The GCHQ listening post on Mount Troodos in Cyprus is arguably the most valued asset which the UK contributes to UK/US intelligence cooperation. The communications intercept agencies, GCHQ in the UK and NSA in the US, share all their intelligence reports (as do the CIA and MI6). Troodos is valued enormously by the NSA. It monitors all radio, satellite and microwave traffic across the Middle East, ranging from Egypt and Eastern Libya right through to the Caucasus. Even almost all landline telephone communication in this region is routed through microwave links at some stage, picked up on Troodos.
Troodos is highly effective – the jewel in the crown of British intelligence. Its capacity and efficiency, as well as its reach, is staggering. The US do not have their own comparable facility for the Middle East. I should state that I have actually been inside all of this facility and been fully briefed on its operations and capabilities, while I was head of the FCO Cyprus Section in the early 1990s. This is fact, not speculation.
It is therefore very strange, to say the least, that John Kerry claims to have access to communications intercepts of Syrian military and officials organising chemical weapons attacks, which intercepts were not available to the British Joint Intelligence Committee.
On one level the explanation is simple. The intercept evidence was provided to the USA by Mossad, according to my own well placed source in the Washington intelligence community. Intelligence provided by a third party is not automatically shared with the UK, and indeed Israel specifies it should not be.
But the inescapable question is this. Mossad have nothing comparable to the Troodos operation. The reported content of the conversations fits exactly with key tasking for Troodos, and would have tripped all the triggers. How can Troodos have missed this if Mossad got it? The only remote possibility is that all the conversations went on a purely landline route, on which Mossad have a physical wire tap, but that is very unlikely in a number of ways – not least nowadays the purely landline route.
Israel has repeatedly been involved in the Syrian civil war, carrying out a number of illegal bombings and missile strikes over many months. This absolutely illegal activity by Israel- which has killed a great many civilians, including children – has brought no condemnation at all from the West. Israel has now provided “intelligence” to the United States designed to allow the United States to join in with Israel’s bombing and missile campaign.
The answer to the Troodos Conundrum is simple. Troodos did not pick up the intercepts because they do not exist. Mossad fabricated them. John Kerry’s “evidence” is the shabbiest of tricks. More children may now be blown to pieces by massive American missile blasts. It is nothing to do with humanitarian intervention. It is, yet again, the USA acting at the behest of Israel.
(Foolish Finking, Frank Fool – please stick to one handle, thanks.)
i am saying the Israelis are happy to fabricate messages for Washington to get rid of Syria, and set back the Iranians and Hezbollah, and in return they will have less problem with the Palestinians.
The Franco-American alliance refers to the 1778 alliance between Louis XVI’s France and the United States during the American Revolutionary War. Formalized in the 1778 Treaty of Alliance, it was a military pact in which the French provided many supplies for the Americans. The Netherlands and Spain later joined as allies of France; Britain had no allies. The French alliance was possible once the Americans captured a British invasion army at Saratoga in October 1777, demonstrating the viability of the American cause. The alliance became controversial after 1793 when Britain and France again went to war and the U.S. declared itself neutral. Relations between France and the United States worsened as the latter became closer to Britain in the Jay Treaty of 1795, leading to an undeclared Quasi War. The alliance was defunct by 1794 and formally ended in 1800.
wiki
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franco-American_alliance
Sorry Jon, but fools have short memories.
Also sorry everyone else for these somewhat off topic digressions.
Herbie. Hard to say. And people i admire are doubtless out of my league. I admired Vaclav Havel. I recall in the early 90s his incredible act of pulling down the ropes to lay flowers, fresh from the airport, at a monument in Prague despite strong political opposition at the time. This was a determined act of personal quality not a political gesture. There was only one paper to capture the moment and it was everything he still stood for. I was taken by the moment and it still reminds me of what I should hold close to me. Conviction but also value and principle.
This is something that isn’t mentioned much in modern history either: Washington DC, Sept 24 1863 – The day when Tsar Alexander II arrived with the Russian Fleet and saved Lincoln from the Britisn and French in the civil war
http://tarpley.net/2013/08/17/sept-24-evening-to-mark-arrival-of-russian-fleet-in-1863/
” That could in itself be another false flag, by people who wished to pin something upon the Israelis.”
It could be a typo, but you said those who wish to bomb Israel; no one has said that, of course.
Do you think Israel has a dog in this fight, other than the Palestinian question? ( I feel like goin doun the rabbit hole, here)
Sorry Trowbridge; That doesn’t answer the question.
This is a great contribution and I hope it will make those who are getting ready to go to another illegal war think again.
Apologies again about history, but CJ’s Russian C19 assistance story is interesting. Russia / Aleksandr Baranov had the Russian American Co in C19. I remember reading something about how the purchase of Alasaka was essentially to compensate Russia for its assistance. In that sense the Russians may at that time have considered that they had done better than the French, although in retrospect it wasn’t such a good move selling Alaska.
FFFF: I had a small, doubtless unworthy, pang on seeing the headline ‘France Now America’s BF’. Thanks for the information that last time
“France gained little except large debts”.
JM: “why oughtn’t we to be demanding that Israel be on the receiving end of a military response? Clearly all the hysterical moralistic high dudgeon of the West must be directed at someone. An horrific crime was committed. A guilty party exists. And that party has foolishly told us who they are”.
Are you quite sure that this is a logical response to your, admittedly logical, premise? Unless you stood to make money out of this ‘military response’, or really didn’t mind killing people (reading Richard Burton on Somalia was very instructive) what would persuade you that this was a good idea? That by becoming guilty of causing some deaths you might be exculpated by the fact that you prevented more deaths? I have to say that such views hold only a minor place in a representative democracy.
Clearly Putin has had a word in the shell like ears of a certain warmonger prezident, and it seems for the time being suddenly the notions of democracy begins at home have prevailed.
The question remains, on whose time table is this latest brouhaha is taking shape?
Why the hurry?
How do we know for sure, that these communications weren’t available to the British Joint Intelligence Committee? We’re talking about intelligence. It isn’t exactly something that’s completely transparent to the public.
Also, as we know, they are soaking up massive data per day. The intelligence analysts are looking for “needles in haystacks.”
As effective as Troodos capabilities may be, maybe they weren’t able to connect the dots right away.
Although it “might not” have the capabilities of Troodos, perhaps Israel, being more involved in Syria, and having already performed strikes in Syria, is more threatened by it than the UK is, and has more resources and focus there.
So, it’s official – Vladimir Putin is now the leader of the free world.
Cameron was shafted by Obama, they are now citing the debacle (which surely will generate resignation at the most senior level; Hague.) on ‘gears being out of sync’, to me it looks like all part of the master plan. Obama now just wait’s and see if the owned congressmen really want to take the responsibility, along with the voter unpopularity (no chance), of attacking Syria. I’ve really enjoyed watch this play out – I still can’t beleive that people are saying that Obama is owned by the Israelis – even they must be fucking speechless.
“How do we know for sure, that these communications weren’t available to the British Joint Intelligence Committee? We’re talking about intelligence. It isn’t exactly something that’s completely transparent to the public”
Nor did Kerry hide that fact. Nor would Cameron, had he been in possession of the information, which JIC would have passed on. In which case the debate would have changed to ‘We have this dramatic proof it was Assad and now all we have to decide is what we do about it’.
Perhaps it was rushed here, and that’s what we’ll get next. Perhaps it’s all a sting to put Gove in. It doesn’t feel like this is playing well with the public, either way, and it certainly hasn’t caused the reaction a plotter would have expected. The Times (Gove and Murdoch like each other) are banging the ‘Britain is humiliated on the world stage’ drum but nobody I’m talking to on the streets agrees: they are very proud of our parliament.
“Cameron was shafted by Obama,”
I’m sure Cameron has a different view. Give Millband some credit. Tamp down the anti-americanism, just for the sake of brevity in your comments.
