Sam Iles's Blog

Libya has been remarkably interesting over the last month or so. First, there were protestors. Then, there were armed protestors. Then, a UN resolution and “freedom fighters”. Now? Boots on the ground.

Firstly, let’s examine this UN Resolution 1973. First of all, don’t be taken in by the media pronouncing this as “nineteen-seventy-three” in an extremely successful bid to make you think it was formed in 1973 and therefore thoroughly tested and oh-so-important. I can’t count how many times I’ve heard some government somewhere say “it’s in the resolution, so it’s OK!” like it’s some document of awesome clearly explaining how to save civilians. It was actually formed on the 17th of March 2011, right in the middle of the uprising. They really should call it the “UN Resolution one-thousand, nine-hundred and seventy-three”. But, I digress.

It is to protect civilians, right? To save the lives of the brave freedom fighters? Partly, sure. It also provisions a no-fly zone (we’ll get to that later) and most bizarrely allows the member states to steal Gaddafi’s money. Oh, and his family’s money. Oh – best of all – the member states get control of something known as the “Libyan National Oil Corporation”. The justification given by the UN is that it represents a “potential source of funding for his regime”. You bet it does! And now this company – which totally dominates the Libyan oil industry – finances The United States of We Hate Gaddafi. We also get the Central Bank of Libya, the Libyan Investment Authority, the Libyan Foreign Bank and more. I’d say the USWHG is getting a hundreds of billion-dollar windfall pretty soon…

All of you complaining about the cost of this little operation? Well, don’t. Our governments don’t blindly go to war with countries unless we get a lot out of it.

(Of course, this is placed under the masquerade of “asset freeze”, suggesting it might become un-frozen at some point. Pretty unlikely given that Gaddafi is soon to be in jail or dead. That money’s in the bag now.)

So we have our little no-fly zone over Libya. I cannot begin to imagine what this is supposed to achieve. Does Gaddafi love the sky or something? Do we assume he will surrender immediately now we’ve taken his sky? (Yes, the official line is to stop him fictitiously bombing his people, but please…) So, we need to impose it, right?

No-fly zones traditionally work like this. You let the country know planes aren’t allowed. You get a blip on your radar of a plane. You send a F-16 to investigate. It flies alongside the offending plane and says, “dude, get out of the sky or we’ll blow you up”. The Dude lands. Problem, solved.

But, the USWHG takes a different approach. We bomb them! Missile after missile to stop them flying. Why – some missiles even hit Gaddafi’s compound!

Well, I knew Gaddafi was a little crazy, but I didn’t know he lived in an anti-aircraft missile system! WHO KNEW?!

Pleaseeee. How stupid do they think we are? (Well, very, apparently.)

Does the UN Res. allow this? Urm, no! Unless Gaddafi lives in an airport, it doesn’t. In fact, read the full document yourself. Does it mention that the first course of action is to bomb the place? No, I don’t think so.

This seems a good time to mention the most hilarious video I have ever seen in my life. You know the one: the media keeps showing a picture of a rebel fighter jet nose-diving into the desert. Um, what?! Firstly, where the hell did an organic rebel movement get a fighter jet? Someone had one lying around? Secondly, when planes go down, they don’t nose dive. The fall at an angle. This thing looks like it’s been dropped by God from above. This is clearly some b-roll footage. But, I digress.

So, we enforce our no-fly zone with our bombs and protect the civilians with our big hearts.

Oh – another thing – what is this crock of crap being pushed on us about Gaddafi killing his people – slaughtering his people – left, right and centre by the tens of thousands. Where is this footage? Where is this evidence? Anything shown is non-descript b-roll of people sat in a desert (the same stuff they show for Iraq, and Afghanistan and every other country with sand). But, I digress.

But, we still have Gaddafi in power? Not going fast enough, huh? (I remind you of Mr Obama saying expressly that they expected the operation to be complete “in days, not weeks”. Well, it’s been a month, so, yeah…) But, we promised there would never, ever, be any boots on the ground, right?

