MORE ON BASRA - Basra - SAS bungled operation - what is going on in our name??

WELL HELLO!!

Presumably you are currently in Basra? That is how you make your assumptions. You assume the SAS are trying to start a civil war? Evidence please? You say they fired on Iraqi Police to achieve this aim. Other possible assumptions are that they were defending themselves, the Iraqi police are heavily infiltrated by Mehdi militia, they saw fit to 'arrest' soldiers in order to exchange them for militia prisoners. When the soldiers were rescued they were being held by this same militia, who had been handed them from the Iraqi police. There have been numerous reports about the infiltration of Basra police by Mehdi militia. One such report cost the life of a US journalist in Basra in August. Of course these reports themselves are speculative assumptions, rather than blandly stated facts like your comments. Furthermore Please tell us when the SAS tried to start a civil war in Northern Ireland? having been to both N.Ireland and Baghdad, I know a lot of stuff goes on behind the scenes, but what you are saying is very off the wall! Check out:
www.smh.com.au/news/world/us-journalists-body-found-in-basra/2005/08/03/1122748699350.html. For a fuller background to the infiltration of Basra police by Mehdi militia, thoose reports by Vincent cost him his life! That the Police were allowed to become like that is very worrying.

Mr Lustbuster you sink to your usual level somewhere below the gutter.

Arthur did you not hear of "Bloody Sunday"? I worked with with a member of the special forces who over the many years we worked together gave me some hints at the sort of dity tricks that specials force got up to in Northern Ireland - it is all documented just checking it out on the Internet. And why should the Special forces not use the same tactics in Iraq. In Northern Ireland there were 100's used in this capacity and probably the same in Iraq.

Yes the police have been infiltrated but just what were the soldiers doing dressed up in arab head gear? And why were six tanks needed to "libeate" them from the elected governments jail after they were palced under arrest (after allegedly killing a police officer).Just imagine the reaction if any part of the Iraq resisistence had tried to "liberate" Saddam Hussein from jail with six tanks and special forces.

What I am suggesting (how do you ever prove this sort of thing so close to the action - wait 10 years and we will see) is probably just the tip of the giant iceburg of special forces and intelligence activity in Iraq today probably involving 1000's of UK and Amercian army personnel. This has been the case in every war for the last 50 years so why should Iraq be any different? (funny how that information on George Galloway MP on oil for money on faked papers happened to survive in the Ministry of Information when the whole building had gone up in flames - just one of many, many intelligence operations including planting information on web sites, fake Web sites, newspaper articles, phone tapping etc etc.).

Neil

Arthur you need to see this.

Extracts from todays Indepenedent

"Dressed in plain clothes - according to some they were wearing traditional Arab dress - the two men had been driving in an unmarked car when they arrived at a checkpoint in the city."

"In the confrontation that followed, shots were fired, and two Iraqi policemen were shot, one of whom later died. The Iraqi authorities blamed the men, reported to be undercover commandos, and arrested them."

"Their clothes - plain T-shirts and chinos - were spattered with blood. One had a bandage wrapped around his head, the other also had a head injury, which had been dressed.
Reports coming out of Basra described how up to ten British tanks, possibly Challenger 2 Main Battle Tanks, possibly Warrior Infantry Fighting Vehicles, had stormed the jail where the two men were being held."

And all this just to deliver a box of Dairy Milk chocolates!!! And cows might fly! We can be sure that the two guys (in plain T-shirts and chinos) could not be allowd to talk - they had to be rescued at all costs or we might discover that they were carrying explosive equipment ready to assinnate some random target to force a wedge between the resistence groups - the last thing the UK and USA want is any alliance between Sunni and Shittes even on anti US and UK operations). A civil ar will do nicely justifing the need for more troops and the need to remain in Iraq (dont mention the OIL!).

Neil

They are obviously important people, with lots of secrets to tell! Its not every jailbird that gets a 10 tank breakout crew...

 http://rigorousintuition.blogspot.com/2005/09/carry-on-killing.html

British soldiers in Iraq, dressed as Arabs and armed to the teeth (like Israeli soldiers in a selective murder missions in Palestine), are sent to infiltrate the Iraqi infiltrators of the Iraq's police forces who they themselves have helped training, in the process of conducting their not specify but surely illegal mission, go and kill some Iraq's policemen in a control, friends or foes no one knows but a terrorism act nevertheless. Then they are caught by other police infiltrators they haven’t killed, or could they be honest policemen?, it doesn’t matter we have to rescue them. And we should excuse these acts of terrorism in foreign lands wihtout doubt, please notice this is not an incitement of terrorism because we are the good guys, and the Iraqi infiltrators are obviously the bad guys or terrorists, and we all know this war was for the benefit of the Iraqi people, including infiltrators, and not for oil or any other selfish western corporate interest.

