From: Sunthar Visuvalingam <suntharv@yahoo.com>
Date: 25 July 2011 17:42
Subject: [akandabaratam] "The news coverage of the Norway mass-killings was fact-free conjecture" (Charlie Brooker) - Gladio redivivus?
To: Abhinavagupta@yahoogroups.com, Ontological Ethics <ontologicalethics@yahoogroups.com>, WTC-911 <WTC-911@yahoogroups.com>, MeccaBenares <MeccaBenares@yahoogroups.com>
Cc: Akandabaratam <Akandabaratam@yahoogroups.com>, Dia-Gnosis <dia-gnosis@yahoogroups.com>
On Friday night's news, they were calling him something else. He was a suspected terror cell with probable links to al-Qaida. Countless security experts queued up to tell me so. This has all the hallmarks of an al-Qaida attack, they said. Watching at home, my gut feeling was that that didn't add up. Why Norway? And why was it aimed so specifically at one political party? But hey, they're the experts. They're sitting there behind a caption with the word "EXPERT" on it. Every few minutes the anchor would ask, "What kind of picture is emerging?" or "What sense are you getting of who might be responsible?" and every few minutes they explained this was "almost certainly" the work of a highly-organised Islamist cell.
In the aftermath of the initial bombing, they proceeded to wrestle with the one key question: why do Muslims hate Norway? Luckily, the experts were on hand to expertly share their expert solutions to plug this apparent plot hole in the ongoing news narrative.
Why do Muslims hate Norway? There had to be a reason.
Norway was targeted because of its role in Afghanistan. Norway was targeted because Norwegian authorities had recently charged an extremist Muslim cleric. Norway was targeted because one of its newspapers had reprinted the controversial Danish cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad.
Norway was targeted because, compared to the US and UK, it is a "soft target" – in other words, they targeted it because no one expected them to.
When it became apparent that a shooting was under way on Utoya island, the security experts upgraded their appraisal. This was no longer a Bali-style al-Qaida bombing, but a Mumbai-style al-Qaida massacre. On and on went the conjecture, on television, and in online newspapers, including this one. Meanwhile, on Twitter, word was quickly spreading that, according to eyewitnesses, the shooter on the island was a blond man who spoke Norwegian. At this point I decided my initial gut reservations about al-Qaida had probably been well founded. But who was I to contradict the security experts? A blond Norwegian gunman doesn't fit the traditional profile, they said, so maybe we'll need to reassess . . . but let's not forget that al-Qaida have been making efforts to actively recruit "native" extremists: white folk who don't arouse suspicion. So it's probably still the Muslims. Soon, the front page of Saturday's Sun was rolling off the presses. "Al-Qaeda" Massacre: NORWAY'S 9/11 – the weasel quotes around the phrase "Al Qaeda" deemed sufficient to protect the paper from charges of jumping to conclusions.
By the time I went to bed, it had become clear to anyone within glancing distance of the internet that this had more in common with the 1995 Oklahoma bombing or the 1999 London nail-bombing campaign than the more recent horrors of al-Qaida.
While I slept, the body count continued to rise, reaching catastrophic proportions by the morning. The next morning I switched on the news and the al-Qaida talk had been largely dispensed with, and the pundits were now experts on far-right extremism, as though they'd been on a course and qualified for a diploma overnight.
Some remained scarily defiant in the face of the new unfolding reality. On Saturday morning I saw a Fox News anchor tell former US diplomat John Bolton that Norwegian police were saying this appeared to be an Oklahoma-style attack, then ask him how that squared with his earlier assessment that al-Qaida were involved. He was sceptical. It was still too early to leap to conclusions, he said. We should wait for all the facts before rushing to judgment. In other words: assume it's the Muslims until it starts to look like it isn't – at which point, continue to assume it's them anyway. […]
As more information regarding the identity of the terrorist responsible for the massacre comes to light, articles attempting to explain his motives are starting to appear online. And beneath them are comments from readers, largely expressing outrage and horror. But there are a disturbing number that start, "What this lunatic did was awful, but . . ."
These "but" commenters then go on to discuss immigration, often with reference to a shaky Muslim-baiting story they've half-remembered from the press. So despite this being a story about an anti-Muslim extremist killing Norwegians who weren't Muslim, they've managed to find a way to keep the finger of blame pointing at the Muslims, thereby following a narrative lead they've been fed for years, from the overall depiction of terrorism as an almost exclusively Islamic pursuit, outlined by "security experts" quick to see al-Qaida tentacles everywhere, to the fabricated tabloid fairytales about "Muslim-only loos" or local councils "banning Christmas".
