tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-61426121985505168742024-03-12T21:19:35.314-07:00The Shrimpton ReportMichael Shrimpton is a Barrister, specialist in National Security and Constitutional Law, Strategic Intelligence and Counter-Terrorism.M. Shrimptonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06273152628321207508noreply@blogger.comBlogger13125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6142612198550516874.post-16991299585382124992012-09-12T18:01:00.003-07:002012-09-12T18:01:41.975-07:00The Murders in France<div>
<b>These may be related to Operation Vulcan. The executed Iraqi seems to have specialised inter alia in airborne radiation monitoring equipment. It may have been kit he designed which was on that King-Air which crashed so mysteriously whilst on an overflight of the Olympics site. It may also played a role in spotting nuclear material on a German-owned freighter, recently abandoned on the high seas in very odd circumstances. Most at-sea rendezvous between freighters and submarines tend to arouse suspicion. </b></div>
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<b>The police as usual are downplaying any intelligence connection, but since when have the police ever told the truth about intelligence matters? </b></div>
M. Shrimptonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06273152628321207508noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6142612198550516874.post-83790805169040454692012-09-08T10:35:00.001-07:002012-09-12T18:00:52.885-07:00More Mistakes on the BBC!<b>Nice to see a documentary ("Jet: When Britain Ruled the Skies," BBC 4, broadcast in the UK on Tuesday 4th September) on Britain's once wonderful civil aircraft industry. There was some lovely stock footage, especially of the gigantic Bristol Brabazon and the Short Sperrin. The Sperrin was an attractive, four-engined jet bomber designed as a back-up to the more advanced V-Bombers. It should have been put into production and would have been a very useful tanker after retirement from front-line service.</b><br />
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<b><a name='more'></a><br /></b><b>The sabotage of our aircraft industry is a key theme of Spyhunter. We are now aiming for publication, in the States and online, in mid-December. It's too hot for a British publisher.</b><br /></div>
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<b><br /></b><b>As usual with documentaries on aircraft the BBC made a number of boo-boos, which I have respectfully drawn to their attention. As I have observed before these boo-boos are doubly irritating, as media consultancy is one of my fields! The problem is that documentary makers rarely get experts to review their programme at the final editing stage.</b></div>
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<b><br /></b><b>Brabazon-bashing has been a sport with the BBC for over 60 years. Their latest programme repeats the old canard that the Brabazon would have been out of date when she entered service, as she was piston-engined. This rather ignores the fact that transatlantic jet travel did not start until the Comet 4 in 1958. As late as that year BOAC's schedules still featured the piston-driven Douglas DC-7C. As the Brabazon was designed for overnight travel and had bunks and cabins for its passengers its comfort made up for a comparatively low cruising speed. In any event its cruising speed was not much slower than its contempories.</b></div>
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<b><br /></b><b>The Bristol Centaurus engine had been targeted by German assets in the Air Ministry, some of whom I name in Spyhunter. The great Roy Fedden, its designer, had been forced out at Filton. Had he been able to develop the Centuarus as he wished it would probably knocked out 3,500 HP for the Brabazon, instead of 2,500 HP. </b></div>
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<b><br /></b><b>Of course the BBC didn't dare mention that the German DVD had sabotaged the Rome Comets and the Bristol Britannia prototype. Nearly 60 years later these are still 'no-go' areas for the Corporation, as much in awe of Germany today as it was in 1938, when it suppressed the voice of Churchill from the airwaves. The programme rehashed the risible 'square windows' theory (neither Comet started her break-up sequence at the windows) and recycled the old Farnborough propaganda footage about explosive decompression, with seats crashing through the cabin, etc. Of course the programme-makers did not point out that this footage was irrelevant, as the Comets blew up at 26,000 feet, i.e. well below their cruising altitude, when the cabin pressure was comparable to that on a DC-6 or a Stratocruiser.</b></div>
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<b><br /></b><b>There were smaller errors as well - whilst the commentary wittered on about "American aircraft" the video showed what looks suspiciously like a Languedoc (a French aircraft) and what is clearly a Merlin engine on a Canadian-built Argonaut. </b></div>
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<b>The Pietersen Affair Rolls On</b></div>
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<b>Another lacklustre performance from England today at Durham. Kevin Pietersen is the world's best one-day batsman. Without him our line-up looks weak. Playing what in reality were second XI's South Africa rolled us over pretty easily in the final ODI, and the first T20 today. To cave in to Indian demands not to send the great KP to India (they know he's too good for their bowlers) would be an outrage. The ECB cannot expect punters to continue to roll up to watch sub-standard teams. I don't think they have any conception of how angry English cricket-lovers are at them.</b></div>
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M. Shrimptonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06273152628321207508noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6142612198550516874.post-81169363786249912552012-08-25T09:30:00.002-07:002012-08-25T10:19:14.009-07:00The Prince Harry Affair<b>Predictably our unpatriotic media has obsessed itself with attacking the Royal Family and bashing HRH Prince Harry. Equally predictably the unpatriotic Coalition Government let it happen on their watch and has done nothing about it, nor will they. I did not fall off out of my chair when it was reported yesterday (24th August) that Rupert Murdoch had personally sanctioned the Sun's disgraceful action in publishing the photos. </b><br />
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<b>As with all compromising piccies the really interesting questions are:</b><br />
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<b>(1) who took them, and</b><br />
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<b><a name='more'></a></b><b>Never mind Prince Harry, the persons who really need exposing are the photographers. Who were they, what was their motive, have they been paid and if so, how much and by whom?</b><br />
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<b>I am against hammering junior police officers for conduct sanctioned by their superiors. Someone, somewhere, in the Met, must have OK'd the decision to let the photographers into the suite and permit them to take photographs. Whether he OK'd these decisions or not the Commissioner is going to have to take responsibility and resign. If his defence is that someone at the Cabinet Office ordered him to stand down the Prince's security then he is going to have to identify that person.</b><br />
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<b>There have been far too many royal protection scandals over the years. The Met clearly can no longer be trusted to protect the Royal Family. The answer is to give the job to the Services, whose loyalty can be counted upon. Police officers could be added when in the UK. </b><br />
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<b>It's not just a question of inadequate protection. Louise Mensch, the very silly MP for Corby, with respect, who has sensibly resigned, hammered the final nail into the coffin of the current financing arrangements for the Royals, yesterday, on the Today programme. In effect she was treating Prince Harry as an employee of the state, not third in line to be its Head. </b><br />
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<b>As I have long called for, we are going to have to stop this nonsense of having the Queen subsidise Her Exchequer. The income from the Crown Estate, worth far more than the measly sums the Treasury hands over, should be restored to the Crown, free of course from income tax. The Royal Palaces should also belong to the Queen, as opposed to the government. These reforms would give the Monarch a measure of independence. Having serious security would also prevent the Cabinet Office applying pressure by threatening to withdraw protection, or providing protection which is grossly inadequate. Protection has already been withdrawn from some members of the Royal Family, an utterly scandalous state of affairs. </b><br />
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<b>The Firearms Act does not apply to the Queen, but technically prevents other members of the Royal Family carrying weapons without a licence. That too should stop. A one-line amendment would remove the Royal Family from the restrictions imposed by the Act. </b><br />
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<b>As for Murdoch, he with respect is out of control. I am sure someone in the Tory Party will have marked his card.</b><br />
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<b><u>Norway</u></b><br />
