Mind the Gap - An attempted debunking at a 7/7 was an inside job film

[mwfte]

Hey guys,

I just watched a new conspiracy theorists video called Mind the Gap (apparently I can't post the URL to it, but it is on Google video), narrated by David Shayler, a former MI5 agent. I tried my best to debunk it (my first debunk ever), and I decided to post my writings here in case anyone was interested.

Mind the Gap – A Debunking

The first minutes of Mind the Gap talk about the awful war in Iraq and experiences of soldiers, but make no allusions to the 7/7 London bombings. This documentary doesn’t get into 7/7 until almost 1/4th of the way into it. There is no evidence presented that the USA's desire to invade Iraq has anything to do with the 7/7 attacks.

We all know about the Downing Street memo, but the leaked inside memo about the faked UN planes? I looked up an article at the Times Online, and it says this memo is in a book by Philippe Sands. I need to know where he got his memo; was it from a reliable source? Also, according to Wikipedia, his book is about how Bush and Blair conspired to invade Iraq. This is proven. We have the Downing Street memo. This is not connected to the 7/7 bombings in any way. I just read an interview with Mr. Sands, and he made no mention of either 9/11 or 7/7 as being an inside job.

Concerning the publicly released report by the Project for a New American Century that said a catastrophic event would bring change: context is very important. The quote is actually about the slow growth of military technology, not the support of the public for a war. It was released in 2000, just before the presidential elections, to criticise cuts in the military budget made by the Clinton administration.

Besides that, why would they openly announce such a plan?

According to this film, the Israeli Embassy was warned of the attacks before they happened. I went to the same exact article featured in that section of the movie, and the article says,

Quote:

Army Radio quoting unconfirmed reliable sources reported a short time ago that Scotland Yard had intelligence warnings of the attacks a short time before they occurred.

That isn’t very convincing. Unconfirmed but reliable sources? That could be anyone. It is vital that one cites sources.

The exercises that were performed on 7/7 were done by a private company, Visor Consultants, not the government. This is not mentioned in the documentary. Peter Power, the former senior Scotland Yard official specializing in counterterrorism, received a flood of emails after his appearance on BBC Radio. This is his response:

Quote:

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 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.

About a third of the way through the film, the filmmakers talk about the testimonies of the bombing’s victims and witnesses. This is anecdotal evidence. Real evidence, such as photos and videos of what the witnesses say they saw, is needed. Also, the narrator of the film says the damage of the bombings of the bus outside the British Medical Association isn’t consistent with a single peroxide based device detonating in one place in his opinion. Well, good. That’s his opinion, not evidence. He also quotes unconfirmed reports about irregular maintenance on the bus. I repeat: citing sources is important. Anyone can just pull anything out of the air and call it an unconfirmed report.

I really love how, throughout this film, the narrator uses unconfirmed quotes and scenarios to make his own points, but puts down newspapers and other reports that used unconfirmed quotes and scenarios to make their own.

He also says there are no CCTV pictures of the London Bombers; however, I found a CCTV picture of them on the Guardian's website. They publicly released the names of these people and they were arrested. One suspect played cricket the night before the bombing. What does that proved? Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris bowled the morning they shot up Columbine High School.

After the bombings, the British government speculated that the terrorist attack was connected to al-Qaeda, and then changed their minds. They speculated. That is nothing unusual. Whenever there is a terrorist threat, the US and the British governments, not to mention the press, always bring up al-Qaeda and say the two could be linked.

Toward the end of the documentary, the narrator says the British MI6 protects terrorists that they work with, but he doesn’t provide any evidence. He simply says it. He then quotes FOX News, which is a notoriously bad news network, as saying Rashid Aswat worked for MI6. The name of the dude speaking with the FOX News reporter is simply called a “Terrorism Expert.” He doesn’t quote any of his sources.

The “Covenant of Security?” That’s actually a pretty good argument against the idea of 7/7 being an inside job. If it’s true, the British government didn’t want any attacks to happen.

About five minutes before the end of Mind the Gap, a man who was shot to death by police on the London subway stations is mentioned. It is declared the reason for his death is still a mystery. What the heck does that have to do with 7/7? No link is made. It’s also mentioned that the threat level was lowered before the bombings, and the narrator asks why. Does he have proof that MI5 lowered the levels for any other reason than thinking the chance of a terrorist attack had gone down?

The film ends with the narrator saying that the G8 wasn’t reported on in the media because, in the coming days, the media would be flooded with news of the bombings. This assumes that there was a conspiracy, and implies that the media knew about the bombings before hand. This is not evidence; this is the filmmakers making stuff up.

The filmmakers also put up an article about someone who was arrested for quoting George Orwell; if it is a real article (since the source is not cited again, it has nothing to do with the 7/7 bombings.


Candice :-)

[Gravy]

Welcome to the forums, Candice.

Nice Job! You might want to post a link to your debunking on blogs and forums that mention the film, as well as on Google Video comments.

Thanks for fighting against ignorance!

[kevin]

you can't post full links but drop the http: from the front and it should come through (might need to drop the www. too, but I didn't when I first joined)

[kevin]

i believe this is the video:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...69086869015320

[Brainster]

Shayler gets a lot of attention in the Alex Jones flick, Terrorstorm. I have to laugh at his absurd contention (about 25:10) that the terrorists would not have blown up Londoners at random because after all, many British people had protested against the Iraq war. It seems reminiscent of Michael Moore's brain dead observation that if the terrorists of 9-11 had wanted to get back at George W. Bush, they attacked the wrong targets; New York City and Washington DC had voted overwhelmingly for Gore.

