DANGER! Cheesy Terror Warnings May Be Hazardous To Your Democracy

Herald Net of Everett, Washington has a good piece on the scary monster du jour. It draws on reporting from the Associated Press and the Los Angeles Times and I've quoted quite a bit but not all of it. You can read the original here:

A day of terror warnings

WASHINGTON - Airport security officers around the nation have been alerted by federal officials to look out for terrorists practicing to carry explosive components onto aircraft.

Whoa! Why?

The warning came to light Tuesday just hours after a top U.S. military commander said he believes there are al-Qaida cells in the United States.

Ahhh.

Also, President Bush presented his most detailed and lengthy argument that al-Qaida in Iraq was essentially the same organization that attacked America on Sept. 11, 2001.

I always get nervous when I see the lies start to cascade like this. This particular sequence of manure takes me back to last August. Are we gonna see another avalanche of bullshit?

The alert, based on four curious seizures at airports since September, was distributed on July 20 by the Transportation Security Administration to federal air marshals, its own transportation security officers and other law enforcement agencies.

The seizures at airports in San Diego, Milwaukee, Houston and Baltimore included "wires, switches, pipes or tubes, cell phone components and dense clay-like substances," including block cheese, the bulletin said. "The unusual nature and increase in number of these improvised items raise concern."

Did we get that right? Four "curious seizures" since last September amounts to a day of terror warnings? And the increase in this number -- all the way up to four! -- indicates that terrorists may be trying to carry explosive components onto aircraft? Wow! This is better than Michael Chertoff's gut.

You see what's happening here, don't you? People are so heavily propagandized that they'll panic and evacuate an airport and seize a "curious" block of cheese. Then the propagandists count the evacuations and the seizures and pretend these are actual evidence of actual threats, which they then feed into the Homeland inSecurity echo chamber. More curious seizures? Let's have another alert! Thus, more fear, more panics, more "curious" seizures, more alerts, more fear, and so on, in a self-feeding -- ultimately self-devouring! -- cycle.

So watch out for cell phones, wires, tubes or pipes, switches, and blocks of cheese -- but be especially careful with those tubes -- they could be parts of the internet!

Do you think I'm joking?

Security officers were urged to keep an eye out for "ordinary items that look like improvised explosive device components."

Now everybody who ever watched McGyver is in trouble.

"There is no credible, specific threat here," TSA spokeswoman Ellen Howe said Tuesday. "Don't panic. We do these things all the time."

I know they do these things all the time; that's what so bizarre. There's no credible, specific threat -- so let's make big deal of it! No worries; we do this all the time! Just look for ordinary items and be very afraid!

Earlier Tuesday, Air Force Gen. Victor Renuart, who heads U.S. Northern Command, said the military needs to triple its response teams to counter a growing threat of attack.

Triple? Why only triple? Seriously! Isn't it easier to multiply by ten? Why don't they just move the decimal point and call it the new NORTHCOM budget? Look how much we would save on our budgeting process! And we know none of the money would be wasted, right?

OK, ok, I'll try to be less emotional. Are we talking about evidence here?

"I believe there are cells in the United States, or at least people who aspire to create cells in the United States," Renuart said. "To assume that there are not those cells is naive and so we have to take that threat seriously."

Wow! It's another "I believe"! Welcome to the faith-based approach to counter-terrorism.

But it's not a total loss because there are now multiple questions on the table: let's deal with them one at a time.

Are there terror cells in the United States? We'll look at that question in a moment.

Are there in fact people who aspire to create such cells? Yes indeed! Most of them are working for the FBI, trying to reduce their drug sentences -- or simply looking to make a few bucks. To be fair, others may see themselves as "moderate Muslims" responding to the government's call for help against the "extremists". But they're all out there, looking to put together little terror plots that can then be busted, providing wave after wave of propaganda the government could never get without all these little entrapment schemes.

As for attacks, he added: "Am I concerned that this will happen this summer? I have to be concerned that it could happen any day."

There you go: any day, anywhere, anytime, be very afraid. I have to be concerned, you have to be concerned, we all have to be concerned, it could happen any day, anywhere, anytime, be very afraid...

It's a familiar tune, isn't it? You could almost dance to it!

Other U.S. officials said last week they did not know of al-Qaida cells in the United States.

