The integrity initiative

[Funcrusher]

An alternative explanation for why Russia in particular, as opposed to China for example, is being targeted in this way: pretty much all national governments try to ensure that the profits accruing from the exploitation of global labour flow to people living in their jurisdictions. China attempts to gain dominance through trade, and while that's a threat to European capitalists it also presents opportunities to them, so this is seen as tolerable and within the rules of the game. Russia on the other hand, while it does well out of trade in gas, is a much weaker economy, particularly in the context of many economies trying to de-carbonise. And so they try to gain influence in very different ways, through cyber-warfare, espionage and disruption. Therefore, European governments retaliate in kind, while trying to pretend they don't.

I don't think I've yet seen a definitive explanation as to why the US is ramping up conflict with Russia, which it clearly is. My feeling is that the biggest fear for US warhawks is that China might replace the US as global hegemon and holder of the world reserve currency. Russia is a potential ally of China, and so this is proxy war.

[Pepotamo1985]

https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR1140.html

[biggytitbo]

I've seen the more fringe neocon nutjobs suggest war with China but that is still obviously decades off. Iran, Russia, China is the order I think. We're all dead before they get there though, obviously.

[Bence Fekete]

This. thread. is. fascinating. 

So we're witnessing a sort of mini, local Snowden-quake then?  Only the source material is so raw and up to date it can't even be conceived of by the MSM (which is a silly name for All the Newspapers).  Our proud 'free' press.  Because they are likely infiltrated up to the eyesockets, on centre-left and centre-right, with secret and not-so-secret operatives at high levels setting agendas that appear to include smearing the socialist opposition and promoting war with Russia?

And this is all provable with freely available official documents and online accounts?

And that even me typing this is likely to be scraped up by a 'state of the art cyber monitoring platform' (their words) called fucking SENTINEL is no longer absurd paranoiac but actually, 'the news'?

And the vast majority of the general public along with nearly everyone I know IRL will yawn again and say who gives a flying? 

That last one wasn't a question.

[Bence Fekete]

Ah, so Sunday Times broke the story in UK.  Well okay maybe there's a trickle of hope left.  The Guardian's stub like shrug-piece is an abomination of perspective though.  Yes, let's all tacitly agree that undercover intelligence agents are permitted to manipulate public discourse in order to further secret governmental foreign objectives.  What could possibly go wrong?

[biggytitbo]

There's probably little hope of the Pablo Miller stuff getting airing on the msm, considering there is a d notice about him that is still in effect I believe, over his role in the Skripal affair. Miller was Skripals handler at MI6 and presumably the source for his chum Mark Urbans book about Skripal, which gives a version of events notably different than the ones in the BBC's panorama propaganda special last month.

[Pepotamo1985]

He flatly denied that (and that Miller was Skripal's recruiter) when I gatecrashed his book launch - https://sputniknews.com/analysis/201810051068634152-urban-skripal-harding-miller/

[Pepotamo1985]

Ah, so Sunday Times broke the story in UK.  Well okay maybe there's a trickle of hope left.  The Guardian's stub like shrug-piece is an abomination of perspective though.  Yes, let's all tacitly agree that undercover intelligence agents are permitted to manipulate public discourse in order to further secret governmental foreign objectives.  What could possibly go wrong?

Times defense editor Deborah Haynes is part of II's UK cluster. II brought in some Ukrainian special ops figures (their profiles in the pre-visit circular boast of how many parachute jumps they've completed and how many Russians they've captured behind enemy lines and brought back to HQ - presuamably to be tortured and murdered horribly). A meeting with her is part of their tour itinerary, She met with Ukrainian reservists in July 2016, leading to this puff piece the next month - https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/ukraine-spills-secrets-of-putin-s-military-machine-to-british-army-tc57tfm0x.

[Pepotamo1985]

The trip was paid for by the MoD. Perhaps unsurprising given Institute for Statecraft chief Chris Donnelly writes stuff like this in 2014 - https://www.pdf-archive.com/2018/12/13/00-military-measures/00-military-measures.pdfhttps://www.pdf-archive.com/2018/12/13/00-military-measures/00-military-measures.pdf

"If I were in charge I would get the following implemented asp 1. Set up a cordon sanitaire across the Crimean Isthmus and on the coast N. of Crimea with troops and mines 2. Mine Sevastopol harbour/bay. Can be done easily using a car ferry if they have no minelayers. Doesn't need a lot of mines to be effective. They could easily buy some mines. 3. Get their air force into the air and activate all their air defences. If they can't fly the Migs on the airfield in Crimea those should be destroyed as a gesture that they are serious. Going "live" electronically will worry the Russians as the Ukrainians have the same electronic kit. If the Russians jam it they jam their own kit as well. 4. Ukraine used to have some seriously important weapons, such as a big microwave anti-satellite weapon. If they still have this, they should use it. 5. The government needs a Strategic communication campaign- so far everything is coming from Moscow. They need to articulate a long-term vision that will inspire the people, however hard that is to do. Without it, what have people to fight for? 6. They should ask the west now to start supplying Oil and gas. There is plenty available due to the mild winter. I am trying to get this message across"

Don't know about you, but it's really refreshing to see a charity chief with balls these days. His mobile number was included in the document tranche so I gave him a ring. He very softly said "ah, no thanks Kit, maybe another time" when I said I wanted to pose some questions to him. Everyone else I rang either just hung up or shrieked and then hung up.

[Quote]

I'm no military expert but wouldn't the Russians kick our skinny arses all the way back to Blighty were we even to attempt any of those? It seems a very ambitious project for a Country that can barely afford to operate a local library (allegedly) let alone properly fund an adequate military...

