Faked Threats. Precedents set.
Lies that spilled blood.
We are
victims of our reality. We can sit in our self-imposed dark, never watch television
or listen to the news. We can puff our joints and puff our chests, getting all cooler
than thou because we don’t infect our spirits with the garbage on the news. We
sit back and chuckle at those poor morons who squat, bathed in the blue TV screen light each night
and absorb every photon of bullsh*t that is pumped into our living rooms by the
world’s grandest sewage delivery system.
But
whether we accept it or not, doesn’t change what is happening. I sometimes think
about those people who had no idea that Godzilla was on the way to destroy their
village, the zombie apocalypse had begun, or a huge asteroid was en route to
the Earth and cease life as we know it and the only reason they ever sensed a
problem is because their lights and telephone didn’t work.
They don’t watch television. I have one family member that is sure everything I
utter is a conspiracy, another has no clue what the hell I am going on about,
but they are polite anyway and yet another swears that swear if it is not on a
certain news channel, it is part of the liberal media bias.
Snarl snarl, crunch crunch crunch and they are gone, their faces locked in a
puzzled look with a closing look of amazement in their expression asking “What
the hell just happened?”
I over
dramatize. I exaggerate. I blow it out of proportion. I am accused by my own
children (like they are going to know…) of seeing a boogieman around every
corner. I am a parent. I am supposed to see the boogieman!
I don’t
see conspiracy around EVERY corner. This is more subtle. This is more like the
guy in front of you at the Big Y just made a left out of the parking lot where
it is clearly posted NO LEFT TURN. Hell, he made it…I’m going for it. Or a
hundred other things we do every day because we know we can get away with it
and no one will catch us.
(puff
puff anyone?)
No this
is more subtle. This is a lie or a series of lies that have various degrees of
complexity, various numbers of people involved, various levels of leadership and
especially various desired outcomes.
There are many lies. I think there are so many, my wife and I wanted to start a
website called Liar Liar POF (pants on fire) with various categories like tv or
radio or print advertisements, political lies (or words that seemed to forget
the past and became lies), personal lies (No really, she doesn’t understand me.
We are getting a divorce)
A world
of lies. A cornucopia of lies and let’s don’t forget those lies that are
created as veiled threats that are given birth for so so many reasons.
I want
to deal with three lies or faked threats specifically. There are many to pick from. I start with the
Grandaddy of faked threats. I think it was seen as so well executed, so
effective, so accepted by so many that billions were earned and oceans of blood
spilled and anybody with the attention of a newscrew could pull off a sequel.
Remember there are more but I chose just three. Two are so new that they may
yet turn out to be true, but as of this date, they remain a Faked Threat.
The Iraq/Afghanistan
War.
First,
let me state that for the record, I believe we had every right to pursue Osama
Bin Laden and his band of bearded lunatics to the ends of the world and blast
them into oblivion. That goes for anyone the truly got in the way like the
Taliban or anyone that supported this bloody invasion. It was a crime. It
should have been punished and the dude and his gang of miscreants got what they
deserved.
However…it
did not stop there. Everyday more “prrof” emerges that faked threats were
issued or generated by our Governments for various reasons, “leaked” to the
media and then quoted as Bible.
Bottom line,
they invaded Afghanistan but lied to us about the Iraq Threat and created faked
invoices and WMD’s resulting in the deaths and crushing injuries of thousands
of our young and ten’s of thousands of Iraqi’s.
Faked Threats justifying the invasion of Iraq (in no particular order. Details cribbed from the Internet news sources but verified through multiple sources follow at the end of this oiece)
1
Iraq was responsible for the 11 September attacks.
2
Iraq and al-Qa’ida were working together.
3
Iraq was seeking uranium from Africa for a “reconstituted” nuclear weapons
program.
4
Iraq was trying to import aluminum tubes to develop nuclear weapons.
5
Iraq still had vast stocks of chemical and biological weapons from the first
Gulf War.
6
Iraq retained up to 20 missiles which could carry chemical or biological
warheads, with a range which would threaten British forces in Cyprus, Israel,
various other Allies and ultimately from our own president, “We don't want
the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.”.
7
Saddam Hussein had the wherewithal to develop smallpox.
8 US and British claims were
supported by the inspectors.
A
breather.
Whoa…when
does this end? Well many veiled threats emerged from this War. Maybe just as
many emerge or are created for all wars. But I am trying to remain focused. You
might have to asked yourself at this point: Why the abundance of veiled threats?
Don’t
forget that as this rolled out, many global companies lined up to rake in
billions of war bucks and war Euros and war francs and war pounds. Everyone
knows that if you are patient, even an invoice sent to the U.S. Government will
be paid.
