That is the question that floats to the top. You see, the bulk of the media, including the BBC nowadays have lost too much credibility. The issue becomes verification, and in too many places there isn’t to much of that. So in this mindset I stumbled upon an article. This was in part funny, as I mentioned the ‘disgraced’ Al Jabri only two days ago and 11 hours ago this article was published by the BBC. I do not think the two are connected and it is clear that no such connection should be made other than the mention of these timelines (to keep my blog to some degree a valid source). But 11 hours ago (at https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4gz8934wrro) we see the appearance of ‘Power, oil and a $450m painting – insiders on the rise of Saudi’s Crown Prince’ by Jonathan Rugman. The article was glared over by me, until I noticed a name. This set me in a different mindset and it is time to report on this.
It all starts with “he summoned a senior security official to the palace, determined to win his loyalty” and the name Saad al-Jabri is mentioned. The man who seems to manage a multi billion portfolio for the CIA (allegedly) and was in a court case in America, whilst he is in Canada and setting the space not to allow certain evidence to be mentioned. We then get mentions like “According to Jabri” and (did I mention) that he is a disgraced official, but that part is not mentioned in the article? The mentioned stage “he was friends with the heads of the CIA and MI6” makes for ‘exciting’ reading, but in my mindset it is a dangerous connection because there is a lot of non-verification. So we get the first reference ‘Family of exiled top Saudi officer Saad al-Jabri ‘targeted’’ (at https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-52790864). There we get “Dr Saad al-Jabri, who helped foil an al-Qaeda bomb plot against the West”. My issue was that there is little verification. Now, this makes sense because it is intelligence related and they do not spout these issues in open places. But with the accusation of treason and ‘funds removal operations’ according to other Saudi sources it sets the possibility that Al Jabri made a sting using optional Al Qaeda plants and now we get the setting that the CIA gave him safe passage whilst Al Qaeda gets the optional blame for it all. I am not saying that this is what happened, but the timing of the intertwined facts are a little too convenient (for Al Jabri). This could have been all set aside with proper verification, but the term ‘according to sources’ allows for my speculation, and lets be clear, I was and still am speculating on this.
And the stage of “He was also the linchpin in all Saudi Arabia’s relations with the “Five Eyes” (US, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand) intelligence agencies.” This is important because linchpin means “a person or thing vital to an enterprise or organisation”, as such Saad Al Jabri was important to the stage of some (most likely the CIA) and Al Jabri in a self professed difficult situation was eager to carry that mantle (my speculation), especially as he was accused to have taken the quick way out with billions. People have done a lot more for a mere 0.1% of such an amount.
Then we get to “we shed new light on the events that have made MBS notorious – including the 2018 murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi” and this had issues with me. On February 27th 2021 I wrote ‘That was easy!’, (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2021/02/27/that-was-easy/) in this blog article I shot holes in an United Nations document, with a lot more issues that I was happy with. The fact that I had even one issue with a document from the United Nations should have been close to impossible. The fact that I did implies that this was a hatchet job and I added the UN document so that people could see it for themselves. In addition at a later stage I added the mention that Khashoggi was alive with a mistress spending their days on Bora Bora (I also mentioned that this came from a non-reliable source). The setting we have now is that there is a debatable story (in depth) due to at least one main source that is debatable and the mentions of Al Jabri needs to be seen as at the very least debatable. This is what you get when the lack of verification is there, there is simply no other outcome as I see it.
We then see “accusing MBS of forging his father the king’s signature on a royal decree committing ground troops”, as well as “The prince was apparently so impatient for his father to become king that in 2014, he reportedly suggested killing the then-monarch – Abdullah, his uncle – with a poisoned ring, obtained from Russia. “I don’t know for sure if he was just bragging, but we took it seriously,”” my issue here is two fold, the one mention of “I don’t know for sure if he was just bragging” sounds nice, but in both cases the source is Al Jabri and in my view he is a debatable source on more than one issue and verification is missing here and that is all on Jonathan Rugman as I see it. This all takes me back to the 70’s. A writer named James Grady wrote a book that was made into a movie with Robert Redford, the movie was called Three days of the Condor. After I saw the movie I also read his sequel ‘Shadow of the Condor’ (I believe that was the book). There we come across the term ‘Gamaljoen’ (I read the book in Dutch). The term makes reference to a person that is raised to a much larger status than he (or she) should be. Because of the status those who are wielding that person are raised as well. That is the feeling that I have on Al Jabri. Now lets accept that I could be (totally) wrong, but that requires verification to see and we see no verification with the debatable doubts I throw on to the Khashoggi issue we get an unbalanced stage. And I am trying to avoid the “he said, she said” debate. This is why there are issues with an in depth story. There are other sources mentioned, but these are all to ‘trivial’ matters.
We then get a part that reflects on my story yesterday ““He planned for my assassination,” Jabri says. “He will not rest until he sees me dead, I have no doubt about that.”” Whether he did or did not is also debatable. The ‘simple’ fact is that I created an optional plan to do just that, in under an hour no less. And I am not a professional on the matter. The fact that Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud has actual specialists on the matter and we see some ‘tiger team’ bungling it puts question marks on it all. Is there an actual execution order out on Al Jabri? It is a valid question. I have no doubt that Al Jabri is likely to face jail time at the very least is he ever goes back to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, there is a wallet with billions (allegedly) missing to support my view.
With “The killing of Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018 implicates MBS in ways that are very hard to refute. The 15-strong hit squad was travelling on diplomatic passports and included several of MBS’s own bodyguards” the writer of the BBC story is missing the beat. You see, the setting of “implicates MBS in ways that are very hard to refute” is what I did (in part) in the UN document in the article I mentioned earlier (That was Easy!) I cast a really large doubt in the issues, in the second setting ‘15-strong hit squad’ is also extremely debatable. If it was a hit a mere 1 person would have sufficed. That there was an optional team to ‘retrieve’ is possible, but the media used the setting to explode their paper revenue, so too much of it is too ludicrous for words. The media is nowadays too much about creating emotional flames for the supportive need of clickbait, at the expense of their own credibility.
Then we get “A declassified US intelligence report released in February 2021 asserted that he was complicit in the killing of Khashoggi” yet the linked article states “The report released by the Biden administration says the prince approved a plan to either “capture or kill” Khashoggi”, whilst we see “We assess”, which in CIA terms would be seen as fairy tale material. It lacks evidence, merely conjecture. All whilst the linked report (by the office of the US director of national intelligence) can no longer be retrieved. That’s your evidence?
There is a lot to make up for and the BBC better do that soon, as the article ends with “Jonathan Rugman is consultant producer on The Kingdom: The world’s most powerful prince” the writer being a producer of materials as well? Whatever could be wrong next.
The amazing amounts of fairy tale materials that goes back as far as the United Nations gives pause for a larger setting, whatever you call ‘inDepth’ is almost a new kind of story with the APNews happily posting it with the mention of ‘Former Saudi official alleges Prince Mohammed forged king’s signature on Yemen war decree’ a mere 4 hours ago. Is that how the news goes around nowadays?
And to all I say have a great Tuesday, a mere 4 hours until breakfast for me, time that I snore like a lumberjack.

X to the power of sneaky
I was honestly a little surprised this morning when I saw the news pass by. The BBC (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-67137773) gives us ‘Twitter glitch allows CIA informant channel to be hijacked’. To be honest, I have no idea why they would take this road, but part of me gets it. Perhaps in the stream of all those messages, a few messages might never be noticed. The best way to hide a needly is to drop it in a haystack. Yet the article gives us “But Kevin McSheehan was able to redirect potential CIA contacts to his own Telegram channel” giving us a very different setting to the next course of a meal they cannot afford. So when we are given “At some point after 27 September, the CIA had added to its X profile page a link – https://t.me/securelycontactingcia – to its Telegram channel containing information about contacting the organisation on the dark net and through other secretive means”, most of us will overlook the very setting that we see here and it took me hours to trip over myself and take a walk on the previous street to reconsider this. So when we are given “a flaw in how X displays some links meant the full web address had been truncated to https://t.me/securelycont – an unused Telegram username” the danger becomes a lot more visible. And my first thought was that a civilian named McSheehan saw this and the NSA did not? How come the NSA missed this? I think that checking its own intelligence systems is a number one is stopping foreign powers to succeed there and that was either not done, or the failing is a lot bigger then just Twitter. So even as the article ends with “The CIA did not reply to a BBC News request for comment – but within an hour of the request, the mistake had been corrected” we should see the beginning not the end of something. So, it was a set of bungles that starts with the CIA IT department, that goes straight into the NSA servers, Defence Cyber command and optionally the FBI cyber routines as well. You see, the origin I grasp at is “Installation of your defences against enemy retaliation” and it is not new, It goes back to Julius Caesar around 52BC (yes, more then two millennia ago). If I remember it correctly he wrote about it in Commentarii de Bello Gallico. Make sure your defences are secure before you lash out is a more up to date setting and here American intelligence seemingly failed.
Now, we get it mistakes will be made, that happens. But for the IT department of several intelligence departments to miss it and for a civilian in Maine to pick it up is a bit drastic an error and that needs to be said. This is not some Common Cyber Sense setting, this is a simple mistake, one that any joker could make, I get that. My issue is that the larger collection of intelligence departments missed it too and now we have a new clambake.
Yes, the CIA can spin this however they want, but the quote “within an hour of the request, the mistake had been corrected” implies that they had not seen this and optionally have made marked targets of whomever has linked their allegiance to the CIA. That is not a good thing and it is a setting where (according to Sun Tzu) dead spies are created. Yet they are now no longer in service of America, but they are optionally in service of the enemies of the USA and I cannot recall a setting where that ever was a good thing. You see, there was a stage that resembles this. In 942 the Germans instigated Englandspiel. A setting where “the Abwehr (German military intelligence) from 1942 to 1944 during World War II. German forces captured Allied resistance agents operating in the Netherlands and used the agents’ codes to dupe the United Kingdom’s clandestine organisation, the Special Operations Executive (SOE), into continuing to infiltrate agents, weapons, and supplies into the Netherlands. The Germans captured nearly all the agents and weapons sent by the United Kingdom” For two years the Germans had the upper hand, for two years the SOE got the short end of that stick and this might not be the same, but there is a setting where this could end up being the same and I cannot see that being a good thing for anyone (except the enemies of America). Now, I will not speculate on the possible damage and I cannot speculate on the danger optional new informants face or the value of their intelligence. Yet at this point I think that America needs to take a hard look at the setting that they played debutante too. I get it, it is not clear water, with any intelligence operation it never is. Yet having a long conversation with the other cyber units is not the worst idea to have. You see, there is a chance someone copied the CIA idea and did EXACTLY the same thing somewhere else. As such how much danger is the intelligence apparatus in? Come to think of it, if Palantir systems monitor certain server actions, how did they miss it too? This is not an accusation, it is not up to Palantir to patrol the CIA, but these systems are used to monitor social media and no one picked up on this?
Just a thought to have on the middle of this week.
Leave a comment
Filed under IT, Military
Tagged as Abwehr, BBC, CIA, Commentarii de Bello Gallico, Common Cyber Sense, DoD, Englandspiel, FBI, Julius Caesar, Kevin McSheehan, Maine, NSA, Palantir, SOE, Special Operations Executive, Sun Tzu, Twitter