton station they meet Germaine Lindsay from Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire. The four are caught on CCTV as they enter the station.

The four bombers board a train for London King's Cross. Each carries a rucksack packed with explosives.

At King's Cross they fan out - Tanweer and Khan take the Circle line in opposite directions while Lindsay takes the Piccadilly line south.

Their bombs explode at 0850.

Nothing is known of Hussain's movements until 0947 when he blows up a bus in Tavistock Square.

That, give or take a few minor details which nobody seems to care about much, is the story of how 52 people died and 700 were injured in the attack on London. The evidence to support this version of events consists of just three photographs, included here for completeness.


The first image is of the four alleged suicide bombers together outside Luton Thameslink station.

The image is timestamped 07:21:54 07/07/05 and was released by the Metropolitan Police as the first piece of evidence showing the four alleged perpetrators of the 7 July atrocities. This image has been published as the full image seen here and also in various cut down, cropped versions with digital effects applied.

The second image is a rather curiously cropped image of one of the alleged suicide bombers, Hasib Hussain, allegedly as he boarded the 0740 Luton train to King's Cross. Given the lack of any unique point of reference demonstrating that this photo was taken at Luton station, or even a timestamp, this photo could have been taken anywhere at anytime.

The third image is a photo of Hasib Hussain again, this time walking out of Boots at King's Cross into the main concourse. We are told this picture was taken at 0900, almost ten minutes after we are told the bombs simultaneously exploded on the London underground. The scene shows what appears to be Hasib Hussain photographed, by a CCTV camera that may not be there, exiting Boots at a rather odd angle into the main concourse that, by now, one might think would be filled with passengers evacuating the station after the blasts that had occurred on the Piccadilly line train that was just 100 yards into the tunnel on its way to Russell Square.

The three photographs shown above and allegedly taken from the day of 7 July are judge, jury and executioner for the four young men they depict, for the 52 other lives that were taken that day and the only explanation for survivors and the families of the dead and injured.

The stories of the alleged bombers will never be heard, nor will the alleged bombers ever stand trial. Their story has already been written by the authorities and the media and has remained, until now, almost entirely unchallenged.


The Duty of the Press

It is the duty of the press, if not the authorities, to observe certain guidelines while going about their business of reporting the news. The following guidelines from the Press Complaints Commission are ripped straight from Bloggerheads (thanks Tim) and contain pretty much all you need to know about the Press Complaints Commission:
1 - Accuracy
i) The Press must take care not to publish inaccurate, misleading or distorted information, including pictures.

ii) A significant inaccuracy, mis-leading statement or distortion once recognised must be corrected, promptly and with due prominence, and - where appropriate - an apology published.

iii) The Press, whilst free to be partisan, must distinguish clearly between comment, conjecture and fact.

All of which are rather pertinent points to bear in mind in relation to 7 July, since the original stories of power surges and train collisions, for the mainstream media has presented nothing other than inaccurate, misleading and distorted information about the movements of the alleged bombers.


How the Bombs Came

With the duties of the press in mind and a degree of faith - hitherto unreached but much anticipated by The Antagonist - that readers of these pages are imbued with the ability to draw for themselves the only logical conclusions that can be drawn from the presentation of simple, factual evidence - even if this does contradict the generally reported and accepted version of events - The Antagonist presents links to mainstream media coverage of the events of 7 July along with the offending, inaccurate, misleading or distorted information contained there-in for those who might feel motivated to ensure that the precious few facts that exist about the day that 52 people died at four locations on 7 July are reported correctly.

From the Daily Mirror:
CRICKET.. TO CARNAGE - THE MAKING OF A SUICIDE SQUAD

What is certain is that at 7.48am they boarded the Luton-Moorgate service. Forty minutes later they got off at the King's Cross Thameslink Station where they were captured on CCTV.

Source: Daily Mirror

That the alleged bombers caught the 7.48am Luton service and arrived in London forty minutes later is far from certain at all. The 7.48am didn't leave Luton until 0756 on 7 July and didn't arrive in King's Cross until 8.42am, some 22 minutes after its scheduled arrival time of 8.20am. By 8.42am on 7 July two of the bombed trains had already left King's Cross without two of the alleged suicide bombers on board.

