Wednesday, May 09, 2012

Armed rebellion, airliner bombs and double agents

They say they want a revolution. Everyone must admit that this really is going too far: A GOP newsletter published out of Virginia calls for armed revolution if Obama is re-elected. 
The ultimate task for the people is to remain vigilant and aware  ~ that the government, their government is out of control, and this moment, this opportunity, must not be forsaken, must not escape us, for we shall not have any coarse but armed revolution should we fail with the power of the vote in November ~ This Republic cannot survive for 4 more years underneath this political socialist ideologue.
Previously, I've argued that Romney would benefit politically if he issued a forceful denunciation of this evil rhetoric. If he devoted a major speech to this topic, the mainstream media would applaud his statesmanship, while the nutball media would probably shut up like a chastened child.

But never mind tactical concerns. If Romney cares about decency at all, he must castigate the madmen in his party.

About the airline bomber: Yes, I know that the guy was a double agent. As soon as I can formulate a narrative that makes sense, I'll let you know. Right now, there are too many questions.

We don't even know who was running this guy. Most sources point to Saudi intelligence, but Fox News said (before the double agent thing was revealed) that CIA agents scooped up Mr. DoubleAgent before he got on board the plane.

More importantly: If, as claimed, this same infiltrator arranged a drone airstrike against Fahd al Quso (a senior Al Qaeda operative in Yemen), why didn't the agent ask for a similar strike against the super-clever bomb-maker who developed those new and improved explosive underpants?

At this time, the most interesting discussion can be found -- where else? --  over on emptywheel's site.

News stories have not asked about the obvious parallels to the first underwear bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who set himself on fire in mid-flight in December of 2009. I wrote about him at length, here and here and here. There were plenty of indications that he, too, was an agent of some sort. By way of review, here are seven of those indicators:

1. Someone videotaped the entire flight. The guy with the camcorder seemed to know what was going to happen -- although, obviously, he did not expect to be blown to smithereens. If Mr. Camcorder was uninvolved with Farouk, we would have seen the video.

2. A well-dressed accomplice helped Farouk get onto the flight.

3. Farouk's name did not appear on the "no fly" list, even though his own father (a wealthy Nigerian official) warned the American embassy about his son.

4. No-one has explained his source of money.

5. Although Farouk reportedly had been estranged from his father for quite some time, he was spotted at his Dad's retirement party shortly before the infamous flight.

6. The bomb did not have a required detonator.

7. The CIA stopped the State Department from revoking Farouk's visa.

There are, of course, two massive problems with any Farouk-the-spook theory: He really did set his crotch on fire, and he pleaded guilty.

I suppose the guilty plea could be a ruse. Perhaps he's not really serving a life sentence; perhaps, with his mission accomplished, he has assumed another identity. But that scenario seems rather too "Hollywood" for me.

Well, as long as we're playing with Hollywoodish scenarios: Do you think Criss Angel could come up with a way for someone to light his underwear on fire painlessly? (And is there any way to ask him that question without sounding like a total perv?)

Incidentally, Kurt Haskell -- who was on the 2009 flight and who, along with his wife Lori, provided details about the many oddities surrounding that case -- is running for Congress. You should read the more recent entries on the Haskells' blog. Lori has some rather revealing things to say about the treatment they received in court when Farouk was sentenced.

So much for the old crotch-bomber. As for crotch-bomber 2.0...

Jeez, I dunno. Got any theories? At this point, I'd even give a hearing to wacky speculation. Well, semi-wacky. While you ponder, consider this:
...of 22 major plans for terrorist attacks on US soil since 9/11, fully 14 were developed in sting operations organised by US intelligence, mostly being carried out by people just as incompetent as Abdulmutallab, even more isolated, and utterly removed from posing any genuine danger to civilians.
One last note: It was just announced that a Russian jet went missing near Jakarta, while two Southwest airline flights were cancelled due to bomb scares. Ominous. A pattern...?

6 comments:

RedDragon said...

Something about this "New underwear bomber" doesn't pas the smell test! (pun intended)

Watch....Pretty soon your going to start seeing the usual suspects all over the corporate media screaming how we need to "allow" Uncle ( as if the beast doesn't already ) to to "scoop up all the intelligence needed for this war on terror and that the existing laws hamper it's ability to do so...yada yada yada!

Funny how this shit always seems to happen either during an election year!

Anonymous said...

Hal Turner urged his listeners to lynch Cynthia McKinney as a lesson to black people when she went to vote in 2006 and published her campaign office address. He was working for the FBI (who also trained and paid him). I would remember this when reading the Virginia GOP writings.
This is merely more divide and conquer for the left/ right. One day it's "anarchists"; the next it's "militias".

As for the airline bomber the only narrative that makes sense is that he was not a double agent but that he worked for the cia which has means to induce the cooperation of relevant foreign services.

Anonymous said...

The War on Terror is the pretext for the approximately tripled military spending, relative to the Cold War.

The Cold War involved a world-bestriding adversary with a near-continent of peoples and resources, some 300 millions, the richest natural resources, the largest military more or less across the board, and some 20,000 nuclear warheads pointed our way.

If the WOT is to be credible, there cannot be lengthy periods of time with no attacks. Or else people might eventually ask how it is that no more than some los 10,000s of hard core jihadis, without national resources, without access to a continent's resources, without any military means other than small arms, could possibly cost 3x what it cost to fight the Soviets across the world.

Hence, the boogie man is set in motion across the stage, to show skeptics, see, here they are and here they come.

If it requires agents provocateur, or patsies set in motion, that's what occurs.

XI

Ken Hoop said...

I have to surmise, if (more likely as) the United States takes the Greek road of increased polarization, Cannon,rather than being an important part of the process, will be "naughty-naughtying" from the sidelines, doing his best to buttress Elitist state stability.

Anonymous said...

A contingent of American rightwingers and foreigners are hyping a threat that DOES NOT EXIST without the assistance of those hyping and creating it.

It would be like me walking into the kitchen area at a job and spilling coffee all over the floor every day and then demanding everyone pitch in money and effort in combating the growing threat of "COFFEE SPILL TERROR." When I am the one who keeps spilling the fucking coffee.

That is exactly what the FBI and CIA are doing. Repeatedly creating and funding terrorists where there were none, destabilizing entire countries and creating terrorists where there were none, and then asking Americans to foot the bill fighting all these Frankensteins we keep creating.

Mr. Mike said...

I keep thinking about the DOJ's Fast and Furious debacle and what would happen if one of these got actually brought down a plane. Then it occurred to me that Obama couldn't care less because it would be to the benefit of his national security toadies and his military industrial cronies.