CIA's UK Defence Secretary Is In (Not Enough) Trouble

[AhabsOtherLeg]

I am hoping I will live to see the Mayan Calendar vindicated.

Ach, not you as well! I haven't followed the Mayan 2012 thing much, but I was under the impression... maybe the self-willed impression... that it was nonsense?

Hope everything's okay though, where you're at...?

...I have a tendency to put my foot in it sometimes, and then to lie down in it, and then to roll around in it as well. You're alright really, though?

[MacCruiskeen]

Oh christ yes Ahab, the weirdness of this summer had nothing to do with ill-health. Sorry for expressing myself so ill-ly. I am too healthy for my own good. It's bad for my health sometimes, that's all.

The Mayan Apocalypse/Singularity thing fascinates me increasingly. I think it might be a tulpa, a thoughtform. If enough people think about it for long enough, it could actually manifest itself. Occupy Everything, and then maybe the Pentagon can be levitated, at long last. (I wish I could be sure I was joking.)

ON EDIT: Also, Celtic came back from 3-0 down to equalise today. The world is turning towards beauty.

[AhabsOtherLeg]

Oh christ yes Ahab, the weirdness of this summer had nothing to do with ill-health. Sorry for expressing myself so ill-ly. I am too healthy for my own good. It's bad for my health sometimes, that's all.

Sounds like... good fun actually. Good health used to be bad for my health too. Then I hit 30. I don't have to worry about the ill-effects of good health much anymore. But I'm okay really too.

Weirdness, though. There's a lot of it about.

The Mayan Apocalypse/Singularity thing fascinates me increasingly. I think it might be a tulpa, a thoughtform. If enough people think about it for long enough, it could actually manifest itself.

Like the StayPuft Marshmallow Man. Though that only took one guy. I know what you mean, though.

Occupy Everything, and then maybe the Pentagon can be levitated, at long last. (I wish I could be sure I was joking.)

I might be misremembering, but I think that was actually in the manifesto of the Scottish Greens earlier in the year. I never used to pay them much heed, but I'd vote for them now if the SNP weren't around. Can't go SSP - they helped stitch up Tommy. Obviously can't go Tory, Labour, or Lib Dem either. Wouldn't be able to keep a straight face (they're all hilarious). I know I should be past electoral politics by now, but I was off the rolls for nearly a decade due to debt - we all know they use the register to track down "moonlight-flitters" - so it is still kind of new and exciting to me, even though I grow old, I grow old, and shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

ON EDIT: Also, Celtic came back from 3-0 down to equalise today. The world is turning towards beauty.

Stranger and more exquisite things have happened before, Mac. But not recently.

[AhabsOtherLeg]

Fox resignation exposes Tory links to US right

Labour and Lib Dems demand PM explains ministers' involvement with Atlantic Bridge

As headlines go, it's not exactly bad is it?

For a moment there I thought you were hinting that they'd removed the word radical from the headline. But they haven't. And, yeah, it's not bad at all.

Shame about the NHS though...



Anybody see Lansley's performance on Question Time this week? Was a good laugh.

[Stephen Morgan]

Perhaps you are familiar with what is known, in spy parlance, as a "dead drop"? Could be an agent of a foreign power.

If he is, they must be bloody well ashamed of him. What an amateur. They'll never own up to it for fear of global ridicule. I know the term, though, yeah - learned it from R.E.M's "Dead Letter Office" back in the day, of all strange places.

Well, he's no Kim Philby in terms of tradecraft, but who did more damage to the country?

hope you’re pleased with yourself Ahab…going about stirring-up the impression of wrong-doing on the part of our much maligned & hard-working Minister…

I never intended to give that impression. Liam Fox is a friend of mine, we worked well together while he was in office, and he had my utmost confidence throughout this difficult time... Oh, sorry, thought I was Jim Murphy for a minute there. Liam Fox's opposition.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politic ... -firm.html

[Byrne]

Ahab, here's the article you were after:

From The Sunday Times
June 6, 2010

Minister lets US ‘mole’ roam MoD

Defence secretary Liam Fox is under attack for taking on a man with links to US intelligence as a special adviser

Isabel Oakeshott


LIAM FOX, the defence secretary, is facing questions after installing an American aide with links to US intelligence services in the heart of the Ministry of Defence (MoD).
MPs have raised concerns about Luke Coffey, a former US army captain, who has been appointed to a highly sensitive role as Fox’s special adviser. He has not yet been given full security clearance.
Coffey set up the London chapter of an American think tank, many of whose members have backgrounds in the CIA and other American military defence intelligence agencies.
Fox, who has strong links with Washington through his Atlantic Bridge charity, has defended Coffey’s appointment and dismissed concerns of spying. He has highlighted the importance of the so-called “special relationship” between Britain and America, saying: “It’s not as if he is Russian.”

