Conspiracy Theory Update - Was London an inside job?

[tillyoshea]

If I had a suspect who could easily be loaded with high explosives with no regard for their own life - no fear of death - I'd shoot him 5 times in the head too.

Shooting somebody once in the head will almost certainly stop them. By the time you've shot somebody twice in the head at close range, you've definitely stopped them. Why shoot them five times? All this does is increase panic amongst the other passengers, making the situation harder to control and increasing the risk of a crush, and make the bloke harder to identify.

I put running away from armed police in the same category as using the right to remain silent

Everybody who chooses to remain silent has something to hide? So if involved in a car crash, we are to ignore insurance companies advice to not admit anything, because that immediately makes us guilty? Equally, if the police knocked on my door today, telling me I was a suspect in a rape case and what was I doing on the evening of 21st January 2003, I couldn't remember and so chose to say nothing until I'd spoken to a lawyer, I'd be guilty of something?

Why are you picking up on such a small technicality??

Small technicality?! There's quite a difference between someone running towards a tube train and being shot in the back to stop them, and somebody pinned to the floor and shot five times in the head by a policeman standing over them.

Police would NOT shoot him without first warning him CLEARLY. ARMED POLICE - STOP. etc.

That's certainly not what many witnesses have said happened. Most have said that they weren't clear what was happening. So let's assume that your English isn't too hot, people around you are visibly panicking, and twenty guys have suddenly pulled out guns - are you going to stick around to find out what it's all about?

If this electrician did not have enough grasp of the English language to understand some pretty universal words such as POLICE and STOP, then he shouldn't really have been here at all.

In which case, the vast majority of Brits abroad shouldn't be where they are, as they don't have a good grasp of the language of the country they are in.

What would be Britian's reaction if an innocent British man was shot dead by Brazilian police conducting a terror investigation in Rio de Janeiro? I suspect there'd be a whole lot more sympathy towards the poor guy, and a round condemnation of the Brazilian police.

The terrible fact here is that if the man had been white and British, police would more likely have assumed 'yob' over 'terrorist', and he'd still be alive today. That is by far the biggest tragedy.

[Corin]

Why are you picking up on such a small technicality??

I am not picking up on a small technicality; I am pointing out that you are diverting attention away from the issue, and planting an image in peole's mind which is not substantiated by the eye witness observer.

Police would NOT shoot him without first warning him CLEARLY.

How can you speak on behalf of the Metropolitan Police and what they would do or not do? Where you at the scene and how do you know that this clear warning was given?

If this electrician did not have enough grasp of the English language to understand some pretty universal words such as POLICE and STOP, then he shouldn't really have been here at all.

Have you ever visited a non English speaking country whose language you did not understand?

Are you really going to argue that all of those Chinese and Japanese tourists, for example, who visit Central London, and do not have any grasp of the English language, have no right to be in the country?

Are you suggesting that immigration control at ports should have a basic English language test for every visitor?

NPR is reporting that the government of the Federal Republic of Brazil has demanded a full explanation as to why one of its citizens has been killed by the Metropolitan Police.

[Corin]

From <http://news.bbc.co.UK/1/hi/uk/4706787.stm>

The man was under police observation because he had emerged from a house that was being watched following Thursday's attacks, a Scotland Yard spokesman said.

Something else I do not understand is why did the police allow the man to reach the lower levels of the Underground station?

Is there any indication of whether or not the man bought a ticket or used a travel card, or jumped the barriers?

If the man was suspected of being a terrorist, then surely the police had the powers to stop and search the man before he reached the station under the all pervasive "prevention of terrorism" legislation.

After all, if he was considered a potential bomber, by allowing the man to reach the station, the police were then putting people's lives in danger and providing the man with more potential escape routes, rather than just stopping him beforehand in the street where any potential threat could be more easily "neutralized".

[tillyoshea]

Is there any indication of whether or not the man bought a ticket or used a travel card, or jumped the barriers?

