On Lord Malloch-Brown – David Habakkuk

Habakkuk

The reason why Mark Malloch Brown was made a life peer is, I think, likely to have been that in our system, it is necessary for ministers to be directly answerable to Parliament. In June 2007, when Gordon Brown succeeded Tony Blair as Prime Minister, Malloch Brown (no relation, obviously!) was appointed as Minister of State at the FCO, with responsibility for Africa, Asia and the United Nations. As he had extensive experience of all three areas, at first sight at least, there was nothing surprising, or reprehensible, in the new PM following a more ‘American’ model and having a minister, in an important portfolio, who had not been elected to the Commons. And installing Malloch Brown in the ‘Upper House’ would have been a perfectly natural and proper thing to do. A closer look at his ‘CV’, however, would have filled me foreboding, even had I read it outside of the context of ‘Russiagate.’ I have been attempting to assimilate the material in the piece which Matthew Ehret published on the ‘Strategic Culture Foundation’ site on 17 November, and follow up some of the leads there and elsewhere. (See https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2020/11/17/lord-malloch-brown-revealed-the-british-hand-behind-coup-shows-its-scales-again/ .)

There is a relevant contrast with the three figures I discussed in my previous comment. So, unlike them, Malloch Brown is a kind of ‘toff’ – although not really any kind of ‘standard issue’ British kind. According to ‘Wikipedia’, his father, an erstwhile South African diplomat, was in exile from his native country when his son was born, in London, in 1953. The relevance of the African background to his subsequent career looks as though it may be complex, and worth exploring. His education and early career, however, follow a familiar British pattern. After attending Marlborough, a famous ‘public school’ whose pupils have included the Duchess of Cambridge, Malloch Brown took a ‘First’ in history at Magdalene College, Cambridge, and then did a Masters in ‘Political Science’ at Michigan. Shortly afterwards, he became political correspondent of ‘The Economist.’ This was already a ‘red light’ for me, as that paper, and to a somewhat lesser extent the ‘Financial Times’, gave me something of a shock at the time of the retreat and collapse of Soviet power. People whose politics I had thought were not so far from my own – which in those days might have been loosely called ‘conservative liberal’ – suddenly revealed themselves as displaying a postively ‘neo-Bolshevik’ belief that simply toppling deeply unloveable ‘authoritarian’ systems would magically create some kind of ‘nirvana.’ Also, many such people have displayed – time and again – their inability to display any kind of ‘empathy’ – which may or may not mean imply ‘sympathy’ – for ‘deplorables’, be they in Russia, the United Kingdom, the United States, or wherever. In so doing, they have done nobody any favours, not even, looking longer term, themselves. I got censored by the ‘Financial Times’, I think it was before ‘Brexit’, when I suggested that contemporary Western élites made the pre-1789 French aristocracy look ‘ear to the ground’ and ‘in touch.’ If such people had not decided that they could safely ignore the discontents which to anyone who bothered to look had been visibly building for decades, then then there would not have been a ‘Brexit’, or indeed the election of Donald Trump. Looking at Maddoch Brown’s career after his initial stint at the ‘Economist’ aroused further suspicions. My current, very preliminary, ‘SWAG’ is that he may be a kind of British ‘Alden Pyle’ figure. Without wanting to express regret that none of the the inhabitants of the polities in whose murky political intrigues he became entangled have resorted to drastic methods to counter Malloch Brown’s activities, I think it quite possible that his career may illustrate ‘degenerative dynamics’ whose early stages Graham Greene’s novel charts.