9
Previous weapons inspections had failed.
10
Iraq was obstructing the inspectors.
11
Iraq could deploy its weapons of mass destruction in 45 minutes
12
The “dodgy dossier” of threats created by Alastair Campbell about the threat of
those shifty Iraqis and their “infrastructure of concealment.” Remember the
underground mobile train system under the desert floor, mobile biological labs
photographed from satellites, all presented to the UN and to media by the ever
trust-worthy Colin Powell?
13
War would be easy (Maybe this was more a promise than a threat but as the
invasion drug on, our threat became real).
14
Umm Qasr (again a lie that evolved into a threat)
If we don’t get the evil port or Death,
no telling what they might be able to attack us with from their extensive
submarine and military fleet.
15
Basra rebellion.
16
The “rescue” of Private Jessica Lynch. A threat becomes real footage when we
can splatter a “real” person on the Evening News. This is a special threat because
it generated so much fear for the safety of one of our own (well a young Black
American female soldier but still…) sympathy, concern, and in the end, cheers
17
Troops would face chemical and biological weapons
18
Interrogation of scientists would yield the location of WMD
19
Iraq’s oil money would go to Iraqis
20 WMD existed. We knew it was
only time. We saw images of what they would do to daycares and grandmothers and
for a few hours, we cheered as a nation when they were located.
What
a mixed compellation of threats, lies that became threats, threats that became
lies, threats that just dissolved: a real mixed bag of threats. But as it
neared the end, billions were earned. OK trillions were earned, bad guys were
shot in the face, the oil started to flow, many of our children came home (in
various stages of mental disrepair) and we were saved.
…well not exactly. The old bad guys gave birth to new bad guys. They sneak across
our unguarded borders dropping their Korans and prayer rugs along the way, they
try and pass their Sharia laws in the midlands of our country so that we are
forced to behead those that return library books late or draw cartoon images of
Mohammed (the Prophet not the Dry Cleaner down the street). New threats from
this emerge nearly every day.
This compilation
of threats was so effective, so efficient at stirring the support of a nation
that thoughtful individuals across our nation saw it as the most effective tool
since the Infomercial!
Everything
on the news became “Breaking News.” Every news story had a new facet. In the
old days, all good stories had these necessary components to be complete:
·
Who did
that?
·
What happened?
·
When did
it take place?
·
Where did
it take place?
·
Why did
that happen?
The Newsrooms across America and the World had to
add another facet in order to sell the most soap:
·
Was
there a threat and knowing regardless it was present, how immediate was the
threat?
To
continue…
Sadly
some months ago, some police, during the execution of their duties,,,uhhh…executed
a black man in the urban center of Baltimore. Not that the murder of the black
man was so unusual, but the police soon lost all control and quick polls
indicated that they were losing the support of the American News viewer. What
with the recently killed cigar stealing Monster giant Michael Brown who
continued to attack innocent police after absorbing multiple rounds, protestors
being paid $5000 each to riot in the streets in Ferguson, and thousands and
thousands of Death Threats made to every member of the Ferguson Police and elected
officials, Baltimore Police were going to have none of that!
The morning
following the worst of the riots in Baltimore a news release was issued:
CREDIBLE THREAT TO LAW ENFORCEMENT Baltimore, Md., April
27, 2015 – The Baltimore Police Department / Criminal Intelligence Unit has
received credible information that members of various gangs including the Black
Guerilla Family, Bloods, and Crips have entered into a partnership to
“take-out” law enforcement officers. This is a credible threat. Law
enforcement agencies should take appropriate precautions to ensure the safety
of their officers. Notification will be sent via NLETS. Further information
will be sent through appropriate channels. Media is requested to distribute
this information to the public and law enforcement nationwide.
OMG as the texters say!
Two
gangs that had been mortal enemies since their formation in the 60’s as well as
a violent political Prison Gang, have joined forces to “take out” our loyal
officers. Of course this threat seemed to diminish our fear of the evil rioters
and certainly took our attention off of the full gamut of civil liberties the
police stomped on while trying to save their own lives, the lives of their
children, of their wives and of their grandmothers from the vicious blood-thirsty
drug riddled thugs (there’s that threat word again!) that roamed freely on our
inner city streets.
Baltimore
Police say they have received a "credible threat" that rival gangs
have teamed up to "take out" law enforcement officers.
I
doubt any of Baltimore’s finest have ever fallen victim to this "credible
threat" and I hope it stays that way. Many of the men and women officers
on the street, probably shook their collective heads and said “Huh?”.
