An old mystery

Lt. Colonel Harold Hartney was a senior US air force officer. In fact he was one of the first, an ace of the First World War who commanded the 27th Aero Squadron and the US 1st Pursuit Group. In his memoirs he tells the following strange tale:
     “I had been home (in England) only three hours. Irene had just told me of a sweet girl who had been living in the same house with her and had married one of the non-coms in the mystery-secret camp close by. An amazing development had been going on there. The local people thought it was the construction of a tremendous new explosive which would blow up whole towns and areas. One day men came to the house and took the young bride away and she was shot at 5:40 in the morning before I arrived (this would have been September 10th 1916). The activity that had been going on was the first secret development of the first tanks and the charming German spy had been caught trying to transmit news of it to her fatherland. C’est la guerre. It’s a good thing she didn’t get through. Some claim she did.”
     An exciting tale. But, hang on, no female German spies were executed in the UK during the First World War, so what is Hartney going on about? Some sort of wartime urban myth?
     Well possibly. After all, if such an execution really did take place then there has been a massive effort to keep it out of all public records and if that is true how did Hartney know the exact time of the woman’s execution? Furthermore, this was an era when there was much speculation about “la femme fatale”. Mata Hari was not arrested until the following year, but Gabrielle Petit had been executed by the Germans in April of that year and Edith Cavell in October of the year before. There was also much speculation during the war about “Die Fraulein Doktor”, a female German secret service officer who was supposed to command a ring of female super-agents – although I’m not sure that these tales were current as early as 1916.
     On the other hand there are several rather unsettling aspects to this story: Hartney was not the sort of officer to repeat idle gossip and his wife said that the woman was “living in the same house with her” so this is not just the case of some story heard third-hand down the pub.
     Was Hartney simply trying to spice up his memoirs? Was his wife lying to him for some reason? Or was someone lying to her about the reason for the bride’s sudden disappearance? Any (sensible) suggestions gratefully accepted.

Smears

The speech by President Obama last week represented a significant point, possibly a turning point, in the Edward Snowden debate. The President’s admission that, in certain cases, the power of the intelligence agencies needs to reined in and monitored was a step towards admitting that Snowden might have been right to take extreme measures. Of course it is not the whole argument, not by a long chalk, but it seriously undermined those in the intelligence world who claim that Snowden is simply a traitor and nothing more. It was the first step on a road which might eventually see Edward welcomed back to the country of his birth as a man who did something deeply questionable, but which had to be done.

It was no surprise that in the following days the intelligence machine struck back. The next phase of the attack was led by what might described as “the usual suspects” – Mike Rogers, Dianne Feinstein, Michael McCaul, etc – right wing hawks in Congress who reject any idea of limiting the intelligence empire of their friends. The new line of attack is to suggest that Snowden may have been secretly working for the Russians all along. No evidence was put forward, but there was plenty of innuendo along the line of “we suspect” and “the matter is under investigation”. Here is an example from Mike Rogers: “Some of the things we’re finding we would call clues that certainly would indicate to me that he had some help.” Could he be more vague?

You can see why they have chosen to do this: since they are losing the civil liberities argument as nations all around the world decide that there must be some limits on intrusions into the privacy of ordinary citizens, the intelligence agencies are going to attack Snowden in a way which will leave him in the impossible position of trying to prove a negative. How can he prove definitively that he wasn’t working for a foreign power? You simply can’t do it. And supporters of the intelligence empire will make sure that there is plenty more innuendo to keep the accusation alive. It is all rather similar to the “birthers” movement who claim that Obama was not born in the United States. It doesn’t matter how much evidence to the contrary you produce it will never be enough. But in the view of the intelligence agencies it is better to smear Snowden in the hope that he will not become an example to whistle blowers in the future rather than admit that perhaps, because of the extraordinary technological advances the world has seen in recent years, this was a debate that had to be held for the sake of us all. It would not have been held if it had not been for the actions of Edward Snowden.