Should these soldiers be charged by the Iraqis and their justice system or be given a medal for their heroic terrorism acts in the name of the British people? I don’t know, but my duty is to remind myself that terrorism by British undercover soldiers is not terrorism according to the ‘official’ description of real terrorism as everybody knows, and after all ‘they’, the Iraqi people (and Brazilians), own us a lot already.

Thank you Tony

SAS dressed as 'al Qaida' were caught red-handed in a civilian car packed with (suicide-bomber) explosives and opened fire on Iraq police.

After being lawfully arrested for unprovoked murder and injury, the accused were illegally sprung from jail by British forces with Warrior tanks, allowing 150 prisoners to escape.

By this standard, British Muslims can legitimately blow a hole in Belmarsh Prison and free the captives held there without charge for three months and everyone else.

In those first hand videos you will actually see a lot of the action, the brits being arrested, knocked down and held in a cell. You'll see the devastation done to the prison afterwards as well. Enjoy.

 http://www.iha.com.tr/bin/directory.dll/pub/news/getvideo?file=37538&decrypt=false
 http://www.iha.com.tr/bin/directory.dll/pub/news/getvideo?file=37572&decrypt=false
 http://www.iha.com.tr/bin/directory.dll/pub/news/getvideo?file=37546&decrypt=false

Arthur you state: "That is how you make your assumptions. You assume the SAS are trying to start a civil war? Evidence please?"

Do not forget our history! (and hang our heads in shame at some of this history)
Well here is some evidence which i am sure you will say is pure socialist propoganda - but if you check back on many of the sources you will see many instances of the evidence being backed by independent and international sources.
......................................................................................................................

British army's history of torture and repression
 http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/article.php4?article_id=333
Extract “The writer Mark Curtis says that in 1971 an official British investigation found that the British army's torture techniques "played an important part in counter-insurgency operations in Palestine, Malaya, Kenya, Cyprus and the British Cameroons (1960-1), Brunei (1963), British Guiana (1964), Aden (1964-7), Borneo/Malaysia (1965-6), the Persian Gulf (1970-1) and in Northern Ireland (1971)".

Thirty years of sheer brutality in Northern Ireland
The Compton official inquiry acknowledged that the army hooded suspects, fed them on just bread and water and blasted them with noise. The report decided that "in depth" techniques did not contravene "accepted British army procedures".
An Amnesty International report said, "It is because we regard the deliberate destruction of a man's ability to control his own mind with revulsion that we reserve a special place in our catalogue of moral crimes for techniques of thought control and brainwashing. Any interrogation procedure which has the purpose or effect of causing a malfunction or breakdown of a man's mental processes constitutes as grave an assault on the inherent dignity of the human person as more traditional techniques of physical torture."

Evidence - Cyprus
'Harsh treatment' to keep people down
James Callaghan, then Labour's colonial spokesman, described a death in British custody to the House of Commons: "On 29 June 1957 an inquest was held into the death of Nicos Georghiou. Dr Clearkin said in evidence that bruises in the head were sufficiently severe to have caused the injuries to the brain, perhaps bumping the head against a hard object."
A public inquiry was ruled out as too damaging to the morale of the police and the troops.
British forces also used torture to protect their interests in the Middle East. In 1953 a coup organised by the British and the US intelligence services overthrew the popular Iranian prime minister Mossadeq and gave full power to the Shah.
British SAS forces trained the Shah's notorious Savak secret police. SAS officers helped train the Iranian army in special operations against the Kurds. The Shah's regime used torture until it was overthrown in 1979. In Aden, later known as South Yemen, SAS squads used terror against local villages in a vain attempt to crush a national independence movement.
An official investigation found that from 1964 to 1967 detainees at a British interrogation centre were routinely tortured. Their eardrums were burst. Others were forced to lean against walls with their fingertips for day and subjected to white noise for hours.
Britain's history of state terror
 http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/article.php4?article_id=7013
They will have recalled Sean Savage, an unarmed member of the IRA, shot 16 times at point blank range by plain clothes members of the SAS in Gibraltar in March 1988 after he’d put his hands up in surrender.
The SAS immediately claimed, and most of the media reported as fact, that Savage and two other IRA members gunned down on the same occasion had been about to trigger a bomb.
Although the European Court of Human Rights later found the killings to be unlawful, no action was ever taken against the killers.
Eighteen year old Peter McBride was unarmed, inoffensive and a member of no political or paramilitary organisation.
He was walking home one night in north Belfast in September 1992, when two members of the Scots Guards, Fisher and Wright, chased him along the street before taking aim and shooting him in the back.
They said he had made a “sudden movement” and might have been intent on throwing a “coffee jar bomb”.
Their commanding officer Colonel Tim Spicer told an army board later that if he’d had his way the killers would have been commended, given back their rifles and sent out to complete their patrol.
After a huge outcry in Northern Ireland, Fisher and Wright were charged and convicted of murder. Both were released on the orders of then Northern Ireland secretary, Mo Mowlam, after serving two years ……..