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<b>I respectfully agree with the decision of the Norwegian court that Brievik is not insane. The intelligence available to me suggests that he is a DVD asset. It is a great pity that he was not sentenced to death, which I think is technically allowable, still, in Norway. He could not be heard to complain about a death sentence.</b><br />
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<b>The trial itself, whilst dignified, was something of a farce, given that the other shooters were not joined as co-defendants. The prosecution also agreed with Breivik's description of himself as a Christian and a right-winger. He is neither, and has no known association with any church or right-wing group in Norway.</b><br />
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<b>Follow-up to the Pietersen Affair</b><br />
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<b>The England and Wales Cricket Board heaped outrage upon outrage when they omitted KP from the England team for the World T20 competition (this is a short form of cricket, modelled on baseball, which is fun but has got hopelessly out of control, to the point where it is now inflicting serious damage on the game). South Africa, India and Australia cannot handle Pietersen, who has smacked their bowlers all round the field. Why on earth should other countries be able to dictate the selection of the England team?</b><br />
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<b>The idea that you cannot play for England if you were not born or brought up here is absurd. One of England's greatest post-war players, Colin Cowdrey, whom I had the pleasure of meeting once, was born in India. Is it seriously being suggested that England should not have picked Devon Malcolm, or Philip de Freitas, or Basil D'Oliveira? </b><br />
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<b>What the ECB are really saying that is we can pick players born or brought up overseas providing they are useless, and if they start scoring runs or taking wickets, or even worse, both, we have to sack them. It's a joke. The ECB have shamed themselves over this and should be abolished. This would get around the problem of how to sack Giles Clarke or Hugh Morris. No need to sack them - just take their jobs away. The MCC should resume Test selection, for home and overseas Tests. As a Member said to me at Lords last week, the MCC Committee might have fined KP his match fee, and left it at that. They have far more sense than the ECB. The ECB have also made a mess of domestic scheduling, which could go back to the old Board of Control. </b><br />
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<b>It is increasingly clear that the texts were a pretext, as it were. It looks to me as though the decision to drive out KP was made in the spring, probably triggered by the hammering KP gave the Indians last season.</b><br />
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<b>The Republican Convention</b><br />
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<b>Brooks Newmark MP is a nice chap, but terribly wet. I am sorry he has attacked our sister conservative party, the Republicans, in advance of the great gathering this week at Tampa. The reality is that Republican and Tory activists tend to think alike. It is only Coalition-supporting MP's like Brooks who tend to have a problem with the Tea Party, who are awfully nice people, and terribly sensible on the whole.</b><br />
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<b><br /></b>M. Shrimptonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06273152628321207508noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6142612198550516874.post-1095814621102538312012-08-17T15:45:00.000-07:002012-08-20T18:20:39.662-07:00The Pietersen Affair<b>Predictably England are struggling in the Lords Test, with a weakened batting line-up. </b><br />
<b>Equally predictably there were empty seats. Cricket lovers do not want to see England's Second XI.</b><br />
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<b>It is reasonable to suppose that South Africa were behind the original leak about the contentious texts to the Mail. I can't see KP having been behind it, nor do I suppose that the Mail hacked into his mobile phone! </b><br />
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<b><a name='more'></a></b><b>For once I am in complete agreement with Piers Morgan. Straussy, Giles Clarke and Hugh Morris at ECB and the selectors have bungled this badly. Clarke and Morris need to resign for the sake of English cricket and Strauss should step down as captain.</b><br />
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<b>A fine player he has been greatly over-rated as a skipper. He comes across as authoritarian and unwilling to consult his senior players, except Cook, who is too close to Graham Gooch in my opinion. He bungled the last two Tests badly. </b><br />
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<b>Some of the media attacks on KP have been poisonous in the extreme. I am sure he would be an effective skipper if re-appointed.</b><br />
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<b>The idea that he should not be playing for England, mooted in yesterday's Telegraph, is beyond outrage. He is a British Citizen, born to a British mother. There was an excellent response today, referring to the great Basil D'Oliveira, who scored two fine tons against Australia (I watched him on telly scoring the second, 117 from memory, on Illingworth's 1970/71 tour).</b><br />
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<b>The politics of this scandal run deep. Congress is quite close to Peking, the Indian Premier League has semi-official backing, its funding may be linked (lawfully) to a high-yield trading programme, a la Kerry Packer, and England's next tour to is to India. KP is the one England batsman they really fear, so they will welcome an understrength England team.</b><br />
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<b>KP came here as a refugee from South African racial quotas - just as iniquitous as the racist selection policy which banned D'Oliveira, and KP is a far greater talent. By refusing to play him on spurious grounds England are effectively enforcing the ANC's policy of racial quotas.</b><br />
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<b>Sink the Bismarck</b><br />
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<b>Nice to see this splendid old movie, starring Kenneth More, on the box again this week. A valuable boost for morale. I shall be giving the background in Spyhunter, and commenting on the tragic loss of HMS Hood.</b><br />
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<b>The movie was well-made, albeit influenced by a German spy in the Admiralty, anxious to conceal the real reason for Bismarck's breakout (she wasn't going after convoys - only the Prinz Eugen).</b><br />
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<b>As usual the producers never sought advice on the stock footage - the warships at the end, purporting to be Rodney & KGV, appear to include HMS Barham, Ark Royal and both the Nelson class, with not a KGV class in sight. The footage was probably shot in the Med before 1941.</b><br />
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<b>Malta Story, starring Jack Hawkins, another fine actor, has also had an airing this week, again with the wrong stock footage. Whilst paying tribute to the fine work of USS Wasp in flying off Spitfires for Malta, they showed HMS Eagle! Her twin funnels were quite distinctive. She was a happy ship - one of my family went down with her sadly, according to family legend. </b><br />
<b>Originally a battleship intended for the Chilean Navy her engine room instruments, famously, were in Spanish. </b><br />
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<b>I am always happy to review movies & documentaries for factual errors by the way! The number of mistakes is surprisingly high. Most producers seem happy to include footage of an aircraft or a ship, never mind which one. </b><br />
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M. Shrimptonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06273152628321207508noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6142612198550516874.post-67980857334391222342012-08-07T15:54:00.001-07:002012-08-08T11:41:23.634-07:00The Sikh Temple Shooting<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b>I predicted further mass-shootings after Denver, but not this soon!</b><br />
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<b>Once again we have the FBI trying to shut down the investigation almost as soon as it has started, by obsessing on the lone gunman theory. At least this time a local agent got out a reference to another person of interest, before being sat on from Washington (which is what it looks like).</b><br />
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<b><a name='more'></a></b><b>It is not unknown in DVD-sponsored mass shootings for the shooter to be taken out, either by police or an accomplice (eg Dunblane and Cumbria). The circumstances of Page's death need to be closely examined. </b><br />
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<b>Unfortunately local police departments usually do not follow Commissioner Gordon's example, realise they are out of their depth and call for outside assistance. There are the intelligence world's equivalents of the Caped Crusaders but they are not usually sent for. No offence, but Oak Creek PD seem to have no idea what they are dealing with.</b><br />