The fact that such people characteristically become involved in intrigues too deep for them, in which they are liable to find that rather than being the ‘dog’ they are the ‘tail’, is liable to create very good ‘rational’ reasons for ‘cover-up.’ This reinforces the pressures towards acting with a complete lack of scruple, arising from their very limited understanding characteristic of how the ‘hoi polloi’, both in foreign societies and their own, think and act, and their consequent inability to cope with the ‘populist revolts’ which their own incomprehension fuels. (The appalling treatment of Lieutenant-General Flynn by a whole range of people, on both sides of the Atlantic, may I think have been eminently ‘rational’, from their point of view, seen against this background: he was simply too dangerous.) Moreover, once one has placed a great deal of faith in the use of ‘political technologies’ to influence voters, and one discovers that they are failing to deliver, it may not be so large a step to take to look for ways to exploit modern technologies to do, more effectively, what has been done by crude means at a local level for years. But, until I have a better grasp of the evidence relating to Dominion, Smartmatic, and Soros, I am not in a position to be clear as to quite how the suspicions which have been raised about the role of Malloch Brown in election manipulation, by Ehret and others, are justified.

Where a naive faith in the possibilities of technology ends, and the deliberate cynical exploitation of very real possibilities for corruption technological development can create begins, is often not easy to determine. There is one reservation I have about the Ehret article, which is related to the mixed feelings I have had, over the years, about much of the material produced by people associated with the late Lyndon LaRouche. They have been, in my view, absolutely right in seeing the interrelations between elements pursuing ‘covert’ strategies in the United Kingdom and United States as central to making sense of recent history. And I have found that the work they have produced has turned up a very great body of very valuable information – just as Ehret has done. However, the ‘narrative’ into which they ‘fit’ – sometimes one might indeed say ‘shoehorn’ – this evidence, in which innocent Americans are led astray by devious, Machiavellian ‘Brits’, very often, in my view, fails to justice to the complexities of the interactions involved. Over the past months, moreover, I have become increasingly concerned that this ‘narrative’ can be exploited by those individuals and groups in your country who have been most intimately involved in ‘The Plot Against the President’, to use Lee Smith’s title, to, in effect, get off ‘scot-free’: or at least, with no more than a ‘slap on the wrist.’ What Christopher Steele rather clearly suggested, in his responses to his cross-examination by Hugh Tomlinson, QC, on behalf of the Alfa ‘oligarchs’, back in March, was that his ‘co-conspirators’ were colluding to make him the ‘patsy’ in relation to ‘Russiagate.’ In my view, there would, in this, be a certain of ‘poetic justice.

It may very well be, however, that, on this point at least, Steele is, essentially, telling the truth. And if he is, then those who in one way or another give aid and comfort to the ‘patsy’ strategy may make it materially easier for a Biden Administration to obscure the collusion between people at the top of your law enforcement and intelligence apparatus and the Democratic leadership, which, in my view, is central to ‘Russiagate.’

This entry was posted in As The Borg Turns, Borg Wars, government, Politics. Bookmark the permalink.

15 Responses to On Lord Malloch-Brown – David Habakkuk

  1. Deap says:

    We had some local swells who were US citizens who bought the title along with some UK property, and loved being addressed as Lord and Lady XYZ. They did this because they were hanging out with someone who also claimed the title Baroness, in this little Southern California town.
    Other than the fact we don’t do royalty in the US, they were perfectly nice people who were generous to our community. And in return, we fluffed them with their chosen titles of address. Not unlike Leona Helmsly being called the Queen of Mean, or Valerie Jarrett being the Queen of the Night due to her night stalking the Obama WH.

  2. Diana L Croissant says:

    Thank you for this analysis. I feel your conclusion is right, but it makes me very sad because I think that it is very likely that the people who should be punished for this horrible episode will, indeed, get off with little in the way of punishment.
    That makes me very sad for people like Flynn, whose life was turned upside down and inside out. He may be vindicated but will never regain the months and years of his life that could have been if they had not been turned upside down by all those people who have no concern about right or wrong and who are concerned twith only their own goals, malignant ones usually.

  3. @ David Habakkuk
    I too though Ehret was somewhat over the top with his Privy-Council/Rhodes-Scholars machinery running the world through Americans too dumb to notice the wires. Therefore I didn’t bother to run the old eyballs down his pages but, if you think he gets some things right, I’ll pay more attention to his stuff.

