Russia Attacks Vermont?
By Stephen Lendman | January 1, 2017
Sound absurd? It is, part of intense Russia bashing, a political and economic assault, risking something more serious.
On New Year’s eve, the neocon/CIA-connected Washington Post published an updated version of its previous fake news story.
The earlier version claimed Russian hackers penetrated the US electric grid – a Big Lie. The new version says it hacked a Vermont utility, citing the usual unnamed US sources – another Big Lie.
WaPo : “(T)he discovery underscores the vulnerabilities of the nation’s electrical grid. And it raises fears in the US government that Russian government hackers are actively trying to penetrate the grid to carry out potential attacks.”
Fact: As usual, when it comes to bashing Russia, claims aren’t backed by verifiable evidence, just fear-mongering hyperbole – media scoundrels like WaPo repeating it without due diligence checking for veracity.
Russia poses no threat to any country – not to America, its electricity grid, Vermont or any other state, city or federal operation.
Claiming it was fake news like all other anti-Russia accusations, not a shred of evidence supporting them.
Claiming “(a) code associated with the Russian hacking operation dubbed Grizzly Steppe by the Obama administration has been detected within the system of a Vermont utility” was willful deception.
Cybersecurity specialists said the code wasn’t Russian. It was an outdated Ukrainian hacking tool. On Friday, Burlington Electric said the malware code was detected during a single laptop scan not connected to its power grid.
A company statement said “(w)e took immediate action to isolate the laptop and alerted federal officials of this finding.”
“Our team is working with federal officials to trace this malware and prevent any other attempts to infiltrate utility systems. We have briefed state officials and will support the investigation fully.”
Blaming Russia for hyped incidents is the usual knee-jerk response, part of longstanding bashing, ongoing now to pressure Trump against normalizing ties, including cooperating with Putin in combating terrorism.
A report on the Vermont incident by cybersecurity firm Wordfence said alleged originating IP addresses provided by US agencies “don’t appear to provide any association with Russia.” They’re “probably used by a wide range of other malicious actors.”
Vermonters can relax. So can Americans in the other 49 states. The Russians aren’t coming. No Russian cyber or other attacks loom.
Claims otherwise are fabricated for political reasons – not legitimate ones.
Stephen Lendman can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. His new book as editor and contributor is titled Flashpoint in Ukraine: How the US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.
Guardian journalist’s bizarre claim Vladimir Putin’s New Year and Christmas invite is a threat to US diplomats’ children
By Alexander Mercouris | The Duran | December 31, 2016
Reading Western media reactions to Putin’s decision yesterday not to retaliate in kind to Obama’s latest sanctions has been instructive, with the tone extending from the admiring, to the factual, and to the furious.
One comment however stood out as by far the most unpleasant, and it came (unsurprisingly to those who follow him) from Luke Harding in the Guardian :
The statement wished Obama, Trump and the American people a happy new year. It further invited “all the children of American diplomats” to visit the Kremlin’s festive Christmas tree. Instead of playing the Grinch, Putin had taken on the role of Ded Moroz, Russia’s answer to Father Christmas. One Russian MP on Vesti TV said Obama was Bad Santa. It was also a subtle reminder, for those who were able to decode it, that the FSB – the KGB’s successor – has precise information about the children of US embassy personnel. Russia’s foreign ministry on Friday tartly denied reports that Moscow was to close the Anglo-American school, attended by diplomatic kids, and the offspring of bankers and oil workers. (bold italics added)
The claim that the Russians planned to close the Anglo-American school was indeed furiously denied by the Russians after it circulated for a short time in the media.
Luke Harding nonetheless conflates this claim – which the Russians of course denied, and which almost certainly did not originate either with the senior officials of Russia’s Foreign Ministry or with the Kremlin – with President Putin’s invitation to the children of US diplomats to attend New Year and Christmas parties in the Kremlin, to construe a threat by the Russians to US diplomats through their children (“the FSB – the KGB’s successor – has precise information about the children of US embassy personnel”).
This threat is however so “subtle” that only those in the know – including of course Luke Harding himself – are “able to decode it”.
That this is utterly paranoid stuff, turning an invitation to a party into something sinister, should not need saying. What does Luke Harding think the FSB might do with the “precise information about the children of US embassy personnel” it supposedly has? That this sort of paranoia gets published in the Guardian unfortunately shows how mainstream it has become. I hope it won’t deter any US diplomats from keeping their children in Moscow, or from letting them go to the parties to which President Putin has invited them.
Obama’s report on alleged Russian hacks fails to satisfy critics
Press TV – December 31, 2016
A report issued by American intelligence services, which claims Russia was behind hacks of the 2016 US presidential election, has failed to satisfy critics who say the Obama administration has no proof Moscow tried to interfere in the vote.
In a joint analysis issued on Thursday, the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) provided technical details about the tools and cyber infrastructure they said Russian civilian and military intelligence services used for the hack attack, code named Grizzly Steppe.
