Russophobia « Aletho News

US not ready for substantive dialogue with Russia on cybersecurity – Lavrov

RT | August 28, 2018

The US has not yet provided any evidence of ‘Russian hackers’ interfering in the 2016 presidential election, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Tuesday.

“For the second year we have been proposing that a bilateral working group on cybersecurity should be created to discuss and remove mutual concerns, including those related to influence on electoral processes in [the US and Russia],” he told the Slovak newspaper Pravda.

However, Washington is avoiding a “professional exchange of views,” he said.

It is only surprising “how easily it was possible to put a discussion of this unfounded theme at the center of the intra-American socio-political discussion,” Lavrov noted.

August 28, 2018 Posted by aletho | Russophobia | Russia, United States | Leave a comment

5 timely reminders that the media think you are an idiot…

By Kit | OffGuardian | August 28, 2018

The corporate media think we are stupid. All of us. They have as much respect for our intellect or ability to reason as they do for the truth. This is displayed, in size 20 font, on the front page of every newspaper every single day. They paint a picture of an absurd world, and expect us all to nod along with it, blithely accepting their stories as true, no matter what laws of reason – or even physics – they bend to suit their purpose.

The world in the newspaper and on the television is not real in any true sense of the word. Merely a crazy fun-house mirror reflection of the truth. Important features shrunk to nothing, tiny flaws blown up out of proportion. Apparently solid shapes that – on inspection – are nothing but strange plays of light and shadow.

With that in mind, let’s remind ourselves of the kind of completely bonkers things we’re all expected to believe.

1. The Inherent silliness of “ISIS”

This section was going to be more specific, but as I looked back over recent history, there was no single absurdity that highlighted how stupid the ISIS story was.

ISIS was, and is, silly. A few bullet points to demonstrate this – and a reminder that these are not exaggerated in any way. These are, supposedly, facts:

They were making $1-$3 million PER DAY smuggling oil out of Syria, in convoys kilometres long that the US air force either couldn’t find or wouldn’t bomb because of “risks to civilians”. How they had the technical expertise to extract and process this oil was never explained.
They minted their own currency.
They published end-of-year reports, like a business, and kept detailed accounts on flash drives and USB sticks. Despite this, no ISIS bank accounts were ever seized, monitored or shut down.
They had multiple social media accounts, YouTube channels – often described as “ISIS linked social media accounts” – these accounts weren’t locked, blocked or deleted. The registered owners weren’t arrested. They had their own twitter app which was impossible to block and created their own social network.
They had their own TV channel, with an animated logo, a waving flag, in the corner of their videos. Think on this – somebody, somewhere, made that logo.
They had fleets of Toyotas, which we’re supposed to believe they just sort of… acquired. They are all clean, new and undamaged. They are all colour-matched too, of course. There are red ones, white ones, black ones and tan ones. With and without logos painted on the hood. They deployed these trucks in photo-shoots and “viral” videos, the theoretical production of which simply boggles the mind. A bunch of black Toyota’s crossing the desert doesn’t look like much, but think about the actual logistics of making the video. They had to drive up to this spot, drop off the camera crew and equipment, drive back over the horizon, properly time their entrance by synchronizing all the driving and spacing the trucks out evenly, drive past the camera crew waving their flags… then drive back and pick up the camera men and equipment. All of this in the middle of a war zone.
Of course all their videos had the same music, the ISIS theme, which was Arabic voices singing in close harmony. We’re supposed to believe that – somewhere in the heart of their war-torn empire – a bunch of crazy zealots gathered round a microphone to sing a capella melodies about “death to the west”, while a frustrated technician muttered to himself about “levels” and how Muhammad is flat on the high note. This spawned their own genre of music, which NME did a story on.

It’s so… stupid. And yet the media says it, and expects us to believe it.

ISIS – the all-powerful death cult, the existential threat to Western democracy, on the verge of “regional dominance”. There was a map and everything – world domination by 2020.

Despite all this, ISIS – the untouchable hydra of evil – completely fell apart as a force in the region just months after Russia and Iran got involved in the Syrian war.

Why was this?

Could it be that ISIS were just a media creation – the PR arm of the CIA’s jihadist proxy army – and, in truth, barely existed as fighting force? Existing, rather, to give Western powers an excuse to conduct air strikes on Syrian territory?

Or could it be that the MSM realised that 10,000 insane, bloodthirsty zealots taking time out of their devout holy war to have design meetings about coinage, or shoot music videos in Dune buggies, rings rather hollow?

It’s all a bit silly isn’t it?

2. The Syrian government Is collectively suicidal

Several times, in the last couple of years, Western leaders have made remarkably prescient statements – something along the lines of “We will not tolerate the use of chemical weapons on civilians”, or “We will act if chemical weapons are used”. In fact, in just the last few days both the US and France have reissued these warnings.

Despite these warnings, and though it offers him literally zero strategic advantages of any kind, Assad keeps deploying his super-secret chemical weapons against civilians… just because. He’s winning the war, it’s pretty much over, the only thing that could swing it against him is NATO, and he keeps deliberately inciting them to attack him.

There’s only 2 explanations for that – either he, and his government, are low-key suicidal, or it never happened, and the propagandists in the media truly believe we are completely stupid.

Then there’s the photographs.

Syria knows they have been in America’s crosshairs for years, since well before the start of the Arab spring. They are aware of Israel’s designs on Syrian land, and more than familiar with the US modus operandi re: “humanitarianism”. They KNOW the worst thing they could do is give America, and their NATO allies, even the whisper of a war crime to get indignant about.

… and yet we’re supposed to believe, not only that the regime tortured and executed tens of thousands of “peaceful protestors” for absolutely no reason, but they also kept a carefully photographed and catalogued record of their crimes.

This was brought up in the Guardian today, the famous “Caesar Photographs”, photos of 11,000 people the Assad government tortured and killed, all properly catalogued and numbered and then – conveniently – leaked by some unknown “former guard” and displayed in London like some morbid art exhibition.

The identity of the “leaker” remains a mystery, and there is literally zero evidence the photographs are a) from Syria or b) real.

Does this version of events sound even slightly reasonable?

3. Amnesty International used echolocation to recreate a Syrian prison

They really did. They have some guys claiming to be Syrian resistance members who were held in one of Assad’s “torture prisons”, but they were either blindfolded or in darkness the whole time, so in order to map out the interior of the prison… Amnesty International played sounds to them, to see if they sounded the same. I truly wish I was joking:

Inmates were constantly blindfolded or forced to kneel and cover their eyes when guards entered their cells, so sound became the key sense by which they navigated and measured their environment – and therefore one of the chief tools with which the Forensic team could reconstruct the prison layout. Using a technique of “echo profiling”, sound artist Lawrence Abu Hamdan was able to determine the size of cells, stairwells and corridors by playing different reverberations and asking witnesses to match them with sounds they remembered hearing in the prison.

There’s no reports as to why exactly the men were locked up, how they got away, why they were released and not executed like everyone else OR – indeed – where they acquired their bat-like super hearing.

… But we do now have a 3D model of Assad’s “torture prison”. We even know which room is the crematorium too, because it looked like the snow on the roof had melted in one satellite photo… and the only thing that makes a roof hot is the burning corpses of dissidents.

The whole process is part of a ~~completely made up~~ recently developed field known as “forensic architecture”. In simple terms, it seems “forensic architecture” is looking at the outside of a building – or indeed a photograph of the outside of a building – and guessing what’s inside. While this might seem difficult, pointless, or even insane to most people… to the mainstream media it is worth of thousands of words of coverage and, indeed, winning media awards.

Does any of that really make any sense to you?

4. Jeremy Corbyn hates the Jews

Jeremy Corbyn is soft – maybe, arguably – too soft for the job that history has violently hoisted on to his shoulders, but soft none the less. He rides his bike to work, wears cardigans, is a vegetarian. He has campaigned for peace and against war his entire life. He was arrested for protesting apartheid whilst Margaret Thatcher was calling Nelson Mandela a terrorist, he spoke out against Pinochet while the General was a darling on both sides of the Atlantic.

He has won two international peace prizes.

The idea that, during a public career dedicated to the socialist ideals of decency and fairness, he was secretly thinking “Bloody Jews!” the whole time is completely absurd. Insultingly absurd, and there is not a single piece of evidence to suggest otherwise. There is nothing more to be said on the matter.

5. Russiagate

This is the big one, currently. The grand-daddy of the nothingburgers. Russiagate never happened. There was no collusion, no cheating or vote hacking or pay-offs. They have found literally zero evidence anything ever took place, seizing upon tiny anecdotal scraps and blaring them out in FULL CAPS HEADLINES to make a case in the court of public opinion that would never stand in an actual court.

Where “Russiagate” is different from most invented media schlock however, is the sheer weight of counter evidence. For most media fiction you can say “Well, there’s very little evidence to support that” (see Corbyn = anti-Semite as a classic example). With Russiagate you can go even further: There is a ton – A TON – of evidence to the contrary, clear-cut evidence that Russia (and Putin) have nothing to do with Trump being President. The media refuse to acknowledge this evidence, directly and contemptuously challenging the public’s ability to reason.

Below is a list of unchallenged, non-controversial facts about Russiagate:

The only proven, admitted, wrong-doing in the 2016 Presidential election was carried out by the DNC, who rigged the primaries so Clinton would be the democratic candidate. This was later admitted to by members of the DNC.
The e-mails which first brought this to light were published by WikiLeaks, there is no proven link between WikiLeaks and the Russian government.
Julian Assange, founder of WikiLeaks claimed the e-mails were from an internal leak, not the result of a hack.
The “Trump-Russia” dossier, a collection of (possibly fabricated) dirt put together by British ex-spy Christopher Steele, was paid for by the DNC and Clinton’s campaign.

These facts, alone, should bring Russiagate down… but there’s more. Since becoming President, Donald Trump has:

Armed the Ukrainian coup government.
Bombed Syria.
Torn up the Iran deal.
Sanctioned Russia over the Skripal case.
Sanctioned Russia over “election interference”.
Expelled Russian diplomats.
Killed over 200 Russian “mercenaries” in Syria.

These are policies that not only run counter to ALL of Russia’s interests, but very nearly brought us to the brink of World War 3.

And yet we’re told, over and over, to ignore our own logical minds and believe that Trump is Putin’s “puppet”. That Trump is “soft” on Russia.

