My factual demolition of the anti-Snowden story has been read by hundreds of thousands of people, very probably millions, around the internet, 50,000 so far on this site alone, and tweeted by thousands of people. It has been tweeted at – repeatedly – every single mainstream media journalist who has been repeating the government propaganda.
The extraordinary thing is that no jurnalist, anywhere, has made any attempt to deny the facts I give. Not one journalist in the entire crowd of corporate media paid lackeys at the BBC, Sunday Times, Reuters or anywhere at all has addressed or tried to refute the facts which make it impossible that their Snowden story is true. They have not addressed it in their publications or even tried to defend themselves on social media. Not one journalist, not anywhere. (One or two have pointed out that the fifth point is an ad hominem, which is true. Not all ad hominems are invalid, but the first four facts destroy the argument anyway).
Neither has there been any response from the “safe” retired diplomats or security consultants the mainstream media can generally roll out on these occasions.
So here is a challenge to the Sunday Times, BBC and rest of the mainstream media. If your story is true, where exactly are my facts wrong? If you refuse to address this, why do you consider yourself a journalist?
To avoid you “journalists” having to do even a click of research, here is my article again:
Five Reasons the MI6 Story is a Lie
The Sunday Times has a story claiming that Snowden’s revelations have caused danger to MI6 and disrupted their operations. Here are five reasons it is a lie.
1) The alleged Downing Street source is quoted directly in italics. Yet the schoolboy mistake is made of confusing officers and agents. MI6 is staffed by officers. Their informants are agents. In real life, James Bond would not be a secret agent. He would be an MI6 officer. Those whose knowledge comes from fiction frequently confuse the two. Nobody really working with the intelligence services would do so, as the Sunday Times source does. The story is a lie.
2) The argument that MI6 officers are at danger of being killed by the Russians or Chinese is a nonsense. No MI6 officer has been killed by the Russians or Chinese for 50 years. The worst that could happen is they would be sent home. Agents’ – generally local people, as opposed to MI6 officers – identities would not be revealed in the Snowden documents. Rule No.1 in both the CIA and MI6 is that agents’ identities are never, ever written down, neither their names nor a description that would allow them to be identified. I once got very, very severely carpeted for adding an agents’ name to my copy of an intelligence report in handwriting, suggesting he was a useless gossip and MI6 should not be wasting their money on bribing him. And that was in post communist Poland, not a high risk situation.
3) MI6 officers work under diplomatic cover 99% of the time. Their alias is as members of the British Embassy, or other diplomatic status mission. A portion are declared to the host country. The truth is that Embassies of different powers very quickly identify who are the spies in other missions. MI6 have huge dossiers on the members of the Russian security services – I have seen and handled them. The Russians have the same. In past mass expulsions, the British government has expelled 20 or 30 spies from the Russian Embassy in London. The Russians retaliated by expelling the same number of British diplomats from Moscow, all of whom were not spies! As a third of our “diplomats” in Russia are spies, this was not coincidence. This was deliberate to send the message that they knew precisely who the spies were, and they did not fear them.
4) This anti Snowden non-story – even the Sunday Times admits there is no evidence anybody has been harmed – is timed precisely to coincide with the government’s new Snooper’s Charter act, enabling the security services to access all our internet activity. Remember that GCHQ already has an archive of 800,000 perfectly innocent British people engaged in sex chats online.
5) The paper publishing the story is owned by Rupert Murdoch. It is sourced to the people who brought you the dossier on Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction, every single “fact” in which proved to be a fabrication. Why would you believe the liars now?
There you have five reasons the story is a lie.
Please communicate this challenge to the “journalist” of your choice.
How about this latest crackpot theory from one of Mr Goss’s “reliable” sources
http://dnr24.com/main/9901-vyyasnyaetsya-chto-sypali-v-maydannyy-chaek-v-kieve-moschnyy-amfetamin-kaptagon.html
The Arab Spring and the Ukrainian Maidan were all down to the CIA feeding the crowd with amphetamines!
a respected journalist (non-UK) comments on the Sunset Times Snowden story
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/best-of-business-analysis/news/article.cfm?c_id=1501241&objectid=11466033
an ambivalent Christian Science Monitor has an angle, trust no-one!
http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Security-Watch/Backchannels/2015/0615/Plenty-of-reason-to-doubt-all-involved-in-latest-Snowden-scoop-video
but did anyone catch Dame Helen Mirren reading ‘torture’
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2015/06/15/john-oliver-helen-mirren-report-cia-torture_n_7586336.html
and more on spies, not “Parashat Shelach”, but spies spying on spies. Spy vs. Spy.
it seems that whilst the NSA was spying on us, through their German partner the Bundesnachrichtendienst, someone at the Bundesnachrichtendienst realised that the list of selectors included key European economic & defence industry targets. The Bundesnachrichtendienst then reasonably started spying on the Bundesnachrichtendienst itself, in 2006! (according to Bild am Sonntag)
more on this story at http://www.thelocal.de/20150615/spy-chief-to-reorganize-out-of-control-offices
crackpot theories abound everywhere! who would have thunk that German spies would get out-of-control, no-one would feel responsible?
it would never happen in England, would it?
