In preparing to meet [British Prime Minister
John] Major in spring 1993, [President] Clinton aides
joked, "Don´t forget to say ´special relationship´
when the press comes in." "Oh yes," Clinton
said. "How could I forget? The special
relationship!" He then threw his head back
and laughed.
-- B.J.C. McKercher, Britain, America and
the Special Relationship since 1941 --
To those who say you can´t get any younger, we respond:
Don´t bet on it.
* * *
Learn something?
Finally?
We are talking to you, Alex Younger, Director of MI6, the British Secret Intelligence Service. Your employees, too -- all of them.
The Manchester terrorist attack on May 22, 2017, killed 23 people and wounded 119. For reports on the barnstorming ineptness of the British Government in the handling of the Manchester murderers, click here. In a word: you had him; you let him go. We explain below why, like your American colleagues, you can´t spot a terrorist sitting two feet in front of you.
I note in passing, MI6, your inability to judge people is not limited to terrorists; it extends to your own employees, e.g., the pedofile MI6 Deputy Director, Sir Peter Hayman.
American security agencies added insult to injury. They revealed secret information in the media about the main Manchester terrorist -- information which you, MI6, had furnished them in good faith. Their premature release damaged your country´s investigation.
"The British police have been very clear that they want to control the flow of information in order to protect operational integrity, the element of surprise,” Home Secretary Amber Rudd said Wednesday. “So it is irritating if it gets released from other sources, and I have been very clear with our friends that should not happen again.”...
“You know you are trading the additional resources [the Americans] bring for a chance of increased leaks,” a Belgian counterterrorism official told BuzzFeed News. “In this case, I suspect the Brits are livid—I know we would be—to have a suspect ID'd before they’re ready, and obviously the recent performance of the Trump administration on leaking sensitive information can't be far from anyone’s mind if they examine [the situation].”
You. MI6, are now pissing and moaning about the American intelligence community´s betrayal. You are right to do so. As always, they missed a magnificent opportunity to shut up.
Only, the fault is not theirs. Harder, Faster, Louder, Dumber: they are simply pursuing values which are not yours.
The sacrosanct American doctrine Me First sums up those values. Hot dogger cowboys is a given, MI6. That is why in the end, the person at fault is not them but you. You and you alone are responsible.
In order for what you are about to read to make sense, you need to know what you -- the FBI, CIA, Pentagon, White House too -- do not know:
Who ISIS is. Why ISIS does what it does.
The millennium 2000 terrorists´ strategy is as old as the hills. If you read a book now and then, MI6, you would have seen it; it has been around for over 50 years ago. We presented it in our post of October 6, 2014 "The ISIS Crisis: Abraham Lincoln´s Solution."
In a word, ISIS´ extreme brutality gives their game away:
Hanna Arendt in The Origins of Totalitarianism discussed how totalitarian movements like ISIS don´t stand a chance of taking power unless the general public is first convinced that its rulers are fools, tools, and, worst of all, hypocrites. ISIS´ trademark of extreme violence is both cause and effect of that convincing process.
Here is how Arendt connected the dots (note: given her context, I would qualify her term bourgeoisie with Occidental):
"Since the bourgeoisie claimed to be the guardian of Western traditions and confounded all moral issues by parading publicly virtues which it not only did not possess in private and business life, but actually held in contempt, it seemed revolutionary to admit cruelty, disregard of human values, and general amorality, because this at least destroyed the duplicity upon which the existing society seemed to rest. What a temptation to flaunt extreme attitudes in the hypocritical twilight of double moral standards, to wear publicly the mask of cruelty if everybody was patently inconsiderate and pretended to be gentle, to parade wickedness in a world, not of wickedness, but of meanness!" (p. 335)
ISIS does not have the power to beat the West. However, nobody lacks the power to defeat himself. It is that power which ISIS is using. MI6, by your displays of weakness and incompetence, you are playing ISIS´ game.
Fools, tools... ISIS looks at you and laughs.
The British public, too. It did so in its own way -- two election "surprises" in 2016-17. Behind them lurks the truth about the current status of British authority in general and you in particular, MI6:
No pride, no shame.