Madness

So it appears that John Leso has escaped justice. For the past seven years, the American Psychological Association (APA) has been investigating the case of this man who sat watching  while suspects were being tortured at Guantanamo (not my description – this is from the Pentagon’s record). He was a member of a behavioural science consultation team based at Guantanamo and responsible for ensuring that the torture used during questioning was as effective as possible. On 31st December 2013, the APA finally announced that they had decided not to proceed with charges and that the case was formally closed. Laughably, one of the reasons given for excusing Leso’s behaviour was that his work pre-dated the ASA’s official condemation of torture. This seems to imply that torture was not a war crime until the ASA decided it was.

The original complaint was filed by Trudy Bond, a fellow psychologist and APA member, who was disgusted by Leso’s participation in these activities. It should have been a fairly straightforward matter: officially the APA is against torture and the evidence appeared conclusive. However this investigation went the way of similar official enquiries: it moved at a crawl until the original source of concern had faded from memory and then a report was sneaked out on a slow news day (31 Dec) saying that no action would be taken. The Leso case was seen as a litmus test for other prosecutions since this was believed to show the clearest indication of the involvement of American medical staff in torture and what the reaction by their professional organisations would be. It is now unlikely that similar investigations will proceed.

A certain section of the audience will say that terrorists – or in this case suspected terrorists  – deserve everything they get. It is easy to sympathise with that knee-jerk reaction. But if we are prepared to break our own laws and adopt the standards of our enemy simply to defeat our enemy then we do not solve the problem, we simply store up troubles for the future. The Leso case will be added to the litany of those who will, with some justification, be able to point and say that we are no better then they. Apparently we are prepared to stoop to the same depths because we, like them, believe that we are unquestionably in the right. It is another little recruiting sergeant created in the enemy’s camp.

For some it will be easy to dismiss what Leso did. But others will remember scenes of prisoners under torture from George Orwell’s 1984 or Terry Gilliam’s Brazil or the hundreds of other real-life comparisons. Any human being who can sit back and watch another being tortured is… well, perhaps it is form of madness. And for those who try to suggest that Leso is not guilty of any offence or that he tried to stop what was happening, consider that he has not stepped forward to condemn these practices. His silence is compelling. Just don’t ask the American Psychological Association about it.

Straw Men

‘Fight for your laws as you would for the city ramparts’ – Anaximenes of Croton.

The words of a sixth century BC philosopher, but still pretty apposite. In the days of Anaximenes the threat to democracy was not only from enemies without, but also from dictatorship and oligarchy within. Recent comments about the Edward Snowden affair brought this comment to my mind. It seems to me that those who have criticised Snowden (and the newspapers which have published his information) have tried to win the argument about the future shape of the intelligence world by using the “straw man” defence i.e. put up a proposition which your opponents have not in fact used, then knock it down and claim to have won.

Politicians, intelligence chiefs and espionage fan-boys (I’m looking at you RUSI) repeatedly stress that the intelligence services do not operate outside the law and that those who claim this to be so are either misguided or malevolent. But in fact that is not their position. Rather, the critics are arguing that the intelligence services operate under legislation which was drawn up without considering the overwhelming power of the services to infiltrate and monitor the world of social networking and communication as they do today. You cannot, as another wise man once said, put new wine into old wine skins. The demand is for a review of the current legislation and a new democratic mandate before this sort of power is to be handed over permanently to the intelligence services.

They have it at the moment, but that does not mean that it is right.

Deniability

I thought that the furore concerning the NSA’s bugging of Chancellor Merkel’s mobile phone would soon die down. It is a basic truth that intelligence services spy on their nation’s allies. I took part in a round table discussion on BBC Radio Four recently together with former officers from all the allied services and also the Russian FSB. We all agreed that intelligence operations were regularly conducted against allies, usually, but not always, on the economic target. As one of the speakers commented: “Where there is a large contract involving thousands of jobs to be won, you have no allies.” (I paraphrase). A reasonable estimate is that about ten per cent of a nation’s intelligence effort is expended against allied states. So because everybody does it, one could reasonably expect a few days excitement in the press and then the matter would be quickly forgotten.

