mred:
this article is a ripper - dated yesterday - it hasnt been picked up anywhere except at prisonplanet.com who did the interview - ftr despite its name, prisonplanet is generally pretty good.

"Apparently at ease to discuss these explosive disclosures, Shrimpton explained that there was advance knowledge of Kelly's death in Whitehall, but that the deed itself was most likely carried out by the French external security organisation, DGSE. There was no indication that anybody in MI5 or MI6 had been involved. He went further by suggesting that the hit squad itself was composed of Iraqis from the former regime's Mukhabarat intelligence organisation, recruited from Damascus with the help of Syria's own intelligence apparatus."

its all very curious. it looks as though they've decided to pre-emptively address the allegation - and blame the actual killing on the french and iraqis and syrians (simultaneously! i love it when that happens) - and presumably they give the interview to the conspiratorial-sounding prisonplanet so as to minimise it the impact.

its interesting that none of the british press have mentioned the interview (yet) - shrimpton sez: "the story has been effectively censored by the British Press, who according to Shrimpton are concerned about losing the pro-Euro Tony Blair as Prime Minister were they to publish details of Kelly's assassination. Blair's departure, he says, could threaten Britain's proposed adoption of the Euro as the national currency." - but some papers have been happy to print letters from doctors saying that kelly didnt suicide, so that argument seems a bit thin...

i dont know this guy shrimpton - but it seems (via google) as though he is also a constitutional lawyer whose big fight is keeping the uk outta europe whose major concern seems to be the retention of the imperial system in the uk.

is shrimpton a 'jewish' name? that'd be kinda funny. he was a panel member on "Responses to Terrorism: A Panel Discussion. Meeting of the Board of Directors - October 26, 2001, Washington D.C." for JINSA (have i crossed the antisemitic line yet?)- saying this, curiously, in his introductory paragraph "...It is good to be in America at this time..." - this is six weeks after 911.

the paragraph continues oddly... "and I think you and every American knows that you have no firmer friend on this planet than the United Kingdom, and I was thrilled that Her Majesty the Queen chose to have the National Anthem played in Buckingham Palace within 24 hours of the attacks on September the 11th. That was her idea, not Tony Blair's, he was out of the loop on that one."

fuck it - ill quote u the whole '2minute' introduction cos it just keeps getting more fun:
"MR. SHRIMPTON: Good morning. I'm going to enjoy this. There are no pressures, rather I can say what I think and what I'd actually like to say. I am delighted to be here. I was very privileged to be invited to address JINSA, delighted to be at the dinner last night, and this was well worth a trip across the Atlantic. It is good to be in America at this time, and I think you and every American knows that you have no firmer friend on this planet than the United Kingdom, and I was thrilled that Her Majesty the Queen chose to have the National Anthem played in Buckingham Palace within 24 hours of the attacks on September the 11th. That was her idea, not Tony Blair's, he was out of the loop on that one.

But, you have to draw a distinction, ladies and gentlemen, between Britain and Europe. As you all know, Britain is not part of Europe. Europe starts at Calais. Now, my group is dedicated to bringing the United Kingdom out of the European Union. We should never have gone in, and to strengthening the ties with our friends in the world who we define as the United States, the Commonwealth, and Israel, and the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, the emerging democracies.

Now, I'm sure Margaret Thatcher, the honorary President of the British group, would join me in these few remarks as well. I think you all know where Margaret Thatcher stands. Now, the European Union. They have been as much use in September 11th as a chocolate teapot. The idea that you are going to get the Europeans bombing Afghanistan is a non-starter. The idea that they are going to bomb Iraq, when we have to go in to sort out the Iraqis, which we are going to have to do, is a non-starter. As I said to a member of your national security community, within about 48 hours of the attacks as we are about to board a private aircraft at an airbase in Virginia, at a time when there weren't that many general aviation airplanes getting into the air, if the French are on your side God help you because they are just as likely to shoot you down as the opposition.

I'm probably running over my two minutes, can I have an extra minute? Generals, do you mind?

When the French were on our side in averting commerce in Kosovo, they managed not to kill a single Serb during the whole campaign, which is a significant achievement, they threw missions, but managed not to shoot down a single aircraft except a Stealth Fighter, which they managed to do by shopping the Stealth Fighter's mission through the Yugoslavs, a point which was confirmed to me in conversation by a very nice Yugoslav Defense Force colonel who happened to be on duty the night the Chinese Embassy was bombed, sorry, accidentally hit, George, don't be upset.

The notion that the French, or the Germans, or the Italians, are going to be of any use in this war is ludicrous, and, indeed, I would ask, what war? This is not what Bob Harris would call a war. Larry, I'm sure you wouldn't call this a war. I mean, this hasn't started yet, we haven't even declared it yet, the going is going to get a lot tougher, and the European Union's intent will be to water it down. The only EU response was to shake out some proposals that they dreamed up five years ago for European-wide arrest warrants, which have nothing to do with terrorism whatsoever, they are purely an idea of undermining the sovereignty of nation states, transferring powers over our common law legal system to Brussels, and they were just waiting for a crisis in order to bring them out, dust them off, and get them through, because if there wasn't a crisis they'd never get them through because they'd never survive the scrutiny.

They keep talking about the United Nations. The United Nations, as you all know, also is about as much use as a chocolate teapot, no offense intended, fine when it comes to aid, not fine when it comes to serious issues of security or standing up to a terrorism, or standing up to nation states which support terror, as have the Talibon and Afghanistan, as has Iraq, as has Syria, as has Iran and Libya. I will need not to go further.

The emphasis on the United Nations, the emphasis on coalition building, is nothing more than a sham, in order to restrict America's perfectly proper response in circumstances where an act of war was committed on American soil which caused more casualties than the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor.

America is entitled to go to war. Britain will stand by her. The Europeans will be nowhere in sight, and anybody in Washington who pays the slightest attention to what the European Union is saying is simply going to let the American people down at this crucial time."

what a fucking rant. im impressed! the interesting thing to note is how 'tight' his argument is vis-a-vis the official talking points - remember, this is a monotribe (sic) at jinsa, just 6 weeks after 911. he'd remembered the official line so well that he just blurted out the entire script in his introduction... disparagingly, the french " managed not to kill a single Serb during the whole campaign" and "The notion that the French, or the Germans, or the Italians, are going to be of any use in this war is ludicrous" libya syria iran etc etc - the ducks were all lined up

in any case, we praps need to consider the prisonplanet interview in the context of the jinsa panel - both the content, and also the odd fact that he was on the panel at all... he was a constitutional lawyer whose work hitherto climaxed with the claim that britains sovereignty absolutely included the right to maintain imperial-ism over metric - yet doesnt even seem to consider for even a second the possibility of soverignty for 'Afghanistan, as has Iraq, as has Syria, as has Iran and Libya.'(is there something wrong with 'hitherto climaxed'?)

apologies: i started off writing about the prisonplanet article - and got side-tracked along the way - its amazing how frequently an odd article, and the odd bits of articles, always comes back to something weird - nearly every stone i look under has some dubious quality - im not sure if journos simply cant properly hide the fabrications, or if my nose is just tuned to it for some reason. or as is becoming increasingly apparent - everything they say has some specific intent, and therefore looking under *any* rock would bring up something curious...