Of course they don't. If they did know of any terrorist cells getting ready to strike, those terrorists would have been arrested by now. Or at least one would hope so. There's no need in our post-9/11 world to be picky about due process anymore; law "enforcement" can just say "terror suspect" and the rights of the accused "terrorist" vanish. So if the terrorists are getting ready to strike and the authorities choose not to arrest them, it must be because the authorities want them running free.

If there are terrorist cells and the authorities don't know about them, then we're hopeless. With an eighty-eight zillion dollar per year national security budget, a no-holds-barred approach to domestic and international surveillance, and military-police boundary lines getting blurrier all the time, a terrorist cell that was ready to strike would be foolish to sit still. And yet we haven't heard from them. Could this be because they're not there?

On the other hand, are there people, institutions, corporations ... with an interest -- financial or otherwise -- in keeping us terrorized? Of course there are; otherwise I would have nothing to blog about and I could go back to my previous "normal" life, with my wife and my kids -- heck, I could even get some sleep.

If you're wondering how much credibility I assign to Air Force Gen. Victor Renuart, the answer is:

Listen! On a separate but related lie,

Bush sought to rebut his critics' assertion that the Iraqi group was not a threat to American security.

To those who argue that al-Qaida in Iraq is purely an Iraqi phenomenon, Bush said, "That would be news to Osama bin Laden."

I didn't think dead guys watched the news. But I guess you learn something new every day.

Whether or not it's true may be a more difficult question. But look at this:

Citing security details he declassified for his speech,

This little detail shows exactly what Bush thinks of "national security". Would he -- and Cheney, and Rove --- use classified information for political purposes? Don't tell me they wouldn't. They do it all the time. And here is a prime example.

But a word of caution is in order, for Bush/Rove/Cheney would not be above lying even while pretending to divulge national secrets. The cover story -- that the president is revealing "security details he declassified for his speech" -- is useful to the spin-meisters in two ways: First, it can mask a change in the legend, the "official story" behind which all the vital truths are hidden. They can make up a new lie and put it out under the story that "these details have been classified until now", implying (or stating explicitly) that the conventional wisdom -- i.e. the previous "legend", now untenable -- was wrong.

And regardless of whether the new story is a lie or the truth, the very visible presidential leak of classified information reinforces the sheepishness of those who believe the president should steer the ship of state because he knows more than we do -- and he can't afford to tell us what he knows because our nation's security depends on keeping these things secret ... oh wait, then why is he divulging classified information?

It makes no sense ... until you realize that Bush is trading national security for political capital.

And every time you think it can't possibly get more absurd, it does!

Bush said al-Qaida in Iraq was founded not by an Iraqi but long before U.S. forces invaded the country by Jordanian-born Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who set up operations with terrorist associates in Iraq. Zarqawi formally joined al-Qaida in 2004 and pledged allegiance to al-Qaida chief bin Laden, Bush said.

Sure, he did. Really. I mean, would George Bush lie to you?

Bush added: "The merger also gave al-Qaida's senior leadership, quote, 'a foothold in Iraq' to extend its geographic presence, to plot external operations and to tout the centrality of the jihad in Iraq to solicit direct monetary support elsewhere."

We've been watching this for years -- I call it "the puppet shuffle". Shakespeare was born too soon: the phrase "full of sound and fury and signifying nothing" was made for this nonsense; too bad it's already "used".

American forces killed al-Zarqawi in 2006; he was replaced, Bush said, by an Egyptian, Abu Ayyub al-Masri, who had "deep and long-standing" ties to senior al-Qaida leadership.

Who else has "deep and long-standing" ties to senior al-Q'aeda leadership? C.I.A!! C.I.A!!

At the time, bin Laden dispatched a senior deputy to aid al-Masri, but the aide was captured and has been sent to the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

... where he's currently upside-down in a bucket of water, confessing to the assassination of President McKinley!

"The fact that Osama bin Laden risked sending one of his most valued commanders to Iraq shows the importance he places on the success of al-Qaida's Iraqi operations," Bush said.

The idead of a dead man maneuvering all these CIA assets around on the global chessboard is nothing less than astonishing.

If and when his body is ever accidentally discovered, I say rather than going along with George Bush's idea ("screw him in the ass"), we should put him in a museum.

But that's not what you came here to find out.

What's going on here? Clearly this is just another part of a long-running buildup, whose aims include martial law -- in effect if not in name -- at home, and expanded war abroad.

But how? Perhaps if we're sufficiently frightened of the warnings, we'll just fall to our knees and beg for martial law to be declared, and then Cheney can have his war with Iran -- and throw anyone who doesn't like it in prison -- without having to nuke Chicago.

