Remember General Jack D Ripper, the loony American military leader who starts World War III, in Stanley Kubrick’s hilariously scary movie about the outbreak of nuclear conflict between the US and the Soviet Union?

In a macabre and chilling example of life imitating art, America is now led by a man who almost makes General Ripper appear rational and sane and who has pushed the world noticeably closer to a nuclear catastrophe with an untutored choice of words.

The task of removing Donald Trump from the White House has never been more necessary or urgent than now.

As I write this, America’s cable news channels are broadcasting stories assessing the rival military resources of the US and N. Korea should it come to a nuclear exchange. The horrifically abnormal suddenly becomes normal.

I was going to end by saying ‘enjoy this clip’, but somehow that seems to be in bad taste:

Responding to sabre-rattling from N. Korea’s tinpot dictator, the leader of the free world replied in kind:

‘They will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen,” Trump told reporters.

Maybe it’s time to ask Sean Garland to take a trip to Pyongyang to explain to his old buddy’s son that the guy they are dealing with thinks he’s hosting a TV reality show and is actually capable of totally losing it. So maybe it’s time to cool it. Go Sean!

I recently came across a clip on Facebook of RTE television news’ coverage of the count in the Cavan-Monaghan constituency in the 1981 Irish general election, one of two seats won by protesting/hunger striking republican prisoners, and the memories came flooding back – and they weren’t all happy ones.

You can watch the clip here and it is fascinating not just to see such a young Vincent Browne in action, but to observe how out of touch the Irish journalistic elite was with the attitudes of so many ordinary Irish people towards the republican hunger strike in the H Blocks, then in its fourth month and fourth death.

To give him his due, while Browne had completely missed the story and had not at all expected the H Block candidates to do so well – hunger striker Kieran Doherty won a seat in Cavan-Monaghan while Paddy Agnew won in Louth (now Gerry Adams’ seat) – he did realise that something akin to a political earthquake had just shaken the Irish political system.

My own admittedly small role in the coverage of the Cavan-Monaghan count was one of those occasions when I gained a valuable insight – or perhaps confirmation is a better word – of how malformed Irish journalism had become thanks to the Northern Troubles.

In June 1981, I had taken over as stand-in Northern Editor of The Irish Times from David McKittrick, who had moved to the London office, but my family was still in Dublin where we had moved when I was first hired by the Times. So I was commuting, mostly at the weekends, between Belfast and Dublin.

The news-desk in D’Olier Street knew this and asked if I would mind stopping off to cover the count in Cavan-Monaghan. I happily agreed and made my way to, I think it was Monaghan town for the tally. Irish election counts are always entertaining affairs and this one had the added spice of a Provo prisoner challenging the establishment. So I was looking forward to the spectacle.

Before I set off, I got hold of the election notebook for Cavan-Monaghan to familiarise myself with the various candidates. The Times published notebooks for every constituency in the run up to polling day and while often less than inspiring pieces of literature, these articles were nonetheless an invaluable who’s who guide to the contest.

But when I read the Cavan-Monaghan article there was scarcely a mention of the H Blocks candidate. Fianna Fail and Fine Gael were all over the page; this was a Border constituency and the parties who had fought out the civil war had dominated politics in the area ever since. So it was Fine Gael this, and Fianna Fail that, but virtually no mention of Kieran Doherty or the National H Blocks committee running his campaign.

So I set off, thinking that despite the evident outpouring of support for the H Blocks campaign in Nationalist areas of the North, it looked as if the prisoners would be out of luck on the other side of the Border.

And then I crossed the Border into Monaghan and drove from there to Cavan and back again.

Virtually every crossroads I passed was festooned with black flags and banners urging a vote for Doherty, and between crossroads black flags fluttered from telephone poles and lamp-posts.

It was obvious that a massive machine had been mobilised behind the H Blocks campaign and that if so many people were willing to hoist the thousands of flags and banners that I had seen, then it was very likely that an awful lot of people in Cavan-Monaghan would likely vote for Kieran Doherty.

So when, later that evening, the IRA prisoner, who would die less than two months later, ran second to Fianna Fail minister, John Wilson by 300 or so votes, I was not at all surprised.

But establishment Ireland was. In fact it was shocked to learn that their own people were ready to vote for people like Doherty and Agnew.

Nowhere was this shock more pronounced that in Dublin journalism. Not only had the Irish Times’ profiler of Cavan-Monaghan managed not to see the hosts of black flags and banners that had greeted me, but even someone like Vincent Browne, a guy who I had always regarded as one of most shrewd reporters in the business, had missed the story.

