So Western intelligence agencies create the Islamic terrorist groups that their governments say they are fighting?

Not always, but sometimes.

Having seen the Monbiot interview, would you buy a used car from this woman?

Craig

You might consider writing formally to the Guardian saying this, and referencing your evidence to the SC.

It will be interesting to see if they publish it!

"She is an awful, awful person who needs to be locked away. To call her a sociopath or a psychopath is to dignify her malevolence with a legitimate excuse when she has none. She is the new face of terror. One that smiles and pretends to consider your arguments before blithely burying them in a torrent of misrepresentation and dissemblement."

Hmm... it seeems we're tiptoeing our way to somewhere.

There is real terror and there is fake terror. If there is real terror then why do our governments need to fake it?

And between fake terror curtesy of our own governments (and their allies), and real terror curtesy of people who are obviously marginalised and impoverished, which one is the greater threat? I'm inclined to think that if our governments weren't the kind of people to be faking terror, and were instead decent people, then there wouldn't be any 'real' terrorists. Besides, given that our governments create fake terror, what would they do if they fell upon some real terrorists? Stop them? Or give them a hand?

I could spiel off a list of terror attacks that are cold hard certainties as fake but I couldn't name a single one that is without a doubt 'real', ie. was in fact what we were told it was.

Would you blame a fellow who was perfectly convinced that there is fake terror, for taking one further step in that direction and wondering if there's any real terror at all?

Sorry, 'courtesy'.

And what I find appalling, indeed chilling, is that this dreadful woman - "Salford's Sarah Palin" one CiF comment dubbed her - is in charge of community relations when she obviously hasn't got a clue about anything and lies like a trooper [if that isn't am insult to the Guards].

Nobody,

There is obviously real terrorism. To believe all terrorism is invented by governments, you would have to be very weird. I recommend as a good starting point Robin Soans' play, "Talking to Terrorists", based on his interviews with some of them and a very good exploration of the motives of terrorism.

That governments would wish to exaggerate, and sometimes promote, a real phenomenon to their advantage, is not a hard concept to understand.

Quote from Craig in this article by William Blum on Counterpunch on Obama and Torture.

http://www.counterpunch.org/blum05052009.html

I wholly agree with the foregoing about the hideous diminuitive, once 'Google Bombed' as the 50" woman. Sorry to be 'shortist'!
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1048296/Blears-falls-prey-Google-bomb-Attack-Of-The-50-inch-Woman.html

mary???

So she's 50" tall and lies... I don't see any connection other than two separate comments about the same person.

If Craig comes out and denounces Jimmy Krankie in the next post, I'll think harder about this.

"If there is real terror then why do our governments need to fake it? "

Because terrorists are pretty bloody incompetent - most of the stuff they do is just totally inadequate. If it wasn't for British and US government grants and training schemes we'd never have heard of most of these jihad thingies. Nationalisation of terrorism still hasn't entirely succeeded, though. Further clarification here at the Daily Mash:

http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=249&Itemid=59

She has her Albright moment just 2 mins in. Hundreds of thousands of people have died, but she still thinks it was the right decision. That's very similar to saying it's a price worth paying.

@craig: "That governments would wish to exaggerate, and sometimes promote, a real phenomenon to their advantage, is not a hard concept to understand."

...exaggerate, and sometimes promote, and sometimes CREATE.

She shares the same mad grin with Gordon's recent YouTube performance of Batman's archenemy, The Joker.

On a more serious note she epitomizes the unprincipled hunger for high office and job security. I wonder if she was the inspiration for "Shameless"?

Wow, that Monbiot bloke is very smart... or is it as much that Hazel Nut is easy prey due to her predigested patter, making her predictable.

I can't help thinking of the Christian fundamentalists I used to argue with at Uni'; they seemed pre-programmed as they chirped out their assured messages. By filling their heads and vocabulary with 'the good news', they ostracised all off message thinking; like some mantra of self hypnosis, they sway with the comfortable rhythm of the cult's truth.