@RD The Arab Spring and the Ukrainian Maidan were all down to the CIA feeding the crowd with amphetamines!
Yes, hilarious! – but didn’t the embedded spies pay for the coaches to transport all the ‘spontaneous’ demonstrators to the central squares?
and RT was infiltrated, remember the ‘spontaneous’ resignations live “on-air”, a bit of perspective please, mister/madam diss
Here is another two reasons that the report could be true.
1. The knowhow for extracting information that the KGB had would not have been destroyed with the creation of the FSB. Russian Nationalism would now be the motive rather than Communism. Unless Edward Snowden was engaged in a disinformation operation (which the Chinese and Russians must have suspected, judging by their initial reluctance to deal with him) he would put himself in danger by walking into Russia.
2. Agents’ names have to be known by somebody at HQ, and dossiers compiled on them. Therefore I doubt that there is no record of them at all, even if only the most senior and trusted people would be allowed to know them.
correction: “Here are…”
“RT was infiltrated, remember the ‘spontaneous’ resignations live “on-air”,”
The phenomenom of the true believers attacking the apostates is I’m afraid all too common – see my previous comments on the Church of Assange.
Re Maidan – lets just say that it takes rather more than spontaneity or embedded spies to make so many people camp out for many months in Kyiv during the winter.
I found the spectacle of Lebedev defending Putin and the annexation of Crimea mildly entertaining. Especially in view of JG’s dismissal of the man.
http://www.standard.co.uk/comment/evgeny-lebedev-to-tackle-russia-we-have-first-to-understand-it-9176234.html
Looks like a general-issue RussNat to me – what’s the problem, John? Not a Sky Blues fan?
@RD “Even more NATO propaganda and distortion – clearly RT has also been infiltrated by the CIA!”
It seem you did not read the bulletin of Atomic scientists which I pointed out to you.
So there is no hope for a balanced argument. Also were you aware what happened
to the Nuclear weapons in Russia and Ukraine after the fall of the Soviet Union?
Because it does not look like it. What Russia is doing is modernising their system
which the US did a few years ago.
@RD ““RT was infiltrated, remember the ‘spontaneous’ resignations live “on-air”,”
RD to me it looks like you have been infiltrated have you ever come across MK Ultra?
Does Charles House 375 Kensington High street ring any bells with you?
Does Charles House 375 kensington High street ring any bells with you?
Gideon is taking PMQs today. Rehearsing for the time when Dave packs it in. The sound of his rather high pitched and strangulated voice irritates. So does the baying from the Tory ranks.
Angus Robertson was giving him a hard time on his support for the Iraq war and the Chilcot ‘delay’.
Medialens Editors on June 17, 2015
Latest Alert: ‘We Just Publish The Position Of The British Government’ – Edward Snowden, The Sunday Times And The Death Of Journalism
http://www.medialens.org/index.php/alerts/alert-archive/2015/794-we-just-publish-the-position-of-the-british-government-edward-snowden-the-sunday-times-and-the-death-of-journalism.html
Medialens take down is hilarious, Mary.
Yes indeed Ben. We are lucky to have David Edwards and David Cromwell, the two thoroughly decent men who set up Medialens. They provide a continuous record, in an easily available format, of the MSM’s lies, hyperbole and stooging on behalf of those in positions of power. They are brave to withstand the many attacks they receive for doing so and for pointing out injustices in the system.
Good to see you back here btw.
Good to see your spirit thrive, Mary. We miss you at Squonks. 🙂
How about the one liner from Martin Ivens of the Sunday Times in reply to a reader who quoted Craig’s piece in full to him?
Ivens Responds
http://members5.boardhost.com/medialens/msg/1434546931.html
~~~
So Ivens works for Murdoch and his wife, Anne McElvoy, works for Lebedev on the Standard!
She is frequently brought on to BBC TV and radio for her opinion.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Ivens
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_McElvoy
We have the ‘nasty party’ (the Tory party) and an even nastier press baron (Murdoch).
This is the latest from the latter’s UK organ. Thoroughly nasty stuff.
Aussies have the answer to Med migrant crisis
Roger Boyes
June 17 2015
Refugee camps, naval blockades and political guts have worked down under. We should try it
The Elvis Presley hit Return to Sender — “address unknown, no such number, no such zone” — pretty much describes the European Union’s unravelling migration policy. The refugees scooped out of the Mediterranean are making their way through Italy into France and Austria, and are promptly being dumped back on prime minister Matteo Renzi’s doorstep, like undelivered parcels. Italy is where they first made landfall and that, according to EU rules, is where they should stay until their status is sorted out…….(paywall)
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/opinion/columnists/article4471975.ece
Glad I cannot see the rest of it. He is talking about fellow men, women and children.
