U.S. troop carrier plane attacked and sabotaged at Shannon airport

by Edward Horgan - Shannonwatch Thu Dec 22, 2011 17:20

It was blood money business as usual at Shannon today. At about 2 pm I visited Shannon and took this photo of three Omni Air planes, two DC10s and one Boeing 757. There a fourth Omni air plane up closer to the terminal building. The aircraft on the right of this picture is likely to be the one that was allegedly damaged over the past few days. Each of these planes carry up to 300 armed US troops on their way to and from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
In this Christmas period we should recall some of the estimated over 200,000 children who probably died as result to these wars, either killed in direct military actions or died from diseases that resulted directly from the war due to infrastructure damage, and use of depleted uranium munitions and other war related factors.
Many of the US troops who transited through Shannon were involved in war crimes such that the one described last week in the Irish Times, and the New York Times, and that occurred in the town of Haditha in the Anbar province.

Happy Christmas ?

Omni Air US Troop Carriers at Shannon 22 Dec 2011

by Michael Youlton - IAWM (Co-Chair) Sat Dec 24, 2011 12:41

Our best wishes to all our friends and comrades in Indymedia. Good for Trevor to finally put up the story. We will have plenty of work to do in the New Year

by Edward Horgan - Shannonwatch Sat Dec 24, 2011 12:48

In the form of then-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, let us not forget how inhuman and monstrous the US imperial war machine is: Following a UNICEF report that a total of about 500,000 Iraqi children under 5 died as a direct result of US/UK enforced UN sanctions initiated following the first attack on Iraq, she opined to Lesley Stahl on CBS in 1996 that “we think the price is worth it” when the question "We have heard that a half million children have died. I mean, that’s more children than died in Hiroshima. And — and you know, is the price worth it?" was put to her.

Let us not forget also that Denis Halliday, in a powerful and inspiring act of conscience "resigned as co-ordinator of humanitarian relief to Iraq in 1998, after 34 years with the UN; he was then Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations, one of the elite of senior officials. He had made his career in development, "attempting to help people, not harm them". His was the first public expression of an unprecedented rebellion within the UN bureaucracy. "I am resigning," he wrote, "because the policy of economic sanctions is totally bankrupt. We are in the process of destroying an entire society. It is as simple and terrifying as that . . . Five thousand children are dying every month . . . I don't want to administer a program that results in figures like these ... "I had been instructed," he said, "to implement a policy that satisfies the definition of genocide: a deliberate policy that has effectively killed well over a million individuals, children and adults.." (John Pilger- see Related Link)

Caption: Video Id: R0WDCYcUJ4o Type: Youtube Video
END WAR: Madeleine Albright Says Deaths Of 500,000 Iraqi Children Is Worth It; UN Sanction Genocide

by We,the taxpayers Sat Dec 24, 2011 17:20

Since the last "disarming" or better still petty vandalism of a plane in Shannon a few years ago.Which cost us taxpayers over a million euros in repair and God alone knows what in security and Garda overtime.What will this little drunken juvenile caper cost us now again???Another few million for security in rent a cop and Garda overtime in Shannon??
Next time one ,or whoever thinks up a silly stunt like this .consider the repercussions of what it will do to the campaign.Everyone hears now that it will cost the taxpayer money,and whoever lays claim to this idiocy will be villified by public opinion.Way to go great way of getting the masses on our side!!

by opus diablos - the regressive hypocrite party Sat Dec 24, 2011 23:37

while you're counting yer millions the body count rises. many are CHILDREN. yeah, merry fucking christmas;

by Local man Sun Dec 25, 2011 08:39

WTT:Since the last "disarming" or better still petty vandalism of a plane in Shannon a few years ago.

A jury of 12 Irish men and women found it to be a lawful act.

WTT:Which cost us taxpayers over a million euros in repair

So you weren't at the court case and didn't hear that the US miltary paid for the repairs, not the Irish taxpayer. Do you often open your mouth without knowing the facts? Or just when posting on the internet?

