Skip to content or view mobile version

Home | Mobile | Editorial | Mission | Privacy | About | Contact | Help | Security | Support

A network of individuals, independent and alternative media activists and organisations, offering grassroots, non-corporate, non-commercial coverage of important social and political issues.

Hidden Article

This posting has been hidden because it breaches the Indymedia UK (IMC UK) Editorial Guidelines.

IMC UK is an interactive site offering inclusive participation. All postings to the open publishing newswire are the responsibility of the individual authors and not of IMC UK. Although IMC UK volunteers attempt to ensure accuracy of the newswire, they take no responsibility legal or otherwise for the contents of the open publishing site. Mention of external web sites or services is for information purposes only and constitutes neither an endorsement nor a recommendation.

Kalifornia Dreamin' A False Flag Fire Drill

Captain Eric H. May | 31.10.2007 03:11 | Globalisation | Indymedia | London

Captain Eric H. May, the Internet intelligence writer and commander of Ghost Troop, sends along a Halloween surprise for people who are spending the holiday caught up in the Web. Some will consider his hypothesis on what happened in California a trick, and some a treat. Everyone, though, will agree that his analysis sends out sparks and fuels the fire of our imagination!

Captain May wrote:
Date: Tue, 30 Oct 2007 16:16:46 -0700 (PDT)
From: Captain May
Subject: Kalifornia Dreamin' (A False Flag Fire Drill)
To:  captainmay@prodigy.net


Kalifornia Dreamin'
A False Flag Fire Drill

By Captain Eric H. May
Military Correspondent

All the leaves are brown and the sky is gray,
I've been for a walk on a winter's day,
I'd be safe and warm if I was in L.A.,
California dreamin' on such a winter's day.
-- The Mamas and the Papas

Ashes were falling like snow across Southern California last week, as the Santa Ana winds blew in to fan the flames and a heat wave bore down. It was hot for everybody, no matter where they were; but for those fighting the fires it was hotter than hell. Folks wept at their losses and lamented that their beautiful landscape had become a desolate moonscape.

The fires started on Sunday, Oct. 21, and they encircled their principal target of San Diego with military precision. You can't fault people for feeling like they're under attack when a natural disaster hits them. As the week wore on and the flames burned on, disturbing facts began to emerge to show that their feelings were right.

Cold-Blooded Arson

“Whoever did this knew what they were doing,” said Kris Concepcion, a fire authority battalion chief. Multiple witnesses attested to multiple fires being set by arsonists to attack targeted areas. Police shot and killed one alleged arsonist who was trying to make a getaway. Fox News lead an infowar campaign to attribute the arsons to Al Qaeda, the ubiquitous Bush League bogeyman.

By the end of the first week, though, there was no evidence to support the claim that bin Laden's buddies had torched dreamland. This would not do at all. There must be a criminal for every crime, else the people will begin to ask uncomfortable questions about just who the criminals might be. Politicos and Presstitutes searched for an appropriate patsy, and reasoned that if the incendiaries couldn't be little brown Muslims then they must have been little brown Mexicans, who were a pretty close match in the public mind.

It was too little too late, of course. The Internet cat came yowling and scratching out of the mainstream media bag, despite their best efforts to contain it. Now, on the 10th day since the advent of the fires, cybersleuths have exposed the Fox Al Qaeda stories as warmed over propaganda from 2003 FBI sources. Likewise, they have networked the information that California fire stations were reporting professional efforts to gather intelligence on their layout and operations during the summer.

Hard-Boiled Facts

Call me a cynic if you must, but it's never easy for me to accept the pat answer to any complex question. I oppose historic official stories blaming the Christians for burning Rome, the Jews for burning the Reichstag and the Muslims for burning the Twin Towers. Accordingly, I also oppose the current official story blaming the Mexicans for burning California.

One fact stares at me through all the smoke and mirrors. The fires began only hours after a border fracas between Turkey and Iraqi Kurds ended with dozens dead and a nation of Turks crying out for a punitive invasion. While California cooked, the government of Turkey authorized war, then mobilized and massed its forces against Northwest Iraq. There was an uncomfortable possibility that they would attack under the pretext of rooting out terrorists, then take over oil resources. All of this was fine historic irony, of course, since four years ago, Turkey refused a substantial US bribe in exchange for permission to use its territory as a staging area for an attack to root out terrorists, then take over oil resources.

It required something very gripping to distract the American people away from the spectacle of our collapsing "central front in the war on terror," something like a San Diego sideshow, perhaps. The Bush League has always been lucky when it comes to catastrophes. Without 9/11 they never would have had an excuse to initiate the Global War or implement the Homeland State, two projects they had already envisioned and planned for before Bush assumed the presidency.

