Russian hackers not found… again: DNC retracts claim voter database targeted by cyber-attack
RT | August 23, 2018
The latest alarming news on a sophisticated cyber-attack on the Democratic National Committee’s voter database may have cemented one’s worst fears over Russia hacking into the US elections… except it was really a “phishing test.”
Bob Lord, the committee’s chief security officer, raised the alarm on Wednesday after detecting a fake login page that mimicked the access page for Votebuilder, a program used by Democratic Party officials across that country that hosts the party’s voter database.
“This attempt is further proof that there are constant threats as we head into midterm elections and we must remain vigilant in order to prevent future attacks,” Lord said in a statement. However, within a few hours it became clear that blaming Moscow, no matter how tempting, would not be an option.
In a follow-up statement, Lord clarified that the fake login page was “built by a third party as part of a simulated phishing test.” He claimed that the security test was not authorized by the DNC.
“While we are extremely relieved that this wasn’t an attempted intrusion by a foreign adversary, this incident is further proof that we need to continue to be vigilant in light of potential attacks,” Lord’s anticlimactic clarification said.
It’s not uncommon for corporations or organizations to hire consultants to test for security weaknesses in their computer systems – although it’s unusual for it to be done without any knowledge of the organization, as Lord has insisted.
Still, even when reporting that the scary DNC hack was a false alarm, CNN made sure to remind its readers that Microsoft recently announced (citing no concrete evidence) that it had thwarted an attempt by hackers working for Russian military intelligence to target the US Senate and conservative think tanks that advocated for tougher policies against Moscow.
Goldman, JPMorgan object to Russian proposal to limit their ability to move money out of the country
RT | August 23, 2018
A total of 15 foreign lenders are protesting against a new plan proposed by the Russian central bank to reduce the amount of cash they can move abroad from their units located in Russia.
Russian subsidiaries of banking majors, including Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, Raiffeisen, JPMorgan, Deutsche Bank and HSBC Holdings, have voiced their objections to plans that would limit the Russian units to depositing just 20 percent of their capital abroad at their parent companies. Under the current regulations, there is no limit for banking operations of this kind.
The Central Bank of Russia proposed the rationing measures in response to fresh anti-Russia sanctions from the US and Europe that could allow foreign lenders to block access to the funds for its units based in Russia, two sources close to the issue told Bloomberg. The targeted lenders say they will have to reduce their loan services in Russia, according to unnamed people quoted by the agency.
If the new rules enter force, most of the local units run by foreign banks will inevitably be in violation of the mandated capital ratios. Some of the lenders, including Nordea Bank and Commerzbank, say the measure will create “unequal” conditions for local banks and foreign-owned subsidiaries.
Ahead of the US mid-term elections in November, the US Congress is actively discussing potential punitive measures against Russia over its alleged meddling in US elections. Among the penalties is a ban on using US dollars for some of Russia’s biggest banks. In August, local banking bonds brought investors a loss of 5.1 percent in dollar terms, the worst of any sector domestically, according to a Bloomberg Barclays index.
According to the Central Bank of Russia, the final version of the rule is still being discussed. The regulator didn’t elaborate on the goal of the restrictions or on the fate of the proposal.
See also:
Putin: US establishment behind ‘senseless’ Russian sanctions, meeting with Trump ‘useful’
RT | August 22, 2018
The position of US establishment is to blame for the counter-productive policy of sanctions against Russia, President Vladimir Putin said while describing his Helsinki meeting with President Donald Trump as “useful.”
“It’s not only about the position of the US President. It’s about the position of the so-called establishment, which is ruling [the US] in a broadest sense of the word,” Putin said.
Putin was responding to a question about his July meeting with Trump at a joint briefing with the Finnish President Sauli Niinistö near Sochi on Wednesday.
“As for our meeting with President Trump, I have a positive assessment of it and think that it was useful,” Putin said.
Calling the sanctions “counterproductive and senseless, especially regarding such country like Russia,” Putin added that he hopes “that the realization that this policy doesn’t have a future will someday come to our American partners and we’ll begin to cooperate in a normal manner.”
Putin said that he and Trump exchanged positions on the most pressing issues to each other in Finnish capital, adding that “an exchange of views, direct conversation is always very useful.”
“No one was expecting that during the two-hour talks it would be possible to resolve all of the issues that have been controversial until now,” he added.
As for Russia’s relations with Europe, Putin expressed hope that “something positive will be done for the sake of restoring normal Russia-EU relations” during the second part of 2019 when it will be Finland’s turn to head the European Union.
The Russian president said that his talks with Niinistö were “constructive,” while the Finnish leader was more poetic in his choice of words and described the Sochi meeting as “sunny.”
The two leaders agreed to boost cooperation in environmental protection and discussed the settlement of the Syrian and Ukrainian conflicts. Putin backed Niinistö’s proposal to increase flight safety over the Baltics and expressed commitment to working together with Helsinki in order to bolster security and stability in northern Europe.
He also called Russia “the definitive supplier of gas” to Europe, adding that the country was ready for fair competition in the area.
‘Wow effect’: Microsoft’s claims on alleged Russian hacking are a political stunt – Moscow
RT | August 21, 2018
Microsoft’s claims that Moscow-backed hackers are attacking US websites is simply a case of the tech giant joining the Washington-led ‘witch hunt’ on Russia, the foreign ministry said on Tuesday.
The company’s claims that the hacking group Fancy Bears is linked to the Russian government and is creating a number of “spear-phishing” websites lacks any substance as the company has offered no evidence to support this allegation, the Russian ministry said in a statement. Instead, Microsoft’s words were “clearly aimed at having a maximum political and public wow effect,” it added.
So-called “spear-phishing” sites are designed to mimic the pages of the US political institutions and think tanks, in an attempt to gather information from those who visit them.
The ministry denied Russia’s involvement in any hacking attacks on the US soil, including those which are allegedly aimed at disrupting any elections and the US congressional midterm vote in particular. “We do not know what Microsoft is even talking about,” the statement reads.
The tech giant’s move is apparently nothing but a “display of loyalty” to the US establishment, the ministry said, expressing regret that a major company, which has operated on the Russian market for years, eventually decided to “join the witch hunt,” which has “gripped Washington.”
The ministry went on to say that the reason US officials are unwilling to present any evidence of “Russian electronic interference” into American politics is simply because “this evidence does not and could not possibly exist.”
At the same time, the foreign ministry once again said that Moscow is ready to establish a bilateral working group on cybersecurity with the US to resolve any emerging issues in a timely and professional manner. Such proposals have been repeatedly made by Russia earlier but the US has been reluctant to support this initiative so far.
On Monday, Microsoft said in its blog post that it managed to thwart a number of hacking attempts by “a group known variously as Strontium, Fancy Bear and APT28”, which has been “widely associated” with Russia. It admitted, however, that it has “no evidence” that the domains were used in any successful attacks — and no evidence “to indicate the identity of the ultimate targets.”
In response, the Russian president’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, denounced the tech giant’s claims as “groundless”. He added that the Russian government does not know what kind of hackers Microsoft were referring to, and that there was “no basis” for the accusations.
