Liquid bomb plot - yeah right.....
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This is the off-topic section.0
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im all for keeping an open mind but not so open your brains fall out.get real.0
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I'm quite ready to believe there are all kinds of evil barstewwards out there; I'm also quite ready to believe there are various levels of government, from the pollies downwards, that are prepared to use them (and their potential existence) as justification for their own ends.
Nothing new about that unfortunately.'Twas Mulga Bill, from Eaglehawk, that caught the cycling craze....0 -
antfly wrote:
nope - still not with you. Obviously I didn't 'what'....??0 -
the concept we know as al qaeda is just PR - it's spin. Sure - there are lots of terorrists - but the idea that they form into one large global organisation headed by an evil mastermind is straight out of James bond.
It's a convenient way of frightening stupid and gullible peoplewho have seen too many movies....and gave the US and the UK a way of justifying two illegal wars and a clampdown on civil rights known as The War On Terror. It was bogus from the outset.
This is not a conspiracy theory - I am not a conspiracy theorist. However in this instance - bush and the Neocons have hatched the mother of all conspiracy theories, based on Science Fiction and James Bond, and around 52% of the population of the US and the UK fell for it.
Don;t confuse this with 9-11 truthers - lots of them are nuts - in that case it pretty much happened as we were told - the only discrpency in my mind was the failure of the US government and all the intelligence agencies to act before had (possibly incompetence) and to hold proper inquiries afterwards - maybe because it was more convenient for them to be able to blame it on both the Taliban and Iraq to justify the wars that had already been planned, than to arrive at the truth - a small well-funded conspriacy by a group of Saudis - Saudi Arabia being a US ally, it would have been politically inconvenient.
Lots of those involved have been pretty much open about what's happening - endless commentators in the "liberal" press have seen through to the reality - I refer you to Robert Fisk and Patrick Cockburn in particular.
If there was ANY evidence that the conspiracy theory known as al Qaeda was true - then I might reconsider.0 -
Does anyone remember this being shown on the news with no irony whatsoever. I thought it was hilarious - and you know what - it was never found. Funny that!
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This is what they later claimed was bin Laden's "fortified redoubt" - I call it a cave. :P
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softlad wrote:they forgot to add a hangar for his space shuttle...
Cant see any secure bike storage, showers or lockers. Bet they dont even bother with the cycle to work scheme either. What a poor employer, how do they hope to attract and then keep hold of good staff?0 -
Porgy wrote:Does anyone remember this being shown on the news with no irony whatsoever. I thought it was hilarious - and you know what - it was never found. Funny that!
Of course, a 1970s-era Roger Moore, accompanied by a female sidekick in a skimpy costume with a slightly saucy comedy name, would've found it in no time.
David"It is not enough merely to win; others must lose." - Gore Vidal0 -
Stewie Griffin wrote:softlad wrote:they forgot to add a hangar for his space shuttle...
Cant see any secure bike storage, showers or lockers. Bet they dont even bother with the cycle to work scheme either. What a poor employer, how do they hope to attract and then keep hold of good staff?
It's worse than that - I can't see any toilets either! :shock:0 -
That is a freakin' awesome base!
It looks like a daily mail graphic.0 -
Porgy wrote:the concept we know as al qaeda is just PR - it's spin. Sure - there are lots of terorrists - but the idea that they form into one large global organisation headed by an evil mastermind is straight out of James bond.
It's a convenient way of frightening stupid and gullible peoplewho have seen too many movies....and gave the US and the UK a way of justifying two illegal wars and a clampdown on civil rights known as The War On Terror. It was bogus from the outset.
This is not a conspiracy theory - I am not a conspiracy theorist. However in this instance - bush and the Neocons have hatched the mother of all conspiracy theories, based on Science Fiction and James Bond, and around 52% of the population of the US and the UK fell for it.
