The Psychology of Prince Andrew

[ClaytonB]

A detailed breakdown (warning: strong language, possibly offensive images):



To be blunt, I had pretty much exactly the same mental reactions when watching the original video of this interview the first time. However, I consciously dismissed most of them based on the principle of charity -- someone who is nervous under questioning can often be nervous for reasons other than the ones we suppose. This is all the more true of someone with a lot of publicly-visible duties, as Andrew had at the time of the interview (he has since been stripped of all royal duties). If his aim in giving this interview was to deceive the public, he bombed it in a spectacularly bad way. I've known several liars in my own personal life who could have given a performance a hundred times more convincing than this.

Although he appears to be guilty as sin, until there is actual evidence of wrong-doing, we're just trafficking in speculation. At worst, the most we know for sure he has done wrong is cavorting with a convicted pedophile. Of course, that's insanely bad judgment for someone occupying countless positions requiring a spotless public reputation. But, in itself, it proves no wrong or illegal conduct on Andrew's part.

The tale he is telling, here, is that he was simply passing through Epstein's orbit like many other rich and powerful people because Epstein was a super-connector of the rich and powerful (and it is true that Epstein was such a super-connector). Andrew's nervousness could be the result, not of any criminal wrong-doing while staying with Epstein, but the result of the realization of the stakes of this interview -- his $300k+ royal stipend and his hundreds of positions on the boards of charities (all income-generating). In fact, it seems to me that the only reason that Andrew would have taken this interview in the first place was due to an ultimatum from these very organizations (perhaps delivered through his brother or mother): clear your name on public television or GTFO. If that's the backstory, then Andrew's nervousness and guilty looks are about his association with Epstein, not necessarily about any nefarious goings on while staying at Epstein's properties.

I think this is the most charitable possible interpretation of Andrew's statements and behavior... and it's still pretty bad. He has since lost his royal stipend, had his offices in Buckingham palace closed by the royal family, been publicly shunned by the royal family and lost all his seats on the various charitable organizations he had been associated with. This forebodes very ill for Andrew's future and I would imagine that his most favorable course of action, at this point, is to hole up in some royal residence and live out the rest of his days in maximum possible obscurity from the public view. On the most charitable interpretation of his actions above, this is actually a pretty severe punishment for an ill-advised trip to Epstein's place in 2010. But that's the unfortunate reality of what maintaining a spotless public reputation is all about.

It does seem more probable, however, that Andrew has not really "come clean" about the nature of his relationship with Epstein. We know that Epstein's own MO with underage girls was to do the "massage table two-step"... "Hey, can you give me a massage... with your clothes off... oops, I'm not sure what's happening here but let's just roll with it, OK?" Andrew cannot deny getting massages on Epstein's properties since this is already known information. That's bad enough but, after this interview, it appears that he is guilty as sin.

OK, now for the elephant in the room. There are claims that Epstein's network was only superficially about prostituting underage girls. In other words, the primary purpose and revenue-generation of the network did not come from the prostitution itself but, rather, from the intelligence on rich and powerful people that was generated by the cameras that were, of course, recording everything that was going on. This is one of the oldest methods of intelligence... bait, incriminate, extort and blackmail. Once an individual is "on the hook", he (or she) becomes a puppet that can be manipulated well beyond the ends of material gain. Every sort of operational objective is achievable, especially when dealing with an individual like Andrew who is in the maximally sensitive position of having to maintain an absolutely spotless public reputation. In fact, the primary objective of this kind of intelligence network is to recruit new victims in order to expand and deepen the network's influence.

In this respect, the Epstein network -- if it is actually the kind of network we have envisioned -- was rather mundane. I don't mean to minimize the tragedy of the suffering of the victims that were exploited by the network. Rather, I'm simply pointing out that these kinds of methods are "business as usual" all around the world. Sex, including forced child prostitution, is routinely employed in less developed parts of the world as a means of extorting, blackmailing and, ultimately, controlling people who are relatively rich and powerful in those parts of the world. If anything, the primary lesson from the Epstein network, so far, is that the idea that "this stuff no longer occurs" in the modern, developed parts of the world is bogus. It does occur, they've just become much, much better at covering their tracks over the years.

The finger of accusation has been waving around in all directions -- the CIA, Mossad, British Intelligence, the Vatican, Satanic child-sacrifice rings, and many more. So far, there don't seem to be many concrete connections to any particular organization. What this suggests, to me, is that they're all doing it. It's a pretty common behavior pattern. A child gets caught out breaking some rule at school and the principal comes into the classroom: "I want to know who's breaking the rules around here. Everybody, 'fess up!" What happens? Complete silence (except for tattle-tales) because they're all breaking the same rule. To my eyes, that's exactly what is happening, here. Whichever intelligence agency was operating the Epstein network, all of the other intelligence agencies will surely have tons of intelligence about what was going on and the exact extents of the network. That's their whole job, after all. But none of them are talking. Why? Because they're running their own networks, exactly like Epstein's, and possibly even bigger. "Sources and methods", aka, "we're doing it, too, so we're not about to start incriminating ourselves by exposing how it's being done by others."

[shakey1]

Moral of the royal... never come clean.