Kremlin Unaware of Meeting Between Trump Team, ‘Russian’ Having Dirt on Clinton
Sputnik -June 18, 2018
The Kremlin is not aware of a meeting between former aide from US President Donald Trump’s election headquarters Roger Stone and a man from Russia, who called himself Henry Greenberg and allegedly offered Trump’s team compromising data on his then-rival Hillary Clinton in 2016, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Monday.
“I cannot say anything, I am not aware of this… These nuances are completely unknown to us and we know nothing about the issue,” Peskov told reporters when asked to comment on the publication.
On Sunday, The Washington Post reported that Trump’s election headquarters in 2016 denied Greenberg $2 million for the “dirt” on Clinton. The newspaper confirmed that Greenberg was an FBI informant until 2013, but found no evidence that he continued this activity after 2013.
Stone told the publication that another staffer, Michael Caputo, arranged for him to meet with a certain “Russian,” who offered to pay him $2 million in exchange for compromising material on Clinton. His offer was rejected.
The Washington Post interpreted the refusal of Trump’s staff to pay money for this information as another suspicious “contact with the Russians.” In total, the newspaper counted 11 campaign officials who “contacted the Russians” in some capacity.
Special Counsel Mueller is investigating the alleged connections between Trump and Russia, which are denied both by the Kremlin and the White House. Trump has said in the past that his political enemies had been conducting an investigation against him during the presidential race together with intelligence officials. Trump has called the investigation a “witch hunt.”
‘Occupation’: How Norway Was Scaremongered Into Doubling US Military Presence
Sputnik | June 16, 2018
Norwegian historian and Russia specialist Bjorn Nystad explains how his country’s political class, media, academics and filmmakers have artificially pumped up a fear of its eastern neighbor.
Oslo has opted to violate its own established practice of refusing to station foreign troops on the country’s soil during peacetime, and is more than doubling the number of US marines stationed in Norway from 330 to 700, and providing bases for US surveillance aircraft and fighter jets. The Marines will be moved from Trondheim, about 1,500 km from the Russian border, to the northern county of Troms, about 300 km from Norway’s border with Russia.
Opposition lawmakers slammed the government for failing to put the issue up for debate in parliament. Social Left Party leader Audun Lysbakken complained this week that more US troops would only “increase the tension,” in the region. “It’s sad that the government believes it is in Norway’s interest to say yes to whatever the US is asking for,” he said.
Speaking to Sputnik, Dr. Bjorn Nystad, a former University of Oslo professor who lost his job in 2010 over alleged “Russophilic views,” said that the growing US military presence is taking place against the background of a steady campaign of spreading anti-Russian sentiments in the Norwegian media.
The latest manifestation of this anti-Russian paranoia occurred this week, when the NRK and TV 2 broadcasters decided to head to the World Cup with brand new laptops and phones out of fear of being “monitored” or “cyberattacked” while in Russia.
Nystad believes these anti-Russian attitudes are being injected into the Norwegian consciousness from above. “It’s enough, for example, to write an article about Putin being a ‘dictator’, or something like that, and you will get a job at a university without any problems,” he said. The professor’s own 2016 biography on Putin was met with hostility, with Aftenposten’s editor describing it as a “dangerous rewriting of history.”
There are many in Norway who have a neutral attitude toward Russia, Nystad said, but they fear running into trouble with the established narrative. “Academics, experts, and journalists understand very well that if they say something ‘wrong’ about Russia, they could lose their jobs. Therefore everyone avoids running into conflict with authorities,” he noted.
Okkupert
Probably the “pinnacle” of the anti-Russian campaign is the widely publicized TV series Okkupert (Occupied), whose storyline features Russia occupying Norway in response to a Europe-wide energy crisis. The most expensive television series in Norway’s history, Okkupert has been picked up for a third season.
“For some part of the population, these kinds of series probably have an effect,” Nystad noted. But others understand that this is “stupidity and anti-Russian propaganda,” he added. “People are losing trust in the media and politicians. They are starting to think critically. Alternative media have appeared, along with popular bloggers. And our elite is now terrified of losing power,” the academic concluded.
Pundits Worry Threat of Nuclear War Is Being Reduced
By Gregory Shupak | FAIR | June 14, 2018
Media outlets don’t want America to negotiate with North Korea; they want the US to hold North Korea for ransom.
MSNBC‘s Rachel Maddow (6/12/18) appears dismayed by the manifestation of a US president meeting with an Official Enemy.
On MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow Show, the host was aghast (6/12/18) that the US says it will halt the annual war games it conducts with South Korea on North Korea’s doorstep, because doing so is “an absolute jackpot for the North Korean dictator,” “one of the things he wants most on earth,” and now Washington “has just given them that for free, for nothing.”
Maddow implied that Trump has taken this step out of fealty to Russia, and complained that pausing war games that threaten North Korea benefits Russia and China. She twice called the Kim/Trump summit a “wedding,” twice said that the two leaders “love” each other, and referred to Kim as Trump’s “best friend.” In other words, de-escalation is for wimps, and what’s needed is toughness, even if it risks nuclear war.
Not once did Maddow demonstrate the slightest concern with avoiding war. The message of her segment is that the US should subject all 25 million people in North Korea to the threat of nuclear annihilation until its leaders do what the US says, a threat that necessarily extends to the rest of East Asia, since it would be decimated in any nuclear exchange, to say nothing of the likely devastating effects on the rest of the world.
The Washington Post (6/12/18) warned against trusting “a cruel and unpredictable ruler whose motives and aims are far from clear”.
The editorial board of the Washington Post (6/12/18) says that diplomacy “is certainly preferable to the slide toward war that appeared to be underway last year,” but opposes taking steps to prevent another Korean War—a nuclear one, this time. The editorialists complain that the joint statement issued by the leaders of the US and North Korea makes no mention of “US terms for disarmament”: What the editorial, tellingly titled “No More Concessions,” is saying is that the predetermined outcome of diplomacy should be complete North Korea acquiescence to US demands—which, of course, isn’t diplomacy at all.
Similarly, the New York Times’ editorial board (6/12/18) writes that “after months of venomous barbs and apocalyptic threats of war, the meeting between President Trump and the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, was unquestionably a relief.” Trump, they wrote, “seems seized with the need to resolve it peacefully. That is to the good.” Yet the editorial lists measures that Times believes the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK, North Korea’s official name) needs to take, without saying that America should do anything, and expresses anxiety over the break in war games.
In the same vein, Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times (6/12/18) says that “it certainly is better for the two leaders to be exchanging compliments rather than missiles,” but describes the US suspending military exercises with South Korea as a “concession” for which America is getting “astonishingly little” in return. He purports to be against the exchanging of missiles, but thinks it’s a mistake to take steps to minimize the threat of exchanging missiles.
