Should We Be Reactive Or Proactive?

So the British police halted a terrorist attack this week, which was said to involve the use of liquid chemicals to set off an explosion.

Our idiot media is treating this as if it's something new, when in fact it should have been something we'd long ago prepared for. ESPECIALLY in a post-9/11 world.

This week's plot was in essence a copycat crime, mimicking the 1995 "Project Bojinka" plan to blow up 12 commercial jumbo jets simultaneously over the Pacific using similar liquid explosives. It was developed by Yousef and his uncle, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who was identified by US officials as a rising aide to Osama bin Laden.

It was foiled by proactive American intelligence during the Clinton Administration working in cooperation with Filipino authorities, who discovered the plans on a laptop while searching the Manila apartment of Ramzi Yousef, the man who organized the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. The search was conducted two weeks before the scheduled attack dates, Jan. 21 and 22. Yousef would later be captured, tried, convicted, and imprisoned by the Clinton Administration, and he remains in jail to this day.

To quote former CIA agent, Larry Johnson:

Binary explosives, and their ready availability, have been a fact since World War II. And we're supposed to believe that George Bush, Tony Blair, and Michael Chertoff have just awakened to this fact? At a minimum, this is a further indictment of the incompetence of Bush and his cronies. They have done NOTHING, I repeat, NOTHING to deal with this threat even though security professionals have known and fretted about this for years.... Instead of a common sense approach to security, the Brits have hit the panic button.

So this idea of liquid explosives was not new.

One therefore asks, here in America, what laws did the Republican Congress pass and submit to the Clinton Administration to sign in order to make certain that such an attack was not possible in the future?

Answer: none.

What did Clinton do, you may ask?

President Clinton sent legislation to Congress to tighten airport security. The legislation was defeated by the Republicans because of opposition from the airlines.

President Clinton sent legislation to Congress to allow for better tracking of terrorist funding. It was defeated by Republicans in the Senate because of opposition from banking interests.

President Clinton sent legislation to Congress to add tags to explosives, to allow for BETTER TRACKING OF EXPLOSIVES USED BY TERRORISTS. It was defeated by the Republicans because of opposition from the NRA.

What has Bush done since 9/11 about this liquid chemical threat, you may ask? Nothing.

Oh, but that didn't stop him from claiming credit for stopping this latest plot, something I'm sure Scotland Yard, who actually IS responsible for this investigation and these arrests, appreciates after all their hard work.

What could George Bush have done, you may ask?

Agent Johnson also recommended that airlines not allow liquids weighing more than one pound on board a plane. Any amount under 8 ounces might cause injury within the cabin, and death to the person carrying the explosive, but would not be powerful enough to bring down the plane. Therefore, airlines could allow any bottles of liquid up to eight ounces, but in the security check, simply require passengers to drink a portion of the liquid to demonstrate it is not an explosive. He also recommends that "all carry on bags be hand searched, no exceptions, and that third party cargo be banned from passenger aircraft. The latter is the real gap in aviation security."

Something to be mindful of, is that the kind of explosives we're talking about here are made by combining two ingredients. An acetate like you'd find in fingernail polish remover, and hydrogen peroxide.

But NOT the kind of 3% hydrogen peroxide you can find in your medicine cabinet. The far more powerful stuff that you can only purchase in chemical supply stores. It is RARELY used by the general public, therefore it is also TRACKABLE, and could be subject to rational REGULATION. If, that is, you're someone who cares about PEOPLE, and not merely a corporate whore, out to protect the chemical companies. But George is a whore.

What COULD have been done? Well, two things. One, regulate pure hydrogen peroxide's use by mandating that distribution and sales records be kept by the chemical companies, so that unusual purchases would send up a red flag. Or, you could develop test kits for airline personnel to test the precise chemical nature of a particular liquid being brought on board. Something as simple as a chemical strip which could be inserted into a liquid which would register any excessive amounts of hydrogen peroxide. That way, passengers could still board with liquid items they need like contact solution, makeup, shampoo, toothpaste, etc., while still adding a layer of secondary security beyond the regulation of the chemical itself.

But why do any of that? Why inconvenience a chemical company or an airline company when you can instead inconvenience hundreds of thousands of passengers?

Terrorists want three things with their actions. To get attention, cause trouble, and if possible cause pain.

By being reactive to a threat underway, instead of being proactive and dealing with the public availability of these chemicals, you in essence give the terrorist exactly what he wants --- publicity, and trouble for the average person. And if, unlike this time, law enforcement DOESN'T happen to catch the plot underway, you very much increase the possibility that they are successful at their final goal --- inflicting actual pain.

All because big business Republicans refuse to hold corporations accountable for ANYTHING. Indeed, the only ones still living in a "pre-9/11 world", are the Republicans in Congress and the Bush Administration. In truth, they're still living in a "pre-1995 world."