A number of experts, whom RT reached out to, also questioned Microsoft’s ability to effectively establish the identity of the alleged hackers. They described the company’s statement as a “faith-based attribution.”
Treasury Unloads On Moscow: Washington Freezes Russian Assets In The US Worth Hundreds Of Millions
By Tyler Durden – Zero Hedge – 08/21/2018
Just hours after Microsoft said it had thwarted Russian intelligence attempts to hack two conservative think tanks and government sites used by Congressional staff, on Tuesday, the United States imposed new sanctions on two Russians and one Russian and one Slovakian firm under a U.S. program targeting malicious cyber-related activities.
In a statement on its website, the U.S. Treasury said the sanctioned firms – Saint Petersburg-based Vela-Marine Ltd and Slovakia-based Lacno S.R.O. – and the two individuals were linked to Divetechnoservices, a previously sanctioned entity.
Separately, speaking before the Senate Banking Committee, Sigal Mandelker, the Treasury’s top terror and financial intelligence official said that “the breadth and brazenness of Russia’s malign conduct demands a firm and vigorous response.”
Mandelker touted that the net worth of Oleg Deripaska had dropped by about 50%, and the share price of EN+ fell to $5.40 from $12.20 since the latest round of sanctions against Russia were imposed; she also noted that the net worth of Viktor Vekselberg fell by an estimated $3BN due to American penalties.
Mandelker also said that Russian-owned assets in the United States worth hundreds of millions of dollars have been frozen as part of Washington’s sanctions against Moscow, and told lawmakers that the US will not hesitate to bring economic pain to Russia if its conducts does not change.
“The actions of the US Treasury have had significant consequences for the financial interests of individuals and businesses that were affected, including the blocking of hundreds of millions of dollars of Russian assets in the United States,” Mandelker said. Her statement can be found here.
The Trump administration has sanctioned 217 Russian-related individuals and entities, including oil company Surgutneftegaz and power company EuroSibEnergo, since January 2017. Targets include heads of major state-owned banks and energy firms, and some of President Putin’s closest associates.
“As companies across the globe work to distance themselves from sanctioned Russian persons, our actions are imposing an unprecedented level of financial pressure on those supporting the Kremlin’s malign agenda and on key sectors of the Russian economy,” Mandelker said in the prepared remarks.
Finally, in Trump’s determination to show how “tough” he is on Russia, the U.S. also sanctioned owners of six Russian ships over claims they are helping transfer refined petroleum products to North Korean vessels, as tensions with both Moscow and Pyongyang intensify, Bloomberg reported.
The ships – and two Vladivostok-based shipping companies – violated U.S. and United Nations sanctions on North Korea, the Treasury Department said Tuesday in announcing the sanctions on its website. The U.S. is aiming to keep pressure on North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to denuclearize.
“Consequences for violating these sanctions will remain in place until we have achieved the final, fully verified denuclearization of North Korea,” Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in a statement.
In a separate announcement on Tuesday, Treasury also sanctioned two Russian individuals and two entities it said were making attempts to get around existing U.S. sanctions.
“The Treasury Department is disrupting Russian efforts to circumvent our sanctions,” said Mnuchin. “Today’s action against these deceptive actors is critical to ensure that the public is aware of the tactics undertaken by designated parties and that these actors remain blocked from the U.S. financial system.”
The 10 Main Holes in the Official Narrative on the Salisbury Poisonings: #2 – The Intent
By Rob Slane | The Blog Mire | August 21, 2018
In the first piece in this series exposing the holes in the official narrative of the Salisbury poisonings, I looked at Theresa May’s claim of what she said was “the motive” behind the incident. In this piece I want to move on to what she called “the intent”.
Once again, I turn to the statement she gave to the House of Commons on 26th March, as it essentially sets out sets out the Government case for what happened in Salisbury on 4th March:
“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.”
What is meant by intent? Here is a definition from the online Legal Dictionary:
“A determination to perform a particular act or to act in a particular manner for a specific reason; an aim or design; a resolution to use a certain means to reach an end.”
Intent is not action. Nor is it motive. Rather, it is the purpose of using deliberate means to bring about a particular result. A prerequisite of showing that a person or a group of people had intent to commit a particular crime, is therefore to show that they did actually commit the crime for which you are alleging they had intent.
Say I were to claim that Brian drove his car into Bob, and that he did so with deliberate intent. If I have shown that Brian did actually drive his car into Bob, then I have the right to build a case that he did so with intent. But what if I have not actually shown that Brian drove his car into Bob? Quite simply, my statement of Brian’s intent is at best nonsense, at worst slander.
To accuse someone of doing something with intent is not therefore something which can be done blithely; rather, it is something which requires, in the first place, hard evidence to show that the person actually carried out the action. According to Mrs May, this is just what she did, since she began her speech by emphatically stating who was guilty of the poisoning:
“Three weeks ago, the Russian Federation was responsible for an attempted murder here in our country.”
And after setting out her “evidence”, such as it was, she stated that:
“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.”
But what actually was the evidence she presented? Here it is, in all its entirety:
“Mr Speaker, we are quite clear that Russia was responsible for this act. 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.
We know that Russia has a record of conducting state-sponsored assassinations – and that it views some former intelligence officers as legitimate targets for these assassinations.
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.”
How much of this constitutes evidence of the guilt of the Russian Government in the Salisbury poisonings? None whatsoever. I will look in more depth at her first piece of evidence in a subsequent article, suffice it to say here that it has been amply demonstrated in many places that:
a) The fact that the Soviet Union, which was dissolved on 26th December 1991, was attempting to develop a certain type of nerve agent says nothing about where the substance used in Salisbury came from or who made it.
b) Numerous other countries have the knowledge and the capacity to create the substance mentioned, and many have in fact done just this.
As for her other two claims, they are just that: claims. Nothing more, nothing less. They in no way constitute evidence of culpability in the Salisbury case, and certainly no court of law would accept them as such. Rather, they are simply general assertions masquerading as evidence, made in the hope that nobody would notice that this is what they are. Apparently it had exactly this effect on the lawmakers in the House she was addressing, since none of them bothered to question her about it.
What Mrs May therefore did in this statement, was to invert the legal process. Rather than proving the case that the Russian Government was behind the Salisbury poisonings, then alleging intent on this basis, she instead alleged responsibility using a series of very general claims, none of which had any specific connection to the Salisbury case, and then used this unproven guilt to allege intent. They were responsible, therefore they had intent. They had intent, therefore they were responsible. All made without any actual evidence of responsibility for the Salisbury incident, and all done without any actual evidence of intent for the Salisbury incident.
I’m almost tempted to say that she used circular reasoning, but this would be an insult to circles, which are beautiful, smooth, symmetrical shapes, as indeed it would be an insult to reasoning. It’s more like a blob. Blobby, messy, meaningless unreason, which apparently none of our nation’s MPs was able or willing to spot and hold her to account for.
There is one more thing. Two days after her statement, the Metropolitan Police Force released an update on the investigation, in which they said the following:
“This is one of the largest and most complex investigations undertaken by British counter terrorism policing and we thank the public for their continued support.
