Metaphoric Comprehension Revisited by Dr Martin Roberts

Metaphoric Comprehension Revisited by Dr Martin Roberts

METAPHORIC COMPREHENSION REVISITED

 By Dr Martin Roberts
18 September 2015

Attention switching

Pitiful though it may appear to some, I cannot help but notice certain similarities between ostensibly unrelated events. I mean, whatever can the tragedy of 9/11 have in common with the disappearance of Madeleine McCann?

One notable aspect, for me at least, is the common purpose shared by the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST for short), whose report into the collapse of the ‘Twin Towers’ was commissioned by the US administration, and Operation Grange, funded, open-endedly it seems, by the UK government. Both are indisputably endeavours to impose upon the general public an official account of what happened in each case – to the World Trade Centre buildings on the one hand, Madeleine McCann on the other. Both are gratuitously disingenuous. So much so that it hardly takes a leap of logic to infer that the truth must still be ‘out there’, since it is nowhere represented by either of these officially sanctioned undertakings.

However, for the sake of parsimony if nothing else, we should confine discussion to the McCann affair and the misdirection inherent in it.

To quote briefly from a recent facebook/forum comment:

“There is no way on this earth that two insignificant doctors and their holiday companions would be protected by the full might of the British government. Some other event was happening in Praia de Luz that week and that some of those in attendance were powerful movers and shakers who needed to be protected at all costs.

“…some seeking the answer to Madeleine's disappearance will be disappointed if the reason for the protection does not lead to a high level paedophile gang. But it won’t because it isn't the reason.”

Of course there are those who adhere to the notion that the McCanns have accomplished all they have by virtue of their being no more than sharp opportunists, who happened to have had their hands on a few useful professional levers and have gone onto greater things inside the signal box since. The battleground for argument here is usually the explicit exemplars of officialdom’s having taken the couple’s part so readily. ‘Extraordinary!’ cry the conspiracy theorists. ‘Par for the course,’ claim the debunkers. But what of a smaller skirmish about which very little has so far been said?

However influential the McCanns and their T7 allies may or may not have been, it is difficult to see how they might have convinced two Police investigators into the McCann disappearance, one of them a senior and well respected officer in the field of missing persons enquiries, that their future careers lay elsewhere – outside the UK even. I refer of course to Martin Grime (now working with the FBI) and Mark Harrison (now a Police Commander in Australia). How did Team McCann accomplish that?

Our anonymous commentator is of the opinion that some powerful entity outside the McCann circle required protection, but not on account of their association with any paedophile ring. That wasn’t the reason. Which begs the obvious question: ‘What was the reason’?

Apparently, “Some other event was happening in Praia de Luz that week and some of those in attendance were powerful movers and shakers who needed to be protected at all costs.”

For ‘abduction by paedophiles’ one might read ‘destroyed by hijacked aircraft’, since both propositions share the same degree of verisimilitude. Operation Grange have of course adopted the fallback position of ‘body snatching by burglars’, in an attempt to incorporate the small detail of Madeleine McCann’s being dead at the time of departure - about as credible as NIST’s computer modelling of the collapse of WTC7, or indeed any of the hundreds of pages that make up the 9/11 Commission Report, for which countless trees were needlessly sacrificed. (Ed see below)

The inevitable lure here, and the one which has engaged so many for so long, is the urge to get to the bottom of what really happened to Madeleine McCann. And this, with the added frisson of possible misdemeanour involving high status individuals, has, for nearly a decade, successfully steered all our gazes away from the true fulcrum of the drama being played out in the Portuguese Algarve. As per the comment above: “Some other event was happening in Praia de Luz that week.” A ‘tomato fest’ it was not.

