J7 Response to Paul Stott's paper: Half Truth Movement: How The 9/11 Cult Falsifies History

On 1st September 2008 Paul Stott, via his 9/11 CultWatch blog announced that he, along with Dr. Larry O'Hara, would be presenting papers to the Anarchist Studies Network Conference at Loughborough University. Stott's effort was entitled “Half Truth Movement: How The 9/11 Cult Falsifies History”. The following was written in response to Stott's paper, in particular, the following paragraph directly aimed at the July 7th Truth Campaign:

The main body pushing for 7/7 ‘truth’ is the July 7 Truth Campaign which runs the website http://www.julyseventh.co.uk/. Given its lineage, it is no surprise that 7/7 truth has been dogged by many of the problems that have effected (sic) the 9/11 ‘truth’ movement. The presence in London on the day of 7/7 of both Israeli politician Benjamin Netanayu and former New York Mayor Rudi Giuliani, plus the perceived involvement of an “Israeli company” in running security on the London Underground, was a heady brew, leading to all manner of crank theories, although depth is another matter.

Stott fails to enlighten us as to what he understands the 'lineage' of the July 7th Truth Campaign to be. Despite this, it is clear from his paper that what he describes as 'being dogged by many of the problems that have effected (sic) the 9/11 'truth' movement', translates as, 'any mention of Israel or Mossad will be viewed as anti-Semitism'. He also fails to back up his accusation regarding 'all manner of crank theories'. For the record, The July 7th Truth Campaign choose not to speculate on alternative theories, preferring to focus on the few verifiable facts that exist, while maintaining pressure on the State to present evidence which conclusively proves the 'official conspiracy theory' as outlined in the Home Office narrative. Stott's paper, rather than offer any sort of insightful analysis, has instead exposed his own methodology, a methodology which involves smears, insinuations and unfounded accusations rather than an honest examination and analysis of the facts.

There is only one reason that Israel and Mossad are examined by J7 in connection to the facts of the events in London on 7th July 2005 and that is: we cannot avoid examining these areas if we are to conduct a comprehensive, factual and forensic analysis of these events.

Verint

Stott adds this footnote to the 'Israeli company' running security on the London Underground:

The company concerned, Verint Systems Inc, was appointed in 2004 by Metronet to provide CCTV on parts of the Underground. They are an American company, with headquarters in New York. Truthers suggest it is a subsidiary of Israel's Comverse Technology, and therefore infer Israeli involvement in the attacks.

Verint are in fact a subsidiary of scandal-riven, Comverse Technology, a company started in Israel and with close ties to the Israeli government. This fact can be easily and readily accessed via an impeccable source, the Verint web site, where it states: “Verint is a subsidiary of Comverse Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ: CMVT).”

Why does Stott choose to claim Verint have no links to Israel?

Furthermore, the business practices of Verint's parent company Comverse, have been some cause for consternation for many, including the U.S. Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission. As have their operating procedures - Comverse came under scrutiny in a Fox News investigation into the wire-tapping systems provided by the company to the US Government:

'Congress insists the equipment it installs is secure. But the complaint about this system is that the wiretap computer programs made by Comverse have, in effect, a back door through which wiretaps themselves can be intercepted by unauthorized parties.

Adding to the suspicions is the fact that in Israel, Comverse works closely with the Israeli government, and under special programs, gets reimbursed for up to 50 percent of its research and development costs by the Israeli Ministry of Industry and Trade. But investigators within the DEA, INS and FBI have all told Fox News that to pursue or even suggest Israeli spying through Comverse is considered career suicide.'

The investigative approach of Stott would seem to dictate that everyone ignore Verint's role in the operation of security systems on the London Underground, purely on the basis that to examine this aspect would be in some way 'anti-Semitic'. Quite clearly, and by their own admission, Verint are indeed linked to the Israeli firm with questionable business practices, Comverse, and Verint were indeed awarded a 'security' contract for the London Underground. Despite the as plain as day evidence existing to sound alarm bells about both the business and financial practices of Comverse, the company of which Verint is a wholly owned subsidiary, this can -- by the same logic Stott presented to the Anarchist Studies Network conference -- be entirely ignored.

