In the murky world of intelligence, trite though it may appear, it is hard to get to the truth. The best we can get is a smidgen of the truth about the impending terrorist attack on Sandton.
Even then, as Friedrich Nietzsche would put it, there are no eternal facts, as there are no absolute truths. In the end, you choose what you want to believe. It could be the hard stuff concocted at the CIA in Langley, Virginia, or at Musanda, otherwise known as The Farm, in Tshwane, home of our State Security Agency (SSA).
According to American spies, there’s a credible threat the SA security establishment is unable to eliminate, which “truth” necessitates an unavoidable public alert to US citizens to avoid the vicinity of Sandton. Looked at differently, had the threat been avoidable, it would have obviated the need to publicly communicate it.
According to the SA spies, there is no evidence to back this alarmist, CIA-sponsored approach, but the threat alert is nonetheless noted, however inconvenient. It is the responsibility of South Africa's security forces, says minister in the presidency Mondli Gungubele, to ensure all people in our country feel safe.
The record of our security forces (think the July riots) is not a precondition for Gungubele dismissing Americans, not in so many words, as being too quick with words and too slow to adduce evidence. While South Africans have had their security faux pas, Americans too have failed to secure American lives over the years. This is why September 11 is not just a meaningless calendar date for them.
Why won’t our government confidently tell South Africans to simply ignore the Americans?
That said, who is to be believed on the terrorist threat to Sandton? And what, in terrorist terms, is Sandton? Perhaps the last question first: Is Sandton the American consulate across from Sandton City? Or is it the Leonardo, the tallest building in Africa? Would demolishing Africa’s tallest building be a statement terrorists would want to make? To what end? Or is Sandton its famous mall, Africa’s shopping jewel? Perhaps the Gautrain Radisson Blu could be a target — remember the November 2015 Radisson Blu Hotel attack in Mali? Or the Gautrain station that is an important link between Tshwane, OR Tambo International Airport, Joburg's inner city and Sandton? Just what is Sandton?
Not that there would be a rational explanation that is a perfect fit with the warped thoughts of terrorists, but anyone (CIA or SSA) saying there is a threat to Sandton is vague deliberately. If you think of American interests, are these the brands that adorn the shops, or the consulate, the hotels that dot the continent’s richest square mile or what? The deliberateness behind the vague descriptors of the threat is clear.
Further, if you consider the SA response, that there is no evidence to support the threat alert, does that mean we all should disregard the threat? Why won’t our government confidently tell South Africans to simply ignore the Americans?
And how should we understand South Africa saying the Americans did not put the evidence on the table when asked to do so? The fact that they did not does not mean evidence does not exist. It is possible the CIA is protecting its own sources, what they call security assets, or that they see the pointlessness of sharing sensitive data with amateurs who could not manage lousy riots in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng instigated by a motley crew of former securocrats. How then should they be trusted with high-level terrorist detail? Is this possible? Of course it is. That it is possible does not mean it is true.
But it is also possible that the Americans are up to mischief. We, of course, know that the CIA has been used to destabilise many governments across the globe. This includes killing postcolonial leaders whose pursuits threatened American national interests. But does this mean they would lie about a security threat — and are they, in fact, lying?
The mere communication of the threat will lead to fewer people visiting Sandton this weekend. In time, it lessens the allure of Sandton — and SA — as the vignette of shopping among tourists from around the globe. The reputational and perceptual consequences for SA are huge. Why, then, is SA comfortable with just saying there was no evidence and not calling out the “lie”, if indeed it is one?
There is a layer of complexity behind the politics of security, especially linked to terrorism. Once you say “terrorism” to Americans, they immediately stop thinking. The natural response is patriotism.
The pain America has suffered as a result of terrorism has made them want to export the same “patriotic” response to terrorism to all people of the world. This is why they tried to use this in Iraq, claiming the existence of weapons of mass destruction. The world was asked not to seek evidence but to believe that American spies know best. Many lived to rue the day they bought that story by secretary of state Colin Powell. Now America is being asked for evidence that indeed Sandton, whatever it is, will be bombed or attacked tomorrow, and in its characteristic arrogance, it will not say anything more than what is contained in the threat alert.
What this means is that if the threat eventuates, American spies can then (at great cost to us) say that the next time we tell you that you are at risk, please don’t ask funny questions. Just believe us. But should the threat not materialise, they’re still able to say it was neutralised mainly by their public communication that made the terrorists retreat to their cells.
How would anyone contradict them? Especially bumbling fools who didn’t even know that there was a risk of an attack in the first place? How can any government say there is no threat — it is either there and you can see it or you can’t see it. That you don’t see it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. And therein lies the complexity. Is this threat real or imagined?
For we ordinary folk it’s just smoke and mirrors. It’s the murky politics of security. In the absence of evidence, it’s hard to choose whom to believe. After all, Nietzsche says there’s no absolute truth. What we have are the American and South African versions.