WTT:and God alone knows what in security and Garda overtime.What will this little drunken juvenile caper cost us now again???

So it was drunken juveniles then? You seem to know more about it than the rest of us (including the cops) perhaps you should go help them with their enquires?

WTT:Another few million for security in rent a cop and Garda overtime in Shannon??

Between the discounts, and the waiving of air traffic control fees, we the taxpayers were already subsidising the killing traffic through Shannon Airport and Irish Airspace. Add in the security costs and while the airport might have made some profit from it, it is certainly not the good source of exchequer funds that they make it out to be.
And would you prefer there to be NO Gardai protection at an airport facilitating military troops? If, as you suggest, drunken juveniles can get to the heart of the airfield, undetected, and out again after damaging an aircraft, is it really suitable for aircraft carrying munitions to use this airport?
Keystone cop security, trying to cosy up to warmongers on behalf of a lickspittle government, is that the status quo you're actually happy with?

WTT:Next time one ,or whoever thinks up a silly stunt like this .consider the repercussions of what it will do to the campaign.

Does the 'campaign' matter more than the effects on Iraqi lives?

WTT:Everyone hears now that it will cost the taxpayer money,and whoever lays claim to this idiocy will be villified by public opinion.Way to go great way of getting the masses on our side!!

So we'll put you in the 'disagree' category, shall we?

by We the taxpayers Sun Dec 25, 2011 14:51

Usual pithy line from opus diablous.So not worth commenting on... Usual rubbishy propaganda from Local man.No actually I would like troops gaurding these planes local man with live ammo if they are munitions carriers as you claim with orders to SHOOT TO KILL anyone not authorised coming within 50 meters of them.Bet your "heros" wouldt have the balls to try their luck with a few rounds of rifle ammo in their arses.Merry Fucking Christmas to you two both as well!!

by Local man Sun Dec 25, 2011 18:39

Don't kick your toys out of the pram just because you got pulled up on factual errors, and it's especially childish to call it propoganda, when you're the one whose comments were baseless. Try to meet a higher standard when posting in future. There have been regular occasions when these planes have been guarded with live ammo by Irish troops. Thankfully they've not shot anyone. How about a few words about how brave it is to mow down unarmed civilians in their own town as has happened repeatedly in Iraq? In fact, during the last trial of the Pitstop Plougshares, an ex-Marine testified under oath about his platoon shooting up a car full of unarmed Iraqis going about their daily business, and also about trigger happy marines shooting unarmed demonstrators. Are these the 'heroes' you wish to protect from having their planes disabled? Methinks you should recalibrate your moral compass. It seems to be pointing up your butt.

by Mike Novack Sun Dec 25, 2011 19:11

How do you manage to sever the hydraulic lines without having in hand something which qualifies as a "deadly weapon"? It's rather difficult for me to understand how an "unarmed civilian" could damage an airplane much more substanial than an "ultralight" (where perhaps you could kick holes in the fabric). OK, not a FAIR fight, knife or heavy spanner against guns. But that's not what "unarmed" means.

by opus diablos - the regressive hypocrite party Sun Dec 25, 2011 19:44

strictly speaking(metaphorically), unarmed means de-limbed. Like the kids that catch the payloads from these machines that multiply the pre-human capacity to inflict paraplegic injuries on unsuspecting kids, women and men..in whichever order you prefer. And the right word in the wrong ear can be a deadly weapon. Strictly keying.

by We the Taxpayer Tue Dec 27, 2011 13:56

about my compass being up my butt .At least unlike you it isnt my head...Actually can anyone post here in a civillised manner without resorting to fucking and blinding or being abusive in their posts??Or is that beyond 14 year old posters and armchair warriors these days?? Anyways ,back to your marines shooting up civillians and all that.Any chance of actually naming the incidents or are they just fantasies you pulled out of your asshole??

