7/7 Conspiracy Theories: the TRUTH at last
UPDATE NOTE: the collection of conspiracy theories below is SATIRE. It has been posted because after three years of seeing utter rubbish disseminated on the internet through blogs, forums, home-made 'truth documentaries' and 'truth research', which are nothing more than paranoid speculation, I believe it is time to show this stuff up for what it really is. The sane, clear-eyed calls for a 7/7 inquiry are nothing to do with conspiracy theories that are posted and repeated endlessly on the internet, and passed around by people who have apparently little grasp of Occam's razor or logic or evidence-based research.
I have noticed that it is a frequent conspiracy theorist tactic to focus obsessively on any small anomaly - normal in archived coverage of rolling, multi-sourced news coverage of a major event under massive investigation, and to relentlessly ask endless questions, which seek to raise doubt on the 'official account'. Very rarely will the practised conspiracy theorist attempt to come up with a counter-narrative of their own; instead, the onus is always on 'The Powers that be' to disprove negatives, and respond to every rumour and question, no matter how evidence-free its orgin. This account represents a round-up of the main 7/7 consipracy theories and attempts to refute them, using logic, evidence and satire. If you are likely to be offended by the lies that are circulated about the 7th July murders - and many are - please don't read on. To those who have expressed interest in the 7/7 conspiracy theories without considering carefully their provenance, origin, agenda and basis in fact, I hope this makes you think twice before passing them on.
You may also want to look at this: 10 characteristics of conspiracy theorists.
I have noticed that it is a frequent conspiracy theorist tactic to focus obsessively on any small anomaly - normal in archived coverage of rolling, multi-sourced news coverage of a major event under massive investigation, and to relentlessly ask endless questions, which seek to raise doubt on the 'official account'. Very rarely will the practised conspiracy theorist attempt to come up with a counter-narrative of their own; instead, the onus is always on 'The Powers that be' to disprove negatives, and respond to every rumour and question, no matter how evidence-free its orgin. This account represents a round-up of the main 7/7 consipracy theories and attempts to refute them, using logic, evidence and satire. If you are likely to be offended by the lies that are circulated about the 7th July murders - and many are - please don't read on. To those who have expressed interest in the 7/7 conspiracy theories without considering carefully their provenance, origin, agenda and basis in fact, I hope this makes you think twice before passing them on.
You may also want to look at this: 10 characteristics of conspiracy theorists.
SATIRE ALERT: This is a guest post from
Connor Spiracy and Thea Wrist
''After three years of 7/7 research on the internet, I can reveal the TRUTH, and I would like to share it with you all now. Everything in the following is taken from a real internet 7/7 research source available only on the internet. Placed together, I'm sure you will see what a compelling case it all makes - much more convincing than the official version. Hold tight - this will change your world...Connor Spiracy and Thea Wrist
A few years ago, wicked people agreed upon an evil scheme. In order to bolster their nefarious plans for
(a) introducing ID cards (b) endless war for oil (c) endless war against Islam
a dreadful 'false flag' plot was hatched by
(a) the UK government (b) a shadowy Bilderberg hyper-capitalist neocon cabal (c) the CIA (d)M15/6 (e) Israel (f) Jews, somewhere, (g) possibly an elite part-reptilian super-race.
They decided to attack London on 7th July and blame it on Islamist terrorist suicide bombers. (There are no such things as Islamist terrorist suicide bombers, especially not UK ones, who have wives and children and look normal.) The terrible plot went like this:
M15 placed bombs under the trains, which had been timed to explode. They worked with Israel to do this, Mossad probably, and maybe the CIA as well. The Israeli PM, who was staying near Russell Square, knew in advance and was warned, even though what actually happened was that after the Russell Square bomb went off, he was warned to stay in his room with his security detail, so missing the fourth bomb in Tavistock Square round the corner less than an hour later. A huge world-leading Israeli-owned security and surveillance company won the contract to put in enhanced security systems on the London Underground in September 2004, ten months before the bombings, so that proves everything. Oh, and a passenger who was in the same carriage as the bomb at Edgware, who remained with a dying woman then staggered out in shock said he 'couldn't remember' seeing where a bomb or a bag was. Which also proves it. Kind of.
But if you want a final piece of proof, one survivor also mentioned to a journalist outside the station shortly after fleeing the train, that they had seen tiles on the floor of the carriage fly up. This was because of the bomb which had been placed in a rucksack on the floor of the carriage in front. Erm, but it could also indicate a bomb under the carriage, although photographs of the train interior indicate the bomb was inside. As does eye-witness evidence from survivors who were in the carriage with the bomber. Including a man who stood opposite him and survived with terrrible injuries.
The bombers were innocent; they were however standing in the carriages and killed by the bombs in their rucksacks that they were carrying. But that wasn't their fault, because they were innocent 'patsies' who thought they were smuggling drugs or taking part in a mysterious terror training exercise. That was why they'd bought return tickets, even though a cheap day return is cheaper than a single. They'd even made videos describing why they considered themselves soldiers in a war against the UK. And been to terror training camps abroad and everything. They took their acting role very seriously indeed. But they were completely innocent, remember.
The person co-ordinating the mysterious terror exercise was Peter Power, an ex-Scotland Yard officer, who like many other former cops had set up his own company. His company specialises in training management to be crisis-prepared. So on July 7th, in a shocking and unimaginable coincidence, he was sitting in an office teaching some managers, in a publishing company that employed about a thousand people, how to plan for disasters, like he did every day.