We're in a frightening place. Guesswork won't lead us to safety.
Charlie Brooker, "The news coverage of the Norway mass-killings was fact-free conjecture" (The Guardian, 24 July 2011), read the most highly rated comments, esp. on the (British) press including The Guardian…
In 1957, the director of the secret service NIS, Vilhelm Evang, protested strongly against the pro-active intelligence activities at AFNORTH, as described by the chairman of CPC: "[NIS] was extremely worried about activities carried out by officers at Kolsås. This concerned SB, Psywar and Counter Intelligence." ["In Norway the director of the secret service NIS, Vilhelm Evang, protests strongly against the domestic subversion of his country through the United States and NATO and temporarily withdraws the Norwegian stay-behind army from the CPC meetings." - SV, see 1957 below] These activities supposedly included the blacklisting of Norwegians. SHAPE denied these allegations. Eventually, the matter was resolved in 1958, after Norway was assured about how stay-behind networks were to be operated.
In 1978, the police discovered an arms cache and radio equipment at a mountain cabin and arrested Hans Otto Meyer, a businessman accused of being involved in selling illegal alcohol. Meyer claimed that the weapons were supplied by Norwegian intelligence. Rolf Hansen, defense minister at that time, stated the network was not in any way answerable to NATO and had no CIA connection.
"Operation Gladio: Norway" (Wikipedia), see Gladio Timelines (1951, 1957)
Daniele Ganser, professor of contemporary history at Bale University (Switzerland) and chairman of the ASPO - Switzerland, published a landmark book about "NATO's Secret Armies." According to him, during the last 50 years the United States have organized bombings in Western Europe that they have falsely attributed to the left and the extreme left with the purpose of discrediting them in the eyes of their voters. This strategy is still present today, inspiring fear for the Islam and justifying wars on oil. […] It is extremely important to understand what the strategy of tension truly represents the way it works nowadays. This can help us clarify the present and to see more clearly to what extent it is still in action. Only a few people know what the expression 'strategy of tension' means. It is very important to talk about it, to explain it. It is a tactic that involves carrying out criminal acts and attributing them to someone else. By the term 'tension', we mean emotional tension, all that which creates a feeling of tension.
By 'strategy' we make reference to that which increases people's fear in regard to a determined group. These secret structures of NATO had been equipped, financed and trained by the CIA, in coordination with the M16 (the British secret service), to fight against the Army of the Soviet Union in a case of war, but also according to the information to which he have access today, to commit terrorist acts in several countries. That is how, since the 70s, the Italian secret services have been using these armies to foment terrorist attacks, with the purpose of causing fear among the population, and later, to accuse the communists of being the authors. The strategy of tension was designed to serve the purpose or discrediting, weakening and stopping communism from reaching executive power.
Silvia Cattori, "NATO's Hidden Terrorism: The Strategy of Tension" (Voltairenet , 22 January 2007) – see the country-by-country dossier by Ganser (unfortunately mostly in French at Voltairenet
Was the Norwegian Labor Party, which specifically targeted, being warned of the consequences if they persisted in continuing their independent stand with regard to the Middle East, withdrawing from conflict areas (Afghanistan, Libya, etc.)?
Respond only to WTC-911 (war-mongering), Dia-Gnosis (manufacturing consensus), or Ontological Ethics (terror, scapegoating, and the criminalization of the state).
Sunthar
PS. Have we fallen prey to (well-intentioned but) "fact-free conjecture" or to carefully planted 'targeted' disinformation that easily goes viral amidst the 'enlightened' Western public who have been (force-?) fed, already well in advance, the predetermined scapegoat?
[Rest of this thread at Sunthar's post (24 July 2011) at
From: Sunthar Visuvalingam
Sent: Sunday, July 24, 2011 2:47 PM
To: Abhinavagupta@yahoogroups.com; 'Ontological Ethics'; 'WTC-911'; 'MeccaBenares'
Cc: 'Akandabaratam'; 'Dia-Gnosis'
Subject: "The omnipotence of Al Qaeda and meaninglessness of 'Terrorism'" (Glenn Greenwald) - must we die laughing?