Turns out – even that rule doesn’t matter. Because today – in what I consider to the single most unconscionable act perpetrated by this coalition government here in the UK – the gov announced that British military officers will be sent to Libya to advise rebels fighting Colonel Muammar Gaddafi’s forces.

Pardon me for being naive, but, do these officers float? Because that sure sounds like boots on the ground to me…

BUT – DON’T WORRY! The gov has a solution to this. Hague, the UK’s Foreign Minister says it doesn’t constitute boots on the ground because – although they will be carrying guns – these military officers won’t be wearing their uniforms.

HOW. STUPID. DO. THEY. THINK. WE. ARE?

Boots on the ground aren’t boots on the ground if they’re wearing their weekend outfits? This is just horrific. Also, they’re carrying guns BUT if they fire those guns, they’ll be in direct violation of UN Resolution one-thousand, nine-hundred and seventy-three, and we’ll be as good as at war with Libya. Why not just give them water pistols?

Then we come to the final crux of it all – the blatant picking-and-choosing of our morals. Countries all over the middle east are killing their people right now. But, we don’t have a problem with that. They don’t have banks and giant investment companies and huge oil reserves which we can take control of, so why bother.

This whole thing has been entirely for our gain, entirely orchestrated from the outset and should be entirely against the conscience of any citizen of the United States of We Hate Gaddafi. Why aren’t we marching on the streets? Why haven’t we thrown these people out of government? Why don’t we care? Are we really that blind to the ways of the world that we just ignore and happily move on?

You know, talk of Syria getting a no-fly zone has already begun. Expect to watch the exact same scheme unfold because they know we just go along with it.

sigh Please, people, just try to care…

Update: I think it’s worth noting that it is now my belief that this is a test of public reaction. Today, Obama announced that predator drones will now be deployed in Libya (these are the ones which blow up funerals and schools in Afghanistan). It isn’t yet clear whether or not these drones will be used purely for reconnaissance or for bombing, too. Anyway, it’s odd that this is just after the UK announced its boots on the ground which aren’t boots on the ground, and just after the US announced its non-lethal aid. It seems to me this is all a build up to a full blown invasion. Handing out these small bits to the public and seeing how they take it (a collective “meh” so far) follows history (especially the way the UK is used as a beta test) and implies something big is coming. Anyway – just a thought/prediction.

I started writing this as a tweet, but couldn’t fit it into 140 characters. I just thought it was worth reflecting on:

US Marines are being given official surveys saying, “If you were given an order to remove guns from the people of the US and they refused, would you agree to take the weapons by force?”. So scary.

1) Marines shouldn’t be on US soil. They are to fight/work overseas only. It’s against the constitution and not allowed.

2) It’s unconstitutional to remove guns from the US people.

3) The constitution says the main reason the people have guns is to keep them equal with government, i.e., so the government is afraid of the people and doesn’t go entirely Big Brother.

4) And now the government is asking Marines if they would obey orders to disarm and kill Americans.

Why?

A few days ago, thousands of birds (crows and one duck) fell from the sky, dead in Arkansas, USA. Nobody knows why. Hours later the feds arrive in full on bio-hazard gear to clear the birds up. BIO-HAZARD GEAR. Y’know, the big white ones with masks and the like.

And what are we told? Fireworks. I kid you not. The principal theory put forth by the government is that the birds were “startled” by fireworks and had thousands of simultaneous heart attacks. It really is laughable. Other theories suggested range from “hail” to “stress”. I do not joke, friends. We are being told that the birds we’re either “startled” or “stressed”. Stressed?! What do birds have to be stressed about? One or two, perhaps. But, thousands?

Allow me to share my theory.

This was done entirely on purpose. Here is why:

Bird flu. All this was part of a plan by the government, drug companies, New World Order, whoever, to kill some birds so they could say “HEY LOOK THE BIRDS ARE DYING! THAT MUST BE BIRD FLU! QUICK! HAVE YOUR FLU SHOTS! BUY VACCINES!!!!!” People associate one type of flu with the other and, after the media blows it out of proportion, everyone scrambles to buy flu shots.