At 9am, the start of the working day, he was asking the managers to consider what would happen if major tube stations were attacked at rush hour. I know. Amazing and frankly not believable - even though there had been a rush hour Al Qaeda attack on Madrid commuters, and a London tube attack was widely considered to be a likely terror target. As part of his training material, he used recordings of a Panorama programme simulating a terror attack on London. He'd been on the programme - God knows why the BBC would ask a respected security and risk expert onto a programme about terrorism and the risk to security, but there you go.
When the real attacks happened in London, where he was working that day along with hundreds of thousands of other people, he was shocked - but used the opportunity to mention the prescience of his security firm. A most untypical reaction of a self-employed risk consultant with an opportunity to talk about his company on national news, I'm sure you'll agree.
The poor not-bombers were killed, along with passengers on the tube trains. But one bomber remained alive. When he realised he was a dupe, he fled to Canary Wharf, where he knew there were lots of journalists in media organisations who would help him. That's what anyone would do in such a situation - hurry across the city to Canary Wharf.
When the young non-bomber arrived at Canary Wharf, he was promptlyshot in broad daylight by black-clad gunmen, in the full view of lots of towering office blocks full of journalists and business people. A much smarter idea than taking him into a van and bumping him off, eh?
His remains were then chopped up, taken back to the exploded bus and carefully scattered about to fool everyone.
The bus wasn't really exploded at all, however. It was full of actors and stuntmen, and used clever pyrotechnics to look like it was exploded. It was all part of Peter Power's mysterious terror drill.
But Peter Power didn't know the real reason why he had been asked to run a complicated terror drill complete with fake exploding bus for the benefit of a few managers in a publishing company who never left their office and were doing a planning exercise on powerpoint with videos in a different part of London.
The wicked plotters behind it all were using Power as a dupe, to add weight to their plot to blow up three trains and blame it all on Muslims. They were so evil that they actually wanted to be found out and send a coded message of their mocking disdain by doing the high-risk strategy of the shooting and faked bus explosion as well; to add insult to this they then cynically arranged for a red London bus with a lift-off roof full of dancers to appear at the Olympic handover to London ceremony.
Thousands of passers-by, police, emergency services workers have all kept quiet about all this, aided by a complicit media. M15 and their masters ruthlessly suppress the truth by allowing bloggers and internet truth campaigners to write about this and distribute DVDs and hold meetings about it regularly.
I realise when I write all this down it looks very silly, and that there is not a single shred of credible evidence to support any of it - which is why it is always better not to explain this is what happened, and instead just ask lots of questions and look at isolated details out of context whilst ignoring anything that contradicts the theory. But now you know that the official account is all lies and the ultimate proof is of course, that 9/11 Was An Inside Job.''
Sometimes all you can do is laugh. Because otherwise, you'd cry. Enough of this insulting, illogical, lazy, deceitful paranoid conspiracy crap flying round the internet, let's have an inquiry - to put this trust-corroding, intelligence-damaging nonsense to bed as much as to get at the truth.
Labels: conspiracy theories, conspiraloons, conspiralunacy, for heaven's sake we're not complete idiots, this is SATIRE
posted by Rachel at 6:46 pm
Rachel - I am sorry to disappoint you. There has been much nonsense written about why my company ran an exercise on 7 July 2005 that had very close parallels to the real thing that day. Since then I have made several attempts to add my own comments to numerous sites that seem to get increasingly excited about their own conspiracy theories and in the process exclude any rational debate. It seems those who occupy the world of finding conspiracy theories to replace just about any coincidence, do not want to have any dialogue with those offering a different view, but I have not yet given up hope. I am therefore hoping, perhaps naively, that someone might like to read an honest and factual account about a particular exercise my company ran in London three years ago.
Unfortunately, the BBC had postponed in 2008 a programme in their ‘conspiracy files’ series that would have done this. Our client three years ago agreed to be named in the BBC programme since the attitude of the producer and his team was very balanced (several conspiracy theorists were also invited to take part). We even allowed our complete exercise material to be made available to the BBC. Regrettably broadcasting in 2008 might have jeopardised an ongoing court case, so they had little choice about postponing it to 2009.
Early in 2005 Reed Elsevier, an organisation specialising in information and publishing that employs 1,000 people in and around London, asked us to help them prepare an effective crisis management plan and rehearse it before sign-off. Several draft scenarios were drawn up and the crisis team themselves set the exercise date and time: 9.00am on 7 July.
The test was planned as a table-top walk through for about six people (the CM team) in a lecture room with all injects simulated. Everything was on MS PowerPoint. The location of their Central London office near to Chancery Lane was chosen as one test site. With many staff travelling to work via the London underground system, the chosen exercise simulated incendiary devices on three trains, very similar to a real IRA attack in 1992, as well as other events.
As there had been eighteen terrorist bomb attacks on tube trains prior to 2005, choosing the London Underground was logical rather than just prescient. With this in mind it was hardly surprising that Deutsche Bank had run a similar exercise a few days before and, prior to that, a multi-agency (and much publicised) exercise code-named Osiris II had simulated a terrorist attack at Bank tube station. Moreover, I had also taken part in a BBC Panorama programme in 2004 as a panellist alongside Michael Portillo MP et al, in an unscripted debate (we had no idea at all what the scenario was to be?) on how London might once again, deal with terrorist attacks, only this time it was fictional (created entirely by the BBC).
