Shoot to Kill and News Management 689


I did not believe the official story of Hasna Ait Buolacehn the moment I saw it. The official line was that she was a suicide bomber who blew herself up when the police stormed the apartment in St Denis where the alleged terrorist ringleader was hiding out. But that story seemed to me completely incompatible with the recordings on which she could plainly be heard screaming “He is not my boyfriend! He is not my boyfriend” immediately before the explosion. She sounded like a terrified woman trying to disassociate herself from the alleged terrorist. It was a strange battle cry for someone who believed themselves on the verge of paradise.

Then yesterday the truth emerged from forensics that she was indeed not a suicide bomber. None of the mainstream media appeared to find this in any way troubling. And just in case anybody did, the BBC (and I assume all the French and major international media) then immediately did an interview with an anonymous member of the French Police attacking squad, who stated that Hasna was:

“trying to say she was not linked to the terrorists, that she had nothing to do with them and wanted to surrender”.
But he said that due to prior intelligence, “we knew that she was trying to manipulate us”.

Unfortunately this would have been a very great deal more convincing had it been stated 48 hours earlier, rather than only after the original reports that she was a suicide bomber had been corrected on forensic examination. As it is, it looks very much like a post facto justification, a new story to cover the new facts.

Besides, it is very difficult indeed to see what prior intelligence could explain if someone was genuinely trying to surrender or not. There appears to be no information available to the public that gives the slightest indication that Hasna was an extreme Islamist; what public information there is paints the opposite picture. The best the media have been able to dredge up are quotes from friends saying “if she was, then she must have been drugged or brainwashed”. Google it yourself.

But even were she an extreme Islamist, that does not mean she was not attempting to surrender. All of which is a bit nugatory if she were then killed by an explosion triggered by the terrorists themselves. But the changing story about Hasna makes me less than confident that is what actually happened.

I have no difficulty with the principle that the police should shoot people who are shooting at them. I outraged many friends on the left for example by not joining in the criticism of the police for killing Mr Duggan. People who choose to carry guns in my view run a legitimate risk of being shot by the police, it is as simple as that. Jean Charles De Menezes was a totally different case and his murder by police completely unjustifiable. In Paris it appears plain that the police were in a situation of confrontation with armed suspects.

There are severe intelligence disadvantages to killing people with profound knowledge of terrorist organisations. It also cheats the justice system. Nevertheless I can conceive of situations where simply taking out by an explosion a terrorist cell might be justified. But only if you are quite certain of the situation. The case of Hasna is to me troublingly reminiscent of the case of Jean Charles De Menezes, in that it became obvious in the days after his death that everything the police and establishment had leaked to the media about him (leaping over barriers, running through the tunnels, heavy jacket, wires protruding) was a complete, utter and quite deliberate lie.

The media could help if they were in any way rational and dispassionate, or ever questioned an official narrative. It is an urgent and irrepressible question as to why the BBC journalist did not ask the French policeman “and why did you not say this 48 hours ago when you were content to allow the story to run that she was a suicide bomber?”

Similar media manipulation is at use here by the Guardian in telling us the police stormed a “terrorist apartment”. What is a “terrorist apartment”? Are the walls made of semtex? The intent of course is to assure us everybody inside was a terrorist. It is not just the Guardian. The phrase is all over the media. Again, google it.

I am worried in case Hollande’s Rambo impersonation is steamrollering justice. It may well be that Hasna was a dreadful and bloodthirsty terrorist. I do not know. It may well be she was killed by the terrorists not the police. All we know at the moment is she was in an apartment with people who allegedly were terrorists, and died in the “battle”. But I do not trust the changing stories of the authorities.


Allowed HTML - you can use: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>

689 thoughts on “Shoot to Kill and News Management

1 17 18 19 20 21 23
  • fred

    “The NFA are politicians. You are saying that the winners in post-intervention Libya are the western appointed government. Thank you for demonstrating my point.”