On the other hand, maybe we're smarter than that, and maybe whipping us into line will take something much larger -- like multiple nukes in multiple cities, and possibly another US Army lab-certified biological attack against any domestic "dissident leaders" dumb enough not to fall into line.

Who knows what evil lurks in the heart of darkness? I'll bet they've prepared half a dozen different scenarios.

How can we prevent them all? -- that's the question!

For starters, I think we should stop leaving blocks of cheese in the airports.

They count that cheese, my friends -- and it becomes a Weapon of Mass Distraction.

False Alarm Hysteria Grounds British Airlines

Heathrow scare traps thousands as 150 jets are grounded

Tens of thousands of holidaymakers were stranded last night as a series of bomb-scares swept the country.

Police swooped on airports, railway stations and the underground network as reports of suspect packages and suspicious behaviour flooded in.

The worst chaos was at Britain's busiest airport terminal as thousands of summer holidaymakers were evacuated when a man was seen running from security checks.

Some passengers were forced out into the pouring rain at Heathrow's Terminal 4 where more than 150 cancelled flights that left more than 20,000 stranded.

Ouch!

Travellers were surrounded by armed police carrying machine guns and herded into outside car parks as flights to the U.S., Canada, Africa and Asia were axed along with host short-haul flights to Europe.

There's no point being subtle, is there?

There were also dramatic scenes at Victoria Station in London where a suspect car was reported. Police, the fire brigade, sniffer dogs, paramedics and a bomb disposal team were all called to what turned out to be a false alarm.

No, no point at all, unfortunately. There's no incentive for the police or the media to downplay anything; quite the contrary.

Parts of London's Underground were also shut down in the morning when a suspect package was discovered at Hammersmith Station.

The station, along with nearby Baron's Court station, was shut down and a controlled explosion was carried out shortly after 9am in the heart of the rush hour.

I wonder whether the detonation involved any explosives in the suspect package, or whether they just blew it up because they didn't know what it was. Probably the latter.

The night before, a Polish man caused a security-alert at Stansted Airport in Essex by leaving an unattended bag outside the terminal. An area around the suspect luggage was cordoned off and bomb disposal experts were called in.

And then what?

Similar scares threaten a summer of misery as security is stepped up across the country in the wake of the failed bomb attacks in London and Glasgow.

Lin Homer, chief executive of the Government's new Border and Immigration Agency, said she made 'no apology' for putting safety first.

She said: 'We check people based on risk and not on queues. Our objective is to secure our borders, and tougher checks on people entering the UK can mean longer queues.'

Yep. Right-oh, guv! We'll stand on queue all day and night if it makes traveling safer. Or even if you just tell us it makes traveling safer. Yuk yuk yuk, where's my ten quid?

A second opinion is called for, and here's one from the future! (It's tomorrow down under, so this report from Australia is dated July 4th):

Bomb scare chaos at London's Heathrow

London's Heathrow airport reopened a busy, international terminal today after a security scare led to the cancellation of more than 100 flights.

Thousands of passengers were evacuated from terminal four after a suspect bag was found just before midday, the airport's operator BAA, a unit of Spanish infrastructure and construction company Grupo Ferrovial, said.

Police also ordered the evacuation of the departure lounge so that all passengers could be searched a second time.

The terminal reopened just after 5pm.

Flights arriving at the terminal, which handles only international flights, were not affected.

British Airways, the main operator at the terminal, said it had cut 108 flights after cancelling all its European departures from the terminal for the day, as well as all long-haul flights due to depart between 3pm and 9pm.

At least seven transatlantic flights to the United States were cancelled, stranding American passengers hoping to return for July 4 Independence Day celebrations.

How convenient! Direct impact on American tourists means direct impact on American public opinion, which is virtually the only group still taking this stuff seriously -- even if it is legit!

Meanwhile, were there any explosives found? Was there anything involved in this series of alarms except thoroughly false ones? Were the failed attacks of the London and Glasgow car-bombs last weekend legitimate or phony? We may never know the answers to any of these questions, but it won't matter, because the fear cycle is already well underway.

So it appears that Lin Homer had it right with "We check people based on risk and not on queues." Because if the authorities can control the risks, they can also control the queues ... and the people who form them ... and their friends and neighbors!

Oops! I wasn't supposed to say that, was I?