A recent Counterpunch investigation into Verint, “How Israeli Backdoor Technology Penetrated the U.S. Government's Telecom System and Compromised National Security” and entitled “An Israeli Trojan Horse” also reveals how any examination of this issue by the CIA or FBI leads to Stott-like accusations of anti-Semitism:

Another anonymous source – a former CIA operative – tells me that U.S. intelligence agents who have aired their concerns about Verint and Amdocs have found themselves attacked from all sides. “Once it’s learned that an individual is doing footwork on this [the Verint/Amdocs question], he or she is typically identified somehow as a troublemaker, an instigator, and is hammered mercilessly,” says the former CIA operative. “Typically, what happens is the individual finds him or herself in a scenario where their retirement is jeopardized – and worse. The fact that if you simply take a look at this question, all of a sudden you’re an Arabist or anti-Semitic – it’s pure baloney, because I will tell you first-hand that people whose heritage lies back in that country have heavily worked this matter. You can’t buy that kind of dedication.”

Verint is by no means the only private company involved in the operation of the London transport system and other such companies are duly highlighted by J7 and afforded similar examination. We also highlight the fact that Transport for London was in the charge of no lesser mortal than the ex-Deputy Assistant to the Director of the CIA, Robert Kiley. Further detail about the private organisations involved in the running of essential public transport services are included in the Private Companies involved in London Transport section of the J7 web site.

It is deeply ironic that, as well as challenging the State in its various guises, challenging the dominance and stranglehold of private organisations on public life was once a core political activity among left-wing and anarchist groupuscules. As was examining the actions and nature of the racist and apartheid State of Israel once possible without the unfounded smear of anti-Semitism.

Binyamin Netanyahu

Another 'fact' that cannot be ignored by J7, or anyone else researching the events of 7th July 2005, is what Stott refers to as the 'presence in London on the day of 7/7 of .. Benjamin Netanyu' (sic). Far from Netanyahu's mere presence in London being of concern, the reason Netanyahu features in our analysis at all is as a direct consequence of it being claimed that he received a warning prior to the attacks.

The facts are that Netanyahu was due to attend the Tel-Aviv Stock Exchange / Deutsche Bank Conference in the Great Eastern Hotel in Liverpool Street station (the site of the first explosion) but a prior warning (later denied by Scotland Yard) meant he remained in his hotel in Russell Square, close to the sites of two further explosions.

"The Israeli Embassy in London was notified in advance, resulting in Finance Minister Binyamin Netanyahu remaining in his hotel room rather than make his way to the hotel adjacent to the site of the first explosion, a Liverpool Street train station, where he was to address an economic summit.”

Furthermore, the same article also notes:

"The Israeli Embassy were quick to deny that this conference could have been the target for such an attack. Israeli officials stress the advanced Scotland Yard warning does not in any way indicate Israel was the target in the series of apparent terror attacks."

Some questions worth asking, irrespective of whether an Independent Public Inquiry, outside of the pernicious Inquiries Act 2005, is ever held to investigate the events of 7/7:

• Was the Israeli Embassy issued a warning prior to the attacks?

• If so, who issued the warning?

• How did the Israeli Embassy know that this conference was not the target for such an attack?

• If the Israeli Embassy did not receive prior warning, how did the story about notification come to be, where did the idea that Israel was the target originate, and which “Israeli official” denied this to be the case?

If anyone were to take Stott's article seriously, possible foreknowledge and forewarnings about 7/7 which had the potential to save the lives of innocent commuters should be ignored and nobody should be asking or demanding answers to questions such as those listed above.

Ex-Mossad Chief, Efraim Halevi

Another Israeli/Mossad connection which cannot be ignored is the article by ex-Mossad Chief Efraim Halevi published on the day and ominously titled, "Rules of Conflict for a World War", in which he presciently announced:

The multiple, simultaneous explosions that took place today on the London transportation system were the work of perpetrators who had an operational capacity of considerable scope.

There was careful planning, intelligence gathering, and a sophisticated choice of timing as well as near-perfect execution. We are faced with a deadly and determined adversary who will stop at nothing and will persevere as long as he exists as a fighting terrorist force.

It is impossible to know how Halevi was able to claim 'near-perfect execution' on the day, particularly when the timings of the blasts were being reported as anything but simultaneous, but instead taking place over the course of an hour. The last MPS press release issued at 19.15 on the day of 7/7 claimed:

"There follows an outline of this morning's events:

At 08.51 on 7 July at Liverpool Street Station there was an explosion in a train carriage 100 yards into the (Liverpool Street-bound station) tunnel.

At 08.56 there was another incident at King's Cross / Russell Square. Both stations were used to bring out casualties.

At 09.17 there was an explosion on a train coming into Edgware Road underground station approximately 100 yards into the tunnel. This explosion blew through a wall onto another train on an adjoining platform.

Three trains are believed to have been involved.

At 09.47 there was an explosion on a bus at Upper Woburn Square junction with Tavistock Place.