  4. Keith Harbaugh says:

    Mr. Habakkuk, I wonder if you might be willing to tell us what you know, or can find out, about Mr. Nagi Khalid Idris and the London Centre of International Law Practice (in particular, its source of funding)..
    Both are of course connected with the George Papadopoulos affair — see his book “Deep State Target”.
    There is of course some information available about both on the internet, but it seems a little vague.
    Please pardon me if you have already discussed them here at SST; if so might you give a link?
    Thank you for your time.

  5. LondonBob says:

    Lyndon Larouche was from a French Quebec background, he makes a lot more sense when you understand that, hence his bizarre obsession with the British monarchy.

  6. El Sid says:

    @Patrick Armstrong
    I do agree that Ehret may overstress the Brit Empire vs Republic divide, but I tend to think that his position is to be taken more as a guideline for beginning sailors.
    The people he talks about do not think in terms of the Nation State, unlike the Hoi Polloi, but are, were and will ever be Globalists, gladly hopping back and forth across the Pond on their private jets. These aren’t Real People. They think of themselves as High Priests. And the Scum ain’t going to mess up their Great Reset.
    Hard to think that a Golden Golem billionaire would be on our side. But there you are.

  7. Harry says:

    I came across Malloch Brown a lot in a job I worked in Tribecca. It was in that job that I learned the value of Col Lang’s experience in the Middle East.
    The material we got from our UK sources, included material from Mr. Malloch_Brown when he was (from memory) the UK UN rep. He did his job quite dutifully, which at the time involved insisting that their were WMD in Iraq. Reading our materials made it clear that water carrying for Mr. Blair et al, was something he was constitutionally well suited for. No nausea at all, when distasteful tasks associated with clear mistruths needed to be undertaken.