* * *
That worst part of it is, MI6, you can´t say nobody warned you.
This blog did exactly that on more than one occasion.
(1) Go back to August 23, 2014, and our post "James Foley and Jihadi John: Time/Time/Time." Your stumbling and fumbling were on full display, MI6, in your handling of the Jihadi John case.
The terrorists sat up, took notice:
The media are now reporting that an international hunt is on to identify Jihadi John. British intelligence is focusing on the speech accent in the video, which seems to be from East London or southern England...
We thought you were wasting precious time focusing on Jihadi John´s accent; you obviously know little or nothing about that subject. We will show why shortly.
We wrote that ISIS might have been playing you for sucker-chumps.
We also wrote how to identify Jihadi John -- and quickly:
I spent a year in London, 1990-1. Such a marvelous time -- which is why it pains me to tell British intelligence something, but it appears somebody had better do it. United Kingdom regional accents can be faked. You don´t believe it? First, look here. Next, look there. Still not convinced? O.K. -- look here ...
We want to help SIS (MI6), the British secret service, track him down. We have a terrorist I.D. procedure that is not based on accents...
Step 1. MI6, I know that throughout the Foley affair you will be your usual courteous, chivalrous selves in your treatment of American colleagues, i.e., all those CIA, Secret Service, and FBI agents; all those Pentagon, National Security Agency, and Homeland Security personnel; all those various and sundry Washington consultants and Ivy League advisors who are flooding you with emails and Skype calls, and jumping on overnight flights and landing on your doorstep. After all, they only want to "help" you identify Jihadi John.
MI6, I think you will discover sooner rather than later that the bright-eyed and bushy-tailed newcomers are not, to put it mildly, strategic thinkers. When all is said and done -- and it will be -- when it comes to terrorists, they have precious little to offer.
Here´s why:
As you may already suspect, your American colleagues are wonderful time-wasters. They are loaded with data beamed down from wonderful, billion-dollar, whiz-bang vehicles in outer space. 100 million telephone conversations bugged and 100 million emails tapped = ... what? They hopelessly confuse information with understanding; quantity with quality; collecting with doing; technospeak with knowledge. They never have made any difference between them, and never will. Please, don´t try to change them. Time/Time/Time.
A good pat on the back and hearty cheerio -- then, out the door.
Step 2. Jihadi John has the indelible watermark of a middle class rebel turned terrorist. I realize those words are probably meaningless to you, MI6; I won´t attempt to explain them here. If you are truly interested in understanding ISIS, instead of a 100 million emails read The Source of Terrorism: Middle Class Rebellion. You will see why the queue of Jihadi Johns is long and getting longer.
Step 3. Here I quote from our post of April 29, 2013 on the Boston terrorist attack by the Tsarnaev brothers:
Our Terrorist I.D. Procedure:
1. Take out a telephone book.
2. Open it to universities and colleges.
3. Call their engineering schools.
4. Acquire lists of their present and past students and professors.
Before continuing: why engineering schools?
Mark Sageman, formerly a C.I.A. psychiatrist, concluded from his first-hand study of terrorists: "Very often these persons have already chosen such unambiguous technical fields as engineering, architecture, computer science, or medicine. Students of the humanities and social sciences were few and far between in my sample." (Marc Sageman, Understanding Terrorist Networks, University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 2004, p. 116. Cited in The Source of Terrorism, p. 295). For the record, Dr. Sageman also concluded that terrorists were "generally middle-class, educated young men." (Op.cit., p. 96.)
5. Tamerlan [Tzarnaev] was a former engineering student. Dkhokhar [Tzarnaev] was a marine biology student. In this case, the FBI had photos of the suspects. The fact the FBI released the photos to the media showed it had zero leads regarding who the suspects were and hoped the general public would help. Tragically, the publication of the photos tipped off the brothers that the noose was tightening; their spree of violence ensued.
The FBI should have withheld the photos and showed them only to engineering school personnel. They would have identified and located the Tsarnaevs within hours.
