Annie Machon

Lawyers challenge integrity of UK spy torture inquiry

It was widely reported today that a number of well-respected British lawyers and civil liberties organisations are questioning the integrity of the much-trumpeted inquiry into UK spy complicity in torture.

And about time too.  One hopes this is all part of a wider strategy, not merely a defensive reaction to the usual power play on the part of the British establishment.  After all, it has been apparent from the start that the whole inquiry would be questionable when it was announced that Sir Peter Gibson would be chairing the inquiry.

Gibson has certain form.  He was until recently the Intelligence Services Commissioner - the very person who for the last five years has been invited into MI5, MI6 and GCHQ for cosy annual chats with carefully selected intelligence officers (ie those who won't rock the boat), to report back to the government that democratic oversight was working wonderfully, and it was all A-OK in the spy organisations.

After these years of happy fraternising, when his name was put forward to investigate potential criminal complicity in torture on the part of the spies, he did the publicly decent thing and resigned as Commissioner to take up the post of chair of the Torture Inquiry.

Well, we know the establishment always like a safe pair of hands....  and this safety has also been pretty much guaranteed by law for the last six years. 

Ever since the Inquiries Act 2005 was pushed through as law, with relatively little press awareness or parliamentary opposition, government departments and intelligence agencies have pretty much been able to call the shots when it comes to the scope of supposedly independent inquiries.

Interestingly, Tory grandee Sir Malcolm Rifkind, the former Foreign Secretary who now chairs the Intelligence and Security Committee, has also weighed in to the debate.  On BBC Radio 4's Today programme he stated:

"I cannot recollect an inquiry that's been proposed to be so open as we're having in this particular case. When was the last time the head of MI5 and the head of MI6 – the prime minister has made quite clear – can be summoned to this inquiry and be required to give evidence?"

This from the senior politician who has always denied that he was officially briefed about the illegal assassination plot against Colonel Gaddafi of Libya in 1996; this from the man who is now calling for the arming of the very same extremists to topple Gaddafi in the ongoing shambles that is the Libyan War; and this from the man who is also loudly calling for an extension of the ISC's legal powers so that it can demand access to witnesses and documents from the spy organisations. 

No doubt my head will stop spinning in a day or two....

Alastair Campbell - guilty of breaching the OSA?

I have long suspected that Alastair Campbell, Labour's former Director of Communications, may potentially have broken the UK's Official Secrets Act.  Now prima facie evidence is beginning to emerge that he did indeed breach the "clear bright line" against unauthorised disclosure of intelligence. 

I know that the Metropolitan Police have their hands full investigating the meltdown that is the News of the World hacking scandal - and also trying to replace all those senior officers who had to resign because of it - but they do have a duty to investigate crime.  And not just any old crime, in this case, but one that has potentially threatened the very basis of our national security.

Why do I say this? 

You'll no doubt have some vague recollection that, in the run-up to the 2003 Iraq War, the British government produced a couple of reports "making a case for war".  The first, the September Dossier (2002), is the one most remembered, as this did indeed sex up the case for war, as well as include fake intelligence about Saddam Hussein trying to acquire uranium from Niger.  Most memorably it led to the "Brits 45 minutes from Doom" front-page headline in Rupert Murdoch's The Sun newspaper, no less, on the eve of the crucial war vote in Parliament.

There was also the notorious leaked Downing Street Memo, where the then-head of MI6, Sir Richard Dearlove (C), was minuted as saying that the intelligence and facts were being fitted around the [predetermined war] policy.

However, for the purposes of a possible Regina v. Campbell day in court, it is the second report that requires our attention.

It was published in February 2003, just before "shock and awe" was launched to liberate the grateful Iraqi people.   This report became known as the "Dodgy Dossier", as it was largely lifted from a 12 year old PhD thesis that the spin doctors had found on the internet.  However, it also included nuggets of brand-new and unassessed intelligence from MI6.  Indeed, even the toothless Intelligence and Security Committee in Parliament stated in paragraph 82 of its 2002-2003 Annual Report ( Download ISC_2003) that:

"We believe that material produced by the [intelligence] Agencies can be used in publications and attributed appropriately, but it is imperative that the Agencies are consulted before any of their material is published. This process was not followed when a second document was produced in February 2003. Although the document did contain some intelligence-derived material it was not clearly attributed or highlighted amongst the other material, nor was it checked with the Agency providing the intelligence or cleared by the JIC prior to publication. We have been assured that systems have now been put in place to ensure that this cannot happen again, in that the JIC Chairman endorses any material on behalf of the intelligence community prior to publication."

At the time it was reported that Blair and Campbell had spontaneously distributed this report to journalists travelling with them on a tour of the Far East.   The ISC confirmed that the intelligence had been passed to journalists without the permission of MI6 in its September 2003 special report - "Iraq Weapons of Mass Destruction: Intelligence and Assessments" (see pars 131 to 134):

"The document was originally given to a number of journalists over the weekend of
1 and 2 February and then placed in the Library of the House on 3 February. The Prime
Minister described the document as follows:

“We issued further intelligence over the weekend about the infrastructure of
concealment. It is obviously difficult when we publish intelligence reports, but I hope
that people have some sense of the integrity of our security services. They are not
publishing this, or giving us this information, and making it up. It is the intelligence
that they are receiving, and we are passing on to people. In the dossier that we
published last year, and again in the material that we put out over the weekend, it is
very clear that a vast amount of concealment and deception is going on.”