Maybe a broadsheet such as The Telegraph might have checked a few facts about the events of 7/7 before publication of stories which purport to offer the truth about what happened that day but that fail to get anywhere near it. Unfortunately not, as evinced by the incontrovertible headline, "If only we had been alert, say regulars on the 7.48 to King's Cross Luton", from which the following excerpt is taken:

As their morning newspapers confirmed that the suicide bombers had travelled on the packed Thameslink train service, bankers, secretaries and doctors on the 07:48 service to London contemplated the possibility that the worst terrorist attack in British history might have been averted if only they had seen something.



How about Channel 4 News which, ordinarily, blows the socks off all other mainstream news roundup programmes. They state:
Breakthrough in bomb enquiry

The four terrorists were seen by a witness boarding the 7.48am Thameslink train to King's cross arriving into the city centre at 8.20am.


This, as we already know, is not the case. The alleged bombers may have been seen by an eye witness boarding the 7.48am Thameslink train to King's Cross sometime between 07:21:54 and 0756 (the time the 0748 departed on 7/7) but they certainly weren't seen arriving into the city centre at 8.20am on the 7.48am from Luton. The alleged bombers might have been seen at King's Cross Thameslink at 8.42am but certainly not 8.20am, not at King's Cross Underground station and not on the morning of 7 July.

What about The Times, that bastion of integrity that it is held to be and which now has in its employ Tony Blair's magus-Spinmaster General, Alistair Campbell. Could The Times check a few basic facts and get the times right? As if you need even ask.

In a Focus Special entitled 'The Web of Terror published on 17 July, The Times ran with:
They struck out of the blue. But at least one of the bombers was known to MI5. David Leppard and Jonathan Calvert investigate

A CCTV camera filmed them as they prepared to board the 7.40am train to King’s Cross. Near them was another man who might or might not have been an accomplice or even a potential fifth bomber — but he disappeared into the crowd.

At 8.26am the train pulled into King’s Cross and the four were again caught on CCTV.

Source: The Times

A few days previously, on 14 July, an article in The Times entitled "CCTV pictures show London bus bomber" again states the alleged bombers caught the 0740 Luton train:
Hasib Hussain, an 18-year-old from Leeds, is shown in a CCTV image mounting the stairs at Luton station before taking the 7.40am train to King's Cross.

Source: The Times

The 7.40am Luton Thameslink train is the train the Metropolitan Police announced to the assembled world's media at a press conference that the alleged bombers caught on 7 July so, one might think, this 'fact' might have some truth in it.

The 0740 service from Luton did not run on 7 July.

Over a month later, on 20 September, following the release of CCTV footage showing just three of the alleged bombers making a day-trip to London on 28 June (the 'dummy-dummy run'), the Times contradicted both itself and the Metropolitan Police:
July 7 bombers rehearsed suicide attacks

July 7: All four take a 7:48am Thameslink train to King's Cross, arriving around 8:30am before dispersing.

Source: The Times

That this is such a simple fact to check, the first fact that any decent, investigative journalist worth their salt would confirm or deny before publishing any account at all of what happened that day, makes the announcement even more curious.


The BBC, the bombs and the Press Complaints Commission

The BBC has been rather more pro-active in its endeavours to correct factual inaccuracies in its reporting of the events of 7 July, a precedent which was set by their much heralded, primetime 'documentary' 7/7: The Day The Bombs Came, originally broadcast on 16 November 2005, some four months after the events on which it reported. The programme would have been more appropriately titled, '7/7: After the Bombs Came' ignoring entirely, as it did, the all-important HOW the bombs came.

Only weeks previously, on 27 October, the BBC's Horizon programme, The 7/7 Bombers – A Psychological Investigation: What makes someone want to blow themselves – and others - up?", forensic psychiatrist Marc Sageman claimed to offer a psychological profile of the suicide bombers that the same edition of Horizon stated caught the 0748 train from Luton to King's Cross on 7 July.

Since then, the BBC appears to have gone to great lengths to remove from its web site every single reference to the time of the train on which the alleged bombers travelled to London on 7 July.

The following image shows Google search results linking to three stories from the BBC news web site which contain the phrase 'from luton'.



Notice the third result under the heading "BBC NEWS | England | Police search two 'bomber' cars" and note also the line quoted from it, "Passengers on the 0748 Thameslink from Luton to King's Cross". Follow the link to that story and the phrase about which train the alleged bombers caught from Luton is noticeably absent.

A search for the 0748 phrase Google throws back three links, all to the BBC's own web site, all of which contain the 0748 train time in their Google summaries and all of which have had the 0748 line removed from the linked articles.