Why would a product of Russian collusion pursue policies harmful to Russia? How many Russians need to die before we accept that Trump is anything but soft?

The media line on this issue is insane, and dangerous. In refusing to acknowledge the actual truth – that the US Deep State is pushing for conflict with Russia – the media are dragging us toward apocalypse, smiling happily to themselves as they go.

They are either all delusional morons, think WE are all delusional morons, or – most probably – both.

The inmates are running the asylum, declaring the rest of us insane because none of us are hearing voices.

This is why the media is in decline, why the BBC is losing its audience and the newspapers have plummeting readership, because people are tired of being treated like idiots and herded like cattle. We’ve made a collective decision to cut the bullshit out of our lives. The world is heading towards a split, two parallel universes running together – the real world, where reasonable pragmatic people get on with the struggles of life, and the media world, where fake people write about pretend events in newspapers nobody reads.

The media has become that manipulative spouse who lies and cheats and tells you it’s all your fault. A narcissistic gaslighter who just will not change.

It’s time to make a clean break.

August 28, 2018 Posted by aletho | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Russophobia, Timeless or most popular | Israel, Middle East, Syria, UK, United States, Zionism | Leave a comment

Trump and Corbyn

And the Russian Warning Over Syria

By Israel Shamir • Unz Review • August 26, 2018

As a new military confrontation over Syria is impending, thought out by Israel, prepared by the British and executed by the US, the West’s future depends greatly upon two mavericks, the US President Donald Trump and the UK Opposition Leader Jeremy Corbyn. These two men are as different as you can make. One is for capitalism, another one is a socialist, but both are considered soft on Russia, at least they do not foam at the mouth hearing Putin’s name. Both are enemies of Wall Street and the City, both stand against the Deep State, against NATO, both are enemies of globalism and of world government. One is a friend of Israel, another is a friend of Palestine, but both are charged with racism and anti-Semitism.

It is a quaint peculiarity of our time, that anti-Semitism is considered the great and unforgivable sin, trading places with Christ Denial. Negative attitude to Christ-denying Jews had been de rigueur at its time, and the Church, or its Tribunal, the Inquisition, had tried the charged. Nowadays, the heavily Jewish MSM is the accuser, the judge and jury, considering anti-Jewish attitude as a worst sort of racism. The two leaders aren’t guilty as charged, but the MSM court dispenses no acquittals.

Racism is indeed an ugly trend (though greed is worse), and hatred of Jews qua Jews is not nice, either. (You wouldn’t expect a different answer from the son of Jewish parents, would you?) Jews are entertaining, clever, cunning, sentimental and adventurous folk, able to do things. They can be good, that’s why the Church wants to bring them to Christ. If they were inherently bad, why bother with their souls? Are Jews greedy? Everyone would sell his grandma for a fistful of dollars, but only a Jew would actually deliver, say Jews. Jews tend to preach and claim high moral ground, but that is a tradition of the Nation of Priests. However, universalism and non-racism is not their strong point, and it is amazing that they appointed themselves the judges on racism.

Nazis were against Jews, ergo, Jews are the pukka anti-Nazis, this is the logic behind the appointment. It is easier to deal with ethnic or racial categories than with ideas. However, an easier way can lead to wrong results, as we shall prove by turning… no, not to bad Netanyahu or Sharon, but to the best of Jews.

Would you call “a leftist and a liberal” a man who wants to create a reservation for Blacks, a separate state for Blacks, to give them the voting rights in this separate state? A man whose motto was “you are there; we are here”? Hardly. Depending on his colour, you’d probably describe him a white racist, or a member of the Nation of Islam. But for Jews, there are different standards.

The recently demised Israeli peace activist Uri Avnery had been eulogised royally. Many Israelis came to part with him before his body was cremated and the ashes spread on Tel Aviv seashore. Mass media from all over the world, statesmen, politicians, activists dedicated many words to his memory. A brave man, a noble spirit, a fighter for peace, all that was said, and all that was true. But this the most progressive, the most left-liberal man in the whole of Israel was the godfather of the Separation Wall; he coined the slogan “you are there; we are here”. He did not want to live with Arabs in one state. He pushed for creation of ghetto for non-Jews.

He was fine to visit Arabs, to play chess with Arafat as he did during the siege; to defend them if they were mistreated by Jewish lowlifes. But to live with them as equal? No, no way. Avnery’s attitude was that of an old-time Boer Nationalist, a Bantustan creator. He would find himself at home with founders of Rhodesia.

There was a practical and pragmatic reason: Avnery and his ilk had robbed Palestinians of their lands and their livelihood in 1948, expelled them from their homes, corralled them into reservations, and split the booty. They became rich. They did not want to allow refugees back and give up the stolen loot, oh no.

Avnery believed peace was possible, for the Arabs should be grateful if they were left in peace in their Bantustans. He was for peace with Hamas, for he was sure they also will gratefully accept keeping what’s they’ve got.

This is the Israeli Left: people who had got enough of Arab goods, and do not need more.

Avnery’s adversaries weren’t Arabs; they were Jews who arrived in Palestine at a latter stage. They didn’t share in the Big Robbery of 1948; they wanted to get something for themselves.

This is the Israeli Right: people who want to squeeze more out of Palestinians, even if it means armed conflict will go on.

The common ground of Israeli Left and Israeli Right is their unwillingness to give Palestinians freedom and restore the stolen goods. The difference is that the Left, wealthy Jews, wanted to leave Palestinians in peace in their Bantustans. The Right, poorer Jews, want to keep squeezing Palestinians.

The late Mr Avnery greatly disliked the poorer Jews that migrated to Palestine after 1948. He denied they were mistreated by his pals. The talk about Oriental (or Sephardi) Jews being exploited and abused upon arrival annoyed him immensely.

He was, however, a very nice man. Regretfully I must admit that wealthy men looking for peace (even while keeping their booty) are more pleasant than poor guys keen on robbing somebody else.

Uri Avnery was one of the best of his kind. But he was not a liberal, nor a non-racist, neither a leftist by a long shot. As Ron Unz made a point in his widely read piece on Jews and Nazis, he was a living example of a Jew informed by Nazi Germany. He was brought up there; and upon arrival to Palestine, he joined a fascist terrorist group that courted Nazi Germany. He wrote in fascist newspapers, he actively participated in ethnic cleansing, and he freely admitted that.

His attitude to Arabs was similar of Adolf Eichmann to Jews in 1930s, mutatis mutandis. As Unz correctly stated, Eichmann was a big fan of Jews and a top liaison with Zionists at that time. He wanted Jews to prosper, just not in Germany. Avnery wanted Arabs to prosper, but on the other side of the border.

If he was the best, you can imagine the average of Israeli Left (Israeli Right is even worse). The previous leader of Israeli Labour, Mr Isaac Hertzog, became the head of the Jewish Agency and declared that his main task is to fight “the plague of mixed marriages”, that is marriages between Jews and non-Jews. The present leader of Israeli Labour, Avi Gabbay, told a meeting of party activists that “the Arabs have to be afraid of us”. He added: “They fire one missile – you fire 20. That’s all they understand in the Middle East”. He also vowed to never enter into a coalition with the non-Jewish party (the Joint List, a Knesset group representing Palestinian citizens).

Such views are totally unacceptable for any mainstream party in the US or the UK. Probably they are too radical for KKK, too.

Now sit tight and prepare yourself for a shock. This Israeli Labour Party, which would be considered a Nazi party elsewhere, decided to cut ties with Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party for British Labour is “anti-Semitic”, they said. It is a shame that Corbyn hasn’t been the one to take this step first. If you maintain ties with any Israeli party, you should have no problem to fraternise with Hollywood Nazis, let alone the Ku Klux Klan. And Jeremy Corbyn quite correctly compared Zionists with Nazis. Now he is being skinned alive by British Jews.

They ran the same front page in their three newspapers saying that Corbyn is an existential threat to British Jews, because he does not agree with their definition of anti-Semitism. He is not anti-Jewish, but he doesn’t worship the Jew. And he is not a Jew. A young British Jewish Labour voter regretted that Ed Miliband, the Jewish former Labour leader, is not in power, for “there wouldn’t be Brexit, there wouldn’t be Jeremy Corbyn, and we’d just have a lovely Jewish prime minister.” Isn’t it a racist sentiment? But Jews are pukka anti-racists…

Corbyn had been trying his best to accommodate the Jews. He expelled his staunch supporters whenever the Jews demand their heads. He is going to a compromise after a compromise, he denounced the Jews who stayed with him despite community pressure. All in vain, because the Jews care little about definitions, but they are worried about Corbyn’s hostility to banksters, by his excessive (in their eyes) sympathy to British workers and by his unwillingness to fight wars for Israel. They can’t say that openly, that is why they keep pushing anti-Semitism button hoping to unseat Corbyn and return Blair-2.

My respected friend Jonathan Cook, the great British journalist based in Nazareth, summed it up well:

“Besieged for four years, Corbyn has been abandoned. Few respected politicians want to risk being cast out into the wilderness, like Ken Livingstone, as an anti-Semite. Corbyn himself has conceded too much ground on anti-semitism. He has tried to placate rather than defy the smearers.”

Cook points out that by conceding ground, Corbyn betrayed Palestinians and betrayed anti-Zionist Jews who were expelled by droves from Labour. Even Tony Greenstein, a Jewish nationalist though anti-Zionist, had been expelled; the same Tony Greenstein who attacked me and Gilad Atzmon for our anti-Semitism (I responded to him here). He was also sent home packing. The late Hajo Meyer, a Holocaust survivor and defender of Palestinian rights, a personal friend of Corbyn, had been denounced. Palestinians were betrayed, and we should care about them more than about Jewish fine feelings.

But why should we give a damn about Corbyn and/or Palestinians if we aren’t British voters? I’ll tell you.

In the British establishment, pro-Jewish forces decided to side with the Washington War Party to push us close to war. The recent visit of the British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt (the man on the shortlist of Israel’s agents within the British establishment) to Washington where Hunt delivered a speech calling for full-out war on Russia, “has been read as an intervention on the side of the anti-Russian faction in the split and divided US administration”, said the Guardian.

The speech is just an opening, missiles will follow soon. Today, I was informed by my contacts, the Russians have delivered a demarche to the State Department, warning the Americans to desist from their plans to attack Syria. Russian intelligence learned that eight tanks containing chlorine have been delivered to Halluz village of Idlib province where the group of specially trained militants has already been deployed in order to simulate the rescue of the victims of chemical attack. The militants were trained by the British private military company Olive (which had merged with the American Constellis Group.

