down with murder inc

Down with murder Inc.

"Today is a good day to bury bad news"

Paul Burrell - Queen talks of dark forces

KING: You claim that after her death the queen warned you of powers that be in the palace.
BURRELL: That's right.
KING: Lurking and -- what? What?
BURRELL: Not dark forces.
KING: A lot of intrigue. What's going on?
BURRELL: Someone said dark forces it sounds like "Star Wars," doesn't it? It wasn't.
She said that there are forces out there of which we have no knowledge. I think she meant there were people working in the country that -- listening to telephone conversations and watching people all the time. I'm sure they are. I'm sure they're watching this right now, just to make sure that I'm not saying anything I shouldn't be saying, because the world's a very dangerous place, isn't it? You don't think?
CNN transcript of Burrel interview

Sept 11: 'a good day to bury bad news' 10/10/2001
A LABOUR aide who advised the Government to use the attack on the World Trade Centre to distract attention from "bad" news stories was fighting for her job last night.
Jo Moore, who works for Stephen Byers, the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions, was widely condemned for showing spin at its worst when her news management memo was leaked.
Miss Moore's memo, written at 2.55pm on September 11, when millions of people were transfixed by the terrible television images of the terrorist attack, said: "It is now a very good day to get out anything we want to bury. Councillors expenses?" - Telegraph

The Washington sniper - News diversion?

The arrest of two men at a Maryland rest stop early October 24 apparently brought to an end the killing spree that has been terrorizing the Washington, D.C. area and neighboring Maryland and Virginia for the past three weeks. The random shootings, carried out with a sniper rifle, left ten people dead and three seriously wounded.
The denouement of this latest symptom of profound social dysfunction has been greeted with the sensationalism, banality and ignorance that one has come to expect of the US mass media. The media has switched from lurid descriptions of the killing of innocent victims to morbid speculation as to which of the competing jurisdictions will have the opportunity to press for the death penalty against the alleged gunmen, John Allen Muhammad, 41, and John Lee Malvo, 17.- WSWS

The Pentagon has deployed sophisticated military spy planes in the Washington metropolitan area as part of the manhunt for the sniper who has fatally shot nine people in a killing spree in suburban Virginia and Maryland.
The decision to use the military in an ongoing criminal investigation is virtually unprecedented and constitutes a clear breach of the Posse Comitatus Act, a 125-year-old law barring the armed forces from participating in law enforcement.
Pentagon and Justice Department lawyers huddled on the issue and came up with a set of protocols aimed at circumventing the law. While the US Army will operate the planes, each will carry an FBI agent aboard who will serve as an intermediary between soldiers in the plane and police forces on the ground. WSWS

Mind controlled?
Malvo's attorneys plan an insanity defense, arguing that their young client was brainwashed by his alleged accomplice, 42-year-old John Muhammad.
Muhammad's trial in a separate Virginia murder is proceeding in Virginia Beach, which is far from the Washington area but only a few miles from Malvo's trial.
Malvo defense attorney Michael Arif said his client was not surprised when Muhammad decided to act as his own lawyer for two days at the beginning of his trial.
"It's consistent with Muhammad's need to control," Arif said outside the older man's trial last month. "He's going to try to control the courtroom. He's a control freak."
Much of the evidence at Muhammad's trial has suggested that Malvo was part of a two-person sniper team, but Steven Hassan, a former member of the Unification Church of Sun Myung Moon and now an expert on mind control, said Muhammad may have been able to control Malvo and make him commit crimes. - CNN
story of the sniper Spartechsoft

After the 12th victim was wounded Oct. 19 outside a Ponderosa restaurant in Ashland, Va., investigators found a note at the scene that they believe was an authentic message from the suspects.
"We have tried to contact you to start negotiations," read the note, which demanded $10 million for the shootings to stop. The letter mentioned earlier calls to law enforcement agencies -- including one to the Rockville police -- that the writer complained had not been treated seriously.
ABC News reported tonight that it had obtained a recording of a call by one of the suspects to Rockville police. "Good morning," says a voice on a tape aired by the network. "Don't say anything, just listen. We are the people that are causing the killing in your area. Look on the tarot card: It says, 'Call me God.' Do not release the threat. We have called you three times before, trying to set up negotiations. We've gotten no response. People have died."
The call-taker replied: "I need to refer you to the Montgomery County hotline. We are not investigating the crime. Would you like the number?"
The caller then hung up. Wash Post

