The news from Manchester continues to horrify as each individual tragedy gets confirmed in all its heart-rending detail.
In my two posts in the immediate aftermath of the Manchester bombing, I concluded:
If it was a home made bomb, it was a remarkably powerful one. It would be very unusual for a lone terrorist to be able to make a bomb this powerful. It is hard to think of any incident where an individual acting entirely alone has successfully done that.
It has become plain that the reason the critical warning has been declared (which is British for State of Emergency) is that the security services believe such a powerful portable bomb almost certainly requires organisational support to build it. I was subject to accusations that I was secretly suggesting that this attack was perpetrated by the British state, in order to influence the election. It is undoubtedly true that the timing of the attack is remarkable – it came as Tory poll ratings were plummeting, Theresa May had just made the screeching U-turn or pretended U-turn on social care, and then appeared totally out of her depth in the Andrew Neil interview, destroying her “who do you trust” narrative.
In fact, nothing I wrote can in any way be construed as indicating I thought that the British state was implicated in the attack. For the record, I do not think it is remotely likely the British state was implicated in the attack. I knew a lot of senior people in the security services, and a few in special forces, and there is not a single one I suspect would do this kind of thing, or not actively seek to stop it if they came across it. I simply discount the idea.
But the election is the elephant in the room. We cannot pretend this has no impact on the election. Historians will look back at how this did or did not affect the course of the election.
I have a number of concerns. The first is that I argued that the Russian referendum in Crimea was not legitimate because you can’t have a free and fair election with troops patrolling the streets. I still hold that view about the Crimea, and I have real concerns about proceeding with the election during, in effect, a state of emergency.
The second point is that, because I rule out a British government false flag, that does not mean that I rule out the idea that the timing of the attack was an attempt to affect the course of the election. It seems very likely that it was timed to affect the election, especially when you consider that an attack from the same kind of jihadists occurred in France just before their recent election.
You would have expected an attack with such a sophisticated bomb to be part of a pattern of more or less simultaneous attacks using similar technology. That is what the security services did expect; hence the “Critical” warning. The fact there has so far been only one attack suggests to me that it was brought forward quickly to a target of opportunity due to the snap election.
There are many non-British state and non-state groups which might wish to influence the election. Remember that the very definition of terrorism is violence with a political objective. If it does not have a political objective it is not terrorism. Let me make this observation. The ideology of virtually all “Islamic” terrorism stems from Saudi Arabia. Wahhabism is fundamental to the very foundation of the rule of the Saudi royal family. Every known jihadist terrorist group, including ISIS, Al-Nusra, and Al-Qaeda, has received funding from Saudi Arabia. Here is a fascinating article by MI6’s Alastair Crooke on Wahhabism and the “duality” of the superficially hostile ISIS/Saudi relationship. Everything we know about Salman Abedi is consistent with this influence.
Jeremy Corbyn has continually criticised Saudi Arabia’s appalling human rights record and its devastating attacks on civilians in Yemen. Corbyn has vowed to stop arms supplies to Saudi Arabia. By contrast, Theresa May and her ministers have repeatedly visited Saudi Arabia and positively kowtowed to its rulers, and looked to increase arms sales to Saudi Arabia. Who do you think the Saudi ruling class, the World’s leading sponsors of terrorism, wish to win the General Election?
Furthermore a key part of the Saudi sponsored Sunni terrorist surge is support for Al-Nusra and the other jihadist rebel groups fighting to overthrow Assad in Syria. I do not support Assad, but neither have I ever thought it remotely sane to support a violent conflict to overthrow him and replace him with jihadist head-choppers. Yet the British establishment, and especially the Conservative Party, has been gung-ho to bomb Syria and help the jihadists to replace Assad.
Who has stood against the bombing of Syria and against British military support for the Saudi/jihadist agenda in Syria? Jeremy Corbyn and the SNP.
I have no doubt whatsoever the jihadists would try to influence the election, and try to influence it against Corbyn. As the great journalist John Pilger said yesterday of this possibility that ISIS are trying to influence the election against Corbyn and the SNP:
“They know how to intervene in public discourse every day and in politics every day. So that suggestion may well have a great deal of validity.”