Yes, he jumped the barriers (IHT). It's also worth underlining that he was only under observation because he emerged from a block of flats which was under police observation - there was no suspicion or investigation of him as an individual.

[Pete]

Is there any indication of whether or not the man bought a ticket or used a travel card, or jumped the barriers?

Yes, he jumped the barriers (IHT). It's also worth underlining that he was only under observation because he emerged from a block of flats which was under police observation - there was no suspicion or investigation of him as an individual.

if he comes out of a building, in a heavy coat in hot weather, and then doesn't stop when asked and proceeds to run into a tube station, jump barriers and still not stop then there is suspicion ffs.

Whether they help him down or not they clearly belived he was going to set off some bomb in which case shooting him to prevent him pulling a cord is fine in my opinion.

I#'m sorry but people round here need to get a grip. I can't get away with painitng "WHSmith Property No Dumping" without the council shouting at me because it's actually thei bin. Do you honestly think it would be possible to run a state that kills it's people willy nilly and people wouldn't notice?

[tillyoshea]

if he comes out of a building, in a heavy coat in hot weather, and then doesn't stop when asked and proceeds to run into a tube station, jump barriers and still not stop then there is suspicion ffs.

He was only told to stop once he'd vaulted the barrier - and so probably thought he was in trouble for jumping it rather than thinking he was a bombing suspect. How many theives stop and say 'Oh, sorry gov' when the police try and apprehend them?

But, in the grand scheme of things, that's neither here nor there. What's important is that a mistake has clearly been made - an innocent man is dead. To me, it sounds like you'd be happy for the same thing to happen again if the same circumstances arose, and that you fully support the police's actions - I would not. One innocent person being shot is quite enough for me, thanks, and if that's what the terrorists are driving us to, then they're succeeding in destroying a part of our society.

Do you honestly think it would be possible to run a state that kills it's people willy nilly and people wouldn't notice?

I'm not suggesting anybody's killing people willy nilly - I certainly hope that people will notice the police killing of an innocent man and learn the lessons, not just say that the police were justified in their actions and that nothing needs to change.

[tillyoshea]

I know it's bad form to quote yourself, but I'm going to do it anyway

A far more likely scenario to my mind is that one police officer lost it, saw this Asian-looking guy, apparently a suspect in the murder of 50 people, running away from the police, assumed his guilt, and shot him in a moment of pure rage... I can't see any way this could possibly have played that didn't involve someone going off protocol.

It actually turns out that the officer was following protocol of Operation Kratos exactly, right down to shooting the guy five times. So I was very wrong. Just thought I should correct that.

This man should have known his actions would make himself out as looking like a suicide bomber.

I very much doubt that would be the first thing on anybody's mind when running from the police.

I would far rather this happen than for somebody who IS a bomber to be able to kill scores of innocents.

I think this is the crucial point. You - apparently with the majority of the country - would rather that the state killed innnocent people that they think are suicide bombers, though without conclusive proof, to reduce the risk to the public at large. I'm not comfortable with that policy, as I don't think it's possible for the police to make sound judgements on sight, and I'm even less comfortable with the order to kill coming from someone sat miles away in a Scotland Yard office. With a policy like the current one, more mistakes will be made and more innocent citizens will die. Without it, there's an increased risk that suicide bombers will succeed.

The situation may be new, but the moral dilemma is age old - do you kill one person to give the rest an increased chance of survival? It's a very difficult decision to make, and I don't think either one of us is going to convince the other, so it's probably best that we agree to disagree on this one.

[Pete]

'm not comfortable with that policy, as I don't think it's possible for the police to make sound judgements on sight

damn right. you are not innocent until proven guilty by your peers and therefore when I go out with my gun into the street and shoot some people I don't expect the policeman to make a judgement on sight.

