Home >> Terrorism >> Counter-Terrorism  Email  Print The VIGIL Anti-Terror Network Capt. Chris Walker - 10/24/2006 Global Politician’s exclusive interview with Dominic Whiteman – the spokesperson and a British director of the international anti terror network VIGIL, which is fast becoming the home of retired spies and military personnel, keen to help win the war on terror.
Q Mr Whiteman, after the Al Mujahiroun sting and the shocking recent LTTE intelligence report issued by your organisation VIGIL, tongues are wagging not just amongst the terrorists and their enemies but in the intelligence community. Who are you and what is VIGIL?
A I’m a Brit in my early thirties who – like my grandfathers at my age – is proud to be part of an effort to prevent the attempted spread of totalitarian fascist ideology and terror. To prevent the spread of hatred, anti semitism and violence (in this case primarily Islamofascism) in Britain and around the free world. I am the spokesperson and one of the British directors of VIGIL. I’d prefer to say nothing more about myself and focus on VIGIL.
VIGIL is a non-profit, non-political group of experts covering various fields of expertise who have voluntarily joined forces – after in depth background verification – to help the relevant authorities thwart terrorist entities. The network is international and we have intelligence gatherers across the planet – from India to South Africa to Spain. Our core effort is based out of the UK and the US. Our strategy team is based in London. We are growing fast.
Q Are you a Christian organisation or do you have any other religious motivation?
A No. As an organisation we don’t “do” religion. That doesn’t mean that our experts and intelligence gatherers are not religious individuals privately – I know of Muslims, Christians, a Buddhist and a couple of Hindus on our team. We’re not “crusaders” if that’s what you are trying to get at. Secular society works and – in spite of what the enemy says – it can be a profound, advanced, religion-tolerating, multi-faceted society; both spectacular and dynamic. We love freedom and hate any attempts to relieve us of that freedom. To us – as it should be to society – religion is a private, personal matter.
Q VIGIL’s efforts are anti-Islamic, perhaps Islamophobic?
A Our efforts are certainly not anti-Islamic. Our resources allow us to focus 80% on the Islamist – rather than Islamic – threat. We focus on other terrorist threats – for example the Tamil Tigers, which is not an Islamist threat. VIGIL is anti-terrorism – terrorism of all kinds. It just so happens that right now the Islamist threat is a growing one and needs to be nipped in the bud. We are far from Islamophobic. Indeed we warmly embrace the followers of moderate Islam and look forward to the day when Islam is free of the cancer which currently infests it. I should mention we could not have made such impressive progress without our Muslim colleagues, who are key members of the VIGIL team and who share the consensus that groups like Al Mujahiroun and Al Qaeda do not consist of Muslims anyway. We all think these are groups comprised of intellectual lightweights and drop-outs who can’t feel like men unless they scare people. Their leaders are sufficiently mentally ill to schizophrenically fabricate their own false god.
Q You mention experts belonging to VIGIL. What experts?
A VIGIL has linguistic experts, banking experts, anti-terror experts, policing experts and other experts we are fortunate enough to turn to. However, the backbone of the team is comprised of former intelligence and military personnel.
Q You say “former” intelligence personnel?
A Yes. Retired intelligence officers.
Q But clearly they are not retired?
A They are not retired in the sense that they are still contributing to the anti terror effort – in this case through VIGIL. One can argue that “retired intelligence official” is a contradiction in terms as it’s a breed that never really retires - but yes they are officially retired from national agencies. Imagine if you retired from the security services on September 10th 2001 – wouldn’t you feel compelled to use your experience in some way a few days later? This is how VIGIL was formed. VIGIL is an interface between the extraordinary amount of now private, skilled, proven intelligence human capital out there and the overburdened authorities. We’re a home for former intelligence and military personnel who still want to be useful – and, my word, how useful they can be.
Q But don’t you just get in the way of government agencies?