Keeping secrets

Certain students of the McCann case, as seen through the eyes of the media for the most part, have derided Goncalo Amaral’s repeated assertions that secret service activities lay behind the ruinous political intervention into the police investigation of which he was co-ordinator. Such a view establishes him as a ‘totem’ for conspiracy theorists, who, according to these learned others, lack a firm grasp of reality. Far too many people (‘three score and ten’?) would have to have been involved for it to work, and they couldn’t all keep a secret could they? Not like the thousands employed at Bletchley Park during the Second World War, or the hundred thousand engaged on the Manhattan Project in the USA, where President Truman was over a week in office before he knew anything about it (http://jpaulson.blogspot.nl/2015/09/911-decade-of-deception-full-film-new.html). (Ed see below)  Then of course we have that inglorious September date in 2001. Has anyone from the directorate ‘squealed’ about that one yet? (And don’t, for goodness’ sake, imagine that’s because there’s nothing to reveal).

Of all those whose opinions concerning the McCann case might be taken seriously, Goncalo Amaral is out in front by a country mile. He was slap bang in the middle of proceedings at the time. So if he reports that a UK police officer (Mark Harrison as it happens) was intercepted by MI5 at Faro Airport then it’s ‘odds on’ the event occurred. So we might ask ourselves, were MI5 tagging along with the diplomatic invasion, like so many opportunist refugees, just in case the people thought by Kate McCann to have been ‘spying’ on her family that week should have absconded with some living embodiment of a state secret or two? Or were they already there?

It’s safe to say that a lot of people were in the Algarve at the time of Madeleine McCann’s disappearance, no doubt representing a variety of nationalities. The T7 were known to each other, but not to fellow diners at the Tapas Restaurant. Even newly-arrived Robert Murat, whose mother’s house was just a short walk from the Ocean Club, was a complete stranger to some, whilst Martin Smith had only seen him on a couple of occasions.

A small township populated by all sorts and frequented by strangers then. Perhaps we should not be surprised therefore at the McCann appeal for holiday-makers at the time to submit to CEOP (led of course by Jim Gamble) any photos that featured unfamiliar faces – you know, the sort of family snap you happen to take just as someone else wanders into view.

Despite Gerry McCann’s personal mantra about the importance of ‘getting information into the investigation’, no photographs trawled in this manner were ever passed onto the PJ, who were conducting it. Furthermore, according to Kate McCann (Crimewatch, June 2007), "Probably about 60% of tourists to this area are British, but following that are the Germans and then the Dutch.” But then we have Gerry’s ‘blog’ of 9 June, 2007, in which he tells us:

“After returning from the beach we did the Irish version of Crimewatch -'Crimecall'. There are a lot of Irish tourists in and around Praia da Luz and although the awareness of Madeleine's disappearance in Ireland is extremely high, we want to ensure that everyone is aware of the appeal and we want the Irish public to come forward with photographs of people who they do not know who were in and around Praia da Luz in the 2 weeks leading up to the 3rd May.”

The Smith family members, whose ‘sighting’ seems to have been of some significance, are of course Irish. Maybe friends of theirs had inadvertently secured an image of the same ‘abductor’ during daylight hours? More generally, and much more likely, such an Irish photographic ‘accident’ might have involved another Irish individual, most probably at a venue frequented by Irish ‘tourists’.

The McCanns and their ‘Tapas’ friends arrived in Praia da Luz over the weekend 28/29 April. Madeleine McCann was publicly reported missing on May 3, whereafter Kate McCann was quite sure ‘They’d been watching us for days’ (well it couldn’t have been a week!). And yet the McCanns, CEOP, and in all likelihood Jim Gamble, who had rather more than one string to his professional bow at the time, were interested in photographs featuring people ‘in and around Praia da Luz in the 2 weeks leading up to the 3rd May’. That’s over a week before the McCanns even arrived.

What surreptitious activity might the suspected abductor(s) have been up to prior to watching the McCanns for a few days? Did they know the McCanns were coming? Had they access to their booking arrangements? Did they take time to reconnoitre likely vantage points for surveillance perhaps? Of course not. Yet someone of interest must have been there, otherwise there would have been no chance of their being captured on film, and concomitantly no point to the appeal for photographs.

The first rule of survival 

‘Take care of no. 1’. It follows that, on a national scale, the first priority of a state is to see to matters of state. And what might matter to the state is not the domestic fate of a young child abroad, nor the criminality, if such it be, of that child’s parents. Thus, faced with the rejection of FOI requests on the grounds that to respond could jeopardize international relations, are we not bound to infer that what was actually being safeguarded was not the good names of a rag-tag bunch of middle-class medics? (See: “A Magical Mystery Tour” and “‘Mad Cow’ Legislation” – McCannfiles, October/November 2009).