A number of MPs have warned that the access to confidential briefings and paperwork Coffey will enjoy as one of Fox’s closest aides could create a serious conflict of interest.

There is particular concern about his role in the forthcoming strategic defence review. Central to the review will be Britain’s relationship with America and the future of defence procurement programmes. Critics already accuse Fox of being biased towards purchasing cheaper military equipment from America in favour of supplies from the UK defence industry.

Michael Dugher, the Labour MP who once worked as a special adviser in the MoD, said: “This raises serious questions. At a time when the MoD is undertaking a sensitive defence review, vital to British national interests, is it really appropriate to have a foreign national and a former member of the US military employed by the taxpayer as a special adviser to the British secretary of state?
“It will only fuel fears that Liam Fox plans to tear up important contracts with UK-based suppliers — supporting thousands of British jobs — in favour of buying ‘off the shelf’ from the Americans.”
Coffey has a masters degree in European politics from the London School of Economics. He arrived in Britain in 2006 and began working for Mark Harper, the Tory MP, before applying to work in Fox’s office.
He runs the London branch of an organisation called Censa (Council for Emerging National Security Affairs), whose mission is to “shape US national security policy” and to “become the premier venue for virtual collaboration in addressing national security affairs and policy renewals”.
About a quarter of the members listed on its website have a background in intelligence. They include Matthew Thompson, a former CIA analyst in the Directorate of Intelligence; Jeff Benson, who worked in the US Office of Naval Intelligence; Sean Bielat, who serves in the United States Marine Corps Reserve as an intelligence watch officer; and Paul Crespo, who served as a defence and naval attaché at American embassies in the Balkans, the Gulf and Latin America. Coffey was encouraged to establish a London chapter by one of his former army commanders.

Although the special adviser has been issued with a pass giving him access to all areas of the MoD, he has not yet been “defence vetted”. Only a handful of special advisers in the most sensitive departments, such as No 10 and the Foreign Office, undergo this process.
It is understood that the security clearance process, which can take several months, has been delayed because of Coffey’s nationality. MoD sources say that until he has been cleared he will be working on a restricted computer and will not be allowed into the most confidential meetings.

Since Fox became defence secretary there have been two highly sensitive briefings — on special forces and Britain’s nuclear deterrent — which Coffey was not allowed to attend.
However, Whitehall insiders say he will still have ready access to highly confidential documents relating to security and commercial contracts.
Based on the sixth floor of the MoD, an enormous open plan office, he is likely to come across many documents stamped “UK eyes only” which are not intended to be seen by any foreign citizens.

A Whitehall source said: “In this job you have incredible access to sensitive material. The offices are open plan and every desk has confidential papers on it. Because of the layout of the office, you can’t help but see this stuff.”
As a member of the US armed forces, Coffey will have taken an oath of allegiance to America, promising to defend the constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic.
However, he has told friends that his primary loyalty is now to Fox, for whom he has been working for several years. He works alongside another special adviser who is British.

When Fox was shadow defence secretary, Coffey accompanied him on a number of overseas trips and travelled to Georgia without his boss.
Kevan Jones, the former armed forces minister, has tabled a parliamentary question about the nationality of the government’s special advisers. It was blocked by Francis Maude, the cabinet minister, on the grounds that the information was “personal”.

source:copy of article pasted here

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http://www.arrse.co.uk/current-affairs-news-analysis/170628-should-fox-stay-go-4.html

[semper occultus]

The only question now is whereabouts we mount Fox’s head…I thought over the mantelpiece if that won’t put everyone off their porridge ?


[quote=”Ahab”]….even the right-wing press itself. It is The Times who have had the heaviest and most damning coverage, even more so than the Guardian. The Telegraph has acquitted itself well too…[/quote]
…spose the Mail aswell although that might stick in your craw ( but hey you invented haggis, you can probably swallow this ) ….although see them totally ignore the overt CIA angle….