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<b>The media are treating the two incidents as separate, which is ridiculous. Both show strong indications of being COREA Group sponsored, the COREA Group being the DVD's penetration operation inside the CIA. It looks as though extensive political interference from Washington is being run on both investigations.</b><br />
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<b>The two police departments do not seem to be talking to each other. </b><br />
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<b>It is just possible that the local Sikh community have someone with connections to Indian military intelligence They are aware of the DVD so might be able to assist the PD. Most of the victims appear to be dual Indian/US nationals, so the Indians would have locus to assist the investigation.</b><br />
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<b>Speaking of India the Indian Premier League need to back down over trying to break up the England cricket team. IPL maches should NOT be scheduled so as to clash with Test Matches. A much closer look needs to be taken at the IPL's funding. Since they are effectively beer matches and the teams are not first class the stats should not be included in 'List A' T20 stats. </b><br />
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<b>It is possible poor old KP is being set up, ie plenty of money on offer to tempt him away from England, then the contracts dry up. International cricket, sadly, is highly political. Of course had Hugh Morris and the ECB not sacked him as captain the problem would not have arisen. </b><br />
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<b>Sadly, Strauss has once again shown his weaknesses as a captain. Too proud to take advice from former players like Michael Vaughan and Geoffrey Boycott, who know Headingley well, he inserted the opposition when he should have batted, had his bowlers at the wrong end and left out a spinner on a wicket taking spin. I respectfully endorse Sir Ian Botham's criticisms of his field placings and tactics on the last day. It would be a great day for English cricket if Strauss and Morris would both resign, but it's more likely we shall lose Pietersen instead, the world's greatest batsman on current form. </b><br />
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<b> </b>M. Shrimptonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06273152628321207508noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6142612198550516874.post-11806623320328332602012-08-04T10:42:00.000-07:002012-08-04T11:57:29.466-07:00Article 50<b>I promised a response to Richard North, whose rather more widely read blog started a debate on the topic of the mechanisms for leaving the EU.</b><br />
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<b>There are two ways - either the UK leaves (as I argue we should) in accordance with the TEU itself, under Article 50, or under the Vienna Convention on International Treaties. Vienna can be excluded but was not, so there is no doubt it applies to the TEU.</b><br />
<b><a name='more'></a></b><b>Article 50 has a longer waiting period, during which political pressure could be brought to bear to reverse the decision, making it the less attractive option. It is really only useful to states which need continued tariff free access to the markets of EU Member States, ie states which are net exporters. For a state like the UK, whose market is more important to the Member States than vice versa (please bear in mind the official trade figures are distorted by the Rotterdam Antwerp Effect and the use of VAT figures, which tend to exaggerate exports), Vienna is the far more attractive route.</b><b><br /></b><br />
<b>There are several options under Vienna, the easiest being withdrawal on say six months notice on the ground of material change of circumstances.</b><br />
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<b>Domestic law is entirely a matter for Parliament, which is not bound by international treaties, which work on the intergovernmental plane only. That is because the UK is a dualist state, where treaties are not part of the domestic law unless they are incorporated. The TEU is incorporated, via the European Communities 1972, but can be unincorporated through the simple mechanism of repealing or amending that act.</b><br />
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<b>In the Metric Martyrs Case, where I was leading junior counsel for the appellants, the Divisional Court declined to follow the notorious Factortame decision and rightly so with respect, holding that the relationship between British and community law is governed by British law, not the other way around. In Factortame, the House of Lords, without hearing argument on the point (so its ruling was not binding) got it wrong, and applied community law instead of British law. </b><br />
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<b>Sensibly Parliament would provide for a 6 month transitional period to match the notice period, during which UK regulations incorporating EU Directives etc could be revoked. Community law provisions having direct effect could cease to apply from day one.</b><br />
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<b>Citizens of EU Member States exercising treaty rights here could be required to leave by the end of the 6 month period, which would of course see a dramatic fall in unemployment, as there are over over 2.5 million EU nationals taking up British jobs (very few have skills we could not supply ourselves). </b><br />
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<b>Essentially what I am saying is that the legal mechanisms for withdrawal are straightforward. Economically UK plc would be about 4 billion pounds a week better off after withdrawal, so crushing is the burden of EU membership. The big problem is political, ie finding a way to break up the Coalition and lose Cameron as Tory Leader. </b><br />
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<b>Much confusion has been caused by the fact that the Treaty of Rome and the TEU which revoked and replaced it were both described being in force for "an unlimited period." All that means is that they are not fixed term treaties, unlike the treaty establishing the Western European Union, which was designed to expire after 50 years. Essentially treaties are of two types: fixed term and unlimited. You can withdraw from either in accordance with the treaty itself or under the Vienna Convention.</b><br />
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<b>There is no question that the UK will withdraw from the EU. The only questions are when and how. Politicians trying to stop it are just standing in the way of history and need to be pushed aside. </b><br />
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<b>The Qatada case has killed the idea of Britain continuing to be a member of the Council of Europe and adhering to the outdated European Convention on Human Rights. Public support for membership has collapsed and withdrawal from the ECHR is now inevitable. That would probably be on 12 months notice under the Convention itself, but membership would be pretty meaningless once the controversial Human Rights Act 1998 was repealed (conveniently that could be done by the act repealing the ECA72). The right of individual petition would be withdrawn at the same time as pulled out, clearing the way for Qatada's deportation to Jordan.</b><br />
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<b>One the UK was safely out of the ECHR there would be no reason to dictate sentence to the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. At the moment, offensively, we are telling the Jordanian courts what they can and cannot do. Since Qatada has already had a fair trial, albeit in absentia (which was his decision) and has very properly been sentenced to death, he could be returned simply for execution of sentence, which we can be sure would be done in a humane way and in strict accordance with Jordanian law, with an imam in attendance to attend to Qatada's spiritual needs. </b><br />
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<b> </b>M. Shrimptonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06273152628321207508noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6142612198550516874.post-47957072001958455072012-08-03T13:42:00.000-07:002012-08-04T04:41:19.028-07:00The Strange Incident; Update<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b><span style="color: black;">Firstly, the incorrect use of QC has been removed (thank you to those responsible for removal). I emphasise again, for the avoidance of doubt, that I am not a QC, nor have I ever held myself out as such. I suppose I should take it as a compliment that sometimes I have to struggle to persuade people that I am not! </span></b><br />
<b><br /></b><b>I am aware that some trolls have suggested (in posted comments on the Veterans Today website) that I was making the Olympics aircraft incident up, however it has been <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-19048868">CONFIRMED</a> that an ASL KingAir, described by its owners as acting under charter to a Belgian television company, made a crash landing at Cambridge Airport. In addition to what is described as a 'total electrical failure' but was more likely an AC supply failure only, the nosewheel collapsed on landing. Multiple failures like that on an aircraft as reliable as the KingAir call for comment. They are apparently a nice plane to fly, with few vices. </b><br />