The operation, the Russians say, had been planned by the British intelligence services to justify an impending airstrike directed against Syrian military and civil infrastructure. For this strike, USS The Sullivans guided missile destroyer with 56 cruise missiles onboard arrived to the Persian Gulf, and the US Air Force bomber B-1B with 24 cruise Air-to-Surface Missiles had been flown to the Al-Udeid air base in Qatar.

The idea is Israeli, the operational plans are British, weapons and vessels are American, and a possibility for confrontation grows stronger each day. The success of Corbyn would put a stop to these plans of war. But will he have a chance?

Ron Unz wrote that the British establishment together with Organised Jewry were able to push unwilling America into the world wars twice, and perhaps they will be able to repeat this feat a third time. It seems that the Question of Palestine, one of the reasons for America’s entry into the world wars, is likely to unleash another war.

Who is the master and who is the slave of the two, Organised Jewry or English establishment? This is the-chicken-and-the-egg dilemma, and there are conflicting answers.

* Indiana University Professor of Geography, Mohameden Ould-Mey provided strong arguments that the English were the Master. I presented his case here.

* The opposing view is that of the late Times correspondent Douglas Reed, presented in his Controversy of Zion, a cryptic book. Proponents of both views had been banned beyond marginalizing. You are just not allowed to ponder it.

I do not intend to rule who is right; however, the moot area where the twain intersect is definitely a trouble spot. Conservative Friends of Israel and Labour Friends of Israel are the groups within this intersection. Their desire for war against Russia sends us a powerful signal of danger.

On the opposing side, there are two intersecting groups: (1) friends of Palestine, and (2) opponents of Jews.

The racial and tribal anti-Semites are of little value, for they are not particularly bright and are easily misled and manipulated. They do not like Jewish noses, but who cares?

But people rejecting globalism, rule of the banks, neoliberalism, impoverishment of native workers, uprooting, Christ-denial, mass migration and population replacement, the “invite and invade” mode – are the core of the resistance. They are called “anti-Semites”, even if they never mention Jews, even if they are Jewish.

Some people who strongly reject this paradigm prefer to dismiss a thought of Palestine. Bannon and his ilk, the British Nationalists never fail to express their admiration of Israel. It shows they are immoral and dishonest. As long as you choose between Banksters’ rule and Zionists’ yoke, you will get both.

Palestine is the heart of the matter. Palestine is why the Jews want the attack on Syria.

Palestine is the tool allowing us to unmask the racist nature of our adversary and defeat him. This is the way to compassion and the way to Christ. If the only escape from the anti-Semitism label leads through betrayal of Christ and Palestine, I’d rather bear this label with pride.

Trump and Corbyn are coming to the point from different sides. They are fighting a strong and well-entrenched adversary. Both are tired, both are full of imperfections, but they offer us a chance to save our beautiful world from destruction. It would be silly if they fail for antisemitism scare.

P.S. The first ever trial of a Holocaust Denier in Russia is taking place now in Perm, the Doctor Zhivago city. Roman Yushkov, a Perm University Professor, had been sacked; his social accounts erased, his YouTube presentations removed; there is practically no publicity at all. He re-posted an article expressing doubt of the amount of Jewish dead, and a local resident of Habad Chassid House reported him to authorities. There is no law forbidding H denial in Russia, but there is a law forbidding to cause inter-ethnic wrangle. The verdict is expected on September 4. You can write to Prof Yushkov <roman@prpc.ru>

Israel Shamir can be reached at adam@israelshamir.net

August 27, 2018 Posted by aletho | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Russophobia, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | Donald Trump, Israel, Jeremy Corbyn, Palestine, UK, United States, Uri Avnery, Zionism | Leave a comment

The 10 Main Holes in the Official Narrative on the Salisbury Poisonings: #4 – The Missing Four Hours

By Rob Slane | The Blog Mire | August 25, 2018

According to the Metropolitan Police investigation into the poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal, the official timeline of their movements on the weekend of the incident is as follows:

Saturday 3^rd March

14.40hrs on Saturday 3 March: Yulia arrives at Heathrow Airport on a flight from Russia.

Sunday 4^th March

09.15hrs on Sunday, 4 March: Sergei’s car is seen in the area of London Road, Churchill Way North and Wilton Road.

13.30hrs: Sergei’s car is seen being driven down Devizes Road, towards the town centre.

13:40hrs: Sergei and Yulia arrive in Sainsbury’s upper level car park at the Maltings. At some time after this, they go to the Bishops Mill Pub in the town centre.

14.20hrs: They dine at Zizzi Restaurant.

15:35hrs: They leave Zizzi Restaurant.

16.15hrs: Emergency services receive a report from a member of the public and police arrive at the scene within minutes, where they find Sergei and Yulia extremely ill on a park bench near the restaurant.

Whilst fully realising that such a timeline does not necessarily need to include every detail, such as the time that Yulia arrived in Salisbury on the Saturday afternoon, nevertheless, there are some serious problems with this account, which are broadly as follows:

Firstly, it omits crucial information from the morning of 4^th March.
Secondly, it ignores a very important incident on the afternoon of 4^th March.
Thirdly, it is, I believe, incorrect in the sequence of events it presents.

In this piece, I want to concentrate on the first one of these — the morning — and then cover the second and third in subsequent pieces.

When the timeline above was released by the Metropolitan Police on 17^th March, the whereabouts of the Skripals on the morning of 4^th March was unknown. At the press conference in which the timeline was released, Deputy Assistant Commissioner, Neil Basu, who is in charge of the investigation, appealed for information about their movements on the morning of 4^th March:

“We believe that at around 9.15am on Sunday 4 March, Sergei’s car may have been in the areas of London Road, Churchill Way North and Wilton Road. Then at around 1.30pm it was seen being driven down Devizes Road, towards the town centre.

We need to establish Sergei and Yulia’s movements during the morning, before they headed to the town centre. Did you see this car, or what you believe was this car, on the day of the incident? We are particularly keen to hear from you if you saw the car before 1.30pm. If you have information, please call the police on 101″ [my emphasis].

Although the Skripals’ movements were unknown, it had been thought that they visited the cemetery on London Road, since there were apparently fresh flowers on the grave of Mr Skripals wife, Liudmila. But there was one very important piece of information that was known, which was extremely interesting. According to The Times:

“The Russian spy and his daughter poisoned by nerve agent turned off the GPS tracking on their mobile telephones for four hours on the day they were attacked, it was reported yesterday.”

That piece of information alone is enough to make those missing four hours in the morning vital to any investigation. There must have been a reason for the Skripals to make their phones untraceable during that time and – with apologies for stating the blindingly obvious – it was clearly because they did not want their movements at that time to be known. The most plausible explanation for this would seem to be that they had some kind of meeting that morning, a meeting which was important and secret enough for them not to want certain other people knowing where they were and what they were doing.

It is entirely understandable that the Metropolitan Police did not include details of the Skripals’ movements on the morning of 4th March in the timeline they released on 17th March, since they did not know them at that time. And given that the Skripals had made their phones untraceable, it is also entirely understandable why the Metropolitan Police desperately wanted people to come forward with information about the four hour time period.

But here’s the thing: More than five months later, and this timeline has not been updated. Not only this, but the Metropolitan Police have gone mysteriously quiet about this part of the timeline. Why mysterious? Simply because Sergei and Yulia Skripal have been awake and talking for months, and unless they have steadfastly refused to tell investigators what they were doing on that morning – which is frankly inconceivable – then the Metropolitan Police must know where they were and what they were doing on that morning. And yet they’ve stopped talking about it and have not updated their timeline since 17th March.

Which raises the following questions:

Where were Sergei and Yulia Skripal on the morning of 4^th March?
What were they doing?
Why did they feel the need to turn off the GPS tracking on their phones?
Were they meeting someone, and if so who?
Why has the Metropolitan Police not updated its timeline to include the Skripals’ whereabouts that morning, since it must by now be well aware of them?

The 10 Main Holes in the Official Narrative on the Salisbury Poisonings: #1 – The Motive

The 10 Main Holes in the Official Narrative on the Salisbury Poisonings: #2 – The Intent

The 10 Main Holes in the Official Narrative on the Salisbury Poisonings: #3 – The Capability

The 10 Main Holes in the Official Narrative on the Salisbury Poisonings: #4 – The Missing Four Hours

The 10 Main Holes in the Official Narrative on the Salisbury Poisonings: #5 – The Feeding of the Ducks

The 10 Main Holes in the Official Narrative on the Salisbury Poisonings: #6 – The Meal and The Drink

August 26, 2018 Posted by aletho | Deception, False Flag Terrorism, Russophobia | UK | Leave a comment

Unipolarism vs. Multipolarism – The Real Russian Interference in US Politics

By Diana Johnstone | Ron Paul Institute | August 24, 2018

The Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union was ostensibly a conflict between two ideologies, two socio-economic systems.

All that seems to be over. The day of a new socialism may dawn unexpectedly, but today capitalism rules the world. Now the United States and Russia are engaged in a no-holds-barred fight between capitalists. At first glance, it may seem to be a classic clash between rival capitalists. And yet, once again an ideological conflict is emerging, one which divides capitalists themselves, even in Russia and in the United States itself. It is the conflict between globalists and sovereignists, between a unipolar and a multipolar world. The conflict will not be confined to the two main nuclear powers.

The defeat of communism was brutally announced in a certain “capitalist manifesto” dating from the early 1990s that proclaimed: “Our guiding light is Profit, acquired in a strictly legal way. Our Lord is His Majesty, Money, for it is only He who can lead us to wealth as the norm in life.”

The authors of this bold tract were Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who went on to become the richest man in Russia, before spending ten years in a Russian jail, and his business partner at the time, Leonid Nevzlin, who has since retired comfortably to Israel.

Loans For Shares

Those were the good old days in the 1990s when the Clinton administration was propping up Yeltsin as he let Russia be ripped off by the joint efforts of such ambitious well-placed Russians and their Western sponsors, notably using the “loans for shares” trick.

