MI6 : PLAYING THE GAME OF GAMES

(A fictional portrayal of geopolitical gameplayers)

It was the game of games, well beyond all others. It was the delight of their lives.

It tickled their fancy regarding all things imbued with mystery and intrigue and the exotic along with subliminal notions related to the fictional Mr Bond.

It far outdid the mere excitement of being an MP. There was a whiff of danger about it and even more than a whiff of the extremely adversarial and highly competitive sports they had played at college and university.

There was a frisson of the underworld about it too, the secretive milieu of a spy who had access to state secrets, was privy to confidential documents and was briefed on the “good stuff” the general Joe in the street was ignorant of. He or she was within the inner circle of trust, an agent of fortune, hired gun and accepted confidant trusted with the 'TOP SECRET’ data that allowed him or her special access to that exciting, adrenaline-permeated world of geopolitical warfare.

Each MI6 member lived for these moments of battle. The aim was to defeat the enemy laid down from above. Just like the “enemy” on the playing fields of Eton no mercy would be shown on the international playing field. Nothing would be allowed to intervene and reduce the intense pleasure of the game being played. A coordinated effort to maximize the thrill of it at every stage would keep everything in place allowing no backsliders or peaceniks to intervene.

The framing of the enemy, your opposite number in the game of war being played, was vital. Where you were pure and well-intended, he was always to be portrayed as a sullied minion of an evil power with the most base intentions imaginable. In fact, the portrayal of such fiends in the film world was more or less exactly how they were portrayed at all levels within ‘The Club’.

The Club included all the players on your side, the plain old politicians of course, who were guaranteed to toe the proper line, but not privy to ‘the good stuff’ as this specially selected inner circle were. They alone knew where the bodies were buried, who knew what and why, what the latest gambit, cut-out or psychological op was, which issue was to be pushed hard and which dropped. They were ‘in the know’.

They had a long, and as they thought, uniquely glorious and glamorous past as espionage specialists, imbued with great prestige plus all the transferred drama of countless black and white spy films of the past. 'The Third Man’, 'The Forty-Nine Steps’, and so on. They played 'The Great Game’ at its most lawless, amoral, cynical and to them, wonderfully and splendidly, deliciously cool, level. There were so many funky parts to it. Intrigue. Subversion. Suspicion. Honey Traps and Blackmail and a host of other stuff they loved.

All this was grist to their mill and like the journos who built each story on all the drama and discord that could be cooked up, they ensured that the essentials of their own stories had many of the same elements.

There would be no end to the game as there was too much to lose by ending it. All this lovely life-enhancing, nerve-tingling delight, bathing in shared mystery and ever-generated game plays with the dastardly enemy beaten up every time was simply far too much fun to ever give up!

The game required propping up so that its elements seemed perpetually real. No one could afford to doubt it was real. It HAD to be real. Therefore it was MADE real by a continual diet of new angles on the theme of  how bad the enemy was and how terrible were the things he was doing. Of course ‘he’, its a man’s world, a man’s game. A hedonistic pleasure of mysteries and perpetual foes, it’s not really a woman’s thing to any great degree.

The stories that fueled the game came thick and fast as imagination met the output of psychological ops. Intermingle it with the ‘Skull and Bones’ type indulgence and the whole thing perpetuated itself in grand illusory style. The enemy and his schemes were raised to an ever-present threat, his double-dealing legendary, craven monsters beneath contempt most of the time though a sneaking admiration might be felt and shared secretly at times.

Now and then a deadly reality intervened. If the usual stories of Russian or Chinese interference seemed to be losing their grip on the general population or where a rising skepticsm was detected greater risks were taken. The woman who died as a result of the Porton Down-created concoction used on the Skripals was an unexpected accident. This rather toned down the level of schoolboyish excitement for a while that had been experienced as the plot was hatched.

It was only a few weeks before the World Cup was due to start in Russia and not long before the Russian Federation presidential election either. The timing for a public fear campaign against Russia could not have been more perfect. Using Novichok was a no-brainer. It would be a perfect op almost as if garnered from the spy novels of Fleming or Le Carré. The everyday sheep on the street couldn’t help but bleat about those evil Russian afterwards!