  8. David Habakkuk says:

    Keith Harbaugh,
    This is a very important, and now I think unduly neglected subject. As you will no doubt know, Larry posted a – justifiably sceptical – discussion of the account of George Papadopolous’s role in the Mueller report back in April last year.
    (See https://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2019/04/muellers-lies-about-george-papadopolous-by-larry-c-johnson.html .)
    In recent months, I have not had time to follow claims, and counterclaims, about the activities of Joseph Mifsud as closely as I would have liked.
    However, my instinct would be that much of the account given by Stefan Roh, who has acted as lawyer and spokesman for the mysterious ‘Maltese professor’, in an interview with the Italian news agency ADNKronos a year ago, could be accurate.
    As regards the ‘London Centre for International Law Practice’, a good summary of the interview on the ‘maltatoday’ site, which links to the full text, explains:
    ‘“He was engaged in ‘missions’,” Roh says, specifically mentioning the British MI6 to which Roh claims Mifsud was directly linked through the London Center of International Law Practice, for which he worked. Roh claims the LCILP was “simply a cover for intelligence operations”, where both Mifsud was a once a board member, and Papadopoulos an LCILP director for energy issues.’
    (See https://www.maltatoday.com.mt/news/world/98582/joseph_mifsuds_lawyer_claims_russiagates_maltese_professor_was_western_spy .)
    This fits in with the ‘SWAG’ I had already formed about the ‘LCILP’, whcih was that it looked like a kind of ‘lawfare’ front organisation, in which it would be quite natural that energy geopolitics figured prominently.
    I may have overestimated the extent to which the ‘legalities’ were a central concern, rather than a ‘front.’
    Matters such as the Israel, Cyprus, Greece Italy pipeline project, with which Papadopoulos was involved, commonly involve a lot of legal issues. So such an organisation could both be genuinely concerned with these, and a means of pursuing other aspects of ‘missions’ with ‘plausible deniability.’
    And then, in September this year, we learnt that according to an FBI 302 of an interview with him, in early 2017 Mifsud essentially denied all the key claims made by Papadopoulos about the meeting in April 2016, and critically, the suggestion that he had said that the Russians had emails from the DNC.
    Also, apparently, Mifsud send a string of denials about his alleged Russian links in his emails from his account at Stirling University in Scotland.
    (Again, ‘maltatoday’ is useful, as is, on this matter, John Solomon’s site – see https://www.maltatoday.com.mt/news/world/104693/declassified_mifsud_interview_docs_weaken_fbi_claim_on_russian_dirt ; https://justthenews.com/accountability/russia-and-ukraine-scandals/feds-knew-early-2017-papadolous-claim-about-clinton )
    All this, obviously, adds to the reasons for a radical scepticism about the activities of Robert Mueller, as well as his claims to be anything other than a rascal, pure and simple.
    However, one is also left with a problem.
    Certainly, there is no reason simply to accept Mifsud’s denial of responsibility for the – critical – claim about the emails which was used to establish a patently bogus ‘predicate’ for the opening of the ‘Crossfire Hurricane’ investigation.
    But, while I am still confident that some kind of ‘set up’ was involved, which was central to the attempt to ‘frame’ Trump, can I any longer be sure that the account given by Papadopoulos, which suggests he was simply a somewhat naive young man, targeted by sinister ‘Machiavellians’, is ‘the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth’?
    Another fascinating subject are claims and counterclaims about Roh, and his ‘White Russian’ wife.
    I was particularly amused when ‘BuzzFeed’ revealed, in February 2019, that Roh had, in the wake of the poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal in Salisbury in March 2018, changed the name of one of his companies to ‘No Vichok.’
