Who Really Did the July 7 London Tube Train Bombings?

Further to his account of a harrowing confrontation with security officials at the British Library (see my last post), Craig Murray, former UK Ambassador to Uzbekistan, today reviews the British Government's terrorism Prevent Strategy paper.

In so doing, he states:

with stunning intellectual dishonesty the government refuses to tackle in the report the fact that terrorism in the UK has been driven by disgust at British foreign policy, and especially the invasion of Iraq, and the continuing occupation and civilian deaths in Afghanistan. This is not speculation on my part; the 7/7 bombers not only referred to this specifically in suicide videos, they also indeed cited extraordinary rendition and torture as motives of their actions.

This is a remarkable claim, asserting a mere hypothesis as a fact and then stating that it is not a speculation.

And on what basis are we to accept Murray's claim as a fact? Why, on the authority of a suicide bomber's video* conveniently provided by Britain's ever trusty police. LOL.

And if Murray is incorrect in his hypothesis about the motivation of the 7/7 bombers and indeed in his assumption about the identities of the bombers -- something never proved in court -- an assumption claimed as a fact and not a speculation, then the actual motivation of the bombers remains a legitimate subject of inquiry.

In turn, this means that the Prevent Strategy report may not, as Murray claims, be in error in "its explicit assumption that terrorism is actuated by a hatred of democracy."

But the question then would be who is it that so hates democracy that they are ready to commit acts of terrorism to subvert it: some group within the general populace? Or could it be some group within the ruling elite?

Furthermore, if Murray's hypothesis about the motivation of the 7/7 bombers, claimed as a fact and not a speculation, is incorrect, it remains open to question whether the Prevent Strategy report is in error in stating that:

"There is evidence to indicate that support for terrorism is associated with rejection of a cohesive, integrated, multi-faith society and of parliamentary democracy"?

But if so, it is not necessarily correct in the sense that most would understand.

When states fail to apply the normal investigative and legal procedures in identifying terrorists (as in the case of 9/11 and 7/7) it is reasonable to question who exactly are the perpetrators of terrorism and what exactly are the intended effects of their violence.

The 7/7 Tube train bombings could surely have been expected to mobilize public opinion against fundamentalist Muslims who oppose multi-faith integration, i.e., the bombings must have created pressure for the reduction of Islam to a secularized vacuity equivalent to Anglican Christianity in which form Mullahs can join with Arch-Bishops in interfaith communion with an all-inclusive, bisexual, feminist Allah.

* According to the Guardian article linked above, the suicide video script appears to have been written by Adam Yahiye Gadahn. American-born Adam Gadahn is, so it has been alleged, a fake Al Qaeda operative whose real name is Adam Pearlman. Adam Pearlman, it is further alleged, is the grandson of the late Carl K. Pearlman, a prominent Jewish urologist in Orange County. Carl was also a member of the board of directors of the Anti-Defamation League.