Social Democracy Now

As I pointed out in a previous post, we've been hearing a lot lately about the French 'malaise.' Since few things annoy me more than a media campaign obviously aimed at manufacturing a political climate conducive to neoliberal reformism, I decided to look at the most recent Eurobarometer survey, no. 61, which was conducted in February-March 2004, just to see for myself how glum the French really are.

The survey of 1,019 individuals demonstrates that though on the pessimistic side of the opinion spectrum, the French are by no means the most pessimistic. Only 13% of the French - two percent below the EU-15 average of 15% - expected 'life in general' to get worse in the next twelve months, a figure that was exceeded by the Dutch (14%), the Austrians (15%), the Germans (27%) and the Portuguese (35%). They were much more pessimistic when it came to the economic situation in France, with 43% saying that they expected it to get worse, but this was the EU-15 average. Those who were even more pessimistic (about their own countries) were the the Dutch (49%), the Italians (52%), the Germans (57%) and the Portuguese (59%).

The French were a little more pessimistic when it came to the employment situation in their own country, with 49% saying that they expected it to get worse, but this was only one percentage point above the EU-15 average and exactly the same as the Italians and the Austrians. Those who were most pessimistic about the employment situation in their own countries were the Belgians (52%), Luxemburgers (57%), the Dutch (61%), the Germans (66%) and the Portuguese (68%). So although the French are clearly none too optimistic, the Dutch, the Italians, the Germans and the Portuguese are all significantly more pessimistic about things economic than the French - one has to wonder why no one is yet talking about the Dutch malaise, the Italian malaise or the Portuguese malaise.

Oddly, these figures coexist with a strange degree of confidence in their own personal wellbeing. While nearly half the French are pessimistic when it comes to the economic and employment outlook in France, they are definitely optimistic when it comes to their own household situation. No fewer than 76% expect their situation to stay the same or to improve. Those expecting it to improve actually outweigh the pessimists by 27% to 20%, leaving half the country of the view that things will stay the same. The French are even more optimistic about their 'personal job situation.' No fewer than 80% expect their situation to stay the same or to improve. Those expecting it to improve actually outweigh the pessimists by 24% to 9%, leaving a substantial majority (56%) of the opinion that things will stay the same.

Perhaps the best way to understand the French mentality at present is to examine the responses to the question asking respondents to compare life five years ago with life now and what they expect five years from now. In terms of the last five years, the results are wholly indecisive. One-third say things have grown worse, one-third say they have stayed the same, and one-third say they have improved. This result was virtually identical to the result for the EU-15, meaning that the French are no more pessimistic than Europeans generally. It is almost exactly the same figure as for the Italians, about whose malaise we hear precisely nothing.

As for the next five years, the French expect their degree of 'life satisfaction' to improve dramatically. A surprising 81% of the French expect their lives to stay the same or to improve in that period. Those expecting it to improve dramatically outnumber the pessimists by 44% to 15%, making it abundantly clear that even in France, optimism rules. In terms of the proportion of the population expecting life to get better in the next five years, the French were firmly planted among the optimistic half of the EU-15.

Although we are told that the core of the French 'malaise' is concern about unemployment, the French do not appear to be inordinately concerned about it. While 58% of respondents identified it as the EU's major problem at the moment, which was well above the 44% average for the EU-15, that figure was exceeded by the Germans (64%), the Finns (64%), the Portuguese (66%) and the Greeks (75%).

To sum up, although the French are a little on the pessimistic side, it would be a gross distortion to suggest that they have descended into national depression. Such expressions of pessimism also need to be balanced by the fact that, when they are asked to reflect on their personal lives, the French are substantially more optimistic, and when it comes to the next five years, very optimistic indeed. It is hard to think of people who are generally quite positive about their personal employment, their household situation, and very optimistic about the next five years as suffering from a collective malaise.

The only country for which the term 'malaise' would seem appropriate would be Germany where, virtually alone out of the EU, pessimists outnumbered the optimists (31% to 18%) on the question of the next five years. Clearly, relatively few people in Germany expect Chancellor Schroeder's draconian reform package, Hartz IV, to usher in a new era of good times. There would therefore seem to be much stronger case for the existence of a German malaise than a French one.

Three weeks after the London bombings, the evidence is sufficient to warrant a firm conclusion: this was an inside job, a government-sanctioned operation carried out by MI5, most likely through a number of proxy organizations, including Visor Consulting. The most damning piece of evidence against the government is the testimony of one of the victims, dancer Bruce Lait, who, along with his dance partner Crystal Main, was nearest to the bomb when it exploded.

When he was being assisted out of the carriage, Lait recalls, "The policeman said 'mind that hole, that's where the bomb was'. The metal was pushed upwards as if the bomb was underneath the train. They seem to think the bomb was left in a bag, but I don't remember anybody being where the bomb was, or any bag," he said. (SOURCE)

Lait's evidence is a godsend for independent investigators, because he is virtually the only person who was near the location at which a bomb exploded who escaped with only minor injuries. This means that he alone is in a position to tell us what happened: there was no bag, no suspicious individual with a large rucksack.

