Report: Al-Qaida planning to crash U.S. airline during London Olympics

Comment: The same old story is trotted out one more time – The mythical white Al Qaeda is going to hijack a plane and blow it up. Time to be scared.

Anshel Pfeffer
Haaretz
July 1, 2012

The al-Qaida branch in the Arabian Peninsula is believed to be planning a terror attack during the Olympic Games in London, scheduled to begin at the end of the month. According to a report in today’s Sunday Times, quoting intelligence services, the organization has recruited a Norwegian Muslim convert who was supposed to hijack a U.S. passenger plane and crash it on a suicide mission. It is not clear though that the attack targeted one of the Olympic venues, despite the timing.

Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) has been involved in a number of attempts to carry out high-profile attacks on Western targets.

Jonathan Evans, head of MI5, Britain’s domestic security service, said in a rare public address last week that “the games are not an easy target, and the fact that we have disrupted multiple terrorist plots here and abroad in recent years demonstrates that the UK as a whole is not an easy target.” Despite the successes in foiling terror attacks, Evans warned that “in back rooms and in cars on the streets of this country there is no shortage of individuals talking about wanting to mount terrorist attacks here,” and spoke of the threat of Western Muslim citizens who have been radicalized and trained in camps in countries such as Yemen and Sudan, traveling back to the West to carry out attacks.

According to the sources quoted in The Sunday Times, a Norwegian citizen in his mid-30s and who names himself Abu Abdulrahman converted to Islam in 2008 and has in recent months been undergoing training at AQAP bases in Yemen. There have been a number of reports over the last few months of Western citizens who joined al-Qaida and are involved in its operations in Yemen against the local Western-backed security forces.

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Report: More People Killed By Bees, Drowning In Bath Than From Terrorism

Independent review of terrorism legislation points to government exaggeration of threat for political gain

Steve Watson
Prisonplanet.com
June 29, 2012

An independent review of terrorism legislation in the UK notes that government rhetoric regarding terrorism is “exaggerated for political or commercial purposes” and that many more people are killed each year by bee stings.

The report by barrister David Anderson QC, highlights the fact that the average number of annual deaths as a result of terrorism or at the hands of terrorists in the UK this century is just five.

“During the 21st century, terrorism has been an insignificant cause of mortality in the United Kingdom.” Anderson writes.

“The annualised average of five deaths caused by terrorism in England and Wales over this period compares with total accidental deaths in 2010 of 17,201, including 123 cyclists killed in traffic accidents, 102 personnel killed in Afghanistan, 29 people drowned in the bathtub and five killed by stings from hornets, wasps and bees.”

Anderson also points out that not a single person in Britain has even been injured by a terrorist for over two years.

The report notes that in the year to March 2011, arrests of individuals suspected of being terrorists numbered just 141, the lowest figure since 2001/2. In addition there was only one conviction in a UK court on charges related to terrorism.

A d v e r t i s e m e n t

“Those figures compare with a total number of arrests for recorded crime in England and Wales alone of almost 1.4 million in 2010/11, including some 431,000 for offences of violence against the person, 37,000 for sexual offences, 34,000 for robbery and 93,000 for burglary.” the report notes.

The report suggests that the threat from terrorism is hugely over exaggerated and that draconian terrorism related laws should be reassessed.

“Terrorists are first and foremost criminals. Where possible and as a general rule, they should be prosecuted under the ordinary criminal law, to underline the fact that no special laws are necessary for the purpose and to prevent them from glamorising or politicising their offences…” the report states.

“The values of a liberal democracy deserve support from laws against terrorism, but the same values require that those laws be subject to strict scrutiny.” Anderson writes.

The report comes in the same week as a rare keynote speech by MI5 head Jonathan Evans in which he stated that the ‘Arab Spring’ could radicalize British muslims and breed new terrorists, that a dirty bomb attack in the UK was a realistic possibility, that Iranian sponsored terror was a significant threat, and that economic hardship could see the rise of more “lone wolf” terrorists in the vein of Anders Breivik.

As we have previously noted, statistics show that more people die from intestinal illnesses, being struck by lightning, accidents involving deer, and allergic reactions to peanuts than they do from terrorism.

Despite these facts, billions is spent on “homeland security” while Americans are hit with crippling austerity measures. In addition, sweeping laws are undermining core liberties, all in the name of countering a monolithic terrorist threat. Furthermore, research has shown that more people are being killed or putting themselves in more danger owing to the heightened perceived threat of terrorism.

As reports such as Anderson’s continue to highlight, in reality the security industry cash cow is based on little more than hot air and fearmongering. The war on terror, and the onslaught of domestic repression that has accompanied it, is based on the completely phony pretext that terrorists pose any more threat than bowel complications, rare weather events, or wandering animals.

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Steve Watson is the London based writer and editor for Alex Jones’ Infowars.com, and Prisonplanet.com. He has a Masters Degree in International Relations from the School of Politics at The University of Nottingham in England.

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Biotech Report Says IP Spurs Innovation

There are two separate questions:

1. Is intellectual property justified?

2. Does intellectual property promote creative works?

Regardless of the answer to the second question, the answer to the first question is "no". Threatening to imprison or kill individuals, which is what all laws ultimately are, is unjustified. No, we don't deserve everything for free. Yes, it's immoral to derive value from someone's hard work without compensation. But immoral does not equal illegal. The government should, at most, be using its monopoly on violence to protect people and their property. Using violence, locking people in cages, destroying their lives, killing them, just to promote something that would exist anyways, is asinine and barbaric.

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