"Conclusions:

"The Committee took evidence on this matter from the Chief of the SIS on both
12 February and 17 July and separately from Alastair Campbell on 17 July. Both agreed
that making the document public without consulting the SIS or the JIC Chairman was
a “cock-up”. Alastair Campbell confirmed that, once he became aware that the
provenance of the document was being questioned because of the inclusion of
Dr Al-Marashi’s work without attribution, he telephoned both the Chief of the SIS and
the JIC Chairman to apologise.

"We conclude that the Prime Minister was correct to describe the document as
containing “further intelligence... about the infrastructure of concealment.... It is the
intelligence that they [the Agencies] are receiving, and we are passing on to people.”

"However, as we previously concluded, it was a mistake not to consult the
Agencies before their material was put in the public domain. In evidence to us the
Prime Minister agreed. We have reported the assurance that we have been given
that in future the JIC Chairman will check all intelligence-derived material on
behalf of the intelligence community prior to publication."

Crucially, Blair and Campbell had jumped the (old Iraqi super-) gun by issuing this information, but Campbell seems to have got away with it by describing such a breach of the OSA as a "cock-up".  Or perhaps just another precipitous "rush of blood to the head" on his part, as recently described in the long-suppressed testimony of SIS2 revealed around the Chilcot Enquiry and reported in The Guardian:

"Papers released by the Chilcot inquiry into the war show that an MI6 officer, identified only as SIS2, had regular contacts with Campbell: "We found Alastair Campbell, I think, an enthusiastic individual, but also somewhat of an unguided missile." He added: "We also, I think, suffered from his propensity to have rushes of blood to the head and pass various stories and information to journalists without appropriate prior consultation" (my emphasis).

So why do I suggest that Campbell could be liable for prosecution?  It appears that he was a "notified person" for the purposes of Section 1(1) of the OSA.  While not employed by the intelligence agencies, notified persons have regular access to intelligence material and are subjected to the highest clearance - developed vetting - in the same way as the full-time spooks.  As such, they are also bound by the law against disclosure of such material without the prior written permission of the head of the agency whose intelligence they want to disseminate.  There is no room for manoeuvre, no damage assessment, and no public interest defence.  The law is clear. 

And a report in today's Telegraph about Andy Coulson and the phone-hacking scandal seems to show clearly that Campbell was just such a notified person:

"Unlike Alastair Campbell and other previous holders of the Downing Street communications director role, Mr Coulson was not cleared to see secret intelligence reports and so was spared the most detailed scrutiny of his background and personal life.....

"The only people who will be subject to developed vetting are those who are working in security matters regularly and would need to have that sort of information.

"The only special advisers that would have developed vetting would be in the Foreign Office, Ministry of Defence and maybe the Home Office. Andy Coulson's role was different to Alastair Campbell's and Jonathan Powell.

"Alastair Campbell could instruct civil servants. This is why [Coulson] wasn't necessarily cleared. Given [the nature of] Andy Coulson's role as more strategic he wouldn't have necessarily have been subject to developed vetting."

So it would appear that Alastair Campbell is bang to rights for a breach of the Official Secrets Act under Section 1(1).  He released new, unassessed and uncleared MI6 intelligence within the dodgy dossier.  This is not just some technical  infraction of the law - although even if it were, he would still have a case to answer.

No, this report led inexorably to our country going to war against Iraq, shoulder to shoulder with the US, and the resulting deaths, maimings, poisonings and displacement of millions of innocent Iraqi people.  It has also directly increased the terrorist threat to the UK, as Tony Blair was officially warned pre-Iraq war by the then-head of MI5, Eliza Manningham-Buller.  With the dodgy dossier, Campbell has directly harmed countless lives and our national security.

Of course, many of us might fantasise about warmongers getting their just deserts in The Hague.  But perhaps the OSA could prove to be Al Campbell's Al Capone-style tax evasion moment.

Now, what about The Right Honourable Tony Blair?

RTTV interview: Murdoch's ex-CEO arrested

Former head of MI6 says that fact and fiction get mixed up

Former head of MI6, Sir John Scarlett - he of the dodgy September Dossier fame that led inexorably to the UK's invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the death, maiming, depleted-uranium poisoning and displacement of hundreds of thousands of people - has complacently stated during his recent talk at the Hay Literary Festival that:

"One of the problems of intelligence work is that fact and fiction get very easily mixed up.  A key lesson you have to learn very early on is you keep them separate.”

Well, no doubt many, many people might just wish he'd listened to his own advice way back in September 2002.

Scarlett is, of course, the senior UK spook who made the case for the Iraq war.  Here's the link:  Download Iraq_WMD_Dossier. 