So what was happening that spring, in Praia da Luz particularly or the Portuguese Algarve in general, that was neither a tomato fest nor a child abduction? Whatever it was, it was of international significance. Did it have something to do with the Lisbon Treaty perhaps? Nope. That was not signed until December. The Freeport scandal coming to a head? Well that certainly had an international dimension, but it’s difficult to see any immediate connection with the very immediate steps taken to submerge the McCann affair. What say we look at another chain of ‘incidents’ altogether, working backward from 2012?

This from The Portugal News Online of 15 November that year (http://www.theportugalnews.com/news/security-shrouds-trial-of-real-ira-weapons-trafficking-suspects/27190):

“The trial of five men accused of trafficking weapons to supply a dissident faction of the IRA – the Real IRA (RIRA) – began in the Algarve last week under a blanket of tight security.

“Three men from Northern Ireland and two Portuguese nationals are implicated in the case, which dates back to July 2011, when a PJ counter-terrorism unit swooped on a campsite in Olhão and dismantled the set-up.

“Three of the suspects are being held in Portugal, one remains free and the fifth suspect is in Ireland where he is facing extradition.” 

The arrests were in fact reported in the Guardian at the time they occurred (10 July - http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/jul/10/portugal-arrests-real-ira-suspects-arms-trafficking).

Continuing with The Portugal News Online:

“It is not the first time RIRA activity has been exposed in the Algarve. In 2009 two men believed to belong to the Real IRA were found to be using a restaurant in the small fishing village of Alvor as a main European base.

“It was at the Panda Grill on the fringe of the village that Paul Anthony McCaugherty and Michael Gregory allegedly negotiated the buying and selling of weapons for the Real IRA, between 2005 and 2006.”

The Telegraph (30.6.2010) explained that these 2009 arrests had proceeded to trial and that

“The trial had heard that the Real IRA was using a restaurant on the Algarve in Portugal as a global hub for weapons shipments to Ireland. McCaugherty met the agent in Portugal and in a number of other locations including Amsterdam and Istanbul.” (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/northernireland/7864018/Real-IRA-commander-caught-in-MI5-arms-dealing-sting.html).

Fully five years ago yet another ‘anonymous donor’ left a comment on a popular blog to the following effect:

“Anonymous 23 April 2010 20:34:00

“In my opinion, Jim Gamble was not looking for photos of possible abductors. He was looking for photos that could have identified MI5 operatives. There is a trial scheduled to take place this month (April 2010) in regard to the Real IRA activities in the Algarve. It may not have to do with that case….”

On the other hand it just might.

Given these suspects were only arrested in 2009, in relation to criminal activities conducted between 2005 and 2006, what were they doing in the intervening period – and where were they doing it? A quick look at the map reveals that the ‘small fishing village of Alvor’, otherwise a European base of operations for illegal arms trafficking, is just beyond the headland from Luz, to the other side of Lagos.

And that ‘agent’ the accused was supposed to have met? The Telegraph (30.6.2010) again explains:

“Paul McCaugherty, 43, was caught trying to buy an arsenal of weapons from an undercover agent posing as a Middle Eastern arms dealer.

“The Security Service agent, known as Ali, spent two years meeting McCaugherty and bugging 90 hours of conversations which became the cornerstone of the prosecution’s case at Belfast Crown Court.”

No one was arrested until 2009 remember, which means that this operation was on-going during 2007, the year the McCanns decided to visit the Algarve. And let’s not overlook the headline afterwards carried by the Telegraph (30.6.2010):

Real IRA commander caught in MI5 arms dealing sting

A Real IRA commander has been convicted of attempting to smuggle weapons and explosives into Northern Ireland after being snared by a daring MI5 sting operation. 

From which it is abundantly clear that MI5 didn’t just wander into the Algarve in the wake of the McCanns. They were already there, and had been for some considerable time.

