In the latest police anti-terrorist ‘swoop’ in which a man was shot (though not killed this time), there now seems to be some question of whether or not initial reports of a chemical weapons ‘factory’ and ‘hazardous materials’ being found have any truth to them at all. Moreover the highly dubious sounding report yesterday indicating the man who was shot was actually shot not by police but by his own brother is being denied by the lawyers of the injured man.
However at this stage all the information coming out is from the two least reliable sources imaginable, namely the lawyers for the people arrested (i.e. people who are paid to lie on behalf of their clients) and the police (i.e. an institution with a track record of lying about the facts when they shoot someone). As a result it is probably best to wait a while before drawing too many conclusions about what really happened and whether or not the guys arrested are guilty of anything more than being Muslims.
Whilst I would be delighted if the anti-terrorist squad had broken up an Al-Qaeda cell in the UK, the bitter experience of the Jean de Menezes killing and subsequent criminal conspiracy to cover up the facts, not to mention the scandalous Harry Stanley killing, means that the police and entire structure within which they operate cannot be trusted to tell the truth, it is only clear physical evidence that can show us what to believe.
As I feared…………………pity.
Oh hell, I sure hope not. Have our institutions really decayed to the point they simply cannot be trusted at all? No, don’t answer that 🙁
Let’s hope they got it right this time but I’m not holding my breath.
I have an inkling it was a set-up.
Two beards known to the police live in a clean house.
Beards permit mate, who tipped them off about being surveiled (sp?), to tip off the police with bogus story about bombs.
The two Beards react to expected raid to cause maximum trouble.
Who in the Muslim community would believe that one shoots the other? Martyrs! Victims!
What a neat way to hamstring the Police in the run up to 7/7!
TimC,
Interesting suggestion. I suppose the key phrase is “intelligence-led.” Which does not mean the police were using their intelligence rather they were being led up the garden path by an informer. Personally, I think that something similar might be behind the Menezes shooting.
But that does not explain the litany of complete fabrications after the fact. If the cops were set up they should be howling that fact from the roof tops!
But instead…he ran from the cops and darted inbto the station. False. He jumped the barrier with the cops in pursuit. False (he used his travel card to go through!) He was wearing an unseasonable bulky jacket. False, it was short Levis jeans jacket. He was not restrained when they shoot him. False, cops were sitting on him when they shot him dead.
No, it was a complete cockup but that alone would be in some small measure tolerable if there had been transparency and honesty after the fact. Yet a stream of falsehoods is what we got. Every person all the way up the chain who knowingly contributed to that series of lies should be charged with conspiracy to pervert the course of justice.
TimC,
Yes, of course, how stupid of us not to see how it was a superhumanly fiendish scheme in which the police and press were totally manipulated for oblique strategic purpose by three operative deactivating themselves in the process – instead of, for example, using that subtlety and preplanned precision in actually making and setting off bombs. Do you think they had help from whoever it was really shot Kennedy?
If the police realised they had been tricked by an informer I think that the police on the ground may well have been prompted to lie their way out of it.
Of course, all of this is just speculation which thrives when the police cover up and tell lies. Even if the police finally came out with the “truth” how could we ever be sure it was the truth?
Guy, I think that is a little harsh. I do not think it is beyond reasonable possibility that the cops were ‘had’ by an informer of questionable allegiances. It hardly requires any convoluted X-file-esque ‘grassy knoll’ style conspiracies for that to have happened.
That said, if this does indeed turn out to be another fiasco (and that is not yet undeniably the case), a more likely explanation is simply that politicised state agencies are almost universally incompetent.
Oh really gentlefolk,this is the domain of Sir Ian “no relation” Blair,the man is desparate to shine for his master,what is the odd brazilian or muslim compared to that?.
Seriously I go along with the set up theory,it is very common in terrorist operations,the prime purpose to enrage the local community and alienate then from the police.
Not quite Ron,
Guerilla wars, insurgencies work a bit like that. But the important thing is control of the social base: the relevant public must resent the security forces, but they must also fear the consequences of betraying the insurgents. Terrorism on the arbitrary bombing of civilians model tends to be hidden, because it can’t create the conditions for general support.
Even if there were general support, then the conspiracy-theory version offered by TimC is just a barmily impractical plan.
Assume you were going to do it. How could you manage your double agent reliably? How could you monitor the police’s and 5’s response to the false intelligence? How could you isolate your sacrificial pawns? How could you ensure police tackled them in a prejudicial manner? How could you control the timing “run up to 7/7”? And why waste the resources?
That last point applies even to a simple “set-up” theory. Even if one were to set up someone innocent, it would still expose the informer, and would offer no guarantees. Police get iffy tip-offs from nosy neighbours all the time, and mostly they don’t overreact.
Look for the simplest plausible explanation. Police picked up on a weak tip, magnified it into a threat by accruing pseudo-confirmation, and having gone with it are now psychologically locked-in.