As a result of detailed forensic and scientific examination, detectives believe the Skripals first came into contact with the nerve agent at their home address. Specialists have identified the highest concentration of the nerve agent, to-date, as being on the front door of the address.
The Wiltshire Police support to the Counter Terrorism Policing Network investigation remains ongoing and is likely to do so for a number of months. It is an extremely challenging investigation and police and partners continue to manage a number of unique and difficult issues. We thank the public for their continued support.”
Three brief observations. Firstly, the investigation was extremely complex and likely to last a long time, indicating that guilt, let alone intent, cannot possibly have been established at that time. Secondly, investigators had only just begun to establish the place of the poisoning (“detectives believe…”), again indicating that guilt, let alone intent, cannot possibly have been established at that time. Yet in spite of this, Theresa May apparently already knew what happened, and had established responsibility, motive and intent. In which case, why bother wasting all that police time, effort and resources on investigating the incident. They could have saved a bob or two of taxpayers money by just asking Theresa the Seer.
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: #6 – The Meal and The Drink
Will the Real John Brennan Please Stand Up?
When will he answer for his war crimes?
By Philip Giraldi • Unz Review • August 21, 2018
The battle between many former intelligence chiefs and the White House is becoming a gift that keeps on giving to the mass media, which is characteristically deeply immersed in Trump derangement syndrome in attacking the president for his having stripped former CIA Director John Brennan of his security clearance. One of the most ludicrous claims, cited in the Washington Post on Sunday, was that the Trump move was intended to “stifle free speech.” While I am quite prepared to believe a lot of things about the serial maladroit moves and explanations coming out of the White House, how one equates removing Brennan’s security clearance to compromising his ability to speak freely escapes me. Indeed, Brennan has been speaking out with his usual vitriol nearly everywhere in the media ever since he lost the clearance, rather suggesting that his loss has given him a platform which has actually served to enhance his ability to speak his mind. He should thank Donald Trump for that.
Indeed, Brennan’s retaining a Top Secret code word clearance had nothing to do with free speech and everything to do with enhancing his market value for those poor sods who actually pay him to mouth off as an “expert” on television and in the newspapers. Are you listening New York Times and NBC? Brennan’s clearance did not mean that he had any real insight into current intelligence on anything, having lost that access when he left his job with the government. It only meant that he could sound authoritative and well informed by relying on his former status, enabling him to con you media folks out of your money on a recurrent basis.
It has sometimes been suggested that free speech is best exercised when it is somehow connected to the brain’s prefrontal lobes, enabling some thought process before the words come out of the mouth. It might be argued that Brennan has been remarkably deficient in that area, which is possibly why he looks so angry in all his photographs. Even John Brennan’s supporters are shy about defending the former CIA Director’s more extravagant claims. James Clapper, the ex-Director of National Intelligence, has described Brennan’s comments as “overheated.”
The John Brennan backstory is important. In 2016 he was Barack Obama’s CIA Director and also simultaneously working quite hard to help Hillary Clinton become president, which some might regard at a minimum as a conflict of interest. After Clinton lost, he continued his attacks on Trump. He apparently played a part in the notoriously salacious Steele dossier, which was surfaced in January just before the inauguration. The dossier included unverifiable information and was maliciously promoted by Brennan and others in the intelligence and law enforcement community. And even after Trump assumed office, Brennan continued to prove to be unrelenting.
In May 2017, Brennan testified before Congress that during the 2016 campaign he had “… encountered and [was] aware of information and intelligence that revealed contacts and interactions between Russian officials and U.S. persons involved in the Trump campaign that I was concerned about because of known Russian efforts to suborn such individuals. It raised questions in my mind whether or not Russia was able to gain the co-operation of those individuals.” Politico was also in on the chase and picked up on Brennan’s bombshell in an article entitled Brennan: Russia may have successfully recruited Trump campaign aides.
What Brennan did not describe, because it was “classified,” was how he developed the information regarding the Trump campaign in the first place. We know from Politico and other sources that it derived from foreign intelligence services, including the British, Dutch and Estonians, and there has to be a strong suspicion that the forwarding of at least some of that information might have been sought or possibly inspired by Brennan unofficially in the first place. But whatever the provenance of the intelligence, it is clear that Brennan then used that information to request an FBI investigation into a possible Russian operation directed against potential key advisers if Trump were to somehow get nominated and elected, which admittedly was a long shot at the time. That is how Russiagate began.
Since that time, Brennan has tweeted President Donald Trump, asserting that “When the full extent of your venality, moral turpitude, and political corruption becomes known, you will take your rightful place as a disgraced demagogue in the dustbin of history.” He has attacked the president for congratulating President Vladimir Putin over his victory in Russian national elections. He said that the U.S. President is “wholly in the pocket of Putin,” definitely “afraid of the president of Russia” and that the Kremlin “may have something on him personally. The fact that he has had this fawning attitude toward Mr. Putin … continues to say to me that he does have something to fear and something very serious to fear.” And he then administered what might be considered the coup de main, saying that the president should be impeached for “treasonous” behavior after Trump stood next to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia at a news conference in Finland and cast doubt on the conclusion of the intelligence agencies that Moscow interfered in the 2016 presidential election.
Trump’s decision to pull Brennan’s clearance attracted an immediate tweeted response from the ex-CIA Director: “This action is part of a broader effort by Mr. Trump to suppress freedom of speech & punish critics. It should gravely worry all Americans, including intelligence professionals, about the cost of speaking out.” He also added, in a New York Times op-ed, that “Mr. Trump’s claims of no collusion [with Russia] are, in a word, hogwash,” though he provided no evidence to support his claim and failed to explain how exactly one washes a hog. There has subsequently been an avalanche of suitably angry Brennan appearances all over the Sunday talk shows, a development that will undoubtedly continue for the immediate future.
The claim that Trump is a Russian agent is not a new one, having also been made repeatedly by Brennan CIA associate the grim and inscrutable Michael Morell, who flaunts his insider expertise both at The Times and on CBS. Regarding both gentlemen, one might note that it is an easy mark to allege something sensational that you don’t have to prove, but the claim nevertheless constitutes a very serious assertion of criminal behavior that might well meet the Constitutional standard for treason, which comes with a death penalty. It is notable that in spite of the gravity of the charge, Brennan and Morell have been either unable or unwilling to substantiate it in any detail. Even a usually tone-deaf Congress has noted that there is a problem with Brennan’s credibility on the issue, not to mention his integrity. Richard Burr, Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, has observed that,
“Director Brennan’s recent statements purport to know as fact that the Trump campaign colluded with a foreign power. If Director Brennan’s statement is based on intelligence he received while still leading the CIA, why didn’t he include it in the Intelligence Community Assessment released in 2017? If his statement is based on intelligence he has seen since leaving office, it constitutes an intelligence breach. If he has some other personal knowledge of or evidence of collusion, it should be disclosed to the Special Counsel, not The New York Times.”
This behavior by Brennan is no surprise to those who know him and have worked with him. An ambitious crawler with a checkered history, he was strongly disliked by his peers at CIA, largely because of his lack of any sense of restraint and his reputation for over-the-top vindictiveness. He notoriously flunked out of spy training at the Agency, forcing him to instead become an analyst, so he went after the Clandestine Service in his reorganization of CIA after he became Director.
