Spying on Di

Did the British SAS (Special Forces) actually take out Princess Diana?  That claim is making news in the UK right now..

The decision to examine the new claims suggests that officers believe they must be looked at by detectives to assess whether they have any weight. However they come from the estranged parents-in-law of “Soldier N”, an SAS soldier who was a key witness in the successful prosecution of Sgt Nightingale.

He was himself convicted of illegal weapons possession. His estranged wife’s parents wrote to the SAS’s commanding officer claiming the soldier had told his wife that the unit had “arranged” the Princess’s death and that this had been “covered up”.

For those who don't know, Danny Nightingale was the SAS soldier convicted of possessing a trophy pistol and ammo after returning from Iraq.  The whole thing sounds a little shaky, but surely the Brit press will cover it more objectively than will ours. I've always wondered whether the Princess's dabbling with Muslims, ie, Dodi Fayed or her Pakistani lover, might have been enough reason to keep tabs on her friends and associates.  Driver Henri Paul might have been an informant to French intelligence but he was also a drunk driver, so if the intel services arranged that accident they're as good as the characters in a Bond film.

The funny thing is, the NSA evidently captured some data on the Princess back before 9/11:

Diana, the official insisted, was never a "target" of the NSA's massive, worldwide electronic eavesdropping infrastructure. The NSA system sucks up millions of electronic signals from around the world every hour, but only "targeted" communications are actually analyzed and deciphered after a vast array of supercomputers sort them out on the basis of programmed search terms, such as "Saddam Hussein."

Target being the key word.  The NSA only recently denied 'targeting' the princess, saying some info was inadvertently picked up in the scoop.  But surely some of those people that were actually being targeted were close to her and were giving the Old Lady heartburn.

By the way, those with good memories will remember the "Echelon" story in the late 90s, which this WaPo report covers:

The giant spy agency, Maryland's largest employer, has been the subject of intense controversy in Britain and across Europe since a report released in January by the European Parliament concluded that "within Europe, all e-mail, telephone and fax communications are routinely intercepted by the United States National Security Agency."

The report focused on a system called Echelon through which the NSA and its spy partners in Britain, Canada, New Zealand and Australia share communications intercepted from around the world and systematically divide the huge task of analyzing the "take."

What's old is new again!  In essence 9/11 simply allowed the focus to shift to US-based targets. Or maybe they've been doing it all along based on capturing international trunk data through US servers. We await James Clapper's investigation of himself.  Hilariously, the Echelon story didn't tarnish Clinton that much in the 90s just as the recent revelations haven't seriously damaged Obama, but Bush's version of the program was outrageous. 

A Terrorist for Oil

Somehow BP's name has finally come up regarding the supposed deal made between the UK and Libya in freeing the recovering terrorist formerly serving life for blowing Pan Am 103 out of the sky over Lockerbie, Scotland back in 1988. The problem--this is old news:

When asked in the interview if trade and BP were factors, Mr Straw admits: “Yes, [it was] a very big part of that. I’m unapologetic about that... Libya was a rogue state. “We wanted to bring it back into the fold. And yes, that included trade because trade is an essential part of it and subsequently there was the BP deal.”

Straw's admission was made in the fall of 2009 but our American press is a little slow so let's charge on ahead as if brand new! Theory upfront--Dems in Congress probably figure they can dredge this up again for the first time to help Obama link an even more sinister BP to an even more embarrassed Rep Joe Barton in their hopeless quest to re-take Congress, basically from themselves. The admin is already on record as planning to focus on Joe Barton and the failed policies of the past (that began before 2007), so what better way than to write a letter to the press addressed to Hillary F. Clinton in an effort to spur the bullhorns over at the New York Times into action?

The acknowledgment came after American legislators, grappling with the controversy over the company’s disastrous Gulf of Mexico oil spill, called for an investigation into BP’s actions in the case of the freed man, Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi.

Outrageous and everything, but isn't at least some critical thought warranted? First, is it really plausible to believe an American president would get rolled by Scotland for no reason? They claim to have had no connection to any oil deals and just released the man because he was almost dead. In other words, no.

What about the UK Labor Party as the potential rollers? Well, OK, they rolled a newly-elected socialist-leaning US president who took lots of donations from BP, just to help BP? The downsides were huge--an American aircraft, full of Americans, with Obama currently escalating troops in Afghanistan to stop terrorists- that's a lot of potential blowback for a man after their own hearts. The world would be left to believe their president had no leverage or any vested interest in the fate of someone who at one time was the equivalent of bin Laden. And could the press possibly be that friendly (actually, yes)? Or are we left to seriously to believe it was all about Obama's royal snubbery?

The only other plausible card is of the Chicago variety- or Obama got something from the deal; that he quietly agreed to go along in hopes Q'daffy would hold up his end of the bargain and not throw a parade on the tarmac at Tripoli for the homecoming. It would all go down quietly as planned, and if not, bring on the mock outrage. Still, a definite appearance of weakness for the ass-kicker and world uniter in chief, all for essentially looking the other way so BP could score some light sweet Libyan oil. Ok, do the four Senators really want to pursue this to conclusion? Or the media? Right here before the mid-terms? They may find something more troubling than Joe Barton.

Meanwhile, the one who did the real rolling, the thug still smarting from Reagan's attack on his palace compound and who no doubt has enjoyed every minute of this fubar despite the victims' families, is good ole Moammar. He's the one who set this up by initially insisted on the trade, setting up the west. The terrorist-enabler with whom we used to avoid negotiating has made fools of us all because we tried to negotiate and, as Straw said, "bring them into the fold".

For some reason we knew better with Saddam, yet this nut actually had an active nuke program and they plowed ahead anyway. Aside from the possibility they're all just a bunch of clueless buffoons the UK must really need the oil. BP pensions, perhaps? Meanwhile, Hillary has been told to put on her sheriff's badge and investigate but the investigation needs to occur in her office first. Perhaps they might find some teachable moments in there.