Davblog Gets a Response from Charles Clarke

I don't believe him either. I just had a look at the stats on write to them.com. According to their statistics (which admittedly need some caution as they themselves say)he has only answered 50% of the messages sent to him by that site.

The letter Rachel's father wrote has been on her site since December, long before this argument. And then there is the small matter of the July 7th attack NOT coming "Out of the blue" as he says. The sucurity services had been tracking for Mohammed Siddique Khan formonths.

Very interesting post

It was Davblog who did the legwork.

re coming out of the blue - peer into the crevice.

http://news.scotsman.com/uk.cfm?id=1398042005
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11179717/site/newsweek/

It won't remain sub judice for ever...

Charles Clarke says:
"Finally I well understand that many people believe that there ought to be a public enquiry, and I respect that view though I don't agree with it. I have of course considered the matter very carefully and I can tell you that the issues involved have nothing whatsoever to do with personal embarrassment or party-political matters."

If this is so, can he please show us how and what he considered?
Politicians too often say they have considered matters, as a mantra to get people off their backs.

Will he go into details and specifics please? Explain how his decision was made.
Then, and only then, I may believe he has given the matter of an inquiry into the murder of UK citizens some thought.

Who do I believe is lying?

A man of God, or a politician?

A bit of a no brainer really.

I'm a bit of a latecomer to the clamour for a public enquiry, and I'm sure there are many issues that should be investigated; but one thing bothers me. The bombers were motivated, at least partly, by Blair and Bush's illegal war with Iraq. If the main aim of the clamour for a public enquiry is to therefore put the blame for the bombings onto Blair and Bush, then I believe that is wrong. The only people who are to blame for the bombings are the bombers; and to move blame away from them is to encourage others to do similar things.

It's a little like, "I mug old ladies because I was abused as a child". No, you mug old ladies because you're a nasty little shit. You may be a nasty little shit because you were abused as a child, but that's of secondary importance.

The aim of an enquiry is to find out what happened, how it happened and why it happened. That isn't political - the refusal to hold one is!

By the same rationale - we shouldn't look at the the circumstances surrounding, say drug abuse. We shoulld just accept that people who abuse drugs are weak...?

I agree, personal responsibility is where the buck stops, but if we want to address a problem, we usually have to look at it in context Neil.

The purpose of a criminal prosecution is to punish nasty little shits who commit crimes. In this case, of course, there are apparently no surviving criminals to prosecute, but that may change. The point of justice is partly to assign publicly the criminal responsibility for criminal acts. If Messrs Bush and Blair have any crimes to answer (and I suspect they do) they're not actually 9/11 and 7/7, but wider things like invading Iraq and bringing their office into disrepute.

The purpose of a Public Inquiry is not to lay blame but rather to examine a particular series of events in order to establish the truth of what occured when, what was done well, what was done badly and what wasn't done at all that should have been done.

It can of course be a lawyer's bunfight (see the Bloody Sunday enquiry, where we're paying rather a lot for the buns) and it can be a pointless exercise done by people who don't really understand what they're investigating (like most recent rail crash enquiries) but that doesn't mean they shouldn't be done, just that they should be done better.

In this case what's important is not so much whether invading Iraq caused 7/7 as the adamant (and entirely political) refusal of Straw and Blair to accept that invading Iraq increased the risk of terrorism here. I strongly suspect that a proper Public Inquiry would conclude this, particularly given the timelines (Sidique Khan becoming radicalised wihin a few months of the invasion). The official line, as parrotted by Bush again yesterday, is that invading Iraq (or Iran) makes us safer. This is on tenuous ground even without a weighty inquiry report.

There's also the Pakistan angle - three of the bombers were of Pakistani origin, they seem to have gone to Pakistan before the bombings but the Blair and Bush line is that Pakistan is an ally in the War on Terror. It isn't, of course, it's a military dictatorship with nuclear weapons where a large section of the population are at the least sympathetic to the Taliban, bin Laden and co. and and active
support has existed at high levels in the intelligence services and a prominent sporting icon (Imran Khan) had to be kept under house arrest during Dubya's visit to prevent him saying anything embarrassing.

There's a lot more to 7/7 than four bastards setting off bombs, even without the conspiracy theories (which I haven't yet found a pinch of salt big enough to take with, by the way). It's that 'lot more' that I and a lot of other people aren't willing to take the Government's 'timeline of events' at face value for.

Hi

Sorry, I have had a ton of emails and I just found one from Blairwatch, to which I am about to reply. It has been staggering and gratifying to see such a response from bloggers to the events of last Friday, and this latest is a further twist in the tale. Dad has now had a second letter from Mr Clarke which I have just put up in my site. It comes close to being an apology.

He does however say that 'it appeared to me that you were not ready to allow me to answer the question or to say anything at all in response to your point. That was why I described your response as insulting.' This in direct conflict with my father's account of asking a question and it not being answered.

Mr Clarke has now offered to have a meeting with my father and myself and I am very pleased about this: as we, the public were attacked, and we, the public have questions not only about what happened but why it happened, then it seems only reasonable to ask when we will have some answers on these questions. For only by undertanding what happened and WHY it happened, and what the response was and the aftermath post 7/7/2005, have we any hope of preventing such atrocities happeneing again.

I want a public enquiry for positive reasons: I would like to save lives and spare future suffering by learning from and understanding July 7th, its causes and its effects.

Once again, my thanks to all who support this, and all who have supported me and my father.

Rachel