Thursday, February 02, 2006

A cracking week for conspiracy theorists


Some of my favourite ‘conspiracy theories’ have received a much-needed breath of life over the last few days. They include:

The Princess Diana autocide

I’m one of those people who find it quite difficult to mourn the passing of someone whose annual frock bill would have kept the population of a small developing country in millet. However, I am interested in what it was she was about to announce before her unfortunate, erm, accident. Many people have been distracted with rumours of pregnancies and Muslim marriages. Personally, and if I was a betting man, I’d put my money on her planning to reveal an insight into what her ex husband does for fun and who he does it with, whether they are up for it or not. But I digress slightly.

Apparently, the much delayed investigation into the death of Princess Diana is proving to be ‘far more complex than any of us thought’ according to Lord Stevens, the former head of London’s Metropolitan Police, who acknowledged that some of the issues raised by Mohammed al Fayed were ‘right to be raised.’ He did not elaborate.

My personal favourite ‘complexities’ include

  • The CCTV camera in the tunnel not working (presumably supplied by the same firm that equips London buses and tube trains)
  • The tunnel being thoroughly cleaned before the blood had even dried
  • The security guard in the car selectively losing all memory of what happened that night (my most favourite)
  • The ambulance taking an hour to cover the 6km distance to the hospital
  • The driver of the Mercedes apparently having enough carbon monoxide in his system to kill him

What I am not interested in is all those stories about enormous flashguns being used to incapacitate the driver, speculations about pregnancies and all that other cack that has been slung onto the Net to make anyone with questions about the death look like a nutcase.

I can’t wait for Lord Stevens report. I’m sure it will be very, very funny.

Hmmm

The Stockwell Shooting

Yet another unattributed leak about the Stockwell Shooting hit the newspapers last weekend. According to the News of the World

UNDERCOVER police forged vital surveillance evidence to cover up a crucial blunder that led to innocent Brazilian Jean Charles de Menezes being gunned down as a suspected Tube suicide bomber.

Given that

  • the News of the World this is part of the kiss arse Murdoch-owned media group that looks after the interests of our current government
  • the source is anonymous
  • the story doesn’t even begin to offer an explanation for all the shenanigans that went on that day

you’ve just got to be suspicious. Unfortunately, the de Menezes family appears to have swallowed the bait and is running with this chunk of disinformation.

I suppose you could choose to believe that this revelation offers a complete explanation for what went wrong that day but then you’ve got to believe that…

The police only lied once and the investigation just happened to identify that solitary lie

Hmmm

The Iranian Nuclear Laptop story

The International Atomic Energy Agency has just been given some of the documents found on a laptop computer supposedly stolen from Iran by American intelligence last year. We are told that the data on the laptop is ‘strongly suggestive’ of an active Iranian nuclear weapons program.

Sadly, we have been provided with no means of knowing whether this magic laptop is genuine or a fake, and given the recent truth track record of the US and UK governments you’ve just got to be just a teensy weensy bit suspicious.

And, as with the ‘Iraq is buying uranium from Niger story’ which is now proven to be fake, you’ve got to ask yourself who would be making up stuff like this and why. You have to ask for yourself because our media and governments aren’t

Hmmm

What else? Oh yes

The 7/7 Bombing enquiry

Yet another unattributed leak this weekend revealed that MI5 is at a complete dead end in its investigation of the 7/7 bombings

‘We know little about what three of the bombers did in Pakistan, when attack planning began, how and when the attackers were recruited, the extent of any external direction or assistance and the extent and role of any wider network.’

So, that extra 125m quid a year and those new MI5 offices in eight British cities is money well spent then.

Someone might want to give one of those new offices a call and suggest that they can’t find anything because they’re looking in the wrong place. Scratch that, they probably know that already.

One of the stronger ‘conspiracy theories’ that emerged after 7/7 was the suggestion that the four bombers were duped into thinking they were delivering drugs to London. I am always a little wary about thinking about alternate scenarios for these kind of events and find myself dwelling on the unanswered questions instead. That way you avoid flights of fancy and keep the focus on what’s not right about a story.

Having said that, my feeling has always been that these guys were duped in some way. All of the raw material in the media just pointed in that direction. The drugs mule scenario has been strengthened by the news that one of the bombers had a net estate worth £121,000. That’s some going for a 22-year-old bloke from Yorkshire. Of course, if these guys were duped that opens all sorts of potential suspects as being behind the attack. And if drugs were involved Islamic fundamentalists aren’t likely to be top of the list.

Hmmm

One throwaway observation is the peculiar nature of the codenames used by MI5 for the London Bombing investigations

The Investigation into 7/7 is called ‘Stepford

The Investigation into 21/7 is called ‘Hat

Type Stepford into the Google and it is pretty clear that the only conceivable significance of the word is a reference to the movie The Stepford Wives. You know, the robotically programmed ones. I suppose Operation Muppet Patsy would have been too much of give-away. The significance of ‘Hat’ is more subtle and not so easy to fathom. It is clear however that someone in MI5 has quite a dry sense of humour.

2 comments:

Shablagoo! said...

Fascinating Post! ;)

ziz said...

A "complex" problem for a retired policeman like my Lord Stevens (probably on a nice wedge to leisurely cover up all the misdeeds and mess left behind after that messy and untimely death) would be to follow the instructions about how to insert two AA batteries into a dildo. A device which according to her manservant (?)Burrell she was not unacquainted.

Like you, I wait with a sense of heightened expectancy for Mr Beey Clarke's "Timeline" of 7/7.

I DO get irritated when the Beeb ferers to the suicide bombers and have still not yet had a satisfactory explanation from them why they persist with the fiction.

They also in moments of madness refer to the suicide bombers on 21/7, suicide bombers who legged it, one as far as Italy - despite Sir Ian Blair of that Ilk saying none had joined the Somali diaspora on the Continong - whilst his mates casually shot someone who might have ...er .. well ..looked a bit foreign ... like him Guv.

Now of course we have the (unattrib) leak that MI5 realise they missed Kahn ... no names no pack drill why a Muslim married to a Hindu with child and one on the way would blow himself up.

Curiously correspondence with Cdr Clarke the "Sphinx" of the Yard asking for his views on the possibility of the bombers being duped rcve a polite response thanking for the interest and enquiries continue.

On a more personal note I think the people who cashed in on Lady Di with her frocks got the garments wrong , sales of her underwear would I have been assured raise far more money.

It is said (and this must be untrue) that a (ex England) burly rugby player is in possession of such an item which he will on occasion amuse his other burly rugby playing friends. ... with tales about how he came by way of such an intimate garment. .. which apparently does not involve raids on washing lines in the wee small hours.