While acknowledging Trump being “snookered” is “far better than war,” NYT’ Nicholas Kristof (6/12/18) fears “the cancellation of military exercises will raise questions among our allies.”
“Astonishingly,” Kristof writes, Trump
even adopted North Korean positions as his own, saying that the United States military exercises in the region are “provocative.” That’s a standard North Korean propaganda line.
The columnist failed to explain how military exercises on North Korea’s doorstep, involving 50,000 South Korean troops and 17,500 of their American counterparts, are anything other than “provocative,” but evidently Kristof would have no problem with joint DPRK/Mexico maneuvers near the US southern border pretending to launch an attack featuring 67,500 soldiers, along with simulated nuclear bomber attacks (FAIR.org, 4/3/13).
The Times’ editorial is as bemused as Kristof, writing that Trump “even endorsed the North Korean view of such joint exercises as ‘provocative.’”
Kristof criticized the joint statement because it says
nothing about North Korea freezing plutonium and uranium programs, nothing about destroying intercontinental ballistic missiles, nothing about allowing inspectors to return to nuclear sites, nothing about North Korea making a full declaration of its nuclear program, nothing about a timetable, nothing about verification, not even any clear pledge to permanently halt testing of nuclear weapons or long-range missiles.
At no point did Kristof call on the US to take any remotely comparable steps.
The Washington Post‘s Anne Applebaum (6/12/18) does not seem to see Trump and Kim ceasing to threaten each other’s countries with nuclear destruction as a “gain” for those countries.
For Anne Applebaum of the Washington Post (6/12/18), provisionally scaling back American hostility to North Korea should be understood as a humiliation. She wrote that
had any previous American president, Republican or Democrat, emerged from an event like this, in which so much was given away with so little to show for it, he would have been embarrassed.
Her article was headlined, “Trump and Kim Got What They Wanted. The Rest of the World, Not So Much.” It’s likely, however, that “the rest of the world” does not want nuclear war, and might want steps that could help avert that danger—such as, say, an end to nuclear-armed America antagonizing another nuclear power by having “tens of thousands of US and [South Korean] troops, aircraft and naval vessels engaged in mock clashes” with that power.
Shining City on a Hill
Under-girding the view that the United States should only negotiate with North Korea when “negotiation” means “forcing the DPRK under nuclear duress to do whatever America says” are entrenched notions of intrinsic US superiority.
Probably the most blatant example of this is the view that the United States is “legitimizing” DPRK by meeting with its leaders. MSNBC’s Maddow seems to find it blasphemous that the summit “billed” North Korea “as a nation equal in stature to the United States.” According to the Times, Kim got a “win” by receiving the “legitimacy of being treated as an equal as a nuclear power on the world stage, country flags standing side by side.” The Post was incensed that Kim was “able to parade on the global stage as a legitimate statesman,” while Applebaum said that “the flags and the handshake will reinforce Kim’s legitimacy and make him harder to depose.”
States, and the parties that govern them, are not granted legitimacy by the United States. Legally, that legitimacy comes from United Nations recognition or its absence; as a practical matter, states and their leaders establish legitimacy through what the Italian political theorist Antonio Gramsci described as a combination of coercion and consent. Believing that the US has the power to confer or deny legitimacy on other countries or their leaders is part of the same imperial hubris that makes pundits panic about tentative moves in the direction of curtailing American belligerence toward North Korea, and thus the threat of nuclear war.
We would find it absurd if pundits complained that Kim failed to extract a promise from Trump to halt the thousand or so extrajudicial executions that take place in the US every year.
A comparable dynamic is at work in the commentariat concern-trolling about North Korean human rights. Maddow was perplexed that the US would meet with North Korea without the North Korean leadership making any promises about “their behavior toward their own people.” The Times’ editors considered it “startling” that the joint Kim/Trump statement contains no reference to human rights in DPRK.
In this conception, America is the shining city on a hill that must free the people of the DPRK, though these analysts don’t ask who will liberate US citizens living under a regime with the highest incarceration rate in the world, rampant judicial and extrajudicial execution, widespread racism, obscene wealth inequality and an undemocratic political system. Calling for a US government crusade for change inside North Korea while overlooking all of these features of US society is another dimension of the imperial arrogance that insists it’s legitimate to subject the entire population of other nations to crushing sanctions and violent threats until their governments give Washington everything it wants.
Nor do any of these commentators address the possibility that the US ruling class might need to change its global conduct: The hanging of Saddam Hussein and the sodomizing to death of Moammar Gadhafi, neither of whom possessed nuclear weapons with which to deter America from invading and destroying the countries they governed, could be a reason why the leaders of North Korea want nuclear weapons.
For the punditry, the goal of US/North Korea talks isn’t lasting peace on the Korean peninsula, it’s total North Korean submission to US commands. Corporate media appear to be more worried about the United States being successfully defied than it is about nuclear war.
Israel’s CRAZY offer to Iran: we’ll give you water, you give us your LAND
Israeli PM Netanyahu offered Iranian people irrigation technology in PR Video
By Matfey Shaheen | The Duran | June 14, 2018
Israeli PM Netanyahu made a bizarre offer to the Iranian people – if it can even be called an offer.
His “offer”, came in the form of a youtube video, which was also re-uploaded with Arabic and Farsi (Persian/Iranian) subtitles. In the video, he says Iran is suffering from major lack of water, and Israel wants to help by providing the Iranian people irrigation technology with seemingly no catch. In the video, he says that “The Iranian regime shouts “death to Israel”. In response, Israel shouts, “Life to the Iranian people”.
The video seems to be a PR scheme, in which he is trying to frame himself as the Savior of the Iranian people, saying that Israel stands with them, and cares about them more than their own government.
If you watch the video, and understand the situation, you realize however that his “offer” is a thinly veiled PR scheme at best.
In the video, he talks about how Iran is challenged with major drought, and water issues, which he claims threatens the lives of regular Iranians. He says that Israel has developed state of the art irrigation technology, to circumvent their own water issues, which he wants to share with Iranian people.
He seems to blame the water issues, or rather, an implied lack of Iranian solutions on the Iranian government. It must be said, that even parts of the US can suffer from irrigation issues This is not an unheard of problem in hot or difficult climates, for even powerful countries to struggle with.
A major part of his so-called “offer“, to appear like a hero for Iranian people, is he claims to create a Farsi website to share this irrigation technology with the Iranian people.
The devil is as always, in the details, however, and we will examine these details with biblical levels of scrutiny.