Curiously, the timestamps of the BBC articles seem to be unchanged from what would appear to be the original publication date, even though the content of the article has changed rather substantially.

The clean up campaign to remove the few 'established facts' from the public domain, at least as far as the BBC is concerned, has begun. The formal apologies for publishing this factually incorrect information are, however, very noticeably absent.


Variations on a theme: The Death of Journalistic Integrity and the Old Media

Different media, different channels, different newspapers all with different journalists, researchers and conflicting stories, is almost forgiveable, despite the existence of easily verifiable facts which underlie those stories. Different and conflicting stories about the devastating attack on London in July, which to this day remain factually incorrect, published by the same newspapers, editorial teams and media channels is entirely unforgiveable.

What is also unforgiveable is that these stories remain uncorrected despite the facts regarding the officially confirmed activities of both the Thameslink and underground trains that morning and despite this information having been available, albeit via a rather circuitous route for ordinary members of the public, since the day of 7 July.

Maybe no 'proper' journalists had the time to check the facts in their haste to hit front page deadlines with the biggest and best stories of the devastation that befell London on the morning of 7 July. And, maybe the heady world of international news reporting is so fraught with reporting the same three stories for weeks on end that nobody has yet had the opportunity to check the most basic of facts about the attack on London. That the media didn't bother to check or haven't run with the results of what checking the facts revealed, is understandable if you understand anything about the nature of the world's mainstream media.

But is it possible that the Metropolitan Police did not know that the 7.40am Luton train did not run on 7 July when they announced it at their press conference? Is it any coincidence that the charge being levelled at the Metropolitan Police about the murder of Jean Charles de Menezes - one of misleading the public - is precisely the same charge which can be levelled at them in relation to the events of 7 July?

Compare and contrast these charges against the Metropolitan Police with the release of a glut information about the 'failed attacks' on 21 July, the day the alleged bombers had no bombs, intended only a demonstrative act and whose court case is now on the verge of being thrown out of court because they had no bombs or any intention to kill anyone.


The Only Logical Conclusions That Can be Drawn From The Presentation of Factual Evidence

A few days short of the five-month anniversary of 7 July, after nearly five months of police investigation and five months of media coverage, anyone who has been following the events of 7 July with any real desire to understand what happened that day can know little more than they did at the time it happened. While we know a great deal about the death and destruction that occurred in London that morning, we know absolutely nothing about the way in which that carnage visited upon London.

Yes, there is a generally accepted version of events as taken from the BBC News web site on the advice of the Anti-Terrorist Branch of Scotland Yard and as quoted above. Yes, we have seen three CCTV images of the alleged bombers purportedly taken on the day of 7 July and, yes, we have seen a video which is alleged to be Mohammed Siddique Khan uttering phrases about soldiers and war.

For some, it was this video that finally sold them on the idea that it was four, young, British-born Muslims who had somehow drifted into extremism. A recent Radio 4 'documentary' on Mohammed Siddique Khan suggested that Khan's radicalisation happened as a result of going Paintballing, a 'guerilla warfare-like activity", claimed Nasreen Suleaman in a show that you can now no longer listen to via the BBC web site.

In the same show, friends of Mohammed Siddique Khan - all of whom referred to him by the Anglicised version of his name, Sid - suggested repeatedly that the 'Khan video' was not of their friend Sid. Further, as also reported elsewhere, they claimed the person in the video did not look or sound like Sid. These claims by those that knew Khan since childhood, like the facts about the times at which the trains left King's Cross, or which Luton train the alleged bombers caught on the morning of 7 July have become all but lost in the vast amount of noise created by the media and authorities.

This leaves the world with manifold stories from both the media and the authorities of the events of 7 July all of which are based on misleading assumptions or distortions which - at least as far as the media is concerned - 'once recognised must be corrected, promptly and with due prominence, and - where appropriate - an apology published'.

This is a link to the online version of the Press Complaints Commission complaints form. Details of the guidelines are given above. You know the rest.

The task of getting the police to correct their factual inaccuracies is a different matter and one, if the leaked IPCC documents into the murder of Jean Charles de Menezes on 22 July are anything to go by, is going to prove rather more difficult to organise without some form of people's inquiry into what happened in London on 7 July - a 7 July Truth Commission, perhaps.