The document said the cyberattack was carried out to “compromise and exploit networks and endpoints associated with the US election, as well as a range of US government, political, and private sector entities.”
But the critics have turned down the 13-page report, saying it is far from the “proof” that they have called for.
“What they released doesn’t add anything to the discussion [about attribution],” said Rob Lee, founder of the critical infrastructure cybersecurity company Dragos.
Security experts say the technical data provided by the agencies is a very basic footprint pointing to Russian intruders, but it often turns out to be a “false positive”.
“What they released is what we would consider to be the lowest form of indicators of compromise,” Lee said.
According to security experts, the technical indicators the US agencies have released in the report are very weak, and it doesn’t achieve what the government says is the purpose of the document.
“Said more simply: the written portion of the report has little to nothing to do with the intended purpose or the technical data released,” Lee said in a blog post.
Some intelligence experts, however, have pointed out that the report’s sketchy attribution is most likely intentional, and its purpose is preventative, not persuasive.
“That [the DHS/FBI report] doesn’t engage with the question of attribution seems, to me, to be quite deliberate,” said Matt Tait, founder of the United Kingdom-based security consultancy Capital Alpha Security.
“Its purpose is to act as a measure against Russia — by adding a US stamp of approval to private sector information, and making life harder for [Russia] by exposing some of their malware — not to persuade the public that the DNC hack was by Russia,” he stated.
“I suspect that this document will go into more detail about what the US knows about Russian interference in the 2016 election, although even this I suspect won’t satisfy skeptics,” Tait said.
President-elect Donald trump has denied that Russia was involved in the cyber interference, and the Obama administration has been under pressure to provide evidence.
Moscow has rejected the US accusations as “unfounded,” and vowed to retaliate.
The White House said in a statement on Thursday that there was the consensus from the US Intelligence Community that Russia’s intervention in the US election via cyberhacking as “unacceptable and will not be tolerated.”
Republican Senator John McCain on Thursday called Russia’s alleged cyberattacks against political organizations an “act of war.”
McCain, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, has scheduled a hearing for next week on foreign cyberattacks targeting the US, which will also focus on Russian hacking.
German government says it has no proof Russia trying to hack upcoming elections
RT | December 30, 2016
German government has officially admitted that it has no solid evidence that Russia is planning to interfere into the Germany’s upcoming federal parliamentary elections in 2017 as it answered a request from an MP amid ongoing anti-Russian hysteria.
All accusations against Russia concerning its potential meddling with the German parliamentary elections, which are due to be held in September 2017, are just “assumptions” based on the claims of the US politicians that Russian hackers interfered into the US elections via DNC email hacks.
“The federal government particularly refers to the fact that it was revealed in July 2016 that a successful hacking attack, which resulted in a subsequent data theft, was carried out on the servers of the Democratic National Committee (DNC), the central committee of the Democratic Party of the United States,” the German government’s official answer to the request filed by the German MP from the Left Party, Andrej Hunko, says.
At the same time, the answer, prepared by the German Interior Ministry, stresses that the government has no evidence of Russia’s meddling with the results of the Brexit referendum, in which slightly more than a half of the British citizens supported the idea of leaving the EU.
“The federal government has no evidence of the alleged Russian hacking attack aimed at influencing the results of the Brexit vote in the UK,” the statement says.
Hunko filed an official request to the government, asking it to explain “what shaky or solid evidence the government has that allow it to state that ‘Russian intelligence’ is allegedly planning to ‘interfere with’ the federal elections in the coming year ‘through cyberattacks.’”
“The answer of the Interior Ministry about the alleged Russian state-sponsored cyber-attacks shows that such accusations do not stand up to scrutiny,” the MP told RT Deutsch, adding that “no [Russia’s] plans to interfere into the parliamentary elections” are apparently known to the German government.
“The government is unable to prove [its claims concerning] the Russian ‘disinformation’ [campaign],” he added. Later, he said that his request was prompted by an ongoing massive anti-Russian campaign waged by the German politicians and the media.
“There are a lot of articles in the German media claiming that Russia will interfere into the upcoming federal elections next year. I asked the government … if there is any proof [of such allegations]. And the answer is that there is no real evidence [of that],” Hunko told RT.
“They did not get any proof but got only indications concerning the DNC leak. So, now, it is official that they do not have any proofs and this debate could be stopped in Germany,” he added.
Anti-Russian scaremongering campaign
German newspapers indeed repeatedly came out with provocative headlines that fueled anti-Russian sentiments. In December, a number of German media published articles speculating about possible Russian hacking attacks aimed at meddling with the German parliamentary election results.
Neue Osnabrueckener Zeitung posed a rhetorical question whether Russian hackers can manipulate parliamentary elections while Die Zeit daily reported about a German intelligence chief, who warned of sabotage attempts from Russia.
