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"There has been a series of incorrect statements made by the authorities. The July 7 bombs were initially said to have exploded over almost an hour. The timing of the Tube train attacks was later narrowed to a matter of seconds. Incorrect information was also given about the directions in which the trains were travelling.
The July 7 bombers were described as “clean skins” who had not crossed the intelligence radar. But one had been linked to another investigation a year ago and two travelled to Pakistan, where they had contact with al-Qaeda radicals.
The description of the explosive material recovered in Luton and Leeds varied, but sources have admitted that they cannot definitively identify it."
31 July 2005
The Times in Fact-Check Shocker
30 July 2005
Everyone's a Terrorist
Which one concerns you more, the dark figure on the left with a bomb-belt and carrying a black-rucksack-bomb, or the one on the right carrying the latest in home-made, household-explosive baby-bombs?
Also, quite why are we so fascinated with people believed to be suspects on July 21st for however-many-it-is-today non-events and non-deaths when anyone with a handful of brain cells to rub together would rather know what really happened on July 7th, the day when several events happened and resulted in 56 deaths?
Also, quite why are we so fascinated with people believed to be suspects on July 21st for however-many-it-is-today non-events and non-deaths when anyone with a handful of brain cells to rub together would rather know what really happened on July 7th, the day when several events happened and resulted in 56 deaths?
Anthony Larkin: Rentaquote & London Terror?
Here is an interesting little development.
A much quoted eye-witness to the police murder of innocent Brazilian Jean Charles de Menezes may have a little more depth of character than just someone who happened to be there.
A Mr Anthony Larkin, allegedly "a care assistant, from Hartlepool, Teesside" is cited in a large number of stories about the murder of de Menezes saying, "bomb belt with wires coming out", presumably about de Menezes who wasn't wearing a bulky jacket that immediately turns the wearer into a terrorist, nor did he jump ticket barriers as was widely reported at the time.
Larkin's quote is listed elsewhere as:
and,
As we all know, Larkin's account transpired to be completely false, a fact supported by other eye-witnesses quoted at the time [BBC, Sierra Times, CBS, Fox] and the total lack of anything vaguely suspicious found on de Menezes dead body after it had been pumped full of bullets at close range.
What is especially interesting is that an Anthony Larkin has been quoted by the BBC and other news sources before. Last time round was in relation to the murder of Louise Tiffney where, at the time, Anthony Larkin was working on behalf of a private company, Forensic Alliance Ltd and is reported to have worked on "400 crime scene investigations".
Might these two Anthony Larkins happen to be one and the same Anthony Larkin?
Might these two Anthony Larkins quoted from separate crime scenes also happen to be one and the same Anthony Larkin as that of Lead Scientist, Metropolitan Police Forensic Science Department fame, and who is listed as such at Queen Mary University of London?
If so, this would explain why the Anthony Larkin at the scene of de Menezes murder was responsible for the oft-quoted and entirely misleading eye-witness account of the unfortunate victim's appearance.
There is no question that Larkin's account lends at least a little to the illusion that there might have been some justification for plain clothes police officers to murder an innocent, unarmed and defenceless man, but only if Larkin's statement is accepted at face value, without question, and without fully validating the source of the information.
Oh, just for the record, Larkin's words are sourced from an interview given to Radio 5 Live, the same radio station via which Peter Power added his two-penneth worth to the day's events.
A much quoted eye-witness to the police murder of innocent Brazilian Jean Charles de Menezes may have a little more depth of character than just someone who happened to be there.
A Mr Anthony Larkin, allegedly "a care assistant, from Hartlepool, Teesside" is cited in a large number of stories about the murder of de Menezes saying, "bomb belt with wires coming out", presumably about de Menezes who wasn't wearing a bulky jacket that immediately turns the wearer into a terrorist, nor did he jump ticket barriers as was widely reported at the time.
Larkin's quote is listed elsewhere as:
"I saw the police officers shouting, 'Get down, get down!', and I saw this guy who appears to have a bomb belt and wires coming out."and,Source: CBS News
“The officers were shouting, ‘Get down, get down’. I immediately hit the ground. I saw the man fall over and then I heard two shots that I believe went into his back.
“There was lots of panicking, people ran screaming out of the station and they were keeping their heads down. I just got up and joined them, running as fast as I could.”Source: Times Online
and,
"I saw these police officers in uniform and out of uniform shouting 'get down, get down', and I saw this guy who appeared to have a bomb belt and wires coming out and people were panicking and I heard two shots being fired."Source: BBC News
As we all know, Larkin's account transpired to be completely false, a fact supported by other eye-witnesses quoted at the time [BBC, Sierra Times, CBS, Fox] and the total lack of anything vaguely suspicious found on de Menezes dead body after it had been pumped full of bullets at close range.
What is especially interesting is that an Anthony Larkin has been quoted by the BBC and other news sources before. Last time round was in relation to the murder of Louise Tiffney where, at the time, Anthony Larkin was working on behalf of a private company, Forensic Alliance Ltd and is reported to have worked on "400 crime scene investigations".
Might these two Anthony Larkins happen to be one and the same Anthony Larkin?
Might these two Anthony Larkins quoted from separate crime scenes also happen to be one and the same Anthony Larkin as that of Lead Scientist, Metropolitan Police Forensic Science Department fame, and who is listed as such at Queen Mary University of London?
If so, this would explain why the Anthony Larkin at the scene of de Menezes murder was responsible for the oft-quoted and entirely misleading eye-witness account of the unfortunate victim's appearance.
There is no question that Larkin's account lends at least a little to the illusion that there might have been some justification for plain clothes police officers to murder an innocent, unarmed and defenceless man, but only if Larkin's statement is accepted at face value, without question, and without fully validating the source of the information.
Oh, just for the record, Larkin's words are sourced from an interview given to Radio 5 Live, the same radio station via which Peter Power added his two-penneth worth to the day's events.
28 July 2005
London 7/7: In Response to Bridget Dunne
Update: For detailed and in depth analysis of the events that occurred in London on 7th July 2005, please see the web site of J7: The July 7th Truth Campaign. Please also sign the J7 RELEASE THE EVIDENCE Petition which calls on the British government to release the evidence that will conclusively prove or disprove, beyond reasonable doubt, the official story of what happened on 7/7.
For a full analysis of the simultaneous anti-terror rehearsal drill referred to in this post, the drill that was being conducted by Peter Power and Visor Consultants on 7/7 please see here.
For a full analysis of the simultaneous anti-terror rehearsal drill referred to in this post, the drill that was being conducted by Peter Power and Visor Consultants on 7/7 please see here.
"there could have been had [sic] a power surge which could have had quite catastrophic casualty levels.
We have always been aware of that on the Underground."
London resident Bridget Dunne wrote a letter to the Camden New Journal (Page 15, Letters, 21 July) outlining her concerns that all might not be quite as the media portrays it with regard to the events of 7/7 and the incidents that have or, in fact, haven't happened since. Yesterday, Bridget kindly added some additional information in a comment on this post.
The Antagonist would like to thank Bridget for her comments, the information contained there-in, say, "there's more - a mysterious unexplained fifth device", and state that where any relevant information is repeated, it is far better that the facts are repeated than to forget that a few facts do still exist in amongst the ongoing media hysteria which seems to ignore them entirely.
As explained in detail in this post, The Antagonist is of the opinion that the 'exploding' bus was a component part of Peter Power's 1,000 man exercise in central London on the morning of 7/7 and has been used to create the illusion that something other than corporate manslaughter is responsible for the horrific deaths on the London Underground that day. This theory also explains many anomalies of the Number 30 bus journey, including an almost packed top deck of people left standing, apparently otherwise unharmed, after the 'explosion' that managed to blow the roof clean off the bus (see photos in this post). It also explains why the bus was curiously diverted from its normal route along Euston Road into Tavistock Square where it 'exploded'.
Why was the bus diverted to Tavistock Square? Well, according to the information posted in the comments elsewhere on this blog, Tavistock Square contains none other than:
This information is true and knowing for whom the crisis management exercise was organised is a key piece of information in understanding the events of 7/7. That Peter Power has since claimed commercial confidentiality for his exercise to remove himself from the loop of questioning is utter nonsense, especially in light of the massive international anti-terrorist hunt that is the focus of global media attention. Then again, he is an ex-Scotland Yard anti-terror operative so he's undoubtedly still having a number of off-the-record conversations with senior ex-colleagues at some level.
If plain clothes policemen who are not required to identify themselves as such can shoot innocent individuals, offer token apologies for such a travesty, and in the same breath say, "there's going to be more shootings of innocent people" without causing consternation, surely they can stretch to asking Peter Power, Visor Consultants, Fortress GB, ICTS, and associated organisations a few questions about what they were up to on July 7th? And, if the police won't do it, what happened to the concept of journalistic integrity and following facts and valid leads rather than generating mindless rumour and speculation?
Fortress GB and ICTS (UK) Ltd are precisely the type of organisations for whom Peter Power's Visor Consultants might organise a large 1,000-man crisis management exercise and The Antagonist does not believe that any confidentiality can be claimed by any party involved in that exercise in light of the ongoing international anti-terrorist hunt. Yet, if The Antagonist were to suggest that Peter Power be given the same right to confidentiality as Jean Charles de Menezes had when plain clothes police officers bundled him and shot him in the head seven times while sitting on top of him, there would, no doubt, be an outrage.
When considering the notion of the exploding bus being a product of Peter Power's crisis management exercise, it is crucial to remember that prior knowledge of these exercises is kept to a minimum - a strictly need-to-know basis - to ensure that the emergency services and the individuals involved react naturally and 'treat it as real as possible'.
If you don't inform the emergency services, you certainly don't inform members of the general public either and, as no-one would tolerate the random exploding of innocent civilians as part of routine crisis management exercises that take place all the time, these exercises employ clever pyrotechnics, stuntmen, and actors ('players' as Peter Power refers to them) to portray the parts of the 'civilians' and 'victims' involved in the crisis to be managed - just like in the movies where lots of things go bang all the time leaving lots of apparently horrific walking wounded, dead people and body parts in the aftermath.
This is precisely how you blow the roof clean off a diverted double-decker bus and leave a bundle of people standing on the top deck looking otherwise unharmed because, being hired hands, they knew the roof was going to be lifted off, with the back of the bus being the source of the energy required to do so. The Antagonist has no access to the remnants of the bus to determine whether the bus curiously diverted to Tavistock Square had been otherwise tampered with to create the devastating appearance and leave a top deck full of survivors but this must also be considered as a factor in the staging of a realistic 1,000 man crisis simulation exercise.
As Islam is a common media theme in connection with events of the last three weeks, the perfect analogy for the bus being diverted to end-up in front of Fortress GB's offices while a 1,000-man crisis management exercise that they might have organised was being conducted, is that of, "if the mountain won't come to Mohammed, Mohammed must go to the mountain." Far easier to move a specially designed transportation device to be in front of the offices of a company who may have organised the 1,000-man crisis management exercise than it is to move the offices of the company to the transportation device. To undertake the latter would of course involve rather widespread prior knowledge and we already know prior knowledge doesn't apply in these rehearsal situations. Even the driver didn't know, but he was never going to be harmed, which is why he can be interviewed as a genuine victim of a 'bomb blast'.
If The Antagonist's observations are correct and the Number 30 bus full of stuntmen and actors was diverted as part of Peter Power's 1,000 man crisis management exercise in Central London into Tavistock Square and 'exploded' in front of the offices of Fortress GB, then we are left only with the simultaneous 'exploding' trains to explain which MetroNet and the media attributed for some time on the day to a power surge. This is a perfectly normal and rational explanation for what occurred, supports the survivor accounts perfectly and yet this story has somehow become an incredulous conspiracy that is beyond the realms of comprehension.
It is the belief of The Antagonist that the original power surge story was changed when it was recognised quite how many people had been killed by the power surge. Somewhere along the line, in the upper echelons of the corridors of power, it was decided that, the blood from another UK rail tragedy would, yet again, not be found on corporate hands.
