The Dogs of War:
Her Majesty's Irregular Forces

by Scott Thompson

Printed in The Executive Intelligence Review, August 22, 1997.


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Among her most important ``Prerogative Powers'' as monarch, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II is the Commander-in-Chief of all the armed forces of the British Empire and the Commonwealth, including the Special Air Services (SAS), such nominally ``private'' irregular warfare agencies as the Corps of Commissionaires, and the plethora of ``private'' security firms that operate under the Corps' umbrella. She alone has the power to declare war and conclude treaties, and she has the authority to appoint all commanders and officers by land, sea, and air.

These ``Prerogative Powers'' are exercised through a body known as the Privy Council, comprised of some 400 hand-picked appointees from the House of Lords, the current and former prime ministers and Cabinet officers, leaders of the governing party and the opposition, directors of the leading City of London corporations, the hierarchy of the Church of England, and ranking members of the military, security, and intelligence services. No act of Parliament is in force until it has been approved by ``Orders in Council,'' i.e., accepted by the Queen and communicated through the Privy Council.

The Queen presides over a weekly meeting of the Joint Intelligence Committee, where she--and not the prime minister--is fully briefed on the activities of all of the British secret services. No British ``Rambos'' or latter-day James Bonds carry out a single covert act, which does not fall under the purview of the Queen.

According to the official Canadian document, ``The Role and Structure of the Privy Council Office,'' published in Ottawa by the Privy Council in December 1996, there is a Canadian Privy Council Coordinator of Security and Intelligence, and a Security and Intelligence Secretariat, which both report directly to the Queen, in her capacity as Sovereign over Canada. The Secretariat is chaired by the Clerk of the Privy Council, the Queen's personal administrator. According to a source at the Privy Council Office in Ottawa, the Canadian system is almost certainly a carbon-copy of the structure of the British Empire's central Privy Council in London, although no similar document exists, corroborating that structure.


Military outreach

The Queen keeps in touch with the military services of the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth through the Chiefs of Staff and her Defense Services Secretary. She makes regular visits to service establishments, and is regularly briefed on their activities, according to palace sources.

Although many of the military deployments of the British and Commonwealth services are kept secret, a review of the International Institute of Strategic Studies 1996-97 The Military Balance, confirms that British forces are presently deployed in Antarctica, Ascension Island, Brunei, Cyprus, Germany, Gibraltar, Nepal, Taiwan, Thailand, the West Indies, on the Malvinas Islands, and on Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean. In addition, 455 British military advisers are posted in 30 countries.

British troops are also engaged, as part of United Nations ``blue helmet'' forces, in peacekeeping missions in the Adriatic Sea, Angola, Bosnia, Croatia, Egypt, Georgia, Haiti, Iraq, Kuwait, Italy, Saudi Arabia, on the Syrian-Israeli border, and in Turkey.


Her Majesty's irregulars

This formal deployment of British forces around the globe does not take into account the global operations of Her Majesty's ``irregulars,'' the so-called ``former'' SAS and regular military and police officers who take up private sector assignments, but, in reality, never leave Her Majesty's Secret Service.

In the Oct. 28, 1994 EIR Special Report, ``The Coming Fall of the House of Windsor,'' we exposed the role of the 23rd SAS Regiment, ostensibly the SAS's ``reserve'' detachment, in Prince Philip's murderous covert assassination program, ``Operation Lock,'' which targetted political dissidents in South Africa during 1987-90, under the cover of hunting down and eliminating ``poachers'' who were allegedly killing off South Africa's endangered black rhinos, and selling their skins and horns on the black market.

With funding and sponsorship from the World Wildlife Fund, and, reportedly, from the Queen Mother, ``Operation Lock'' financed the establishment of an ostensibly private security firm, KAS Enterprises Ltd., headed by the famous World War II SAS founder, Sir David Stirling, and run, on the ground, by Lt. Col. Ian Crooke, the head of the 23rd SAS Regiment.

According to sources familiar with the ``Operation Lock'' fiasco, KAS Enterprises Ltd. was prototypical of the SAS front companies, established in recent years, to conduct ``plausibly deniable'' clandestine operations. When Sir David Stirling died in 1990, KAS was purchased by Sir James Goldsmith. The SAS operators on the ground in southern Africa, working in tandem with some of South Africa's own sanctioned assassins, like Craig Williamson and Ant White, the accused murderers of Sweden's Prime Minister Olof Palme, didn't miss a beat. Operation Lock was eventually exposed and shut down, but not until hundreds of political figures in Namibia, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, South Africa, the Seychelles Islands, and so on, were gunned down, and thousands more killed in the cross-fire, orchestrated by what came to be known as the mysterious ``third force.''

Today, despite that exposé, the African continent is crawling with ``private'' mercenary armies, staffed by ``former'' SAS men, and South African ``scouts,'' operating under such corporate covers as Executive Outcomes and Defence Systems Ltd.

In this report, you will see that, while there still exists a wall of secrecy surrounding the ``official'' links of these security firms, they play an undeniable role in the British grand strategy of depopulating Africa, grabbing the continent's raw materials wealth, and moving similarly to take over Ibero-America. And, despite the Official Secrecy, through two little-known but pivotal Crown agencies, unearthed by EIR investigators, we can now provide the paper trail, which leads directly to the monarchy and the Privy Council.


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The preceding article is a rough version of the article that appeared in The American Almanac. It is made available here with the permission of The New Federalist Newspaper. Any use of, or quotations from, this article must attribute them to The New Federalist, and The American Almanac.


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