We all know that vaccines are where drug companies make their money, most of them are entirely bogus and not needed. The more fear they can plant in us, the better.

But, it went wrong. Too many damn birds died. They had to abort their plan. But, they realised that “bird flu” would reveal their plan too early, so they scrambled for ideas and throw “fireworks” at us. I mean, why send in men in bio-hazard suits to deal with firework induced death? Makes no sense.

You know what makes this most obvious? In the media reports, nobody has mentioned bird flu. Surely, in this were a natural event, the idea the birds all contracted a disease that spread among them seems the most plausible and obvious, right? So why not say it? Why tell us obviously insane ideas like “fireworks” and “stress”? Surely bird flu would at least make the list of possible scenario. But, it doesn’t even get a mention.

I’m telling you: this is solely an attempt to muster bird flu fear that went wrong. Or at least, that’s what I think…

I am not a big fan of the media and news in general and in this post – rather than explain why – I just want to show you. I’m going to dissect parts of a ABC News (which is a pretty much totally compromised organisation) article and we can look at what is wrong with it all. The article is here, you may want to read it before we begin.

The headline: Attorney General’s Blunt Warning on Terror Attacks.

The first paragraph is instantly confusing and wrong.

“Attorney General Eric Holder has an urgent message for Americans: While he is confident that the United States will continue to thwart attacks, ‘the terrorists only have to be successful once.’”

Um, what? In the first half of that sentence, the reporter paraphrases that attacks will be thwarted, but then from somewhere else in the interview, taken out of context we get him saying there will be attacks. How can you be confident that attacks will be stopped, but still carry a blunt warning about the likelihood of attacks? Immediately in this first paragraph, we are confused at this nonsense, wondering what it’s talking about and reading on.

“And while it is not certain we will be hit, the American people, he told ABC News, ‘have to be prepared for potentially bad news.’”

First off, when you read ‘not certain’, your brain only gets the certain bit. You read, “And while it is certain we will be hit”. This is a known trick that advertisers use. “Not certain”, instead of “uncertain”. And again, his comment has no context.

“‘What I am trying to do in this interview is to make people aware of the fact that the threat is real, the threat is different, the threat is constant,’ he said.”

Immediately we’ve got a triplet power of three technique, making you remember the word threat. THREAT THREAT THREAT. No context, just a unnamed threat.

“In a rare and wide-ranging interview, the attorney general disclosed chilling, new details about the evolving threat of homegrown terror, and touched on topics ranging from Wikileaks to the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay.”

“Wide-ranging”? Did he talk about his kids and his favourite band? And, he “discloses” information, which makes us think it’s secret and important. Also, that information is “chilling”. Chilling! That is to scare you. “New”. Again, that we are privy to secret knowledge. Then they call them “details”. But, they’re just not. Nowhere does he give details of anything – just vague, meaningless comments. Then they throw in the words “Wikileaks” and “Guantanamo Bay”. Why? There is no reason to – these two examples are chosen because they aim to scare the American people. Throw in a mention of Wikileaks or Gitmo Bay and people pay attention.

This next paragraph (which is just a sentence) really annoys me:

“What was uppermost on his mind, however, is the alarming rise in the number of Americans who are more than willing to attack and kill their fellow citizens.”

What?! How do they know what is “uppermost” on his mind. Why is this unconfirmed rise “alarming”? This whole paragraph is just to scare you. You can’t throw out nonsense and made up news and expect people to take it. Written without bias, it should say:

What was on his mind, however, is the questionable rise in the number of Americans who are supposedly willing to attack and kill their fellow citizens.

Carrying on:

“It is one of the things that keeps me up at night,” Holder said. “You didn’t worry about this even two years ago — about individuals, about Americans, to the extent that we now do. And — that is of — of great concern.” “The threat has changed from simply worrying about foreigners coming here, to worrying about people in the United States, American citizens — raised here, born here, and who for whatever reason, have decided that they are going to become radicalized and take up arms against the nation in which they were born,” he said.