In short, some of the research for our exercise had already been done. The scenario developed for our client even started by using fictitious news items from the Panorama programme then, as with any walk through exercise, events unfolded solely on a screen as dictated by the facilitator without any external injects or actions beyond the exercise room. Also factored into the scenario was to be an above ground fictitious bomb exploding not far from the head office of the protected Jewish Chronicle magazine where for exercise purposes, our imagined terrorists would have been aware that commuters would now be walking to work (past a building already considered a target) as some tube stations would have been closed.
Of just eight (8) nearby tube stations that fell within possible exercise scope, three were chosen that, by coincidence, were involved in the awful drama that actually took place on 7 July 2005. A level of scenario validation that on this occasion, we could have done without.
An exercise that turns into the real thing is not that unusual. For example, in January 2003, thirty people were injured when a tube train derailed and hit a wall at speed. At the same time, the City of London Police were running an exercise for their central casualty bureau where the team quickly abandoned their plans and swung into action to cope with the real thing.
For a surprising number of people such coincidents cannot be accepted as such. There just has to be a conspiracy behind them, despite the obvious point that painstaking research will always identify probable above possible scenarios. By the way, the only reason I was asked to speak on TV news that day, when there was still much confusion about the real tragedies, was to encourage more organisations to thoroughly plan their own exercises knowing the threat of terrorism is and remains, very real. One tragic consequence being Islam, a great Abrahamic, monotheistic faith (along with Judaism and Christianity), has undeservedly become vilified by some people.
Peter Power
Visor Consultants
Peter - you haven't disappointed me. The post is satire - I think you're responding to a google/blog alert of your name coming up on blogs and you've skimmed the post: if you look at it you'll see that it is refuting the conspiracy theories and demonstrating the unreliability of their imagined narrative. It's in green ink. It's a riposte to their insulting nonsense. It's me showing it up for the nonsensical fantastical paranoid halfbaked nonsense it is. Because the way CT-ers operate is to focus on tiny anomalies and obsess over them, always asking portentous questions and never listening to the answers if it doesn't fit their paranoid worldview, to harass and hound those who stand up to them, to demand every negative of their own imaginings is disproved and to try to avoid putting up a counter-narrative which can be pulled apart.
This post is a round up of all the conspiracy theories stitched together so they can be pulled apart.
I have also been involved in the BBC programme, as a conspiracy theory critic. Like you, I have been the subject of foolish speculation and unwanted focus by conspiracy theorists.
The BBC's conspiracy files programme should be out this summer. I hope that by investigating and demonstrating the fallacies of some of the most popular conspiracy theories - such as the ones about you - it will help to undo some of the damage done.
Rachel - read that with a wry smile, hoping to spot something missing, but you seem to have ticked almost all of the various conspiracy boxes there. Then again, I think you missed the chance for a few more details, such as:
"There are lots of pictures of bus with the top deck empty, which might prove there was no-one on it when it blew up. They even put lots of stretchers and wheelchairs and stuff around to make it look like those pictures were taken much later on, but in reality they cleared all of that away before getting all the actors to stand on the ruined top-deck, and taking those pictures. Which just proves how meticulous they are. And that they can arrange all that in a busy London thoroughfare and keep what must have been dozens of witnesses quiet. They're that powerful. But not that clever, because we can work out what they've done via the internet alone. "
And:
"Suspiciously, there isn't any CCTV footage of the bus exploding, even though everyone knows there are cameras watching our every move. If you do actually go to Tavistock Square, you can see that - even more suspiciously - there aren't any cameras pointing at where the bus was when it 'exploded'. Obviously they removed all trace of those cameras and destroyed the footage they must have recorded, which would have been shown that the bus didn't really blow up. Or that it did. Or something."
Amazing how some people really do seem able to beleive six impossible things before breakfast....
Raechel.
It is possible to believe that the events of 7/7 resulted in a massive "establishment" cover up without in any way subscribing to the theory that they were planned by the security services as a "false flag" operation.
It is entirely possible that what took place was some kind of stake out or sting operation that went badly wrong.
The history of espionage is replete with examples of agents and double agents who mislead or double crossed their handlers.
Could it be that the bombers who were known to the secutity services had been left at large on the basis of "giving them enough rope" or in the hope that they would lead to "bigger fish" ?
Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed in his book "The London Bombings-an independent enquiry" sets out in some detail how many Islamic "militants" were British Security assets during the "Londonistan" era!!
Does anybody out there know what has happened to Haroon Rashid Aswat?
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And here we see another standard conspiracy theorist tactic. Deflect with whataboutery, fail to answer questions, fail to deal with points raised, leap from specifics to general.
You are falsely equating not buying stupid, easily-debunked conspiracy theories with being someone who is 'naive' 'stupid' and agrees or accepts everything the Govt is up to. Particularly daft when you are posting on the blog of someone who has repeatedly and publicly challenged the government, and is currently a signatory to legal proceedings against the Home Secretary in the matter of a judicial reivew to examine the legality of the Govt. decision not to have an inquiry! Doh!
