State Terror: Many a strange bedfellow

[Akbal13]

http://www.williambowles.info/


Many a strange bedfellow

by William Bowles • Friday, 5 August 2005



The purpose of this essay is not to try and prove a definitive link between the July 7 (or July 21) attacks and the state but that an historical (and on-going) relationship exists between state-sponsored terror via covert operations of all kinds and the vehicles they use as cover – drug smuggling, money laundering, extremist groups, neo-nazis, in fact whatever is convenient. Therefore, it should come as no surprise to anyone that such things happen and given what is at stake here – the future of the British state – of state involvement in the tragic events of July 7. And before you scoff, consider that the first victim of open state terror, the young Brazilian, Menezes, has already paid with his life as a direct result of Blair’s policies.

Inevitably, such relationships are fraught with contradictions not the least of which is the very real possibility that one-time ‘assets’ turn out to be more useful as enemies eg Manuel Noriega of Panama (on the payroll of the CIA for twenty years) or Saddam Hussein or that simple criminal actions lead to the exposure of the murky dealings of the state eg, the ‘Guns for Drugs’ affair that Iran-contra exposed or the dealings of the CIA and its Air America operations in the ‘Golden Triangle’, smuggling heroin obtained from the ‘freedom fighters’ it funded.

The links between organised crime and state-sponsored crime is in the historical record, from the Mafia in Cuba and US anti-Castro operations, to Balkan drug smuggling operations and neo-fascist organisations in Kosovo, to the nefarious dealings of British intelligence in Northern Ireland and its relationship to Protestant terrorist groups.

Once such relationships are formed, there is little chance that the relationships will be terminated, it is what one might call an unholy alliance, with the organs of the state turning a blind eye to the activities of their criminal ‘associates’, there is after all, a ‘higher calling’, that of the state to answer to, under whose protection anything is permitted.

Under such circumstances it is all too easy to rationalise events such as July 7 when the state sees itself and its policies as vulnerable and under threat. Organisations such as MI5, MI6 or the FRU (Force Reconnaisance Unit, or whatever they call themselves now), operate on the very fringes of society and under the cover of state security can do pretty much what they want, there is no oversight, it is implicit in the nature of their roles. They can bribe, blackmail and threaten in order to obtain a result, or even, if the circumstances warrant it, murder or blow up their own citizens. This is what actually happened in Northern Ireland and who is to gainsay them?

For those of us who wish to expose the real nature of the system we live under and critically, do something about it, it is not enough merely to talk of some ‘evil cabal’, for not only is this a superficial description of a system that has been in existence for over one hundred years in more or less its present form, it masks the fact that the class that people like Bush, Blair and co represent, don’t think or operate as a ‘gang’ of crooks but as part of a ‘dynasty’ who truly believe they have an innate or even ‘God-given right to rule’. The future of their class is at stake here, so much so that they are even prepared to risk Armageddon to maintain their power.

This is a ruling class that thinks nothing of unleashing the most horrific weapons of mass destruction on innocent and defenceless civilians, and thus is hardly likely to have any qualms about sacrificing the lives of a few of its own citizens – as long as they are not exposed as the culprits and even then, they have their partners-in-crime to sacrifice.

This class have at their disposal enormous resources, including the state machine, with which to manipulate reality, and the cooperation of the media whose owners are also members of the same dynasty as any reading of history reveals. It is therefore not in the interests of either the corporate or state media to expose the true intentions or the real motives of the state’s actions. How else does one explain the existence of ‘spin’, offices of ‘public diplomacy’ and all the other agencies of persuasion and propaganda used by the state to convince what is obviously a sceptical, if not downright disbelieving public?

Why did the British government resort to lies and deceit in order to justify the invasion of Iraq if it truly has ‘right on its side’? These are neither idle nor abstract questions to ask because they go right to the heart of motive and intentions. And, as the disaster that is Iraq becomes ever more obvious to the public, it is, as I’ve pointed out before even more necessary to ‘ramp up the fear quotient’ if British and US policy is to continue on its chosen path.

The invention of enemies, is nothing new for either the British or US ruling classes, they’ve been at it for literally centuries and the British ruling class are probably the most experienced as well as the most devious in this regard.

An entire mythology has been constructed concerning an alleged neutral civil service (to which the secret services belong), who serve their political masters, the government. But why then, is it actually referred to as the Establishment (Establishment, a group of people who hold power in a society or social group and dominate its institutions)?