Oh, really? It keeps you up at night, Holder? Then he says you didn’t worry about this two years ago? Why not?! Why now?! What has changed? What makes you so scared about homegrown terrorists now, Holder? The article should tell us what’s changed (but, of course, nothing has). Then he uses the word “radicalised” to describe Americans. This is one of those annoying words which doesn’t mean anything but which is designed to scare you. He says Americans are going to “take up arms” against their country. Again, baseless.

“In the last 24 months, Holder said, 126 people have been indicted on terrorist-related charges, Fifty of those people are American citizens.”

Where is the evidence? Even if it’s true, problem here is that they have changed the definition of “terrorism” so much that this is no different to ever before. Americans have always strapped bombs to themselves and gone into schools and such like. That’s terrorism. There is no comparison to previous years here. It is just a pointless statement.

“I think that what is most alarming to me is the totality of what we see, the attorney general said. ‘Whether it is an attempt to bomb the New York City subway system, an attempt to bring down an airplane over Detroit, an attempt to set off a bomb in Times Square … I think that gives us a sense of the breadth of the challenges that we face, and the kinds of things that our enemy is trying to do.’ Holder says many of these converts to al Qaeda have something in common: a link to radical cleric Anwar Al Awlaki, an American citizen himself.

Converts to al Qaeda? What?! Says who? These are people who – even if they have become Muslim extremists – aren’t working for al Qaeda. There are thousands of terrorists organisations but (and notice this is the reporter writing here) using al Qaeda scares the reader, makes you think of 9/11 and Bin Laden.

And here is the name we’ve been waiting for – Anwar Al Awlaki! That radical cleric and an American citizen! The one the CIA were watching for years, the scapegoat of modern American journalism, mentioned in every piece on terrorism and Islam, who, in truth, has nothing to do with this article at all! Just thrown in there to scare you!

“Authorities suspect Awlaki helped mastermind last year’s Christmas Day underwear bombing plot in Detroit, and a recent scheme to blow up cargo planes travelling from Yemen to Europe and the United States.”

“Suspect”? This is a lie! They knew he was. The let the guys on the damn plane, knowing exactly what they were doing, just so they could catch them. It was just a sting operation. Horribly under-reported, and here we’re told they “suspect” him? Wow.

“‘He’s an extremely dangerous man. He has shown a desire to harm the United States, a desire to strike the homeland of the United States,’ Holder said. ‘He is a person who — as an American citizen — is familiar with this country and he brings a dimension, because of that American familiarity, that others do not.’”

“Extremely dangerous”, people. And, here comes my new favourite buzzword: the HOMELAND OF THE UNITED STATES. Oh, brother. You know who called their country the homeland? The Nazis. Soviet Russia. They used it as a term to mean just them, no foreigners. It’s an archaic term now used by politicians and the media more and more to mean the USA – sans terrorists.

And, what dimension does he bring? Because he knows his way around, he’s a better terrorist? You think al Qaeda doesn’t have a sat nav? Or, because he knows the opening hours for Wal-Mart? Please, it makes no difference what “dimension” he brings.

“Holder said that as a threat to the United States, Awlaki ranks right up there with Osama bin Laden. ‘He would be on the same list with bin Laden,” the attorney general said. “He’s up there. I don’t know whether he’s one, two, three, four — I don’t know. But he’s certainly on the list of the people who worry me the most.’”

First of all, there is a mistake between the reporter’s analysis and Holder’s quotation. The reporter says he in the list of biggest “threat to the United States”, Holder says it’s a list of people who “worry me the most”. And, based on what? If he were that dangerous, he’d BE ON A LIST, not on a list in Holder’s mind.

When asked whether the United states has a preference between killing or capturing and prosecuting Awlaki, Holder replied: “Well, we certainly want to neutralize him. And we will do whatever we can in order to do that.” Awlaki is believed to be in Yemen, but thanks to the Internet, his reach is global, and his influence dangerous.

So they want to kill him. OK, got it. Then we ‘learn’ that he has a dangerous “global reach”. Again, a nobody hiding in Yemen is suddenly dangerous. Used as an example only because he is an American citizen.