SNIPER IRAQ CONNECTION
Consider the following.
On Wednesday, October 2, 2002 House Speaker Dennis Hastert, on his own behalf and that of Minority Leader Richard Gephardt introduced the bill (H. J. Res 114) to authorize the use of armed force against Iraq. It was refereed to the International Relations Committee.
On that same day the first two sniper shootings in the D.C. area occurred. The first only shattered a window at a Michaels craft store. The second killed James Martin in a grocery store parking lot.
On Thursday, October 3 the bill was reported out of the International Relations Committee for the beginning of debate.
On the same day the sniper killed five people in a span of less than 14 hours.
On Friday, October 4 (as debate on the bill continued) a woman was shot and wounded outside of a craft store.
On Monday, October 7 (as debate resumed after the weekend) a 13 year-old boy was wounded arriving at school.
On Wednesday, October 9 (as debate on the bill continued) a man was killed while filling his gas tank.
On Thursday, October 10 the House passed the bill and sent it to the Senate.
On Friday, October 11 the Senate passed the bill.
On the same day another man was killed while filling his gas tank.
On Monday, October 14 an FBI employee was killed outside a store.
On Tuesday, October 15 the bill was sent to the president for signature.
On Wednesday, October 16, the president signed the bill into law.
On Saturday, October 19 a man was killed outside a Ponderosa restaurant.
On Wednesday, October 23, the last sniper killing was a 35 year-old bus driver.
On Wednesday, October 23 Chief Charles Moose repeated the strange phrase on television he said the sniper had requested in a note left at the scene of one of the killings, we have caught the sniper like a duck in a noose. John Muhammad and Lee Malvo were arrested less than ten hours later while sleeping in their car in the main part of a rest stop. Muhammads wallet with several false I.D.S in it was on the hood of the car.
Many, including this writer, believe that strange phrase was used to trigger a post-hypnotic command to Muhammad and Malvo. The command obviously would have been to stop the killing and make yourselves available for capture. - Jim Rarey

compare and contrast: UK Gun Crime threataganda

January 2003

Teenagers Shot dead UK
Thursday, January 2, 2003 BIRMINGHAM, England (CNN) -- Two teenage girls have been shot dead while attending a private party at a hairdressing salon in central England, police tell CNN.
Two other girls were injured in the shooting which happened shortly after 4 a.m. (0400 GMT) in the Aston area of Birmingham on Thursday.
The girls had been partying along with many other young people from the West Midlands but went outside where "a considerable number" of gun shots were fired, police said.
A car was later found about 50 metres away with bullet holes. One of the injured girls suffered gunfire wounds while a fourth was discovered to have been taken to hospital and has undergone surgery for unknown injuries -- neither have life threatening conditions.
Police have launched a murder inquiry but do not know the reason for the killings. - CNN
buzzle archives of news headlies for January 2003
Rise in gun crime 'may mean all police should carry arms'
12/01/2003
Police officers should be routinely armed if gun crime continues to increase at its current rate, officers' leaders believe.
Rank and file police officers have always taken pride in the fact that London is the only major capital in the world where most officers do not carry guns.
Jan Berry, the chairman of the Police Federation, which represents 120,000 officers, has now broken with 160 years of that tradition and called for arms to be issued if gun crime continues to increase.
[snip]
Norman Brennan, a serving police constable and chairman of the Protect the Protectors pressure group, also believes the time is coming when police officers will have to be routinely armed.
He said: "For any crime to be out of control is terrible and we are going to have to seriously consider arming officers. We cannot have a situation where police are being shot at and are unable to defend themselves."
Pc Bob Crees, a former armed response unit officer and secretary of the West Midlands Police Federation, said: "If the police were being targeted by guns then I think the time would come to consider it.
"At the moment we should increase the number of specialist armed officers but I think arming everyone would just lead to more criminals carrying guns."
Senior officers have always resisted routinely arming the police because they believe that this in turn would encourage more criminals to carry arms. During the year to April 2002, seven police officers were shot in England and Wales.
Specialist armed officers patrol in Manchester, Nottingham and London almost every day but most police are still unarmed in those cities. The Government still believes officers should not be routinely armed. - Telegraph

