so once again the UK secret police/Stasi are caught red handed and the whole ‘peace keeping’ strategy is busted wide open - the unaccountable Secret State orders agents to plant bombs and shoot whoever gets in their way and suddenly the Army is involved in springing them from the Iraqi police so as not to have them spill the beans on all the other ‘covert’ operations in court - and who will pay? - the average squaddy on the street - your brother/son/husband/friend has to face the wrath of the Iraqi people who see foreign soldiers attacking their police station and react with understandable anger at the shere mendacity of the UK in flouting what little rule of law exists in Iraq - ordinary soldiers who are accountable (on paper) will have to pay with their lives to protect the Stasi and those who give them their orders all the way up to 10 Downing Street - the whole Secret State aparatus is disgusting - sacrificing ordinary soldiers who no doubt believe they are ‘peace-keeping’ - in its rush to protect is own and avoid any ‘embarrasment’

more blood on your hands Mr Bliar!

The mainstream press reported today that a wall of the Basra jail was damaged when the British Army went to 'pick up' the two detained soldiers. Check out the pictures on Al-Jazeera, it looks like a full on assault destroyed the jail. It seems the original reports were true and everything we've heard from Reid, the Army, the mainstream press and the Iraqi Puppet Authority is bollocks made up overnight.
 http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/5B9D68F9-E629-41D5-BD68-D1DE59211CF3.htm

You hit the nail on the head. Who will pay the price? Certainly not the War Criminals responsible for this war, who are attempting to start a Civil War, in that grand Colonial tradition of 'Divide & Rule', as acknowledged in the leaked UK memo "Iraq: Options Paper", written a full year before the war even began.

Who's Blowing Up Iraq? New evidence that bombs are being planted by British
 http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=55&p=15926&s2=20

These two stories were published just days before the Basra scandal:

The occupation forces are the real perpetrators of bomb attacks in Iraq?
 http://www.aljazeera.com/cgi%2Dbin/conspiracy%5Ftheory/fullstory.asp?id=257

Many Iraqis believe ’suicide’ bombings done by US to start a civil war
 http://bellaciao.org/en/article.php3?id_article=8286

Update from Channel4 7pm News

7.30pm - So John Reid gives yet another account for the government on Channel 4 News. So just what are the plain clothes SAS (no longer denied by government spokesmen) doing with LIGHT MACHINE GUN and a BAZOOKA!! ( I for one call that an explosive device - it was shown on Channel 4 TV) - John reid was not asked this question nor did he attepmt to explain. They also has satellite tracking equipment - all in all just what you would need for a quick hit and run mission!

Anyone carrying a bazooka in the middle of London would be charged as a "terrorist" carrying a very dangerous explosive device that could destry a tank, house or car with ease. Its interesting that the government no longer try to deny the two men were SAS - they have told the media not to show the faces (always the first sign).

So tomoorow when they tell us the lads were only going fishing with some new fishing tackle ("the lads back at base neeeded fresh fish, and lots of it - its the vitimins you see - honest gov") I guess the media will print it without question!

Neil
 http://fightbackuk.blogspot.com/

Ah, the old 'ordinary soldier' vs 'bad soldier' routine!

Let's see, when the troops of Ghengis Khan were roasting your children alive before you, I supposed you'd certainly want to make the distinction, before having any thoughts of the situation one way or the other. Or perhaps, when Caesar's troops were raping your wife and daughter in Gaul, before taking them as slaves, you'd certainly say "but they're just ordinary blokes doing an honest days work".

Funny thing is, in both those cases, at least many of the soldiers had the 'excuse' of conscription!

THE BRITISH SOLDIER IN IRAQ IS THERE OF HIS/HER OWN FREE WILL. In law, you are responsible for ANY crime committed by a group you belong to, if that group with your fore-knowledge and assistance acts illegally. That describes the whole of the British Armed Services over the invasion, genocide, and destruction of Iraq.

