Tony Blair warned yesterday it would be ‘catastrophic’ to believe al-Qaeda could be foiled by changing British foreign policy, in a robust defence to charges that the bombing was provoked by the Iraq war.
The Prime Minister hit back at suggestions that the London atrocities were linked to injustices in the Middle East, saying it was the ‘almost-devilish logic’ of extremists to play on western guilt.

Their propaganda was clever and sophisticated, he told an audience of Labour party delegates in London: ‘It plays on our tolerance and good nature; it exploits the tendency to guilt of the developed world – as if it is our behaviour that should change, that if we only tried to work out and act on their grievances, we could lift this evil; that if we changed our behaviour, they would change theirs.

‘Their cause is not founded on injustice. It is founded on a belief, one whose fanaticism is such that it can’t be moderated. It can’t be remedied. It has to be stood up to.’
Full: guardian.co.uk

Yeah Tony, as if. That last statement certainly pertains to the monstrously ‘evil ideology’ which you yourself represent. Ask the Iraqis about your ‘tolerance and good nature.’

Suicide bomber Mohammad Sidique Khan, the 30-year-old teaching assistant from Leeds, has emerged as the commander of the London terror attacks, with links to suspected al-Qaeda operatives across three continents.

As Khan’s family came forward yesterday to make a public statement expressing their astonishment for his part in the ‘horrific and evil’ act that killed at least 55 people, security sources confirmed he was linked to a previous foiled terrorist plot in Britain. US reports also suggest that he had links to a second plot linked to an al-Qaeda cell in Pakistan. Khan is also believed to have been in telephone contact with a suspected al-Qaeda recruiter in New York.

…Last night, the wife of Germaine Lindsay spoke of her devastation at learning of her husband’s secret life. Samantha Lewthwaite, 22, said: ‘I never predicted or imagined that he was involved in such horrific activities. He was a loving husband and father.

‘My whole world has fallen apart, and my thoughts are with the families of the victims of this incomprehensible devastation.’

Lindsay’s half-sister said he had been a ‘great brother, just like any sister would want a brother to be’. But Dana Reid told Channel 4 News that he had changed when he started to attend local mosques.

The pair drifted apart and Reid only heard about his death on the news. But she added, that despite his change, she could not believe he would have carried out the atrocities. ‘I want proof,’ she said. ‘He did change but he never changed in his love for people.’
Full: guardian.co.uk

Well you could see this coming, because Khan was the oldest. And a nursey school teacher at that. What happened to the convenient ‘mastermind’ whom we were told slipped out of the country on the 7th?

Why did they buy return train tickets to Luton? Why did they buy pay & display tickets for cars? Why were there no usual shouts of ‘Allah Akhbar’? Why were bombs in bags and not on their bodies?

THE London bombers may have been duped into killing themselves so their secrets stayed hidden.

Police and MI5 are probing if the four men were told by their al-Qaeda controller they had time to escape after setting off timers. Instead, the devices exploded immediately.

A security source said: “If the bombers lived and were caught they’d probably have cracked. Would their masters have allowed that to happen? We think not.”

The evidence is compelling: The terrorists bought return rail tickets, and pay and display car park tickets, before boarding _ a train at Luton for London. None of the men was heard to cry “Allah Akhbar!” – “God is great” – usually screamed by suicide bombers as they detonate their bomb.

Their devices were in large rucksacks which could be easily dumped instead of being strapped to their bodies. They carried wallets containing their driving licences, bank cards and other personal items. Suicide bombers normally strip themselves of identifying material.
mirror.co.uk

This is of course assuming that bomb residues were found anywhere near their bodies.

July 15, 2005 — One of the bombers in last week’s attacks made a direct phone call to a suspected recruiter for an extremist group in New York.

Authorities told ABC News that records show Mohammed Sidique Khan, the eldest of the bombers now believed to be the field commander of the attacks, had called a person who is associated with the Islamic Center, a mosque in Queens, N.Y. Yet, a member of that mosque claimed they had no knowledge of the phone call.

In addition to Khan, two other men linked to the London bombings also had direct ties with the United States.

“Whilst we are watching the ports and the airports trying to prevent people from coming in,” said M.J. Gohel, a terrorism analyst at the Asia-Pacific Foundation, “al Qaeda and its global jihadi friends are a step ahead. They have already penetrated into the West and are recruiting Western born Muslims to join terrorism.”

Lindsay Germaine, one of the four dead bombers and a Jamaican who left behind a pregnant wife, had recently traveled to see relatives in Ohio.