No doubt you will remember the li(n)es: not only that Iraq's non-existent  "weapons of mass destruction" could be launched within 45 minutes, but also that fake intelligence documents had persuaded MI6 that Iraq was trying to buy uranium from Niger , as Colin Powell asserted during his persuasive speech to the UN in 2003.

Scarlett publicly took the rap and, by protecting Tony Blair and Alastair Campbell, was rewarded with the top job at MI6 and the inevitable knighthood.  No doubt a suitable recognition for his entirely honourable behaviour.

But it gets worse - now he has apparently landed a lucrative job as an advisor on the situation in Iraq working for Norwegian oil mega-corporation, Statoil.

You couldn't make it up...

... or perhaps you could if you're a former top spy with an undeserved "K" and a lucrative oil contract who has difficulty separating fact from fiction......

 

Can the product of bugs be used as court evidence in the UK?

An interesting story on Channel 4 TV news today: four London police officers are being prosecuted for beating up Babar Ahmad in 2003 while arresting him on suspicion of terrorism charges.  And it turns out that the key evidence for the prosecution comes not from Ahmad's complaint, nor from photographs of his injuries, but from the product of an eavesdropping device, more commonly known as a bug, planted in his home by the UK Security Service, MI5.

It's interesting in itself that MI5 has released this information for court proceedings against Met counter-terrorism officers.  I shall resist speculating now, but shall be watching developments with interest.

But the point I want to make quickly today is about the use of intercept material as legal evidence in UK courts.  This can potentially be crucial for lawyers when speaking to their clients, journalists who wish to protect their sources, polticial activists, and those who simply wish to protect their inherent right to privacy as the encroaching electronic surveillance state continues to swell.

It can also be potentially useful information for MPs talking to their constituents.  Indeed, returning to the years-long case of Babar Ahmad, there was a media furore in 2008 when it was revealed that the Met had authorised the bugging of his conversations with his MP Sadiq Khan during prison visits.  

And who was the commanding officer who authorised this?  Step forward former Met Counter Terrorism supremo, Andy Hayman, that much esteemed defender of British civil liberties who recently suggested "dawn raids" and "snatch squads " be used against political activists.

Unlike most other western countries, the UK does not allow the use of telephone intercept as evidence in a court of law.  As I've written before, it's a hangover from the cold war spying game.  MI5 has traditionally seen phone taps as a source of intelligence, not evidence, despite the fact that much of their work is notionally more evidentially based in the 21st century.  It also still remains a subject of debate and a fiercely fought reargard action by the spies themselves, who claim telecheck is a "sensitive technique". 

As if we don't all know that our phones can be bugged.....

However, eavesdropping devices that are planted in your property - your home, your office, even your car - can indeed produce evidence that can be used against you in a court of law.   All this requires a Home Office Warrant (HOW) to make it legal, but Home Secretaries are traditionally reluctant to refuse a request in the interests of "national security".  Moreover, if the owner of the property agrees to a bug, even without a HOW, they can be legally used.  So if you live in rented accommodation, befriend your landlord!

Not a lot of people know all that - but we should. 

How the Light Gets In - speaking in Hay-on-Wye, May 30 2011

I did two sessions at Hay-on-Wye philosophy and music festival - How the Light gets In in May 2011.

The first was a debate called "An Age of Transparency" with neo-conservative commentator Douglas Murray, and philosopher Nigel Warburton.

The second was my talk about "Spies, Lies, and Life on the Run".

Here's a link to a video of my talk.

So wasn't the royal wedding lovely?

Well, yes, for some perhaps, and no doubt for the happy couple.

However, others spent the glorious day in a bare, concrete police cell, pre-emptively arrested for what they might do and untraceable to their loved ones and lawyers.  Effectively they were "disappeared", taken off the streets in case they uttered something that might mar the great day or, heaven forbid, caused some embarrassment.

A few days ago I wrote a piece highlighting my concerns about the threatened security response to possible protesters - drawing comparisons with the mindset, if not the violent tactics, of the thugs in Syria's security apparatus.  But still, in some deep recess of my mind and against all the accumulated evidence from my last 15 years, I found I still had an emotional, residual echo of the notion of British fair play that, really, we don't do those kinds of things in the UK.  Well, then I was a child, and spoke as a child.... 

In the run up to the happy nuptials, the Metropolitan Police stated that it had no specific intelligence of any terrorist threat from either dissident Irish republicans, nor from any possible grouping emerging from the Middle East.  Despite this, the security forces had launched a massive intelligence-gathering operation to hunt down known "anarchists" who might want to voice their protest against the concept of the monarchy.  Activist pages on Facebook were suddenly deleted with no warning, but the company said it was because of registration issues, and not because of the police.

Yes, there may well have been some who wanted to cause violence - after which they could have been arrested legitimately under the terms of the law .  However, what the police did in this case was in an altogether different league.  Using the methodology if not the brutality of the Syrian mukhabarat, they organised house raids and snatch squads.  They banned certain activists from London, and arrested others both in the days before the wedding and on the day itself. 

Those caught in the security sweep included a Professor of Anthropology, Chris Knight, and his friends who were planning a bit of mildly amusing street theatre involving a fake guillotine and a Prince Andrew dummy (is that tautologous?).

