Britain does a Malvinas on Russia
When Galtieri attacked the Falklands to mask his massive internal problems, the Argentineans fell for it. Today, the UK does the same with Russia. To what end?
Attack is the best form of defense. An external threat brings people together. General Galtieri of Argentina attacked the Falklands Islands to unite his people against an external foe, the United Kingdom; President Clinton decided to ratchet up the hate talk against Serbia when he was caught dilly-dallying with girls in the White House; Hitler attacked Poland after accusing the Polish side of massacres in Eastern Germany. And now the United Kingdom, on International Peace Day, calls Russia (yet again) a "hostile state".
Let us address this issue once and for all. And let us start off by trying to understand where London is coming from. London is ruled and governed by Whitehall, which is the area of the city between Trafalgar Square and the Houses of Parliament, the center of government. Go inside and you will find the locals split into two distinct groups: a cloud of white- and gray-haired fuddy-duddies poring over cricket manuals, standing at gravity-defying angles with a glass of "gin and it" in their right hand. They have the ability to speak without moving their lips, so the "sinde comes ite of their thrites", their vocabulary punctuated by imperial-era names "Nyasaland, Tanganyika", referring to locals as "natives" and ending their sentences with "eh what?"
"I say, I bet those Russkies couldn't play a decent game of cricket, eh what? Jolly bad form, eh what? Uncivilized coves, utter cads, what?" If you can try it out at home, it's a hilarious way to spend a Sunday afternoon.
These "chaps" materialize in Whitehall just after nine o'clock in the morning, after being chauffeured from their posh homes in the lush and leafy areas of Surrey, spend their weekends talking about the birds and the fox at the end of the garden and playing golf when they are not hanging out at the cricket club, admitting that Uncle Joe was a "jolly good ally" because he bashed the Bosh, eh what? At work, they read The Times and exchange stories about "primitive Indians" and nearly being boiled in the pot in Africa. Their names are colourful and tend to be long, such as Quintin Farmhouse-Bentley-Sidebottom (pronounced sidibotám), or Justin Buckingham-whitt-Shoddington-Smythe, with a Y. Those with the longest service have their names preceded by "Sir" or "Lord". They tend to have white moustaches and have a penchant for ladies' underwear when the wife goes to her charity meetings on Sunday afternoons.
The other group of locals is comprised by a new breed of brash, bullish, bald-headed brats built like brick shithouses, sporting tattoos festooned down each arm and plastered all over their shaven chest, on their backs one of a cat chasing a mouse whose tail one can just discern as it disappears up his anatomy, something he likes to flash when the worse for wear after a soccer match at Chelsea. These "fellows", or "blokes" speak an unfathomable form of English, changing the values of vowels, from "ai" to "oi" and dropping the "t". So when on holiday in Benidorm or Menorca, or the Algarve, one can observe the phenomenon of these beings bawling out the word "woi'a" as they call the waiter, to add to their collection of forty-seven beer bottles on the table. Their names tend to be short, sharp and shit-hot, such as Steve Kitt, Bob Bent or Kevin Hunt.
These "blokes" travel to Whitehall on public transportation, knee-deep in filth after refraining to use the seats at the railway station because they have been smothered in excrement, as has the ticket machine, the reading material on the way the scrawls of unemployable youths who have scratched illuminated phrases such as "Sarah sucks cock" on the window of the carriage. They read the third page of The Sun (topless model) then flick to the last twenty pages at the back (stories about Spanking Milly, the Crossdresser SAS agent and his transsexual pimp called Everard, and soccer gossip).
At work, the chaps and the blokes mingle sitting on opposite sides of the room, the chaps calling the blokes "louts" and the blokes labelling the chaps as "poofs". Somehow they have to get along together.
Those in charge are getting increasingly worried because the atmosphere in the Office is getting tense, so tense you could cut it with a knife. "I know", one of them says. "Why don't we invent an external threat to bring them together?" "Great idea," says another. "We could tell them that the Foreign Office will take over our offices".
Do you, dear reader, get the analogy? So as the United Kingdom wakes up to the reality that its political class is endemically corrupt, not in a clear sense of the word but in the sense that they make election promises which are barefaced lies, peddle barefaced lies as the truth when they are softening up the idiots to be duped into Brexit, with promises of 350 million "quid" a week for the National Health Service (bullshit), waking up to the fact that their Government has no idea where it is going or what it is doing and looks like a flock of headless chickens running in panic as a fox enters the hencoop.