Don;t confuse this with 9-11 truthers - lots of them are nuts - in that case it pretty much happened as we were told - the only discrpency in my mind was the failure of the US government and all the intelligence agencies to act before had (possibly incompetence) and to hold proper inquiries afterwards - maybe because it was more convenient for them to be able to blame it on both the Taliban and Iraq to justify the wars that had already been planned, than to arrive at the truth - a small well-funded conspriacy by a group of Saudis - Saudi Arabia being a US ally, it would have been politically inconvenient.
Lots of those involved have been pretty much open about what's happening - endless commentators in the "liberal" press have seen through to the reality - I refer you to Robert Fisk and Patrick Cockburn in particular.
If there was ANY evidence that the conspiracy theory known as al Qaeda was true - then I might reconsider.
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If I worked there I would just run up and down all those stairs all day. Then when I get home again I WOULD CRUSH YOU ALL WITH AN ENORMOUS DISPLAY OF MY QUAD POWER.
Have that!0 -
NapoleonD wrote:It looks like a daily mail graphic.
"Could Secret Underground Terrorist Bases Devalue Property Prices In Your Area?"
David"It is not enough merely to win; others must lose." - Gore Vidal0 -
DavidBelcher wrote:NapoleonD wrote:It looks like a daily mail graphic.
"Could Secret Underground Terrorist Bases Devalue Property Prices In Your Area?"
David
They'd probably moan about the size of the wheely bin needed - and the evil waste nazis working for the Tora Bora council!0 -
Porgy, what you say does have the hallmarks of a conspiracy theory. Your diagram taken from some newspaper, I presume (most probably not one known for its journalistic rigour), clearly shows that some news media outlets have been happy to sensationalise the story - nothing new there really, is there. But you go further to suggest that the concept of Al Qaeda has actually been manufactured by The US (and UK) and this was spun to the media who went for it hook, line and sinker.
Whilst I am always keen to be sceptical of what appears in the media, and what governments tell me, I think it is clear that the concept of Al Qaeda does reflect a real entity. How else would you account suicide videos that cite Al Qaeda, surely these cannot be government spin? And are we to assume those that have trained for jihad and cite Al Qaeda, are really government stooges? And are people such as the Imam Usama Hasan, who admits former AQ links, merely media creations? Are the many videos we have seen of training camps in Afghanistan and Pakistan part of this conspiracy? What Al Qaeda entails, exactly, is the issue. It is clearly not the single cohesive organisation with one evil mastermind at the head. Many terrorists have claimed allegiance to Al Qaeda (why, if it doesn't exist), but in doing so they are probably adopting it as a brand, rather than acting under its direction or control. Many terrorist cells probably exist and act independently of any central control (much like how the IRA operated), though some are clearly recruited, guided, trained, funded, supplied and motivated by some higher "authority".
The AQ brand does serve a purpose in uniting both the jihadists and those fighting them, this may be convenient, but it does not make this concept a fiction.
As for James Bond, I am sure you are aware that British Special Forces were for years involved with training the mujahedeen in Afghanistan in their fight against the Soviets (or was this just PR to demonise the Soviets), and no doubt the Secret Intelligence Service were also involved, so whilst obviously lacking the glamour and the girls, the allusion is not so far fetched.0 -
Anyone fancy a pint?0
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Never, NEVER, under estimate the stupidity of the general public.Never underestimate the stupidity of the general public.
- Bianchi Via Nirone 2009
- Ribble Winter/Training + 105
- Boardman Team Carbon 20090 -
No - not from a newspaper - it was produced by the US govenrment - and first shown to the media by - I think Rumsfeld - on a US news show - but then did the rounds on BBC, ITV etc.alfablue wrote:Porgy, what you say does have the hallmarks of a conspiracy theory. Your diagram taken from some newspaper, I presume
Reflect is probably the right word, but that is all - an acorn of truth and everything else is baloney.I think it is clear that the concept of Al Qaeda does reflect a real entity.