Others swept up by the security forces included a bunch of environmentalist squatters who were busily tending their market garden, according to rightly concerned MP John McDonnell, and some random "zombies" who wanted to go to an alternative "not the royal wedding" garden party.  Hardly the stuff of revolutionary nightmares.

And then there's the case of Charlie Veitch, now denounced across the UK media as the known anarchist. Yes, Charlie is anti-royalist and wanted to voice his views, but he runs an internationally-known activist organisation called the Love Police, for chrissakes.  The peaceful intentions of the organisation might possibly be given away by the name....

So what happened? On Thursday evening two police officers, tooled up with proto-Borg tech, muscled their way into the Cambridge home he shares with his girlfriend, Silkie Carlo, declaring that they were there to arrest him and search the place. They had the presence of mind to film the whole process and ask some pertinent questions.

Charlie's alleged pre-crime?  That he had posted a frighteningly prescient video on Youtube saying that he thought he was being spied on, but still critiquing the royal wedding and suggesting that fellow activists get together in Soho Square, London (quite a distance away from the festivities) on the day.  OK, so he had a bit of a rant - but that's what people do on Youtube.  Agree with him or strongly disagree, it's called his freedom of expression - a much-vaunted, traditional British liberty. 

But in the eyes of the police, apparently he was "conspiring to cause a possible breach of the peace", and needed to be locked up.   It's like we've time-travelled back to pre-revolutionary 18th century France, where the king could issue a lettre de cachet to send people to the Bastille.

So at the very time that Prince William and his blushing bride were created Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, a British citizen was raided, locked up and hidden away in a police cell in that very city for exercising free speech. 

On Thursday night he was hauled off to the Cambridge nick, which then refused to confirm to his understandably upset girlfriend where he was being held, before being transfered to the Met Police on Friday morning and held incommunicado for the rest of the day.  Family and lawyers then apparently spent fruitless hours ringing around all the London police stations trying to track him down.  So Charlie had effectively been "disappeared", like a dissident in a totalitarian regime.

So let's get this straight - we're talking about the Metropolitan Police spying on known activists (as we all now know they do, after the undercover cop scandal earlier this year) to prevent them from expressing their legitimate political views about the wedding of Kate and Wills.  The security forces had already stated that there was no specific terrorist threat, so this was all about preventing an embarrassing incident on the big day.  And I'm sorry, but I don't think that Prevention of Embarrassment is covered by the legal code.

Plus, these arrests were pre-emptive to stop a possible crime which might be committed - and let's face it, only breach of the peace at that.  Not a biggy.

So we are basically looking at the police spying on and then pre-emptively arresting campaigners for being potential dissidents, for ThoughtCrime.  How much more Orwellian can it get?

I mentioned the tactics of the Syrian security forces and their brutal crack-down.  I've also previously written about how the slide towards fascism began in Germany in the 1930s with the brutalisation of internal oppositionists and dissidents . 

So let's really stop and think about this - do we really want to let these early indications slide by, uncontested? After all, we have the Olympics and the Diamond Jubilee next year, and no doubt the same, or extended, powers will come into force.  How far will we let it go before we wake up to the threat?

As I've written before, with thanks to Pastor Martin Niemoeller:

First they came for the Irish in the 1980s,

But I was not Irish so I did not speak up.

Then they came for the Muslims after 9/11,

But I was not a Muslim, so I did not speak up.

Then they came for the "domestic extremists",

But I was not an activist, so I did not speak up.

Then they came for me;

and there was nobody left to speak up for me.

 

RTTV interview on the royal wedding and arrest of UK activists

My interview on 29 April 2011 for RTTV about the pre-emptive arrests of UK political activists in the run-up to the royal wedding. 

Thoughtcrime appears to have arrived in the UK - and I accidentally became a royal wedding commentator (sort of). 

Well, never say never in life....

 

A tale of two countries - pre-emptive policing in Britain and Syria

What a difference a mere month makes in the UK media.  At the end of March The Independent newspaper produced this article in the wake of the huge TUC anti-cuts protest in London, where the British Home Secretary was castigated for considering greater police powers to prevent such "trouble" again, with particular reference to the forthcoming royal wedding. 

At the time former assistant commissioner at Scotland Yard, Andy Hayman, who had served as the head of the Metropolitan Police Counter-Terrorism squad and was, umm,  reportedly a much-esteemed officer before his early resignation, adopted a muscular tone by calling for "snatch squads" and "dawn raids" to be carried out by police against suspected troublemakers.  How terribly un-British.

Perhaps I'm starting at shadows, but with the above in mind two interesting aricles appeared in that very same newspaper today. 

The first article that caught my eye confirmed there was indeed just such a security crackdown against suspected dissidents in the UK on the eve of the royal wedding.  Lynne Owens, the Metropolitan Police assistant commissioner in charge of the royal policing operation, is quoted as saying:

""We have to be absolutely clear. If anyone comes to London intending to commit criminal acts, we will act quickly, robustly and decisively." She said the Met was working with forces across the country and would use "spotters" to identify those causing trouble."

