Big Game in Africa . . .

FABIUS MAXIMUS and The Tom's Dispatch gang can get a little hysterical, but it's a look at what Uncle Sugar thinks is necessary to be attended to in Africa, and is worthy of your attention. 

Is it possible that the U.S. military is present in more countries and more places now than at the height of the Cold War? It’s true that the U.S. is reducing its forces and giant bases in Europe and that its troops are out of Iraq (except for that huge, militarized embassy in Baghdad). On the other hand, there’s that massive ground, air, and naval build-up in the Persian Gulf, the Obama administration’s widely publicized “pivot” to Asia (including troops and ships), those new drone bases in the eastern Indian Ocean region, some movement back into Latin America (including a new base in Chile), and don’t forget Africa, where less than a decade ago, the U.S. had almost no military presence at all. Now, as TomDispatch Associate Editor Nick Turse writes in the latest in his “changing face of empire” series, U.S. special operations forces, regular troops, private contractors, and drones are spreading across the continent with remarkable (if little noticed) rapidity.

China has been courting various African regimes for over a couple of decades, now, and as a result, essentially, Kipling's Great Game continues with US and China replacing Russia and England, with Africa as the object of desire replacing central Asia. It's so new and improved, some pundits are calling it The New Great Game. I wonder what the MI6 Africa budget is? And India's RAW (CIA) is probably to be found all along the east coast as well as the Pakistani Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence and the Iranian MISIRI, and of course, Mossad, as African wealth is gazed upon by the covetous, and concerned governments get involved. Maybe Stevie will have CSIS try to set up a spy network?

When everyone is dead, the Great Game is finished. Not before.

—Rudyard Kipling, Kim

"If we hadn't a thorough understanding, I (British lion) might almost be tempted to ask what you (Russian bear) are doing there with our little playfellow (Persian cat)."

Historical perspective . . .

80 YEARS AGO, HANS THILO-SCHMIDT needed money to keep his love-nest going. Seeing as Hans was working at the German Armed Forces' cryptographic headquarters, the Cipher Office, he had some secrets to sell. The German army and navy had adopted an improved Enigma cipher machine after the revelation that the US and the British had broken German codes in WW1.

So in 1932, Hans approached the French, and Captain Gustave Bertrand of French Intelligence seized the opportunity — to no avail, initially. The French looked at the Enigma manual and daily code key, and pronounced it unsolvable, as did the English. Things might have died right there, but Capt. Bertrand approached the Polish secret service's cipher office, who eagerly accepted the gift.

He furnished Gustave Bertrand of the French Intelligence service a booklet detailing the Enigma machine setup procedures. There was no mention of the rotor wiring or information on the keys. In fact, it was more than a booklet but seven documents with two important ones: User Manual for Enigma and Enciphering Procedure for Enigma with drawings and pictures . The French puzzled over this information, then consulted with the British, who agreed that it was insufficient to be of any practical use. No one knows why the this valuable information was rejected. Bertrand then offered it to Lt Col Langer, head of the cipher office in Poland who was overjoyed upon receiving even this small crumb. Rejewski (one of the three mathematics experts) asked Bertrand if he could obtain some outdated Enigma keys. The Frenchman relayed this request to Schmidt who readily obliged, and the keys were passed back to Poland.

With keys given them by the French, and using replica machines they had built, the Polish team of Marian Rejewski, Jerzy Rózycki and Henryk Zygalski were able to decode most German messages.

And then the Germans introduced an expanded Enigma rotor set, just before the outbreak of WW2. Adding 2 more rotors to the 3 already used, plus the addition of the plugboard meant that the solution of these new Enigma ciphers got vastly bigger, too big for the Poles to tackle. The Poles could see war approaching, so they passed their latest findings over to the British as Warsaw got pounded.

This time, the British got with the program, Bletchley Park came to be, and the Americans got up to speed with the new electro-mechanical tabulating machines, with National Cash Register supplying the machines that broke the most stubborn of all Enigma traffic, the German Kriegsmarine.  This left Bletchley to tackle other Nazi ciphers, including the Offizier cipher and the Lorenz cipher in which Hitler corresponded with his generals.

Out of this effort, Alan Turing invented the first programmable electronic computer, Colossus. From these beginnings, a new digital world appeared.

Colossus Mk 2

So, from the wellspring of venality and greed, the source of change. Historians have said that the Ultra effort shortened the war by two years, maybe more. Certainly the Enigma decrypts resulted in the defeat of the U-boat campaign, with the withdrawal of the wolfpacks by mid 1943.

But Ultra actually accomplished more than the mainstream historians would suggest. IMHO, without Ultra, the chances are very good that Russia would have collapsed in 1942-1943. Why? Because Stalin had purged the Red Army officer corps and the NKVD, and the survivors were easy pickings for the German veterans.