The offer is obviously very suspicious, but not simply because it’s an obvious deception. The reason why I have written “offer”, in quotations, is aside from him calling it an “unprecedented offer”, nothing about it seems like an actual offer for several reasons.
First of all, he spends the majority of the video talking about how terrible the Iranian government is, and how they allegedly don’t help their own people with their water issues. Then he claims he is going to step in and save the Iranian people by offering them this technology, but his offer seems entirely for the purpose of publicity. There seems to be nothing real at all behind these words.
First of all, it is framed as a totally free offer, a gift, yet the very use of the word “offer”, in politics, implies there is to be an exchange. He does not specify what he wants in exchange for this offer, unless he truly wants it to be believed, that he will give cutting-edge technology for free. It seems obvious he is trying to influence “hearts and minds” be they Iranian or not, in a propaganda campaign, rather than to actually give technology
This is because, despite making an offer, if you dig deeper, he is actually not giving anything concrete as of now. There does not seem to be any way for the Iranian people to take this offer.
The website is propaganda
As noted, he claims he will create a Farsi website with the irrigation info, yet this doesn’t seem to actually happen.
Specifically, he says:
We will lanch a Farsi website with detailed plans on how Iranians can recycle their waste-water.
Those words clearly imply he will create a comprehensive Farsi language site, with the irrigation technology provided there. The way he describes it in the video, this is his offer, it’s not about the conflict or politics, it’s about saving Iranians by giving them the technology. Once again, the devil is in the details.
If you look at the actual sites given in the video, and linked in the description, they don’t appear to match what he is describing.
The first site that he links to, is a Farsi language, two-page archive of a total of 15 irrigation and water-related articles, on the main site of the Israel Foreign Ministry. It doesn’t even seem to come close to what he is describing.
First of all, he said he would launch a Farsi language site. The word launch in modern internet terminology clearly implies creating a website. If we were going to put together a series of articles in Russian about Russian infrastructure on The Duran, we would not likely say we are going to “launch a Russian language site designed for infrastructure engineers”. This implies we are creating a totally different site under our umbrella.
He implies this isn’t about politics, he is creating a website to bring Iranians life-saving irrigation technology, yet he simply links to the Israeli Foreign Ministry, which instead contains, if not direct propaganda, essentially what amounts to PR advertisements for Israeli technology.
The site also conveniently contains links to other official government propag and… um… I mean… information, unrelated to water at all. So you can start reading about water, and find yourself reading official Israeli foreign relations info with a few clicks. It’s essentially product placement, but with information.
At this point, one could claim this is all too picky and unfair, a matter of semantics. One can argue so long as he is delivering what he promised, what does it matter on which site.
The issue is the site itself IS essentially propaganda, and moreover, it’s a Potemkin village, there is nothing really there OTHER than propaganda.
Even if you don’t speak Farsi, you can click on some of the articles, use a simple online translator, and see they don’t match what he is offering. They are not comprehensive scientific pieces on how Iranians can fix their water issues They are blatant advertisements for Israeli innovations and technology.
How does a video that talks about how wonderful Israeli irrigation can actually help farmers in a drought? That is like showing an advertisement for the Cleveland Clinic to a sick person in Iran, and expecting them to magically be healed by simply watching it. There is nothing wrong with ads. Their purpose is to sell a product, but the issue is he is claiming to give in-depth irrigation know how, and instead, delivers propaganda.
Look for yourself at some of the articles, they’re very short, sometimes no more than a few sentences, with short 2-3min video advertisements talking about how great Israel and Israeli technology is. One can hardly see how this would help anyone.
Indeed, they are relating to water, but they don’t provide anything substantial, beyond a substantial amount of propaganda. Some of the short PR and testimonial style videos are even in English, with Farsi subtitles, so you can clearly tell this was not originally designed for Iranian people.
There is nothing of value in the videos, certainly nothing comparable to his great unprecedented offer.
This would be the equivalent of a major food company saying they wanted to tackle hunger in Africa, and saying they will help starving, impoverished Africans, by providing their technologies and products to them, saying they will link below to resources, but the links provided are just advertisements for their company.
The ads talk about how they are using automation to speed up packaging, how they use the best products, and the videos will show happy people in major first world cities enjoying their meals and their luxurious lifestyles. That is an advertisement, and it does literally nothing to help the people, and that is exactly what this website is.
It would be like someone trying to end world hunger by filming themselves making gourmet meals, and putting the videos on youtube for free.
He also links to an official Israeli telegram channel, where it can only be imagined you can get these type of Israeli ads sent directly to your devices, which is surely what Iranian farmers need the most.
A Propaganda Campaign intended for whom?
It’s obvious the Israeli PM’s offer, in its current form, as everything appears from the youtube videos, is not genuine. It is very easy to say its just a propaganda campaign, but who is it intended for? Is it really even directed against only Iranians in the first place?
The languages the video were made in are most telling. The English language video is uploaded first, and the Farsi version comes afterward, separated by one of his cabinet meetings on his youtube channel.
One wonders why he made an English language video? Indeed, English is the Lingua Franca, but what is the purpose if he is speaking to Iranians? Why not just make a Hebrew language video, with Farsi subtitles?
Some may say because he prefers to speak English and can not speak Farsi… fine… but then why title the video in English? He does not have to speak Farsi, to have his translators title the video in Farsi. But his English video does not even have Farsi subtitles at all, it’s a separate video.
He makes separate English, Farsi, and Arabic videos and the English video has the most views, currently at 113,916, while the Farsi version (below) currently has only 7,474 views.
He would only make an English video, let alone title it in English, for SEO (search engine optimization) purposes. Clearly, he wants an international audience to view his video. While he pretends he is speaking to the Iranian people, Iranians mostly do not speak English, instead, he wants the world to see his “good deed”.
Most telling, as noted, he created a video subtitled in Arabic.
If this is only intended for Iranians, that makes no sense, as they don’t speak Arabic as their primary language. In this case, it is clear he is not just targeting an intentional audience, he is targeting an Arab, including Palestinian audience.
All of that is not needed, if he just really loves the Iranian people so much, that he wants to help them. True acts of altruism are best without the need for attention…unless of course…it is thinly disguised propaganda. In this case, you would want as many people as possible to view it.
In conclusion, Netanyahu’s videos pretend to care for Iranians, but in reality, they are a publicity scheme intended to:
- Make Israel, and himself personally seem like a hero for Iranian people
- Bash the Iranian government.
- Pretend to offer irrigation technology, while instead linking to propaganda
In theory, he could even try to convince Iranians he truly cares about them more than their government. While it is highly unlikely anyone, including Bibi believes this will achieve regime change, it’s possible and likely that was his most ideal fantasy. At the very least, this is probably a tiny component of that ultimate goal.