A Not at all. Take the UK. There are 3,000 individuals who have been through Osama Bin Laden’s training camps residing today in the UK. 16,000 Al Qaeda sympathisers residing today in the UK. That is too many individuals for the UK police and security services, even the whole of the FBI and the CIA, to monitor on a daily basis. There is unfortunately a need for level-headed, experienced private initiatives to ensure we win this war on terror – and not just in Britain. VIGIL provides intelligence in a format recognisable by the authorities and we are careful not to meddle with the authorities’ work or duplicate it. Our relationship with the authorities in the respective countries we work with is close and sound. We admire their work and they have shown admiration for our work and our professionalism too. VIGIL stands for vigilant not vigilante – we know our boundaries and we operate with military efficiency within those boundaries to maximise our results. I am sure – like many government agencies – you are impressed with our results?
Q VIGIL’s scalps are certainly numerous. One of your operatives took out Abu Hamza in the UK and James Ujaama in the US. You have recently completed an in-depth sting on Al Mujahiroun in the UK and Pakistan. Also the LTTE infiltration caused a huge stir, with thousands of readers of the report when it was published. Do you feel that as an organisation you are hitting your targets?
A “Taking out” is the wrong terminology to use. Hamza was jailed by legal due process. Ujaama was likewise jailed. They are criminals who will get out one day. VIGIL believes in collecting incriminating data and intelligence on individuals, even when they are in jail. With the right intelligence we can keep these people of hate away from our citizens and societies permanently. VIGIL is ambitious but our resources are finite – we have to use those resources cleverly. We have been successful because we are under no pressure to achieve – this gives us the chance to think laterally and in imaginative ways. It’s this lateral thinking which has resulted in our success. A retired intelligence officer puzzling over a subject while mowing his lawn is sometimes more likely to come up with the necessary answers than a working intelligence officer glued to his desk and computer with a target to meet. Life’s strange that way. While our guys have time to think out a sting in the bath, perhaps the working officers only have time for a fast shower and all they can think about is getting to work on time. We are very happy with our results so far, but we’re only just getting started – we really have no fear, so the terrorists should be staying awake at night and really questioning their lifestyle choices.
Q Is personal safety taken care of in VIGIL?
A Yes. We use the latest encryption techniques to communicate and those of us who face the media are given security staff who literally smother us every hour of every day. Our HQ is never stationary. Our staff go through extensive background checks and we have intense levels of labour division to further secure the organisation.
Q Why do you deal with the media?
A By exposing the truth about extremists and terrorists we expose their many weaknesses. When a member of the public hears a radical preacher discussing one minute why “one’s ankles must be covered at all times or you’ll burn in hellfire” and the next minute discussing how magnificent the 911 hijackers were, they might reach less quickly for the duct tape and think that – actually – the enemy is clinically insane and actually about as scary as Donald Duck. By exposing the LTTE’s activities recently we showed them up to be riddled with greed, simple to infiltrate and full of the worst forms of human weakness – the way to bring down cowards is to expose them naked for what they are. Obviously we take legal advice before we deal with the media, as much of the evidence we generate is caught up sub judice in trials.
Q Do you think the war on terror is winnable?
A Of course it is. We need to crack down on the enemy virtually, ideologically, by cutting off its cash, by exposing it theologically, operationally and destroying its recruitment networks. All this in hand with finding resolution in the world’s hotspots, like Palestine and Kashmir – offering those who feel they are failures and have no future a purpose and economic circumstances which allow them to provide for their loved ones and feel good again about themselves. Muslims must be on our side in recognising that Islam has been hijacked by a bunch of non-representative hotheads and intellectual lightweights and that it is theirs to win back, with or without outside help. Muslim women must be empowered. All this will take some time, but I assure you the likes of VIGIL will be around for as long as it takes. VIGIL knows victory will prevail and that the Islamofascists will fail – no doubt experiencing the grim aura and damp, dark hopelessness of Hitler’s bunker when the day they know they are defeated comes.
Q How is VIGIL funded?
A The majority of our terror trackers are voluntary – true patriots giving up their spare time for the cause. However, there are individuals on the payroll and informants who cost the organisation. Furthermore, the technical equipment we require to operate successfully does not come cheap. Finally, there are translating and transcribing costs we have to meet – especially the transcribing costs, which are necessary to present video and audio evidence in a written format as accepted by the courts. VIGIL does have a fundraising team but for obvious reasons they will not give away donors’ details. All I know is that they are always looking for new donors to help expand VIGIL’s ops.
Q Where does VIGIL see the main fronts of the war on terror in the future?