Meanwhile, the FAZ daily claimed that Russia had already hacked secret files from the Bundestag – the lower house of the German parliament – citing unidentified security sources. On Friday, Stuttgarter Zeitung raised the issue of “fear of falsifications” that could be a result of the Russian hackers’ attack on Germany.
In late November, German Chancellor Angela Merkel also implied that Russian hackers could be behind some attacks in Germany. Speaking about the hacking attacks on major German telecommunications group Deutsche Telecom, which hit some 900,000 of the company’s customers, she alluded to a link between the incident and Russia.
“Such cyberattacks, or hybrid conflicts as they are known in Russian doctrine, are now part of daily life and we must learn to cope with them,” she said at that time.
Earlier in November, she said that handling “internet attacks that are of Russian origin or with news which sows false information” has become a “daily task,” adding that “it may be that this could also play a role during the election campaign.”
Bruno Kahl, the head of Germany’s foreign intelligence service, the BND, then claimed that his agency has evidence that Russia may have manipulated the vote during the 2016 US election. “The perpetrators are interested in delegitimizing the democratic process as such, no matter who that subsequently helps,” he claimed, commenting on the issue.
However, even the US security services are still unable to provide any solid evidence of Russia’s hacking attacks on the US as the latest report on “Russian malicious cyber activity” mentions the actual words “Russia” and “Russian” only three times, with just 11 instances of “RIS” – a custom, catch-all acronym standing for “Russian Intelligence Services” without naming any.
It also provides no clear evidence of connection between the hacker groups allegedly involved in cyber-attacks in the US and Russian intelligence services. Instead, the document features a disclaimer saying that “the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) does not provide any warranties of any kind regarding any information contained within.”
However, the fact that the evidence of Russia’s involvement in any cyber-attacks on US territory is still rather shaky did not stop the White House and Treasury Department from imposing new sanctions against Russia over the alleged hacking of US elections.
On Thursday, Obama issued sanctions against six Russian nationals and five institutions, including the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) and Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU). At the same time, the US expelled 35 Russian diplomats and closed two Russian compounds in New York and Maryland.
In response, Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that “such actions of the US current administration are a manifestation of an unpredictable and even aggressive foreign policy” and expressed regret over the fact that “the fact that this decision was taken by the US administration and President Obama personally.”
Read more:
Berlin warns of ‘Russian hackers’ ahead of German 2017 election
‘Reflection of insecurity?’ Merkel claims ‘Russian hackers’ might derail German elections
Report on ‘Russian hacking’ offers disclaimers, barely mentions Russia
Buoyant Putin and Sinking Western Mis-Leaders
By Finian CUNNINGHAM | Strategic Culture Foundation | 30.12.2016
Future historians may well record 2016 a vintage year for Russian President Vladimir Putin. At any rate, at this point we can say it has been a good year for the Russian leader and his country’s international standing. Even Western media, which did its best to discredit, even demonize, Putin have had to admit so, albeit begrudgingly.
This week, the London Financial Times described the Russian leader as «Buoyant Putin». While last week, the Washington Post headlined: «Moscow has the world’s attention. For Putin, that’s a win».
The Washington Post surveyed some of the key developments over the past year as being in Putin’s favor, including a shaky European Union and the British Brexit vote to quit the bloc, an unwieldy NATO military alliance unsure of its purpose, the election of Donald Trump to the US presidency, and the retaking of the strategic Syrian city of Aleppo.
The victory by the Syrian army in Aleppo, crucially aided by Russian military power, was surely a crowning achievement for Putin. When Putin ordered intervention in Syria at the end of 2015, it was predicted by US President Barack Obama that the move would result in a quagmire for Russia. A year later, Putin’s decisive intervention has been vindicated as rolling back a jihadist campaign to destroy Syria.
Syrians celebrating the defeat of extremists in Aleppo have not only confounded earlier predictions; the «liberation», as it is being feted by Syrians, serves to expose Western governments and their media as having grossly distorted the war as some kind of popular uprising against a «tyrannical regime», rather than being what it is: a foreign-backed criminal conspiracy for regime change deploying jihadi terror proxies.
So the Russian-backed military campaign in Syria is a clear winning event for Vladimir Putin.
However, on the range of other world events outlined above, while they may be said to be in Putin’s favor, it is more a case of denial by Western leaders about their own failures, instead of attributing these setbacks to the alleged machinations of the Russian leader.
Putin may indeed be «buoyant». But it is also true that the mixed political fortunes are due to the sinking of Western mis-leaders through their own incompetence and baleful policies.
The Washington Post article cited above had this to say: «The Russian leader is winning because the post-Cold War order he has railed against has been thrown into chaos, and the Kremlin’s fingerprints are widely seen to be all over it».
Just who is «widely seeing» the Kremlin’s alleged depredations is not specified by the Washington Post. But a safe assumption is that the newspaper is being led by US intelligence and the CIA in particular, whose multi-million-dollar links to the outlet’s owner Jeff Bezoz have been documented elsewhere by Wayne Madsen.
