UK terror plot turns out to be complete bullshit

None of the alleged terrorists had made a bomb. None had bought a plane ticket. Many did not even have passports, which given the efficiency of the UK Passport Agency would mean they couldn't be a plane bomber for quite some time.

So based on a confession to Pakistani interrogators probably spat out between bloody broken teeth by a guy who left the UK years ago, we have mass arrests and a huge security clampdown that results in close to 30% of all commercial flights in/out of British airports being cancelled for a week.

The UK suspects had been under close observation for over a year without a hint of this supposed plot. This whole thing has been based on a confession almost certainly extracted through torture and therefore almost certainly useless.

Are you feeling scared and compliant yet?

"Let's you and him fight"

Part of what made this Israeli military adventure so damaging for Israel and the rest of the Middle East was that the US abdicated it's traditional role of restraining Israeli pugnacity. Bush even egged on Olmert to widen the conflict by attacking Syria.

Contrast this irresponsible stewardship of the US's favorite client state with Bush Sr, asking Israel NOT to participate in Gulf War I - or even strike back when Saddam's rusty scuds sputtered across the Israeli border.

The scariest thing about George W Bush is that he makes his father look like a sane and responsible leader by contrast.

Living in Second Life

So I've recently discovered and become mildly obsessed with Second Life, a virtual environment accessible via the web. Like an online game environment, but without yahoos blasting away at you..., mostly.

It's free and rather fascinating. Warren Ellis has suggested that it may be the kernel of what will replace the internet and I can see how that could be possible - the great science fiction novel Donnerjack by Roger Zelazny and Jane Lindskold predicted something similar.

You can spend hours just creating the avatar that represents you, I went for something that more or less looks like me:

Really. It's a spitting image.

Second Life already has politics, economics, crime and punishment. And apparently a lot of sex. Very, very strange sex. Your Avatar doesn't have to look human, so it's a haven for, ick, furries. To each his own, consenting adults and all that, but I stand by my Ick.

It's an interesting place nonetheless and worth exploring as a glimpse of what may be to come in surfing.

Sunday Link Blast

• Americans told Brits when to stage arrests
  For a week leading up to a mass terrorism arrest, the GOP pumps out talking points about how the Dems are weak on terrorism. Don't draw any obvious conclusions.
  
  
• Mel Gibson's next movie
  Kill Bunny
  
  
• George Galloway VS Murdoch Media
  I don't agree with Galloway about everything but it is fun watching him trounce the UK equivalent of a Fox News bully
  
  
• Spin
  The Media constructed world
  
  
• Legofesto
  Abu Ghraib re-enacted with Lego
  

Yitzhak Laor on the IDF

You Are Terrorists, We are Virtuous

The truth behind this is that Israel must always be allowed to do as it likes even if this involves scorching its supremacy into Arab bodies. This supremacy is beyond discussion and it is simple to the point of madness. We have the right to abduct. You don’t. We have the right to arrest. You don’t. You are terrorists. We are virtuous. We have sovereignty. You don’t. We can ruin you. You cannot ruin us, even when you retaliate, because we are tied to the most powerful nation on earth. We are angels of death.

Olmert accepts the UN deal.

"Well that went well."

Israel gets absolutely none of the things they got into this mess for in the first place. Not the destruction or even significant weakening of Hezbollah, the group has more support among the Lebanese public then ever. Oh and the UN will have to get approval from a government that includes two Hezbollah Ministers before attacking Hezbollah.

This war has been a disaster for Israel and will end Olmert's career.

Israel suspends advance as UN reaches breakthrough. Generals rage.

Israel has suspended any major push in it's ground war in Lebanon due to a ceasefire talks breakthrough at the UN. The proposal, agreed to in principal by both France and the US, calls for a progressive Israeli withdrawal with the Lebanese army backed by UN forces redeploying in areas as the IDF pulls out of them.

Israeli Generals are said to be furious, demanding the opportunity to keep fighting and achieve 'a significant military achievement'. Haaretz, the respected Israeli daily, hawkish up till now, has harshly criticized Olmert and called for his resignation over the Lebanon campaign's 'humiliating defeat'.