The most important propaganda Blair runs is called "BACK OUR BOYS". Well, these willing thugs, bombers, rapists, torturers, and murderers are in no aspect 'my boys'. They are the same garbage that makes life a living hell all across the UK for decent people. Just because they are shovelled up, and stuck into uniform, and shipped a long way from where we live doesn't make them the slightest bit more sympathetic, or deserving of praise.

"average squaddy on the street"- what kind of human, in a time of peace (and, with honest analysis, it is almost never a time of war threat for any one group of people) would willingly join a murder machine, whose ONLY purpose is the speed and ease with which the machine can butcher other humans on behalf of a power elite. We are talking about the ultimate act of evil here, for the individual.

At least Blair's men that bombed London on the 7/7, and were caught planting bombs in Basra yesterday would proudly justify their wicked acts, and not hide behind the pathetic "ordinary soldier" hypocrisy. They have the guts to commit acts for their MASTER Tony Blair to further his plans to turn the whole of the Earth into one final battlefield, without the need of self-pretence or humbug. But they understand that Blair's true power does not come from people like themselves, the psycho's who'll murder anybody anyplace anytime if requested. NO, they know that Blair's true power comes from ordinary people- the 'ordinary soldiers' who'll flood into any country, no matter how clearly wrong the invasion, and the 'ordinary citizens' who won't raise a peep of real protest no matter how many abusive laws Blair makes, or how many Human Rights he trashes, or how tiny his actual election vote is!!!

ONE MORE THING. It is Blair's people themselves that push the whole BLIAR name calling propaganda trick. Why? Because ordinary people ALREADY consider that ALL politicians are liars, so, given the expected popularity problems that were anticipated for Blair, the BLIAR name-calling campaign was created as the MOST HARMLESS way in which ordinary people could be encouraged to dissipate their impotent anger. If Blair is a liar, where is the honest politician. There isn't one ergo Blair hasn't been hurt whatsoever! Jeez, could you get a more BASIC trick?

Only the pills aren't working are they? British troops in Basra aren't planting bombs. You can find the full list of equipment that the two arrested soldiers were carrying on Al Jazeera(hardly pro-coalition) they carried weapons, communications equipment, a anti-armour rocket and ammunition, plus first aid kit. I could dismantle your ridiculous post further, only there's no need. Your statements are so self-discrediting that very few people outside a loony bin would take you seriously at all!

'At least Blair's men that bombed London on the 7/7, and were caught planting bombs in Basra yesterday would proudly justify their wicked acts'

...and the state being responsible for 7/7 has been a clearly proven fact since when exactly???? Not hearsay, speculation and/or conjecture mind you, but proven fact. Ayman al-Zawahri is on the Uk state's payroll now as well, I assume.

Just watched Newnight.

It looks like a bloody mess in Basra.Chris Patton called the situation a "mess" and said that Blair was mistaken in going to war (so we now have the soft right both Chris Pattern and kenneth Clark against the war and Blair .......... oh, um .. still for it on the far right with Bush) !!! The beginning of the end of neo-liberal Social Democracy (New labour ) in the UK and still not a word from the Labour left!

The Iraq government condemed the army storming the Basra police station which now lies in ruins after a raid by TEN tanks and helecopters flying over head. The Iraq goverment stated that the SAS wre being kept in an annex to the polic station. John Reid on Channel 4 news at 7pn stated they were held ina house and had been handed over to Shitte radicals. This was one of many different statements put out by Blairs governrment today (cant you see his nose getting longer?) each a bit different to the other (anything justified in the name of defence! - Dont mention the OIL)

So what are the troops doing in Basra - they have lost all control to the Shitte nationalist resistence both in the police and local government. (Dont mention the OIL). So whats it all about and who really controls any part of Iraq?

Weapons found:
Machimeguns.
Light machine gun (to you and me a BIG machine gun on a tripod)
Anti tank Bazooka!
Satellite tracking equipment.
Lots of ammo
And this is after they may have got rid of some of their supplies (or used it)?.