They are waking up to the fact that the rest of Europe behind closed doors is getting ready to teach them a lesson and whatever Theresa May may think, those she is negotiating with regard her stance as untenable and have their own plans for a non-UK Brexit deal which will see the UK lose tens of thousands of jobs, hundreds of billions of pounds in income and see the island strangled, outcast and forgotten as the big trading blocks overlook London and do big deals while the chaps and blokes wonder why their attempt to go it alone failed. And they are waking up to the fact that Theresa May is scared to hold a second referendum because she knows very well that it will turn against Brexit. Her version of "democracy" is a stupid vote on a sunny British afternoon plied with beer based upon shitfaced lies. They are waking up to the reality that the timing is wrong for going it alone. This is not the 1490s when Portugal and Spain carved the world in half and each took one side and when England was part of a backward, outcast, insignificant isle with three times more sheep than people.
So you cannot really blame the Brits for wanting to do a Galtieri and find a nice big strong hefty external foe. The USA wouldn't do, because they speak English and refused to roll over and except Metric measures. France? Nah, too weak. Germany? Been there, done that. Israel? Shoooooooooooooooooosh!!! Hush!!! You will get accused of anti-Semitism or racism, let them get away with murder and don't say anything, just whistle and get fascinated by your fingernails suddenly. Hmmmmm. Then who? China? Nah, too far away.
Then up looms the Russian bear in a carefully crafted bullshit policy carved over decades with lies about attacking its neighbours, being a "hostile nation" and all sorts of nonsense with as much substance as the bullshit over Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. But it works, because as Goebbels said if you repeat the lie often enough it gets accepted as the truth. Listen for the soundbites and watch out for the subliminal images, looks and sounds as British news outlets speak about Russia: "cyber attacks" (by the way NATO and its agencies do this all the time), "hostile nation" (based upon what? Russia could carpet-nuke the UK but doesn't. The only country to have perpetrated a nuclear terrorist attack was that spoilt brat of a nation across the Pond, eh what?). "Poison attacks by the GRU", like WTF? What evidence is there to support that?
OK we get it. Russia is big, Russia is powerful, Russia is rich in resources. Russians are not that communicative in a spontaneous sense, they are direct and say what they think and their language is unfathomable to foreigners. "Their letters are back to front, eh what?" and Russia does not know how to respond in the face of hostility, it just keeps talking about its friends and partners and turns a blind eye and hopes people will be nice, refraining from fighting back against provocation. Until one day...
Until one day. In Britain there used to be a sport called bear baiting in which a bear was tied down, prodded then set upon by packs of hounds. What would happen if the bear broke loose? Napoleon found out before Hitler did and after the West involved itself in a terrorist action in the Civil War and got its backside handed to it.
On the other hand, Russia does not regard Britain as a hostile nation, instead one that provokes sighs of boredom as to why they constantly play the Russophobic tune, the Russian people have an admiration for the British with their teas and cricket and trifle, they certainly do not feel hatred, or fear. And these days the social media reveals a reality whereby a substantial part of the British population is sick and tired of their government, sick and tired of their politicians and sick and tired of the lies, embarrassed by the hype and hysteria against Russia. Those who came here to the World Cup made a lot of friends and saw for themselves that the bullshit British people are told about Russia is cloud cuckoo land.
We understand that a lot of jobs depend on the defense industry making weapons to murder people, we understand that with a collective spending of one point two trillion dollars, each and every year, the NATO lobby has to reinvent itself on a constant basis.
Perhaps the people of the UK, the chaps and the blokes, could ask why a supra-national lobby like that is dictating its foreign policy, now that they're so wrapped up in their insular national identity through Brexit. Just a friendly word of advice, hold that second referendum before you jump off the precipice. Those who hear alternative corridors of power know what is coming, your politicians do not.
Photo: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Bear#/media/File:RussianBear.JPG
Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey
Pravda.Ru
Twitter: @TimothyBHinchey
timothy.hinchey@gmail.com
*Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey has worked as a correspondent, journalist, deputy editor, editor, chief editor, director, project manager, executive director, partner and owner of printed and online daily, weekly, monthly and yearly publications, TV stations and media groups printed, aired and distributed in Angola, Brazil, Cape Verde, East Timor, Guinea-Bissau, Portugal, Mozambique and São Tomé and Principe Isles; the Russian Foreign Ministry publication Dialog and the Cuban Foreign Ministry Official Publications. He has spent the last two decades in humanitarian projects, connecting communities, working to document and catalog disappearing languages, cultures, traditions, working to network with the LGBT communities helping to set up shelters for abused or frightened victims and as Media Partner with UN Women, working to foster the UN Women project to fight against gender violence and to strive for an end to sexism, racism and homophobia. A Vegan, he is also a Media Partner of Humane Society International, fighting for animal rights. He is Director and Chief Editor of the Portuguese version of Pravda.Ru. He is an official translator, a coach, a consultant and a professor.