Furthermore, Magdy El Nashar, 33, who was captured last night at his family’s home outside of Cairo and then questioned by British agents, studied at North Carolina State University. Police believe he helped the bombers build their explosive devices. Now they want to know if there are more bombs and would-be bombers.
Full: abcnews.go.com
A Muslim making a phone call to a mosque in New York, going to college in North Carolina, visiting relatives in Ohio. Monsters.

As we revealed last week, on the very morning of the Bombings, a consultancy agency with government and police connections was running an exercise for an unnamed company that revolved around the London Underground being bombed at the exact same times and locations.

On a BBC Radio 5 interview that aired on the evening of the 7th, the host interviewed Peter Power, a former Scotland Yard official, working at one time with the Anti Terrorist Branch, now Managing Director of Visor Consultants, which bills itself as a ‘crisis management’ advice company.

Power was quoted as saying “At half past nine this morning we were actually running an exercise for a company of over a thousand people in London based on simultaneous bombs going off precisely at the railway stations where it happened this morning, so I still have the hairs on the back of my neck standing up right now”

Beyond the unbelievable “coincidence” of this scenario, the very fact that the bombs in the drill were simultaneous is a smoking gun because almost a week went by before it was revealed that the bombs had gone off simultaneously.

The importance of this drill cannot be understated. This is precisely what happened on the morning of 9/11/2001. The CIA was conducting drills of flying hijacked planes into the WTC and Pentagon at 8:30 in the morning. The two scenarios are comparable in that it is a tried and tested method of navigating around the everyday security services, and, more importantly, if the perpetrators get caught during the attack or after with any incriminating evidence they can just claim that they were just taking part in an exercise.

Peter Power has since toned down his claims in further interviews, changing his story of the drill to make it seem less identical to the real attacks. He has also issued a statement via e-mail in response to the thousands of requests he is receiving demanding clarity on the issue, that reemphasizes his backing away from his original “precisely” comment.

It seems that Power may feel he is in too deep and is backing away from the whole incident. This is probably due to the fact that Power himself and his company are not directly involved in the bombings, they have simply been used as a tool in a larger operation.

Power has been hired by the government before and he is always used to release information after terrorist incidents in London.

Two previous examples of this are the March 2001 BBC television center bombing and the September 2000 rocket attack on the MI6 building.

Was Power again used by the government as a conduit for information that would support their official version of events?

Power’s comments (below) seem to suggest that his company was somehow involved in the response to the ACTUAL attacks, so if they were not working on behalf of London Underground or the Government then how were they allowed to be actively involved at multiple crime scenes?

In short, our exercise (which involved just a few people as crisis managers actually responding to a simulated series of activities involving, on paper, 1000 staff) quickly became the real thing and the players that morning responded very well indeed to the sudden reality of events.

Power is named among the elite of the Business Continuity (BC) community, he has regularly appeared on the BBC, covering terror incidents, as the “expert” when it comes to managing the crisis. He is also referred to extensively in a working paper on BC issued by the Bank of England, HM Treasury and FSA and has written for the British Bankers Association. His former clients make for interesting reading, they being JP Morgan Chase, ING, Mellon, Lloyds TSB, Morley Fund Management, Bank of New York, Arcadia Group, FCO and Universal Music.

Power has also spent time on the Advisory Board to the Canadian Centre for Emergency Preparedness(CCEP). This is significant due to the fact that a key member of that board was Richard Sheirer, Senior Vice President of Giuliani & Partners. Here they are listed together.

Sheirer was intimately involved along with Guiliani in the “crisis management” on 9/11. Giuliani himself was in London on 7th July after traveling down from Yorkshire from a speaking engagement at the Local Government Association conference in Harrogate, where he received a standing ovation for praising Tony Blair and hyping the war on terror.

Giuliani was also coincidentally only “yards from Liverpool Street station when the bombs went off.” and later that day went on several TV networks saying that the crisis management teams (Peter Power’s team, or so he would have us believe) seemed like they were expecting the bombing to take place.

Giuliani has met several times with government and police officials in London since 9/11.

CIA connections

The web of deceit extends further and the connections deepen when you take a look at the background of the Commissioner of Transport for London, Bob Kiley. Kiley also has connections with Giuliani.

During his time as President and CEO of the New York City Partnership, the city’s leading business and civic organization, Kiley came into contact with Giuliani regularly, and was even backed by Giuliani as a candidate for city schools chancellor. Kiley was also a member of Giuliani’s “Mayoral Task Force on Tax Reduction and Restructuring” in 1999. The two are also connected through New York City’s deputy mayor for economic development and rebuilding (after 9/11), Daniel Doctoroff, whom Kiley introduced to Giuliani.