Bibi’s irrigation offer could really be about testing the waters, as to whether or not he can get Iranians to turn on their government. He seems to feel that offering the Iranian people irrigation technology is enough to drive them to a revolution. He is basically saying:
Dear Iran,
We’ll give you water, in exchange for your land, lives, and freedoms.
P.S. If you could send us your souls too… that would be great.
Apparently, he thinks it’s that easy. The Persian people will have to decide for themselves, if that’s a good offer. My guess, their answer is going to be NO.
Nicaragua : Defeating the Soft Coup
By Tortilla Con Sal | teleSUR | June 12, 2018
Nicaragua has been a good example of how Western corporate and alternative news media are able to create a custom-made bizarro-world to suit the propaganda requirements of their countries’ elites. The current media onslaught against Nicaragua uses the whole toolbox of propaganda tricks portraying aggressors as victims, reporting non-existent massacres of peacefully protesting students, denying systematic destruction by opposition paramilitaries of public property and private businesses, even omitting attacks on hospitals and ambulances. The big fundamental fiction has been that a majority of people in Nicaragua reject the Sandinista government led by President Daniel Ortega. The converse of the lie is that most people support the so-called Civic Alliance composed of right-wing business leaders, right-wing political parties, reactionary Catholic bishops, US-funded NGOs and university students allied to those interests.
But events in real life contradict the minority opposition storyline. On April 22nd, the supposed dictatorship proposed a national dialogue mediated by the Catholic church. It took the opposition almost three weeks to agree. They did so on condition the government withdraw the police from the streets. In fact, police had already been ordered not to intervene against the violent opposition paramilitaries. The government agreed, but when the dialogue began the bishops refused to condemn opposition violence while still falsely accusing the government of violent repression. The opposition never tried to negotiate in good faith, simply demanding the government resign and refusing to dismantle roadblocks which the government, supposedly a dictatorship, allowed to operate so as to avoid more violent conflict.
The government strategy has been to accept extraordinary levels of opposition violence and intimidation so as to allow the opposition to discredit themselves with public opinion. The opposition violence and roadblocks have disrupted economic life, affecting thousands of small and micro businesses, throwing tens of thousands into unemployment and causing hardship for many thousands of people with serious health problems. The opposition paramilitary violence has destroyed numerous public buildings and government offices in various cities, decimated the tourist industry, cost the lives of around 150 people and left over 1100 injured. Some of the worst violence has been in the tourist cities of Granada and Masaya where hundreds of businesses have been practically destroyed. In that context, the Catholic bishops categorically betrayed their mediation role last week by presenting President Ortega with an undisclosed ultimatum very obviously in sympathy with the political opposition and demanding a response in two days.
Following that ultimatum delivered on June 7th, the opposition paramilitaries staged a wave of attacks against government offices in León, Masaya and Jinotega, also attacking police stations elsewhere to steal firearms, kidnapping and torturing police officers. In an attack on Monday, June 11th, a gang of paramilitaries killed two more police officers, wounding two in Mulukukú in the country’s northern Mining Triangle. At the same time, they intensified their roadblocks almost completely stopping traffic along the highway between Managua and the north of the country. That same day, police acted to clear some of the roadblocks in what many people view as the beginning of President Ortega’s response to the bishops’ ultimatum. The government decision to act against the roadblocks strangling the economy is clearly supported by a majority of people in the country. But it remains to be seen how the opposition will react.
One feature in particular of the crisis covered up by alternative and corporate media has been the role in the opposition violence of organized crime and delinquents. From the very start of the crisis on April 18th criminals and youth gangs have operated alongside right-wing extremists to foment civil disturbances and lethal violence. One notorious group involved in attacks portrayed as political protest and also responsible for various murders, including one of a US citizen, was broken up by police on May 31st. The group operated out of the private Polytechnic University occupied by opposition students and associated protestors, including this group of criminals The police have accused right-wing political activist Felix Maradiaga of involvement with that criminal group. Maradiaga, one of the leaders of the opposition protests against the government is currently in the United States where he went to lobby against the Nicaraguan government in the Organization of American States General Assembly on June 4th and 5th.
During that OAS General Assembly, Nicaragua’s diplomats defeated opposition efforts to secure any condemnation of President Ortega’s government. Secretary-General Luis Almagro had previously denounced deceitful and misleading statements from Nicaragua’s opposition, insisting on a constitutional resolution of the country’s crisis. That lead Felix Maradiaga to accuse Almagro of being President Ortega’s accomplice, to which Almagro retorted that he is indeed an accomplice, but an accomplice of democracy against anti-democratic moves in violation of constitutional norms. Subsequently, the United Nations Secretary-General expressed his satisfaction that the Nicaraguan government is working closely with the OAS to reach a negotiated settlement to Nicaragua’s political crisis, a position supported by the European Union and, at least nominally, even by the US State Department.
These setbacks at the international level for Nicaragua’s political opposition have been followed by the collapse of the Catholic bishops’ credibility as mediators for the dialogue and the emergence of clear majority support nationally for an end to the violence and the economic damage and distress it has caused. In this new context, Nicaragua’s Sandinista government seems to be moving cautiously to clear the roadblocks while at the same time developing local initiatives for peace and dialogue aimed at isolating the violent opposition paramilitary groups. As that process advances, Nicaragua’s political opposition are likely to act with increasing desperation to try and mitigate the likely consequences of their attempted coup. While the next couple of weeks may well see the beginnings of a political settlement of the crisis, achieving that outcome is likely to come at the price of yet more death and destruction from Nicaragua’s opposition extremists.
NYT Carries IDF Attack on Murdered Medic–Reveals It’s a Smear in 20th Paragraph
By Adam Johnson | FAIR | June 11, 2018
A reporter at the most influential paper in English-language media appears to not know the difference between a government “tightly editing” and selectively editing video.
New York Times reporter Herbert Buchsbaum (6/7/18) wrote up a propaganda video posted by the Israeli Defense Force, showing Rouzan al-Najjar–a 21-year-old medic the Israeli Defense Force shot and killed earlier this month—apparently throwing a tear-gas canister, along with a brief clip of her purportedly saying, “I am here on the front line and I act as a human shield.”
The video seems to suggest that throwing a device spewing caustic gas away from people into an empty field is a sort of violence. (“This medic was incited by Hamas,” the video reads as she grabs the canister.) But the primary problem with the IDF video is that it deceptively edits her comments to distort what she said—a fact not noted by the Buchsbaum until paragraph 20, when he threw in this crucial piece of information:
In the longer video, the comment that the military translated as “I act as a human shield” was part of a sentence in which Ms. Najjar said, “I’m acting as a human rescue shield to protect the injured inside the armistice line.”