Lait's account is not as detailed as I would like, but does make absolutely clear that the bombs had been placed underneath the train. The government, however, has been palming the public off with a completely fictitious story, according to which the bombs were carried on board the three trains and the Stagecoach bus by evil-minded members of the public - four young Muslims from northern England who allegedly carried explosives concealed inside large rucksacks.

But the allegations against the young Muslims are complete rubbish. Not a single allegation made against them has so far been proven to be true. As far as them being in London on July 7, there is no evidence they even made it as far as Luton station, the location at which they are supposed to have abandoned their cars and taken a train to London.

The CCTV image of the four alleged bombers entering Luton station at around 7.20am on July 7 is demonstrably fake. Fintan Dunne has found not just one, but as many as thirteen indications that the picture is essentially a Photoshop creation. (What's more the forger apparently signed his work, leaving the moniker "Ducky" in the bytes composing the image itself.)

The most devastating criticism concerns the individual with a white cap (allegedly Mohammed Sidique Khan). The bars behind this man can clearly be seen entering his own body - a physical impossibility. This is definitive proof that his image was sloppily incorporated into a picture that, for all we know, originally showed the entrance to Luton station and nothing else at all.

This is not all that's wrong with this photo. Blogger Irish Drifter has also raised some important points here and here. I would add the observation that the man in the dark cap who is supposed to be Lindsay Germaine has an ebony complexion - in other words, he's black. However,as authentic pictures show, Germaine had a swarthy (dark brown) complexion: his complexion should be a shade darker than Hasib Hussain's but certainly not Nubian black.  
The second problem is the photo of Hasib Hussain entering Luton station which was allegedly taken a few seconds later. The problem with this photo is that it is so closely-cropped around Hussain's body that it looks like a deliberate attempt to suppress indications of whatever was immediately behind him, even though we should see at least one other 'bomber.' One has to wonder what we are not being allowed to see here. That the man immediately behind him was not Lindsay Germaine?

The third problem is the failure to release the crucial CCTV images, alleged footage of the four men at Kings Cross station at around 8.20 am. It cannot be by chance that the images which allegedly enabled police to identify the perpetrators of the bombings have quite inexplicably failed to materialize. This implies that either the footage does not exist at all, or that faking it has proven a much more difficult process than originally envisaged. If the footage actually exists and shows what the police say it shows there is no reason whatever for not releasing it. After all, without it it cannot even be proven that the four young men made it to London. If the men can't be placed at Kings Cross station on the morning of July 7, the chances are extremely remote that they had anything to do with the bombings at all.

It is important to point out here that although a considerable period of time has elapsed since the alleged bombers were all identified, not one single member of the travelling public has come forward to declare that they saw the bombers on the train from Luton to London, at Kings Cross station, or on any of the three trains and the one bus that were involved. I find this absolutely incredible, if indeed the official version of the bombings were true.

In any case, unless they were willing patsies, the four alleged bombers are irrelevant, because the bombs had placed underneath the trains. The bomb that exploded on board the Stagecoach bus may even have been placed under the seat. According to one report, the bomb exploded as soon as a male passenger sat down. That doesn't mean that he had a bomb with him, only that the seat was rigged to the bomb. All it took to set it off was someone to choose to sit in that particular seat.

To conclude, the theory that the London bombings were the work of four young Muslims from northern England is utter fiction. Since the bombs were underneath the trains, not carried on board by members of the public, the current frenzy to search passengers' bags is a pathetic attempt to make it look as if the authorities believe in their own lies.

In fact, if we really want to make ourselves safer from terrorist attacks on our public transportation systems, we need to heighten surveillance of bus and railway stations depots. Because someone seems to enjoy access to these locations who is in a position to load them with bombs with utter impunity - and not a damn thing is being done about it. That should have us all worried.

Oh, and this article will give you an idea just who that 'someone' might be.

NB: For excellent analysis of the London bombings, listen to the most recent radio programmes by Ralph Schoenemann and Mya Schone at this location. They can be downloaded or listened to in streaming audio.

Few people can be unaware that ever since the French public voted against the EU constitution two months ago, the mainstream media (MSM) has begun spewing forth all manner of commentaries and opinion pieces disguised as news declaring how the French model is anachronistic and needs replacing. Although French prime minister Chirac chimed in with a succinct and, as it happens, accurate defense of the French model, the idea that France suffers from a pronounced economic 'malaise' is now something of an orthodoxy among the MSM commentariat. In fact, no MSMer seems capable of penning an article about France on any subject whatsoever which does not use the word 'malaise' at least once. (EXAMPLE)

BELOW: Think France? Think Malaise!