And...another CT tactic. When presented with evidence that does not match earlier statement, revise, delete or run away!
Here's Alex's previous comment in all its confused blowing-smoke feebleness:
Altho this is a funny post and you've brushed over alot of serious points with your 'satire', you deflect from the situation some VERY serious questions about what happened that day (and indeed on 9/11) im not saying that David Icke/Alex Jones or whoever IS right, but you seem to think that state sponsed terror is 'just another Conspiralooney!'...This is a dangerous way to think as there are many many accounts and documents of the USA and Britian being involved in lots of things from the overthrowing of democractically elected leaders 'IE. Mossadegh and the Shah's coup d'état in 1953, the CIA had there hands all over it, to backing murderous corrupted dictators IE.. its a fact that Saddam Hussain AND Osama bin Laden were in contact with US officials (CIA) and were even hiring Hussian to do there dirty, then he turned against them..and we all know what happened then!)There are many more from Panama to Chile and the rest, so for you to brush aside the questioning of our leaders as 'conspiraloons' is not only dangerous, as we need people to ALWAYS question what our government is upto (its record isnt exactly clean is it?), but it is also highly niave and stupid of you...'Dont believe everything your told' is not a conspiracy theory line, it is a necessary thought process for informed and therefore progressive society.LOL.
So the argument was...
Altho this is a funny post and you've brushed over alot of serious points with your 'satire', you deflect from the situation some VERY serious questions about what happened that day ...in what way is pointing out that conspiracy theories circulating are daft and don't add up whilst campaigning for an inquiry 'deflecting' 'serious questions'?
Dismissing gibberish to get to the truth is common sense; why on earth would a serious inquiry camopaign want to waste time on speculation that is clearly both evidence-free and wholly unsubstantiated and almost comically ludicrous?
(and indeed on 9/11)What has this got to do with 9/11? Nothing. We are not asking for an inquiry into 9/11 are we? Or Madrid, or the Paris Metro, or the UN Embassy bombings so why go there?
im not saying that David Icke/Alex Jones or whoever IS right, Just as well, as they're well known for spouting utter bollocks
but you seem to think that state sponsed terror is 'just another Conspiralooney!'...But as I keep pointing out, there's sod-all evidence to indicate that 7/7 was 'State sponsed(sic) terror'. States can indeed commit acts of terrorism and covertly sponsor terrorists. There's naff-all to indicate anything of the kind happened here, is there? other than the internet imaginings of conspiracy theorists with zip in the way of supporting evidence.
This is a dangerous way to think as there are many many accounts and documents of the USA and Britian being involved in lots of things from the overthrowing of democractically elected leaders 'IE. Mossadegh and the Shah's coup d'état in 1953, the CIA had there hands all over it, to backing murderous corrupted dictators IE.. ...and? What's this got to do with the assertions being made about 7/7? Nothing at all, unless you've got some hard facts to prove it. Or even suggest it. Which you haven't.
its a fact that Saddam Hussain AND Osama bin Laden were in contact with US officials (CIA) and were even hiring Hussian to do there dirty, then he turned against them..and we all know what happened then!)There are many more from Panama to Chile and the rest,...ramble, ramble...are we actually making any points here? No? No.
so for you to brush aside the questioning of our leaders as 'conspiraloons' is not only dangerous, as we need people to ALWAYS question what our government is upto (its record isnt exactly clean is it?),...and here we have yet another leap of illogic. What does questioning what governments are up to have to do with supporting evidence-untroubled conspiracy theories? Nothing. Unless you are a conspiracy theorist who likes to divide the world into sheeple who accept everything and Being a Seeker After Truth (As Found Exclusively on the Internet). FAIL.
but it is also highly niave and stupid of you...'Dont believe everything your told' is not a conspiracy theory line, it is a necessary thought process for informed and therefore progressive society.Yup, and challenging bollocks where you find it is a key part of that - which is precisely what I'm doing in this post!
Lulz.
Over to Davemin
Raechel.
It is possible to believe that the events of 7/7 resulted in a massive "establishment" cover up without in any way subscribing to the theory that they were planned by the security services as a "false flag" operation.It is possible to believe that, yes. The fact that the initial ISC report and Home Office Narrative were later contradicted/found not to tell the whole story is one of the reasons for asking for an inquiry
It is entirely possible that what took place was some kind of stake out or sting operation that went badly wrong. Yes. Possible. Highly, highly unlikely, given the overwhelming evidence of 4 committed terrorists killing themselves and 52 innocents. Given the overwhelming evidence that 4 bombers wwere involved and willingly, there's not much point in trying to prove a negative. However, it's worth investigating how much was known/what judgements were made about the bombers before the attacks. Which is, surprise surprise what we're asking for in the Inquiry group.
The history of espionage is replete with examples of agents and double agents who mislead or double crossed their handlers.Yes. As I said, what was known about the bombers before the attacks covers this, doesn't it, and that is what the ISC were reconvened to re-examine following pressure after the Crevice trial ended and reporting restrictions about the Crevuice/7/7 linsk were revealed to the general public for the first time.
Could it be that the bombers who were known to the secutity services had been left at large on the basis of "giving them enough rope" or in the hope that they would lead to "bigger fish" ? See above and that's why we're asking 'what was known...'
Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed in his book "The London Bombings-an independent enquiry" sets out in some detail how many Islamic "militants" were British Security assets during the "Londonistan" era!!Yes, and it's a very good book. Nafeez and I know each other and have spoken at the same meetings. You should also read'the Suicide factory' by Sean O'Neill and Daniel McGrory and 'Inside the Jihad' by Omar Nasiri. The last is especially good on what was happening in the 90's.
Does anybody out there know what has happened to Haroon Rashid Aswat?Last I heard he was in Broadmoor.
Cheers Nick. Nice to see your pic! How's battling the forces of unreason going?
:-)
Quieter since I got banned after this exchange. That'll teach me to ask the wrong sort of question!
OMG, they've got even more funny.
Utter paranoia reigns over there, with TG as a batshit tinpot despot moonbat crockpot.
*laughs hard and long*
Just noticed that they've been discussing your satire. Gosling is still banging on about the "drills" and "warnings," while others are demonstrating the usual failure to grasp the realities of human behaviour, physics (real, not the Hollywood action movie version), etc.
Still, I've just had a lovely weekend on the continent, attending the tri-annual Cat Festival in Ypres, so things aren't all that bad...
Cat Festival?
My goodness, that's even more zany than their current thread.
Nick, saw that, read that. What a bunch of idiots. Unbelievable. Did you notice the bus driver was wearing a special vest? Good grief. Well, the site seems to be down at the moment anyway.
Yeah, whoever thought there was something sinister behind wearing a body-warmer?!
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"Cat Festival?
My goodness, that's even more zany than their current thread."It's all good fun, although unfortunately for timing reasons we had to leave before the cat-throwing/witch-burning (neither of them "real," obviously!). The promotional video is still on YouTube here.
Nice satire, Rachel!
Now if you feel like addressing the subject matter: why in your opinion is the government's conspiracy theory absolutely and unquestionably superior to the alternative ones?
Boris,
it's not 'the government conspiracy theory', it's the results of a police criminal investigation based on forensics, evidence, witnesses and therefore trumps made-up paranoid agenda-laden imaginings by internet idiots by quite some margin, it having the advantage of being based in reality and hard, physical evidence.
CCTV
Networks of extremists
Forensic evidence
Video evidence
Wills
Do conspiracy theorists always turn up in police murder investigations with alternative theories of how the killers were innocent and the witnesses and police and pathologists and forensic scientists are all lying, or just in cases that make the international news?
Rachel,
Since when are the police in the UK not an agency of the British government? Since when is their theory - that a group of Muslims perpetrated the July 7 atrocity not a conspiracy theory? Have they revised it to it being a natural disaster or a work of one individual? Have I missed that?
I can address the rest of your post too but maybe, given how poorly your position stands up to scrutiny even as far as the very basic definitions are concerned perhaps you might want to revise it.
Boris,
If you are unable to understand the difference between an internet conspiracy theory, or set of theories for which no credible evidence has been advanced, and a police investigation looking at real hard evidence, such as explosive residue and bodies torn apart by bombs, and witness testimony, and all the rest of it, then I feel pity for you.
It is not for me to prove a negative or patiently indulge your every whim and wittering idea du jour - that the M15 did it or The Jews did it or Elvis did it or aliens did it, or whatever halfbaked theory you are advancing today - it is for you, or your fellow disbelievers to advance a single shred of evidence that the 4 bombers did not murder 52 people and kill themselves in the way that is generally accepted by the public at large, and the families and survivors in particular.
Don't you understand? You having your own little doubts and theories is not evidence. You picking out bits of the story and whining that you don't buy it is not evidence. If you want to suggest that it did not happen as accepted, it is up for you to demonstrate how, why and advance an alternative hypothesis which can be scrutinised and substantiated.
Otherwise, you have nothing, nothing at all.
And pathetic semantics don't impress me. You know quite well what a 'conspiracy theory' means in this context, and yes, clearly a group of men conspired together to bomb London and succeeded in doing so - but that is not a conspiracy theory in the sense that the phrase is commonly understood - it is evidenced-based grim reality backed up by forensic evidence, witness statements and hard facts. A conspiracy theory generally means a theory held by a person or persons theorising that things did not happen as stated: that there was or is some Grand Conspiracy by The Man/The Jooz/The Lizards/The CIA/The New World Order or whatever - endlessly asking questions but utterly unable to provide a single shred of evidence to press their case. That is what a conspiracy theory is, Boris; that is what I have no time for.
And if you think I am going to waste my time indulging the paranoid creepy imaginings of every single person on the internet who has pre-decided that there is a Sinsister Conspiracy About 7/7 - and who are in my expderience wholly incapable of listening to anything that will challenge their particular personal paranoid world view anyway, then you can think again.
Do NASA bother refuting people who think the world is flat?
Why should I personally have to go to the trouble of attempting to correct every alternative theory about 7/7, when conspiranoids won't take any notice anyway?
I've contributed to a BBC documentary taking on the main conspiracy theories, that'll reach a million or so people, and it will certainly save me time - I have no intention of getting into dialogue with each and every numpty who has some evidence-free theory about 7/7. I have more important things to do - and - please take notice of this - I do not owe you, or anyone else in the Truth movement an explanation for anything I choose to do, say, or accept as fact. And nor does anyone else you have a theory about, or an interest in, particularly other survivors or families. The sooner you grasp this, the better it will be for your blood pressure, and mine too.