If this is what did indeed occur, then perhaps it might fall to someone with the wit, resources and connections of the ex-Manager of Intelligence Operations at the CIA and then Executive Assistant to the Director of the CIA, none other than London Underground Commissioner Robert Kiley, to dream-up such a cunning cover-up for the needless deaths that occurred on an Underground system under his watch.
You can fill the media with nonsense about terrorists and bombs for which little or no real evidence appears to exist, and you can hunt down all the off-white people the world over in a global crusade against Islam as is glaringly evident. You can even shoot innocent people seven times in the head in supposedly free and democractic countries on the basis of no justification at all, just because they look a little different to an anachronistic concept of what an Englishman might look like. You can do all of this with no little or no comeback and you can also then go on to say that you're going to do it all again.
But, you can only get away with this irrational madness, all of which is based on unfounded 'beliefs', 'coulds', and 'mights', and on the information from anonymous 'security experts' 'intelligence experts' and 'police sources', if the world is convinced that there are terrorists everywhere.
You can also only get away with it, while those that are still imbued with the innate gift of curiosity are in the minority. Those days are long gone and the powers that be know it. They created the Internet to save themselves from Communists and in the process of so doing created an Internet media revolution that liberated information for everyone, thereby enabling the opinions of everyone - no matter how valid - to be read the world over, right alongside the now largely outdated opinions of the supposedly educated few.
You can get away with the media madness as described above for a time. What you cannot do is change the few facts that underlie what actually occurred on the fateful day of July 7, 2005. Nor can you change the truth which links those precious few facts together.
The truth, like so many other things, cannot be suppressed indefinitely and, in the absence of any visible media cooperation to so do, it is down to the people of the United Kingdom - the likes of Bridget Dunne and anyone else that dares to question the facts such as we can know anything to be - to ensure that the truth is reached.
Sooner would be infinitely better than later.
The Antagonist would like to thank Bridget for her comments, the information contained there-in, say, "there's more - a mysterious unexplained fifth device", and state that where any relevant information is repeated, it is far better that the facts are repeated than to forget that a few facts do still exist in amongst the ongoing media hysteria which seems to ignore them entirely.
As explained in detail in this post, The Antagonist is of the opinion that the 'exploding' bus was a component part of Peter Power's 1,000 man exercise in central London on the morning of 7/7 and has been used to create the illusion that something other than corporate manslaughter is responsible for the horrific deaths on the London Underground that day. This theory also explains many anomalies of the Number 30 bus journey, including an almost packed top deck of people left standing, apparently otherwise unharmed, after the 'explosion' that managed to blow the roof clean off the bus (see photos in this post). It also explains why the bus was curiously diverted from its normal route along Euston Road into Tavistock Square where it 'exploded'.
Why was the bus diverted to Tavistock Square? Well, according to the information posted in the comments elsewhere on this blog, Tavistock Square contains none other than:
"Fortress GB, located at Tavistock House, Tavistock Square, partners to ICTS (UK) Ltd, - railway security management specialists who are engaged in several security projects for London Underground."
This information is true and knowing for whom the crisis management exercise was organised is a key piece of information in understanding the events of 7/7. That Peter Power has since claimed commercial confidentiality for his exercise to remove himself from the loop of questioning is utter nonsense, especially in light of the massive international anti-terrorist hunt that is the focus of global media attention. Then again, he is an ex-Scotland Yard anti-terror operative so he's undoubtedly still having a number of off-the-record conversations with senior ex-colleagues at some level.
If plain clothes policemen who are not required to identify themselves as such can shoot innocent individuals, offer token apologies for such a travesty, and in the same breath say, "there's going to be more shootings of innocent people" without causing consternation, surely they can stretch to asking Peter Power, Visor Consultants, Fortress GB, ICTS, and associated organisations a few questions about what they were up to on July 7th? And, if the police won't do it, what happened to the concept of journalistic integrity and following facts and valid leads rather than generating mindless rumour and speculation?
Fortress GB and ICTS (UK) Ltd are precisely the type of organisations for whom Peter Power's Visor Consultants might organise a large 1,000-man crisis management exercise and The Antagonist does not believe that any confidentiality can be claimed by any party involved in that exercise in light of the ongoing international anti-terrorist hunt. Yet, if The Antagonist were to suggest that Peter Power be given the same right to confidentiality as Jean Charles de Menezes had when plain clothes police officers bundled him and shot him in the head seven times while sitting on top of him, there would, no doubt, be an outrage.
When considering the notion of the exploding bus being a product of Peter Power's crisis management exercise, it is crucial to remember that prior knowledge of these exercises is kept to a minimum - a strictly need-to-know basis - to ensure that the emergency services and the individuals involved react naturally and 'treat it as real as possible'.
If you don't inform the emergency services, you certainly don't inform members of the general public either and, as no-one would tolerate the random exploding of innocent civilians as part of routine crisis management exercises that take place all the time, these exercises employ clever pyrotechnics, stuntmen, and actors ('players' as Peter Power refers to them) to portray the parts of the 'civilians' and 'victims' involved in the crisis to be managed - just like in the movies where lots of things go bang all the time leaving lots of apparently horrific walking wounded, dead people and body parts in the aftermath.
This is precisely how you blow the roof clean off a diverted double-decker bus and leave a bundle of people standing on the top deck looking otherwise unharmed because, being hired hands, they knew the roof was going to be lifted off, with the back of the bus being the source of the energy required to do so. The Antagonist has no access to the remnants of the bus to determine whether the bus curiously diverted to Tavistock Square had been otherwise tampered with to create the devastating appearance and leave a top deck full of survivors but this must also be considered as a factor in the staging of a realistic 1,000 man crisis simulation exercise.
As Islam is a common media theme in connection with events of the last three weeks, the perfect analogy for the bus being diverted to end-up in front of Fortress GB's offices while a 1,000-man crisis management exercise that they might have organised was being conducted, is that of, "if the mountain won't come to Mohammed, Mohammed must go to the mountain." Far easier to move a specially designed transportation device to be in front of the offices of a company who may have organised the 1,000-man crisis management exercise than it is to move the offices of the company to the transportation device. To undertake the latter would of course involve rather widespread prior knowledge and we already know prior knowledge doesn't apply in these rehearsal situations. Even the driver didn't know, but he was never going to be harmed, which is why he can be interviewed as a genuine victim of a 'bomb blast'.
If The Antagonist's observations are correct and the Number 30 bus full of stuntmen and actors was diverted as part of Peter Power's 1,000 man crisis management exercise in Central London into Tavistock Square and 'exploded' in front of the offices of Fortress GB, then we are left only with the simultaneous 'exploding' trains to explain which MetroNet and the media attributed for some time on the day to a power surge. This is a perfectly normal and rational explanation for what occurred, supports the survivor accounts perfectly and yet this story has somehow become an incredulous conspiracy that is beyond the realms of comprehension.
It is the belief of The Antagonist that the original power surge story was changed when it was recognised quite how many people had been killed by the power surge. Somewhere along the line, in the upper echelons of the corridors of power, it was decided that, the blood from another UK rail tragedy would, yet again, not be found on corporate hands.
If this is what did indeed occur, then perhaps it might fall to someone with the wit, resources and connections of the ex-Manager of Intelligence Operations at the CIA and then Executive Assistant to the Director of the CIA, none other than London Underground Commissioner Robert Kiley, to dream-up such a cunning cover-up for the needless deaths that occurred on an Underground system under his watch.
You can fill the media with nonsense about terrorists and bombs for which little or no real evidence appears to exist, and you can hunt down all the off-white people the world over in a global crusade against Islam as is glaringly evident. You can even shoot innocent people seven times in the head in supposedly free and democractic countries on the basis of no justification at all, just because they look a little different to an anachronistic concept of what an Englishman might look like. You can do all of this with no little or no comeback and you can also then go on to say that you're going to do it all again.
But, you can only get away with this irrational madness, all of which is based on unfounded 'beliefs', 'coulds', and 'mights', and on the information from anonymous 'security experts' 'intelligence experts' and 'police sources', if the world is convinced that there are terrorists everywhere.
You can also only get away with it, while those that are still imbued with the innate gift of curiosity are in the minority. Those days are long gone and the powers that be know it. They created the Internet to save themselves from Communists and in the process of so doing created an Internet media revolution that liberated information for everyone, thereby enabling the opinions of everyone - no matter how valid - to be read the world over, right alongside the now largely outdated opinions of the supposedly educated few.
You can get away with the media madness as described above for a time. What you cannot do is change the few facts that underlie what actually occurred on the fateful day of July 7, 2005. Nor can you change the truth which links those precious few facts together.
The truth, like so many other things, cannot be suppressed indefinitely and, in the absence of any visible media cooperation to so do, it is down to the people of the United Kingdom - the likes of Bridget Dunne and anyone else that dares to question the facts such as we can know anything to be - to ensure that the truth is reached.
Sooner would be infinitely better than later.
24 July 2005
Police chief 'sorry' over death
(But he's not really, it's OK to shoot innocent people in the head, apparently).
Travelling in London? Carrying a rucksack? Wearing some sort of jacket or overgarment? Wires from your mobile phone or music-machine of choice protruding from your clothing?
If so, you better watch out because you, yes you reading this, are now fair game for the trigger happy enforcers.
If you're off-white, doubly so.
Those outside London needn't worry or feel left out if their local forces aren't waving shiny new guns around just yet as armed police will be in a neighbourhood near you soon.
The Antagonist wonders quite when the sound of the Metropolitan Police Commissioner announcing that innocents will be readily shot by armed police irrespective of guilt, evidence, or valid suspicion might cause any degree of consternation among the general public.
What if a plain-clothes officer who, as The Antagonist understands it, isn't required to identify themselves as such, points a gun at your head and starts barking orders? Do you assume that it's an enforcer of 'the law', or do your survival instincts take over in the only fight-or-flight manner the reptilian brain that keeps you alive knows?
The shooting at point-blank range of Jean Charles de Menezes, an innocent man who became the first victim of weeks of mindless panic, hysteria and confusion, will be remembered for ever as the day that British government enforcers printed themselves a license to shoot anyone they like, any time they like, guilty, innocent, or otherwise.
As Ian Blair trots out the standard apology that makes amends for nothing a la, "Our quick-witted officers thought it was a terrorist so it's ok", commuters in London might want to consider investing in bulletproof clothing and some serious head protection because, now, it doesn't matter whether you are guilty of anything or not, you too can be shot dead by the police and, perhaps, questions will be asked later.
Travelling in London? Carrying a rucksack? Wearing some sort of jacket or overgarment? Wires from your mobile phone or music-machine of choice protruding from your clothing?
If so, you better watch out because you, yes you reading this, are now fair game for the trigger happy enforcers.
If you're off-white, doubly so.
"Met Police chief Sir Ian Blair has apologised to the family of the Brazilian man shot dead by police in south London on Friday.One innocent death at the hands of his forces is obviously not enough for Sir Ian and his boys who have been itching to get all tooled-up since the days of the IRA (and even the IRA didn't swing it in their favour), so we have all been warned to expect more innocent people being shot as the Metropolitan Police ease us closer to their Utopic vision of an armed police force.
He said the death of Jean Charles de Menezes was a 'tragedy', but admitted more people could be shot as police hunt suspected suicide bombers."
Those outside London needn't worry or feel left out if their local forces aren't waving shiny new guns around just yet as armed police will be in a neighbourhood near you soon.
The Antagonist wonders quite when the sound of the Metropolitan Police Commissioner announcing that innocents will be readily shot by armed police irrespective of guilt, evidence, or valid suspicion might cause any degree of consternation among the general public.
What if a plain-clothes officer who, as The Antagonist understands it, isn't required to identify themselves as such, points a gun at your head and starts barking orders? Do you assume that it's an enforcer of 'the law', or do your survival instincts take over in the only fight-or-flight manner the reptilian brain that keeps you alive knows?
