I spy with my little eye …

DA city councillor in Johannesburg

Ispy with my little eye, something beginning with “I”. Is it intelligence? Er, no – although it is sometimes mistakenly called by that name. But when Al Jazeera and The Guardian released the “spy cables” last month we soon realised the obvious. The so-called State Security Agency (SSA), along with its predecessors and offshoots, is populated by dumbos. They are so amateurish they make Mad Magazine’s Spy versus Spy cartoon characters look like professionals.

Not content with an already foolish image, the SSA has gone a step further with its decision to investigate claims from the lunatic fringe that four prominent South Africans are, in fact, US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) agents. One of the unlikely gang of four, Public Protector Thuli Madonsela, has previously faced this same accusation.

Kebby Maphatsoe, our esteem-free deputy defence minister, who once ran away from an MK camp and lied about how he lost his arm, lost his marbles too in September last year. He accused Madonsela of being a CIA plant. He has since apologised. But another bright spark from the “intelligence” community, former minister Ronnie Kasrils, is suing him for a different fabrication: this time about Jacob Zuma’s rape accuser.

The digression about clueless Kebby is necessary. It gives you an idea of what sort of folk make these allegations about people being CIA agents.

Which brings us to africainteligenceleaks. wordpress.com ( yes, intelligence is misspelt). This fringe website suggests Madonsela, Lindiwe Mazibuko, Julius Malema and Joseph Mathunjwa are on the CIA’s payroll. Anyone with intelligence knows this is conspiracy claptrap, on a par with the ramblings of the 2006 Browse Mole Report produced by an anti-Zuma faction of South Africa’s security establishment. In fact, much of the skulduggery in our intelligence has been about internal ANC battles.

The SSA has given credence to the latest “leaks”. In an incoherent statement, the government seemed to announce it was investigating the four named individuals, rather than making an intelligent assessment of the quality of the allegations against them. Malema a “bloody agent” of the CIA? Oh, please.

But then again, when assessing the gullibility of our intelligence community, we should not forget a recent security minister, Siyabonga Cwele, was unaware his wife was a drug dealer.

I spy with my little eye, something beginning with “I”. Is it independence? No: the IEC has dropped part of its original name and is now known, on its own website, as the Electoral Commission. This may have been a prescient move because the appointment of Zuma’s former special adviser Vuma Mashinini as IEC chairperson has sparked an exodus and dented the organisation’s independence.

That’s a further assault on our democracy. A compromised IEC, bent to suit Zuma, would make it more difficult to remove the number one kleptocrat.

I spy with my little eye, something beginning with “I”. Is it integrity? Not in Zuma’s realm.

I spy with my little eye, something beginning with “I”. Yes, you finally guessed. It’s insanity. The lunatics have taken over the asylum.