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“Martin Ingram” Document – Parts 18-39 |
Per list of contents: “3) Document entitled ‘Andersonstown
News and Martin Ingram’ refers to an article written by Martin Ingram and
published on 1 March 2001 in the Andersonstown News, a Belfast bi-weekly
newspaper, comprised of eleven pages broken into paragraphs and interspersed
with comment and analysis.
Pagination refers to the original hardcopy
compilation which I will now attempt to translate into a computer format.”
Emphasis, where used, is mine.
(www.stakeknife.eu)
Twitter: @seankellyis
(8)
*
The Andersonstown
News – Martin Ingram Article
(Online Report)
Andersonstown News, 01.03.01 –
“UNDERCOVER SOLDIER TELLS US: I HAVEN’T KILLED ANYONE. A British army
whistleblower who worked for the shadowy
organisation involved in the murder of Pat Finucane has told the
Andersonstown News that he’s not a murderer or a traitor. Writing exclusively
for us today, Martin Ingram (not his real name) says he has never been involved
in either murder or conspiracy to murder.
[“Writing exclusively for us
today...” 1) In what way was the article facilitated by a hidden hand? The why
is obvious – to sell a pup to the republican movement.
2) “Ingram says he has never
been involved in either murder or conspiracy to murder.” Yet he is being used
to propagate lies and disinform on behalf of murderers under the pretext of
being a whistleblower, a throwaway card from a swindler’s deck. I am saying
Ingram is not against them, he is part of them. One asks what dirty work was he
involved in when a member of FRU? To lie on behalf of and at the behest of
those who will stoop to kill is in itself culpable. Do we upend the claims of a
liar to get closer to the truth?]
“Outlining the reasons for today’s article, Mr.
Ingram said that he wanted it to be read by republicans and he wanted them to
know that to brand whistleblowers as murderers would be effectively to deter
others involved in intelligence work for the British Army from coming forward.
Mr. Ingram is now working closely with the Stevens Inquiry. He said that he was
appalled that his name had been placed alongside those of UDA commander Billy Stobie – who’s been charged with the murder of
human rights solicitor Pat Finucane – and British Army double agent Brian
Nelson.”
[1) Ingram wants the
republican movement and sceptical outsiders to accept that he is a genuine
whistleblower who should be endorsed so others of like mind might be encouraged
to step forward.
2) To gild his whistleblower
claims, it is put out that Ingram is “working closely with the Stevens Inquiry.”
Like much else from Ingram, that too would end up going nowhere. Indeed it was
said elsewhere he had at that time ceased cooperating with the Stevens team.
3) In his use of the word
“appalled” the soldier apes his betters.
It is officer speak, not barrack room speak. Theatrical writing.]
“British intelligence whistleblower speaks out:
“Lifting the lid on the dirty war – On one thing the
family of Pat Finucane and the British Intelligence Service are united: the
former FRU soldier known as Martin Ingram has enough information to blow the
lid on the dirty war. Indeed, so devastating is the information he possesses
that the British Government has served gagging orders on the Sunday People and
the Sunday Times to prevent them reporting on his disclosures.
[Bogus gagging orders lend
persuasion if not credibility to lies; the aim is to give Ingram’s story a
leg-up. Is the unquestioning acceptance of these instruments an act of
gullibility on the part of the newspaper? Whatever, the paragraph is high level
hyperbole.]
“In the closed shop of military intelligence, he is
the weakest link; his erstwhile colleagues would like nothing more than to say
goodbye to a former agent willing to spill the beans on a deadly and unlawful
conspiracy. For the Finucane family and other victims of FRU agent Brian
Nelson, Ingram is their trump card: an insider who saw his Army colleagues use
loyalist paramilitaries to murder those deemed enemies of the state. Ingram’s
detailed account of Army collusion with loyalist gun-gangs is truly shocking to
anyone who believed the British were here to uphold the rules of law.
[Ingram’s “erstwhile
colleagues would like nothing more than to say goodbye to a former agent…” FRU
kill one of their own? In May 2003 other FRU members came out of the woodwork
to lend support to Mr. Ingram’s Stakeknife lies.
To get nearer to the truth
on the man, just about all of his claims should be stood on their head. The
“trump card” belongs to MI5.]
“For his disturbing catalogue of allegations about
the Army’s handling of UDA Intelligence Officer Brian Nelson show that FRU –
set up in 1980 to gather intelligence on the IRA, was a law unto itself. As Pat
Finucane’s son Michael observed: ‘one line after another was crossed and
eventually the line between right and wrong disappeared completely’.
[The newspaper’s weaving of
the Finucane name into the narrative is a game of elevation by concerned attachment.]
