Hello James,

Here’s my Catalonia experiences with professional assassins, adapted to the current political context. Online with live links and illustrations at:

Ron West

"The history of the great events of this world are scarcely more than a history of crime"

-Voltaire

Sant Feliu de Guixols - 1

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These are mixed memories from my life in Sant Feliu de Guixols, a very Catalan (as opposed to ethnically Spanish) town on the coast north of Barcelona. The photo at the top is on a somewhat hazy day, overlooking the town's marina. The massive concrete blocks in a line on the left are an addition to the 'breakwater', protecting the original breakwater that is a causeway creating the artificial harbor. There are annual sailing regattas out of sight to the left, the main portion of town is out of view to the right. I lived in Catalonia from the end of December 2008, to the beginning of July 2010.

Sant Feliu map - 1

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The Province of Girona (I use the Catalan spelling) is the most northeast province of what 'was' Spain, prior to the current circumstance of civil schism, bordered on the north by France and on the south by the (also Catalan) province of Barcelona.

The circumstance of my living in Sant Feliu de Guixols could be considered bizarre, depending on one's perceptions. Our world(s) of experience are multi-dimensional when one considers the world of a trained spook provides an entire extra view of your surroundings superimposed on 'normal' and I had, within the previous few years, 'reintegrated' to 'normal' society from an environment of awareness, very much wider-deeper, than any training provided in the world of spooks, but didn't yet understand the implications of my experience.

The 14 odd months previous to my arrival in Catalonia had been an intense game of survival, in Germany, from Berlin to Lindau (Bodensee) to Limburg to Wiesbaden back to Berlin, contesting for my life with the forces of both; CIA & MOSSAD. By this time of my arrival in Catalonia, I understood I had a remarkable skill set but I was mentally TIRED and by no means convinced of my survival; and is why I was now on the northeast coast, in the post Rome culture of Iberia. It was as simple as I wished to live whatever short time I thought I might have left on this planet in a warmer climate than Germany.

Flying into Barcelona from Berlin, I bought a new phone with unregistered chip and with help from people that is another story altogether, I became 'invisible', at least to MOSSAD. Central Intelligence would have access to my ATM card transactions, and general location, when I began using that bankers' snitch when settled, but for the first time in what seemed like eternity, I could actually relax. After a first few weeks of wandering about, initially in Barcelona and finally through towns north of that city, sticking to the coast, I rented a flat. My most therapeutic experience to now was finding a mound of small pebbles or water worn gravel, created by high tide, lying down on my belly and wiggling enough to conform those pebbles like a sculptor's mold to my body shape and just lay there, soaking up the sun warmed energy of the small stones like a sponge. My feeling was as though my umbilical were connected direct to the earth. With no one within 100 meters of my prone body, the relief and stress off was nothing short of a religious experience. This is my most memorable experience on arrival to reside at Sant Feliu de Guixols in January of 2009.

At this time, although it had been well over a year already, I was still making the major psychological change over to understanding/coping with the firm knowledge I was an intensively hunted man. Does/can anyone ever really adjust to this? I didn't know. What I did know was, as soon as I'd settled in and was using my 'lifeline', or ATM card, to access my veteran's pension, at one location for more than a few weeks, at most, the hunt would be on again.

As a friend had once observed, concerning my circumstance, "you came in the wrong door." What he had been referring to is, I had arranged to notify German police (via 3rd party, a lawyer) I was hunted in Europe and arranged to be monitored in circumstance where it was understood I would take care of myself, the police only need watch and discover the criminal parties behind the attempts at murder. This initial arrangement was based on misapprehension of who I was dealing with. I had thought I was 'only' dealing with hired hit-men due to my past involvement with anti-corruption cases. That arrangement with German police was made in November, 2007. By July, 2008, with my USA cell phone having been routed around the German network (behaving exactly as though I were in the USA, not Germany) and my knit hat having captured a poison pellet intact, I understood my adversaries were intelligence agencies, not 'only' hired killers. I had some ideas why this could be the case but I wasn't certain. But it was German police, not intelligence, the invitation for surveillance had been initiated with. 'The wrong door" was the police in the sense of record keeping and a wider or 'civilian' authority that is not necessarily (should not be) exempt from having to move on criminals, even if those criminals are intelligence assets. I was determined to expose as many complicit parties as I could, no matter their sponsor. What is amazing to me, in retrospect is, my stalkers having either 1) no idea I was playing them into giving their identities up, even after this had gone on for five years before I tired of the game and spilled the score, or 2) if indeed they had sorted this immediate preceding prior to my finally, openly, communicating what I'd been doing, that they would have continued trying, at tremendous risk of being identified. How could taking me out possibly be that important? Over the years I've asked myself that question, again and again. I think I may finally have some answers. More on that later.