    You missed out “and their supporters”, the people who voted for them.

  • fedup

    Very true ROS no arguing with your proposition, in fact bLiar is on record trying to get Qaddafi to leave Libya before the shindig started! The sad fact is; even though “Qaddafi was a puppet but at least Libyan had a stable and secure country that afforded them to get on with educating themselves and making social progress and evolving into a more “democratic” ( in the full sense of the word and not the shorthand for “free marketeers and banksters agents haven”.

    The same was true of Saddam, in both case if you noticed they suffered the death of a thousand cuts; first they witnessed their sons murdered and their homes and houses destroyed and then it was their turn to be humiliated and killed!! This of course is a lesson for other sock puppet vassals to take a note of; play the game or we are coming after you and yours!!

    In any case it does not bode well for human progress, given the mess that these countries have been left in, and the generational battle on the hands of the relevant natives to get back to where they had progressed to before the hoards of the latter day Mongols attacked and destroyed these lands.

  • Resident Dissident

    “btw what is Resident Dissident doing here this morning? Thought he went to work and had a family to feed?”

    Took the day off to attend an appointment at my daughter’s school. I do know how you like to keep tabs on dissidents – the old habits die hard don’t they.

  • Habbabkuk (scourge of the Original Trolls)

    Giyane

    “Can somebody either shoot him please or would it be too harsh to ask Alcy1 to stick his troll up his backside. asap anyone?”
    ___________________

    Did you learn to write like that at your Oxford college? 🙂

  • YouKnowMyName

    Cameron, whilst in Europe tilting at Unicorns, expressed the opinion that we must expect the unexpected, at least the powerful state media machine (Radio2) accredited him with this meaningless drivel

    Doesn’t he know that since 1970 we have bee

  • fedup

    As I’ve probably said before on here, Vietnam was the last open American war in which journalists were allowed to roam freely. Think how many decades ago that now was; and, arguably, the honest reporting on the Vietnam war was one reason why the American people turned against it.

    True and furthermore Rob thanks for the link I am watching it and it is echoing what we have been debating here and further clarifying the pernicious and rampant bunch of lunatics intent on subjugating humanity en mass that is you and I and the rest of the planet to be put to slavery by the less than the one percenters!!

  • Habbabkuk (scourge of the Original Trolls)

    “Republicofscotland”

    ““He could have spared his country and its people a good deal of grief if he had been less of a cunt.”

    _____________

    I take it you’re referring or Cameron or Osborne?”
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    No, to “Colonel” Ghaddafi.

    Do try to keep up.

  • ------------·´`·.¸¸.¸¸.··.¸¸Node

    Fred : You missed out “and their supporters”, the people who voted for them.

    Oh, so how does that work? They write their name and address on the back of the voting slip and a politician turns up later with a brown envelope?

  • Habbabkuk (scourge of the Original Trolls)

    My goodness, the Eminences and Old Trolls have been busy this afternoon, haven’t they 🙂

    They should get out a bit more, oxygenate what passes for their brain and so on..

  • Habbabkuk (scourge of the Original Trolls)

    Fedup

    “..it is echoing what we have been debating here”

    _____________________

    You haven’t been debating anything here, just ranting and raving

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    as demonstrated by the last lines of your post:

    “…further clarifying the pernicious and rampant bunch of lunatics intent on subjugating humanity en mass that is you and I and the rest of the planet to be put to slavery by the less than the one percenters!!”

    (ten shekels to anyone who can translate that into the Queen’s English)

  • RobG

    For Habba, Ken O’Keefe on Iranian Press TV, also the day after the Paris terror attacks. It’s called a different point of view, one you will never see in the corporate controlled western media…

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRCJ7lEk2Xo

    I’m sure the psychos at GCHQ are now wetting themselves, inbetween having carnal relations with dead pigs.

    Why are you so afraid of other points of view..?

    Why are you so afraid of us?