    (See https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/albertonardelli/stephan-roh-joseph-mifsud-novichok-companies-house .)
    Anyone who can simply accept the conventional Western ‘narrative’ about the use of ‘Novichok’ by the Russians, be it in the Salisbury incident or, even more, the poisoning of Navalny, is clearly either a fool, or a knave, and most probably both.
    A critical point, which any serious study of incidents like those in which something which could be called ‘Novichok’ was certainly in some way involved, is that what we are actually dealing with, very much of the time, are extremely complex intrigues, in which many of those involved may well have been playing ‘double games.’
    So, it seems to me eminently possible that Roh has indeed been involved with Russian intelligence agencies, in an operation which ‘targeted’ Mifsud – which could indeed have had some success.
    A common pattern I have observed over the years is one where accusations are made, by people involved with Western intelligence, and ‘law enforcement’, which are patently false, but reflect real suspicions about elements of those people’s activities, which those making the allegations are not in a position to acknowledge.
    In part because of the murky nature of these intrigues, I have moved increasingly towards the belief that it is unwise simply to accept claims made by anyone involved in any way in ‘Russiagate’ at face value.
    Unfortunately, not just those who have tried to defend the conventional ‘narrative’, but those concerned to attack it, commonly continue to display what seems to be an excessive willingness to base large conclusions on questionable evidence.
    An interesting example is provided by a discussion in July 2019 of the – extremely interesting – role of Oleg Deripaska in ‘Russiagate’ by Andrew McCarthy, in the ‘National Review.’
    (See https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/07/oleg-deripaska-fbi-russia-collusion-theory/ .)
    The article, which also drew upon the apparent suggestion by the State Department official Kathleen Kavalec that at their October 2016 meeting Christopher Steele had identified Putin’s ‘political technologist’ Vladimir Surkov and the former SVR director Vyacheslav Trubnikov as sources for the dossier published by ‘BuzzFeed’, concluded:
    ‘Deripaska, Surkov, and Trubnikov were not informing on the Kremlin. These are Putin’s guys. They were peddling what the Kremlin wanted the world to believe, and what the Kremlin shrewdly calculated would sow division in the American body politic. So, the question is: Did they find the perfect patsy in Christopher Steele?’
    As it happens, when Steele was cross-examined by Hugh Tomlinson, QC. on behalf of the Alfa ‘oligarchs’ in the High Court hearing in March, he specifically singled out the suggestion about Surkov as ‘bizarre in the extreme.’
    That indeed was precisely what had struck me forcibly, as it does not appear to have struck Andrew McCarthy, when I first read the Kavalec memorandum. However, I must admit that my scepticism at that time was not sufficient to make me consider the possibility which Steele was clearly suggesting in his responses to Tomlinson.
    Essentially, this was that his co-conspirators, including key figures not simply in the FBI and DoJ but the State Department, had been colluding, from early on, to fabricate ‘evidence’ to make him the ‘patsy’, and cover up their own guilt.
    While I would assume that Steele is an honest witness, any more than I would Stefan Roh, in both cases I think there are reasons for suspecting that, on the specific matters at hand, they are, as it were, at least giving us a glimpse of ‘skeletons’, whose weight is now such that desperate attempts are being made to keep them in their ‘cupboards.’
    Of course, once one contemplates such an hypothesis, a question arises as to whether those involved in the conspiracy against the Constitution of your country may not have found the ‘perfect patsy’, or rather ‘patsies’, in Andrew McCarthy, and his like.

