Prompted by a U.S. government leak designed to keep the American public’s fear of “terrorists” at a level high enough to justify a trillion dollars of war spending every year, ABC News and other outlets recently reported that an “al Qaeda ‘affiliate'” is developing a “new generation” of non-metal-containing bombs designed to be placed in toothpaste tubes and similar containers and brought aboard commercial airliners. Every story emphasizes how these are “new” and “creative” bombs.
There’s just one problem – not only are bombs which can’t be detected by metal detectors not “new,” but even the idea of hiding them inside toothpaste tubes isn’t new. In fact, that very method – filling a Colgate toothpaste tube with C-4 explosive – was used in 1976 in the very first, and still the most deadly, bombing of an airliner in the Western Hemisphere . But curiously, neither the government leak nor the “news” media which transmitted that leak to the public bothered to mention that fact.
Why not? Because the master bomb-makers in that incident were not members of the Al Nusrah Front, but rather CIA operatives – Orlando Bosch and Luis Posada Carriles. Because the target of that bomb wasn’t a U.S. plane, but a Cuban one. Because the victims of that bombing weren’t Americans, but 57 Cubans, 11 Guyanese, and 5 North Koreans. And last but not least, because to this day, the U.S. government is still shielding one of the masterminds, Posada Carriles. After first allowing him to enter the U.S. illegally and then to live freely and openly in Miami, the U.S. government under Bush and Obama alike has steadfastly refused to honor Venezuela’s extradition request (Posada Carriles is wanted for 73 counts of murder in Venezuela, from where Cubana Flight 455 took off). Under the Montreal Convention on Civil Aviation, the U.S. also has the option of prosecuting Posada itself if it refuses to extradite him, but needless to say it has failed to do that as well. Orlando Bosch was also protected by the U.S. until the day he died; Posada is still alive.
The reason why the U.S. government doesn’t want to remind anyone of this “toothpaste bomb” precedent is rather obvious – its “war on terrorism” is a complete fraud. If the U.S. government really wanted to demonstrate its opposition to terrorism, it would immediately extradite Luis Posada Carriles to stand trial for the murder of 73 people. It might also fully release documents which would show U.S. government foreknowledge of the bombing plan, if not indeed U.S. government involvement.
The failure of the corporate news media to mention the bombing of Cubana 455 is yet another example of the way that media works – dutifully transmitting U.S. government leaks as if they were “investigative journalism,” without even bothering to do enough research (Google would suffice) to recognize the inaccurate nature of that leak. And that assumes the leak itself (that Al Nusra is working on such bombs) has any truth to it whatsoever. Needless to say, ABC News has no way whatsoever to verify the story, but that didn’t deter them from reporting it, complete with the bogus “new type of bomb” angle.