So why? Well there’s no doubt there was a Dublin-centric influence at work which translated into journalists reflecting the views and attitudes of the politicians and power-brokers they covered day and daily, and as far as the republican hunger strike went, there was no-one in the Irish establishment who wished it well or would want to read such stuff as they cracked open their breakfast boiled egg.

We saw something similar happening in the US last November with Donald Trump’s election, the shock of which was magnified by the fact that so many in the mainstream, Washington-centred media – the so-called beltway media – had completely missed seeing it come.

But in Cavan-Monaghan all those many years ago, how could the media have missed that multitude of black flags, except that they chose not to see them for fear that to draw attention to them might also draw an unwelcome scrutiny of themselves?

In the twisted world of Irish journalism then, and now, to tell it as it was is far too often not regarded as good, healthy objective, fact-based journalism but as an expression of individual bias or wishful thinking.

I suspect this has always been a feature of Irish society – and perhaps of the human condition – but it got appreciably worse in the years after 1981, when Sinn Fein mounted an increasingly effective electoral challenge to a terrified political establishment. And it has continued, perhaps even intensified, during the years of the peace process. Ironically, Sinn Fein was the victim of one but the beneficiary of the other.

It was during these years, years when truth-telling was not always a healthy pastime for a journalist, that I peddled my trade on a daily or weekly basis, and more than once my mind went back to that count in Cavan-Monaghan and the lesson I had learned from the crossroads I had driven through.

You will know, I am sure, the fable of the King’s new clothes which ends with a boy stepping from the crowd to tell the truth: ‘the King is naked’. In the Irish version of the story, the crowd turns on the boy and tears him to pieces.

Kate Nash explains that anger at attempts to include members of the British security forces in an exhibit commemorating those killed during the Troubles in the city is roiling the Museum of Free Derry:

You don’t really expect your own to put the knife in and when it does happen it’s one of the worst experiences that life can bring.

The most incredible feeling of hurt and betrayal descends and is so very hard to shake . Of course I certainly don’t expect everyone to agree with my view of things but neither should others demand my loyalty for their narrative.

I can’t remember the exact date but certainly over two years ago there was a public meeting called by some people I know who had an objection to the museum’s new expansion plans.

The new design would have obscured the Civil Rights mural created by the Bogside Artists. The Bloody Sunday Trust were invited along to give their view because it’s they who actually run the Museum.

During the meeting it transpired that apparently there was a Memorial garden to be added to the new design and this was to remember Soldiers as well as civilians.

There was visible upset from many of those present who thought this a horrendous idea. I remember hearing that and feeling shocked. I turned around to look at the manager of the museum and he said to me “not Paras”.

He said that it was just an idea they had . It was admitted and then denied practically in the same breath.

The representatives from the Trust left soon afterwards. The people of the Bogside had made their feelings clear about this idea! However we did check building plans at that time and the Memorial Garden was definitely to be included.

Obviously though the plans did change but of course they came up with a different justification to include Security forces, complying, I believe, with criteria required for funding.

In May of this year I received many messages from people complaining about the new Digital Display the Museum had put up. Many Derry folk who had lost family members just didn’t think this Memorial was appropriate.

I contacted Raymond McCartney of Sinn Fein who told me he would take it to a meeting of the Bloody Sunday Trust; he’s on the board. He was very vague about when the next meeting was. I also left a private message on the Museum’s page on Facebook. ‘I never got a reply’.

I also contacted Brian Tierney of the SDLP who sits on their Board and talked to him. No help there either.

So I started to collect the signatures of people who objected to this use of the Peoples Museum. The Chairman and Museum staff have defended this display saying that it is simply recording history, that it is not a commemoration but a chronological list.

I do not agree with what the Museum of Free Derry is calling a list; harmless enough you would think, but when that list combines the names of British Soldiers and UDR with innocent victims killed by the State then that list is very much more.

Add to that photographs, a short biography of each person, and in the case of a photograph not being available, a cross inserted.

Clearly not a list but a Commemoration!! It goes much further when the Museum hosting this so called list is situated at a place in the Bogside where 14 innocent people, most of them very young. were slaughtered by the infamous Paras on Bloody Sunday!!

Many more died at other times including a number of children near that very same place!!