In a 2012 Vanity Fair article on her hero, Khodorkovsky, the vehemently anti-Putin journalist Masha Gessen frankly summed up how this worked:

The new oligarchs—a dozen men who had begun to exercise the power that money brought—concocted a scheme. They would lend the government money, which it badly needed, and in return the government would put up as collateral blocks of stock amounting to a controlling interest in the major state-owned companies. When the government defaulted, as both the oligarchs and the government knew it would, the oligarchs would take them over. By this maneuver the Yeltsin administration privatized oil, gas, minerals, and other enterprises without parliamentary approval.

This worked so well that from his position in the Communist youth organization, Khodorkovsky used his connections to get control of Russia’s petroleum company Yukos and become the richest oligarch in Russia, worth some $15 billion, of which he still controls a chunk despite his years in jail (2003-2013). His arrest made him a hero of democracy in the United States, where he had many friends, especially those business partners who were helping him sell pieces of Yukos to Chevron and Exxon. Khodorkovsky, a charming and generous young man, easily convinced his American partners that he was Russia’s number one champion of democracy and the rule of law, especially of those laws which allow domestic capital to flee to foreign banks and foreign capital to take control of Russian resources.

Vladimir Putin didn’t see it that way. Without restoring socialism, he dispossessed Khodorkovsky of Yukos and essentially transformed the oil and gas industry from the “open society” model tolerated by Yeltsin to a national capitalist industry. Khodorkovsky and his partner Platon Lebedev were accused of having stolen all the oil that Yukos had produced in the years 1998 to 2003, tried, convicted and sentenced to 14 years of prison each. This shift ruined US plans, already underway, to “balkanize” Russia between its many provinces, thereby allowing Western capital to pursue its capture of the Russian economy.

The dispossession of Khodorkovsky was certainly a major milestone in the conflict between President Putin and Washington. On November 18, 2005, the Senate unanimously adopted resolution 322 introduced by Joe Biden denouncing the treatment of the Khodorkovsky and Lebedev as politically motivated.

Who Influences Whom?

Now let’s take a look at the history of Russian influence in the United States. It is obvious that a Russian who can get the Senate to adopt a resolution in his favor has a certain influence. But when the “deep state” growls about Russian influence, it isn’t talking about Khodorkovsky. It’s talking about a joking response Trump made to a reporter’s snide question during the presidential campaign. In a variation of the classic “when did you stop beating your wife?” the reporter asked if he would call on Russian President Vladimir Putin to “stay out” of the election.

Since a stupid question does not deserve a serious answer, Trump said he had “nothing to do with Putin” before adding, “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 e-mails that are missing. I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.”

Aha! Went the Trump haters. This proves it! Irony is almost as unwelcome in American politics as honesty.

When President Trump revoked his security clearance earlier this month, former CIA chef John Brennan got his chance to spew out his hatred in the complacent pages of the New York Times.

Someone supposed to be smart enough to head an intelligence agency actually took Trump’s joking invitation as a genuine request. “By issuing such a statement,” Brennan wrote, “Mr. Trump was not only encouraging a foreign nation to collect intelligence against a United States citizen, but also openly authorizing his followers to work with our primary global adversary against his political opponent.”

The Russians, Brennan declared, “troll political, business, and cultural waters in search of gullible or unprincipled individuals who become pliant in the hands of their Russian puppet masters.”

Which Russians do that? And who are those “individuals”?

‘The Fixer in Chief’

To understand the way Washington works, nothing is more instructive than to examine the career of lawyer Jonathan M. Winer, who proudly repeats that in early 2017, the head of the Carnegie Endowment Bill Burns introduced him as “the Fixer in Chief”. Winer has long been unknown to the general public, but this may soon change.

Let’s see what the fixer has fixed.

Under the presidency of fellow Yalie Bill Clinton, Winer served as the State Department’s first Deputy Assistant Secretary for International Law Enforcement, from 1994-1999. One may question the selectivity of Bill Clinton’s concern for international law enforcement, which certainly did not cover violating international law by bombing defenseless countries. In any case, in 1999, Winer was awarded for “virtually unprecedented achievements”. Later we shall examine one of those important achievements.

At the end of the Clinton administration, from 2008 to 2013, the Fixer in Chief worked as high up consultant at one of the world’s most powerful PR and lobbying firms, APCO Worldwide. This is how the Washington revolving door functions: after a few years in government finding out how things work, one then goes into highly paid “consultancy” to sell this insider information and influential contacts to private clients.

APCO got off to a big start some thirty years ago lobbying for Philip Morris and the tobacco industry in general.

In 2002, APCO launched something called the “Friends of Science” to promote skepticism concerning the harmful effects of smoking. In 1993, the campaign described its goals and objectives “encouraging the public to question – from the grassroots up – the validity of scientific studies.”

While Winer was at APCO, one of its major activities was hyping the Clinton Global Initiative, an international networking platform promoting the Clinton Foundation. APCO president and CEO Margery Kraus explained that the consultancy was there to “help other CGI members garner interest for the causes they are addressing, demonstrate their success and highlight the wide-ranging achievements of CGI as a whole.” Considering that only five percent of Clinton Foundation turnover went to donations, they needed all the PR they could get.

Significantly, donations to the Clinton Global Initiative have dried up since Hillary lost the presidential election. According to the Observer : “Foreign governments began pulling out of annual donations, signaling the organization’s clout was predicated on donor access to the Clintons, rather than its philanthropic work.”

This helps explain Hillary Clinton’s panic when she lost in 2016. How in the world can she ever reward her multi-million-dollar donors with the favors they expected?

As well as the tobacco industry and the Clinton Foundation, APCO also works for Khodorkovsky. To be precise, according to public listings, the fourth biggest of APCO’s many clients is the Corbiere Trust, owned by Khodorkovsky and registered in Guernsey. The trust tends and distributes some of the billions that the oligarch got out of Russia before he was jailed. Corbiere money was spent to lobby both for Resolution 322 (supporting Khodorkovky after his arrest in Russia) and for the Magnitsky Act (more later). Margery Kraus, APCO’s president and CEO, is a member of Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s son Pavel’s Institute of Modern Russia, devoted to “promoting democratic values” – in other words, to building political opposition to Vladimir Putin.

In 2009 Jonathan Winer went back to the State Department where he was given a distinguished service award for having somehow rescued thousands of stranded members of the Muhahedin-e Khalq from their bases in Iraq they were trying to overthrow the Iranian government. The MeK, once officially recognized as a terrorist organization by the State Department, has become a pet instrument in US and Israeli regime change operations directed at Iran.

However, it was Winer’s extracurricular activities at State that finally brought him into the public spotlight early this year – or rather, the spotlight of the House Intelligence Committee, whose chairman Devin Nunes (R-Cal) named him as one of a network promoting the notorious “Steele Dossier” which accused Trump of illicit financial dealing and compromising sexual activities in Russia. By Winer’s own account, he had been friends with former British intelligence agent Christopher Steele since his days at APCO. Back at State, he regularly channeled Steele reports, ostensibly drawn from contacts with friendly Russian intelligence agents, to Victoria Nuland, in charge of Russian affairs, and top Russian experts. These included the infamous “Steele dossier”. In September 2016, Winer’s old friend Sidney Blumenthal – a particularly close advisor to Hillary Clinton – gave him notes written by a more mysterious Clinton insider named Cody Shearer, repeating the salacious attacks.

All this dirt was spread through government agencies and mainstream media before being revealed publicly just before Trump’s inauguration, used to stimulate the “Russiagate” investigation by Robert Mueller. The dossier has been discredited but the investigation goes on and on.

So, it is all right to take seriously information allegedly obtained from “Russian agents” and spread it around, so long as it can damage Trump. As with so much else in Washington, double standards are the rule.

Jonathan Winer and the Magnitsky Act

Jonathan Winer played a major role in Congressional adoption of the “Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act of 2012” (the Magnitsky Act), a measure that effectively ended post-Cold War hopes for normal relations between Washington and Moscow. This act was based on a highly contentious version of the November 16, 2009 death in prison of accountant Sergei Leonidovich Magnitsky, as told to Congress by hedge fund manager Bill Browder (grandson of Earl Browder, head of the Communist Party USA 1934-1945). According to Browder, Magnitsky was a lawyer beaten to death in prison as a result of his crusade for human rights.

However, as convincingly established by dissident Russian film-maker Andrei Nekrasov’s (banned) investigative documentary, the unfortunate Magnitsky was neither a human rights crusader, nor a lawyer, nor beaten to death. He was an accountant jailed for his role in Browder’s business dealings, who died of natural causes as a result of inadequate medical treatment. The case was hyped up as a major human rights drama by Browder in order to discredit Russian charges against himself.

In any case, by adopting a law punishing Magnitsky’s alleged persecutors, the US Congress acted as a supreme court judging internal Russian legal issues.

The Magnitsky Act also condemns legal prosecution of Mikhail Khodorkovsky. Browder, on a much smaller scale, also made a fortune ripping off Russians during the Yeltsin years, and later got into trouble with Russian tax collectors. Since Browder had given up his US citizenship in order to avoid paying US taxes, he had reason to fear Russian efforts to extradite him for tax evasion and other financial misdeeds.

It was Jonathan Winer who found a solution to Browder’s predicament.

As Winer tells it:

When Browder consulted me, […] I suggested creating a new law to impose economic and travel sanctions on human-rights violators involved in grand corruption. Browder decided this could secure a measure of justice for Magnitsky. He initiated a campaign that led to the enactment of the Magnitsky Act. Soon other countries enacted their own Magnitsky Acts, including Canada, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and most recently, the United Kingdom.

Russian authorities are still trying to pursue their case against Browder. In his press conference following the Helsinki meeting with Trump, Vladimir Putin suggested allowing US authorities to question the Russians named in the Mueller indictment in exchange for allowing Russian officials to question individuals involved in the Browder case, including Winer and former US ambassador to Moscow Michael McFaul. Putin observed that such an exchange was possible under the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty signed between the two countries in 1999, back in the Yeltsin days when America was posing as Russia’s best friend.

But the naïve Russians did not measure the craftiness of American lawyers.

As Winer wrote:

“Under that treaty, Russia’s procurator general can ask the US attorney general … to arrange for Americans to be ordered to testify to assist in a criminal case. But there is a fundamental exception: The attorney general can provide no such assistance in a politically motivated case.” (My emphasis.)

“I know this”, he wrote, “because I was among those who helped put it there. Back in 1999, when we were negotiating the agreement with Russia, I was the senior State Department official managing US-Russia law-enforcement relations.”