A Europe, North Africa, South East Asia and, of course, the Middle East are breeding grounds for terrorists, but Pakistan is the league leader. The US is the terrorists’ enemy number one but has reacted successfully to the threat since 911 by facing down the foe cowboy style – the terrorists live in fear of cowboy reactions and love to toy with soft governments using laws and democracy against them. If the war reaches a new level it will be as a result of enemy attacks on Israel. There are so many fronts opening up – the enemy’s goal is global jihad after all. Those who fail to connect the dots, who say the “war on terror” is a misnomer are – apart from being generally good-spirited people - from the same culture of denial as 1930’s appeasers and really must wake up.
Q Does VIGIL operate in these zones or are you primarily internet-based?
A We have coverage in most places. Much of our work is done online to bind our network and also because the Internet proves so cost-effective - generating such deterministic evidence in the form of IP data and other indisputable links. However, no intelligence operation could function successfully without physical assets on the ground.
Q What shocks you most about your work?
A The hatred that flows through the blood of – particularly the Islamist – radicals and terrorists. I was always taught that there was a fine line between love and hate but I fail to see this in them. Their ability to make their own children hate the West – children, after all, are not born hating – is the lowest of the low and as shocking as can be. The only other shocking thing is the surprise on the faces of certain politicians and journalists when extremists they are close to are exposed for who they are – how could they not spot the extremists’ duplicity a mile off?
Q You mention the term Islamonazis and referred earlier to Hitler. Do you see the Islamist threat as a copy of Hitler’s attempts at conquering the planet?
A Yes and no. Yes – because the Islamonazis share the same conspiracy theories as the Nazis about Jews, wishing to kill all Jews in one final holocaust. Also, they wish to establish a totalitarian regime over the whole planet, which would lack freedom and create a hierarchy of cruel masters based on warped ideology and subversion through corrupt laws. No – because the war on terror against these Islamonazis is a stateless (thus far) transnational war the likes of which we’ve never come across before. And no again - because secular dogma like Nazism is to me less dangerous than religious Islamofascism. We’ve been here before in the sense that this is a war for world domination and it is true to say that if we can’t learn from the events of Nazi Germany we simply cannot grasp the intent of the radical Muslim world today.
Q Do you see the war on terror as world war III?
A No. The war on terror is a transnational war. It can only become a third world war if the Islamists establish a large and powerful state. If they think they will achieve this – and many of them do – they are truly living in a parallel universe.
Q What would life be like living in an Islamic Caliphate, say in Britain?
A There have been books written about what life would be like in Britain under Hitler – had he succeeded in invading Britain in the 1940’s. Life under an Islamic Caliphate would be like that with many established British communities either killed off or imprisoned, with freedom a distant memory replaced by the rule of fear. But I sense it would be even worse than Hitler’s Britain – when you read documents like Hizb ut Tahrir’s draft constitution you begin to understand that, apart from the likelihood of chaos and anarchy, we’d be living a bleak, dark existence stepping back to a pre-enlightenment medieval era really not far off Taliban Afghanistan. Too awful to consider – though part of me would love to see the Islamists try and take away the beer from a British rugby team!
Q How do you join VIGIL?
A One is asked to join VIGIL. Those who feel their experience would benefit VIGIL should be bright enough to find a way of communicating with us!
Q If you were to sum up VIGIL’s work in one phrase, what would it be?
A I’d steal Edmund Burke’s words: “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” VIGIL is full of good men and good women who will never roll over for cowardly preachers of hate whose currency is fear.
Q Where do you see VIGIL in five years’ time?
A Doing more of the same, albeit in an even more dangerous world. I’d see VIGIL allied much closer to – or even swallowed up by – British / American state security service apparatus but working more effectively as a consequence of this union. I see many more success stories under our belts. Many times the number of trackers and staff. I also see VIGIL featuring more and more often in the terrorists’ nightmares – after all, we will never stop watching them, gleaning evidence on them and using that intelligence to discontinue them.
Q Will you still be VIGIL’s spokesperson in five years’ time?
A It would be my continued honour and privilege to announce the successes of this fine network of brave patriots in five years’ time. Either which way VIGIL will grow from strength to strength and its future is very bright – united against the life-haters.
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