6. If engineering schools do not provide leads, proceed to other hard science faculties, e.g., medicine, computer science [sic] and architecture, thereafter to all other faculties associated with middle class professions.
7. If universities and colleges provide no leads, shake the tree. Open the phone book again. Bring in all middle class professionals, e.g., engineers, lawyers, doctors and accountants, for interrogation. Somebody will know something...
MI6: it is entirely possible, as some argue, that Jihadi John is a lumpenproletariat, i.e., a petty criminal. The Source of Terrorism discusses how extreme violence (ISIS´ trademark) results whenever lumpens hook up with middle class rebels. I think the lumpen option for Jihadi John is less likely than the one I am suggesting.
Your diligent inquiries into hard science students, teachers, technicians and professionals will doubtlessly turn up some missing persons. Where are they? The answer will lead you straight to Jihadi John within weeks.
Perhaps days."
Today, three years later, everybody knows who Jihadi John was -- Mohammed Emwazi, a little boy lost, saccharine son, a computer expert who graduated from London´s University of Westminster, who as a child was picked on by boys and girls alike. Had you followed our procedure, MI6, you would have identified him inside of a week. But you did not listen. Instead, you chose to deal with time-wasters from Brooklyn and operators from the Bronx.
The Manchester murders were only the latest in a series of tragedies that were the consequence of your slab-dab work. Actually, they were not tragedies; they were catastrophes.
Jihadi John kept on decapitating Western hostages. Watching the horrific display -- totally unnecessary -- week after week, we decided to continue our attack.
(2) Our post of September 12, 2014, "ISIS: Winston Churchill Speaks" tore apart the British definition of terrorist. The issue is by no means purely academic, MI6; your inability to come up with a halfway suitable definition showed that when it comes to terrorism, you, like your American colleagues, literally and figuratively don´t know what you are talking about. We think we know why; more on this subject in a moment.
Our September post underlined old themes and presented new ones:
On August 24, the Sunday Times told us that the British Secret Intelligence Service SIS (MI5 and MI6) had "identified the British fighter suspected of murdering the American journalist James Foley, senior government sources confirmed last night." No positive identification of Jihadi John, however, was forthcoming from the government.
Two weeks later, on September 8, RT News reiterated the official line:
"British and American authorities say they know the identity of the Islamic State (IS) hostage executioner ´Jihadi John,´ and are poised to reveal who he is within days, the Mirror reports....
A US intelligence source told the Mirror that the identity of the executioners would most likely be revealed officially within the coming days ´and it is only a matter of time before we bring him in.´....
Sources revealed to the Mirror that an elite FBI team flew into Britain last month. The FBI team is now closing in on 12 suspects in the UK, who are believed to have provided money, contacts, and helped Jihadi John travel to Syria. Among them are several suspects from the West Midlands who are already known to UK security services.
A US source told the Mirror: ´It has been a co-ordinated effort to track down the support network around the British Islamic State executioner. Our inquiries have given us leads across the country.´
´We are 99.9 percent certain now as to who ‘John’ is but investigators have had to tread softly in charting and approaching his wider network in the UK.´"
99.9 percent? Most likely? Within the coming days? Closing in on? What do those statements mean? A little bit pregnant? A mediocre helicopter pilot? A sometimes friendly tiger?
It turns out the Mirror report referred to above was published on September 5; therefore, we are already looking at old news. SIS, the coming days you bragged about in the Mirror are still coming and coming -- and going, along with your credibility.
Don´t look now, SIS, but you may be upstaged by American hotdoggers. According to a report filed September 9, "U.S. law enforcement officials believe they may have identified the masked man seen in the ISIS video of the killing of American journalist James Foley, two U.S. officials told CNN." Like it or not, the race is on. No guts, no glory ...
There are many ways to identify a terrorist. However, some are more effective and efficient than others. Tragically, with all the coming days that keep on coming, it is becoming clearer which ways SIS is using.
British and American intelligence agencies, if you truly know who Jihadi John is, you should reveal his identity immediately.
(i) By your inquiries and your pursuit of leads across the country, the terrorist accomplices of Jihadi John already know you are in hot pursuit. Forget tread softly; there is no longer any strategic reason to withhold his identity from the public.
