Thats right. It looks like those ‘terrorists’ who were arrested last week in london were not even close to blowing up anything, let alone boarding an international flight. According to the NBC a senior British official knowledgeable about the [hair-gel bombers] has suggested that

… an attack was not imminent, saying the suspects had not yet purchased any airline tickets. In fact, some did not even have passports [… and that …] some suspects were known to the security services even before the London subway bombings last year.

Sounds like a false alarm, which neatly coincides with my first reaction to last thursdays ‘news’. In fact about everybody i spoke to did not believe that this was a real threat and most people (especially in Lebanon) where outraged about this plump attempt to direct attention away from the real killing happening in Lebanon, Iraq and elsewhere.

I do not know what is worse: That a bunch of white, arrogant, paranoid males (a.k.a world leaders) can reveal fake terrorist plots at their convenience to distract the rest of the world from inconvenient realities. Or that corporate media has lowered their investigative standards so much that they reprint everything that is told them (whatever happened to the good old press conference where the police shows the tools of the foiled terrorist on a table with number boards next to them?) or that a bunch of people will have to spend considerable time in jail because the contemplated the possibility of blowing something up (how often have i done that in the past?)? Or that the already insane and completely arbitrary airport security checks seem to have gotten even more insane (only passports, wallets and tickets on board of UK flights? they better have a library on board then or stock up their bar…).

I hope that this whole thing will actually lead to a trail that will embarrass the shit out of the british ‘security’ apparatus…

update [17 aug 2006]: Here is another article by Craig Murray which seems to confirm the NBC story.