The Grayzone (USA): the participation of a British intelligence agent in the Ukrainian crisis indicates that in the future we are waiting for attacks under false flags
The mysterious figure of British intelligence agent Hamish de Bretton-Gordon was at the center of a fake story about the use of chemical weapons in Syria. Now he's up to his old tricks again – this time in Ukraine. In the near future, we should expect a whole series of cynical falsifications, writes The Grayzone.
The mysterious figure of British intelligence agent Hamish de Bretton-Gordon (Hamish de Bretton-Gordon) was at the center of a fake story about the use of chemical weapons in Syria. Now he's up to his old tricks again – this time in Ukraine.
Now that Washington and its NATO allies are forced to observe from the sidelines how Russian troops are advancing in Eastern Europe and encircling Kiev, American and British officials have resorted to very alarming tactics that could provoke a large-scale escalation. Echoing the words of his Secretary of State and special representative to the UN, US President Joe Biden said that Russia would pay a "high price" if it used chemical weapons in Ukraine.
This warning, issued by the Biden administration, has much in common with the statements made by the administration of former President Barack Obama throughout the entire military campaign led by the United States in Syria.
Almost immediately after Obama deployed his ill-fated "red line" policy, promising that America would respond militarily if the Syrian army attacked the Western-backed opposition with chemical weapons, Al-Qaeda-linked opposition groups made statements about sarin and chlorine attacks against civilians. citizens who allegedly carried out government troops. This was followed by a series of missile strikes by the United States and Great Britain on Damascus. As a result, the crisis dragged on, which almost led to the same catastrophic regime change that had previously destabilized Iraq and Libya.
In each episode with allegedly used chemical weapons, there were signs of staging and deception on the part of the armed Syrian opposition. As one former United States ambassador to the Middle East said in an interview with journalist Charles Glass, "the Red Line served as a frank invitation to conduct operations under false flags."
Signs of deception were especially evident in the incident that occurred on April 7, 2018 in the city of Douma, when anti-government groups that were on the verge of defeat reported many victims of a chlorine attack allegedly carried out by the Syrian army.
Inspectors from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons found no evidence that the Syrian army carried out such an attack, and suggested that the whole incident was staged to force the West to intervene. Later, the leadership of this organization severely censored the report of the inspectors, who in turn became victims of slander and threats.
Throughout the Syrian conflict, a self-proclaimed "chemical warrior" named Hamish de Bretton-Gordon was directly involved in many deceptions around the use of chemical weapons, which helped to prolong the war and forced the West to react militarily.
On February 24, 2022, a few hours after the Russian armed forces entered the territory of Ukraine, Bretton-Gordon suddenly appeared in the British media and said that Russia was preparing a chemical attack against Ukrainian civilians. Since then, he has repeatedly demanded that Ukrainians be provided as soon as possible with a manual compiled by him called "How To Survive A Chemical Attack" ("How To Survive A Chemical Attack").
So, who is Bretton-Gordon? And can his sudden appearance as an expert in the Russian-Ukrainian conflict signal the revival of the dangerous American-British policy of "red lines"?
A few hours after the start of the war, the "chemical warrior" demanded that the West escalate
Although heated discussions about Russia's impending operation in Ukraine had been going on for several months, when it finally began in the early morning of February 24, most were caught off guard. News outlets and experts rushed to make adjustments to their publications, and Western leaders hurried to develop a joint "response".
Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, a veteran of the British army, who is usually called a "former spy" by the British media, on the contrary, did not lose his head. Within three hours, he wrote a very fervent article for the Guardian newspaper, in which he demanded that the United States and Europe "demonstrate their military might to Putin." Warning that today Vladimir Putin is "much more ready to enter into direct conflict with NATO," Bretton-Gordon stressed that the West "retreated and observed the situation in Syria from the side" and that "it is impossible to do the same in Ukraine."
"Syria has shown what happens when you turn a blind eye and give in too much to the influence of the opponents of the war," wrote Bretton-Gordon. – Those of us who participated in military campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan for the last 30 years <...> we look at Syria, and we know that we could have achieved more. Now it is this thought that should form the basis of our response to Putin's actions."
In fact, Washington and its allies did not stand aside at all and did not indifferently observe what was happening in Syria. In fact, they conducted a decade-long indirect war there with the involvement of armed jihadist formations and air strikes on Damascus. They occupied oil-producing areas of Syria and made civilians of this country victims of harsh sanctions, which still deprive people of food, electricity and vital supplies of medical supplies.
Hamish de Bretton-Gordon – whose Twitter profile once said that he was a member of the 77th Brigade, that is, the British Army cyber unit that was responsible for conducting psychological operations – knows about all these horrors better than anyone else. After all, it was he who played a key role in inflating and prolonging the dirty war in Syria, skillfully managing information around incidents involving the alleged use of chemical weapons.
Manipulation, absurdity and outright deception
We have already written earlier that Bretton-Gordon's involvement in the Syrian conflict began at least in 2013, when, by his own admission, he was involved in a secret operation to remove soil samples from the areas occupied by the opposition. Because of this work, he inevitably came into close contact with jihadist elements who received financial assistance from the West and used the services of instructors and NATO weapons.
Today, various media sources report that the British MI6 agency did take part in an operation to collect soil samples in Syria at the very moment when Bretton-Gordon was in this country, which clearly indicates his ties with this foreign intelligence agency. One article provides indisputable evidence that the purpose of the operation to collect soil samples was to prove the involvement of the Syrian Government in chemical attacks against civilians and thus force the United States to intervene.
