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Don’t Laugh – It’s Giving Putin What He Wants

By Caitlin JOHNSTONE | Medium | December 15, 2018

The BBC has published an article titled “How Putin’s Russia turned humour into a weapon” about the Kremlin’s latest addition to its horrifying deadly hybrid warfare arsenal: comedy.

The article is authored by Olga Robinson, whom the BBC, unhindered by any trace of self-awareness, has titled “Senior Journalist (Disinformation)”. Robinson demonstrates the qualifications and acumen which earned her that title by warning the BBC’s audience that the Kremlin has been using humor to dismiss and ridicule accusations that have been leveled against it by western governments, a “form of trolling” that she reports is designed to “deliberately lower the level of discussion”.

“Russia’s move towards using humour to influence its campaigns is a relatively recent phenomenon,” Robinson explains, without speculating as to why Russians might have suddenly begun laughing at their western accusers. She gives no consideration to the possibility that the tightly knit alliance of western nations who suddenly began hysterically shrieking about Russia two years ago have simply gotten much more ridiculous and easier to make fun of during that time.

Couldn’t possibly have anything to do with the emergence of a demented media environment wherein everything around the world from French protests to American culture wars to British discontent with the European Union gets blamed on Russia without any facts or evidence. Wherein BBC reporters now correct guests and caution them against voicing skepticism of anti-Russia narratives because the UK is in “an information war” with that nation. Wherein the same cable news Russiagate pundit can claim that both Rex Tillerson’s hiring and his later firing were the result of a Russian conspiracy to benefit the Kremlin. Wherein mainstream outlets can circulate blatantly false information about Julian Assange and unnamed “Russians” and then blame the falseness of that reporting on Russian disinformation. Wherein Pokemon Go, cutesy Facebook memes and $4,700 in Google ads are sincerely cited as methods by which Hillary Clinton’s $1.2 billion presidential campaign was outdone. Wherein conspiracy theories that Putin has infiltrated the highest levels of the US government have been blaring on mainstream headline news for two years with absolutely nothing to show for it to this day.

Nope, the only possibility is that the Kremlin suddenly figured out that humor is a thing.

The fact of the matter is that humorous lampooning of western establishment Russia narratives writes itself. The hypocrisy is so cartoonish, the emotions are so breathlessly over-the-top, the stories so riddled with plot holes and the agendas underlying them so glaringly obvious that they translate very easily into laughs. I myself recently authored a satire piece that a lot of people loved and which got picked up by numerous alternative media outlets, and all I did was write down all the various escalations this administration has made against Russia as though they were commands being given to Trump by Putin. It was extremely easy to write, and it was pretty damn funny if I do say so myself. And it didn’t take any Kremlin rubles or dezinformatsiya from St Petersburg to figure out how to write it.

“Ben Nimmo, an Atlantic Council researcher on Russian disinformation, told the BBC that attempts to create funny memes were part of the strategy as ‘disinformation for the information age’,” the article warns. Nimmo, ironically, is himself intimately involved with the British domestic disinformation firm Integrity Initiative, whose shady government-sponsored psyops against the Labour Party have sparked a national scandal that is likely far from reaching peak intensity.

“Most comedy programmes on Russian state television these days are anodyne affairs which either do not touch on political topics, or direct humour at the Kremlin’s perceived enemies abroad,” Robinson writes, which I found funny since I’d just recently read an excellent essay by Michael Tracey titled “Why has late night swapped laughs for lusting after Mueller?”

“If the late night ‘comedy’ of the Trump era has something resembling a ‘message,’ it’s that large segments of the nation’s liberal TV viewership are nervously tracking every Russia development with a passion that cannot be conducive to mental health — or for that matter, political efficacy,” Tracey writes, documenting numerous examples of the ways late night comedy now has audiences cheering for a US intelligence insider and Bush appointee instead of challenging power-serving media orthodoxies as programs like The Daily Show once did.

If you wanted the opposite of “anodyne affairs”, it would be comedians ridiculing the way all the establishment talking heads are manipulating their audiences into supporting the US intelligence community and FBI insiders. It would be excoriating the media environment in which unfathomably powerful world-dominating government agencies are subject to less scrutiny and criticism than a man trapped in an embassy who published inconvenient facts about those agencies. It certainly wouldn’t be the cast of Saturday Night Live singing “All I Want for Christmas Is You” to a framed portrait of Robert Mueller wearing a Santa hat. It doesn’t get much more anodyne than that.