What's not obvious is what's at the bottom of the insistence that France finds itself in desperate need of reform. By most conventional indexes, the country is doing well. Certainly, the economy is not stagnant: 'since 1998, the French economy has expanded by 13%, not much less than Britain's 17%.' (SOURCE) Per capita GDP is also well above EU average - 113%, or almost exactly the same as Sweden - and a little bit higher than Germany. Although it is admittedly a little lower than the U.K., France is by almost every other conceivable measure doing better. For one thing, each year the French work 240 hours less per employed person than do the British (2003 OECD data). That extra leisure time might be one reason why the French obesity rate - 9.4% - is considerably lower than the U.K.'s rate of 22.4%, which is the second worst in the OECD after the U.S. Infant mortality is appreciably lower (1.2 deaths per thousand live births) and life expectancy longer (1.2 years longer) in France than in the U.K. So France would seem to be doing most everything right.

So what's the problem, then? The only acknowledged explanation for all the doom and gloom is France's official unemployment rate of 10.2% (2005). But it's hard not to smell a rat here. For one thing, Finland suffers from an almost identical rate and that hasn't stopped it from being trumpeted as as one of the brightest spots in the EU. Unemployment rates are also very similar for Germany, Greece and Spain, so France is in no respect an outlier. What's more, France has at least improved with respect to its own recent past, the unemployment rate now being 1-2% lower than during the 1990s.

In any case, as David Webster has pointed out, the French unemployment problem is largely a statistical illusion. Although the 10 percent figure receives a great deal of attention, it is not obvious that it is all that bad. France suffers from lower hidden unemployment than the English-speaking countries and the Netherlands, all of which boast lower official unemployment rates. However, these low rates have at least partly been achieved by shifting significant proportions of the unemployed to the disability lists. Although the U.K.'s official unemployment rate is among the best in the EU, this is only because it has a higher proportion of its unemployed on disability than in other countries. As Webster explains:

'The UK has the highest rate of working age sickness of all 15 European Union (EU) countries. The UK rate of 7.0% compares with only 2.1% in Germany and 0.3% in France.* FIGURE 3 shows that, as commentators frequently point out, Britain compares favourably with the rest of the EU in terms of ILO unemployment, with 8 countries having a higher rate. But if the working age sick were to be added to the unemployed, Britain would become the third worst, after Finland and Spain.'

Also in France's favour is the fact that part-time employment remains relatively low. One of the chief reasons other countries appear to be doing well on the employment front is that they have high levels of part-time employment. The U.K., for example, has a part-time employment rate of 23.3% and the Netherlands 34.5%. (2003 figures) But in France, the rate is only 12.9%. Official unemployment rates, no matter how low, should not be abused to distract us from a far more impressive accomplishment, which is the preservation of proper, full-time jobs. In this respect, France ranks among the real winners. Of all OECD countries, it has the fourth lowest rate of part-time employment. So the great majority of French still have real jobs, while too many Dutch and British are forced to make do with contingent employment. Whether or not unemployment is really higher in France than in the U.K., underemployment is far lower - meaning that France has largely avoided creating a large class of working poor.

In short, France's unemployment problem looks like a red herring - after all, why should we care just about unemployment and not about underemployment? - and in any case not serious enough to warrant the overhaul of the country's social model. So what could the problem be? Since the MSM voices the attitudes of the dominant social stratum, which is the banking sector, I had a hunch that the problem might lie with banking interests. It didn't take much research to find out why the bankers - who can hardly be attributed with anything by way of sentimental concern for the wellbeing of the unemployed - might not be too happy with France the way it is now. What I did, essentially, was look for areas in which France is an outlier and connect the dots.

The key to unlocking the problem is France's record on economic inequality. France is actually one of the few countries in which inequality declined during the 1980s and 1990s. Since 1980, it has actually been falling continuously - the reverse of the trend nearly everywhere else. (Smeeding 2004, pp. 8-9. Cf. Figure 3. PDF available here) By comparison, the U.K. had the worst performance in Europe and second only to the U.S. among OECD countries - what Guardian columnist Polly Toynbee recently called 'the social disaster of the past 25 years.'

BELOW: The UK's 'social disaster of the past 25 years' at a glance:



France thus belongs to a select group of rich countries which have blessedly become more, not less equal, in recent decades. This is a fact of great consequence, for when income distribution becomes more unequal something happens which ends up benefiting bankers: households separate into 'financially constrained' and 'financially unconstrained' groups. The latter group - finding themselves in easier circumstances - are more likely to borrow to finance additional purchases or, perhaps more commonly, upgrade to a better car or house. A classic example is Australia, where economic growth is fuelled by rising household debt. But it's not the case that the borrowers are lower-income earners resorting to credit to make ends meet. In fact, 'much of the rise in debt appears to have been due to unconstrained households taking on more debt.' (Reserve Bank of Australia Research Discussion Paper 2003-08. PDF version available here)

In fact, the OECD countries which are generally singled out for praise by the MSM tend to be ones whose economic growth is very largely driven by rising household debt. Thus we've had the 'Dutch miracle,' the 'Danish miracle' and now - as if it's the only show in town - the 'British miracle.' But what we don't hear much about is how the latter 'miracle' owes itself almost entirely to a culture of indebtedness. According to Grant Thornton's Consumer Debt Report, 'In recent years, the UK's economic performance has outstripped that of both France and Germany. However, without the increase in debt, UK economic growth rates would have been much lower.' (SOURCE)

Governments trying to look as if they are scoring victories on the economic front therefore tend to do whatever they can to cultivate debt-based economy - in other words, impressive economic growth figures now based on their citizens' future earnings - lest they face low rates of economic growth and politically-embarrassing allegations that they are allowing their countries to stagnate. This is, in fact, the formula for what has happened in the Anglophone countries over the last 10-15 years: government-promoted income polarisation policies have created a larger pool of people who are inclined to borrow money but also likely to be able to pay back what they have borrowed, even though they usually have to work longer hours to do so. Household savings plummet, as surplus cash is used to service credit payments.