“According to Ingram, Nelson was ‘run’ by FRU
Commander Col Gordon Kerr – now British military attaché to Beijing – and
Captain Margaret Walshaw, now believed to be based at the British Embassy in
Athens.
[While an incidental
observation, because whoever Nelson’s handlers were was not of consequence, to say
he was run by a colonel or a captain seems an undue distraction from management
duties by commissioned officers.
My reading is that agent
running is a function of, in particular, senior non commissioned officers.
In the overall scheme of
things, it is probable that commissioned officers took control of the
handling-management of Nelson. Captain Walshaw’s name, widely leaked in that
context, was released for operational reasons.]
“Every newspaper in the North of Ireland and Britain,
with the exception of the North Belfast News and the Andersonstown News, have
refused to name Captain Walshaw at the request of British Intelligence.
[The request not to name
Walshaw was a piece of MI5-MoD gamesmanship. Captain Walshaw’s name was known
to the media and on the web from early February 2001; and a state institution,
BBC’s Panorama, would name her. They who boast of little, have little to boast
of.]
“Both [Kerr and Walshaw] have been interviewed during
previous inquiries into RUC collusion with loyalist paramilitaries carried out
by Sir John Stevens - the first inquiry resulted in the arrest of Nelson - but
were not charged. But it is believed they could face charges as a result of the
latest, and third, inquiry being carried out by Stevens into the murder of Pat
Finucane. The case against the pair may rest on the evidence provided by
Ingram.
[Ten years on and nothing
done – or likely to be. The writer hypothesises to paint a dramatic picture.
Thus an upside-downer named Ingram is given a soapbox.]
“Before Christmas [Ingram] stated that he was
withdrawing his statements from the Stevens Inquiry because his life had been
threatened. However, he is now working closely with the inquiry again. Ingram
will reveal that while FRU was supposed to be using Brian Nelson to stymie the
activities of the UDA they were in fact providing him with Special Branch and
Military Intelligence files which made it possible for him to have loyalists
assassinate republicans and nationalists. One of FRU’s first actions when Brian
Nelson was infiltrated into the UDA in 1987 was to take away the organisation’s
intelligence files and return them updated – courtesy of government
intelligence.
[Ingram’s life was not
threatened, it’s all part of the whistleblower charade. A play with a cast of
actors. Also, Brian Nelson was based in Belfast, so his handlers would need a
ready access to their client. From end year 1987 to 26 September 1990, Ingram
was based at St Angelo in County Fermanagh as a junior handler.
Does that give us cause to
question his claim of being privy to the handling secrets of Brian Nelson in
Lisburn, County Antrim? For more on “threats” – see The Sunday Herald,
17.12.00. Online.]
“Ingram’s allegation that FRU encouraged the UDA to
target Ballymurphy grandfather Francisco Notarantonio [sic: a name subject to
two regular spellings. I have chosen to use the second spelling – correct or
otherwise], murdered in his bed in October 1987, rather than an IRA informer
codenamed Stake Knife has also sent shockwaves through the British Intelligence
community. The determination of former FRU officer Martin Ingram to blow the
whistle may yet expose the awful truth about Britain’s dirty war.”
[1) Francisco Notorantonio
was murdered on 9th October 1987. Elsewhere we read that Ingram objectively
placed himself with his FRU colleagues in Northern Ireland before and just
after the Notorantonio killing. Short of bi-location this could not be so as he
was at the time based overseas – a lie that will be more fully dealt with anon.
2) “The determination of
former FRU officer Martin Ingram to blow the whistle may yet expose the awful
truth about Britain’s dirty war.” The Andersonstown News once more makes a hero
of Ingram. Had he personally penned those words, he could hardly have put them
better.
His function was not to
disclose but to preclude and contaminate exposure. To disinform on behalf of
those interests he is perceived to be attacking. An elementary trick of the
trade.]
*
“Opening Pandora’s Box – EXCLUSIVE – By Máirtín Ó
Muilleoir
“The former Military Intelligence officer known as
Martin Ingram has told the Andersonstown News he has just given the Stevens
Inquiry a seven-hour interview on the ‘unlawful’ activities of the secret Force
Research Unit (FRU) which ‘handled’ UDA commander Brian Nelson.
[Another leg-up for Martin.
Not only did the Andersonstown News elevate the lies of Ingram, so too the
Stevens Inquiry.
The latter, given their
craft and experience in security-intelligence investigation, couldn’t but have
known that Ingram was in the business on behalf of those interests they were
investigating.
The Stevens team, up to St
John himself, should have publicly rebuffed Ingram’s dissembling, but didn’t.
Instead they lent credibility to his, MI5 at a remove, Stakeknife assertion by
public endorsement.