It is true that Putin has often deplored the post-Cold War order of American unipolar ambitions, its disregard for international law and its conceited «exceptionalism» for unleashing military violence to enforce foreign interests. Putin has said that such policy is the fount of chaos in international relations. If anything, he has been proven right when we survey the conflict-ridden mess of the Middle East from US wars, supposed «nation-building» and regime-change operations. But to then attribute this chaos of the post-Cold War as having the «Kremlin’s fingerprints all over it» is an absurdity.
The same goes for other aspects of post-Cold War «chaos». The election of Donald Trump to the White House is alleged by the Washington Post, New York Times, NBC and other US media giants as being the result of Putin overseeing Russian computer hackers interfering in American democracy. Russia has rejected those claims as «ridiculous» – as has Trump.
Rather than dealing with political and social reality of internal decay, the American establishment has tried to divert the cause to alleged Russian malfeasance. The reality is, however, that popular American sentiment is one of disgust with the Washington establishment and its mis-leaders in both main parties, Democrats and Republicans. That disgust embroils the mainstream media which is seen to be an integral part of a corrupt, venal establishment.
To try to lay the «blame» for Trump’s election on Russian cyber-attacks is an insult to a large section of the American citizenry. It is also a sign of chronic denial by the Washington establishment that decades of economic and foreign policy are in shambles – a shambles of its own making.
The same too for the Brexit referendum held in June which saw the stunning result of Britons wanting to quit the European Union. On the back of CIA-inspired claims about Russian interference, British politicians who are miffed over the Brexit result have parlayed similar claims that the Kremlin’s meddling was behind that outcome. Russia has also hit back to rubbish the British claims.
But rather than getting a grip on reality, the official Western paranoia about alleged Russian subversiveness is becoming even more fevered.
With hotly contested national elections coming up next year across Europe, incumbent governments are decrying what they «discern» as Russian interference to push populist, anti-EU, anti-immigrant parties. Voice of America reported this week: «Europe braces for Russian cyber assault before 2017 elections» in Netherlands, France and Germany.
VOA added: «As the chief European architect of sanctions against Russia, analysts say German Chancellor Angela Merkel is the European leader Moscow would most like to see voted out of power».
As with the Brexit and Trump, it is an elitist insult to citizens’ intelligence and their democratic rights, by imposing what is a scare-campaign to discredit widespread popular discontent with establishment governments and the status quo.
People across the West, the US and Europe, are simply infuriated by elitist governments that pursue failed policies of economic austerity and a pro-Atlanticist Cold War geopolitical agenda of hostility towards Russia, inflating a NATO monstrosity based on Russophobia, and slavishly following American imperialism around the world.
Syria may have proven to be a triumph for Putin and his principled stand to defend Syrian sovereignty from a US-led covert war for regime change. But Syria also represents an unmitigated disaster for Washington and its Atlanticist European acolytes.
The massive influx of refugees from Syria and other Middle East war zones is the direct result of the US and its NATO allies waging illegal wars and sponsoring terrorist proxies – the latter in the mendacious notion of being «moderate rebels».
The terror attacks that have shocked France and Germany over the past year – the latest one in Berlin when 12 people at a Christmas market were killed by an alleged jihadist asylum-seeker plowing a 25-ton lorry into them – are the corollary of Hollande and Merkel being complicit in US imperialist wars across the Middle East.
Merkel’s «open door» policy to a million refugees is a failed policy. That judgment is not based on racism or xenophobia. Merkel’s failure is due to her allowing Germany to become an escape valve for US, British and French criminal machinations of regime change in the Middle East.
So it has been a good year for Putin and Russia’s international standing generally – the recent appalling assassination of ambassador Andrey Karlov in Ankara notwithstanding.
It’s also been an atrocious year for Western politicians of the Atlanticist mold. But their downfall is due to their own corruption and incompetence. To seek to scapegoat Vladimir Putin and Russia as «interfering» or «sowing chaos» is a contemptible denial of Western official culpability.
Such is the collapse in official Western politics and institutions, including the establishment media, that the more they spin the anti-Russian narrative, the more popular revolt will grow against their «mis-leaders».
If 2016 becomes a vintage year for Russia, for the West it is proving to be year when the official political vessels cracked open with bitter contents.
Lying and Looking Ridiculous
By Brian Cloughley | CounterPunch | December 30, 2016
The Nazi propagandist Josef Goebbels is generally thought to have said that “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.” In fact he didn’t state that, exactly, but based his marketing of malevolence largely on the premise that “credibility alone must determine whether propaganda output should be true or false.” What he did say, however, was “the English follow the principle that when one lies, one should lie big, and stick to it. They keep up their lies, even at the risk of looking ridiculous.”
There is a problem, however, in that although lie-tellers are ridiculous in the eyes of those who know the facts, there are very many people who don’t know the facts because they are either deliberately kept in the dark or are so closed-minded as to be easy targets.