Another oddity with regards to this case is that Pakistan's Inter Service Intelligence (ISI) Agency, who claims to have assisted in thwarting this attack, said they found out about the plot following arrests of several men in Karachi and Lahore, who are said to be associated with the Kashmiri terrorist group Lashkar-e-Toiba.

The problem with this is, Lashkar-e-Toiba is run and funded by the Pakistani ISI itself.

Because most Americans haven't the faintest clue about the India-Pakistan conflict in Kashmir, even if they heard Pakistani officials say "these people were associated with Lashkar-e-Toiba", Pakistani Government claims wouldn't even register as suspicious. For those who are aware about events in Kashmir, the official Pakistani claims send up a red flag that makes one question their veracity.

In the light of other blunders with British Intelligence and Police (as well as American ones), closer public attention must be paid not just to terrorists, but apparently to the validity of official claims on the parts of police and intelligence forces who propose to protect us, but who sometimes seem more apt to protect their backsides.

Witness the case of Jean-Charles Menezes, a Brazilian man who was shot 7 times in the head after boarding the London tube, apparently solely for two reasons, he was brown, and simply lived on the same block as someone who was under surveillance for suspected terrorist activities. Police falsely claimed he ran from them, but security camera footage later revealed he'd walked at a normal pace to work, stopped to buy a newspaper, paid for his subway ticket, walked onto the train and calmly sat down, whereupon he was attacked by British officers and shot AFTER he'd been physically restrained. He had no terrorist ties.

And recently, while little reported within the United States, there was the Forest Gate incident in which 200 armed police wearing chemical and biological warfare suits raided a house in East London and shot the resident living there, ostensibly on terrorist suspicions. As with the young Brazilian man, it turned out that the person had no connection to terrorist organizations whatsoever. The "intelligence" that led MI5 to raid the house, originated with Mohammed Abu Bakr Mansha, a man with an IQ of 69.

And here in the U.S. we have the damn fool creation of the Proactive and Preemptive Operations Group (aka PPOG or P2OG), a clandestine military intelligence agency established by the Bush Administration following recommendations from the the US Defense Science Board (DSB) in 2002. In their 78-page briefing entitled "Study on Special Operations and Joint Forces in Support of Countering Terrorism", the role of the PPOG was to "Develop an entirely new capability to proactively, preemptively evoke responses from adversary/terrorist groups," and, "improve [intelligence] information collection by stimulating reactions" from the target.

In other words, not to calm things down, or discourage terrorist behavior, but rather to PROVOKE potential terrorists into violent action where U.S. citizens could potentially be killed.

We the general public are TRULY in a dangerous situation when we can neither trust the actions of people we KNOW to be insane, like an Osama Bin Laden, or the motivations and accuracy of our own government officials charged with protecting us, or even the mainstream corporate media that claims to give us the full story about both our supposed protectors, and our attackers.

From whom can we count on the truth?

Nuking Lebanon

On top of the destruction of the entire economic infrastructure of the country of Lebanon, the United States just delivered at least 100 GBU 28 bunker busters bombs containing depleted uranium warheads to Israel.

Sections 2-4 and 2-5 of U.S. Army Regulation 700-48 entitled "Management of Equipment Contaminated With Depleted Uranium or Radioactive Commodities" authored by Headquarters, Department Of The Army respectively, as well as two separate Army directives ("Medical Management of Army personnel Exposed to Depleted Uranium" authored by Headquarters, U.S. Army Medical Command 4/29/04, and "Medical Management of 'Unusual' Depleted Uranium Casualties", authored by the Pentagon 10/14/93), and an Army Technical Bulletin (TB 9-1300-278: "Guidelines For Safe Response To Handling, Storage, And Transportation Accidents Involving Army Tank Munitions Or Armor Which Contain Depleted Uranium" authored by Headquarters, Department Of The Army 7/96) all require that:

• DOD officials provide "prompt and effective medical care to all exposed individuals";
• Military personnel "identify, segregate, isolate, secure, and label all RCE" (radiologically contaminated equipment);
• Implement "procedures to minimize the spread of radioactivity as soon as possible";
• Directs that "radioactive material and waste will not be locally disposed of through burial, submersion, incineration, destruction in place, or abandonment"; and,
• Directs that "all equipment, to include captured or combat RCE, will be surveyed, packaged, retrograded, and decontaminated".

None of this has been done in Lebanon, indeed even rational warnings to the civilian populous have not been distributed via media outlets. And beyond the Israelis, the United States itself has yet to follow any of these directives in Iraq, and instead the corporate media itself is willingly self-censoring the entire subject of depleted and NON-depleted uranium in munitions.

It is officially a "non-topic" despite the fact that even depleted uranium is highly toxic and carcinogenic with a half-life of some 4.5 billion years.