    To quote Mr Rotten, ever get the feeling you’ve been conned…

  • Mary

    It’s like a quadrille here. We, the genuine commenters, leave items of information and comment. Then there is a delay and, after that, the trolls come in to rubbish what we have said and disparage us. Then the process is repeated. That is all they can do over and over.

  • fred

    “Oh, so how does that work? They write their name and address on the back of the voting slip and a politician turns up later with a brown envelope?”

    It works the same as it does here. You vote for the party which has a manifesto you think will be to your advantage.

  • Habbabkuk (scourge of the Original Trolls)

    Four more terror attacks against Jewish Israelis in Israel and the West Bank today!

    Two of the people used by whichever Palestinian terror group which was responsible for the indoctrination were a 14 and a 16 year old girl – are there no depths to which the inspirers of such terrorism will not stoop?

    The inspirers and leaders are of course sitting safely from the scene…..

  • Habbabkuk (scourge of the Original Trolls)

    And in the Brussels dialect (or patois, as Lysias would wish me to put it), they call themselves Brusseleirs.

  • Anon1

    “‘Speaking to Sky’s Rhiannon Mills, Prince Charles explains how he has been educating his grandson Prince George about nature – and said “explaining the minutiae of life” to children is important.’
    http://news.sky.com/video/1591555/charles-on-educating-prince-george

    I suppose the little prince is much too young to be told about the ‘minutiae of death’ as enacted by this country on people with brown skins in the name of his great granny, sometimes by a missile sent from a drone or shot or bombed or burnt alive.”

    ________________
    What kind of twisted mind produces this stuff?

  • Habbabkuk (scourge of the Original Trolls)

    It’s like a gavotte* here. We, the Old Trolls, leave reams of cut-and-paste and ludicrous comment. Then there is a delay and, after that, the true dissenters come in to correct what we have said and thereby show us up for the fools we are. Then the process is repeated. But we, the Old Trolls, never learn.

    __________________

    * As this comes from French, Lysias to check the spelling, please. Merci mon vieux!

  • Mary

    Cameron 3.30- 5.30 pm inc opposition reply and questions.

    Presenting the 2015 Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR), Mr Cameron announced plans to spend £178bn on equipment and support over the next decade.

    :: The UK has 10,000 military personnel on standby to assist police in the event of Paris-style terror attack in Britain.

    :: Two rapid-reaction “strike brigades” each made up of around 5,000 troops will be created. The Army units will be able to deploy at short notice across the globe to respond to changing threats.

    :: Almost 30% of civilian jobs at the Ministry of Defence will be cut. The MoD workforce will be reduced to 41,000 over the next five years.

    :: The cost of replacing Britain’s Trident nuclear deterrent would rise to at least £31bn, up from the previous estimate of £25bn.

    :: 138 F-35 stealth jets will be bought. The first 24 will be flying off the UK’s new aircraft carriers by 2023.

    :: Eight Type 26 Global Combat Ships will also be purchased to replace the ageing Type 23 Frigates.This will disappoint the Royal Navy which was hoping for a minimum of 13.

    :: Nine Boeing P8 Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft will finally replace the Nimrod which was controversially scrapped as part of the last SDSR in 2010.

    :: The RAF’s armed drone fleet will also be doubled from 10 aircraft to 20.

    plus

    “We will also make a major new investment in a new generation of surveillance drones. “These British-designed unmanned aircraft will fly at the very edge of the earth’s atmosphere and allow us to observe our adversaries for weeks on end, providing critical intelligence for our forces.”

    and

    Mr Cameron also confirmed he would make his case for UK airstrikes on IS targets in Syria to Parliament later this week. “On Thursday I will come to this House and make a further statement responding personally to the Foreign Affairs Committee. I will make the case for Britain to join our international allies in going after ISIL in their headquarters in Syria, not just in Iraq.”