Also, Nelson is a “UDA
commander”. He would surely have appreciated the irony in that.
And, to repeat, it was
elsewhere reported that Ingram had ceased to cooperate with the Stevens Inquiry
at that time.]
“Set up in 1982 [should be 1980] to combat the IRA,
FRU has already been rocked by Ingram’s allegations that it colluded with
loyalists to murder Pat Finucane and others seen as a threat to the state. But
now the former soldier who served two terms in the North says his taped
interview and accompanying 26-page statement [to the Stevens Inquiry] on the
FRU blows the lid on the secret assassination campaign carried out by British
intelligence. And in a special article (below) written for the Andersonstown
News, Martin Ingram takes to task republicans who have branded him a murderer.
‘I want the Andersonstown News to publish this article because I want it to be
read by republican activists,’ he said this week. ‘I’m not a murderer and was
not involved in murder. To say otherwise will only act as a deterrent to others
in the Security Forces who may be prepared to come forward… one other person
was on the verge of adding to the stories but vitriolic attacks are a
disincentive.’
[Again the Andersonstown
News sells the incredible Ingram to its readership. A good man who should be
encouraged and not pilloried is the theme.
“One other person was on the verge of adding
to the stories but vitriolic attacks are a disincentive.”
Ingram saying he is not
alone in FRU in trying to usher in peace and justice to Northern Ireland by
“whistleblower” testimony. Accept my credentials and more will follow.
Bullshit.
Knowing Ingram’s lies
elsewhere, what worth should we attach to his word that he is not a murderer
and was never involved in murder? By lies he supports MI5/FRU who are
responsible for murder and by this support he attaches himself to that
culpability. Is the Andersonstown News so blind that it cannot see this Martin
Ingram?]
“While he says there were ‘no rules’ governing the
operations of FRU, Ingram says ’99 percent’ of its activities were within the
law. But in the case of Nelson and others laws were broken. ‘People need
answers and the nationalist community needs to be told the truth.’
[Ingram’s disclosures amount
to a massive litany of wrongdoing; yet, in contradiction, in the above he asks
us to believe that murder and mayhem comprised only one percent of FRU
activities. By corollary FRU is Nobel Peace prize potential. Given that some
laureate’s had more than a splash of blood on their hands, FRU is in there with
a chance.
Yes truth needs to out. But
that truth will not come from the republican leadership, the Martin Ingram’s of
this world, or a facilitating media.]
“The Intelligence whistleblower says the three ‘primary
handlers’ of Nelson (Kerr, Walshaw and one other) were once his good friends.
And while all three may now face charges arising from the Stevens Inquiry,
Ingram says the full truth will only come out in the type of public and
independent inquiry demanded by the Finucane family or from a South
African-style Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
[“The intelligence
whistleblower.” A nice name for a nine bob note. Ingram pretends affinity with
those in search of truth and justice, like the Finucane family. He knows how
this can come about, offering solutions as improbable as himself.]
“While unable to reveal full details of his statement
to the Stevens Inquiry for fear of putting lives at risk, Ingram says he has
information about unlawful activities which are ‘far more damaging’ than the
Brian Nelson case. The ‘handling’ of Steak Knife, allegedly the highest-placed
British Intelligence mole within the IRA, will reveal lawbreaking ten times
worse than the Nelson case, he says.
[In a moment of tongue-in-cheek
honesty Sir John Stevens called “Steak Knife” a “legend”. The Oxford dictionary
defines a legend so: “A traditional story, a myth; a fictitious person, thing,
or idea”.
Ingram’s submissions to the
Stevens Inquiry in that respect can only be lies. A non existent agent
Stakeknife-Scappaticci cannot be “the highest placed British Intelligence mole
in the IRA.”
Even if truth were otherwise
on the existence of agent Stakeknife, still higher echelon spies clutter the
republican movement, not all of whom transposed into Sinn Fein politicians.
So, why (or for whom) the
misdirection?]
“A question still remains over the very existence of
Steaknife, though the Stevens Inquiry day-to-day operational head, Commander
Hugh Orde, has told the Notarantonio family he believes Steaknife does exist. ‘Steak Knife is a destabilizing
factor’, says Ingram, ‘and he should be removed from the theatre in a
responsible way.’
[The Andersonstown News: “A
question remains over the very existence of Steaknife.” It then goes on to give
two effective confirmations, albeit bogus, of his existence from police chief
Hugh Orde and Martin Ingram.
According to Ingram, Steak
Knife “should be removed from the theatre in a responsible way.” In short, FRU/MI5s supposed best spy in the IRA,
alleged to be paid up to St£80,000 a year, should be publicly drummed out of
service and chased off to a retirement home in the sun.]