It wasn't until a press conference held two days later, on 9th July 2005, that Tim O'Toole claimed the underground explosions happened "almost simultaneously", within 50 seconds of each other at approx. 8.50am. Oddly, recently released CCTV from Liverpool Street purporting to show the explosion is time-stamped 07.46.58, over an hour before the alleged and revised timings of the explosions.

In March 2005 Halevi, a senior adviser to the US Middle East Project Inc., had been appointed to the Advisory Board of Quest, a UK based Risk Management and Investigation company. The Chairman of Quest is Sir John Stevens, ex-Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police. Stevens was also the first person to declare in his column for the News of The World on 10th July 2005 that the 7/7 attacks were carried out by British citizens, some two days before the first raids were carried out by police in West Yorkshire. In his News of the World article, Lord Stevens of Kirkwhelpington, who retired as Metropolitan Police Commissioner in January 2005 and whose tenure would have overseen the Operation Crevice investigation and its alleged connections to the alleged 7/7 bombers, described the likely suspects as:

"apparently-ordinary British citizens, young men conservatively and cleanly dressed and probably with some higher education. Highly computer literate, they will have used the internet to research explosives, chemicals and electronics," "They are also willing to kill without mercy - and to take a long time in their planning. They are painstaking, cautious, clever and very sophisticated."

-- Sir John Stevens, 10th July 2005, News Of the World

Furthermore, to ignore the history of what are now well-documented false-flag operations, and to ignore Mossad's previous roles in 'false-flag' operations in the UK would be little short of foolish.

In 1988, 28 year old Ismael Sowan, a research assistant at Humberside College of Higher Education, was discovered by British police to be in possession of a large quantity of arms and explosives. Sowan was working for Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency. Mossad's plan was that Sowan would let off bombs in Britain that would leave sufficient forensic clues to suggest that they were the work of Moslem countries and thus damage Anglo-Arab relations. Sowan had been run by a five man Mossad team operating in Britain under the cover of a private company with the tacit approval of the Foreign Office and MI5. After the discoveries by the police the Foreign Office felt it had to ask the Mossad team to leave the country.

It would appear to be of no concern to Stott that Halevi and Stevens seem to have been several steps ahead of both the police investigation and the unfolding official narrative. J7, however, feel that such items warrant far greater investigation than Stott's instant dismissal.

Rudy Giuliani

Along with dismissing the presence in London of Netanyahu as unworthy of further investigation, Stott would rather ignore the presence of Rudy Giuliani, the former mayor of New York, in charge at the time of the 11th September 2001 attacks, who happened to be at Liverpool Street that day. Not only was Giuliani in Liverpool Street but he also claims he was told immediately that the explosions were caused by bombs. The first news about explosions on the underground broke at 09:17 for lesser mortals than Rudy, including those travelling on London's public transport system, and even then the explosions were only claimed to be the product of 'power surges':

"I was right near Liverpool [Street] Station when the first bomb went off and was notified of it and it was just to me very eerie to be right there again when one of these attacks takes place."

Giuliani happened to be fresh from a speech he had given, in return for the princely sum of £50,000, about the 'battle against terrorism' and his admiration for Blair and Bush to the LGA conference in Harrogate, North Yorkshire, just the day before, in which he claimed:

"... terrorists were too often released in the past by governments because they were afraid of them, comparing it to the mistakes made in the 1930s over Hitler.

"I think their determined response to it, against public opinion very often, has helped keep us safe and I think if they had been more typical of some of our politicians, they would have shifted because of public opinion which would have been disastrous." He added: "I have great respect for their setting a very determined policy as regard to terrorism, sticking with it when it became unpopular and I credit the fact we have been able to reduce terrorism to what they have done."

Outlining his views on the common enemy in 2006 and warning of another attack on America, Giuliani stated:

"You cannot negotiate with them. These are not people — they have demonstrated to us that they despise us. They hate us. They want to kill us. And they want to kill us because we're a modern society. They want to kill us because we give women rights. They want to kill us because we have freedom of religion. They want to kill us because we have elected officials. They want to kill us because we're modern and we can't give that up.”

Wayne Barrett, one of America's great investigative journalists, depicts Giuliani as a cruel, unstable, destructive hypocrite, a man judged by the press to be barely human and inwardly empty. Barrett also investigated Giuliani's business links to Qatar, and in particular, to Qatari Interior Minister, Sheikh Abdullah (Abdallah) bin Khalid Al Thani and thus, Al-Jazeera. Barrett writes:

Abdallah al-Thani remains a named defendant in the 9/11 lawsuits that are still proceeding in Manhattan federal court, but his Washington lawyers declined to address the charges that he shielded KSM, insisting only that he never "supported" any "terrorist acts." Asked if Abdallah al-Thani ever supported any terrorists rather than their acts, his lawyer David Nachman declined to comment further. The Congressional Research Service report summarized the evidence against him: "According to the 9/11 Commission Report and former U.S. government officials, royal family member and current Qatari Interior Minister, Sheikh Abdullah (Abdallah) bin Khalid Al Thani, provided safe harbor and assistance to Al Qaeda leaders during the 1990s," including KSM.