Was Mossad using Fox and Werritty as 'useful idiots'?

Ex-Ambassador reveals how links made by 'advisers' set alarm bells ringing

Last updated at 11:35 PM on 15th October 2011
By CRAIG MURRAY
www.dailymail.co.uk

The real reason Liam Fox had to resign was not a grubby little money scandal about firms funding Adam Werritty as he jetted round the world with the Defence Secretary. It was much more important, and much worse, than that.

I was contacted early last week by a senior Whitehall source – somebody I have known for more than a decade – who has access to the Cabinet Office investigation.
They were worried the Cabinet Secretary Gus O’Donnell’s investigation was being misdirected onto only the very narrow question of whether Werritty received specific payments for setting up specific meetings with Fox – playing into Fox’s extraordinary House of Commons defence that Werritty was ‘not dependent on any transactional behaviour to maintain his income’.
But my source told me that what really was worrying senior officials in the MOD, FCO and Cabinet Office was the possibility that Fox could be being used as a ‘useful idiot’ by Mossad, Israel’s far-reaching and extremely effective intelligence service.
Key funding sources for Werritty were from the Israeli lobby and a rather obscure commercial intelligence agency.
Might Mossad be pulling Werritty’s strings, with or without his knowledge?
On Friday, two senior Fleet Street journalists also reported hearing similar concerns from other Whitehall officials about possible Israeli intelligence service involvement with Fox and Werritty.
By working closely with an unofficial aide with extraordinary access but no security vetting and murky funding sources, Fox had potentially compromised national security. That is the real story here.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2049695/JAMES-FORSYTH-A-bad-week-Fox-good-Prime-Minister.html

Cameron’s operation has long known that there was something odd about how Fox organised his affairs.

After the MPs’ expenses scandal, the Tory leader put his old university friend Andrew Feldman in charge of checking how his Shadow Ministers were funding their private offices.

Feldman’s job was to make sure that it was all above suspicion and defuse any potentially embarrassing situations. Fox was the one person who wouldn’t co-operate with him in this task.

At the time, Cameron decided it wasn’t worth picking a fight with his one-time leadership rival over the matter. He knew that there were limits to how far he could push Fox. As one observer says: ‘The problem was Cameron never had any control over Liam. Liam was just totally and utterly obstinate.’

[Hammer of Los]

Paddy Ashdown is an adviser to Good Governance Group (G3) (advice on security and governance issues world-wide)

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http://www.parliament.uk/biographies/jeremy-ashdown/26670

Ashdown is renowned to have been/be Mi6 (Geneva)

He is quite an interesting fellow. I couldn't possibly speculate though.


As for Fox, and there he was gone!

I'm wrong again!

[Byrne]

Ashdown is renowned by 'others unknown', not by my goodself, of course!

[Seamus OBlimey]

A little more on G3 in this Mail article..

The revelation that G3 was working for BAE Systems will intensify calls for the Electoral Commission to open its own investigation into Dr Fox.

The watchdog will decide this week whether to open a probe into whether he broke laws on political donations by failing to declare the sources of Mr Werritty’s funding, when he was effectively acting as an unofficial adviser.

BAE is the Ministry of Defence’s biggest contractor, with around 13 per cent of the MoD’s £4billion procurement budget. It builds flagship defence platforms such as the Type 45 destroyer and the Eurofighter Typhoon jet aircraft.

A source at BAE confirmed that the company has an ongoing relationship with G3 to provide consultancy support for a project in Oman, where BAE is designing military training courses.

And I do like to see a tory condemning foxhunting.

[AhabsOtherLeg]

Guys, I'm really sorry, I think I may have misjudged matters when I begun this thread - I thought Liam Fox had abused the office that he held in order to enrich himself and his friends and to further the geopolitical defence agendas of foreign powers. After his speech in the Commons earlier today (well, yesterday) I now see that I was wrong. It turns out he didn't actually do anything wrong at all, and I was merely taken in by the perception of wrongdoing, which of course had no substance to it at all. I feel like such a boob.

'I have attempted to be clear and transparent on all the issues raised. I would like to say again that I am very sorry to all my colleagues here in the House and to all those who feel let down by the decisions that I have made.

