I did not believe the official story of Hasna Ait Buolacehn the moment I saw it. The official line was that she was a suicide bomber who blew herself up when the police stormed the apartment in St Denis where the alleged terrorist ringleader was hiding out. But that story seemed to me completely incompatible with the recordings on which she could plainly be heard screaming “He is not my boyfriend! He is not my boyfriend” immediately before the explosion. She sounded like a terrified woman trying to disassociate herself from the alleged terrorist. It was a strange battle cry for someone who believed themselves on the verge of paradise.
Then yesterday the truth emerged from forensics that she was indeed not a suicide bomber. None of the mainstream media appeared to find this in any way troubling. And just in case anybody did, the BBC (and I assume all the French and major international media) then immediately did an interview with an anonymous member of the French Police attacking squad, who stated that Hasna was:
“trying to say she was not linked to the terrorists, that she had nothing to do with them and wanted to surrender”.
But he said that due to prior intelligence, “we knew that she was trying to manipulate us”.
Unfortunately this would have been a very great deal more convincing had it been stated 48 hours earlier, rather than only after the original reports that she was a suicide bomber had been corrected on forensic examination. As it is, it looks very much like a post facto justification, a new story to cover the new facts.
Besides, it is very difficult indeed to see what prior intelligence could explain if someone was genuinely trying to surrender or not. There appears to be no information available to the public that gives the slightest indication that Hasna was an extreme Islamist; what public information there is paints the opposite picture. The best the media have been able to dredge up are quotes from friends saying “if she was, then she must have been drugged or brainwashed”. Google it yourself.
But even were she an extreme Islamist, that does not mean she was not attempting to surrender. All of which is a bit nugatory if she were then killed by an explosion triggered by the terrorists themselves. But the changing story about Hasna makes me less than confident that is what actually happened.
I have no difficulty with the principle that the police should shoot people who are shooting at them. I outraged many friends on the left for example by not joining in the criticism of the police for killing Mr Duggan. People who choose to carry guns in my view run a legitimate risk of being shot by the police, it is as simple as that. Jean Charles De Menezes was a totally different case and his murder by police completely unjustifiable. In Paris it appears plain that the police were in a situation of confrontation with armed suspects.
There are severe intelligence disadvantages to killing people with profound knowledge of terrorist organisations. It also cheats the justice system. Nevertheless I can conceive of situations where simply taking out by an explosion a terrorist cell might be justified. But only if you are quite certain of the situation. The case of Hasna is to me troublingly reminiscent of the case of Jean Charles De Menezes, in that it became obvious in the days after his death that everything the police and establishment had leaked to the media about him (leaping over barriers, running through the tunnels, heavy jacket, wires protruding) was a complete, utter and quite deliberate lie.
The media could help if they were in any way rational and dispassionate, or ever questioned an official narrative. It is an urgent and irrepressible question as to why the BBC journalist did not ask the French policeman “and why did you not say this 48 hours ago when you were content to allow the story to run that she was a suicide bomber?”
Similar media manipulation is at use here by the Guardian in telling us the police stormed a “terrorist apartment”. What is a “terrorist apartment”? Are the walls made of semtex? The intent of course is to assure us everybody inside was a terrorist. It is not just the Guardian. The phrase is all over the media. Again, google it.
I am worried in case Hollande’s Rambo impersonation is steamrollering justice. It may well be that Hasna was a dreadful and bloodthirsty terrorist. I do not know. It may well be she was killed by the terrorists not the police. All we know at the moment is she was in an apartment with people who allegedly were terrorists, and died in the “battle”. But I do not trust the changing stories of the authorities.
Well sadi node, yet another ‘interventionist, for the greater good, democracy and freedom, fkn disaster!!
Followed by hand wringing, we didn’t mean it, it was a mistake, unintended consequence, we won’t do it again, we learned from that, load of old bollox..
Ganglion
“Do you think ordinary Libyans would agree with you?”
_________________
How would you define an ordinary Libyan? Are there any?
I meant ‘said’ btw
How many of the 210,000 killed in Syria has been because of the West’s illegal intervention and illegal bombings.
“Which means that 4-5 million didn’t. You’d have thought that with so much going for them they’d have resisted any change unanimously.”
___________________
Yes indeed and it looks like no one supported him any longer judging by the circumstances in which he was finally caught and sent to meet his Maker.