So why again is the UK army in Iraq?

1. To back Bush at any cost and his neo-con pals and there mad American Empire dreams.
2. To protect a cheap oil source and the oil trade routes.
3. To take the heat of Israel .

Can you add any? - and is this what the people of the UK wanted and for which 10000's have died?

Join the STOP THE WAR DEMO this Saturday in London (it will be BIG), details at:
 http://www.stopwar.org.uk/

Neil
 http://fightbackuk.blogspot.com/

'Incredulous', I guess people are just responding to Bliar's complete inability to support his 7/7 Conspiracy Theory with facts, and the media's behaving just as you're criticizing people here for doing.

I sent this letter to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, in regards to their interesting ommissions on the Basra story, on their nightly program, "The National". From what I've seen of US/UK coverage, these ommissions seem highly coordinated and consistent across the board. My favourite Journalism prof told me in college that "When the media speaks with one voice, start digging".

This story is being intentionally scrubbed. If you analyze the media's Iraq coverage over the past few weeks, you'll see they've been a willing partner to this game, dropping the demonization of the Iraqi Resistance with the term "insurgents" (just as they did during Vietnam), and repeating empty claims about ethnic groups attacking each other.

Hi there,

Although you introduced your story on the Basra scandal by making reference to "accusations on both sides", you seem to have forgotten to carry the accusations of the Iraqis, the people who did NOT intentionally LIE in order to feign a justification for a war thgey understood to be illegal. What happened to the part about the SAS men allegedly planting bombs, in order to foment civil war, which comes from the Iraqis? That IS, after all, the story here.

What about the explosives found in their vehicle, complete with remote detonators? You mentioned weapons, but seem to have ignored that part.

What you ran tonight was simply irresponsible and biased.

I sent you - twice - information leaked from official UK documents at the same time as the Downing Street Minutes were released (Iraq: Options Paper - March 8, 2002, UK Overseas & Defense Secretariat Cabinet Office), which proves that the US/UK were planning 'Divide & Rule', that old Colonial Trick, before the war even began.

Why was this deemed irrelevant to this story? Was it because you were too busy regurgitating the cover story of the people who said that Saddam could attack the UK with nukes in 45 minutes?

And your coverage of the story about the irrelevant CCTV videos from the London Underground, conveniently released to distract from this Covert Operation, was simply shameful. The Bliar Government has yet to produce evidence to support their Conspiracy Theory about 7/7. Why did you choose to identify those men as bombers, as opposed to ALLEGED bombers, as is appropriate?

You might get something out of this, as it highlights the behaviour of the media:

British Special Forces Caught Carrying Out Staged Terror In Iraq?
Media blackout shadows why black op soldiers were arrested
 http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/september2005/200905stagedterror.htm

As always,

Jordan Thornton

Who's Blowing up Iraq?
by Mike Whitney
 http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_mike_whi_050920_who_s_blowing_up_ira.htm

Why Basra is in revolt against occupation

“What our police found in their car was very disturbing — weapons, explosives and a remote control detonator,” Sheikh Hassan said. “These are the weapons of terrorists. We believe these soldiers were planning an attack on a market or other civilian targets, and thanks be to god they were stopped and countless lives were saved.”

 http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/article.php?article_id=7426

Jon Snow looked embarrassed, pale and physically sick on Ch4 news, reading; "two soldiers were kidnapped by militiamen" (I kid you not) from the autocue and Lieutenant Colonel Timothy Collins, who set the tone for the torture of Iraqi civilians, before being "retired" rather than court martialled, obediently obliged with the propaganda comment, "unfortunately the Mehdi militia is sponsored by Iran."

So, British SAS get caught dressed as al Zarqawi and bin Laden, attempting to blow up 100's of innocent Iraqi's at a market place, again, and it's all Iran's fault.

Better nuke them Muslims then, Mr Bush!