Needless to say, bankers LOVE societies with lots of these people. The alternative - a society with a more equal income distribution - is one in which the reservoir of potential borrowers is smaller. People who are just comfortable - who are neither particularly constrained nor particularly unconstrained - are less likely to borrow and much more likely only to indulge in pleasures for which they can afford to pay upfront. So debt to (disposable) income ratios are 100% or above in all the following countries: Canada (115%), the U.S. (115%), South Korea (120%), Australia (122%), Japan (138%), New Zealand (140%), the U.K. (145%), the Netherlands (195%) and Denmark (230%). In all these countries except the Netherlands, where savings have inexplicably risen from 4% to 10% since the 1970s, household savings are at historical lows or have virtually disappeared: for example, Japan (6.8%), Canada (3.1%), the U.S. (1.7%), Australia (0.1%), and New Zealand (-6.9%).

But - in my opinion, enviably - France is one of the rare countries that defies the general pattern. 'Only in France has disposable income growth kept pace with consumption in recent years.' (SOURCE)

Because their disposable incomes have continued to rise, the French have therefore been able to avoid becoming deeply mired in consumer debt. This is readily apparent from the household savings rate, which has only fallen slightly since the late 1970s (down from 13.2% to 11.2%). Until recently, the country's debt to income ratio was well below Spain and Germany, where it is only just now creeping up to 100%, although not as low as Italy, where the ratio is only around 40%. Although the trend in France is toward higher household debt - it has grown from 78% to 84% over the last five years - the pace is presumably not fast enough to gratify the appetites that are being excited.

In short, we are being told that France is doing badly because the French people are doing well - too well, at least, for the liking of bankers who can smell a feast coming on, and they can barely wait before the country is locked into the same credit-based economy that is making life so miserable for many people in most other OECD countries. But bankers are not interested in anybody's happiness, only their profits. To the bankers, a society not driven by credit is 'stagnant' and 'unsustainable' - whether it enjoys a high standard of living or not. They see no reason why banking should not be just as profitable in France as elsewhere.

But no one outside banking circles should fall for the propaganda campaign the bankers and their journalistic mouthpieces are mounting against the French social model: there are no compelling reasons why France needs to abandon it. What's more, the French are likely to reap long-term benefits from not having taken the short road to artificially-stimulated economic growth. Since we cannot postpone for very much longer the work of creating more environmentally-sustainable societies, it is likely that the societies least ensnared by debt will be among those most able to manage a smooth transition. As Europe confronts the harsh reality of global warming - and it's already clear that France is being harmed sooner and more intensely than most other European countries - France has far greater priorities than placating people like Blair, Mandelson, and the other corrupt sycophants of the international banking community.

BELOW: France, you too could be just like this!

After the murders of Princess Diana and David Kelly, as well as Blair's criminal support for the bombing of Serbia and the war in Iraq, I am extremely sceptical about everything we are reading now about the London bombings. Here I present a list of salient questions with possible answers. I find very little about the official story satisfying.

THE ALLEGED PERPS

1. The one and only eyewitness report of one of the four alleged bombers conspicuously failed to provide a description of the individual. But now - a few days later - an interview with the witness, computer programmer Richard Jones, includes the description: 'about 6-feet tall, olive-skinned and clean-shaven, wearing tight, light brown trousers and a light brown top.' (Jones also used the adjective 'young.') Q: Why was this description initially withheld? Wouldn't releasing a description have helped the public identify the man, if he had escaped the explosion? A: Since there is no way for members of the general public to corroborate Jones's claim that he had been travelling on the doomed bus, or that he is just an ordinary computer programmer (rather than, say, an employee of Visor Consulting, the firm carrying out the terrorist drill that morning), he could well be a planted witness, providing details as needed. Presumably, at the early stage it was felt best to leave out a description until the alleged perpetrators had been identified. Then, once the patsy scenario had been fleshed out, Jones could reappear for another interview, this time helpfully providing a description of the appropriate patsy (officially identified as Hasib Hussain, who is known to have been 'very tall.'). Note also that because all four CCTV cameras aboard the bus weren't working, it is impossible to verify Jones's description of the young man.