So, the Fixer in Chief could have said to the worried Browder, “No problem. All that we need to do is make your case a politically motivated case. Then they can’t touch you.”

Winer’s clever treaty is a perfect Catch-22. The treaty doesn’t apply to a case if it is politically motivated, and if it is Russian, it must be politically motivated.

In a July 15, 2016, complaint to the Justice Department, Browder’s Heritage Capital Management accused both American and Russian opponents of the Magnitsky Act of violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA; adopted in 1938 with Nazis in mind). Among the “lobbyists” cited was the late Ron Dellums (falsely identified in the complaint as a “former Republican congressman”).

The Heritage Capital Management brief declared that: “While lawyers representing foreign principals are exempt from filing under FARA, this is only true if the attorney does not try to influence policy at the behest of his client.” However, by disseminating anti-Magnitsky material to Congress, any Russian lawyer was “clearly trying to influence policy” was therefore in violation of FARA filing requirements.”

Catch-22 all over again.

Needless to say, Khodorkovsky’s Corbiere Trust lobbied heavily to get Congress to pass the Magnitsky Act, which also repeated its defense of Khodorkovsky himself. This type of “Russian interference intended to influence policy” is not even noticed, while US authorities scour cyberspace for evidence of trolls.

Conclusion

The basic ideological conflict here is between Unipolar America and Multipolar Russia. Russia’s position, as Vladimir Putin made clear in his historic speech at the 2007 Munich security conference, is to allow countries to enjoy national sovereignty and develop in their own way. The current Russian government is against interference in other countries’ politics on principle. It would naturally prefer an American government willing to allow this.

The United States, in contrast, is in favor of interference in other countries on principle: because it seeks a Unipolar world, with a single “democratic” system, and considers itself the final authority as to which regime a country should have and how it should run its affairs.

So, if Russians were trying to interfere in US domestic politics, they would not be trying to change the US system but to prevent it from trying to change their own. Russian leaders clearly are sufficiently cultivated to realize that historic processes do not depend on some childish trick played on somebody’s computer.

US policy-makers practice interference every day. And they are perfectly willing to allow Russians to interfere in American politics – so long as those Russians are “unipolar” like themselves, like Khodorkovsky, who aspire to precisely the same unipolar world sought by the State Department and George Soros. Indeed, the American empire depends on such interference from Iraqis, Libyans, Iranians, Russians, Cubans – all those who come to Washington to try to get US power to settle old scores or overthrow the government in the country they came from. All those are perfectly welcome to lobby for a world ruled by America.

Russian interference in American politics is totally welcome so long as it helps turn public opinion against “multipolar” Putin, glorifies American democracy, serves US interests including the military-industrial complex, helps break down national borders (except those of the United States and Israel) and puts money in appropriate pockets in the halls of Congress.

August 25, 2018 Posted by aletho | Corruption, Deception, Russophobia, Timeless or most popular | Hillary Clinton, Israel, Russia, United States | Leave a comment

Russophobia digest part 6: Evidence is optional as alleged anti-vaxx Russian bots go phishing

RT | August 24, 2018

Alleged Russian bots have been at the forefront of another week of Russophobia, with a new but familiar pattern emerging. Scare stories and accusations are made, before a later admission that no actual evidence is available.

RT takes a look at the last seven days or so of Russophobia.

Democrats’ security chief missed the memo

One of the real values of Russophobia is that it means thought and proof are rarely, if ever, needed anymore. Why find out what really happened when there is a decent conclusion to jump to?

For example, this week Bob Lord, the Democratic National Committee’s chief security officer, claimed that the organization’s US voter database had been hacked. Only, he later had to admit it was actually a ‘phishing test.’

Yep, nobody told the security chief about the security test, and he didn’t bother asking either, because it’s much easier to simply insinuate that Russians did it. To be fair to Lord, he didn’t appear to overtly use the ‘R’ word, but almost every media report on the non-incident seasoned its coverage liberally with accusations against Russia.

Microsoft’s marketing dept jumps on Russophobia bandwagon

Staying in the murky world of unsubstantiated cyber-claims, Microsoft said it has also thwarted phishing attacks on political targets by a group “widely associated” with Russia (Fancy Bear, in case you’re interested). It backed up its claims in the now-time-honored fashion of admitting there is “no evidence” that the dodgy domains detected were used in any successful attacks — and there’s no evidence “to indicate the identity of the ultimate targets.”

So, why is Microsoft getting involved? Because it’s got a brand new product maybe? Bill Gates’ boys have come up with anti-hacking software ‘AccountGuard’ as part of its ‘Defending Democracy Program.’

It provides “state-of-the-art cybersecurity protection at no extra cost to all candidates and campaign offices at the federal, state and local level, as well as think tanks and political organizations we now believe are under attack.”

And they claim the Russians are dangerous!?

Pro-pox bots

Those busy little alleged Russian bots are also driving the online anti-vaccine debate in the US, apparently, according to research in the US. No surprise there really, Russian bots real or imagined are accused of driving every online debate these days.

David Broniatowski from the George Washington School of Engineering and Applied Science said: “… many anti-vaccine tweets come from accounts whose provenance is unclear. These might be bots, human users or ‘cyborgs’ – hacked accounts that are sometimes taken over by bots. Although it’s impossible to know exactly how many tweets were generated by bots and trolls …”

“Impossible to know,” “provenance unclear.” So again, no real evidence, so it must be the Russians, mustn’t it?

Someone better check whether Jenny McCarthy and Jim Carrey are Russian bots too, because they’re not too keen on vaccinations either. Apparently neither is Donald Trump, but you can hardly accuse him of… Oh.

Manafort: Conviction without collusion

Russophobes were jumping for joy at the conviction of Trump’s former election chief Paul Manafort this week. He was sent down for tax fraud, and bank fraud, and hiding bank accounts. What he definitely wasn’t sent down for was colluding with Russia, which is really a little strange considering the man responsible for sending him to court was Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who was only appointed to investigate exactly that. As we’ve seen, though, evidence is optional when Russians are the target.

In the wise words of America’s commander-in-chief: “This has nothing to do with Russian collusion. This started as Russian collusion. This has absolutely nothing to do [with it].” Say what you want about Donald Trump…

Russian hackers not found… again: DNC retracts claim voter database targeted by cyber-attack

‘No evidence’, but Russian Fancy Bears are doing it again (p.s. here’s our new product) – Microsoft

August 24, 2018 Posted by aletho | Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Russophobia | DNC, Donald Trump, Microsoft, United States | Leave a comment

Germany Can’t Give Up on Cooperation With Russia in Oil and Gas – Merkel

Sputnik – 24.08.2018

Germany has greenlighted the Nord Stream 2 project to bring Russian gas to Europe and is under strong pressure from the US, which warns that the project is making Germany dependent on Russia. Berlin insists that the project is entirely commercial.

A planned sub-sea pipeline that will bring gas directly from Russia under the Baltic Sea will not make Germany dependent on Russia for energy, Chancellor Angela Merkel told university students in the Georgian capital Tbilisi on Friday, on the second day of her trip to the Caucasus.

Angela Merkel described continued Russian oil and natural gas supplies to Germany as an important factor in ensuring the country’s energy security.

”We have a decades-long history of economic cooperation with Russia, including on CO2 emissions. We have consistently been reducing our use of coal and we need natural gas coming to us via Belarus, Ukraine and Poland, that’s why we support Nord Stream 1 and 2,” Merkel noted.

She noted that Germany wanted to make sure that Russia continued delivering some gas via Ukraine even after the Nord Stream 2 pipeline was finished.

Mentioning the importance of expanding the so-called “Southern Corridor” for natural gas supplies also from Azerbaijan, she still pointed out that buying gas from Russia was cheaper than buying it elsewhere.

“Europe and Russia, then the Soviet Union, had very close energy cooperation during the Cold War. We can’t afford giving up on cooperation with Russia in oil and gas. Of course, we can have natural gas coming from Azerbaijan, but the truth is that it will not be available at the price we are paying for Russian gas,” Merkel said.

Some countries that are afraid of losing revenues from Russian gas transit, above all Ukraine, are opposed to Nord Stream 2.

The project is also facing opposition from the United States, which has ambitious plans of LNG exports to Europe.

Russia has repeatedly urged its European partners not to perceive the Nord Stream pipeline as an instrument of influence insisting that the project is an entirely economic one.

August 24, 2018 Posted by aletho | Economics, Russophobia | Azerbaijan, Germany, Nord Stream-2, Ukraine | Leave a comment

AfD MP: ‘We Refuse to Support the US Gas Industry at Germany’s Expense’

Sputnik – August 24, 2018

Despite opposition to the Nord Stream II pipeline from some Eastern Europe states, the consortium of energy companies involved in the joint venture are going ahead with the project.

Sputnik reporter Suliman Mulhem spoke to Christian Blex, a representative of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) Party in the Bundestag, about the proposed pipeline and the untapped potential of bilateral EU-Russia trade.

Europe’s Dilemma

Europe’s growing demand for natural gas, coupled with falling production in many longstanding European natural gas exporters, such as Norway, has put the region on course to face an energy deficit unless it swiftly alters its energy mix or builds the necessary midstream infrastructure to import more natural gas from Russia.

A move away from natural gas is unlikely to happen, as it is unrivaled by most alternatives in terms of affordability, abundance, and is significantly more eco-friendly than other fossil fuels, such as coal.

Alternatively, Europe could look to make up its energy shortfall by importing US liquefied natural gas (LNG), though, as Dr. Blex explained, this course of action is riddled with drawbacks and is not in Germany’s interests.

“The position of the AfD is that Germany should make an interest-based policy and due to the current economic climate and the German government’s recent policies, we must focus on importing. As Russia currently supplies the cheapest option in the form of natural gas, it is only logical that we import from them,” Dr. Blex told Sputnik on Friday.

“Since the US cannot currently compete in terms of both price and infrastructure, the idea of seriously switching to US gas is a pipe dreams. In addition, the AfD refuses to support the US gas industry at the expense of Germany, or to solely serve Washington’s geostrategic interests.”

Baseless Prophecies

Dr. Blex expressed his support for Nord Stream II, insisting that it will benefit Germany and the wider European economy, dismissing concerns that Moscow could use Europe’s reliance on Russian natural gas as leverage over the continent.