  9. Escarlata says:

    David, excuse me, but, Putin´s former “political technologist”´s name is Vladislav ( Yurievich ), I fear, may be you would want to correct the typo, as your work is always so thorough and precise?
    Wondering whether you could deconstruct so throroughly Keir Starmer, one day of these..I would be interested…

  10. Mr_Mayhem says:

    Nobody at this level of intelligence can deny what LaRouche was pointing to. The historically parasitical finance crowd surrounding the British crown.
    And during the Trump presidency we see a plethora of their octopus suction cups reaching in to manipulate things at every major scandal.
    Why did the head MI6 head guy resign shortly after his private 1 on 1 with John Brennan, just before RussiaGate broke? Inquiring minds want to know.
    It’s like how Sydney Powell characterized the election fraud, it was so big nobody would dare touch it. I fear many patriotic counters ntelligence guys fall into the same trap, the British Empire is so big, nobody dares to touch it. At least LaRouche cracked open the issue of ideologically-driven western money power centers, as both the main historical issue and the main current issue. You can not discuss geopolitics without taking that network into account, because if it’s weight.
    Look at the MI5 and MI6 headquarters buildings, and try to tell me the Brits are a side-show with a straight face, ha.

  11. David Habakkuk says:

    Mr_Mayhem,
    ‘Why did the head MI6 head guy resign shortly after his private 1 on 1 with John Brennan, just before RussiaGate broke? Inquiring minds want to know.’
    Actually, the ‘MI6 head guy’, Sir Alex Younger, did not resign. He stayed in the position to 2020, as any ‘inquiring mind’ capable of doing a quick ‘Google check’ would know.
    It was the Director of GCHQ, Sir Robert Hannigan, who resigned on 23 January 2017 – just under a fortnight after the publication of the dossier attributed to the former head of the MI6 Russia Desk, Christopher Steele, who was shortly after named as its author.
    As to why Hannigan resigned, ‘inquiry minds’ – it takes about five minutes with ‘Google’, if one is not utterly stupid – are well aware that, in February 2019, it was reported that the reason was that he had given a character reference to Father Edmund Higgins – a paedophile priest who was a family friend, who then reoffended.
    (See https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/feb/24/ex-gchq-head-robert-hannigan-quit-paedophile-priest-edmund-higgins-reference .)
    As it happens, Hannigan’s career in intelligence derived from the – apparently very successful – support he gave to Tony Blair in handling the problems of Northern Ireland, as a result of which he appears to have become a kind of Blairite ‘trusty’, and then to have been found a ‘safe pair of hands’ by subsequent Prime Ministers.
    All kinds of figures have accepted this account of why Hannigan left – including, for example, Lee Smith, a key conduit for Devin Nunes, both of whom have been among the most important figures attempting to expose ‘Russiagate.’
    (See https://twitter.com/LeeSmithDC/status/1290417335367589888 .)
    My own view is that they are probably wrong, and Hannigan’s unfortunate mishap with the old family friend has come in very handy in covering up the ‘bulldogs under the carpet’ struggles that were going on over here after Trump’s election.
    But, although I am reasonably confident of this, the evidence is not adequate to make a categorical judgement.
    It is, in my view, difficult enough to counter the arguments of those who dismiss serious investigators into ‘Russiagate’ as ‘conspiracy theorists’, without people who have not bothered to do basic fact-checking making allegations that deserve to be so dismissed.
    And, incidentally, given that he a ‘cradle Catholic’, like Cherie Blair, who is Liverpool Irish – her husband is a Catholic convert – the whole social milieu from which Hannigan comes is totally remote from that of the British royal family.
    But then – perhaps your incompetence is only ‘feigned’, and you are really a ‘troll.’