<b><a name='more'></a></b><b>I am by the way making no criticism of ASL. I am at the mercy of editors I'm afraid. Some one put a reference to 'terrorism' in the headline of one of my online articles without consulting me. There is not the slightest basis for supposing that ASL are involved in terrorism or anything of that sort. They may have been on a counter-terrorist mission, ASL themselves using the word 'mission' rather than 'flight.'</b><b><br /></b><br />
<b>I shall be keeping an eye on this one. I imagine the AAIB investigation will be the usual farce, with respect. AAIB still think the Comets crashed because of metal fatigue, a theory which I hope will not survive the publication of Spyhunter.</b><br />
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<b>Interested to see Vladimir Putin, whom I am told by those who know him is an awfully nice man, attending the Olympics and having a quiet word with Cameron, out of earshot of the Cabinet Office. I would be surprised if the conversation was confined to judo, a sport in which hitherto our rather lacklustre Prime Minister has shown little interest (the President of Russia is a black belt, ie has somewhat greater talent in the sport than the British Prime Minister, as well as greater political talents and a finer mind).</b><br />
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<b>I hope the PM apologised for the Litvinenko nonsense. The bogus allegation that the President sanctioned the 'assassination' of Lt-Col Litvinenko has done real damage to Anglo-Russian relations. It just goes to show what can happen when people run off the deep end with wild conspiracy theories without first checking their facts. Litvinenko probably died of peritonitis and the Po he ingested had an Iranian, not a Russian, signature. It also arrived in Britain via Hamburg, from Iran. There was no hit, let alone one sanctioned by President Putin.</b><br />
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<b>It would be very helpful if the Litvinenko inquest were 'brought forward' (I am sure an inquest in Russia wouldn't take this long) and even more helpful if the post-mortem reports were gone into thoroughly at that inquest. Ideally the Russian Government should be represented, since the Foreign Office, disgracefully with respect, have seen fit to ventilate an accusation of murder against the Russian Head of State.</b><br />
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<b>I was not in the least bit surprised to see President Putin call for leniency for the members of an ill-advised pop group who took it upon themselves to get involved in what the authorities view as an illegal demonstration. He is a long way from the villain he is painted to be in the mainstream Western media. The noisy demonstrations over his election were probably sponsored from outside Russia (they have all the hallmarks of the DVD's ruthlessly efficient Propaganda Section). There is no reason to doubt that the election result fairly reflected Russian public opinion.</b><br />
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<b>Good to see Cameron finally come to his senses over the LibDem sponsored attack on the privileges of the House of Lords. True conservatives however, including myself, would like to see the ill-advised Blair attack on the hereditary peers reversed. </b><br />
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<b>Turning to more important matters poor old Andrew Strauss has really messed up in the Second Test at Headingley. South Africa scored 419, having been put into bat. The frustrating thing is that Strauss appears unable to learn from his mistakes - he's done this time and again, inserting the opposition on a flat pitch and being forced to watch whilst they pile on the runs. The captaincy is not only affecting his batting it's also affecting his fielding - at the Oval he made the most expensive drop in modern Test history, spilling Amla, who went on to score more than 250 more runs. He really ought to have resigned after England's humiliation. Time to bring KP back. If Hugh Morris, said to be the mastermind, if that is not too strong a word with respect, behind Pietersen's sacking, would also be kind enough to resign from the ECB that would be a bonus. The sacking was a divisive move, which has done a lot of damage to English cricket. </b><br />
<b><br /></b>M. Shrimptonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06273152628321207508noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6142612198550516874.post-43474374688359053722012-08-01T07:22:00.000-07:002012-08-02T08:04:56.582-07:00A Strange Incident<br />
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<b>Thanks to those who are working on removing the offending reference to 'QC.' </b><br />
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<b>More on the Raytheon/Beechcraft King Air 200 incident at the Olympics. The aircraft was operated by ASL of Liege, Belgium. It is still unclear what she was doing - although she seems to have been fitted with a UHF aerial, so she MIGHT have been re-transmitting TV signals, although it seems a very odd way of doing it (why not just use a satellite van, like everybody else?). The other published explanation - cameraplane - makes even less sense. The aircraft does not appear to have been fitted with camera ports, and is pressurised, so any cameraman would have to record through windows. There are good reasons why tv stations usually use unpressurised helos for this work.</b><br />
<b><a name='more'></a></b><b>The claimed 'total electrical failure' seems unlikely. As an aircraft engineer has pointed out to me this was probably intended to be a reference to a failure of the AC supply. The King Air also has a 28-volt DC supply, using a NiCad battery on most models (you can get differences of course between different types of King Air).</b><b><br /></b><br />
<b>Most of the instruments in the King Air are fed off the AC supply, so the reference to flying to Cambridge Airport using a compass and maps would make sense, if she were on battery power. There are however TWO independent sources of AC supply in the King Air, so we are talking a rare double failure, subject to the next point, about the inverter switch. </b><br />
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<b>The only comparable incident any one could tell me about was the tragic crash of Super King Air 200 N81PF at Strasburg Colorado on 27th January 2001, killing 8 members of the Oklahoma State University basketball team. Having suffered a double AC supply failure the aircraft plunged out of control some 20,000 feet into terrain, with the nose 80 degrees down at one point. That is quite a steep dive! </b><br />
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<b>This incident was already on my radar, as the German DVD had sabotaged a number of aircraft carrying British or American sports teams over the years, an issue I deal with in Spyhunter. The NTSB could not find the cause of the electrical failure, nor does their typically thin report (with respect) explain how losing the AC-instruments could cause an experienced pilot in command to lose situational awareness so completely, when he still had his pressure instruments.</b><br />
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<b>Another gaping hole in the report is the failure to explain how the three items of equipment which could have led to a double ac supply failure, including the inverter switch, went walkies from the wreckage. Tampering with the inverter switch is one possible explanation for a double AC failure.</b><br />
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<b>The inverter by the way converts DC power from the engine-driven generators to AC. The NTSB speculated that the PIC might have forgotten to switch inverters, but frankly the idea that an experienced pilot did not know what all those knobs and switches were for is fanciful. Just about the first thing you do before flying a type for the first time is to study the instrument panel. Aircraft do come with instruction booklets!</b><br />
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<b>I would like to know more about this incident. </b><br />
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<b>By the way the only reason I do not acknowledge experts who have given me technical assistance is because they do want to be acknowledged publicly. I don't blame them! Being out in public means taking flak. That's what I'm here for. </b><br />
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<b>Nice to see Romney's gaffe-prone overseas tour over. It's cost enough votes already. He seems not to have noticed that the Cold War ended in 1991. Possibly he has not heard of China, the only explanation I can think of for his remarkable assertion that Russia is America's most dangerous geopolitical rival. </b><br />
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<b><br /></b>M. Shrimptonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06273152628321207508noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6142612198550516874.post-53915815949201279242012-07-30T10:50:00.000-07:002012-07-31T04:26:16.613-07:00My New Blog..<b>Hello everyone! This is a new venture for me, which I hope will become more popular after the publication of my intelligence history, Spyhunter, due out in the States in mid-November.</b><br />
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<b>First the legal stuff: I am not and never have been a QC. Although there is a link to the video of the on-the-record intelligence briefing I gave to the Marlborough Research Group in 2010 describing me as a 'QC' that video was not uploaded by me and I did not authorise the use of 'QC.' I have asked for it to be amended.</b><br />