“Despite all the prophecies of doubts about the danger of a Russian monopoly position and the associated blackmail potential, as well as its alleged political uncertainty as a partner, Russia has always reliably adhered to its supply contracts with Germany over the past 30 years, which is why we regard Russia to be a reliable partner. As long as this remains so, I see no need to orient ourselves elsewhere,” Dr. Blex said.

In fact, this is more likely to be an issue if Europe swapped out Russian natural gas for US LNG, as the Trump administration has repeatedly showed itself to be an unreliable partner, with President Trump withdrawing from the Iran nuclear deal and recklessly imposing tariffs against several key US trade partners in 2018.

In virtually every case of opposition to Nord Stream II, the critic has a vested interest in preventing the pipeline’s completion; Russian natural gas is perhaps the single largest barrier to US LNG taking over Europe’s energy market, while some European states are keen to hinder the project to ensure their revenue streams from existing Russian gas transit deals aren’t slashed.

Undisputed Potential & Future Relations

Although Europe maintains a fruitful partnership with Russia in the energy sector, sanctions and the contemporary political climate have inhibited both sides from exploring new avenues and benefiting from the untapped economic potential an amicable relationship offers.

Dr. Blex noted this “tremendous potential,” and voiced concerns of German and other European businesses being adversely affected by the sanctions, saying, “It is undisputed that trade between the European Union and Russia has tremendous potential. German companies in the automotive, chemical and electronic industries suffered losses due to sanctions. Normalization of relations is therefore of Russian as well as European and German interest.”

EU farmers have often protested against the sanctions, dumping their produce on the streets, as they’ve been hit hard by the sanctions.

“The AfD advocates ending the sanctions,” the German MP added.

Moreover, the Bundestag member called for a “pan-European policy” that fosters better political and economic relations with Russia, but said the current German federal government is unlikely to adopt such an approach.

“A pan-European policy that strengthens economic relations with Russia would be desirable. Unfortunately, the political will for this geostrategic reasoning does not yet exist; the Merkel government is against it.”

However, Dr. Blex described himself as optimistic “that the steady increase in power of the AfD” will shift Germany’s stance and lead to a more productive relationship with Russia.

“I therefore hope that in the long term, throughout the EU, there will be a recognition that Russia must be seen as a partner rather than an enemy,” Dr. Blex concluded.

August 24, 2018 Posted by aletho | Economics, Russophobia | AfD, Germany | Leave a comment

The 10 Main Holes in the Official Narrative on the Salisbury Poisonings: #3 – The Capability

By Rob Slane | The Blog Mire | August 23, 2018

Once again I return to Theresa May’s statement of 26^th May, in which she stated the following:

“In conclusion, as I have set out, no other country has a combination of the capability, the intent and the motive to carry out such an act.”

She then went on to claim:

“We have been led by evidence not by speculation.”

However, as I showed in Part 1 and Part 2, her statement to the Commons contained no actual evidence of motive or intent. Claims and assertions, but nothing more.

But what of capability? Looking through the statement, here are the key passages that might be said to fall into this category:

“As I set out for the House in my statements earlier this month, our world-leading experts at the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory at Porton Down positively identified the chemical used for this act as a Novichok – a military-grade nerve agent of a type developed by the Soviet Union.”

“And we have information indicating that within the last decade, Russia has investigated ways of delivering nerve agents probably for assassination – and as part of this programme has produced and stockpiled small quantities of Novichoks.”

Her evidence, such that it is, therefore falls into two categories: firstly, capability with regard to the weapon allegedly used to poison the Skripals; secondly, capability with regard to method of delivery of the weapon.

There are three things to say with regard to the first category. To begin with, it is not quite the case that Porton Down scientists had “positively identified the chemical” as a “Novichok”. In the evidence presented to the High Court between 20^th – 22^nd March, here is how the Porton Down Chemical and Biological Analyst described the substance:

“Blood samples from Sergei Skripal and Yulia Skripal were analysed and the findings indicated exposure to a nerve agent or related compound. The samples tested positive for the presence of a Novichok class nerve agent or closely related agent [my emphasis].”

As you will notice, there is a degree of ambiguity in this statement which is not present in Mrs May’s statement made a few days later. Ought she not to have recognised this?

Secondly, it has been conclusively shown that a number of other countries either have produced, or know how to produce substances within the class of nerve agents that Mrs May referred to as “Novichoks”. The Czech Government has admitted producing a small quantity of the closely related substance, A-230; Iran has produced it, in compliance with the OPCW in 2016; The German Intelligence Agency, BND, was given the formula back in the 1990s, and they shared it with a number of other NATO countries, including the US and UK. The Edgewood Chemical and Biological Defense Command in Maryland, USA, recorded the formula back in 1998.

The point of this is not to point the finger at any of those countries. Merely to say that knowledge of and production of “Novichok” is by no means confined to one country. And in any case, according to one of the world’s leading experts in organic chemistry, David Collum, Professor of Organic Chemistry at Cornell University, it doesn’t even require a State party. He asserts that “any credible organic chemist could make Novichok nerve agents.”

The fact that other countries know how to produce “Novichoks”, and in some cases have produced it, shows the claim that its apparent use in Salisbury proves Russian culpability to be complete nonsense. It’s as silly as saying that a poisoning using VX points to Britain because VX is a type of nerve agent developed by Britain.

And thirdly, if the British Government did indeed have information that the Russian Government had a secret programme investigating ways of delivering nerve agents, and had produced and stockpiled small quantities of Novichoks, then it had an obligation to inform the OPCW under the Chemical Weapons Convention, which it apparently failed to do. Furthermore, as a State Party to the Convention, it should have raised objections in 2017, when the OPCW’s Director-General, Ahmet Üzümcü, declared the following:

“The completion of the verified destruction of Russia’s chemical weapons programme is a major milestone in the achievement of the goals of the Chemical Weapons Convention. I congratulate Russia and I commend all of their experts who were involved for their professionalism and dedication. I also express my appreciation to the States Parties that assisted the Russian Federation with its destruction program and thank the OPCW staff who verified the destruction.”

So much for Mrs May’s evidence of capability regarding the weapon, what of her evidence regarding the delivery?

When she stated that her Government had information that the Russian Government had investigated ways of delivering nerve agents, she was, I believe, referring to the alleged “assassin’s manual”, which the Government says it possesses, but will not show because it is classified, and which apparently contains information showing that Russian agents were trained in putting poison on door handles.

Three brief points about this:

1. It really is utter nonsense. Smearing poison on a door handle would be a frankly ludicrous way to target someone for assassination, since you could never be sure that your target would actually touch it (you never know, maybe a postman or a milkman or the man from Amazon might get there first).

2. Salisbury was treated to dozens of guys in Hazmat gear decontaminating certain parts of the city, since the substance in question was apparently so lethal that, according to Alastair Hay, Professor of Environmental Toxicology at the University of Leeds:

“A few millilitres would be sufficient to probably kill a good number of people.”

Are we really supposed to believe that the Russians have either:

a) Developed ways of putting this stuff on door handles without the requisite chemical protection and perhaps just a pair of Marigolds, or

b) Have people stupid enough to try.

3. But the biggest problem is this: The British Government was starting to point the finger at the Russian Government within a few days of the poisoning, and it was later stated that one of the reasons for this was the manual that they apparently possessed. But if they did indeed have this manual, and it was the reason for their apportioning of blame as early as 12th March:

a) Why was the door handle not the focus of the investigation from the very start?

b) When are those police officers who stood within feet of that door, and those who no doubt went in and out of the house using the door handle, going to sue Her Majesty’s Government for negligence and their failure to act on the intelligence they apparently had?

If there is indeed such a manual, my guess is that it was put together by a chap named Steele.

The 10 Main Holes in the Official Narrative on the Salisbury Poisonings: #1 – The Motive

The 10 Main Holes in the Official Narrative on the Salisbury Poisonings: #2 – The Intent

The 10 Main Holes in the Official Narrative on the Salisbury Poisonings: #3 – The Capability

The 10 Main Holes in the Official Narrative on the Salisbury Poisonings: #4 – The Missing Four Hours

The 10 Main Holes in the Official Narrative on the Salisbury Poisonings: #5 – The Feeding of the Ducks

The 10 Main Holes in the Official Narrative on the Salisbury Poisonings: #6 – The Meal and The Drink

August 24, 2018 Posted by aletho | Deception, False Flag Terrorism, Russophobia | UK | Leave a comment

Senate wants to know about Cohen’s ‘Trump evidence’ as his lawyer denies ‘mixed up’ Russia claims

RT | August 24, 2018

Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said his committee is interested in Michael Cohen’s alleged evidence on President Trump. However, recent comments by Cohen’s lawyer have cast doubt over such ‘evidence.’

Michael Cohen, Trump’s one-time ‘fixer’ and attorney was convicted on eight counts of campaign finance violations, tax fraud, and bank fraud in a plea deal with prosecutors reached earlier this week. One of these claims involves ‘hush money’ paid to porn star Stormy Daniels, who Trump allegedly had an affair with in 2006.

Cohen, who once said that he would take a bullet for Trump, has now flipped and claims that Trump directed him to “commit a crime” by ordering the payment. Trump denies ordering Cohen to break the law and says that the money came from his own fortune, not the campaign account. Trump accused Cohen of “making up stories” to get a better plea deal.

Regardless, Senator Grassley is interested in following Cohen’s claim up and has reached out to Cohen’s attorney, Lanny Davis. “We have reached out to Lanny Davis but we have not heard back,” the Iowa senator told Bloomberg.

Grassley’s committee had been trying to reach Cohen since May, which was canceled due to Cohen’s ongoing criminal proceedings. Senator Lindsey Graham – (R-South Carolina), another Judiciary Committee member – is still reluctant to investigate Cohen’s claims, as Cohen has yet to be sentenced.

“I’ve been very consistent about this, I don’t want to cross paths with ongoing criminal investigations,” Graham said.

Cohen also revealed through Davis on Wednesday that he has information that might be of interest to Special Counsel Robert Mueller, charged with investigating alleged collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia in the runup to the 2016 election.

However, a series of television appearances by Davis on Wednesday have raised doubts as to the reliability of any evidence Cohen might have. Speaking to CNN, Davis directly denied Cohen’s earlier claims to the network that Trump had advance notice of a meeting between his son, Donald Jr., and a Russian lawyer at Trump Tower in 2016.