[Brainster]

Some observations:

1. Shayler's wrong when he claims that Loftus was a US Attorney General; he was a US Attorney, which is quite a different thing.

2. Like many CTers he can't seem to decide what he really believes. Early on he casts doubt on whether the 7/7 bombers were who we think they were; by the end he seems to be saying that MI6 helped the people who helped those same bombers.

3. At least he doesn't mimic Alex Jones' claim that the diversion of the bus into Tavistock Square was part of the plot.

[gumboot]

Originally Posted by Brainster

It seems reminiscent of Michael Moore's brain dead observation that if the terrorists of 9-11 had wanted to get back at George W. Bush, they attacked the wrong targets; New York City and Washington DC had voted overwhelmingly for Gore.

Get back at Bush for what?

-Andrew

[Sword_Of_Truth]

Ironically, a 7/7 conspiracy is far more plausible than a 9-11 one. Simply because of how easy it would be. Wich at the same time makes it implausible.

Just find a half-dozen gullible whackjobs, give each a plain brown paper bag, tell them to hop a train and pull the pin.

Wich of course begs the question; why haven't there been more 7/7's?

[Mid]

They use a quote from Mark Honigsbaum he's written about this recently:

Quote:

I asked passengers what they had seen and experienced and was told by two survivors from the bombed train that, at the moment of the blast, the covers on the floor of their carriage had flown up - the phrase they used was "raised up". There was no time to check their statements as moments later the police widened the cordon and I was directed to the opposite pavement, outside the Metropole hotel.

Moments later, Davinia Turrell, the famous "woman in the mask", emerged from M&S together with other injured passengers and I followed them into the hotel. It was from there that at around 11am I phoned a hurried, and what I now know to be flawed, audio report to the Guardian. In the report, broadcast on our website, I said that it "was believed" there had been an explosion "under the carriage of the train". I also said that "some passengers described how the tiles, the covers on the floors of the train, flew up, raised up".

It later became clear from interviewing other passengers who had been closer to the seat of the explosion that the bomb had actually detonated inside the train, not under it, but my comments, disseminated over the internet where they could be replayed ad nauseam, were already taking on a life of their own.

From:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,1806625,00.html

There's some general discussion aboutt 7/7 CTs here:

http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=59073

[Brainster]

Originally Posted by gumboot

Get back at Bush for what?

-Andrew

Probably for cutting taxes on the rich and not raising the minimum wage. Here's the quote from Wikipedia (it was quickly redacted):

Quote:

Many families have been devastated tonight. This just is not right. They did not deserve to die. If someone did this to get back at Bush, then they did so by killing thousands of people who did not vote for him! Boston, New York, DC, and the planes' destination of California — these were places that voted against Bush!

[gumboot]

Originally Posted by Brainster

Probably for cutting taxes on the rich and not raising the minimum wage.

Terrorists wanted to get back at Bush for cutting taxes on the rich and not raising the minimum wage? Wow, OBL does care about the little guy after all.

-Andrew

[Brainster]

Originally Posted by gumboot

Terrorists wanted to get back at Bush for cutting taxes on the rich and not raising the minimum wage? Wow, OBL does care about the little guy after all.

-Andrew

And the little woman, as Patty Murray (a particularly airheaded senator from Washington State) advised us:

Quote:

Sen. Patty Murray intended to be provocative when she told a group of high school students terrorist leader Osama bin Laden is popular in poor countries because he helped pay for schools, roads and even day care centers.

"We haven't done that," Murray said. "How would they look at us today if we had been there helping them with some of that rather than just being the people who are going to bomb in Iraq and go to Afghanistan?"

Of course, as a lot of people pointed out, day care centers weren't much use in the Taliban's Afghanistan, as women weren't allowed to work.

[brodski]

Originally Posted by mwfte

narrated by David Shayler, a former MI5 agent.

I haven't seen the film so I can't yet debunk it, but i have to start with this:

Aside from the pedantic point about the difference between an agent and an operative (CTers always get this wrong, even when trying to sound knowledgeable about security matters) Shayler was a junior desk officer, (Home civil service EO equivalent grade) this is the most junior grade employed by the Security Service ("Mi5") he was a glorified filing clerk in a service which has no remit or function outside the UK's borders, a glorified filing clerk who was getting below acceptable performance reviews- who decided to commit treason to stroke his own ego- there is absolutely zero reason to believe that Shayler has any insight whatsoever into 9/11 or 7/7.

(I don't mean any of this as an insult to you mwfte)

[gumboot]

Originally Posted by brodski

I haven't seen the film so I can't yet debunk it, but i have to start with this:

Aside from the pedantic point about the difference between an agent and an operative (CTers always get this wrong, even when trying to sound knowledgeable about security matters) Shayler was a junior desk officer, (Home civil service EO equivalent grade) this is the most junior grade employed by the Security Service ("Mi5") he was a glorified filing clerk in a service which has no remit or function outside the UK's borders, a glorified filing clerk who was getting below acceptable performance reviews- who decided to commit treason to stroke his own ego- there is absolutely zero reason to believe that Shayler has any insight whatsoever into 9/11 or 7/7.

Oh, thanks for the info. I always wondered. Funny how it always works out like that. What a piece of work. I knew to ignore him in Terrorstorm when he claimed that not a single fighter aircraft was launched on September 11 between the moment that AA11 was hijacked and UA93 crashed. In fact by the time UA93 crashed NEADS had launched ALL their available aircraft, plus an extra, and Andrews AFB had launched some too.

-Andrew