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<b>Before anyone points out that the bio of me on this blog is out of date, I know! It was taken from an intelligence conference I spoke at a few years ago and I will be updating it. I am now emeritus adjunct faculty at AMU, eg. It was accurate when it was issued however. </b><br />
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<b>My Wiki page is also broadly accurate, although a little out of date. Other than removing a misleading reference to me as a silk, I have made a point of NOT editing my entry, which is not 'mine' in any event. Wiki is an objective online encyclopaedia, which strives to be accurate and is rather better than some of its detractors are prepared to admit. It is difficult to be objective about oneself, the idea of a Wiki page about me wasn't mine anyway and I leave it to others to edit the page.</b><br />
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<b>That's the boring stuff out of the way.</b><br />
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<b>I am grateful to Gordon Duff of Veterans Today for permission to use my online articles for VT, which are reprinted with his permission. August will be a busy month for me, as I work with my editor Dr. David Ciampi to ready Spyhunter for publication, so please forgive the irregular blogging. Once Spyhunter is published I intend to do a weekly blog. </b><br />
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<b>You are free to post comments in the usual way, but please, no abuse. There are far too many abusive posts online. The left in particular like to resort to abuse as a method of shouting conservatives down, but it does not impress. Perhaps it's one reason why left-wing arguments tend to lack intellectual rigour - shouting insults is no substitute for intelligent debate. </b><br />
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<b>This really is me by the way. Several people, one of whom, an unstable indvidual named Mike Smith, sadly later committed suicide, took to rubbishing my professional reputation by posting fake posts in my name on the Internet. Not everything you may see online in my name will have come from me.</b><br />
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<b>The Informal Intelligence Assessment for the UK's Joint Intelligence Committee on the kidnap by the covert German DVD of the British child Madeleine McCann was drafted by me. I had nothing whatsoever to do with its disgraceful leaking to the Daily Mirror and I condemn the Mirror for publishing it on its website. It was condensed, ie not in the format it was submitted to the Prime Minister, the JIC and the Pentagon. Very possibly not everyone involved in leaking it believed it, but they should have known better. It has been substantially confirmed within the Intelligence Community (INTELCOM) since it was prepared, not long after the kidnap. The distribution list by the way was real - if I say I am sending a report to the Pentagon then I am sending a report to the Pentagon. </b><br />
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<b>One invincible idiot recently asked me 'how I could speak to the Pentagon.' I hope I was not too withering in my reply, which was to the effect that I just pick up the phone and ring them, usually by direct dialling. I tend to deal at a fairly senior level and frankly have got a bit tired of people who don't questioning that, because they don't like a particular piece of intelligence analysis I have come up with. Tough. </b><br />
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<b>It was good to see a safe Olympic Opening Ceremony, although it leant to the left and gave scant mention of this country's noble achievements in helping to defeat Germany in the two world wars she started last century. There WAS a threat, in my analysis, but it was averted in April, by a team of intelligence professionals and Mensa-level intellects I was proud to lead. I have just joined British Mensa by the way - very nice people. Well worth joining, if you don't believe in global warming, ie have an intellect.</b><br />
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<b>Let's hope the Games continue to be enjoyed safely by the hundreds of thousands who have turned out to support them. They are a credit to LOCOG. There should be no further threat, although there have been two odd incidents - the police 'losing' (ie handing over to someone - you don't lose the keys to Wembley Stadium, like it was a house) the keys to Wembley, after which the locks were very properly changed, and a Belgian aircraft losing all electrical power near the main site and being forced to make an emergency landing.</b><br />
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<b>It is very difficult to lose all electrical power - aircraft carry back-up batteries for just such a contingency. That incident needs to be thoroughly investigated. Sadly the investigation will probably be done by the AAIB, not noted for their thoroughness, with respect. </b><br />
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<b><br /></b></b><b>Should anyone be puzzled, English barristers are divided into silks (QCs), who are very grand, and humble juniors (like me!). I am of course very humble, as anyone who knows me will confirm. Without any encouragement from me the media, showing their usual regard for the facts, promoted me to QC back in the 90s, and some people, entirely in good faith, have been misled. It's a pain, as I have to go around getting mis-statements corrected, for sound professional reasons.</b>M. Shrimptonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06273152628321207508noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6142612198550516874.post-48079309736472784202012-07-27T19:42:00.001-07:002012-07-27T20:51:38.413-07:00Olympic & Movie Theatre Security<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<strong>We should have a safe Games in London and as presently advised there is no reason for teams, visitors or dignitaries to follow the example of President Peres and withdraw. </strong><br />
<strong>I am of course aware that Shimon Peres has provided a religious pretext, but I for one am not buying. There was a threat – a major one – but with the assistance of the Vulcan Team including Veterans Today founder Gordon Duff it was spotted and dealt with it, no thanks to Thames Valley Police, in April. </strong><br />
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<strong>I am hearing from sources close to CIA that a follow-up bio-weapon threat, using part of the Syrian stockpile, has also been averted, thanks to good work from the Virginia Farm Boys. </strong><br />
<strong>Well done. </strong><br />
<strong>If I were to be told that the recent Terminations With Extreme Prejudice in Damascus were not entirely done locally you would not hear a thud as I fell out of my chair. Neither general had much to complain about, apart from some minor due process issues (you will always find a lawyer willing to nit-pick).</strong><br />
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<strong>There have been some disagreements amongst the Vulcan Team about whether there is an ongoing threat, but I understand that satellite sweeps of the Olympic sites are coming up negative, which is good news. Careful filtering of the main site is required, as for some odd reason slightly radioactive material was used as groundfill when the site was levelled. </strong><br />
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<strong>For nuclear security of the site we are heavily dependent upon you guys, as our capabilities are very limited and co-ordination of intelligence in London has been taken out of the hands of professional intelligence officers and placed in the hands of civil servants. These civil servants not only lack intelligence expertise, they are no brighter than the average senior civil servant (ie could not cut it in INTELCOM) and have a distressing tendency to filter the intelligence to that which is politically acceptable. </strong><br />
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<strong>On the DVD eg their advice to ministers is just risible nonsense. MI5 are about where the great J Edgar was in 1948.</strong><br />
<strong>In the UK we have yet to absorb the lessons of 9-11, which led inter alia to the Intelligence Conference 2005 (INTELCON), the greatest gathering of spooks and intelligence specialists ever assembled (and yes, I was there, as a speaker), the follow on conferences in 2006 and the fun but informative Spy Cruises.</strong><br />
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<strong>DENVER</strong><br />
<strong>It is not just Whitehall which lacks intelligence expertise. By all accounts the Denver PD boys are struggling, although they are no doubt doing their best. I am angry about the waste of the lives of John Larimer, Jessica Ghawi, Matt McQuinn, poor little Veronica Moser and the others.</strong><br />
<strong>After the DVD-sponsored massacres in Cumbria (the silly new name for Cumberland) in England in 2010 and Oslo in 2011 there was no excuse for letting it happen again. Sadly the truth was suppressed in Cumbria (the media and the public were fobbed off with nonsense about the shooter committing suicide with a gun he’d left in his car) and Norway, where the authorities chose to go down the lone gunman line, when just about everybody in INTELCOM knows there were at least two shooters.</strong><br />