PROBLEM: We now know that Hasib Hussain had a beard, but Jones specifically states that the man was clean-shaven. Also, the CCTV frame showing Hussain at Luton station (although, frankly, this picture is so closely-cropped that it could have been taken anywhere) shows that he was not wearing brown clothing. Unless he changed his clothes and shaved on the train from Luton to London, Hussain was obviously not the man Jones saw. Although it is clearly a circumstance in favour of the authenticity of Jones's testimony that he did not see a man identifiable as Hussain, which would have been all too convenient, the CCTV image raises the question of whether Hussain was on the bus at all. Certainly, he wa not the man Jones saw fiddling nervously with his bag. If the man Jones saw was the bomber - which would seem likely - then we are some way towards understanding why the CCTV cameras had been disabled. (We now know that the cameras went through a 20-hour long 'inspection' on the weekend before the bombings.) So it looks to me that the CCTV cameras were turned off to conceal the fact that Hussain would not be on the bus, although someone would have the job of planting his personal documents there. And, on the subject of the no. 30 bus, it is worth noting that it was a Stagecoach bus - Stagecoach being the company run by a truly nasty individual, Brian Souter. It is easy to imagine such a character putting his company at the service of the evil minds behind the bombings.

2. We are told that three of the four bombers were British males of Pakistani origin. Q: Isn't this fast work? A: Allegedly, the men were identified on the basis of ID documents such as credit cards found at the explosion sites.

3. We are told that 'Personal documents have been found at all four bomb scenes.' For example, 'Hussain's driving licence and credit cards were found in the wreckage of the No 30 bus.' Q: Is this likely? A: It is impossible to believe that such documents would have survived such terrific explosions. Jon Rappoport doesn't believe it, I don't believe it and neither should anybody else. In particular, I have a problem believing that, as the Guardian reports, 'The documents of the 30-year-old, whose body was found at Edgware Road station, were discovered both at the scene of that explosion and at the Aldgate bomb scene, where another of the four dead suspects' remains were found.' Why would his documents appear at two separate locations? Q: Even if they did, why would you make it easy for the authorities to identify you? These 'terrorists' seem to have been extremely interested in ensuring that the subsequent investigation made rapid progress, don't you think? A: According to Sky News terror expert Steve Park, the documents may have been deliberately planted to "send police the wrong way". NB: It is apparently not true that documents have been found for all four men. According to a recent report, 'Police believe that the fourth person's remains and documents may still be trapped in the rubble below Russell Square and are hoping they may find those today.'

4. We are told that the four alleged bombers were captured on CCTV at 8.30am. Q: If the men involved have been conclusively identified, why hasn't the CCTV footage been released? It's not as if there's going to be a trial. A: Digital images are easily tampered with and fakery virtually impossible to detect. The footage may be being withheld until the faces of the four young Muslims have been incorporated. (Fintan Dunne has removed the four men from the Luton CCTV image to produce a photo of a deserted station entrance that looks completely authentic:



If figures can be taken out, then of course they can be also be put back in.) If the work doesn't go too well, we can expect to see no more than a couple of still frames, as was done with the 9-11 footage of Atta and Aziz going through security at Portland airport.

UPDATE: Ten days after the first version of this post was first written the CCTV footage from Kings Cross station STILL hasn't been released and all we've seen are two images from Luton, which doesn't exactly place them anywhere near the crime scenes. The work must be going very badly indeed.

5. We are told that 'The four travelled by car from West Yorkshire to Luton and then by train to Kings Cross station shortly before the attacks were launched on Thursday morning, ... Their images were captured by CCTV cameras - one police source said the men were chatting "as though they were going on a hiking holiday". Ditto: 'According to one senior security source who viewed the footage, you would never have known the four were about to blow fellow commuters - and probably themselves - to smithereens. "They were chatting. You would think they were going on a hiking holiday," the source is reported to have said.' Q: Is such behaviour consistent with the theory that they were the perpetrators of the bombings? A: Perhaps they were really going on holiday. There are many possible reasons why they might have come to London that day. The most likely is that they had been hired to play the role of the terrorists in the Visor Consulting counter-terrorism training exercise.

For a scenario showing how the four British Muslims could have been set up this way, see "How the Government Staged the London Bombings in Ten Easy Steps" by Paul Joseph Watson. Watson points out how a counter-terrorism exercise provides perfect cover for a real terrorist attack. In particular, it provides a plausible explanation should things go wrong: 'If at any stage of the attack your Arabs get caught, tell the police it was part of an exercise.'

6. We are told that the breakthrough came 'at 8pm on Monday when detectives found a CCTV picture of the four bombers at King's Cross station 20 minutes before they blew themselves up.' Q: How did the detectives know that these were the four men involved? A: First, they would have been conspicuous because each was 'carrying an infantry-style rucksack.' (SOURCE) Second, 'the CCTV at King's Cross showed the four young men setting off in different directions.' (SOURCE) These two considerations taken together would seem to make the four men readily distinguishable from other groups of travellers. However, if the CCTV footage showed the four suspects together, I tend to wonder why it wasn't promptly released as a means of identifying the fourth alleged bomber, whose identity was only established a few days after the other three. If the footage had been released, it would have enabled members of the public who recognized him to come forward. The fact that the CCTV footage STILL hasn't been released is incredibly suspicious, since it is the lynchpin of the whole case against the four individuals named as the bombers this week.