In an earlier article penned by myself and Edward Teague, we alluded to the fact that the four alleged suicide bombers of the July 7 outrages might have been dupes, perhaps thinking they were running drugs not bombs. Whatever the reasons, the real issue here is to expose the nature of how the state operates and why.

An article by Wayne Madsen and Umberto Pascali attempts to establish the connections between British and Italian neo-fascist groups, organised crime centred in the Balkans, specifically Kosovo; Afghanistan-based forces and Eygpt, with British and US intelligence agencies at the centre of the web, who utilise a number of ‘turned’, plants or double agents often operating as agents provocateurs. (See also The “Third Position” AND ‘AL QAEDA’.)

This is turning out to be the case with at least one person allegedly involved in the July 7, Haroon Rashid Aswat (and possibly the almost farcical July 21 event), and who knows how many other individuals and even entire organisations are involved?

One of the problems in disentangling the connections lies in the simple fact that since the Bay of Pigs, the Vietnam war and Iran-contra (to mention just the most well-known), running drugs and its parallel, laundering money and covert operations have become inextricably intertwined. Both drug running and covert operations need copious amounts of dosh and a means of covering up its movement across national frontiers, hence the use of banks such as BCCI (Bank of Credit and Commerce International, still under investigation by the British government for banking fraud totally millions if not billions of dollars), Banco Lavorno (the Vatican Bank) and the now defunct Australian Nugan Hand Bank, all with well-established CIA and Mafia connections, and more recently, the Saudi bank, Faisal Islamic Bank that at one time was run by the former head of Saudi intelligence, Prince Turki al Faisal. The bank was founded by Yusuf Nada and a member of the Eygptian Muslim Brotherhood. Prince Turki al Faisal is now the Saudi ambassador to the US.

What should also not be surprising is the Kosovo, fascist KLA connection and again the CIA/’al-Qu’eda’ connection and drug running. So for example one of the first intimations as to the source of the explosives used in the July 7 bombings was the Balkans (it was the French secret service that brought this to our attention). (See The “Third Position” AND ‘Al Qaeda’.)

The Madsen piece alleges that those behind the July 7 attack could well have been British neo-fascists and a group called Combat 18, out to trigger a ‘race war’ and that they had Italian neo-fascist links and through them, links to US and British intelligence agencies. The question of course, is that without US/British involvement, would such an operation have been possible? How would a crackpot organisation like Combat 18 have been able to obtain military explosives without links to Eastern Europe and why would a drug-smuggling syndicate be interested in triggering a ‘race war’ in the UK? The answer of course is that they are not, they are merely a convenient link in a chain of connections, with the added advantage that organised crime no more wants its activities revealed than does the state.

Hence it is important to first establish the links between organised crime and Western intelligence agencies. I have already referred to the wealth of evidence that ties in the CIA and other covert operations of the US state and its use of drug smuggling and money-laundering activities, not only to fund illicit operations but that act as covers for subversion, sabotage and assassinations and the overthrow of governments deemed inimical to the interests of Western capital.

The same goes for the British state and its connections to terrorist Protestant organisations in Northern Ireland via FRU (mentioned in another essay here) who also use drug smuggling as a source of income to fund their operations. Virtually all of these organsisations are penetrated by Western intelligence agencies who use them for their own purposes, turning a blind eye to these groups’ activities, rationalising it on the grounds of the means justifying the ends.

The fact is, that we’ll probably never know the real truth of who is behind the London bombings. No doubt some dupes will pay the price for their stupidity or even total ignorance as with the four alleged ‘plotters’ of July 21, who are according to some reports, simply dopey dope heads.

Which brings me back to the central issue that of motive, for who stands to gain the most from these outrages? Will blowing up people in London force the UK to get out of Iraq for example? Will it gain the sympathy of the British people for the plight of those bearing the real brunt of imperialist plundering?

Consider that even the biggest public demonstration in Britain’s history in February 2003 could not persuade the Blair government not to take part in the invasion of Iraq. But at the same time, the loss of credibility suffered by the Blair government and hence the state itself, is also unprecedented in contemporary times. Something had to be done to try and recover the loss of credibility and to justify the creation of a police state and the subsequent loss of our civil and legal rights just as 9/11 was used to justify the invasion of both Afghanistan and Iraq.

The ‘war on terror’ and its transformation into the much handier ‘struggle against violent extremism’ is of course the pretext, the latter having the advantage of being even more difficult to pin down. Like ‘obscenity’, ‘extremism’ is a vague and slippery term; one person’s extremist is another person’s national hero.