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<strong>The debate over Oslo is whether there were two or three shooters, not one or two. The Breivik trial has been a farce, with respect to the lawyers (it isn’t the court’s fault). Neither prosecution nor defence engaged in any serious ballistic analysis, ie the facts as presented to the court were an agreed version. The Norwegian Labour Government dare not admit that the Quislings did not pack up shop in 1945.</strong><br />
<strong>My initial take is that James Holmes did not act alone. He probably wasn’t alone on the night, although he was clearly alone in the cinema. He has no known explosives expertise, eg, and it is improbable that he was able to rig an effective booby-trap, nor can anyone explain why, if he did rig it, he would defeat his object by telling the police about it. I have not seen any credible source of funding for the guns and ammunition for a guy whose last job was at a McDonalds.</strong><br />
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<strong>Sadly Denver Police and the Denver Field Office seem with respect to have prejudiced their enquiries from the outset by obsessing on the lone gunman theory. Mass murder inquiries need to be approached with an open mind. Most are intelligence set-ups and that means either the DVD or the North Korean RDEI, the only agencies so far to have adopted this criminal and disreputable tactic. Since the RDEI tend to use only North Korean agents, sometimes false-flagged as South Koreans (as in the Virginia Tech shooting, eg) we can just about rule them out. That leaves the DVD, past masters at mass-shootings.</strong><br />
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<strong>The problem Denver PD will have is that the FBI will tend to take the lead on intelligence matters, and I hear the boys in the Denver Field Office are out of the loop on the DVD. Administration policy to is suppress all intelligence about the DVD in American possession, not comment publicly about the agency (at all – not even a denial) and instruct federal agents to distort criminal investigations if need be, in order to keep the existence of the DVD secret.</strong><br />
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<strong>Denver PD could get round this by bringing in outside consultants (yes, this is an advert!) but are unlikely to do that. I’ve never yet charged a US law enforcement agency for my advice (probably should have, but it’s not my style), the Denver boys have never hauled me over for speeding on I-70 and I’ll take their call for free if they want to speak to me (NYPD, Columbus Police Department, LAPD, LA County Sheriff’s Department, AMTRAK Police Department, Chicago PD, DEA and Metro Police in DC should have my numbers, if not I am sure the good folk down at the Denver Post would help, or they could reach me via Gordon).</strong><br />
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<strong>My aim? No more lives wasted in mass-shootings. Until we run one to ground the DVD will keep organising them. We make it so easy for them.</strong><br />
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<strong>Two things are not to blame: Colorado’s sensible gun laws and the Batman movie. The first ritual calls for tougher gun controls have already come out of the less intellectually rigorous parts of Colorado academe, surprisingly not out of Boulder. Thank God for the National Rifle Association, which should be able to inform the debate – and in case they don’t know about the DVD I’ll be informing them, in fact I’m sending them a courtesy copy of this article. And yes I have their number.</strong><br />
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<strong>The movie sounds like a credit to Warner Bros (I’m at their disposal too, if they would like to safeguard their investment). Fortunately they have not been panicked into pulling the movie, nor should they. The latest genre of Batman is not to my taste – I am afraid I am of the generation which expects Batman to be played by Adam West, Robin by Burt Ward and Commissioner Gordon by Neil Hamilton – but I shall be watching this one. Don’t boycott <em>The Dark Knight Rises </em>- watch it, if you want to pay your own tribute to fellow movie-goers who never got to see the end of the movie.</strong>M. Shrimptonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06273152628321207508noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6142612198550516874.post-18943532406661388572012-07-27T19:39:00.000-07:002012-07-27T20:52:00.762-07:00Polonium<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<strong>I see the thorny subject of Polonium poisoning has come up again. Mrs Arafat is trying to maintain that her late husband was assassinated, as opposed to snuffing it from natural causes.</strong><br />
<a name='more'></a><strong>As ever, poor old Mossad are getting the blame.</strong><br />
<strong>There are several problems with this particular conspiracy theory. The old terrorist popped his clogs in 2004.</strong><br />
<strong>As Gordon has pointed out to me Polonium would have turned to lead by now – I’m no physicist but that sounds about right. Po<sup><span style="font-size: x-small;">210 </span></sup>only has a 138 day half-life.</strong><br />
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<strong>The second problem is that the clothing which has traces of Po on it, according to the boys in Lausanne (I am not doubting them), has come from Mrs Arafat, ie the chain of evidence has been broken, to put it mildly.</strong><br />
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<strong>The next problem is that none of the doctors treating the old boy noticed any signs of Polonium poisoning. The fourth problem is that the Po is probably Iranian. </strong><br />
<strong>Polonium has a signature, ie you can usually tell where it’s come from. This Po has mullah fingerprints on it, not Mossad. Forget Po poisoning. It’s a load of pooh, not Po.</strong></blockquote>
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<strong>The Arafat saga had its funny moments, if you weren’t Yasser. He snuffed it on the Friday from memory but certain folk were worried about certain bank accounts and it was convenient to pretend he was still alive whilst certain funds were recovered.</strong><br />
<strong>I got on the blower to a nice man from Mossad, if that is not a tautology, and confirmed my suspicions. It was perfectly clear the boys had an asset inside the hospital.</strong><br />
<strong>On the Saturday, if my memory serves me right, the French put out a statement that ‘Arafat’s condition had not changed in the last 24 hours.’ Since he been dead for at least 24 hours that was a truthful statement but it was hardly the whole truth!</strong><br />
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<strong>Sky News missed a great story. I like Sky (I appear on there from time to time) and don’t like seeing the wool pulled over their eyes. When their reporter from Paris trotted out the latest French bollocks I got hold of Sky Centre and asked to be patched through.</strong><br />
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<strong>Sky didn’t argue the toss with me – it was perfectly clear they weren’t buying the French line – but they wanted confirmation before breaking the news that Arafat had died. </strong></blockquote>
<strong>I did suggest they check with other capitals because I had heard that the Egyptians had already started knocking out the funeral invitations! The media can be too cautious at times. Caution is fine, but sometimes that second source just isn’t going to turn up.</strong><br />
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<strong>Litvinenko – His last days</strong></div>
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<strong>The classic case of alleged Po poisoning was that of </strong><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Litvinenko"><strong>Lt-Col Litvinenko,</strong></a><strong> a former KGB intelligence officer, who died in 2006.</strong><br />
<strong>Again the Po was Iranian – nothing whatsoever to do with Russia, indeed the Po never went anywhere near Russia, being picked up from an airfield near Hamburg.</strong><br />
<strong>Litvinenko probably died from peritonitis, having swallowed British Anti-Lewisite, a metallic antidote which can be worse than the poison.</strong><br />
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<strong>Sadly MI6, the Foreign Office and the media started shouting the odds about murder, absurdly blaming that nice man Mr. Putin and saying he had ordered a hit.</strong><br />
<strong>Had they studied the autopsy reports more carefully they might have been a bit more responsible in their public statements.</strong><br />
<strong>Always look at the autopsy report – the body is the starting point in any murder investigation and usually can tell us a lot.</strong><br />
<strong><br /></strong>M. Shrimptonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06273152628321207508noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6142612198550516874.post-35793451173113416712012-07-27T19:34:00.000-07:002012-07-27T20:52:27.599-07:00Where's The Evidence?<strong>This issue is bound to be raised when my forthcoming intelligence history of the DVD, Spyhunter, is published. </strong><br />
<strong>The rumour mill suggests it has thrown the British Cabinet Office into shock – it was apparently they who were behind the seizure on April 20th of my working papers, including several weeks worth of revisions, which had not been backed up offshore (rats!). </strong><br />
<strong><a name='more'></a></strong><strong>Since it exposes the first five Cabinet Secretaries starting with Maurice Hankey (aka ‘Hankey-Panky’) as German assets I am not surprised.</strong><br />