John Brennan has always been a failure as an intelligence officer even as he successfully climbed the promotion ladder. He was the CIA’s Chief of Station (COS) in Saudi Arabia when the Khobar Towers were bombed, killing 19 Americans, a disaster which he incorrectly blamed on the Iranians. He was deputy executive director on 9/11 and was complicit in that intelligence failure. He subsequently served as CIA chief of staff when his boss George Tenet concocted phony stories about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. He also approved of the Agency torture and rendition programs and was complicit in the destruction of Libya as well as the attempt to do the same to Syria.
Barack Obama wanted Brennan to be his CIA Director but his record with the Agency torture and rendition programs made approval by the Senate problematical. Instead, he became the president’s homeland security advisor and deputy national security advisor for counterterrorism, where he did even more damage, expanding the parameters of the death by drone operations and sitting down with the POTUS for the Tuesday morning counterterrorism sessions spent refining the kill list of American citizens.
After Obama was re-elected in 2012, he was able to overcome objections and appoint Brennan CIA Director. Conniving as ever, Brennan then ordered the Agency to read the communications of the congressional committee then engaged in investigating CIA torture, the very program that he had been complicit in. Brennan then denied to Congress under oath that any such intramural spying had occurred, afterwards apologizing when the truth came out. Moon of Alabama characterizes him as “… always ruthless, incompetent and dishonest.”
So the real John Brennan emerges as an unlikely standard bearer for the First Amendment. He has an awful lot of baggage and is far from the innocent victim of a madman Trump that is being portrayed in much of the media. Indeed, he should be answerable for torture, renditions, extrajudicial killing of foreigners and targeted murder of American citizens. Those constitute war crimes and in the not too distant past Japanese and German officers were hung for such behavior. One has to hope that Brennan’s day of judgment will eventually come and he will have to pay for his multiple crimes against humanity.
What’s Left of Russiagate — Are We Down to the 1,000 Paid Trolls?
Mark F. McCarty | Way of the Bern | July 19, 2017
Those who pay attention to what is going on — as opposed to passively consuming the obsessions of MSM — know that the Clinton-related material published by Wikileaks emerged from leaks, not hacks. Assange has stated in no uncertain terms that the Russian government was not responsible for providing the material Wikileaks published, and his friend Craig Murray — a whistleblower hero who exposed the torture practiced by the government of Uzbekistan while he was British ambassador there — indicates that he has direct knowledge that the DNC and Podesta Wikileaks releases derived from leaks, not hacks. In fact, he met with one of the people involved in September of last year in Washington D.C.
https://consortiumnews.com/2016/12/18/a-spy-coup-in-america/
And Wikileaks has just tweeted an audio recording of Seymour Hersh in which he indicates that, according to an FBI source he considers “unbelievably accurate and careful, he’s a very high-level guy”, there is an FBI report indicating that the FBI examined Seth’s computer and determined that Seth was the Wikileaks DNC source. Whether or not Hersh’s source is correct — Hersh has not published this info, and refuses to be interviewed on it — it is not conceivable, at least to those of us who appreciate Wikileaks’ integrity, that Wikileaks would have tweeted this if Seth weren’t their source.
https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/892510925244203008
Now, just in time for the anniversary of Seth Rich’s death, forensic analyses — by the pseudonymous ‘Forensicator” — have clarified that the “Guccifer 2.0” releases of DNC material in September 2016 resulted from local downloads, via thumbdrive or LAN, of DNC computer files, rather than hacks from a distant location such as Russia or Romania — contrary to the assertions of our intelligence community; the rate of data transfer, as of mid-2016, was far too great for a remote hack to be responsible.* Indeed, the rate was precisely what one would expect if the download had occurred via USB2.0 memory stick, and cyberexpert/journalist Adam Carter has argued that the downloaded files displayed “FAT filesystem anomalies” likewise pointing to a memory stick download. Moreover, time stamps reveal that this data transfer occurred on the East Coast.
Of no less importance is the fact that the metadata of some of the released Guccifer 2.0 files (those released on June 15th) had been intentionally altered to leave clues that Russian hackers may have accessed the material, in a clear effort to falsely implicate Russians in the hacking of those files. The clear implication is that someone affiliated with the Clinton campaign or DNC created the persona of Guccifer 2.0 to trick our gullible intelligence agencies into concluding that Russian hacks had been responsible not only for the Guccifer 2.0 releases, but for the WIkileaks releases as well — thereby devaluing them in the eyes of the American public. “Guccifer 2.0”, of course, topped off the scam by claiming he was the Wikileaks source.
https://consortiumnews.com/2017/07/24/intel-vets-challenge-russia-hack-evidence/
https://theforensicator.wordpress.com/guccifer-2-ngp-van-metadata-analysis/
https://www.thenation.com/article/a-new-report-raises-big-questions-about-last-years-dnc-hack/
As Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity have emphasized, the timeline of Guccifer 2.0’s first appearance is curious. On June 12, Wikileaks announced that it would soon be releasing Clinton-related emails. On June 14, the DNC announces that it has been hacked. On June 15, the DNC cybercontractor Crowdstrike announced that it had found malware on the DNC computer which they suspect originated from Russia, and, in seeming coordination, Guccifer 2.0 proclaimed that he was the hacker who supplied Wikileaks with its Clinton material — posting documents that had had “Russian fingerprints” implanted in their metadata. (And why would a hacker genuinely working for the Russian government go out of his way to advertise himself?) Then the main trove of DNC material subsequently released by Guccifer 2.0 on his website was downloaded locally from DNC computers on July 5th — five days before Seth Rich was murdered by hitmen. These facts are consistent with the thesis that the DNC, or someone affiliated with the DNC, hoaxed our intelligence services to blame the Wikileaks releases on Russia. Could they then have gotten rid of someone who could have spoiled this narrative?
Possible collusion between Crowdstrike and Guccifer 2.0 is suggested by the fact that, in their June 14th announcement, the DNC indicated — presumably based on claims by Crowdstrike — that the hacker had targeted Trump Opposition Research. This was indeed one of the documents that Guccifer 2.0 released the following day. Adam Carter refers to the Crowdstrike claim about Trump Opposition Research being targeted as “specious”, as they “never demonstrated or explained” how they could have known this. Carter concludes that this likely indicates collusion between Crowdstrike and Guccifer 2.0, and suggests that perhaps the persona of Guccifer 2.0 was created by someone at Crowdstrike. (And it hardly seems likely that Crowdstrike would have concocted such a scam without the knowledge and encouragement of top officials at the DNC. Though this brings up an interesting alternative possibility — could Debbie Wasserman-Schultz and her felonious IT specialist Imran Awan have conceived and executed Guccifer 2.0? It’s not clear whether Awan has the requisite measure of sophistication.) Another peculiarity is this: if Guccifer 2.0 was employed by the Russian government to damage Hillary and help Trump, why would one of the first documents he released be Trump Opposition Research?!