>
But now it turns out that the alleged perpetrator wasn't from an international Muslim extremist group at all, but was rather a right-wing Norwegian nationalist with a history of anti-Muslim commentary and an affection for Muslim-hating blogs such as Pam Geller's Atlas Shrugged, Daniel Pipes, and Robert Spencer's Jihad Watch. Despite that, The New York Times is still working hard to pin some form of blame, even ultimate blame, on Muslim radicals: […] Al Qaeda is always to blame, even when it isn't, even when it's allegedly the work of a Nordic, Muslim-hating, right-wing European nationalist. […] Terrorism has no objective meaning and, at least in American political discourse, has come functionally to mean: violence committed by Muslims whom the West dislikes, no matter the cause or the target. Indeed, in many (though not all) media circles, discussion of the Oslo attack quickly morphed from this is Terrorism (when it was believed Muslims did it) to no, this isn't Terrorism, just extremism (once it became likely that Muslims didn't). […]
>
This article expertly traces and sets forth exactly how the "Muslims-did-it" myth was manufactured and then disseminated yesterday to the worldwide media, which predictably repeated it with little skepticism. What makes the article so valuable is that it names names: it points to the incestuous, self-regarding network of self-proclaimed U.S. Terrorism and foreign policy "experts"—what the article accurately describes as "almost always white men and very often with military or government backgrounds," in this instance driven by "a case of an elite fanboy wanting to be the first to pass on leaked gadget specs"—who so often shape these media stories and are uncritically presented as experts, even though they're drowning in bias, nationalism, ignorance, and shallow credentialism.
Glenn Greenwald, "The omnipotence of Al Qaeda and meaninglessness of 'Terrorism'" (Salon, 23 July 2011)
>
Amazon reviews of Noam Chomsky, "American Power and the New Mandarins: Historical and Political Essays" (1969)
So now the secular Western liberals are finally celebrating the omnipotence of the immortal Bhairava (ben Laden) with his omniscient 'database' (al-qaeda) of those who break the Ninth Commandment of "bearing false witness"….must we die (ROTFL) laughing :)))))?
>
Sunthar
PS. So is News International the only criminal organization specializing in 'public relations' for the Anglo-American empire or has the 'Dirty Digger' simply become—unlike the subtle, sophisticated, highbrow, and liberal New York Times, BBC, etc.— too much of a liability:
http://www.stopwar.org.uk/index.php/iraq/645-10-questions-the-mps-will-not-ask-rupert-murdoch
[Rest of this thread at Sunthar's post (23 July 2011) at
From: Sunthar Visuvalingam
Sent: Saturday, July 23, 2011 1:58 PM
To: Abhinavagupta@yahoogroups.com; 'Ontological Ethics'; 'WTC-911'; MeccaBenares
Cc: 'Akandabaratam'; 'Dia-Gnosis'
Subject: "The Oslo Attacks" (Glenn Greenwald) - explosive payback for criminal wars or inevitable implosion of the 'Christian' West?
>
Friday's atrocity occurs under conditions where governments and media outlets across Europe, including the Scandinavian states, have condoned or encouraged anti-Muslim racism and anti-immigrant chauvinism. This appeal to the most reactionary and backward sentiments is aimed at diverting popular opposition to austerity measures and the growth of social inequality.
Mike Head, "Bombing, mass shooting kill at least 87 in Norway" (WSWS, 23 July 2011)
>
[…] I would add one point about Western reaction if indeed it turns out to be a domestic rather than "terrorist" (i.e., Muslim) attack: American interest in these attacks and the desire to be seen publicly denouncing them will quickly diminish -- almost to the point of non-existence -- if the perpetrators are not Muslim. Add that to the list of revealing aspects of the reaction to this story.
Glenn Greenwald, "The Oslo Attacks" (Salon, 22 July 2011)
>
On July 8th he handed over a very short version of the 'Strategic Assessment Matrix,' which averred that the real terrorist 'threat' to society was almost entirely of the state-sponsored kind, and it alluded to both 9/11 and 7/7 in this context. Other threats from other 'domains of criminality' were, his brief report claimed, 'insignificant' by comparison.
>
Nick Kollerstrom, "UK Police Intel Expert: Government, Not Islam, Real Terror Threat" (Veterans Today, 10 July 2011) – see embedded Sky TV video interview with Tony Farrell
Bhairava's violent laughter (aṭṭahāsa): can we hear it now in the (Islamist?) reverberations of 'Terror' rocking our insulated cityscapes, [or] is it the Western Colossus, beacon of 'Christian' Liberty, imploding under the unsustainable weight of her own contradictions?
>
Sunthar
PS. So is (our imperial Anglo-) Vishnu—endowed with omniscient 'intelligence'—simply outsourcing such dirty jobs to (the untouchable) Bhairava (ben Laden)?
[Rest of this thread at Sunthar's post (22 July 2011) at
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the "USA-Africa Dialogue Series" moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin.
For current archives, visit http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
For previous archives, visit http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue-
unsubscribe@googlegroups.com
No comments:
Post a Comment