The
final threat is a tough one.
It is really to current to include on this blog
entry but I am willing to take the chance. I may have to return, swap it out
with another equally disturbing threat, all the while gobbling bloody “forgive
me my transgression” crow.
It is difficult for another reason. Like seeming to support wild eyed steet rioters
(I don’t), with this threat or “faked threat”, it appears I am backing Biker
Gangs.
I
don’t.
I
don’t like gangs, Biker Gangs, Drug Gangs, Street Gangs or any Gangs!
I don’t
support their lifestyle except if they chose to stay within the confines of the
laws that we all must co-exist under.
I
doubt that they do. However, several gangs converged on a restaurant in a mall
in Waco Texas. Someone took someone’s parking space or someone ran over someone’s
toes and a full fledge guns blazing brawl erupted. Out the doors of the restaurant
came hundreds of Bikers, guns blazing, chains swinging, knives slashing, clubs
crunching spilling out to the asphalt in glorious full fledged shoot out the
old west is famous for.
What I find unusual, is that these rival gangs told the police they were coming
to work out “issues” and also with all of this incredible arsenal, only 9 gang
members were killed and 18 wounded. Considering the close quarters, they must
have been really bad shots.
Oh
and early reports seem to indicate that most of the kill shots came from the
local police as the Bikers spilled into the parking lot, But that will all be
worked out.
Besides it is Texas.
And
what really caught my attention was that 170 Bikers were arrested, charged with
a capital crime of murder and placed on one million dollars bail. The media has
repeatedly issued their mug shots and these were not pillars of our gentle
society. These were the drop out and bad boys and “thugs” that we all fear so
much.
I
wondered if this had been a Nazi march, surrounded by angered Jews and gunfire
broke out, if this had been an Abortion Clinic and gunfire broke out, if this
had been an Islamic Temple demonstration and street brawl with the locals and
potshots filled the air, would the local authorities have rounded the entire bunch up (or the ones
sporting swastikas or turbans or bibles) and thrown the entire lot in jail.
And
what really bothered me was the threat.
“WACO, Texas (CNN) — Texas law enforcement
officials are investigating what they say are new threats against
officers from biker gangs in the wake of a recent shootout in Waco.
Members of the Bandidos biker gang who are in the
military “are supplying the gang with grenades and C4 explosives,” according to
a bulletin issued Thursday by the Texas Department of Public Safety and
reviewed by CNN.
The bulletin warns of plots targeting
high-ranking law enforcement officials and their families with car bombs. The
bulletin is based on unsubstantiated information from an informant who claimed
to have obtained it from Bandidos and Black Widows motorcycle gang members.
The Bandidos want to retaliate against police for
shooting “their brothers” as they came out of the Twin Peaks restaurant, the
bulletin says.
The gang has ordered a hit against Texas troopers
and other officers, according to the bulletin. Among the threats are running
over officers at traffic stops and the use of grenades and Molotov cocktails
and firearms.
OMG!
Gangs that only hours before had been bloody fighting it out on the dusty
streets of Waco, now were securing munitions to reap revenge on the families of
the officers that had possibly sacrificed their own lives to save us from the scourge
of the Biker Gang.
Next to the riotous urban minority
thugs, what could be worse than Biker Gangs? We will just have to wait for the
next threat.
I see a trend. I see a trend that threatens to suppress, curtail, squash,
eliminate and erase our rights as American citizens. They are so efficient, so
pervasive, so frightening that we willingly surrender our money, our children,
our rights and our future.
We never move a muscle to defend ourselves esp. not against the likes of
turbaned extremists, violent inner-city thugs or blood thirsty Bikers.
Who can defend them? Who would want to defend them? What kind of deluded
paranoid sicko would stand up for the right to life for any group that
threatened the sicko’s own existence?
I see a trend. A dangerous and effective trend. I am probably wrong. My own
family tells me that I see conspiracy everywhere.
Maybe they are right. Or just maybe, I am the threat…
Do you
see a trend?
********************************************************************
Details
of the Iraq War veiled threats thanks to a variety of sources:
1 Iraq was responsible for the 11 September attacks
A supposed meeting in Prague
between Mohammed Atta, leader of the 11 September hijackers, and an Iraqi intelligence
official was the main basis for this claim, but Czech intelligence later
conceded that the Iraqi’s contact could not have been Atta. This did not stop
the constant stream of assertions that Iraq was involved in 9/11, which was so
successful that at one stage opinion polls showed that two-thirds of Americans
believed the hand of Saddam Hussein was behind the attacks. Almost as many
believed Iraqi hijackers were aboard the crashed airliners; in fact there were
none.