Not much has changed on the propaganda front in seventy-five years, and the malevolent Goebbels would feel familiar with modern developments as regards the Western Establishment’s campaign against President Putin and the movement towards Russia-America rapprochement, as seemingly signalled by President-elect Trump.
On December 16, for example, USA Today reported that “President-elect Donald Trump’s controversial soft spot for Russia is based on decades of courting wealthy Russians to buy condos in his luxury high-rises and invest in his other real estate ventures.”
This line of attack is intriguing because the high-circulation USA Today is owned by the Gannett Company, which “in 2010 increased executive salaries and bonuses . . . Bob Dickey, Gannett’s US newspapers division president, was paid $3.4 million in 2010, up from $1.9 million the previous year. The next year, the company laid off 700 U.S. employees to cut costs.” No luxury high-rises for Gannett employees, then, unless they’re in the top echelon. And although Gannett looks ridiculous—and hypocritical—there aren’t many people who care.
In Britain the Guardian, usually an objective source of news and comment, went with the flow of anti-Russia overkill and warned that “Alarm over the rise of Donald Trump reached a new pitch early this week as officials in Washington worried that the United States has elected a leader who may be uniquely blind to threats posed by Russia.” It didn’t mention what the threats might be, but did have the honesty to end with the words of President Putin that “as I have repeatedly said, it’s not our fault that Russian-American relations are in such a poor state. But Russia wants and is ready to restore fully fledged relations with the United States.”
Of course Russia wants to have good relations with other countries. Such a sensible approach results in commercial benefit and social harmony rather than disharmony and confrontation. But in the period when Russia was trying to rebuild from the dire days of Soviet ideology the West expanded the US-NATO military alliance to 28 countries from 16, and recently deployed US-NATO forward tactical headquarters, thousands of troops, and flights of combat and intelligence-gathering aircraft to countries on Russia’s borders.
As I noted a couple of weeks ago, “In Bulgaria, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and Slovakia the Alliance has established ‘NATO Force Integration Units’ which are advanced military headquarters whose Mission is ‘to improve cooperation and coordination between NATO and national forces, and prepare and support exercises and any deployments needed’.”
Then some governments and their media became agitated when Russia deployed defensive weapons within its own territory in order to counter the US-NATO movement of armed forces up to is borders.
As reported by Britain’s ultra-right Daily Telegraph, owned by the creepy twin Barclay brothers who own London’s Ritz Hotel and many luxury high-rises (and hate the European Union, while living in the haven of tax-relaxed Monaco), NATO “described Moscow’s decision to send state-of-the-art Bastion missile-launchers to Kaliningrad, which borders Nato members Poland and Lithuania, as ‘aggressive military posturing’.” There was no mention made of President Putin’s explanation that Russia considers it important to take countermeasures against NATO’s expansion and “aim our missile systems at those facilities which we think pose a threat to us.”
As observed by Goebbels, the English propagandists “keep up their lies, even at the risk of looking ridiculous.” But you can fool a lot of the people a lot of the time.
Consistent with the Goebbels line of sticking to skewed presentation, Britain’s defence minister, Michael Fallon, a public figure of mixed repute (he is known for alcoholic capers and was found guilty of drunken driving as well as having swindled the Parliamentary expenses system out of thousands of pounds over many years), was reported by Reuters as declaring that the West had “to be strong against Russian aggression towards NATO . . . Russia is a strategic competitor to us in the West and we have to understand that.”
Fortunately, there are sounder and better informed people than the drunken fiddler Fallon, and one of these is the expert Peter Duncan of University College London whose more sober opinion is that “there is no reason for Russia to want to threaten the sovereignty of the Baltic states in the sense of trying to force them to leave NATO or still less to invade them . . . the Russian economy depends on a prosperous Western European economy.”
The Far-Right Western media ignored Professor Duncan’s balanced summation, just as it disregarded President Putin’s own assurance, given in a little-reported interview with Italy’s Il Corriere della Sera, that “I think that only an insane person and only in a dream can imagine that Russia would suddenly attack NATO.”
But it’s lies that matter when false dogma is being spread. The US-NATO military alliance doesn’t really believe that Russia is preparing to attack the Baltic States and on December 16 President Obama even informed the world media that in his opinion Russia is “a small country, they’re a weak country” which tends to contradict the propaganda line that Russia is a large country, a “strategic competitor” straining at the leash to invade the Baltic States and create mayhem around the world.
The fact that the US spends 596 billion dollars annually on armaments against Russia’s 66 billion is rarely mentioned (NATO as a whole spends 860 billion) except in reputable journals such as The Economist which on December 17, however, chose to pronounce that Mr Trump’s choice of Rex Tillerson to be Secretary of State “is disconcerting” because Mr Tillerson actually displayed “opposition to the sanctions imposed on Russia.”