I hardley think Mark is suggesting that the police should go and randomly shoot some people in thick coats. this kindof thing does not happen often and if you think it will then you're just fretting to much

[tillyoshea]

'm not comfortable with that policy, as I don't think it's possible for the police to make sound judgements on sight

damn right. you are not innocent until proven guilty by your peers and therefore when I go out with my gun into the street and shoot some people I don't expect the policeman to make a judgement on sight.

There's no moral dilemma there - you'd be killing one to save many. Similarly, there'd be no moral dilemma if you were sure the person was a suicide bomber, so I'd have no problem with the police shooting him. But in this case, we're not dealing with certainty, we're dealing with risk, and so the whole situation is made more difficult.

The equivalent would be if you had something gun-shaped in a coat pocket, and were threatening to shoot people. Should the police shoot you, or first establish that the gun-shaped item is in fact a gun, and not a banana? Of course, that's not a true representation of the situation, as it's rather easier to trigger a bomb strapped to your chest than to pull out a gun, aim it, and fire. I'm just trying to illustrate the difference between risk, and certainty in such situations.

[johnnyboy]

Jonny you are so blinkered in your hatred of Tony Blair...

I hate what Tony Bliar did in our name - I hate the fact he is a proven mass murderer. However, I do not hate anyone...

...and the BBC that any rational thought has gone out of the window.

Your sloppy journo style is coming out again, Marcus. For most of the 3.5 years I have been on TVF/MP247, I have been a member of the "BBC Brigade". How easy it is for you to label, just like the ITN journos who labelled the four men from the 21st as "the bombers running away from the scene of their crime". The Police don't see it that way - why did ITN report differently?

Time and time again I have said that I don't agree with the actions taken by the Blair government. The Iraq war has made the world a much more dangerous place.

Well, you show "some" insight, at the very least.

Yet you still can't join the dots. You still can't see how "Tony Blair being a moral man who thought the war was right" and "Tony Blair lied about the evidence on Iraq to take us to war" just doesn't sit together.

Politicians lie and deceive. Get used to it. When a lie and a deception costs 100,000+ lives, including nearly 70 of our own men, it is *evil*.

However is does not follow that Blair was so evil he would order the murder of many of his own citizens.

There you go again with your emotive and anti-intellectual conclusions. Are you sure you shouldn't be working for the News of the World, sport?

You are unable to believe that he believed he was working for the best.

He lied. 100,000 people died. How could he believe he was working for the best if he had to lie about it? Are you suggesting the British public is not mature enough to handle to truth, and we have to be lied to like the NeoCons believe the Americans have to be lied to?

The truth is, Marcus, to get where you have got, you must be intelllgent. How about using the muscle that matters just for once on this issue?

He was a decent man who goes to church and has a wife and family. Why would he turn into a mass murderer. It makes no logical sense. And there is a difference between launching a war against another country and a covert terrorist attack

In most cases, I could accept that argument. However, launching a false war against another country on a perversion of the "truth" and blowing people up on a Tube train of a perversion of a (religious) "truth" is not different at all.

Of course your or my views don't matter when reporting events. The BBC had to go on the evidence and facts. It has time and time again questioned the government on its official line. Were you listing to Broadcasting House this morning? Do you think that John Humphreys is a government stooge?

Again, you try to cover up your hopeless position with an attack on the person asking the questions. Weak, Marcus, weak.

The BBC et al had a huge lack of critical analysis in the run-up to the war. During the war, an independent Cardiff University study showed that the BBC had less dissenting voices on air than all other news organisations. It was quite close to Fox News's position, believe it or not.

I look forward to the day when you can provide sources of your beliefs, like I have done constantly. Up until that day, I expect more empty, emotive arguments from you.

YOU ARE A JOURNALIST. You are meant to ask awkward, discomforting questions. You are MY representative when reporting the news - MINE AND EVERY OTHER BRITISH PERSON'S REPRESENTATIVE. When will you start doing your job?