However, the NSA appears to be caught in something of a perfect storm. Mass surveillance is abhorrent in Germany where so many citizens were subject to the oversight of the Stasi and Merkel has been content to let this subject run because she thinks she is on to a vote winner. This is compounded by the fact that the French government (and with perhaps less impact, the Brazilian and Spanish) has risen to defend the liberty of its own citizens. This creates a powerful alliance of European interests which the USA is finding hard to simply dismiss.

But now the Americans have stumbled into a further crisis: following a story in the German newspaper Bild that Obama had been personally briefed on the operation to bug Chancellor Merkel, on the 27th October the NSA denied that he had ever known about the operation. Unfortunately for them this creates somewhat of a dilemma: either the President is lying or the NSA and its overseers are failing to inform the President of the extent of its operations even when it is targeting the leaders of allied governments. Either possibility creates a scandal so what is the likely answer?

Every intelligence operation has to pass a threshold of deniability before it is approved. This means that even if secret operatives are caught red handed, the politicians will be able to deny that they knew anything about it. The idea behind this is that at worst a few intelligence officers may lose their jobs but ultimately the government will be protected. And for those in the UK who think that the British government does not lie (are there any such left?), consider that at the very creation of the British Secret Service Bureau in 1909, Mansfield Cumming and Vernon Kell (the first two officers recruited who subsequently became the heads of MI5 and MI6), were told that in the event of their operations becoming public the government would deny all knowledge of their existence. The sub-committee recommending the formation of the service noted that it should be: “impossible to obtain direct evidence that we had any dealings with them at all.” (K. Jeffery, SIS Official History, p.7). That principle has continued ever since, not only in the UK but for all secret services.

It seems most likely that deniability provides the answer to the NSA question as well. The President was almost certainly aware of the bugging operation, but if the row continues and heads have to be offered up to save the President from embarrassment, then certain officials at the NSA will fall on their swords. That is what is expected of them. The truth will, of course, remain a secret.

The interesting question is: why can the citizens of democratic states not be told the truth in such matters?

Day Seven

So this is it. In about an hour I will break my fast by having a long dreamed of bowl of hot soup. Someone remarked that it will probably taste like the best soup in the world.

But it won’t.

The reason is that while I can end my hunger strike, Shaker and the other protesters in Guantanamo are trapped in theirs. They will continue to be tortured each and every day. Denied justice every day. Breaking my fast now doesn’t feel like a victory, it feels like leaving a man behind.

Did it do any good? It didn’t change many minds. Most of the major media outlets ignored the story probably thinking: “Well it’s just one more dead Arab, who cares?”. One journalist I spoke to even said that Shaker’s case “Wasn’t a story at all”. That’s how insensitive we’ve become I guess.

But then again we musn’t expect too much. Great victories are only won by small, often imperceptible steps. I know that my fast doesn’t mean that much, but added to those of all the other people who are fasting in support and added to all the efforts Reprieve are making in other areas, something can still change. We just have to keep fighting. I know I will.

Day Six

The last few days of the fast are like having really bad flu: everything aches, head, joints and for some reason the small of my back – I hope it’s not the first sign of a kidney problem. I keep having vivid dreams, not about food as such, but about failure and letting Shaker and the others down. Last night I dreamed that a washer woman gave me a chocolate biscuit which I ate before remembering that I was on hunger strike (yeah, ok, weird dreams). I was mighty relieved when I woke up and found that it wasn’t real, but the sense of regret stayed with me half the morning.