Security issues traditionally play well for the right in an election. At time of attack there is a tendency to rally to authority figures. Rather than a very inadequate politician under fire, the Prime Minister has been able to appear in an entirely unchallenged setting as a figure of patriotism. Let me be 100% clear. It is not that May has done anything wrong; it is just that these effects are what the terrorists are probably counting on.
So in our hearts we must never forget the unfortunate victims of this bombing, so young and with so much talent. We must remember the horribly maimed as well as the dead, and ensure they receive all the support they need. We must condemn without ceasing the disgusting violence that destroys so many lives.
But we must also do something very difficult. We must press in our heads a reset button. We must remain entirely rational in considering the political choices before us, and not allow the incident to affect – in any direction – our political calculation on how to vote. Otherwise that is a major victory for the terrorists.
Well said, Resident Dissident.
Anon1, there are 1.9 billion Muslims, of whom an infinitesimal proportion have become suicide bombers. You’d be doing far more good by finding some common ground with the vast majority than trying to tar them all with that particularly nasty brush (as if you were some sort of bigot).
Are you supporting the Tories now UKIP has passed its sell-by date? More weapons for the Saudis? Corbyn’ll stop it and you did vote for him…
The question of the Crimean secession from Ukraine and joining Russia is taken out of context. There were a series of opinion polls conducted in Crimea since the dissolution of the USSR which all pointed to an overwhelming desire of Crimeans to join Russia and this was before any problems between Russia and Ukraine arose. It is therefore not surprising that when an anti Russian Ukraine government was installed in February 2014, that Crimeans would readdress this question as a matter of urgency. The following is an extract taken from Wikipedia on the 2014 referendum showing previous polls.
UNDP in Crimea conducted series of polls possible referendum on joining Russia with a sample size of 1200:
Quarter Yes No Undecided
2009 Q3[36] 70% 14% 16%
2009 Q4[36] 67% 15% 18%
2010 Q1[37] 66% 14% 20%
2010 Q2[37] 65% 12% 23%
2010 Q3[37] 67% 11% 22%
2010 Q4[37] 66% 9% 25%
2011 Q4[38] 65.6% 14.2% 20.
SA, I am English, and have lived in England all my life (but I do travel abroad – since 1963)..but I always come back home. I watched what was happenning almost live..some via The Saker’s website..
After the start which I coudn’t initially work out – who were the snipers?? I assumed they were The Russians -but the evidence does not support this theory….EVIDENCE is exceedingly important i f you want to find out who is Responsible For The Crime.
Propaganda is a Completly Different but Related Job..,,
I was just watching it almost live….
This old man in the Ukraine was walking down his own street in his own village in The Ukraine with his hands held up high
He had no weapons. He had no guns. This had never happenned before he was born
What a brave man.
The Terrorists shot him dead.
It was obvious well at least to me- who had recruited these evil Terrororists
They Were Wearing American Gear .
Do you want a video??
I notice these things.
Tony
Thanks Tony. I also watched it all. I think it was shown in RT how the police were viciously attacked by the mob with Molotov cocktails and snipers and from the outset it was clear that the Maidan protests were hijacked by a violent element for the purposes of a colour revolution, as of course there had been a failed one earlier. That what happened on Feb 2014 is a coup is beyond doubt in my mind but as you say , the propaganda war had been relentless since. Yes please link the video.
SA
I doubt we have yet get our Democracy back – but just check that Pendulum Swing..
Just ask Questions of These People in Control…
Why Should We Vote For any of You??
What are your policies..what do you want to do for us who may elect you if you start talking some sense rather than spouting the nonsense on your party crib sheet?
Tony
Any Way
From just a couple of years ago – The girl the Island Lost ..Centre. Tall Yin –
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fcNx6FbjsoE
Brilliant video – but how did you cut the wind noise..an extremely big fluffy microphone? They are all beautiful including the bloke blowing the pipe. Is that you Brian?
You maybe Scottish, but I reckon we are on the same team.
