It’s quite interesting to watch the media machine at work; I first heard this chap referred to as a chemist, then a biochemist (less scarey) and now the story that the bombers used homebrew explosives has broken, he is being referred to as a chemistry expert which vague description will fit the media spin without regressing the story to biochemist who knows a bit about chemistry and might just therefore have had a hand in the bomb making..

Watch the spinning machine turn: “Chemistry Expert” – that’ll keep the excitement up! Prep up a noose and form a lynch mob, ready those banner headlines!

Not that my opinion is worth much, but I believe the story will come out this way: one, perhaps two of the bombers – probably nice lads, studious, hard working types, thoughtful – get a bit radicalised, read some stuff about bomb making and suchlike (a lot of geeks do that) and maybe run into a few extremists whilst travelling. You know the sort, the ones who in the USA are called “survivalists” and like to play with guns and justify it for whatever reason.

Back at home, these post-adolescents get bored and “disenfranchised”, and hatch a plot to do something that they perceive as “worthwhile” and which will make a mark on society, something that quite a few people aspire to do, if you think about it.

So they make homebrew explosives – knapsack/rucksized amounts are required – plot out a basic strategy, go out, and kill a bunch of people.

That would be/is tragic, in so many ways.

Being a security geek, however, I want to try “thinking outside the box”:

From one perspective, the problem with this story is that it wouldn’t fit the Al-Quaeda Terror Network Everywhere It Was Osama Wot Planned It Live In Fear They Are Everywhere Run And Hide Buy Our Newspaper To Tell You How To Keep Safe We Need New Laws And To Clamp Down On This Sort Of Thing Ban Mobile Phones And Everything Else framework that media (and government) would like you to think.

Hence if the above scenario does turn out to be correct, it’ll be a long while before we get round to that “inconvenient” version of the story.

From another perspective, the bombers were not even competent. They didn’t even get all four bombs to go off at the same time, and if they’d thought about it more they could have done a lot more damage than just kill people. Their action is a vandalistic and tragic smudge on the lives and families of a few hundred people. It’s a teenage-tantrum way of making an statement, lacking the planning and structure that could do cultural damage.

Taking out the WTC in the USA simultaneously shocked, killed massively, destroyed a monument, and caused financial and economic damage, too. That was planned. These guys “merely” killed people. This is why I think the London bombs were a mostly-homebrew plot.

Previously I considered comparing the bombing to Waco – in terms of the public impact – and others suggested Oklahoma.

Perhaps in terms of cause, maybe Columbine will prove a closer mirror of what happened?