I'm hampered by stringent blocks on what website I can open at work - plus fact that I cannot spend a huge amount of time on this, but here's something from the Guardian:
The documentary "power of nightmares" (from now on PON) is really important in nailing this - again i urge t=you to see it, then come back to me about whether it's a conspiracy theory or not.Dr Saad al-Fagih, a Saudi dissident and former Afghan mujahideen, thinks the term is over-used: "Well I really laugh when I hear the FBI talking about al-Qaida as an organisation of Bin Laden." Al-Qaida was just a service for relatives of jihadis, he said, speaking to the American PBS show Frontline. "In 1988 he [Bin Laden] noticed that he was backward in his documentation and was not able to give answers to some families asking about their loved ones gone missing in Afghanistan. He decided to make the matter much more organised and arranged for proper documentation."
Fascinatingly, the acclaimed biography of Bin Laden by Yossef Bodansky, director of the US Congressional Task Force on Terrorism, hardly mentions the name al-Qaida. Written before September 11, it does so only to emphasise that al-Qaida is the wrong name altogether: "A lot of money is being spent on a rapidly expanding web of Islamist charities and social services, including the recently maligned al-Qaida. Bin Laden's first charity, al-Qaida, never amounted to more than a loose umbrella framework for supporting like-minded individuals and their causes. In the aftermath of the 1998 bombings in Nairobi and Dar-es-Salaam, al-Qaida has been portrayed in the west as a cohesive terrorist organisation, but it is not."
There's no doubt that the name came to prominence in part because America needed to conceptualise its enemy. This is certainly what Bodansky thinks now. "In the aftermath of September 11," he says, "both governments and the media in the west had to identify an entity we should hate and fight against."
PON shows that since 9-11 some islamist groups have seen an advantage in using al Qaeda as a brand name - for producing cohesion that they never previously had. So we shot ourselves in the foot there.How else would you account suicide videos that cite Al Qaeda, surely these cannot be government spin?
No - for the reason above.And are we to assume those that have trained for jihad and cite Al Qaeda, are really government stooges?
Exactly - you've answered your own question there haven't you?Many terrorists have claimed allegiance to Al Qaeda (why, if it doesn't exist), but in doing so they are probably adopting it as a brand, rather than acting under its direction or control.
Yes but these authorities are much more local than our governments have been claiming - as they always have been. Nothing changed after 9-11 except that they were handed a convenient banner to act under.Many terrorist cells probably exist and act independently of any central control (much like how the IRA operated), though some are clearly recruited, guided, trained, funded, supplied and motivated by some higher "authority".
The concept isn't a fiction - just the network. The US have been trying to cobble together a world network out of all the groups - some terorrists, some nationalist fighterssuch as in Chechnya and Palistine - and tar them with the same brush - al Q terorrists. This was pure fiction. But convenient for starting wars wherever they wanted to.The AQ brand does serve a purpose in uniting both the jihadists and those fighting them, this may be convenient, but it does not make this concept a fiction.
Not just British - US too - but I refered to this in one of my earlier posts - I was using it to support my argument - they weren't set up as Al Q - they weren't al Q - the Al Q thing is a complete red herring and a lie.As for James Bond, I am sure you are aware that British Special Forces were for years involved with training the mujahedeen in Afghanistan in their fight against the Soviets.0 -
Yes, but to return to the OP: The fact is that these people were intending to make what could have been viable explosive devices which could kill hundreds of people. I don't think it really matters whether this requires a co-ordinated terroist network masterminded by some bloke in a hole in the ground. The fact is, they took inspiration from AQ (whatever that is) and clearly received outside training in camps in Pakistan. That makes them a valid and very dangerous threat & while that diagram is clearly a pile of poop, I don't think it misrepresents the essence of the danger that these sorts of extremists pose. It may overstate their formal organisation, but they don't need that to operate.0
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ellieb wrote:Yes, but to return to the OP: The fact is that these people were intending to make what could have been viable explosive devices which could kill hundreds of people. I don't think it really matters whether this requires a co-ordinated terroist network masterminded by some bloke in a hole in the ground. The fact is, they took inspiration from AQ (whatever that is) and clearly received outside training in camps in Pakistan. That makes them a valid and very dangerous threat & while that diagram is clearly a pile of poop, I don't think it misrepresents the essence of the danger that these sorts of extremists pose. It may overstate their formal organisation, but they don't need that to operate.