How uncomfortable they become when brought into confrontation with their own contradictions; Monbiot's skill of the dialectic is masterful.

You are left wondering, when you see their happy assured faces begin to blink and frown, if these 'nice' people wouldn't resort to evil so as to maintain their blissful self-delusion.

The Politics of Fear end in the Politics of Control. The British people weren't frightened during the much greater bombing and rocket terrors they had to endure during the 1939-45 war - they were defiant. They weren't frightened during the IRA's mainland bombing campaigns - they were contemptuous. Now we have a government that since 2001 has ripped away most of our hard fought for civil liberties either because it is scared witless by the spectre of Islamic terrorism, or because it finds that spectre a convenient pretext for abolishing the individual citizen's right to privacy.

Either way, we should all be very, very afraid of the incompetent control freaks who currently govern us.

I think anticant has summed it up perfectly; I have nothing to add save to say that I have nothing to add.

The fact that she has addressed the House of Commons on this issue, yet could claim to know so little about it, demonstrates the point Monbiot was trying to make - that, under President Bliar and King Gordon, she and her ilk have de-evolved to the point of having zero personal integrity.

Someone should tell Blears that WE KNOW that awful false grin is for the cameras, FOR FUCKS SAKE!

Also, for an insight how governments operate or are controlled then check out THE OBAMA DECEPTION on youtube. (cant add link am afraid)

One aspect of the interview puzzled me, and still does. It seemed to me that there was a 'think local' theme running through it. Although she only said it a couple of times (I think - I can't bring myself to watch it all again) she used it purposefully: "I'm only interested in .. education .. health .. good people of Salford ...". OK, I expect every MP who wants to get re-elected to say they will do good things for the constituency; that's a big part of the job.

But she's a Cabinet Minister, and people - God help us - are talking of her as a possible future leader of Labour. I was shocked that she used this line to so blatantly turn away questions about foreign policy and actions. Several things puzzle me. First she's no fool; she's a lawyer and a senior politician (no jokes please). She surely must know how stupid this is and how ostrich-like it makes her appear. Next, a large part of her constituency have close links - family and business links - with faraway parts of the world, while she is saying (I paraphrase) "I don't care what goes on over there, that's a long way away. Let's just keep our heads down in Salford".

She was being interviewed by a smart guy for a paper with smart readers. She is smart. Why so much dumbness?

My guesses are:
1. There is no substantive answer that she could discuss in public.
2. She wants to inculcate the idea that these are hard matters that are really only for the big boys and girls to understand. Everybody else should just concentrate on Mr Mayor at the Town Hall.
3. No one has given her the script for this bit.

But *she* (unnecessarily) invited Monbiot to visit *her*. Wasn't she prepared for some tough questions?

It has taken me a long time but I have finally learned to trust my own judgement (and not assume that I'm simply too thick); in particular when I feel that something does not hang together and I feel uneasy about it, then there is a rodent to be smelt.

What's she up to?

She doesn't bother her dyed little head about far away countries of which she knows nothing and others of us know far too much.

ALL politicians are overpaid actors, what's new about that? Are people only beginning to notice that Monbiot is part of the charade too?

Another insightful and interesting post.
In the interview, the only question Blears had to spin out of was labour's support of Karimov.

Now we know why...

And, anyone who doubts that Governments will allow the killing of their own people in false flag operations should google the word 'Gladio'.

I remember thinking that she was irresponsible to talk about the support for an extreme right wing party increasing in poorer areas - why was she doing their work for them?
But she may have put a foot wrong in suggesting that voters don't believe everything that politicians say on TV. After all, publicly doubting the credibility of the Current Beloved Leader is letting the side down. Anyway, come election night, we should get some entertaining relief. Imagine, cabinet ministers in 'safe' seats getting thrown out. I wonder what it would take in Blackburn, though.