'I have always believed in personal responsibility and I accept the cabinet secretary's conclusions. I am pleased at the explicit acknowledgement that I neither sought, expected, nor received any financial gain that was being widely and wrongly implied.

'I also welcome the clarification of the fact that no national security issues were breached, no classified documents made available, and no classified matters briefed. These accusations were also widely made and deeply hurtful.

'The ministerial code had been found to be breached and for this I am sorry. I accept that it is not only the substance but perception that matters and that is why I chose to resign. I accept the consequences for me without bitterness or rancour.

'I do not blame anyone else and I believe you do not turn your back on your friends or family in times of trouble.

Especially not your friends. Man, that was the best and most sincere apology ever. And of course, it was only an "apology" to the House over breaching the ministerial code - not to the country for breaching pretty much every rule in the book. Not that he's a unique case or anything, but he got caught. Does he know that yet? Does he realise that if he'd been a corporal, or even a general, rather than Secretary of Defence, he'd be sitting in a military prison right now awaiting his court martial for working in the interests of another state, or for a private interest? And his chances of getting off with it would be nil. I have a feeling he might see the inside of a court yet (not just in the 3M blackmail case) - in fact, I believe he might see jail time. Unless he was somehow working in a roundabout way with the permission or backing of the Crown. But that's still crazy talk at this stage.

If he received no financial gain from these bizarre (but, of course, perfectly normal) activities, why did he ask John Moulton to put a large amount of money into Pargav, Werritty's shell company, with it's fake and clueless director?

Who, or what, was that money for? Who did it go to? It didn't stay with Pargav, that's for sure.

Damn, at this rate I'm going to end up giving credit to the private equity managers who got gypped on their shady deals and now look set to drag Fox into hell. At least they... err... want their money back really badly.

Thanks Semper, Seamus, and especially Byrne for those articles. That one about Luke Coffey is the one I was looking for.

…spose the Mail as well although that might stick in your craw ( but hey you invented haggis, you can probably swallow this )

I did not, it was some guy in Lancashire - at least, he was the first to write the recipe down. I'm taking no more responsibility for the invention of haggis than Fox is currently taking for his crimes.

And I'll go on pretending the Mail just never covered this at all.

[AhabsOtherLeg]

Been having a look around on Guidestar, which is an excellent resource if you want to check out the finances, declared objectives, and articles of incorporation of charitable bodies (such as The Atlantic Bridge). Don't think I found any smoking gun type stuff, hopefully journalists have been through this crap already, and the details could've been changed since all this nonsense emerged blinking into the light, I suppose, but it's interesting anyway: http://www.guidestar.org.uk/search.aspx ... arch=false





Check dat finance!

It's a shame there aren't more years available (it's been running since 1997, after all - it was established pre-2001 despite the very much post-9/11 "clash of civillizations" rhetoric that they spout on their archived site). What's up with their vastly growing expenditure outstripping their income over the years, though? I thought Conservatives were all about tightening belts, balancing books, etc.? And how does a charity spend £125,309.00 (in 2008) without ever advancing any of it's charitable aims? I don't think I could do that if I tried.

These might seem like small sums of money, but true believers don't need to be paid much, I guess. Just perks and bonuses as a reward to the faithful.

In Luke Coffey news, here is a .pdf from the House of Commons Library listing Special Advisers, the ministers they advise, and their pay grades. It's from 2010 (you can be sure of that, 'cos Andy Coulson's still in the number 1 spot , taking in a cool £140 000 a year).

Further down, as an adviser to the Secretary of State for Defence, is our wee Luke Coffey - he's in Pay Band 2, claiming £60,740 per annum: http://www.parliament.uk/documents/comm ... -04810.pdf

Some not very useful guff about Pargav here, from Companies House: http://www.cdrex.com/pargav-limited-3009514.html

The only interesting bits:

Company Status: Active (?!? Still?)
Company Type PRI/LTD BY GUAR/NSC (Private, limited by guarantee, no share capital)
Incorporation Date 25/06/2010
Nature of Business 7487 - Other business activities


Poor Thomas Hylton (assuming he's as stupid as he sounded in the press interviews) is identified as sole director here: http://wck2.companieshouse.gov.uk/8b0a0 ... order?ft=1

But that's no use to nobody since we know he's the patsy director anyhow.