I see he joined the Times in 1981 which is when Murdoch acquired it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Boyes
Anyone else remember the assurances given when The Thunderer – voice of the establishment, sure, but practitioner of impartial and thorough journalism – was taken over by Murdoch?
Mr Murdoch will be expected to meet a number of conditions aimed at preserving the editorial integrity of the papers.
These include no restraints on freedom of expression and freedom from attachment to any political party.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/january/22/newsid_4312000/4312698.stm
Well, I suppose his dance between Blair and Cameron takes care of the second clause, but what about the first? And was he expected to be free from attachment to a MidEastern country? Hmmm…
http://medialens.org/index.php/alerts/alert-archive/alerts-2013/717-cartoon-politics-rupert-murdoch-the-pro-israel-lobby-and-israel-s-crimes.html
The Times and ST have made a loss continuously for the last 32 years, I gather. Well, there has to be something in it for the old bastard, doesn’t there?
“The Arab Spring and the Ukrainian Maidan were all down to the CIA feeding the crowd with amphetamines!”
__________________________
RD.
Although in this particular case it seems very unlikely,the CIA are not above suspicion.
A number of writers have claimed that the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is or has been involved in drug trafficking. Books on the subject that have received general notice include works by historian Alfred McCoy, English professor and poet Peter Dale Scott, and journalists Gary Webb and Alexander Cockburn.
These claims have led to investigations by the United States government, including hearings and reports by the United States House of Representatives, Senate, Department of Justice, and the CIA’s Office of the Inspector General. The subject remains a controversial one.
Mary
“Gideon is taking PMQs today. Rehearsing for the time when Dave packs it in. The sound of his rather high pitched and strangulated voice irritates.”
____________________
You’re really into voices, aren’t you.
I remember you had a go at Nick Robinson for his voice after his operation for cancer; I think you called him “Whispering Nick Robinson”.
Alpha ++ for empathy.
One week after being deported by force, nothing has been heard of Majid Ali, unless anybody else here is partial to private news.
http://www.independent.co.uk/student/news/majid-ali-glasgow-student-forcibly-deported-to-pakistan-feared-dead-10325123.html
The truth, Craig, as it is being played out in mastery of IT and communications circles and circuses today for better tomorrows ……
Deny such if you wish, but it does not alter the fact and virtualised reality and guaranteed certainty with present placements.
Deny such if you wish, but it does not alter the fact and virtualised reality and guaranteed certainty with present placements.
Thanks for that manfrommars, so how do you control those who do not use the internet, phone or virtualised BS channels?
What have these truth mongers to stop the written word, kill all that write or turn away from computers?
If control of the internet increases ever further, people will abandon this virtual reality dream, say good bye to spam emails, online chuggers and blogs.
Many of us still use cheques and pay in cash, which must be surprising to you.
Yes I am very aware of the sound of other people’s voices having lost my own in the thyroidectomy. OK?
Nothing to say about the heartless Times piece on refugees or the links on Ivens? No.
Tonight it looks like these three sisters and their children have been allowed to leave the country.
The BBC’s security correspondent Gordon Corera was weaving the default position for them tonight, putting out the speculation that these sister’ might have contacted police and ensured in conversation that they would only go to Jeddah.’
Now that scenario would have set all sorts of alarms off and the opposite would have happened, but it did not.
So, did the British police/gchq let these sisters go, with full knowledge of their goals, ffs they have been listening to the conversations with their brother, already in Dyria, a narrative they can control, a narrative that support the official agenda to eavesdrop on Muslims, and, take the focus away from other activities that are going on?
This so called kidnap of children could have easily been controlled by them, they had the handle on them first time they tried to leave, why were they allowed to leave second time round?.
Shit, I’m sounding almost like Trowbridge.
Syria, doohh, should put me glasses on.
I said he should have recuperated but no, he had to do his duty as he saw it and put his views out pre- and post- the general election.
Nick Robinson was scared by independence referendum attacks
By James Millar, 14 June 2015
http://www.sundaypost.com/news-views/uk/nick-robinson-was-scared-by-independence-referendum-attacks-1.883912
[..]
Robinson said: “I’m a kind of visual symbol of what those in favour of independence were trying to escape from. I’m a symbol of the British Broadcasting Corporation, of Westminster politics, to some extent of the political establishment.“
“Add to that it was a once in a generation choice about the future of the country and I really get it. But on another level it scared me rigid.”
He added: “I had this conversation with a lady in Largs when I was filming Alex Salmond.
“She said ‘For me independence is about blood and history. Blood,’ she said, ‘has always been spilled in the struggle for freedom’.
“Don’t get me wrong, I could meet thousands of SNP supporters who wouldn’t think that but it scared me that she even thought she could say it.
“I had to resist the temptation to explain my Jewish grandparents fled Nazi Germany in 1933 because of people who believed in blood and history.”’
[..]
‘It was revealed last week that Robinson’s lung cancer has proved “more aggressive” than previously feared and that he’s undergoing further treatment.’
I hope he survives his cancer as I have mine.
Mary, I didn’t know – good on you.