On the hypothesis of the article on London bombings

J7 is pleased to reproduce the first draft of interdisciplinary researcher and writer Fazal Rahman's follow up to his August 2005 article, "London bombings: the unasked and unanswered questions". In "On the hypothesis of the article on London Bombings", reproduced below, Rahman explores hypotheses other than the evidence-free conspiracy theory touted by the British government in the Home Office narrative and disseminated by a compliant, complicit and unquestioning British media:

On the hypothesis of the article on London bombings

The article, “London bombings: the unasked and unanswered questions” was written on August 8, 2005, a month after the July 7th bombings. At that time, it was submitted to only one group in the UK, Red Pepper. They decided not to publish it.

On October 28, 2006, I submitted that same article, without any changes, to the Indymedia in Oxford. Through their link to the www.indymedia.org.uk, it also got published there.

Later, I was informed by the July 7th Truth Campaign www.julyseventh.co.uk, that it was also published on www.rinf.com, here. That is how I came to know about July 7th and RINF.

Nine comments have been posted, so far, on the article on the above Indymedia web sites. Some are very nasty, mindless, and vulgar, with the intent to provoke, smear, and disinform; a couple are supportive of the basic premises of the article’s hypothesis; while others reproduce the government information and conclusions, totally uncritically and unquestioningly, expressing annoyance that someone is raising some questions about those Absolute Truths!

On October 30, I found that the article had been abruptly removed from the front page of Oxford Indymedia! That is unusual as the articles there, as well as on the other web sites, normally run their course, descending gradually under the newly published articles. On October 31, I could not find the article on the Oxford Indymedia site at all in the archives. It seems that they have completely removed it! They only allowed it to stay on their site for a couple of days. We may never know why it was done or under whose pressure. One of the basic purposes of such web sites is to promote debate through diversity of comments and opinions. During the short time this article was allowed to stay on the front page of Oxford Indymedia, more comments were sent about it than any other article on the front page during that time. And yet, they selectively and deliberately removed it from the front page and, one day later, from the archives altogether!

I have now visited the www.julyseventh.co.uk web site and found excellent research data, information, and analysis of all the matters connected with the London bombings. Among other things, they have presented official and alternative hypotheses and correlated all the known facts with these. Their impeccable scientific approach to this whole matter is self-evident.

Whatever the nasty and vulgar as well as other critics have reproduced, in their comments, from the government sources, has already been logically, factually, and scientifically addressed and analyzed on the www.julyseventh.co.uk . I cannot do a better job of that and, therefore, would like to refer all the conformists and firm believers in the government information (disinformation) to that site. There, they will find a lot more than the logical and factual refutation of their “facts” and “arguments”. In this brief article, my focus is on the nature of the hypothesis I presented in the above article and its similarities and affinity with some of the independently arrived hypotheses of the July 7th group.

My focus in the article-written a month after the bombings - when almost all the details and specifics were being kept in the dark, and selective contradictory information was being released - was on outlining a brief logical and historical hypothesis. As is stated clearly in the article, it is a hypothetical analysis, with the following four specific and concrete logical, factual, historical, and philosophical premises, some explicit, others implicit, in it:

1. In the London situation, there was no need for a suicide bombing. It could have been, and most probably was, carried out, relatively easily, without endangering oneself.

2. Muslim resistance has nothing to gain, and a lot to lose, by engaging in such acts in Europe.

3. US and UK imperialists are the main beneficiaries of such terrorist actions in Europe.

4. Both the imperialists and the leaders of Muslim resistance understand and know these political, military, and logical facts and their policies and actions include these.

These are the essential premises of the hypothesis involved in the above article. I contend that these are apodictic and irrefutable. I invite the conformists and firm believers in the mainstream hypothesis to try to refute these and make my day. They can probably attempt to do so with part of the 4th premise and, attributing irrationality, incompetence, and ignorance to the leaders of Muslim resistance, may argue that they do not understand and implement these in their policies or actions. But that would only prove their own ignorance, arrogance, irrationality, and incompetence, rooted in racism and national chauvinism. During the early years of Vietnam War, the West was full of such idiots, who, projecting their own ignorance, irrationality, and incompetence to the Vietnamese, were loudly broadcasting and claiming that no Asian nation could stand up to and resist the superpower of US. As it turned out, the Vietnamese were far superior in strategy, tactics, planning, and their implementation, as well as in fighting, than the technocratic elites of the superpower. However, obviously, the imperialists have become intoxicated again and forgotten the lessons of Vietnam. They are relearning them the hard way, with great loss of life and other damages.