Nobody ever asked me what I might think about this display; had I been consulted I would very likely have expressed anger at the very suggestion. Where in the world would you see such an outrage? Perpetrators equivocated with their victims.

The Bloody Sunday Trust say that this display has been in the museum for 10 years without even one complaint, although it has been seen by thousands. What they are failing to mention is that what they are referring to was text in a computer as for instance in the book Lost Lives; that certainly would be a list! 

But the display at the centre of controversy is a projection playing onto a white wall a series of photographs of people who lost their lives between 1969-1972 each image will last about 12 seconds. There are 53 in all.

We went to the local people with a petition and asked for their support to get this display taken down. In only 7 hours we had a 1000 signatures. We presented those to the manager of the museum but his response was sarcastic: “I can bring more here right now than your number”, was his reply

There were five of us from the Bloody Sunday families and one woman who also wanted her fifteen-year old Brother removed from the Commemoration.

At that moment I was consumed with a desire to deliver a right hook straight to the nose of this manager but somehow I managed to keep my cool. The outcome of our persistence was a concession by the Museum to consult widely, as they put it, but then ‘widely’ became just the families of the fifty-three people on the display: families to be asked if they agree or disagree with the display.

That was only a few weeks ago; to date apparently not very many families have returned these surveys. They have promised some people privately that this display would be taken down after the official opening on the 15th of June , a date that Sinn Fein have immortalised because of its significance in the Bloody Sunday story as the day that British premier David Cameron apologised for the massacre.

That was the day we, the families, were meant to accept that as justice and walk away.

However given the fact that the museum is a Sinn Fein business and given their  belief that they can act with impunity, I suspect we may well have to go to the people again!!!!

Just look at what they are asking for a run-down bungalow in Cork!

From The Irish Times today, what €150,000.00 can buy you in France, Cork, Italy, Florida and Portugal:

France: Poitou-Charentes

Original features abound in this stone maison de maître, built in the 19th-century with an early 20th-century extension. Proportions are good with high ceilings, tall windows and thick walls while period elements include decorative plasterwork, wood panelling, marble fireplaces plus wood and tiled floors including classic tomettes – or hexagonal tiles – which are in the opened-out living space comprising kitchen and sitting room. Angoulême is 40 minutes away and Limoges is an hour’s drive. There is a south-facing garden at the back and another garden to the side plus two barns and a cottage.
Price: €172,800
Agent: frenchestateagents.com

Ireland: Cork

Frank V Murphy and Company is looking for €175,000 for this Three-bedroom bungalow, The Thames, Camden Road in Crosshaven.
Price: €175,000
Agent: info@frankvmurphy.ie

Italy: Molise

Close to the Adriatic (26km away), on Italy’s east side, this three-storey, 300sq m house is in the village of San Felice del Molise. The house is habitable if you don’t mind a basic rustic way of life but someone’s started building work which needs finishing (unless you want to shut the door on it for a while). There are three bedrooms on the first floor and a reception with balcony and views of the Molise hills. The second floor has rooms ripe for conversion. There’s a garden.
Price: €175,000
Agent: immobiliarecaserio.com

US: Florida

Less than 10 minutes from Disney World, in Orlando, this three-bedroom house is in an estate of 184 homes. The houses in West Lucaya Village Resort (which also has four-bed residences) have the tick-box elements of taste, from stainless steel appliances to granite worktops. There is a lot of happy and healthy holiday fun on site including a swimming pool, Jacuzzi, gym and games room as well as serious stuff such as the business centre.
Price: $204,000 (about €175,115)
Agent: Propertywebwise. com

Portugal: East Algarve

In a hamlet five minutes outside the village of Alcoutim on the Guadiana river, this three-bedroom, 120sq m house has a garden flush with fruit from grape vines to orange, lemon, pear, banana and apple trees. The house is 30 minutes from the coast and has its own swimming pool. There’s a large covered terrace with summer kitchen. Heating is aided by two solar panels and the house has its own bore hole. There’s a garage.
Price: €175,000
Agent: Estealgarve.net

What do you call it when two or more spies, all working for the same government, now or in the past, can’t agree about what another, hostile government’s spies are up to? How about the Central Intelligence Agency?

The more enthusiastic followers of this blog will recall that it was only a few days ago that I drew their attention to an interesting op-ed in The New York Times, written by a former CIA station chief, suggesting that the Russian overtures to team Trump during last year’s election campaign were meant to be discovered so that the US political system might be plunged into division, doubt and rancour.