This is my blog where I say what I think when I can be bothered to write something. It has a 'no indulging of conspiraloons and conspiralunacy' policy, and if you don't like it, then don't bother coming on here.
Rachel,
I have nothing but respect for you and I don't mean to cause you any discomfort. I could address everything you are saying, like I said before, but I will for now only address the following. You say,
it is for you, or your fellow disbelievers to advance a single shred of evidence that the 4 bombers did not murder 52 people and kill themselves in the way that is generally accepted by the public at large, and the families and survivors in particular.Now I don't even claim to know much about 7/7, yet here's what I can say. If the following report, published back in the day in The Cambridge News, was correct - or, rather, if what the survivor named Bruce Lait said was correct - then it is almost a given that the four bombers were not the sole perpetrators - maybe, in the case of that train, nobody inside the car was involved at all. So there goes that argument of yours. I am afraid the rest of them are not much harder to shoot down.
Oh dear Boris, this is why this gets so iritating. All people come out with are the same old tired tropes, the same old canards. This is not 'shooting down'; this is citing and misrepresenting random news articles and extrapolating stuff from them that isn't there to make a far-fetched point, whilst busily ignoring all evidence to the contrary, as per the usual conspiracy theory practice.
All that article says is how Bruce, a seriously injured, deeply shocked man who had been knocked out cold by the blast and woken to find himself in a hellish scene 'could not remember' seeing where the bomb was.
'The metal was pushed upwards as if the bomb was underneath the train. They seem to think the bomb was left in a bag, but I don't remember anybody being where the bomb was, or any bag,'See? He says he doesn't rememberHardly surprising, is it, after what had just happened?
In fact, you'll see Bruce interviewed quite soon on the TV in much more detail, and now he has recovered somewhat from his unimaginably horrific ordeal and is no longer in shock as he was in this old interview - which I 've known of for years. He explains his discomfort at the idiotic and offensive theories that have grown up as a result of that article.
How on earth does a shocked an injured man, who has recently passed out, who is disorientated, who has just had a stranger die on top of him, who 'does not remember' seeing the bomb or a bag - how does that actually prove that there was not a bomb, or a bomber, and therefore no 4 bombers? You have to be really quite odd to read it and extrapolate that! Or desperate to find a conspiracy where there is none.
He says he saw the metal pushed up 'as if' the bomb was under the train. His brain tried to make sense of it. He did not rememebr seeing a bag or a bomb in a bag.
Well, you wouldn't, necessarily.
But the bomb *was* placed on the floor by the bomber. The blast evidence, the train evidence, the forensic evidence, the injuries in the blast zone all *evidence* this.
If you put a bomb in a bag on a metal floor, the explosion will power downwards - and outwards - and upwards as it explodes - - and the down-blast will then bounce back up again, reflected back from the hard surface of the ground under the train - causing the metal of the floor to twist both up and down , or down first, then up on the back-blast.
Trains run on hard tracks on the hard ground, a few feet below the floor of the train. They do not run on jelly which absorbs the blast. The blast did not go through the metal train floor and then suddenly stop and get sucked into the ground and into the earth's core.
Jeez, the physics is not that difficult to grasp.
This is such an old, pointless, meaningless canard.
It proves nothing, except to a few people who must leap on this one thing - the testimony of a horrifically shocked man in extreme and almost unendurable circumstances - and somehow make it into a conspiracy.
I was in the carriage with the bomber you know, at Russell Sq. I do know what happened, and so do other survivors - and more importantly, so do the police, who investigated the crime scene, and took photos, and preserved evidence, and so does Clifford Todd, the forensics expert who gave his testimony in full and open public court about it during the 7/7 trial - and it was not disputed. You can go and look it up if you want. But I suppose looking at fragments of unclear interviews and reading something in to them is more exciting than bnothering to do any research or critical thinking.
Rachel,
Here's a couple of bullet points. If this is too difficult for you I will only be too happy to end this discussion.
1) Mr Lait, his condition notwithstanding, provided what would amount to admissible eyewitness testimony. Yes, I do realize he was very badly disoriented, yes, I am aware that what he had said could be inaccurate, yet it is testimony. You need to admit that those who challenge the official story do have at least some eyewitness testimony on their side. And it took me but 2 minutes to find it.
2) The physics evidence you present is bizarre to say the least. The explosion overpressure falls down dramatically as the time elapses after the explosion. Once the shell of a vehcile is penetrated it falls. It is very hard to picture the scenario you are describing. May I ask you how you came up with such a model?
This said, it is possible that Mr Lait's statement about the floor being bent upward around the edges of the hole was inaccurate - but let hear that stated, then.
3) I hate to bring back bad memories but here :
And then I felt rather than heard an explosion; it was as if I had been punched violently in both ears. The world went as black as if I had been plunged deep underwater.It doesn't sound like you saw what occurred, or had any verbal communication indicating what would occur. Fortunately, you must have been far enough away from the device to survive. Hence it is not clear how from your immediate experience you could have known exactly where the device was, or who detonated it.
4) It is furthermore less than clear how, being between Russell Square in Kings Cross, you could know what happened at Aldgate East. I don't know whether Mr Lait's testimony is accurate but it is doubtful that being a couple of kilometers away you could somehow see inside that subway car.