Furthermore, Carter’s analysis of the times of G2.0’s tweets and blog publications points to someone in the U.S. rather than Russia — unless he was bizarrely nocturnal.
http://g-2.space/g2tweettimes/
Carter also discusses linguistic research which demonstrates that, in his communications, Guccifer 2.0 makes a very amateurish effort to impersonate a native Russian attempting to speak English, being very inconsistent in his linguistic errors. His overall impression of Guccifer 2.0 is encapsulated in this description: “A donkey in a bear costume”. In his latest update, Carter notes: “The only language expert willing to be cited without being anonymous was professor M.J. Connolly from Boston College and he stated that Guccifer 2.0 lacked any traits he would expect to see from a Russian communicating in English!”
Here is another reason to suspect that Crowdstrike was behind Guccifer 2.0. The “Russian fingerprints” added to the June 15th releases of Guccifer 2.0 consisted of the name “Felix Edmundovich”, written in the Cyrillic alphabet. This is clearly a reference to the founder of the Soviet secret police (OGPU), Felix Edmundovich Dzerzhinsky.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felix_Dzerzhinsky)
How many American computer geeks would know the name of the founder of OGPU? One American who likely would is Shawn Henry, co-founder and President of Crowdstrike, who previously worked under Robert Mueller (!) as the FBI’s assistant director for counterintelligence.
In an interview with a journalist from Motherboard/Vice News, Guccifer 2.0 described the technique he used to hack the DNC servers. Carter points out that the cybersecurity firm ThreatConnect has analyzed this claim, and found it to be technically impossible. It is unclear whether Guccifer 2.0 has any hacking skills whatever.
Here’s a great new video about the Guccifer 2.0 affair by “Panda Bear” that I strongly recommend:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZNAbPNKCKk&t=0s
For clarity, it’s important to note that, contrary to the assertions of some enthusiastic commentators, the forensic findings of Forensicator and Adam Carter pertain only to the releases of Guccifer 2.0, cannot prove that the DNC server was not hacked, and have no clear relevance to the DNC emails released by Wikileaks or the activities of Seth Rich. These issues must be addressed with other lines of evidence. What these forensic analyses do strongly point to is that people affiliated with the DNC consciously hoaxed our intelligence community to try to paint Hillary as a victim of Russian perfidy, with Wikileaks as their devious accomplice. And they also reveal that, in pointing to Guccifer 2.0 as the source for the DNC Wikileaks releases, our “intelligence community” has once again demonstrated its gross and criminal incompetence.
There were also files taken from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee that were published prior to the election on Guccifer 2.0’s own website. (Is the DCCC collaborating with the DNC in this scam?) This episode has received little attention, and in any case, if the goal of the Russian government was to impede Clinton’s election, why would they care about the DCCC? Who believes Russia would want to elect more Republicans? In any case, if Guccifer 2.0 was indeed the source of these leaks, they weren’t hacked by Russians, so let’s move on.
Finally, there is DC Leaks, which, beginning in July of last year has released purloined info on a diverse range of targets, including the former commander of NATO, Senators McCain and Graham, the Soros Foundation, and personal info of 200 Democratic lawmakers. This has received little media commentary, possibly because it is hard to see how this effort was an attempt to influence the election. Nonetheless, the cybersecurity firm ThreatConnect claims that DC Leaks is a front for the hacker group Fancy Bear, which they claim is linked to Russian intelligence. They also think that Guccifer 2.0 is involved. Sounds a lot like the analyses that linked the Guccifer 2.0 and Wikileaks releases to Russian intelligence — and we’ve seen how credible those analyses were.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DCLeaks
Then there was the NSA document leaked by Reality Winner, in which it is “assessed” that Russians at the behest of the Kremlin targeted a number of local government operations in spearphishing operations just prior to the election. Scott Ritter has carefully analyzed the NSA document and demonstrated that the NSA agents responsible had nothing but speculation to link these spearphishing attacks to the Russian government.
Recent claims that Russia tried to hack into 21 state electoral databases prior to the election have been skewered by Gareth Porter, who shows that, in the only one of these attacks that was successful, the perpetrators merely extracted personal information saleable to criminal networks, without making any effort to alter electoral data. Evidently the work of cybercriminals, not Russian government operatives.
http://original.antiwar.com/porter/2017/07/03/foisting-blame-cyber-hacking-russia/
The Department of Homeland Security is now posting retractions of these claims:
And cyberexpert Jeffrey Carr has determined that the criminals involved were English speakers.
Alleged claims from our intelligence agencies that Russia was responsible for election interference in Germany and France have been debunked by the intelligence agencies in those countries:
https://caucus99percent.com/content/are-russian-hackers-under-your-bed
Last month, CNN reported that “Russian hackers had breached Qatar’s state news agency and planted a fake news report that contributed to a crisis among the US’ closest Gulf allies, according to US officials briefed on the investigation…. US officials say the Russian goal appears to be to cause rifts among the US and its allies.”
http://www.cnn.com/2017/06/06/politics/russian-hackers-planted-fake-news-qatar-crisis/index.html
But now, as reported by WaPo, US officials have concluded that the UAE had arranged this hacking to demonize Qatar:
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-qatar-report-idUSKBN1A200H
(The story on CNN, of course, is that UAE denies this: http://edition.cnn.com/2017/07/17/middleeast/uae-qatar-report/index.html. Cue the laughter: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-07-16/cnn-caught-faking-news-again-us-intel-accuses-uae-not-russia-orchestrating-qatari-ha).
But What About all that “Evidence”?
But what about all the “evidence” our intelligence agencies have for Russia’s nefarious election interference?
Official claims in this regard began with the release of this joint statement by DHS and ODNI on Oct. 17 of last year:
“The U.S. Intelligence Community (USIC) is confident that the Russian Government directed the recent compromises of e-mails from US persons and institutions, including from US political organizations. The recent disclosures of alleged hacked e-mails on sites like DCLeaks.com and WikiLeaks and by the Guccifer 2.0 online persona are consistent with the methods and motivations of Russian-directed efforts. These thefts and disclosures are intended to interfere with the US election process. Such activity is not new to Moscow — the Russians have used similar tactics and techniques across Europe and Eurasia, for example, to influence public opinion there. We believe, based on the scope and sensitivity of these efforts, that only Russia’s senior-most officials could have authorized these activities.”
Note how James Clapper, with the backing of Jeh Johnson of DHS, imperiously represented his views as those of “The U.S. Intelligence Community”. Hillary Clinton subsequently seized on this to make the hyperbolic self-serving claim that “17 intelligence agencies” had reached this conclusion — a claim that was echoed by our servile MSM until it recently was retracted by the New York Times.
The supposedly definitive statement of our intelligence agencies on alleged Russian election interference was an Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA), a de-classified summary of which was released on Jan. 6th. As subsequently admitted by Clapper in congressional testimony, this assessment was not a formal National Intelligence Estimate, which would have required the participation of all intelligence agencies and would have included any dissenting opinions, but rather represented the opinions of a couple dozen intelligence operatives hand-picked (likely by Clapper, Director of National Intelligence, and John Brennan of the CIA) from the CIA, NSA, and FBI.