………In the course of the conflict in Northern Ireland, police and soldiers have killed 357 people. About 150 of these were members of republican paramilitary organisations, not all of whom were armed at the time. Some 189 of the victims were unarmed civilians.
The Scots Guards are the only individuals with murder convictions.
Families and friends of the dead have faced formidable difficulties in seeking the truth.
There’s the unwillingness or inability of the political and judicial establishment to accept that the state condones not just trigger happy police and soldiers and occasionally irresponsible behaviour, but deliberate murder.
They shut their minds against the possibility. Or rather, against admission of the possibility.

Friend or foe
 http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/archive/1742/sw174216.htm
SOLDIERS IN the SAS, the British army's elite killers, seized a group of Albanians suspected of the mass killing of Serbs in Kosovo last week. Four of those arrested are members of the Kosovo Protection Corps, the successor to the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA).
The SAS trained the KLA in 1998 and 1999. During NATO's bombing campaign against Serbia two years ago, US officials described the KLA as "our eyes and ears". Tony Blair had his photo taken with KLA leader Hashim Thaci.
Historian flies flag for bloody British Empire
 http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/article.php?article_id=2396
Victorian Britain was the greatest drug pusher the world has ever seen. Britain invaded China three times, in 1839-42, 1856-58 and 1860, in order to safeguard this extremely profitable trade. Britain seized Hong Kong in the process. By the time the Chinese were finally brought to accept that they had been incorporated into Britain's informal empire, Beijing had been occupied and the emperor's Summer Palace destroyed.
Ferguson does not discuss the Mau Mau rebellion and the methods Britain used to suppress it. This is despite the fact that the rebellion took place less than ten years before the happy childhood Ferguson describes. Britain used torture as a matter of routine.
This meant that hundreds of prisoners were shot and beaten to death, and thousands were interned without trial. By the time the rebellion was eventually crushed over 1,000 Kenyans had been hanged for being asssociated with the Mau Mau. In Kenya the British authorities hanged people for the crime of administering illegal oaths.
And all this happened not in the 1850s but in the 1950s. Ferguson does not see fit to mention any of this. Instead, he concentrates on describing what a happy time he had in the aftermath of this brutally repressed rebellion. For Ferguson the British Empire was a fond memory, one on which the sun will never set.
Ferguson sees these as "the good old days" when Britain really did rule the waves. For socialists and many other people the British Empire was an atrocity on which the blood never dried.
Palestine, 1938 - Britain blazed the trail of repression
THE METHODS used by the Israeli army against Palestinians in the West Bank have shocked the world. In fact, they are modelled on those pioneered by Britain when it suppressed the Palestinian revolt of 1936-9.
In August 1938 British troops destroyed much of the town of Jenin, blowing up houses and rounding up the male population in reprisal for the shooting of a British official. Jenin was reduced to rubble by the Israeli army in a vicious act of collective punishment last year.
Brits at war - Ireland
 http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/archive/1698/sw169816.htm
IT'S AMAZING what the passage of time can do. The establishment seems to become a little more loose-tongued about its crimes and misdemeanours. And there are plenty of both in the history of the British army's presence in Northern Ire"We followed the laws of the jungle, and it was a jungle. There were no nice people in that area," said one ex-soldier of the Catholic housing estate he had patrolled. Members of one regiment set up a scoreboard on the local factory chimney: "Gloucesters 2, IRA 0".
When the SAS shot eight IRA members dead at Loughgall, the top military brass were "jubilant". They described, in their plummy upper class accents, how "it was a job well done" and that there was "some satisfaction we had won one".
Sir Frank Cooper, who served at the Ministry of Defence (MoD) at the time, described in an impeccably crass, ruling class way how the army had entered an "unknown mire".
He admitted frankly that "nobody [at the MoD] knew a great deal about Ireland". The military was forced to change tactics, however. The Bloody Sunday massacre of unarmed civilians in Derry in 1972 provoked international outcry. It made the army realise that a straightforward military solution was no longer possible.
They turned instead to deadly covert operations. A secret war began, and the British military drew on all its colonial experience to fight it. The British established a secret military unit called the Military Reconnaissance Force.
It "actively sought out the enemy" using more "robust" methods, as one agent put it. Others candidly admitted their mission was to "capture or kill" IRA members.
Later episodes of Brits deal with the Stalker affair, the attempted murder of civil rights activist Bernadette McAliskey, and the involvement of undercover army agent Brian Nelson in a succession of Loyalist murders. The series is made by the team who produced Provos and Loyalists. For the most part Brits follows the same style.