The article goes on to say:

"As police teams step up their process of "pre-event investigation" and "intelligence gathering", reports have come in from protesters that plain-clothed police are turning up at their homes to warn them against attending Friday's event."

It seems that the poor old Met is having conniptions about potentially embarrassing protesters sullying the pageantry of the royal wedding and is putting our money where its mouth is.  Last week The Telegraph also reported that counter-intelligence operations were being conducted against "anarchists" to prevent trouble on 29th April. 

Interesting use of language, but I suppose that one newspaper's "protester" will always be another's "anarchist"....

So what of the second article that concerned me?  This described the brutal security crackdown in Syria, where the secret police were pre-emptively hunting down and arresting suspected dissidents:

"Syria's feared secret police raided hundreds of homes yesterday as authorities stepped up attempts to crush the pro-reform movement....."

UK Foreign Secretary, William Hague is quoted as saying that:

"Syria is now at a fork in the road... it can choose ever-more violent repression which can only ever bring short-term security for the authorities there."

How much more need I say?  Putting aside the fact that Hague seems to have acquired his very own fork(ed tongue), the only discernable difference at this stage is in the sheer scale of the brutality and repression, not the mind-set or intent. 

It's a slippery slope.....

Guantanamo Files: was Bin Hamlili really an MI6 source?

My recent article in The Guardian newspaper about the strange, sad case of yet another Guantanamo victim. 

Frontline Club/New Statesman (FCNS) whistleblower debate with Julian Assange

"This house believes whistleblowers make the world a safer place."

I was honoured to be asked to say a few words at the recent debate about the value of whistleblowers in London on 9th April 2011.

The Frontline Club and the left-wing New Statesman magazine jointly hosted the event, which starred Julian Assange, editor in chief of Wikileaks.  Here is the debate in full:

   

Needless to say, the opposition had an uphill battle arguing not only against logic, the fair application of law, and the meaning of a vibrant and informed democracy, but also against the new realities in the worlds of journalism and technology. 

The first more diplomatically-minded oppositionist adopted a policy of appeasement towards the audience, but the last two had to fall back on the stale and puerile tactics of name-calling and ad hominem attacks.  So good to see that expensive educations are never a waste....

The proposition was supported enthusiatically by the sell-out crowd, a resounding vote of confidence in the democratic notions of accountability and transparency.

Here's a snippet of my (brief) contribution to a fantastic afternoon:

 

Security forces endanger agent lives, not whistleblowers...

Our esteemed governments, intelligence agencies and police forces always attack whistleblowers and organisations such as Wikileaks on the grounds that unauthorised disclosure of classified information puts the lives of agents and informants at risk.

Agent identities, along with ongoing operations (as Former Assistant Commissioner of Special Operations at the Metropolitan Police, Bob Quick, found to his cost two years ago) and sensitive investigatory techniques, are indeed in need of protection.  Much else is not - particularly information about lies, cover-ups, incompetence and crime.

Indeed, once you delve behind the screaming headlines that whistleblower disclosures have risked agent lives, you often find that this is absolutely not the case - in fact their motivation is usually to prevent further needless torture, death and war crimes.  So the US Defence Secretary, Robert Gates, was forced to admit that Wikileaks had indeed not endangered lives with the publication of the Afghan War Logs last year, and David Shayler's trial judge, in his formal ruling, stated that "no lives had been put at risk" by his whistleblowing.

Instead, there is a growing body of evidence to suggest that the security forces are the very organisations not taking the protection and aftercare of their agents seriously.

Mark Kennedy, the undercover police officer who spied on UK environmental protest groups, has gone on the record to say that the supervision, care and psychological support provided to him was woefully lacking.   Kevin Fulton, a serving soldier who infiltrated the IRA on behalf of the notorious Forces Research Unit, has similarly been hung out to dry and is now attempting to sue the British Government to provide the promised, adequate aftercare.

Martin McGartland, who worked as a source in Northern Ireland at the height of "The Troubles" and is credited with saving 50 lives, has also borne the brunt of this laissez faire attitude since he stopped working for intelligence.  He has the scars to prove it too, having survived assassination attempts, and once blindly leaping out of a third floor window in an frantic attempt to escape torture at the hands of the IRA.  As he says:

“Who would put their lives on the line nowadays when they can read what happens to those who did?”, McGartland says. “I can’t go home and the IRA are supposed to be a former terrorist group. Nobody is hunting down my attackers and nobody in authority seems to care. That has a direct impact on recruiting agents...."

The most egregious case is of Denis Donaldson, Sinn Fein's Head of Administration at Stormont in Northern Ireland who was outed as a MI5 and police spy by Gerry Adams in 2006.  He was brutally murdered a few months later, allegedly by the Real IRA, having received little protection or support from his erstwhile spook handlers.

So who is really more likely expose current agents to the risk of psychological damage, torture and death, or to deter future agents from volunteering to work with the security forces?  Principled whistleblowers who expose crime and incompetence with due care for protecting real secrets, or the spooks who take a cavalier approach to the pastoral care of their agents, and then hang them out to dry once their usefulness is at an end?

Libya: my enemy's enemy is my friend, until he becomes my enemy again...