More to come on all of this. No doubt aboot it.

[AhabsOtherLeg]

Well, he's no Kim Philby in terms of tradecraft, but who did more damage to the country?

Philby, I'd say, so far as we know. He got quite a few people killed directly by blowing their cover... and not just MI6ers who knew the risks and chose their own circumstances by working inside the Communist bloc (or sphere), but internal Soviet dissidents too (and quite possily Cuban, Chinese, and Korean ones as well, given the length and global range of his career). They were only normal people fighting against a horrific system, for the most part, and by betraying their British handlers and contacts he automatically betrayed them too, without seeming to think very much of it. So I'd say he did a fair bit of damage, to this country and others. But of course he did - he was in HM's SS. Doing damage to countries, including their own, is their job.

Hard to say with Letwin, how much damage he's done over the years. I'd bet money he'd vote in favour of any war he ever heard of, and he no doubt supports "the cuts" in principle (though he admits Osborne's policies are "choking growth"), and the document-dumping shows disgusting disrespect to the privacy rights of his constituents if nothing else (so far). But he seems more of a tit than a threat. His cousin, Michael Letwin, is convenor of New York Labour Against War, funnily (or not funnily) enough... It's hard to say with Letwin. No respected historians have instructed me how to think yet.

One funny thing, though, is that it was rumoured up here that Liam Fox's cousin is the current head of the Scottish Socialist Party, Colin Fox, who gained the leadership after Tommy Sheridan was put away by Coulson and co. Now that would be amusing. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colin_Fox

Or possibly not.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politic ... -firm.html

Okay, okay, I was wrong about BICOM. It was CellCrypt. Great name. Not creepy at all.

[Stephen Morgan]

Well, he's no Kim Philby in terms of tradecraft, but who did more damage to the country?

Philby, I'd say, so far as we know. He got quite a few people killed directly by blowing their cover... and not just MI6ers who knew the risks and chose their own circumstances by working inside the Communist bloc (or sphere), but internal Soviet dissidents too (and quite possily Cuban, Chinese, and Korean ones as well, given the length and global range of his career).

Most of the death attributed to him were actually the fault of general MI6 incompetence and their large collection of other traitors, not to mention their gangs of foreigners, gun-mad Americans and heavily infiltrated emigrees. MI6 tried to blame him for the failure of their immediate post-War operations fomenting revolt in Albania and Lithuania, for example. He was nothing to do with it, the NKVD had been inside from the beginning and spies in the American intelligence services had passed information to the Soviets too. Also, they tended to parachute agents into the woods where they were easily tracked by RADAR and then tracked down by soldiers. Philby's just a convenient scapegoat.

They were only normal people fighting against a horrific system, for the most part, and by betraying their British handlers and contacts he automatically betrayed them too, without seeming to think very much of it. So I'd say he did a fair bit of damage, to this country and others. But of course he did - he was in HM's SS. Doing damage to countries, including their own, is their job.

That rather assumes that intelligence shenanigans are important and that betraying every single agent, asset and informant to the Soviets would have had any actual effect on this country beyond the death of a few adventurous gangsters paying natives for information. A few deaths won't do much to the country, whereas the Chancellor of the Exchequer can do a lot fo damage. Besides, a large proportion of the anti-Soviet dissidents were fascists who had previously sided with the Nazis, then sided with the Western intelligence. Serves 'em right.

Sikorsky, he might have been killed by Philby. Or Churchill, who knows.

Hard to say with Letwin, how much damage he's done over the years. I'd bet money he'd vote in favour of any war he ever heard of, and he no doubt supports "the cuts" in principle (though he admits Osborne's policies are "choking growth"), and the document-dumping shows disgusting disrespect to the privacy rights of his constituents if nothing else (so far). But he seems more of a tit than a threat. His cousin, Michael Letwin, is convenor of New York Labour Against War, funnily (or not funnily) enough... It's hard to say with Letwin. No respected historians have instructed me how to think yet.

One funny thing, though, is that it was rumoured up here that Liam Fox's cousin is the current head of the Scottish Socialist Party, Colin Fox, who gained the leadership after Tommy Sheridan was put away by Coulson and co. Now that would be amusing. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colin_Fox

Or possibly not.