Russia makes fun of western establishment narratives about it because those narratives are so incredibly easy to make fun of that they are essentially asking for it, and the nerdy way empire loyalists are suddenly crying victim about it is itself more comedy. When Guardian writer Carole Cadwalladr began insinuating that RT covering standard newsworthy people like Julian Assange and Nigel Farage was a conspiracy to “boost” those people for the advancement of Russian agendas instead of a news outlet doing the thing that news reporting is, RT rightly made fun of her for it. Cadwalladr reacted to RT’s mockery with a claim that she was a victim of “attacks”, instead of the recipient of perfectly justified ridicule for circulating an intensely moronic conspiracy theory.

Ah well. People are nuts and we’re hurtling toward a direct confrontation with a nuclear superpower. Sometimes there’s nothing else to do but laugh. As Wavy Gravy said, “Keep your sense of humor, my friend; if you don’t have a sense of humor it just isn’t funny anymore.”

December 18, 2018 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Russophobia, Timeless or most popular | , , | Leave a comment

UK psyops bigwig pushed plan to ‘mine Sevastopol Bay’ during 2014 Crimea crisis – leaked documents

RT | December 17, 2018

In the midst of the Crimean crisis, a special adviser to the UK House of Commons Defence Committee had a suggestion for Kiev – to lay mines in Sevastopol Bay, leaked documents have revealed.

“I am trying to get this message across” to Kiev, reads a leaked document purporting to show the strategy that Christopher Donnelly, who was a Special Adviser to the UK House of Commons Defence Committee, recommends.

The documents, leaked by a group which claims to be associated with the Anonymous hackers, purport to indicate that Donnelly had drafted “military measures” that he would implement if he, personally was “in charge.” The documents are allegedly dated March 01, 2014, when the Crimean crisis was in full swing.

A print screen of the leaked document with alleged “military measures” which Christopher Donnelly wanted to communicate to Kiev. ©  cyberguerrilla.org

Donnelly noted that “at the moment the new ‘Government’ in Kyiv is unable to think in terms of military reality,” since it was not sure if its “orders will be obeyed or not.”

“They are like a rabbit in the car’s headlights,” he said, according to the documents.

The measures which the official would supposedly implement, include “mining of Sevastopol harbor,” setting up a “cordon sanitaire” across the Crimean Isthmus with “troops and mines,” and trying to “inspire” their own troops, endeavoring to explain to them what exactly they had to fight for.

Donnelly allegedly writes that he would have used “some seriously important weapons” Ukraine “used to have,” namely some sort of “big microwave anti-satellite weapon.”

Apart from that, the text says all the air forces in the region should have been scrambled and anti-aircraft defenses activated. If the aviation in Crimea proved to be not airworthy, it should have been destroyed “as a gesture that they are serious.”

While all the “measures” appear to be designed to incite an open armed conflict, the last one was also about making profit by the West: “They should ask the west now to start supplying oil and gas. There is plenty available due to the mild winter.”

Donnelly has a rich background that ties him to top military officials. Between 1989 and 2003, as special adviser to four NATO Secretaries General, he was closely involved with NATO. From 2003 to 2010 he ran the UK Defence Academy’s Advanced Research and Assessment Group. He has been a specialist adviser to three UK Defence Secretaries (both Labour and Conservative) and was a member of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s Soviet advisory team. Since 2010 he has been the Co-director of The Institute for Statecraft – a shady think tank that provides “decision takers & policy makers with reliable, alternative solutions.”

This is the third of a number of leaks, which began on November 5. The leaks claim that the UK government-funded group “Integrity Initiative” (II), which was founded by the Institute of Statecraft, has a network of journalists, analysts and former politicians who make up a Europe-wide chain of “clusters” that help London meddle in other state’s affairs.

Commenting on the previous leak, the II neither confirmed nor denied that the documents were genuine, saying that it didn’t have time to validate them.

However, II did confirm that the organization has, indeed, been receiving funding from the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) for the past two years, but insisted that private donors were its primary source of money. Meanwhile, in response to a question by Labour MP Chris Williamson last week, Minister for Defence, People and Veterans Tobias Ellwood admitted that the Institute for Statecraft had also received funding from the British Army and the Ministry of Defence. The FCO money came from the department’s ‘Conflict Fund’ which investigative journalist Mark Curtis exposed last year as a “secretive slush fund” which had backed “some of the world’s worst security forces.”

RT has reached out to Mr. Donnelly for comment over the contents of the “military measures” list, as well as over allegations that his organization targeted Jeremy Corbyn in an anti-smear campaign which are now being investigated by the Foreign Office. He declined to comment.

“Thank you very much for your enquiry but as RT is a state-sponsored propaganda organization and not a legitimate news channel, we have no comment to make,” Donnelly said in a mailed statement.