“Acting as a human shield to protect the injured inside the armistice line” has a radically different meaning than the commonly understood canard about Palestinians using “human shields” to protect “terrorists.” This hugely consequential fact should have led the story; instead, it’s casually tossed out in the third-to-last paragraph. The story here is that the IDF—as it has been doing for decades—casually lies and distorts facts to suit its narrative. Like all militaries, the Israeli military is not presenting a “dueling narrative” in good faith, as a New York Times tweet suggested; it’s manipulating video, hoping credulous journalists help them muddy the waters, as Buchsbaum did.
Indeed, the bizarre IDF press release write-up serves no other purpose than to reframe the gunning down of the unarmed medic from a clear crime committed by Israel to a Fog of War “dueling narratives between Israel and Hamas” tale of “both sidesism.” Buchsbaum vaguely alludes to—but strangely omits—the deceptive editing in the opening with his risible turn of phrase in paragraph two:
The tightly edited video shows a woman identified as the medic, Rouzan al-Najjar, throwing what appears to be a tear-gas canister.
“Tightly edited”? What does this mean, exactly? “Tight” editing is generally considered a compliment in the film and TV world, and says nothing about deliberate omissions for the purposes of misleading the viewer. When videographer Tate B. James confronted Buchsbaum about this fact, Buchsbaum appeared to think he had covered his bases:
hey herbert, any reason why you waited until the 20th paragraph to let folks know the video was selectively edited?
— Tate James (@tatebjames) June 8, 2018
a music video is “tightly edited”, herbert. that video is *deceptively* edited. there’s a difference
— Tate James (@tatebjames) June 8, 2018
Either Buchsbaum doesn’t know he’s being misleading, and is thus severely unqualified to be writing for a major paper, or he knows he’s spinning in Israel’s favor, but was hoping no one would really notice. Either way, the New York Times is once again (FAIR.org, 7/14/17, 5/17/18, 5/15/18) using its pages to confuse readers to the benefit of the Israeli military.
You can send a message to the New York Times at letters@nytimes.com (Twitter:@NYTOpinion). Please remember that respectful communication is the most effective.
The Art of the Deal worked on Sentosa Island
By M.K. Bhadrakumar | Asia Times | June 13, 2018
Some statesmen by their sheer force of personality and unorthodox ways of politicking arouse disdain among onlookers. US President Donald is perhaps the most famous figure of that kind in world politics today.
No matter what he does, Trump attracts criticism. He evokes strong feelings of antipathy among a large and voluble swathe of opinion within half of America. The making of history in a virtual solo act on his part, which is the rarest of efforts, on Sentosa Island in Singapore on Tuesday and which the world watched with awe and disbelief, will be instinctively stonewalled.
Half of America simply refuses to accept the positive tidings about him coming from Singapore. The skeptics are all over social media pouring scorn, voicing skepticism, unable to accept that if the man has done something sensible and good for his country and for world peace, it deserves at the very least patient, courteous attention.
The problem is about Trump – not so much the imperative need of North Korea’s denuclearization. But western detractors – ostensibly rooting for the “liberal international order” – will eventually lapse into silence because what emerges is that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has enough to “bite” here in the deal that Trump is offering – broadly, a security guarantee from the US and the offer of a full-bodied relationship with an incremental end to sanctions plus a peace treaty.
Succinctly put, Trump has offered a deal that Kim simply cannot afford to reject. The ending of the US-ROK military exercises forthwith; Trump’s agenda of eventual withdrawal of troops from ROK; the lure of possible withdrawal of sanctions once 20% of the denuclearization process gets underway, or once the process becomes irreversible; Trump’s hint that he has sought assurances from Japan and the ROK that they will be “generous” in offering economic assistance to the reconstruction of North Korea; China’s involvement in the crucial process – these are tangibles.
Re-election at stake
Trump seems to have succeeded in impressing Kim how green his valley too could be if he accepted the deal. On the other hand, Kim senses that he has an interlocutor who is keenly seeking a success story for his beleaguered presidency and is not playing political games or merely waffling. Trump candidly, disarmingly admitted at the press conference after the talks with Kim concluded that this success story would certainly go into his campaign plank when he makes a bid for re-election in 2020. What bigger signal can Trump give regarding his good faith.
In sum, Kim gets a one-time deal that must see the light of day before November 2020. It is custom-made by someone who correctly figured out Kim’s needs and compulsions. Thus, a personal chemistry is developing, which will be further cemented when Kim travels to Washington. Evidently, Kim also senses that he must concede on issues that matter to Trump politically – the issue of the remains of Americans who lost their lives in the Korean War, which is a hugely emotive issue in the US and whose resolution casts Trump in a positive glow. Trump was pleasantly surprised that Kim agreed on the spot when he made the request – just like that.
Geopolitically, Kim weighs in that in the ROK President Moon Jae-In, he already has someone who is a famous supporter of Seoul’s “Sunshine Policy”. There is already talk in Seoul about doing trade with North Korea. And it is a masterstroke on Trump’s part to include China in the negotiations for a peace treaty between the US and North Korea – although legally speaking, that is not mandatory. Trump flagged twice that US intelligence has spotted that China-North Korean border controls have eased lately since the US-China tensions began rising over trade.
Trump is ensuring that China remains a big stakeholder right until the finishing line. Now, a Korean peace treaty will inevitably reflect on the presence of US troops in South Korea – and Japan – which is, of course, an issue of momentous consequence for China’s security and the power dynamic of Northeast Asia.
The unthinkable is happening
The bottom line is that Trump has pulled off something that could make him a man of history and strengthen his America First project and in the process might win him a second term as president. The unthinkable is happening and his detractors are desperately searching for loopholes in the joint declaration signed in Singapore. It is a pathetic sight because no political document ever drafted by man has been 100% foolproof. A document is always open to interpretation. To err is human, to forgive divine.
However, that is beside the point here. The heart of the matter is that a big portion of the Trump-Kim deal cannot even be written on parchment paper. It is one-on-one. It is built around personal rapport, while the terms were agreed upon beforehand. The assisting role of US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Kim’s 30-year old sister Kim Yo-jong in the signing ceremony presented an extraordinary sight, testifying to the profundity of the occasion. In the East, you don’t break a deal that your sister bore witness to.
Therefore, setting aside prejudices regarding Trump the man, this is a moment when America should be capable of savoring. Of course, history shows that man proposes and God disposes. But the good part here is that no one is seeking to undermine what Trump and Kim have embarked upon.