28 November 2005

de Menezes Murder - IPCC Investigation Number Two

A second IPCC investigation into the police murder of innocent Brazilian Jean Charles de Menezes is to be launched. The investigation is specifically to evaluate the role of Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair in the murder at Stockwell tube station.

This, in itself, is good news but nowhere near as good as the news would be if a public or people's inquiry were launched into the shooting.

The real news behind the story of the very public announcement of the IPCC investigation into Ian Blair, courtesy of The Independent and The Times, is that two of the police killers on 22 July - as it seems do all murderous policemen - will escape prosecution.

Tube shooting: 'no prosecutions'
By Sophie Goodchild, Chief Reporter

Published: 27 November 2005

Two police marksmen who killed an innocent Brazilian at a London Underground station will escape criminal charges, according to reports.

Senior Metropolitan Police and Whitehall officials are said to be convinced that prosecutors will accept the defence of the officers who shot dead Jean Charles de Menezes.

The 27-year-old electrician died after he was followed to Stockwell Tube station in the belief that he was a suicide bomber. This was the day after the abortive 21 July terror attacks on the Underground.

The Independent Police Complaints Commission this month took evidence from the two officers who killed Mr de Menezes.

They are thought to have said in their defence that they "honestly believed" he was a terrorist and that they used "reasonable force".

They are expected to base their case on a detailed account of radio communications between their firearms unit and more senior Met officers.


From the Jean Charles de Menezes Shrine outside Stockwell Station

Thirty-Nil to the state's forces armed against an innocent population which poses no more of a threat than the alleged threat of 'fewer than twenty'.

With the 'hidden' news that two of those responsible for the murder of Jean Charles de Menezes are already lined up to escape any charge for killing an innocent man, the pressing need for an independent public or people's inquiry into the murder of Jean Charles de Menezes is now greater than ever.

27 November 2005

Revolution

A meme for the U.S. which contains messages for all of humanity:

Revolution, By John S. Hatch
11/26/05 "ICH"
-- --

President Bush was recently criticized for not being forceful enough in denouncing Chinese human rights abuses during a trip there. Excuse me? This is the torture president. How on earth can the United States preach to anyone in the world about human rights or the rule of law, or morality? In even raising the question, has Mr. Bush abandoned any claim to sanity? If it is wrong for China to abuse human rights (and it’s true that their record is horrible) how is it acceptable for the US in Iraq to sexually torture imprisoned children as a means to coerce their (probably completely innocent) parents to disclose information they most likely don’t have?

There is within the mythology America finds so indispensable something so sick and downright evil, but so pervasive that even after all the revelations of torture and rape and murder sanctioned at the highest levels of government, even now the numbness persists, and writers still insist on thinking that America is somehow a shining example of decency to a world which needs its sanctimonious preaching. Who in their right mind would want to emulate America in this century? Who on earth would want to be an American in this darkest of times? America is like a born-again Christian fundamentalist—mean, ignorant, full of hate and rage and superstition, but utterly convinced of his own righteousness. In short, insane. Dangerously insane.

In Iraq American sanctioned and trained elements of the Iraqi military are back to using electric drills on ‘insurgents’, an old Saddam phenomenon. Drill for oil, drill for blood. They’ll drill your knee, or your arm, or your head. You are innocent. Doesn’t matter. Think George cares? White phosphorous. Depleted uranium. Shock and awe. Cluster bombs. Etcetera. Where are those photographs and videos of children undergoing torture at Abu Grahaib that a judge ordered released months ago? Whatever happened to the rule of law? Where did accountability go? Where the hell is the outrage? Why are Bush and Rumsfeld and Rice and a bunch of others not in jail cells? Where is the outrage?

For those who think that change is coming in ’06 or ’08, think again—these people cannot relinquish power, whatever further lies and outrages they must commit to retain it. There are simply too many crimes against humanity and war crimes for which to avoid accountability at all costs. Lives depend on it. Many more crimes are yet to be reported. Do not for a moment consider that this bunch would not, if they saw it in their interests, engineer another deadly 911 incident (blamed on Muslims, of course) to once again terrorize the populace into meek submission. It may be pathologically manipulative and barbaric, but that’s Straussian politics. To them it’s not only acceptable, it’s business as usual. It’s probably going to happen, as Bush’s numbers continue to decline.