“Last year Ingram’s house was burgled. A manuscript
of a book he was writing went missing… only to turn up later in court in the
hands of prosecution lawyers who obtained an injunction preventing him from
publishing his memoir. He has also received threatening emails from a former
colleague in FRU. Nevertheless he remains adamant that the truth will out. ‘I
should have opened my mouth at the time.’ he says in regard to the ‘running’ of
Nelson, ‘but you view things in a different perspective when you are part of
the intelligence community. Now as long as I have a breath in my body, I will
take up the cudgels for the truth.’”
[The claimed burglary took
place in the Republic of Ireland. And he had “threatening emails”.
Notwithstanding such
considerations, Martin will fight for truth to out. “’I should have opened my mouth
at the time,’ he says in regard to the ‘running’ of Nelson, ‘but you view
things in a different perspective when you are part of the intelligence
community. Now as long as I have a breath in my body, I will take up the
cudgels for the truth.’”
Is that so?
Stakeknife – Britain’s Secret Agents
in Ireland (2004) – By Martin Ingram and Greg Harkin. (Pages 222-223): “Ingram saw the files on the Notorantonio
killing when working for the FRU. They were in the Stakeknife files.
Ingram says: ‘I read the files which
showed the loyalists were targeting Stakeknife and I discussed it with
Stakeknife’s handler. He confirmed loyalists had picked Scappaticci,
among others. I also discussed it with
Nelson’s handler, who said basically that it had been taken care of.
[Nelson’s handler] had told me: ‘A substitute has been put in place. It caused
an almighty flap, but everything is back on track’. This conversation was
before the Notorantonio murder, and I had no idea how things were put ‘back on
track’. I learned after the killing that Notorantonio had been the substitute. My superiors and the handlers involved
knew I was appalled by what had happened, a pensioner had been killed. I was
told to ‘shut up’ and things got heated. I remember one of my senior officers
said something like, ‘Didn’t Gerry Adams carry the coffin? It couldn’t have
gone better for us’. Another said,’ We want to take the war to the enemy. The
end justifies the means’. I thought it was wrong then and I still believe it is
wrong. It is State-sponsored murder and the family of Mr. Notorantonio deserves
to know the truth.
“Senior officers would routinely write end-of-year reports for each
FRU handler. At the end of 1990, Ingram’s superior wrote in his confidential
report: ‘XXXXXX [Martin Ingram] must temper his comments when briefing senior
Army officers.’ The report was a recommendation for promotion, but the comment
was clearly a reference to Ingram’s numerous conversations with senior officers
when he had questioned the FRU’s role in a number of incidents. Ingram later
recounted these heated exchanges to a senior investigating officer with the
Stevens Inquiry, recalling in particular the murder of Notorantonio. That
conversation was taped.”
Ingram tells us he was a
silent party to events in the management of Brian Nelson. “I should have opened
my mouth at the time” and all that.
Ó Muilleoir fails to tell us
if Ingram was met in face to face meetings for some of the pre-article details
above; or if they came from written answers to posed questions; by telephonic
exchange, or from a longer submission, the Ingram article (below) forming part.
Some fleshing-out content
was evidently obtained from other publications. I am curious to know about the
arrangements to make all of this possible.
The articles above and below
do not explain.
Ingram’s claims on Nelson
are as much a fabrication as is his Stakeknife story on Notorantonio. In the
Andersonstown News above he’s a quiescent onlooker to wrongdoing “in the
‘running’ of Nelson” because he was “part of the intelligence community”.
At the same time, in the
Stakeknife book he’s portrayed as an antagonistic if distant voice against
wrongdoing while also being part of the intelligence community.
Incompatibility of story
telling apart, short of bi-location Ingram’s Nelson-Stakeknife-Notorantonio
assertion must be lies as he was based abroad for years before and for most
part of two months after Notorantonio’s murder.
The events he adverts to
could not have taken place.
Furthermore, Belfast based
FRU agents were handled from Thiepval barracks in Lisburn, County Antrim.
In the early months of his
initial three year tour of duty in Northern Ireland (1981-82) Ingram was based
at Thiepval Barracks as a JNCO collator before his 1982 posting to Ebrington
barracks in Derry.
He was not based at Thiepval
Barracks on his second tour, end November 1987 to 26 September 1990, as a
junior handler.
It would be a major breach
of protocol to impart intelligence of the utmost sensitivity to another party outside
a strict “need to know” basis.
Yet here is Ingram claiming
he was not only aware of the identity of Stakeknife, the “jewel in the crown of
British intelligence in Northern Ireland”, but had read his files and had
“heated exchanges” with senior officers on “FRU’s role in a number of
incidents” at a time when serving in another country.
As they say: “Tell it to the
Marines.”