<strong>For those who are unaware the creation of the Cabinet Office was decided upon in Berlin, the Hun’s concentration of power strategy being implemented by their man </strong><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Lloyd_George"><strong>David Lloyd George</strong></a><strong> (not his real name – he added ‘Lloyd’ for effect).</strong><br />
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<strong>He was also the man who betrayed the British Army’s great 1916 Somme Offensive to the Hun, throwing away thousands of Allied lives.</strong><br />
<strong>At the moment Whitehall and Thames Valley Police (our police in Britain are subject to tight central control) are dreaming up excuses for hanging onto my papers in a pathetic attempt to delay publication. The pre-publication seizure of the book is unlikely to harm sales.</strong><br />
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<strong>The purpose of this series of articles is to give a brief summary of the DVD’s formation. I have been reminded that not every visitor to this site is in the Allied Intelligence Community (INTELCOM) and so this is aimed at the lay reader as well.</strong><br />
<strong>As you can see from some of the comments on other articles folk outside INTELCOM can get pretty annoyed when they’re not given the evidence. There is nothing I can do about that, I am afraid. I don’t make the rules.</strong><br />
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<strong>There are five very good reasons and a couple of bad ones why raw intelligence data is rarely distributed outside of INTELCOM. Firstly it often requires expert interpretation. </strong><br />
<strong>Take the SATINT (Satellite Intelligence) of the exfiltration of the P700 warhead Gordon Duff and I have talked about out of the UK on the night of April 20th/21st.</strong></blockquote>
<strong>This will stay firmly inside NSA and GCHQ. I understand it consists of both low-light electro-optical and infra-red imagery. Low-light can give good images but they usually need computer enhancement.</strong><br />
<div class="wp-caption alignleft" id="attachment_213030" style="width: 330px;">
<a href="http://www.veteranstoday.com/2012/06/22/secret-societies-the-german-dvd/dc2ccea40727f68b11fd94379b8d_grande/" rel="attachment wp-att-213030"><strong><img alt="" class="size-medium wp-image-213030" height="178" src="http://www.veteranstoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/dc2ccea40727f68b11fd94379b8d_grande-e1340560535355-320x178.jpg" title="dc2ccea40727f68b11fd94379b8d_grande" width="320" /></strong></a><strong> </strong><br />
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<strong>Infrared imagery</strong></div>
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<strong>Infra-red imagery can be pretty weird, and a sub low in the water on a dark night with infra-red tiling to keep the heat signature down in the hot compartments doesn’t give you much to go on, unless you know what you’re looking for.</strong><br />
<strong>The raw imagery would not make such sense to someone not used to examining SATINT. I am not a SATINT interpretation expert by the way, although I am not unused to reviewing satellite imagery.</strong><br />
<strong>Secondly distribution can entail blowing capabilities. SATINT is a case in point. The basic capabilities are well known – the tricky bit is the software used in the enhancement process. That is highly proprietary.</strong><br />
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<strong>The Bad Guys, aka the DVD, like to think they know everything but we’ve got a few tricks up our sleeve. Not all the software is out of a box. Now INTELCOM knows about the DVD we are able to blow smoke up them. It keeps them guessing, and it’s fun.</strong><br />
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<strong>Thirdly with HUMINT or Human Intelligence, you are dealing with real live people, or, in the case of those whose identities are blown by too free a distribution of intel, ex-real live people, ie. dead ones. </strong><br />
<strong>It is not just a simple process of blacking out names – the tiniest of threads can be unravelled by an expert counter-intelligence officer.</strong></blockquote>
<strong>I am an intelligence analyst, for several years an intelligence academic (although I have concentrated in the last 18 months on writing Spyhunter) and now an intelligence author. I am not a spook but I have done my share of counter-intel spookery.</strong><br />
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<a href="http://www.veteranstoday.com/2012/06/22/secret-societies-the-german-dvd/richard_and_pat_nixon_with_queen_elizabeth_ii/" rel="attachment wp-att-213033"><strong><img alt="" class="size-full wp-image-213033" height="209" src="http://www.veteranstoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Richard_and_Pat_Nixon_with_Queen_Elizabeth_II-e1340561380522.jpg" title="Richard_and_Pat_Nixon_with_Queen_Elizabeth_II" width="439" /></strong></a><strong> </strong></div>
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<strong>If I may be forgiven an anecdote my exposure of </strong><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Heath"><strong>Sir Edward Heath</strong></a><strong> as a German agent (he was recruited by the Abwehr in 1937 at Balliol College and was transferred to the DVD in 1945) started out with what must have seemed to his gay lover and fellow German spy Madron Seligman (it is not a crime to be gay, at least now – my objection was to their treason, a capital offence when they committed it between 1939 and 1945) to be a small, white lie.</strong><br />
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<strong>He had been warned about me – we were opponents in the 1989 European Parliament election and his DVD controller had a profile on me. He was anxious to hide the fact that he and Heath crossed the German lines in August 1939 just prior to the German invasion of Poland, so he moved the ‘camping trip’ back a year, to the summer of 1938.</strong></blockquote>
<strong>The change in date was significant. With von Bock’s Army Group North massed for the invasion there was no way a couple of gay British students were going to be permitted to transit General von Kuchler’s 3rd Army staging areas unless they had official sanction, in this case from </strong><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_Canaris"><strong>Canaris</strong></a><strong> himself.</strong><br />
<strong>Generally speaking, as I have suggested in Spyhunter, the Third Reich did not go out of its way to attract the pink pound.</strong><br />
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<a href="http://www.veteranstoday.com/2012/06/22/secret-societies-the-german-dvd/wilhelm-canaris/" rel="attachment wp-att-213034"><strong><img alt="" class="size-medium wp-image-213034" height="276" src="http://www.veteranstoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Wilhelm-Canaris-e1340562793383-320x276.jpg" title="Wilhelm Canaris" width="320" /></strong></a><strong> </strong><br />
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<strong>Admiral Wilhelm Canaris</strong></div>
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<strong>Gay visitors sharing tents were not encouraged in Nazi Germany. When I became aware some years later that Madron (he was quite a nice German spy by the way) had lied it got me thinking.</strong><br />
<strong>The conventional view was that Heath worked for the Allies in World War II and only betrayed Britain in 1972, when he took us into the EEC, on terms dictated by Germany.</strong><br />
<strong>Mid-life treason is rare by the way – high-level traitors usually start in their late teens or early twenties. Eventually Jerry admitted they had recruited Heath, albeit reluctantly and off the record.</strong><br />
<strong>Very few legends or cover-stories can survive sustained counter-intelligence investigation – the idea is to deter inquiries. Edward Heath’s flimsy claims to be a patriot were never going to survive a detailed scrutiny of his wartime activities.</strong><br />
<strong>Fourthly non-intel experts have an excellent chance of screwing up the interpretation. It is much better to distribute refined product.</strong><br />
<strong><br /></strong><br />
<strong>Iraq was a classic – thousands of self-appointed armchair intel experts, many in the media, convinced themselves that the absence, by and large, of WMDs in Iraq after the invasion equated to their absence before. They made the age-old error of treating absence of evidence as evidence of absence (the WMDs mostly went to Syria by the way).</strong><br />
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<strong>Fifthly once you release the raw data you lose control. You never know where you might end up. You might even start a small war. No serious intelligence chief is going to be happy about raw data going walkies out of the building.</strong></blockquote>
<strong>The two bad reasons are bureaucratic inertia and penetration. Intel ‘crats can be as intellectually lazy as any other type of trouser polisher. Releasing raw data requires a decision. Doing nothing is much easier.</strong><br />
<a href="http://www.veteranstoday.com/2012/06/22/secret-societies-the-german-dvd/cia_chair-4/" rel="attachment wp-att-213036"><strong><img alt="" class="alignleft size-full wp-image-213036" height="194" src="http://www.veteranstoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/CIA_chair.jpg" title="CIA_chair" width="259" /></strong></a><br />
