01-10-2007, 12:36:53
Último:
Let's go on.
Mr. Latona says:
",it has proved impossible to determine what type of explosives were used to slaughter all those people"
False. This is an oft repeated mistake, in part product of what is called the CSI effect. The fact that forensic chemical analysis does not produce conclusive results does not mean that the REST of the evidence, when weighed by the bench, will not conclude that the explosive was Type A bought illegally in Asturias (need I to remind you a minor has already been convicted in a ruling that accepts as a proven fact the dynamite traffic from Asturias?), perhaps contaminated with small amounts of a Type C explosive, also present in the mine.
Can you imagine a judge in the US saying: "Ooops, no conclusive DNA tests. This fellow walks." When in fact the accused has been filmed on national television committing the crime and his fingerprints are all over the immediately retrieved murder weapon? It's an exaggeration, but sometimes exaggerations are good to convey the picture.
Mr. Latona goes on and on repeating conspiracionist claims. One of my favourites: those good-for-nothing small-time drug pushers would have never been able to pull out something this complex.
I admit it flabbergasts me. Casablanca, Morocco. Two terrorist attacks in the past few years with the participation of petty criminals. My Islamist experts tell me that petty criminals are the fodder of Islamist terrorism, being recruited in jails.
Be it as it may, what ontological impossibility makes a petty criminal incapable of becoming a Fundamentalist? If a millionaire, a doctor and an engineer have been capable of becoming terrorists, what prevents a person closer to crime to do so?
There is evidence, in the form of witness testimony (including his widow) that the "petty criminal" who was a sort of ringleader, Jamal Ahmidan, became a Fundamentalist in a Moroccan jail. Islamist activity by many of the indicted has been reported in testimony. Some of the indicted had been under police surveillance for Islamist activities. One of the dead terrorists was in jail in connection with logistic support for 9/11. Does that look like a harmless band of small-time crooks?
I am glad Mr. Latona had the sense to remove the racist slur that conspiracionists in Spain use: "moritos", little Moroccans, to refer to the indicted. However, he makes the same claim: they were incapable of something so complex. I detect a racist undercurrent there, at least when that claim is posited in Spain: are the conspiracionist saying that Moroccans do not have the acumen to plan and execute a terrorist attack?
Furthermore, to say this after 9/11 (a much more complex operation), Casablanca, Oran, Istambul, Bali, the aborted attacks in England and Germany and especially after the London train attacks is ridiculous.
London was, in general terms, a similar operation to Madrid: trains full of people, bombs, Islamists under previous surveillance. Only the activation method differs.
Does it take a genius to figure out that bombs in full trains at rush hour will kill many, many people? Does it take a genius to realise suburban trains have minimal security? Does it take a genius to surf the Internet and find what one of the Police specialists called "the simplest possible bomb design"? Does it take a genius to synchronize timers? Does it take a genius to get into a train with a backpack, "leave" it under a seat or in a corner and get off the train?
Come on, Mr. Latona. Reading you, it might seem that the Islamist recruiting office requires a successful Mensa test.
Those guys were perfectly capable of doing what they did. And the mountain of evidence against most of them will weigh more than your subjective claims of impossibility.
The fact is the trial will answer most relevant questions. Who did it? A local Islamist cell inspired but not controlled by Al Qaeda. How? By carrying bombs disguised in backpacks and leaving them in trains. Bombs were activated by cell phone alarms used as timers.
You want to know "exactly" how that happened. Absurd. Nobody knows exactly how the terrorists hijacked the 9/11 planes, where exactly they were standing, what they did to gain access to the cockpit, etc. We will never know, but it doesn't matter. Asking for unreasonable detail is an unreasonable requirement.
Why did the attacks happen? You may not have heard it, but there is a Yihad out there against the West. It is also probable that the Irak war heightened Spain's desirability as a target. And did you know Ben Laden fantasizes with claiming back Al Andalus, the name they give to previously Islamic Spain?
You also ask: " Why weren't they detected and neutralized before they did?" The same question can be asked of any successful terrorist attack. It is an important question, but trials do not answer those questions, as a rule. Trials answer questions like "Is this person guilty of this crime?" They have no business questioning the effectiveness of the Police prevention methods, as not preventing a crime is not, as a rule, a crime in itself.
Yet, the question is important. It belongs in a Parliamentary Commission. Too bad the commission we had was mired in politicking and was unable to recommend any prevention measures beyond the obvious ones.
Mr. Latona claims the legitimacy of this government rests on 191 corpses (actually 192, counting a dead SWAT policeman in Leganés). I am shocked. I always thought government legitimacy, in a democracy, came from counting voting ballots. I must have been misinformed.
Mr. Latona continues with this paragraph:
"According to many non-Zapatero compliant commentators, that is the reason why the government did not hesitate to bring total discredit on the National Police, the CNI intelligence agency, the Civil Guards and, saddest of all, the elite explosives unit, TEDAX, which has saved dozens of ETA's intended victims from death over the years through the heroism of its officers. Basically, they say, the government overreacted and flushed its own case down the toilet in trying to suppress anything that could possibly suggest the slightest whiff of ETA involvement in M-11."
This is preposterous. First, Mr. Latona hints falsely that only Zapatero-compliant commentators reject conspiracionism. That is strictly untrue. The rightist ABC, the veteran newspaper in Spain is fiercely anti-Zapatero... and fiercely anti-conspiracionist.
Second, it blames the government on bringing "total discredit on National Police, Civil Guard, CNI and Tedax. Absurd. It is the conspiracionists the ones who have been for the last three years and a half trying to bring discredit to those institutions with their constant false claims. It is them who publish slanderous lies, libels, calumnies, that put into question, WITHOUT EVIDENCE, the investigation and the professionalism of any policeman who chances to give testimony that contradicts the conspiration....and this means all policemen who have given testimony; all of them contradict conspiracy claims, save for one infamous exception, a politician turned head of police under the PP government, who slandered some of his own former agents and was proven wrong by them. This fellow, by the way, now faces criminal charges for withholding information from the tribunal.
Mr. Latona mentioned the numbers: let's say around 200-250 of the witnesses and experts were Police. All of them had a consistent story that runs COUNTER conspiracionist claims. Are they all lying?
You've got to admire the conspirators. 250 declarations, and not a single crack found. That's organizational skills, no doubt about it.
But the most ridiculous claim of this whole article is contained in this paragraph. It says the current government is responsible for the cover up. Well, well, well. If only that were true. It would mean that the time travel problem has been solved, at least to the past, and that is BIG news.
Mr. Latona fails to mention that most of the alleged cover up that he has been defending occurred with the Popular Party BEING IN POWER. In effect, the PP was in power as acting goverment for a FULL MONTH after the attacks.
The cover up of the backpack and the van, the first chemical analyses, most of the arrests, the Leganes suicide, all happened during PP tenure.
The hapless PP Minister of the Interior went on record, after the Leganés suicide, to claim that the main core of the terrorist cell was either dead or in prison.
How did the opposition manage a cover up from outside the government, in the nose of government officials, without them noticing? Preposterous.
Mr. Latona finishes this gem saying that the odds are good that " the judges are going to be cracking down harder on the witnesses, and the state institutions which they represent, than they are on the defendants". Wishful thinking. I will be back here when the verdict is out to laugh my head off.
Let's go on.
Mr. Latona says:
",it has proved impossible to determine what type of explosives were used to slaughter all those people"
False. This is an oft repeated mistake, in part product of what is called the CSI effect. The fact that forensic chemical analysis does not produce conclusive results does not mean that the REST of the evidence, when weighed by the bench, will not conclude that the explosive was Type A bought illegally in Asturias (need I to remind you a minor has already been convicted in a ruling that accepts as a proven fact the dynamite traffic from Asturias?), perhaps contaminated with small amounts of a Type C explosive, also present in the mine.
Can you imagine a judge in the US saying: "Ooops, no conclusive DNA tests. This fellow walks." When in fact the accused has been filmed on national television committing the crime and his fingerprints are all over the immediately retrieved murder weapon? It's an exaggeration, but sometimes exaggerations are good to convey the picture.
Mr. Latona goes on and on repeating conspiracionist claims. One of my favourites: those good-for-nothing small-time drug pushers would have never been able to pull out something this complex.
I admit it flabbergasts me. Casablanca, Morocco. Two terrorist attacks in the past few years with the participation of petty criminals. My Islamist experts tell me that petty criminals are the fodder of Islamist terrorism, being recruited in jails.
Be it as it may, what ontological impossibility makes a petty criminal incapable of becoming a Fundamentalist? If a millionaire, a doctor and an engineer have been capable of becoming terrorists, what prevents a person closer to crime to do so?
There is evidence, in the form of witness testimony (including his widow) that the "petty criminal" who was a sort of ringleader, Jamal Ahmidan, became a Fundamentalist in a Moroccan jail. Islamist activity by many of the indicted has been reported in testimony. Some of the indicted had been under police surveillance for Islamist activities. One of the dead terrorists was in jail in connection with logistic support for 9/11. Does that look like a harmless band of small-time crooks?
I am glad Mr. Latona had the sense to remove the racist slur that conspiracionists in Spain use: "moritos", little Moroccans, to refer to the indicted. However, he makes the same claim: they were incapable of something so complex. I detect a racist undercurrent there, at least when that claim is posited in Spain: are the conspiracionist saying that Moroccans do not have the acumen to plan and execute a terrorist attack?
Furthermore, to say this after 9/11 (a much more complex operation), Casablanca, Oran, Istambul, Bali, the aborted attacks in England and Germany and especially after the London train attacks is ridiculous.
London was, in general terms, a similar operation to Madrid: trains full of people, bombs, Islamists under previous surveillance. Only the activation method differs.
Does it take a genius to figure out that bombs in full trains at rush hour will kill many, many people? Does it take a genius to realise suburban trains have minimal security? Does it take a genius to surf the Internet and find what one of the Police specialists called "the simplest possible bomb design"? Does it take a genius to synchronize timers? Does it take a genius to get into a train with a backpack, "leave" it under a seat or in a corner and get off the train?
Come on, Mr. Latona. Reading you, it might seem that the Islamist recruiting office requires a successful Mensa test.
Those guys were perfectly capable of doing what they did. And the mountain of evidence against most of them will weigh more than your subjective claims of impossibility.
The fact is the trial will answer most relevant questions. Who did it? A local Islamist cell inspired but not controlled by Al Qaeda. How? By carrying bombs disguised in backpacks and leaving them in trains. Bombs were activated by cell phone alarms used as timers.
You want to know "exactly" how that happened. Absurd. Nobody knows exactly how the terrorists hijacked the 9/11 planes, where exactly they were standing, what they did to gain access to the cockpit, etc. We will never know, but it doesn't matter. Asking for unreasonable detail is an unreasonable requirement.
Why did the attacks happen? You may not have heard it, but there is a Yihad out there against the West. It is also probable that the Irak war heightened Spain's desirability as a target. And did you know Ben Laden fantasizes with claiming back Al Andalus, the name they give to previously Islamic Spain?
You also ask: " Why weren't they detected and neutralized before they did?" The same question can be asked of any successful terrorist attack. It is an important question, but trials do not answer those questions, as a rule. Trials answer questions like "Is this person guilty of this crime?" They have no business questioning the effectiveness of the Police prevention methods, as not preventing a crime is not, as a rule, a crime in itself.
Yet, the question is important. It belongs in a Parliamentary Commission. Too bad the commission we had was mired in politicking and was unable to recommend any prevention measures beyond the obvious ones.
Mr. Latona claims the legitimacy of this government rests on 191 corpses (actually 192, counting a dead SWAT policeman in Leganés). I am shocked. I always thought government legitimacy, in a democracy, came from counting voting ballots. I must have been misinformed.
Mr. Latona continues with this paragraph:
"According to many non-Zapatero compliant commentators, that is the reason why the government did not hesitate to bring total discredit on the National Police, the CNI intelligence agency, the Civil Guards and, saddest of all, the elite explosives unit, TEDAX, which has saved dozens of ETA's intended victims from death over the years through the heroism of its officers. Basically, they say, the government overreacted and flushed its own case down the toilet in trying to suppress anything that could possibly suggest the slightest whiff of ETA involvement in M-11."
This is preposterous. First, Mr. Latona hints falsely that only Zapatero-compliant commentators reject conspiracionism. That is strictly untrue. The rightist ABC, the veteran newspaper in Spain is fiercely anti-Zapatero... and fiercely anti-conspiracionist.
Second, it blames the government on bringing "total discredit on National Police, Civil Guard, CNI and Tedax. Absurd. It is the conspiracionists the ones who have been for the last three years and a half trying to bring discredit to those institutions with their constant false claims. It is them who publish slanderous lies, libels, calumnies, that put into question, WITHOUT EVIDENCE, the investigation and the professionalism of any policeman who chances to give testimony that contradicts the conspiration....and this means all policemen who have given testimony; all of them contradict conspiracy claims, save for one infamous exception, a politician turned head of police under the PP government, who slandered some of his own former agents and was proven wrong by them. This fellow, by the way, now faces criminal charges for withholding information from the tribunal.
Mr. Latona mentioned the numbers: let's say around 200-250 of the witnesses and experts were Police. All of them had a consistent story that runs COUNTER conspiracionist claims. Are they all lying?
You've got to admire the conspirators. 250 declarations, and not a single crack found. That's organizational skills, no doubt about it.
But the most ridiculous claim of this whole article is contained in this paragraph. It says the current government is responsible for the cover up. Well, well, well. If only that were true. It would mean that the time travel problem has been solved, at least to the past, and that is BIG news.
Mr. Latona fails to mention that most of the alleged cover up that he has been defending occurred with the Popular Party BEING IN POWER. In effect, the PP was in power as acting goverment for a FULL MONTH after the attacks.
The cover up of the backpack and the van, the first chemical analyses, most of the arrests, the Leganes suicide, all happened during PP tenure.
The hapless PP Minister of the Interior went on record, after the Leganés suicide, to claim that the main core of the terrorist cell was either dead or in prison.
How did the opposition manage a cover up from outside the government, in the nose of government officials, without them noticing? Preposterous.
Mr. Latona finishes this gem saying that the odds are good that " the judges are going to be cracking down harder on the witnesses, and the state institutions which they represent, than they are on the defendants". Wishful thinking. I will be back here when the verdict is out to laugh my head off.
[A los creyentes] les competerá difundir lo que otros han acuñado; ya que ningún hombre suelta y expande la mentira con tanta gracia como el que se la cree.