UK Prime Minister, David Cameron, reportedly made the startling statement recently that the military intervention in Libya "unlike Iraq, is necessary, legal and right". 

Would it not be wonderful if he could take the next logical step towards joined-up thinking and consider sending our esteemed Middle East Peace Envoy, a certain Mr T Blair, over for a spot of porridge at the International Criminal Court in The Hague?  After all, Cameron has now clearly implied that the Iraq war was "unnecessary, illegal and wrong".....

But back to Libya.  With the ongoing crisis - now war - much is being written about how the previous UK government collaborated with the Gaddafi regime in the last decade - while tacitly glossing over the last year of Coalition government where, no doubt, similar levels of cooperation and back-slapping and money-grubbing were going on at the highest levels to ensure the continuing flow of oil contracts to the UK.

But, yes, we should be dissecting the Labour/Gaddafi power balance.  Gaddafi had New Labour over the proverbial (oil) barrel from the late 1990s, when MI5 whistleblower David Shayler exposed the failed and illegal MI6 assassination plot against Colonel Gaddafi, using as fall-guys a rag-tag group of Islamic extremists.  The newly-elected Labour government's knee-jerk response at the time was to believe the spook's denials and cover-up for them.  Perhaps not so surprising, as the government ministers of the day were uncomfortably aware that the spies held files on them.  But this craven response did leave the government position exposed, as Gaddafi well knew.

The CIA was fully cognisant of this failed plot at the time, as were the French intelligence services.  The Gaddafi Plot is once again being referenced in the media, including the Telegraph, and a recent edition of the Huffington Post.  The details are still relevant, as it appears that our enterprising spooks are yet again reaching out to a rag-tag group of rebels - primarily Islamists and the Senussi royalists based around Benghazi. 

The lessons of the reckless and ill-thought out Gaddafi Plot were brushed under the carpet, so history may yet again be doomed to repeat itself.  Yes, Gaddafi has been one of the biggest backers of terrorism ever, and yes he has brutalised parts of his own population, but if he were deposed how can the West be sure that those stepping into the power vacuum would not be even more dangerous?

The Libyan government continued to use the 1996 MI6 assassination plot as leverage in its negotiations with the New Labour government right up until (publicly at least) 2009.  Musa Kousa, the current Foreign Minister, played a key role throughout.  For many years Kousa was the head of the Libyan External Security Organsiation and was widely seen as the chief architect of international Libyan-backed terrorism against the USA, the UK and France. 

Another apparent example of this moral blackmail caught my eye recently - this report in the Daily Mail.  Saif al-Islam Gaddafi was afforded MI6-backed protection when he was finally allowed into the UK in September 2002 to study at the LSE. 

The timing was particularly interesting, as only months earlier Saif had won a libel case against the UK's Sunday Telegraph newspaper.  A grovelling apology was made by the newspaper, but Saif refrained from asking for "exemplary damages" - which he would almost certainly have won.  The resulting pay-off for this restraint appears to be that a mere five months later he was welcomed into the UK with MI6-facilitated protection.

Saif's relations with the UK had not always been so rosy. As background to this case, in 1995 the Sunday Telegraph had fallen hook, line and sinker for a MI6 classic propaganda operation.  As The Guardian reported, the secretive MI6 media manipulation section, Information Operations, (I/Ops), had successfully spun a fake story to hapless spook hack, Con Coughlin, that Gaddafi Junior was involved in currency fraud.  This story was fake, but the paper trail it produced was used by the spies as a pretext to prevent Saif from entering the UK at the time. 

By 2002 this was all old history, of course.  Saif was welcomed to the UK, officially to study for his MA and PhD at the London School of Economics (and showing his gratitude to that august institution with a hefty donation of £1.5 million - it makes the new tuition fees for UK students seem better value for money), and unofficially to chum up to various Establishment enablers to end Libya's pariah status, open up lucrative trade channels, and get the SAS to train up Libya's special forces. 

The UK military must be just loving that now.....

So I get the feeling that the UK government has over the last decade indeed "danced with the devil".  After decades of viewing Libya and Colonel Gaddafi as a Priority One JIC intelligence target, the UK government fell over itself to appease the Gaddafi regime in the wake of the bungled assassination attempt in 1996 and the libelling of his son.  These were the sticks Gaddafi used; the carrots were undoubtedly the Saif/MI6-facilitated oil contracts. 

Of course, all this is now pretty much a moot point, following Dave Cameron's "necessary, legal and right" military intervention.  If the wily old Colonel manages to hang on grimly to some semblence of power (and he has an impressive track-record of surviving against the odds), then I doubt if he'll be happy to cooperate with British oil companies in the future.  At the very least. 

Gaddafi has already threatened "vengeance" against the West, and it was reported today that MI5 is taking this all-too-preditable risk seriously.

If Gaddafi is deposed, who can realistically predict the intentions and capabilities of those who will fill the power vacuum?  We should have learnt from Afghanistan and Iraq: my enemy's enemy is my friend - until he becomes my enemy again.....