Ongoing reports tentatively
infer the Stakeknife story was not too well reasoned, more a rolling stone that
accrued organically, Francisco Notorantonio and other parts tacked on along the
way.
Ingram’s claimed quiescent
onlooker aspect to Nelson’s wrongdoing was put into the public arena on 1 March
2001 by the Andersonstown News.
The Notorantonio-Stakeknife
component, that I am aware, first became public in August 2000 – viz the Sunday
People.
Incongruous story telling
aside, it seems Ingram’s left hand had a habit of forgetting what his right
hand had done over the years.]
[Believe my computer is once
again subject to external intrusion; yesterday and today, Friday 19.08.11, and
possibly Wednesday 17th.]
*****
“Who guards the guards?
“By Martin Ingram. To be labeled traitor by those in
the Army and a murderer by An Phoblacht/Republican News is not a pleasant
experience, especially when there is no truth in either position. I am neither
a traitor nor have I been personally involved in the act [or] conspiracy to
murder or indeed any murder. I am a person who dislikes injustice or an
abstract of the truth being fed to an innocent public as the genuine article.
It is time for both the Army and the republicans to take a reality check.
[Mr Ingram’s An Phoblacht
dig is rhetorical. He and the string pullers behind him will well know it is an
organ of questionable provenance. Fraternal intelligence agencies not only set
out to direct and promote republican agents and policy shapers but infiltrated
instruments of influence like newspapers via staff insertion and contributors.
As a conduit of intelligence and a repository of opinion formers aimed at a
targeted audience, Republican News was of special interest to those who
consider it part of their remit to suborn in the maintenance of a spancelled
democratic process.
Also, I do not know of any
Anna Politkovskaya’s in the Western news media. Bogus whistleblowers and
investigative journalists, yes.
Purveyors of false
representations of democratic freedoms.]
“When I committed myself to signing the Official
Secrets Act upon joining the Army, it was as a young soldier wet behind the
ears and barely out of his teenage years. In truth, as a young man I did not
sign that document ever believing that I would at some juncture in the future,
let alone nearly a decade after I left the forces be arrested for alleged
offences under the Official Secrets Act.
The facilitated
“whistleblower” who comes to see the error of former ways. That’s a hardy
perennial from the thimble rigger’s drawer. A road well travelled by US/UK
intelligence.
Known also to Irish and
antipodean affiliates and wherever else the magic roundabout holds sway.
*
The Dead Dog Sings
(A Digression)
I extrapolate from the words
of the last paragraph by noting that local matters can have national and
international linkage, especially when intelligence issues are entailed. In saying
that I am alluding to precursor events to do with myself, experiences direct
and tangential, further extended by research over many years which has helped
shape the understanding in this document. Given that background, I will now
attempt in a few paragraphs to formulate an overview on the tactical use of
“whistleblowers” by state agencies, this apart from Mr Ingram’s dissembling in
the Andersonstown News and elsewhere. Mine is only a tickle on the underbelly
of an intelligence deception that demands much deeper scrutiny.
National representations of
this genre have to my memory minded to a historic bias for disclosure through
liberal-left flagship newspapers and periodicals, and their colleagues in the
visual media, they who can “tut-tut” like they mean it, and whose censorious
comments can be sold on as the real thing.
Excepting those honestly
blind to the fact they were being manipulated, accomodating editors, even if
not privy to the purpose of the leaks, must indubitably have known they were
disinforming on behalf of national security interests. Did they believe that
selling high-minded political tosh to their readers at the behest of those
interests was for a greater good?
Did they care? The
cognoscenti evidently did not. With that cohort in mind, I go on.
Whenever a shared (US/UK)
intelligence agenda is de rigueur and more bang for the buck is needed, a
manipulated two country press unfolding may be the order of the day. An exposé
with one foot on each side of the big pond, a transatlantic fraternity to lend
persuasion.
An Irish Sea comparison was
the coordinated launch by The Sunday Herald (Glasgow) and The Sunday Tribune
(Dublin) of the Stakeknife story on 4, 11 and 18 May 2003, which pushed the
ball downhill.
While both newspapers sported
“exclusive” labels on their 11 May issue, the day on which Freddie Scappaticci
was named Stakeknife, other newspapers, from red top to broadsheet, were also
in on the action if not all naming Scappaticci.
A timed impetus to effect
dramatic disclosure and advance the design of a cover-up and diversion from
elsewhere.
Flagship titles enhance
credibility. Top writer names give authority. Contrived words and saturated
coverage promote deception. A one-way outpouring and paucity of challenge create
a dubious authenticity.
In the hands of secret state
manipulators real news can be faked and faked news can be made real.
