Monday, July 28, 2008

Qantas Flight 30, Chicken Little Wingnut Pundits, Ziofascists, Bushistas, Conspiracies of Silence, and the News

I've said it before: elections (and other stressful situations) shake quite a few loose nuts out of the tree of liberty. This time, happily, it's a small crop.

Facts:
  • On July 25, 2008, People on Boeing 747-400 operated by Qantas heard a loud bang
  • The pilots went into a controlled three-and-a-half-mile dive, getting the airliner down to breathable air
  • Qantas flight QF30 landed safely in Manila
  • There's a hole in the side of the QF30 747-400 that's big enough to walk through
Nobody, thank God, got killed. And, odds are good that there's enough evidence to figure out what actually happened.

Meanwhile, there's plenty of room for speculation, and innuendo.
  • Maybe cheap foreign labor was to blame. 'Everybody knows' what those foreigners are like, after all. ("Qantas has often outsourced scab labor. Maintenance inadequacies....")
  • Then again, maybe not.
    • Malaysia Airlines says it's done engineering and maintenance of Qantas' Boeing 737 aircraft - not the 747. Qantas agrees ("MAS denies Qantas senior pilot's claims" the star online (July 27, 2008))
  • Islamic terrorists could be responsible, since Al Qaeda and related groups seem to love things that go boom
  • Or maybe this was an accident like ValuJet Flight 592, except this time with no deaths.
The blogosphere, the parts I checked and Googled, were actually rather quiet.

I get the impression that "Chicken Little wingnut pundits" and other conservative bloggers haven't been cooperating properly.

Those ultra-right-wing-intolerant-conservatives were apparently supposed to go stark raving mad over this incident, making wild claims about Jihadist plots and Islamic terrorists.

A few forward-looking, broad-minded, bloggers commented on how the wingnuts should have reacted, if things had been different.

