Chávez Takes London

Hugh O'Shaughnessy in Counterpunch:

The atmosphere, even after more than three hours of solid speechifying, was still electric, Chávez's words drowned by the cheering of the audience, many of them the sort of young people who would never be seen at a political rally in Central London listening to a British politician.

...many British politicians must be wondering how a South American leader who dares to set aside sound-bites and addresses audiences for hours in a language which is not their own can arouse such enthusiasm. It can't just be the oil. The man's vision must have something to do with it.

7/7 Bombshell: MI5 knows the "suicide" bomber was no suicide.

Yesterday's Sunday Times carried a shocking article. The real bombshell is buried in the second paragraph. Mohammad Sidique Khan, the (alleged) chief "suicide" bomber on July 7th 2005, was heard "talking about how to build the device and then leave the country because there would be a lot of police activity." Who heard him? MI5. And they heard him "months before the London attacks". And they did nothing to stop him.

The Sunday Times May 14, 2006

Spies ‘hid’ bomber tape from MPs

David Leppard and Richard Woods

MI5 is being accused of a cover-up for failing to disclose to a parliamentary watchdog that it bugged the leader of the July 7 suicide bombers discussing the building of a bomb months before the London attacks.

MI5 had secret tape recordings of Mohammad Sidique Khan, the gang leader, talking about how to build the device and then leave the country because there would be a lot of police activity.

However, despite the recordings, MI5 allowed him to escape the net. Transcripts of the tapes were never shown to the parliamentary intelligence and security committee (ISC), which investigated the attacks.

So: Blair's Narrative of the London Bombings is shown to be a pack of lies. The Sunday Times article establishes that:

a) the alleged ringleader was under MI5 surveillance, and his very phone calls were being recorded;

b) British intelligence heard him planning to build a bomb, and made no attempt to stop him;

c) he did NOT intend to commit suicide, but to flee to another country.

Rachel North is justifiably furious and could use some support: “I am shaking with anger.... I feel badly, desperately let down.” As must the entire Muslim population of Britain, which has been collectively slandered for the last year on the basis of a Narrative concocted by the people who gave us the Menezes Yarn.

It's official: World War III has started

Apparently it started five years ago, and nobody thought to tell us:

WASHINGTON (AFP) - US President George W. Bush said the September 11 revolt of passengers against their hijackers on board Flight 93 had struck the first blow of "World War III."

Modernization

'I am surprised to see that today everything that does not amount to surrender pure and simple to generalized capitalism, let us call it thus, is considered to be archaic or old-fashioned, as though in a way there existed no other definition of what it means to be modern than, quite simply, to be at all times caught in the dominant forms of the moment.' - Alain Badiou