I was asked yesterday how it could be that MI6 would try and keep a man in prison just because he was going to give evidence against them? Is that credible? Well, as a historian of the intelligence services through their 104 year span one thing has always been true: the upper levels of management have always been controlled by a few men drawn from particular cliques. This is especially true of MI6 and is one reason why there has never been a female Chief. The problem is that these few senior managers have so much power and are so removed from everyday reality that if they take a decision “for the good of the Service” it is highly unlikely to be challenged. So yes, I think it is highly credible that at some level the services are briefing against Shaker to save their own necks. Only last year we learned that they were handing over prisoners to the Gadaafi regime to be tortured. Who would have believed that was possible until the evidence was discovered? The only way to overturn that power is if we can convince the government to investigate. That is another reason why these strikes are so important. Sooner or later the government must wake up.

Day Five

On the excellent blog which Julie Christie kept during her hunger strike, she noted that one of the things she missed most was the sense of taste. She was absolutely right. Taking nothing but water for a week effectively deprives you of one of your five senses, like spending a week with your eyes closed. I find that I can watch pictures of food on the television and it doesn’t effect me, but the smells of food wafting in from the kitchen when the children are cooking almost drive me crazy. Smell is, course, closely attuned to taste, and the food seems so real I could almost touch it. I find myself dreaming about great steaming bowls of curry, not just because I like curry but because the flavours are so strong. Yes, I’m becoming a bit weird!

Of course these mild discomforts are nothing compared to the pains endured by Shaker and the others in Guantanamo. I keep thinking not of how difficult this is, but what it must be like to endure starvation and on top of that be tortured each and every day by unthinking, grinning thugs. I can only stand in awe of such courage. How can we not stand with such men? And as for the American guards, what about them? If they were ever brought to trial for their actions (which of course they won’t be) they would only have one justification: that they were only following orders. This is, of course, the Nuremburg defence. When Americans find themselves using the same justification as Nazi war criminals, it’s time for us all to get the message that the “war against terror” has gone way off course. Having had a lot of time to think about it recently, I believe that this is the true legacy of 9/11: after that day a sort of poison entered the American soul. Osama Bin Laden really did acheive his aim. He destroyed something fundamental in America. Their sense of justice.

Day Four

This is the hard bit. The energy dip really hit today and I’m probably paying the price for travelling into London yesterday. The next three days are “the grind”, the time when your energy reserves are gone and it becomes hard work just to lift your head off the pillow. This time is also hard because everyone’s good wishes tend to dry up. It’s strange how those little good will messages really help to lift your spirits. I thought I was unemotional – probably the lack of food making me a bit soppy!

I contacted MI6 through my liaison officer and asked if there was anything that I should say on their behalf seeing as all the evidence appears to be stacked against them. No reply. Not surprising perhaps, but I think that if they had a leg to stand on they would have said something. It is more evidence which tends to confirm Reprieve’s suspicion that it is the British intelligence services who are keeping Shaker imprisoned – long after the US have cleared him for release.

One bright spot in the day was getting a message of support from an ex-para. It’s good that someone who has been at the “sharp end” understands that my support for Shaker is directed against terrorism, not in support of it. We have to close down this site which, by imprisoning and torturing innocent men, simply acts as a giant recruiting base for the next generation of terrorists.

Three days to go then….

Day Three

A really rough night, but my temperatutre started to drop sometime around dawn and I was able to spend the day staggering around town doing interviews. But it is astonishingly hard to get the message out. Every station has its own agenda. Today, one accused me of betraying my “comrades” in MI6, one ran a piece which suggested Shaker was a close friend of Osama Bin Laden, while a third only wanted to talk about Edward Snowden! And still no sign of the big four showing any interest in Shaker’s plight: ITN, BBC, Sky or CNN. We’re waiting for them, but all the time we wait, my energy and ability to string a coherent sentence together are fading.

There’s one thought that keeps me going through these periods when the task seems impossible and I’m sure it’s the same for everyone who is working or fasting on this. It’s the thought of Shaker in his cell on that dirty mattress, starving, too weak to get up, pepper sprayed and beaten each day as he is dragged out and lashed to the chair in the feeding room. We have to make it stop.