Still don’t quite get that particular phrase, but I was loosely accused of it back in July when suggesting that the US might have to bear some responsibility for the 7/7 bombings if it were true that the Bush administration had screwed up a joint British/Pakistani investigation by announcing the name of an al Qaeda defector, Muhammad Naeem Noor Khan, who was helping the British/Pakistani team by supplying information about a plot to bomb the London Underground. (You may remember Tim Ireland, Robin Grant and Juan Cole on the same subject.)

In short, I suggested that by failing to do something (i.e. keep their mouths shut), the Bush administration could be considered at least partially responsible for any deaths that resulted from the British/Pakistani operation being brought to a premature end.

Now, of course, we have US prosecutors arguing that Zacarias Moussaoui should get the death penalty because HE failed to do something, and arguing that by keeping his mouth shut about the 9/11 plot he should be treated as harshly as if he had actually hijacked a plane and flown it into a building. In other words, he’s being treated as a murderer, not the accessory to murder he actually is.

So, if (still an if, please note) a link could be found between Muhammad Naeem Noor Khan, his information of a plot to bomb the tube or his associates, and those involved in the 7/7 London terrorist attacks, could we then, by pretty much the same logic as Moussaoui’s prosecutors are using, hold the US accountable for the 7/7 bombs?

All in all, it’s just as well that the official whitewash “narrative of events” has apparently concluded that the 7/7 bombers were not part of some grand conspiracy after all (in fact, they seem to be echoing my sentiments from the fortnight immediately following the bombings).

Because if this official history HAD uncovered links to the al Qaeda bogeyman, especially to the plotters surrounding Muhammad Naeem Noor Khan, then at the very least there would have to be some awkward questions asked of the US’s decision to ruin that UK/Pakistan investigation. As it is, they simply have to explain away how this country could have so massively failed in its pastoral care and education of four young(ish) citizens that they would choose to go on an indiscriminate killing rampage in the heart of our capital city. And do so, of course, without using the word “Iraq”…

At the risk of sounding like a raving conspiracy theorist, it’s all rather convenient, really… Especially the whole “no one else knew, no one else was involved, there are no possible other lines of enquiry, move along – nothing to see here” tone of the thing… Go on, sign the petition for a full public inquiry.

(Here endeth a rare terrorism post from Nosemonkey. Now let the batty comments commence…)