(ii) By publicly naming Jihadi John, the information about him and his network -- hence, about ISIS -- you are receiving will expand a hundred-fold. Make that a thousand.
Sidebar: I find it incredible that you refuse to publicly identify Jihadi John, yet publicly announce that the FBI is on the verge of rounding up 12 suspects. Could it be that after all this time you still don´t have a clue who Jihadi John is and are hoping to get one by provoking panic, hence mistakes, among his accomplices?
One if by land, two if by sea. Any Jihadi terrorist in the United Kingdom who knows his trade prepares several escape routes from police dragnets such as the FBI´s. He will be half way around the world by now.
(iii) As mentioned, SIS and CIA, your delay in tearing the mask off Jihadi John is making you lose precious credibility. We need to expand on this subject ...
As I write these words, 1:00 p.m. September 12, British and American governments still have not publicly identified Jihadi John. Their delay is bringing to light two serious flaws in the anti-ISIS fight.
(i) The delay suggests that SIS fell into the trap we warned about in our post of August 23, 2014, "James Foley and Jihadi John. Time/Time/Time."
SIS accepted the "help" of the CIA, FBI, and NSA; of Beltway bandits -- legions of Virginia lawyers and lobbyists and Maryland terrorism "advisors" and "consultants;" of Harvard professors; of various and sundry D.C. operators with political experience (read: flotsam-jetsam of failed election campaigns); of Pentagon understudies; of bright-eyed and bushy-tailed White House and Democrat Party B-squadders with connections; of computer "system engineer" hustlers and hangers-on; of listening to --- or worse yet, purchasing -- up-to-the-minute audio-visual equipment with pretty bar graphs and pie charts, lights, bells -- "ding-dong," etc.; of spending hundreds of thousands of man-hours pouring over NSA and CIA data beamed down from outer space that truly answer all questions -- except the ones you ask.
We will say it again: all those wonderful time-wasters. All those non-strategic thinkers.
SIS, here comes a sentence that has never been said before in Western civilization. You don´t have to use something simply because it cost a lot of money. No need either, to fly overstuffed people with overstuffed expense accounts across the Atlantic. As we showed in our posts on James Foley and on the Boston Marathon terrorist attack, the identification of Jihadi John is a telephone book away.
Is he an engineer? M.D.? Lab technician? Computer expert? [sic] ...
SIS, again, I don´t like to tell you this, but somebody must. A full public identification of Jihadi John would have, could have, should have been made weeks ago. His accomplices would have been arrested by now and told you more than you expected, wanted or needed to know.
In the ensuing weeks Jihadi John strutted his stuff on the world stage with apparent impunity from the world's superpowers. The decapitations of Westerners, the slaughter of innocent civilians went ahead full-speed.
We decided to keep the heat on British and American intelligence agencies. The English in particular were coming off as professional amateurs. No pride; no shame.
(3) Our post of October 6, 2014 "The ISIS Crisis: Abraham Lincoln´s Solution":
Clumsy and naive CIA and FBI agents are found around the world. As for British Intelligence (SIS), it may be getting sucked into the D.C. ignorance vortex.
Case in point: Jihadi John, the masked terrorist who appeared in the ISIS beheading videos of James Foley, Steven Sotfloff, David Haines, and, a few days ago, Alan Henning.
Let´s go back to August 24. British Ambassador to the United States Peter Westmacott declared his government was on the verge of identifying Jihadi John: "We´re not far away from that."
Really? Let´s see.
Talk about action -- the very same day, a Sunday Times (London) headline trumpeted "Beheader Jihadi John Identified." Gotcha -- Abdel-Majed Abdel Bary, a 23-year-old rapper. Or so "senior government sources" led us to believe. Or did they? If you read the article you will see Abdel Bary was only a "key suspect," thus, no real positive ID had been made. The headline lied.
From there the stumbling and fumbling went from bad to worse.
It turns out the "very sophisticated voice recognition technology" Westmacott touted was sophisticated in its root sense -- not knowledgeable or experienced in the ways of the world, but as in sophistry, i.e., arguments that sound right but are wrong. For starters, Abdel Bary was the wrong guy.