” Last time we argued about Libya, you admitted things were worse after Western intervention but you claimed they would soon improve. ”
Don’t remember saying the last bit. I do recall rubbishing the silly propaganda that’s been doing the rounds about how wonderful Libya was before Gaddafi was ousted.
ordinary Libyans
Yes, they like warmth, food, water, going to the mosque, spending time with family. i.e. all the things you normally do when foreign powers illegally rain bombs on your city and install violent armed madmen over you.
Hang on isn’t that exactly what David Cameron is doing or about to do in Syria.
Can somebody either shoot him please or would it be too harsh to ask Alcy1 to stick his troll up his backside. asap anyone?
Ken2
“Syria is secular. Had free education etc but no universal suffrage.”
____________________
I love the way this latest Old Troll says “had no universal suffrage” when he means “was a vicious, bloodthirsty in-family dictatorship” 🙂
++++++++++++++++++
Ken2, you’re rapidly moving up the prize chump rankings. Keep it up and I may give you an appropriate caning.
In that case perhaps you care to elaborate just how wonderful Libya is now after that the west has introduced freedom and democracy with their bombs.
I won’t hold my breath..
Giyane
Have you ever considered – if only as a courtesy to Craig – posting your quasi-religious ramblings on some more appropriate website or blog – perhaps one specialising in religious matters?
Or perhaps you could set up your own?
I believe most people here are sick and tired of your cuckoo-on-the-nest behaviour and you piggy-backing on here to air your not very interesting and mainly incomprehensible views on Islam.
Begone, you scurvy knave, you miserable varlet! 🙂
Read my last post.
http://content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2049945,00.html
Some jackbooters are so far up their own posteriors, that they will deny any culpability for the evil they do and will then go on to to blame their victims for, well, being their victims. Israel and it’s apologists are very adept at doing that.
@Kempe “Don’t remember saying the last bit. I do recall rubbishing the silly propaganda that’s been doing the rounds about how wonderful Libya was before Gaddafi was ousted.”
Been there have we Kempe?
The more we hear from Jeremy Corbyn, the more intelligent, decent and in-tune with ordinary people he sounds. they certainly don’t like it up ’em these red Tories. Does anyone really believe that you can organise attacks like in Paris, get people with arsenals of guns across borders, or fugitive wanted attackers across borders, without M. Hollande’s direct involvement?
I’m afraid to inform you that her majesty’s parliament will know a good thing when they see it and turn the vote on bombing Syria into a vote of no confidence in the crass etonian.
Shoot to kill was a policy invented by UK politicians to invert the blame for sectarian violence onto the victims of its own false-flag terrorism. Jeremy Corbyn understands who the instigators of the sectarian violence were and how the same instigators tried to dump the blame onto the victims of their cruel political game.
We need Corbyn. I do believe he is the genuine article. Tory and New Labour MPs are just sqwawking like mindless chickens. If he is listened to by even a few of his own party and men and women of integrity on the other side, Cameron will be a political corpse, fit only for poultry potion. ( vested interest declared ).
Giyane –
“ordinary Libyans
Yes, they like warmth, food, water, going to the mosque, spending time with family. i.e. all the things you normally do when foreign powers illegally rain bombs on your city and install violent armed madmen over you.”
Ah, a humanitarian!
Astonishing how few there seem to be here on this blog, considering the nature of our host, and what he is all about.
Does anyone ever actually stop to remember what Craig Murray stands for, and why he became so well known in the first place?
Principles, anyone?
How about let’s see some reflections of that here for a change.
And if these ‘trolls’ are so well known, then the ‘mods’, whoever they are, are slacking and letting the side down.
Scourge
Purge more like. Why not take immodium for your relentless verbal dysentery?
I’m sure your mum, the pariah state of Israel will change your diapers and rub your red buttocks with pseudocreme for you if you keep crying.
Yes Pan. I did know that expression. ‘Don’t let the b\*tards grind you down’. I keep it in mind.
btw what is Resident Dissident doing here this morning? Thought he went to work and had a family to feed? Likewise we were told that Alcyone/Villager has a job. He originally put himself out as a teacher at the K centre in Hampshire.
http://www.krishnamurticentre.org.uk/ LOL.
Ref the original troll, very little is known nor are we interested. A chimera who sends English translations from a Greek journal, is vain and pretentious, has never ever told us anything and seems unable to send URLs.
Probably all figments of SIS imagination.
Pan
No, Craig likes them here to add spice to the debate. That’s the idea anyway. Hasbara Spies.
My point is that the west ought to mind it’s own business and stop interfering into other countries affairs, hence the Ron Paul links.