It is not so much what the
news is about but what it is intended for – the raison d’étre.
Thus are national security
aims pursued through the medium of bogus whistleblowers in unacknowledged
collaboration with the media.
By such inversions the big
lie is validated, of which Stakeknife is one example in a continuum currently
enjoying a hiatus while it awaits our self appointed guardians to protectively
sally forth with the next plastic hero in an ongoing saga.
Anglo-Saxon intelligence has
an unmatched global outreach that uses a cast of super-privileged well educated
dissemblers to float their lies.
Perverse that our reputedly
open system should be party to such cynical manipulations and that media
institutions revered by many should be amenable, not always blindly, to
traducing its own readers and the sovereign people with unspoken national
security attachments.
A combined term for a
collective of these lousers is lyocrite. All are above sweeping the roads for a
living. Many are established sound bite warriors, old reliables on standby,
who, knowing the truth, go along with the lie.
Bumph is a word one has used
for the utterances of others.
Within variations, their big
bang disclosures follow patterns and have failings. Is there anything seriously
secret or new in them? No. Is there anything seriously revealing in them? No.
Was a targeted media release
involved? Yes. Why the manufactured fuss? (That is the question.)
It is a question the
involved titles and their in-house names in “investigative” journalism have no
intention of pursuing. One reason has to do with an unwritten protocol so solid
it might well be cast in stone which demands obedience and recognition of
place.
Business is on terms.
To do otherwise would be to
bite the hand that feeds and result in the loss of favoured status and the
prospect of future scoops. The
ostensibly incompatible are really a Punch and Judy show for the masses –
theatre of the absurd for the proletariat.
Besides, what editor,
journalist or publication would admit to being party to a counterfeit national
security disclosure, one in conflict with core readership values? Some truths
can be very bad for business.
And so the magic roundabout
spins on.
At the end of the jolly all
the players go home smiling; especially those who do not figure in the credits.
The “free press” is only free
when it toes the line. Their collective editorial management appear inhibited
from joining in a fight to opt out of a servitude to the world’s most
controlling vested interest.
Do they fear the influence
of the loose cannon that fires silently, the power behind the throne, more than
the gagging order or injunction that is perforce ushered into proceedings for
effect?
Also you may have picked-up
that the whistleblower phenomenon is a strategem largely confined to the
Anglo-Saxon world. Were you or I to write to The Guardian, The Washington Post,
The Irish Times, The Sunday Times, The Australian, The New Statesman, The Age,
to quote a number of well known truth in
the news publications, with evidence of egregious wrongdoing by national
intelligence agencies, would we be listened to and given space?
Not on your Nellie Kelly.
Pushing on using the nine
out of ten template – were you or I to contact those names tagged with human rights labels, lawyers, writers,
politicians, academics, ex-security force-intelligence agency “whistleblowers”
and former bureaucratic insiders beholden to the same command structure with a
real case against an intelligence agency, do you think we would be given the
time of day by these designer lightning rods for shadow state?
Not on your Nellie Kelly.
Why is the 9-Bob-Note picked
up and the 10-Bob-Note ignored? The answer in one word: facilitation. One is.
One isn’t. Make up your own mind as to why. And when the train pulls out of the
station just about every reporter and editor wants to be onboard – no questions
asked.
But then the latter are only
there for the scut (a jump-on for a
short ride), the contract this time going to another safe pair of hands.
Cast a mental eye over the
list of names linked to facilitated US/UK political/intelligence/military
disclosure over say the last forty or so years.
Near to a person they were a
shower of polished performers: actórs
with good security clearances and an easy access to the media, if not of it.
Out of the soup they write books,
give talks, are lionized, become beacons of light to an effete middle class,
people dull enough to survive a lifetime without growing wise to the world
about them, and who unwittingly elevate others for being champions of that they
most despise.
The measure of some lies may
be gauged by whether a small screen or a big screen opus follows. If the
latter, not even all the lousy elite of Hollywood will make a silk purse out of
a sow’s ear.
A lie is a lie whatever the
imprimatur.
That said, who can gainsay
the best alchemists work for the Hollywood chemical company? They who can
transform ether into real and convert
real into true – all by esoteric process.
Only Langley & Co. know
how they do it.
Another remarkable feature
is that none of the heads above the parapet
have had “accidents”, though they may promote a fear of them for themselves
or family connections who are at times pressed into the mix to convey a
vicarious loyalty in the fight against authoritarian state.
The “little man” appeal as
expressed in story telling and by lugubrious photographic portrayal.
Note too the spontaneous adoption of “whistleblowers”
by assumed human rights names in the political, legal and media worlds.
(A positive endorsement of
the negative by the negative?)