December 17, 2018 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism, Russophobia, Timeless or most popular | , | Leave a comment

British minister ‘misled Parliament’ over state-funded NGO ‘smearing’ Corbyn, Labour MP says

RT | December 17, 2018

A Labour MP has said that Foreign Office minister Alan Duncan chose to ‘bury his head in the sand’ as he denied allegations that state funds granted to a shadowy ‘disinformation-fighting charity’ were used to attack Jeremy Corbyn.

“There is a real concern” that Duncan “was misleading Parliament whether that was wittingly or unwittingly,” Chris Williamson said on Sunday.

He was commenting on the official’s response to a question posed earlier by another Labour MP, Emily Thornberry, about government funding for the controversial Scotland-based ‘charitable body,’ the Institute for Statecraft (IfS).

Labour politicians demanded an official probe into the organization, insisting it participated in a campaign to “smear” the party and its leader Jeremy Corbyn.

Speaking in the House of Commons on Wednesday, Duncan, who serves as Minister of State for Europe and the Americas, said he had “established the facts” concerning the NGO and was “satisfied that our money does not go towards funding any kind of UK domestic activity.”

The Institute for Statecraft came under fire when Sunday Mail reported that the think tank used its ‘Integrity Initiative’ project to promote newspaper articles denouncing Labour chief Jeremy Corbyn as a “useful idiot” whose views “helped the Kremlin cause.” The project styles its mission as “revealing and combating propaganda and disinformation.”

In practice, nearly all materials published on its website are focused on fighting so-called ‘Russian propaganda.’

Citing the organization’s leaked documents, the Sunday Mail said that IfS received £2 million from the Foreign Office. The paper also reported that the charity itself is, in fact, registered at a derelict rural mill.

Faced with the Labour backlash, Duncan admitted that the government funded IfS’ Integrity Initiative with £296,500 in financial year 2017-2018 and is giving it £1,961,000 for the year 2018-2019. He refused, however, to publish the government’s correspondence on grant agreements with the project, saying that such information could be used by Moscow “to actively attempt to disrupt and undermine” its effectiveness.

Duncan’s claim that no state funds were used for an alleged campaign against Corbyn did little to quell the anger coming from Labour MPs. Williamson suggested that the minister “needs to realize that this isn’t going to go away and he must come up with some real answers rather than burying his head in the sand.”

His colleague Emily Thornberry told the Sunday Mail that Duncan’s words “just didn’t make sense.”

I found it genuinely confusing. I have never heard a minister say with such confidence that he is telling the truth.

Thornberry suggested that Duncan was simply reading the answers prepared by other government officials and “they just don’t stack up.”

December 17, 2018 Posted by | Deception, Russophobia | | Leave a comment

Leaked Memo Touts UK-Funded Firm’s Ability To Create “Untraceable” News Sites For “Infowar Campaign”

By Tyler Durden – Zero Hedge – 12/15/2018

The hacking collective known as “Anonymous” has published more explosive documents detailing a UK-based psyop to create a “large-scale information secret service” in Europe in order to combat “Russian propaganda” — which has been blamed for everything from Brexit to Trump winning the 2016 US election to this month’s anti-Macron “Yellow Vest” protests.

We previously detailed the first trove of documents which were dumped online November 5th to the site Cyberguerilla, revealing the private UK organization with deep government ties, the Integrity Initiative, to be engaged in an aggressive campaign to organize “clusters” of journalists across the West engaged in “counter-propaganda” efforts on social media networks and in media. And now a new trove of leaked Integrity Initiative documents has been dumped online Friday.

“Combatting Russian Disinformation” – Screenshot from a bombshell newly leaked document published Friday and hosted on the Cyberguerilla site.

This week the Integrity Initiative and its founding parent organization, the Institute for Statecraft — which is known for its close relationship with the UK military and defense officials — is at the center of debate in the House of Commons over its anti-Corbyn and anti-Labour smears involving labeling party leader Jeremy Corbyn a “useful idiot” for Moscow, even while the company is a recipient of official Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) funding.

The early November online leaks of confidential Integrity Initiative documents were the first to reveal the UK government’s relationship to the private project devoted to “fighting Russian disinformation”. According to The Guardian :

FCO funding of the Integrity Initiative was revealed by a set of stolen documents posted online last month by hackers under the banner of the Anonymous hacktivist collective. The organisation has not disputed their authenticity, but in a statement suggested that Russia was responsible for the hack and that Moscow had used its media channels to amplify its impact.

We noted previously that the work done by the Initiative — which claims it is not affiliated with government bodies, is done under “absolute secrecy via concealed contacts embedded throughout British embassies,” according to memos in the November leak. It does, however, admit to working with unnamed British “government agencies.”

Friday’s document dump via “Anonymous” is the third such release, and already some bombshell information has come to light.