I’m English – oh come on Brian..Shake My Hand. I don’t mind. I actually quite like you Scottish – but can you occasionally speak in an English dialect that I can understand. My wife seems to think you are from a foreign land like Iceland. My wife travelled to Iceland by herself. in 24hrs – I said you can go – but you are sleeping with me tonight, I love my wife. She is still here with me. I took her to the airport at 5:00am . Got her back the same day about midnight..Do you want to see the photos?
“Bjork – Army Of Me”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LyEJxzQM24Q
Tony
On A Side Note…These Folks EXPECT Loss… Every year.. But They Expect that..As Fathers, Young Men…To The Atlantic….And it Happens Every Year ,, But not this..the Children, .At a Party ..Music Show.
Yous Should See How these Kids party…. With No PoP Must Admit I was Amazed , And Table Dancing To New levels .
I know mate.
Tony
Tony… Get oot there To MY Islands You Wont Regret It.. .
Tony I have Been Trying to Find that Dance Group For about a Month
Tony.. get Yir Ass..And Wife,, To DOUNE… You Will LOVE It..Zero Police
Brian, my wife survived being run over by a car. She is with me now.Tony
Sorry Tony Best to You Both..Seem’s you had a Wonderful Life Together. Cuv
Funny
And For What Reason.. You turn to this …
i Had you as a better person..
.. come on now, get it all out, you know you’ll feel better after you squeeze all the pus clean…
Anon 1 – I didn’t say that all religions are same just that in time they have all had devotees who interpreted and perverted the message while there many who didn’t. I have no problems with going after the peverters – but you need to distinguish them from the ordinary decent people who follow the religion.
I don’t think a study of scripture is really necessary – man’s ingeniuity or disingenuity means that scripture can usually be interpreted in whatever way the interpreter wants. All decent people whatever their religion are capable of scientific or cultural acheivements.
Libya? Libya? There is no connection between #Podesta and #Mercer (for instance and Dirking Gently)? Ooooh Hillary was boobied in Libya and clearly all these analysts know each other (thinking tangentially -in Tangier-), and each pot is clearly limited by it’s own “secrecy barriers” (if you like, describing the boundaries of transparency and general visibility these shysters must delineate in order to function), so you have them sharing and “rubbing-up” against each other..but there’s a lot can be gained from profiling (which is what I’m doing here), and a glimmer of hope emerges..”They” (whoever “they” all are), are clearly getting desperate..this smells like; “returning to the scene of the crime” Hey perhaps Tezzer’s pissed because she doesn’t like to seem gauche (one hopes so); “Waive them rules girl…Waive ’em!”….. !
Tony
Sorry
It’s Envy My Friend ..
Be Slightly more Articulate Eh
Taking Piss
Explain
gerard
Some Of Your Point’s Makes Sense ..
It may have escaped the notice of yourself and Jim-but it is after all Craig’s blog!
If someone plants a bomb that kills people, those responsible may blame someone else, hence false flag. But whomever planted the bomb there will be the resulting gory details on display. Now the absence of CCTV and other footage is evidence of state complicity, but the absence of gory details is also evidence that no one was killed. Because if its there it doesn’t compromise a false flag to show it.
That is there are false flags that kill, and false flags alleging victims that aren’t there, but the wall to wall MSM coverage without question meets the objective of providing atrocity propaganda without the complication of the state actually killing people on their doorstep, with all the coroners reports and police investigations that would entail. And this approach helps secure the cooperation of the operatives involved.
This is the record of a ‘Christian nation’?
“If you flip over the rock of American foreign policy of the past century, this is what crawls out… invasions … bombings … overthrowing governments … occupations … suppressing movements for social change … assassinating political leaders … perverting elections … manipulating labor unions … manufacturing “news” … death squads … torture … biological warfare … depleted uranium … drug trafficking … mercenaries …
It’s not a pretty picture. It’s enough to give imperialism a bad name.