Woooo...woooo...

'Why did you choose to identify those men as bombers, as opposed to ALLEGED bombers, as is appropriate?'

I am all for journalistic standards Jordan, but many of those posting on here citing state involvement in the events of 7/7 show no such restraint, no qualifying clauses, no use of 'alleged' in their own posts, the post I criticised above unambiguously stated that the state was behind the London bombings, yet proponents of such theories have produced nothing substantial to support their claims and are now in the process of dismissing any new material that has emerged (new CCTV footage, the Khan video and the two al-Zawahri videos) which counters their own preconceived theories as 'irrelevant' or a 'distraction'. These seem to be very similar tactics to those employed by the mainstream media organisations that you are condemining in your own post.

Yes, the reporting on these events was absolutely amazing. First Channel 4 started with the glib assertion : "Rumour on the street was that the British had Bombs. Of course they did not. But it shows what local opinion is like". Next, Newsnight actually shows a whole program section on WHY and HOW the British 'Soldiers' (terrorists) were rescued but steers completely clear of WHAT the soldiers were doing in the first place. It even showed their equipment, and wires and the like which IMO can only be used for setting up explosive devices.

In my opinion, what we have all just seen on corporate news reporting is a complete cover-up, alongside supposed analysis and debate which is there simply to steer peoples' interests around the most pressing issues of all. I would not be surprised if a D-Notice has been slapped on the whole affair. See  http://www.serendipity.li/cda/dnot.html or  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D_Notice.

It is at times like this that indymedia and the interenet offer glimpses of just HOW much we are being lied to for the gain of the capitalist few.

Some of us here have an annoying trait of liking to believe facts over fantasy.

Yes ... that was exactly my point, 'incredulous". Posters to IMC, unfortunately, do not have to be held to the same standards as the MSM, because they are not professionals being paid for their work.

...

WE bomb, invade & occupy THEIR country
WE profit from selling THEIR oil and finacing the bombing, invading & occupation
THEY die in large numbers, WE in [relativly] small ones
WE get caught in disguise with bomb making equipment
THEY arrest US
WE trash THEIR police station

... and THEY are still the guilty ones ...

Am I missing something here?

WTF is it going to take for some to put away their notions of 'fair play' 'straight bats' & 'white hats' and realise that this is mass murder to service the almighty $$$?

Or do some really belive that THEY do it all for OUR benefit?

If they do, there is a word for it:

STUPID ...

I cannot speak for anyone else Jack, but my own comments were not directly connected to the Basra incident, but to the immediate and apparently unqualified assertion that this incident somehow 'proves' that the actions in London on 7/7 were undertaken by British special forces. This is merely 'guilt by inference' and is far from having been 'proven' in any way as far as I can see. While the Basra incident was clearly some kind of covert operation, it has not been clearly proven that the two SAS men were undertaking a false flag operation. Accounts of this incident have differed widely down even to the weapons/explosives recovered from the scene. I would prefer to hold off on any conclusions about this until more information has become apparent. Incidentally, I never supported the war and agree with you entirely about the suffering imposed on the Iraqi people. However, I cannot agree with some of the posters here, who seem to know immediately and without qualification what has taken place in Basra and make statements such as:

'Blair fully understood how important the fallout from this revealed British Terror Operation would be. He immediately ordered the news organisations throughout the UK to flood their coverage with more psy-ops from the cover story for his London bombings in an attempt to divert the attention of the public'

As if they were matters of established fact, when they are clearly nothing of the sort - was he there when Tony Blair made this 'order' to the news organisations? Where is the proof, outside of the assertion itself, that this was the case? Once again, where is the evidence that Tony Balir was behind the London bombings? People can speculate as much as they want about these things, but these assertions do not constitute 'facts'.

... Point conceeded ...

