TOM EATON | I spy with my little eye, something beginning with ... ‘F’

The Americans seem to have jumped the gun on it. Our spooks say it’s a “f***-up”. Our government says there’s no proof. But when it comes to claims of a potential terror attack in Sandton, there’s one thing that’s pretty clear.

Before I continue, I must issue the disclaimer I use whenever I write — or even talk about — any story that comes from state security apparatuses.

I am not a conspiracy theorist. I certainly don’t want to sound like a burnt-out CIA agent, telling you that we’re through the looking glass and down the rabbit hole and nothing is as it seems. But it would be extremely unwise — and perhaps dangerously naive — to believe that intelligence services tell us things simply for the sake of passing on useful information to keep us safe.

On the contrary, anything that comes from the spooks needs to be treated not as information but as a kind of psychological and political cluster bomb; a carefully constructed package crammed with dis- and misinformation, lures, baits, triggers, poisons and antidotes.

For example, when the US intelligence service warns of a potential attack in Sandton, allegedly wrecking a SA operation that was about to swoop on a number of suspects, we simply can’t know if we’re dealing with nervous American diplomats putting their citizens and careers ahead of the long-term safety of their host country, a legitimate warning by legitimately worried US spooks, an attempt by those spooks or their regional allies to flush out one or more targets who have been central to their own operations, deliberate sabotage of the SA operation for reasons I can’t begin to imagine, an attempt by financial players to hasten SA’s grey-listing and reap the rewards of various bets against our banks and economy, a false flag operation designed to draw SA into greater military involvement in East Africa, or simply a “f***-up”.

But given that Gungubele is a member of the same administration that was caught so catastrophically flat-footed by last year’s insurrection in KwaZulu-Natal, many citizens would have needed something a little firmer than the minister being a ‘bit disturbed’.

What we do know, however, is that if the threat is credible, we are more or less on our own, cursed with a government so entirely focused on factional battles and the acquisition of personal wealth that we have to assume that any protection we get against terror attacks will be despite the state rather than because of it.

You don’t need to be James Bond’s M to understand why this is the case. Counter-terrorism work is extremely difficult at the best of times, what with tracking murderous fanatics, working with (or against) unscrupulous security operatives, and the fact that you never know who you can trust.

Now imagine trying to do all that from inside a collapsing government, in which politicians are much more interested in securing their pensions than the safety of their citizens, and are even willing to co-opt, splinter or purge security agencies to further their personal financial ends.

I’m not suggesting minister in the presidency Mondli Gungubele is one of those. But on Wednesday evening, as the Hawks sat and watched, according to an official who spoke to TimesLIVE Premium, “seven definite targets”, “literally waiting for the guys with the explosives”, Gungubele couldn’t have been less reassuring.

“I have checked this with my security units,” he told the press, “and I will be saying up front we are a bit disturbed. This alarm has been going on, but up to this point it is not backed up by any evidence.”

Of course, officials aren’t always at liberty to confirm or deny the existence either of threats or countermeasures. But given that Gungubele is a member of the same administration that was caught so catastrophically flat-footed by last year’s insurrection in KwaZulu-Natal, many citizens would have needed something a little firmer than the minister being “a bit disturbed” to avoid coming to the conclusion that Ramaphosa’s cabinet was mired in collective cluelessness once again.

Then again, that’s probably the best it can offer these days: instead of a strong, capable, professional state, we have shock and task teams.

This is a f***-up on a national scale. And it can’t go on.