As pointed out by the July 7th group, the government’s position, in regard to the London bombings, constitutes only one of many alternative hypotheses. It does not constitute the Absolute Truth, which the conformists and firm believers are making it out to be. Logically and philosophically, that insight is of fundamental importance in this whole matter. If one remains ignorant of that, one remains trapped in the disinformation.

What the July 7th group seems to be demanding is that all the facts be investigated, revealed, and utilized in the construction or validation of alternative hypotheses, and not just some of them, self-servingly selected, to fit into the implicit or explicit hypotheses of the officialdom. That is precisely what the British government and mainstream media have done. The July 7th group has made a concrete factual and logical analysis of this matter and more details can be found on their web site. The key point here is that facts are facts only when they are integrated and related to each other in their common logical structure (paraphrasing Hegel here). Only in that form, they fit into and are consistent with an appropriate hypothesis or theory. “Facts” that are fragmented, abstracted, and isolated from each other and their common logical structure, can be implanted into a variety of false and erroneous hypotheses.

In the London bombings, there were three train explosions and one on a bus. There was contradictory information about the timings of these explosions and the nature of the explosives used. The authorities were, somehow, quickly able to associate these bombings with four dead Asian Muslims and determine their identities, while overwhelming majority of the rest remained unidentified at that time. From there, they started fitting these facts into the prefabricated hypothesis of Muslim terrorism being responsible for what had happened. Alternative hypotheses of the involvement of imperialists, their secret services, organized crime etc., along with the four dead men, were totally ignored and remained uninvestigated. For example, everyone knows that the CIA is one of the major instruments of US imperialism and it has a long history of subversion, sabotage, terrorism, overthrow of governments, assassination or attempted assassination of the popular and democratic leaders of other countries, and the use of organized crime in some of these actions, e.g., having obtained the services of Mafia for the assassination of President Fidel Castro of Cuba during the early 1960s. All that is well documented. It even caused some conscientious ex-CIA agents to leave the agency and expose its real nature, plots, and crimes. Philip Agee has been the most conscientious, courageous, knowledgeable, and internationalist of those ex-CIA agents, who has shed very important light on such operations of CIA, in his various writings, lectures, and solidarity work. If the CIA could do that in so many other countries, why it would not do the same in UK or other European countries, when needed? Of course, it would be totally hopeless and unrealistic to expect the British government and secret services to investigate such connections. To the contrary, they should be expected to do the opposite, i-e. to leave such a possible connection totally untouched and to cover it up if any facts or evidence emerge. Hence, the importance of great public service by groups like July 7th, which are keeping the flame burning. Just imagine, what will happen to the known facts, and the mainstream hypotheses-listed on July 7th site- of which they have been made part of, if some evidence emerges of the involvement of organized crime or some CIA front group with the four dead Asian Muslims, in the London bombings? In such a situation, the context of these facts will totally change and so will the meanings and nature of these facts. Right now, these are part of an illogical structure, as part of the mainstream hypotheses, the basic premises of which are, as indicated above, in diametric contradiction with the required logical-factual-philosophical-historical premises of this matter, explicitly or implicitly inherent in the hypothesis of the above article or some of the alternative hypotheses proposed by the July 7th group.

The July 7th group has also documented the profiles of the four dead Asian Muslims, accused of having committed that crime, as well as of their families. If these profiles are even halfway accurate, it is hard to imagine how such human beings could carry out such violence against themselves and so many others.

The following three alternative hypotheses have been listed, among others, on the web site of the July 7th group and their numbers below are also those that are given there:

6. The four men thought they were going to be delivering drugs or money to various locations round London, but were deceived, set up and murdered along with the others on their tubes and bus when their back packs exploded.

7. As above but the men thought they were carrying dummy 'bombs' because they were participating in an exercise testing London transport's defences against backpack bombers.

8. The four men were chosen or lured in to be patsies in a classic 'false flag operation' or frame-up by a network involved with one or more of the intelligence services.