Meanwhile, mid-January 2009, I had come to live in Sant Feliu de Guixols, and the police surveillance had eventually followed, this much is certain.

My recollection is, it was about six weeks of respite before the action began again, about the beginning of March. I was sitting on the harbor beach in the late afternoon when I 'noticed' a couple sitting about 75 meters or more to my left. What this couple could not know is, I had them marked before she noticed me, and watching this couple with my peripheral vision, which is very good, I saw her lock in on me and then draw attention to the man she was with. All they saw was my gazing off into the harbor even as I was clearly observing their interactions. Not just anyone can convincingly appear to be looking off into the distance, lost in thought, and yet be closely studying events at a 90 degree angle. I can. They spoke for a few moments, and then, with studied disinterest, as though tired and moving on, got up and began strolling down the beach towards me, no doubt to get a closer look and positive identity. But what they were actually doing, completely oblivious to the fact was, allowing myself to closely study them, body language, facial demeanor, gait, dress, these sort of things will tell the highly trained a LOT. They were a fake couple. I understood there was no danger in that moment, this was scouting, nothing more. She might be the bait that would accost me later but I wanted nothing to do with taking it any farther. I posted their very accurate descriptions online, where I knew my every word was monitored by my adversaries (and perhaps unknown to them, also by the police) and if you have any sense of my satire, you might also have some sense of the mocking terminology employed. I didn't see them again. But the game was on.

It should seem counter-intuitive someone in my circumstance would keep routines. But I established routines, deliberately, to draw in my aspiring assassins, to the field of my choice. On one occasion it went like this: I had established a route where I turned right out of my apartment door, walk to the first intersection, bought a croissant (or two), cross the street and then to my left, cross the street. Now I am walking towards the marina along a wide dirt walkway with benches. At the end of this short street, I turn right, walk another few blocks and cross the street, buy my International Herald Tribune at a corner shop, turn to my left and cross the street. Now I turn right onto a wide, dirt walking avenue, between the town and the harbor. Normally, I would stop along this walkway and sit on a bench to enjoy my croissant while reading the newspaper.

But on this day I immediately noticed Americans had my route staked out. Casual dress Caucasian-American males are strategically placed on the benches along my route. Altering my habit slightly (which I do time to time, only so it won't seem unusual), instead of stopping at a bench on the dirt walkway facing the harbor, I keep walking and then turn right, crossing the street again, into the Rambla (a paved walking street in the business center) and walk another 100 or so meters and find a vacant bench. I've put myself out of view of the pre-positioned spotters but not so far as to prevent a plan B kicking into action. A tall, suited, male Asian-American followed me (Ray-Bans don’t hide cheekbones) and GPS sent my location for a pale (very white, seldom sees the sun & clearly not from Spain) Caucasian female assassin with white frock, carrot hair, and receded chin, this was clearly an American team. But when I noticed the Asian had GPS marked my location, I waited a few moments, until he is out of sight, and retreat about forty meters (at most) back down the Rambla, towards the harbor, and take another bench, open my paper as though reading and watch the bench where I'd been GPS located. The woman gave herself away, when following the directions in her earpiece, stopped where she should have found me and spun 360 degrees looking for what clearly was not there (myself.) Stupidly standing there, she looked up and down the Rambla, locked in on my new location, when I deliberately looked up from my paper and made steady eye contact and she turned and retreated down the street she had appeared from:

SFG_Assassin_bench - 1 (2)

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The bench on the Rambla I'd been GPS located at is to the left & behind the woman at the center of this photo. The assassin arrived and departed from the side street behind the benches. My new location is out of view on the right, directly across from the second set of benches, with people on them, farther down the Rambla. At the far right of the photo the Rambla opens to the dirt walking avenue, facing the harbor, where I more typically would find a bench to read. Antoni Vidal photo (cropped)

This killer would have had hit me from behind, most likely with poison needle or pellet, at this bench, if things had gone to plan. Instead, I returned to my apartment, penned 'My Life as a Joke Personal Ad' and posted it online.