 

RTTV interview - West caught between a rock and a hard place re Libya

Here is an interview I did today for RRTV about the evolving war in Libya:

 

The spies and Libya - time to dust off their conscience

As I've mentioned before, the former heads of UK intelligence agencies have a charming habit of speaking out in support of the rule of law, civil liberties, proportionality and plain common sense - but usually only after they have retired. 

Perhaps at their leaving parties their consciences are extracted from the security safe, dusted off and given back  - along with the gold watch?

Even then, post-retirement, they might try to thrice-deny potentially world-changing information, as Sir Richard Dearlove did when questioned by the fearless and fearsomely bright Silkie Carlo about the leaked Downing Street Memo at his recent speech at the Cambridge Union.  (The links are in two parts, as the film had to be mirrored on Youtube - Dearlove claimed copyright on the orginal Love Police film and had it taken down.)

And "out of context", my left foot - he could potentially have saved millions of lives in the Middle East if he'd gone public with his considered professional opinion about the intelligence facts being fitted around a preconceived war policy in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq.

Wouldn't it be lovely if these esteemed servants of the state, replete with respect, status and honours, could actually take a stand while they are still in a position to influence world events?

My former boss, Baroness Eliza Manningham-Buller, has been unusually vociferous since her retirement in 2007 and elevation to the peerage.  She used her maiden speech to the House of Lords to object to the proposed plans to increase police detention of terrorist suspects without charge from 28 to 42 days; she recently suggested that the "war on terror" is unwinnable and that we should, if possible, negotiate with "Al Qaeda" (well, it worked with the Provisional IRA); and that the "war on drugs" had been lost and the UK should treat recreational drug use as a health rather than a criminal issue. She steals all my best lines....

But credit where credit is due.  Despite the fact that she used the full power of the British state to pursue terrorist suspects up until 2007 and investigate drug barons in the 1990s, she did apparently try to make a stand while en poste in the run-up to the Iraq War.  Last year she gave evidence to the Chilcot Enquiry, stating that she had officially briefed the government that an invasion of Iraq would increase the terrorist threat to the UK.

So it's obvious that once a UK Prime Minister has come over all Churchillian he tends to ignore the counsel of his chief spooks, as we've seen with both the Downing Street Memo the Chilcot Enquiry. 

With that in mind, I've read with interest the recent press reports that the UK authorities apparently knew about Colonel Gaddafi retaining stockpiles of mustard gas and sarin (despite the fact that the world was assured in 2004 that it was his renunciation of WMDs that allowed him back into the international diplomatic fold) . 

So the key question is surely: is this another erroneous "45 minutes from attack" moment, with Gaddafi's alleged stockpiles of WMD a perfect scaremongering pretext to push for a full-on regime change in Libya; or is this genuine, and we were all lied to about Gaddafi's destruction of his WMD stockpiles for economic advantage and fat, juicy oil contracts?

The Wall Street Journal recently ran an article quoting the concern of "government insiders" about Gaddafi's potential future terrorism threat against the West, up to and including WMDs, should he cling on to power.  Well, yes, it would hardly be surprising if he were now to be as mad as a wasp with his ex-new best buddies.  Despite the sordid rapprochement in the last decade, he has been for much of his life an inveterate enemy of the West and sponsor of worldwide terrorism.

Rather than waiting for his "K" and his retirement, would it not be wonderful if the current head of MI5, Jonathan Evans, could extract his conscience from that dusty security safe and make a useful and informed statement to shed some light on the mess that the Libyan war is rapidly becoming?  He could potentially change the course of world history and save untold lives.

Tony Soprano meets Joe McCarthy

Now I'm not a huge follower of US political theatrics.  Give it a few years and the US of A will probably exit from the world stage pursued by a bear (or panda).  So why waste your time on a dying beast?  All you can do is try to avoid the death throes as best you can. 

But this did pique my interest, purely from the Hollywood-blockbuster schlock value.  The new Chair of the US Homeland Security Committee, Republican Congressman for New York Peter King, has opened a hearing called  “The Extent of Radicalization (with a "z") in the American Muslim Community and that Community's Response.” 

Here is the  Download Full_text and here's the video of King's opening statement:

 

Now isn't it wonderful that esteemed politician Peter King has woken up to the dangers of "the enemy within" - or not?  Over the last last few months he has flagrantly displayed his profound ignorance vis a vis the concept of terrorism.  Last December he called for the designation of Wikileaks, the high-tech conduit extraordinaire for public-spirited whistleblowers around the world, as a "terrorist organistion".  

And this from a politician who is reported to be a life-long supporter of the political wing of the Provisional IRA - another religious minority group that fought for its self-proclaimed ideals - and was for decades the "enemy within" the UK. 

In fact, until 9/11 the US Irish community was by far the biggest funder of PIRA terrorism for decades - so don't believe everything that is written about Colonel Gaddafi of Libya. 

I suppose it still holds true that one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter, and Rep Peter King is clearly adhering to that point of view.....

Looking at the above video, I can't get out of my head that it's a bit like putting the fictional organised crime boss, Tony Soprano, in charge of a government committee investigating organised crime.