7. We are told about one of the four men reportedly involved (Shahzad Tanweer): 'It's impossible. It's not in his nature to do something like this, he's the type of guy who would condemn things like that.' Ditto: "He is sound as a pound," said Azi Mohammed, a close friend. "The idea that he was involved in terrorism or extremism is ridiculous. The idea that he went down to London and exploded a bomb is unbelievable. ... I only played cricket in the park with him around 10 days ago. He is not interested in politics." Q: How come Islamic fundo terrorists never seem to behave like ones? A: This is yet another clue that the Muslims from Leeds are being set up.

8. We are told that 'At least two of the men - Shahzad Tanweer and Hasib Hussain - British-born Muslims with jobs, hobbies and respectable parents were, it seems, living a double life'. Q: In view of the suspicious circumstances, which include intriguing relationships between Peter Power of Visor Consulting, Rudi Giuliani and Richard Scheirer discussed here, isn't it much more likely that they were set up?

9. We are told that the bodies of all four individuals have been found at the crime scenes. Q: Why would they all commit suicide? A: Mike Rivero: 'It is one thing to use oneself as a human guided missile to deliver a bomb, but these bombs are already at the target, and already counting down. There is no purpose to sticking around to be blown up with the bomb, and every reason to leave and plan more bombings.'

10. We are told here that the military used military-style explosives to gain access to one suspect's property: 'The military, including a bomb squad, carried out the controlled explosion at the row house at 11:30 a.m. so detectives could enter the home in Burley.' Q: Why not just break down the door? A: Mike Rivero of What Really Happened seems on the ball once again: doing so contaminates 'the entire crime scene with the very same explosives that were apparently used in the bombings.'

11. We are told that because the bombers were allegedly all British, everything has to change: ' The realisation that British nationals are prepared to make suicide attacks has transformed the way the country will have to view security. "What we considered normal has changed forever," said a senior security source. Security measures at all public places will have to be rethought. Tough new security laws are also expected to be introduced to try to combat the threat.' Q: Since Blair and the U.K. government have been trying to get 'tough new security laws' for a long time now, isn't the identification of British nationals as the allegedly bombers too convenient? A: Exactly. Here we have a motive for why the government would carry out an attack on its own citizens and choose particular patsies to serve that purpose.

12. We are told that 'The men are known to have been missing since last week.' Q: Could they have been abducted? A: Without seeing the CCTV footage, it is impossible to say whether the four men allegedly involved are the four men 'known to have been missing since last week.' If the unedited footage is made public, it would be a strong argument in favour of the voluntary nature of their presence in London. If the footage is never made public, or only presented in an edited way, as for example in still frames, then the possibility would exist that coercion of some kind was involved - or that the men were not involved at all. Certainly if the footage is never made public, I would be tempted to draw the conclusion that the men were simply abducted and murdered, while their ID papers were planted at the explosion sites.

13. According to The Times, 'The man who planted the bomb at Edgware Road was named last night as Mohammed Sidique Khan, 30, the married father of an eight-month-old baby, who is believed to have come from the Leeds area.' Q: Do you believe a man with an eight-month old child would kill himself? A: Absolutely not.

THE ABANDONED CAR(S)

14. We are told that 'Police were alerted to the Luton car after a member of the public reported seeing four men getting out of it on Thursday morning.' Q: Why would you report a car to the police simply because you had seen four people getting out of it on Thursday morning? A: You wouldn't. This is possibly a planted story - part of an intrigue for the purpose of framing the occupants.

15. We are told that the attention of the 'member of the public' was attracted by the sight of four men getting out of the car. Q: Since it's now reported that two cars have been found at Luton, wouldn't it make sense that two people got out of one car and the other two got out of the other?

16. We are told that 'explosives have been found in an abandoned car linked to the attacks at Luton railway station.' Q: Why would you leave explosives in the car? A: You wouldn't. This is the pretext for the car's subsequent destruction.

17. We are told that 'Four controlled explosions were carried out on the car after a 100-yard cordon was placed around the station and its car park.' Ditto: 'The car was blown up in four controlled explosions.' Q: Why would you blow up the car? A: To destroy it as a source of forensic evidence.

18. We are now told that two cars were found at Luton, that one or both contained explosives, and one or both were destroyed by controlled demolitions. (HERE and HERE) Q: Isn't that a tad convenient? A: Sure is. Now there is no way of telling whether the cars were really cars belonging to the young Muslim men from Leeds or whether they had really contained explosives or any other incriminating material. Destruction of a car linked to a crime amounts to the destruction of a significant portion of the evidence.

WHAT HAS NOT BEEN REVEALED

19. Peter Power of Visor Consulting has declined to reveal the identity of the client for whom the counter-terrorist exercise was being carried out. Q: Wouldn't Transport for London be a likely client? A: Yes. And, as Mike Rivero points out, the Commissioner for Transport for London is an ex-CIA man who is also a member of the Council for Foreign Relations, Bob Kiley. See his short biography here.