These hypotheses are more of a factual nature in contrast with the hypothesis of above article, the premises of which are more of logical, historical, and philosophical nature. Some of the hypotheses of the July 7th group and that of the article complement each other and make each other more wholesome and holistic. For example, if viewed from the perspectives of aforementioned four premises of the hypothesis of the article, these three hypotheses from the July 7th group are consistent with those premises, while the other five-not listed here, which are various concoctions of the mainstream and the officialdom-are not. There is a natural and organic compatibility and fit between the general hypothesis of the article and the above three specific hypotheses of the July 7th group.

Within the framework of the above-mentioned four premises of hypothesis of the article, with some modifications and combination of the three hypotheses of the July 7th group, a new hypothesis, Hypothesis #9 can be constructed:

Hypothesis #9: In this hypothesis, #6 and #8 or #7 and #8 are proposed to be combined. #6 and #7 would remain essentially the same while #8 would involve a secret service, coordinating and guiding a front organization and an organized crime group. Here four possibilities are proposed:

1. As exactly in #6, The four men thought they were going to be delivering drugs, money, confidential documents, or other material etc. to various locations round London, but were deceived, set up and murdered along with the others on their tubes and bus when their back packs exploded.

2. As above but the men thought they were carrying dummy 'bombs' because they were participating in an exercise testing London transport's defences against backpack bombers.

3. As in the July 7th group Hypothesis #8, proposed by Fintan Dunne, the four men were murdered before any explosions took place and then their body parts were planted on the sites of the explosions. In this scenario, the involvement of an organized crime group or some secret service front organization is more likely than that of the police, as proposed by Fintan Dunne.

4. There was a fifth man who followed the four men to one of the trains. This man was carrying the explosives. He left them near the four men and then got off the train. He noted down the car number and its location, etc., so that his contacts in the secret service knew exactly where to find the body parts of the four men, who then, through some key contact in the police, managed to link each of the four to the different sites of the explosions.

Third and fourth possibilities require the involvement and cooperation of some key police officials. The first and second possibilities do not need the involvement of any police official or organized crime. These would have required just one secret service or its front organization contact person with the four men. These seem to be the most likely possibilities.

Some of the above possibilities would have been relatively easy to arrange and implement for some resourceful, experienced, and powerful organization, with long global reach and presence. It would not even be too difficult to arrange something like that even for an individual, with some means at his disposal. For example, if Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma city Federal Building bomber, had thought about it and wanted to, he could have lured and trapped some Muslim men into his plot by arranging to meet with them near his explosives-filled vehicle. Just before the explosions were set to occur, he could have excused himself for having to go to the bathroom or something like that, leaving the men near his vehicle. After the explosion and devastation, their body parts would have been found and they would have been identified. If that had happened, all the other facts would have been concocted and tailored to fit into the hypothesis of Muslim terrorism being responsible for that act and McVeigh would have been walking free, planning his next move. The official investigation would have ended right then and there at that point. It is almost certain that no other alternative hypotheses would have been considered in such a situation. Even at that time, there was hysteria about Muslim terrorism and in the aftermath of the explosion, in the absence of any evidence, Muslims were being blamed for that act of terrorism. It was only after the unexpected arrest of McVeigh that Muslims were exonerated from the responsibility for that terrorist act.

Regardless of the practical results, it is most important to continue to struggle for truth and justice against all odds. At this diabolical stage of history, the power of truth, justice, spirit, intellect, and authentic human nature is diametrically opposed and overwhelmed by the power of capital, in the form of imperialist corporations, governments and their agencies in various advanced capitalist countries. Under such conditions, the inner ecology of human nature itself has been powerfully and drastically disrupted, to variable degrees and forms. More than any other time in human history, it is essential to preserve and express one’s authentic human nature, to the best of one’s ability. Speaking and uncovering the truth is a most important part of that process and that is what is also involved the matter of London bombings. So many people lost their lives in that tragedy. Lies, concoctions, fragmented and abstract “facts” and tailoring them to fit into illogical structures of incompatible hypotheses, refusal to consider alternative hypotheses or to discover other facts that these point towards etc. desecrate and disgrace the dead victims. Only a thorough and in-depth investigation, oriented towards uncovering all the facts and their logical analysis, with the objective of discovery of truth on that basis, will honor and do justice to those victims. Poisonous and mindless “patriotic”, national chauvinistic, and racist prejudices not only damage the Muslims and other minorities, they also damage and desecrate all the victims of that tragedy, regardless of race or religion, as well as obstruct justice and truth.

The above is first draft of this article.... I will receive any constructive criticism and suggestions for improvement or modifications of this article or its hypothesis with gratitude.