Thursday, July 14, 2005

France closes borders - Minister: UK bombers earlier arrested

France reintroduces border controls within the European Union after last week's terrorist bomb blasts in London. "Ninety-eight percent of crimes can be tried, but there remain two percent that justice cannot settle. They are called state secrets."

by Henk Ruyssenaars

FPF - Brussels - July 14th - 2005 - Today is a National Day in France - Quatorze Juillet - but a dark French/British cloud is looming on the European Union's horizon. Basis for the present European Union quarrel is the claim made by French minister Sarkozy 'that the members of the network that carried out last week's attacks in London had been arrested earlier last year, and were and are known to British authorities'. Minister Sarkozy said: "that affiliates of the four suicide bombers may have been detained, or otherwise be known to British authorities.''

Globally this information is rather underreported, but it can be found in other sources on Internet or like in 'the Scotsman'*, where the verbal fight in Brussels at the EU headquarters between the French and British ministers of Interior - Sarkozy and Clarke, has led to headlines.

"French officials later insisted that Mr. Sarkozy had been speaking on the basis of information gathered by French security services and not any conversation with Mr. Clarke. British officials have admitted it is possible some people close to last week's bombers might have figured in earlier counter-terrorism operations, but not as central figures.

One possibility is that Mr. Sarkozy was referring to an international operation conducted last year that led to the arrests of terrorists in several countries, including Britain. Intelligence sources say Operation Crevice may have thwarted an attack on London last spring, the period to which Mr. Sarkozy was referring", the correspondents of the Scotsman in Brussels wrote.

EU FALTERING? FRANCE STARTS BORDER CONTROLS AGAIN

At the same time the verbal gun smoke filled the Brussels corridors the French minister let it be known that ''France reintroduced border controls within the European Union after last week's terrorist bomb blasts in London that killed at least 52 people.'' Sarkozy's spokesman Franck Louvrier:

''To authorize the controls, France activated on July 8 a clause in the Schengen agreement, by which EU countries removed controls of their common borders." England never signed nor accepted the Schengen accord,which also involved the creation of common external border rules, and now France 'closes' the borders again.

With England symbolically at the helm of the European Union for the next six months, the worst can be expected with the UK following the US neocon blueprint for more control, and other European countries like France protesting the malignant neocon influence in the EU.

According to the Scotsman's reporters the French minister's claim 'drove Charles Clarke, the Home Secretary, into an obvious fury: "Mr. Sarkozy was inaccurate, shall I put it gently, in suggesting that there had been a discussion of this kind because there was not. The two men were taking part in an emergency meeting of EU interior and justice ministers in the wake of the London bombings.

The meeting did agree to accelerate moves to introduce new anti-terror measures, including an October target for the controversial data logging plan that has raised many civil liberties and costs fears.

The anachronistic and despised Dutch minister of 'Justice' Donner proofs daily to belong to the group of brainless; explaining that "Security is more important than Privacy". It's a sheer wonder that his 'brother in war crimes' - and not 'Interior' but 'Inferior minister' as he is called - Johan Remkes, said that ''gathering more data may not be the answer, as terrorists might be able to find ways of avoiding detection. The system would cost money, and there was no point in spending it if it didn't work.''

Surprisingly Remkes said this on the record, because otherwise the Netherlands - suffering from a right wing
hypocritical 'christian' group managing the country's sources of income - as an American/Israeli colony slavishly follows the neocon directions, literally and permanently 'being conned anew'.

It is known that the US ' law enforcement people had plenty of information on the neocon's behavior and actions of the 9-11 terrorists, but were refused in many ways to use it. Concerning the '9/11 in London', the impression is very strong that by changing facts, figures and the 'timeline'* for the horrible blasts the British official and global 'main$tream media' picture is changing all the time, and misleading.

One may wonder how much more French and other secret services know, but investigating is even deadly for a French judge, as ' juge d'instruction' Eva July wrote in her book*: 'Is this the world we want to live in?': "We were a handful of magistrates, police and justice officials fighting against the prevailing wind. Logic would suggest that our efforts were encouraged by successive governments.