The shooting at point-blank range of Jean Charles de Menezes, an innocent man who became the first victim of weeks of mindless panic, hysteria and confusion, will be remembered for ever as the day that British government enforcers printed themselves a license to shoot anyone they like, any time they like, guilty, innocent, or otherwise.
As Ian Blair trots out the standard apology that makes amends for nothing a la, "Our quick-witted officers thought it was a terrorist so it's ok", commuters in London might want to consider investing in bulletproof clothing and some serious head protection because, now, it doesn't matter whether you are guilty of anything or not, you too can be shot dead by the police and, perhaps, questions will be asked later.
21 July 2005
Three Tube Trains & One London Bus - Part Deux
The Antagonist is proud to present all you need to know about the events in London of 21/7 and which probably won't make the news in many other places:
Yet again the media ignores in its headlines what the Metropolitan Police Commissioner has to say about events in the city he is charged with policing.
1545: Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair says the situation is "fully under control". He says there is no indication of chemical or other attack, and that there has been only one casualty - not a fatality.At the time of writing, and despite proclaiming Sir Ian Blair's categorical statement elsewhere on their web site, the BBC News front page still claims: "London blasts cause Tube chaos".
Yet again the media ignores in its headlines what the Metropolitan Police Commissioner has to say about events in the city he is charged with policing.
16 July 2005
Peter Power responds, so does The Antagonist
Update: For detailed and in depth analysis of the events that occurred in London on 7th July 2005, please see the web site of J7: The July 7th Truth Campaign. Please also sign the J7 RELEASE THE EVIDENCE Petition which calls on the British government to release the evidence that will conclusively prove or disprove, beyond reasonable doubt, the official story of what happened on 7/7.
For a full analysis of the simultaneous anti-terror rehearsal drill referred to in this post, the drill that was being conducted by Peter Power and Visor Consultants on 7/7 please see here.
For a full analysis of the simultaneous anti-terror rehearsal drill referred to in this post, the drill that was being conducted by Peter Power and Visor Consultants on 7/7 please see here.
"there could have been had [sic] a power surge which could have had quite catastrophic casualty levels.
We have always been aware of that on the Underground."
Peter Power of Visor Consultants has responded to a large number of emails asking questions that have arisen as a result of his announcement that he was conducting an anti-terror exercise of over 1,000 people in Central London at the time of the Underground disaster.
All text quoted below is taken, verbatim and in published order, from Peter Power's response to enquiries about the events of that day. Analysis is that of The Antagonist:
The Antagonist has no idea if any of those comments regarding analysis of strange coincidences on July 7 relates to The Antagonist's own humble musings on the subject but, either way, rather than naive / ignorant / hostile, The Antagonist counters with curious / questioning / seeking some semblance of explanation for the bizarre turn of events that day, which included a diverted bus that happened to go bang outside the offices of the organisation who allegedly organised the covert training scenario with Peter Power. [Note the use of the word, 'allegedly'. Never let it be said that The Antagonist carelessly bandies about unsubstantiated accusations like the rest of the world's media.]
The Antagonist doesn't believe this curiosity is entirely unreasonable in light of all the events that occurred on that day.
Furthermore, The Antagonist is not of the belief that Peter Power, or his organisation, were somehow involved in a conspiracy, or that any degree of prescience was revealed by his announcement of the exercise. Quite the contrary in fact.
The Antagonist is of the opinion that Peter Power's exercise only became intertwined in the story of the Underground disaster after Underground staff and management had the opportunity to witness first-hand the carnage caused by the power surge which MetroNet reported to passengers as causing the tube delays of that morning.
This raises more questions than it answers.
That phrase, 'at the same time'. Like it's being hammered home. 'Precisely' [Radio 5 interview], 'at the same time'. What are we to learn from this?
What were the 'walk through' scenarios' and how do they relate to what actually happened on the day?
Did the walkthroughs happen to include a demonstration of a bus exploding in front of the offices of Fortress GB, the people who allegedly (that word again) organised the training exercise with Visor Consultants?
This mention of the word 'confidentiality' has to be a nonsense given the events of the day and that those events are now the subject of a rather serious anti-terrorist enquiry that is now international in nature. Information can be revealed about what occurred without necessarily breaching the confidentiality of any parties involved. The latter in no way precludes the former.
The Antagonist also doesn't quite see how anything about what occurred on that day could be considered to be confidential, especially if it somehow involved 'over a 1,000 people' [original interview quote], and 'walkthroughs... related directly to terrorist bombs at the same time as the ones that actually detonated with such tragic results.'
Perhaps a 'hijacked' or otherwise 'diverted' bus demonstration where the bus explodes in front of the offices of the company that allegedly hired Visor Consultants to organise the exercise, and which, in keeping with the nature of a training exercise, left a large number of people standing on the top deck, looking otherwise unharmed by the effects of a traditional bomb?
In response:
(a) Everyone knows these rehearsals occur. As Power states they are even reported with some regularity. This tells us nothing new. Why bother mentioning it?
(b) Disconcerting, definitely. For one and all. Hence all the questions, Mr Power. See?
OK, so now the numbers have changed from the rather boastful 'over 1,000' to 'just a few managers'. This bears something of an equivalence to MetroNet's story change from a power surge to 'Osama and his boys did it!"
'Players' is an interesting term, in context.
No matter, perhaps The Times will continue with their rather brilliant line of 'Ten questions that need answering' about the day where The Antagonist has it on good authority that they cleverly included a few very pertinent questions inside a list of ten. Namely:
1. Why did MetroNet claim a power surge and then change their story so drastically?
2.Why did the timings on the day change so dramatically?
There are plenty of others. Feel free to add your own.
All text quoted below is taken, verbatim and in published order, from Peter Power's response to enquiries about the events of that day. Analysis is that of The Antagonist:
"Thank you for your message.
Given the volume of emails about events on 7 July and a commonly expressed misguided belief that our exercise revealed prescient behaviour, or was somehow a conspiracy (noting that several websites interpreted our work that day in an inaccurate / naive / ignorant / hostile manner) it has been decided to issue a single email response as follows:"
The Antagonist has no idea if any of those comments regarding analysis of strange coincidences on July 7 relates to The Antagonist's own humble musings on the subject but, either way, rather than naive / ignorant / hostile, The Antagonist counters with curious / questioning / seeking some semblance of explanation for the bizarre turn of events that day, which included a diverted bus that happened to go bang outside the offices of the organisation who allegedly organised the covert training scenario with Peter Power. [Note the use of the word, 'allegedly'. Never let it be said that The Antagonist carelessly bandies about unsubstantiated accusations like the rest of the world's media.]
The Antagonist doesn't believe this curiosity is entirely unreasonable in light of all the events that occurred on that day.
Furthermore, The Antagonist is not of the belief that Peter Power, or his organisation, were somehow involved in a conspiracy, or that any degree of prescience was revealed by his announcement of the exercise. Quite the contrary in fact.
The Antagonist is of the opinion that Peter Power's exercise only became intertwined in the story of the Underground disaster after Underground staff and management had the opportunity to witness first-hand the carnage caused by the power surge which MetroNet reported to passengers as causing the tube delays of that morning.
"It is confirmed that a short number of 'walk through' scenarios planed [sic] well in advance had commenced that morning for a private company in London (as part of a wider project that remains confidential) and that two scenarios related directly to terrorist bombs at the same time as the ones that actually detonated with such tragic results."
This raises more questions than it answers.
That phrase, 'at the same time'. Like it's being hammered home. 'Precisely' [Radio 5 interview], 'at the same time'. What are we to learn from this?
What were the 'walk through' scenarios' and how do they relate to what actually happened on the day?
Did the walkthroughs happen to include a demonstration of a bus exploding in front of the offices of Fortress GB, the people who allegedly (that word again) organised the training exercise with Visor Consultants?
This mention of the word 'confidentiality' has to be a nonsense given the events of the day and that those events are now the subject of a rather serious anti-terrorist enquiry that is now international in nature. Information can be revealed about what occurred without necessarily breaching the confidentiality of any parties involved. The latter in no way precludes the former.
The Antagonist also doesn't quite see how anything about what occurred on that day could be considered to be confidential, especially if it somehow involved 'over a 1,000 people' [original interview quote], and 'walkthroughs... related directly to terrorist bombs at the same time as the ones that actually detonated with such tragic results.'
"One scenario in particular, was very similar to real time events."
Perhaps a 'hijacked' or otherwise 'diverted' bus demonstration where the bus explodes in front of the offices of the company that allegedly hired Visor Consultants to organise the exercise, and which, in keeping with the nature of a training exercise, left a large number of people standing on the top deck, looking otherwise unharmed by the effects of a traditional bomb?
"However, anyone with knowledge about such ongoing threats to our capital city will be aware that
(a) the emergency services have already practiced several of their own exercises based on bombs in the underground system (also reported by the main news channels) and
(b) a few months ago the BBC broadcast a similar documentary on the same theme, although with much worse consequences [??]. It is hardly surprising therefore, that we chose a feasible scenario - but the timing and script was nonetheless, a little disconcerting."
In response:
(a) Everyone knows these rehearsals occur. As Power states they are even reported with some regularity. This tells us nothing new. Why bother mentioning it?
(b) Disconcerting, definitely. For one and all. Hence all the questions, Mr Power. See?
"In short, our exercise (which involved just a few people as crisis managers actually responding to a simulated series of activities involving, on paper, 1000 staff) quickly became the real thing and the players that morning responded very well indeed to the sudden reality of events.
OK, so now the numbers have changed from the rather boastful 'over 1,000' to 'just a few managers'. This bears something of an equivalence to MetroNet's story change from a power surge to 'Osama and his boys did it!"
'Players' is an interesting term, in context.
"Beyond this no further comment will be made and based on the extraordinary number of messages from ill informed people, no replies will henceforth be given to anyone unable to demonstrate a bona fide reason for asking (e.g. accredited journalist / academic).
Peter Power"
No matter, perhaps The Times will continue with their rather brilliant line of 'Ten questions that need answering' about the day where The Antagonist has it on good authority that they cleverly included a few very pertinent questions inside a list of ten. Namely:
1. Why did MetroNet claim a power surge and then change their story so drastically?
2.Why did the timings on the day change so dramatically?
There are plenty of others. Feel free to add your own.
15 July 2005
G8 Debt Deal Under Threat at IMF
This didn't take long to get scuppered:
"Even before the ink has dried on proposals to relieve poor countries' debts to international lenders, the deal agreed by the G8 at Gleneagles is under threat.
A number of European governments are apparently having second thoughts about proposals for debt relief which formed a key part of the help world leaders offered to Africa at last week's summit."
BBC, Quality, The Decreasing Lack Thereof
From BBC News and in relation to Mohammad Sidique Khan, the teaching assistant from Leeds and the alleged 'bus bomber':
The incredibly dangerous implication of, "I had to go and buy the paper and show her", is that the paper might have contained some semblance of truth in it over the last 8 days and that we should all be enlightening our loved ones by jolly well going out, buying a paper, and showing everyone just how the paper says things are.
To assume that the papers have been printing anything with any semblance of truth in them with regard to the events of 7/7 is beyond ridiculous and provably so. Just spend a few minutes reading this blog and see if you don't agree.
It's not just the 'news' papers that are guilty of this mass-deception of the public either. The same is true of almost every single news report on television, on radio, in magazines, on web sites and on just about every blog that has devoted most of its time to regurgitating the same bullshit myths that are inciting fear and racial hatred all around the UK while doing nothing to explain the tragic events of July 7.
All of this incitement to fear and racial hatred (technically illegal) by the mass media is occurring on the basis of evidence of terrorists so overwhelmingly convincing that the Metropolitan Police Commissioner has to retract a statement containing the word 'bombers' immediately that he issues it.
What are we allowing to happen here?
Is opinion, speculation and rumour the function of our national and international news media?
Could it perhaps be that the news media should be doing something a little more constructive like investigating all the anomalies in all the unsubstantiated stories they are recycling, and which always seem to come from un-named 'police sources' or equally anonymous 'security experts'?