Written by Daniel Hoffman, I have to say that the article rang bells with me, since I had been struck by the sheer amateurishness of the approach made to the Trump campaign. Hardly has the ink dried on that article when along come two of Mr Hoffman’s former colleagues, both ex-Russian hands, to say, ‘Hang on a minute, we think it was more complex than that’.

The two are John Sipher, a former east Europe CIA station chief, who runs a fascinating spy blog called, inevitably, The Cipher Brief, and Steve Hall, the former head of the CIA’s Russian operations.

I hesitate to intervene in a family quarrel here but is it possible that these otherwise healthy, entertaining and stimulating disputations among spies may provide an answer to that intriguing but too often disregarded question about the CIA’s record since the beginning of the Second World War: why did the agency miss or get so many big stories completely wrong? Was it because they were too busy arguing amongst themselves?

Here is a list, compiled conveniently by former CIA man, Paul Pillar for Foreign Policy magazine, of what FP calls the ten most ‘humiliating failures’ endured by the CIA since 1940, all either missed completely or hopelessly mis-read: Pearl Harbour, The Bay of Pigs debacle, The Tet Offensive, The Yom Kippur War, The Iranian Revolution, The Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan, The Collapse of the Soviet Union, The Indian Nuclear Test, The 9/11 Attacks and the Iraq War.

Where, I wonder, will the Trump-Russia story rank in the CIA’s annals?

Oh, Wait. Maybe It Was Collusion.

By JOHN SIPHER and STEVE HALL – AUG. 2, 2017

Did the Trump campaign collude with Russian agents trying to manipulate the course of the 2016 election? Some analysts have argued that the media has made too much of the collusion narrative; that Jared Kushner and Donald Trump Jr.’s meeting with Kremlin-linked Russians last year was probably innocent (if ill-advised); or that Russian operatives probably meant for the meeting to be discovered because they were not trying to recruit Mr. Kushner and Mr. Trump as agents, but mainly trying to undermine the American political system.

We disagree with these arguments. We like to think of ourselves as fair-minded and knowledgeable, having between us many years of experience with the C.I.A. dealing with Russian intelligence services. It is our view not only that the Russian government was running some sort of intelligence operation involving the Trump campaign, but also that it is impossible to rule out the possibility of collusion between the two.

The original plan drawn up by the Russian intelligence services was probably multilayered. They could have begun an operation intended to disrupt the presidential campaign, as well as an effort to recruit insiders to help them over time — the two are not mutually exclusive. It is the nature of Russian covert actions (or as the Russians would call them, “active measures”) to adapt over time, providing opportunities for other actions that extend beyond the original intent.

It is entirely plausible, for example, that the original Russian hack of the Democratic National Committee’s computer servers was an effort simply to collect intelligence and get an idea of the plans of the Democratic Party and its presidential candidate. Once derogatory information emerged from that operation, the Russians might then have seen an opportunity for a campaign to influence or disrupt the election. When Donald Trump Jr. responded “I love it” to proffers from a Kremlin-linked intermediary to provide derogatory information obtained by Russia on Hillary Clinton, the Russians might well have thought that they had found an inside source, an ally, a potential agent of influence on the election.

The goal of the Russian spy game is to nudge a person to step over the line into an increasingly conspiratorial relationship. First, for a Russian intelligence recruitment operation to work, they would have had some sense that Donald Trump Jr. was a promising target. Next, as the Russians often do, they made a “soft” approach, setting the bait for their target via the June email sent by Rob Goldstone, a British publicist, on behalf of a Russian pop star, Emin Agalarov.

They then employed a cover story — adoptions — to make it believable to the outside world that there was nothing amiss with the proposed meetings. They bolstered this idea by using cutouts, nonofficial Russians, for the actual meeting, enabling the Trump team to claim — truthfully — that there were no Russian government employees at the meeting and that it was just former business contacts of the Trump empire who were present.

When the Trump associates failed to do the right thing by informing the F.B.I., the Russians probably understood that they could take the next step toward a more conspiratorial relationship. They knew what bait to use and had a plan to reel in the fish once it bit.

While we don’t know for sure whether the email solicitation was part of an intelligence ploy, there are some clues. A month after the June meeting at Trump Tower, WikiLeaks, a veritable Russian front, released a dump of stolen D.N.C. emails. The candidate and campaign surrogates increasingly mouthed talking points that seemed taken directly from Russian propaganda outlets, such as that there had been a terrorist attack on a Turkish military base, when no such attack had occurred. Also, at this time United States intelligence reportedly received indications from European intelligence counterparts about odd meetings between Russians and Trump campaign representatives overseas.