But the British did not share any details about Ultra with the Russians, except to give general warnings. It was the efforts of the Cambridge Five that got the decrypts to Moscow Center.  Kim Philby (cryptonym: Stanley), Donald Duart Maclean (cryptonym: Homer), Guy Burgess (cryptonym: Hicks) and Anthony Blunt (cryptonym: Johnson) and John Cairncross (cryptonym: Liszt) were ideological spies, who believed that Socialism was the future, in spite of Stalin. Their efforts, as recounted by one of their major "handlers", Yuri Modin, in his book, "My Five Cambridge Friends" were tireless in their efforts to pass along the Bletchley decrypts.

From their efforts, the Russians had the Wehrmacht "order of battle", the disposition and organization of Wehrmacht units, as well as Luftwaffe disposition. This last was extremely critical, as the Soviet air power was able to destroy a lot of Luftwaffe aircraft before the battle of Kursk, and the Luftwaffe was never able to catch up.

Without the chain of events unfolding as they did, the chances were very good that Russia could have collapsed, the US and the UK would have had to agree to an armistice with Nazi Germany that might have survived in some fashion until the US could have started irradiating German cities with A-bombs in 1946.

From chaos, venality and patriotism, we get to today. Everything has changed, and nothing has changed: we have Wikileaks, Bradley Manning and OWS, Occupy Wall Street.

It may be delusional, but I like to believe that more and more people are taking their freedom more seriously. Today's fascists have eschewed the funky Nazi uniforms for Armani suits, Rolexes and Porsche Designer Sunglasses, but like the fascists of old, the ruthlessness remains — only this time the ruthlessness is hidden in the smoke and mirrors of "patriotism". Meanwhile, the true patriots, the Bradley Mannings of this world keep appearing, to try to make things right and the eternal battle against fascism continues.

The mullahs are mad . . .

THE MAD MULLAHS OF QOM: Barney Henderson at The Telegraph reports in "Iranian soldier captured in Afghanistan" that

A member of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard has been captured supplying weapons to the Taliban in Afghanistan for attacks on British and American troops.

It is the first reported instance of the capture of an al-Quds officer in Afghanistan.

But the hits just keep on comin' — these psychopaths have been sending weapons to Nigeria, according to The Telegraph's article, "Nigeria charges Iranian over arms cache". Check out the dude's picture, definitely a player of hardball.

A court in Nigeria on Thursday charged an alleged member of Iran's Revolutionary Guards and three Nigerians over a shipment of mortars and rockets seized in the main port of Lagos last month.

The Intelligence Olympics

From my cherished friend, Helmut, with thanks —

I heard it first from a Jordanian and spread it to the IDF DMI and the Egyptians. When I told it in Syria I said it was about the Mossad.

Long ago and Far Away ----

The Olympic Committee decided to hold a special series of games to know which was the world's best inelligence service.

A lot of countries sent teams often from both their military and "civilian" services. Each team was composed of a captain and two sergeants. They all assembled on the island of Cyprus (no idea why). There were various events and they eventually came to the ultimate and most heavily weighted event which was to be a kind of treasure hunt.

They all went up into the mountains in the western part of the island where there are a series of parallel ridges covered in pines and separated by deep terrain compartments. They assembled in front of a wood line. In front of the teams there were several UN referees in white coveralls with blue helmets and a stack of cages in each of which there was a white rabbit. The head UN boffin held up a rabbit and said that it would be released into the woods behind him and that after 15 minutes the first team chosen at random would go in after it. The team that came back with a live rabbit in the shortest time would win the event.

The rabbit went in. 15 minutes passed and the KGB team went in after it. They could be heard thrashing about and eventually emerged with the rabbit in 35 minutes.

The next team was the French DGSE. They came back with the rabbit in 10 minutes. (The rabbit looked strangely content).

Next was the turn of the Mossad. They were back in in 13 minutes loudly proclaiming that they were "the best."

The CIA never found the rabbit.

Finally, it was the turn of the Syrian Mukhabarat (the secret police). A half hour passed, 45 minutes, then an hour. The UN people went in to find them. They went down one steep slope into the valley bottom, then up another rugged incline to the top of the ridge. From the height, they could see the three Syrians who were at the bottom standing in a sandy road. They had captured a large animal. The UN men crept down, hiding the while in the bushes until they were close enough to see and hear.

The Syrians had found a Nazarene donkey. (The kind with a cross marked in the fur of its back). One of the Sergeants had a grip on the head while the other sergeant beat the beast's hindquarters with a stick.

The captain was whispering to it, "Confess, confess, we KNOW you are a rabbit..."

Holiday Reading

LOYOLA COLLEGE has a great website called Strategic Intelligence. It is a compendium of links to just about every place of importance in the world of spooks.


One of the links is to the CIA, and its publication, Studies in Intelligence. Many interesting articles and book reviews.


Another link from the Loyola site is to The Canadian Intelligence Resource Centre, a private site run by an enterprising chap, Jérôme Mellon.