What I'd just encountered was the CIA contracted, Blackwater assassination program, blessed initially by (and now months into the Obama administration, still answering to) Dick Cheney, the very program run by hyper-morons Cofer Black and Enrique Prado that Leon Panetta had, later on, trotted up to Capitol Hill and denied had ever been more than a power-point presentation.

This operation to hit me was too complicated (over-engineered), and the dumb red-head who'd been tasked with 'trigger-man' duty likely had no clue much of the set-up was designed in such a way as to leave her stranded, abandoned to take on all of the legal consequence, if the hit were picked up with CCTV surveillance and the red-head apprehended.

I didn't have internet at my apartment, but would compose offline and then walk up and over a hill on the north side of town, to Hotel Barcarola, in S'Agaró, an adjacent resort village, to post the details in the news feed at MySpace:

Hotel_Barcarola - 1

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Hotel Barcarola in S'Agaró, on 9 March 2010, after a freak snowstorm of the previous day, which oddly, coincided with the restart of CERN's Large Hadron Collider.

Power was out throughout the region with numerous high voltage transmission towers down. My apartment was freezing and I rented a room here until their generator broke down, at which time I relocated to Girona and rented a room until the grid was repaired -

Of the 2 dozen plus attempted assassinations of myself over the period of a year and one half I was located at Sant Feliu de Guixols, this had been the second to last employing a large team. It was February 2010 was the last team of several members (6), run by former CIA officer, and subsequently hired hit man, Gary Berntsen, who I'd surprised and trapped on CCTV together with myself at Hotel Barcarola reception desk on the morning of 20 February, seems to have ended that particular experiment in relation to myself. All of the subsequent attempted hits appear to have been singles, mostly, with the occasional double.

Sant Feliu de Guixols - 1 (1)

The author in Catalonia, February 2010

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The several unanswered but inter-related questions are:

1.(a) whether the CIA and MOSSAD were in a joint venture to take me out, or were these were separate but convergent intelligence agency projects.

Prior to my arrival in Spain, my first encounters with attempted hits consisted of two operations to take me out (with many to follow) in Germany, inside the span of two weeks, in October, 2007. The first is clearly traceable to CIA because I was able to positively identify the attempted assassin, Vince Langen, and work out his affiliation. The second operation, where the operative was killed, is equally clear to have originated with MOSSAD, due to how the event unfolded.

There are arguments for joint operations, as well as independent but convergent operations in efforts to take me out. Before I had bailed out of the USA, when working a corruption case, I had penetrated an American intelligence operation using a charter school, East Mountain High School (with sponsors belonging to Council on Foreign Relations), using the school as a cover for CIA operations, with field trips abroad. This operation in turn, had been penetrated by MOSSAD. Albuquerque FBI office analyst, Sylvia Maruffi, appears to have been providing cover for, and/or assisting both. Both agencies would have an interest in taking me out, for reasons of operational security. I believe the FBI Albuquerque office (Maruffi) had been the origin of a 'national security letter' enabling tracking my whereabouts via ATM card. Whether the FBI's Maruffi, who profiles as, is not necessarily but easily could be, a MOSSAD asset, was providing MOSSAD information independently, or this was straightforward 'shared' information via established intelligence channels for purpose of joint efforts, is unknown to me. With access to my banking details via an FBI issued National Security Letter, providing MOSSAD access to my ATM use and location, would be as easy as providing my online banking login details (user name & password) with instruction to route the login through a VPN in the country where I'm residing.

1.(b) with the sustained and severe risk of unmasking these agencies operatives in ongoing attempted assassination of a target with superior skills set, how could taking me down possibly be this important?