It is useful to understand these things about Clapper: He played a key role in convincing the nation that Saddam had ample stores of WMDs before our Iraq invasion. When these WMDs failed to appear, he stated that Saddam had had them shipped to Syria just prior to the invasion (subsequently debunked). He lied under oath before Congress and the nation regarding surveillance of American citizens by the NSA. And in a recent interview with Chuck Todd, he revealed himself to be a near-psychotic Russiaphobe, claiming that Russians were virtually “genetically programmed” to foment chaos for us.
So what do you think is going to be the outcome when a psychotic Russophobe is allowed to hand-pick the members of an intelligence panel intended to evaluate alleged Russian meddling? As acclaimed investigative journalist Robert Parry noted:
“Yet, as any intelligence expert will tell you, if you “hand-pick” the analysts, you are really hand-picking the conclusion. For instance, if the analysts were known to be hard-liners on Russia or supporters of Hillary Clinton, they could be expected to deliver the one-sided report that they did.”
https://consortiumnews.com/2017/05/23/new-cracks-in-russia-gate-assessment/
As to the unclassified report itself, the most cogent observation is that it provides no hard evidence whatever to back up its conclusion that Russian operatives had interfered in our election on the orders of Vladimir Putin. Rather hilariously, over half of its length is devoted to splenetic venting about the Russia-sponsored TV network RT, which nefariously had featured Third Party political debates and criticisms of fracking — and of course the seditious ravings of that evident Kremlin puppet Larry King. If RT constitutes vile and unacceptable election interference, what have we been doing with Voice of America for decades?
Most tellingly, the declassified ICA barely mentions Wikileaks, and provides no clue as to how it was concluded that Wikileaks received its Clinton-related emails from Russian sources. The key point of the Russiagate narrative is not just that Russians were hacking the DNC and John Podesta, but that, at the behest of the Russian government, they were transferring their booty to Wikileaks for release to the public. In his congressional testimony, Clapper seemed to admit that the link between Russia and Wikileaks was speculative:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2AbrMEmD9k
It is hard to escape the conclusion that our intelligence agencies have no hard evidence whatever that Wikileaks received its Clinton-related emails from sources commissioned by the Russian government. And of course Assange, who presumably knows how he got the material he himself published — and has far greater credibility than Clapper could ever have — vehemently denies this.
In the run-up to the Iraq invasion, our intelligence agencies at least deigned to convey to us some “evidence” that Saddam did indeed still have WMDs. In the present instance, they are effectively just saying “Trust us”. In the context of the fact that our intelligence agencies used wholly bogus evidence to propel us into an Iraq involvement that led to the death, maiming, or exile of literally millions of people in Iraq — not to mention thousands of American deaths and casualties, and catastrophic expense — anyone in our government or our media who is willing to just “trust” a hand-picked cabal of intelligence agents on an issue that may foment a new Cold War with the second-leading nuclear power, is engaging in gross criminal negligence.
The credibility of the report’s conclusions can be judged by this key passage:
“We assess with high confidence that Russian military intelligence … used the Guccifer 2.0 persona and DCLeaks.com to release US victim data obtained in cyber operations publicly and in exclusives to media outlets and relayed material to WikiLeaks.”
https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/ICA_2017_01.pdf
As we have seen, “Guccifer 2.0” is someone on the East Coast, with local access to the DNC computers, who is doing a rather half-assed job of appearing to be Russian — “A donkey in a bear costume”. So much for their “high confidence”.
In formulating its ICA, the panel relied on the conclusions of a private cyber company, Crowdstrike, with respect to alleged hacking of the DNC server, because the DNC had repeatedly refused to turn their server over to the FBI — and the FBI had failed to subpoena it. Crowdstrike was recruited for this purpose by the Clinton campaign, and had previous associations with Hillary Clinton. Its founders are affiliated with the Atlantic Council, a think tank known for its virulently anti-Russia stances. Its previous effort to incriminate Russia in a hacking attack has been shown to be wholly erroneous.
As to the “logic” which Crowdstrike employed to impute hacking of the DNC to Russian intelligence, it appears to have been puerile. Here are the comments of Scott Ritter:
“CrowdStrike claimed that the presence of the X-Agent malware was a clear ‘signature’ of a hacking group — APT 28, or Fancy Bear — previously identified by German intelligence as being affiliated with the GRU, Russian military intelligence…. The CrowdStrike data is unconvincing. First and foremost, the German intelligence report it cites does not make an ironclad claim that APT 28 is, in fact, the GRU. In fact, the Germans only ‘assumed’ that GRU conducts cyberattacks. They made no claims that they knew for certain that any Russians, let alone the GRU, were responsible for the 2015 cyberattack on the German Parliament, which CrowdStrike cites as proof of GRU involvement. Second, the malware in question is available on the open market, making it virtually impossible to make any attribution at all simply by looking at similarities in ‘tools and techniques.’ Virtually anyone could have acquired these tools and used them in a manner similar to how they were employed against both the German Parliament and the DNC…. The presence of open-source tools is, in itself, a clear indicator that Russian intelligence was not involved.”
Cyberexpert Jeremy Carr fully agrees:
“It is both foolish and baseless to claim, as Crowdstrike does, that X-Agent is used solely by the Russian government when the source code is there for anyone to find and use at will.
Once malware is deployed, it is no longer under the control of the hacker who deployed it or the developer who created it. It can be reverse-engineered, copied, modified, shared and redeployed again and again by anyone. In other words — malware deployed is malware enjoyed!
If the White House had unclassified evidence that tied officials in the Russian government to the DNC attack, they would have presented it by now. The fact that they didn’t means either that the evidence doesn’t exist or that it is classified.
If it’s classified, an independent commission should review it because this entire assignment of blame against the Russian government is looking more and more like a domestic political operation run by the White House that relied heavily on questionable intelligence generated by a for-profit cybersecurity firm with a vested interest in selling “attribution-as-a-service”
https://medium.com/@jeffreycarr/fbi-dhs-joint-analysis-report-a-fatally-flawed-effort-b6a98fafe2fa.
More recently, he has stated:
“There is not now and never has been a single piece of technical evidence produced that connects the malware used in the DNC attack to the GRU, FSB or any agency of the Russian government.”
https://consortiumnews.com/2017/08/18/russia-gates-evidentiary-void/
Indeed, he is so irate regarding the impact on international affairs of the flawed logic employed by Crowdstrike that he demands an investigation of them:
“I think there should be commission that reviews the technical evidence which is being sold to the US government by and for profit by the cyber security companies like Crowdstrike. I think this deserves a deeper investigation, because based upon invalid assumptions and lack of proof they have created an international strain in international relations between the US and Russia,” said Carr.
https://www.rt.com/op-edge/372888-investigate-russian-hacking-contractor/
If you had a friend who was trying to solve a murder, and he told you: “We know that the victim was killed with a gun, and the Mafia uses guns, so we know that the Mafia killed him,” you would rightly conclude that your friend was a bit half-witted. Yet Crowdstrike, using quite analogous “logic”, while throwing around technical terms that are obscure to people who aren’t cyberexperts, receives awed respect from MSM journalists.