“So Michael Cohen does not have information that President Trump knew about the Trump Tower meeting with the Russians beforehand or even after?” host Anderson Cooper asked Davis.

“No, he does not,” Davis replied, adding that the earlier CNN report had gotten “mixed up.”

When the CNN story broke late June, Trump rubbished it, and like this week, accused Cohen of “trying to make up stories,” again to get out of his own legal troubles, a tax evasion case involving a former business partner in the New York taxi business.

After denying Cohen’s Trump Tower ‘bombshell’, Davis threw water on another smoking gun touted by some Democrats as evidence of collusion: the Steele Dossier. Compiled by opposition research firm Fusion GPS at the behest of the Democratic National Committee, the dossier was a poorly sourced and unverified collection of allegations against Trump and his campaign team.

Among other things, the Dossier claimed that Trump hired two prostitutes to urinate on him in a Moscow hotel room, when then-businessman Trump visited the Russian capital in 2013. Davis told Bloomberg that in this dubious dossier, at least 13 allegations against Cohen alone were false, including one claim that Cohen traveled to Prague in 2016 to meet with Russians and facilitate a “clandestine” conspiracy between Trump and Russia.

“Thirteen references to Mr. Cohen are false in the dossier, but he has never been to Prague in his life,” Davis told Bloomberg.

One thing that Davis was equally certain about is that Cohen needs money. After teasing the possibility that Cohen might have some juicy details for Mueller, Davis asked viewers to reach into their pockets and help the disgraced fixer “continue to tell the truth” about Trump by contributing to a crowdfunding campaign. Of course, this money would also go towards helping Cohen “pay his legal fees.”

August 24, 2018 Posted by aletho | Deception, Russophobia | CNN, Michael Cohen, United States | Leave a comment

Be Careful What You Ask For: Wasting Time with Manafort, Cohen, and Russiagate

By Jim Kavanagh | The Polemicist | August 23, 2018

So, Paul Manafort, described by the New York Times as “a longtime lobbyist and political consultant who worked for multiple Republican candidates and presidents,” was convicted of bank fraud, tax fraud and failure to report a foreign bank account. And Michael Cohen, Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer, pled guilty to tax evasion, bank fraud (making false statements to obtain loans), and breaking campaign finance laws by paying off two women who claimed to have had sexual affairs with Trump. Because Cohen says those payoffs were made at Trump’s direction, that is the one charge that directly implicates Trump.

On the basis of the these results, the NYT editorial board insists: “Only a complete fantasist … could continue to claim that this investigation of foreign subversion of an American election, which has already yielded dozens of other indictments and several guilty pleas, is a ‘hoax’ or ‘scam’ or ‘rigged witch hunt.’” Democrats concur, saying the results “put the lie to Mr. Trump’s argument that Mr. Mueller was engaged in a political investigation.”

But these crimes are tax fraud, money laundering, and credit app padding that have nothing to do with Donald Trump, and campaign-finance violations related to what a critic of Trump aptly describes as “a classic B-team type of bumbling screw-up of covering up mistresses.” I question the level of word play, if not fantasizing, necessary to claim that these crimes validate “this investigation of foreign subversion.” None of them has anything to do with that. The perils of this, that, these, and those.

Do these results disprove that the Mueller probe is “a political investigation”? I think they imply quite the opposite, and quite obviously so.

Why? Because these convictions would not have occurred if Hillary Clinton had been elected president. There would be no convictions because there would have been no investigation.

If Hillary had been elected, all the crimes of Manafort and Cohen—certainly those that took place over many years before the election, but even, I think, those having to do with campaign contributions and mistress cover-ups—would never have been investigated, because all would have been considered right with the political world.

The Manafort and Cohen crimes would have been ignored as the standard tactics of the elite financial grifting—as well as of parasitism on, and payoffs by, political campaigns—that they are. Indeed, there would have been no emergency, save-our-democracy-from-Russian-collaboration, Special Counsel investigation, from which these irrelevant charges were spun off, at all.

The kinds of antics Manafort and Cohen have been prosecuted for went unnoticed when Donald Trump was a donor to the Democratic and Republican parties, and if he had stayed in his Tower doling out campaign contributions, they still would be. It’s only because he foolishly won the Presidency against the wishes of the dominant sectors of the ruling class that those antics became the target of prosecutorial investigation. Lesson to Donald: Be careful what you wish for.

If Trump weren’t such an idiot, he probably would have realized that this is what happens when you run for president without prior authorization from the ruling classes, and win. #ManafortTrial #MichaelCohen #Trump pic.twitter.com/tyrpuLHRNT

— Consent Factory (@consent_factory) August 21, 2018

What the NYT calls “a culture of graft as well as corruption” that “suffused” the Trump campaign is part and parcel of a culture of politico-capitalist corruption that suffuses American electoral politics in general. Manafort, who has indeed been “a longtime lobbyist and political consultant,” is only one in a long, bipartisan line that “enrich [themselves] by working for some of the world’s most notorious thugs and autocrats.”

Have you heard of the Podestas? The Clinton Foundation? Besides, the economic purpose of American electoral politics is to funnel millions to consultants and the media. Campaign finance law violations? We’ll see how the lawsuit over $84 million worth of funds allegedly transferred illegally from state party contributions to the Clinton campaign works out. Does the media report, does anybody know or care, about it? Will anybody ever go to prison over it?

The Republicans and Democrats would just as soon leave this entire culture of graft and corruption undisturbed by the prosecutorial apparatus of the state. That kind of thing can get out of hand. Only because the election of Donald Trump was a mistake from the establishment point of view has that apparatus been sicced on him. The frantic search, anywhere and everywhere, for some legal charges that can stick to Trump is driven by a burning desire to get something on Donald Trump that will fatally wound him politically, and serve as “objective” grounds for impeachment or resignation.

So, it’s my contention that, without the political opposition to Donald Trump as president, none of this legal prosecution would be taking place. The convictions of Manafort and Cohen don’t put a lie to the idea that the Mueller investigation is political; they are an effect of the fact that it is.

At any rate, there can be no doubt that the Manafort and Cohen convictions have upped the political ante for everybody. Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal (second wealthiest Senator; net worth ~ $80 million) has now invoked the dreaded word, from which it’s hard to retreat: “We’re in a Watergate moment.”

Yup, the anti-Trump establishment, led by the Democrats, has now succeeded, via a legal ground game, in moving the ball into the political red zone where impeachment talk is unavoidable. But going forward from here, the plays and paths available are very dangerous to the establishment and the Democrats themselves, and the whole game is getting to the point where it can—indeed, almost inevitably will—seriously disrupt the system they want to protect.

First of all, the Democrats will now face increasing demands for impeachment from the impassioned members of their base whom they have riled up to see Trump as the epitome of the Putin-Nazi evil that threatens “our democracy.” If the Democrats insist these convictions are not just matters of financial hijinx, irrelevant to Mueller’s “Russia collusion” investigation, and irrelevant in fact to anything of political substance; if they assert that the payoffs to Stormy and Karen (the only acts directly involving Trump) disqualify Trump for the presidency, then they will have no excuse but to call for Trump’s impeachment, and act to make it happen. Their base will demand that Democratic candidates run on that promise, and if the Democrats re-take the House, that they begin impeachment proceedings immediately.

So, if, after all the “only a complete fantasist” talk, the Democrats don’t act to impeach Trump, they will further alienate their base, and drive more liberals and progressives to withhold their votes, if not abandon the party altogether. And evil Putin-Nazi Trump will be strengthened.

If they try to impeach and fail (which is likely), well, then, as happened to the Republicans with Clinton, they will just look stupid, and will be punished for having wasted the nation’s political time and energy foolishly. And Trump will be strengthened.

If they were to impeach, convict, and remove Trump (even by forcing a resignation), a large swath of the population would conclude, correctly, that a ginned-up litigation had been used to overturn the result of the 2016 election, that the Democrats had gotten away with what the Republicans couldn’t in 1998-9. That swath of the population would likely withdraw completely from electoral politics, leaving all their problems and resentments intact—hidden for a while, but sure to erupt in some other ways. It would deeply undermine any notion that the political system holds the confidence of the people, and intensify division, disruption, and the sense of incipient civil war in the country more than any number of Russian Facebook posts.

Furthermore, if the Democrats were successful in removing Trump, their own base would be confronted with the terrible beauty of the Pence presidency to which they had given birth. After such a fight, Pence, who is a much more serious, organized, and ideologically-coherent religious proto-fascist than Trump, will benefit from the inevitable propensity of Democrats to calm things down and protect the stability of the system. Progressive Democrats will find, again, that the two-party system has produced no good result. In other words, the result of a successful impeachment effort might very well be more disaffection from “our democracy” by Democrats.

In short, through a process of litigation and prosecution, the Democrats are getting what they asked for: The field of political discourse and action will now increasingly center on the possibility of removing or impeaching the president. Given their construction of the Manafort-Cohen verdicts, they must move forward on that, or they will be perceived as weak and back-pedaling, and Trump will be strengthened. But if they do move forward, that will initiate a political battle that will tear the country apart and end up either with their defeat or the victory of Mike Pence.

Of course, the Democratic leadership knows all this. Which is why they have always said they do not want to push for impeachment or removal, and probably will not. They also know—and they know that Trump’s supporters know—that a campaign-law violation has no more political substance than Bill Clinton’s perjury. They know that they are not likely to win that fight in the Senate. They know the can of worms they are opening with charges that could be levied against most rich politicians. And, most importantly, they know the fight they will have to wage will be intensely divisive and will deeply undermine confidence in the political system, however it ends up.

The Democrats much prefer to have Trump in office to kick around politically. The most likely scenario is that they will make a cloakroom agreement with Republicans not to go too far, while they continue to whip up Trump-Putin “Russiagate” fever among their constituency. They will continue to stoke anticipation of a smoking “collusion” gun from Mueller, which will probably never come. The Democrats are not really after impeaching Trump; they are after stringing along their progressive voters.

In the meantime, the delightful Trump-effect—his constant embarrassment of American political self-righteousness and discomfiting of both political parties—will continue apace.