America has seen bad times—slavery, the civil war, McCarthyism and communist hysteria, never-ending racism, Nixon and Kissinger, the unheralded horror of Reagan, but Bush has brought disaster on a completely different level. Bush is a dupe, if an evil one, but there are truly ugly, nasty people pulling his strings. Nothing short of a second American revolution is going to rescue your nation. Even now Bush is making plans to violently stop such a thing from happening. We’re going to see once and for all if Americans stand for the vaunted values to which they give such eloquent and loud lip service. If so, then I fear they will have to pay in blood. It’s come to that. I’m sorry.

John S. Hatch is a Vancouver writer and film-maker. He can be reached at johnhatch@canada.com www.jhatchfilms.citymax.com


This time it's global.

25 November 2005

Bush's 'Bomb Al Jazeera' Timebomb

Word on the street is that George Bush wanted to bomb Al Jazeera. In Qatar.

Word is that his comments were "humorous, not serious" which might be true, if only in some parallel dimension.

And, had one had a cursory glance at any government's publicly available major incident response documents, all of which discuss at great length the need to partition and disseminate incident-related information via carefully controlled media channels, one might see how taking out Al Jazeera would make perfect sense as part of any five year invasion plan of the Middle East.

Editors who report on the Al Jazeera memo have been threatened with jail, such is the true nature of the democratic society in which governments could once save themselves from being hoisted by their own petards until some years after it was too late to do anything about it.

Quoting Boris Johnson on the matter of the Al Jazeera memo:
The Attorney General's ban is ridiculous, untenable, and redolent of guilt. I do not like people to break the Official Secrets Act ... we now have allegations of such severity, against the US President and his motives, that we need to clear them up.

If someone passes me the document within the next few days I will be very happy to publish it in The Spectator, and risk a jail sentence. .. Sunlight is the best disinfectant. If we suppress the truth, we forget what we are fighting for

Then a mail arrived at 8:55pm Friday night offering The Antagonist yet another opportunity to go to gaol and meet Harry Roberts antagonise global super-terrorist Terrorist Tony B Liar, his cabinet of cronies and the underlying administration and establishment which has, with the full complicity, collusion and support of the equally mendacious U.S. administration and establishment, lied to and misled every human being on the planet with access to a television, radio, newspaper or Internet connection.

The Antagonist too will publish and be damned because information, like everyone and everything else, wants to be free.

The RULES of the GAME are CHANGING. Of which, more soon.



Updates:

Obviously, bombing Al Jazeera is far more cost-effective than keeping Al Jazeera journalists in Guantanamo.

They say history repeats itself and that things always come in threes: "In 2001 the station's Kabul office was knocked out by two "smart" bombs. In 2003, al-Jazeera reporter Tareq Ayyoub was killed in a US missile strike on the station's Baghdad centre". [Source: The Mirror]

Watch the Channel 4 News Report on the Al Jazeera memo. Still more downloads of the report.

BlairWatch have the full list of those who signed up for a bit of global class antagonism along with a great summary of the Al Jazeera story.

Tony is not happy.

24 November 2005

The Hagiography of Mediocrity

The bourgeoisie has stripped of its halo every occupation hitherto honoured and looked up to with reverent awe. It has converted the physician, the lawyer, the priest, the poet, the man of science, into its paid wage labourers.

- Karl Marx

And, when the art of blogging is subjected to the halo-stripping of the bourgeoisie, who better than Lenin to sort the new 'commentariat' from the comentaritwats.

23 November 2005

Tony, the Terrists and little Leo


While Terrorist Tony and the boys are sitting around in Parliament getting in a bit of a flap about flu for birds, The Antagonist recommends spending a few minutes viewing the hand of history falling upon Tony Blair's shoulders in the form of the World According to (a non-revisionist) Leo Blair (as interpreted and animated by Tim Ireland over at Bloggerheads).

22 November 2005

Who'd be a Republican?

If Primate Bush alone hadn't managed to convey to the world all the world needed to know about Republicans, a bit of Republican Hypocrisy Revealed might just tip the balance.

And, if the long history of Republicans fucking young children isn't quite enough to put you off Republicans and the U.S. administration, the poor are in for the same treatment as Primate Bush says, "Fuck you!" to the tune of $50 billion.

Of course, someone has to pick up the tab for the haves and the have-mores.

Such are the mores of the have-mores in the Kingdom of Fear.