However, given that very few phenomena fall into the class of provable (an honour reserved usually for mathamatical and logical propositions), would you not conceed that waiting for 'definitive proof' before either drawing broard conclusions or ... heaven forswear[!] ... acting, is a dangerous game? [Q]

Given, also, that the british state ... for hundreds of years ... has acted in just such a way to secure "its" resources, is it impossible to conceive that now [Basra] is just another in this long line? [Q]

Further, although lacking in the 'killer evidence' to 'prove' that 7/7 was an operation similar in scope and reach to 9/11 & other reichstag events and given that circumstances surrounding the actual movements of 'the bombers', the drills, the bungled evidence collecting in Leeds, the bizzare shooting of a Brazilian electrician - contracted to work on the underground and just happening to live in the same block as 'alledged' bombers - and the following issue/denail/re-issue/re-denial of shady police 'spokespersons' ... is it not right to speculate that something is amiss?[Q]

Keep digging.

Use multiple sources and take note of the providence of their 'spin'.

Observe and intigrate patterns of data.

Then you maybe able to ... based on the preponderance of evidence [not proof] ... either make a tentative conclusion, or make a rough prediction.

My tentative conclusion is: that the global powerbrokers ... be it in oil, finacial markets, weapons etc ... have profited greatly by a course of events driven by the policies they themselves created and acted out through their agents[puppets] in govenment, and that these acts have included riechstag moments where it is us in the west who have been the target .. rather than all those brown skined johnies who usually get it.

My rough prediction is that 'they' will attempt to increase the momentum of their plans ... because to do otherwise would a] be pointless b] be dangerous ... after all, we are not helpless in the face of such concerted covert attacks of our liberties and inalienable human rights ...

... and this is the real point I am making ... psyops is their most fundamental tool when it comes to keeping us in line. Too much of the stick and our technicans, administrators, luminairies and, even, our security forces get restless ... won't do old boy .. sell 'em some soap powder story ... got to have the machines serviced 'n that ...

It's no use waiting for that proof, the 'Basra incident' should be treated as a watershed for our government and its policy in Iraq.

It is against internation laws and treaties (signed by us) to conduct warfare against civilians. We bombed their water treatment plants, their sewage plants, their medicine factories, their hospitals and their homes. FACT.

Enemy combatants caught behind lines out of uniform and armed are spies. They must expect to be punished appropriatly. Shooting policemen is illegal IN ANY COUNTRY IN THE WORLD. Were the Iraqis given soverignty or not?[Q]

However they wont to dress it up, the actions of the 'colalition' troops constitute war crimes. There is no legal basis for them.

This much CAN be PROVED IN LAW!!!

Well, without getting into an argument about empirical reality, I also agree that the London bombings and the events in Basra were unconnected. At least in so far as they were not perpetrated by the same people for the same reason. Though for Blair etc they clearly are connected - all being part of the war on terror; and the bombings in london may very well not have taken place without British troops being involved in the invasion of Iraq.

But to backtrack to my earlier point - the BBC has now admitted that the two SAS men were carrying explosives, though has spun the story as being about the police force being involved in the militias. The real story here - the one which corporate western media has so carefully avoided - is what those two men were doing with explosives and all of that equipment (4 guns, missile launcher, explosive charges, etc); sorry, but that CANNOT be considered normal equipment for a covert operation in an urban environment.

This is the story that is being hidden from view. Stop pretending that the real issue here is people believing anything they read on indymedia. Many spooks and supporters of the war like to post ridiculous articles to damange the credibility of this news source, but I think the stated 'facts' of the SAS equipment and what the two men were doing is very much in question...it also raises questions about how little we actually know about ongoing operations in Iraq and the kinds of black-opps that is being carried out with our money and in our name. As well as the issues that are now being debated by the media as an alternative to being scapegoated like the BBC for raising issues that are considered too dangerous. The question about a D-notice can not be answered satisfactorily by anyone either.

I don't agree that it is commendable to just fire off theories asserted as facts. I think it is irresponsible, childish and detrimental to the ethos of IMC.