A stitch in time

Picking up on the earlier perspicacity of ‘Anonymous’, as demonstrated on 23 April that year (2010), if there is one thing about which the security services are undeniably scrupulous it is protection of their assets’ identities, and for very good reason.

Examples of this concern (or lack thereof) are to be found in the furore following members of the Bush administration’s deliberately, and maliciously, ‘outing’ CIA field agent Valerie Plame Wilson, simply to spite her husband, a diplomat who had taken a very public moral stand against US foreign policy in the Middle-East. (Ed. Joe Wilson husband of Valerie Plame revues Bush's memoir link)  On the home front, MI5’s eventual willingness to share CCTV images of two of the alleged 7/7 bombers was counterbalanced by their ‘cropping’ the pictures in such a way as to make reliable identification of the individuals nigh-on impossible.

But that’s just for context. What we have for more immediate consideration is an on-going MI5 operation in the Portuguese Algarve, where suddenly, and without prior warning, Police activity is about to go into overdrive, possibly giving locally based targets entirely the wrong impression that they are on the point of being ‘rumbled’ (a moment that was still two years hence), and jeopardizing years of investment in under-cover infiltration in the process. Not to mention the risk of ‘Ali’s being recognised in a context other than that of his role as a putative arms dealer.

Such would have been the situation had the PJ acted without media or other intrusion on the occasion of Madeleine McCann’s ‘disappearance’.

But isn’t that what they did?

Not really. It’s what they did on the night of May 3rd.

Now consider a UK government and its security services appraised of the possibility of such imminent turmoil before it actually kicked off. Say, a few days before. Time in which to delay ‘abduction’ (in lieu of a death) and instruct ‘Ali’, for example, to adopt a low profile elsewhere for the time being. Police spot checks throughout the Algarve would be inevitable, but significant others would at least be out of the firing line. Had the Portuguese been called to action stations without prior reference to MI5 they would have taken everyone unawares, not just Madeleine McCann’s abductor, had there been one that is.

So Madeleine, instead of dying on the Monday, is abducted, as planned, on the Thursday, giving MI5 the breathing space it needed to manage its own activities in readiness. The very prompt (and loud) international media revelation of Madeleine McCann’s abduction ensured that television watchers everywhere would then know why the PJ, the GNR, and all those helicopters, were suddenly so busy, even those who might have been watching in Alvora, and who obviously hadn’t kidnapped anyone.

I know, I know, ‘if this weren’t so pitiful it would be funny’. But there is a paradox attaching to Madeleine’s disappearance which has yet to be addressed by anyone as far as I am aware, and it is this:

If Madeleine McCann was ‘abducted’ in a hurry on the Thursday night, there was not enough time for her to have lain dead beforehand. And if she died earlier that week, then why would Gerry McCann have waited several days before removing the evidence, only to snatch her corpse out bed at the last minute, just before his wife raised the alarm. The reason for the delay, I suggest, was someone else’s.

And let us not overlook the very significant role in proceedings played by Jim Gamble of CEOP, both at the time and since. Who really conjured up the notion of an extreme paedophile operating in Portugal (Madeleine McCann was barely four years old don’t forget), and who, not long previously, had been steeped in the dark practices of the security services in Northern Ireland?

MI5 eventually secured their targets. The McCanns have their ‘hush money’. And Operation Grange is probably just this current financial year away from ‘capping’ the entire episode like a toxic well (they would have done so sooner had a credible reconciliation been available - remember DCI Redwood’s admission that ‘solution’ was not on the menu?). Oh, and in the wake of the ‘St Andrews Agreement’, the Northern Ireland Assembly was restored and a new Northern Ireland Executive formed - on 8 May 2007.

The chances of the McCanns ever appearing in court as accused parties are exactly those of their daughter being returned to them by an abductor – NIL. Otherwise they would be standing before the judge as accomplices to a deception perpetrated by the very government on whose behalf they were being prosecuted! Or are we also to believe that NORAD could be blind-sided, the Pentagon attacked, and some of Manhattan’s premier real estate flattened by a bunch of dissident Saudis squatting in an Afghan cave?

Martin Roberts