My background documentation to be deposited with the German police was sent via regular post in Germany to a third party, a lawyer, not over the internet. Serious, subsequent communications, were taken with the lawyer, in person. It's certainly possible the intelligence agencies missed this, even with all of their criminal spies and spyware, they are not omnipresent entities.

More than this, narcissism is a form of retardation according to the superior skills set in my possession (my training), and can certainly look as though it had been exploited. The management at Central Intelligence is narcissistic in the extreme, to a point of stupidity, as are those operatives engaging in renditions and assassination. This is a form of mercenary narcissism, where the operative lies to himself concerning motive or, perhaps better said, a self-deceit of 'patriotism.' Any narcissism based in a self-deceit at the meta-level of consciousness will misinform; compounding, more often than not, previous mistakes from this misapprehension of reality. A sort of 'the coming 12th attempt germinating in the plans office should work', following on eleven failures. Paraphrasing Einstein, when contemplating this kind of mentality, 'these people will never be able to unscrew their world, with the same thinking that screwed it', which it just so happens, is the only thinking they know.

MOSSAD's narcissism is a bit different but is narcissism nevertheless. Rooted in Jewish nationalism, their Mosaic law's 'an eye for an eye' inspired honor code demanding any loss to the MOSSAD be avenged, undoubtedly causes greater harm than good, since their agent got himself killed, not by my hand, but because he (and MOSSAD) weren't properly informed, prepared and equipped to compete at the level I was operating, in a very hostile (to the Isrаelis) environment. Because they could not even assess my level (at that time), they kept coming after me, quite literally speaking, 'with a vengeance.' Excuse me, but I'm not just going to roll over because the Sephardic MOSSAD officer, posing as a Palestinian member of Hamas, was part of a hare-brained scheme to dupe Hezbollah into assisting with my assassination; the Isrаeli operative got himself killed because the operation unraveled and he was unmasked at a critical moment. I do not glory in his death, nor do I feel sorry for him, as he was out to murder me, not vice-versa. Shit happens. I'm clearly not their messiah, but I would dare to suggest a changed attitude (and related behaviors) could inform the Isrаelis at a higher level of 'intelligence.'

One more possible motive, the most intriguing one is, a mutation in one or more of the intelligence agencies thinking; when, over time and numerous failures when coming after me, it was considered whether I would 'sell' my skills kit to, or somehow employ it on behalf of some 3rd party. Worse still, might be the idea of my training persons hostile to what I openly refer to as 'empire.' Had ongoing, even increased, imperative been born of this possibility?

My skills set had been born of immersion in a world, or better said, a 'dimension' Central Intelligence, and the Defense Intelligence Agency before that, had attempted to exploit for decades, without accomplishing any real mastery, because a wider understanding of this phenomenon or skill set derives from a non-western culture even most anthropologists would experience great difficulty penetrating. A short abstract concerning a single aspect of this multiple-dimensions reality, may be found HERE (PDF file.)

Would this plausible fear of the intelligence agencies be well founded? I will say I've not done this to now. Could it be done? In the right circumstance and environment, I believe I could transfer my skills set, I've worked on translating the concepts to western understanding for nearly forty years, concurrent to my beginning learning. Beyond this, I've experimented with whether western mentalities can be trained so far as mastery in closely related skills (excluding 'trade craft' or investigations, espionage, assassination and geopolitical intrigue.)

The answer is a qualified, but definitive, yes. That said, I just don't think it is a good idea to hand off an understanding, example given, of how to appear to vanish before someone's eyes, without props, to people in a culture that behaves as the western culture does.

1.(c) why the police of Spain never moved on the criminal actors exposed to them, despite my being in covert but direct communication with Spanish law enforcement and the same thanking me on several occasions.