The most dangerous result from the whole misguided affair has been the death of the myth of overwhelming Israeli military supremacy over any Arab forces. The whole Middle East has seen that despite massive saturation bombing and apparent callous disregard for civilian casualties by the IAF and IDF, Hezbollah never stopped firing rockets into Israel. This is a worst case scenario for a campaign with ambitious goals and no real exit strategy.

Expect major political shake-ups in Israel and reverberations from this to continue for decades throughout the Middle East.

The Globe and Mail censors Dilbert!

In the Globe and Mail today 'mildly retarded consultant' is changed to 'Generic Consultant'. More politically correct I guess but it cripples the joke.

Joe Lieberman loses Primary, says he'll run as Independent

Lieberman lost to Joe Lamont by a 10,000 vote margin. 50% of the Democratic Party membership voted, an unheard of turn-out for a Primary. By running as an Independent Lieberman is showing his contempt for the Democratic Party and the Democratic process.

This bodes ill for incumbents across America, and the Democratic Party is about to tack sharply to the Left. Which the Beltway Washington pundit class to the contrary, will bring them closer to the views of the majority of the American public.

What's he building in there?

Tom Waits feels the fear.

Either/Or?

IDF threatens to fire on UN Peacekeepers

Lebanese officials said there were many reports of other casualties throughout southern Lebanon but rescue workers were not able to reach the sites because of continued Israeli airstrikes. Israel also threatened to attack UN peacekeepers if they attempted to repair bomb-damaged bridges in southern Lebanon. UN officials contacted the Israeli army to inform them that a team of Chinese military engineers attached to the UN force in Lebanon intended to repair the bridge on the Beirut to Tyre road to enable the transport of humanitarian supplies.

According to the UN, Israeli officials said the engineers would become a target if they attempted to repair the bridge.

Senior UN officials reacted angrily to the destruction of a temporary causeway over the Litani river overnight. "We must be able to have movement throughout the country to deliver supplies. At this point we can't do that," said David Shearer, the humanitarian coordinator for Lebanon. "The deliberate targeting of civilian infrastructure is a violation of international law."

Jon Stewart: Make Jerusalem an International City

Jon Stewart has always kind of shied away from applying the same bracing snarky truthiness to Israel that he does to virtually everything else. But last night he suggested something that harks back to the 1948 proposals for peace between Jews and Arabs. The International City idea has been talked about before, it has the combined charm of being possibly the only way to achieve lasting peace, while simultaneously being unlikely to the point of impossible to implement.

We're on a path in the Middle East that leads almost inevitably to mushroom clouds, whether through suitcase bomb terrorism or military adventurism. We can all see it coming like the light at the end of the tunnel that turns out to be an oncoming train's headlight.

Maybe it's time for some new ideas, since the current paradigm is such an utter failure.

Terrorism is over-rated

The conservative Cato Institute has produced an exhaustive report that basically says you have a better chance of being hit by lightning while scratching a winning lottery ticket and getting fellated by Paris Hilton than dying in a terrorist attack.

Too far with the Paris thing? Too soon? Never mind...

This is the thing that is being used to control us through fear. This is the thing that the Elites think should define our concerns, our expectations and indeed, our very existence. Terrorism that is, not Paris Hilton, though I suppose an argument could be made.

Are we finally at long last back full circle to the simple pragmatic understanding that terrorism is a law enforcement problem and in some cases a festering injustice problem? Start dealing with it in ways that don't just create more of it?

Can we finally start acting like sensible grown-ups again?

Americans have veto over report into friendly fire death of Canadian soldier.

From the Recorder by way of Canadian Journalist.

A closed-door investigation into the possible friendly fire death of a Canadian soldier in Afghanistan has concluded, but the board of inquiry's final report won't be released. The board investigated the death of Pte. Robert Costall, who was killed last spring during a fierce firefight between coalition forces and insurgents at Sangin, west of Kandahar. American special forces, U.S. National Guard trainers and Afghan troops also took part in the battle. The inquiry's terms of reference, obtained by The Canadian Press under the Access to Information Act, order Brig.-Gen. Chris Davis, the board president, to "determine what information, including any that has been received from coalition partners, is releasable under Canadian law." The April 13 document also confirms testimony from the inquiry has been designated as secret, and U.S. and Afghan officials have a veto over the release of what they consider "classified" information.

What information can they veto? Whether it was one of their Special Forces guys who fired the shot? Should Canadian troops be involved in a mission where the circumstances of their death can be subject to another nation's discretion?

Sunday Link Blast

• Roaring Economy bad for Alberta quality of life - Not a Huge surprise perhaps
  
  

• "De Makeba," The Jazz Dazzlers - Great South African Jazz download
  

• David Byrne on 'Jesus Camp' - Like Madrassas, but with less educational value
  
  
• PLIF - They pushed us too far
  
  
• Mood Art - Electronic art that changes to suit the viewer
  

UNIFIL will stay in Lebanon

The Israeli government has backed down on a demand that NATO rather than the UNIFIL provide the stabilization force in post cease-fire Lebanon. In the new French plan the existing UN observers will be beefed up to provide a credible force.

Do you know why they're there now, Steve?

Bush Administration support melting away

Everywhere they look the Bush administration sees their allies are falling away or falling from power.

Joe Lieberman, Bush's biggest enabler in the Democratic Party seems about to pay for providing the administration with cover and support. He's heading for a humiliating primary defeat against an anti-war challenger in a vote that could help define the right wing boundary line of the Democratic party.

Tony Blair's poodle-like support for Bush has cost him authority and prestige within the Labour Party and the UK public. Since he made it clear he would be stepping down as leader he's become a lame duck at an almost breath-taking pace.

The American right wing movement, already an uneasy merging of multiple strains of conservative tendencies and ideologies is splitting along fault-lines of economic, ethnic and fiscal philosophy. Bush has offered no coherent philosophy of government or power other than power itself.

In Israel, a perception is growing that the currently dominant Neo-Conservatives in the White House are too compatible with the Old Likud ideologies to provide Israel with perspective or an exit strategy. The Neo-Cons are explicitly anti-stability, and their naivete about the cultures and imperatives of the real Middle East is becoming more and more evident. Reportedly, even the President's father now opposes the unilateralist approach of his son.

The inherently millenarian and apocalyptic worldview of the theocratic Christianist movement and the disturbing influence they have over policy has seriously turned off more realist and moderate strains of American conservatism, while an increasing awareness of the realities of global warming has begun to alienate them from the Corporatist wing as well.

The pace of the break-up of what was an overwhelming right wing consensus has left the administration angry and disoriented. People keep asking them uncomfortable questions and challenging their bland assurances. They aren't used to it and find themselves floundering with only four months to go till mid-term elections.

The way incumbancy has been gerrymandered into undemocratic aristocracy may actually allow the GOP to retain power in both the House and the Senate, but this would just highlight the contradictions between national consensus and actual political power even more. If the Democrats do manage to win one or both houses in November the real story will be the disgusted Conservatives who stayed home and didn't vote.

The American people were traumatized and manipulated after 9/11. They are beginning to realize it.

Wiped off the Map

Beirut, before and after. By way of Juan Cole

Haaretz: We should have declared victory two weeks ago.

Israel has not managed to crush Hezbollah, and worse, it has strengthened Hezbollah's standing in Lebanon and the Arab world, which is seeing how a tiny guerrilla organization has succeeded in standing up to the mighty Israel Defense Forces and causing Israel serious losses among its civilian population. That is a dangerous precedent.

The Olmert-Peretz plan was to shell and demolish south Lebanon and south Beirut until the Lebanese public demanded that its government vomit Hezbollah out from its midst. It appears that like a number of other Israeli leaders, they did not understand how much killing, poverty and distress people are willing to take, as long as their honor is not harmed, as long as they are not humiliated. And indeed, instead of demanding that Hezbollah be dismantled, the people of Lebanon want revenge, and they want it now. That is their response to the killing of 750 civilians and the destruction of thousands of homes, bridges, roads, villages and towns, putting Lebanon 20 years in the past.