by Des - None Tue Dec 27, 2011 15:12

April 2004, the 'marines' made their contribution to 'Operation Iraqi Freedom" in Fallujah - result 800 civilians including 300 WOMEN AND CHILDREN were liberated PERMANENTLY!!!!!! Just one example, and we can be proud that our 'government(s) have made a small contribution to such events in our name, (with some exceptions).

by opus diablos - the regressive hypocrite party Tue Dec 27, 2011 15:49

..seems to have been so long under his rock he missed the 'incidents'. More upset by the word for sex, 'fuck', than the mutiliation and murder running rampant. Strange and perverted prudish clerical morality. Well programmed.

by opus diablos - the regressive hypocrite party Wed Dec 28, 2011 15:18

to a theatre near us all http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=28355 more fucking 'incidents'. The crude chasing the crude.

by We the Taxpayers Wed Dec 28, 2011 21:44

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=28355 A big paranoid NWO and whatever else you are having yourself anti American conspircy nut site.Obviously belived by pre pubscent children ,and some of the more vocal scribblers here as gospel..Oh dear!!

by opus diablos - the regressive hypocrite party Thu Dec 29, 2011 12:25

1. a mental disorder esp. characterised by delusions of persecution and self-importance.2 an abnormal tendency to suspect and mistrust others.
Sorry, tax, but the evidence is available for this imperial hubris, its no delusion; nor is it anything new.

You'd have to be a dyed-in-the-wool US merino to swallow the blatant propaganda pumped by the axis of virtue/willing, oil-looters you defend so clumsily.

Your condition, also nothing new, is denial compounded by wishful-thinking/self-delusion, at best ; deliberate disinformation distribution at worst.

I think I'll coin the term 'hasbarannoyed' for it. Irrational anger at penetration of PR-op-agenda.

Oh, and check it out, insult is NOT argument.

by opus diablos - the regressive hypocrite party Thu Dec 29, 2011 13:08

..if you can extract your brainpan from the fiscal sandbox for long enough, here's a wee bit more of the impossible scenario you refuse to envisage.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=28358

I would actually be quite pleased, and will be, if these drumbeats faded and an outbreak of rationality occurred. History is not replete with instances.

Oh, and here's a wee exercise to clean that rose-tinted Nato monocle...add up all the states the US has invaded in the last 200 years, and then subtract all the states Iran has invaded in the same period. Let us know how the sum works out.

It will indicate who is indulging in delusion, and who is practising evidential analysis.

by opus diablos - the regressive hypocrite party Thu Dec 29, 2011 14:09

..but you are getting hasbaranoid.... Oh, and I've lived and worked in the US...and loved it. And the yanks. Most of them would agree with me. Thats why they voted for 'CHANGE', though they were betrayed yet again. Slan leat. Or maybe Shalom for now...

by MelGibson Thu Dec 29, 2011 14:09

"A big paranoid NWO and whatever else you are having yourself anti American conspircy nut site.Obviously belived by pre pubscent children ,and some of the more vocal scribblers here as gospel..Oh dear!! "

Writing off an entire website based on a few article titles is rather like somebody selectively reading just the titles of your comments on this site and writing off every other commenter on this site based on that. how much sense would that make? ;-)

Its surprising how much that was deemed "conspiracy theory" not so long ago is coming true these days, especially regarding corporate and financial institutions behaviour and continuing resource wars and geopolitics.

Maybe we need to stop referring to everything we don't agree with regarding the motives of those in positions of government, corporate and financial power as "conspiracy theory". Maybe instead call them "other explanations for the same set of facts"

Conspiracy theory is a very loaded description.It implies the person who believes it is somehow deluded. But there are deluded people in all walks of life. For example, many people used to believe bertie ahern when he said he cared about ireland and the Irish people. They were ascribing an explanation to a set of facts that was clearly not true. But nobody ascribed a derogatory label like "conspiracy theorist" to people like that. No, certain delusions are immune from that epithet. Usually ones convenient for those in power

But why was THAT delusion so much more respectable than the "conspiracy theory" of believing bertie was a sociopath in league with very rich and powerful people to make as much as possible for themselves by creating a property bubble, running their own bank to get the loans, selling off Irish resources and selling the Irish people down the river. And looking at the shenannigans about horse races, bank accounts, shell and coillte, the evidence seems to be piling up in favour of the conspiracy theorists. I mean, Who would have believed all that at the time??