When I say ‘the information’; I mean ‘the information we are being given but cannot check and have some reason to suspect’.
“Why the hurry?”
That’s the million quid question, fedup. Iraq should be instructive as historical constext, but seems lost in the din of discussion.
London/Paris/Tel Aviv/Ryahd/Doha: “Hey Obama, what you waiting for? When are you going to start bombing, France is waiting and we need the pictures so the media stop saying we are all failures.”
Washington: “Yeah, yeah, the bombs are on there way. Just some minor hitches, nothing to worry about…what?… what?… I cant hear you…. it’s a bad line…………[hangup]”
London/Paris/Tel Aviv/Ryahd/Doha: “WTF? shit! shit! shit! FFS. OK, someone call the Russians. Fuck off, you do it. Nah, you started it. Listen, we’ve all gotta start sucking some serious Putin dick now. FFS!”
International politics for beginners.
Well, maybe they really believe it was Assad, or part of Assad’s tribe, and really think they should be doing something about it, and they can, because he’s not an ally, and sadly their minds turn to bombs.
(some of them)
sorry for thinking aloud, probably wrong – night all
“Give Millband some credit.”
He’s public shafting of Cameron was part of the plan – I saw the moment on Camerons face when he realised what was happening, simply one of the great moments in modern British politics.
“Tamp down the anti-americanism”
Up yours. I like Obama, I think he’s the greatest politician we have seen in the West for a couple of generations at least.
” I like Obama,” Bullshite.
Think it does answer the question, Ben – i.e., the Israelis help a panic- driven Washington cut down Syria with a sprayed phosgene attack – what gets everyone domestically on board Joe Biden’s special concerns about forgetting again about what happened to John Wheeler – and Israel has to do nothing about moving the Palestinian peace process forward. It has simply gone off the political radar.
Washington just cannot bear the thought of something new coming up on the Snowden front – the murders of NSA whistleblowers – hitting the media and the public. It has to be constantly keeping our attention now.
Trowbridge; What is the USG motivation for this migraine? I am truly mystified at the sectoring of the US running a rogue operation. Why?
Bigots occupy a wide stripe of humanity. I grow tired of the antipaths who love the whole world, but can’t seem to love one person. It’s a false Smadhi.
I hope this is some kind of answer to your apparently interesting question.
Last weekend the WSJ ‘s Peggy Noonan had an article about it, called “A Nation of Sullen Paranoids” as I recall, where she discussed what the demands for security and safety from terrorism were having on individual rights, a battle so telling that no politician was willing to leave a stone unturned in catching a suspected terrorist.
She concluded her column by wondering if the counter terrorists had killed muckraking reporter Michael Hastings.
Now given the source Noonan used for the story, a former respected, conservative Senator who I think is Joe Biden, I think that he was alluding to the unexpected murder of John Wheeler who he was quite willing to help capture for leaking, but had no idea he would be brutally killed for.
Of course, Wheeler’s murder obliged Biden and his son Beau to do everything they could to keep it covered up.
in short, when affairs go most unexpectedly off the rails, the chances are that they will get only worse, as the Snowden affair is demonstrating.
“in short, when affairs go most unexpectedly off the rails, the chances are that they will get only worse, as the Snowden affair is demonstrating.”
I understand that the goal is absolute control over every nuance, but the degree of error is high with those of high IQ, so where does that leave the stupid ones? I’m sorry, it doesn’t fly based on a casual search for those subjects. Are you able to provide links?
Hey. I’m starting to enjoy this curmudgeonly, cranky and cantankerous persona which has been simmering beneath the surface. It’s not the Glennfiddich, this time people.
Get the fuck off my lawn !
(sweet!)
No, there are almost no really helpful links about the covert activities I am interested in, and write about.
Here I am just trying to figure when matters get more and more complicated and divided, and there is little or no oversight to correct the process.
Ultimately, one gets situations like what happened when feudalism held sway, and warriors went running off to the Middle East on some crazy crusade.
t’s a case of paranoia taking over.