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<strong>Penetration is a huge problem – so far as we know every overt British and US agency is penetrated.</strong><br />
<strong>Although you guys have some, there’s bound to be one the DVD have missed (somebody ‘close to the CIA’ once told me they stopped counting at 300 US intel units of one sort or another and that’s not counting local law enforcement intelligence operations).</strong><br />
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<strong>The US and British covert agencies have less of a problem, but they’re only off the radar so far as the media and oversight committees are concerned, not the DVD.</strong><br />
<strong>Most overt agencies will have a DVD asset somewhere in the chain of command blocking release of data which might be harmful to Germany, in fact it’s so bad proposing data release works a bit like a barium meal.</strong><br />
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<strong>It flags up bits which need a second look. Forget release of SATINT overheads of the DVD’s HQ at Dachau – it ain’t going to happen.</strong></div>
</blockquote>M. Shrimptonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06273152628321207508noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6142612198550516874.post-64585796992577236432012-07-27T19:30:00.001-07:002012-08-27T07:37:40.919-07:00The DVD's U-Boats<strong>Key to the recent planned DVD operation (code-named <em>Vulcan</em> by the unofficial UK team which I led) against Japan was their possession of at least three Type XXI U-Boats. Now before anyone starts making silly postings about their being too old I should emphasise that these boats are <em>not </em>fitted with their original machinery. </strong><br />
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<a name='more'></a><strong><br />Each of the survivors has been refitted with Air Independent Propulsion similar to the <em>Bundesmarine’s </em>Type 212 and the Israeli version, the <em>Dolphin</em> class. They also have new diesels, although with greater output than those fitted to the 212s – remember a Type XXI is a serious, ocean-going U-Boat, in their day the largest submarines afloat.</strong><br />
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<a href="http://www.veteranstoday.com/2012/06/14/nwos-pet-u-boat-fleet-exposed/type-21-first-modern-submarine/" rel="attachment wp-att-211824"><strong><img alt="" class="size-large wp-image-211824" height="236" src="http://www.veteranstoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Type-21-First-Modern-Submarine-640x236.jpg" title="Type 21, First Modern Submarine" width="640" /></strong></a><strong> </strong><br />
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<strong>The Basis of All Current Submarines, the Type XXI</strong></div>
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<strong>Don’t get too hung up on the age thing – there are plenty of examples of warships still in commission more than 50 years after they were built. The <em>General Belgrano</em>, very properly torpedoed by the Royal Navy in the Falklands War, was at Pearl Harbor, more than 40 years earlier. The Big <em>E </em> is not only still going but has a good few years left in her judging by her state when I was on her in 2006. The wonderful <em>Iowa</em> class were decommissioned prematurely, without a big-gun land attack/fire support replacement, over 50 years after they first went to sea. HMS <em>Hermes</em>, probably the world’s oldest commissioned surface warship, now serving with the Indian Navy, was laid down on 21<sup><span style="font-size: x-small;">st</span></sup> June 1944 and might even see her 70<sup><span style="font-size: x-small;">th</span></sup> birthday, counting from her laying down (she was a long time commissioning, partly as she was redesigned with a canted deck). She might even see another war, making up for the sad facts that she missed Korea, Suez and ‘Nam.</strong><br />
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<strong>Covert subs rarely sail on the surface and in practice can only be tracked by sonar. The sonar signatures of the XXI can easily be confused for a 212 or a <em>Dolphin</em>, at least by an operator who is unaware there are still some XXI’s out there. Good operators, likewise good interpreters of digital sonar records, should of course be able to differentiate between subs of the same class, never mind different classes, but they need to know what is out there. Hopefully we’ve moved beyond the 1990s, when SOSUS and other sonar traces of the XXI’s were being down to ‘mystery’ subs.<br /><br />This is not to say there isn’t some mystery about the XXIs – what are their numbers, are they all Schichau boats or were some built in another yard, what is their precise diesel fit, are they still using schnorkels (there is reporting the schnorkels were removed during their most recent refits) and where were they based after ’45? How many have been lost, in what circumstances and what was the maximum fleet size? I recently heard a figure of 50, in the years after World War II, and didn’t argue against it.<br /><br />What we do know is that the <em>Kriegsmarine’s</em> official build figures were as phoney as the German government’s claims that Auschwitz-Birkenau was a holiday camp. Hold the presses – untrue claims by the German government in the Nazi period! It is extraordinary how gullible historians can be – Nazi-era records tend to be taken at face value. They should not be. The claim that the Type XXI was principally designed for combat operations was also a phoney, intended to justify the development cost to Hitler and the Nazi government. Although they engaged in limited combat operations – after the war was already lost – the Type XXI was designed as a <em>cargo</em> carrying boat, hence its large internal volume.<br /><br />From the fall of 1944 they carried intelligence officers, documents, cash, gold, blueprints, weapons and anything else Canaris, von Lahousen (who was in day to day charge of the DVD after the <em>Abwehr</em> was formally wound up and Canaris was arrested) and the directing staff of the DVD needed getting out of Germany. They also did a number of Germany-Japan runs. The DVD’s boats were never on the <em>Kriegsmarine’s</em> books, although they were crewed by <em>Kriegsmarine</em> personnel, some of whom were probably listed as dead. Faking deaths in Germany in 1944-5 was pretty easy. <br /><br />The cover-story for Canaris’ death was so flimsy it shouldn’t have stood up to a day’s scrutiny, but there was hardly any scrutiny at all. What there was, was often under the control of DVD assets in OSS such as Richard Helms, or Colonel Whiting, or ‘Wild Bill’ Donovan, although you could argue that the latter was closer to the Jesuits and worked <em>with </em>the DVD rather than <em>for </em>them. <br />MI6 were just as badly penetrated.<br /><br />Some XXIs have been broken up or scuttled, but since the discovery in the Madeleine McCann case in 2007/8 that they had been used to smuggle kidnapped children, a discovery which left Leicestershire Police a long way behind (no offense, but DC ‘Plod’ were so far out of their depth on that one they could have been swimming in the Marianas Trench) there has been a covert sub war. Although the US and Royal Navies have helped with the tracking the application of kinetic effect has been left to our gallant wartime ally Russia. <br />The Russian Navy are reported to have done excellent work, and seem to have bagged at least four, including one on a drug run off the coast of Norway (they do drug runs into the East Coast as well) . That was down to a <em>Kilo</em> class, which put a 533 mil torpedo into a XXI which was surfaced hull-down (a number of Jerries were left on the surface, four of them turning up dead in a zodiac on a Norwegian beach, causing puzzlement in Oslo).<br /><br />The Russians have tended to use SSKs rather than SSNs for both tracking and engaging XXIs, for sound tactical reasons. So far as is known no Russian surface vessel or aircraft (they have some useful ASW kit, including the old but sturdy Il-38) has ever engaged a XXI, but that day cannot be far off. I would prefer to see the XXIs forced to the surface but for political reasons the decision has been taken to sink rather than capture, preserving deniability. <br /><br />The time has come to unleash the Royal Navy and US Navy as well, and to move from sinking to capture. A real live World War II U-Boat complete with a haul of drugs or kidnapped kiddies or a half-megaton nuke, and a bunch of sorry-looking Jerries, being escorted into Portsmouth or Norfolk would take a lot of explaining away. Even Josef Goebbels, Germany’s top spin-doctor in the Nazi era, would have had trouble coming up with an innocent explanation for that one.<br /><br />We may have lost some children in these operations, sadly, but they would have been murdered by the DVD in snuff movies anyway and were probably spared a fate worse than death. The Russians love children and they have tended not to go for XXIs on the kidnapped kiddie runs from the Sao Paolo region of Brazil (into Portugal, or the Sao Tome & Principe Group for trans-shipment, although I hear a very nice bunch of SEALs may have shut down that facility), concentrating on drug runs. <br /><br />The Russian skippers have shown great skill by the way, tracking at very long ranges and staying very quiet. Several have earned decorations and probably ought to be decorated as a courtesy with British or American medals.<br /><br />World War II is back on, people.</strong>M. Shrimptonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06273152628321207508noreply@blogger.com7