Meanwhile John Lettice is magnificent in The Register on the real likelihood of the sort of thing that press reports at the weekend told us police were looking for.
Whatever………….the current, almost deafening silence, bears all the hallmarks of SNAFU.
I cannot see how it is a grassy knoll conspiracy to have the police put onto a totally clean safe house by an associate of the pair with the pair in on the leak.
Perfect victimhood IMHO.
We shall see, but if the police find a bomb factory in the house I am happy to buy Guy a beer!
Do you think they had help from whoever it was really shot Kennedy?
At this stage there is no reason to believe the CIA were involved.
I get the feeling that the police informant may have been reporting on, not to put too fine a point on it, Muslim bullshitting. It seems to be quite common for disaffected young Muslim males to concoct fantasies about how they could get hold of chemical weapons or biological agents and attack the Great Satan. Given that the cranks from Yorkshire actually did conduct the 7/7 attacks using home made bombs, the police have to take these reports seriously, but this operation now has the hallmarks of an overreaction.
The police seem to have a fetish for the dawn raid. I wonder if they have ever considered just knocking on someone’s door at a reasonable hour of the day?
The spin now seems to be that the man was shot when he was struggling with a cop armed with a carbine. When you crash into someone’s house at 4.00 am, and they are roused from sleep to see strange figures rushing into their house, many people would try to shove the intruders out of the house. Unfortunately, when the intruders are the police, you then tend to get shot, and somehow it’s all your fault. Odd that.
We shall see, but if the police find a bomb factory in the house I am happy to buy Guy a beer!
Thanks TimC, but I’m betting on the police wrecking someone’s house and finding nothing of significance. Which I would take as evidence for police error, not clever conspiracy.
It seems to be quite common for disaffected young Muslim males to concoct fantasies about how they could get hold of chemical weapons or biological agents and attack the Great Satan.
Indeed; and one suspects that much of the “jihad training” activity common before 2001 amounted to the same thing. There’s a retrospective selection bias in relation to those particular juvenile power fantasies, compared to, say, joining the TA. (A number of the latter’s members appear to have been quite put out to discover that they might actually be expected to face severe discomfort and risk of death in Iraq in return for all that subsidised playing at soldiers.)
I think the thing about the TA is that its role has been changed quite radically.
From the foundation of the modern TA in 1908 it was always seen as the reserve force which would serve overseas in time of war, which happened in the two world wars with no complaint.
After 1945, the TA would have been used in the event of a Russian attack, but the TA was never called up to fight in any of the many small wars of decolonisation, because the regular armed forces were big enough to cope (and until 1961 we still had conscription).
Now, TA reservists are expected to serve overseas in our unpopular little wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. That really is a big change in the role of the TA, and has largely been driven by the huge cuts in the armed forces imposed by the Major and Bliar governments. When we have to call up our territorial reserves to cope with the demands of two fairly small colonial type campaigns, it shows just how far our forces have been cut, and how little slack there is.
Just as well that the ‘armed forces’ have been reduced. We are not even capable of properly equipping what few we have. Obloquy & shame on us.
These days, ‘Pride’ is only a collective noun applied to a group of lions.
…Or a large procession of homosexuals walking down a street 🙂
Albion: Well, apart from the lion sort, it could well be the only other use for the word in The Septic Isle 8-(
Ballistics might be able to answer the question as to who shot whom.
They are called tipoffs Guy,Blair the Lesser is so eager to receive a kind look from his master that he has his force go off half cocked. It doesn’t require lots of iffy tipoff,this is an incompetently run service,who have not exactly shone in their work,Blair the Lesser is in deep odium from 7/7.
But it has worked, has it not,another innocent muslim victim of police brutality.
What does the MI (as in 5 & 6 ) mean?
Don’t get bogged down on the Grassy Knoll, guys.
MI = Military Intelligence.
They used to be part of the War Office before the Great War, and were largely staffed by army or ex-army types. As distinct from Naval Intelligence, who had their own set up (Room 40 etc).
John K. Really?………You truly are a humo(u)rless hoot!
What answer did you want?
Dear John;
I was folowing the initial thread concerning the possibility of an unjustified shooting.
The raid in question was made, as I understand, on the receipt of ‘intelligence’ which could not be ignored.
MIs 5 & 6 are the usual suppliers of such intelligence. Their combined record (WMD etc.) leaves much to be desired.
I do know, really, what the MI stands for & if this were not the case various search engines are at my disposal.
My original question was rhetorical & tongue-in-cheek; that you didn’t realize this deserves my wholehearted apology for being so obtuse ;- )
You got to hand it to da brother that was shot by London’s finest (Keystone Kops). “I forgive you. You were just doing your job protecting us from the terrorist threat” (paraphrased). Forgive your enemies; nothing pisses them off more. Ain’t that right JC?