The short answer is, narcissism (corruption) at the very apex of the hierarchy. When I had finally become altogether tired of the game, towards the end of 2012 I began blowing the whistle to various institutions concerned with justice, and related personalities, with a complaint; namely five full years of playing myself bait for law enforcement was more than long enough to unravel the murder rings pursuing me. One of my suggestions had been, in the face of a recalcitrant refusal of German law enforcement to move on my case, was for these institutions and associated personalities to inquire of Spanish authorities concerning the veracity of my statements. Lo, a miracle occurred! Out of the clear, blue, blessed Mary's skies, within a mere few weeks of this suggestion of mine, Mutti Merkel's Germany suddenly stopped disparaging Spain as one of the EU's economic PIIGS and instead offered Spain programs and financial assistance you did not see offered to Portugal, Ireland, Italy and Greece. Was this sudden, very much out of character, German generosity a mere coincidence? Or a price paid by the Merkel administration to stop the case unraveling and conceal MOSSAD had been running around Germany attempting to kill people (with plausible German intelligence complicity, not only CIA.) Spain doesn't have the same 'sensitivities' concerning Isrаel. Meanwhile, there had been ample experience informing myself the German police had continued working my case, on my return from Catalonia.

This decision not to prosecute had to have been a decision taken in consultation with Mariano Rajoy, who bathes in narcissistic opportunism, and leaps at opportunities to take revenge on any and all of his perceived enemies, irrespective of any noble intentions of the law. Blackmail between allies is, after all, nothing new in geopolitics.

Rajoy, surrounded by Popular Party corruption that is breathtaking in scope, for years (1, 2), is Spain's leader behind the charges against the recently fired Catalan police chief for the fact the police chief had issued orders to his officers to exercise "restraint" in dealing with the recently banned (by Madrid's government) plebiscite on independence. The clear implication is, because the Catalan police did not beat their own people bloody at Catalonia's polling stations (like the national police did), the Catalan police chief is guilty of sedition. That's only the start.

It was Mariano Rajoy behind Spain's Constitutional Court striking down a negotiated compromise, in 2010, previously approved under Madrid's Socialists and accepted by the Catalans, that would have averted today's crisis. The result? Pushing the Catalans' sympathies towards full independence. The reactionary Rajoy's answer? Jailing the Catalan government's ministers with charges that could keep them in prison for up to 30 years. The reptile Rajoy clearly does not possess the cognitive ability to grasp this 'Francoesque' action will only further alienate the millions of Catalans that already despise him, in addition to radicalizing the Catalans, and moreover, add to their numbers.

As Rajoy jails the elected Catalan leadership that dared attempt allowing millions of Catalans exercise their perceived 'right of self-determination' at the ballot box, a right enshrined in international law, but conversely, a right only when it suits the several hierarchies of Europe, meanwhile, an established fascist sedition of a truly grotesque and violent nature, a militia closely resembling a GLADIO cell that is naturally aligned with Rajoy's Popular Party and its' legacy descending from Franco, for years, has gone un-prosecuted in Spain:

The unbalanced hypocrisy of Rajoy is practically stupefying. Moreover, those shilling comparisons of Catalonia to Kosovo are comparing apples to oranges; the Catalans have been in Catalonia for as long as Spaniards have existed elsewhere in Spain. Kosovo, on the other hand, could be looked at with a metaphor; it's as if the recently arrived Muslim refugee wave in Germany had overwhelmed the German state of Saarbruken with their numbers, and seceded (with neo-Ottoman Pasha Erdogan's support) to form a Republic of Gurkistan.

From the European Union's point of view, the recently arrived ethnic Albanians in historically Serbian Kosovo, who were allowed to dramatically increase their numbers under a humanitarian policy of Tito's Yugoslavia, are entitled to self-determination, whereas the Catalans, occupying their own land since the era of the Roman empire, are not. What should a hypocrisy of this magnitude say to us?

Mariano Rajoy's fascism only differs from the fascism of the other European Union states in its' crude application. In effect, Rajoy is too stupid to understand how to finesse the European Union's desired outcomes. To now, little better can be said of Spain's King Felipe, whose medieval title 'Count of Barcelona' would appear more important to him than the legitimate aspirations of the Catalan people.

At the end of the day, in Mariano Rajoy's Spain, 'justice' is a relative thing, whether it concerns the life of a single individual hunted by intelligence agencies, ultimately with state sanctioned impunity, or whether it concerns the lives of millions; seeking to live their own destiny -

Related: The Alpha Chronology

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