  12. David Habakkuk says:

    Escarlata,
    As an old ‘sub-editor’, I have time again run up against the problem that one commonly leaves sloppy errors in one’s own work, which one would pick up immediately if one was dealing with someone else’s.
    In addition to my giving the wrong name to Vladislav Yuryevich Surkov – I hope I have got it right this time – I also left out a rather crucial ‘not.’
    My penultimate paragraph should have read:
    ‘While I would assume that Steele is an honest witness, any more than I would Stefan Roh, in both cases I think there are reasons for suspecting that, on the specific matters at hand, they are, as it were, at least giving us a glimpse of “skeletons”, whose weight is now such that desperate attempts are being made to keep them in their “cupboards.”’
    In general if I were to ask the time of day of Christopher Steele, or indeed Sir Richard Dearlove or Sir John Scarlett (or indeed Sir Alex Younger), I would want at least three ‘independent witnesses’ before I believed them.
    The point I wanted to make,however,was that, despite this, a lot of what the supposed author of the dossier published by ‘BuzzFeed’ told Hugh Tomlinson, QC back in March could well have been true.
    (Meanwhile, it is now my view that a deft exploitation of Sir Robert Hannigan’s understandable but ultimately misguided loyalty to a family friend, from the same religious and ethnic background, may, as I implied in my previous comment, have been part of these ‘desperate attempts.’)
    As to Keir Starmer, the history is much too complex to deal with adequately here.
    In my – very common – more cynical moments, I am inclined to think that a key part of the history of ‘New Labour’ was written by William Shakespeare, in the speech of ‘Philip the Bastard’ on ‘commodity’ at the end of Act II, Scene 1, of ‘King John.’
    Among other things, the speech provides a cynical self-description, by an ‘outsider’ turned ‘insider’, who is however much more self-aware than most of the ‘New Labour’ people are.
    (See https://www.opensourceshakespeare.org/views/plays/play_view.php?WorkID=kingjohn&Act=2&Scene=1&Scope=scene&LineHighlight=794 .)
    Actually, while I am unenthusiastic about Starmer, I would not be excessively cynical about him.
    The rather extraordinary decision of his parents to name their son for Keir Hardie, the Scottish trade unionist and politician who was a founder of the Labour Party and its first Parliamentary leader, indicates that he is the kind of figure for whom his background in the ‘Labour movement’ is likely to remain central to his identity.
    However, he has clearly not, as Jeremy Corbyn did, remained faithful to the traditional ‘nostrums’ of the Labour ‘left’ which Blair and his associates were desperate to shed, partly as the result of their desperate desire to become ‘electable’, but also out of a kind of ‘born again’ conversion to ‘neoliberalism’ and ‘neoconservatism’.
    A particularly interesting question then becomes the whole question of the embrace of ‘human rights’ in the contemporary West, and the central involvement in this, in Britain, of lawyers involved in one way or another with the Labour Party.
    So, among those who in 2000 founded ‘Matrix Chambers’, which has been much concerned with ‘human rights’, were Cherie Blair and Ken – now Lord Ken – Macdonald, who as a result of this connection became Director of Public Prosecutions in 2003.
    In this position he was succeeded, in November 2008, by Starmer, who was, and I think remains, a member of ‘Doughty Street Chambers’, which has a similar orientation. He held the position until November 2013.
    Some important and inadequately explored problems both for Macdonald and Starmer relate to the likelihood that, like Robert Hannigan, if in a rather different way, they became involved in events running out control, necessitating ‘cover-ups.’
    Again, the history is too complex to go into adequately here.
    However, in the light of the rather good reasons there are to suspect that Christopher Steele may actually be right in suggesting that his ‘co-conspirators’ in ‘Russiagate’ have been trying to make him the ‘patsy’ to cover up their own guilt, it becomes interesting to look back at some of the events in which Macdonald, and Starmer, have been involved.
    Of particular interest is the press conference which Andrei Lugovoi and Dmitri Kovtun gave on 31 May 2007, in which they responded to the request for the extradition of the former which Ken Macdonald had submitted, shortly before.
    This was a classic instance where a competent analyst is cautious about prejudging the question of who is, or is not, telling the truth: or, one might often more aptly say, what ‘cocktail’ of truth and falsehood they are being served, by whom.
    Looking back, in the light of what I have learned subsequently, I think the whole point of the way Lugovoi handled the press conference related to his conviction that an attempt was under way to make him the ‘patsy.’
    The ‘hidden history’, in Lugovoi’s mind, I now think, was that Christopher Steele, and his associates, on both sides of the Atlantic, had actually turned Ken Macdonald into a conduit for a kind of ‘covert offer.’
    According to this, if the British side focused on portraying Lugovoi as a ‘lone James Bond’ assassin’, rather than portraying him as an instrument of the FSB and Putin, the other side would leave the links between Litvinenko, and Berezovsky, out of the picture.
    What I also now think is that Lugovoi thought that the calculation behind this – which could conceivably have been that on the basis of which Macdonald’s visible unease about the actual evidence supposed to incriminate Lugovoi was overcome – could well have been right.
    A central point about his conduct of the press conference was that it was specifically designed to foreclose any possibility of the kind of ‘covert collusion’ which he was suggesting was a real possibility, by placing the links of Litvinenko, and Berezovsky, to MI6 centre stage.
    As you can perhaps see, this reading of the available evidence makes me regard recent events with a certain ‘wry amusement’, one might say.
    If indeed there is a conspiracy, among his ‘co-conspirators’, to make Steele ‘the patsy’, one might say there could perhaps be a certain ‘poetic justice.’
    The element of comedy, meanwhile, would be increased by the fact that some of the ‘co-conspirators’ at issue are highly likely to have been involved, up to the hilt, in the attempts at ‘régime change’ in which Steele was collaborating with Berezovsky, Khodorkovsky, et al.
    The element of comedy, meanwhile, is further increased by the fact that, in the case brought by the Alfa ‘oligarchs’, which was heard before Mr Justice Warby in March, counsel for both sides came from ‘Matrix Chambers.’
    There appears to be almost zilch interest, on either side of ‘the Pond’, in exploring the very interesting questions that are raised.