Kiley was also an advisory to the Mayor’s office on traffic management in New York, suggesting “eliminating toll booths and just putting transponders on every car’s license plate. That way, motorists would automatically be charged ever time they rode on a heavily traveled bridge or tunnel — or even a highway or major street — during a time of peak usage.”

Early in his career Kiley was tapped by the CIA and quickly became Manager of Intelligence Operations and then Executive Assistant to the Director. Kiley served under Richard Helms, who was appointed CIA director after JFK was taken out. Helms was the only director to have been convicted of lying to Congress over CIA undercover activities and served time in prison. He was heavily involved in the cover up of the MK ULTRA project. As his Executive Assistant, this means Kiley was also intimately involved.

Kiley is also incidentally a Member of the Council on Foreign Relations. We should be asking ourselves why is this CIA activist and high member of the Establishment, in charge of London’s Transport network?

The Establishment have their mits all over this latest staged attrocity, you can carry on probing deeper into the rabbit hole and you always come across the same elite figures and organizations, hiding in every darkened nook and cranny.

It’s a certainty that as the weeks and months go by more and more questionable connections will emerge.
Full: prisonplanet.com

An Egyptian biochemist held for questioning over the London bomb attacks has no links to al-Qaeda, Egypt’s interior minister has said.
Habib al-Adli told Egyptian newspaper Al-Jumhuriyah media speculation about Magdi Mahmoud al-Nashar was groundless.

He also denied agents of the British security services had participated in Mr al-Nashar’s interrogation in Cairo.

Unofficial sources in Cairo and London say British agents are observing the 33-year-old’s ongoing interrogation.

The Egyptians are doing everything possible to cooperate, the sources say.

Mr al-Adli told Al-Jumhuriyah that reports elsewhere in the British and Arab media linking Mr al-Nashar to al-Qaeda were “groundless” and based on a hasty conclusion.
Full: bbc.co.uk

Bombers’ ideology ‘evil’ says PM
Prime Minister Tony Blair has hit out at the “evil ideology” behind the London bomb attacks which killed at least 55.

The PM said it was vital to confront the bombers’ beliefs as well as introducing anti-terrorist measures.

“This is the battle that must be won. A battle not just about terrorist methods, but their views, [not just their barbaric acts but their barbaric ideas,]” he said.

I am sure everyone is pleased that Blair has appointed himself an authority on Islam.

Reports London bombs made from military explosives
Tuesday, 12 July , 2005 18:21:00
MARK COLVIN: More pointers are emerging to the nature of the organisation which bombed three London trains and a bus last week, and killed more than 50 people in the process.

Both the London Times and France’s Le Monde are reporting that the bombers appear to have used sophisticated military explosives.

Both quote a top French counter-terrorism official, and the Times says a single bomb-maker was probably responsible for building all four devices.
see yesterday below

Blair Finally Admits: Al-Qaeda Doesn’t Exist
…Commenting on the possible role of Al Qaeda, Blair said, “Al Qaeda is not an organization. Al Qaeda is a way of working … but this has the hallmark of that approach.”

London Stagecoach Employee Says Bus Bombing Suspicious
We received an e mail from an employee of Stagecoach, the company responsible for the majority of London buses.

Our contact works a route roughly one mile from the site of the bus bombing last Thursday.

The bus driver pointed out that the number 30 bus was the only one to be re-routed after the initial bombs went off in the London Underground, every other bus carried on its normal journey, but for some reason this bus was diverted.

The driver notes the following about CCTV maintainence.

“CCTV gets maintained at least 2 or 3 times a week and can digitally store upto 2 whole weeks worth of footage. this is done by a private contractor….So when I heard that the CCTV wasn’t working on a vehicle that’s no more than 2 years old since last June…..I’m sorry that’s rubbish, I work for the company I know different.”

Also a point of interest….last saturday a contractor came to inspect the CCTV on the buses at the depot, According to my supervisor the person spent more than 20 hours over that weekend, 20 hours to see if the CCTV is working? Also that person who came was not a regular contractor, for security reasons the same few people always come to the depot to carry out work, this time it was different.

Drivers in the depot already think the so called bombers had inside help because it was to organised. Some even think it had help from the company.”

I have received other information suggesting that the CCTV is regularly maintained and checked. The police pay the bus company to check it, and the bus company makes a substantial profit out of this, so all parties benefit from keeping the CCTV systems working.

This information makes it all the more suspicious that the bus cameras were not working.