Well, I think if we understand what's happening we can make a change - my belief is that what produces extremists like this is our foreign policy which is less than enlightened to say the least. If our governments are lying to make us think that these people are part of a global organisation with massive power and are attacking us becasue they "hate freedom" then that's becasue they want to deflect us from the reality, make us scared, and force us to turn to our 'masters' for salvation.
We need to take our government to task - an end to the arms trade, an end to illegal wars, and an end to interfering in soveriegn and independent countries, eg, propping up Israel to the detrement of all her neighbours.
an example of the dangers of meddling is that the groups we created to combat the soviet union are now engaged in a war against us. How have our government got away with it?0 -
I think you are agreeing with me . . . mostly, Porgy.
I can accept the general idea that the term is overused, as your Guardian extract indicates. I am not so comfortable with the absolutes such as "AQ is a complete red herring and a lie"
Maybe to terrorists it's like football clubs. I don't go to football matches, I don't watch live football on TV, but if asked I claim to support *****. That is probably a stupid analogy :oops:
Questions remain: who or what are the true targets of islamic terrorism? Do islamic terrorists share an "agenda"? Are they all acting independently and on their own initiative? Are there any support networks, however loose, that underpin these activities? etc. . . If not Al Qaeda, then what or who?0 -
alfablue wrote:IQuestions remain: who or what are the true targets of islamic terrorism? Do islamic terrorists share an "agenda"? Are they all acting independently and on their own initiative? Are there any support networks, however loose, that underpin these activities? etc. . . If not Al Qaeda, then what or who?
until 9-11 it was moslty nationalism - but there is a pan arab consenus emerging thaks to the War on Terror. And it's more extreme than it was partly due to the involvement of america's ally Saudi Arabia (wehre bin laden comes in, although a minor player, and long out of the picture imo).0 -
Are you saying they created it via media management or by more direct means?Porgy wrote:alfablue wrote:I think you are agreeing with me . . . mostly, Porgy.
Maybe so - however I feel it is important to emphaise the role that US intelligence played in creating al Qaeda - it should be a lesson for history.0 -
I think most sensible people are aware that western foreign policy has an important influence on these people, but I don't think there is necessarily a simple solution. There was a hilarious article in The Guardian the other day in which the noted political theorist Madonna is quoted as saying to an Israeli audience "I also believe that if we can live together in harmony in this place, then we can live in peace all over the world." Quite.0
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alfablue wrote:
Are you saying they created it via media management or by more direct means?Porgy wrote:alfablue wrote:I think you are agreeing with me . . . mostly, Porgy.
Maybe so - however I feel it is important to emphaise the role that US intelligence played in creating al Qaeda - it should be a lesson for history.
I'm saying they played a role in creating it - on many levels. Years of rejecting moderates on the Arab side - and constant support for extremists like the Saudis, a refusal to bring Israel to task for atrocities and illegal invasions, nurtering of islamic extremist groups in order to oppose communism - many of the so-called terorrist training camps in afghanistan were set up by the Americans in the first place.
Then from the mid 90s there certainly was a media campaign to promote the bogey man known as bin Laden and the al Qaeda network. The west pinning every action - even the small ones - and without evidence - on al Qaeda have resulted this abstract concept becoming partly real - and the ideal umbrella for Islamists.
The PON documentary makes the point that the rise of extreme islamists and the rise of Neo Cons in the US has been mutually advatageous to both sides up to now.0