But it gets worse.  King even mentions the dread phrase "despite what passes for conventional wisdom in certain circles, there is nothing radical or un-American in holding these hearings".  Wasn't that also what a certain Senator Joe McCarthy said in the 1950s about the Communist witchhunts?

Such moronic statements would potentially be amusing - if it were not for the fact that Peter Chair is the King of the Homeland Security Committee of the world's dying and desperate super-power, the USA. 

Oops, silly me, I muddled the words.....

But sadly he is, and no doubt the whole world will feel the repercussions of this.  The morphing of the fictional Tony Soprano and paranoid Joe Kennedy has spawned a hellish brat - let's call him Emmanuel Goldstein, for ease of reference.

 

RTTV interview - dancing with the devil - how not to deal with "rogue" states

Here is an interview I did for RTTV on 3 March 2011 about the possibility of Western intervention in the unfolding Libyan crisis:

 

Interestingly, a radio recording of the Dutch "rescue" mission I mentioned has appeared on the internet.  It appears that the pilots were less than honest about their flight plans and intentions, saying that they were heading to their ship south of Malta rather than back towards Tripoli.... where they are eventually caught.

Also, do have a read of this excellent article by Seamus Milne of The Guardian about ramifications of possible Western intervention.

That said, it looks like this viewpoint is being ignored.  The Daily Mail reported today that MI6 officers and SAS soldiers are massing in the East of Libya to assist the rebels.  Well, at least they're doing it openly now, unlike the illegal and failed Gaddafi Plot of 1996.

Alleged Wikileaks source, Bradley Manning, faces the death penalty

Alleged Wikileaks source US Private Bradley Manning is now charged with "aiding the enemy", amongst a bewildering array of 22 new charges.  This is apparently a capital offence, although the US military has cosily said that they wouldn't push for this barbaric sentence. 

So just life without the hope of parole then.....

Putting aide the minor question of whether the USA should even be entitled to call itself a modern democracy when it still has the death penalty on its books, let's just remind ourselves of what Manning is alleged to have revealed: the "Collateral Murder" military shoot-up, where innocent children, civilians and journalists were gunned down by US forces in a particularly nasty snuff video game that was then deliberately covered up by the Pentagon for years; many other heinous war crimes and records of daily brutality in Afghanistan and Iraq; and an "embarrass de richesses" of diplomatic cables. 

I think "embarrass" is the key word here, on so many levels, and goes a long way to explaining the USA's desperation to destroy Wikileaks founder, Julian Assange, by any means necessary.

But the phrase from the list of charges against the hapless Manning that leaps out at me is "aiding the enemy".  If - and it's still a big legal if - Manning was indeed the source of all this crucial information, whom was he actually aiding?

Information that has appeared on Wikileaks over the last few years has been eclectic, international and very much in the public interest.  It's covered such nasties as Trafigura, the BNP, Scientology, Climategate, Guantanamo, the Australian internet blacklist, Sarah Palin, and much more.

It's certainly not just restricted to the information that hit the headlines last year about the US hegemony.  However, there is no doubt that it was the release of the Afghan, Iraq and diplomatic files that stirred up this particularly unpleasant hornets' nest.

As global citizens I would suggest that we have every right to know what is done in our name. But, having said that, according to these new charges against poor Bradley Manning, the beneficiaries of Wikileaks - ie all of us -  have now become the enemy.

When did we, the people, the global citizenry, become the enemy?  It seems that our esteemed rulers are at last showing their true colours....

On that note, do have a look at this video of former MI6 chief, Sir Richard Dearlove, speaking recently at the Cambridge Union Society.  An interesting perspective on the British Establishment's line on Wikileaks and Julian Assange:

 

Coda: As you can see from the above, copyright laws were used to spare Dearlove's blushes once this video was publicised. He was also, at the time, the Chairman of the governing committee of the Cambridge Union. However, the film was mirrored:

 

Bleat: the assassination of dissidents

OK, so I'm not sure if my concept of Bleats (half blog, half tweet) is being grasped wholeheartedly.  But so what - it makes me laugh and the Black Sheep shall perservere with a short blog post.....

So I'm a bit puzzled here.  UK Prime Minister Dave Cameron is quoted in today's Daily Telegraph as saying that:

"It is not acceptable to have a situation where Colonel Gaddafi can be murdering his own people using aeroplanes and helicopter gunships and the like and we have to plan now to make sure if that happens we can do something to stop it."

But do his American best buddies share that, umm, humane view?  First of all they have the CIA assassination list which includes the names of US citizens (ie its own people); then those same "best buddies" may well resort to assassinating Wikileaks's Julian Assange, probably the most high profile dissident in international and diplomatic circles at the moment; plus they are already waging remote drone warfare on many hapless Middle Eastern countries - Yeman, Afghanistan, Pakistan.....

Oh, and now the UK government seems poised to launch covert spy drones into the skies of Britain.  Even the UK's most right-wing mainstream newspapers, the Daily Telegraph and the Daily Mail, expressed concern about this today.  Apparently these drones have yet to be weaponised.....

It's a slippery slope down to an Orwellian nightmare.

 

Libya Interview, RTTV 23 February 2011

My interview for RTTV about the current Libyan crisis: