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Obama seeks to tie Trump’s hands, imposes more sanctions on Russia

By Alexander Mercouris | The Duran | December 20, 2016

The Obama administration leaves office with a sting in its tail, announcing more sanctions against Russia over Crimea and the war in the Donbass.

The additional new sanctions are minimal and largely symbolic.  They affect nine regional units of the Russian gas producer Novatek, a number of subsidiaries of the Russian Agricultural Bank, Crimean Ports, Crimean Railways, the Stroiproekt Institute, which is one of the organisations involved in designing the Kerch bridge project, the Karst company, which is one of the main subcontractors for the Kerch bridge project, the Transflot shipping company, two ships belonging to the Transflot company (Marshal Zhukov and Stalingrad), and FAU Glavgosekspertiza Rossii, which is the Russian agency responsible for expert reviews of design documents and findings of engineering surveys.

In addition individual sanctions have been imposed or extended against 7 individuals.

Six of these individuals (Kirill Kovalchuk, Dmitri Lebedev, Dmitri Mansurov, Mikhail Klishin, Oleg Minaev, and Mikhail Dedov) are sanctioned because they are connected to Bank Rossiya, ABR Management, or Sobinbank.

Bank Rossiya was placed on the US Treasury’s original sanctions list in 2014.  The Obama administration believes – quite groundlessly – that Vladimir Putin has a personal connection to Bank Rossiya, and has insinuated that he is in fact its owner.  There is in fact no evidence that Vladimir Putin had any special connection to Bank Rossiya before US sanctions were imposed on the bank in 2014, though after the sanctions were imposed, and in response to them, Putin publicly said he would open an account with it.

The seventh individual placed on the sanctions list is a Russian businessman, Yevgeny Prigozhin.  The US Treasury justifies its decision to place him on the sanctions list in this way

Prigozhin has extensive business dealings with the Russian Federation Ministry of Defence, and a company with significant ties to him holds a contract to build a military base near the Russian Federation border with Ukraine.

Prigozhin is moreover accused of

having materially assisted, sponsored, or provided financial, material, or technological support for, or goods or services in support of, senior officials of the Russian Federation.

The expression “senior officials of the Russian Federation” is widely recognised code for President Putin himself.

If there is an overarching theme to these new sanctions, it is that they either sanction individuals and companies engaged in upgrading Crimea’s infrastructure – in particular the Kerch bridge – or continue the practice of targeting individuals the Obama administration has (wrongly) convinced itself are custodians of Vladimir Putin’s mythical billions.

The Russians have already made clear that the new sanctions will not affect the Kerch bridge project, and that they reserve the right to undertake what they call an “asymmetric response” to them.

What does the Obama administration achieve by imposing these ineffectual sanctions a month before it leaves office?

The short answer is that the sanctions do not seem intended to target Russia so much as Donald Trump, who has made clear that he wants to improve relations with Russia.  In particular they seem designed to make more difficult the Senate confirmation of Rex Tillerson (Donald Trump’s choice for Secretary of State) who as CEO of Exxon has made known his opposition to the sanctions.  Quite possibly demands will be made that Trump and Tillerson commit themselves to maintaining the sanctions in order to secure Tillerson’s confirmation.

If so then this shows the extent to which hostility to Russia has become for the Obama administration an obsession.  It seems that even in its dying days it is doing all it can to make sure its hostility to Russia remains US policy even after it is gone, by trying to tie the hands of the next President, who is known to favour a different policy.

The Russians themselves have understood the frankly pathological quality behind this latest action, making dark predictions that it won’t be the last one before the Obama administration ends its life.  Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said as much shortly after the new sanctions were announced

I won’t be surprised if on January 20, the day of inauguration of the next US president, one minute before Donald Trump takes office, at 11:59, we will once again see behind some curtain, in the corner, those who continuously produce such kind of decisions once again inventing certain rescripts, decisions, pushing into an abyss relations with Russia that are already in tatters due to Washington’s irresponsible and senseless policy.

Whether that is indeed what will happen, and whether the Obama administration really can tie the hands of the next President in this way, remains to be seen.  In the meantime it is a frankly sad and even disturbing way for the Obama administration to see out its life.

December 20, 2016 Posted by | Progressive Hypocrite, Timeless or most popular | , , | 1 Comment

Fewer than one third of Americans agree that Russia is responsible for US election hacks

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Sputnik – 20.12.2016

Almost half of American voters do not agree with the conclusion of US intelligence agencies that the government of Russia is responsible for cyberattacks related to the 2016 election, a new Morning Consult/Politico poll revealed on Tuesday.

When asked which statement came closest to their views, 46 percent said, “We cannot be sure about who is primarily responsible for hacking and cyber-attacks that may have impacted the US election.”

Respondents said tracing cyber-attacks is complicated and the intelligence groups now claiming Russian meddling “are the same ones that said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.”

Twenty-nine percent of respondents agreed with the statement, “We know with near certainty that Russia is responsible for hacking and cyber-attacks that impacted the US election.”

Those respondents said that US intelligence agencies have used advanced techniques to determine who is responsible for the cyberattacks “and we are only playing into an unfriendly country’s hand when we deny this.

A quarter of respondents said they were not sure or had no opinion on the election hacking.

In general, the responses followed opinions along party lines, with 63 percent of Republicans and 28 percent of Democrats saying the United States cannot be sure about the origin of the attacks, according to the poll.

Outgoing President Barack Obama suggested during his last news conference on Friday that the cyberattacks were likely initiated at the highest levels of the Russian government.

Russian officials have repeatedly denied Washington’s claims of election-meddling, characterizing them as absurd and an attempt to distract Americans from domestic issues.

December 20, 2016 Posted by | Deception, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Progressive Hypocrite | , | 6 Comments

Obama rips open the cauterised Russian wound

By M K Bhadrakumar | Indian Punchline | December 18, 2016

In the entire chronicle of Russian-American relations since Joseph Stalin, it is difficult to recollect an instance when a US President held a Kremlin leader personally responsible for an outrageous criminal act. But then, the alleged Russian hacking of the Democratic National Committee, the formal governing body of the Democratic Party in the US has no precedent.

The alleged Russian hacking was the main topic of President Barack Obama’s press conference held in the White House in Washington on Friday. Obama accused that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the hacking:

  • I’d make a larger point, which is, not much happens in Russia without Vladimir Putin. This is a pretty hierarchical operation… I’ll confirm that this (hacking) was at the highest levels of the Russian government. And I will let you make that determination as to whether there are high-level Russian officials who go off rogue and decide to tamper with the U.S. election process without Vladimir Putin knowing about it.

Obama’s lengthy remarks at the hour-long press conference hinted strongly that the US intelligence is in possession of hard evidence to back up the accusation. Elsewhere, Obama said or signalled:

  • In a conversation on the sidelines of the G-20 in Hangzhou in September, he did plain-speaking with Putin and bluntly demanded an end to the hacking. Obama threatened that otherwise there’d be “some serious consequences.” Putin got the message; Russian hackers backed off.
  • However, the damage was done because Moscow had by then already passed on the stuff to WikiLeaks to stir up controversies in the US election campaign.
  • Washington will retaliate at a time and manner of choosing, not all of which may show up in public domain but the Kremlin will be made to understand that there is a price to pay.
  • Obama defended the legitimacy of Donald Trump’s election victory as such – although “I (Obama) don’t think she (Hillary Clinton) was treated fairly during the election. I think the coverage of her and the issues was troubling.”

What are the implications? One, the US intelligence possesses explosive materials on the Kremlin leadership. Two, Obama thoroughly disapproves of Trump’s intention to accommodate Russia (and Putin). He just stopped short of inciting the Republicans to mutiny. (“Over a third of Republican voters approve of Vladimir Putin, the former head of the KGB. Ronald Reagan would roll over in his grave.”) The intention is to create a bipartisan resistance to Trump’s plans to improve relations with Russia.

However, the intriguing part will be Obama’s personal attack on Putin. It’s well-known that Obama detests Putin. But then, there is more to it. Obama seems to believe Putin did plot Trump’s victory.

To my mind, Obama aims to hit back by fatally wounding Putin in the Byzantine world of Kremlin power-play. The thesis of mainstream American pundits is that the Kremlin power cliques see Putin as their best frontman and so long as he is useful, he retains his position, but the moment he becomes a liability, the matrix can change and he becomes expendable. This is one thing.

In the US assessment, again, Russian elites hanker for normal ties with the western world where they own expensive properties, keep fat bank accounts, educate their children, go for shopping or enjoy holidays. They are restive that Russia is being kept under quarantine by the West. They count on Putin to get sanctions removed. Now, when the US president names Putin in a criminal act, his image gets damaged irreparably.

Obama’s calculation could be that a) under immense psychological pressure, Putin himself may not seek another six-year term in the election in early 2018, or, b) if Putin becomes a ‘burnt-out case’, Russian elites in their quest to improve relations with the West, may have no more use for him.

Either way, something sinister has begun. Obama fired the salvo to take out Putin just before he himself walks into the sunset. But there is much more to come in this epic story. The 32 days before Trump is sworn in, will be a season for media leaks in America. Read the transcript of Obama’s remarks here.

December 18, 2016 Posted by | Progressive Hypocrite, Timeless or most popular | , , | 1 Comment

Bitter in Aleppo Defeat, US and EU Seek to Further Demonize Russia

By Finian CUNNINGHAM | Strategic Culture Foundation | 17.12.2016

As Russian forces help liberate the Syrian city of Aleppo this week from a four-year terrorist siege, Washington and Europe step up threats of cyber war and economic aggression with sanctions. That’s no coincidence. It is the response of accomplices bitter in defeat.

Perverse isn’t it? Instead of celebrating with the people of Syria over the liberation of Aleppo from terrorists; instead of sending massive humanitarian aid to the tens of thousands of civilians freed after being held under siege for four years by terrorist gangs; instead of commending Russia for its decisive role in restoring peace to Syria’s second biggest city, the US and European Union turn reality on its head and further demonize Moscow.

The perverse behavior by Washington and its European satraps is simply a case of sour grapes. Very sour grapes.

They have been proven spectacularly wrong about Syria. The liberation of Aleppo this week exposes the Western governments and media in their unrelenting falsehoods and systematic complicity in the Syrian war. This was never a pro-democracy uprising. It was a Western-backed criminal regime-change operation that was unleashed in March 2011, and which is now staring at ignominious defeat.

The blood of up to half a million people and many more maimed is on the hands of American and European governments.

It is no coincidence that Barack Obama this week invoked his putative presidential authority to double down on US intelligence claims that Russia hacked into the American elections to get Donald Trump into the White House. The stakes were raised to new unwieldy heights with White House claims that Russian President Vladimir Putin personally sanctioned the alleged hacking of Hillary Clinton’s emails. And Obama is now recklessly warning that his country will respond with cyber-warfare «at a place and time of our choosing».

Meanwhile, European Union leaders this week decreed that economic and diplomatic sanctions on Russia would be extended for another six months. The official reason for the measures was the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, but it is obvious that the dramatic developments in Syria were the real motivating factor behind the EU’s decision to further penalize Russia.

Addressing the EU summit, German Chancellor Angela Merkel deplored atrocities allegedly committed in the northern city of Aleppo by Syrian state forces and their Russian and Iranian allies. European Council President Donald Tusk lamented that the EU was not «indifferent to the suffering of civilians in Aleppo».

But where is the evidence either from Obama on alleged Russian cyberattacks to subvert the American presidential election or from the EU on alleged Russian (and Syrian) atrocities in Aleppo. There is, glaringly, no evidence. Yet on the back of breathless assertions, Washington is threatening to «retaliate», and European leaders are slapping more damaging sanctions on Russia. This is an insane policy of unjustified aggression.

It is especially insane considering that present and former members of US intelligence agencies do not support the White House’s assertions about Russian cyberattacks. Indeed respected former US intelligence experts have cogently argued that Washington’s claims of Russian hacking are completely spurious. Moreover, two polls reported by the Washington Times and Washington Post this week also show that the majority of American people do not believe that Russia interfered in the US election.

As for the American and European claims about «massacres» in Aleppo, amplified by the dutiful mainstream media all week, there is neither evidence nor testimonies from the tens of thousands of civilians pouring out of the former terror enclaves. The reckless claims are merely propaganda rumors put out by terrorist apologists and recycled by Western media. Perversely unreported in the Western media are the real stories of civilians having lived under horror imposed by the Western-backed so-called «rebels». Largely unreported by the Western media is the dominant mood of celebration and relief among civilians for having been liberated by the combined efforts of the Syrian army and its Russian, Iranian and Lebanese allies.

Where are the «moderate rebels» now that the veil of secrecy has finally been lifted from eastern Aleppo? Where are the so-called neutral rescuers belonging to the White Helmets, who only a few weeks ago Western media were championing for a Nobel peace prize? They are all piling on to the same buses with the jihadi terrorists to be evacuated to nearby Idlib city as part of a surrender deal. In other words, the West has been all along backing terrorists, and now their terrorist proxies are seen by the whole world as being routed from Aleppo after four years of holding the eastern side of the city hostage.

Liberated civilians tell of a reign of terror, how their family members were threatened by the Western-backed jihadis with execution if any of them dared to escape from the captive terror enclaves. Buildings recovered by the Syrian army have shown humanitarian aid, medicines and food stockpiled by the terrorists which they used to extort the civilian population. None of this is broadcast by the Western news media of course. Instead, they indulged in gory fantasies about the Syrian army committing summary executions and other atrocities against women and children. Stories, it should be noted, which have since petered out because there is no evidence to back them up.

CNN’s self-important journalist Christiane Amanpour this week gave a platform to an alleged doctor, Hamza al-Khatib, who made unsubstantiated claims that children were being massacred in a basement by Syrian forces. Amanpour expressed horror as if the allegation was fact. The same «fact» was then reiterated by US ambassador to the UN Samantha Power. Turns out that Hamza al-Khatib is not even a doctor, according the Aleppo University records, where he once studied.

CNN’s alleged doctor Hamza Al Khatib with head-chopping jihadi friends

In the past, he has been photographed in the company of the jihadi terrorists who were were responsible for the beheading of a 12-year-old Palestinian refugee boy Abdullah Issa near Aleppo. Reliable sources dispute that Hamza al-Khatib is even residing in east Aleppo where he claims to be. It is believed he is hiding out in neighboring Turkey, from where he gives interviews to gullible hacks like Amanpour. (Notice his smirk in the linked interview video when Amanpour naively asks how he remains safe in Aleppo.)

Western lies and fake narratives about Syria were torn asunder this week. Sanctimonious Washington and European lackeys are exposed in their responsibility for fueling the war in Syria by giving cover to terrorist gangs as supposed «moderate rebels».

Western governments, UN diplomats and media organizations are shown to be complicit in a state-sponsored terrorist conspiracy against the Syrian nation.

Russia has played a vital and truly heroic role in saving Syria from a Western-imposed charnel house.

And so, with the bitter taste of defeat over the historic battle for Aleppo, Washington and Europe are lashing out irrationally to further demonize Russia. Cyber war threats and economic aggression through sanctions are the Western response to bitter defeat.

December 17, 2016 Posted by | Deception, Illegal Occupation, Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Obama vows ‘action’ in response to alleged Russian hacking

RT | December 16, 2016

Barack Obama has vowed to take retaliatory measures against Russia, both public and covert, accusing Moscow of compromising the “integrity” of the US elections through the DNC email hacks. US intelligence has yet to provide any evidence of Russian involvement.

“I think there is no doubt that when any foreign government tries to impact the integrity of our elections … we need to take action. And we will — at a time and place of our own choosing,” President Obama said in an interview with NPR on Friday.

The US leader did not elaborate on whether the steps would be taken in the five weeks he has left in office.

Neither did he specify what type of action might be taken, saying only that “some of it may be explicit and publicized; some of it may not be.”

While Obama spoke of the Russian government’s alleged role in the hacking of Democratic National Committee (DNC) communications as a proven fact, he fell short of accusing Moscow of purposefully aiding US President-elect Donald Trump without a “final report” from US intelligence agencies.

“And so when I receive a final report, you know, we’ll be able to, I think, give us a comprehensive and best guess as to those motivations,” he said.

Obama argued, however, that even without a comprehensive report it should be obvious that “what the Russian hack had done was create more problems for the [Hillary] Clinton campaign than it had for the Trump campaign.”

At the same time, the outgoing president admitted that although the scandal that ensued from the leaks – and the subsequent way it was reported in the media – “had some impact” on the election campaign, “you never know which factors are going to make a difference.”

Earlier, Trump dismissed as a “conspiracy theory” claims made by anonymous CIA officials, and reported by the Washington Post, that Russian intelligence hacked the DNC emails to propel him to the presidency.

Obama was also wary of accusing the Trump campaign of having anything to do with the leaks, refusing to feed into conspiracy theories, while saying that the Republican candidate’s camp had simply exploited the incident to its maximum benefit.

“They understood what everybody else understood, which was that this was not good for Hillary Clinton’s campaign,” Obama said.

Obama is not the first senior US official to threaten Russia with countermeasures to avenge the alleged hack, involvement in which the Russian government vehemently denies.

Back in October, US Vice President Joe Biden told NBC that Washington would be “sending a message to [Russian President Vladimir] Putin” that “will be executed at the time of our choosing, and under the circumstances that will have the greatest impact.”

At the time, NBC also cited intelligence officials with “direct knowledge of the situation” as saying that the CIA had been ordered to devise a plan for a “clandestine” cyber strike against Russia in order to “embarrass” Moscow. The outlet reported that the agents had already embarked on preparations for a large-scale attack.

On Thursday, “anonymous CIA officials with direct access to information” went as far as to claim that the Russian president himself might have authorized the alleged hacks.

Obama’s deputy national security adviser, Ban Rhodes, reiterated the claims to MSNBC, saying he doesn’t think “things happen in the Russian government of this consequence without Vladimir Putin knowing about it.”

These latest allegations were dismissed by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov as nonsensical.

“I think that the stupidity and hopelessness of such an attempt to convince people of this is obvious,” he said on Thursday.

Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), a group of former CIA and NSA agents, doubt the credibility of this version, adding that “harder evidence of a technical nature” suggests it was an inside job and not a hack by “Russians or anyone else.”

VIPS signed a memorandum published by Consortium News on Thursday. One of the letter’s authors, former NSA technician and whistleblower Bill Binney, told RT that “all points point to leaking, not hacking,” noting that if it was indeed a hack, the NSA would have long ago found a trace route.

Taking into account the scope of the NSA’s “extensive domestic data-collection network” uncovered in Edward Snowden’s revelations, “it beggars belief that NSA would be unable to identify anyone – Russian or not – attempting to interfere in a US election by hacking,” the veterans wrote, adding that such proof, if it existed, could be presented by the NSA “without any danger to sources or methods.”

Binney recalled that on a similar occasion with Chinese hackers, the NSA was able to trace the route of the hack to the specific building from which it was launched, which made him think that the accusations against Russia put forward by military intelligence were politically motivated.

Former UK ambassador to Uzbekistan-turned-WikiLeaks operative Craig Murray also challenged the official US version of events, claiming the source of the hacks was an insider who “had legal access to information.”

“The documents came from inside leaks, not hacks,” he told the Daily Mail, claiming that he himself took part in the handover operation in the woods in northwest Washington DC, where a representative of the source of the leaks allegedly gave him a package with the data.

Read more:

Media reporting on hacked DNC emails acted as ‘arms of Russian intelligence’ – White House

DNC docs were leaked, not hacked, intelligence veterans say

December 16, 2016 Posted by | Deception, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Progressive Hypocrite | , , , , | 1 Comment

US troops rushed to Poland before Trump’s inauguration

RT | December 14, 2016

More than 4,000 US troops are presently on their way to Poland, as part of a test deployment intended to “deter” Russia. Citing “Russian aggression” in Ukraine, NATO has planned to station four battalions in Poland and the Baltic states by May 2017.

Polish Defense Minister Antoni Macierewicz made the announcement on Wednesday in the Silesian town of Zagan, where he met with Lieutenant-General Ben Hodges, commander of US land forces in Europe, according to AP.

The unit was identified as the 3rd Brigade Combat Team, part of the 4th Infantry Division stationed at Fort Carson, Colorado. The armor-heavy team is also known as the “Iron Brigade” and recently celebrated its centenary.

Hodges said that the unit has already moved out of Fort Carson and its equipment is being loaded onto ships. The troops will arrive to the German port of Bremerhaven on January 6 and immediately deploy to Poland, the Baltic states and Romania, in a test of “how fast the force can move from port to field.”

“I’m confident in the very powerful signal, the message it will send [that] the United States, along with the rest of NATO, is committed to deterrence,” Hodges said.

With the Iron Brigade headed for Zagan, it appears its deployment will be in addition to the four battalions NATO had decided to permanently station in member states bordering Russia. According to the decision reached at the alliance’s Warsaw summit in July, some 1,000 US soldiers currently stationed in Germany would be moved to Poland. AP has identified their location as Orzysz, a town in eastern Poland close to Russia’s Kaliningrad Region.

Some 2,000 British and Canadian troops would be stationed in Estonia and Latvia, respectively, while a 1,000-strong German-led armored battalion would be deployed in Lithuania, for the first time since WWII. The reinforcements were supposed to be in place by April 2017.

“I am very happy that a decision has been taken by the US side for an earlier deployment,” Macierewicz said, according to AP.

No reason was given for the extraordinary deployment by either Hodges or Macierewicz. President-elect Donald Trump, who has criticized NATO for being obsolete and voiced intentions to mend relations between the US and Russia, is scheduled to take the oath of office on January 20.

December 14, 2016 Posted by | Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite | , | Leave a comment

White House Claims Trump Aides Bankrolled by Kremlin

Sputnik – 13.12.2016

White House spokesman Josh Earnest accused Donald Trump and his top aides of enjoying lucrative connections with Russia, effectively implying a conflict of interests.

The White House appears to be dedicated to its stalwart campaign to ferret out any traces of Donald Trump and his team secretly conspiring with Russia, no matter how imaginary they are.

During his daily briefing on Monday, December 12, White House spokesman Josh Earnest insisted that Donald Trump and some of his top aides allegedly enjoy lucrative ties with Russia or even directly receive money from a “Russian propaganda outlet.”

“It was the president-elect who refused to disclose his financial connections to Russia. It was the president-elect who hired a campaign chairman with extensive, lucrative, personal financial ties to Russia. It was the president-elect who had a national security adviser on the campaign that had been a paid contributor to RT, the Russian propaganda outlet,” Earnest declared.

While the spokesman opted not to name any names in his accusatory speech, it is not hard to deduce that the “campaign chairman” in question is Paul Manafort, a one-time advisor to the former Ukrainian president Victor Yanukovich, while the “national security adviser” is Ret. Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency.

It should be noted that Manafort was earlier accused by Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau of pocketing some $12.7 million worth of ‘black cash’ supplied by corrupt Ukrainian oligarchs. However, the agency was subsequently unable to provide any evidence of these alleged wrongdoings, and Nazar Kholodnytskiy, head of the Ukraine’s Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office, had to admit that so far no reason has been found to hand Manafort a notice of suspicion, RIA Novosti points out.

Meanwhile, Michael Flynn did indeed appear as a guest on RT and even attended the RT anniversary event in Moscow, where he was seated next to Russia’s President Vladimir Putin. Nevertheless, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov made it clear that Putin and Flynn did not engage in lengthy conversations of any kind.

RT was less than amused by the accusations brought forward by Earnest against both Flynn and the news agency, and decided to clarify the issue in no uncertain terms. “We are rather amazed at the misinformation peddled by White House press secretary Josh Earnest. At no time has General Michael Flynn ever been a paid contributor to RT. General Flynn has appeared as a guest on our award-winning news network, alongside many international experts who respond to our invitation to share their views,” the news channel’s press office stated.

It remains to be seen whether the Obama administration will continue to push forward these claims.

December 13, 2016 Posted by | Deception, Progressive Hypocrite | , , | 1 Comment

New Tempest Erupts over ‘Russian Hacking’… plus a suggestion for Donald Trump

By Richard Edmondson | Fig Trees and Vineyards | December 10, 2016

The Obama administration has ordered a full intelligence review into alleged efforts by Russian hackers to influence the outcome of the presidential election, with the president, according to media reports, requesting that a report on the matter to be completed before he leaves office on January 20.

Deputy White House Press Secretary Eric Schultz says he wants “to be clear” that this is not in any way an effort to undermine Trump’s legitimacy to hold office, only that there is a need to look at possible “malicious activity” carried out by the Russians.

“I think this is going to be a deep dive,” Schultz said, taking pains to clarify that the investigation will examine not only putative Russian manipulation of the most recent election, but also alleged tampering of the elections of 2012 and 2008.

I have a suggestion for Donald Trump. He probably won’t heed it, but I will offer it anyway: that immediately upon assuming office, he order the Office of Management and Budget to investigate how much tax money was squandered by the Obama administration in nearly six years of efforts to overthrow the government in Syria. Maybe Trump could order a ‘deep dive’ and ask the OMB to have the report completed within his first 60 days in office.

Many people, naturally, would see such a call as a retaliation for the investigation now being ordered by Obama–and certainly the media would report it that way–but the results of an investigation of this sort would be at least as beneficial, and probably a whole lot more interesting, than anything that might be turned up about Russians hacking into the computer systems of two thoroughly corrupt political parties.

We could find out, for instance, how much the US spent training and equipping Nour al-Din al-Zenki, the “moderate rebel” group which beheaded a 12-year-old Syrian child on video last July.

Yes, it would be nice if Trump were to order such an investigation… but I’m not going to hold my breath. In any event, we seem to be entering a new phase of anti-Russian propaganda in the media. The call for the intelligence review was made by an Obama administration official on Friday–the same day the Washington Post, in a report based almost solely on anonymous, unnamed “officials,” published allegations about a “secret CIA assessment” whose conclusion is that Russia sought to throw the election to Trump.

“The CIA has concluded in a secret assessment that Russia intervened in the 2016 election to help Donald Trump win the presidency, rather than just to undermine confidence in the U.S. electoral system, according to officials briefed on the matter,” reports the Post.

Repeat: it wasn’t just a case of Russia trying to undermine faith in America’s wonderful, spectacular democracy where office is generally for sale to the highest bidder. No, it was Russia deliberately trying to put Trump into the White House, according to the Post–which is a short step away from accusing Trump of being a Russian agent.

There is also the claim that the Russians hacked into the files of both the Republican Party and the DNC, but that they (the Russians) deliberately sat on the material stolen from the Republicans, choosing instead only to release material embarrassing to the Democrats.

Could any of this be credible? Hard to say, but it seems the vote recount effort has fizzled out, and the new call for an investigation could be a “plan B” aimed either at getting Hillary in the White House or at least weakening Trump to the point where he will essentially be unable to govern or pursue his own independent foreign policy. That’s one way of looking at it anyway.

It also could be designed to create a schism within the Republican Party in the sense that many Republicans could end up finding themselves faced with the difficult choice of having to avow loyalty to their president or loyalty to America. As the Post puts it:

On the other hand, if Republicans downplay the issue, they risk giving a pass to an antagonistic foreign power whom significant majorities of Americans and members of Congress don’t trust and who, if the evidence is accurate, wields significant power to wage successful cyber warfare with the United States.

grahamTwo prominent Republicans in the Senate, Lindsey Graham and John McCain, have jumped on the bandwagon in support of a Senate probe into Russian hacking.

“I’m going after Russia in every way you can go after Russia,” said Graham. “I think they’re one of the most destabilizing influences on the world stage. I think they did interfere with our elections, and I want Putin personally to pay the price.”

It isn’t the US–a country that has been involved in one war or regime change after another for the last 25 years–that is “the most destabilizing influence on the world stage,” in Graham’s opinion; it is Russia.

Trump’s response has been to dismiss the allegations of Russian hacking, while also recalling lies of the past:

These are the same people that said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. The election ended a long time ago in one of the biggest Electoral College victories in history. It’s now time to move on and ‘Make America Great Again.

How all this will play out remains to be seen, but it looks like the political divisions in America are widening rather than narrowing…and it also looks like the propaganda war against Russia will continue to be used to the advantage of one side–beyond the November election and on into the new administration.

If the Russians thought sanity would prevail after the transition of power in January, they’re probably in for a disappointment.

December 10, 2016 Posted by | Deception, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Progressive Hypocrite | , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Snowflake Nation and Trump on Immigration

By Renee Parsons | CounterPunch | December 9, 2016

There is no doubt that the 2016 Presidential election may ultimately be declared the most divisive and the most problematic election in American history, indeed the beginning of an unwelcome but perhaps necessary watershed event.

As the 2016 election approached, the importance of the Electoral College was never an unknown obscurity of American politics. Everyone knew the magic number of 270 electoral votes. Certainly that fact should have been of uppermost importance in the HRC and Trump campaigns. As should be completely obvious, a campaign based on reaching that Electoral College number is a very different campaign than one conducted simply to achieve the highest total of popular votes. That is Lesson #1 in Elementary Presidential Campaign Organizing 101 but HRC never grasped that she could not manipulate the final result, whatever the outcome.

My first indication that there would be an ultra-upset with the results was a very late election evening call from an east coast Dem-Lib friend who had supported Bernie – sobbing and wailing; at times it was difficult to understand her; Initially I thought she had tragically lost a member of her family, perhaps the family dog had been hit by a car. “What is happening to our country? I can’t believe it,” she cried. She was inconsolably distraught that the nation was about to be taken over by gangs of the indescribable ‘deplorable’ type running wild through the streets; setting cars on fire, blocking traffic, burning the American flag, breaking store windows and causing general mayhem while committing acts of civil unrest and even threatening Constitutional order.

Well, she was correct; some of that happened but it was not the deplorables who took to the streets, gloating in triumph or taunting the losers with defeat. To consider the anti Trump street protests as ‘resistance’ may be more about wishful thinking since they were clearly orchestrated by Soros-sponsored groups like MoveOn.org which will continue their ‘group think’ campaign to manipulate a public response to The Donald.

Like many of us during our voting years, there has been no candidate whom we truly believed would make a Great President. Many of us have spent a decade or two of disillusionment on election night and yet our inner Snowflakes never cried, spun off into hysterics nor did most of us ever have the luxury of having a tantrum or an emotional breakdown. Disappointment yes – like when Ralph lost the 2000 election and then again in 2004. What was wrong with the country? Why would anyone vote for a Democratic party that had dismantled welfare reform, throwing single moms and their kids off their monthly pittance and do nothing to initiate a modern day Reconstruction for the inner cities? Why would anyone vote for a Democrat who was, at best, an undercover Republicrat? Why couldn’t the rest of the country see through the partisan platitudes and lies?

If the response to Trump’s election had been spontaneous and independent uprisings as acts of defiance, the opposition would be validated as authentic and powerful glimmers of a true democratic movement. Unfortunately, they are more reminiscent of the coordinated Color campaigns that have taken place around the globe with one goal in mind – regime change.

It has been stunning to observe the outpouring of easily-led, well-meaning adolescents who continue to be betrayed by Bernie, the Senate’s new Outreach Chair as well as adult Dem-Libs convinced of their own superiority that they know best for every other American and who yet believe themselves to be tolerant and respectful of differences.

To understand that the street protests were coordinated, predetermined efforts rather than spontaneous, instinctive events is one thing (authentic taking-to-the-streets response are the backbone of democracy), but then to witness the emotional, cultural breakdown of a weeping, traumatized generation with an inability to cope with reality, their immediate environment or life’s vagaries is more than worrisome. The videos of students in need of play doh, arts and craft classes, group counseling, excused absence from class, coloring books and safe spaces are indicative of a coddled generation sheltered from the ‘real’ feelings of failure and pain and with little developed sense of self-reliance. Have we created a generation raised with an expectation that they earned a soccer trophy for losing and deserve the latest cd and the newest digital toy at their fingertips.

Will this be a generation with the fortitude, the intellect and the inner core of strength to some day take the reins of government or, in the meantime, to stand up in a powerful way against the established order or will they crumple when truly confronted with the brick-wall of opposition to their egalitarian ideals.

So far, from what we have seen, protest violence, albeit a minority, has been a response which begs the question of who is committing the violence? Is there an SDS off shoot on the horizon or is there an undercurrent of something more sinister?

To those who see Trump’s election as a dire misdirection for the country and that all he represents as objectionable (and yes, many of his Cabinet appointments are objectionable but then some of us elders felt the same about Obama’s cabinet), then man the barricades and dig in with some strategic thinking; preferably not at the knee of MoveOn or other oligarch funded ‘non-profits’ which have their own agenda to control a protest movement.

A Constitutional response is that this is what Election Day is all about and that, like it or not, Donald Trump is the democratically elected President and who can forget as HRC so eloquently put it that whoever does not accept election results is a “direct threat to our democracy.” Et tu, Hillary? As a refresher, we have an Electoral College process to protect the concept of “one person, one vote;” that is a vote in Los Angeles is no more important than a vote in Wood River, Illinois and the transparent efforts to delegitimize the Trump election with specious, frivolous claims of hacking represents a self-serving, inappropriate intrusion into our Constitutional democratic process. I don’t buy Stein’s assertions for a moment.

While ‘Deport Trump’ signs have been evident throughout the protests as a major objection to a Trump Presidency, my grasp of the President-elect’s immigration policy has been sketchy, encouraged some of my own research. Check this out:

“All Americans not only in the states most heavily affected by and in every place in this country are rightly disturbed by the large number of illegal aliens entering our country. The jobs they hold might otherwise be held by citizens or legal immigrants. The public services they use impose burdens on our taxpayers. That’s why our administration has moved aggressively to secure our borders more by hiring a record number of new border guards, by deporting twice as many criminal aliens as ever before, by cracking down on illegal hiring, by barring welfare benefit to illegal aliens. In the budget I will present to you, we will try to do more to speed the deportation of illegal aliens who are arrested for crimes, to better identify illegal aliens in the work place as recommended by the commission head by former Rep Barbara Jordan. We are a nation of immigrants but we are also a nation of laws. It is wrong and ultimately self-defeating for a nation of immigrants to permit the kind of abuse of our immigration laws we have seen in recent years and we must do more to stop it.”

Sounds like Trump right? Actually that was President Bill Clinton’s 1995 State of the Union Address to Congress for which he received a standing ovation. Needless to say, neither Obama who has deported two million illegals and Clinton were never accused of being racist but we now know that the Democrats have realized what a trove of potential registered Democrats the immigrant community represent.

And then there is the issue of Trump’s plan to register Muslims in a database from specific countries with a history of terrorism which has been criticized as further evidence of Trump’s racism. Trump’s proposal sounds similar to the Entry-Exit Registration System established by President GW Bush in 2001, the system later morphed into the Department of Homeland Security and was operational until 2011.

During the Iranian hostage crisis of 1980, President Jimmy Carter adopted a ban of Shiite Muslim immigrants from Iran entering into the US in an effort to ‘protect the country.” He ultimately deported 15,000 Iranian students. Carter’s ban “invalidated all visas issued to Iranian citizens for future entry into the United States.”

So if we accept that there is common ground amongst Presidents Clinton, GW Bush, Carter and President elect Trump that the impact of illegal immigration on our public school system and other social institutions is a legitimate concern for the nation, why the double standard? It is not just because Trump does not fit into the image of a sleek, urbane President; he is not a smooth, sugar coated talker like Obama while a rough-around-the-edges Trump may actually act on immigration reform.

On the campaign trail, the President-elect has been hyperbolic and straightforward, sometimes crude and discourteous and yet Trump has questioned the globalized economy and trade deals, the existence of NATO and the Fed Banks, a desire to get along with Russia and in his Cincinnati speech, establish a “new foreign policy that will stop looking to topple regimes and overthrow governments. Our goal is stability; not chaos” and more recently in North Carolina to “reestablish the Rule of Law and defend the Constitution of the US.”

When was the last time a Democrat talked like that or are those peace-niks among us being conned? Who does that kind of language threaten?

Renee Parsons has been a member of the ACLU’s Florida State Board of Directors and president of the ACLU Treasure Coast Chapter. She has been an elected public official in Colorado, an environmental lobbyist and staff member of the US House of Representatives in Washington DC. She can be found on Twitter @reneedove31

December 9, 2016 Posted by | Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite, Timeless or most popular | , , | Leave a comment

Pentagon to deploy 2,300 more US troops to Afghanistan

Press TV – December 9, 2016

The United States military says it will deploy an armor brigade and an aviation brigade totaling about 2,300 soldiers to Afghanistan this winter.

The Pentagon made the announcement in a statement released on Thursday, saying 1,500 soldiers will be sent to Afghanistan this winter, in addition to another 800 troops that will be deployed in support of a training mission known as Operation Freedom’s Sentinel.

“This deployment is part of a regular rotation of forces in support of Operation Freedom’s Sentinel,” the press release stated, adding that the soldiers were “well-trained, well-led and fully prepared for the challenges this mission will bring.”

No exact date was given in the announcement for when the US troops will leave for the deployment to Afghanistan.

The United States — under Republican George W. Bush’s presidency — and its allies invaded Afghanistan on October 7, 2001 as part of Washington’s so-called war on terror. The offensive removed the Taliban regime from power, but after about one and-a-half-decade, the foreign troops are still deployed to the country.

After becoming the president in 2008, President Barack Obama, a Democrat, vowed to end the Afghan war — one of the longest conflicts in US history – but he failed to keep his promise.

US President-elect Donald Trump, who speaks against the Afghan war, has dubbed the 2001 invasion and following occupation of Afghanistan as “Obama’s war”.

Obama has ordered the military to take on the Taliban more directly and enable Afghan forces battling the militant group.

In October last year, Obama announced plans to keep 9,800 US troops in Afghanistan through 2016 and 5,500 in 2017, reneging on his promise to end the war there and bring home most American forces from the Asian country before he leaves office.

According to US officials, Washington would also maintain a large counter-terrorism capability of terror drones and Special Operations Forces to fight militants in Afghanistan.

There are now about 10,000 American troops in Afghanistan, as well as some 6,000 NATO service members, to “train and advise” Afghan security forces fighting Taliban.

Over the past several months, Taliban militants have intensified their pressure with numerous offensives on other key Afghan provinces, including Kunduz and Takhar.

December 9, 2016 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite | , , | Leave a comment

To err is Human, to Intervene and Destroy is Policy

By Salman Rafi Sheikh | New Eastern Outlook | 09.12.2016

The nature of international politics is often considered to be such that it continuously defies clear and absolute judgement; however, notwithstanding the complexity of inter-state relations, very often we come across such instances where understanding of the policy of a state, or of an alliance, does not defy understanding and judgement. From the very beginning of the crisis, it has been absolutely clear that the US and its allies are pursuing a regime-change policy in Syria—a policy that not only is still valid but also continues to define their strategy. Materialization of this objective pits the US against Syria and its allies and engages both parties in war—and in war soldiers are killed. Therefore, the US clarification about striking Syrian soldiers due to the so-called “human error” is only an attempt on its part to mystify the actual nature of its objectives in Syria. Nothing else can better explain the strike that killed around 80 soldiers than the fundamental reason for the US’ military engagement in Syria i.e., execution of regime change policy in Syria.

While one strike in itself was, and always is, far from sufficient to achieve this objective, a strike, however, does convey to its targets and to those who observe it the objective being pursued. In this case, the immediate objective was to inflict heavy damage on the Syrian army and render it vulnerable to attacks by other, western supported, militant groups. The objective was, to an extent, achieved. This is evident from the developments taking place immediately after the US-led strike. A weakened Syrian army unit enabled an ISIS advance on a hill overlooking the air base, which was specifically targeted by the US-led coalition. While the objective of this co-ordinated operation was to quickly capture the base, it was thwarted by timely action on the part of Russian warplanes that were called in to hit ISIS positions.

Had the attack been successful, it might have caused massive destruction. ISIS had, prior to the attack by the coalition, repeatedly attacked and failed to capture the government-held air base, which is an isolated enclave deep in extremist-held territory. The government controls the air base and parts of Dayr az Zawr city, while ISIS controls the entire province by the same name. An ISIS advance in Dayr az Zawr would have, and would still, endanger the lives of tens of thousands of civilians living in government-held areas and force the Syrian army out of the territory.

What would have such a scenario implied for the over-all situation of Syria is not so difficult to grasp. While the US has now stated it “regrets” the bombing, it has not, in any way, apologized to Syria for this wanton act of mayhem, thus confirming its unchanged position vis-à-vis Syria, which continues to remain a clear cut target of the regime-change conspiracy—a policy that has been applied by NATO in many countries since the end of the Second World War. The most recent cases of Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria confirm that this policy has remained unchanged.

The latest confirmation to the unabated continuation of this policy has come from one of the most important NATO allies, Turkey. On November 29, Turkey’s self-styled “caliph” said, reiterating NATO’s long held objective, that the Turkish military had launched its operations in Syria to end the rule of (the cruel) Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

He further said, “Why did we enter? We do not have an eye on Syrian soil. The issue is to provide lands to their real owners. That is to say we are there for the establishment of justice. We entered there to end the rule of the tyrant al-Assad who terrorizes with state terror. [We didn’t enter] for any other reason.”

While this statement has come as a surprise to Russia, leading Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov to say that they were hoping “our Turkish partners will provide us with some kind of explanation about this”, the move itself not only largely reflects the dual game Turkey is playing in Syria but also shows how the former fundamentally continues to adhere to NATO’s central objective in Syria, thus debunking the myth of Turkey’ estrangement with the US or the EU or the NATO itself.

The tacit continuity of co-operation between Turkey and the US is not limited to the perusal of identical objectives. On the contrary, it is co-operation on the ground that speaks volumes about Turkey’s actual position and policy vis-à-vis Syria. For instance, Turkey’s operation Euphrates Shield, which begun in August and which is supposedly aimed at rolling back ISIS from the Syrian region bordering Turkey, had actually begun, succeeded and territorially spread under the protection, assistance and advice provided by the US military. The US advisers assisted the operation from inside Turkey, while US warplanes conducted airstrikes alongside Turkish ones in support of the offensive. Could we still say that Turkey and the US were, or are, on a collision course since the failed coup attempt in Turkey in July 2016?

This co-ordinated attack was followed, in September, by a welcome note by the NATO chief about Turkey’s enhanced role in Syria against “terrorism” and attacks of all kinds.

The continued co-operation between Turkey, which had initially officially sent troops to Syria to fight ISIS, and the US and Erdogan’s recent claim that they are in Syria to send Assad home unambiguously show the way this alliance is working in the region. With Turkey’s operation Euphrates Shield expanding into operation occupation, and with Turkey equally seeking to enlist US support to capture al-Bab, there remains hardly any room to doubt that the US and Turkey are seeking to achieve what the ISIS had earlier achieved, and then lost, in terms of capturing Syrian territory.

With ISIS being itself unable to withhold the Syrian offensive being backed the Russian forces and Iran backed militias, Turkey and the US, as also their Arab and Western allies, were left with no other choice but to directly intervene in Syria to deny the Syrian army the opportunity to have the whole of Syria under its control.

This being the case-scenario of Syria, the Pentagon’s clarification about the September strike being a result of “human error” is erroneous. What, on the contrary, perfectly corresponds with the US policy and objectives it is pursuing in Syria is not this clarification but the strike itself—something that, had it been successful, might have allowed IS to bring an entire province under its sole control and considerably damage the Syrian army.

What this scenario reveals is that the earlier policy of bringing regime change in Syria through proxy groups is now being replaced by a policy of direct intervention and gradual insertion of NATO in the conflict via Turkey. Conflict in Syria is therefore not ending, only its dynamics are changing from in-direct to direct intervention.

December 9, 2016 Posted by | Deception, Illegal Occupation, Progressive Hypocrite, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Obama grants waiver for military support of foreign fighters in Syria – White House

RT | December 8, 2016

President Barack Obama has ordered a waiver of restrictions on military aid for foreign forces in Syria, deeming it “essential to the national security interests” of the US to allow exceptions from provisions in the four-decades-old Arms Export Control Act.

A White House press release Thursday announced that foreign fighters in Syria supporting US special operations “to combat terrorism in Syria” would be excused from restrictions on military assistance.

“I hereby determine that the transaction, encompassing the provision of defense articles and services to foreign forces, irregular forces, groups, or individuals engaged in supporting or facilitating ongoing U.S. military operations to counter terrorism in Syria, is essential to the national security interests of the United States,” President Obama affirmed in the presidential determination and waiver.

The order delegates responsibility to the US secretary of state to work with and report to Congress on weapons export proposals, requiring 15 days of notice before they are authorized.

Obama announced a similar waiver of the Arms Export Control Act in September 2013, following the Ghouta chemical attack in August of that year. That order facilitated the transfer of US military weaponry to “select vetted members” of opposition forces battling Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, while Thursday’s order appears less narrow in scope.

The challenge of differentiating between terrorist forces, such as Al-Nusra, and more moderate forces in Syria has been acknowledged by press secretaries in recent State Department briefings.

December 8, 2016 Posted by | Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite, War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

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