(no subject)

If you want to know how truly dumb we've been, and how utterly stupid the idea of torturing information out of the enemy is, please read this extract from the today's Guardian:

Al-Qaida 'planted information to encourage US invasion'


Richard Norton-Taylor
Friday November 17, 2006
The Guardian


A senior al-Qaida operative deliberately planted information to encourage the US to invade Iraq, a double agent who infiltrated the network and spied for western intelligence agencies claimed last night.
The claim was made by Omar Nasiri, a pseudonym for a Moroccan who says he spent seven years working for European security and intelligence agencies, including MI5. He said Ibn Sheikh al-Libi, who ran training camps in Afghanistan, told his US interrogators that al-Qaida had been training Iraqis.

Libi was captured in November 2001 and taken to Egypt where he was allegedly tortured. Asked on BBC2's Newsnight whether Libi or other jihadists would have told the truth if they were tortured, Nasiri replies: "Never".
Asked whether he thought Libi had deliberately planted information to get the US to fight Iraq, Nasiri said: "Exactly".

Nasiri said Libi "needed the conflict in Iraq because months before I heard him telling us when a question was asked in the mosque after the prayer in the evening, where is the best country to fight the jihad?" Libi said Iraq was chosen because it was the "weakest" Muslim country.

It is known that under interrogation, Libi misled Washington. His claims were seized on by George Bush, vice-president, Dick Cheney, and Colin Powell, secretary of state, in his address to the security council in February, 2003, which argued the case for a pre-emptive war against Iraq.

Though he did not name Libi, Mr Powell said "a senior terrorist operative" who "was responsible for one of al-Qaida's training camps in Afghanistan" had told US agencies that Saddam Hussein had offered to train al-Qaida in the use of "chemical or biological weapons".

What is new, if Nasiri is to be believed, is that the leading al-Qaida operative wanted to overthrow Saddam and use Iraq as a jihadist base. Nasiri also says that part of al-Qaida training was to withstand interrogation and provide false information.

Nasiri said last night he was later sent to London by his French handlers to infiltrate Finsbury Park mosque and spy on its imam, Abu Hamza, as well as another radical cleric, Abu Qatada.

He said MI5 and French intelligence were watching the two clerics in London from as far back as 1997. He said he told them that Abu Hamza was carrying out combat training and how he listened into conversations relaying messages between Abu Qatada and the training camps in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

"At the time we didn't think that the growing threat from al-Qaida and Osama bin Laden was sufficient to put more resources on it," Bob Milton, a Metropolitan police special branch officer, told Newsnight. "We were monitoring what he was doing, certainly working with the US and European colleagues to do that. But at that time we were still unsure what the threat would be," he said.

Abu Hamza was charged in 2003 and convicted this year for incitement to murder and race hate crimes. 

How fucking retarded. We went to war because they told us porkies, or we told them to ourselves.  Flip a coin. 

They've got what they wanted. Sometimes we are so stupid. I think the time has come for me to kill myself (except I cannot leave my duties undone).

On a lighter note:
I give you Iggy Pop's rider, for those that haven't seen it before.

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/1004061iggypop1.html

(no subject)

Oh well. As long as we're led by imbeciles who fight when & where the opposition want us to, they're going to walk all over us.
Why do democracies continually elect people representative of lowest common denominator mentalities?
What is it about subtlety or intelligence or talent that intimidates a voter?
If folk don't want government to be any cleverer than themsleves they deserve what's coming to them.
The one qualification to be a politician is to be,  according to cummings, an arse upon whom everyone has sat except a man.
Let's all vote for stupid and 'regular' guys, after all what harm can come of it?

I now think that democracy is flawed beyond redemption, which is probably why we want to export it to places that are governed differently: after all we don't want them to have an unfair advantage, (like smarts and subtlety) do we?

Or perhaps it's a good thing that we elect as our leaders persons who are perfectly happy to put the family silver (budget surplus to budget deficit, and servicemen's lives) on a three card trick operated by some dodgy middle-eastern terrorist manque, and thereby turn him into the most wanted man in the world, and amongst the opposition, the most feted.

I'm almost beginning to wish for another Nixon - for all his criminality, at least he was smart.

Fuck democracy, let's have competitive examinations; the Chinese had such for almost two thousand years, even their nightsoil attendendents needed to be able to pass exams, and their hierarchy was determined by such. None of the twats we've got at the moment are fit to govern. And if that's an elitist opinion, I would suggest we look at the way things are going under the present 'best of all systems': if we can't look at ourselves and see the faults, we're delusional, and also deserve everything we get.