New documents reveal a covert British military-intelligence smear machine meddling in American politics
The
Integrity Initiative has mobilized an international disinformation
campaign across Europe. Now, with government and right-wing
foundation money, this massive “political smear unit” is
infiltrating the US.
by
Max Blumenthal and Mark Ames
Part
2 - Unmasking a British military-intelligence smear machine
The
existence of the Integrity Initiative was virtually unknown
until this November, when the email servers of a previously obscure
British think tank called the Institute for Statecraft were
hacked, prompting allegations of Russian intrusion. When the group’s
internal documents appeared at a website hosted by Anonymous
Europe, the public learned of a covert propaganda network
seed-funded to the tune of over $2 million dollars by the
Tory-controlled UK Foreign Office, and run largely by
military-intelligence officers.
Through
a series of cash inducements, off the record briefings and all-day
conferences, the Integrity Initiative has sought to organize
journalists across the West into an international echo chamber hyping
up the supposed threat of Russian disinformation—and to defame
politicians and journalists critical of this new Cold War campaign.
A bid
for funding submitted by the Integrity Initiative in 2017 to
the British Ministry of Defense promised to deliver a “tougher
stance on Russia” by arranging for “more information
published in the media on the threat of Russian active measures.”
The
Integrity Initiative has also worked through its fronts in the
media to smear political figures perceived as a threat to its
militaristic agenda. Its targets have included a Spanish Department
of Homeland Security appointee, Pedro Banos, whose nomination was
scuttled thanks a media blitz it secretly orchestrated; Jeremy
Corbyn, whom the outfit and its media cutouts painted as a useful
idiot of Russia; and a Scottish member of parliament, Neil Findlay,
whom one of its closest media allies accused of adopting “Kremlin
messaging” for daring to protest the official visit of the
far-right Ukrainian politician Andriy Parubiy — the founder of two
neo-Nazi parties and author of a white nationalist memoir, “View
From The Right.”
These
smear campaigns and many more surreptitiously orchestrated by the
Integrity Initiative offer a disturbing preview of the
reactionary politics it plans to inject into an already toxic
American political environment.
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