Tag Archives: the Shard

The Guardian woke me up this morning with ‘MI5 policy allowing agents to commit crimes was legal, say judges’ (at https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/mar/09/mi5-policy-agents-take-part-crimes-lawful-appeal-court-judges). Here we are told that Maya Foa, the director of Reprieve is challenging the case that “The idea that the government can authorise undercover agents to commit the most serious crimes, including torture and murder, is deeply troubling and must be challenged”, now, I agree that this is probably an ideological approach to the matter, but this is not some scuffle with the local constabulary, when you are active enough for MI5 to look into the matter, you are an actual optional problem (read: danger) to the British people. 

We look at the example “Home Office sources cited the case of Naa’imur Zakariyah Rahman, who was jailed for life in 2018 for plotting to kill the former prime minister Theresa May. He was caught following an undercover operation in which he was provided with what he thought was a jacket and rucksack packed with explosives.”, or as one might say, he went to the target holding a block of grey putty, 5 wires and an egg timer. The issue is not what they do, the issue is for MI5 agents to get into the fold and those folds are extremely paranoid of the people they allow in but do not know, they tend to demand extreme examples of their commitment. Some sources in the political field give us “Ayman al-Zawahiri isn’t trying to plan another 9/11 attack—because he doesn’t need to.” Yet in this MI5, if not all the people in the UK cannot take that lacks a standing, What if the next time it is not the World Trade Centre, what if it becomes the Shard? That building is visible to the largest part of London, right in front of a train station. The chaos would be visible for months, and it is for that reason that players like MI5 need as large as possible a leeway to get their job done. We will never hear of their successes, but any failure will be front page news for years to come and the stakes are only getting higher. OK, I admit by creating IP that could sink the Iranian fleet, I did not help any, but I am not some Reprievalist, I created a solution to get things done (that’s how I roll).

Yet the article is not all ‘problems’, there is validity in “a limit to what criminality may be authorised”, I get it, there should be some form of limit, but that also means that the players will go that far in finding a solution to weed out any legal interference brought to them by MI5 (and like minded opposition) and that is definitely not a good thing. We might think that this is ‘common’ ground, but the Dutch AIVD, French DGSE and let’s not forget the American bringers of fairy tails, the CIA. They are all wielding their limited bat because of similar restrictions. In opposition to the FSB, GRU, the Inter-Services Intelligence of Pakistan, Iranian VEVAK (now VAJA), as well as the Chinese Ministry of State Security (MSS), aka Guoanbu. These 5 players do not have such restrictions. The best way to lose a war is to state that you can only play soldier with a M1 Garand, a rifle with a range of no more than 500 metres. All whilst the rest have the equivalent of a Druganov, or the Chinese QBU-88 both have an effective range well over twice the distance, as such it is like sending your own troops to get slaughtered. Yes, there is appeal in the moral high ground, but how high is that moral ground when you worship your convictions like a golden calf? A stage where we say, this is how it is and this is what our troops (read: intelligence operatives) need to adhere to, isn’t that just another form of targeted killing (in the most negative way)? And the politicians waving it away with ‘Our people are just so much more intelligent’ they are required to put their own children in the field, in harm’s way so to speak. I wonder how long it takes for them to get off that high moral horse. So when we see a person like Maya Foa take the limelight with a big eyed smiley face, consider who she is willing to lead to the slaughter in this. 

And that is when we consider state actors, Terrorists have access to much of the needed hardware and none of the governmental restriction and that is what MI5 faces. She is not alone, we are seeing the CAAT now limiting British economy (a setting I am happily willing to take advantage of). We see more and more of these moral high ground settings, all whilst the people around us have no such restrictions and they are all helping the abyss creep up closer to our way of life, in a time when no one can afford such changes. Even now (read: two weeks ago) as we were told “Salini Impregilo has won a contract in Saudi Arabia: a project worth about $1.3 billion in Riyadh with the Saudi Arabia National Guard”, the setting not mentioned is that the project was a lot larger and other construction players (read: Rusian/Chinese) are getting a slice of that. The size of that slice is not known, but as they become more and more adept in negotiating, the slices of WeBuild (Salini Impregilo) will get smaller and smaller in an economic setting that the EU cannot afford. WeBuild is now facing increased competition from China State Construction Engineering Corporation (CSCEC), as well as the Russian PIK group. Even as Russia has a few issues to work from, the Chinese side has a diminishing threshold to deal with and over the next few years it could cost the EU billions. One group, one industry and that much damage, is the Reprieve danger sinking in? The stage is a lot larger than we think because any action here by terrorists will have larger repercussions on the international stage and all whilst we give some moral high ground against terrorists. It’s like telling Ken McCallum that he can only kill the nasty troll with a butterknife. How screwed up is that setting?