On the contrary our investigations were monitored and at times hampered," she writes in an extract published in the daily Le Parisien. And it's surely no better today, rather worse.

Elsewhere she describes being visited by a man named Franz who warned her that: "Ninety-eight percent of crimes can be tried, but there remain two percent that justice cannot settle. They are called state secrets. ... Be careful. The state has guardians for its secrets. They are not gentle."

She also reports a meeting with a "very senior French general" who advised her against investigating the world of arms sales. "With us there is no warning. If you start inquiring, I give you 48 hours," he said.

We're not supposed to know all this: the French state's 'news agency' Agence France Presse (AFP) had a story in June two years ago, which disappeared faster than quick - [http://tinyurl.com/dody9] - but still can be found here: http://tinyurl.com/9f22w

The worst is: 'they' know the basics: ''Who, What, Where, Why and What for'', and even if we with our tax money are paying their too high salaries - and they are supposed to be our 'civil servants' - we get killed if we start investigating.

Is this the world we want to live in?

HR

[end item]

Footnotes/Links:

Some bomb suspects had been arrested -Sarkozy - BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Some of the suspected suicide bombers who attacked London last week had been arrested in 2004 but freed in a bid to catch a wider network, French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy said on Wednesday. "It seems that part of this team had been subject to partial arrest ... in Spring 2004," Sarkozy told a news conference." - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/9hf2h - Reuters 2005.

FPF - European Union bombed into submission? - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/ahobu

Timeline Refutes Israeli Denial - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/bmgde

Stratfor - Israel Warned United Kingdom About Possible Attacks - Url.:  http://tinyurl.com/92k85

Stratfor Intelligence - London bombings etc. - Url.:  http://www.stratfor.com/

Echelon - Worldwide Spying Network is Revealed - Url.:  http://tinyurl.com/dnzrr

US Ministry of Propaganda - Url.:http://tinyurl.com/988nk

Latest Google News - Url.:  http://tinyurl.com/8mk7j

French & Dutch 'NO' vote to EU and 'Apartheid' - Url.:  http://tinyurl.com/d2llj

Tony Blair Ordered The London Bombings - Former MI6 operative: The mainstream media ignores vital evidence of an inside job. - Commentary by Michael James in Frankfurt, Germany - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/dby3g

FOREIGN PRESS FOUNDATION
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Editor : Henk Ruyssenaars
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The Netherlands
FPF@Chello.nl

* Impeachbush.org is mobilizing a massive impeachment contingent at the huge September 24, 2005 anti-war March on Washington. Assemble at 12 noon at the White House. Sign up here to learn about the plans of the impeachment movement in the next month - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/cex28

*Help the troops come home! Url.: http://www.bringemhome.org - We need them badly to fight our so called 'governments' - Url.: http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/

FPF-COPYRIGHT NOTICE - In accordance with Title 17 U. S. C. Section 107 - any copyrighted work in this message is distributed by the Foreign Press Foundation under fair use, without profit or payment, to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the information. Url.: http://liimirror.warwick.ac.uk/uscode/17/107.html

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The Inevitability of George W. Bush

A Man for Our Times

By BEN TRIPP

With regrets for all the chaos and death and destruction, it was necessary that George W. Bush should ascend to power and retain it for two terms of office. He is a singularly giftless man, but he brings one gift to everyone: disaster. Placed at the pinnacle of the greatest military empire in human history, its wealth and reach unimaginable in Caesar's day, equipped with every conceivable advantage that the very most powerful, influential cabals of rulership and commerce and warmaking can bestow, all of their collective beneficence concentrated behind his every purpose, yet he will fail.
Say what you will about the accomplices secretly running the show: Bush himself is the president.

He is no dupe. A slobbering cretin nearly incapable of forming a coherent thought, or of operating a bicycle on a hill without running over a policeman; a feckless, soulless meta-bureaucrat with the attention span of a hydroencephalitic flea preoccupied with revenge, machismo, booze, and proving to his father he's not a latent homosexual: these things he indubitably is.

