Reply #14: Events On This Scale, Sir

[The Magistrate]

Are quite beyond the capabilities of covert action by foreign interlopers. They occur only where there is real mass support for the gun-men of various stripes. One or two incidents, most of them quite distorted in their retelling, mean nothing in comparison to eruption underway. The Englishmen, for example, were not arrested for 'rigging car bombs': they were involved in survelliance of militia elements within the local Iraqi police, who naturally took an opportunity to use their badges to rid themselves of the scrutiny. It is certainly a hole-and-corner business, but not the 'hidden hand' sort of thing some seem to enjoy imagining to be in operation.

"The problem with employing double agents is the difficulty in calculating where the balance of treachery will come to rest."