The geopolitical blog, Moon of Alabama, was the first to unearth and analyze one of the more interesting among the document trove:

A “strictly confidential” proposal by the French company Lexfo to spread the Integrity Initiative’s state-sponsored propaganda through an offensive online influence campaigns for a monthly pay per language of €20-40.000. The proposal also includes an offer for “counter activism” through “negative PR, legal actions, ethical hack back, etc.” for €50,000 per month.

The document is marked “Strictly confidential” and lays out a “comprehensive action proposal” which repeatedly invokes Russian state funded media outlets RT and Sputnik as enemy disinformation to be defeated.

The proposal touts the ability of an Integrity Initiative partner — the French cybersecurity firm Lexfo — to create “indirect” and “untraceable” news content, including its ability to conduct “naming and shaming” campaigns targeting “allies” of “Russian disinformation”.

Presumably “allies” means any person or entity that happens to align with the Russian viewpoint on any given issue. The shaming campaigns and counter-information operations will be conducted “across hundreds of credible media outlets”.

Alarmingly, the document notes that:

 “where we lack platforms to publish our content… we will create news media sites serving our objectives…”

Again, both the contracting cybersecurity firm and the Integrity Initiative’s role in literally creating media sites out of thin air for the purpose of “serving our objectives” will remain “untraceable”.

As part of the “infowar campaign” teams of media operatives across Europe and the U.S. will “monitor” and edit social media pages as well as Wikipedia entries, according to the leaked document.

“Hot topics” which especially need to be monitored include the Ukraine conflict and any situation wherein “pro-Western local politicians” could be swayed by “Russian-backed trolls”

The teams will engage in “special operations” which are listed as:

  • negative PR
  • legal actions
  • ethical hack back 

And which populations are to be targeted? The document specifically mentions seeking out a Russian audience alongside Western countries: “This plan should be implemented in every targeted country and language, including Russia.”

These “influence operations” come at a price, according to the document. One figure which is floated is a monthly pay per language fee of €20-40.000, making it classic government subsidized mass propaganda (again, the company has been confirmed as receiving FCO funding).

Given that this looks like merely the tip of the iceberg in terms of similar such UK and US funded “combating disinformation” projects conducted in partnership with private entities out there, these initiatives have most likely already been active for years.

December 15, 2018 Posted by | Deception, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Russophobia | , , | Leave a comment

Butina Pleads Guilty After Being ‘Sexually Assaulted’ & ‘Abused’ In DC Jail

Sputnik – December 14, 2018

Russian national Maria Butina pleaded guilty to conspiring to act as an unregistered foreign agent at a federal court in Washington, DC, on Thursday. But she only did so after authorities “broke her,” argues human rights attorney Dan Kovalik.

Rather than acting as a “spy” for Russia, as the mainstream media — and only the mainstream media — has alleged, what Butina “was doing looks more like a cultural exchange,” Kovalik, the author of the book “The Plot to Scapegoat Russia,” told Radio Sputnik’s Loud & Clear.

Butina moved to the US in 2016 on a student visa and graduated from American University with a masters degree in international relations in May. Prosecutors even wrote that “all available evidence indicates that Butina had interest in a graduate school education.”

Butina interacted with a number of officials and powerful actors in the Republican Party and members of the National Rifle Association while attending school in the US capital.

“This is called human interaction. To claim that she is a spy is ridiculous,” Kovalik told Loud & Clear hosts John Kiriakou and Brian Becker.

“She is this young woman who was dealing with a very specific issue, and that is gun rights. And she posed no threat to the United States, no threat to the secrets of the United States,” Kovalik said. “It seems to me, in this case, if they wanted her to register they could have just said, ‘Ms. Butina, we think you should register,’ and that would be the end of it. It wasn’t about her.”

Butina was arrested in July. The Department of Justice announced the arrest while US President Donald Trump was in Helsinki, Finland, for a bilateral, closed-door meeting with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin.

Since then, she has spent much of her time in jail in solitary confinement. Butina was also subjected to cavity searches after every visit from her lawyer, Kovalik said.

“They broke her. They abused her. They sexually assaulted her in jail, and now she’s pleading guilty. People should be very shocked by this,” Kovalik said. “Women’s rights groups should be shocked by this, because initially they claimed without any basis that she was selling sex for access, and that turned out to be a lie, and they withdrew that charge. How she’s been treated is absolutely despicable.”

Butina’s guilty plea on Sunday followed an interview of her father from the end of November, in which he said that money was running out for her defense. Earlier in December, Butina was assigned a public defender, although her original attorney, Robert Driscoll, was still cited as one of Butina’s lawyers in the plea agreement.

