21st Century Wire says…
What is Philip Hammond, if not an arms industry ‘sales rep’, just waiting to parachute into half a dozen boardroom positions once he’s done in Westminster?
So, according to Hammond, ‘Russia is a threat the British security’?
‘It could happen one day’ he tells us.
NATO’S INSIDE MAN: Hammond has always been very enthusiastic about increasing tension with Russia, which means more arms sales.
““We are now faced with a Russian leader bent not on joining the international rules-based system which keeps the peace between nations, but on subverting it,” Hammond loudly proclaimed during a speech in London (he could have easily been talking about Tony Blair there).
In actuality, the opposite is true. What has Russia done to Britain? Nothing.
Conversely, the facts show that Britain has done more to undermine Russian security and destablize the Ukraine than any other nation outside of the US.
Hammond will not tell us about ex-British special forces and mercenaries deployed in the Ukraine to help keep Kiev’s brutal civil war going. Nor will Hammond mention how the UK government has been calling to send weapons to the Ukraine, again, to help keep that civil war going.
Now he says that MI6 has “stepped up” it’s spying activities. Will that also include targeted political assassinations, too?
“It is no coincidence that all the agencies are recruiting Russian speakers again,” he says.
Hammond is a good friend to the military industrial establishment. The arms industry will forever reward him for his loyalty. Back in 2012, Hammond denied that any former military officers wielded influence in government arms deals. He then launched a “review” into the matter himself, and surprise, surprise, he found nothing.
It seems that the west have got what they wanted from the beginning of their Ukraine project – to gain green lights for budget increases in all the important areas – small arms, cyber warfare, heavy arms, and nuclear weapons.
Job done?
More details on this from Reuters…
DANGEROUS BUREAUCRAT: Arms lobby stooge Hammond does his part in pumping-up a New Cold War.
Kylie MacLellan
Reuters
Russia could one day pose as great a threat to Britain’s security as it did during the Cold War, Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond warned on Tuesday, and London had stepped up gathering intelligence on Moscow in response.
Hammond, responsible for Britain’s MI6 overseas spy agency, said Britain and its allies had sought to work with the Kremlin since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and to draw President Vladimir Putin’s Russia into a “rules-based” international system.
But he said Putin, who has held sway over Russia since 1999, had spurned those efforts and instead opted to illegally annex Crimea and use Russian troops to destabilise eastern Ukraine. Putin denies he has sent troops and weapons to support pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine.
“We are now faced with a Russian leader bent not on joining the international rules-based system which keeps the peace between nations, but on subverting it,” Hammond said in a speech in London.
“We are in familiar territory for anyone over the age of about 50, with Russia’s aggressive behaviour a stark reminder it has the potential to pose the single greatest threat to our security.”
During the Cold War, London was a hotbed of espionage. In 1971, the government of Prime Minister Edward Heath expelled more than 100 Soviet diplomats for spying, an order that affected 20 percent of all Soviet diplomats in Britain.
In 1978, Bulgarian dissident Georgi Markov died in London after being stabbed in the leg by a poison-tipped umbrella. A Bulgarian newspaper said that while the suspected killer was trained by Bulgarian secret police, the case was discussed with the KGB in Moscow.
Hammond’s intervention was meant to convey strong British government anger over what it views as an unacceptable increase in Russian military flights close to British airspace, and to signal it wants Moscow to help a fragile ceasefire in eastern Ukraine hold.
In response to a question, Hammond said he would ask his advisers to consider whether to publicise to the Russian people information about assets held in Britain by senior Russian goverment figures, to put pressure on the Kremlin.
Hammond stressed that gathering intelligence on Russian capabilities and intentions would remain a vital part of Britain’s intelligence effort for the foreseeable future, saying that was why it was looking for more Russian-speakers.
“It is no coincidence that all the agencies are recruiting Russian speakers again,” he said.
‘SPY TRAWL’
All three spy agencies, including the domestic MI5 intelligence service and the GCHQ eavesdropping centre, have placed public adverisements looking for Russian-speaking intelligence analysts or language specialists.
The ads tell applicants not to discuss the process with anyone except their partner or a close family member.
Hammond said the intelligence services had played a key role in identifying some of the principal targets for the European Union’s sanctions regime against Russia.
He said last week that the EU would prepare possible new sanctions on Russia for its involvement in the Ukraine conflict that could be imposed quickly if a ceasefire agreement was broken.
Russia’s steps to modernise its military and its increasingly aggressive stance, which last year resulted in more than 100 NATO interceptions of Russian aircraft, were also “significant causes for concern”, said Hammond.
Russian ambassador Alexander Yakovenko reacted coolly.
“Hammond remarks … prove John Le Carre right,” he wrote on his official Twitter feed, referring to the British spy novel author. “Intelligence services are a spiritual home of British political elite.”
Hammond said state adversaries like Russia, combined with international terrorist organisations and the threat of a “lone wolf” attack, meant unprecedented demands were being placed on Britain’s security services…
Continue this article at Reuters
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