No opinions on this one?
Here's my take:
Truck bombs, even 700-1000kg ones, don't leave 20 feet deep craters in the road. Common explosives, especially those available to cave-dwelling bearded bogey men, follow the path of least resistance and explode outwards.
Note the water in the hole in the photo above. Underground pipes, access point for a more sophisticated device, of military origin perhaps?
Then there was the explosion itself. People were rocked by it 22kms away! From personal experience, even 1000 or 1500lb conventional bombs don't carry anywhere near that far. Check out some of the testimonies:
Look at this photo:
Apparently, the security gate was right where the crater is. But look further up and you see an access road that appears to have no barrier and which leads right up to the front of the hotel. Why not use this open access road?
Check out the video of the alleged bomb arriving at the check point
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7h61x53Ios
Strangely, this CC video is in slow mo for the arrival and in fast mo for the latter part after the cab has ignited, very possibly caused by a timed incendiary device.
Even in slow mo, it seems that the truck is not moving very fast on arrival at the security gate and makes no real effort to get through. Surely a would-be bomber would try and ram the gates and get closer to the hotel?
Could the truck have been driverless? If someone was in the cab, wouldn't the security guards have tried talking to him during those several minutes between arrival of the truck, the blowing out of the windshield and the eventual igniting of the cab?
The problem is that there is no video that shows the alleged main explosion. Supposely sometime after the video is cut off, the explosives, allegedly in the back of the truck detonated as a result of the fire in the cab spreading. Now that's a REALLY novel (and very suspect) way to set off a bomb. Still, we have no evidence of a single large explosion, quite the contrary actually
So we may be dealing with multiple blasts here. Could that perhaps be the cause of the fire that then engulfed the hotel?
The official story is that the blast ruptured a gas pipe and that is what started the fire, but there was a story in several Pakistan daily newspapers that a US embassy van was seen arriving at the hotel on the 16th, the same day as the chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff, and US Marines were seen entering the hotel with steel boxes that they refused to submit to a security check:
See here also:
http://www.daily.pk/politics/politicalnews/7422-what-was-mysterious-activity-going-on-in-the-marriott-hotel-islamabad-by-united-states-marines
Clearly there is more to this "terrorist suicide bombing" than meets the eye, as is usually the case.
In recent weeks the Pakistan government have been making it clear that they are not happy with US intervention in Pakistan, which usually kills civilians by way of those nice predator drones or brave American pilots in F-22s. The new Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari in his speech to Parliament on the same day as the bombing announced:
I wonder who he was referring to...
Pakistan's troops even dared to fire on a US chopper that violated Pakistani airspace "they're firing back! Are they allowed to do that?!"
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080922/wl_nm/pakistan_usa_helicopters_dc
Interestingly, the Pakistani leadership were allegedly scheduled to have dinner at the Marriott the same evening as the bombing, but changed their minds at the last minute, although this claim has been refuted by the hotel owner, who probably just wants to distance himself and his hotel, which he plans to reopen by December, from any conspiracy.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/7628964.stm
Add in the fact that chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff, Admiral Michael Mullen, arrived in Pakistan on an unannounced visit last Tuesday to allegedly discuss operations underway on the Afghanistan frontier with Pakistan's leaders:
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=080916170853.2t8r3t32&show_article=1&catnum=2
and we start to get an idea of what is going on here. Someone called the Pakistani leaders and tipped them off, and then later called back to mention that he didn't have to tip them off, and next time maybe he wouldn't, unless they got in line and prostituted their country's sovereignty to the mythical "war on terror".
Indeed, and this:
Translated into common parlance, this means: "allow us to fight the "war on terror" in your country or become a victim of it."
Basically, former allies in America's "war on terror" are beginning to get pissed off at the gross liberties uncle sam is taking, and are starting to tell the US where to stick their predator drones. And the only way the US government knows how to respond to such insolence is to threaten the trouble makers with immediate detonation by "Islamic terrorists", courtesy of the CIA et al. Hence last Sunday's bomb.
And let's not forget this:
I'd say we can expect more countries to take a page from the Venezuelan, Russian and Pakistani book and that we can expect a speeding up of the implosion of America under the weight of its own brutality and hubris.
Here's my take:
Truck bombs, even 700-1000kg ones, don't leave 20 feet deep craters in the road. Common explosives, especially those available to cave-dwelling bearded bogey men, follow the path of least resistance and explode outwards.