21 November 2005

Liberté, egalité, fraternité

Under the heading of Watching One's Back: French Bloggers arrested for inciting violence and via Apostate Windbag via Sketchy Thoughts:
Three French bloggers have been arrested for allegedly 'inciting violence' by using their blogs to encourage people to join the riots, justice minister Pascal Clement told a media conference yesterday. The bloggers, all aged 16 and from Aix-en-Provence in the south, 'called for riots and an attack on police stations'. Their blogs were hosted by a site owned by a youth radio station, Skyrock, which has since shut them down.

C'est ne pas liberté, egalité, fraternité! Which, incidentally, is precisely what motivates people to riot irrespective of whether or not a few radical teenagers tell them to do so. But, in the interests of criminalising children and young adults as much as inhumanly possible, let's ignore that fact for a moment.

Elsewhere:
When all non-violent, democratic means of achieving a just end are unavailable, redundant or exhausted, rioting is justifiable.

When state agencies charged with protecting communities fail to do so or actually attack them, it may be necessary in self-defence.

The riots in France .... have still managed to yield a precarious kind of progress. They demand our qualified and critical support.

Radical French teenagers stirring it up a bit? Mais non! C'est Gary Younge dans le guardian.

15 November 2005

Geopolitics on a day to day basis

Osama and the boys have spoken:
Queen Elizabeth is Islam’s biggest enemy: Al Qaeda
Monday, November 14, 2005

LONDON: Ayman al-Zawahri, number two in Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda terror network, named Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II as “one of the severest enemies of Islam” in a video seen by the Sunday Times.

He said that those who followed her were saying: “We are British citizens, subject to Britain’s crusader laws, and we are proud of our submission.” In a possible dig at the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB), which had instructed mosques to inform on potential terrorists, he attacked “those who issue fatwas, according to the school of thought of the head of the Church of England”.

Source: Daily Times

Of course, the queen wasn't going to take such a brazen challenge to the divinity of her authority lying back and thinking of England and today announced via some minionistic office of the clown [sic - for that is how appalling old waxworks would pronounce it] to rally the provinces for another 'coalition of the united' (against the will of the world) to help with the minor ongoing problems that have plagued Afghanistan since the Anglo American invasion.

UK tries to form coalition to fight in Afghanistan
Simon Tisdall and Richard Norton-Taylor
Tuesday November 15, 2005

Britain is attempting to build a coalition to pursue counter-insurgency combat operations against al-Qaida and Taliban fighters in southern Afghanistan after the withdrawal by the Bush administration of 4,000 US troops early next year.

Talks with Australia, Canada, New Zealand and several other countries are being held before a Nato meeting in Brussels on December 7.

They follow the refusal of European allies, such as France and Germany, to allow their troops to become involved in counter-insurgency.

Source: The Guardian

*cough* petro-euros *cough*

08 November 2005

Transparent Tony on Terrorism

"There are people in our country now, as we speak, who are, we believe, engaged in trying to plot terrorist acts."

- Tony Blair
"Fewer than twenty" according to Tony.

'Fewer than twenty" is the number of people in the dis-United Kingdom that transparent Tony Bliar says will be subject to the new anti-terror legislation. Yet, as far as The Antagonist is aware, the law of the country applies to all 60-or-so million subjects - for monarchy = 'subjects' not 'citizens' - whether they be one of the terrorist-fewer-than-twenty or not.

"Fewer than twenty." Fewer than twenty individuals that the police have managed to persuade Terrorist Tony and Ratboy are the lowest common denominator by which we should all be judged and treated.

The terrorists hate our freedoms and the terrorists want to take away our freedoms. Who could argue with that?

"Fewer than twenty" terrorists want to take away our freedoms.

"Fewer than twenty" terrorists are taking away our freedoms.

We elected each and every one of them.

Yesterday little terrorist Tony faced a few questions from the world's media in a desperate attempt to drum up support for new laws that further subjugate the British people. You might expect that the reasons for these new laws would be good, especially if issued by a lawyer well versed in law, politics and hopefully by now the art of running-not-ruining the country. But Blair was less coherent than Primate Bush as he struggled desperately to string together random groupings of words which sounded like they might mean something terribly important when heard in small groupings but which, in context, said and meant nothing.

As Tony explained at his shoddy little press conference yesterday: Who are politicians, or indeed anyone else, to disagree with the judgements of a handful of police officers?

Should it matter that these same police officers are still the subject of a murder inquiry? Should it matter that these same police officers are the ones responsible for the cold-blooded execution of an innocent man at Stockwell tube station under 'old' laws . Should it matter that these same police officers have yet to be held to account for that gross action under the 'old' laws?

