The ricin ring that never was

Yesterday's trial collapse has exposed the deception behind attempts to link al-Qaida to a 'poison attack' on London

Duncan Campbell
Thursday April 14, 2005
The Guardian

Colin Powell does not need more humiliation over the manifold errors in his February 2003 presentation to the UN. But yesterday a London jury brought down another section of the case he made for war - that Iraq and Osama bin Laden were supporting and directing terrorist poison cells throughout Europe, including a London ricin ring.

Yesterday's verdicts on five defendants and the dropping of charges against four others make clear there was no ricin ring. Nor did the "ricin ring" make or have ricin. Not that the government shared that news with us. Until today, the public record for the past three fear-inducing years has been that ricin was found in the Wood Green flat occupied by some of yesterday's acquitted defendants. It wasn't.

...

The most ironic twist was an attempt to introduce an "al-Qaida manual" into the case. The manual - called the Manual of the Afghan Jihad - had been found on a raid in Manchester in 2000. It was given to the FBI to produce in the 2001 New York trial for the first attack on the World Trade Centre. But it wasn't an al-Qaida manual. The name was invented by the US department of justice in 2001, and the contents were rushed on to the net to aid a presentation to the Senate by the then attorney general, John Ashcroft, supporting the US Patriot Act.

To show that the Jihad manual was written in the 1980s and the period of the US-supported war against the Soviet occupation was easy. The ricin recipe it contained was a direct translation from a 1988 US book called the Poisoner's Handbook, by Maxwell Hutchkinson.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1459096,00.html#article_continue

Was the Ricin plot organised by the security services?

http://aangirfan.blogspot.com/2005/04/was-ricin-plot-organised-by-security.html

Let them eat bombs

UN human-rights report confirms Iraq is now worse

The doubling of child malnutrition in Iraq is baffling

A report to the UN human rights commission in Geneva has concluded that Iraqi children were actually better off under Saddam Hussein than they are now.

This, of course, comes as a bitter blow for all those of us who, like George Bush and Tony Blair, honestly believe that children thrive best when we drop bombs on them from a great height, destroy their cities and blow up hospitals, schools and power stations.

It now appears that, far from improving the quality of life for Iraqi youngsters, the US-led military assault on Iraq has inexplicably doubled the number of children under five suffering from malnutrition. Under Saddam, about 4% of children under five were going hungry, whereas by the end of last year almost 8% were suffering.

These results are even more disheartening for those of us in the Department of Making Things Better for Children in the Middle East By Military Force, since the previous attempts by Britain and America to improve the lot of Iraqi children also proved disappointing. For example, the policy of applying the most draconian sanctions in living memory totally failed to improve conditions. After they were imposed in 1990, the number of children under five who died increased by a factor of six. By 1995 something like half a million Iraqi children were dead as a result of our efforts to help them.

A year later, Madeleine Albright, then the US ambassador to the United Nations, tried to put a brave face on it. When a TV interviewer remarked that more children had died in Iraq through sanctions than were killed in Hiroshima, Mrs Albright famously replied: "We think the price is worth it."

...

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/iraq/comment/0,12956,1457651,00.html

Speed cameras can 'talk' to track you down

By David Williams Motoring Editor, Evening Standard
7 April 2005

A new "intelligent" speed trap is set to catch thousands of drivers in London.

Groups of cameras will track cars over a wide area - such as a housing estate - instead of "flashing" them at just one spot.

Designers say it will be impossible for drivers to outwit them by slamming on their brakes as the cameras record each car's number plate and "talk" to each other via radio-wave technology.

Computers then calculate how fast the vehicle was travelling between each point. If a driver is found to have been speeding they will be fined.

http://www.thisislondon.com/news/londonnews/articles/17767402?source=Evening%20Standard

NUCLEAR WAR-FEAR

Iran nuke commercial hits TV markets

Spot depicting atomic terror attack in NYC to be seen in 20 cities

Posted: April 13, 2005
1:00 a.m. Eastern


© 2005 WorldNetDaily.com

A commercial produced by an organization fighting for the freedom of Iran that depicts a nuclear terror attack in America – the kind many experts believe is possible should Tehran get the bomb – will run in 20 markets across the country this month.

Titled "An Atomic 9-11: When Evil is Appeased," the spot, sponsored by the Iran Freedom Foundation, is based on a scenario described in the new WND Books release "Atomic Iran: How the Terrorist Regime Bought the Bomb and American Politicians," by Jerome R. Corsi, co-author of the best-selling "Unfit for Command."

The ad can be viewed on the IFF website.

http://www.iranfreedomfoundation.org/

Corsi believes an atomic 9-11 is an imminent threat once a terrorist state like Iran has the capability to develop nuclear weapons.