Maybe the media should be the ones investigating why the Number 30 bus that exploded had been diverted at the last minute, and one and half hours after disaster on the Underground, from its normal route along Euston Road to end up in Tavistock Square right in front of Fortress GB who now appear to have been part of Peter Power's 1,000 man security rehearsal operation in Central London?
Maybe the media should perhaps even mention that there are some huge anomalies in the story of 7/7 that are hitherto unexplained coherently anywhere other than here?
If the media isn't undertaking useful investigative journalism and asking questions such as this about issues as important as these, The Antagonist would like to suggest that it shuts the fuck up until such time as it has any discernible facts to report. And, no, this doesn't mean that the media should go quiet until it can cobble together a coherent story which doesn't fall apart at the slightest bit of questioning.
This way we can all turn our televisions and radios off, save a whole bundle of increasingly precious energy, and go about getting on with our lives as best we can until such time as there is anything vaguely useful to be learnt from doing otherwise.
For the time that the media isn't reporting facts that aid the enlightenment and understanding of all, we have to ask ourselves quite why they might be trying to confuse us so hysterically with stories that are nothing more than mindless speculation, lies and propaganda.
The Antagonist believes that a news media which serves these misguided purposes is not a news media that serves its viewing, listening and reading public any longer, and that such a media either needs to reform itself radically and start dealing in the business of facts, or we all are forced to assign the same value to the content that we view as the media does to the the content that it produces. Zero.
If anyone's got a problem with this, go and explain quite how you arrived at your errant notions and points of view to Sir Ian Blair who, at the time of writing, didn't want to use the word 'bombers' in relation to what happened on July 7.
"He was a good man, quiet," said one parent, speaking outside the school.What utter nonsense!
"When I told my daughter she said 'no, he can't do something like that.
"I had to go and buy the paper and show her."
The incredibly dangerous implication of, "I had to go and buy the paper and show her", is that the paper might have contained some semblance of truth in it over the last 8 days and that we should all be enlightening our loved ones by jolly well going out, buying a paper, and showing everyone just how the paper says things are.
To assume that the papers have been printing anything with any semblance of truth in them with regard to the events of 7/7 is beyond ridiculous and provably so. Just spend a few minutes reading this blog and see if you don't agree.
It's not just the 'news' papers that are guilty of this mass-deception of the public either. The same is true of almost every single news report on television, on radio, in magazines, on web sites and on just about every blog that has devoted most of its time to regurgitating the same bullshit myths that are inciting fear and racial hatred all around the UK while doing nothing to explain the tragic events of July 7.
All of this incitement to fear and racial hatred (technically illegal) by the mass media is occurring on the basis of evidence of terrorists so overwhelmingly convincing that the Metropolitan Police Commissioner has to retract a statement containing the word 'bombers' immediately that he issues it.
What are we allowing to happen here?
Is opinion, speculation and rumour the function of our national and international news media?
Could it perhaps be that the news media should be doing something a little more constructive like investigating all the anomalies in all the unsubstantiated stories they are recycling, and which always seem to come from un-named 'police sources' or equally anonymous 'security experts'?
Maybe the media should be the ones investigating why the Number 30 bus that exploded had been diverted at the last minute, and one and half hours after disaster on the Underground, from its normal route along Euston Road to end up in Tavistock Square right in front of Fortress GB who now appear to have been part of Peter Power's 1,000 man security rehearsal operation in Central London?
Maybe the media should perhaps even mention that there are some huge anomalies in the story of 7/7 that are hitherto unexplained coherently anywhere other than here?
If the media isn't undertaking useful investigative journalism and asking questions such as this about issues as important as these, The Antagonist would like to suggest that it shuts the fuck up until such time as it has any discernible facts to report. And, no, this doesn't mean that the media should go quiet until it can cobble together a coherent story which doesn't fall apart at the slightest bit of questioning.
This way we can all turn our televisions and radios off, save a whole bundle of increasingly precious energy, and go about getting on with our lives as best we can until such time as there is anything vaguely useful to be learnt from doing otherwise.
For the time that the media isn't reporting facts that aid the enlightenment and understanding of all, we have to ask ourselves quite why they might be trying to confuse us so hysterically with stories that are nothing more than mindless speculation, lies and propaganda.
The Antagonist believes that a news media which serves these misguided purposes is not a news media that serves its viewing, listening and reading public any longer, and that such a media either needs to reform itself radically and start dealing in the business of facts, or we all are forced to assign the same value to the content that we view as the media does to the the content that it produces. Zero.
If anyone's got a problem with this, go and explain quite how you arrived at your errant notions and points of view to Sir Ian Blair who, at the time of writing, didn't want to use the word 'bombers' in relation to what happened on July 7.
Just Desserts for Jarvis
Even if a company is allowed to get away with miking the government of our public funds for the dubious service of failing to maintain track and rolling stock adequately, it seems a rail company with a bad name has a hard time shaking that bad name off.
The effects of such a bad name are precisely (thanks Peter Power, that word has become The Antagonist's word of the moment) what can be seen to be happening to Jarvis PLC as their considerable losses grow and "fundamental uncertainties" exist about the financial mis-management company's ability to stay in business.
Not a moment too soon.
Maybe this news in conjunction with the Hatfield whitewash announcement of yesterday, and the events as they appear to be emerging on this blog of July 7, 2005, might give sufficient momentum to the notion that public transport should be in the hands of the people that use it.
When this happens, we will all be one step closer to a world where public services might then be run in the interests providing an affordable and useful service to the public, rather than unlimited supplies of funds to private enterprises that consistently, and at the expense of our lives, renege on the responsibilities that come with those unlimited supplies of our public funds.
The effects of such a bad name are precisely (thanks Peter Power, that word has become The Antagonist's word of the moment) what can be seen to be happening to Jarvis PLC as their considerable losses grow and "fundamental uncertainties" exist about the financial mis-management company's ability to stay in business.
Not a moment too soon.
Maybe this news in conjunction with the Hatfield whitewash announcement of yesterday, and the events as they appear to be emerging on this blog of July 7, 2005, might give sufficient momentum to the notion that public transport should be in the hands of the people that use it.
When this happens, we will all be one step closer to a world where public services might then be run in the interests providing an affordable and useful service to the public, rather than unlimited supplies of funds to private enterprises that consistently, and at the expense of our lives, renege on the responsibilities that come with those unlimited supplies of our public funds.
Visor Consultants, Fortress GB & ICTS (UK) Ltd
Yesterday, The Antagonist asked of readers, "Which organisations other than the British Medical Associatation are in the vicinity of Tavistock Square and with 1,000+ people for whom Visor Consultants might have been running a covert security operation?"
By way of anonymous comment (thanks, anonymous) the response came:
On the basis that the 'news' can trot out a silhouetted version of Darth Vader with an actors voice to try and indict an alleged bomber, The Antagonist believes an anonymous comment is at least equally as valid, if not considerably more so, and is certainly worth following up especially when the information contained in it is as relevant as this.
That Fortress GB might contract the services of Visor Consultants is entirely understandable and further, that they might be running an exercise based around, "simultaneous bombs going off precisely at the railway stations where it happened", especially given that "several security projects for London Underground" is the nature of Fortress GB's business.
You can also see how they might choose to conduct this operation outside of their offices in Tavistock Square, rather than move 1,000 people to a rehearsal environment. This probably explains the gentlemen in suits standing around, unharmed, in the photos of the aftermath of whatever happened to the bus.
Was the Number 30 bus already on route to Tavistock Square as part of this operation, or was it diverted after the rail authorities had evaluated the damage and deaths caused on the Underground by the power surge?
If anyone has any additional information that might help piece together events of the day in a methodical and logical manner, please feel free to add comments to the relevant post on the blog, or drop The Antagonist a mail at antagonised[at]hotmail.com.
By way of anonymous comment (thanks, anonymous) the response came:
"Fortress GB, located at Tavistock House, Tavistock Square, partners to ICTS (UK) Ltd, - railway security management specialists who are engaged in several security projects for London Underground."
On the basis that the 'news' can trot out a silhouetted version of Darth Vader with an actors voice to try and indict an alleged bomber, The Antagonist believes an anonymous comment is at least equally as valid, if not considerably more so, and is certainly worth following up especially when the information contained in it is as relevant as this.
That Fortress GB might contract the services of Visor Consultants is entirely understandable and further, that they might be running an exercise based around, "simultaneous bombs going off precisely at the railway stations where it happened", especially given that "several security projects for London Underground" is the nature of Fortress GB's business.
You can also see how they might choose to conduct this operation outside of their offices in Tavistock Square, rather than move 1,000 people to a rehearsal environment. This probably explains the gentlemen in suits standing around, unharmed, in the photos of the aftermath of whatever happened to the bus.
Was the Number 30 bus already on route to Tavistock Square as part of this operation, or was it diverted after the rail authorities had evaluated the damage and deaths caused on the Underground by the power surge?
If anyone has any additional information that might help piece together events of the day in a methodical and logical manner, please feel free to add comments to the relevant post on the blog, or drop The Antagonist a mail at antagonised[at]hotmail.com.
Sumner Redstone: Age of Media Conglomerate Over
"SUN VALLEY, Idaho - Sumner Redstone, one of the great empire-builders of the media world, on Friday said he had no regrets about his decision to break up Viacom Inc., the massive media company that owns MTV, CBS and the Paramount movie studio.
On a similar note, a Dutch judge, in keeping with the Dutch national pass-time of adopting incredibly reasonable approaches to everything such as the regulation of nature's plants, has ruled that five major Dutch ISPs must adopt the only reasonable approach to the privacy and rights of their customers in light of corporate bullying from Brein, an organisation which represents 53 media companies looking take some Dutch kids to court rather than adapt their business practices to meet the demands of the market.
Maybe Brein should pay attention to the wise words of Sumner Redstone, empire builder of the media world, if not those of The Antagonist.
Both stories via the excellent Digital Music Weblog.
"The age of the conglomerate is over," Redstone said, addressing a small group of reporters at an annual retreat for media moguls in Sun Valley, a scenic resort tucked into the mountains of Idaho.Which is precisely what The Antagonist said right here several weeks ago and a good while before that.
"Sometimes divorce is better than marriage," Redstone said. "The world has changed" since Viacom announced in 1999 that it was buying CBS Corp.
"It's time to take a new look and adapt."
On a similar note, a Dutch judge, in keeping with the Dutch national pass-time of adopting incredibly reasonable approaches to everything such as the regulation of nature's plants, has ruled that five major Dutch ISPs must adopt the only reasonable approach to the privacy and rights of their customers in light of corporate bullying from Brein, an organisation which represents 53 media companies looking take some Dutch kids to court rather than adapt their business practices to meet the demands of the market.
Maybe Brein should pay attention to the wise words of Sumner Redstone, empire builder of the media world, if not those of The Antagonist.
Both stories via the excellent Digital Music Weblog.
14 July 2005
Ian Blair: "I'm not saying there are four bombers"
Credit has to go to Sir Ian Blair for correcting himself when he accidently claimed the existence of "four miserable bombers" when, in fact, nobody knows this to be the case yet.
Oh, and the military grade explosives that were rumoured to have been used on the Underground with sophisticated timers? Well, the timers never turned up and tonight Newsnight reports that the police have only found household chemicals in the Leeds homes that were raided, not military grade explosives.
Channel 4 News tonight showed a CCTV capture of the 'bus bomber' which they claimed "had been cropped from a wider picture of all four bombers". Why was it cropped? Surely seing them all four suspects together would help jog the memories of anyone that might have seen them, especially seeing as an individual photo is also being circulated.
Newsnight also announced that the CCTV camera on the Number 30 bus, conveniently enough, wasn't working. Not that it was affected in the blast, just that it wasn't working.
Also from Newsnight, the Number 30 bus driver had been ordered to re-route the bus on the morning of July 7th for it to end up in Tavistock Square.
The Antagonist has noted that indeed, according to TFL's route maps, Tavistock Square is not on the standard Number 30 bus route as the normal route would take the bus straight along Euston Road into Marylebone Road, rather than turning left into Woburn Place.
