Jul 272012
 

No, not that one. His gaffe at criticising the ability of the British people to competently host the Olympic games may be foolish in the extreme. After all the time for such criticisms is not on the eve of the games, but well in advance when things could be done – all his comments have done is demonstrate that he has very little ability in the realm of international diplomacy. And makes it less likely that any British officials will take his more serious comments seriously in the future.

Given the imminent start of the London 2012 Olympic games, it is hardly surprising that everyone has concentrated on this aspect of Romney’s comments. And it certainly points him out as being totally unsuited to any kind of international diplomacy. But another comment also points the way to Romney being unsuited to being a US president; and in some ways is very much more serious.

He also commented on the fact that he had met with the chief of the British Secret Intelligence Service (commonly and incorrectly known as MI6), which is a far more serious lapse in judgement that may indicate unsuitability for “domestic” matters as opposed to international matters. His meeting with the head of SiS was hardly top-secret, and the fact that it has been leaked hardly a matter for panic. The common practice of keeping such meetings private is probably more a legacy of SiS very secret existence – up until it was established on a statutory basis in 1994, the British government would refused to comment on any aspect of SiS; even whether it existed or not.

In security terms, you only comment on things that are secret if the benefit of doing so significantly outweighs the advantages of secrecy. Romney’s comments about this meeting indicate that he does not take security seriously; whilst this comment would on the surface would seem to compromise only British security and there in a very small way, his comments are likely to ring alarm bells with any US official involved in security. He would of course deny that his comments reflect a negligent attitude to US national security, and would quite rightly point out that there was no negative impact on US national security.

But it is not what he has revealed, but the fact that he revealed anything at all that indicates his attitude is wrong.

Sep 032011
 

Today (or perhaps yesterday) the news was out that the various western intelligence services – MI6, CIA, and the French Intelligence organisation – were all “doing business” with Gaddafi’s regime in Libya. My first reaction is to say: “And so they should”.

Intelligence services are funded for a reason, and that reason is to gather intelligence on various aspects of world affairs. And that includes doing business with repugnant regimes in order to gather intelligence on them, and to collect information they have that they are prepared to share. Given Gaddafi’s instability (look at his latest pronouncements which seem to indicate that he has lost touch with reality), and propensity to stir up trouble beyond the borders of Libya, the chief of any intelligence agency not doing business in Libya would be guilty of gross negligence and deserves the sack.

When you look into the details of what the intelligence agencies were up to, it becomes clear that the CIA at the very least was going a little too far in abducting suspects, dropping them off in Libya for torture, and popping by a little later for the answers to the questions they asked.

As in all things, if you sup with the Devil, you need to use a very long spoon and the CIA would appear to have become too close to the Libyan regime.