I love seeing stuff like this unravel, well not *see* it exactly as no traditional media outlet seem to have given it so much as a cursory mention. I'm also delighted to see Aaronovitch's name crop up as, like most people I'd imagine, I've long suspected him of being if not a full blown media asset then a 'fellow traveller' of those types. An unremitting cunt as well.

Good stuff.

[biggytitbo]

Whitewashing the Nazis in Ukraine is one of the chief roles of this propaganda network, and one of its most dangerous. If there is any area in the world that could really escalate into WW3 its that. And that whole Crimea stuff is mental, the question is how much of this is bullshitting and fantasy though?

I see on twitter Pep is already on this, but it seems some of the govs parliamentary answers have been less than honest about work they did for the MOD.

[biggytitbo]

A Brussels university appears to be one of the key avenues for laundering NATO propaganda as 'research', via the II - https://twitter.com/SuzyPanga/status/1073848091973967872

[greenman]

I don't think I've yet seen a definitive explanation as to why the US is ramping up conflict with Russia, which it clearly is. My feeling is that the biggest fear for US warhawks is that China might replace the US as global hegemon and holder of the world reserve currency. Russia is a potential ally of China, and so this is proxy war.

Hostility has always been there I would say but perhaps the shift has been a combination of the failure weaken Russian influence in Syria and the general bumps to the political status quo(Trump, Brexit, etc) that mean having a clear enemy in the public eye rather than the more hidden hostility of the 90's and 00's is now preferable.

[biggytitbo]

Almost half a million quid of FCO cash to Nimmo's fake news op too:



They're the NATO infowar operation kindly 'helping' Facebook censor anti-war and alt-media outlets.

[biggytitbo]

I see also that Carole Cadwalladr is named in the latest leak, as a speaker at an II event about how the dastardly Russians are 'eroding trust in professional media'. It certainly puts her obsessive tweets about how everyone is a Russian stooge into perspective. The same Carole Cadwalladr who rubbished the whole II story when it btoke and managed to flip it instead into being another example of Labour's 'Russia problem' 

[Pepotamo1985]

CC is another servile establishment propagandist I can't quite figure out. Does she actually believe the nonsense she comes with, or is she acutely aware there's far greater financial reward (ie any at all) in supporting the state line? The other day she repeatedly went for Sputnik and RT on Twitter, making all kind of bizarre allegations (think it was related to Putin's sponsorship of the yellow vests or summat), then RT responded, then she claimed she was subject to a concerted Russian propaganda attack as a result. Of course, lots of people then ran to her defence and told their own stories of being savaged by the Kremlin on social media (all of which sounded equally if not even more lame).

[biggytitbo]

That is Cadwalladr's MO, she has a constant, overwhelming persecution complex. Any criticism of her nonsense, no matter how polite and well formed is a VICIOUS attack on her as a woman and a journalist, almost certainly sponsored by Putin himself. She is an absolute lunatic, an establishment friendly conspiracy theorist with a flair for melodrama.

[biggytitbo]

David Aaronovitch named in the latest documents as attending a II event, despite saying only the other day he'd never even heard of them. How odd.

Ben Nimmo has struck again, given free reign to spread propoganda in the msm https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/world-europe-46567364

Ben Nimmo, an Atlantic Council researcher on Russian disinformation, told the BBC that attempts to create funny memes were part of the strategy as "disinformation for the information age".

[biggytitbo]

Excellent summary of the latest batch of releases here https://www.moonofalabama.org/2018/12/the-strange-mind-of-christopher-nigel-donnelly.html

[garnish]

Still, Brexit eh? Biggest issue in the history of the UK.

What should Labour be doing about the integrity allegations? It's not like they can rely on the media to report on it.

[Jakey Chesterton]

The pattern of working through a third party is reminiscent of this from late last year/earlier this year (now disappeared into the memory hole with no actual resolution):

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/global-development/2018/feb/20/uk-revives-free-syrian-police-aid-scheme-alleged-payments-syrian-jihadists

Basically the foreign office was (and still is, as far as I know) channeling money to 'police' in Idlib via a spin-off of the Adam Smith Institute.

[biggytitbo]

Indeed you could say the same about the White Helmets themselves.


Carole Cadwalladr is getting very evasive on twitter and touchy when politely asked about whether she has any connections to II.

[Pepotamo1985]

Likewise Hayden, who said she did meet with Ukrainian special ops, but refuses to confirm she knew who arranged the meet and why, among other key points.

[biggytitbo]

Some of them genuinely don't seem to understand that it's not good for the 'integrity' of journalists to have an overly cosy, undisclosed or financial relationship with the government. Some of them do though, hence all the shit flinging and evasion.

[biggytitbo]

Also getting funding from NATO, US state dep and Facebook https://twitter.com/yashalevine/status/1074401628013387776?s=19

[BlodwynPig]

Time people of the year, though. Bow down and suck it up

[George Oscar Bluth II]

Impressed that these chancers managed to con £££ out of the govt to run a Twitter account that, even post scandal, has 3,700 followers.

[biggytitbo]

[George Oscar Bluth II]

He's not wrong. It's allowed bigs to masquerade as a lefty again.

[Pepotamo1985]

https://grayzoneproject.com/2018/12/17/inside-the-temple-of-covert-propaganda-the-integrity-initiative-and-the-uks-scandalous-information-war/

Max Blumenthal gives me a shoutout and does some digging of his own into Bracey-Lane, including this video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JTabVROXKE