from..http://rigorousintuition.blogspot.com/2004/12/evidence-mounts.html

that the Madrid bombing was an inside job.

From Reuters:

Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero accused the former government of deceiving the public between the March 11 Madrid train bombings and March 14 elections and of erasing computer records concerning that period.

"It was all deceit. It was massive deceit," Zapatero told a parliamentary commission Monday. He said the former government deceived the public by blaming the train bombings, which killed 191 people, on Basque separatist guerrilla group ETA. Investigators later determined that Islamic militants were responsible for the attacks.

I can't think of a better time to remember this Times of London story from last Spring:

Bomb squad link in Spanish blasts

The man accused of supplying the dynamite used in the al-Qaeda train bombings in Madrid was in possession of the private telephone number of the head of Spain’s Civil Guard bomb squad, it emerged yesterday.

Emilio Suárez Trashorras, who is alleged to have supplied 200kg of dynamite used in the bombs, had obtained the number of Juan Jesús Sánchez Manzano, the head of Tedax.

The revelation has raised fresh concerns in Madrid about links between those held responsible for the March bombings, which killed 190 people, and Spain’s security services, and shortcomings in the police investigation. Señor Suárez Trashorras and two other men implicated in the bombings have already been identified as police informers. Other members of the group had evaded police surveillance, despite concerns within the security services about their activities and evidence of their association with al-Qaeda.

The telephone number of Señor Sánchez Manzano was contained in a Civil Guard dossier handed to Juan del Olmo, the investigating judge, at the National Court in Madrid. The number was written on a piece of paper found in the possession of Carmen Toro, the wife of Señor Suárez Trashorras. Both are in custody accused of supplying dynamite used in the Madrid bombs.

...that the US and Pakistan are colluding to shelter Osama bin Laden.

From The Telegraph:

US is forced to abandon hunt for bin Laden

Three years after Osama bin Laden fled American bombs in his Tora Bora hideout, the search for the world's most wanted man has all but come to a halt because of Pakistan's refusal to permit cross-border raids from Afghanistan, according to CIA officials.

Washington has downgraded its efforts to catch the al-Qa'eda leader in Afghanistan, from where he supervised the September 11 attacks, because it has become convinced that he is hiding in Pakistan's virtually lawless Tribal Areas, which hug the 1,200-mile frontier.

Islamabad refuses to permit cross-border pursuits by US special forces based in Afghanistan's mountainous frontier regions, agency officials told the New York Times.

Please, someone, how absurd is this story?

Do you recall the post-9/11 chest thumping? Richard Armitage, it was said, had given Pakistan a you're-with-us-or-against-us ultimatum. To ISI chief and Mohammed Atta's bagman Mahmood Ahmed, no less. The outcome of this shadow play was that Pakistan had chosen "wisely," and was fully onside in the "War on Terror."

And now? Well, Pakistan won't let us in, so we have no choice but to give up the hunt for bin Laden.

Anyone else see a lot of winking going on here?

posted by Jeff at 9:14 AM