Revealed: GCHQ's beyond top secret Middle Eastern internet spy base

"Agreed. No one would ever use names like Operation Desert Storm, Operation Crescent Wind or Operation Rolling Thunder to name but a few."

If you bothered to keep reading, you'll note:

"Although the US has been known to use a bit of marketing in the case of more widely known codewords and operational names in order to sex them up for the public."

Additionally, operational names are not the same thing as code names. You're trying to be clever while comparing apples and oranges.

btw, UK Forces didn't use 'Op Desert Shield/Storm', we used 'Operation Granby'.

Re: Why did we publish this?

Well done.

Unfortunately you do realise that you'll be forced to use Windows 8 as punishment for stepping out of line. You might have your asset management life cycle forcibly cut short. The Guardian had the heavies coming round and smashing up computers for publishing less.

Re: Snapper Re: September 11, 2001

".....Most historians now accept that Pearl Harbour was known about by the high-ups in the American and UK Governments before the attack....." Partially correct - they had warnings but no concrete proof of the time or place of the attack. The British, Dutch and US had an a agreement to share intelligence from decoding Japanese communications and knew the Japanese planned an attack as early as 1940. The UK sent a first specific warning in 1941 after being tipped of by the Russians. An NKVD spy, Richard Sorge, had heard a rumour of Japanese plans and gave the correct month and the likely US target as early as June 1941, but when MI6 sent the news to the US it went to Hoover at the FBI. Hoover had not heard anything through his own sources (which included thousands of line-taps on Japanese-Americans) and had an inherent distrust of "the Commies", so he did not accept the warning. Ironically, Sorge had also earlier sent Stalin warning of the German attack on Russia and Stalin had ignored him! Unfortunately, Sorge was arrested in October 1941 before he could supply actual proof. MI6 followed up with their own spies and were able to get much more detail which Winston Churchill himself sent to Roosevelt. The theory is that many in Congress would not support a war, being isolationist, and would insist the British warning was a ruse to force the US into the War on the side of the Allies, meaning Roosevelt was unwilling to mobilise US forces without proper evidence. Roosevelt's policy was that America could not make the first move in a Pacific war, nor give the Japanese the excuse by mobilising forces. Thus only a warning of "possible attack" was sent to US bases including Pearl. The actual concrete proof, given by the breaking of the Japanese diplomatic "Purple Code" did not come until too late, and even then did not mention Japanese targets.

".....Also strange how the only American ships to be damaged were the almost useless battleships, but the really powerful ships, the aircraft carriers, were out of town on that Sunday morning....." A fave musing with conspiracy nuts that totally avoids the fact that US Navy strategy was built around the use of battleships, with the carriers more as providing support to the battlegroup and protecting them from land-based bombers. Royal Naval actions in the Med against the Italians (especially the Battle of Cape Matapan) had reinforced the belief that the battleship was still the primary means of sinking enemy warships. Ironically, it was the RN use of carriers at Taranto to sink Italian battleships that directly influenced the Japanese plan for Pearl, but the primary target was always the USN's battleships. Indeed, the loss of the battleships at Pearl forced the USN into quickly forming a novel strategy around the use of carriers as the main striking force. As it turned out, it was a superior strategy, but it was anathema to the many admirals that had planned their war against Japan on the basis of battleship actions.

".....you have to ask yourself why the Japanese attacked in the first place, especially when they were so short of fuel oil and manufacturing capability that they could not hope to win a war of attrition...." Imperial Japan needed to expand, particularly into China, to secure the resources it needed. The US was particularly upset about the move into China (they really didn't give a fudge about the Japs moving on British, French or Dutch colonies). There was also a Japanese belief that a quick, overwhelming attack would force America to withdraw from the Pacific to defend the US mainland, and that isolationist American politicians would then be amenable to a peace settlement in Japan's favour. In short, the Japs misunderstood the US as much as the US misunderstood Japan.

"....Elizabeth the First .... left the sailors to starve to death on ships anchored out at sea so the government wouldn't have to pay them....." Not true. Whilst the Royal Navy had driven the Armada out of the Channel ports and into the North Sea, it still represented a striking force far larger than the RN, and could still swing round and resume picking up the Spanish armies from France. Liz kept the Fleet at sea so as to guard against any further Spanish attempts at invasion. In the event, the Spanish tried to take their remaining ships round Scotland and most were wrecked in storms, leaving the survivors little option but to return to Spain.

".....Do some research before you parrot the government/media line." Petard moment.

Re: September 11, 2001

"Most historians now accept". Most "historians" also accept that Kennedy was shot by Oswald or Oswald plus pal or Castro or US Cubans or Russia or the CIA or the FBI or Connally or the driver or Johnson or Nixon or his own brother or Warren or the mob or .... Must have forgotten some. just pick your historian.