Wednesday, November 10, 2010

7/7: The world is not black or white.

Yesterday it was widely reported in the media that a severely injured survivor of 7/7 had told the inquest into the bombings how he witnessed Mohammed Sidique Khan blow himself up from just a few feet away. Not surprisingly, debunkers have seized upon this as proof that there was no conspiracy. One of the commenters on the Daily Mail article writes:

"So where are the "7/7 was an inside job" commenters? This survivor saw who did it, as he did it."
- Kip Hamilton, Virginia USA, 9/11/2010 4:10, Rating ↑76


Also not surprisingly, the conspiracy world has come up with all kinds of theories about how this man's account could be a fabrication - either he's somehow in on it, or he's been threatened, or he's under mind control, or he's had false memories implanted etc.

The logic behind these theories is mostly circular: 'This evidence contradicts my beliefs, therefore it must be false!'

It certainly is possible that he could be mistaken. As we have noted on this blog before, in response to the claims of the Citizen Investigation Team, there have been cases of victims of sexual assault misidentifying their own abuser. But let's just for the sake of argument assume this man's story is accurate... So what?!

I've studied a number of scientific and historical controversies over the past couple of years, including the 9/11 debate, the climate change debate, the vaccine/natural health debate and the creation/evolution debate, and one common thing I notice from both sides of each of these controversies is a false perception of the debates as being 'black versus white' issues.

The 9/11 debunkers, for example, seem to think that evidence that Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda was involved in the attacks somehow counts against alternative theories, as if it's one or the other, but it's not that simple. You could produce an unquestionably authentic, high definition video of Bin Laden, KSM, the 19 hijackers etc. sat round a table planning their operation and it still wouldn't convince me of the government's innocence. All it would prove is that one pawn really was involved, but all the evidence that points to a much larger chess game is still valid. Sadly, even many truthers don't see this, so they spend alot of time contesting evidence of the pawn's guilt, which is often counter productive and leads to pointless debates and unfounded speculation.

It's the same thing with 7/7. Even if you could prove beyond all doubt that the four accused men really were on the trains and really did blow themselves up, it doesn't falsify evidence of foreknowledge or explain away the 'coincidence' of Peter Power's simultaneous training exercises or the fact that the explosives appeared from the devastation to be "of military origin". It seems to me that focusing on anomalies with the train times, the CCTV footage, witness statements etc. to try and prove the bombers were never even there is exactly what they want. The supposed anomalies may have even been deliberate to trap us into doing just that.

"If they can get you asking the wrong questions,
they don't have to worry about answers."

~ Thomas Pynchon

Related Info:

7/7 The Big Picture

The BBC Ripple Effect: Exposing the Lies and Distortions of "The Conspiracy Files-7/7"

BBC 7/7 "Documentary": Just a hitpiece, or something more sinister?

7/7 Crash Course London Bombings Data Page