2
Iraq and al-Qa’ida were working together.
Persistent claims by US and
British leaders that Saddam and Osama bin Laden were in league with each other
were contradicted by a leaked British Defence Intelligence Staff report, which
said there were no current links between them. Mr Bin Laden’s “aims are in
ideological conflict with present-day Iraq”, it added.
Another strand to the claims was
that al-Qa’ida members were being sheltered in Iraq, and had set up a poisons
training camp. When US troops reached the camp, they found no chemical or
biological traces.
3
Iraq was seeking uranium from Africa for a “reconstituted” nuclear weapons
programme
The head of the CIA has now
admitted that documents purporting to show that Iraq tried to import uranium
from Niger in west Africa were forged, and that the claim should never have
been in President Bush’s State of the Union address. Britain sticks by the
claim, insisting it has “separate intelligence”. The Foreign Office conceded
last week that this information is now “under review”.
4
Iraq was trying to import aluminium tubes to develop nuclear weapons
The US persistently alleged that
Baghdad tried to buy high-strength aluminum tubes whose only use could be in
gas centrifuges, needed to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons. Equally
persistently, the International Atomic Energy Agency said the tubes were being
used for artillery rockets. The head of the IAEA, Mohamed El Baradei, told the
UN Security Council in January that the tubes were not even suitable for
centrifuges.
5
Iraq still had vast stocks of chemical and biological weapons from the first
Gulf War
Iraq possessed enough dangerous
substances to kill the whole world, it was alleged more than once. It had
pilotless aircraft which could be smuggled into the US and used to spray
chemical and biological toxins. Experts pointed out that apart from mustard
gas, Iraq never had the technology to produce materials with a shelf-life of 12
years, the time between the two wars. All such agents would have deteriorated
to the point of uselessness years ago.
6
Iraq retained up to 20 missiles which could carry chemical or biological
warheads, with a range which would threaten British forces in Cyprus
Apart from the fact that there
has been no sign of these missiles since the invasion, Britain downplayed the
risk of there being any such weapons in Iraq once the fighting began. It was
also revealed that chemical protection equipment was removed from British bases
in Cyprus last year, indicating that the Government did not take its own claims
seriously.
7
Saddam Hussein had the wherewithal to develop smallpox
This allegation was made by the
Secretary of State, Colin Powell, in his address to the UN Security Council in
February. The following month the UN said there was nothing to support it.
8
US and British claims were supported by the inspectors
According to Jack Straw, chief UN
weapons inspector Hans Blix “pointed out” that Iraq had 10,000 litres of
anthrax. Tony Blair said Iraq’s chemical, biological and “indeed the nuclear
weapons programme” had been well documented by the UN. Mr Blix’s reply? “This
is not the same as saying there are weapons of mass destruction,” he said last
September. “If I had solid evidence that Iraq retained weapons of mass
destruction or were constructing such weapons, I would take it to the Security
Council.” In May this year he added: “I am obviously very interested in the
question of whether or not there were weapons of mass destruction, and I am
beginning to suspect there possibly were not.”
9
Previous weapons inspections had failed
Tony Blair told this newspaper in
March that the UN had “tried unsuccessfully for 12 years to get Saddam to
disarm peacefully”. But in 1999 a Security Council panel concluded: “Although
important elements still have to be resolved, the bulk of Iraq’s proscribed weapons
programmes has been eliminated.” Mr Blair also claimed UN inspectors “found no
trace at all of Saddam’s offensive biological weapons programme” until his
son-in-law defected. In fact the UN got the regime to admit to its biological
weapons programme more than a month before the defection.
10
Iraq was obstructing the inspectors
Britain’s February “dodgy
dossier” claimed inspectors’ escorts were “trained to start long arguments”
with other Iraqi officials while evidence was being hidden, and inspectors’
journeys were monitored and notified ahead to remove surprise. Dr Blix said in
February that the UN had conducted more than 400 inspections, all without
notice, covering more than 300 sites. “We note that access to sites has so far
been without problems,” he said. : “In no case have we seen convincing evidence
that the Iraqi side knew that the inspectors were coming.”
11
Iraq could deploy its weapons of mass destruction in 45 minutes
This now-notorious claim was
based on a single source, said to be a serving Iraqi military officer. This
individual has not been produced since the war, but in any case Tony Blair
contradicted the claim in April. He said Iraq had begun to conceal its weapons
in May 2002, which meant that they could not have been used within 45 minutes.