Perhaps Liam is the black sheep of the family. Or maybe that's Dr Fox the DJ. Or Ruel Fox, he was quite black.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politic ... -firm.html

Okay, okay, I was wrong about BICOM. It was CellCrypt. Great name. Not creepy at all.

[AhabsOtherLeg]

Most of the death attributed to him were actually the fault of general MI6 incompetence and their large collection of other traitors, not to mention their gangs of foreigners, gun-mad Americans and heavily infiltrated emigrees. MI6 tried to blame him for the failure of their immediate post-War operations fomenting revolt in Albania and Lithuania, for example. He was nothing to do with it, the NKVD had been inside from the beginning and spies in the American intelligence services had passed information to the Soviets too. Also, they tended to parachute agents into the woods where they were easily tracked by RADAR and then tracked down by soldiers. Philby's just a convenient scapegoat.

I agree with all that to a point. The Cambridge Ring as a whole were scapegoats for the entire secret service being riddled with fascists, communists, "queers", sinecured serial killers, over-promoted conmen, gormless upper class chaps with no skills or future of any kind. The British secret services spent a long time being little more than a repository for the less favoured sons of the aristocracy, like the clergy was in medieval times. The useful sons got put into the army or politics, and the best of them into merchant banking. All the drunks, freaks, monsters, "confirmed bachelors", and compulsive liars got put into the secret services. So the Cambridge Spies were convenient scapegoats for a massive failing in the class system, whipping boys for the sin of long-term unmeritocratic preferment, and an easy way to explain away the fact that our SS's were (are) full of traitors and weirdoes of one sort or another.

"But Mr. Angleton, don't you understand, they were homosexual! You need look no further!"

Who was the guy that told Ian Fleming (post-Philby) that MI6 was boring, "now that all the old queens have gone."? The man had a point, whoever he was. It seems to have got more boring, and yet much more dangerous, to us and the rest of the world.

As for all the parachuting and running about in the woods - I think it took them a long time to adapt back from being SOE. The OSS/CIA realised even during wartime that they weren't really cut out to be Special Forces, and that they'd have to get very deep, first and foremost, into their own countries' politics, academia, media, and financial structure in order to survive. Their post-war goal was to become,"the mind of America."

MI6, because of the class and background of their agents and directors, and the prejudices they automatically held, believed they already were the mind of Britain, so they didn't think they had to try too hard domestically. They allowed themselves the luxury of playing at soldiers for a bit too long, running around Latvia stabbing people in the throat, while Maxwell Knight took the British establishment by the throat and gave it a good long shake, pretty much unopposed. He was the guy who knew you needed an asset or agent teaching poetry at Oxford or attending Quaker meetings in London long before you got round to putting any into Eastern Europe.

That rather assumes that intelligence shenanigans are important and that betraying every single agent, asset and informant to the Soviets would have had any actual effect on this country beyond the death of a few adventurous gangsters paying natives for information.

True, and it is a hell of an assumption right enough. Except for with the Soviet informants/dissidents themselves. They were not all fascists or Nazis who deserved it, like you said. Only a Leninist or Stalinist would see it like that. Some of those people had fought long and hard to achieve a real people's revolution, only to see it being hijacked and derailed by an anti-democratic and anti-socialist exiled dictator-in-waiting, who was delivered back into the country by the German Abwehr as part of their imperial war effort.

If Iraq was now under the unquestioned rule of Ahmed Chalabi, as per the original western plan, would you call the people fighting against him (even if they made contact with foreign powers and agents in order to do so) traitors or terrorists or fascists? They would be right, and forced by terrible circumstances into desperate measures and fantastically dodgy alliances in order to survive.

Besides, a large proportion of the anti-Soviet dissidents were fascists who had previously sided with the Nazis, then sided with the Western intelligence. Serves 'em right.

This is long after the Civil War, then, and the Whites have all been driven out or slain already? Okay. Did you ever wonder why, in the early days of the Nazi invasion of Soviet Russia, large numbers of peasants, and particularly the Cossacks, welcomed and supported the invaders? Do you think they did so because the Moscow government had been so nice to them that they just couldn't stand it anymore? They knew what the Nazis were all about, they knew about their ideological opinions on the Slavic peoples, and yet to many Ukrainians, Cossacks, and large numbers of Russian peasantry the Nazis still seemed like the better option. It wasn't because the Soviets had been too soft on them.