Of course, to determine whether collusion occurred, we would have to know whether the Trump campaign continued to meet with Russian representatives subsequent to the June meeting. The early “courting” stage is almost always somewhat open and discoverable. Only after the Russian intelligence officer develops a level of control can the relationship be moved out of the public eye. John Brennan, the former director of the C.I.A., recently testified, “Frequently, people who go along a treasonous path do not know they are on a treasonous path until it is too late.”

Even intelligence professionals who respect one another and who understand the Russians can and often do disagree. On the Trump collusion question, the difference of opinion comes down to this: Would the Russians use someone like Mr. Goldstone to approach the Trump campaign? Our friend and former colleague Daniel Hoffman argued in this paper that this is unlikely — that the Russians would have relied on trained agents. We respectfully disagree. We believe that the Russians might well have used Mr. Goldstone. We also believe the Russians would have seen very little downside to trying to recruit someone on the Trump team — a big fish. If the fish bit and they were able to reel it in, the email from Mr. Goldstone could remain hidden and, since it was from an acquaintance, would be deniable if found. (Exactly what the Trump team is doing now.)

If the fish didn’t take the bait, the Russians would always have had the option to weaponize the information later to embarrass the Trump team. In addition, if the Russians’ first objective was chaos and disruption, the best way to accomplish that would have been to have someone on the inside helping. It is unlikely that the Russians would not use all the traditional espionage tools available to them.

However, perhaps the most telling piece of information may be the most obvious. Donald Trump himself made numerous statements in support of Russia, Russian intelligence and WikiLeaks during the campaign. At the same time, Mr. Trump and his team have gone out of their way to hide contacts with Russians and lied to the public about it. Likewise, Mr. Trump has attacked those people and institutions that could get to the bottom of the affair. He fired his F.B.I. director James Comey, criticized and bullied his attorney general and deputy attorney general, denigrated the F.B.I. and the C.I.A., and assails the news media, labeling anything he dislikes “fake news.” Innocent people don’t tend to behave this way.

The overall Russian intent is clear: disruption of the United States political system and society, a goal that in the Russian view was best served by a Trump presidency. What remains to be determined is whether the Russians also attempted to suborn members of the Trump team in an effort to gain their cooperation. This is why the investigation by the special counsel, Robert Mueller, is so important. It is why the F.B.I. counterintelligence investigation, also quietly progressing in the background, is critical. Because while a Russian disruption operation is certainly plausible, it is not inconsistent with a much darker Russian goal: gaining an insider ally at the highest levels of the United States government.

In short, and regrettably, collusion is not off the table.

That’s what I want to know!!

Following the indictment of the PSNI by a judge in the Belfast High Court last week for its failure to complete an investigation into the activities of a joint UVF/Security Forces gang based at Glennane in Co. Armagh during the 1970’s, it is worth revisiting an RTE documentary on collusion broadcast in June 2015. I had a hand in the production. Enjoy:

https://vimeo.com/189929810

Back on July 11th, in the immediate wake of the revelation that Team Trump had met Russians at Trump Tower in June 2016 to discuss dishing the dirt on Hillary Clinton, I raised in a post, Amateur Hour At Trump Tower,  the following puzzling aspect of the affair:

It is not just the unhinged megalomaniac in the White House who is the danger to the survival of the globe, but the military robots just underneath him.

US admiral stands ready to obey a Trump nuclear strike order

ROD McGUIRK

Associated PressJuly 27, 2017

View photos

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — The U.S. Pacific Fleet commander said Thursday he would launch a nuclear strike against China next week if President Donald Trump ordered it, and warned against the military ever shifting its allegiance from its commander in chief.

Adm. Scott Swift was responding to a hypothetical question at an Australian National University security conference following a major joint U.S.- Australian military exercise off the Australian coast. The drills were monitored by a Chinese intelligence-gathering ship off northeast Australia.

Asked by an academic in the audience whether he would make a nuclear attack on China next week if Trump ordered it, Swift replied: “The answer would be: Yes.”

“Every member of the U.S. military has sworn an oath to defend the constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic and to obey the officers and the president of the United States as commander and chief appointed over us,” Swift said.

He added: “This is core to the American democracy and any time you have a military that is moving away from a focus and an allegiance to civilian control, then we really have a significant problem.”