The Western propaganda line is that everything Russia does is reprehensible to the point of evil, and that any westerner attempting to propose dialogue rather than confrontation is “disconcerting” at best, and in the eyes of the tabloid papers a raving traitor to the values of the plutocrats who own them.
The policies and aspirations of President Putin are being presented by the US-NATO military alliance as contrary to the interests of the Western powers, but no attention has been paid to such as Bill Clinton’s deputy secretary of state, the Russia specialist, Strobe Talbott, who stated the obvious when he observed that President Putin “basically wants to make Russia great again.” And he won’t do that by invading the Baltic States or any other country, as he and the West well know.
It’s unlikely that the anti-Russia warniks will stop lying and being hypocritical and ridiculous, but unfortunately they’ll continue to be believed by a significant number of their targets. The irony is that, as Goebbels didn’t say, “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.”
Brian Cloughley writes about foreign policy and military affairs. He lives in Voutenay sur Cure, France.
Trump twits Obama’s bogus bear trap
By M K Bhadrakumar | Indian Punchline | December 30, 2016
While announcing a series of major sanctions against Russia on Thursday, US President Barack Obama cited two reasons for doing so – first, “aggressive harassment” of American diplomats by Russian security; and, second, “cyber operations aimed at the US election.” The formulation was kept vague.
The US and Russia maintain an intense and at times intrusive surveillance regime on each other’s diplomats. The action-reaction syndrome is so finely honed that it is predictable. If either side chooses to make a fuss about it, the intention can only be propagandistic. Therefore, the measures announced on Thursday by the US state department – expulsion of 35 Russian diplomats and shutting down 2 Russian compounds (dacha) – stand out as a political decision.
Perhaps, it is an excessive decision, which from an operational angle also aims at crippling the Russian embassy’s functioning. It stands to reason that by such an excessive decision, Obama guarantees that Russia has no choice but to retaliate. The tantalizing question here is whether that was also Obama’s intention. In the Russian-American diplomatic tango, there is always the risk of ‘loss of face’ and the relationship today has been highly personalized at the presidential level.
In diplomatic terms, such ruptures open wounds, which take time to heal. Obama probably estimated that the incoming president, Donald Trump, will be put at a severe disadvantage for the first few months of his presidency.
As for alleged hostile cyber operations by Russia, Obama has somewhat changed tack and decided to act without waiting for the inquiry report he had sought from the security agencies. Obama has sanctioned nine entities and individuals identified with the Russian foreign intelligence agency and military intelligence, besides declassifying the technical information relating to Russian modus operandi.
The two interesting dimensions to Obama’s statement are, one, his call on the US’ allies to “work together to oppose Russia’s efforts to undermine established norms of behaviour, and interfere with democratic governance”, and, two, his move to formally approach the US Congress, which is due to convene on January 3, to follow up on the issues of Russia’s interference.
What is Obama’s game plan? No doubt, it narrows down to laying down the trajectory for the US-Russia relationship beyond the Obama presidency. Obama’s exhortation to come to the barricades to confront Russia may not be found appealing by US’ allies. However, Obama may have better luck by using his political capital to consolidate a strong domestic opinion – among the elites and within the intelligence, military and foreign-policy community – that militates against any attempt by Trump to improve relations with Russia.
Obama has issued an executive order on the Russia sanctions that can always be nullified by Trump, but Obama is also “opening a file” in the US Congress. Obama probably estimates that Trump would lose his way in the labyrinth he is creating on the Hill. Clearly, Obama hopes to pit the Congress against Trump’s likely moves to improve relations with Russia.
Meanwhile, by drawing the intelligence agencies into the fracas, Obama greatly complicates the work for Trump. Spooks with bruised egos can make the ride uncomfortable for a political novice like Trump who never held a government position. Trump’s taunting reaction suggests that he understands Obama’s mind alright. In a sceptical tone, he asked for intelligence briefing:
- It’s time for our country to move on to bigger and better things. Nevertheless, in the interest of our country and its great people, I will meet with leaders of the intelligence community next week in order to be updated on the facts of this situation.
Given the time difference, Moscow’s reaction came swiftly at the level of presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov. Moscow probably expected some provocative behaviour by Obama in the dying weeks of his presidency. Nonetheless, Moscow is surprised by Obama’s “absolutely unexpected display of aggression,” which is “unprecedented.” This is possibly a wry remark, considering that Russians generally regard Obama to be a timid personality.
To be sure, Russia will announce retaliatory measures, possibly this weekend itself. Peskov flagged the centrality of the principle of “reciprocity”. But in all likelihood, it will be a calibrated response, which, while aiming to “cause significant discomfort to the US side in the same areas” – to quote Peskov – will also “to a certain extent take into account” the political reality that Obama is a lame duck. Peskov gave a lucid interpretation to Obama’s game plan:
- We are convinced that such decisions by the incumbent (Obama) administration, which by the way has only three weeks of work remaining, pursue two goals: first is to further spoil the Russian-US relations, which are already at their lowest, and, apparently, to deal a blow to the foreign policy plans of the future administration of the US president-elect.