5) I started this conversation by not even asserting any specific point of view, merely by inquiring why the officialdom's story must absolutely be believed over the alternative ones. It is not obvious you have any good argument to present on that front. Deception by authorities is as old as the humanity itself, and one would be well advised not to forget that.
1. This is getting irritating now. Lait does *not* support the conspiracy theories, or 'challenge the official version' - nor has he ever said he did or does - despite this story doing the rounds for 4 years: all he has said in this early account is that he simply could not remember and he saw metal twisted 'as if'.
He was interviewed by the BBC recently, and he described the harrowing scenes. At no point did he say in that later interview that he challenged the official account or that the bomb was under the train. So please don't claim him as an eye witness for bombs being under the trains or bombers not being there - it's simply unfair, making 2+2= 5 in this way.
I also - as you can see used the common phrase 'as if' in my account - 'as if I had been punched in both ears'. This does not actually mean I was punched in both ears. It means that my senses experienced it that was and I describe it 'as if'. See?
2. Go and read up about what happens in explosions. I should not have to explain this to you, but they are not tidy things. They bounce off things, rip through people, they are messy and random. Go and look at how near the solid track is to the floor of a Circle line train at Edgware Rd station if you must. Go and read up on ballistics. Explaining this stuff to you is not my job.
3. I can tell whether an explosion is under me or in the same area as me. And it's not just me - because i wrote an account on a messageboard which was picked up by the BBC who asked me to write for them, I became a focal point for dozens of other people who wrote to me and wanted to share their stories. So I listened, and read them; it was almost unbearable, and I formed a support network and we met up, and many of us continue to keep in touch. Now, in 2009, I have listened to dozens and dozens of people's accounts, from all 3 trains and from the bus, and they all match up, all of us piecing it together, sharing similar experiences that ring shatteringly true. So, no, I wasn't in every train or on the bus, but I heard,, over and over, from people who were.
Now most people don't have access to all this nightmareish, terrible testimony, and many times I wish I didn;t know it all because much of it is unbearable. But most people do have the grace and common sense to see this: that it is repellent to infer that the survivors and police and tube staff and transport staff and forensic investigators giving evidence in trials are lying, or complicit in a cover up, or dupes. And the fact that not one survivor has come out and joined the J7 truth campaign or agreed with the conspiracy theories should tell you something. Unless you wilfully don't want to see it.
4. See 3.
5. Why do you think the inquiry group have judicial review proceedings out against the Home secretary, and have publicly criticised the ISC reports, if they are all so keen to forget the offialdom can be untruthful?
But demanding the truth about what was known about the bombers beforehand, and an investigation into the way the pre 7/7 ops were conducted does not mean that the inquiry group should make common cause with every moonbat evidence free specualation put up by strangers with agemdas on the internet who buy conspiracy theories.
Officials have deceived - but so too have liars and paranoid speculators been deceived and actively tried to deceive - also for as long as time itself.
Sorry if I sound a bit ratty. I do get incredibly exasperated with the constant referrals to various debunked and infinitely unlikely conspiracy theories, and the endless demands that I engage with every vague suspicion people have. In the past 4 years I have threats, insults, harassment and all the rest of it, as well as incredibly rude demands from people - and given that what they are positing is not grounded in any evidence whatsoever, other than the occasional anomaly that you'd expect to find in any rolling, multi-sourced news investigation, and that what peopel are in effect saying is that everyone who was there or involved in some way is some kind of dupe, liar or disinfo merchant, it's very wearing and tiresome.
I don't know why people think I am likely to be convinced by having conspiracy theories repeated at me, 4 years on. I have looked at them all, and they are just not true. So why do people bother? It always ends with people getting cross.
Rachel,
I'm not entirely not sure whether you omitted this key detail because you're under the influence of an alien reptilian mind-control ray or because the zionist-neocon cabal is holding your pet ferret hostage, but you failed to mention the critical fact that the CCTV in the London Underground was controlled and managed by the Mossad.
(Warning: I am not making this all up, it is a conspiracy theory that did have some credit in my country, Italy, at least at the time)
In fact, it was an Israeli company that, a few years previously, installed the CCTV system, and of course we all know that all Israeli/Jewish interests are just Mossad fronts; and of course it is perfectly plausible and therefore taken as truth, unless you can disprove it, that special recognition software was installed that would let the cameras "see" a Muslim suicide bomber where there was none, and "blank out" a Mossad agent when needed, possibly in response to pre-arranged sequences of images. So we must consider the very real possibility that nothing of what was seen via CCTV that day was real, or at least that it was altered in real time in Tel Aviv or perhaps Golders Green.
Hope this sheds some light on the mysteries of that day, and good luck with your pet ferret
Eugenio
Arrrgh! I'm sorry, you DID mention it! The neocons zionist cabal blanked out that line on my screen, I swear!
Aha! Truly there is no limit to their dastardly powers, Eugenio!
:-D
Allah ac-bah.
Oops! ignore that last comment, just testing the system.
Hello rachel, Peter Rees here from Cardiff. I watched the 7/7 conspiracy theory TV show on tuesday evening. To be honest it left me with more questions than it answered. Let me first state that i have every respect for you and your opinions although you do rather seem to be a little biased in favour of the Gov. version of events. The experience of being on one of those bombed trains must have been horrendous but you seem to have coped admirably. Well done to you. And the best of British to you in your campaign to get a full public enquiery into those attacks on 7/7. Sadly even if you do manage to get some subsequent Gov. to agree to an enquiery you've got the 2005 public enquieries act to contend with. It basically makes it almost impossible to publish anything other than the Gov.line.