Grievous cases of
intelligence wrongdoing have no takers as I and no doubt many an anonymous
other know well. Using the nine out of ten template, the categories just
adverted to are by instinct and/or reward disposed to align with the ways and
interests of secret state.
If ever a case against the
state is entered upon, it is a back-door engagement for compensation - the
purchase of silence.
No exposition. No truth. No
admission of wrongdoing. No correction.
And so the magic roundabout
spins on.
To lawyers playing the game,
the client is a meal ticket, a new Mercedes or so. Who funds the cover-up? A
silly question. The answer is always the same – you!
(It would not surprise me to
be told the legal-judicial and related costs in these matters over the extent
of the Troubles was in the order of hundreds of millions £/€. Post Troubles,
the mountain continues to grow and still
truth is an elusive prey.)
As for applying the nine out
of ten equation to the “human rights” professionals, if anyone can identify the
odd one out, the one out of ten, please let me know. We can have him or her
stuffed on demise and put on a plinth in the natural history museum alongside
the rare and extinct.
[When next in the foyer of
the British Museum, look for the plinth with “Exhibit A” on it (“A twenty stone boulder it wa’, rough and
raw, tossed out of a trench on a shovel by Big Paddy McGraw.” – from The Ballad of Big Paddy McGraw.]
Humour? Yes. But don’t just stand
there with your mouths open, put me to the test by asking any of that lousy lot
this question – “Who murdered Heidi Hazell?” They won’t likely know and if they
do know they won’t likely want you to know they know. When you know more,
you’ll know why.
So when the next
“whistleblowing” hero is parachuted on to the scene to rain hush-hush ephemera
on us dressed up as national security secrets that find a welcoming media, take
a deep breath.
The smell assaulting your
nostrils will almost certainly be fishy.
*
Note: Heidi Hazell, the
German wife of a British army sergeant, was shot dead near Dortmund, Germany on
7 September 1989 in a compromised IRA operation.
Who murdered Heidi Hazell?
The Security Service did. No, not directly. They pulled the strings, not the
trigger – an agent did that.
For further development,
read sections 15 to 17 of this compilation. Please help out.
*
“I also did not believe as a young soldier that I
would have to place in the public domain information which was of public interest
because the Army that I served was intent on lying and avoiding its
responsibilities to society as a whole. To spend days in a prison cell for
these alleged offences was a chastening experience.
[Whingeba Ingram making much of a few days in a prison cell. Many
republican volunteers endured lengthy periods of incarceration on behalf of
national security interests. Some even going on hunger strikes.
It is also the making of a
CV. Like being arrested and imprisoned for anti-war, peace camp and civil authority protests at home and abroad.
A lesser known face of the
democratic process in action.
Carrying on, I rhetorically
pose: where outside of Northern Ireland were “duff-duff” bullets (charge
reduced rounds) used?]
“Today I am a lot older and fatter and probably wiser
with probably a more liberal sprinkling of stubbornness introduced into my
character than when I agreed to maintain and keep custody of state secrets. I
would like to believe that if I had known that the document I was being asked to
sign was intended and designed to prevent disclosure of ILLEGAL acts, that I
would have had the moral backbone and courage to have declined the offer. In
reality, I signed the Official Secrets Act not believing MY government was
capable of waging war on one section of a community. Today I believe
differently. Successive governments have lied and deliberately engaged in a
series of cover-ups to frustrate innocent people from discovering the truth
about the circumstances that led to the deaths of their loved ones. It must
stop.
[In the aforegoing
paragraphs Goebbels is alive and well and living in London, Washington,
Canberra, Dublin, and wherever else the “democratic” writ runs.]
“To those in the Army who question my motivation, I say
this: There are many in the press and other forms of media who [can] confirm I
am not financially motivated. To those in the Army who suggest I am a
disgruntled ex-soldier, I say, please remember I left the Army with my last
confidential report which, fortunately, I retained. This report was prepared,
ironically, by Brigadier Kerr, and was a recommendation for promotion. I will
not bore you with Brigadier Kerr’s glowing testimonial for me. Suffice to say
that it was welcome and accurate. In
conclusion, my home has been burgled, I have been threatened, my family has
been threatened, yet revenge forms no part of my motivation and if you must
continue to question my motivation, take a close, long look at Steak’s file.
Need I say more?
[Kerr was then a colonel.
Note in the underlined, the big hearted stoic and the big lie. Retrace and read
his “confidential report”. In that piece of bunkum, which, if it exists, is
likely a parallel document, Ingram says he was censured for his high minded
questioning of FRU activities to senior army officers. That is not a “glowing
testimonial”.
Absurdly, one lie knocking
another lie.