WHAT HAS NOT BEEN FOUND

20. 'There are as yet no indications that any of the four left behind any message about their intentions.' (SOURCE) Q: Why, if you were going to conduct a series of bombings and you were not going to attempt to disguise your identity (you even leave incriminating explosives in your car), would you not also leave a statement of your motives? Why not take the opportunity to denounce Bush, Blair & Co.? After all, for a few days you would have the attention of the whole of Britain and much of the world.

UPDATE: An impressive critique of Richard Jones's problematic eyewitness account is found here. It proves beyond a doubt that his story is complete and utter balderdash. Because Jones did not describe a man on the bus who resembled Hussain, I no longer incline to the view that he was a planted witness. We seem to have a plain old-fashioned liar.

Many people on the left, including George Galloway, Robert Fisk and John Pilger, are taking the line that this week's bombings in London were connected in some way to the occupation of Iraq and that they prove that the Anglo-American policy there is counterproductive. Tariq Ali, for example, although he admits that we don't know who carried out the bombings, nonetheless goes on to write: 'it is safe to assume that the cause of these bombs is the unstinting support given by New Labour and its prime minister to the US wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.' But this is a huge leap to make, considering that we know nothing at all about the identities and motives of the bombers.

1) There is no evidence whatsoever that the bombings were perpetrated by Islamic terrorists. Blair: 'We know that these people act in the name of Islam.' How do we know that? No copies of the Koran have been found at the crime scenes. Rather, the links to Islam came courtesy of two Israeli security 'experts' - Boaz Ganor, director general of Israel's International Policy Institute for Counter-Terrorism, and Mordechai Kedar, a counter-terrorism analyst for Israel's public television - who, unless they have psychic powers, are no more qualified to say who was behind the bombings than anybody else. What's more they have a geopolitical predisposition to blame Muslims for terrorism, which make them too biased to be taken seriously as security analysts.

2) In order to keep alive the myth that the bombings were the work of Muslims, the physical description of the bombers is being suppressed. First, notice that Richard Jones, the witness aboard the bus who saw someone acting suspiciously, provides no description of the man. I think we can safely presume that the BBC was instructed to suppress such information, because it simply doesn't make sense for someone to be interviewed about what he saw and not be asked what the suspicious individual actually looked like.

Second, note that although the bus had FOUR CCTV cameras, not one of them happens to have been switched on! Quote: 'the investigation received a serious setback when it was discovered the CCTV cameras on the bus that blew up were not working so detectives will not get vital images of the bomber. One senior Yard source said: "It's a big blow and a disappointment. If the cameras had been running we would have had pin-sharp close-up pictures of the person who carried out this atrocity. "We don't know if the driver forgot to switch them on or if there was a technical problem but there are no images." The bus had four cameras - one covering people getting on, the second at the exit doors and one on each deck scanning the length of the vehicle.'

If this story is true, it proves one thing, which is that when people say that heightened security measures will enable us to catch terrorists in future, we shouldn't believe them! Whatever measure is in place, you can be sure that due to some inexplicable hiccup it won't be functioning the day it's needed. However, as it happens, I don't believe the report at all, and I think the CCTV evidence is being 'disappeared' because it would show precisely who the man on the bus was. I don't think we are meant to find out who he was and I feel sure that we never will.

It's interesting, finally, to note that the theory has emerged that 'a gang of white "mercenary terrorists" was hired by al-Qa'ida to carry out last week's devastating attacks on London.' It's hard to see why such a theory would have emerged, if there wasn't evidence implicating white people in the crime. I think Mike Rivero of the website What Really Happened is on the money when he writes: 'Translation: "The witnesses all saw white guys placing the bombs, so we gotta figure out a story by which we can keep the blame on the Arabs."'

So it looks to me like the bombings were the work of white guys, but that the information is being suppressed until a story can be concocted that will somehow connect them to al-Qaeda.

UPDATE: So Blair plans to reject a probe into the bombings, 'insisting such a move would distract from the task of catching the perpetrators.' Funny how I saw that one coming! (NB: if we don't catch the perpetrators, that means we get precisely nothing! So my prediction is that sooner or later Tony will have to give in and there'll be a probe of sorts. Paging Lord Hutton! Paging Lord Hutton!)

Having taught courses on the history of World War II several times, my curiosity was inevitably piqued when English historian Martin Allen turned up documents which seemed to prove that the British had had Himmler murdered, contracting the familiar story that he had committed suicide by swallowing a cyanide capsule. The documents Allen unearthed in the Political Warfare Executive (PWE) papers at the British national archives at Kew in the autumn of 2003 and which he used in his book Himmler's Secret War published in May 2004 not only provided proof that the British had had Himmler murdered, they also furnished a motive, which was to prevent him from being interrogated by the Americans and from being tried at Nuremberg.

At first the documents were generally accepted as authentic, and the question at issue was whether the motive made sense. In this interview on the BBC's Today programme, Himmler biographer Peter Padfield rejected the motive indicated by the documents and suggested that there had to be some other reason. 'There is something else here that we don't know about,' he said - adding, correctly (before the BBC interviewer suddenly cut him off), that there is another fascinating question, which is 'why the documents have been released.'