Back to square one.
Two weeks later, on September 8, we were informed that American and British authorities were going to reveal Jihadi John´s identity within days. Prosperity is just around the corner.
Ready; set; ... no go. A mysterious silence fell. All quiet on the western front. On the eastern front too, for that matter.
When the silence broke a week later, things got curiouser and curiouser:
On September 16 a report claimed that SIS knew Jihadi John´s identity. No problem -- he had "worked as a street collector for Arab charities around London" before he went to Syria a year ago. SIS had covered Jihadi John but considered him a low risk.
On September 25, fully a month after the Westmacott statement, we got lights, camera,...action? FBI chief James Comey stepped up to the microphone and announced his agency had identified Jihadi John, but for undisclosed reasons would not publicly disclose his name.
Comey refused to say if the FBI had shared Jihadi John´s identity with the SIS. We doubt it, for the following reason:
Only two days before Comey¨s announcement, the British Foreign Secretary Peter Hammond literally warmed up Westmacott´s month-old statement, viz., his government was "getting warm" on Jihadi John´s identity. We couple Hammond´s statement with Comey´s announcement that the FBI had established Jihadi John´s identity with the help of unidentified international partners, and...wait a second...All this doesn´t add up.
Is the FBI lying -- in truth has it failed to identify Jihadi John and Comey´s announcement is meant to detour the press and public away from asking about him? Or is the FBI telling the truth -- in which case it didn´t share the identity with its British partner who admitted it was only "warmer"?
The disturbing possibilities don´t end there. Are the British lying? Did the FBI in fact share the identity with them? Or have the British known from the start who Jihadi John is but did not share it with the FBI? Or are the British telling the truth -- they are only "warmer" because they were left out in the cold by the FBI?
Which box do you want to check?
We then directly challenged MI6 to do the responsible thing to protect its citizens: go its separate way. Be independent of the U.S.; stop being a tool. Jihadi John was a British citizen. When you let a foreign power identify your citizens for you, your status as a sovereign nation is dubious. Terrorists, among others, did not fail to spot your weakness, confusion.
Close. Warmer: SIS, what explains your hesitancy in identifying Jihadi John?
I suspect you looked around at your CIA and FBI colleagues, threw up your hands, and concluded that in the land of the blind the one-eyed man had better keep his mouth shut.
When it comes to ISIS, however, with thousands of people being slaughtered, truth and necessity coincide.
Britain, don´t get blindsided in the Jihadi John affair; don´t get sucked into the D.C. incompetence vortex ...
That is not to say the United Kingdom can do nothing -- on the contrary. Regarding Comey and his refusal to identify publicly Jihadi John, the SIS can decide [to] ... take the advice of boxing coaches with sixth grade educations:
Don´t wait on him. Get off first.
(4) No pride; no shame. Nothing was happening to counter Jihadi John who kept on braying and crowing, whose prestige was mounting.
Our post of November 28, 2014 "(1) Peter Kassig and Beyond: New Perspectives" encouraged MI6 to seize the initiative. We issued this challenge to them:
Forget MI6. We took our case to any British journalism class to "get the scoop of the year, maybe of the decade; to build their careers ..." All they had to do was use our telephone-book, terrorist identification procedure mentioned above to identify Jihadi John.
Instead, exactly like MI6, the students sat on their hands. That explains why today their hands are super-charged, chapped, burned, tired from making french fries at MacDonald´s.
(5) Our post of December 12, 2014 "(2) Peter Kassig and Beyond: New Perspectives" pointed out more of the on-going bungling by MI6 and the FBI:
The Daily Mirror´s headline of November 29:
"Jihadi John´s British terror ring smashed as cops uncover a network stretching across the U.K."
Before continuing, the Mirror -- self-described "brightest tabloid newspaper" -- is not the most reliable source of information. The Mirror has been caught on various occasions running incorrect stories; equally true, it published apologies ...
Aware there could be a credibility problem, I scoured the Internet without success for a denial, official or otherwise, of the items in the Mirror report you are about to see. Until a denial appears, they stand.
