Categories: uncategorized
Date: 16 July 2007 15:43:50
Have you ever wondered if history really does repeat itself? Events over the past few days and months seem to prove it does.
The West seems to be on another collision course with Russia. Less than 20 years ago we were all celebrating the demise of the Soviet Union and the end of Russian imperialism in Europe and Asia. It seems that we celebrated to soon. From recent news stories it looks like we could have Cold War II about to breakout.
The Russians are threatening to tear up the Arms Control Treaty that limits the size of their conventional forces stationed in the European Theatre of Operations. Those pesky Russians seem to feel threatened by Cousin George's Missile Defense System, despite George's promises that its not being sited to defend against a Russian threat.
Vlad the Spy (Putin) seems to want to blackmail the former Soviet satellites, and much of Western Europe, with his monopoly on the supply of much of their natural gas supplies. Remember last year when he switched off the pumps to stop the Ukraine and Poles from paying a "cheap" price for their fuel? This resulted in Western Europe being punished because less gas was coming through to them.
We also had a case of "Murder in London" with the death, by radiation poisoning, of a critic of Vlad the Spy's autocratic rule in Russia. Now we hear that the UK government will respond to Russia's refusal to extradite the chief suspect by expelling Russian diplomats from London. They'll the expel British diplomats from Russia.
This is a great reminder of the spying scandals of the 60's, 70's and 80's. We'd catch some of their guys spying and would expel X number of diplomats. The Commies would respond by expelling X number of ours on similar grounds.
A Russian company I worked for in 1990 were caught up in this. Admittedly there were 1 or 2 Russian employees who were actually KGB plants. The staff knew this. The office phonelines were occasionally bugged and not very professionally. The Brits admitted that they did it because the Commies did it to them.
I had a customer in Colchester who sold shotguns that we imported from the Soviet manufacturer Baikal. Every few weeks I'd drive out and say hi and, occasionally, I'd take one of the Russians. This involved applying to the Home Office for permission to take him outside the M25, because similar restrictions were enforced upon Brits in Russia. We had to state the route, timings and the purpose of the visit.
Well on one occasion I took a wrong turn on the way home and we suddenly found ourselves in the middle of Colchester Barracks, surrounded by trucks and soldiers going about their business. My Russian colleague had a fit and I did a rapid u-turn and exited the area.
Upon arriving home at my bedsit in Balham (Gateway to the South) I had a knock on my door. Two charming young men from Special Branch were at the door. Would I be kind enough to explain why I was in the centre of Colchester Barracks that day with my Russian colleague? Who's idea was it to turn down that road? Why did you deviate from the route? What was discussed at your business meeting?
Thankfully I'd spent sometime in the RAF Reserve and was able to explain that, had we been wanting to spy then, looking at rows of Bedford trucks would not have been our preferred option. It would have been far easier to visit an RAF station or a naval base and watch movements from there. I also pointed out that I'd never actually help any foreign citizen to spy on my own country.
As we were also selling supplies to various coalition partners in the forthcoming Gulf War then we'd not do anything to jeopardise our contracts. We had already cleared several military and civil contracts with the UK DTi and would not want to step on anyone's toes. After all, weren't we all friends now?
* Apologies to The Who for changing their lyrics