Power Wank
Looks like the Power Tools have set their keyboards to stun:
We noted here the mysteriously under-covered story of the three would-be terrorists who were arrested in Italy after vowing to launch an attack on America that would dwarf September 11. […]
Italian authorities recently announced that they had used wiretaps to uncover the conspiracy to conduct a series of major attacks inside the U.S. Italian Interior Minister Giuseppe Pisanu said the planned attacks would have targeted stadiums, ships and railway stations, and the terrorists’ goal, he said, was to exceed the devastation caused by 9/11.
Curiously, what was deemed worthy of a worldwide media blitz abroad was virtually ignored by the U.S. media, and conservative media watchdog groups are saying that is no accident. link
The magic word, of course, is wiretap. Because as part of the never ending war on straw, conservatives are now arguing that liberals are against all wiretaps everywhere every time. That shit makes a lot of sense. As to the Algerians who were arrested:
The men’s arrest in Brescia and Naples came as they were allegedly about to flee Italy and followed a complex three-year surveillance operation of a GSPC cell by the Italian intelligence service SISMI. The three were flush with cash, and moved around constantly between the northern cities of Brescia and Vicenza, the Italian capital, Rome, and the southern city of Naples, police allege. They were also in contact with other terror cells in the northern cities of Venice, Cesena and Milan, as well as the central Italian city of Florence, according to the investigators.
We’re sure 3-year surveillance operations are routinely done without warrants in Italy. Oh, and that media blitz? Google Germany. Google France. Google UK.
Sadly, No!
[Muthafuckin’ G. Supah-Muthafucka-Ninja-Warrior adds:
Brescia and Naples, 18 Nov. (AKI) – The three Algerians detained on Tuesday in the Italian cities of Brescia and Naples were planning a massive terror attack – “on a ship as big as the Titanic, packed with explosives” – that aimed to kill “at least 10,000 people”, as well as an attack on “Italian citizens and interests” in Tunisia, according phone conversations between the three men, which Italian anti-terror police say they intercepted after al-Qaeda’s deadly 7 July attacks on London and on the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm El-Sheikh.
Um, what ship is that? Do any of those exist? No. So isn’t he being all like, “Bla-bla, I’m going to blow up the Death Star — somehow, by packing it with explosives?”
I personally want to blow up an Imperial Star Destroyer by ‘packing it with explosives,’ and I’m so waiting until they start building those.]
You mean terrorists are out there, still trying to top 9/11? I thought they broke up after that and released four solo albums on the same day.
I wish I would find it mysterious that conservative bloggers found it mysterious that the media didn’t wet themselves over a story about three terrorists caught with more boasts than explosives.
There’s also this little gem from a Powerline “reader”:
“The three Algerians arrested in Italy were members of the GSPC, al Qaeda’s Algerian affiliate. Thanks to Steve Hayes’s reporting, we now know that large numbers of GSPC members – specifically – were trained in Iraq prior to the war. Coincidentally, the GSPC is now one of Europe’s most major problems. Plots involving the GSPC have been uncovered in Spain, France, and Italy. Additional members have been arrested in Germany. You would think that European authorities would want to see the documents Steve is talking about.”
Yes, European intelligence agencies should be relying on the blogosphere for leads.
I wonder if the Italians will have more success at actually convicting terrorists than we do (that is, can they do better than 0 and 5000)?
I am beginning to find the conservative position on domestic surveillance quite delightful, in that they are in deep denial about the possibility that they themselves could be, and perhaps are, spied upon. See for example my comment section interrogation of Jack Idema fandom. (Idema is the fellow caught running his own private jail in Afghanistan who was subsequently convicted of kidnapping and torture there. His followers want him freed so he can “kill Islamofascists.”)
I just can’t believe this went unreported by the big dogs in the US, like ABC, CBS, CNN, or MSNBC. The fact that Powerline had to break this untold story is shamful!
Unless they want to hijack an aircraft carrier or a super-tanker, then they’ll have a hard time finding a ship that big, methinks. That’s not even counting the obscene amount of high explosive that would be required to pack one of those sum-bitches. More explosive than most world militaries have access too, certainly.
I read The Guardian and The Independent cover-to-cover each day, and I cannot recall reading anything like a media blitz about these arrests. Oh shit, The Guardian and The Independent are both extreme left-wing papers so that means they must be part of the plot to cover these arrests up.
BTW, I’ve always wondered what Americans would make of a real left-wing newspaper such as The Socialist Worker.
Then just when you think it can’t get any worse, it really does:
Jailed for 30 years for criticising ‘free’ Iraq
Kamal Sayid Qadir wrote an article criticising the US backed government in Iraqi Kurdistan and now he has been jailed for 30 years
If a writer was jailed for 30 years for exposing government corruption in Iran or Syria, there would be outrage in the US and Britain and demands for military strikes. But when that happens in Iraq there is silence.
George Bush and Tony Blair constantly boast that they have brought freedom and democracy to Iraq.
Yet Kamal Sayid Qadir, a leading Kurdish academic, has been jailed for 30 years after he publicly criticised Massoud Barzani, head of the US backed Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP). The KDP is one of two parties that rule Iraqi Kurdistan.
The self rule areas have been held up as a model of post-Saddam Iraq.
ps. I can’t remember if The Socialist Worker supported Saddam Hussein.
The men’s arrest in Brescia and Naples came as they were allegedly about to flee Italy and followed a complex three-year surveillance operation of a GSPC cell by the Italian intelligence service SISMI.
Say …. wasn’t it SISMI that was thought to be at least partly involved in the Niger yellowcake forgeries?
Cheers,
Blowback, forget the Socialist Worker, what about the Morning Star?
“Curiously, what was deemed worthy of a worldwide media blitz abroad was virtually ignored by the U.S. media, and conservative media watchdog groups are saying that is no accident.”
Sadly, No! http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=us&ie=UTF-8&ncl=http://www.adnki.com/index_2Level.php%3Fcat%3DTerrorism%26loid%3D8.0.248666840%26par%3D0
Bugger me with a feather – I thought that The Morning Star had jacked it in long ago.
There’s a thought. Now that the comment (op-ed for Merkins) pages of the New York Times are pay-per-view, perhaps people should go to The Morning Star where they are free.
Silly people. Don’t ‘cha know events are “ignored by the U.S. media” until the Washington Times picks up the AP feed?
Heh. I love the Morning Star’s strap – “Britain’s only socialist newspaper”. That’s proper leftwingery for you.
How much fertilizer can you pack on a super-tanker?
How much fertilizer can you pack on a super-tanker?
It depends: how wide is the hose you want to attach to Hinderaker’s mouth?
conservatives are now arguing that liberals are against all wiretaps everywhere every time.
Sheesh, and you accuse them of erecting strawmen to knock down?
The problem isn’t that leftists always oppose wiretaps. The problem is that generally the only time they get worked up about them is when Republicans are doing the wiretapping.
Which makes perfect from their perspective, when you start from their premise that Republicans are evil. The Clinton admin not just running but misusing the warrantless ECHELON is no biggy, because everyone knows Democrats are just trying to do right thing and so the NYT will support them. But if Republicans are tracking Al Qaeda phone calls, they must be up to no good and the NYT will ride to America’s rescue!
Kamal Sayid Qadir wrote an article criticising the US backed government in Iraqi Kurdistan and now he has been jailed for 30 years
We can all agree that’s an injustice, and I’m sure pressure will be brought to free him. As one might expect, Iraq’s not a perfect Jeffersonian democracy three years after being liberated from decades existing as a brutal police state dotted with rape rooms and mass graves, but unlike under Saddam it is moving forward. Freedom House has moved them up Political Freedom index and they note the media is much freer.
“The historic transformation of Iraq’s media continued, as Iraqis enjoyed unprecedented access to a wide diversity of media sources that emerged after Saddam Hussein’s ouster from power.”
Obviously work remains to be done, but things are getting better.
TallDave, why was Hinderaker spotlighting a case without specifying whether it was warrantless or not unless he thinks we think it doesn’t matter? And I recall lots of folks on the left rasing a stink about Echelon during the Clinton years, the ACLU and EPIC for example, even though George Tenet claims the administration always got warrants when they were legally required to. Also, though he’s no hero and should have shut down domestic espionage like Carter did, you can’t blame Clinton for the existence of Echelon, it had been around for decades, and there were allegations of its misuse by several presidents, including Reagan and Bush Sr. Warrantless domestic spying is *always* bad.
“The problem isn’t that leftists always oppose wiretaps. The problem is that generally the only time they get worked up about them is when Republicans are doing the wiretapping.”
Technically, and Sadly, No!
How much fertilizer can you pack on a super-tanker?
December 1917, a freighter carrying 2,500 tons of high explosives for the war in France caught fire and exploded in the Halifax, Nova Scotia, harbor. The blast leveled every exposed structure within a half-mile radius. Part of the ship’s anchor came down 2.5 miles away.
CBC had a special on the Halifax Explosion a couple of years ago.
For comparison, the Exxon Valdez (now Sea River Mediterranean) can carry about 200,000 tons of cargo.
But if Republicans are tracking Al Qaeda phone calls, they must be up to no good and the NYT will ride to America’s rescue!
TallDave, if Pauline in Peril had had to be rescued in the manner the NYT rode to the rescue in this case, she would have been trisected and devoured by the fauna long before they arrived.
I wonder if the “King of the World” terrorists were at the same brainstorming session as the terrorists who planned to bring down the Brooklyn with blowtorches? Did their research consist of renting “The Titanic” and then splurging on a first-run viewing of “King Kong” where the ship captain is amenable to skipping the manifest paper work for a promised bribe?
http://tinyurl.com/9qer7
If you check out this old article, “Plot to destroy Brooklyn Bridge” June 20, 2003, you will see that Osama himself is partial to the Hollywood approach to terrorism.
“The 120-year-old bridge has been regarded as a key terrorist target since Abu Zubaidah, a Palestinian al-Qa’eda leader captured in Pakistan last year, told interrogators that Osama bin Laden wanted to bring down ‘the bridge in the Godzilla movie'”.
His…mouth? Oh, I see… but, actually, he types this crap, doesn’t he?
TallDave – he tries so hard. it is sort of cute really
His…mouth? Oh, I see… but, actually, he types this crap, doesn’t he?
Presumably he has discussions with his fellow homoerotically named buddies- that will be sufficient for the needed production.
did Gannon write that? Are you sure that wasn’t Regenery Press?