Headings for the following two sets of excerpts use terminology from the more broad-minded and tolerant blogs, since those terms are probably more widely understood:
  • From those who want of "Liberty and justice for all," and warn against ziofascist and Bushistas:
    • "Re: After dismissing an explosion on the Qantas 747, investigators say it may have been an explosion"
      Top Stocks (July 28, 2008)
      • "If there was a possibility that terrorism was involved the Australian media and Government would be milking it for all they could get. They are notorious for distortions regarding alleged terrorist activity.
      • "They have been silent. Also If terrorists had managed to get a bomb on board I am sure they have the expertise to make sure the aircraft was blown out of the sky, not just tear the side of the fueselage.
      • "Over the last year there have been on going disputes with rolling strikes and stop work meeting by the aircraft engineers, at which time Qantas has often outsourced scab labor. Maintenance inadequacies are far more likely to be the answer in this case, which would account for Qantas sensitivity in the matter...."
      • (There's an extensive quote, apparently from a news source, another quote, this time from TimesOnLine, with a working link, then:)
      • "...When considering the above, keep in mind when you start the investigation with a lie, everything that follows is also a lie. "
    • "Keening and wailing"
      lovable liberal (July 27, 2008)
      • "What would Chicken Little wingnut pundits be saying this morning if this Qantas flight has simply disappeared over the Pacific? I'd be surprised if most of them would have even mentioned the possibility of accident, which by all appearances this was...."
    • "Bomb In Qantas Flight QF30? "
      piglipstick (July 25, 2008)
      • "Qantas 747 terror could have been caused by bomb, say aviation experts...."
      • (An extensive quote follows, presumably from a news report, although no source is given. Then:)
      • "...If this was a bomb intended to bring the plane down, killing 300 people, it wouldn't have been be the first time that Australians were punished for not dancing fast enough to the ziofascist tune.
      • "Six years ago the Bushistas began beating the war drums for Iraq. Aussies overwhelmingly rejected Howard and his government's craven agreement to go along with the upcoming invasion, and needed to be taught a lesson.
      • "On October 12 a series of bombs went off in a nightclub area on the island of Bali. The largest explosion, probably a mini-nuke because of the crater, vaporized victims and radiation deaths that ensued, went off in a monsoon drain in front of the Sari Club. 88 Australians died and the propagandists went apoplectic blaming muslim terrorists.
      • "Funny thing about that Indonesian event. Everybody there knew where americans hung out on Kuta Beach and it wasn't the Sari Club. Aside from their possible disgust at the drunken revelry, why would terrorists want to murder Aussie kids when americans were just down the street?...
      • (The "October 12" reference is almost certainly to the October 12, 2002, attack in Bali's tourist district of Kuta. Death toll was 202: 38 Indonesians and 164 foreign nationals. Another 209 people were injured. There's a discussion of the incident, "The Bali Confessions" (Four Corners (February 10, 2003)), which does not mention mini-nukes.)
      • "...The answer of course was that "muslim terrorists" were the fictitious patsies in a false flag explosion designed to capitalize on Australian grief to whip up support for the invasion of Iraq...."
  • From Chicken Little Wingnut Pundits, Ziofascists, and Bushistas:
    • "That Didn't Take Long, Did It? (Or: 'Monty Python's Parrot Salesman Investigates Huge Hole In Qantas 747')"
      The Anti-Idolitarian Rotweiler (July 26, 2008)
      • "Before the engines had even had a chance to stop spinning, 'experts' declared the explosion that ripped a gaping hole in the fuselage of Qantas flight QF30 'definitely NOT terrorism.' "
        • "An explosion that blew a hole the size of a small car in a jumbo jet from London to Melbourne was not a terrorist attack, investigators believe."
      • "Just in case you missed the initial 'Nothing to see here, folks. Move along now.', the Press Association writers provided the following, just a few sentences later:"
        • "Air accident investigators are probing the cause of the explosion, but they do not believe it was caused by a terrorist attack."
      • "'He's not dead, he's merely sleeping.' "
        • "Initial investigations suggested that a section of fuselage had separated and that there had been an 'explosive decompression'."
      • "And, when the first theory of 'corrosion' that 'experts' threw out there (before they had even reached the plane to have a look at it) was ruled out by them actually looking at the metal surrounding the 'mysteriously appearing gaping hole', they come up with the 'mysteriously exploding oxygen tank or luggage item' cause."
        • "An exploding oxygen tank or luggage item or puncture caused by a loose panel were cited as possible causes as experts rejected corrosion as being to blame"
      • (Interestingly, this post includes two working links to news sources: "Jumbo jet explosion 'not terrorism'" (The Press Association (July 26, 2008)) and Exploding oxygen tank one theory of QF30" (Herald Sun (Australia) (July 27, 2008)).)
  • Hard to Say Where This One Stands
    • "Claims cost cutting, outsourcing led to Qantas' close call"
      Silobreaker (July 26, 2008)
      • "A senior Qantas pilot has claimed yesterday's narrowly averted mid-air disaster could be the result of the company outsourcing maintenance duties to Malaysia.A team of four investigators from the Australian Transport Safety Bureau will join local authorities..."
        • (Apart from the "Qantas has often outsourced scab labor..." quote, this is about as close to an explicit 'foreigners did it' charge as I could find.)
        • (A senior Qantas pilot, who is anonymous, got quoted in The Daily Telegraph, one of Sydney's more colorful papers, saying "that a mid-air calamity on Qantas flight QF30 from London to Melbourne could have been caused by the airline's outsourcing of maintenance to Malaysia." That quote is from 'the star online' article)
I'll say this: there is a diversity of sincerely-held opinion here. I can't say that I agree with anybody here, except maybe MAS senior general manager Ismail.

I seldom take such an extensive excerpt from a source, but I didn't think I could do piglipstick's post justice with less. Although piglipstick does not give a source for what appears to be a news article, the post does provide a link to What Does It Mean?, an alternative news site that includes an article by Sorch Faal that refers to the Gospel of Mary Magdalene. (The GMM is a Gnostic work, among other things.)
In the news: And, from the Australian government: "Boeing 747 diversion to Manila" (The Australian Transportation Safety Bureau Media Release (July 25, 2008)).
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Blogroll

Note! Although I believe that these websites and blogs are useful resources for understanding the War on Terror, I do not necessarily agree with their opinions. 1 1 Given a recent misunderstanding of the phrase "useful resources," a clarification: I do not limit my reading to resources which support my views, or even to those which appear to be accurate. Reading opinions contrary to what I believed has been very useful at times: sometimes verifying my previous assumptions, sometimes encouraging me to change them.

Even resources which, in my opinion, are simply inaccurate are sometimes useful: these can give valuable insights into why some people or groups believe what they do.

In short, It is my opinion that some of the resources in this blogroll are neither accurate, nor unbiased. I do, however, believe that they are useful in understanding the War on Terror, the many versions of Islam, terrorism, and related topics.