Who diverted it? On what basis? Was it diverted into the rehearsal operation approximately an hour and half after the simultaneous tube disasters, something which could account for the significant missing 81 minutes of the 'bus bomber' hitting the papers today? Was it going there anyway, something which, in keeping with the practice of these tactical rehearsal operations, the driver wouldn't be told until the last minute as per the Newsnight story?
How long would it take to investigate what happened on the trains in the deepest part of the Underground if a power surge had affected monitoring systems and lights as MetroNet and survivors reported at the time of the tragedy?
[Update 15/07/05@12:40: The Number 30 bus was going the other way down Euston Road and turned right into Woburn Place (Source: ITV News). This doesn't change the fact it was diverted to here.]
SIR IAN BLAIR, LONDON METROPOLITAN POLICE COMMISSIONER:"If London could survive the Blitz, it can survive four miserable bombers like this...."
[brief pause that always comes with an overwhelming sense of realisation]
"I'm not saying there are four bombers.... four miserable events like this."
Oh, and the military grade explosives that were rumoured to have been used on the Underground with sophisticated timers? Well, the timers never turned up and tonight Newsnight reports that the police have only found household chemicals in the Leeds homes that were raided, not military grade explosives.
Channel 4 News tonight showed a CCTV capture of the 'bus bomber' which they claimed "had been cropped from a wider picture of all four bombers". Why was it cropped? Surely seing them all four suspects together would help jog the memories of anyone that might have seen them, especially seeing as an individual photo is also being circulated.
Newsnight also announced that the CCTV camera on the Number 30 bus, conveniently enough, wasn't working. Not that it was affected in the blast, just that it wasn't working.
Also from Newsnight, the Number 30 bus driver had been ordered to re-route the bus on the morning of July 7th for it to end up in Tavistock Square.
The Antagonist has noted that indeed, according to TFL's route maps, Tavistock Square is not on the standard Number 30 bus route as the normal route would take the bus straight along Euston Road into Marylebone Road, rather than turning left into Woburn Place.
Who diverted it? On what basis? Was it diverted into the rehearsal operation approximately an hour and half after the simultaneous tube disasters, something which could account for the significant missing 81 minutes of the 'bus bomber' hitting the papers today? Was it going there anyway, something which, in keeping with the practice of these tactical rehearsal operations, the driver wouldn't be told until the last minute as per the Newsnight story?
How long would it take to investigate what happened on the trains in the deepest part of the Underground if a power surge had affected monitoring systems and lights as MetroNet and survivors reported at the time of the tragedy?
[Update 15/07/05@12:40: The Number 30 bus was going the other way down Euston Road and turned right into Woburn Place (Source: ITV News). This doesn't change the fact it was diverted to here.]
BBC Edits Out The Word Terrorist
Telegraph News - BBC edits out the word terroristIf tonight's six o'clock news is anything to go by, the BBC have certainly relaxed this brief period of self-control rather considerably based on what the authorities still only 'believe' to be true.
By Tom Leonard, Filed: 12/07/2005
The BBC has re-edited some of its coverage of the London Underground and bus bombings to avoid labelling the perpetrators as 'terrorists', it was disclosed yesterday.
Early reporting of the attacks on the BBC's website spoke of terrorists but the same coverage was changed to describe the attackers simply as 'bombers'.
The BBC's guidelines state that its credibility is undermined by the 'careless use of words which carry emotional or value judgments'.
Consequently, 'the word 'terrorist' itself can be a barrier rather than an aid to understanding' and its use should be 'avoided', the guidelines say.
Rod Liddle, a former editor of the Today programme, has accused the BBC of 'institutionalised political correctness' in its coverage of British Muslims.
A BBC spokesman said last night: 'The word terrorist is not banned from the BBC.'"
London Blasts: Three Trains & A Bus, A Possible Explanation
Update: For detailed and in depth analysis of the events that occurred in London on 7th July 2005, please see the web site of J7: The July 7th Truth Campaign. Please also sign the J7 RELEASE THE EVIDENCE Petition which calls on the British government to release the evidence that will conclusively prove or disprove, beyond reasonable doubt, the official story of what happened on 7/7.
"You could have had a power surge with a quite catastrophic casualty level.
We have always been aware of that on the Underground."
Seven days on from seventh day of the seventh month of 2005 which witnessed the horrific disaster on the London Underground in which at least 48 people were killed and over 700 were injured, it seems most of the world is no closer to understanding quite what happened that could lead to such tragedy.
Now that the two minutes silence across Europe in memory of the victims is over, The Antagonist has watched the media circus roll on for long enough and believes that the general public is owed a credible explanation for the disaster and needless deaths of last week.
The absolute pressing need for this credible explanation is further compounded when one considers that the authorities can offer, at the time of writing, nothing more conclusive than:
To establish what happened on that fateful day we must look at the precious few facts that are available, extricate those facts from the media hysteria surrounding the events of the day, and analyse the facts in context for what they tell us about what might actually have occurred:
As far as the facts go, this is all we know without having to rely on speculation, conjecture and opinion and leaves us with a disaster on the London Underground attributed to a massive power surge, an unrelated anti-terrorist rehearsal operation somewhere in central London as explained by Power during his interview, and an 'exploded' bus in Tavistock Square.
The one outstanding item that needs explaining rather more clearly than has been done so far is the mysterious exploding bus which is being pitched as the missing link that ties the whole notion of a terrorist operation together.
If what happened to the bus can be explained in a way so as to be credible and that explanation avoids the need to assume some huge premeditated conspiracy, so much the better. The time to end the confusion and lack of explanation for the exploding bus has now come.
The Antagonist believes the confusion about the bus arises from trying to establish a link between the exploding bus and the events on the London Underground.
This attempt to establish links between the bus and the Underground disaster is nothing other than misdirection because, in fact, the bus was nothing to do with the power surge on the London Underground and was instead a component part of Peter Power's anti-terrorist rehearsal operation.
Somewhere along the line, and after having had sufficient chance to investigate fully the damage and ridiculous number of deaths caused by a power surge on the London Underground, some enterprising PR soul somewhere decided that the bus would be better linked not with Peter Power's rehearsal operation from whence it came, but with the sheer coincidence of an horrific disaster on the Underground for which many executive heads could potentially roll in very high publicity Corporate Manslaughter cases if the truth were ever revealed.
That the bus was part of Power's rehearsal operation explains why the bus doesn't appear to be charred, and the plastic seats are un-burnt, completely unlike any other pictures of 'real' bus bombs.
It also explains how a number of people can be seen to be walking around on the top deck of the bus immediately after the 'explosion', none of whom are on fire, or showing any signs of visible distress that might arise from being caught up in a 'real' bomb blast.
As the driver of the Number 30 bus that was exploded as part of the rehearsal operation can be heard on TV and radio announcing his distressed thoughts and feelings about the event, we must all remember that, in these rehearsal situations, as is publicly acknowledged:
This means that all bus survivors could then be interviewed by the media as legitimate victims of a 'bomb blast' because they were unaware that they were unwittingly part of a 1,000 person rehearsal scenario.
Perhaps it is merely coincidence that today the news contains reports, under the rather apt headline of Rail Killing Charges Thrown Out, that Corporate Manslaughter charges against Balfour Beatty are being dropped for the equally horrific and pointless Hatfield rail disaster which now sets the precedent that private enterprise is exempt from accountability to their paying customers and the families of those paying customers who suffer tragedy and great loss at the hands of corporate malfeasance.
There you have it. The Antagonist's concise explanation of the events of 7 July, 2005 composed without reliance on the speculation, conjecture and misguided opinion that the media have been filling the airwaves and newspapers with for the past week, just the facts such as they were at the time of the incident, and as they transpired to be after Peter Power's Radio 5 Live interview which revealed the existence of the rehearsal operation from which the exploding bus appeared and created a story that is about something other than Corporate Manslaughter on the London Underground.
The clincher in all of this? That there was no conspiracy to begin with. A disaster occurred on the trains which happened to occur at the same time as a fairly innocuous rehearsal operation was taking place in Central London.
Where anything that vaguely resembles a conspiracy arises, however, is in the considerable attempts to mislead, defraud and deceive the public into mistaken beliefs about who was responsible for the needless deaths that occurred on the London Underground one week ago today.
Now that the two minutes silence across Europe in memory of the victims is over, The Antagonist has watched the media circus roll on for long enough and believes that the general public is owed a credible explanation for the disaster and needless deaths of last week.
The absolute pressing need for this credible explanation is further compounded when one considers that the authorities can offer, at the time of writing, nothing more conclusive than:
"Detectives believe they have now identified the four men who died carrying out the attacks."
To establish what happened on that fateful day we must look at the precious few facts that are available, extricate those facts from the media hysteria surrounding the events of the day, and analyse the facts in context for what they tell us about what might actually have occurred:
Fact 1. On the morning of Thursday July 7, 2005 a major disaster occurred on the Underground which MetroNet, the train operating company in charge of the Underground at the time of the accident, advised millions of passengers in the system, and subsequently the world's media, was due to a power surge.
Fact 2. Peter Power and Visor Consultants were running a thousand man operation in Central London rehearsing anti-terrorist scenarios that involved, amongst other things, multiple bombs going off simultaneously in the stations that were affected by the power surge on the same morning.
Fact 3: A number 30 bus exploded in Tavistock Square at some point during the course of the morning.
As far as the facts go, this is all we know without having to rely on speculation, conjecture and opinion and leaves us with a disaster on the London Underground attributed to a massive power surge, an unrelated anti-terrorist rehearsal operation somewhere in central London as explained by Power during his interview, and an 'exploded' bus in Tavistock Square.
The one outstanding item that needs explaining rather more clearly than has been done so far is the mysterious exploding bus which is being pitched as the missing link that ties the whole notion of a terrorist operation together.
If what happened to the bus can be explained in a way so as to be credible and that explanation avoids the need to assume some huge premeditated conspiracy, so much the better. The time to end the confusion and lack of explanation for the exploding bus has now come.
The Antagonist believes the confusion about the bus arises from trying to establish a link between the exploding bus and the events on the London Underground.
This attempt to establish links between the bus and the Underground disaster is nothing other than misdirection because, in fact, the bus was nothing to do with the power surge on the London Underground and was instead a component part of Peter Power's anti-terrorist rehearsal operation.
Somewhere along the line, and after having had sufficient chance to investigate fully the damage and ridiculous number of deaths caused by a power surge on the London Underground, some enterprising PR soul somewhere decided that the bus would be better linked not with Peter Power's rehearsal operation from whence it came, but with the sheer coincidence of an horrific disaster on the Underground for which many executive heads could potentially roll in very high publicity Corporate Manslaughter cases if the truth were ever revealed.
That the bus was part of Power's rehearsal operation explains why the bus doesn't appear to be charred, and the plastic seats are un-burnt, completely unlike any other pictures of 'real' bus bombs.
It also explains how a number of people can be seen to be walking around on the top deck of the bus immediately after the 'explosion', none of whom are on fire, or showing any signs of visible distress that might arise from being caught up in a 'real' bomb blast.
As the driver of the Number 30 bus that was exploded as part of the rehearsal operation can be heard on TV and radio announcing his distressed thoughts and feelings about the event, we must all remember that, in these rehearsal situations, as is publicly acknowledged:
"All participants are unaware of the 'disaster' until the exercise starts, so they treat it as real as possible."
This means that all bus survivors could then be interviewed by the media as legitimate victims of a 'bomb blast' because they were unaware that they were unwittingly part of a 1,000 person rehearsal scenario.
Perhaps it is merely coincidence that today the news contains reports, under the rather apt headline of Rail Killing Charges Thrown Out, that Corporate Manslaughter charges against Balfour Beatty are being dropped for the equally horrific and pointless Hatfield rail disaster which now sets the precedent that private enterprise is exempt from accountability to their paying customers and the families of those paying customers who suffer tragedy and great loss at the hands of corporate malfeasance.There you have it. The Antagonist's concise explanation of the events of 7 July, 2005 composed without reliance on the speculation, conjecture and misguided opinion that the media have been filling the airwaves and newspapers with for the past week, just the facts such as they were at the time of the incident, and as they transpired to be after Peter Power's Radio 5 Live interview which revealed the existence of the rehearsal operation from which the exploding bus appeared and created a story that is about something other than Corporate Manslaughter on the London Underground.
