Today I’d like to talk about plastic and terrorism. Yes plastic and terrorism.
First of all, the proper term for ‘plastic‘ is ‘polymer‘. It’s not supposed to be called plastic, the correct term is polymer. Ther word polymer describes the material; the word plastic describes a physical property (and not all polymers are plastic, so its technically wrong).
Don’t get me wrong, plastic itself is not a ‘bad’ material. It’s just blatantly overused. One of the reasons why it is used is because of it’s properties. It’s electrically insulating for one thing, which is good for wiring. Otherwise, what would we use?
It’s also very cheap. And that’s another reason that it is blatantly overused. Well you know what I think? I think we need some form of “plastic control”. What makes me say that?
Well much ilke Chris Rock said “if a bullet cost five thousand dollars, there’d be no more innocent bystanders”. Well if a plastic bottle top cost five thousand dollars, there’d be no more innocent victims of plastic pollution!
I do not think companies should even be allowed to make everything they choose out of polymers. So right now there is no plastic control at all. Anyone can make anything of plastic that they want. And I think it’s about time their should be restrictions on its use. In all industries.
Take coffee capsules and disposable plastic cups for instance. I do not think that they should even be produced at all.
Do you know what they are using at the wellbeing clinic in Caringbah? Disposable plastic cups. And I’m damn sure that they are used in offices all around the country. Well that has got to stop!
And now to talking about terrorism:
People use all these polymers in their daily lives, right, most of which comes from petroleum. And probably half of the world’s petroleum supply comes from the Middle East.
Well I’ve prepared this little story and I do hope you take the time to read it:
On the 3rd of July, 1988, several American warships were escorting crude oil tankers in the Straight of Hormuz near the Persian Gulf. Here is a brief account of what happened:
Iran Air Flight 655 was an Iran Air passenger flight from Tehran to Dubai. On 3 July 1988, the aircraft operating on this route was shot down by the United States Navy guided missile cruiser USS Vincennes under the command of William C. Rogers III. The incident took place in Iranian airspace, over Iran’s territorial waters in the Persian Gulf, and on the flight’s usual flight path. The aircraft, an Airbus A300 B2-203, was destroyed by SM-2MR surface-to-air missiles fired from Vincennes. All 290 people on board died. The cruiser Vincennes had entered Iranian territorial waters after one of its helicopters drew warning fire from Iranian speedboats operating within Iranian territorial limits.
On the morning of 3 July, Vincennes was passing through the Strait of Hormuz returning from an escort duty. A helicopter from USS Vincennes reported that it received small arms fire from Iranian patrol vessels as it observed from high altitude. The cruiser moved to engage the Iranian vessels, in the course of which they all violated Omani waters and left after being challenged and ordered to leave by a Royal Navy of Oman warship. Vincennes then pursued the Iranian gunboats, entering Iranian territorial waters to open fire. Sides and USS Elmer Montgomery were nearby. Thus, USS Vincennes was in Iranian territorial waters at the time of the incident, as admitted by the US government in legal briefs and publicly by Admiral William Crowe on Nightline. Admiral Crowe denied a U.S. government coverup of the incident and claimed that Vincennes‘s helicopter was over international waters initially, when it was first fired upon by the Iranian gunboats.
Contrary to the accounts of various USS Vincennes crew members, the shipboard Aegis Combat System aboard Vincennes recorded that the Iranian airliner was climbing at the time and its radio transmitter was “squawking” on the Mode III civilian code only, rather than on military Mode II.
According to the United States government, the crew incorrectly identified the Iranian Airbus A300 as an attacking F-14A Tomcat fighter, a plane made in the United States and operated at that time by only two forces worldwide, the United States Navy and the Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force. While the Iranian F-14s had been supplied by manufacturer Grumman in an air-to-air configuration only in the 1970s, the crew of Vincennes had been briefed when entering the region that the Iranian F-14s carried unguided bombs as well as Maverick missiles and unguided rockets. The Vincennes crew made ten attempts to contact the crew of the flight on military and civilian radio frequencies, but received no response. The International Civil Aviation Organization said that the flight crew should have been monitoring the civilian frequency.
After receiving no response to multiple radio challenges, USS Vincennes fired two surface-to-air missiles at the airliner. One of the missiles hit the airliner, which exploded and fell in fragments into the water. Everyone on board was killed.
Did you find that morbidly interesting? Well I mentioned this link to my psychologist. I told her where all this plastic comes from.
But then I also mentioned this:
Pan Am Flight 103 was a regularly scheduled Pan Am transatlantic flight from Frankfurt to Detroit via London and New York. On 21 December 1988, N739PA, the aircraft operating the transatlantic leg of the route, was destroyed by a bomb, killing all 243 passengers and 16 crew, in what became known as the Lockerbie bombing. Large sections of the aircraft crashed onto residential areas of Lockerbie, United Kingdom, killing 11 more people on the ground.
According to a CIA analysis dated 22 December 1988, several groups were quick to claim responsibility in telephone calls in the United States and Europe:
A male caller claimed that a group called the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution had destroyed the plane in retaliation for Iran Air Flight 655 being shot down by U.S. forces in the Persian Gulf the previous July.
In 2014 an Iranian ex-spy asserted that Iran ordered the attack. Iran’s involvement is alleged, either in association with a Palestine militant group, or that it was involved in loading the bomb while the plane was at Heathrow. The US Defense Intelligence Agency alleges that Ali Akbar Mohtashamipur (Ayatollah Mohtashemi), a member of the Iranian government, paid US$10 million for the bombing:
Ayatollah Mohtashemi: the one who paid the same amount to bomb Pan Am Flight 103 in retaliation for the US shoot-down of the Iranian Airbus.
So. There is a link between the use of plastic, oil and terrorism. We stick our noses in over there where we don’t really belong and then people wonder why there is so much terrorism at home today.
Let me tell you something. Visits with my psychologist are becoming very insteresting. I’m starting to think that she is learning more from me. Maybe not about people, but about the world in general.
A fewsessions ago, we had this great big discussion about why paper cups are better than plastic cups. And why ceramic cups or mugs are best of all. And so I am slowly getting her to think.
On that particular day, she actually made me explain my case to the owner of the business as well! I think it was more of an anxiety test. And I can tell you, I was there explaining how I have studied materials and how bad plastic is for the environment. The poor lady’s face went beetroot-red with embarrassment.
On my next visit, guess what? There was a ceramic cup there alongside the plastic ones. And apparantly the owner of the business was worried that she hadn’t bought any paper cups before my visit.
However the plastic cups are still there. So now I’d like to repeat my message here, this time to the whole world.
What do I think about plastic? I do not think that plastic cups should even be made. I think every time we use a plastic cup, a plastic bag or a plastic coffee capsule, we should all think about what really caused the Lockerbie bombing.
Leave a Reply