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Deception by British and Israeli intelligence in London and LebanonBy Paul J. Balles*
15 August 2006
Paul J. Balles highlights the alleged London terror plot and the Israeli attack on Lebanon as two possible false flag operations: one to divert attention from the slaughter in Lebanon and the other a premeditated attack carried out under a false pretext.
Sitting in London or New York, the news that Gaza lost 151 souls, most
of them civilians, last month to Israeli bombs and bullets passes us
by. It is after all just a number, even if a high one. At best, a
number like that from a place we don't know, suffered by a people whose
names we can't
pronounce, makes us pause, even sigh with regret. But it cannot move us to anger. - Jonathan Cook |
Consider this scenario:
One of the strongest and best-equipped military forces in the world gets a thrashing from a rag-tag bunch of guerrilla fighters.
The whole world is shocked and dismayed at the military slaughter of innocent civilians caught in the crossfire of occupiers and freedom fighters.
Protests are breaking out in the USA and several other places around the world against military occupations in Palestine, Iraq and Lebanon.
The "terrorist" label is losing its potency as a propaganda tool. It's beginning to be taken up as "state terrorism" - a fit description of arrogant wielders of power.
George W. Bush sounds more ridiculous than usual with his references to "Islamic fascists".
People all over the world can't discern whether they're being subjected to a very sick joke or to emerging signs of crazed behaviour by pathological killers.
Suddenly, something happens in England that takes the media attention away from this scenario of Lebanon, Palestine and Iraq. "Terrorists" are rounded up in England for plotting to use liquid explosives on a dozen flights from England to the USA.
Day and night, the news networks dwell on flight delays, security forces and spokespeople, and the inconvenience to passengers who are forced to trash their water bottles, soft drinks, perfumes, lotions, coffee and wine - everything liquid.
An occasional snippet comes through the media about a Security Council agreement on a ceasefire in Lebanon. The Israeli armed forces accelerate their efforts, almost unnoticed, trying to decimate Hezbollah.
The Israeli army carries on with its assassinations and destruction, almost unheeded and unremarked, in Gaza. The deaths of innocent Palestinian civilians plays second media fiddle to the British banning of bottles.
The strange news out of England: British intelligence knew of the liquid bomb plot for a long time and had been watching the suspected terrorists closely for more than a year before the slaughter started in Lebanon.
According to the Guardian, "Anti-terrorist agents said they had uncovered the plot from surveillance of a group of young British Muslims, which began nearly a year ago and was on a scale never before undertaken."
Furthermore, NBC News reported that "British police were planning to continue to run surveillance for at least another week to try to obtain more evidence, while American officials pressured them to arrest the suspects sooner." A British official suggested an attack was not imminent, saying the suspects had not yet purchased any airline tickets. In fact, some did not even have passports.
The questions that any reasoning person should ask: Why did British intelligence, or whoever decided on the timing of the English raid and arrests, act when they did? Did anyone suggest that the roundup and security wouldn't dominate the news? Or did British intelligence follow the advice of Mossad, the world's experts at deception?
The first time I heard it, I disliked the expression "false flag operation". The definition of the phrase has made me less resistant to its use: "False flag operations are covert operations conducted by governments, corporations or other organizations, which are designed to appear as if they are being carried out by other entities."
Is it just possible that the timing of the crime-buster activity in England was a false flag operation? Was the attack on Lebanon itself a false flag operation? According to Seymour Hersh, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist for the New Yorker, Israel had devised a plan for attacking Hezbollah - and shared it with Bush administration officials -well before the 12 July kidnappings.
When they grabbed the soldiers in early July, "that was then a pretext" for Israel's assault on Hezbollah, Hersh said on CNN television. The attack on Lebanon was based on a faked excuse - a false flag.
What really matters is that not all attention shifted to the world's airport and bottle scenarios. The Middle Eastern butchers continued their slaughter of civilians without letup. Much of the Western world looked the other way while America supplied more "shock and awe" military hardware for the nexus of evil occupying Palestine and devastating Lebanon.
*Paul Balles is a retired American university professor and freelance writer who has lived in the Middle East for 38 years. For more information, see http://www.pballes.com.
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