Craig. I'm being serious now!
Could you tell us briefly what restrictions still exist on Germany having a 'defence' posture 4000 miles from Berlin. I believe that post WWII treaties required Japan and Germany to limit their militaries in various ways.

"it is scared witless by the spectre of Islamic terrorism" - No it's not. What claptrap.

"She was being interviewed by a smart guy for a paper with smart readers. She is smart. Why so much dumbness?"

Can't remember who said it, but here it is anyway:

"You can fool all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time. That second lot is what you focus on."

There is some comment here about the politics of fear and control, and I subscribe to those ideas. But watching the video of Hazel Blears, she doesn't strike me as someone who is nasty enough to deliberately scheme in such a way.

But her unrelenting niceness, the sheepish smiling, her desperate willingness to be liked - in the face of the huge contradictions before her - is quite chilling given the atrocities and failures she is asked to consider. Hundreds of thousands dead in Iraq? Support for a dictator that boils his prisoners to death? Tax measures that could have been predicted to hurt the people they were meant to assist? The building of a new runway against a background of climate change?

To these she has no answers, and offers only the suggestion that "politics is complex" and "sometimes we get it wrong". Sound-bites that mean nothing, and in their complacency are a million miles away from the lies of the war machine and the screams of the torture chamber. She refuses to consider these questions, regards Blair as fundamentally decent, and sleeps well at night.

I propose a new interview with her, with the very capable Monbiot at the helm. She claims not to know much about the situation with Karimov and Uzbekistan. That's worrying in itself for a senior politician, but let's let that pass. Let Monbiot obtain printed information about the background to the region, photographs of the torture there, and let Blears have her coaching from Labour's miserable party linesmen. Then, ask her these questions again, and see her reaction when she considers the reality of the scald marks on the photographs of Karimov's victims. The video might need editing down, since the reading of material and the discussions might take an hour or two. But would it not be worth it, in an attempt to root out politicians so bland and nice they will agree to anything?

I saw Blears on a Sunday morning show not so long ago. She was promoting democracy at the grass roots and urging folk to use their voices apparently. Didn't really ring true to me. Seemed like she just waffling. I don't think she is a big player in the theatre.

I think my eponymous brain has gone to sleep. What I said was "we have a government that since 2001 has ripped away most of our hard fought for civil liberties either because it is scared witless by the spectre of Islamic terrorism, or because it finds that spectre a convenient pretext for abolishing the individual citizen's right to privacy."

I stand by that.

She's grim.

So typical of plastic bull$hit lying warmongering NuLabour.

Just another brainwashed dumb enuff to repeat the idiot mantra and serve droid.

@ Jon
'Hazel Blears, she doesn't strike me as someone who is nasty enough to deliberately scheme in such a way.'

The concept is simple. It is okay to do something evil so long as the end result is good.
This is the twisted rationality which has led us to condone torture.

That terrorism that proverbially speaking, is the needle in the haystack you mean?

Yeah, I bet their their teeth a'chattering right now over it. The Islamic Uzbek threat too, like the Basrah Islamic militants threat... Islamic x, Islamic y, Islamic z.

@Anon:

> The concept is simple. It is okay to do something evil
> so long as the end result is good.

I agree that there are some mendacious politicians who are dangerous, possibly evil, because they believe in that. My point was that Hazel Blears is dangerous even though she *doesn't* appear to believe that. She is dangerous because she won't recognise atrocities as atrocious, evil acts as evil. Whatever her psychological process, her sticking to the party line and running away from awkward reality, has cost a lot of people their lives (Iraq and elsewhere) and their safety (Uzbekistan and elsewhere).

‘Nobody’ asks an interesting question (above) about why a Government, such as ours, would want or need to fake or exaggerate the threat of terror?

