Doug McClure and the remarkable Dana Gillespie on the trail of the Al-Qaeda Fortress that Time ForgotWhilst on the subject of War on Terror bullshit, this little snippet from Reuters tickled me...
U.S. says Qaeda safe haven inaccessible WASHINGTON (Reuters)
- Al Qaeda's safe haven in northwestern Pakistan is largely inaccessible to outside forces and unlikely to be eliminated soon by the U.S. or Pakistani military, top intelligence officials said on Wednesday.
"Al Qaeda is now in a part of Pakistan that is largely inaccessible to Pakistani forces, the Pakistani government. Always has been. And it is a very difficult operating environment for them," said Edward Gistaro, the top U.S. intelligence analyst on transnational threats.
"It is just a very difficult environment for outside forces to operate in," he added.
Al-Qaeda bases are now located in regions so inaccessible they may have their own Jurassic-era ecosystems...Movie geeks of a certain age cannot help but notice that Al-Qaeda's reported tactics are gradually shifting away from recycled James Bond plots (coordinated global crime networks/ underground bases) and starting to be more in line with classic 'Lost World' genre movies of the 1970s
And, of course, every movie geek knows that the most effective way to penetrate lost worlds is to fly through a swarm of pterodactyls in an airship piloted by an eccentric English aristocrat and his butler.
Somebody needs to tell the people in charge of US counter-terror ops to change their tactics ASAP
In the meantime, another picture of Dana doing that pagan woman thing which, intercut with scenes of fighting dinosaurs, left a profound impression on 13 year old boys everywhere...
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9 comments:
No, no. There's a far better plan. Use the 'Time Tunnel'. The two scientists must still be trapped there - I mean they have already been forward many years and have been back to be with Robin Hood and George Washington and all so as its only 30 years later...
With all those skills surely (Doug McClure? - was he in it - he was in most things then, the American Alistair Sim) can send them to 8 Sept 2001
The only problem with the time tunnel technology was that it could only transport the pair to eras for which there were sets and costumes from previous productions.
Of course, they may have ironed that out by now
Blog notes:-
1) Craig Murray's Conspirolunacy infects the Daily Mail.
"Our economic achievement in Afghanistan goes well beyond the simple production of raw opium. In fact Afghanistan no longer exports much raw opium at all. It has succeeded in what our international aid efforts urge every developing country to do. Afghanistan has gone into manufacturing and 'value-added' operations.
It now exports not opium, but heroin. Opium is converted into heroin on an industrial scale, not in kitchens but in factories. Millions of gallons of the chemicals needed for this process are shipped into Afghanistan by tanker. The tankers and bulk opium lorries on the way to the factories share the roads, improved by American aid, with Nato troops.
How can this have happened, and on this scale? The answer is simple. The four largest players in the heroin business are all senior members of the Afghan government – the government that our soldiers are fighting and dying to protect. "
What is often missed in these analyses is the effect that drugs have on the strength of the currency within which they are traded. They make it stronger. Buy heroin using GBP or USD and the demand for that particular currency increases. I think that it is this process that explains the interest of Western Govs in enabling the drugs trade, not the idea of some crooked and grubby cabal of officials lining their pockets. Although, no doubt, the latter exists.
2) Gray Falcon gives analysis on an interview given by Solzhenitsyn.
@paul/spp
Yes, the Time Tunnel idea is a good one but flawed. Not least because Doug and Tony's final leap at the end of the last ever episode is back onto the deck of RMS Titantic where they started the pilot episode, implying that they are destined to be looped back and forth in time for all Eternity which, in a way, they are
Curiously, this fact is missing from the normally superbly accurate Wikipedia's entry on The Time Tunnel which does however include a long list of the show's endlessly repeated plot devices and flaws
including...
- Tony and Doug always reverted back to the same clothes when they transfer, a green turtleneck sweater and a conservative Norfolk suit, which were magically cleaned and pressed before their passage to the next time
- At the beginning of almost every episode, no matter when or where they materialized, they were immediately attacked.
- At the end of each episode, when Doug and Tony were finally safe, the tunnel transferred them to another dangerous, random place and time for no reason
etc etc
http://tinyurl.com/ywm23a
@anon - thanks for the links, I shall be consuming them shortly
Though, of course, it should be pointed out that suggestions that Western Governments and/or quasi-autonomous intelligence services may have a hand in the international drugs trade is a baseless conspiracy theory. Sure there is plenty of historical precedent to support such theories but in my next post I shall demonstrate how historical precedent for high-level conspiracies in fact prooves that they are not possible
Drop everything and read this ... interview.
Der Spiegel interview Solzhenitsyn - ... I want to say more about it but I just can't express what I think/feel about it.
There was a UN report a while back that estimated the illegal drugs trade to represent 8% of the global economy. And of course it's well known to us conspiracy fruitcakes that the intellgence agencies and stock markets of Western countries have long been involved in the trade themselves.
Makes perfect sense then, to use your armies to protect the profits...
@anon 9.25
A comment I posted underneath Lord Patel's blog earlier this month...
The West had its chance to be best friends with the Russians immediately after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Instead, we just sat back and watched its economy crater (along with some help from Western advisers) and gave haven to the worst of the criminals who profited from that implosion.
Why should Putin, or his successor, follow a different path to the one they are now? Why should the Russian people trust the West and its intentions for a second?
The other problem with time tunnel tech is that if there was no future /past paradox, then everything ,including their adventures, must have been predestined. So we are mere players in a fixed script and therefore should stop worrying about anything.
I think gary seven had a more sophisticated take on all this
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