Peter Power. Now there's an interesting chap. I saw him on tv and heard him on the radio talking about how he was conducting an anti-terror excercise that same day and involving exactly the same stations as were targeted by the terrorists. He mentioned a company of a thousand people. He spoke of going from theoretical slow-time thinking to real-event fast-time action. That doesn't sound like a man doing a power-point presentation to six managers of a private sector company. Bearing in mind that with the exception of those directly involved in the attacks the whole of the city was told only about a power outage on the tube. Why if he wasn't hands -on that day was he even told about the attacks? And then the TV and radio interviews? WHY if he wasn't involved?
Also it is my understanding that Mr. Power, was when serving with the met, one of the forward command officers at Saint james's square on the day WPC Evonne Fletcher was fataly shot in another terrorist incident.
I remember 7/7 well. I was installing a fireplace that day and the sun shone brightly in the sky over Cardiff as events in London unfolded. the one thing that sticks in my mind is the reports about suicide bombers being shot in canary warf. Those reports were never repeated and never explained.
We live in strange times Rachel. We have a government that could care less about public opinion and appears to care even less about honesty. look at the recent expenses scandal - And yes i am well aware that it is a far cry from fiddling expenses to killing 52 innocent commuters. There again how many young lives have been lost on the back of Blair's lies to get us into a war that nobody wanted to be a part of?
Hi Seeker
thanks for your good wwishes
Peter Power has explained the exercise in the comments on this blog - the first comment after the satire. He also explained it in the programme on BBC2. Reed Elsevier employs about a thousand people, as described. And the slowtime/quick time thinking thing...I'm going to borrow an excellent analogy from the Guardian discussions about conspiracy theories on Comment is Free.
Take a group of cub scouts to a park to practice. Suddenly, during the practice drills, a little girl falls of a swing and cuts her knee. Now you have to move to quicktime thinking! Now the exercise is real!
See?
If you are still concerned, how about checking Visor Consultant's site to see what they do? And how about looking for 'crisis management, London' on your search engine. You'll find DOZENS of companies who specialise in helping firms prepare for crisis and learn about risk management. You could even ring a few up and ask what they do, and how often they sit in rooms preparing managers for crisis situations - you could even ask them if they were doing what they usually do on Thursday 7th July, which was, after all, a normal working day for London's crisis management firms just as it was for everyone else, until the bombs came.
Peter Power is an ex senior Scotland Yard officer, he's also been asked to work with the BBC on a crisis management programme - so not really very surprising that he was serving when Yvonne Fletcher was tragically murdered, nor that he was asked to comment by the BBC on the day of the attacks after they happened - the news networks are full of talking heads, with 24 hours of news to fill. He didn't have foreknowledge of the attacks, he reacted to them as they happened, helped the company manage on the day and later went on TV and the radio to make comments, as specialists known to the BBC are wont to get calls when news breaks relevant to their specialist area.
I'm no fan of this Government and many of their policies. In fact I complain about them regularly. But they did not order the deaths of commuters, the police have not covered up mass murder by rogue state elements and whilst I can sympathise with people who want to scream and throw cushions at the TV whenever Blair or Brown comes on, and whilst I wholly deplore the dreadful wars they got us into,
it will not help us have a better future if we deny the existence of homegrown suicide bombers.
I've deleted a few comments.
This is not a CT-tolerant site. I'm putting comment mod on and deleting 'you're just a silly girly you won't understand TEH TWOOF'-type comments.
Take the CT stuff to a CT site, ta.
Hi,
I didn’t actually realise there was a 7/7 conspiracy theory until I watched a couple of programmes over the weekend! Spent the morning ‘researching’ and found your satirical overview summed it up perfectly.
I wanted to recount an incident I had with a 9/11 CT’er a few years ago that shows the mentality up perfectly. I used to work as a metal worker and was becoming increasingly annoyed by photos of Ground Zero showing twisted metal beams that were ‘clear evidence’ that thermite charges had been used in a controlled demolition. I emailed the website creator and politely told him that, sorry as I was to disappoint him; a) it wasn’t thermite, it was a thermic lance almost certainly used by a worker cleaning up the site days afterwards, b) the bloke using it wasn’t especially skilled and that, c) I could even tell where the cut was started and which direction it went. So, no, no, definitely not thermite. No way Jose.
The above then appeared completely out of context on his website as ‘expert testimony’ that the towers had been hurriedly weakened in the days prior to the disaster using thermic lances!! He even credited and named me!! Bloody idiot. I had to threaten him with catching the next plane over and breaking his legs before he removed it.
I feel sad for the victims & their families when hearing this sort of stuff. It must be terrible enough for families to cope with their loss without having the tragedy reduced to some sort of cheap farce by these morons.
Regards
Andy
As annoying and as exasperating as these CT types are in their total delusion to the facts and that they have some latent need to feel they are being oppressed to feed their pathetic inadequacy, just ignore it and move on. We know that their targets, that they accuse of some supposed sinister plots, couldn't hit a barn door with a baseball from 5 metres let alone even plan an NHS/Scope database/project properly ;)