“…and if you must continue
to question my motivation, take a close, long look at Steak’s file.” Thirty
years after Ingram gave birth to the legend, we still await to “take a close,
long look at Steak’s file.”
Is the power of bi-location
necessary?]
“To republicans I say this: Éist liomsa anois [pay
attention now]. Yes, I was part of an Army that fought a war on your land and I
apologise. If you desire, as I believe you do, peace and justice then you must
let go of the old rhetoric and enter a new era of understanding and tolerance.
To discover the truth surrounding the last 30 years you must accept people like
me have a role in exposing the wrongdoings of the past and not label every
soldier of the FRU a murderer, because they were not.
[MI5 giving a lecture on the
philosophy of peace and the Irish language; and afforded the space to do so in
a nationalist newspaper.]
“To place me alongside (William) Stobie or (Brian)
Nelson is repulsive and unfair. To those in the Republican News who suggest I
made public information because I was at the bottom of the food chain or from a
fear of prosecution, I say: you are wrong. I currently face no prosecution for
any alleged offences and to suggest otherwise will only act as a deterrent to
others in the Security Forces who may be prepared to come forward and deliver
the information that is required to inform those that have a moral right to
that knowledge.
[Why should Ingram heed what
the Republican News says? Likewise, why should people believe words from an MI5
source operating at a classic remove? A decade on and we still await a member
of the “Security Forces who may be prepared to come forward and…”]
“An old intelligence story seems applicable. In the
bitter cold of the Russian winter in a small village, during a howling gale and
with darkness falling, a Russian peasant wandering home sees a small game bird
on the ground and nearly dead from the cold. The peasant picks up the bird and
warms it. At that moment a herd of cattle comes by and one of them drops a
large dollop right in front of him. He puts the bird in the steaming dollop so
that it will stay warm and then fly away. But a second peasant comes along and,
hearing the bird chirping happily in the dollop, seizes it, breaks its neck and
takes it home for supper.
“The story has three morals:
“Don’t believe everybody who drops you in the shit is
your enemy;
“Don’t believe everybody who gets you out of the shit
is your friend;
“Whenever you are in the shit, keep quiet about it.
[Ingram handing down tablets
of wisdom from the British army intelligence training camp at Templar Barracks
in Kent on the reading of scatological tea leaves.]
“Once truth has emerged from Northern Ireland, as it
surely will one day, there will be an outrage and society will question why
people who sign the Official Secrets Act have no forum to register their
concerns. It is time there was an independent body formed with powers to
investigate my allegations of illegality. The body would act as a safety valve.
Genuine secrets deserve to be protected.
[Humbug from a man who’s
very existence is a negation of truth and justice. “Genuine secrets deserve to
be protected.” Yes, like the truth on the status of Martin Ingram, and where he
was based between 1991 (army discharge) and 1999 (birth of Stakeknife).]
“Unlawful and dastardly deeds deserve no such
protection. In principle there is a valid reason for imposing restrictions on
the free flow of information. That said, the government must strike a balance
because if the presumption in favour of freedom
of expression and access to information is to be respected as this government
would have us believe, you should not object to a forum being established free
from political interference, in a similar way to the Privy Council.
[The previous paragraph is a
jumble of contradictions. A Privy Council like forum offering impartial
intelligence evaluation on behalf of the government and people? A barrack room
lawyer must have flogged that nonsense to Ingram. And, “dastardly deeds”. He didn’t hear that phrase in the Greenfly bar.
(A usage originally attributed to Ingram in a 19 November 2000 Sunday Tribune
article by Ed Moloney. Online, P2).
As to “the government
striking a balance.” That’s a non sequitur. Even more so than governments’,
intelligence agencies are a law unto themselves. The system allows no access,
precludes accountability, denies redress; part of the farcical enactment of
their lived out non-existence in what is grandly known as the “democratic
process”.
But in one particular the
system and the “free flow of information” are in harmony – when it comes to
dissembling by state.
We who pay, and pay the
price, have no say. One of the best kept secret’s of the “Free West”.]
“My experience is of a state which prefers to gag the
individual by means of civil injunction and to browbeat our media into not
reporting to the public information which they have a right to. Every democracy
requires citizens and soldiers to be informed, for one very good reason: so
that they can exercise their right to participate in a democratic society.”
[That load of twaddle is
about equal to a mountebank selling bottled miracle cures to a captive
audience. Who helped Ingram write it? MI5 is in there somewhere – and
laughing.]
*****
As inferred, Ingram likely
had assistance from a third party in writing the above essay, as derived from
an online copy. Fancy charging the proletariat to read “green slime”
indoctrination. FRU acting at a deniable remove for MI5.
Did real republicans
sacrifice their all for that?
END
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“Martin Ingram” Document – Parts 18-39 |