News buried in the UK

The Secretary of State for Defence, Geoff Hoon MP, announced in the House of Commons on 7 January 2003, that he was enabling the precautionary call-out of a number of Reservists, to ensure that they are available should operations against Iraq become necessary. He once again emphasised, however, that such operations are by no means inevitable, but that such preparations were necessary to underpin the continuing diplomatic efforts to secure full Iraqi compliance with United Nations resolutions.
Mr Hoon also announced that, to allow military options to be kept open, additional ships would now be deployed with Naval Task Group 03, with elements of 3 Commando Brigade embarked. - MOD
Tony Blair has raised the temperature in the confrontation with Iraq by insisting there is no need for United Nations weapons inspectors to find a 'smoking gun' for Saddam Hussein to be in breach of UN resolutions and face military action.
Downing Street sources made it clear last night that although there would be a 'short pause' in preparations for war while the inspectors are given 'a few more weeks' to try to find Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, Saddam's failure to co-operate pro-actively with the team will provide a pretext for attack. - Buzzle archives
Tony Blair today pledged that after dealing with Iraq, the UN would confront North Korea about its nuclear weapons programme.
The prime minister was giving an impassioned defence of the government's position on Iraq during his weekly question time when an anti-war MP shouted: "Who's next?"
Replying to the heckle, Mr Blair said: "After we deal with Iraq we do, yes, through the UN, have to confront North Korea about its weapons programme". - Buzzle archives

In the U.S.

Pentagon: Cia Operatives Already in Iraq
1/30/2003 - The Pentagon admitted yesterday that small numbers of CIA operatives are already on the ground inside northern Iraq ahead of a possible US-led attack. Air Force General Richard Myers confirmed reports that some US personnel are in northern Iraq to reporters at the Pentagon. - Buzzle archives
Bush makes 911 - Al Queda - Saddam links
1/28/2003 - President Bush claimed yesterday that the US had fresh evidence of links between Iraq and al-Qaida, as Washington prepared to release its secret files on Saddam Hussein in a bid to gain global support for a war.
The claim was a key element in the president's state of the union address to the nation last night.
The speech was intended to put the US on a war footing in the expectation that a war is all but certain, and help persuade an increasingly sceptical American public. - Buzzle archive
'Beaten and abused by the guards'
1/24/2003 - Osama "Sam" Awadallah was arrested in San Diego as a material witness on September 21 last year. The city had been a base for three of the hijackers.
Taken to New York, Mr Awadallah testified before a grand jury. Some of the answers he gave were inaccurate, although he later corrected himself. He was charged with perjury and held in a detention centre which his lawyer, Randy Hamud, described as "like a dungeon or a refrigerator".
According to Mr Hamud, "he was beaten and abused by the guards" and was interrogated about the hijackers because he had previously worked at a petrol station where one of them had worked, and they had known each other.
"They roughed him up and called him a 'fucking terrorist' - until I went public about it," said Mr Hamud. "They made sexual comments about him while he was strip-searched." Mr Hamud said his client was forced to take a lie-detector test and told he had failed.
Mr Awadallah has since been released and charges dropped, but the government is seeking to have them reinstated. He is completing his computer studies, and is on $25,000 bail. Buzzle archives

Deja vu? Gun crime diversion - Early October 2004:

Teenage girl shot dead on way home from fair
Sat 9 October, 2004 17:22 LONDON (Reuters) - A teenager has been shot dead in what police believe was a random attack as she walked home with friends from a funfair.
The 14-year-old died during emergency surgery after being hit by several bullets fired from a passing car in the St Ann's area of Nottingham in the early hours of Saturday.
"This is a truly wicked and callous crime and we will do everything in our power to find the people responsible," assistant chief constable Sue Fish said.
The girl, who has not yet been identified, was believed to have spent Friday evening at Nottingham's annual Goose Fair.
She was walking home with a group of friends when a car pulled up alongside and shots were fired.
Police believe she had no involvement with any criminal gang and said the shooting appeared to be motiveless.
Around 100 officers and detectives were involved in the hunt for the girl's killer, and stop-and-search inquiries would take place over the weekend, Fish said.
A post mortem examination is to be carried out later on Saturday. Reuters
Baby girl injured as gunman riddles car
12 October 2004 - An 18-month-old baby girl has become the latest innocent victim of gun crime after she was shot and injured when a hail of bullets were fired into a car.
She was in the vehicle with her 30-year-old father and his 35-year-old friend, yards from their home, when a gunman ran up and unleashed a burst of fire through the window. - Independent

Early October 2004: Bigley kidnapping

Bigley: Blair has blood on his hands
Sunday 10 October 2004 - Paul Bigley accused British Prime Minister Tony Blair of having blood on his hands hours after news emerged that his younger brother Ken Bigley had been killed by his captors in Iraq.
"Please, please stop the war and prevent other lives being lost. It is illegal, it has to stop. Blair has blood on his hands," Bigley's elder brother Paul said in a statement to anti-Iraq war activists.
Bigley described Ken as his "best pal" and paid tribute to his bravery and courage.
But he said he would never watch the video of his beheading.
"I won't watch that video. Never," he told the Times. "He's gone now and we grieve and we will cry when we bury him." - Al jazeera
Bigley captors bribed, says report
October 11, 2004 - A BRITISH hostage beheaded in Iraq after three weeks in captivity briefly fled his kidnappers by car after British intelligence helped bribe two of the captors, a newspaper reported today.
Kenneth Bigley was recaptured minutes after making an ill-fated escape attempt on Wednesday and was executed the next day, according to an account The Sunday Times said was from a Saudi man described by resistance fighters as the only person who could speak for the Tawhid and Jihad group, which claimed responsibility for the kidnapping.
The purported spokesman said that two of Mr Bigley's captors accepted a large sum of money to help him flee and that the money came from a Syrian and an Iraqi who had infiltrated the kidnappers on behalf of British intelligence, The Sunday Times reported. - News.com

Straw faces questions on Bigley's death
THE on-going political controversy over Iraq will be met head-on by the government today when it faces MPs questions over weapons of mass destruction and the death of the British hostage, Kenneth Bigley.
Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, will make a statement in the Commons which is expected to see him face hostile demands for Tony Blair to apologise over his claim to MPs in the run-up to the war that Saddam Hussein had a WMD programme that was "up and running".
The debate is not expected to cause Mr Straw too many headaches, however, after Labour MPs signalled they would fall into line last night.
At a meeting of the parliamentary party Mr Blair took their questions on Iraq, but was not given the rough ride many had anticipated following the Iraq Survey Groups report that concluded Saddam had not been hiding a cache of WMD.
He also made a call for unity after months of in-fighting over numerous issues including Iraq and the health service.
Warning against complacency, Mr Blair said: "Whatever the opinion polls say, the next general election will only be won when it is actually won."
In his statement today, Mr Straw is expected to outline the circumstances leading up to Mr Bigleys death, as part of a general overview of how Iraq is faring under coalition rule in the run-up to elections next year.
He will also be pressed on the issue of whether the government as well as Mr Blair should apologise for the statement to MPs in the run-up to war that Saddam had a WMD programme.
The Iraq Survey Group said last week that Saddam did not posses WMD although it said he had retained the ability to acquire them if United Nations sanctions had been eased.
Mr Blairs official spokesman defended the Prime Ministers decision not to apologise personally to MPs, saying the ISG report "said that the policy of containment was being seriously eroded and that Saddam had been intent to resume production [of WMD] as quickly as possible once sanctions were lifted".
He added: "Whatever form of words you wish to choose, has the government expressed regret at what was mistaken information? Yes it has. What the critics want us to do is to apologise for the war, but the government is not prepared to do that because it believes fundamentally the reasons it went to war remain valid today." - The Scotsman

New figures show massive rise in arms transfers as campaigners call for Arms Trade Treaty
As international arms campaigners around the world mark the second Control Arms Day today (9 October 2004), new figures show that both military spending and the global arms trade rose dramatically in 2003. According to the SIPRI Yearbook 2004, the downward trend in arms sales has been reversed, with both 2001 and 2003 showing the first increases in the arms market in almost a decade. The figures also show a dramatic 18% rise in military spending during 2002 and 2003.
These figures come amid further calls for an international Arms Trade Treaty to regulate the export of arms across the globe.
The campaign was given a major boost last week when UK Foreign Secretary Jack Straw announced Britain's support for the Arms Trade Treaty at the Labour Party Conference. The UK is the world's second largest arms exporter.
"The massive rise in arms transfers makes the case for controls more pressing than ever. Now that Jack Straw has publicly backed the Treaty, we look forward to him doing all that he can to make it a reality. Only when it is on the statute book will it begin to save lives," said Barbara Stocking, Director of Oxfam. - amnesty

