Milan Rai's 7/7 book launch

Milan Rai's book, '7/7, the London bombings, Islam and the Iraq war' is very good and I recommend it. It does give a sense of how it all happened, and the journey that the bombers made to get to the point of no return. Yesterday the book was officially launched.

Milan had managed to avoid being jailed earlier in the day. His crime? Reading out the names of the soldiers killed in Iraq at the Cenotaph with Maya Evans, who was arrested last year. As the 'organiser' of the 'unlawful protest' ( which consisted of two people reading out the names of the dead by the Cenotaph) Milan was arrested and charged under the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act; he was fined by Bow St Magistrates Court yesterday. He and Maya intend to appeal the decision


The official book launch, organised by Voices in the Wilderness UK, Quaker Peace and Social Witness and Justice Not Vengeance, with support from Pluto Press, was an interesting evening on 12 April with Milan, radical historian Mark Curtis, and Iraqi activist academic Nadje al-Ali and myself speaking on a panel. The room was full.

It was a shame that a small but determined band of conspiracy theorists, who had not even read the book, but who had decided that they wanted to come along and challenge it anyway, turned up and attempted to hijack the launch. They were courteously given three minutes to put their case to the floor, and their claims included *gems such as ( *taken from their leave-behind densely printed little pamphlet that they shoved at everyone later) :

*'1000 man simulations/terror exercises' going on at the time from the blasts '( debunked by C4 here)
*Claims that there were in fact TWO bombed trains with fatalities at Kings Cross ( no, there was one train, with some initial confusion as to its number)
*Talk of 'New World Order', 'globalist-facists', determination to find bizarre coincidences e.g: *'Bob Kiley was once assistant to the Director of the CIA!', claims that Mossad warned the *Israeli PM in advance of the bombs, talk of 'black ops' and 'false flag operations' and so on and so on. The predictable obsession with 9/11.
*And of course, the implacable denial that the train was suicide-bombed at all!

Unbeknownst to them, sitting in the audience was one of the drivers of the train and several fellow-survivors, three of whom were even closer to the bomb than me, as well as J and two of my friends. We exchanged wearied glances as the conspiracists ranted on. Nadje, the Iraqi academic gently pointed out to them that suicide bombing did exist, but all they could do was demand CCTV footage of the bombers actually blowing themselves up! There was no CCTV on the train, and even if there had been, it would likely have been destroyed, as the blast was powerful enough to smash through the ceiling and floor of the train, and blow the doors off, killing 26 people immediately around the bomber by the second set of double doors. Had the train been less crowded, even more would have died. To demand CCTV images of this is utterly obscene. But then these are the people whom, when faced with a survivor who has the temerity to argue with them have no comeback but to decide that I am a Government disinformation agent! Or even, a team of 'criminal spooks'! One of them shouted at me 'that Rachel had her facts all wrong'. I suppose they were not so brave as to call me a liar, in a public meeting, though they are happy to be personally abusive via the anonymity of the internet.

It was a shame that they were so disruptive, because there were many people there who had intertesting things to say and the room was full of people committed to peace, and to considering the issues of terrorism, war, foreign policy and protest. All the energy of the conspiracy theorists could be so usefully deployed in so many positive causes instead of peddling nonsense and handing out pamphlets.

But I have come to see that how they are extremist fundementalists of a kind, and it is pointless engaging with them. They cannot engage. They see the world through the prism of everything being a Giant Lie. They feel that only they, the select few have access to the Truth. Anyone who disagrees with them is a liar or the puppet of evil forces. The police, media, politicians, survivors, emergency services, are all engaged in a giant cover-up or willing dupes of the sinister forces of the New World Order, a facistic zionist cabal. Perhaps hundreds of years ago they might have been drawn to Gnosticism, or some religious cult which promotes the idea of a saved Elect with access to secret Truths in a world of corruption and lies. They are not, it strikes me, so very different in their mentality from the converts to any extremist group, though of course they are not dangerous at all.

It is quite sad, really, they are so passionate about it all but so misguided. Still, we all had a good laugh at them, and their ludicrous pamphlet down the pub afterwards. And I don't think they did themselves any favours or won themselves any converts, and J and my friends can now see who the people are who have been upsetting me with their abusive comments on this blog and their smears and lies about me on their silly website. Having read their nonsense we all agreed that they are just rather pitiful oddballs and eccentrics, and not worth bothering about. Another step forward, because now I agree, and I feel so much better now for the laughter at their expense around the pub table last night from my fellow survivors.
Sorry, I mean my fellow elite Zionist M15 Illuminati Mason lizards of the Neo-Facistic World Order. You'd better watch out. There's an awful lot of us and we're apparently taking over *wink*

P.S: There will probably be an avalanche of fruitbat anonymous comments now. If I put comment moderator on, temporarily, or disable anonymous comments, that is why. Sorry.