So long as their mutual commitment is not in doubt, the prospects of a settlement on the Korean Peninsula are reasonably good. That’s what Trump’s Art of the Deal would have said.
Democrats Put Partisanship Before Prospects for Peace
By Joe Lauria | Consortium News | June 13, 2018
When Richard Nixon returned to Washington after his historic 1972 trip to China, he was welcomed with strong support from Democrats.
“From the initial Congressional reaction, it was apparent that the President, home from his China trip, would find broad bipartisan support for his move toward closer relations with Peking,” The New York Times reported on Feb. 29, 1972.
Even Democratic Senate leaders Edward Kennedy and Mike Mansfield praised Nixon’s diplomatic gamble.
Forty-six years later President Donald Trump took a similar political risk in agreeing to the first ever summit with a North Korean leader. Cautious optimism emerged from the summit that peace on the Korean peninsula may finally be within reach 65 years after a truce silenced the guns of the Korean War.
But instead of the support Nixon received from the opposition party, Trump has been blasted by Democrats, who’ve put any prospect for peace behind their partisan quest to regain power.
“It sure looks as if President Trump was hoodwinked in Singapore,” wrote liberal New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristoff on Tuesday. “Trump seemed to believe he had achieved some remarkable agreement, but the concessions were all his own.”
“Kim seems to have completely out-negotiated Trump, and it’s scary that Trump doesn’t seem to realize this,” Kristoff wrote.
Nixon toasting Zhou
The Times editorial board was even harsher. “President Trump was on his best behavior, as is so often the case when he is dealing with dictators,” it wrote. “Mr. Trump was even more effusive about Mr. Kim after their session, sounding more like he was deconstructing a blind date than analyzing a diplomatic meeting.”
In case the reader didn’t get the message the editorial went on: “Whatever he does or does not understand about history or policy or statecraft, Mr. Trump has a keen sense of how to engage authoritarian thugs who crave respect and legitimacy. It’s how he’s wired.”
And then it piled on: “Mr. Trump has a deep and abiding fondness for strongmen … The more ruthlessly they have had to act to hold on to power, the more he respects them.”
“Dealing with men like Mr. Kim is, on some level, comfortable ground for Mr. Trump,” the Times editorial said. “Such negotiations are a higher-stakes, global version of the world he came up in, one of cutthroat real estate developers and shady businessmen and mobsters. … The world sneers at strongmen like Mr. Kim, Mr. Putin and Rodrigo Duterte, the president of the Philippines, regarding them as uncivilized thugs, and Mr. Trump feels similarly disrespected. Dispositionally speaking, these are Mr. Trump’s people.”
A Beginning, Not an End
There wasn’t a word about what the two leaders agreed to in Singapore, namely the start—not the end—of what Trump called “an arduous process” that could lead to peace on the Korean peninsula. Trump could not have been clearer. He even said he could be wrong if the agreement is not realized.
The Times editorial never mentioned the agreement. In essence both sides agreed to work towards a peace treaty to end the Korean War, and the U.S. agreed to provide security guarantees to North Korea in exchange for the denuclearization of the peninsula. This was always meant to be a broad agreement on principles at the summit to kick start the indeed arduous negotiations to follow.
That the Times editorial board purposely ignored this fact to score cheap partisan points could not be clearer. The risks inherent in war on the peninsula, which should be of bi-partisan concern, were apparently of no concern to the editors on Eighth Avenue who decidedly took the low road.
Senate Democrats were no less uncharitable, seizing what they thought was an opportunity to score partisan points, while ignoring the promise the summit holds. “What the United States has gained is vague and unverifiable at best,” said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY). “What North Korea has gained, however, is tangible and lasting. By granting a meeting with Chairman Kim, President Trump has granted a brutal and repressive dictatorship, the international legitimacy it has long craved.”
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said: “In his haste to reach an agreement, President Trump elevated North Korea to the level of the United States while preserving the regime’s status quo.”
The questions asked at Trump’s post-summit press conference is illustrative of the partisan nature of today’s press. He was repeatedly asked about giving away the store without getting anything in return. But Trump made clear he had already gotten the return of three American prisoners, had gotten a commitment for the remains of Americans killed in the Korean War to be returned, and most crucially, a promise to begin the task of denuclearization.
US devastation of N. Korea (Keystone/Getty Images)
Yes it’s a promise. But the process has to begin somewhere. The very hard work to make that happen will begin now, and no peace-loving person would not want to give it a chance instead of seeking to gain short-sighted partisan advantage.
Trump said sanctions would remain and that war games with South Korea could resume if the deal does not materialize. After the devastation wrought by the United Sates on North Korea 65 years ago Trump incredibly agreed that those war games were seen as provocations by the North. He is being roasted for putting himself in the position of his adversary and seeing things as they do—a fundamental principle of diplomacy, and presumably journalism too.
The press also badgered Trump about North Korean human rights. They wanted to know how he could make a deal with such a repressive country. Would the alternative be war to enforce human rights? Trump said human rights were raised with Kim but were separate from the imperative of denuclearization. He felt that if peace were achieved and the North Korean economy improved (with the likely participation of U.S. corporations) that human rights would improve.
Turning the Tables
“I’m disappointed Kim Jong-un did not take the opportunity to raise with Trump the utterly dismal US human rights record, from mass incarceration of millions to rampant police murder of Black citizens,” tweeted Ali Abunimah, co-founder of the website The Electronic Intifada. “Any credible deal must be predicated on US respecting its own people.”
Journalist Max Blumenthal tweeted: “The US committed genocide during the Korean War, killing 20% of North Korea’s population, burning literally all of its cities to the ground w/ napalm, & nearly nuking it. Today it threatens w extermination. Reporters must ask Kim how he can make peace with such a brutal country.”
“Democrats attacking Trump from the Right on Korean Summit,” added writer and filmmaker Tariq Ali in a tweet. “Pity Obama didn’t have the guts to visit Teheran.”
What we are witnessing is an inability, or unwillingness, to break down Trump’s positions and examine each one individually, something that Democrats like Ted Kennedy were able to do with Nixon. But we are in a totally different era. A non-partisan approach to Trump would be able to decry his positions on climate, torture, health insurance, taxes, Iran and Palestine, and yet welcome his stated desire to lessen tensions with Russia and North Korea.
Instead we get tweets like this from former Republican Congressman Joe Walsh: “America is the brightest, most benevolent nation on earth. North Korea is the darkest, most horrific regime on Earth. We just gave them equal billing. We just sat at a table with them. There had better be something really, really good coming in return.”