All these matters might now seem irrelevant, given that four out of the five documents referring to the Himmler assassination plan have 'conclusively' been exposed as forgeries by forensic specialist Dr. Audrey Giles, who considers the remaining item suspect as well. (SOURCE: here You can listen to an interview with Allen about the revelations here.)

Although historian David Irving, who is currently writing a book on Himmler, seems reluctant to accept that the documents are fakes - he seems to suspect that Dr. Giles's expertise has been called upon in order to discredit genuine documents - I see no reason to dispute Dr Giles' conclusions. Indeed, accepting that they are fakes seems to me to open up a take on Himmler's exit from history which I think much more likely than that the British had him killed.

Our first clue is the outstanding quality of the fakes themselves, which fooled not only Martin Allen but most other historians. As Irving observes, most forgeries are 'clumsy and ignorant.' The Himmler documents, on the other hand, appear to be the work of 'a singularly well-informed forger' - someone who is not only extremely knowlegeable about the history of the period but also someone who enjoys excellent access to the Public Records Office today. In short, we are looking at an inside job.

The question asked by Padfield - why the documents should suddenly have come to light at this time - now has to be modified slightly: Why was there a sudden need to generate a new version of the Himmler story at this time? Irving professes to be incapable of conceiving of a rationale for faking the documents: 'We could not and cannot discern any motive for forging such high-quality documents and planting them in the files for years.' But he is being uncharacteristically obtuse here. For a reason there is, and it would explain very well why the documents were first noticed in the archives by a BBC researcher in 2002 and made available to Allen the following year.

This is the appearance in 2001 of a major book on the subject, The Strange Death of Heinrich Himmler (aka The Unlikely Death of Heinrich Himmler) by Hugh Thomas. It is not hard to posit a direct connection between the publication of Thomas's book in 2001 and the subsequent appearance of a new version of the story which utterly negates Thomas's thesis, which is that the Himmler who died in British custody on the night of May 23, 1945, was not the real Himmler but a double. If, as Irving says he has been told, the documents were first noticed in 2002, then there is good reason to attribute the sudden appearance of the documents to the publication of Thomas's book.

Since it is unlikely that Thomas's book would require a refutation if it was as far-fetched as many people think it is, my own conclusion is that it was right on the money and steps were promptly taken to discredit it. Having read the book a few times now, I find myself increasingly persuaded that the man who died in British hands was not the infamous Nazi leader. Although Thomas has accepted at face value a number of anecdotes connected with Himmler's alleged demise which verge on the preposterous, his basic argument seems sound enough. But while Thomas seems to invite his readers to draw the conclusion that the British were duped by a clever intrigue thought up by Himmler to make it look as though he had been captured, the conclusion I drew from Thomas's book is rather more sinister, which is that the British actually allowed Himmler to escape.

Clearly, if the British authorities were so alarmed by Thomas's book that they were obliged to plant documents in the national archives stating bluntly that the PWE had had Himmler murdered, then their efforts can only have been motivated by the need to hide an even darker secret. That we are not being told the truth about Himmler's disappearance three weeks after the war ended is readily apparent from a little known piece of information which is pertinent to the case. According to David Irving, an intelligence museum in Copenhagen displays the black eyepatch Himmler was wearing at the time he was (allegedly) captured by British authorities. The eyepatch is in Danish hands, Irving learned from the museum description, because it 'was handed over to a Danish intelligence officer while he was assisting the British in questioning Himmler.'

Yet nowhere in the official story of Himmler's demise is there the slightest hint of the participation of a Danish intelligence officer. What this suggests is the possibility that a Danish intelligence officer played a part in an intrigue by which Himmler escaped, presumably through Denmark and Sweden. Although Irving does not name the individual involved, it is most likely to have been Guenther Toepke, a high-ranking pro-Nazi Danish intelligence officer who, for reasons known only to the Danish authorities, remained at the head of Danish intelligence for several years after the war, enabling him to facilitate the flight of numerous Nazi war criminals to Argentina.

If Danish intelligence was involved in a plot to help Himmler escape, it may explain something else mysterious which happened in 1945, which is why in August that year the British handed over Dr Carl Vaernet - a Danish SS doctor suspected of war crimes who they had detained since May 1945 at the Alsgade Skole prisoner-of-war camp in Copenhagen - to the Danish authorities, who promptly facilitated his escape through Sweden. (Dr. Vaernet soon made it to Argentina, where he died in 1965.) Although British gay rights activist Peter Tatchell has made efforts to obtain an explanation for the Danish government's complicity in Dr. Vaernet's escape, he has encountered a wall of silence. Sixty years later, it is hard to see why the Danes should be stonewalling about this matter, unless a truly dreadful secret lay underneath it which the truth about Dr. Vaernet would threaten to expose. I wonder whether the British decision to release Dr. Vaernet was not 1) a quid pro quo for Danish assistance in facilitating the escape of a certain Heinrich Himmler? or 2) a quid pro quo for Dr. Vaernet's assistance in facilitating Himmler's escape?

I would also be most interested in knowing which day in May 1945 Dr. Vaernet fell into British hands, and in precisely what circumstances.