The modern day ‘internationalists’ have proven beyond any shadow of a doubt that they are moral bankrupts and a clear and present danger to so called ‘western democracy’, though if we had any real democracy those fascists wouldn’t have got their way in the first place.
Mary
Is unable to send URLs. It’s been suggested that he doesn’t want anyone to obtain information from his stools sorry URLs about him.
“Last time we argued about Libya, you admitted things were worse after Western intervention but you claimed they would soon improve. It’s been 5 years now. Would you care to predict how much longer the average Libyan will have to wait until his standard of living returns to Gadaffi levels?”
There wasn’t one standard of living. Gadaffi’s tribe lived very well, good jobs, good standard of living. Tribes allied to Gadaffi didn’t do too bad either but for the rest things weren’t too good at all.
Those are the ways of the world every game has winners and losers but in a democracy we can go to the polls every four years and try to change who the winners and losers will be while in Libya how you were born decided how you would live for the rest of your life.
Prince Charles blames climate change as the cause of the war in Syria.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/prince-charles-says-climate-change-is-the-root-cause-of-syrian-war-a6744781.html
Swallow that you will swallow anything.He is trying to divert the blame from this.
http://internationaltimes.it/the-multi-millionaire-arms-dealer-by-appointment/
http://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/nov/20/jennifer-lawrence-israeli-hunger-games-mockingjay-2-posters?CMP=share_btn_tw
I see someone at 12.39pm condemning a poster’s ” quasi religious ramblings ”.
I’m sure we all agree such ‘ religious ‘ posturing has no place in a super modern ‘ democratic ‘ State ?
Perhaps if anybody lives near Bnei Brak they can put a stop to this religious fascism ? .
Fred
Are we talking Libya or Syria or Iraq? people who suck up to dictators are hated by the people persecuted by the dictators. That anger is intended by the host providers of the dictators, i.e. USUKIS, to keep people stupid with frustration. Meanwhile the original dictators, Mrs Thatcher, Blair, Cameron, Bush, Obama, etc train other citizens of Muslim countries to suck up directly to them.
The unquestioning obedience by political Islam to USUKIS terror dictats is designed to make us ordinary Muslims crazy with jealousy and anger. but we are not. If they want to sell their afterlife for a miniscule reward in this worldly life, being appointed commander of the Libyan terrorist army like Belhadj, that’s up to them.
Still waiting for my insult vouchers, man.
The reason we know they’re moral bankrupts is there’s no consistency whatsoever with their foreign policy, they spout their bilge about terrorism, brutal dictators, democracy and freedom but they’re just empty words when they sell arms to Saudi Arabia and the other gulf dictatorships, when they prop up the the same kind of people they demonise elsewhere on the globe.
Here’s a ‘brutal dictatorship’ they love..
Bahrain security forces ‘continue to torture detainees’
Bahrain’s security forces are torturing detainees during interrogation, despite a pledge by the king to end such practices, Human Rights Watch says.
A new report found abuses in custody documented by an independent committee after the crackdown on pro-democracy protests in 2011 had continued.
It concluded that the authorities had failed to tackle what the committee described as a “culture of impunity”.
The government said the allegations were “incorrect and unfounded”.
Bahrain continues to be wracked by political unrest, with the kingdom’s Shia majority demanding greater political rights from the Sunni-led government, and violent attacks blamed on militants linked to Iran.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-34899273
Kempe : Don’t remember saying [that things were worse after Western intervention but they would soon improve].
You did (eventually) but are you disputing the point now?
If “yes”, please justify your answer.
If “no”, would you care to predict how much longer the average Libyan will have to wait until his standard of living returns to Gadaffi levels?
Dave Lawton
Blue blood is in decreasing supply , like red squirrels. And it costs a lot of money being a patrician. Selling off heirlooms would be unthinkable, so the royals have sunk to selling arms.
You know it’s real when it goes right to the top, when they plant unproductive images and ideas in our minds
http://www.express.co.uk/news/royal/460593/The-Sheikh-of-Wales-Prince-Charles-maintains-the-royals-close-ties-with-the-Middle-East
http://www.express.co.uk/news/royal/460593/The-Sheikh-of-Wales-Prince-Charles-maintains-the-royals-close-ties-with-the-Middle-East
Fred : Those are the ways of the world every game has winners
Would you care to be more specific? Who are the winners in Libya post-intervention?
The trolls have packed up for lunch. Any body want 2 brace of trolls with shotgun pellets in the bum?