False Flag Terror Fears Run High This Week, With Good Reason

Keep your head up: According to DL Abrahamson via Global Research dot ca:

Noble Resolve 07: Four days of “simulated” nuclear terrorist scenarios in the US & Europe

From April, 23 to April 27, the elite echelon of the military are running Noble Resolve 07, a four-day marathon of “simulated” terror attacks across the US and Europe. This includes a simulated detonation of a “loose” ten-kiloton nuclear weapon Virginia harbor, smuggled in by a “foreign nation.”

This week Dick Cheney has also been warning of the “very real” threat of a nuclear attack on an American city. Could the Nobel Resolve drills be used as a screen for a false-flag attack to be blamed on Iran, Hezbollah, Al-Qaeda, or sheep-dipped Americans like Adam Gadahn?

The drills are being run by Joint Task Force Command (JTFCOM), Northern Command (NORTHCOM), J9 Joint Innovation and Experimentation Directorate, FEMA’s command bunker, the Department of Homeland Security, and Virginia police.

The US Marines are also running “Emerald Express 07” in Virginia on April 24 as part of their Urban Warrior 07 drill package.

It is important to note the “Nobel Resolve” drills are dominated by NORTHCOM, the branch of “homeland defense” based in Colorado and responsible for shutting down the United States under martial law, as well as ushering in the merger of the US, Canada, and Mexico via the SPP.
...

We must remember that CIA agent Philip Giraldi warned the American Conservative magazine that STRATCOM would launch a nuclear attack on Iran in the wake of a new WMD-style attack on American soil.

And the Russian media and former Russian military members continue to warn that an American and Israeli strike on Iran is imminent.

While many drills are run every month, Nobel Resolve 07, with its “realistic” scenarios, comes at a time of increased geopolitical tension. It is reminiscent of the drills in 2005, where a ten-kiloton nuclear weapon was “simulated” to explode in South Carolina. Some speculated that four-star Gen. Kevin Byrnes, of the Fort Meade TRADOC command, was fired due to his exposure of the drill.

We should not live in a constant state of panic and fear, or make any irresponsible predictions about Noble Resolve 07. But in the coming days, we can email this information to blogs, media outlets, friends and family. Congressmen, and others to help inoculate against any possibility that rogue “red teams” inside the drills may be activated.

A Packet of Fear for Christmas: Channel Tunnel Threat 'Far Graver' Than WWII

Jason Burke, writing for The Observer, has all the scary details.

The Channel tunnel has been targeted by a group of Islamic militant terrorists aiming to cause maximum carnage during the holiday season, according to French and American secret services.

The plan, which the French DGSE foreign intelligence service became aware of earlier this year, is revealed in a secret report to the French government on threat levels. The report, dated December 19, indicates that the tip-off came from the American CIA.

Remember this.

British and French intelligence agencies have run a series of checks of the security system protecting the 31-mile tunnel but the threat level, the DGSE warns, remains high. British security services remain on high alert throughout the holiday period.

According to the French sources, the plan was put together in Pakistan and is being directed from there.

Remember this, too.

The plotters are believed to be Western Europeans, possibly Britons of Pakistani descent. The DGSE say that levels of 'chatter', the constant communication that takes place between militants, has not been so high since 2001. Last week Sir Ian Blair, the head of the Metropolitan Police, described 'the threat of another terrorist attempt' as 'ever present' adding that 'Christmas is a period when that might happen'.

Of course it is. The threat of another terrorist attempt is always and we must always and everywhere remember this.

It is a far graver threat in terms of civilians than either the Cold War or the Second World War,' he said.

Right. It's a far graver threat than the Second World War.

It's an enormous horrible exceedingly vile terrible awfil threat, this threat to the Channel tunnel; far graver than a worldwide conflict which took the lives of 80 million people, left whole cities in ruins, created hundreds of millions of refugees, and so on, and on and on ... this is far graver than that? Sure it is, sure it is.

Ian Blair has the same disease as all the rest of them. They don't think we can tell when they're exaggerating.

'It's a much graver threat than that posed by Irish Republican terrorism.'

Sure it is. By the way, Ian, can you recall a single IRA blast that was not directly related to British "security" forces?

Didn't think so. Carry on, sir.

American security sources told The Observer that the threat was 'sky high'.

Sky high, indeed. To infinity, and beyond!

Well at least they're not running pan-European war-games and multiple simultaneous Channel tunnel security drills.

Be very afraid.
Be very very very very afraid.
Now enjoy your holidays.
This is a recording.