Re: [Marxism] The FARC's "dirty bomb"

["Joaquin Bustelo" <jbustelo@xxxxxxxxx>]

I originally wrote, pointing to the Colombian regime's "Uranium Dirty Bomb"
fabrication against the FARC:

> The tales coming out of the supposedly captured rebel computer are so 
> ridiculous and absurd on the face of it that they discredit themselves.

Now "Ruthless Critic," who for some reason seems intent on playing the part
of the Marxmail village idiot, responds to my post by quoting at us a New
York Times writeup of an Interpol report that says the files on the computer
were not altered, according to a forensic examination.

That's just bullshit. There is NO forensic examination that can determine
that files were not added after a certain date. Both the BIOS and OS clocks
are user-settable. Add ALL the files you want, setting the date for when you
want them to have appeared, erase recently used file lists and so on, defrag
the drive to change the physical layout and voila, there's nothing to show
any files were added. 

If the CIA agents who organized the attack on Ecuador and have orchestrated
the release of the alleged FARC computer material are in the tiniest bit
competent, there would have been nothing for Interpol to find.

Even worse, much of the alleged material wasn't even supposedly found on the
computer, but on alleged "thumb drives." You can put a file on a thumb drive
claiming to have been put there ten years ago, before the damn things even
existed. 

The whole story about computers in a jungle camp is hokey as shit. Had such
computers REALLY been found, the FIRST thing the Colombian authorities would
have done is establish a completely transparent and verifiable chain of
evidence in the handling of the machines. The failure to do this makes the
computers worthless as evidence in any REAL court of law on the planet.

So blatant was the disregard that even the imperialist agent at the head of
Interpol was forced to confess that this made Interpol's avowal worthless.

"Mr. Noble told reporters in Bogotá that Interpol could not vouch for the
accuracy of the files. He added that a Colombian antiterrorism unit accessed
the seized files in the days after the March 1 raid, in a violation of
internationally recognized rules on handling electronic evidence, but that
Interpol?s experts verified that the action had not altered the content of
the archives."

But the REASON for the "internationally recognized rules on handling of
electronic evidence" is PRECISELY that tampering can be done without
detection.

That is WHY the Uranium hoax is so telling. 

First, the idea that the FARC would have any interest in or use for a "dirty
bomb" is ridiculous. 

Second, even the IDEA that such a bomb COULD BE BUILT using artisan methods
and improvised tools is absurd. To build it you need to combine a good
quantity of highly radioactive isotopes with conventional explosives. The
POINT of a dirty bomb is that it will kill or seriously sicken people
closely exposed to even a small part of the radioactive isotopes that are
scattered by the conventional explosive. But ... what happens to the person
or people who assembled the thing, and thereby exposed themselves not to a
tiny fraction of the radioactive payload, but the entire mass of it? 

Third, even granting the absurdities that the FARC had some possible use for
a dirty bomb, and that such a thing could even be built outside a nuclear
weapons laboratory, URANIUM isn't by ANY stretch of the imagination a
suitable radioactive substance. AND EVERYONE who takes the slightest
interest in the matter KNOWS THIS, because it is the first thing you hit
when you google "dirty bomb uranium," thanks to the benighted imbeciles at
the department of justice whose torturers extracted from Jose Padilla a
confession that he was going to make such a bomb, leading to John Ashcroft
immediately calling a press conference --from Moscow, if I remember right!--
to assure the American people that he had saved them from the equivalent of
an invasion by flying monkeys.

And that is why Padilla was never brought to court charged with the
terrorist plot he confessed to. They fucked him up so bad that he'd have
confessed to being in league with little green men from Mars who every night
deflowered and disemboweled white Christian virgins in al Qaida orgies
presided in person by Satan himself. In even the mockery that passes for a
court of justice in the United States, Padilla's confession was
incontrovertible evidence of crimes against humanity ... by the government.
So instead they tried him for having bad thoughts while making phone calls.
I think that was the substance of the "conspiracy." 

WHY is "Uranium" said to be the radioactive component of dirty bomb
projects? Because in the public mind it is linked with the dangers of
radioactivity, nuclear bombs and the rest of it. Ask people what Cobalt is
and chances are they'll tell you it's a Chevy. Since "dirty bombs" are
weapons of mass psychological terror wielded by imperialism and its stooges,
and not real devices at all, it matters little that Uranium wouldn't work in
an actual device and something like Cobalt 60, which is produced in large
quantities for industrial and medical purposes, might. This is strictly,
solely, purely, exclusively, 100% lying bullshit propaganda, 

Finally, the Colombian government's charade of "finding" 100 pounds of
Uranium buried in plastic garbage bags was the straw that broke the camel's
back on the FARC's "dirty bomb" scam, because it was DEPLETED Uranium that
was found. THAT stuff is used for things like building shielding AGAINST
radiation. And something that hitherto was unsuspected was discovered
thereby: there actually is a limit to how much government bullshit the
Colombian media will regurgitate. Caracol TV called a professor of physics
from a local university and put him on the air to explain, albeit it in not
too accessible scientific terms, that this threat was on a par with saying
the FARC was collecting broomsticks to build an air force of witches.

BUT FOR US, the GREAT convenience of the FARC's dirty bomb police
fabrication is that we don't have to take Hugo Chavez's word for it that the
Colombian government is lying, we don't have to take Ecuadorean President
Rafael Correa's word for it, we don't need to believe the FARC if it says
these things are fabrications: the Colombian cops THEMSELVES, with this
preposterous tall tale of dirty bombs made from depleted uranium, have given
us the equivalent of an affidavit signed in blood swearing upon their
children's heads that THEY MADE THIS STUFF UP, it isn't true, it's all
bullshit.

Now comes the Noble head of Interpol, and tell us a) there's no way they can
vouch for the material because b) the Colombian authorities decided to
violate international norms for handling this kind of evidence but c)
NEVERTHELESS we tell you no files have been altered. 

THAT is a POLITICAL attack by an agent of American imperialism whose experts
and binding rules TOLD HIM the Columbian "evidence" was garbage, compromised
and contaminated beyond any hope of redemption, but nevertheless insisted on
going to bat for the neocon cabal that is so desperate that it's even
considering pulling the trigger on classifying Venezuela as a state sponsor
of terrorism, using the Colombian fabrications as "evidence," without
bothering to note that in this particular case, the economic sanctions that
would be invoked would mean that Venezuela would have to get along without
Coca Cola and the U.S. without 10-15% of its crude oil.

And it is much, much easier to smuggle a truckload of coke syrup than it is
a supertanker full of oil.

The TIMING of the attack was transparent: it was meant to disrupt the summit
between the European Union, Latin American and the Caribbean held the next
day in Lima. And thus the real provenance of the attack ALSO becomes
clearer: this was a U.S.-inspired stink bomb aiming at preventing Latin
American countries from taking advantage of the inter-imperialist
contradictions between Europe and the United States.

Joaquin







One good outcome from all of this is that Chavez, seeing Interpol's
performance in this case, has ordered a review of Venezuela's affiliation
with this imperialist criminal police ring. 

Joaquin


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