by
Robert Stevens
The
Institute for Statecraft (IoS) and its Integrity Initiative (II)
constitute a secret propaganda network tied to the UK security
services. They bring together high-ranking military and intelligence
personnel, journalists and academics to manufacture and disseminate
propaganda serving the geo-political aims of British imperialism and
its allies.
The
IoS was founded in 2006 and the II in 2015. But their secret role in
promoting fake news and disinformation was exposed only in November
and December of 2018 by hacking group Anonymous.
A
document published by Anonymous shows funding for the II totalled
£582,635 in 2017-18, with £480,635 coming from the Foreign and
Commonwealth Office (FCO) and the rest from NATO.
Funding
shot up to £2.6 million in 2018-19, with £1.96 million from the FCO
and the rest from the US State Department, NATO and the American
neoconservative Smith Richardson Foundation. Facebook, which plays in
integral role in imposing censorship on behalf of US imperialism,
donated £100,000.
The
Working Group on Syria Propaganda and Media (WGSPM) produced a
briefing on the II last month documenting the role played by leading
figures in the UK Ministry of Defence, US Army and senior
intelligence figures. It noted, “The involvement of these senior
officers from military intelligence and information warfare units
suggests that the MoD rather than the FCO is driving the Integrity
Initiative programme.”
On
January 4, a fourth trove of documents was made public by the
Anonymous collective, taken from the internal servers of the IoS and
II. These include many documents related to the poisoning last March
of Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, in
Salisbury.
British
Prime Minister Theresa May, without citing any evidence, immediately
accused Russia of attempting to assassinate the pair using the nerve
agent novichok, thereby ramping up global tensions. The II leaks
indicate that the moves against Russia over the Skripal affair were
scripted well in advance, with the IoS planning a detailed
anti-Russia propaganda war, including suggested achievable
objectives.
A 2015
document written by IoS “team member” Victor Madeira is titled
“Russian Federation Sanctions.” It lists “potential levers”
to achieve Russian “behaviour change,” “peace with Ukraine,”
“return [of] Crimea,” and “regime change.” Such “levers”
span almost every conceivable area, including “civil society,”
“sports,” “finance” and “technology.”
Under
“intelligence,” Madeira calls for the simultaneous expulsion of
“every RF [Russian Federation] intelligence officer and
air/defense/naval attaché from as many countries as possible”—citing
as a precedent the expulsion of over 1,000 Soviet officials from the
UK in September 1971. More than 100 Russian diplomats were expelled
from over 20 countries just days after the Skripals’ poisoning.
Madeira
has lectured at the University of Buckingham. The WGSPM quoted the
university’s website: “Dr. Victor Madeira comes to us from
Cambridge (where he has been a lecturer and tutor for four years,
working with Professor Christopher Andrew and Sir Richard Dearlove
and the Institute for Statecraft in London, directed by Chris
Donnelly, where he is a senior fellow working on 21st century
security architecture.” Dearlove is the former head of the UK
foreign intelligence service MI6.
The head
of the IoS is Chris Donnelly, formerly a reserve officer in the
British Army Intelligence Corps. He previously headed the British
Army’s Soviet Studies Research Centre at Sandhurst.
Between
1989 and 2003, he was special adviser to four NATO secretaries
general. An online biography confirms that Donnelly is, among many
things, an honorary colonel in Specialist Group Military Intelligence
(SGMI) and sits on the official team responsible for scrutinizing the
current reform of the UK’s Reserve Forces for the defence
secretary. SGMI is a Ministry of Defence (MoD) operation based at
Denison Barracks in Berkshire, England. It is part of the 1st
Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Brigade, which became
operational on September 1, 2014.
Another
leaked document shows that in October 2016, Donnelly met UK General
Sir Richard Barrons. The account of their meeting is chilling in
light of the Skripal affair that followed and the escalation of
tensions with Russia, including demands by leading generals that the
UK prepare for military conflict.
Either
Donnelly or Barrons reportedly stated that “if no catastrophe
happens to wake people up and demand a response, then we need to find
a way to get the core of government to realise the problem and take
it out of the political space.”
The
speaker continued: “We will need to impose changes over the
heads of vested interests. We did this in the 1930s. My conclusion is
it is we who must either generate the debate or wait for something
dreadful to happen to shock us into action. We must generate an
independent debate outside government. We need to ask when and how do
we start to put all this right. Do we have the national capabilities
[and/or] capacities to fix it? If so, how do we improve our
harnessing of resources to do it? We need this debate now. There is
not a moment to be lost.”
The
Donnelly/Barrons meeting came just one month after the Financial
Times leaked a letter from Barrons to the MoD making clear that the
British military had to prepare for a major war. In his letter,
Barrons demanded the upgrading of military and intelligence hardware,
capabilities and personnel necessary to prosecute an extended air,
land and sea confrontation against heavily armed state opponents,
particularly Russia.
Just
days after the poisoning of the Skripals, the IoS proposed that the
Foreign and Commonwealth Office “study social media activity in
respect of the events that took place, how news spread, and evaluate
how the incident is being perceived” in various countries.
Within days, the II’s “Operation Iris” swung into operation. As
well as monitoring media coverage with its own team, it recruited the
global investigative solutions firm Harod Associates to analyse
social media activity related to the Skripals affair.
On
March 11, just seven days after the poisonings, II set out what it
called the necessary “narrative.” It declared, “Russia
has carried out yet another brutal attack, this time with a deadly
nerve agent, on someone living in Britain.”
The
May government’s account of how the Skripals came to be poisoned
was shot through with inconsistencies, with the wider public
increasingly sceptical at its ever-changing story. The II raised
concerns that the government was “far too weak,”
declaring, “[I]t’s essential the government makes a much
stronger response this time.”
It
proposed 11 “possible, realistic first actions,” including
such authoritarian measures as banning Russian state news services RT
and Sputnik from operating in the UK. Its first demand was to
publicly attack the Putin government with a barrage of propaganda
“through regular media, social media, and with the assistance of
specialists such as those at the Institute of Statecraft.”
A
number of senior journalists at the BBC, Times/Sunday Times, Guardian
and Financial Times are listed as supportive of the IoS/II in an
earlier leaked document. These media outlets each played a central
role in disseminating government propaganda throughout the Skripal
affair. The named journalists include David Aaronovitch and Dominic
Kennedy at the Times, Natalie Nougayrede and Carole Cadwalladr at the
Guardian, Edward Lucas at the Economist, Neil Buckley at the
Financial Times, and Jonathan Marcus at the BBC.
Another
figure who has played a central role for II is security consultant
Dan Kaszeta. Invoices from his consultancy reveal he was paid over
£2,000 to write anti-Russian articles published by the II. These
included a puff piece on Porton Down, the UK’s chemical weapons
laboratory, which has the capability to produce novichok. His piece
insisted that Porton Down, located just a few miles from Salisbury,
could not possibly have anything to do with the presence of novichok
in Salisbury.
Source,
links:
Comments
Post a Comment