Spies, Spies and More Spies.

The blogosphere and the usual alternative media outlets have for days been reporting that the "underpant bomber" was shepherded onto the flight by a suited man. Not many (if any) of the mass media outlets, to my knowledge have published this information.

The world of espionage is a very murky and grey area. There are no heroes, the lines between good and bad, right and wrong are very blurred indeed. Actions that may be necessary in order to further a goal may not be morally conscionable. Deals are done with the devil, for instance payments made to Taliban insurgents either to allow military supplies to pass through Afghanistan, or just to stop planting IEDs. You wouldn't credit that we are making payments to our "enemy", but thats what happens in the murky world: governments want actions undertaken no matter what the price.

So for instance if the media squawk about paper-thin landrovers being blown up with our soldiers in them, our government will obviously want armoured replacements sent into theatre. However, if the route from the port of landing to the military base of operations is commanded by the Taliban, if you can't muster the resources to air-lift those vehicles over the heads of the enemy, if you are running a limited war on recessionary peacetime finances, what do you do? You make a deal with the devil, thats what you do. It may ultimately extend the war and cost more soldier's lives because now the enemy have money to buy more IEDs and guns, but ultimately the goal of the objective: to satisfy the UK media and to deflect criticism of the government is fulfilled. Thats how these things work, if you let them work this way. Without clear military objectives, with political spin and PR running the campaign, thats what you get. I'm very much reminded of the Vietnam War, which was run far past the point of good sense, for no other reason than to avoid political loss of face.

I'm reminded of this murky world by this report, which details the case of an Al-Queda agent killing CIA operatives in a suicide bomb attack. Why, I don't know, but to me it just has a resonance with the underpants bomber case.