But no one was meant to die. That caused something of a downer among the lads. Someone had been careless. Still, it did the trick. Soon the smiles were back on all faces as the Foreign Office signaled their satisfaction. The game was still on... and the next plays began to be planned.

Navanly was a real wanker. This was well known. But there was the challenge right there. How to make a vile racist wanker who had a bigger ego than that other megalomaniac twat Trump into a cause celebre across the western world?

No problem. The same old methods long tried and tested would do fine. Create the persona in all its pristine purity, get the framing of the subject right and contrast this facade of righteousness with a darkly evil portrayal of those opposing him.

Simple. It had been done multiple times in reverse where reasonably decent chaps had been transformed into vile ogres almost overnight. Assad was one, and of course Putin, who could forget the techniques used there? This was just a case of reversing the whole thing. Turn a devil into a saint and use the vast power of mainstream news to emphasize and re-emphasize his purity to the nth degree... and the contrasting ugliness and eternally awful nation of those holding such a saintly personage down.

This done, another bit of business was cooked up... why not get him poisoned.... just a bit, like the Skripals but making sure nobody died this time. Using Novichok again of course so no one is in doubt who it was who did it! (There was some discussion about this being too obvious... that people might doubt the Ruskies would be so stupid as to use a chemical preparation so closely identified with Russia. But then it was well understood how impossible it was to underestimate the intelligence or overestimate the gullibility of the sheep on the street. They’d simply add one and one and get the required six as planned. And so it was.)

The game was so easy when the news pals were so into it too. It was like shooting fish in a barrel every time. And the sheep kept bleating, endlessly getting fear-prodded without any danger of them casting a skeptical eye over yonder to see whether there was truly a wolf over there after all. Simples!

The Syrian scam was still staggering along despite a few holes having been shot through it by those damned Russkies. The coordination of the good guys was keeping those pesky Syrians impoverished. Meanwhile the White Helmet heroes dished out enough dishonest dirt to keep Mr and Mrs Sheep in emotional outrage, peeing themselves while hearts pounded, believing every single cynical scam of a story concocted.

The Venezuelans were still dying in suitable numbers to keep the pressure up. Guaido was a pathetic prat and as bright as a hundred year old lightbulb but it was too late to switch to some other hapless cunt now. He’d have to do. Any old puppet would do, any port in a storm as it were. We’d replace him as soon as... as always.

Now the team were getting readied for China. This was the big one, at last. It was something of a rush job as the pandemic had thrown the timetable out more than somewhat. The Chinks had got out of the mess far faster than the boys upstairs thought possible and they hadn’t. There was an urgent need to cook up some stuff fast to save faces and cover asses.

Luckily there was this guy who wrote books similar in style to the ravings of David Icke but in an insane Christian fundamentalist mode... he was groomed and re-moulded as a reputable scientist who’d point out the dreadfully evil Chinese acting against the poor downtrodden Uyghur people of Xinjiang.

Several stories were fleshed out and he delivered the goods, very soon there were several memes doing the rounds based on genocide, involuntary labor and sterilization along with millions of the poor sods in concentration camps. It was just what the doctor ordered. It was pushed hard across every possible medium, news items, political outrage, seminars to denounce it all in the strongest possible terms, articles, books, BBC video reports. It was all going even more swingingly than the White Helmet op had done at its height. There’s nothing like little children (or babies) being involved. Add death and danger. Bring in images of Dracula-like demonic monsters and all the Cold War memes about the Commies. Get the sheep bleating like mad.

“What’s that?”

 “Something must be done..???”

“You got it!”

Sanctions were being applied as if they were going out of fashion. Industrial style! The lads in news were keeping a lid on the facts coming out as usual... Those guys on Fleet Street never let the side down. They were fabulous... absolutely fabulous. It couldn’t be done without them!

It’s such fun. What a tremendous game it is, really! There’s truly nothing like it.

And just think...

They say it’s for the good of the world... bringing freedom and democracy to all.

Whether or not that makes you feel proud to be one of the “good guys” living moral and honest lives in the ‘free world’, it’s in fact just the game of all games.

That’s truly all it is to us…

And we’re damn good at it.