December 13, 2018 Posted by | Russophobia, Subjugation - Torture | , | Leave a comment

‘Foreign agent’ Butina has no ties to Russian intel, was jailed for nothing – Putin

© Facebook / mvbutina
RT | December 11, 2018

Maria Butina, a Russian national arrested in the US on charges of failing to register as a foreign lobbyist, has no ties to Russian intelligence services and the whole case against her was thin, President Vladimir Putin has said.

“This poor girl is jailed … faces 15 years in prison… and for what?” the president asked rhetorically about Butina’s case at a meeting of the presidential council for civil society and human rights. Putin also said he asked all the heads of the Russian intelligence and security services about who she is and whether she had any links to their work. “No one knows anything about her at all,” the president added.

Butina might, in fact, have had some links to the Russian Federation Council, the upper house of the Russian parliament, Putin admitted, adding that she could have actually worked with some officials there. Still that does not justify the US legal action against her, he added.

This is the first time the Russian leader commented on Butina’s case since she was arrested in summer. A Russian gun-liberties activist who has studied in the US, Butina was accused of being an unregistered Russian lobbyist –basically a Russian agent– after she rubbed shoulders with Republican operatives and gun rights advocates in the US.

Prosecutors also tried to accuse her of trading sex for influence, but had to admit quickly that this charge had no grounds. Yet the media latched on to it, portraying Butina as a femme fatale seducing her way through American political circles to sow division and discord in American politics.

The Russian Embassy in Washington DC has accused American authorities of subjecting her to ‘borderline torture’ conditions, including unnecessary strip searches after every visit, sleep deprivation and of denying the 28-year-old medical treatment for a swelling on her leg. “There are attempts to break her will,” the embassy said.
Also on rt.com Butina prosecutors wrote their own James Bond novel with sex allegations – and the media loved it

Earlier this week, released court documents showed that a federal judge scheduled a hearing so Butina can change her ‘not guilty’ plea, which she’d entered in July. The document reads that the parties have resolved the matter, but it is unclear if she will plead guilty to any of the counts. NBC reported on Tuesday that she may admit that she failed to register as a foreign agent, and may then get six months in prison and a deportation order.

December 11, 2018 Posted by | Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

‘Full Extent’ of Russian Meddling on Google in 2016? $4,700 Spent on Ads

Sputnik – 11.12.2018

Google CEO Sundar Pichai revealed that the “full extent” of so-called Russian meddling activity that took place on the platform during all of 2016 was $4,700 spent on some digital advertisements.

“Does Google now know the full extent to which its online platforms were exploited by Russian actors in the election two years ago?” Rep. Jerry Nadler, a Democrat from New York and ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, asked the search engine’s chief executive during Tuesday’s hearing.

​”We have — we undertook a very thorough investigation, and, in 2016, we now know that there were two main ad accounts linked to Russia which advertised on Google for about $4,700 in advertising,” Pichai responded.

“A total of $4,700?” Nadler asked to confirm. “That’s right,” the Google executive replied.

Google employees and executives contributed $1.6 million to 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, according to data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics.

December 11, 2018 Posted by | Russophobia | | Leave a comment

Protests in France are internal affair, claims of Russia’s involvement are slander – Kremlin

RT | December 10, 2018

Moscow considers protests in France to be an internal affair of that country, and claims of Russia’s involvement in the events are slander, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Monday.

Russia sees everything that happens in France as “purely an internal affair” of that country, the spokesman told reporters.

“We have not interfered and are not going to interfere in the internal affairs of any countries, including France,” he said.

Peskov added that Moscow attaches great importance to developing relations with Paris, and respects France’s sovereignty.

December 10, 2018 Posted by | Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Russophobia | | Leave a comment

Labour furious over report that anti-Russia charity targeted Corbyn, receives govt cash

RT | December 9, 2018

Labour politicians are outraged and calling for a probe after a report that a McCarthy style charity has received £2 million in government money and targeted Jeremy Corbyn, straying from tackling so-called Russian disinformation.

The Institute for Statecraft, based in Scotland, initially seems to be a small organization which claims to counter alleged Russian propaganda by forming communities of journalists and influencers who use social media to push back on any so-called disinformation.

However, leaked documents provided to the Daily Record show that the organization’s Integrity Initiative isn’t as grassroots as it appears on the surface. In fact, it’s apparently funded with £2 million of Foreign Office cash and run by British military intelligence specialists.

What’s more is that the newspaper has reported that it launched its own investigation which found “worrying evidence” that the organization’s official Twitter account has been used to attack Jeremy Corbyn, his Labour Party, and other officials within the party.

And of course, there were some anti-Russia comments thrown in for good measure – such as one tweet which quoted a newspaper article calling Corbyn a “useful idiot” with “open visceral anti-Westernism [that] helped the Kremlin cause, as surely as if he had been secretly peddling Westminster tittle-tattle for money.”

“What he has done, wittingly or unwittingly, is work with the Kremlin agenda,” a newspaper report retweeted by the Integrity Initiative tweet states.

Although the Integrity Initiative’s apparent mission was first revealed last month, the Daily Record’s Sunday report about its targeting of Corbyn and the Labour party has left the party’s members more than a little angry.

“It is simply outrageous that the clearly mis-named ‘Integrity Initiative’ – funded by the Foreign Office to the tune of £2.25 million over the past two years – has routinely been using its Twitter feed to disseminate personal attacks and smears against the Leader of the Opposition, the Labour Party and Labour officials,” Emily Thornberry MP, Labour’s Shadow Foreign Secretary said in her statement.

Labour MP Chris Williamson also chimed in, calling any such activity “unacceptable in any democracy.”

The question of whether MSM will eventually pick up the story remains unknown, especially since it has a tendency to turn a blind eye to anyone claiming to fight the good fight against “aggressive” Russia.

The Integrity Initiative’s spokesman Stephen Dalziel has said he is “not aware” of any Corbyn attacks on the official social media account. “I’m not the one who controls the Twitter account. If it was criticism of one of our politicians, then that shouldn’t be on there.”

December 9, 2018 Posted by | Deception, Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

Mattis Tells All Without Any Evidence

By Philip M. GIRALDI | Strategic Culture Foundation | 06.12.2018

The insanity runs deep in Washington but it has also briefly surfaced at Simi Valley in California at the Reagan National Defense Forum, which ran through last weekend. United States Secretary of Defense James “Mad Dog” Mattis was the keynote speaker on Saturday. He had a few interesting things to say, the most remarkable of which was the assertion that Russia had again sought to interfere in the 2018 midterm elections, which were completed last month.

Mattis, a Marine general who is sometimes considered to be the only adult in the room when the White House national security team meets, claimed that the bilateral relationship between Washington and Moscow had “no doubt” deteriorated still further due to the Russian activity, which he described as the Kremlin “try[ing] again to muck around around in our elections last month, and we are seeing a continued effort along those lines” with Russian President Vladimir Putin making “continued efforts to try to subvert democratic processes that must be defended. We’ll do whatever is necessary to defend them.”

Mattis did not address President Donald Trump’s cancellation of a meeting with Putin at the G20 summit in Buenos Aires, Argentina, a move which he reportedly supported. The cancellation was reportedly based on what has been described as an act of aggression committed by the Russian military against three Ukrainian naval vessels seeking to transit the Kerch Strait, which since the annexation of Crimea has been completely controlled by Moscow. The Ukrainians were aware of the Russian protocols for transiting through the area and chose to ignore them to create an incident, possibly as part of a plan to disrupt the Trump-Putin discussions. If that is so, they were successful.

Mattis was somewhat taciturn relating to his accusation regarding Moscow’s meddling. He provided absolutely no evidence that Russia had been interfering in the latest election and there have been no suggestions from either federal or state authorities that there were any irregularities involving foreigners. There was, however, considerable concern over possible ballot and voting manipulation at state levels carried out by the major political parties themselves, suggesting that if Mattis is looking for subversion of democratic processes he might start looking a lot closer to home.

The U.S. government has issued a general warning that “Americans should be aware that foreign actors — and Russia in particular — continue to try to influence public sentiment and voter perceptions through actions intended to sow discord.” Law enforcement and intelligence agencies have reportedly been working with private sector internet social networking companies, to include Twitter and Facebook, to shut down Russian and Iranian accounts in attempt to forestall any interference in either the campaigning or voting processes. Some Russians have even been indicted in absentia based on flimsy evidence but as they are in Russia they cannot be tried. One Russian student, Maria Butina, is still in jail in Virginia based on conflicting and flimsy evidence and it is not clear when she will be able to defend herself in court.

Beyond the general anti-Russia hysteria being encouraged by the media and congress, there are a number of problems with the Mattis assertion. First of all, beyond the fact that no actual evidence has been presented, it is irrational to assume that Russian intelligence services would waste their effort and burn their resources to attempt to accomplish absolutely nothing. Russia was not on the ballot last month and no candidates were running on any platform that would benefit Moscow in the slightest. To get caught “mucking around” would invite more sanctions and justify an increasingly hostile response from Washington, hardly a price that Putin would be willing to pay for little or nothing tangible.

Second, the intense investigations being carried out by the Robert Mueller Special Counsel’s office have to this point developed no information suggesting that Russia did anything in 2016 beyond the low-level probing and manipulating that every major intelligence agency does routinely to get a window into what an adversary is up to. To be sure, several Team Trump associates will likely be going to jail, but their crimes so far have consisted of perjury or tax fraud. Some, like former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen are seeking desperately to find a way to implicate the president in some grander scheme, but if there is anything actually there it has yet to be identified to the public.

Third, based on the evidence produced so far, the only two countries that may have cooperated with either Trump or the Deep State to influence the results of the 2016 election are Israel, which sought Trump intercession at the United Nations, and Britain, which may have engaged in a plot by the British intelligence and security services to conspire with CIA Director John Brennan to elect Hillary Clinton.

So, there we go again. Another vague accusation against Russia to convince the American public that there is a powerful enemy out to get us. And lest there be any shortage of enemies Mattis also mentioned always dangerous Iran, saying “… we cannot deny the threat that Iran poses to all civilized nations.” And, by the way, Mattis in his speech strongly supported an increased “defense” budget to deal with all the threats, saying somewhat obscurely that “Fiscal solvency and strategic solvency can co-exist.” Sure. In the wonderful world of Washington, more money can fix anything.

December 6, 2018 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Russophobia | , , | Leave a comment

Mueller’s Farce Rages On: Flynn Colluded With Foreign Power, but Not Russia

By Kit Klarenberg – Sputnik – 05.12.2018

Michael Flynn, President Donald Trump’s former national security adviser, has provided “substantial” assistance to special counsel Robert Mueller’s controversial investigation and should be spared jail, court filings revealed December 4.

In two separate documents, both heavily redacted, Mueller’s team said Flynn participated in 19 interviews with the special counsel or other Justice Department officers, and provided relevant documents and communications, including “firsthand information about” contact between Trump administration staff and the Russian government”. Consequently, he deserves credit for “accepting responsibility in a timely fashion and substantially assisting the government”.

“Additionally, the defendant’s decision to plead guilty and cooperate likely affected the decisions of related firsthand witnesses to be forthcoming with the [special counsel] and cooperate,” they added.

US District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan is scheduled to sentence Flynn December 18 — federal sentencing guidelines call for the General to receive up to six months in prison.

Where’s the Beef?

Many mainstream journalists and pundits have made much of the filings despite their almost total information deficit, suggesting the insights provided by Flynn could amount to the bombshell proof of collusion they’ve desperately craved for so long.

However, few if any have acknowledged a crucial qualifier — the filings specifically refer to “the content and context of interactions between [Trump’s] transition team and the Russian government”, in other words any contact that took place during the 73-days between election day (November 8 2016) and inauguration day (January 20 2017).

Thus, Flynn providing “substantial” information to investigators is hardly significant. After all, he was in the first place indicted for lying to investigators about his own contact with Kremlin representatives during the transition process — which wouldn’t have been criminal or even occurred unless there was an official investigation in the first place — a charge he pled guilty to in December 2017.

As a result, the focus of Mueller’s probe into Flynn’s activities was always destined to be the two-and-a-half-months leading up to Trump’s ‘swearing in’ as President — and contact that took place between the President-elect’s staff and Russian officials during this period is certainly no indication of pre-election collusion of any kind.

Moreover, the virtually total redaction of the documents — which has been widely mocked on social media — by definition gives no hint as to the type of information Flynn has provided to investigators. That his name has been entirely absent from any of the other Russia-related legal actions the special counsel has pursued over the past 12-months may be highly notable indeed.

In a sense then, it’s arguable the documents are in fact merely further confirmation Mueller’s probe will not uncover explosive evidence of a long-running, secret relationship between Trump and the Russian state.

Backroom Deals

Still, the detail of Flynn’s contact with Kremlin representatives is certainly worthy of investigation, for it does point to collaboration between Trump’s team and a foreign power — albeit not Russia.

In December 2016, Flynn — supported by other transition staff- launched a diplomatic bid to sink a UN Security Council vote condemning Israeli settlement expansion, which outgoing President Barack Obama had unprecedentedly allowed to go ahead.

“The effort represented a fitful first foray into global diplomacy by Trump’s transition team, bearing hallmarks that have become familiar in the weeks since he took office — their efforts were marked by a brusque disregard for diplomatic protocol and a hasty pressure campaign that changed few, if any, minds,” Foreign Policy magazine assessed.

This “pressure campaign” was launched after the direct urging of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — and saw Flynn contact then-Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak, and ask him to ensure Russia voted against the resolution.

In the end, the initiative was a miserable failure, with not a single country changing its vote — including those, such as the UK, which had made clear they wished to forge positive relations with the incoming administration.

Nonetheless, no matter the efficacy of the operation (or lack thereof) the attempt still amounts to backstair collusion in service of subverting official US government policy, although one wouldn’t perhaps know it from media coverage of the conspiracy (or, again, lack thereof).

The “pressure campaign” is rendered all the more suspicious and sinister given Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner failed to disclose his role as co-director of a foundation funding the construction of Israeli settlements on financial records he filed with the Office of Government Ethics, an obvious and scandalous potential conflict of interest which went virtually unreported by news outlets — much less condemned.

Moreover, that Trump enthusiastically pledged to relocate the US Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem on the campaign trail — one of the few pre-election promises he has upheld as of December 2018 — is also worthy of examination, which yet again has so far been unforthcoming in the US mainstream.

At the very least, Tel Aviv has gotten far more out of the President than Moscow ever has — and the lack of outrage or censure over the Trump administration’s demonstrable and proven collusion with Israel lies in stark contrast to the inexorable denunciation of entirely speculative and unproven supposed collusion between the President and the Kremlin.

An explanation for this deep and cohering divergence may lie in Kushner’s December 2017 appearance at billionaire Israeli-American media tycoon Haim Saban’s annual forum on US-Israel relations.

In a conversation between the pair, Saban thanked Kushner for his role in Flynn’s failed “pressure campaign”.

“As far as I know, there’s nothing illegal there…I think this crowd and myself want to thank you for making that effort, so thank you very much,” he said.

Saban’s comments were especially notable given he is and was not a Trump supporter or donor — instead, he’s the largest contributor to Bill and Hillary Clinton’s political activities, donating in excess of US$25 million to the pair over the years, and funding the Clinton Library and the Democratic National Committee headquarters in the process.

Sound and Fury

The specifics of Mueller’s indictment of Trump fixer Michael Cohen are also problematic for ‘RussiaGate’ proponents, although none have so far admitted it.

On November 29, Cohen pleaded guilty to a single count of lying to Congress about his role in an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to construct Trump Tower Moscow, after he gave false written answers in order to “minimize links” between the Moscow project and Trump, and “give the false impression” the initiative it was abandoned earlier than it in fact was.

Cohen explained to prosecutors he was deceptive out of loyalty to the President — although what he attempted to cover up barely seems worth suppressing. For some time, Trump’s former attorney communicated with Felix Sater about the project, who’d promised to secure Russian financing — whether private or governmental — for the proposal — but no Russian supporter could be found after months of hot air, infuriating Cohen.

“You’re putting my job in jeopardy and making me look incompetent, I gave you two months and the best you send me is some bullshit garbage invite by some no name clerk at a third-tier bank,” Cohen wrote in an email to Sater December 31 2015.

Losing patience with Sater’s ludicrous promises, Cohen decided to get in touch with Russian officials himself — but lacking any contact details, he was reduced to writing to a generic email address attached to Dmitry Peskov, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s press secretary. He ended up reaching Peskov’s assistant, and evidently no further — for Russian financing — or even permits — didn’t ever materialize.

Sater is said to have vainly tried to save the project, allegedly suggesting none other than Russian President Vladimir Putin be given a penthouse in the complex in order to cultivate Kremlin interest in the project, but the deal eventually collapsed entirely — and it’s highly doubtful Trump was ever apprised of the bizarre proposal, let alone Putin himself.

December 5, 2018 Posted by | Deception, Russophobia | , , | Leave a comment

Ex-Canadian Diplomat: UK’s Anti-Russia Info Ops Mark Decline in Western Values

Sputnik – 04.12.2018

United Kingdom’s anti-Russian propaganda operations are a sign that Western values related to freedom of expression are on the decline, former Canadian diplomat Patrick Armstrong told Sputnik.

On Monday, the international hacktivist group Anonymous released a new package of documents of the anti-Russian UK Integrity Initiative project. In particular, the documents include fake proof of Russian interference in the 2017 Catalan independence referendum disseminated among Spanish politicians and media.

The revelations undermined the credibility of the United Kingdom’s and Western media, Armstrong pointed out. “Only a couple of decades ago we were boasting about Western values of freedom of speech and thought,” Armstrong said. “Not today.”

These United Kingdom operations marked another step in “the decline of the West,” Armstrong added, as its rulers try to counter any discussion they disagree with by portraying it as fake news.

“Our rulers are determined that their stories must not be challenged and thus they try to shut down all discussion. Accept, Believe, Repeat. Anything else is ‘fake news,’” Armstrong said.

According to the first document leaked by Anonymous last month, the project was in fact a “large-scale information secret service” sponsored and created by London.

However, the latest leak suggests that “the British government goes far beyond and exploits the Integrity Initiative to solve its domestic problems inside the United Kingdom by defaming the opposition.”

Until his retirement, Armstrong was a Canadian diplomat who was a specialist on the Soviet Union and Russia. He previously served as political counselor in the Canadian Embassy in Moscow.

December 4, 2018 Posted by | Deception, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Russophobia | | Leave a comment

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