Blair also drew parallels between the noose of his attachment to the repressive New policc Labour laws and the strife of Thatcher in her third term. A strange comparison for a Labour man, perhaps, but then this is a NEW Labour. Not 'New and Improved' like all the other frivolous commodities of modern life, just new. Brand new. Nothing at all like old Labour, whatever that was.


This is New Labour

This is New Labour and New Terror brought to you live and direct via Afghanistan, Iraq and soon Iran, Syria and anyone else the compass bearers in Washington decide our country doesn't like today.

This is New Labour whose leader remembers and even harks back to the dark days of Thatcherism in a vain attempt to justify his own unjustifiable actions.

This is New Labour who remembers the plight of the miners and the riots of the Thatcher years.

This is New Labour complete with even more New Terror laws to arm the police and state further against the people who are so disillusioned with politicians and the private venture that has replaced the political process that they barely even bothered to vote.

This is New Labour filled with The Fear that comes with the ancient knowledge of numbers and ratios; the vast difference between the opulent minority and the impoverished majority. It is This Fear that fills Tony's heart, mind and every word of every sentence he utters. No semblance of logic, just Gerin-oil fuelled Fear. Only Primate Bush was man enough to admit it publicly.

This is New Labour who realises we have long known that it is entirely possible to lock people up for nine years and counting without charge or evidence and without any new terror laws at all.

This is new Labour who recognise, like all ruling classes, that they are few and the people many, so they may graciously reduce the 90 day period which suspects are meant to suffer while a case against them is concocted.

Fuck it, Tony, why stop at a paltry 14, 28, 42 or any other multiple-of-seven days detention? Why not make it 74,000 years? That's as good a number as any.

Bring on the repression, Tony, but do it in the ancient knowledge that there is nothing so fearsome as a disgruntled nation of people. Not just the Nation of Islam and not just 'fewer than twenty'.

Do it also in full knowledge of legal precedents that have already been set.
"There is no general legal duty to assist the police or to obey police instructions."

Rice v Connolly [1966] 2 QB 414.

03 November 2005

AntagoVision: The Antagonist Manifesto

Inspired by international organisations who possess the financial resources and the perverse inclination to throw costly, dedicated research resources to the task of discovering trivialities masked as crucial information and business intelligence, The Antagonist also whacked the words "The Antagonist" into a Google search box, using a version of Mozilla's Firefox, which threw back a link to a rather interesting bit of writing called The Antagonist's Manifesto over at antagovision.com.

Full credit and much respect to the author(s) of this little gem:

ANTAGONIST MANIFESTO

The world is divided into three sectors. The Antagonist = creation. The Protagonist = potential. The Commercialist = parasite.

Life is a circle. The only way to break outside this circle - short of death - is to create. The Antagonist will do whatever it takes in order to create; for crime is art, art is crime. However, he does not break laws merely to cause crime, rather when they impede his ability to create.

The Antagonist's greatest challenge is the dreaded "IF." He is at war at all times and on all fronts with "IF." IF he fails, IF he succeeds, IF he is laughed at does not matter. "IF" must be destroyed.

The Antagonist is not lead by his ego, but instead by his creativity. There is no standard form or medium for this creativity, save for the exception that the piece should provoke its audience. Titles like artist, writer, or actor are secondary to The Antagonist's creative output. Blue or white collar, he is not defined by his socio-economic status, or even his art. All titles are equal. It is his drive and persistence to create that defines him. Art must not rely on ego, but on strength.

The exploitation of the creative is not the standard of art. Though he may sell his art for profit, The Antagonist, emphasizing the process, does not create with the initial intent to produce a "product." Creativity may be kept to one's self; it does not have to be displayed. The Antagonist's work is born unto the world, celebrates a useful existence, and then dies. Only The Commercialist produces intending to reap economic benefits. The Antagonist and The Commercialist are in opposition, with The Protagonist straddling the fence between the two. The Antagonist trains his mind to see differently than The Protagonist and The Commercialist. He pushes The Protagonist to action and is the essence of creativity.

The Antagonist is good for the kids, good for the community; yet he may find himself in direct conflict with commercialism, opportunism, or the powers that be. They will threaten or attempt to inhibit his creative output. The Antagonist represents a threat to the system around him, and must seize upon this power to use the system against itself. Any resource, material, or tool of the system to which The Antagonist has access - authorized or not - should be used to further his work.

In the end, The Antagonist creates.