Others speculate on this thread, though it is ‘Anticant’ (above) who comes closest to the truth when they say Government ‘since 2001 has ripped away most of our hard fought for civil liberties... because it finds that spectre [of terrorism] a convenient pretext for abolishing the individual citizen's right to privacy’.

This is a largely accurate description of what has been going on in Britain over the past decade, although it would be slightly unfair to say that it was just the Blair Governments that did the damage – with Thatcher and Major both helping to play their part too, though not to the same extent.

So, why has our Labour Government been so busily dismantling our civil liberties? Well, unless you ask them (and they are not exactly going to tell you) then to answer that question we have to look more closely at the concept(s) of civil liberties.

For example, in Britain we have Magna Carta, Habeas Corpus and the Bill of Rights (1689) which protected us against arbitrary state power. That is to say that these laws restricted what the state could not do to its citizens, which includes provisions for the right to jury trial and the right to bear arms.

In which case, why would the Labour Government want to abolish these restrictions, as it has been so carefully doing? Well, of course, it has much to do with the power of the state and the desire to allow committed ‘human rights’ activists like Craig Murray to help them replace our centuries old civil liberties, which had restrictive and binding limits on the power of the state over its citizens, with new ‘liberties’ and ‘human rights’ which seek to increase the power of the state over its citizens.

Articles like the European Convention are virtually worthless. One specific ‘right’ will turn out to be ‘balanced' or ‘limited’ by another, and so that there is no absolute right to anything. Furthermore, reasons dreamt up by the state (as our current Government is very good at) can cancel out almost any of these rights if the Government think they can get away with it on the pretext of ‘security’ or ‘fighting organised crime’ or whatever. What’s more, there is the threat from interpretation of these laws by imaginative judges who often seem to be very good at interpreting the clearest words to mean things that are utterly different to the original intention.

As Lord Hoffmann recently said, ‘Right, the substantive right, is the child of law: from real laws come real rights; but from imaginary laws, from laws of nature, fancied and invented by poets, rhetoricians, and dealers in moral and intellectual poisons, come imaginary rights’. If, at one moment in time, the state decides to give a ‘right’ of freedom of speech to it citizens then, at a later stage, if it so wishes, that right can be taken away again. Power thus rests with the state not the citizens.

Labour and Left-wing Governments always want to increase the power of the state because, if it is controlled by them, then they believe it will be eternally good and benevolent in all its actions. Yet, this is incredibly dangerous because citizens are never more than a few steps away from tyranny and the arbitrary power of the state.

Considering Monbiot comes out with such total nonsense with regards to Global Warming and 9/11, that was an excellent interview he gave of Hazel Blears.

Her response was like that of a brain dead zombie who took the course on how not to answer the question - but failed even on that.

As regards Terrorism, well the vast majority of Terrorism if examined objectively in detail is performed by Professionals using Military Explosives almost certainly working for National Intelligence Agencies. Some Terrorist acts are performed by Groups totally independent of Government. Some Intelligence Agencies whilst funded by Government act largely independent of any political control. Even the Wilson Government documented this.

Most Recent Wars that are directly resulted to Acts of Terrorism, are based on a belief by those in control of Western Governments that the World is running out of oil. They believe that it is the moral duty of Governments to secure the control of the remaining World's oil reserves in order to extend the life of Western Civilisation. The logic goes - that if the West doesn't invade Iraq etc - then Russia or China will. Either way Millions of Iraqi's will die - so they may as well die with British and American bombs and bullets rather than Russian or Chinese.

Incidentally, I am convinced that the belief that the world is running out of oil any time soon is totally false, and that the planet is actually abundant with energy.

I am also convinced that increased levels of CO2 do not cause climate change and are highly beneficial to plant and food growth.

Whilst the World does indeed face some very serious problems with regards to poverty, environmental destruction and over-population none of these issues are being sensibly addressed and we are in effect controlled by psychotic, idiotic, control freaks most of who'm talk nonsense far more eloquently than Hazel Blears.