The clincher in all of this? That there was no conspiracy to begin with. A disaster occurred on the trains which happened to occur at the same time as a fairly innocuous rehearsal operation was taking place in Central London.
Where anything that vaguely resembles a conspiracy arises, however, is in the considerable attempts to mislead, defraud and deceive the public into mistaken beliefs about who was responsible for the needless deaths that occurred on the London Underground one week ago today.
13 July 2005
London Underground Bombing 'Exercises' Took Place at Same Time as Real Attack
Updates:
London Bombings 07/07/05 - A Call To Action
Only yesterday The Antagonist brought you news of the BBC story detailing covert emergency service exercises at Tower Hill station which took place a month prior to Thursday 7, July.
In exercises of this type a disaster situation is created where:
Yes, you did read that correctly.
Confirmation of these exercises comes in the form of a Radio 5 Live interview with Peter Power, Managing Director of a Crisis Management company called Visor Consultants, the man who was charged with orchestrating the covert inter-agency operation.
The interview answers all the questions about 7/7 that anyone could have but that nobody seems to be asking about the glaring discrepancies between the media's haphazard and disjointed version of events, the government's 'reasonably clear' stance of not telling anyone anything at all, and the rapid proliferation of eye-witness and survivor accounts which discredit entirely almost all media stories.
During the Radio 5 Live interview, aired on the night of London's tragedy, Peter Power announced to listeners how his company had run an exercise earlier that day in Central London involving 1,000 people and which was based on "simultaneous bombs going off precisely at the railway stations where it happened this morning".
Some coincidence!
By some fluke of chance that no sane bookmaker would give you odds on, this covert exercise occurred not just on the same day, but at exactly the same time, and involving exactly the same underground stations as "the real one", as Power later referred to it.
The full Radio 5 interview transcript with Peter Power is as follows:
With the public broadcast and circulation of this interview we now have full and public confirmation of the collusion and complicity of the police, ambulance and fire services, London Underground, London Transport and a handful of other private enterprises, all with full, prior knowledge of the events that were to occur on the morning of 7/7, and all at a ridiculously senior level - remember "all participants are unaware of the 'disaster'" so they "treat it as real as possible."
Furthermore, all of the police officers and ambulance and fire crews on the ground and the transport staff under-ground, were all unwitting participants, completely oblivious to these covert activities and the disaster that was to befall them in Central London that morning, just like the unsuspecting commuters who had the misfortune to ride their daily trains to work in the middle of it all.
In light of this information and before the blame for the ever increasing number of deaths at the hands of this tragedy is misappropriated, The Antagonist urges that the people of the United Kingdom unite in one great spirit of togetherness in their strenuous and steadfast demands to hold politicians and the government to account over exactly what occurred in London on the morning of Thursday 7, July 2005.
They work for you, not the other way around and there are a lot of questions to be asked from here-on in but, initially, you only need one very simple one:
- London Blasts: Three Trains & A Bus, A Possible Explanation
- In Response to Bridget Dunne
- Visor Consultants, Fortress GB & ICTS (UK) Ltd
- Bus explosion kicker - more evidence of a controlled 7/7 bus explosion
London Bombings 07/07/05 - A Call To Action
Only yesterday The Antagonist brought you news of the BBC story detailing covert emergency service exercises at Tower Hill station which took place a month prior to Thursday 7, July.
In exercises of this type a disaster situation is created where:
"All participants are unaware of the 'disaster' until the exercise starts, so they treat it as real as possible."Today, The Antagonist brings you news of precisely the same type of covert emergency exercise, this time with over 1,000 people participating in Central London at exactly the same time as the 7/7 disaster.
Yes, you did read that correctly.
Confirmation of these exercises comes in the form of a Radio 5 Live interview with Peter Power, Managing Director of a Crisis Management company called Visor Consultants, the man who was charged with orchestrating the covert inter-agency operation.
The interview answers all the questions about 7/7 that anyone could have but that nobody seems to be asking about the glaring discrepancies between the media's haphazard and disjointed version of events, the government's 'reasonably clear' stance of not telling anyone anything at all, and the rapid proliferation of eye-witness and survivor accounts which discredit entirely almost all media stories.
During the Radio 5 Live interview, aired on the night of London's tragedy, Peter Power announced to listeners how his company had run an exercise earlier that day in Central London involving 1,000 people and which was based on "simultaneous bombs going off precisely at the railway stations where it happened this morning".
Some coincidence!
By some fluke of chance that no sane bookmaker would give you odds on, this covert exercise occurred not just on the same day, but at exactly the same time, and involving exactly the same underground stations as "the real one", as Power later referred to it.
The full Radio 5 interview transcript with Peter Power is as follows:
POWER: ...at half past nine this morning we were actually running an exercise for a company of over a thousand people in London based on simultaneous bombs going off precisely at the railway stations where it happened this morning, so I still have the hairs on the back of my neck standing upright.
HOST: To get this quite straight, you were running an exercise to see how you would cope with this and it happened while you were running the exercise?
POWER: Precisely, and it was about half past nine this morning, we planned this for a company and for obvious reasons I don't want to reveal their name but they're listening and they'll know it. And we had a room full of crisis managers for the first time they'd met and so within five minutes we made a pretty rapid decision that this is the real one and so we went through the correct drills of activating crisis management procedures to jump from slow time to quick time thinking and so on.
Click here for a clip of this dialogue. Click here for longer clip with comments in context. Courtesy of Prison Planet.
With the public broadcast and circulation of this interview we now have full and public confirmation of the collusion and complicity of the police, ambulance and fire services, London Underground, London Transport and a handful of other private enterprises, all with full, prior knowledge of the events that were to occur on the morning of 7/7, and all at a ridiculously senior level - remember "all participants are unaware of the 'disaster'" so they "treat it as real as possible."
Furthermore, all of the police officers and ambulance and fire crews on the ground and the transport staff under-ground, were all unwitting participants, completely oblivious to these covert activities and the disaster that was to befall them in Central London that morning, just like the unsuspecting commuters who had the misfortune to ride their daily trains to work in the middle of it all.
In light of this information and before the blame for the ever increasing number of deaths at the hands of this tragedy is misappropriated, The Antagonist urges that the people of the United Kingdom unite in one great spirit of togetherness in their strenuous and steadfast demands to hold politicians and the government to account over exactly what occurred in London on the morning of Thursday 7, July 2005.
They work for you, not the other way around and there are a lot of questions to be asked from here-on in but, initially, you only need one very simple one:
Dear MPFeel free to add the answers of your local MP in the comments to this post, The Antagonist is fairly certain there's bound to be at least a few interesting responses.
Re: Thursday July 7, 2005
Please explain the apparent coincidence between the covert operations of 1,000 people in Central London, as organised by Mr Peter Power of Visor Consultants, during which, by the admission of Mr Power, exercises were "based on simultaneous bombs going off precisely at the railway stations" in which, as Mr Power's operation was taking place, a number of simultaneous bombs did indeed go off killing and injuring numerous innocent civilians.
11 July 2005
Comments
The rather tedious Haloscan commenting system has now been ditched in favour of Blogger comments. Where old Haloscan comments exist, the number of comments will appear as a link next to the email icon in the post footer.
Emergency Exercises on Underground
Conspiracy theory or conspiracy fact? Tucked away on the BBC news web site:
BBC News: Emergency exercise on UndergroundFor those that missed it first time round and for the purposes of clarity:
Sunday, 12 June, 2005
London's emergency services are being called into action for a training exercise on the underground.
The live emergency exercise will take place at Tower Hill Tube station on the District Line on Sunday.
The station is already closed due to major track replacement work between Whitechapel and Earl's Court.
Roland Murphy, from London Underground, said good safety procedures are in place "but we can always build and improve upon them."
He added: "All participants are unaware of the 'disaster' until the exercise starts, so they treat it as real as possible."
London Underground is legally required to hold an emergency exercise on the network every year.
A police cordon will be erected around the station and Trinity Square, Savage Gardens, Wakefield Gardens and Coopers Row will be closed for most of the day.Source: BBC News
"All participants are unaware of the 'disaster' until the exercise starts, so they treat it as real as possible."It all certainly seems 'as real as possible' from where The Antagonist is standing.
10 July 2005
BBC: Survivor Blast Discrepancies
Update: For detailed and in depth analysis of the events that occurred in London on 7th July 2005, please see the web site of J7: The July 7th Truth Campaign. Please also sign the J7 RELEASE THE EVIDENCE Petition which calls on the British government to release the evidence that will conclusively prove or disprove, beyond reasonable doubt, the official story of what happened on 7/7.
For a full analysis of the simultaneous anti-terror rehearsal drill referred to in this post, the drill that was being conducted by Peter Power and Visor Consultants on 7/7 please see here.
For a full analysis of the simultaneous anti-terror rehearsal drill referred to in this post, the drill that was being conducted by Peter Power and Visor Consultants on 7/7 please see here.
"there could have been had [sic] a power surge which could have had quite catastrophic casualty levels.
We have always been aware of that on the Underground."
The Antagonist happened upon this survivor account on the BBC web site from which the following excerpt is taken. Comments are given below:
"Totally black" suggests no remnants of a fire from whatever type of blast occured.
Any sort of explosive device in such a confined space and containing so many people, papers and other flammable items such as clothing would have caused some sort of fire, even if only the smallest amount of explosive had been present.
Furthermore, if it is later claimed that there was any fire, the noticeable and reported effects of that fire would have been dramatically worsened as the "air started to flood in through the smashed glass" and the train would have been far from "totally black".
The sentence, "It was so dark nobody could see anything" also suggests no fire and that all surrounding electrical systems were out, as would occur in the event of a power surge.
No power to the train, or the tunnels, or the service lights that illuminate the entire length of nearly all Underground tunnels, nor any fire from the blast. All of this is entirely in keeping with MetroNet's original statement of a power surge, as reported to passengers across the Underground at the time, and to the world's media until someone, somewhere apparently decided otherwise.
Osama striking from deep within the caves of Afghanistan, or corporate manslaughter at the hands of private enterprise?
We've been duped before and, as the media circus steps up the stakes and perceived threat levels, hot on the heels of a 'credible' but non-existent threat that evacuated Birmingham City Centre last night - a story which has already dropped off the front page of the BBC web site - let us not allow the tragic and needless deaths of an ever growing number of innocent people to be posthumous party to us all being duped again.
Let the words and courage of survivors like 'R' be testimony to us all.
If you're still not convinced, maybe it's time to reveal the story of a telephone conversation that morning between two friends, one of whom was at a station, the other of whom had yet to leave for the station:
Maybe its also time to mention the continuous helicopter activity over central London between 2am and 5am for the three nights in the run up to 7/7. It probably has some connection with this story here.
Remember where you read it first and, if you don't read anything else here again, you'll know precisely why.
'I thought I was about to die'
R from north London was in the bombed carriage of the tube train travelling from King's Cross to Russell Square on the Piccadilly Line."Everything went totally black and clouds of choking smoke filled the tube carriage and I thought I had been blinded.
It was so dark that nobody could see anything.
I thought I was about to die, or was dead. I was choking from the smoke and felt like I was drowning.
Air started to flood in through the smashed glass and the emergency lighting helped us see a bit. We were OK."
"Totally black" suggests no remnants of a fire from whatever type of blast occured.
Any sort of explosive device in such a confined space and containing so many people, papers and other flammable items such as clothing would have caused some sort of fire, even if only the smallest amount of explosive had been present.
Furthermore, if it is later claimed that there was any fire, the noticeable and reported effects of that fire would have been dramatically worsened as the "air started to flood in through the smashed glass" and the train would have been far from "totally black".