The Germanator and the Burning Bush

I appreciate the leadership of Governor Schwarzenegger. I said earlier when we were at the neighborhood, there's no hill he's not willing to charge, no problem he's not willing to solve. -- George W. Bush, standing beside Arnold Schwarzenegger

I'm guilty of yellow journalism for labeling Arnold "The Germanator." He was born in Austria, after all, and I know that quite well. But then again, Hitler was born in Austria, too. If the jackboot fits, then Arnold must wear it. It's impossible for me to see any leader standing in a fire zone beside our cheerleader in chief and not think of them both as a couple of Neo Nero's, fiddling with torches.

Seeing all of this destruction this week has been saddening, but at the same time I have to say it also has been very inspirational, because we have seen how people have come together. -- Arnold Schwarzenegger, standing beside George W. Bush

See what I mean? Every word of the Germanator's script for California after the fires could have been used by Rudy Giuliani (and probably was) for New York after 9/11. Disaster is good for the soul and brings out the best in us. It goes without saying that it also provides wonderful economic opportunities for interested parties...

Portero: A Blackwater Backwater

Blackwater mercenary corporation comes to mind as a big beneficiary of the recent arsons. One of the first targets to burn down was Portero, a town 20 miles southeast of San Diego on the Mexican border. Portero had become a national cause célèbre for its determined opposition to the Blackwater mercenary company setting up a thousand acre training facility in its boundaries. Nowadays the people of Portero, though, have more immediate interests than peacenik protests, like rebuilding their homes.

Blackwater has gone on record in recent days. An official spokesman lamented the bad luck that hit poor Portero. He wished aloud that Blackwater had finished building its Portero facility, since then the town could have relied on their fire equipment and water reserves. In all probability, area residents will now welcome any investments, and they won't be so picky about who is making them.

Private military contractors have picked up the scent of smoke, and several of them are now shopping around the idea of a yearly contract fee for interested municipalities, presumably to supplement their firefighters and police with motivated mercenaries. It goes without saying that where there is smoke there is fire, and it shouldn't go unsaid that, occasionally, where there is arson there is extortion.

# # #

Captain May is a former Army military intelligence and public affairs officer, as well as a former NBC editorial writer. His political and military analyses have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The Houston Chronicle and Military Intelligence Magazine. On Thursday, 1/11, he will appear on KBOO radio in Portland to discuss the California fires with Presswatch host Theresa Mitchell. The program will air at 9 a.m. Pacific Time:  http://kboo.fm/program/presswatch

Captain Eric H. May

Upcoming Coverage
View and post events
Upcoming Events UK
24th October, London: 2015 London Anarchist Bookfair
2nd - 8th November: Wrexham, Wales, UK & Everywhere: Week of Action Against the North Wales Prison & the Prison Industrial Complex. Cymraeg: Wythnos o Weithredu yn Erbyn Carchar Gogledd Cymru

Ongoing UK
Every Tuesday 6pm-8pm, Yorkshire: Demo/vigil at NSA/NRO Menwith Hill US Spy Base More info: CAAB.

Every Tuesday, UK & worldwide: Counter Terror Tuesdays. Call the US Embassy nearest to you to protest Obama's Terror Tuesdays. More info here

Every day, London: Vigil for Julian Assange outside Ecuadorian Embassy

Parliament Sq Protest: see topic page
Ongoing Global
Rossport, Ireland: see topic page
Israel-Palestine: Israel Indymedia | Palestine Indymedia
Oaxaca: Chiapas Indymedia
Regions
All Regions
Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World
Other Local IMCs
Bristol/South West
Nottingham
Scotland
Social Media
You can follow @ukindymedia on indy.im and Twitter. We are working on a Twitter policy. We do not use Facebook, and advise you not to either.
Support Us
We need help paying the bills for hosting this site, please consider supporting us financially.
Other Media Projects
Schnews
Dissident Island Radio
Corporate Watch
Media Lens
VisionOnTV
Earth First! Action Update
Earth First! Action Reports
Topics
All Topics
Afghanistan
Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-Nuclear
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Fracking
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Policing
Public sector cuts
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista
Major Reports
NATO 2014
G8 2013
Workfare
2011 Census Resistance
Occupy Everywhere
August Riots
Dale Farm
J30 Strike
Flotilla to Gaza
Mayday 2010
Tar Sands
G20 London Summit
University Occupations for Gaza
Guantanamo
Indymedia Server Seizure
COP15 Climate Summit 2009
Carmel Agrexco
G8 Japan 2008
SHAC
Stop Sequani
Stop RWB
Climate Camp 2008
Oaxaca Uprising
Rossport Solidarity
Smash EDO
SOCPA
Past Major Reports
Encrypted Page
You are viewing this page using an encrypted connection. If you bookmark this page or send its address in an email you might want to use the un-encrypted address of this page.
If you recieved a warning about an untrusted root certificate please install the CAcert root certificate, for more information see the security page.

Global IMC Network


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech