The \u201cWar on Terror\u201d continues to assume the semblance of fraud as yet another report implying possible links to \u201cterror\u201d proves to be completely groundless. <\/p>\n
Two men who British police arrested earlier this week on suspicions of involvement in \u201cterror\u201d were released without charge on Friday. <\/p>\n
The men were originally arrested under anti-terrorism laws after police found two containers marked “hydrogen peroxide”, during a drugs inquiry in Bristol, South West England<\/p>\n
Hydrogen peroxide was the chemical used in 2005 in the alleged London suicide bombings so concerns about “terror” quickly became paramount.<\/p>\n
Commenting on the find, Steve Mortimore, assistant chief constable of Avon and Somerset Constabulary, said: “There is a heightened vigilance with the general terrorist threat and that has sparked our inquiry as to why someone would ostensibly be in possession of up to 50 litres of hydrogen peroxide”.<\/p>\n
“If it turns out to be 50 litres of industrial strength hydrogen peroxide, then clearly there are some questions to answer,” he told the BBC.<\/p>\n
Earlier in the week Britain’s security minister Alan West said the country faced a threat from more than 200 militant cells and security services were monitoring about 4,000 individuals.<\/p>\n
The British security services were looking at 30 groupings “very closely”, West said.<\/p>\n
Which all sounds very serious but after releasing the two men without charge police revealed that the two containers behind this latest \u201cterror\u201d alarm had been found to contain \u2026 \u201cvegetable oil\u201d<\/a>.<\/p>\n That\u2019s right, scary huh?<\/p>\n All of which prompts this writer to wonder if these \u201cterror scares\u201d aren\u2019t being used to alarm the public and induce a sense of paranioa in preparation for the introduction of more draconian \u201canti-terror\u201d legislation.<\/p>\n It\u2019s an old technique. First create a problem and then step forward with the solution: one that would formerly have been deemed unacceptable without the need to solve the pressing problem.<\/p>\n In this case the powers that be are intent on a draconian clampdown, which will probably entail a severe curtailment of civil liberties, but this can only be acheived with the demand of an urgent crisis to resolve. <\/p>\n And that is being provided in the form of ongoing \u201cterror\u201d threats. But the more one investigates the facts behind these scares the more dubious they appear. <\/p>\n Already the case against Mohamed Haneef in Australia has fallen apart<\/a> after his barrister leaked transcripts of police interviews with him which showed quite clearly that Haneef is no terrorist. <\/p>\n However, the angry reaction<\/a> to the leak by Australia\u2019s Police Commissioner, John Keely and premier John Howard, indicates that it had somehow stymied their plans.<\/p>\n More to the point though the leak and what it implies has received almost NO<\/b> publicity in the UK, where it should have been given wide coverage, because Haneef had been held on the basis of his contact with suspects currently charged for involvement in the recent \u201cterror\u201d scares there.<\/p>\n Although the Aussie and Indian press had a field day with the story, the UK press have thus far given it no coverage whatsoever. Until Friday evening, more than 48 hours after it first appeared in Australia, it hadn’t even made the back pages. <\/p>\n Why? Don\u2019t they know about it?<\/p>\n To find out I phoned up a couple of major news outlets: the BBC and the Independent newspaper. And guess what: they knew about this story!<\/p>\n So why weren\u2019t they reporting it? <\/p>\n Well, both the lackeys I spoke to assured me that their news editors probably had very good reasons for not reporting it but they \u2013 the lackeys \u2013 were not in \u201ca position to comment.\u201d And they weren\u2019t going to jeopardise their jobs by asking why it wasn\u2019t being given any coverage.<\/p>\n Although both assured me that if I emailed these vaunted institutions my comments and observations would be … “considered”.<\/p>\n So we have a story that calls into question the grounds upon which some people \u2013 including a brain surgeon \u2013 have just been arrested and charged with involvement with \u201cterrorism\u201d. <\/p>\n And the mainstream media in the UK is busily trying to suppress it.<\/p>\n The British public may not realise it yet \u2013 and they certainly aren\u2019t being informed by their media \u2013 but all this points to another major crackdown in the weeks and months ahead. Coupled with reports of preparations for the domestic redeployment<\/a> of some US troops currently in Iraq, this may be part of a much wider and darker agenda. <\/p>\n Paul Craig Roberts, a former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, said recently that he believed the Bush administration is preparing to orchestrate a staged terrorist attack in the United States<\/a> as a pretext for a military strike against Iran. <\/p>\n This writer agrees with that assessment but believes it could even involve nuclear weapons. <\/p>\n To condition the public and to ease the passage for the necessary legislation to stifle the expected outcry, the media is now regularly reporting “terror threats”. Even if they subsequently turn out to be groundless they are still helping to prepare the way for legislation a crackdown on protests against a strike on Iran would require. <\/p>\n