Clearly the label "conspiracy theory" is reserved for alternative explanations for things that usually do not suit those in power

Sometimes, however, some people push things way beyond the available evidence, or a persona is feigned to make money from the gullible like perhaps in David Icke's case. I think we need another phrase to differentiate more outlandish people like him from the kind of thing on globalresearch or the corbett report or the keiser report etc which, whilst not exactly mainstream, offer quite reasonable explanations for a lot of what is happening in the world, but not the same ones offered to us on "official" outlets.

Nobody wants other people to think they are deluded or align themselves with people like David Icke. So this phrase "conspiracy theory" tends to shut down discussion and the free flow of information and ideas.

Many so called "conspiracy theories" are largely based on facts and only those people at the very fringes who push the theories much farther than evidence supports could be described as delusional or "conspiracy theorists" and some of those people are often just trying to deliberately discredit a particular theory. For example, it is believed that many OTT 9/11 sites were created to deliberately bring scorn and ridicule on the notion of questioning the "official" explanation for the events of 9/11, even though there were many unanswered questions about these events that were by no means unreasonable. So asking a reasonable question about 9/11 immediately got you labelled as a nutter too because you were lumped in with these sites that were clearly OTT. Yet there WERE lots of questions that needed to be asked about 9/11. People were just too afraid of being called conspiracy nuts to ask them in public. Many of them are still only trickling out now, 10 years later. Such is the power of the phrase "conspiracy theory"

Similarly, regarding the Libya scenario. We were all railroaded into believing that the rebels were simply the citizens of Libya who were all fed up of gadaffi's dictatorship. Al jazeera fed us 24 hour footage of english speaking not very religious looking or bearded young men firing guns into the air. Turns out that the NTC rebels were led by an Al Qaeda CIA asset. The man leading the final assault on tripoli was previously living in Ireland and had received large amounts of money from the CIA. Guns and weapons were supplied to the rebels by the west. foreign Islamic militants were dropped ashore from western ships to fight in tripoli. And al jazeera was reigned in by the CIA and qatar to present a completely one sided version of events to help manufacture consent. If you had said all this at the time you would be laughed at as a "conspiracy theorist."

Its looking more and more like forces are afoot to create larger and stronger and less/un accountable government bodies at european level. You have to wonder about the drift towards a world government. Yet that is also out of bounds to think about as it is in the realms of "conspiracy theory"

This media trick of labelling things as "conspiracy theory" is really just a way of using the psychology of people's desperate need to be taken seriously and to belong as a way to stop them from looking more carefully and with a more open mind at other (often better) explanations for what is really going on in the world other than those often rather naive "official" ones spoonfed to us by our tv sets. At this stage calling something a "conspiracy theory" is almost like a pavlovian trigger to get people to stop thinking about something.And it works far too well.

We would do well to take a more sober look at some of the material previously considered conspiracy theory and maybe do a comparison between how much these theories got right versus how much of what they told us on fox news and other esteemed news sources turned out to be true.

anyway, if the globalresearch site is still too conspiratorial for you but you want the actual truth no holds barred, then maybe this site would suit you better:

http://fknnewz.com/?tubepress_page=1

Make sure to check out the "conspiracy clown". He doesn't like conspiracy theories much either ;-)

by opus diablos - the regressive hypocrite party Thu Dec 29, 2011 14:36

Or, as the phrase had it in the sixties...Just because you're paranoid, doesn't mean they aint out to get you. The point being, they have big security budgets to justify, and need fall-guys and suckers to keep the drum rolling. A cursory scan of history (pick a society, pick a period) illustrates the conspiratorial nature of power addicts.