Note the water in the hole in the photo above. Underground pipes, access point for a more sophisticated device, of military origin perhaps?
Then there was the explosion itself. People were rocked by it 22kms away! From personal experience, even 1000 or 1500lb conventional bombs don't carry anywhere near that far. Check out some of the testimonies:
So it is unlikely that this was the work of terrorists with the standard bomb material to which they have access. Of course, there are terrorists that have access to much more sophisticated material.I was [...] nearly 22 kilometres away. The shocking part is that the blast was so intense that it shook the entire city and all of us came running out of the house thinking that it was just a few metres away.
It was a huge and massive blast. My office is 15 kilometres away from the Marriott Hotel and we were having dinner and suddenly we heard a horrible noise. It was like an earthquake.
Look at this photo:
Apparently, the security gate was right where the crater is. But look further up and you see an access road that appears to have no barrier and which leads right up to the front of the hotel. Why not use this open access road?
Check out the video of the alleged bomb arriving at the check point
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7h61x53Ios
Strangely, this CC video is in slow mo for the arrival and in fast mo for the latter part after the cab has ignited, very possibly caused by a timed incendiary device.
Even in slow mo, it seems that the truck is not moving very fast on arrival at the security gate and makes no real effort to get through. Surely a would-be bomber would try and ram the gates and get closer to the hotel?
Could the truck have been driverless? If someone was in the cab, wouldn't the security guards have tried talking to him during those several minutes between arrival of the truck, the blowing out of the windshield and the eventual igniting of the cab?
The problem is that there is no video that shows the alleged main explosion. Supposely sometime after the video is cut off, the explosives, allegedly in the back of the truck detonated as a result of the fire in the cab spreading. Now that's a REALLY novel (and very suspect) way to set off a bomb. Still, we have no evidence of a single large explosion, quite the contrary actually
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/sep/21/pakistan.terrorism
"Imtiaz Gul, a journalist, was dining with friends in the marquee when the attack happened. 'First there was a blast and then all the electricity went out ... then it came back on and there was a second much bigger blast or a series of deafening blasts,' he said."
So we may be dealing with multiple blasts here. Could that perhaps be the cause of the fire that then engulfed the hotel?
The official story is that the blast ruptured a gas pipe and that is what started the fire, but there was a story in several Pakistan daily newspapers that a US embassy van was seen arriving at the hotel on the 16th, the same day as the chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff, and US Marines were seen entering the hotel with steel boxes that they refused to submit to a security check:
http://www.daily.pk/politics/politicalnews/7419-was-marriott-hotel-islamabad-an-attack-on-us-marines-and-what-was-stored-on-floors-4-and-5-us-military-equipment
Was there a top secret and mysterious operation of the US Marines going on inside the Marriott when it was attacked on Saturday evening? No one will confirm it but circumstantial evidence is in abundance.
Witnessed by many, including a PPP MNA and his friends, a US embassy truckload of steel boxes was unloaded and shifted inside the Marriott Hotel on the same night when Admiral Mike Mullen met Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani and others in Islamabad.
Both the main gates (the entrance and the exit) of the hotel were closed while no one except the US Marines were either allowed to go near the truck or get the steel boxes unloaded or shift them inside the hotel. These steel boxes were not passed through the scanners installed at the entrance of the hotel lobby and were reportedly shifted to the fourth and fifth floors of the Marriott.
Besides several others, PPP MNA Mumtaz Alam Gilani and his two friends, Sajjad Chaudhry, a PPP leader, and one Bashir Nadeem, witnessed this mysterious activity to which no one other than the PPP MNA objected and protested.
A source present there told that after entertaining them with refreshments at the Nadia restaurant at midnight when Mumtaz Alam, along with his friends, was to leave the hotel, he found a white US embassy truck standing right in front of the hotel's main entrance.
Both the In-gate and the Out-gate of the hotel were closed while almost a dozen well-built US Marines in their usual fatigues were unloading the steel boxes from the truck. No one, including the hotel security men, was either allowed to go near the truck or touch the steel boxes, which were being shifted inside the hotel but without passing through the scanners.
Upon inquiry, one of the three PPP friends who was waiting for the main gates of the hotel to open to get his car in, was informed that the suspicious boxes were shifted to the fourth and fifth floors of the hotel. Mumtaz Alam was furious both at the US Marines and the hotel security not only for the delay caused to them but also for the security lapse he was witnessing.