The sentence, "It was so dark nobody could see anything" also suggests no fire and that all surrounding electrical systems were out, as would occur in the event of a power surge.
No power to the train, or the tunnels, or the service lights that illuminate the entire length of nearly all Underground tunnels, nor any fire from the blast. All of this is entirely in keeping with MetroNet's original statement of a power surge, as reported to passengers across the Underground at the time, and to the world's media until someone, somewhere apparently decided otherwise.
Osama striking from deep within the caves of Afghanistan, or corporate manslaughter at the hands of private enterprise?
We've been duped before and, as the media circus steps up the stakes and perceived threat levels, hot on the heels of a 'credible' but non-existent threat that evacuated Birmingham City Centre last night - a story which has already dropped off the front page of the BBC web site - let us not allow the tragic and needless deaths of an ever growing number of innocent people to be posthumous party to us all being duped again.
Let the words and courage of survivors like 'R' be testimony to us all.
If you're still not convinced, maybe it's time to reveal the story of a telephone conversation that morning between two friends, one of whom was at a station, the other of whom had yet to leave for the station:
"Hi, it's me, listen don't bother coming to the station, son, it's absolute chaos."Nothing unusual about that, except when you bear in mind that the conversation took place at 8.37am that morning, some ten minutes before the time now reported for the simultaneous train blasts that once took place over the course of an hour.
Maybe its also time to mention the continuous helicopter activity over central London between 2am and 5am for the three nights in the run up to 7/7. It probably has some connection with this story here.
Remember where you read it first and, if you don't read anything else here again, you'll know precisely why.
And on the seventh day, The Antagonist did not rest
In no particular order and in response to the few comments that managed to avoid the hysteria of unconfirmed fantasies which surround the events of London 7/7 and The Antagonist's Live Blog of events:
Absolutely! It's exactly the same sort of wealth as that of any International oil barons whose fortunes are built on plundering the planet of its resources and holding the rest of the world to ransom over those resources. Why do you think the Middle East has always been such a hotbed of activity?
The Bush family are all multi-millionaires, probably more-so than Osama, if less well broadcast, and the Bush family have made considerable wealth from oil so the question must be, "What is the difference between Bush family and the Bin Laden family?"
Simple really, look at what's going on in the world around you right now. Bush has all the might and weaponry of the most technogically advanced military superpower in the world, along with the gung-ho support of a disposable youth that has grown up shooting Arabs on Playstations for 8 hours a day, backed by an ever-increasing budget that far exceeds the offense budgets of Russia or China and all of which is dedicated to fighting PNAC's well documented wars without frontiers which they have been pursuing since before the presidency was stolen from the American people in 2000 and landed in the lap of the Bush-family-heir to the throne.
Osama Bin Laden, on the other hand, only blows things up very occasionally and he's the terrorist.
Just because Osama blows up predominantly white people and Bush blows up nothing other than brown people doesn't make either set of victims any less human, nor either atrocity any less horrific.
The other members of the Bin Laden and Bush families get on very well indeed and the Bush family, in the guise of the Carlysle Group, takes very good care of the Bin Laden family's financial interests. Perhaps it was this reason that prompted the U.S. administration to very kindly allow 20+ members of the Bin Laden family to leave America on the only non-military flight in U.S. skies immediately after 9/11 while their errant family member was being held responsible for those attacks.
If readers are still having trouble making the distinction between the single and sporadic acts of mindless violence of a rich oil baron that we are led to believe lives in caves and can mystically evade the global surveillance systems that are probably watching you reading this right now, and the five years of perpetual, mindless violence of an oil baron that has the resources of the military industrial complex at his disposal and whose actions we are all tacitly supporting while villifying the former, then The Antagonist would suggest seizing the moment, right now, and reading something a little less challenging and more likely to support whichever misapprehensions you prefer to labour under.
Thank you, and The Antagonist takes on board your observation of the margin of error and counters that in any situtation where there can conceivably exist a margin of error of 100,000 dead people, or indeed any dead people as a result of any form of terrorism, one way or the other, something is desperately wrong.
In addition, nobody with a bit of fertiliser and semtex, in conjunction with a few past-their-sell-by-date pop-guns the West armed them with years ago, is going to eliminate the West. In fact, in case no-one had noticed, we're doing a fine job of that all by ourselves and no conventional terrorism is required. We can all continue to deny this for now but our protestations will be a lot harder to shout from under the water that increasingly more rapidly claims the land from under our feet faster than the likes of the Divine Right of Kings and good old fashioned colonialism managed it in the past.
Finally, "stable and mutually beneficial interactions" will never arise from war, nor from forcibly taking out a country's vital infrastructure components and media and then replacing them with foreign infrastructure and the same limited 'news' and 'entertainment' vision of the world as everywhere else. Sure, Iraqis might have watched low quality television beforehand but at least it was local, cultural low-quality television and not the high-quality global propaganda of corporate America.
Iran and Iraq are big buddies now and Iran is training Iraq's soldiers. Again, written about elsewhere on this blog.
The Antagonist concedes the point about emotive language citing in defence only that, on occasion, you have to go in and reach people in order to pull them out.
In fairness, this tactic has had the desired effect and has inspired some degree of debate about the underlying factors that are crucial to understanding the events of 7/7, the wider global and historical context into which they fit and, in turn, what we should all learn from all of this.
Open debate about the issues can only be a good thing and, if there's nothing to hide, nobody's got anything to worry about.
If The Antagonist's original LiveBlog entry had screamed the indictment of Muslim extremists like every other blog, newspaper, TV and radio news report, etc., then the comments would largely consist of even more nonsense than they already do for, at the time of writing and three days after the event, nobody has yet fingered the Muslims for the blasts but everyone's talking about Al Qaeda, reprisals against innocent Muslims, and all sorts of other nonsense that has arisen from the original media fabrications.
No slightly tattered passports of Muslims appear to have survived the blasts, no DIY-terrorism manuals have been found and, to the best of The Antagonist's knowledge, no well-thumbed copies of the Koran containing a hand-written note of good luck and best wishes in the afterlife from Osama.
Until then, it is the choice of The Antagonist to hold the opinion that the original statement issued to passengers on the Underground at the time of the incidents was factually correct.
Furthermore, if staff or any of the sophisticated control and communications centres that monitor the Underground had detected even the vaguest suspicion of terrorist activity within the underground system, The Antagonist has the faith to believe that Underground management and staff would have elected to quickly and efficiently evacuate all passengers and staff from all tube stations immediately, rather than issue the usual placatory statements that would keep an Underground full of frustrated, late-for-work commuters hanging around in an environment that was already known, or suspected to be, subject to terrorist activity.
That the original power surge statement was retracted, or that an alternative story was released hours later in order to score more political points than The Antagonist can be bothered to list here takes no great leap of faith. It takes even less of a leap and even less faith in light of the Iraq war, the total absence of Iraq's WMD, or any feasible threat at all, and the unfortunate circumstance of whistleblower David Kelly whose invaluable work did us all a great justice and the man himself no favours at all.
Forgetting ancient history is almost permissable. Forgetting recent history is unforgivable.
Update, 14 July, 2005: London Blasts: Three Trains & A Bus, A Possible Explanation
Comment: Alleagra | 07.08.05 - 9:54 am
Presumably you mean wealthy people like the multimillionaire Bin Laden?
Absolutely! It's exactly the same sort of wealth as that of any International oil barons whose fortunes are built on plundering the planet of its resources and holding the rest of the world to ransom over those resources. Why do you think the Middle East has always been such a hotbed of activity?
The Bush family are all multi-millionaires, probably more-so than Osama, if less well broadcast, and the Bush family have made considerable wealth from oil so the question must be, "What is the difference between Bush family and the Bin Laden family?"
Simple really, look at what's going on in the world around you right now. Bush has all the might and weaponry of the most technogically advanced military superpower in the world, along with the gung-ho support of a disposable youth that has grown up shooting Arabs on Playstations for 8 hours a day, backed by an ever-increasing budget that far exceeds the offense budgets of Russia or China and all of which is dedicated to fighting PNAC's well documented wars without frontiers which they have been pursuing since before the presidency was stolen from the American people in 2000 and landed in the lap of the Bush-family-heir to the throne.
Osama Bin Laden, on the other hand, only blows things up very occasionally and he's the terrorist.
Just because Osama blows up predominantly white people and Bush blows up nothing other than brown people doesn't make either set of victims any less human, nor either atrocity any less horrific.
The other members of the Bin Laden and Bush families get on very well indeed and the Bush family, in the guise of the Carlysle Group, takes very good care of the Bin Laden family's financial interests. Perhaps it was this reason that prompted the U.S. administration to very kindly allow 20+ members of the Bin Laden family to leave America on the only non-military flight in U.S. skies immediately after 9/11 while their errant family member was being held responsible for those attacks.
If readers are still having trouble making the distinction between the single and sporadic acts of mindless violence of a rich oil baron that we are led to believe lives in caves and can mystically evade the global surveillance systems that are probably watching you reading this right now, and the five years of perpetual, mindless violence of an oil baron that has the resources of the military industrial complex at his disposal and whose actions we are all tacitly supporting while villifying the former, then The Antagonist would suggest seizing the moment, right now, and reading something a little less challenging and more likely to support whichever misapprehensions you prefer to labour under.
Comment: Sam | 07.08.05 - 11:13 am
"23:02: Credit to Channel 4 News for interviewing an Iraqi dentist based not far from the site of the bus explosion who reminded us all of the "as many as 100,000 to 200,000 Iraqis" who have died at the hands of real terrorist atrocities."
Its a good point although probably way over exaggerated in terms of numbers (note the 100 000 people margin of error)
...
Secondly, the overall aim of the Islamic extremist groups is to eliminate the west
...
The broad aim of the west is not to eliminate a whole culture but to facilitate the stable and mutually beneficial interactions (trade and cultural) of all people whilst not jeopardizing its own interests. This is a wholly rational and positive end game.
Thank you, and The Antagonist takes on board your observation of the margin of error and counters that in any situtation where there can conceivably exist a margin of error of 100,000 dead people, or indeed any dead people as a result of any form of terrorism, one way or the other, something is desperately wrong.
In addition, nobody with a bit of fertiliser and semtex, in conjunction with a few past-their-sell-by-date pop-guns the West armed them with years ago, is going to eliminate the West. In fact, in case no-one had noticed, we're doing a fine job of that all by ourselves and no conventional terrorism is required. We can all continue to deny this for now but our protestations will be a lot harder to shout from under the water that increasingly more rapidly claims the land from under our feet faster than the likes of the Divine Right of Kings and good old fashioned colonialism managed it in the past.
Finally, "stable and mutually beneficial interactions" will never arise from war, nor from forcibly taking out a country's vital infrastructure components and media and then replacing them with foreign infrastructure and the same limited 'news' and 'entertainment' vision of the world as everywhere else. Sure, Iraqis might have watched low quality television beforehand but at least it was local, cultural low-quality television and not the high-quality global propaganda of corporate America.
Comment: Steve | 07.08.05 - 12:12 pmYou forget that Muslims and 'their own people' died in the blasts on the Underground. Again, let's not state untruths as if they were facts.
Would it be fair to say some of these would be Muslims from within Iraq and other Arab countries who find it necessary to bomb their own people, assault a different tribe (step forward Saddam) or even attack those with a different shade of belief (hello, Iran), rather than engage in any political process?
...
You state, reasonably, you want to avoid emotive language. I can't help feeling you have slipped a few emotional angles in there yourself.
Iran and Iraq are big buddies now and Iran is training Iraq's soldiers. Again, written about elsewhere on this blog.
The Antagonist concedes the point about emotive language citing in defence only that, on occasion, you have to go in and reach people in order to pull them out.
In fairness, this tactic has had the desired effect and has inspired some degree of debate about the underlying factors that are crucial to understanding the events of 7/7, the wider global and historical context into which they fit and, in turn, what we should all learn from all of this.
Open debate about the issues can only be a good thing and, if there's nothing to hide, nobody's got anything to worry about.