"The major technical problems that have kept terrorists from exploding improvised nuclear devices within American cities are solved once a terrorist regime like the Islamic Republic of Iran has the capability to manufacture a nuclear weapon and deliver it in containers to a major U.S. port," he said.

"The device can be picked up by sleeper terrorist cells, assembled and driven into the heart of the city, where it can be detonated at the height of an ordinary business day."

The resulting destruction from a successful atomic 9-11 attack on a major U.S. city like New York would be enormous.

"In the blink of an eye, the United States could be reduced to second-class economic status," Corsi said.

The scenario described in "Atomic Iran" shows that a 150-kiloton IND exploded in New York would reduce much of the city to rubble. Some 1.5 million people would be killed instantly, with another 1.5 million certain to die over the next few days.

The television ad will air for 13 days four times daily in each city. The markets include cities in Maine, Mississippi, Texas, Oregon, California, New Jersey, Illinois, Ohio, South Carolina, Alabama, Indiana, Tennessee, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Washington, Florida, and Washington, D.C.

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=43766


---------------------------------------------------------

Here we go again.

Okay folks, pop quiz time.

Why would Iran set off a nuke in a US city? Why would they do the one thing that would gaurentee a US invasion? Why?

The answer is that they wouldn't. Any nuke that gets set off will be set off by a party that WANTS a US invasion of Iran. Of the three major parties to this next war, Iran is the only one that does NOT have nuclear weapons.

The mysterious deaths of top microbiologists since 9/11

http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/deadbiologists

Relinked in light of deadly flu sent to labs around the world, Marburg exploding in recently vaccinated children in Angola, and the modern "tinkered" (and misnamed) Spanish Flu.

A new poster had suddenly appeared all over London. It had no caption, and represented simply the monstrous figure of a Eurasian soldier, three or four metres high, striding forward with expressionless Mongolian face and enormous boots, a submachine gun pointed from his hip. From whatever angle you looked at the poster, the muzzle of the gun, magnified by the foreshortening, seemed to be pointed straight at you. The thing had been plastered on every blank space on every wall, even outnumbering the portraits of Big Brother. The proles, normally apathetic about the war, were being lashed into one of their periodical frenzies of patriotism.

-- George Orwell, 1984

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------



A new paperback had suddenly appeared all over America. It had an olive-toned Middle Eastern looking face, swarthy, foreign, expressionless, with eyes which seemed to follow you everywhere you went, except when you looked into those eyes, where you see mushroom clouds -- the symbol in the popular imagination for the end of Western civilization, no matter how that might come about. The image has been plastered on every pulp-novel shelf, in every supermarket, every B. Dalton's, and every Wal-Mart, even outnumbering the books about George W. Bush. The people of America, who polls indicated had been tiring of the War, were being lashed into one of their periodical frenzies of patriotism.

-- GIR, 2005

From: MARSHUS (11.04.05 8:35:25)

Median: Největší obavou Čechů je terorismus

http://www.ihned.cz/1-10112050-15948060-000000_d-fd
Podle průzkumu agentury Median, který si nechala vypracovat MfDnes, je pro Čechy největší hrozbou terorismus. Obavy mají lidé rovněž ze zákeřných epidemií, ekologických katastrof, chemického či biologického útoku a islámského světa. Na seznam největších hrozeb dále řadí migrační vlny, rozpad Evropské unie, Německo, Rusko a Čínu.

Většina Čechů se domnívá, že republiku ochrání před hrozbami zvenčí lépe Evropská unie než Spojené státy. Za nejspolehlivějšího ochránce ji považuje 68 procent dotázaných, zatímco o USA si to myslí 24 procent. 80 procent lidí vidí strategické partnerství v unii, v USA jen 17 procent.

On 9-11, someone made a huge fortune short-selling stocks affected by the attacks, including airlines. The media proclaimed that tracing the short-sells would lead to the 9-11 perpetrators. When it actually did, the media clammed up.

http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2005/04/315296.shtml

http://www.reopen911.org/video/cte_26.mov

http://www.karlschwarz.com/

Massive "End the Occupation" Protest in Baghdad Dwarfs the "Saddam Toppled" rally: Photos

http://bellaciao.org/en/article.php3?id_article=5723

Now, I want you all to think about something (that includes you CIA thugs who are reading this). For years, the US tortured Iraqis to find Saddam's weapons of mass destruction. Despite all that torture and death, no information leading to WMDs was forthcoming. Now, of course, the US Government admits there never were any weapons of mass destruction... which means that innocent people were tortured and killed for information they could not possibly have had.

Torturing innocent people. Wow! Right out of the Third Reich, eh?

