Ashcroft's Paedophile Terror

Paedophilia, whether actual sexual assault on children or the making and trading of pornographic pictures of children, is the most reviled crime in society. It is the modern equivalent of witchcraft. For this reason it is the most potent tool for destroying one's enemies. This is the weapon that US Attorney General Ashcroft and his underlings have seized on for attacking domestic institutions which they perceive as obstacles to their projected totalitarian state: the police and the Catholic Church. A start seems to have been made too on political opposition to the US junta and its policies.

Ashcroft is supposedly a radical "Protestant fundamentalist" who may regard the Catholic Church as "antichristian". Since September 11, 2001, the old "corrupt, inefficient" FBI has been thoroughly purged. Its upper ranks are now permeated with new people who owe their positions to Ashcroft and his protégé, FBI director Robert Mueller (see FBI essay on this website for details). Ashcroft has thus a more loyal force at his disposal with which to execute a radical programme against the Catholics, as also against other obstacles to his projects.

"Operation Candyman", one of a number of initiatives against paedophilia and internet child pornography, was a sting operation started under the new Bush administration in January 2001. In March 2002 it was publicized by Ashcroft, Mueller, and Mueller's crony Bruce Gephardt. Candyman has identified over 7000 child-porn suspects, including 2400 outside the USA. Its British wing is "Operation Ore", and Britain has been probably the second-biggest focus of attention for this operation.

Later we learned of "Operation Avalanche", a vastly larger operation, which produced (up to Jan. 2003) at least 300,000 "identities" worldwide, including over 7000 in Britain (Operation Ore includes these 7000 "identities" too). Initiated in 1999 by the Dallas police in conjunction with the US Postal Inspection Service, and with the support of the US Justice Department (then under Clinton's Democrat administration), Avalanche was originally a small-scale operation against a Texas child-porn website ("Landslide Productions"). As late as August 2001, only 100 arrests had resulted from the operation. ("Operation Avalanche Results In 100 Child Porn Arrests", Cipherwar . Com, 9 August 2001) Only after 9/11 did Avalanche begin to produce ever more massive numbers of "suspects" — 75,000 in summer 2002, 250,000 by the end of the year. In January 2003 rumours emerged of further such operations on a similar scale. (E.g., 'FBI's New List of British Paedophiles', Mirror.co.uk, 18 Jan. 03. See also history of Operation Avalanche, and diary, Jan. 2003, under 13 and 14 Jan., on current site.) At the same time, the total of "suspects" had risen to 300,000.

After this, these operations fell from media attention. But we should not thereby assume that they abated.

The Catholic Church

The campaign for the destruction of the US Catholic Church has begun to bear fruit. The head of the Church, Cardinal Bernard Law, was forced to resign because of his "cover ups" of paedophile priests. The flux of lawsuits, by the representatives of victims (real and otherwise) of paedophile priests, against various US dioceses, threatens the financial ruin of these dioceses. The rank-and-file reform organizations themselves are a popular force skilfully exploited by the supreme leaders of the campaign.

It is always possible to find, within any social or administrative grouping, a tiny minority who have committed serious crimes (though the nature of these crimes may vary with the group in question). And to start with, to establish credibility, most of those accused in such a campaign would need to be genuine paedophiles; a few included for ulterior motives (at the experimental stage) could be dismissed as mistakes, if exposed. At a possible future date when all barriers of rationality and credibility have been broken through, millions of innocents may be raked in (as they were under Stalin, for "anti-Soviet" crimes in this case). While third-world nations and coloured peoples are targeted with (equally spurious) al-Qaeda accusations, so may the masses of real and imaginary opponents from Western domestic populations be singled out by "paedophile campaigns". In both cases, the accusations are weapons of the utmost potency.

The "Soham Experiment"?

Most notably, perhaps, two officers who were on the Soham child-murders case. This was where two 10-year-old girls were abducted and subsequently murdered (apparently brutally). A school caretaker, Ian Huntley, and his girlfriend were arrested. (On 17 Dec. 2003 Huntley was sentenced to life for the murders.) What was striking about this case was that Detective Chief Inspector Andy Hebb addressed a mass meeting of local residents (15 Aug. 2002) in American police-state language. The solution was likely to be found locally, according to him. "Look at the behaviour of your friends, relatives, neighbours, anything", he said. "Are they doing anything differently? That's the important thing". He also said that the local population should be "vigilant" (a favourite word of Ashcroft, Giuliani and the other scare-tacticians after the Sept. 11 and anthrax attacks). This language alerted me to the following possibility.