12
The “dodgy dossier”
Mr Blair told the Commons in
February, when the dossier was issued: “We issued further intelligence over the
weekend about the infrastructure of concealment. It is obviously difficult when
we publish intelligence reports.” It soon emerged that most of it was cribbed
without attribution from three articles on the internet. Last month Alastair
Campbell took responsibility for the plagiarism committed by his staff, but
stood by the dossier’s accuracy, even though it confused two Iraqi intelligence
organisations, and said one moved to new headquarters in 1990, two years before
it was created.
13
War would be easy
Public fears of war in the US and
Britain were assuaged by assurances that oppressed Iraqis would welcome the
invading forces; that “demolishing Saddam Hussein’s military power and
liberating Iraq would be a cakewalk”, in the words of Kenneth Adelman, a senior
Pentagon official in two previous Republican administrations. Resistance was
patchy, but stiffer than expected, mainly from irregular forces fighting in
civilian clothes. “This wasn’t the enemy we war-gamed against,” one general
complained.
14
Umm Qasr
The fall of Iraq’s southernmost
city and only port was announced several times before Anglo-American forces
gained full control – by Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, among others, and
by Admiral Michael Boyce, chief of Britain’s defence staff. “Umm Qasr has been
overwhelmed by the US Marines and is now in coalition hands,” the Admiral
announced, somewhat prematurely.
15
Basra rebellion
Claims that the Shia Muslim
population of Basra, Iraq’s second city, had risen against their oppressors
were repeated for days, long after it became clear to those there that this was
little more than wishful thinking. The defeat of a supposed breakout by Iraqi
armour was also announced by military spokesman in no position to know the
truth.
16
The “rescue” of Private Jessica Lynch
Private Jessica Lynch’s “rescue”
from a hospital in Nasiriya by American special forces was presented as the
major “feel-good” story of the war. She was said to have fired back at Iraqi
troops until her ammunition ran out, and was taken to hospital suffering bullet
and stab wounds. It has since emerged that all her injuries were sustained in a
vehicle crash, which left her incapable of firing any shot. Local medical staff
had tried to return her to the Americans after Iraqi forces pulled out of the
hospital, but the doctors had to turn back when US troops opened fire on them.
The special forces encountered no resistance, but made sure the whole episode
was filmed.
17
Troops would face chemical and biological weapons
As US forces approached Baghdad,
there was a rash of reports that they would cross a “red line”, within which
Republican Guard units were authorised to use chemical weapons. But Lieutenant
General James Conway, the leading US marine general in Iraq, conceded
afterwards that intelligence reports that chemical weapons had been deployed
around Baghdad before the war were wrong.
“It was a surprise to me … that
we have not uncovered weapons … in some of the forward dispersal sites,” he
said. “We’ve been to virtually every ammunition supply point between the
Kuwaiti border and Baghdad, but they’re simply not there. We were simply wrong.
Whether or not we’re wrong at the national level, I think still very much
remains to be seen.”
18
Interrogation of scientists would yield the location of WMD
“I have got absolutely no doubt
that those weapons are there … once we have the co-operation of the scientists
and the experts, I have got no doubt that we will find them,” Tony Blair said
in April. Numerous similar assurances were issued by other leading figures, who
said interrogations would provide the WMD discoveries that searches had failed
to supply. But almost all Iraq’s leading scientists are in custody, and claims
that lingering fears of Saddam Hussein are stilling their tongues are beginning
to wear thin.
19
Iraq’s oil money would go to Iraqis
Tony Blair complained in
Parliament that “people falsely claim that we want to seize” Iraq’s oil
revenues, adding that they should be put in a trust fund for the Iraqi people
administered through the UN. Britain should seek a Security Council resolution
that would affirm “the use of all oil revenues for the benefit of the Iraqi
people”.
Instead Britain co-sponsored a
Security Council resolution that gave the US and UK control over Iraq’s oil
revenues. There is no UN-administered trust fund.
Far from “all oil revenues” being
used for the Iraqi people, the resolution continues to make deductions from
Iraq’s oil earnings to pay in compensation for the invasion of Kuwait in 1990.
20
WMD were found
After repeated false sightings,
both Tony Blair and George Bush proclaimed on 30 May that two trailers found in
Iraq were mobile biological laboratories. “We have already found two trailers,
both of which we believe were used for the production of biological weapons,”
said Mr Blair. Mr Bush went further: “Those who say we haven’t found the banned
manufacturing devices or banned weapons – they’re wrong. We found them.” It is
now almost certain that the vehicles were for the production of hydrogen for
weather balloons, just as the Iraqis claimed – and that they were exported by
Britain.