And one has to pose the question whether there is not a direct link between the July 7 and 21 attacks and this change of description, coming as it did, within days of the attacks? Once equipped with the vague phrase ‘violent extremism’, justifying even more repressive measures is that much easier, for an ‘extremist’ is anyone who doesn’t accept the status quo. And the wording used by the state in identifying ‘violent extremism’ is even more sinister, for the sting in the tail is that it is not confined to the actual ‘violent extremist’ but to those who would offer support or encouragement.

Under new laws people “attacking the values of the West” and “glorifying the acts of suicide bombers” would be imprisoned for “long periods”
The Lord Chancellor

For here, it is assumed that the ‘values of the West’ are values that we all hold in common whereas they are in fact the ‘values’ of the Establishment, that of capitalism and the ‘free market’. That ‘Western values’ and those of capitalism are rarely mentioned in the same breath is of course understandable, one has to look elsewhere for mention of these, for the thrust of the state’s propaganda is to emphasise ‘values’ as being composed of ‘democracy’ and ‘human rights’ etc, all those things that the ‘violent extremist’ it is alleged, is opposed to. And of course, it follows using the twisted logic of those who run things, that in order to preserve ‘Western values’ it is first necessary to destroy them.

And of course ‘human rights’ doesn’t extend to those who are ‘darker than blue’ and who happen to live on top of valuable natural resources, they are merely inconvenient obstacles to the spread of ‘Western values’. and it goes without saying that in spreading ‘Western values’, the values of those who get spread out in pieces, are not important.

And it follows as night follows day, that a propaganda campaign based upon the idea of ‘alien ideas’ requires that the ‘alien’ lives amongst us, hence the attack on Islam which has by some remarkable process known only to our glorious and omnipotent leaders, been transformed from a religion to an ‘ideology’. The same of course could be said of Christianity or any other established religion but it’s best not to follow this line of reasoning else Tony Blair or George Bush would perforce be the first to have their ‘rights’ taken away under the Lord Chancellor’s proposed laws (not a bad idea but currently not a realistic objective).

As with all scapegoats, the problem is that once the genie is released it is all but impossible to put back in its bottle, negative feedback kicks in, this is after all, the intention, for the very nature of such propaganda is to unleash the very worst facets of ‘human nature’, our frustrations, anger, resentments, insecurities and feelings of inadequacy and direct them toward a conveniently invented scapegoat.

So rather than focus on the real cause of these feelings, the iniquitous system we live under, we are directed to vent these feelings on those least able to defend themselves, the weak and vulnerable, the ‘alien’ who in any case, lives beyond our purview, in the ghettos, living by values that are clearly not ‘ours’.

If we need proof of how the state manipulates us just look at how the government has moved from a position of saying that the enemy is not Islam per se but its ‘extremists’ to that of calling upon Imams and community leaders to now ‘reign in’ its alienated youth, for the enemy is no longer imported but actually lives amongst us.

The front page of yesterday’s Independent (4/8/05) is proof of this. Titled “Scapegoats” in 144pt type, we are told that there is a

Huge rise in race attacks on all ethnic minorities across Britain

600% in fact. And that a senior Tory MP, defence spokesman Gerald Howarth, is telling Muslims

If you don’t like our way of life … go to another country … get out

And that a senior Muslim, Dr. Zaki Badawi, head of the Muslim College in London and chairman of the Council of Mosques and Imams is now telling Muslim women who wear the veil or hijab

In the present tense situation, with the rise of attacks on Muslims, we advise Muslim women who fear being attacked physically or verbally to remove their hijab so as not to be identified by those who are hostile to Muslims.

Perhaps this apologist of imperialism should have also advocated the bleaching of the skin and perhaps some plastic surgery just to really prove their “allegiance to the British way of life”?

The point here is that what is happening now across this blighted land is the direct result of a calculated propaganda campaign designed to cover up the real causes of the mayhem of July 7, namely the policies of our terrorist state, led by public enemy No.1 Tony Blair, and unless the population reject it, we are only a short step from pogroms and increased state repression, that can only escalate, for as with all such policies, it’s a one-way street.

Meanwhile, those who benefit, the ruling elite and their servants can sit back and watch us tear each other to pieces, for violence does indeed beget violence and and the 100,000-plus victims of the state’s violence in Iraq fade conveniently into the distance along with the millions of other victims of the ‘British way of death’.