So, now we have 9-11. And the CIA has been torturing more people looking for the Al Qaeda masterminds of the plot, and again after years and years of pain and death, no Al Qaeda masterminds have been found. IN fact, all that IS known is that nobody knows who was really on those planes. FBI Chief Robert Mueller has admitted publicly that the hijackers used "skillfully made" fake IDs using identities stolen from Arab men. We do not know who was on those planes, only who we were supposed to blame for it all. We know that the Osama who confessed to 9-11 was a fake.

So, after years of torture trying to find the Al Qaeda masterminds of 9-11, and coming up with the same exact results as the torture in search of Iraq's WMDs, one is left with the inescapable conclusion that once again innocent people are being tortured for information that they cannot have, and that "Al Qaeda" is as much a myth as Iraq's WMDs.

The only truth is that the US is a nation that tortures innocent people.

WRH

ISRAEL HARBORS PRIME 911 TERROR SUSPECT

The Israeli owner of the Mossad "front" company who fled to Israel after his "movers" were caught filming the World Trade Center attacks remains at large although the FBI, which has an office in Tel Aviv, has his name on its terror suspect list.

A leaked "FBI Suspect List" circulated among financial institutions in Italy shows that Dominik Suter, the Israeli owner of Urban Moving Systems who fled in haste to Israel after 9-11, is among those suspected of being behind the terror attacks. Despite the presence of an FBI office in Tel Aviv and the "intimate relationship" between U.S. and Israeli intelligence agencies, Suter apparently remains out-of-reach and at large.

http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:S5pJG3V2GY4J:palestine.indymedia.org/news/2002/07/62913_comment.php%20Dominik%20Suter&hl=en

1975 WTC fire burned six floors for three hours

New York Times | Feb 14 1975

Original Scans from archived issues of The New York Times. on 9/11 the fires burned for much shorter times and were the official cause of collapse. We have also recently seen other tall steel buildings burn for hours and stay standing.

MOSSAD: The Israeli Connection to 9/11

http://www.levymultimedia.com/artman/publish/article_4171.php

Lawmaker dips into microchip fears

By TOM SHEEHAN / Tribune Capitol Bureau

MADISON — State Rep. Marlin Schneider doesn't want government getting under your skin.

The Wisconsin Rapids Democrat is introducing a bill that would prohibit anyone, including the government and employers, from requiring microchip implants in people.

Sound far-fetched, like something from a sci-fi flick? It might be. But Schneider, who's known as a privacy advocate, isn't waiting until the first case to be reported. Technology once reserved for tracking records on pets and livestock is migrating to the human race in medical, security and identity verification applications.

So far, only willing participants are known to have had the rice grain-sized devices implanted just below their skin. But Schneider said it's just a matter of time before someone takes the technology too far.

"Eventually, people will find reasons why everyone should have these chips implanted," Schneider said.

"We're living in a surveillance society, where nobody is free to do anything ... At least with Orwell, you had to talk to a TV in the wall," Schneider said.

...

http://www.raidersnewsupdate.com/lead-story24.htm

Israel Goes Extremist

This time, they've gone too far

How, then, do we explain the Israeli government's recent decision to honor nine of its agents arrested and jailed in the infamous Lavon affair?

http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=5495

And, fifty years from now, will Israel honor the agents from the 9-11 affair?

Introducing The Constitution Restoration Act

Say Hello To Taliban America And Goodbye To Godless Judges, Courts And Law
by W. David Kubiak April 03, 2005

Tired of waiting for the Second Coming to enforce Christ's rule on Earth? Fortunately, so is your Congress and they know how to "bring it on."

Just when you thought the corporatist/Christian Coalition had milked the 9/11 "surprise" for all it was worth in powers, profits and votes, we regret to report that you may have to think again. Just in case you've briefly fallen behind on your rightwing mailing lists, you might have missed the March 3rd filing of Senate bill S. 520 and House version is H.R. 1070, AKA the "Constitution Restoration Act" (CRA).

In the worshipful words of the Conservative Caucus, this historic legislation will "RESTORE OUR CONSTITUTION!", mainly by barring ANY federal court or judge from ever again reviewing "any matter to the extent that relief is sought against an entity of Federal, State, or local government, or against an officer or agent of Federal, State, or local government (whether or not acting in official or personal capacity), concerning that entity's, officer's, or agent's acknowledgment of God as the sovereign source of law, liberty, or government." [Emphasis demanded - see full text here.]

In other words, the bill ensures that God's divine word (and our infallible leaders' interpretation thereof) will hereafter trump all our pathetic democratic notions about freedom, law and rights -- and our courts can't say a thing. This, of course, will take "In God We Trust" to an entirely new level, because soon He (and His personally anointed political elite) will be all the legal recourse we have left.