Read the full details in: Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II.”
https://williamblum.org/books/killing-hope/
the point of this whole ‘terrorist’ operation is to sow enough doubt and controversy to blunt the labour surge enough for may to win…notice how the energy has changed from the growing wave for corbyn leading to his election…..on the qui bono? issue, this certainly seems to be some kind of false flag operation
I think although there would have been an initial surge for the Tories, once that initial shock passed and people had time to reflect I think even that Tory surge has been lost. So many people coming together across the country the way they did is a mood more favourable to Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party. I think there will be further irony for the Tories in that even if they were not involved in the Manchester bombing, many people who never believed in false flags may come to believe in them after this event because of its timing.
To clarify, I do believe the government had knowledge of it even if a foreign agency pulled it off.
Well yes, the neo-con mentality (insanity) involved, is enough bombs and lies will achieve their aims and fool the public. Hence the years of carnage in the Middle-East. But the worms turned, hence the rise of populism that grew UKIP, but now may be captured by Corbyn.
@ Scottish Intelligence Service May 25, 2017 at 23:34
‘…Absolute fact: Travis Frain was a crisis actor at the recent Westminster March 22nd, fabricated terror event. Travis Frain is said to be from the Lancashire area, and is linked in to local Tory party there….’
You may well be right, but what evidence have you got? ‘Absolute fact’ is more than an opinion; what is it based on?
Paul Barbara, until 5 minutes ago, I had never heard of Travis Frain and took little if any interest in the events in Westminster on March 22nd.
I suspect whoever “Scottish Intelligence Service” is, did a google search just like I did….and came up with this or a similar website. I certainly wouldn’t claim that the photographic evidence here presents an ‘Absolute fact’ that Travis Frain is a crisis actor. It does however look highly suspicious. It would typically take about a week’s worth of research using multiple different sources and analyses to come to any strong conclusion re the events in Westminster. I personally can no longer be bothered. There is nothing I can do about it. I accept the world has gone mad, and I would prefer to stay reasonably sane.
It doesn’t make any real difference if a terrorist event is real or faked. The effect on the general public is the same. Whoever is responsible for such events has succeeded in terrorizing people with the intention of achieving a pre-determined objective. I try and take no notice of the monsters creating such atrocities. I can’t stop them, and it seems no one else can.
https://nodisinfo.com/parliament-used-staging-zone-fake-westminster-bridge/
Tony
I think we’ve reached the stage where these events don’t have to be believable they just have to have happened. If anybody says otherwise they’re traitors who offer succour to our enemies blah blah blah. It’s as totalitarian as it gets without the jackboots.
@ Michael McNulty May 26, 2017 at 15:10
Breaking news: May orders 800,000 pairs of jackboots from German firms; UK Unions up in arms, threaten General Strike unless the order is placed with British firms.
@ Tony_0pmoc May 26, 2017 at 14:01
Thanks for info. I’ll check it out, hopefully tomorrow (or rather, later on today!).
Disappointing today to hear the SNP’s Stephen Gethins refusing to acknowledge the role played by the UK in its foreign jaunts into the affairs of other countries. He was disgraceful on Daily Politics. He assisted in the attacks on Corbyn. Clearly he’s not very clued up on previous SNP position on the love UK governments have for imposing regime change! The SNP condemned it. The same goes for Willie Rennie. He needs to brush up on a few of Kennedy’s old speeches.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiping_Rebellion
There will be many, many more examples.
Nice job circumlocuting the awkward facts. May it serve you well in service of a sovereign Scottish state.
Of course the upstanding officials you know would not dream of attacking the civilian population. That’s a job for cut-outs. The classic example was Brigade 2506:
https://willyloman.wordpress.com/2017/05/25/salman-abedi-wasnt-a-radicalized-muslim-he-was-part-of-britains-version-of-brigade-2506/#more-40895
The Cuban cat’s-paws of the CIA have their offshore counterparts among the Libyan ‘resistance” – the armed bands and irregulars attacking on CIA’s behalf to effect the crime of aggression.