- However, the second matter is absolutely a domestic one and the Americans will have to sort out themselves how lawful this line of conduct is. A model of conduct is being forced on the future (US) administration and president-elect.
- What we do know is that there are attempts to impose a certain foreign policy direction on the new administration, to limit its freedom to make decisions and to somehow deprive it of its right to follow the path endorsed by the new president.
Moscow senses that Obama is setting a bear trap. The point is, there is a significant body of opinion in the US, which for the first time began acknowledging the imperatives of good relations with Russia. Having said that, a stormy 3-week period lies ahead. Make no mistake, Moscow will make Obama look unworthy of a Nobel.
Putin announced on Thursday the truce deal between theSyrian government and the opposition and their agreement to begin peace talks. The Obama administration has been kept out of the regional initiative. The stark message here is that Obama has been all along the problem rather than the solution in Syria.
Report on Russian hacking: ‘Case of fake news & propaganda’
By Annie Machon | RT | December 30, 2016
An FBI and DHS report on Russia’s alleged hacking of the US presidential election provides no evidence and is a case of fake news and propaganda aimed, at undermining the legitimacy of Trump’s win, says former MI5 intelligence officer Annie Machon.
The Obama administration on Thursday imposed a set of unprecedented measures against Russia over its alleged attempts to influence the US presidential campaign this year. The new sanctions were unveiled after the release of the report by the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security.
However, the document significantly lacks specifics. It doesn’t explain how the two hacking groups described are linked to the Russian government.
RT asked whistleblower, and former MI5 intelligence officer Annie Machon what she makes of the evidence.
“This is very much a case of fake news, shall we say. It seems to serve two ends as well,” Machon said.
“On the day when the ceasefire is announced, which has been brokered by Russia and Turkey – this is a story that will run and run in America, not the ceasefire in Syria. It’s all going to be about these Russians, and hacking the election and things like that. I think this is the first stage – this is why it was announced that the Russian diplomats were going to be expelled,” she said.
“On the second point as well, it is a mass expulsion – 35 diplomats being thrown out of the country with no proof, with no sort of real intelligence. I think that has also been done to gain the idea, to solidify in public’s mind in America that actually Russia was involved in hacking the election. Where has that phrase evolved from? We don’t know. It was originally just hacking the DNC [Democratic National Committee] e-mails. So I think it is a sort of two-pronged attack that has been carried out; that has been carefully announced today to achieve that,” she said.
“One further point from that in terms of trying to solidify the fact that the Russians interfered in the democratic process of America – is part of this ongoing process to try to undermine the legitimacy of the election of Donald Trump – the next president,” Machon said.
The Joint Analysis Report (JAR) on “Russian malicious cyber activity” issued by the FBI and the DHS National Cybersecurity & Communications Integration Center (NCCIC) on Thursday begins with a disclaimer which reads: “This report is provided “as is” for informational purposes only. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) does not provide any warranties of any kind regarding any information contained within.”
According to Machon, the FBI and DHS are “just covering their backs.”
“They know it’s much rubbish… they are trying to blind people with science, but there’s no real evidence,” she said.
“Running in parallel to this is a more serious investigation that Barack Obama apparently asked the CIA to carry out into this alleged Russian hacking of the election. That report is due to be announced no later than January 20 next year,” Machon said, adding that the timing is “interesting” since it’s the date of President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration.
The report by the FBI and DHS doesn’t give any warranties, which “points to the fact that it is pure propaganda and they know it,” Machon told RT.
Annie Machon is a former intelligence officer for MI5, the UK Security Service, who resigned in the late 1990s to blow the whistle on the spies’ incompetence and crimes with her ex-partner, David Shayler. Drawing on her varied experiences, she is now a public speaker, writer, media pundit, international tour and event organiser, political campaigner, and PR consultant. She has a rare perspective both on the inner workings of governments, intelligence agencies and the media, as well as the wider implications for the need for increased openness and accountability in both public and private sectors.
Joint FBI-Homeland Security report fails to prove Russians behind Clinton leaks
By Alexander Nercouris | The Duran | December 29, 2016
In conjunction with US President Obama’s announcement of new sanctions against Russia, the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security have published a 13 page report into the Russian hacking allegations.
I think it is fair to say that a mountain has moved and produced a mouse. To get a sense of the absurdity, consider that the report actually begins with a Disclaimer:
DISCLAIMER: This report is provided “as is” for informational purposes only. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) does not provide any warranties of any kind regarding any information contained within. DHS does not endorse any commercial product or service referenced in this advisory or otherwise. This document is distributed as TLP:WHITE: Subject to standard copyright rules, TLP:WHITE information may be distributed without restriction. For more information on the Traffic Light Protocol, see https://www.us-cert.gov/tlp. Reference Number: JAR-16-20296 December 29. (bold italics added)
After this unpromising beginning, the report – which goes by the frankly weird title “Grizzly Bear” – provides a summary that reads as follows:
Previous JARs have not attributed malicious cyber activity to specific countries or threat actors. However, public attribution of these activities to RIS is supported by technical indicators from the U.S. Intelligence Community, DHS, FBI, the private sector, and other entities. This determination expands upon the Joint Statement released October 7, 2016, from the Department of Homeland Security and the Director of National Intelligence on Election Security. This activity by RIS is part of an ongoing campaign of cyber-enabled operations directed at the U.S. government and its citizens. These cyber operations have included spearphishing campaigns targeting government organizations, critical infrastructure entities, think tanks, universities, political organizations, and corporations leading to the theft of information. In foreign countries, RIS actors conducted damaging and/or disruptive cyber-attacks, including attacks on critical infrastructure networks. In some cases, RIS actors masqueraded as third parties, hiding behind false online personas designed to cause the victim to misattribute the source of the attack. This JAR provides technical indicators related to many of these operations, recommended mitigations, suggested actions to take in response to the indicators provided, and information on how to report such incidents to the U.S. Government.
Note that the report is solely concerned with hacking. It does not discuss who provided the DNC or Podesta material to Wikileaks, it does not say that Russian Intelligence carried out the hacking to influence the outcome of the US Presidential election, and nor does it say that Russian intelligence did this in order to swing the election to Donald Trump – all questions concerning which the FBI is known to have doubts. On the contrary, it is careful to say that it is the US government (ie. the Obama administration), not the US intelligence community or the FBI or the Department of Homeland Security, which assesses that the Russians passed the DNC and Podesta material on to Wikileaks for onward publication in the media
The U.S. Government assesses that information was leaked to the press and publicly disclosed. (bold italics added)
The report provides no evidence that the hacking was the work of Russian intelligence agencies. It merely states it as a fact
The U.S. Government confirms that two different RIS actors participated in the intrusion into a U.S. political party.
The two “actors” in question are the two groups of hackers known as Cozy Bear and Fancy Bear. As I have pointed out previously, the claim that these two groups of hackers act for Russian intelligence has so far been based purely on inference, with no hard facts behind it.
There is nothing in this report that changes that, or which substantiates this claim, and nothing in the report that remotely resembles a hard fact to support it. On the contrary as the paragraph I have quoted above shows, the claim is still based purely on inference . That the claim is entirely inferential, and may be based on completely false reasoning, is it turns out also the opinion of an expert in this field.
The rest of the report – which is to say nearly all of it – is taken up with technical information intended to confirm the existence of the hacking – something which no-one denies happened – and various suggestions for ways to mitigate against such hacking in the future. Whilst this is no doubt helpful, it is hardly the issue under discussion. Frankly it looks like padding, made to make the report look longer and more substantial than it actually is.
Even the Guardian has been forced to admit that this is thin stuff.
Security experts on Twitter criticised the government report as too basic. Jonathan Zdziarski, a highly regarded security researcher, compared the joint action report to a child’s activity center.
Tom Killalea, former vice-president of security at Amazon and a Capital One board member, wrote: “Russian attack on DNC similar to so many other attacks in past 15yrs. Big question: Why such poor incident response?”
If this is the sum total of the evidence upon which the Obama administration is claiming that the Russians were behind the leak of the DNC and Podesta emails, and that they did this to swing the election to Donald Trump, then this “evidence” in no way does that. Indeed if anything what the report shows is how confected this whole scandal actually is.
I would add that the complete absence of enthusiasm on the part of the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security for the Obama administration’s attempts to use the claims of Russian hacking for its own political ends shines through the whole report. Anyone with experience of such reports can spot it immediately. This is very much a report produced to order, which does the absolute minimum it can get away with in order to appear to comply with the order.
Interestingly the NSA, the branch of US intelligence which has presumably the greatest expertise in the area, and which has the most information about it, is not a co-author of this report. I wonder why?
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From the Archives
The 9/11 “Double-Cross” Conspiracy Theory
BY LAURENT GUYÉNOT • UNZ REVIEW • SEPTEMBER 6, 2022
Is it true that “9/11 was an inside job”? Yes, insofar as Israel is “inside” the U.S. But for the 9/11 truthers who have identified Israel as the main perpetrators, “9/11 was an inside job” is at best a half-truth, and at worst an integral part of the Zionist operation, like a secondary flag sewn as a lining under the false flag of Islamism. Victor Thorn (1963-2017) wrote in his book 9/11 made in Israel: The Plot Against America (2011): “In essence, the ‘9-11 truth movement’ was created prior to Sept. 11, 2001 as a means of suppressing news relating to Israeli complicity. . . . The slogan ‘9-11 was an inside job’ was quite possibly the greatest example of Israeli propaganda ever devised.” In milder terms, it is “controlled opposition”.
A genuine truth movement would have pointed to Israel as the prime suspect from the start. From day one, it was obvious who would benefit. … continue
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