    2 hrs’ worth.
    http://news.sky.com/story/1592868/10000-troops-on-standby-for-uk-terror-attack

    The review 96 pages
    https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/478933/52309_Cm_9161_NSS_SD_Review_web_only.pdf

  • Silvio

    The Zionist-neoconservative midwives of Islamic State
    By Jamal Kanj

    snip

    There could be no justification for the terrorist attacks in Paris or the atrocious murders in Beirut, Baghdad, Damascus or Nigeria. Putting aside our virtuous indignation, however, we mustn’t forget that the so-called “Islamic State” (IS) was the illegitimate child of George Bush’s “birth pangs of democracy” in the Middle East. The misguided, US-led Western interventionist policies created the environment that gave birth to the refugees and the terrorists – a programme designed for Israel by Zionist neoconservative appointees in the dens of the US State Department and the Pentagon.

    Lasting conflicts and fragmentations in the Arab world were envisioned more than 30 years ago by former Israeli Foreign Ministry official Oded Yinon. In a 1982 treatise, “A Strategy for Israel in the Nineteen Eighties”, published in Kivunim (Directions), the official journal of the World Zionist Organisation, Yinon argued that the future priorities for the “Jewish state” (JS) are “The dissolution of Syria and Iraq… into ethnically or religiously unique areas.” Almost 30 years earlier, Israeli Prime Minister Moshe Sharett proposed the same for Lebanon.

    IS and JS have a shared strategy: perpetual conflict between Islam and the West is critical for their survival.

    IS gets its oxygen from the US’s and other Western powers’ unconditional diplomatic and financial support for JS. IS’s ideology flourishes on Western pandering to JS as an exceptionalist state beyond reproach, defying UN resolutions with complete impunity. Following Binyamin Netanyahu’s recent visit to Washington, Israel is in line to be rewarded, again, for its intransigence and attempts to derail the nuclear deal between the West and Iran.

    The Israeli-planned and Western-executed “dissolution of Syria and Iraq”, Lebanon, Yemen and Libya into ethnic or religious entities has created fertile grounds for dissent, offering Islamist demagogues the perfect recipe to manipulate feeble minded individuals to rally around IS, believing they were avenging their religion.

    Alas, all of this was already predictable, a known consequence and anticipated outcome of actions by US intelligence agencies.

    In August 2002, CIA analysts authored a study, “The perfect storm: Planning for the negative consequences of invading Iraq”. It predicted the breakup of Iraq, regional instability and a surge in global terrorism.

    http://www.redressonline.com/2015/11/the-zionist-neoconservative-midwives-of-islamic-state/

  • Mary

    In Occupied Palestine
    Zionism in practice
    Israel’s Daily Toll on Palestinian Life, Limb, Liberty and Property

    IOP headlines for 18 November 2015:

    Israeli Army positions open fire on Gaza farms

    Israeli Army orders uprooting of 80 Palestinian olive trees

    Israeli Army forces Palestinian families out of their homes

    Night peace disruption and/or home invasions in 2 refugee camps and 14 towns and villages

    4 attacks (2 Israeli ceasefire violations)

    20 raids including home invasions

    2 beaten – 16 injured – 7 abducted (aged 11 to 17)

    4 acts of agricultural/economic sabotage

    32 taken prisoner – 11 detained –

    119 restrictions of movement

    Read more:

    http://palestine.org.nz/phrc/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2972&Itemid=44

  • Monteverdi

    http://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/149923/restaurant-tycoon-richard-caring-tory-party’s-biggest-donor

    Speaking of Israel and the West Bank as our ‘ reborn prophet from Kadarim ‘ has in his post at 5.22pm , brings us back to those claimed ‘ controversial comments ‘ made by one Gerald Kaufman MP about the Tory Party ” Jewish money ” and Israel . Despite the JC’s outrage at the time it looks as if old Gerald had a point as reported in today’s JC . Backed both Political Parties I see and we know Blair and Browns full support for Israel and Miliband’s half-hearted support , although you always suspected he wished to give more if he’d had the political opportunities to do so .I wonder if the JC will still be demanding a public apology from Gerald Kaufmann MP now ?