A further indication of the intellectual acumen of Crowdstrike is their response to a reporter from the Washington Times when they were asked to comment on the blockbuster VIPS report on Guccifer 2.0.:
“‘We find the argument unsubstantiated and inaccurate, based on a fundamental flaw,’ a company spokesman said.
The CrowdStrike spokesman said that by July 5 all malware had been removed from the DNC network and thus the hackers copied files that were already in their own systems.”
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/jul/27/with-robert-mueller-fbi-gets-second-chance-to-insp/
Uh, precisely how would the existence or nonexistence of hacking malware on a computer influence one’s ability to download data on a thumbdrive?!!
Here’s another oddity about Crowdstrike: As of May 5th, they had installed their supposedly state-of-the-art anti-hacking program Falcon on this server — and yet the latest of the DNC emails which Wikileaks released was created on May 25th.
Steve McIntire writes:
“There were no fewer than 14409 emails in the Wikileaks archive dating after Crowdstrike’s installation of its security software. In fact, more emails were hacked after Crowdstrike’s discovery on May 6 than before. Whatever actions were taken by Crowdstrike on May 6, they did nothing to stem the exfiltration of emails from the DNC.”
https://climateaudit.org/2017/09/02/email-dates-in-the-wikileaks-dnc-archive/
Of course, there is nothing at all odd about this if the Wikileaks emails stemmed from a leak.
However, Crowdstrike has subsequently characterized its installation of Falcon as a measure to monitor ongoing hacking. Alperovitch of Crowdstrike has referred to Falcon as “monitoring software”:
Allegedly, Crowdstrike took definitive measures to cleanse the DNC servers and institute new passwords on the weekend of June 10–12. Are we expected to believe that they just monitored ongoing hacking for a month while doing nothing to stop it? Here’s an analogy: You are informed that a gang rape is in progress. Instead of immediately sending the police, you send photographers (apparently without film).
However, Crowdstrike’s own promotional literature refers to Falcon as software for preventing hacking:
https://web.archive.org/web/20160428142131/https://www.crowdstrike.com/products/
So is Crowdstrike throwing its own top-of-the-line product under the bus to maintain the credibility of the claim that hackers provided Wikileaks with the DNC emails?
Cyberexpert Adam Carter suspects that Crowdstrike might have been involved in creating the Guccifer 2.0 fraud. The purposely tainted Guccifer 2.0 releases, in conjunction with Crowdstrike’s conclusion that Russian agents had hacked the DNC, could have readily led unsuspecting intelligence agents to indict the Russians.
Oh, and guess who the DCCC hired to investigate its breach?
Another key difficulty with the ICA has been raised by William Binney, a co-founder of the NSA’s SIGINT Automation Research Center. He indicates that if the DNC had been hacked, the NSA would know precisely when this had happened, and where the data had gone:
“Because NSA can trace exactly where and how any “hacked” emails from the Democratic National Committee or other servers were routed through the network, it is puzzling why NSA cannot produce hard evidence implicating the Russian government and WikiLeaks. Unless we are dealing with a leak from an insider, not a hack, as other reporting suggests. From a technical perspective alone, we are convinced that this is what happened.”
https://consortiumnews.com/2017/01/06/the-dubious-case-on-russian-hacking/
Intriguingly, it was the NSA which indicated that they were only “moderately confident” about the ICA’s conclusion.
And finally, there’s the intriguing detail that the declassified ICA contains a preamble indicating that the “assessments” it provides are not necessarily equivalent to “facts”. In other words, they are “best guesses”. Ray McGovern has pointed out that, in spyspeak, “assess” effectively means “guess”. So those trumpeting the “proven” election interference by Russia are relying on the guesses of a couple of dozen people hand-selected by the virulent Russophobe James Clapper.
Getting back to the issue of whether Seth Rich was the source of the DNC Wikileaks releases: In one corner we have Julian Assange and Craig Murray, who have sacrificed their freedom and their career (respectively) for their insistence on spreading (inconvenient) truth. Nothing ever released by Wikileaks has been found to be fraudulent. Assange states without qualification that the Russian government was not responsible for his DNC releases, Murray states bluntly that both the DNC and Podesta emails Wikileaks releases resulted from internal leaks, not hacks (having met personally with one of the sources), and Assange, both by direct statements and by re-tweeting key reports, is implying as strongly as he can without saying so directly that Seth is a Wikileaks source. Assange and Murray have direct knowledge of their DNC source if anyone does. Celebrated journalist Sy Hersh indicates that an anonymous FBI source he values highly indicates he has seen an FBI analysis of Seth’s computer which concludes that Seth provided the DNC material to Wikileaks via a drop box. And — for what it’s worth (which might not be much, but we’ll see) — Kim Dotcom also claims to have evidence that Seth was a Wikileaks source. (He states that he cannot come forward with this evidence without getting an immunity deal, because otherwise he could be subject to legal sanctions for participating in the leaking.)
In the other corner, we have committed Russophobes James Clapper, John Brennan, and a group of hand-picked acolytes who assess (guess) that Russian hackers — including Guccifer 2.0 — were the Wikileaks source. They obviously have no direct knowledge in this regard, and they have made this assessment despite the fact that no federal agency has been allowed to analyze the DNC server; the private company which made the assessment which they rely on likewise has a strong political bias. They also provide no clue whatever as to how they have concluded that the alleged hacks were transferred to Wikileaks. Their declassified ICA has been ridiculed by independent cyberexperts for failing to provide any hard evidence whatever. Their conclusion that Guccifer 2.0 is a Russian hacker is an evident farce. Clapper is notorious for his misjudgments prior to and following the Iraq invasion, and also perjured himself under oath to Congress. Both Clapper and Brennan have strong motivation to slam Russia.
And yet virtually all of our MSM and political class accept as a matter of course the conclusions of the ICA, and ridicule as a “conspiracy theorist” anyone who even broaches the possibility that Seth could be the Wikileaks source. Of course, these are the same people whose sycophantic credulity enabled the grossly criminal and catastrophic Iraq invasion — so why be surprised?
Topping it all off, of course, is that the key crime that the Russians are alleged to have committed — a crime that has been likened to an “act of war” by some over-the-top commentators — was to provide the American public with true facts regarding the ways in which the DNC, in violation of its charter, leaned over backwards to favor Hillary Clinton over her rivals in the 2016 primary — and also finally gave us access to Hillary’s Wall Street speeches in which she helpfully clarified that she had two sets of views — those for the public, and those for her donors, who clearly were the ones that really mattered. (Of course, it’s not as though percipient observers didn’t know these things already.) Isn’t it the role of our MSM to be providing such “interference”?
Craig Murray has summed much of this up in a recent excellent essay:
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2017/07/stink-without-secret/
And the fabulous Caitlin Johnstone has assembled a voluminous summary of pertinent facts on Russiagate here:
https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/the-index-of-russiagate-debunkery-f5b6f4101dd0
But the Russian Trolls!