In the same article Barrett also mentions Ali Soufan:

Peter Boyer, whose New Yorker profile of Giuliani appeared this August, quoted D'Amuro and Giuliani about the expertise and work of Ali Soufan, an Arabic-speaking Lebanese-American who also left the FBI to become the international director of Giuliani Security. Both D'Amuro and Giuliani said that Soufan, the lead investigator in the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole in 2000, had been spending "most of his time" in a Persian Gulf country that is a Giuliani client. Boyer didn't identify the country, but another source familiar with Soufan's assignment has confirmed that Soufan has, until recently, been based in Qatar. "The firm has helped the country with training, and with a revamping of its security infrastructure," Boyer wrote. "The locale is an ideal listening post for someone whose expertise is unraveling the tangle of international terror."

Ali Soufan was an FBI agent, accused of entrapment in this sting operation:

Sabir's defense lawyer has cried entrapment. The accused himself later testified he had no idea that the Sheik Osama he was heard pledging his loyalty to was the Qaeda terror chief named bin Laden. But the musician, an accomplished jazz bassist named Tarik Shah who once played with the Duke Ellington Orchestra, has already pleaded guilty to a terror-related charge. So have two other men in the case, a Washington, D.C., cabdriver and a Brooklyn bookstore owner. The FBI counts the case as one more victory in what it considers to be its top-priority mission: finding would-be terrorists before they can carry out their plans.

....

Soufan called the deception a “proactive counter-terrorism operation,” designed, he told the court, “to reach out to individuals who wanted to be Al Qaeda members, make them believe that they actually get their goals in reaching Al Qaeda, and then we stop them before they hurt people.”

This trial has been heard twice and on both occasions the jury have failed to convict. The U.S. administration is now attempting a third re-trial and will presumably continue retrying until such time as it receives the politically expedient verdict it desires. If at first you don't succeed, trial, trial again.

Meanwhile, Rudy Giuliani continues to face legitimate opposition from the working class in the form of the International Association of Fire Fighters which is taking him to task for “the egregious acts Mayor Giuliani committed against our members, our fallen on 9/11.”

Conclusion

While the likes of Stott and O'Hara, along with their Notes from the Borderland and 9/11 CultWatch efforts, will happily devote their time to hunting down alleged 'cultists', real players wielding real powers using real deceptions and with real contacts to the real powers that be, are able to manoeuvre, often-times in full public view, safe in the knowledge that they will continue to be ignored by those who profess to offer radical views and radical politics. After all, States don't use terrorism, assassination, mass murder and war against innocent civilians often in the name of National Security and protecting their National interests do they? To believe they do might earn you the label 'Conspiracy Theorist'. Additionally, why would anyone chance being accused of anti-Semitism by pointing out that amongst the main beneficiaries of the events in London on 7th July 2005 have been the burgeoning police state in the UK, the profitable and ever expanding 'security businesses' and the illegal, racist and apartheid state of Israel. The Ummah pejoratively referred to by Stott in his presentation, however, has not benefited in any way from these attacks.

Whether or not the left, radical or otherwise, and anarchists alike choose at some stage to recognise that they have been reduced to parroting variants of the official State-sanctioned doctrine of the US/UK alliance 'War of Terror' remains to be seen. If Stott's paper, Half Truth Movement: How The 9/11 Cult Falsifies History, is in any way indicative of the positions held by Notes from the Borderland, Class War, the left, anarchists, or any other group, then the outlook is very bleak indeed.

Whilst J7 have no links to any 9/11 truth movement, we do believe that these seminal events require open-minded research and analysis. We are also aware that some spokespeople and proponents for 7/7 and 9/11 truth hold some esoteric, offensive and frankly bizarre views on the way the world works. We would argue that this is the very reason why events such as 9/11 and 7/7 must be understood in their correct historic and political context, something that the so-called left have so far failed to incorporate into their political analyses beyond the official narrative of events.

Cui Bono? Who benefits? Who is really in favour of 'half-truths'? Who watches the CultWatchers?

From this brief critique of Stott's paper the evidence would seem to favour the notion that it is certain self-styled 'cult-watchers' and the authors of Britain's self-styled “premier parapolitical investigative magazine” who, with particular reference to the events of 7/7 and the means and methods of the July 7th Truth Campaign, are the principle proponents of half-truths.