See here also:
http://www.daily.pk/politics/politicalnews/7422-what-was-mysterious-activity-going-on-in-the-marriott-hotel-islamabad-by-united-states-marines
Clearly there is more to this "terrorist suicide bombing" than meets the eye, as is usually the case.
In recent weeks the Pakistan government have been making it clear that they are not happy with US intervention in Pakistan, which usually kills civilians by way of those nice predator drones or brave American pilots in F-22s. The new Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari in his speech to Parliament on the same day as the bombing announced:
"we will not allow Foreign forces to violate Pakistan's territorial integrity in the name of fighting Terrorism".
I wonder who he was referring to...
Pakistan's troops even dared to fire on a US chopper that violated Pakistani airspace "they're firing back! Are they allowed to do that?!"
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080922/wl_nm/pakistan_usa_helicopters_dc
Interestingly, the Pakistani leadership were allegedly scheduled to have dinner at the Marriott the same evening as the bombing, but changed their minds at the last minute, although this claim has been refuted by the hotel owner, who probably just wants to distance himself and his hotel, which he plans to reopen by December, from any conspiracy.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/7628964.stm
Add in the fact that chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff, Admiral Michael Mullen, arrived in Pakistan on an unannounced visit last Tuesday to allegedly discuss operations underway on the Afghanistan frontier with Pakistan's leaders:
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=080916170853.2t8r3t32&show_article=1&catnum=2
and we start to get an idea of what is going on here. Someone called the Pakistani leaders and tipped them off, and then later called back to mention that he didn't have to tip them off, and next time maybe he wouldn't, unless they got in line and prostituted their country's sovereignty to the mythical "war on terror".
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7630402.stm
The US has been trying to convince Pakistani officials that the fight against militants is one that Islamabad needs to be engaged in and that Pakistan's stability is at stake, says the BBC's Kim Ghattas in Washington.
Saturday's bombing will have given that message a dramatic sense of urgency, and the US is watching closely to see how Islamabad deals with the aftermath, our correspondent says.
Indeed, and this:
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/3507635.cms
The US has underlined the "limited capability" of Islamabad to fight the militants in its restive tribal areas bordering Afghanistan, saying the military operations against the insurgents is not a favour Pakistanis are doing but is "essential to their survival".
"They (Pakistan) also recognize there is a serious terrorist threat, and I think the government is increasingly recognizing it is a threat to Pakistan," said Stephen Hadley, the US National Security Advisor.
Translated into common parlance, this means: "allow us to fight the "war on terror" in your country or become a victim of it."
Basically, former allies in America's "war on terror" are beginning to get pissed off at the gross liberties uncle sam is taking, and are starting to tell the US where to stick their predator drones. And the only way the US government knows how to respond to such insolence is to threaten the trouble makers with immediate detonation by "Islamic terrorists", courtesy of the CIA et al. Hence last Sunday's bomb.
And let's not forget this:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article20795.htm
George Bush Desperate for "Trophy Strike"
By StopTheWarCoalition
18/09/08 "StopTheWarCoalition" -- - George Bush has signed a secret order allowing US troops to operate in Pakistan, without permission from the Pakistani government or agreement by the United Nations, contravening numerous international laws and conventions. Bush says the recent ground assault by US commandos and the big increase in the number of US missiles fired from unmanned aircraft are directed at al-Qaeda leaders, but the Pakistani government and local observers say that most of the dozens killed in these attacks have been civilians, the majority of them women and children.
The Guardian newspaper suggests a different interpretation for these attacks: "Bush is thought to be in a desperate push for a trophy strike...before he leaves office." No doubt part of the calculation is the hope that this will boost the electoral chances of John McCain in his campaign to succeed Bush as president.
Since 1945, American has bombed 25 countries round the world, killing many millions of people (some estimates put the figure as high as 20 million). But George Bush has a message for all the families grieving as a result of his contribution to this horrendous scale of mass slaughter. He recently expressed his sorrow, following the US attack in Afghanistan which killed 90 civilians: "I am a partner in your loss and that of the Afghan people."
And, of course, all those grieving families will be comforted by an earlier Bush pronouncement: "America is a Nation with a mission -- and that mission comes from our most basic beliefs We have no desire to dominate, no ambitions of empire. Our aim is a democratic peace -- a peace founded upon the dignity and rights of every man and woman."
I'd say we can expect more countries to take a page from the Venezuelan, Russian and Pakistani book and that we can expect a speeding up of the implosion of America under the weight of its own brutality and hubris.