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August 22, 2006
Alex Jones - Terrorstorm
Have been watching this film bit by bit - and the really striking thing about this documentary is that they don't seem to have bothered to 'fact check' the film with any particular rigour. To be blunt, I find this offensive - if people want to construct all kinds of creative stories about the moon landings, I'm not going to worry too much, but to produce such sloppy work about mass murder is much more ethically problematic. Not only that, but to accuse so many people in government and public service of complicity in mass murder without any convincing evidence - and even without being clear who you are accusing - is really insulting.
Anyway, watching the film (especially the part on the 7/7 attacks) annoyed me enough that I made a note of some of the errors I found. I'll list them below, in case they're of interest to others, and will add more when I've got time to type up some more of the problems with Terrorstorm.
Errors in Terrorstorm's Account of 7/7
Terrorstorm alleges that the government planned the bombings to boost Tony Blair's electoral chances. However, bombings occurred 2 months *after* national UK elections which Blair's Labour Party had won, and national elections only need to be held once every five years. The film claims that "national polls showed that [Blair’s] pro-war party was sure to lose". However, as well as having just won an election, Labour were showing a slight lead in the polls [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/vote2005/polltracker/html/polltracker.stm].
Terrorstorm claims that the 7/7 “explosive devices” were “military-grade”. It does not say what it means by 'military grade', or provide any evidence for this claim. The best available evidence shows that the bombs were relatively crude 'home made' devices, and that the terrorists had a 'bomb factory' which they used to construct these devices [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/11_05_06_narrative.pdf],p.23.
Terrorstorm alleges that the #30 bus which was bombed in the attacks is the only bus that the police “take special control of” and redirect on 7/7. However, Transport for London have confirmed that Euston Rd. was closed on that day. Because the #30 bus route normally goes along Euston Rd, all #30 buses (not just that one) were therefore redirected.
Terrorstorm refers to "the London Police Department" as being involved in the 7/7 attacks. However, there is no such thing in London, England (the film presumably was not referring to the London Police Department in Kentucky).
The film claims that a special army unit killed Jean Charles de Menezes. It does not say which unit they mean, but if Terrorstorm is referring to the Special Reconnaisance Regiment then these troops had some role in the operation, but did not shoot de Menezes: it was police who shot him [http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,1542080,00.html]
Terrorstorm states that de Menezes was shot more than ten times in the head. He was actually shot seven times in the head and once in the shoulder [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4713753.stm]. 11 shots were fired in total [http://www.guardian.co.uk/menezes/story/0,,1691537,00.html].
Terrorstorm claims that claims de Menezes bought a Metro paper when he entered the tube station in which he was shot. However, the Metro is free (and the film shows a picture of the Metro masthead, with ‘FREE’ written very clearly on it and highlighted in red)
The film states that de Menezes paid for his ticket with a Metro OysterCard – but these are issued by Transport for London (not the Metro newspaper) and, instead of using them to pay for tickets, one uses this card instead of paper tickets.
Posted by jon_mendel at August 22, 2006 11:57 PM
Comments
Good stuff.....If you'd like to point out more inaccuracies/lies, I'd love to read it.
Posted by: John at August 28, 2006 06:21 AM
Thanks for the kind words. I'm hoping to (be involved in) putting together a more detailed critique of the inaccuracies, unsubstantiated claims etc. in Terrorstorm - there's a lot of them.
Am actually looking for people to help with this at the moment - Terrorstorm makes many claims, so there's a lot of fact-checking, writing etc. to do. If you want to help out, could get this critique together more quickly :)
Posted by: Jonathan Mendel at August 28, 2006 02:03 PM
Sure thing...my email is [e-mail removed] and I would be happy to help. Let me know where to begin and we can hopefully get the ball rolling soon.
I don't have a problem with Alex Jones and others challenging what they believe our lies by the US and UK Governments. Their behavior is only problematic when their responses end up being lies as well.
By the way, I watched his documentary on The Bohemian Grove in northern California and it was hilarious....
Posted by: John at August 29, 2006 02:46 AM