I could give you 100's more examples but hey you would only say its all made up and those guys in Basra really were trying to deliver a box ( i think I know waht wasin the box and it wasnt chocs!) of black magic choclates to their Iraq girlfiends!!

Neil
 http://fightbackuk.blogspot.com/
The blog that will never be afraid to tell the truth.

Could some one provide some evidence that these two soldiers were planting explosives? A lot of silly accusations are being thrown about here. There were almost certainly engaged in surveillance duties. The Mehdi militia got their servants in Iraqi Police to arrest them.

If you watch the IHA videos, already you can easily spot a serie of lies told by the british authorities since a couple of days about various apects of the unfolding events.

Ney "fight back man" i see your a mouthpice for that ragbag islamist/trot party respect.Well theres a suprise.

And seeing thou your listing all the brit empire stuff ,what do you say about allahway thinking prince philip is a "Good egg"?.

Well the Chinese say so -

 http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2005-09/19/content_3514065.htm

but I wouldn't trust that any more than I'd trust the BBC.

But the army obviously didn't want those guys interrogated did it? Pretty desperately not.

As far as the sectarian terrorism in Iraq in general goes, the question u need to ask, Arthur, is why would the Sunnis, who want the occupation defeated and who DON'T WANT IRAQ BROKEN UP, start indiscriminately blowing up Shia civilians?
Wouldn't that make more sense as part of a divide and rule strategy, as employed by empires throughout history?

the two guys look suspiciously similar to me, does the UK army send brothers on mission together, or was there actually only one, dressed up differently for each shot?
hmmm
i iknow there's lots bigger shit to wonder about, but am stilll...

Do a search for the leaked UK document "Iraq: Options Paper", created by the Overseas & Defense Secretariat Cabinet Office on March 8, 2002. It states directly that "'Dive & Rule' is easy", then goes on to explain how existing ethnic tensions can be used to divide Iraqis, in order to take the heat off of the Occupiers, and allow the US/UK to plunder Iraq, while the People are busy killing each other. The Government must be dismayed that the Iraqis have been wise to this old Colonial Trick, and remained united in fighting the foreign Aggressor, as is their right under the same laws the US/UK violated when they started this war.

Who's Blowing Up Iraq? New evidence that bombs are being planted by British
 http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=55&p=15926&s2=20

These two stories were published just days before the Basra scandal:

The occupation forces are the real perpetrators of bomb attacks in Iraq?
 http://www.aljazeera.com/cgi%2Dbin/conspiracy%5Ftheory/fullstory.asp?id=257

Many Iraqis believe ’suicide’ bombings done by US to start a civil war
 http://bellaciao.org/en/article.php3?id_article=8286

Some very intersting comments from one or two people.
See my 7.35pm post. But just a bit of it:

On the 7.30p Channel 4 news the equipment of the SAS men (no longer denied by the government - are you listening Arthur) was shown. A light machime gun, a BAZOOKA (! Arthur did you read that - an explosive device) and satellite tracking equipment - just right for a hit and run job - yes devide and rule does look one senario. Funny John reid was not asked about this eqipment!!

To Lustbuster ( what a supid name to use. I suspect you are an active member of the Tory party but cannot admit it)) - yes I am a member of RESPECT and was a member of the Labour Party before that for 13 years holding positions at all levels - I know them from the inside - an inside the body is rotting!!

Neil

All the loons of the day converging here with all the battiest theories you can conceive.

Can you possibly restrain yourself from vaulting all over this site with your hobby horses until you have some solid facts... I mean to say Chinese News is now suddenly credible??? I thought endorsing the Daily Mail was an all time low... you'll be quoting Pravda and Andy McNab at us next???

I find it interesting that the Trolls feel the need to ridicule the story if it's nothing ...