In order to produce nuclear weaponry, naturally occurring uranium has to be enriched to increase the level of fissile uranium, U-235. The leftover product is depleted uranium. In depleted uranium (DU) the level of fissionable uranium 235 has been reduced from 0.7% to 0.2% by the enrichment process. Uranium 238 makes up over 99% of the content of both natural uranium and depleted uranium. Depleted uranium is roughly 60% as radioactive as naturally occurring uranium. Since the beginning of the Nuclear Era, America alone has produced a waste stockpile of depleted uranium in excess of 1.1 billion pounds. Rather than burying this toxin to protect the genetic future of the human race, the DOD's answer to waste disposal, is to give depleted uranium for free to arms manufacturers for use in armour and munitions.

Why would they want it, you ask?

Well, tank armour reinforced with depleted uranium is virtually impervious to conventional shells. And conversely, shells reinforced with depleted or non-depleted uranium slice through targets like a super-sharp knife through warm butter. Uranium is preferred by arms manufacturers over other ballistic materials such as iron, lead or tungsten because of it's unique metallurgical properties. It is extremely dense, and pyrophoric. In other words, it's dust burns spontaneously at room temperature. Solid metal uranium is auto-igniting at 170 degrees Fahrenheit. And most importantly, solid metal uranium has a property not available in any other metal -- it is "self sharpening". Meaning, that when it hits a target at high velocities, it breaks in such a way as to continually sharpen at it's point. The leading points of all other warhead metals flatten or mushroom under these conditions. These properties give uranium superior performance as a penetrating warhead capable of punching through the hardest and thickest armor plating, retaining penetration capabilities at 15% greater distances and lower speeds than the most common alternative, tungsten. Specifically, they can bore through 20 feet of super-reinforced concrete bunkers. Or apartment buildings.

When detonated, these types of weaponry essentially shatter/combust into diamond hard microparticles forming a radioactive dust which is released into the air with the explosion. 60% of this aerosol of fine uranium particles are less than 5 micron in diameter - 10 microns is a respirable size. When inhaled, DU and NDU goes into the body and stays there, slicing through DNA. And while it's true that this "dust" falls quickly to the ground, the dust storms inherent to the Middle East mean that what might typically be distributed over a relatively small area, instead gets blown around throughout an entire region.

An Iraqi Dust Storm

The DOD's common excuse for this is that "while such things may be true, the amount of radioactivity released into the atmosphere is negligible." This is what is more commonly referred to as a convenient half-truth. While such a contention might be correct when speaking about a single bomb dropped into an area, it no longer remains true when you're dropping roughly 4 MILLION POUNDS of it PER YEAR on a target area.

The other half of that truth is a bit... inconvenient. It's called "aggregate toxicity". And it means that in Iraq alone, we've dropped what amounts to 250,000 Nagasaki bombs PER YEAR in Iraq since the start of the war. In Afghanistan, it amounts to roughly 100,000 Nagasaki bombs worth of radioactive material.

From a health perspective, this has led to the following:

• Fully 100% of Afghan civilians tested for exposure were found to have levels of non-depleted uranium in their system between 400% and 2000% higher than normal. Subjects also presented identical symptom profiles and chronologies. Victims reported pain in the cervical column, upper shoulders and basal area of the skull, lower back and kidney pain, joint and muscle weakness, sleeping difficulties, headaches, memory problems, and disorientation, as well as burning of the nasal passages, throat, and upper respiratory tract;
• Cancer rates in Iraq have increased 1000% between 1989 and 2001, as a result of the use of DU and NDU in the First Gulf War. Since the start of the current Iraq War, they have increased exponentially;
• More than 240,000 Gulf War vets are on permanent medical disability, and more than 11,000 are dead;
• A U.S. Government study conducted by the Dept. of Veterans Affairs on the offspring of Gulf War Vets revealed that 67% of the babies had serious birth defects (born without eyes, without ears, missing whole organs, missing legs and arms, fused fingers, thyroid or organ malformations) or other adverse health effects;
• Among Iraqis, cases of anophthalmos (babies born without eyes) was literally 250,000 times greater than the natural occurrence of this particular birth defect (20 cases per 4,000 births, as opposed to the normal 1 in every 50,000,000 births), and women there often give birth to babies born without brains, with organs outside of their little bodies, or they simply give birth to pieces of flesh; and,
  
• In wheat-growing area north of Mosul, Iraq, the crops are producing stunted blades of grass. This is the grain breadbasket of the area. A region that would normally feed nineteen million people.

All this despite the fact that use of DU weapons are prohibited under the terms of the 1980 Convention on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Certain Conventional Weapons Which May Be Deemed to Be Excessively Injurious or to Have Indiscriminate Effects, and Article 35 of Additional Protocol 1 of the 1977 Geneva Convention which states "it is prohibited to employ methods or means of warfare which are intended, or may be expected, to cause widespread, long-term and severe damage to the natural environment."

With a half-life of 4.5 billion years, DU and NDU amount to a permanently available contaminant randomly distributed into the environment.

And in addition to the now more than 800,000 people made homeless by the relentless shelling, we are now providing such uranium-reinforced weaponry to the Israelis for use in Lebanon.

This image shows the bomb pattern of Israeli Strikes in Lebanon so far: