Tuesday, June 13, 2006

Blogger and “Vent” producer Bryan Preston, who according to my projections may surpass John “Hindrocket” Hinderaker as the right’s leading source of embarrassment nearly four months from now, wasn’t satisfied with simply making shit up this week. He also had to go and call out a major British newspaper for not hating Muslims enough.

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You really ought to ponder that phrase for a minute–chemical suicide vest. It will probably come up again before too long.

The story, which comes from the London Times, is a fascinating study in how to obfuscate relevant facts and obscure the real storyline. Besides lacking in essential detail. It doesn’t say what kind of chemical is at the center of the story or where that chemical might have come from, nor does it identify the fellow whom police expected to use it to attack civilians in London. We do learn he was a mail carrier, and that in the raid on his home police wounded him in the shoulder and that he is in the hospital with injuries that are characterized as non-life threatening. The story seems to go out of its way to avoid specifics, like names, what might motivate the man, etc. But waaay down deep in the story, we do get some clues about him from some of his friends:

One said: “Going into someone’s house and shooting them in front of their mum, that’s not right is it? Just because they have got a beard doesn’t mean to say you can shoot them.”

Ok, he has a beard. Lots of people have beards. Bat Masterson may have shot a man for having a beard, but the British police don’t. There must be some other reason he found himself in the crosshairs.
When did this fellow grow his beard?

Another friend said that after the September 11 attacks on America the older brother had started taking his religion more seriously, growing a beard and praying five times a day.

After 9-11, when he also started praying five times a day. Interesting. So what’s all the fuss about him?

A DESPERATE search is under way for a “chemical vest” that a British suicide bomber was ready to deploy in a terror attack on London. Police fear that the strike, using a home-made chemical device, was imminent after an informant told MI5 that he had seen the lethal garment at the home of two young men.

Last night detectives were at the hospital bedside of a 23-year-old postal worker shot during a pre-dawn raid on his parents’ home, while his younger brother, aged 20, was being questioned at Paddington Green high security police station.

Note the primary identification: British. He’s a British subject. But. We learn a few lines after this that the home that was raided belonged to a Bangladeshi family, which is the paper’s roundabout way of getting at the suspect’s identity. He’s a second-generation British subject of Islamic origin. Add it to the five-a-day prayers, the religiously-motivated beard and a portrait emerges: A young man who fits the profile of Islamic terrorist to a tee (young guy, devout Muslim motivated in some way by 9-11, stayed in good physical condition) was and still may be planning to attack London soon with a chemical weapon.

THE Metropolitan police are facing a potential compensation bill of as much as £500,000 for the two men arrested in the bungled anti-terrorist raid in east London nine days ago.

Lawyers estimate that the figure could be this high because of the aggressive nature of the police operation.

Amid fears at Scotland Yard of a “long hot summer of community mayhem”, the Met is understood to be preparing for a six-figure pay-out to Mohammed Abdul Kahar, 23, and Abdul Koyair, 20.

During the raid Kahar was wounded by a shot from a firearms officer’s gun, although the circumstances in which it was fired are heavily disputed.

The two men were released without charge last Friday after a top-level meeting at Scotland Yard decided their detention could no longer be justified.