The British are a naturally sceptical people, distrusting of authority. We expect our journos to represent that. If you ever want to make a name for yourself, take that attitude. As a nation, we will love and respect you for it, my friend.

The truth of the shooting on the underground was released by the police after being leaked to sky first. The same sky who had labeled him a Suicide bomber throughout the previous day whereas the BBC had him as a suspect. How do you think they were going to cover it up. Kill the poor mans entire friends and family. Would every PC who found a piece of evidence that did not fit the official line be brought off?

Sky corrected themselves. They were not afraid to backpedal. The ability to admit you're wrong is one of the highest, and I respect them for it, deeply.

And even with your somewhat limited ability to see the wider picture, you must admit that the average PC's knowledge will be less than that of his superiors' or the intelligence services'? Apparently not.

The truth is this - if every journo shared your attitude, that the Government and its leaders are COMPLETELY honest if occasionally making mistakes, the Downing Street Memo would never have been published. Robin Cook's and Claire Short's views on the Iraq War would never have made it into the press. The mobile WMD laboratory stories in Iraq would never have been proven to be false. The murder at Stockwell (that's what it was really) would have been covered up. And so on and so forth.

Marcus, you have a position in a leading news organisation many people on these forums would kill for. Start representing us for a change, yeah?

[johnnyboy]

Also posted in TVF

So, Marcus, the journo mastermind of the 21st century, would you name Matthew Parris of The Times a wannabee David Icke? Probably not, but if I had written this, you would've accused me of it.

I name the four powers who are behind the al-Qaeda conspiracy
Matthew Parris.

AT TIMES of national emergency, the habit of the news media to drop a story or a lead in mid-air when it seems to be going nowhere unsettles the public. The media betray a sort of sheepish wish to “move on” from an erroneous report, hoping that their audience will not notice. Rather than acknowledge this, they publish a new report, leaving us to compare it with what had previously been said — and draw our own conclusions. Or they start barking up a different tree, the inference being that the last tree may have been the wrong tree.

The habit is more disliked by listeners and readers than I think editors appreciate. Perhaps the first item on each day’s news agenda should be “matters arising from yesterday’s news”. News editors would then do us the courtesy of explaining where some of those stories went.

Immediately after July 7 it was prominently reported that the explosions “bore all the hallmarks” of the use of a type of high-grade military explosive whose presence would indicate a sophisticated international dimension to the bombings. We were alerted to a likely al-Qaeda link.

Then the news went silent. Then it was announced that tests showed the explosive to be of a home-made (or home-makeable) kind that al-Qaeda were known to know about from the internet. Then that story, too, seemed to fizzle out.

I have seen no explanation of how the initial assessment of the type of explosive could have been the reverse of the truth, and no acknowledgement of error from those who made it. Nor has the al-Qaeda/internet angle been followed up. The most recent assessments (Kevin Toolis in The Times yesterday) have suggested that there was nothing special or “hallmarked” about the explosive at all.

Immediately after the first bombing, a report was splashed that two people had been arrested trying to leave Heathrow. The later report that they had been released without charge appeared as little more than a footnote.

A few days after that, much was made of the arrest in Egypt of a British Muslim whom the less-scrupulous news reports called a “chemist” (he is a biochemist). There was talk of British agents attending (or joining) his interrogation in Cairo. A statement from the Egyptian authorities denying that they had linked him to the bombing or that he was on their list of al-Qaeda suspects, did receive momentary attention — and then the story seemed to die. I do not know what has happened to it, or him.

Then there were some big headlines about an alleged “al-Qaeda operative” who had “slipped” into Britain, and slipped out — just before the bombings. But it transpired that he was low on our counter-terrorist services’ lists of security threats — and that story, too, has disappeared.

Then there was an arrest in Pakistan of an alleged “al-Qaeda mastermind”, about which reports have become increasingly confused, dropping from their early position as leading news items. I do not know where we are now on these reports. If I understood them correctly, what helped to trace this mastermind were records of calls made to him by all, or some, of the four July 7 bombers from their mobile phones.