GIP’s role will prove to be that of a junior collaborator with US and Israeli intelligence in a ‘Safari Club’ structure of the type devised under pressure from the Church and Pike Committees. This furious government effort to shut people up when they point how the US rules its satellite states is a sign of failing OPSEC. Gladio is historical fact. And Gina Haspel’s British puppet regime has its work cut out for it, suppressing the abundant local evidence of state-sponsored terror:
https://mobile.twitter.com/kwilli1046/status/866843569457422336/video/1
http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2017/05/25/very-british-false-flag.html
Of course this is state terror. You just forgot your state is CIA.
At least 28 Christians slaughtered by Muslim fanatics in Egypt.
“Coz they is protesting our foreign policy innit.”
An awful state of affairs. And unless you can tell me who exactly did the slaughter, where they come from individually, exactly where their weapons and training came from, where their money and logistical support came from, who they take orders from and who else was involved I’m fairly sure that your description is almost perfectly meaningless and context free. As always.
http://markcurtis.info/2015/12/17/britains-collusion-with-radical-islam/
It might help if you widen your reading list to appreciate that cause and effect is much more complicated than simplistic explanations.
Of course one can have a free and fair election with troops on the streets.
The more that is said about our arms trade and colonial history, the better. My mind drifted back to University in Italy, my teenage Syrian boyfriend whose brother was tortured by the repessive regime, student insurrection there as in Europe, the Palestinians, the Israeli girl soldiers and the Libyans and we were all being educated together in a foreign land, studying as much art and history and philosophy and poetry and politics as science and economics – together through education, exchanging views, together and no hijabs, the liberation of women was high on the agenda – my mind drifted back to an article by Jonathan Raban about the British carving up greater Arabia, drifted back to events in 1947, the partition of India and Pakistan, the formation of the state of Israel, Palestine and drifted forward via Genet and Pasolini and Pontecorvo and how even then in Italy, amongst the Palestinians and teenage Arabs, even then why did Saudi not lift a finger to fund schools and hospitals – why weren’t THEY giving aid to the Palestinians? And Osama Bin Laden and the two opposing Saudi family factions with commercial and military investment in Afghanistan reported heavily in La Reppublica but hardly a word in the British press, the links and origins of Al Kaida in Saudi – and the forgotten issue of human rights in Saudi, the barbaric apartheid of men and women, where women cannot vote, cannot drive, where women do not enjoy human rights and freedom of movement and we arm these guys just because they have oil and money? WHY are there no sanctions against Saudi and any other country on this planet where apartheid and subjugation is operated against half the population, women and where women are not just treated like shattles, not just like cattle, but kept locked up inside, in batteries, in the dark, deprived not just of education and social and political interaction but of LIGHT. Intervention in the cause of human rights, even on occasions militaristically to protect populations including women under attack, but bombing however high tech is indiscriminate and can never be right. Look at the films Sheffield at War, then look at our equivalent Feuersturm über Hamburg, the bombing of Dresden in which thousands and thousands of civilians were burned alive overnight. Have we such short memories. Education, learning other languages, learning and exchanging and appreciating other cultures and beliefs, looking after people, protecting the environment and so human health and well being is the only war to be had on terror and malice. We had a first and second world war to learn this. We had as a result of the working force of women on all sides in the second world war to make demands on the British government to institute the welfare state, widows pensions. free health for all, social housing and free education for ALL to university level and the last lasted merely thirty years before it began to be dismantled, our precious education system, the envy of the world where equal numbers of men and women from all ethnic and economic backgrounds could study both sciences AND the humanities. Without education where there is no partisan political interference and no subject discrimination particularly no discrimination or restriction on research subjects and the humanities where we are encouraged to be FREE to think and utilise and learn about and EXCHANGE the full HUMAN potential of both the male AND the female brain and study both male AND female behaviour, particularly aberrant male behaviour en masse trading arms and money and power, there will be no balance, no harmony, no society and no peace, there will be no way out. Who invest in gaming, mass entertainment, communications, film, the internet, the arms trade. Yes, the US and the Saudi women suppressors have a vested interest in interfering in democratic elections and disrupting democracies that might think it a good idea to return to investing in health, education and CARE for the environment, for ALL human beings and the possible means of achieving unilateral disarmament and redistribution of wealth thereby.