“The ability to go into your basement, turn on your computer, find a site that has this kind of hatred spewed … they have an ability to take somebody who is perhaps just interested, perhaps just on the edge, and take them over to the other side,” he said.

WHAT?! You are seriously saying that some kid in a basement switches on his computer, stumbles across a lecture from Awlaki and becomes a “homegrown terrorist”. It’s nonsense!

To combat the threat of Americans turning to al Qaeda and violence, the United States is monitoring scores of radicals and has set up stings to blunt the threat. The increasing number of FBI stings, such as the alleged plot to detonate a bomb at a Christmas tree lighting in Portland, are not without controversy, but Holder vigorously defended them. ‘Options are always given all along the way for them to say, “You know what, I have changed my mind. I don’t want to do it.” Everyone that we have charged has said, “No I want to go forward,”‘ he said. ‘All those actions were designed to kill Americans. ‘I have to have all those tools available to me to try to keep the American people safe, and to do the job that I’m supposed to do as a 21st century attorney general,’ Holder said.”

Again, al Qaeda used without justification. And, “scores of radicals”! SCORES! Here is the kind of stings the FBI does. They say to some kid, “push this button and a car will blow up”. The kid does it and, boom, he’s in jail. Stings last minutes, the kids most likely think it’s nonsense and they’re being pranked for one thing. All this stuff is meaningless.

“Holder said the United States has made great strides in improving its ability to detect and block attacks, which is shown by the number of would-be terrorists who have been stopped before they could kill Americans. The intelligence community is working around the clock, he said, with little time off.”

The “number of would-be terrorists”? And, what does this mean: “little time off”? Does it mean the whole outfit, or the people? Are we supposed to feel sorry for them?

“‘We are doing everything that we possibly can to keep the American people safe,’ Holder said. ‘We are vigilant, we are doing everything we can to keep our homeland secure.’”

There it is again! The “homeland”. And, “everything we possibly can”. Again, your brain sees that sentence as meaning despite doing all they can, there is still this unnamed baseless threat he talks of so much. Just making fear.

“Turning to how terror suspects are tried, Holder said he still believes the ‘decision as to how people get prosecuted, where they get prosecuted, is an executive branch function. Even if those suspects are being held now at Guantanamo Bay.’ Holder said Congress should not be interfering with that.”

Throw Gitmo in there again to scare. Also, notice how a sentence which would seemingly precede the other quoted one is paraphrased? That means it’s been taken out of context and is a lie.

As for Julian Assange and Wikileaks, Holder said ‘it’s an ongoing investigation.’ ‘What Wikileaks did, at the end of the day, was harmful to American security, put American agents and properties … at risk … and I think for arrogant and misguided reasons,’ he said.”

What?! The very, very last two paragraphs and they throw Wikileaks in there? The conclusion to the whole article isn’t related to the article at all! Just to confuse and scare.

Now we’ve read the article, consider the headline: “Attorney General’s Blunt Warning on Terror Attacks”. What?! There was no “blunt warning”. And, let me tell you, that is the first sign that these articles are bogus: the headline differing from the content.

So, a conclusion now. In the article, they use scary, bogus terms like “radicals” and “homegrown terror”. They talk about Alwaki and Wikileaks where it isn’t needed. In the ABC News video of this, they do the same. Confusing people, scaring people. They constantly refer to al Qaeda (just them) as “sophisticated”. What?! They live in caves and steal weapons from dead people! Their time-sqaure bomb just made a little smoke, their underwear bomb wasn’t even a working bomb.

The worst thing about this is that they are turning Americans against Americans. It isn’t USA v. terrorists anymore, it’s USA v USA. That, my friends, is how the New World Order starts.

So, why do they do all this? All they are doing is driving fear into Americans. Making them think they are under constant threats from bombs, that there is a terrorist under every bed. All to make you think that the war in the Middle East has a meaning, has a purpose that is terror. When, really, it’s not. It’s about oil.

The government is lying. ABC News is lying. That’s why the media is bad.