The following gives details of the reasons why these people are in control of us.

http://www.ponerology.com/psychopaths_1.html

Tony

Hazel Blears epitomises the new breed of Labour politicians: a careerist rent-a-gob. What does she believe in? Nothing of consequence. What does she say she believes in? Whatever she is told to.

I thought this was an astonishingly weak performance by Ms Blears. It was quite embarrassing to watch. Judging by that interview she is a pretty poor debater and if she possesses a strong intellect, it's well hidden. Her reliance on platitudes reminded me of Bush feebly falling back on the Bible for justification when the interview questions became challenging.

I disagree with the commenter above who thought that George Monbiot did extremely well. Agreed, all credit to him for the idea to corner Ms Blears, but IMO he missed the most obvious point (which another commenter above pointed out), namely, that Blears was clearly insinuating that provided the good burghers of Salford were OK, then what happens overseas, even as a result of policy that has her signature on it, is not really any of her concern. This was a quite disgraceful thing to say (and I believe she insinuated it at least twice during the interview, although like another commenter above I can't bring myself to watch it again to double-check). It was an astonishing "defence", and I'm amazed Mr Monbiot didn't crucify her with the ammunition she gave him.

Her comments also seem to demonstrate just how contemptuous she is of the public. She knew perfectly well the likely audience for that video, but yet she still thought that spouting such cynical, platitudinous tripe would be acceptable. She appeared quite unfased by her obviously poor performance. One can only conclude that she regards herself as untouchable and in no need of justifying herself to the wider public. I think Monbiot's best line was delivered before the interview, she seems to stand for nothing other than election.

I Studied Pure Physics and Maths at Salford University

I Am Completely Appalled that such a Cretin is Representing The People of Salford with such DROSS

I mean for Fucks Sake Woman - If You Gave ALL The Entire Senior Members of The Labour Party - a - what was she called - Clinton's bit?

Can't you hide your swollen cheeks?

And say something sensible?

The smiles and the Lancashire accent simply don't cut it.

You are a Total Embarrassment

Tony

The mind of Hazel Blears is a reality free zone.

Hazel is keenly aware that a General Election is on the way and that the working class in her constituency have seen through NuLabour lies and many of them will be out of work with zero prospects.

The threat of BNP is also on the horizon which could mean not only losing her cabinet seat but her parlimentary one as well. She is no fool and realises that in order to survive she has to ingratiate herself with the locals once more, at least until the election is done and dusted.

A similar but not so prominent response can be seen from other Labour MPs who also are begining to see the game is up for them too. Principles I'm afraid are out of the window if the prospect of having to do a proper days work is in the offing rather than languishing at tax payers expense on the green benches.

Personally I expect a bloodbath come this time next year for NL and the gloss and facade will have finally been removed. The Project will be over but of course "Dave" will be on hand to take over the show.

Hazel might well find work as an extra on any future Batman films and could even be a female mini-me!

To Tony_Opmoc

"Incidentally, I am convinced that the belief that the world is running out of oil any time soon is totally false, and that the planet is actually abundant with energy."

I'm wondering where you get this? One thing that is absolutely not in dispute is the fact that discovery of new reserves has been declining since the 60's. In 1999, worldwide demand was about 25 billion barrels a year, whereas discovery was running at about 6 billion. The ratio is even greater now, so I wonder where this 'abundant energy' is that you talk about? The Cantarell in Mexico (3rd largest field in the world) dropped from 2.4million barrels a day output in 2004 to about 900,000 a day now. The Ghawar in Saudi Arabia (largest in the world) is also in decline.

The motives for invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, were absolutely related to Peak Oil and US Hegemony. Dick Cheney's secretive National Energy Policy Development Group has still refused to release it's records under the FOIA. Shortly after this Group made its confidential report, the attacks of 9/11 occurred and the propaganda machine kicked into action. The shallow pretexts of 'Terrorism', 'Al Qaeda', 'WMD' etc, were the cover stories for the public for the invasions.