But he's not a puppet merely. It is his magical ability to wrest defeat from the jaws of victory that will end America's unsuitable world domination. Then we can get on with averting the next ice age.
Far too late to save what's left of the world as we know it, but that's the cosmic joke our species seems never to get, no matter how often the punch line is repeated.

Bush is only the latest of many such necessary evildoers. There's always somebody. Hitler, an even more egregious schmekel than G.W. Bush, was the inevitable instrument of the destruction of Europe as it had been known for a thousand years. Things simply could not remain as they were, and he saw to it that they didn't. The Great War wasn't enough of a hint for those old countries whose pastime it had long been to annex each other and swap royal bloodlines, feeding their various empires on the flesh of distant lands. So along came Hitler with WWII.

Unfortunately America, which came late to both World Wars, got to feeling superior and decided an empire could be done properly: it just needed to be run by folks that were elected, not handed the job through fortunate birth. We set about the task, our elected leaders passing the torch from one grasping claw to the next, and built up a pretty good portfolio of client states and resource-rich territories outside our borders. That showed those old-Europe types!

Here's the problem. Empire is the sole purpose and certain downfall of political power. We got our post-European empire sure enough, paddling around in various bits of Asia before settling on oil-rich climes at the buckle between Eurasian shirt and African trousers. We got fat and complacent and began to believe our own press about the goodness and greatness and rightness of America, her jiggle & kill blow-dried Surfer Jesus playtime commercial culture, anaesthetic low-calorie pilsner beers, and infinite opportunity for the right blend of complexion and connection. We began to imagine we were shaping the world to fit our image.

This is the first symptom of a dying empire. Check out this kickin' toga, bro. Pretty soon everybody will be wearing them instead of pants. Hey, are those Visigoths? The second symptom is when the leaders start electing themselves by divine right or noble blood.

The final symptom is that the popular weal ceases to be a factor in governance. One might argue that most empires were founded and maintained without the popular weal being considered at all, but this is simplistic. Empires rely on a mutual parasitism between leaders and people: you send us to war, we get cheap resources (or Poland). That sort of thing.

Eventually, the rulers start running the show entirely for their own benefit, putting increasing downward pressure on the populace until society breaks down like my Fiat Cinquecento. Bingo! The spoils of a sprawling, resource-grabbing common enterprise have been diverted to a self-selecting few. The ticks are exsanguinating the hyena.

What's next? A leader must emerge from the top ranks to ruin everything, pronto.

That leader is George W. Bush. He brings his gift of failure to our nation and the world. That is the real similarity between him and Adolf Hitler. And various Caesars. And Richard of the Crusades. They come along at a time when empires need collapsing, after which the common business of mankind can proceed.

That said, I'm hoping he gets it over with soon- I'd look awful in a toga.

Ben Tripp

[enditem] - Article Website - Counterpunch - Url.: http://www.counterpunch.org/tripp07092005.html

Ben Tripp is an independent filmmaker and all-around swine. His book, Square In The Nuts, may be purchased here, with other outlets to follow: http://www.lulu.com/Squareinthenuts . Swag is available as always from http://www.cafeshops/tarantulabros . And Mr. Tripp may be reached at credel@earthlink.net.


Fwd. by:

FOREIGN PRESS FOUNDATION
http://tinyurl.com/3tro9
Editor : Henk Ruyssenaars
http://tinyurl.com/amn3q
The Netherlands
FPF@Chello.nl

*'The war in Iraq is illegal' says United Nation's Secretary General Kofi Annan - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/5pl2v

* Impeachbush.org is mobilizing a massive impeachment contingent at the huge September 24, 2005 anti-war March on Washington. Assemble at 12 noon at the White House. Sign up here to learn about the plans of the impeachment movement in the next month - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/cex28

*Help the troops come home! Url.: http://www.bringemhome.org - We need them badly to fight our so called 'governments' - Url.:http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/

FPF-COPYRIGHT NOTICE - In accordance with Title 17 U. S. C. Section 107 - any copyrighted work in this message is distributed by the Foreign Press Foundation under fair use, without profit or payment, to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the information. Url.: http://liimirror.warwick.ac.uk/uscode/17/107.html

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