Clearly some criticism of Trump for meeting Kim is bipartisan, but none of the praise is. Such an attitude of Walsh’s, and The New York Times, rests on a misunderstanding of America that is intended to reflect well on those who conveniently leave out the darkest chapters of America’s history, of which there have been far too many. The napalming and destruction of North Korea is among them, but hardly alone.
Deleting the context of decades of election meddling, coup plotting, assassinations and invasions of sovereign lands in the reporting and editorials of august organs like the Times, indeed in the entire corporate media, leaves Americans with a comic book understanding of their history, cast adrift in a bubble from the reality of the rest of the world.
Attacking other nations’ human rights record while ignoring one’s own, or one’s allies, such as Saudi Arabia and Israel, is classic projection designed to wash one’s conscience clean. It helps to hold a position in the post-War Western-dominated international system making it easy to convince oneself of one’s righteousness, though self-reflection would reveal that that system has become a grotesque image of its former self.
Joe Lauria is editor-in-chief of Consortium News and a former correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe, Sunday Times of London and numerous other newspapers. He can be reached at joelauria@consortiumnews.com and followed on Twitter @unjoe.
How Corporate Media Got the Trump-Kim Summit All Wrong
By Gareth Porter | truthdig | June 11, 2018
For weeks, the corporate media have been saying that the Trump-Kim summit could have only two possible results: Either Trump will walk away angrily or Kim Jong Un will trick him into a deal in which he extracts concessions from Trump but never commits to complete denuclearization.
The idea that North Korea could not possibly agree to give up its nuclear weapons or its intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) has become an article of faith among the journalists covering the issue for big media. Two themes that have appeared again and again in their coverage are that the wily North Koreans are “playing” Trump and that previous administrations had also been taken by North Korea after signing agreements in good faith.
But the media have gotten it all wrong. They have assumed that North Korea cannot live without nuclear weapons—without making any effort to understand North Korea’s strategy in regard to nuclear weapons.They have invariably quoted “experts” who haven’t followed North Korean thinking closely but who express the requisite hostility toward the summit and negotiating an agreement with the Kim regime.
One of the few Americans who can speak with authority on North Korea’s calculus regarding nuclear weapons is Joel S. Wit, who was senior adviser to the U.S. negotiator with North Korea, Ambassador Robert L. Gallucci, from 1993 to 1995, and who from 1995 to 1999 was coordinator for the 1994 “Agreed Framework” with North Korea. More importantly, Wit also participated in a series of informal meetings with North Korean officials in 2013 about North Korea’s thinking on its nuclear weapons.
At a briefing on the Trump-Kim summit last week sponsored by the website 38 North, which he started and still manages, Wit made it clear that this dismissal of North Korea’s willingness to agree to denuclearization is misguided. “Everyone underestimates the momentum behind what North Korea is doing,” he said. “It’s not a charm offensive or a tactical trick.”
Wit revealed in an article last month that the North Koreans had informed the American participants in those 2013 meetings that Kim was already anticipating negotiations with the United States in which North Korea would agree to give up nuclear weapons in return for steps by the United States that removed its threatening posture toward North Korea. Wit said his North Korean interlocutors had pointed to a June 2013 statement by the National Defense Commission of North Korea—the nation’s highest policymaking body—which they stated emphatically had been ordered by Kim himself to indicate a readiness to negotiate with the United States on denuclearization. The statement declared, “The denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula is the behest of our leader” and “must be carried out . . . without fail.” And it went on to urge “high-level talks between the DPRK [North Korea] and the U.S. authorities to . . . establish peace and security in the region.”
The statement came a few months after Kim had resumed nuclear testing in an intensive effort to establish a credible nuclear deterrent. In part that was because of the young Kim’s conviction that the United States believed it could “bully” his regime in the transition after Kim father, Kim Jong Il, died in December 2011, according to Wit’s North Korean interlocutors.
But those same North Korean officials also told Wit that the new buildup would be of limited duration—only until it became possible to improve relations with the United States. That explanation suggested that Kim was pursuing a military capability primarily to serve as an incentive for Washington to come to the negotiating table and as a set of bargaining chips to obtain what it really wanted—an end to the hostile policy toward the regime by the United States.
Wit revealed that in the private meetings with Americans, North Korean officials presented a concrete plan for a three-phase agreement with the United States on denuclearization in which each side would undertake a set of related steps simultaneously.The American participants were told that the first stage of North Korea’s implementation would be a freeze on its nuclear weapons development, followed by disabling key facilities and finally dismantling the facilities as well the nuclear weapons. The U.S. steps would include diplomatic recognition, ending economic sanctions and removing the U.S. military threat to North Korea, in part by finally bringing the Korean War to a formal conclusion.
It was the same approach to a denuclearization agreement to which North Korea had agreed in 1994 and again in 2005 and 2007, but which had failed primarily because of the reluctance of the Clinton and Bush administrations to commit to entering into a normal political and economic relationship with North Korea.
The political context for U.S.-North Korean negotiations has changed dramatically since 2013. The most obvious change is that North Korea has an ICBM capable of reaching the United States for the first time. Although it provoked threats by the Trump administration in 2017 to attack North Korea if it completed work on the ICBM, it also has prompted the White House to consider going further than previous administrations in meeting North Korean diplomatic demands.
Furthermore, in 2013, the South Korean government was hostile to diplomacy with the North, and the Obama administration was unwilling to consider any major political or security concessions to North Korea until after it had given up its nuclear weapons. Now South Korean president Moon Jae-in has gone further than any previous government in pushing to end the 70-year military tension and formal state of war between North and South. Moon’s commitment to a Korean peace agreement appears to be the single biggest reason that Kim switched gears so dramatically in a New Year’s Day speech that presaged dramatic diplomatic moves in 2018.
Reflecting the new political-diplomatic situation, in April Kim put forward a new strategic line calling for the bulk of the state’s resources to go to economic development. That replaced the bjungjin line that Kim had introduced in March 2013 putting economic rebuilding and military needs on an equal footing.
Kim has made major adjustments in the North Korean negotiating posture that prevailed when the 2013 meetings were held with nonofficial Americans. The North Koreans had insisted then that the United States would have to remove their troops from South Korea as part of any agreement, according to Wit. But that demand has now been dropped, as Moon told Trump in mid-April.
Kim also has frozen his entire nuclear weapons and ICBM programs by suspending testing and blowing up facilities and tunnels at its nuclear test facility in front of foreign journalists in advance of negotiations with the United States. What gives the freeze far-reaching significance is the fact that North Korea still has not shown that it has mastered the reentry technology or the guidance system necessary to have a convincing deterrent capability, as Defense Secretary James Mattis observed last December. And then CIA Director Mike Pompeo agreed in January that it would take a “handful of months” for North Korea to be able to master the remaining technological challenges—but that would require additional testing. The willingness to freeze the program before it had reached its goal indicates the predominance of Kim’s diplomatic aim over North Korea’s military ambitions.