I sent this letter to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, in regards to their interesting ommissions on the Basra story, on their nightly program, "The National". From what I've seen of US/UK coverage, these ommissions seem highly coordinated and consistent across the board. My favourite Journalism prof told me in college that "When the media speaks with one voice, start digging".

This story is being intentionally scrubbed. If you analyze the media's Iraq coverage over the past few weeks, you'll see they've been a willing partner to this game, dropping the demonization of the Iraqi Resistance with the term "insurgents" (just as they did during Vietnam), and repeating empty claims about ethnic groups attacking each other.

Hi there,

Although you introduced your story on the Basra scandal by making reference to "accusations on both sides", you seem to have forgotten to carry the accusations of the Iraqis, the people who did NOT intentionally LIE in order to feign a justification for a war thgey understood to be illegal. What happened to the part about the SAS men allegedly planting bombs, in order to foment civil war, which comes from the Iraqis? That IS, after all, the story here.

What about the explosives found in their vehicle, complete with remote detonators? You mentioned weapons, but seem to have ignored that part.

What you ran tonight was simply irresponsible and biased.

I sent you - twice - information leaked from official UK documents at the same time as the Downing Street Minutes were released (Iraq: Options Paper - March 8, 2002, UK Overseas & Defense Secretariat Cabinet Office), which proves that the US/UK were planning 'Divide & Rule', that old Colonial Trick, before the war even began.

Why was this deemed irrelevant to this story? Was it because you were too busy regurgitating the cover story of the people who said that Saddam could attack the UK with nukes in 45 minutes?

And your coverage of the story about the irrelevant CCTV videos from the London Underground, conveniently released to distract from this Covert Operation, was simply shameful. The Bliar Government has yet to produce evidence to support their Conspiracy Theory about 7/7. Why did you choose to identify those men as bombers, as opposed to ALLEGED bombers, as is appropriate?

You might get something out of this, as it highlights the behaviour of the media:

British Special Forces Caught Carrying Out Staged Terror In Iraq?
Media blackout shadows why black op soldiers were arrested
 http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/september2005/200905stagedterror.htm

As always,

Jordan Thornton

Who's Blowing up Iraq?
by Mike Whitney
 http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_mike_whi_050920_who_s_blowing_up_ira.htm

Why Basra is in revolt against occupation

“What our police found in their car was very disturbing — weapons, explosives and a remote control detonator,” Sheikh Hassan said. “These are the weapons of terrorists. We believe these soldiers were planning an attack on a market or other civilian targets, and thanks be to god they were stopped and countless lives were saved.”

 http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/article.php?article_id=7426

It took but a few hours to get a prisonplanet link... what's up you got a job now???

The *story* isn't ridiculous. But, some of the responses here are.

The mainstream media in the UK will show no hesitation (as demonstrated MANY times in the past) to ignore HM Gvt and expose any illegal MoD tactics. The sole reason that hasn't happened so far, is that unlike certain people here, they generally wait (though not always)until there is something to write about.

What do we really know so far? Two British servicemen were captured by the Iraqi Police. There was a gun battle (accounts vary) where one policeman died. The servicemen were armed (not exactly unusual) (accounts vary). They were dresses in civilliam clothing (suggests possible covert mission). There was a shambles of an operation mounted by UK forces to free the captured men using force. There was a riot. Considerable damage was caused to a prison (accounts vary). The men were apparently being held no longer by the Iraqi justice system but by some group of anti-coalition paramilitatries.

I'm sorry, but none of that automatically adds up to "FALSE FLAG!!!" I am not denying that it is a scenario that could be conjectured. But, given the wide gaps in information, that guess is as good/bad as the counterargument that they weren't.

You have completey overlooked the most interesting part of this story. How on earth did these guys end up in the hands of the militia?

Yet again, we see certain individuals leap on this place and start spamming it with wild speculation presented as fact. Yet again, we see them grasping at anything they find convenient irrespective of bias of those sources (Chinese News, Daily Mail, dubious conspiracy sites, and even the bloody Socialist (cough MI5) Worker). "Who cares if they are notorious lying shits. My enemy's enemy is my friend!"

To cap all that certain proven liars have the cheek to pop their heads up and accuse regaluar posters here as "trolls" for daring to challenge their authority!

Now that you have started citing the SWP. Try reading a bit more of their rag and pperhaps you'll realise that you should go hang out with them and leave the freethinkers here alone?

I can tell "fight back" you where a ex-labour hack,it comes through with all your bombast and politico rhetoric.Far from a tory i want full working class indepence which people will not get with single issue partys,hamfisted student bellowing and islamo/trot cross class apologists like respect.