On the other hand, the connection between 'Security Agencies' like the CIA, MI6, Mossad, ISI etc and 'Al Qaeda' and other 'Terrorist' Groups is well documented. The collusion of the West in such activities was revealed in the official Dutch investigation into the Srebenica massacre, just to name one example. The creation of 'Al Qaeda' (literally 'the database') as a Covert operation and Osama Bin Laden's long term status as a CIA asset, are truth's unmentionable in the mainstream media.

At the top level, these so called Terrorist groups are led by other such Western assets such as Omar Saeed Sheikh who are in reality double agents or informants. Further down the chain, the operatives are mostly 'genuine' Terrorists, (although extensively infiltrated by agents), which therefore makes them easy to manipulate into attacking Western interests so that our governments can claim to be 'fighting' the threat with invasions of other countries and authoritarian measures at home.

Another motive for intervention in Central Asia is the fact that the international drug trade puts at least $500 billion through the US economy every year, with the CIA trafficking and big business and Wall Street laundering the cash and lending it on. The late journalist Gary Webb documented this extensively in his book 'Dark Alliance' in relation to Cocaine and the Iran/Contra affair. The US is now allied with some of the biggest Opium traffickers in Afghanistan including General Dostum of the Afghan 'Government'. Former Cop and investigative journalist Michael Ruppert has also documented the drug/CIA relationship extensively.

She did herslef no favours on that interview. She came over as a rather empty headed woman with clashing lipstick and hair, out of her depth with the interview.

The way that in the first few minutes of the interview she dismissed the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people in Iraq as "unfortunate" or some other similar word, made my stomach turn.

It would have been a lot more than unfortunate I suspect, Madam, if members of your family had been killed.

Thanks for posting that Craig. An education

You're right Craig of course. But what if I were to be more specific? What percentage of the terror we're in amongst now, which is entirely Islamic, is real and unquestionably so?

Between: competely trumped up nonsense like that latest Birmingham thing (Australia has had a similar string of such farcical efforts like the Haneef affair etc.); the endless string of 'terrorists' being encouraged to get serious by government agents and, serious or no, being given explosives, and training in how to use them by those same agents; and the big picture inspiration for disgruntled Muslims coming from an Al Qaeda led by 'ex'-CIA asset Tim Osman (aka Osama Bin Laden. Actually I should take the inverted commas off the 'ex' what with him having died in late 2001), with its number three leader being Adam Gadahn (aka Adam Pearlman, a nice Jewish boy from Orange Country whose favourite Grampa served on the board of the ADL), and with all its jihad websites being hosted on servers in Texas - I think the question is a fair one.

Is any of the Islamic terror currently being used as an excuse for the War On Terror real?

-- Hazel might well find work as an extra on any future Batman films and could even be a female mini-me! --

No, Hazel Blears is clearly Dolores Umbridge.

I agree with orwellianUK and nobody that all is very far from being what it seems, especially since 9/11. This does not make us into wild-eyed conspiracy theorists sniffing little green aliens round every corner. It quite clearly emerges from close study of the connections between governments and international criminals which have been extensively documented by other serious bloggers in the US and Europe. As a result of what I've learned during the last couple of years, I don't take any official pronouncements at their face value any more.

extensively documented by other serious bloggers in the US and Europe.

That's a rather 'generally white' selection there anticant. No comment on African or Asian (generally not-white) bloggers?

I seem to have lost my brain and acquired a watch. I blog for pleasure and interest and am not running a universal information service. I cannot follow up all the myriad links on others' sites, though if I did it would be doubtless be enlightening.

Perhaps my eponymous critic would tell us what they read?

> I seem to have lost my brain and acquired a watch

Giggle! How careless!

Craig,

I have a question for you. Do you think the people claiming asylum in this country, who are originally from Uzbekistan, will be reported to the uzbek government?