  • Mark Golding

    Indeed Mary – Agent Camerona has proposed £12billion increase in the UK armed services “equipment budget”, together with a package of other measures allegedly aimed at defending Britons from Russia/ISIS or whatever the bad guy du jour happens to be. This will bring the combined UK military spending on “
    “defence equipment and support to £178 billion, at a time when basic public services such as schools, hospitals, and even the police are being slashed to the bone in the name of “austerity.” There is also to be a 30% increase in the UK’s “counter-terrorism budget”, from £11.7 billion to £15.1 billion.

    Surreal?

  • Ben-Outraged by the Cannabigots

    Bouncing off Silvio’s link. So many, even Brookings, warned of the peril, yet some irresistable force pushed it’s way through to the Debacle.

    All tyrants ( Neocons) must die.

    http://www.nbcnews.com/id/18854414/ns/nbc_nightly_news_with_brian_williams-nbc_news_investigates/t/nbc-cia-warned-risks-war-mideast/#.VlNRPigcWFJ

    “One of Tenet’s clearest arguments regarding the administration’s dismissal of all but the rosiest assessments of post-war Iraq comes in his description of a White House meeting in September 2002. There, a briefing book on the Iraq war was laid out for policy makers.
    “Near the back of the book, Tab ‘P’, was a paper the CIA analysts had prepared three weeks earlier,” Tenet writes. “Dated August 13, 2002, it was titled, ‘The Perfect Storm: Planning for the Negative Consequences of Invading Iraq.’ It provided worse case scenarios:
    “The United States will face negative consequences with Iraq, the region and beyond which would include:
    Anarchy and the territorial breakup of Iraq;

    Region-threatening instability in key Arab states;

    A surge of global terrorism against US interests fueled by (militant) Islamism;
    Major oil supply disruptions and severe strains in the Atlantic Alliance.”

    “These should have been very sobering reports,” says Michael O’Hanlon, military analyst at the Brookings Institution. “The administration should have taken them very serious in preparing plans for a difficult post-Saddam period. And yet the administration did not do so.”

  • Trowbridge H. Ford

    Can anyone find the Russian investigation report, allegedly released today, and posted on Lifenews, which claims tat a small bomb, placed under seats 30A or 31A, caused the explosion which ripped off its tail, or is this just more fabrications by the DM?

  • Habbabkuk (scourge of the Original Trolls)

    “4 acts of agricultural/economic sabotage”

    _________________

    That’s funny – as soon as Alcyone and I pointed out recently that the needle appeared to have got stuck on “2 acts of agricultural/economic sabotage” a week, lo and behold it now “4 acts… etc” (for the second week running 🙂 )

  • ------------·´`·.¸¸.¸¸.··.¸¸Node

    Fred : It works the same as it does here. You vote for the party which has a manifesto you think will be to your advantage.

    So you are saying that Libyans who voted for the NFA now have a standard of living at least as high as when Gadaffi was the leader? Yes?

  • Mary

    Grandad P Charles visiting Bahrain and bidding farewell in 2014.

    HRH Crown Prince bids farewell to Prince Charles
    21/02/2014
    Manama,(BNA)— His Royal Highness Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa, Crown Prince, Deputy Supreme Commander and First Deputy Prime Minister, bid farewell at Sakhir Air Base today to British Heir to the Throne Prince Charles following a visit to Bahrain during which he held talks with His Majesty King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa on bilateral friendly relations and issues of common concern.

    http://bna.bh/portal/en/news/604308

    Bahrain’s ‘security forces’ continue to torture detainees.
    Bahrain’s government said the country was opposed to mistreatment of any kind
    Bahrain’s security forces are torturing detainees during interrogation, despite a pledge by the king to end such practices, Human Rights Watch says.
    6 hrs ago
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-34899273

1 17 18 19 20 21 23

Comments are closed.