There has been nothing to prove that the 2 soldiers were commiting terrorist acts. Zilch! Fuck all! Nihil! Null! nix! Nowt!

But yourself and your ilk feel obliged to seize any story going and any source to serve your agenda; be it true or untrue. Sorry, that per defintion is propaganda.

And propaganda should have no place on IMC.

Citing international law breaches proves only what you cite. It doesn't prove anything else you wish to lump in with it just because YOU think it's the case. I personally suspect you don't even believe half the crap to post here: you do it because you think you have the moral right to spread this crap.

As for never getting the whole picture: I think you must either be raving mad or under the age of 20. The 21st century has brought with it a constant onslaught of leaks and exposes that would never have happened a couple of decades ago. The Establishments grip on its servants is slipping. How did we find out about Abu Ghraib; Gitmo; WMD lies; Geneva Convention abuses; bombing civillians and infrastructure; etc etc etc? The Mainstream Media, Establishment leaks etc.

Just because Fox News broadcasts crap doesn't mean to say everyone relies on it.

Please just stick to established facts and leave the loony theories alone?

...your points are well made Jack, and I certainly do not have a problem with any post which throws in the occasional 'tentative conclusion’. I am not going to disagree with you about the illegality of the war, about the terrible suffering inflicted on civilian populations, or about the fact that certain elements within capitalist society clearly do benefit from war. But we will have to agree to differ on 7/7 (and 9/11 for that matter). It is true that there are anomalies in the 7/7 story, indeed I would be surprised if there was not, as any theory which purportedly explained everything (including the inevitable conflicting accounts) would be almost guaranteed to be a work of fiction. I also think there is a clear link between Iraq and the London bombings - but I am afraid I also believe that ordinary people, if they are truly committed, can, periodically, carry out successful terrorist attacks on western states, no matter how powerful those countries are. I also think they can achieve this without assistance from those very same western powers.

When discussing the structure of capitalism/imperialism there is, sometimes, an unfortunate tendency to portray those on the receiving end as mere passive victims to any structural or overtly physical oppression. There may, at times, even be a whiff of old colonialism about the assumptions made – a ‘these people could not possibly have organised this by themselves’ mentality. You may disagree with the analogy, but many nineteenth (and even twentieth) century western archaeologists used to make all sorts of tenuous arguments in order to ‘prove’ that any impressive societal or cultural structure discovered in South America or Africa could not possibly have been the product of indigenous peoples, but must ‘surely’ have come from some outside (predominantly ‘white’ but sometimes even ‘extra terrestrial’!!) influence. I do not think that is the case. The most oppressive or all pervasive social structure may determine the range of options open to people, but ‘hegemony’ or whatever you wish to call it, is never complete. To paraphrase Karl Marx, people make their own history, but not in circumstances of their own choosing. I am aware that the debate around the London attacks has become somewhat polemicised on this site with a number of the ‘state backed terrorism’ proponents arguing that theirs is the only ‘progressive’ view and that those who happen to disagree with their theories are nothing more than ‘sheeple’ (ah, the old false consciousness argument – if you are on the end of it, you soon realise just how patronising it is) or worse, are ‘agents of the state’. I, for one, have seen a number of genuine, regular posters on this site denounced as ‘spooks’ without a shred of evidence to support such an accusation. All because they do not perceive that acknowledging that ideologically committed Muslims may have been behind the attacks is necessarily a 'reactionary view'. If people wish to conduct their debate in such polemical terms, then that is up to them, but I for one think it is a somewhat reductionist and simplistic approach to take.

"Am I missing something here?"

You forgot the many conscious LIES these criminals told in order to feign a justification for a war they knew full well to be illegal, as proven by leaked Government documents.

... of good points, and well made too.

It is nice to be nice ... something that exchanges here often lack.

I will ruminate on them for a while before posting (here or the next thread).

And 'irritant', a well chosen name at least!

keep up the good work!