|
Edited on Thu Jul-14-05 10:15 AM by fedsron2us
I suppose I should confess that a lot of my anger with the intelligence agencies over the London bombings is because it casts my mind back to the 1980's when I was an active trade unionist. Although my union was not affiliated to the Labour party and had a specific clause in its constitution that forbade any law breaking, including peaceful civil disobedience, we were still subject to a certain amount of surveillance and infiltration by the security services. Now I know there were left wing members of the union who were affiliated to Trotskyist groups with an alternative agenda but most of these people found it hard to agree with each other about who was to buy the next round of drinks let alone how the revolution was to be organised. Indeed, certain of the persons from the group Militant I suspected of being 'agent provocateurs' with an agenda to disrupt and discredit the day to day operation of the union. Later in my job I had rather more serious dealings with the fringes of the intelligence world when the government was trying to prevent large scale frauds being run in the construction industry by Irish paramilitary groups who used the monies to fund their activities. One fact I always remember about the officials involved was their fondness for booze. Indeed, one character actually boasted that a head for liquor was the most important skill required for his job. Reading David Shayler's articles on MI5 this still appears to be the case. I suppose a taste for drink was an advantage when dealing with dipsomaniac trade union officials or hanging about Irish pubs listening to the conversations of building workers. The problem is that this particular security culture would only have been of any use in preventing the London bombings if the terrorists and their controllers had taken to downing pints in their local ale house whilst discussing their next move. Since Islamic fundamentalists are likely to be teetotal this is probably not going to be the case. This makes me suspect that the British security services have not got very far in penetrating the communities where the terror attack was organised. It seems that they have plenty of general data from electronic sources etc about what is going on but very poor human intelligence. This contrasts starkly with Mossad who seem to be able to get operatives into the highest levels of many Palestinian and other Arab groups. In order to prevent a repeat of last weeks atrocity this situation has got to change. Less time needs to be spent monitoring peaceful groups who just happen to have 'inconvenient' views that the state does not like and more effort needs to go into rooting out those who wish to kill innocent members of the public. At the moment I am not confident this is going to happen. To conclude I just want to list a quote I found on one Irish web site in response to the frequent accusation that their country is soft on terrorists "the United Kingdom is a greater haven and sponsor of Terror than Ireland could ever be.
In July 1998, a former British MI5 officer, David Shayler, revealed that, in February 1996, British security services financed and supported a London-based Islamic terrorist group, in an attempted assassination against Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi. The action, Shayler charged, in an interview with the British Daily Mail, was sanctioned by then-Foreign Secretary Malcolm Rifkind. The incident described by Shayler did, in fact, occur. Although Qaddafi escaped without injury, the bomb, planted along a road where the Libyan leader was travelling, killed several innocent bystanders. In an Aug. 5, 1998 interview with BBC, Shayler charged, "We paid £100,000 to carry out the murder of a foreign head of state. That is apart from the fact that the money was used to kill innocent people, because the bomb exploded at the wrong time. In fact, this is hideous funding of international terrorism." According to Shayler's BBC interview, MI6 provided the funds to an Arab agent inside Libya, with instructions to carry out the attack.
On Jan. 25, 1997, Tory Member of Parliament Nigel Waterson introduced legislation to ban foreign terrorists from operating on British soil. His "Conspiracy and Incitement Bill," according to his press release, would have for the first time banned British residents from plotting and conducting terrorist operations overseas. Waterson proposed the bill in the aftermath of a scandal over Britain providing safe haven for Saudi terrorist Mohammed al-Massari, who claimed credit for the bombing of U.S. military sites in Saudi Arabia in June 1996
On Nov. 17, 1997, the Gamaa al-Islamiya (Islamic Group) carried out a massacre of tourists in Luxor, Egypt, in which 62 people were killed. Since 1992, terrorist attacks by the Islamic Group have claimed at least 92 lives. Yet, the leaders of the organization have been provided with political asylum in Britain, and repeated efforts by the Egyptian government to have them extradited back to Egypt have met with stern rebuffs by Tory and Labour governments alike.
Shortly before the Luxor massacre, on Oct. 8, 1997, the U.S. State Department, in compliance with the Anti-Terrorism Act of 1996, released a list of 30 Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs), banned from operating on U.S. soil.
Of the 30 groups named, six maintain headquarters in Britain. They are: the Islamic Group (Egypt), Al-Jihad (Egypt), Hamas (Israel, Palestinian Authority), Armed Islamic Group (Algeria, France), Kurdish Workers Party (Turkey), and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (Sri Lanka).
http://mathaba.net/data/sis/mi6-terrorism.html
Now before you want to criticise my country for aiding terrorists,take a look at your own ''country'' Visit that website and hang your head in shame for the disgraceful deeds of your fellow countrymen before you make insulting remarks about my homeland." |
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