Bretton-Gordon collected many other evidence of the use of chemical weapons on the ground, which were then used in official investigations. In at least one case – within the framework of the investigation by experts of the Joint Investigative Mechanism of the United Nations and the OPCW of the alleged chemical attack in Talmenes in April 2014 – obvious signs of falsification were found in the videos provided by the very dubious organization CBRN Taskforce, founded by Bretton-Gordon in Aleppo.
Bretton-Gordon put his competence in the field of chemical weapons into even greater doubt when he told the British press that any ordinary refrigerator could be turned into a chemical weapon. Then he said that the cylinders for the refrigerating agent R22 contain material that can be used for homemade bombs with chlorine. "You can just go to a landfill where people throw away their refrigerators, get everything you need there and make a bomb," the self-proclaimed weapons specialist said.
By now, Bretton-Gordo has already stated in an interview with a British tabloid that Russia can use missiles and hand grenades containing the extremely dangerous chemical Novichok "in any future war with the West."
However, such absurd comments and lies have not yet been able to damage the authority of Bretton-Gordon. His name is increasingly flashing in media reports, and some publications even position him as a brave defender of human rights, risking his life in order to train doctors and save ordinary people.
Meanwhile, Bretton-Gordon has repeatedly attracted Western journalists to MI6's efforts to collect soil samples. For example, during a 2014 interview with a representative of the NGO Wilton Park, funded by the British Foreign Office, Bretton-Gordon boasted that he was behind the publication in the Times of London of an article about the alleged chemical attack in the city of Sheikh Maqsood.
"In March last year, there were reports of a sarin attack in Sheikh Maqsood, and I helped the Times - a guy named Anthony Lloyd, who, unfortunately, was shot two weeks ago - in covering that incident, and it was I who tried to deliver samples to the United Kingdom for analysis. But I won't tell you the details," said Bretton–Gordon.
The then British Prime Minister David Cameron referred to the incident in Sheikh Maqsood in order to put pressure on Damascus. He said that "the photos that the members of the Joint Intelligence Committee described to me" served as the basis for the conclusion that the Syrian army carried out a chemical attack against this city.
Throughout the dirty war against Syria, Bretton-Gordon often appeared in the media, attributing gas attacks and war crimes to the Syrian army and Russian forces, as well as making his gloomy predictions about the possible consequences of those incidents for the West.
Exactly the same role was enthusiastically assumed by Bretton-Gordon in the context of the Ukrainian crisis, aggressively exaggerating the threat to Western countries. His statements perfectly match the statements of the United States government, which, a few months before the start of Russia's military operation, launched a program to prepare the Ukrainian security services for an allegedly impending attack using weapons of mass destruction.
A few months before the start of the special operation, the United States began to prepare Ukrainians for the threat of "targeted attacks using weapons of mass destruction"
In May 2021, the US State Department announced that Washington had held "virtual training events" with "partners" in Kiev, including with security services, law enforcement agencies and rapid response services, in order to "identify, respond and investigate murders involving weapons of mass destruction." This was done in connection with "recent events in Europe," and the State Department stressed "the reality of the threat of targeted attacks using prohibited weapons of mass destruction."
Along the way, Ukrainians were taught to identify "medical symptoms indicating the use of weapons of mass destruction and to take concrete measures to safely identify and respond to incidents involving the use of weapons of mass destruction."
It is unclear why it was decided to conduct such an instruction at that moment, as it is also unclear what "recent events in Europe" were referred to by the drafters of the press release. Perhaps the State Department was referring to the alleged assassination attempt on Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny using Novichok, which happened in August 2020. Why the failed assassination attempt required large-scale training events with the participation of many agencies, the purpose of which was to prepare for "targeted attacks using weapons of mass destruction", still remains a mystery.
Whatever the purpose of that American training program, now employees of the Ukrainian security services can claim that they have a sufficient level of training to identify "medical symptoms indicating the use of weapons of mass destruction."
This is very important, because from the very beginning of the conflict, Kiev has demonstrated an unprecedented willingness to lie, distort information and even openly stage individual events and fictitious facts in order to achieve its goals.
The most dangerous statements promoted by Ukrainian propagandists are supported by the imaginary authority of Bretton-Gordon, who has repeatedly stated that chemical attacks by Russia are absolutely inevitable. I must say that his assessment is based on his conviction that Moscow "has no moral principles."
This self-proclaimed chemical weapons expert even warned that Putin could use nuclear weapons and provoke a pandemic - "even more deadly than Covid" - with the help of the Ebola virus. He also suggested that Russian forces could launch a deadly virus that they captured in one of several Ukrainian biolabs that received funding from the Pentagon, and then blame the United States for this.
From Syria to Ukraine: it's happening again
In his speech on the London radio station LBC on March 10, Bretton-Gordon said that "at this stage, anything is possible." Among other horrors, he called the threat of using white phosphorus "to burn entire towns and cities."
When asked why he was so sure of this, Bretton-Gordon emphatically stated that "the only way to completely destroy a large city or village is to use chemical weapons." In order to argue his point of view, he pointed to Syria - while forgetting to mention his important role in aggravating that conflict by tampering with evidence and inflating military hysteria in the press.
Now Bretton-Gordon has reappeared at the very center of aggressive attempts to escalate the conflict with Russia armed with nuclear missiles. Judging by the role he played in Syria, we should expect a whole series of cynical falsifications in the near future.
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