This is not a joke, a test, or a fit of libertarian paranoia. The CRA already has 28 sponsors in the House and Senate, and a March 20 call to lead sponsor Sen. Richard Shelby's office assures us that "we have the votes for passage." This is a highly credible projection as Bill Moyers observes in his 3/24/05 "Welcome to Doomsday" piece in the New York Review of Books: "The corporate, political, and religious right's hammerlock... extends to the US Congress. Nearly half of its members before the election-231 legislators in all (more since the election)-are backed by the religious right... Forty-five senators and 186 members of the 108th Congress earned 80 to 100 percent approval ratings from the most influential Christian Right advocacy groups."

This stunning bill and the movement behind it deserve immediate crash study on at least 3 different fronts.

1. Its hostile divorce of American jurisprudence from our hard-won secular history and international norms. To again quote the Conservative Caucus: "This important bill will restrict the jurisdiction of the U.S. Supreme Court and all lower federal courts to that permitted by the U.S. Constitution, including on the subject of the acknowledgement of God (as in the Roy Moore 10 Commandments issue); and it also restricts federal courts from recognizing the laws of foreign countries and international law [e.g., against torture, global warming, unjust wars, etc. - ed.] as the supreme law of our land."

Re the last point, envision some doddering judges who still revere our Declaration of Independence's "decent respect to the opinions of mankind," and suppose they invoke in their rulings some international precepts from the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Covenant on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women or, God forbid, the Geneva Conventions. Well, under the CRA that would all be clearly illegal and, thank God, that's the last we'd ever hear from them.

2. The political implications of replacing "we the people" with a Christian deity as the "sovereign source" of all our laws.

Imagine hyper-zealous officers or "entities" of the Federal, State, or local government (like a governor, legislature or school board) that mandate Christian prayers, rituals and/or statuary in public buildings under their control. Were this to happen, some local Jews, Muslims and/or Buddhists might be moved to hire a lawyer and legally object. But if the CRA passes, their objection would be beyond any court's jurisdiction and that's the last we'd ever hear of that. It in fact demands "impeachment, conviction, and removal of judges" who dare to even hear a case that challenges its "Last Days" morphing of Christian church and state. (Just how our new Sovereign Source of Government's advocacy of public executions for adultery, gay-ness, contraception and blasphemy will fit into our current corrections system still remains to be seen.)

3 The incessant mainstream media blackout on the bill's existence and import.

The potential impact of the Constitution Restoration Act on American life, law and politics is so radical and vast that you would expect a boiling national debate. Yet just as with the crimes and questions of 9/11, everyone in the media seems terrifically busy looking the other way. If you want yet another dramatic metric of US journalistic dysfunction, try Googling "Constitution Restoration Act" in their News category and see what you get. Today, three weeks after the bill was filed, I find a grand total of three throwaway mentions in Alabama's Shelby County Reporter, the Decatur Daily, and the Massachusetts Daily Collegian. ("Terry Schiavo" in contrast will net you over a thousand news hits, and "Michael Jackson" just passed 36,000 with a bullet.)

If the Alabama paper interest seems a little odd or sponsor Shelby's name a bit familiar, you should recall that this old boy AL senator was high among those same wonderful folks who kicked off the 9/11 cover-up. As his Senate bio proudly relates:

"From 1995 to 2003, Senator Shelby served on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. In this capacity, he and the other committee members provided oversight of the intelligence community, and following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, Senator Shelby served diligently to investigate the intelligence failures that led to those attacks." [Emphasis demanded again.]

Got that? First he "oversees" intelligence for six years before 9/11, then "diligently investigates" its bizarre "failures" for two years more, and finally finds--in a no-fault judgment--it was all due to "deep institutional defects" and "systemic miscommunication" that he'd apparently never noticed or heard about before. Having so brilliantly defended the country before 9/11 and the official story since, some seem to find it comforting that he's now busy defending our court-harassed Constitution with a legally bulletproofed God. Some, alas, do not -- feel comforted, that is, either by Shelby's blurry oversight or fundamentalist agenda, not to mention the Orwellian performance of our autistic corporate press.

In the meantime, however, before the CRA takes force and reduces legal education to a Bible study course, what say we undertake a little Constitutional defense of our own? To get up to speed on the current Christian right agenda, Moyers' "Welcome to Doomsday", Katherine Yurica's "The Despoiling of America" and John "The 9/11 Truth Candidate" Buchanan's "Fixing America" are excellent places to start.

None of these analyses offer a silver bullet or paint a pretty picture, but as students of 9/11 now know, spreading the courage to face the truth is really the only hope we've got.

W. David Kubiak is a Project Censored award-winning journalist and executive director of 911truth.org. He can be reached at david(at)911truth.org. (He is indebted to John Buchanan for the latest heads-up on this story and the Shelby office call.)


http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=104&ItemID=7569