That report contains two narratives:
(a) "Last month [September 25] the FBI confirmed they knew Jihadi John’s true identity but details have deliberately not been made public while intelligence officers continue to monitor the movements and electronic communication of his alleged helpers."
You just saw the FBI´s explanation of why it has not revealed Jihadi John´s identity: it does not want to alert his accomplices whom it wants to monitor. We will return to this theme.
(b) "Crucial clues have been provided by US analysts who have used advanced facial recognition technology to literally unmask the killer [Jihadi John].
Using only the man’s eyes — the only part of his face left uncovered in the video – they have pieced together a photofit style picture of what they say lies underneath the mask.
The forensic officials created two versions of the likeness: one clean shaven and another with a mustache.
The US source said: ´High-tech imaging techniques have been used, but it is still only a very good guess at what the killer could look like.´"
The Mirror says the US analysts and forensic officials who prepared the photofit image worked with the US Government. Similarly, ABC reported the facial recognition experts worked "in consultation with" the U.S. Government.
Did you spot it? If the two media are right, there is a potential conflict between narratives (a) and (b).
If (a) is true -- the FBI has identified Jihadi John -- then (b) is now beside the point. FBI, if you know who he is, there is no need for advanced facial recognition technology to unmask him. To see what Jihadi John looks like, pick up the phone and call his mother. You will get baby pictures, school photos, wish-you-were-here vacation images, selfies.
We noted parenthetically in that post that anybody who has taken an art class (I did) knows the idea of constructing an entire face based only on the eyes is completely absurd, bonkers. Some smooth-talking salesmen conned the FBI out of who knows how many megabucks for "face-recognition technology." MI6, you stood by in silence as the entire ridiculous affair dragged on.
No pride; no shame. Weak little sister was rapidly becoming weak little sister lost. The result was if you were real quiet, you could hear knives coming out.
ISIS knives.
(5) Our post of December 29, 2014 "(3) A New Perspective on Terrorism" showed MI6 had dropped off the radar; we did not bother to mention them by name. Who needs you? "Mad Magazine" presciently asked over 50 years ago. That question surrounds weak little sisters lost; it´s part of the role they are assigned.
Our post dealt with the growing lack of public confidence in the FBI and by inference MI6. The hypothesis was gaining currency that the inability to name Jihadi John was planned, deliberate. We were looking at a full-blown conspiracy theory:
Jihadi John provides a vital service to America. As did Osama bin Laden before him, Jihadi John is the iconic terrorist who ignites Western hatred and legitimizes American military presence in the Middle East. The clarion call goes out from the American press and populace: Get him! God damn it -- GET HIM!!!
And so, as a useful dupe, if Jihadi John is not directly financed by Washington, he is at least left alone to tease and torment. In either case, the last thing Washington wants is to GET HIM!!!
We think there is significant, indirect merit in the position that Washington is aiding and abetting Jihadi John -- indirect in that its meaning is not literal but figurative. As figurative as Jihadi John himself.
Our last post denounced the FBI´s current policy, i.e., the agency says it knows who Jihadi John is but refuses to publicly name him. Assuming the FBI is not lying, in terms of strategy and tactics the FBI´s position is complete nonsense. To tear off Jihadi John´s mask would instantly strip him of his mystique. He would become what he was before he joined ISIS: Wally or Billy, son of the saccharine couple two doors down -- the boy the other boys used to beat up in the bathroom between classes.
On the other hand, if you need somebody to hate ... I will add parenthetically that if you need somebody to hate, you had better figure out why you need him; you are in dire trouble.
(6) Our post of March 23, 2016 "Jihadi John: The Seal Is Broken" reported the punch delivered by Washington to Britain. The Washington Post -- that is to say, the United States -- not England -- identified Jihadi John as Mohammed Emwasi. MI6, you waited on Washington; the hotdoggers got off first. K.O., down and out; the referee didn´t need to finish the count. Upstaged.
No guts; no glory.