Climbing Oil Prices Benefit US Companies
Crude oil prices continue to break new records surpassing the $50 "psychological threshold" in international markets. The record high for a barrel of US light oil was $53 on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and Brent oil was $49.20 per barrel in London yesterday. The Department Chair of Oil and Natural Gas Engineering at Istanbul Technical University (ITU), Abdurrahman Satman, claimed that the escalation in crude oil prices serves the US and its companies. Satman pointed out that the US owns important petroleum reserves and emphasized that most of the profit flows to oil producing companies.
According to Satman, the winter season and the upcoming US presidential elections also affect the increase. Nonetheless, Professor Satman does not expect long-term increases. Oil is a product that affects international markets and serves speculators. According to Satman, speculators invest in oil on the exchange markets and then play with prices to figure out how to make profits. Satman predicted that prices will start to return to normal.
The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) announced meanwhile that member countries are ready to increase cartel production in order to decrease oil prices. A top-level OPEC representative told Reuter's: "OPEC is concerned about the oil prices and in order to decrease the prices, it will do whatever it can, including increasing production to decrease the prices." However, OPEC's 11 members are already on overload by increasing production to 30 million barrels per day-- the highest production in the last 25 years. Therefore, the capacity to increase production levels lies with Saudi Arabia, the biggest oil exporter in the world. - Zaman.com

Strange, isn't it? In the US, sniper[s] can shoot down 12 people in cold blood, raising worldwide news stories and fear that seem to conveniently blur the political preparation for an illegal war in Iraq...
And in Britain, the same deal happens to allow the media to conveniently stir passions in the UK populace... ask yourself how many people die each holiday weekend from knife/glass wounds or pub brawls...
Are they all reported on national or Local news?
It would be impossible...so, Corporate news only reports politically useful stories...
either to distract or to steer public opinion
for instance
The 1993 WTC bombings happened as The intelligence services were considering the consequences of fall of the soviet empire on their funding

the Columbine shootings happened on the very day a 'carry-arms bill' was to be passed in the local government.

Stunning new Columbine charges
On the eve of the massacre's anniversary, a flurry of lawsuits by victims' families allege that law enforcement killed a student -- and failed to save many more.
By Dave Cullen April 20, 2000 - LITTLETON, Colo. -- On the eve of the Columbine massacre anniversary, stunning new allegations about the killings emerged from long-expected lawsuits filed by victims' families late Wednesday. They include charges that a law enforcement officer, not Dylan Klebold or Eric Harris, killed student Daniel Rohrbough, and that officers knew early on that Klebold and Harris were dead, and thus could have saved teacher Dave Sanders, who bled to death four hours after he was shot. source
BBC: Denver massacre reignites gun debate

The Elizebeth Smart kidnapping in 2002 was the same timeframe as the Iraq whistle-blower bombshell memo.

Elizebeth Smart

Coleen Rowley

Elizebeth Smart's sudden re-appearence in March 2003 after having been missing for almost a year was hailed as a miracle by the media, and in a sense it was, since it was presumed by many she was probably long dead and would never be found alive. However, with all the hoopla surrounding her remarkable return to her family, one person was almost completely overlooked in the media. His name was Richard Ricci, who was a handyman for the Smarts the previous summer. He was arrested, and wrongly accused of kidnapping the Smart girl.
While in jail, he suffered a brain hemmorage, and died a short time later. No one seemed to care that an innocent man died while in custody, from a hemmorage that was most likely brought on by the stressful and inhumane conditions he experienced while in prison. Yes, there was a second victim here that actually did die. Richard Ricci was practically tried and prosecuted in the media and by the investigative team handling the case. - WHO WAS RICHARD RICCI?
Coleen Rowley, chief counsel of the FBI's Minneapolis field office, who, in a 13-page memo, outlined how FBI headquarters thwarted agents' attempts to investigate Zacarias Moussaoui, the alleged 20th hijacker. The 'bombshell memo' led bureau chief Robert Mueller to reorganize the agency. She testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee in June about the FBI bureaucracy that frustrates agents' attempts at innovative investigation and mires them in paperwork.

Those reporters who wish to dig deeper, are kept on a leash and patronizingly labelled 'investigative journalists'.

Captain Wardrobes

Down with Murder inc.