If anyone has asked (or answered) a question that surely occurred to millions of us, then I have yet to hear of it: why did the bombers not take the elementary precaution of phoning the mastermind from a telephone box? Just how master was this mind? Is it not a curious way of operating a terrorist network, if the terrorists are to call their mastermind on their mobile phones, then take the phones with them on their bombing spree?

This is only a small sample of the deadends (or possible deadends) in the July 7 and July 21 stories. You will have noticed many others. You will notice, too, that every one tends in the same direction. Each report, when first we read it, accentuated the impression that we face a formidable, capable, extensive and well-organised terrorist movement, with important links abroad, and that is almost certainly being masterminded from abroad.

And indeed we may. Nothing — I repeat, nothing — I write here is meant to exclude that possibility. Some of the scares that grip our headlines and imaginations do later turn out to have been every bit the threat we thought they were. I have not the least idea what may be the size, shape and competence of al-Qaeda and would not dream of suggesting (and do not believe) that they are uninvolved.

Nor do I mean to downplay the horrors that have hit London: death and destruction are death and destruction, whoever causes them.

Nor do I want to imply doubt about the scale of the horrors that may lie ahead. Home-grown or foreign-born, at whatever level of competence, and whether a concerted campaign or demented craze, this kind of thing is deadly and difficult to combat.

My purpose is more limited. To alert you to the enormous, insidious and mostly unconscious pressure that exists to talk up, rather than talk down, the efficacy of al-Qaeda. When all the pressures are to talk up a lethal characterisation of the forces at work, we need to be supercool in the way we look at these reports.

You have read much about the threat of one particular conspiracy. Here is another. There is an unwitting conspiracy between four separate powers to represent the worldwide al-Qaeda network as fiendishly clever, powerfully effective and deeply involved in the London bombings.

First, the news media. Al-Qaeda is a “narrative” and a gripping one. Everybody loves a mystery story. Everybody loves a thriller. Everybody needs a plot. All journalists have an in-built tendency to make links between things and find unifying forces at work. A series of random and unrelated facts makes for a shapeless account. Report without implicit explanation is baffling and finally boring. No British journalist I know would invent or consciously distort a report in order to exaggerate the involvement of al-Qaeda; but most of us are drawn to explanations that, well, explain.

Secondly, the Government. I would not be so rude or stupid as to suggest that ministers take any sort of satisfaction from terrorist atrocities. But leadership is made easier if there is a visible, tangible threat; and easier still if it can be represented as completely alien. Us v Them is the narrative a politician is most at home with. The BBC’s The Power of Nightmares made an important point: fear silences opposition, and governments walk tallest when an external threat can be identified and they can lead us against it. “Evil” is a more convenient opponent than stupidity, inadequacy and human dysfunction. We hold our leaders’ hands a little more tightly in the dark.

Thirdly, the security services. The police, British Intelligence, and our counter-terrorism apparatus, are all flattered in their work by headlines that suggest that the enemy is formidable, incredibly sophisticated and hard to catch. Any failure on the part of our security services to detect in advance or prevent a terrorist outrage, or to catch the terrorists afterwards, is easily explained if the terrorist movement is widely agreed to be fiendishly clever and well organised. It is not flattering to a counter-terrorism chief to suggest that his quarry is a muppet. The tale of a police mastermind calls for a criminal mastermind, too.

Finally, of course, the terrorist himself. A reputation for fearsomeness and sophistication is nothing but a boon not only to his self-esteem, but also to his efforts to recruit others to his cause. Never think that speeches about the wickedness and cruelty of al-Qaeda do other than burnish the legend.

From a certain point of view, the journalist, the politician, the police chief and the terrorist can be seen as locked in a macabre waltz of the mind, no less distorting for being unconscious. We should not to join that dance.