We gave in a straightforward manner our policy:
Our purpose was not to humiliate the FBI but to challenge them. I mention humiliation because it was indeed an issue: with every passing day, the FBI and other anti-ISIS forces were losing credibility; to the contrary, Jihadi John was gaining in stature. Urgency was in the air; lives were at stake -- that is why we badgered, pestered, defied, needled, prodded and goaded the FBI to change course and do literally the unthinkable: break the omertà, the seal of silence.
What was happening was straightforward:
(i) By wearing a mask, Jihadi John was keeping his identity secret.
(ii) The FBI was keeping Jihadi John´s identity secret.
(iii) By guarding the seal of silence, the FBI was playing Jihadi John´s game. Our basic position:
"Assuming the FBI is not lying [about knowing Jihadi John´s identity], in terms of strategy and tactics the FBI´s position is complete nonsense. To tear off Jihadi John´s mask would instantly strip him of his mystique. He would become what he was before he joined ISIS: Wally or Billy, son of the saccharine couple two doors down -- the boy the other boys used to beat up in the bathroom between classes.
On the other hand, if you need somebody to hate ... I will add parenthetically that if you need somebody to hate, you had better figure out why you need him; you are in dire trouble."
Did James Comey, FBI Director, take heed and break the omertà that was hiding -- assisting -- Jihadi John? ...
True to form, when his mask came off, Jihadi John deflated faster than the Wizard of Oz could say "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain." Jihadi John was finally revealed to be just ... little "John" -- the shy kid the other boys, girls too, bullied.
How did we get it right? Dear reader, you can do it. What you need is a sensitivity to a syndrome -- the syndrome of middle class rebellion, the source of terrorism.
That simple but complex, mundane reality makes all the more astonishing another reality which I will present as a question:
What took the FBI five months to see what was two feet in front of it?
We alluded above to the answer. Middle class ideological assumptions and tenets which dominate thinking in Western governments, media and universities, must be dethroned before new and practical insights into the most deadly phenomenon of our times can be presented and examined on a large scale, much less implemented. The reason: the prevailing conceptual framework that purports to analyze the problem is part of the problem.
The issue is by no means purely academic. As long as middle class ideology reigns and is allowed to impose powerful taboos -- notably silence -- anti-terrorist forces will play over and over again into the terrorists´ hands. He who controls the rules of the game wins the game. Nowhere was Washington´s lack of understanding of that reality more blatant than in its mishandling of Jihadi John.
We come to the punch line, MI6, of why you are so grossly incompetent. Ultimately, it is the same ultimate reason why the CIA, FBI, NSA and White House don´t know a terrorist two feet in front of them. We referred to it above:
Unconsciously -- not consciously -- you identify with the terrorists. The essential ingredient you share: you and they are both middle class. I know that conclusion is completely nonsensical to you -- which only shows that an ideology, not you, is in control. The defining point of any ideology is that it does not permit its basic tenets, assumptions, suppositions to be questioned. The ideology that becomes fully conscious is the ideology that dies.
Our March post directly addressed Jihadi John:
You don´t have much to say; you never did. Your cellmates are speaking on your behalf -- the ones in the U.S. and Europe who are hunting you.
Cellmates because you and they are prisoners of one and the same ideology. How could it be otherwise when you come from the same social and economic milieu, the middle class?
Oh, I already know, Jihadi John, you will proclaim and defame to the stars above that you and Washington/London are diametrically opposed. For their part, they will say exactly the same thing.
We will agree with both of you.
You are indeed poles apart -- and that is precisely the problem.
Our post of December 29, 2014:
"The middle class spectrum is not straight. It bends in the form of a horse shoe. The opposite ends -- the Babbitts and the possessed, the Chamber of Commerce mainstreeters and Jihadi Johns -- are closer than you ever imagined; sometimes, they touch."
We went on to spell out the rules of the game. To see what they are, MI6, read the post.
Of course, we already know you won´t read it. The truth is, you couldn´t even if you wanted to: big strong brother in D.C. won´t let you. And so, the fatal question: What do we need you for?
All of which confirms, MI6 and Director Younger, what we have been saying all along about you.
No pride; no shame.