Off to do a keynote at the Global Investigative Journalism Conference in Kiev. Should be interesting — watch this space.
Tag Archives: Machon
Libya, MI6, and torture — interview on Press TV
Libya, MI6, torture, and more happy subjects discussed recently on “Africa Today” on Press TV.
The programme was interesting, informed and balanced. Do have a watch:
RTTV Interview: Libya — the perfect storm
My RTTV interview today about Libya, torture, and UK double-dealing:
Book review in The Sunday Express
Nothing like being paid to read a book — a win-win situation for me.
Here’s a link to my review in the Sunday Express newspaper of a new history of MI6, called “The Art of Betrayal” by Gordon Corera, the BBC’s Security Correspondent.
And here’s the article:
REVIEW: THE ART OF BETRAYAL — LIFE AND DEATH IN THE BRITISH SECRET SERVICE
Friday August 19, 2011
By Annie Machon
THE Art of Betrayal: Life and Death in the British Secret Service
Gordon Corera Weidenfeld & Nicholson, £20
THE INTRODUCTION to The Art Of Betrayal, Gordon Corera’s unofficial post-war history of MI6, raises questions about the modern relevance and ethical framework of our spies. It also provides an antidote to recent official books celebrating the centenaries of MI5 and MI6.
Corera, the BBC’s security correspondent, has enjoyed privileged access to key spy players from the past few decades and, writing in an engaging, easy style, he picks up the story of MI6 at the point where the “official” history grinds to a halt after the Second World War.
Spy geeks will enjoy the swashbuckling stories from the Cold War years and he offers an intelligent exploration of the mentality of betrayal between the West and the former Soviet Union, focusing on the notorious Philby, Penkovsky and Gordievsky cases among many others.
For the more cynical reader, this book presents some problems. Where Corera discusses the aimless years of MI6 post-Cold War attempts at reinvention, followed by the muscular, morally ambiguous post‑9/11 world, he references quotes from former top spies and official inquiries only, all of which need to be read with a healthy degree of skepticism. To use a memorable quote from the Sixties Profumo Scandal, also mentioned in the book: “Well, they would say that, wouldn’t they?”
In Corera’s view, there has always been inherent tension in MI6 between the “doers” (who believe that intelligence is there to be acted upon James Bond-style and who want to get their hands dirty with covert operations) and the “thinkers” (those who believe, à la George Smiley, that knowledge is power and should be used behind the scenes to inform official government policy).
He demonstrates that the “doers” have often been in control and the image of MI6 staffed by gung-ho, James Bond wannabes is certainly a stereotype I recognise from my years working as an intelligence officer for the sister spy organisation, MI5.
The problem, as this book reveals, is that when the action men have the cultural ascendancy within MI6 events often go badly wrong through establishment complacency, betrayal or mere enthusiastic amateurism.
That said, the opposing culture of the “thinkers”, or patient intelligence gatherers, led in the Sixties and Seventies to introspection, mole-hunting paranoia and sclerosis.
Worryingly, many former officers down the years are quoted as saying that they hoped there was a “real” spy organisation behind the apparently amateur outfit they had joined, a sentiment shared by most of my intake in the Nineties.
Nor does it appear that lessons were learned from history: the Operation Gladio débâcle in Albania and the toppling of Iran’s first democratically-elected President Mossadeq in the Fifties could have provided valuable lessons for MI6 in its work in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya over the past two decades.
Corera is remarkably coy about Libya despite the wealth of now publicly-available information about MI6’s meddling in the Lockerbie case, the illegal assassination plot against Gaddafiin 1996 and the dirty, MI6-brokered oil deals of the past decade.
Corera pulls together his recurring themes in the final chapters, exploring the compromise of intelligence in justifying the Iraq war, describing how the “doers” pumped unverified intelligence from unproven agents directly into the veins of Whitehall and Washington.
Many civil servants and middle-ranking spies questioned and doubted but were told to shut up and follow orders. The results are all-too tragically well known.
Corera does not, however, go far enough.
He appreciates that the global reach of MI6 maintains Britain’s place in an exclusive club of world powers. At what price, though?
Here is the question he should perhaps have asked: in light of all the mistakes, betrayals, liberties compromised, lessons unlearned and deaths, has MI6 outlived its usefulness?
Annie Machon is a former MI5 intelligence officer and author.
Verdict 4/5
Spies and the Media — my recent talk at the Centre for Investigative Journalism
Here’s the film of my talk at the recent summer school at the Centre for Investigative Journalism in London a month ago:
Many thanks to Gavin and the rest of the CIJ team for such a stimulating and thought-provoking weekend!
Keynote at Centre for Investigative Journalism Summer School, 16 July 2011
My next talk in the UK will be a keynote at the renowned CIJ summer school on 16th July. One of the major themes this year is whistleblowing, for obvious Wikileaks-related reasons, and it appears I shall be in good company.
My talk is at 2pm on the Saturday. I understand the keynotes are open to the public, not just summer school attendees, so come along if you can and please spread the word!
Press TV interview about spies and the media, June 2011
A recent interview on Press TV about the spies’ manipulation of the media:
How the Light Gets In festival — my talk
My recent talk at the excellent How the Light Gets In philosophy festival at Hay-on-Wye. With credit and thanks to IAI TV and the staff of the Institute of Art and Ideas, the organisers the event.
How the Light Gets In — speaking in Hay-on-Wye, May 30 2011
I did two sessions at Hay-on-Wye philosophy and music festival — How the Light gets In in May 2011.
The first was a debate called “An Age of Transparency” with neo-conservative commentator Douglas Murray, and philosopher Nigel Warburton.
The second was my talk about “Spies, Lies, and Life on the Run”.
Here’s a link to a video of my talk.
So wasn’t the royal wedding lovely?
Well, yes, for some perhaps, and no doubt for the happy couple.
However, others spent the glorious day in a bare, concrete police cell, pre-emptively arrested for what they might do and untraceable to their loved ones and lawyers. Effectively they were “disappeared”, taken off the streets in case they uttered something that might mar the great day or, heaven forbid, caused some embarrassment.
A few days ago I wrote a piece highlighting my concerns about the threatened security response to possible protesters — drawing comparisons with the mindset, if not the violent tactics, of the thugs in Syria’s security apparatus. But still, in some deep recess of my mind and against all the accumulated evidence from my last 15 years, I found I still had an emotional, residual echo of the notion of British fair play that, really, we don’t do those kinds of things in the UK. Well, then I was a child, and spoke as a child.…
In the run up to the happy nuptials, the Metropolitan Police stated that it had no specific intelligence of any terrorist threat from either dissident Irish republicans, nor from any possible grouping emerging from the Middle East. Despite this, the security forces had launched a massive intelligence-gathering operation to hunt down known “anarchists” who might want to voice their protest against the concept of the monarchy. Activist pages on Facebook were suddenly deleted with no warning, but the company said it was because of registration issues, and not because of the police.
Yes, there may well have been some who wanted to cause violence — after which they could have been arrested legitimately under the terms of the law . However, what the police did in this case was in an altogether different league. Using the methodology if not the brutality of the Syrian mukhabarat, they organised house raids and snatch squads. They banned certain activists from London, and arrested others both in the days before the wedding and on the day itself.
Those caught in the security sweep included a Professor of Anthropology, Chris Knight, and his friends who were planning a bit of mildly amusing street theatre involving a fake guillotine and a Prince Andrew dummy (is that tautologous?).
Others swept up by the security forces included a bunch of environmentalist squatters who were busily tending their market garden, according to rightly concerned MP John McDonnell, and some random “zombies” who wanted to go to an alternative “not the royal wedding” garden party. Hardly the stuff of revolutionary nightmares.
And then there’s the case of Charlie Veitch, now denounced across the UK media as the known anarchist. Yes, Charlie is anti-royalist and wanted to voice his views, but he runs an internationally-known activist organisation called the Love Police, for chrissakes. The peaceful intentions of the organisation might possibly be given away by the name.…
So what happened? On Thursday evening two police officers, tooled up with proto-Borg tech, muscled their way into the Cambridge home he shares with his girlfriend, Silkie Carlo, declaring that they were there to arrest him and search the place. They had the presence of mind to film the whole process and ask some pertinent questions.
Charlie’s alleged pre-crime? That he had posted a frighteningly prescient video on Youtube saying that he thought he was being spied on, but still critiquing the royal wedding and suggesting that fellow activists get together in Soho Square, London (quite a distance away from the festivities) on the day. OK, so he had a bit of a rant — but that’s what people do on Youtube. Agree with him or strongly disagree, it’s called his freedom of expression — a much-vaunted, traditional British liberty.
But in the eyes of the police, apparently he was “conspiring to cause a possible breach of the peace”, and needed to be locked up. It’s like we’ve time-travelled back to pre-revolutionary 18th century France, where the king could issue a lettre de cachet to send people to the Bastille.
So at the very time that Prince William and his blushing bride were created Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, a British citizen was raided, locked up and hidden away in a police cell in that very city for exercising free speech.
On Thursday night he was hauled off to the Cambridge nick, which then refused to confirm to his understandably upset girlfriend where he was being held, before being transfered to the Met Police on Friday morning and held incommunicado for the rest of the day. Family and lawyers then apparently spent fruitless hours ringing around all the London police stations trying to track him down. So Charlie had effectively been “disappeared”, like a dissident in a totalitarian régime.
So let’s get this straight — we’re talking about the Metropolitan Police spying on known activists (as we all now know they do, after the undercover cop scandal earlier this year) to prevent them from expressing their legitimate political views about the wedding of Kate and Wills. The security forces had already stated that there was no specific terrorist threat, so this was all about preventing an embarrassing incident on the big day. And I’m sorry, but I don’t think that Prevention of Embarrassment is covered by the legal code.
Plus, these arrests were pre-emptive to stop a possible crime which might be committed — and let’s face it, only breach of the peace at that. Not a biggy.
So we are basically looking at the police spying on and then pre-emptively arresting campaigners for being potential dissidents, for ThoughtCrime. How much more Orwellian can it get?
I mentioned the tactics of the Syrian security forces and their brutal crack-down. I’ve also previously written about how the slide towards fascism began in Germany in the 1930s with the brutalisation of internal oppositionists and dissidents .
So let’s really stop and think about this — do we really want to let these early indications slide by, uncontested? After all, we have the Olympics and the Diamond Jubilee next year, and no doubt the same, or extended, powers will come into force. How far will we let it go before we wake up to the threat?
As I’ve written before, with thanks to Pastor Martin Niemoeller:
First they came for the Irish in the 1980s,
But I was not Irish so I did not speak up.
Then they came for the Muslims after 9/11,
But I was not a Muslim, so I did not speak up.
Then they came for the “domestic extremists”,
But I was not an activist, so I did not speak up.
Then they came for me;
and there was nobody left to speak up for me.
RTTV interview on the royal wedding and arrest of UK activists
My interview on 29 April 2011 for RTTV about the pre-emptive arrests of UK political activists in the run-up to the royal wedding.
Thoughtcrime appears to have arrived in the UK — and I accidentally became a royal wedding commentator (sort of).
Well, never say never in life.…
Frontline Club/New Statesman (FCNS) whistleblower debate with Julian Assange
“This house believes whistleblowers make the world a safer place.”
I was honoured to be asked to say a few words at the recent debate about the value of whistleblowers in London on 9th April 2011.
The Frontline Club and the left-wing New Statesman magazine jointly hosted the event, which starred Julian Assange, editor in chief of Wikileaks. Here is the debate in full:
Needless to say, the opposition had an uphill battle arguing not only against logic, the fair application of law, and the meaning of a vibrant and informed democracy, but also against the new realities in the worlds of journalism and technology.
The first more diplomatically-minded oppositionist adopted a policy of appeasement towards the audience, but the last two had to fall back on the stale and puerile tactics of name-calling and ad hominem attacks. So good to see that expensive educations are never a waste.…
The proposition was supported enthusiatically by the sell-out crowd, a resounding vote of confidence in the democratic notions of accountability and transparency.