If The Antagonist's original LiveBlog entry had screamed the indictment of Muslim extremists like every other blog, newspaper, TV and radio news report, etc., then the comments would largely consist of even more nonsense than they already do for, at the time of writing and three days after the event, nobody has yet fingered the Muslims for the blasts but everyone's talking about Al Qaeda, reprisals against innocent Muslims, and all sorts of other nonsense that has arisen from the original media fabrications.
No slightly tattered passports of Muslims appear to have survived the blasts, no DIY-terrorism manuals have been found and, to the best of The Antagonist's knowledge, no well-thumbed copies of the Koran containing a hand-written note of good luck and best wishes in the afterlife from Osama.
Until then, it is the choice of The Antagonist to hold the opinion that the original statement issued to passengers on the Underground at the time of the incidents was factually correct.
Furthermore, if staff or any of the sophisticated control and communications centres that monitor the Underground had detected even the vaguest suspicion of terrorist activity within the underground system, The Antagonist has the faith to believe that Underground management and staff would have elected to quickly and efficiently evacuate all passengers and staff from all tube stations immediately, rather than issue the usual placatory statements that would keep an Underground full of frustrated, late-for-work commuters hanging around in an environment that was already known, or suspected to be, subject to terrorist activity.
That the original power surge statement was retracted, or that an alternative story was released hours later in order to score more political points than The Antagonist can be bothered to list here takes no great leap of faith. It takes even less of a leap and even less faith in light of the Iraq war, the total absence of Iraq's WMD, or any feasible threat at all, and the unfortunate circumstance of whistleblower David Kelly whose invaluable work did us all a great justice and the man himself no favours at all.
Forgetting ancient history is almost permissable. Forgetting recent history is unforgivable.
Update, 14 July, 2005: London Blasts: Three Trains & A Bus, A Possible Explanation
08 July 2005
BBC: 7/7 - New Underground Video Footage
From the link to Amateur Footage on the front page of the BBC News site:
At one point during the video, the phone pans to the watch (showing 8:53am) of the phone owner, bringing the actual time of the three underground blasts within minutes of each other ('almost simultaneously' if memory serves regarding the words of the newscaster), not over a period of one hour as reported for the last two days.
Simultaneous blasts would be rather more in keeping with the nature of the power surge originally cited for blasts on the underground.
Newsnight is now questioning how such great discrepancies in timings could arise given the limited information made available by the authorities, and rightly so.
Contrary to minorly popular belief, The Antagonist has not discounted Islamic terrorism, or any other form of terrorism, as the cause of the incidents on the underground, or even on the bus, but is reserving final judgment until such time as there is anything other than the wild speculation of the media from which to draw conclusions that the government and authorities haven't yet drawn for themselves or made publicly available.
To quote Donald Rumsfeld on such issues:
"More mobile phone footage has been released and shows the scene of a train affected by the blast at Edgware Road.This timestamped footage, taken by a passenger involved in one of yesterday's three (not seven) underground incidents, was screened by BBC1 on the 6 o'clock news earlier tonight.
The video shows how passengers escaped and also raises questions about the timing of the attacks."
At one point during the video, the phone pans to the watch (showing 8:53am) of the phone owner, bringing the actual time of the three underground blasts within minutes of each other ('almost simultaneously' if memory serves regarding the words of the newscaster), not over a period of one hour as reported for the last two days.
Simultaneous blasts would be rather more in keeping with the nature of the power surge originally cited for blasts on the underground.
Newsnight is now questioning how such great discrepancies in timings could arise given the limited information made available by the authorities, and rightly so.
Contrary to minorly popular belief, The Antagonist has not discounted Islamic terrorism, or any other form of terrorism, as the cause of the incidents on the underground, or even on the bus, but is reserving final judgment until such time as there is anything other than the wild speculation of the media from which to draw conclusions that the government and authorities haven't yet drawn for themselves or made publicly available.
To quote Donald Rumsfeld on such issues:
HappeningsQuite.
"You're going to be told lots of things.
You get told things every day that don't happen.
It doesn't seem to bother people, they don't—
It's printed in the press.
The world thinks all these things happen.
They never happened.
Everyone's so eager to get the story
Before in fact the story's there
That the world is constantly being fed
Things that haven't happened.
All I can tell you is,
It hasn't happened.
It's going to happen."—Feb. 28, 2003, Department of Defense briefing
Afghan President Hamid Karzai Speaks on London Blasts
Today China View reports:
Karzai also happens to be an ethnic Pashtun and member of the powerful Populzai tribe which has supplied Afghanistan's kings since 1747 so, whatever way you look at it, it was only a matter of time before the presidency was delivered to its 'rightful' Populzai successor.
"Afghan President Hamid Karzai Friday strongly condemned the terror bomb explosions happened in London, while Taliban denied relations with the attack.Bio in Brief: Hamid Karzai is the Afghan president, originally an ardent supporter of the Taliban, who has spent much of his life fighting "foreign influences" in Afghanistan and then, more recently, came to power as a direct result of the violent intervention of those foreign influences.
'This is an attack not against a city, not against a nation, this is an attack against the whole of mankind,' Karzai told journalists in Afghan capital Kabul.
'It's time for us to go to the roots of terrorism here (sic) they are produced and stop them there without exception,' the president said."Source: Xinhua - English
Karzai also happens to be an ethnic Pashtun and member of the powerful Populzai tribe which has supplied Afghanistan's kings since 1747 so, whatever way you look at it, it was only a matter of time before the presidency was delivered to its 'rightful' Populzai successor.
Clarke: ID Cards Will Not Prevent Terrorism
Home Secretary, Charles Clarke, and the contradictions of considerable confusion:
Accountable? Who? Us?
Update: Oh, so that's what it is, just like in Total Recall. Hmmm.
ID cards 'wouldn't stop attacks'And the story ends with:
"I don't think any of us want to live a life where we have to go through security checks every moment of our lives."Charles Clarke, Home secretary
Consideration would need to be given to checks on people boarding tube trains, ID cards and data exchange, he says.
He also suggested that in future civil liberties may have to be curtailed.
Asked by BBC Radio 4's Today programme if ID cards could have prevented Thursday's atrocity, Mr Clarke said: "I doubt it would have made a difference.
"I've never argued ... that ID cards would prevent any particular act."
Meanwhile, Qinetiq, the privatised former Defence Evaluation and Research Agency, and London Underground have rejected claims made in the Times that body scanners are to be used on the tube.What technology is it that Qinetiq, the corporate arm of the government security services (hello guys!), could be offering to London Underground that would have to be kept from the knowledge of the same public that travels the underground system?
The two organisations say the report is "inaccurate" and there are no plans to use the scanners.
Qinetiq is providing some equipment but cannot discuss it.
Accountable? Who? Us?
Update: Oh, so that's what it is, just like in Total Recall. Hmmm.
Romanian Government Resigns
Given the African perspective on Live8, aid and poverty, it's nice to know some governments understand the message of the people:
"(CNN) -- Romania's prime minister on Thursday announced the resignation of his government and called for early elections, a move that came after a court failed to OK laws needed for entry into the European Union."
...
"Under these circumstances, there is only one way out: to return to the voters by tendering the government's resignation and wait for the people's decision," the prime minister is quoted as saying.
Charles Clarke on Radio 4
Charles Clarke on the Today programme, salient points:
Bear in mind that this list by now includes anyone involved in Live8, Make Poverty History, any form of charitable organisation that seeks to right the ills of the world, dissenting and vocal bloggers, more than half the UK population that couldn't be bothered to show any form of support for the electoral process in May of this year, and just about anyone else you care to add to that list.
More soon...
- No attribution of the events of yesterday to anyone, Muslim or otherwise. A few other possibles were mentioned including a description which included just about anyone.
- No question of whether explosives were involved in the underground incidents so until pictures or footage emerge, or eye-witness reports that state other than electrical-related causes for the carnage on the trains, The Antagonist isn't buying the public story change from the initial reports of electrical problems. Those initial reports would have been issued by those in the train operating control centres at the time of the incidents, long before any american management figures were in a position to state otherwise at a press conference held much later in the day. Also, what respectable operating company, aside from Jarvis, Tubelines, et al, would want 40+ people dead at the hands of electrical failures on a tube system that is known to be poorly maintained in the interests of profit?
Out on a limb? Maybe. Wrong? Maybe.
- Finding the culprits is not about any one issue. It's not about Iraq, or 9/11. Quite how 9/11 or Iraq figures in yesterday's events is a little baffling given that both of those events, and yesterday, are entirely unconnected, save for the one common link throughout all of these things - the U.S. administration. Finding the culprits is about hunting down those who oppose our culture, our media, and our institutions, apparently.
Bear in mind that this list by now includes anyone involved in Live8, Make Poverty History, any form of charitable organisation that seeks to right the ills of the world, dissenting and vocal bloggers, more than half the UK population that couldn't be bothered to show any form of support for the electoral process in May of this year, and just about anyone else you care to add to that list.
More soon...
Closing Thoughts
Before The Antagonist sets about resting a very weary head, it just remains to offer heart-felt condolences to those who have suffered as a result of events in London on Thursday.
It's been a long day of much pain, anguish and anxiety for a lot of innocent people and the resilience of Londoners and everyone involved has been amazing.
Before parting, and lest we forget that any changes we desire in the world are down to each-and-every one of us, not Just8, a little inspirational change in vibe for the day ahead....
Baskets to you all, dear readers.
It's been a long day of much pain, anguish and anxiety for a lot of innocent people and the resilience of Londoners and everyone involved has been amazing.
Before parting, and lest we forget that any changes we desire in the world are down to each-and-every one of us, not Just8, a little inspirational change in vibe for the day ahead....
Oxygen, by Willy Mason
"I wanna be better than oxygen
So you can breathe when you're drowning and weak in the knees
I wanna speak louder than Ritalin
For all the children who think that they've got a disease
I wanna be cooler than T.V.
For all the kids that are wondering what they are going to be
We can be stronger than bombs
If you're singing along and you know that you really believe
We can be richer than industry
As long as we know that there's things that we don't really need
We can speak louder than ignorance
Cause we speak in silence every time our eyes meet.
On and on, and on it goes
The world it just keeps spinning
Until i'm dizzy, time to breathe
So close my eyes and start again anew.
I wanna see through all the lies of society
To the reality, happiness is at stake
I wanna hold up my head with dignity
Proud of a life where to give means more than to take
I want to live beyond the modern mentality
Where paper is all that you're really taught to create
Do you remember the forgotten America?
Justice, equality, freedom to every race
Just need to get past all the lies and hypocrisy
Make up and hair to the truth behind every face
That look around to all the people you see,
How many of them are happy and free?
I know it sounds like a dream
But it's the only thing that can get me to sleep at night
I know it's hard to believe
But it's easy to see that something here isn't right
I know the future looks dark
But it's there that the kids of today must carry the light.
On and on, and on it goes
The world it just keeps spinning
Until i'm dizzy, time to breathe
So close my eyes and start again anew.
If I'm afraid to catch a dream
I weave you baskets and I float them down the river stream
Each one I weave with words I speak,
To carry love to your relief."
Baskets to you all, dear readers.
07 July 2005
Iranians to train Iraq's military
Former enemies Iran and Iraq say they will launch broad military co-operation including training Iraqi armed forces.
News which will, of course, immediately up Iran's ranking in the axis-of-evil stakes quite nicely for those that seek the merest hint of justification for invading.
All we need is a suggested link to today's events in London and Iran's fate will be sealed in much the same way as Afghanistan and Iraq before it.
No doubt other axis-of-evil countries will inevitably follow if the war of corporate America continues in the same manner as the last four years.
News which will, of course, immediately up Iran's ranking in the axis-of-evil stakes quite nicely for those that seek the merest hint of justification for invading.
All we need is a suggested link to today's events in London and Iran's fate will be sealed in much the same way as Afghanistan and Iraq before it.
No doubt other axis-of-evil countries will inevitably follow if the war of corporate America continues in the same manner as the last four years.
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