Contrary to the idea relentlessly repeated in media coverage that there is no objective basis for a denuclearization agreement, it has become clear to Pompeo that Kim is serious about reaching such an agreement. Pompeo noted in his press conference that he had spent “a great deal of time” discussing the prospective deal in two meetings with Kim himself and three meetings with Kim’s special envoy, Kim Yong-chol. And based on the many hours of discussion with them, Pompeo said he believes “they are contemplating a path forward where they can make a strategic shift, one that their country has not been prepared to make before.”
Trump and Kim will be able to agree only on a broad statement of principles that reflect Pompeo’s meetings with the North Koreans, leaving significant differences remaining to be resolved in negotiations over the coming weeks. But this summit between what is surely the oddest couple in modern diplomatic history may well launch the most serious effort yet to end the U.S.-North Korean conflict.
Brexit backer Arron Banks’s ‘golden Kremlin connection’ allegation raises laughter
RT | June 10, 2018
The UK media has come up with yet another ‘sensational revelation’ that allegedly sheds light on ties between the Kremlin and major Brexit campaigners. The story only seemed to raise laughter from those mentioned in it, though.
There is no rest for the wicked, it seems, as the British media apparently goes to great lengths to continue the narrative of Russia’s interference in the UK’s vote to leave the EU alive. This time, the Sunday Times dug up a story that was immediately turned into a new ‘reason’ for anti-Russian hysteria and even prompted the Minister for the Cabinet Office in Theresa May’s government, David Lidington, to call for an investigation.
The respected “quality paper” reported that Arron Banks, the millionaire co-founder and major funder of the Brexit campaign known as Leave.EU, made repeated contacts with Russian officials and even took such an incautious and reasonably suspicious step to make a trip to Moscow at the time when the UK was at the height of the Brexit campaign. And by saying “repeated contacts,” the Sunday Times actually means as many as three meetings between Banks and Andy Wigmore, the director of communications for Leave.EU, and Russian Ambassador to the UK Alexander Yakovenko over a period of more than a year.
The Sunday Times also boldly claims right in the first line of its piece that it managed to reveal “the hidden scale of Kremlin links to the biggest donor to the Brexit campaign.” It is all because the two Brexiteers and the Russian official allegedly discussed the roles of Banks and Wigmore in a deal involving six Russian gold mines.
Banks and Wigmore were expected to involve Lord Charles Guthrie, the former chief of the Defense Staff, and Peter Hambro, a UK businessman, who actually co-founded and owned Petropavlovsk PLC, a major Russian mining company, in a deal envisaging the consolidation of six Russian gold mines into one company. However, the deal has actually fallen through, according to the Sunday Times.
‘We are American spies too’
Banks slammed the report as “complete absolute garbage,” which is comparable to “the Salem witch hunt.” “Yeah, we had two lunches with the Russian ambassador and passed on a business contact. So what?” he told Reuters.
He revealed that he did not only meet with the Russian officials during the Brexit campaign, he also met with many representatives of other countries as well. “It wasn’t just the Russians: we met all sorts of nationalities, we also briefed the State Department in Washington, we also met with the top embassy officials in London,” he said.
The Sunday Times itself mentions in its piece that Banks actually admitted to briefing the CIA on his meetings with the Russian officials. “We actually saw the suits from the American embassy who introduced us to the State Department to explain what had happened and then we briefed the Americans on our meetings with the Russians,” he said, as cited by the paper.
“So if we are Russian spies we must be American spies too,” Banks later told Reuters.
New round of hysteria
The Sunday Times story is based on a batch of emails containing correspondence between Banks, Wigmore and some Russian diplomats and businessmen, including Ambassador Yakovenko’s office, which were provided to the paper by a journalist named Isabel Oakeshott.
The emails themselves, which were carefully presented by the Sunday Times in another piece, actually do not contain a single word about Brexit. The paper also hesitates to make any direct conclusions related to the role of the perceived conspiracy in the Brexit campaign, as it only mentions some in a broader context. Oakeshott is actually the only person who does make some direct hints about the alleged links between the two Brexiteers and the Kremlin.
“Banks and Wigmore were shamelessly used by the Russians,” she told the Sunday Times, adding that the two “genuinely sympathized with some of Putin’s political views.” This journalist, who once worked with Banks on his book ‘The Bad Boys of Brexit,’ later suddenly changed the subject of her interest and started working on a book dedicated to Russia’s use of “hybrid warfare” to influence British politics together with the Tory peer Lord Ashcroft.
As if there were not enough conspiracies in this story already, the Sunday Times decided to spice it up a little bit more by adding a hint of Trump-Russia collusion as well. It repeatedly mentioned that the two Brexiteers discussed Trump during their meeting with Yakovenko, also adding that one of their meetings came just days after Banks and Wigmore visited US President Donald Trump after his election victory.
Predictably, these “revelations” provoked a new outbreak of anti-Russian hysteria. “Those who’ve got the evidence, let them take it to the relevant authorities and let it be looked into,” Lidington told the Andrew Marr Show on BBC One.
A bunch of Tory MPs rushed to brand both Brexiteers as “useful idiots” serving the Kremlin’s interests. Meanwhile, Labour frontbencher Liam Byrne, a shadow digital minister, nervously asked if Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “active measures” indeed “did stretch to Leave.EU.”
As for Banks himself, the recent news seemingly only made him laugh. When asked if he ever got money or assistance from Russia for his Brexit campaign, the businessman said: “No, of course not. You know if I have, I’m still waiting for the cheque.”
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Book Review
The Voters’ Self-Induced Matrix
By Jeb Smith | The Libertarian Institute | April 20, 2026
In Collective Illusions: Conformity, Complicity, and the Science of Why We Make Bad Decisions, Professor Todd Rose explains that to belong to a group, people “keep twisting [themselves] into pretzels, trying to conform to what we falsely believe everyone else expects of us.” Seeking acceptance from the group, we conform in language, behavior, beliefs, and practices. As a result, we lose our individuality and aggregate into herds. Within our group we create an alternate reality to fit whichever collective mindset we attach ourselves to, and interpret the world through those lenses—our innate desire to belong overrides reality.
Rose says these illusions “have become a defining feature of our modern society.” In other words, the collectivist mindset is a great conduit for spreading illusions; thus, it is the politician’s favored form of governance.
Rose points to studies in psychology and neuroscience showing we delude ourselves into believing what the majority does, even if it is not what we desire or know to be accurate. … continue
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