Here’s a snippet of my (brief) contribution to a fantastic afternoon:
If you’ve done nothing wrong, you have nothing to hide.…
“Well, if you’ve done nothing wrong, you have nothing to hide. Why object to increasing state surveillance powers?”
I speak regularly at international events about basic freedoms, civil liberties and encroaching police states, and this is one of the most frequently asked questions.
This question is usually posed in the context of the ubiquitous CCTV cameras that infest the streets of Britain, where it is estimated that you can be photographed hundreds of times a day going about your daily business in London.
Not to mention the talking CCTV cameras in the North of England, nor the increasing use of spy drones (as yet, reportedly, unweaponised — at least lethally) over the skies of Britain. Nor the fact that the police officers in charge of CCTV units admit that the technology is only useful as evidence in 3% of cases, and that violent crime has actually gone up since the spread of CCTV, so we’re certainly no safer on our streets.
Nor do the well-meaning people asking this question (who, one presumes, have never-ever done anything wrong in their lives, even to the extent of not dropping litter) seem to grasp the historical evidence: they retain an optimistic faith in the long-term benign intentions of our governments.
Yet as we’ve seen time and time again in history, more dubious, totalitarian and malignant governments can indeed gain power, and will abuse and extend the surveillance laws and available technology against their own peoples. And I’m not just talking about Hitler’s rise to power in the 1930s or the East German Stasi, although I’m in agreement with UK Education Secretary Michael Gove at the moment in saying that history lessons are never a waste.…
But we also need to learn more recent lessons: the UK in the 1970s-1990s, where the Irish community as a whole was targeted because of fringe Republican terrorism; or the Muslim community post‑9/11, which lives with the real fear of of being arrested, extraordinarily rendered, tortured, or even assassinated on the say-so of unaccountable intelligence agencies; or even peaceful protest groups in the USA and UK who are infiltrated and aggressively investigated by Stasi-like police officers.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was put in place for a very good reason in 1948: to prevent the horrors of state terrorism, violence and genocide from ever happening again. Amongst the essential, internationally-agreed core principles are the right to life, the right not to be tortured, freedom of expression, and the right to individual privacy.
Which brings me neatly back to the start of this article. This is precisely why increasing state surveillance is a problem. Because of the post‑9/11, over-inflated, hyped-up threat from soi-disant terrorist groups, we are all being penalised. The balance of power is shifting overwhelmingly in favour of the Big Brother state.
Well, almost. The Wikileaks model is helping to level the playing field, and whatever happens to this trail-blazing organisation, the principles and technology are out there and will be replicated. The genie cannot be put back in the bottle.
So, why not pose the very question in the title of this piece back on those who want to turn back the clock and eradicate Wikileaks — the governments, mega-corporations, and intelligence agencies which have been outed, shamed and embarrassed, and which are now trying to suppress its work?
If you’ve done nothing wrong, you have nothing to hide.….
Libya: my enemy’s enemy is my friend, until he becomes my enemy again…
UK Prime Minister, David Cameron, reportedly made the startling statement recently that the military intervention in Libya “unlike Iraq, is necessary, legal and right”.
Would it not be wonderful if he could take the next logical step towards joined-up thinking and consider sending our esteemed Middle East Peace Envoy, a certain Mr T Blair, over for a spot of porridge at the International Criminal Court in The Hague? After all, Cameron has now clearly implied that the Iraq war was “unnecessary, illegal and wrong”.….
But back to Libya. With the ongoing crisis — now war — much is being written about how the previous UK government collaborated with the Gaddafi régime in the last decade — while tacitly glossing over the last year of Coalition government where, no doubt, similar levels of coöperation and back-slapping and money-grubbing were going on at the highest levels to ensure the continuing flow of oil contracts to the UK.
But, yes, we should be dissecting the Labour/Gaddafi power balance. Gaddafi had New Labour over the proverbial (oil) barrel from the late 1990s, when MI5 whistleblower David Shayler exposed the failed and illegal MI6 assassination plot against Colonel Gaddafi, using as fall-guys a rag-tag group of Islamic extremists. The newly-elected Labour government’s knee-jerk response at the time was to believe the spook’s denials and cover-up for them. Perhaps not so surprising, as the government ministers of the day were uncomfortably aware that the spies held files on them. But this craven response did leave the government position exposed, as Gaddafi well knew.
The CIA was fully cognisant of this failed plot at the time, as were the French intelligence services. The Gaddafi Plot is once again being referenced in the media, including the Telegraph, and a recent edition of the Huffington Post. The details are still relevant, as it appears that our enterprising spooks are yet again reaching out to a rag-tag group of rebels — primarily Islamists and the Senussi royalists based around Benghazi.
The lessons of the reckless and ill-thought out Gaddafi Plot were brushed under the carpet, so history may yet again be doomed to repeat itself. Yes, Gaddafi has been one of the biggest backers of terrorism ever, and yes he has brutalised parts of his own population, but if he were deposed how can the West be sure that those stepping into the power vacuum would not be even more dangerous?
The Libyan government continued to use the 1996 MI6 assassination plot as leverage in its negotiations with the New Labour government right up until (publicly at least) 2009. Musa Kousa, the current Foreign Minister, played a key role throughout. For many years Kousa was the head of the Libyan External Security Organsiation and was widely seen as the chief architect of international Libyan-backed terrorism against the USA, the UK and France.
Another apparent example of this moral blackmail caught my eye recently — this report in the Daily Mail. Saif al-Islam Gaddafi was afforded MI6-backed protection when he was finally allowed into the UK in September 2002 to study at the LSE.
The timing was particularly interesting, as only months earlier Saif had won a libel case against the UK’s Sunday Telegraph newspaper. A grovelling apology was made by the newspaper, but Saif refrained from asking for “exemplary damages” — which he would almost certainly have won. The resulting pay-off for this restraint appears to be that a mere five months later he was welcomed into the UK with MI6-facilitated protection.
Saif’s relations with the UK had not always been so rosy. As background to this case, in 1995 the Sunday Telegraph had fallen hook, line and sinker for a MI6 classic propaganda operation. As The Guardian reported, the secretive MI6 media manipulation section, Information Operations, (I/Ops), had successfully spun a fake story to hapless spook hack, Con Coughlin, that Gaddafi Junior was involved in currency fraud. This story was fake, but the paper trail it produced was used by the spies as a pretext to prevent Saif from entering the UK at the time.
By 2002 this was all old history, of course. Saif was welcomed to the UK, officially to study for his MA and PhD at the London School of Economics (and showing his gratitude to that august institution with a hefty donation of £1.5 million — it makes the new tuition fees for UK students seem better value for money), and unofficially to chum up to various Establishment enablers to end Libya’s pariah status, open up lucrative trade channels, and get the SAS to train up Libya’s special forces.
The UK military must be just loving that now.….
So I get the feeling that the UK government has over the last decade indeed “danced with the devil”. After decades of viewing Libya and Colonel Gaddafi as a Priority One JIC intelligence target, the UK government fell over itself to appease the Gaddafi régime in the wake of the bungled assassination attempt in 1996 and the libelling of his son. These were the sticks Gaddafi used; the carrots were undoubtedly the Saif/MI6-facilitated oil contracts.
Of course, all this is now pretty much a moot point, following Dave Cameron’s “necessary, legal and right” military intervention. If the wily old Colonel manages to hang on grimly to some semblence of power (and he has an impressive track-record of surviving against the odds), then I doubt if he’ll be happy to coöperate with British oil companies in the future. At the very least.
Gaddafi has already threatened “vengeance” against the West, and it was reported today that MI5 is taking this all-too-preditable risk seriously.
If Gaddafi is deposed, who can realistically predict the intentions and capabilities of those who will fill the power vacuum? We should have learnt from Afghanistan and Iraq: my enemy’s enemy is my friend — until he becomes my enemy again.….
