Spy Games

New revelations of spy games, in Northern Ireland and the US, not to mention the rest of the undercover antics involved in the ‘war on terror’ got me thinking about ‘spy scandal’. As a class of scandal that is, and what aspects of spying might really constitute scandal.
For those interested in such things, and I confess I am, Sam Neill’s ‘Sydney Riley’ was a far more instructive informant on espionage than was Connery’s ‘James Bond’.
Of course the period and the methodology differed greatly; the latter tailored more to entertainment.
Riley not only epitomised to espionage community, he was actually at the genesis of the modern manifestation of the game. The Great Game (Wikipedia) was a term used to describe the rivalry and strategic conflict between the Britain and the Tsarist Russian Empire for supremacy in Central Asia in the early 1800s.
Sydney Riley was one of the first of the modern breed of spies, and doubtless more a free agent than his modern counterparts. Ironically, or perhaps not, a good deal of the Great Game was set in places like Afghanistan, a country which still confounds those who seek to control it.
But I digress. Is spying, per se, scandalous? So far as the great game, the international spy game is concerned, it seems to me to be an ‘opt in’ activity. It’s on the same scale as biker gangs doing harm to each other. It’s almost the original ‘reality games show’, fascinating but not quite relevant to everyday life.
That is, until the tools of the trade are used on domestic populations, used for domestic political ends as opposed to those the abstract international games.
When intelligence communities are used to manipulate domestic populations we start to sail dangerously close to the Soviet Union model of political control. If we cherish the limited freedoms we do have in our democracies, those assaults are indeed scandalous.
I would assert that there is a definite element of corruption involved in misinforming lawmakers and the wider population with massaged or misleading intelligence. I would also assert that using intelligence agencies to spy on citizens is in breach of law in most western democracies, therefore corrupt practice.
Sometimes it can be argued that means justify ends, but to quote US Ambassador Wilkins, “it is a slippery slope.” This is not a game, the cost is real lives, innocent lives, lives of people who did not ‘opt in’. But worse, it undermines our societies, the next step, and it is already happening, is the call to ‘dob in’ ‘fink on’, whatever the term you use, friends, family and neighbours.
The end of that game is national paranoia, fear to speak or express opinions of any kind; the creation of a totalitarian state.
Allegations of British spies operating, within a bona fide political party, Sinn Fein, raises other serious concerns; And yes, constitutes scandal. While it is a fact that Sinn Fein is the political arm of the IRA, the fact they are allowed to operate suggests their very legitimacy in the system.
Well, it seems now that it suggests something else. Obviously the Brits saw the value of allowing Sinn Fein to operate in the open, where they could be watched publicly and covertly.
When governments see it as acceptable to insert spies into political parties the whole edifice of democratic government is corrupted! It is a game fellas, you are supposed to be sending your goons and thugs out against ‘their’ goons and thugs, not your own people.
I get the sad feeling that we have reached a stage where we are electing leaders whose development was arrested somewhere in the adolescent years. Surely it is time for them and our countries to grow up, to develop into mature entities. Or maybe I’ve been suicking on the wrong side of the mushroom again.