By the way, for those who think that Manafort’s conviction portends a smoking gun, based on his work for “pro-Kremlin Viktor Yanukovych,” as the NYT and other liberals persistently call him, I would suggest looking at this Twitter thread by Aaron Maté. It’s a brilliant shredding of Rachel Maddow’s (and, to a lesser extent, Chris Hayes’s) version of the deceptive implication—presented as an indisputable fact—that Manafort’s work for Yanukovych is proof that he (and by extension, Trump) was working for Putin. As Maté shows, that is actually indisputably false. Manafort was working hard to turn Yanukovych away from Russia to the EU and the West, and the evidence of that is abundant and easily available. It was given in the trial, though you’d never know that from reading the NYT or listening to MSNBC. As a former Ukraine Foreign Ministry spokesman said: “If it weren’t for Paul, Ukraine would have gone under Russia much earlier. He was the one dragging Yanukovich to the West.” And the Democrats know this.

And if you think Cohen is harboring secret knowledge of Trump-Russia collusion that he’s going to turn over to Mueller, take look at Maté’s thread on that.

We are now entering a new period of intense political maneuvering that’s the latest turning point in the bizarre and flimsy “Russiagate” narrative. I’ve been asked to comment on that a number of times over the past two years, and each time I or one of my fellow commentators would say, “Why are we still talking about this?” It was originally conjured up as a Clinton campaign attack on Trump, but, to my and many others’ surprise and chagrin, it somehow morphed into the central theme of political opposition to Trump’s presidency.

Donald Trump is a horrid political specimen. I witnessed his flourishing into apex narcissism and corruption over decades in New York City, as chronicled by the dogged reporter, Wayne Barrett, and I would be surprised if there weren’t financial crimes in his closet that any competent prosecutor could ferret out. Anyone who knows his history knows that this is the kind of dirt the Mueller investigation was most likely to find on Donald Trump; anyone who’s honest knows that this is the kind of dirt it was meant to find. Russiagate was a pretext to dig around everywhere in his closet. Trump was clueless about the trap he was setting for himself, and has been relentlessly foolish in dealing with it. It is a witch hunt, and he’s riding around on his broom, skywriting self-incriminating tweets.

There are a thousand reasons to criticize Donald Trump—his racism, his stupidity, his infantile narcissism, his full embrace of Zionist colonialism with its demand to attack Iran, his enactment of Republican social and economic policies that are destroying working-class lives, etc. That he is a Kremlin agent is not one of them. His election was a symptom of deep pathologies of American political culture that we must address, including the failure of the “liberal” party and of the two-party system itself. That Donald Trump is a Russian agent is not one of them. There are a number of very good justifications for seeking his impeachment, starting with the clear constitutional crime of launching a military attack on another country without congressional authorization. That he is a Kremlin agent is not one of them.

Unfortunately, the Democratic Party and its allied media do not want to center the fight on these substantive political issues. Instead, they are centering on this barrage of Russiagate litigation—none of which yet proves, or even charges, Russian “collusion”—which they are using as a substitute for politics. And, in place of opposition, they’re substituting uncritical loyalty to the heroes of the military-intelligence complex and “our democracy” that only a complete fantasist could stomach. I mean, when you get to the point that you’re suspecting John Bolton’s “ties to Russia”….

Now, with the Manafort and Cohen convictions, the Russiagate discourse is moving to a new stage, and it’s unlikely that we will ever stop talking about it, as long as Trump is president. Nothing good can come of it.

Our country is in, and on the verge of, multiple crises that threaten to destroy it. That Donald Trump is a Russian agent is not one of them. Political time is precious.

What a waste.

August 23, 2018 Posted by aletho | Corruption, Deception, Progressive Hypocrite, Russophobia | Donald Trump, Michael Cohen, MSNBC, New York Times, Paul Manafort, United States | Leave a comment

What the Brennan Affair Really Reveals

By Stephen F. Cohen | The Nation | August 22, 2018

Valorizing an ex-CIA director and bashing Trump obscures what is truly ominous.

Ever since Dwight Eisenhower in the 1950s, every American president has held one or more summit meetings with the Kremlin leader, first and foremost in order to prevent miscalculations that could result in war between the two nuclear superpowers. Generally, they received bipartisan support for doing so. In July, President Trump continued that tradition by meeting with Russian President Putin in Helsinki, for which, unlike previous presidents, he was scathingly criticized by much of the US political media establishment.

John Brennan, CIA director under President Obama, however, went much further, characterizing Trump’s press conference with Putin as “nothing short of treasonous.” Presumably in reaction, Trump revoked Brennan’s security clearance, the continuing access to classified information usually accorded to former security officials. In the political media furor that followed, Brennan was mostly heroized as an avatar of civil liberties and free speech, and Trump traduced as their enemy.

Leaving aside the missed occasion to discuss the “revolving door” involving former US security officials using their permanent clearances to enhance their lucrative positions outside government, Stephen Cohen thinks the subsequent political media furor obscures what is truly important and perhaps ominous:

Brennan’s allegation was unprecedented. No such high-level intelligence official had ever before accused a sitting president of treason, still more in collusion with the Kremlin. (Impeachment discussions of Presidents Nixon and Clinton, to take recent examples, did not include allegations involving Russia.) Brennan clarified his charge: “Treasonous, which is to betray one’s trust and to aid and abet the enemy.” Coming from Brennan, a man presumed to be in possession of related dark secrets, as he strongly hinted, the charge was fraught with alarming implications. Brennan made clear he hoped for Trump’s impeachment, but in another time, and in many other countries, his charge would suggest that Trump should be removed from the presidency urgently by any means, even a coup. No one, it seems, has even noted this extraordinary implication with its tacit threat to American democracy. (Perhaps because the disloyalty allegation against Trump has been customary ever since mid-2016, even before he became president, when an array of influential publications and writers – among them a former acting CIA director -began branding him Putin’s “puppet,” “agent,” “client,” and “Manchurian candidate.” The Los Angeles Times even saw fit to print an article suggesting that the military might have to remove Trump if he were to be elected, thereby having the very dubious distinction of predating Brennan.)

Why did Brennan, a calculating man, risk leveling such a charge, which might reasonably be characterized as sedition? The most plausible explanation is that he sought to deflect growing attention to his role as the “Godfather” of the entire Russiagate narrative, as Cohen argued back in February. If so, we need to know Brennan’s unvarnished views on Russia.

They are set out with astonishing (perhaps unknowing) candor in a New York Times op-ed of August 17. They are those of Joseph McCarthy and J. Edgar Hoover in their prime. Western “politicians, political parties, media outlets, think tanks and influencers are readily manipulated, wittingly and unwittingly, or even bought outright, by Russian operatives . . . not only to collect sensitive information but also to distribute propaganda and disinformation. . . . I was well aware of Russia’s ability to work surreptitiously within the United States, cultivating relationships with individuals who wield actual or potential power. . . . These Russian agents are well trained in the art of deception. They troll political, business and cultural waters in search of gullible or unprincipled individuals who become pliant in the hands of their Russian puppet masters. Too often, those puppets are found.”

All this, Brennan assures readers, is based on his “deep insight.” All the rest of us, it seems, are constantly susceptible to “Russian puppet masters” under our beds, at work, on our computers. Clearly, there must be no “cooperation” with the Kremlin’s grand “Puppet Master,” as Trump said he wanted early on. (People who wonder what and when Obama knew about the unfolding Russiagate saga need to ask why he would keep such a person so close for so long.)

And yet, scores of former intelligence and military officials rallied around this unvarnished John Brennan, even though, they said, they did not entirely share his opinions. This too is revealing. They did so, it seems clear enough, out of their professional corporate identity, which Brennan represented and Trump was degrading by challenging the intelligences agencies’ (implicitly including his own) Russiagate allegations against him. It’s a misnomer to term these people representatives of a hidden “deep state.” In recent years, they have been amply visible on television and newspaper op-ed pages. Instead, they see and present themselves as members of a fully empowered and essential fourth branch of government. This too has gone largely undiscussed while nightingales of the Fourth Branch – such as David Ignatius and Joe Scarborough in the pages of the Washington Post – have been in full voice.

The result is, of course – and no less ominous – to criminalize any advocacy of “cooperating with Russia,” or détente, as Trump sought to do in Helsinki with Putin. Still more, a full-fledged Russophobic hysteria is sweeping through the American political-media establishment, from Brennan and – pending actual evidence against her – those who engineered the arrest of Maria Butina (imagine how this endangers young Americans networking in Russia) to the senators now preparing new “crippling sanctions” against Moscow and the editors and producers at the Times, Post, CNN, and MSNBC. (However powerful, how representative are these elites when surveys indicate that a majority of the American people still prefer good relations with Moscow?) As the dangers grow of actual war with Russia – again, from Ukraine and the Baltic region to Syria – the capacity of US policymakers, above all the president, are increasingly diminished. To be fair, Brennan may only be a symptom of this profound American crisis, some say the worst since the Civil War.

Finally, there was a time when many Democrats, certainly liberal Democrats, could be counted on to resist this kind of hysteria and, yes, spreading neo-McCarthyism. (Brennan’s defenders accuse Trump of McCarthyism, but Brennan’s charge of treason without presenting any actual evidence was quintessential McCarthy.) After all, civil liberties, including freedom of speech, are directly involved – and not only Brennan’s and Trump’s. But Democratic members of Congress and pro-Democratic media outlets are in the forefront of the new anti-Russian hysteria, with only a few exceptions. Thus a generally liberal historian tells CNN viewers that “Brennan is an American hero. His tenure at the CIA was impeccable. We owe him so much.” Elsewhere the same historian assures readers, “There has always been a bipartisan spirit of support since the CIA was created in the Cold War.” In the same vein, two Post reporters write of the FBI’s “once venerated reputation.”

Is this liberal historical amnesia? Is it professional incompetence? A quick Google search would reveal Brennan’s less than “impeccable” record, FBI misdeeds under and after Hoover, as well as the Senate’s 1975 Church Committee’s investigation of the CIA and other intelligence agencies’ very serious abuses of their power. Or have liberals’ hatred of Trump nullified their own principles? The critical-minded Russian adage would say, “All three explanations are worst.”

Stephen F. Cohen, professor emeritus of Russian studies and politics at NYU and Princeton, and John Batchelor continue their (usually) weekly discussions of the new US-Russian Cold War. (Previous installments, now in their fifth year, are at TheNation.com.)

Stephen F. Cohen is a professor emeritus of Russian studies and politics at New York University and Princeton University and a contributing editor of The Nation.

August 23, 2018 Posted by aletho | Civil Liberties, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Progressive Hypocrite, Russophobia, Timeless or most popular | CIA, United States | Leave a comment

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