  13. DG says:

    David H missed out on some direct witness anecdotes of MB as a Minister at the FO by the ex Ambassador Craig Murray, written a decade ago.
    https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2010/11/the_stew_of_cor/
    Which reveals the thuggish nature of the hired gun of corporatists who stole an African nations telecoms industry for a corporate which wasn’t even British against the better interests of Ghana.
    MB is more monkey than organ grinder.

  14. Escarlata says:

    David Habakkuk,
    Thanks, David, for the explanation and taking so well my suggestion of correcting that name, which, as you can test, I have also written incorrectly, as I have no idea of Russian language, except for the names which sound already familiar to me out of reading here and there in the net about geopolitics. Although I memorize these names of the most known people around Putin, never know where to place either latin i of greek y, I just interchange them in the name/surname.
    I love Russia, you know,m and one of my dreams is travelling in the Transiberian.
    Although I have not followed Russiagate so thoroughly as you and others here have done, and thus somehow I find myself sometimes lost amongst the ammount of data and depth of intrigue, I read your work as an Agatha Christie´s or Hercules Poirot´s one… very, very interested, and find always new personages aout whom to research.
    That happened to me with Mr.Trebnikov, whom I had never heard of so far, and who is currently, I learn, a deputy Foreign Minister of the Russian Federation, long career his.
    Then, in this response of yours, I learn about this John Scarlett of whom I have never heard either…I promise I have not connection with this man, my grandpa he is not, not going to happen someone to relate me to him by my nick name. I take the opportunity to clarify.
    On Keir Starmer, I doubt that the fact that his parents would choose an unionist´s name to name him does imply he is, or will be a commited labour leader.
    In fact. David, although I am aware you are a conservative person, do not you find that once one have acceded to certain privileges, it is difficult for a leader to indetificate himslef with the masses, whom any party which makes itself be called labour should be a representative of?
    Then it is the issue with Jeremy Corbyn´s expulsion on anti-semitic claims, which seems your typical alibi today in Europe when you have nothing more agsint someone yo uwant to displace from wherever, even from life on Earth..
    P.S: Excuse my bad English, David, I do as much as I can.
    You seem that kind of person with whom you get an appointment to take some tea or coffee to treat some issue, and then you end having luchm and even dinner, as the conversation extends…I find you super interesting to talk with…
    Do you have grandchildren? If that is so, they are fortunate, as you must tell incredible spionage stories, most entertaining.
    Un saludo, David, gracias por su tiempo y trabajo.
    Thanks for the Shakesperian reference too. Go to read.

  15. David Habakkuk says:

    DG,
    Thanks for that reference.
    It may be appropriate to link to a piece of mine here on ‘SST’, published two years before Murray’s, which discusses a subject touched on in his piece: the 1985 ‘Al Yamamah’ contract.
    (See https://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2008/05/habakkuk-on-bae.html .)
    The difference between Murray’s analysis and mine illustrates, rather well, the point I was making about my ambivalence about the LaRouche people.
    They focused, consistently, on that contract.
    And, on key points, they were right.
    The articles in the ‘Guardian’ on which I think Murray is relying in his account of how the prosecution of BAE was stopped, by Blair, ‘in the national interest’ were, in my view, a classic product of the art of the ‘limited hangout.’
    So, the focus was entirely on the ‘commercial corruption’ angle.
    The story that really mattered, which the ‘Guardian’ people entirely missed, was that the contract was a means of funding ‘covert operations.’
    One of the points of my piece was that it was critical to try to understand the complexities of the relationships involved, and in particular the links between the Saudis and key figures in both the U.S.and U.K.
    These, I thought, their ideological biases made the LaRouche people misread. However. they were chasing the ‘story’ that really mattered. And Murray, like the ‘Guardian’ people, totally missed it.
    This matters all the more, because of the rather fundamental questions raised by the ‘LaRouche’ account of Al Yamamah.
    So, in 1985, when the contract was signed, everybody who mattered in the U.S. or U.K. was anticipating that the Cold War would, as it were, go on ‘until further notice.’ They did not expect it to end, and, to be blunt, most of them did not actually want it to end.
    A key question becomes: what happened to the ‘slush funds’ which were created through the contract, after Gorbachev decided to liquidate the whole of his country’s Cold War strategy?
    And, in particular, how might an accurate understanding of this history impact on an understanding what happened, both before, and after, ‘New Labour’ took power in 1997?
    In my view, Murray is an honest and extremely courageous man.
    However, in common with other ’leftists’, the story he wants to tell is another variant of the ‘commercial corruption’ story which the ‘Guardian’ accepted, hook, line and sinker.
    As I am not a ‘leftist’, and think the real world is more complex that can be accommodated in a view where ‘plutocrats’ victimise ‘ordinary people’, I think it would have been more help if, like me, Murray had paid heed to ‘conspiracy theorists’ working for LaRouche.
    Who, in these matters, is ‘monkey’, and who ‘organ grinder’, is commonly much less clear than people want to believe.
    We are dealing with systems, in which the interactions of different individuals and groups are critical – as also, the curious interactions between different bodies of ideas.
    In such situations, the notion that one can identify a single individual, or group, who is somehow ‘in control’ of the processes involved is commonly a delusion.

Comments are closed.