Was a pocket field-experiment being carried out in collaboration with the FBI in a small Cambridgeshire town? An experiment in police-state methods fuelled by the "paedophile" spur of social manipulation?

The charges against the two policemen arrested in this case were said to have nothing to do with the case. So, are we to believe that this was just a fantastic coincidence? Or rather, perhaps, that most British police are child-pornographers and child-abusers??!

Were the two policemen possibly being targeted because they refused to collaborate with the "experiment", or were they just another part of the experiment?

However, one of the accused, Anthony Goodridge, was jailed in March 2003 "after admitting possessing more than 300 indecent images of young girls".

The other (Brian Stevens) was cleared after saying that many people had access to his computer, and providing an alibi. He has since been accused of giving a false alibi. Clearly, the hound will not give up its prize without a struggle.

News of 17 and 23 December 2003 showed that the Soham case was to be used to bring data protection, i.e. privacy, policies into question. (See my diary for Dec. 2003, entries under those dates).

The case has become a political issue in June 2004. The Bichard report recommended "corrective" measures conducive to a future police state — prevention on grounds of suspicion, and such like. Home Secretary David Blunkett ordered the suspension of the Humberside Chief Constable, David Westwood. The Humberside Police Authority initially refused to comply, but gave in after a continued tussle.

Political Opposition

The British pop star Robert Del Naja, an anti-war activist, was arrested in connection with online child-porn in February 2003. He vigorously denied the accusations. (See 'Music star quizzed over porn', BBC News online, 27 Feb. 2003) A month later the investigation was dropped on grounds of "insufficient evidence".

As of yet, people can't be convicted on fraudulent or "insufficient" evidence. A smear campaign will make a passable temporary substitute to discredit them.

In October 2003 John Astley, a Liberal-Democrat city councillor in Bristol (same place as Del Naja) was arrested in connection with "electoral fraud". He resigned and fled the country. In November the region's police said they had found (downloaded) child pornography on his computer, and wanted to question him about it.
("Councillor sought over computer porn", BBC News online, 8 Nov. 2003; "Councillor on porn and drugs charges", BBC News online, 15 Nov. 2003)

The Lib Dems are the nearest thing, within the British political establishment, to an opposition party. They opposed the Iraq invasion (though not very dynamically), and have stated their opposition in principle to identity cards, for example. They thus stand in opposition to the developing Labour-Conservative one-party police state. A "paeodophile" attack on their ranks would be a significant development and confirmation one of the ulterior purposes of this Ashcroft-inspired weapon.

In 2004 the attack has begun to be extended to the British judiciary. In April David Selwood, a senior Crown Court judge, was arrested on charges of child-porn possession. ("Judge arrested over child porn", BBC News online, 23 April 2004) He is the most senior UK establishment figure yet to be so treated. Lord Woolf, Britain's most senior judge, has recently criticised the government for threatening the rule of law; even Attorney General Lord Goldsmith — a member of the government — has made some limited criticism. ("Woolf criticises terror plans", BBC News online, 12 Feb. 2004; "Woolf leads judges' attack on ministers", The Guardian, 4 March 20004.) The arrest may not only be a specific riposte to this, but the beginning of a campaign to undermine the independence of the judiciary.

In June 2004 Selwood admitted the charge(s) in court. In August, DC Brian Stevens pleaded guilty to child-porn charges. At some unknown time, Lib-Dem councillor John Astley pleaded guilty to child-porn charges and was sentenced to 19 months in prison; in September he also pleaded guilty to charges of electoral fraud and was sentenced to five months.

Some references:

'Operation Candyman', US Department of Justice, 18 March 2002

'FBI Cracks Child Porn Ring ...', Washington Post, 19 March 2002, p.A02

'FBI busts major child porn ring', BBC news online, 19 March 2002

'Operation Candyman: Investigating child porn', BBC news online, 13 Sept. 2002