Was the mammoth 20 hour inspection session of the CCTV a means of disabling the CCTV, or something even darker? Were the contractors, who were not familiar to the bus company employees, actually placing the bomb?

China is prepared to use nuclear weapons against the US if it is attacked by Washington during a confrontation over Taiwan, a Chinese general said on Thursday.

“If the Americans draw their missiles and position-guided ammunition on to the target zone on China’s territory, I think we will have to respond with nuclear weapons,” said General Zhu Chenghu.

Gen Zhu was speaking at a function for foreign journalists organised, in part, by the Chinese government. He added that China’s definition of its territory included warships and aircraft.

“If the Americans are determined to interfere [then] we will be determined to respond,” said Gen Zhu, who is also a professor at China’s National Defence University.

“We . . . will prepare ourselves for the destruction of all of the cities east of Xian. Of course the Americans will have to be prepared that hundreds . . . of cities will be destroyed by the Chinese.”
Full:financial times

by Naomi Klein
When United Nations troops kill residents of the Haitian slum Cité Soleil, friends and family often place photographs of exiled President Jean-Bertrand Aristide on their bodies. The photographs silently insist that there is a method to the madness raging in Port-au-Prince. Poor Haitians are being slaughtered not for being “violent,” as we so often hear, but for being militant; for daring to demand the return of their elected president.

It was only ten years ago that President Clinton celebrated Aristide’s return to power as “the triumph of freedom over fear.” So what changed? Corruption? Violence? Fraud? Aristide is certainly no saint. But even if the worst of the allegations are true, they pale next to the rap sheets of the convicted killers, drug smugglers and arms traders who ousted Aristide and continue to enjoy free rein, with full support from the Bush Administration and the UN. Turning Haiti over to this underworld gang out of concern for Aristide’s lack of “good governance” is like escaping an annoying date by accepting a lift home from Charles Manson.

A few weeks ago I visited Aristide in Pretoria, South Africa, where he lives in forced exile. I asked him what was really behind his dramatic falling-out with Washington. He offered an explanation rarely heard in discussions of Haitian politics–actually, he offered three: “privatization, privatization and privatization.” The dispute dates back to a series of meetings in early 1994, a pivotal moment in Haiti’s history that Aristide has rarely discussed. Haitians were living under the barbaric rule of Raoul Cédras, who overthrew Aristide in a 1991 US-backed coup. Aristide was in Washington and despite popular calls for his return, there was no way he could face down the junta without military back-up. Increasingly embarrassed by Cédras’s abuses, the Clinton Administration offered Aristide a deal: US troops would take him back to Haiti–but only after he agreed to a sweeping economic program with the stated goal to “substantially transform the nature of the Haitian state.”

Aristide agreed to pay the debts accumulated under the kleptocratic Duvalier dictatorships, slash the civil service, open up Haiti to “free trade” and cut import tariffs on rice and corn in half. It was a lousy deal but, Aristide says, he had little choice. “I was out of my country and my country was the poorest in the Western hemisphere, so what kind of power did I have at that time?”

But Washington’s negotiators made one demand that Aristide could not accept: the immediate sell-off of Haiti’s state-owned enterprises, including phones and electricity. Aristide argued that unregulated privatization would transform state monopolies into private oligarchies, increasing the riches of Haiti’s elite and stripping the poor of their national wealth. He says the proposal simply didn’t add up: “Being honest means saying two plus two equals four. They wanted us to sing two plus two equals five.”
commondreams/the nation

WASHINGTON – Unborn U.S. babies are soaking in a stew of chemicals, including mercury, gasoline byproducts and pesticides, according to a report released Thursday.

Although the effects on the babies are not clear, the survey prompted several members of Congress to press for legislation that would strengthen controls on chemicals in the environment.

The report by the Environmental Working Group is based on tests of 10 samples of umbilical-cord blood taken by the American Red Cross. They found an average of 287 contaminants in the blood, including mercury, fire retardants, pesticides and the Teflon chemical PFOA.
Full: msn.com

Court Nixes Regulating Greenhouse Gases

n 2007 the Bicentenary of the British parliamentary abolition of the Transatlantic Slave trade will take place.

Whilst the Bicentenary will be marked by some sort of commemoration, there have been repeated calls for the British government to make reparations for their role in the dehumanization, exploitation and deaths of millions of Africans.

Given that plantation owners in the Caribbean were compensated to the tune of £20 million when slavery was abolished in 1807, it is not an unreasonable request that the descendants of those who suffered at the hands of slavery should also receive compensation.
Full”blackbritain.com