Sunday, December 10, 2006

Spies and Princess Di

The official report may be final on Lady Di's death, but that won't stop the speculating.

London's Guardian Observer reported this morning that the "US Secret Service" had bugged Diana's phone, which is absurd on its face of course, but there have long been unsubstaniated rumors the NSA was monitoring her.

Why on earth?

Well, maybe it was due to her relationship with Dodi al-Fayed and the upline connection to his father Mohamed, who had associations with many movers and shakers in the Arab world. The Stevens report said the driver Henri Paul was a paid informant of the French Directorate for Territorial Surveillance, their version of the FBI or MI5, so there was apparently more than casual interest in her comings and goings.

But what sense would it make to assassinate her? The Fayeds say it was because she was going to marry Dodi and become Muslim, but after her divorce from Charles it's doubtful that would have been serious enough to warrant such a drastic action. The Royals seem far too pragmatic. Besides, this is the British government, originator of James Bond. Using an uncontrolled car crash would be beneath them.

Why not suspect an Islamic culprit? I blogged on this back in the summer after finding some very interesting connections between Mohammed al-Fayed and Adnan Kashoggi via a simple open source search. Perhaps Fayed was being shaken down by UBL, had rebuffed him, and Diana was murdered to hurt his son.

All idle speculation without hard evidence. The known evidence indicates the driver was drunk and moving at high speeds. Nobody forced Henri Paul to do that, so it seems more than likely this whole thing was a tragic accident. If that's not enough for you, write Henry Waxman a note and ask him to include Bill Clinton on his docket of upcoming investigations.

MORE 12/11/06

CBS is reporting that the NSA will soon be issuing a statement denying they eavesdropped on the Princess's calls. However..
The response acknowledged that the NSA had files on her. However, the NSA will say it had files on her not because she was being monitored, but because her name was mentioned by other people in conversations that were being monitored.
Ok, was it the Fayeds or Forstmann? If the latter then Say Anything has a good question.

MORE 12/11/06

Why not go to someone with experience?
By focusing on those agencies--and not CGHQ--the Stevens inquiry seems to have hit upon an ideal "official" solution. Point out the obvious (her driver was too drunk to get behind the wheel), tantalize the public with hints of a spy operation (that can be blamed on someone else), and ignore potential connections that might lead back to the British establishment.

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