But wait — there’s still the 1,000 Russian trolls, paid by the Kremlin to spread “fake news”TM to the gullible American public. As far as I know, the only source for this is a statement by Sen. Mark Warner of the Intelligence Committee, referring to unspecified “reports”:
Hillary embellished this narrative at a recent sit-down comedy performance at the 2017 Code Conference — for which she received rave reviews:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4560344/Hillary-Trump-colluded-Russia-create-fake-news.html
http://observer.com/2017/06/hillary-clinton-insults-voters-fake-news-russia-election-involvement/
After repeating her by-then-debunked lie about the “17 intelligence agencies”, she focused on the Russian trolls and bots who had helped to tank her campaign:
“So the Russians… could not have known best how to weaponize that information unless they had been guided. Guided by Americans and guided by people who had polling and data information.”
Her implication was of course that the people providing this guidance were the Trump campaign. And apparently this guidance was so astute that, according to Warner, the trolls targeted the rust-belt states that Hillary gave short shrift to. According to tweeter Maple Cocaine — “Pretty big indictment of the Hillary campaign when the fucking Kremlin knew to campaign in Wisconsin but she didn’t.”
Of course, it’s hard to see how, with tens of millions of Americans active on social media, a thousand or so Russian trolls could have had a significant impact — how many of those pestilential buggers did David Brock employ on Hill’s behalf? — but who needs logic.
A rather hilarious variation on this theme is the claim that Russian troll armies were actually writing the “fake news” stories that denigrated Hillary during the campaign:
“The House and Senate Intelligence Committees are looking into the rash of anti-Clinton fake news that originated in Russia and was spread online by Trump supporters in advance of last year’s election.”
http://secondnexus.com/politics-and-economics/investigators-fake-news-now-center-trump-russia-probe/
Apparently, Russian fabulists are supposed to have dreamed up Pizzagate, the neurological problems which Hillary is hiding, the lengthy lists of Clinton opponents who have died mysteriously, Clinton’s raving fits and abuse of Secret Service agents, and just about every story denigratory to Clinton that the MSM won’t touch. Should we give our fellow Americans so little credit for perceptiveness and creative imagination? This has now truly degenerated to the level of farce.
And note the title of this story: Investigators: “Fake News Now at Center of Trump Russia Probe”. Which suggests that at that point we really ARE down to the 1,000 Russian trolls.
I can see the scenario now: “Vladimir Vladimirovich, what are your suggestions for this week’s troll assault?” “Our young friend Donald Donaldovich informs me that Wisconsin, especially the Milwaukee area, could be a fertile ground for the Pizzagate fantasy that Kuryakin dreamed up last month. Give that a try.”
Robert Parry notes: “As for the relatively small number of willfully produced ‘fake news’ stories, none appear to have traced back to Russia despite extensive efforts by the mainstream U.S. media to make the connection. When the U.S. mainstream media has tracked down a source of ‘fake news’, it has turned out to be some young entrepreneur trying to make some money by getting lots of clicks.”
Rather hilariously, Parry discusses a fake news website created by an unemployed Georgian student in Tbilisi who was trying “to make money by promoting pro-Trump stories. The owner of the website, 22-year-old Beqa Latsabidse, said he had initially tried to push stories favorable to Hillary Clinton but that proved unprofitable so he switched to publishing anti-Clinton and pro-Trump articles whether true or not.”
https://consortiumnews.com/2017/07/28/the-dawn-of-an-orwellian-future/
A vastly hyped claim that a variety of fake accounts, presumed to be associated with the Internet Research Agency of St. Petersburg, had spent a total of about $100K over 2 years to purchase about 3,000 ads on Facebook (annual revenue $27 billion) to promote Trump’s election, allegedly at the behest of the Russian government, has devolved into farce, as Facebook acknowledged that “The vast majority of ads run by these accounts didn’t specifically reference the U.S. presidential election or voting for a particular candidate.” Yet Sen. Warner gravely assures us that this may just be “the tip of an iceberg”.
I will rapidly skip over the “Trump campaign colluded with the Russians” fantasy because it surpasseth understanding how the Russians would need the permission or guidance of Trump if they did indeed intend to interfere. And yet this has been the chief obsession of our MSM for lo these many months.
This narrative got its start when, in light of claims by intelligence experts that Russia, China, and other nations had very likely hacked Hillary’s private server during her tenure as Secretary of State — and the fact that Hillary’s crew had managed to bleach-bit out of existence tens of thousands of Hillary’s “personal” emails then under court subpoena (with no legal consequences) — Trump joked that Russia should hand over those deleted emails to us to expedite our legal process. The Clinton campaign, echoed by the MSM, chose to interpret this as a treasonous request that Russia hack Hillary’s server — an interpretation that was particularly absurd in light of the fact that Hillary’s SOS server had been offline for many months.
The latest variant on this theme is consternation over a meeting Trump Jr. had with a Russian lawyer whom he was informed had dirt on Clinton which the Russian government was eager to spread. Alas, the lawyer had no such dirt, she denies that she is affiliated with the Russian government or is acting at their direction, and the email which proposed this meeting was from a British music promoter whose credentials as a Kremlinologist are a mite suspect. Moreover, the MSM breathlessly pushing this revelation have neglected to mention that friends of the Clinton campaign paid money to Russian sources — via “piss dossier” entrepreneur Christopher Steele — to invent imaginative slanders of Trump, which, incredibly, were appended to the classified version of the ICA by Clapper.
https://consortiumnews.com/2017/07/10/forgetting-the-dirty-dossier-on-trump/
It seems to me that that is the documented Russian interference in the election.
And now it is alleged that the music promoter who lied to Trump Jr. when setting up the meeting, as well as the Russian lawyer who attended, are associates of GPS Fusion, the company which concocted the Trump “piss dossier”. Sheer coincidence?
Michael Tracey has detected a pattern to the seemingly endless wave of evanescent pseudo-scandals regarding Trump campaign contacts with Russians that have consumed MSM discourse for months:
Even if we were to presume that the Russian government did interfere in our recent election, the fact that millions of Americans immediately jumped to the conclusion that Trump and his associates had treasonously acted as co-conspirators in these efforts — in the absence of any evidence, simply because Hillary had suggested it — does not speak well of the intellectual integrity or even sanity of the American public.
But we’re still left with the issue of the 1,000 paid Russian trolls. Surely Clapper can provide us with the names and addresses of these demons — they seem to be in Russia, or Macedonia, or somewhere else sinister; and we want to see the receipts for their payments. Come on James, this is all you’ve got left — you’d better not blow this.**
And by the way, WHERE THE HELL IS MY PAYMENT, VLAD?!
A Personal Coda
So why I am so hellbent on driving a stake through the heart of the Russiagate hoax?
Here’s my perspective. Russia and the Russian people are not our enemies. Our true enemies are the people who are trying to brainwash us into despising and fearing the Russians.
Watch this speech by Bernie delivered to Congress a quarter century ago.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDOycQrRXUU
Bernie recognized that the collapse of the Soviet Union was our chance to turn away from our catastrophically expensive militarism, and to devote more of our attention and finances to meeting the real needs of the American people. And that goal is still a worthy one.
Russia is not threatening to invade the Baltics or re-establish the Soviet empire — such an aspiration would be totally insane. With respect to Ukraine, the reason there was a Ukrainian civil war is that, after Yanukovich had negotiated a deal with the EU to hold accelerated elections, after which he would step down — a deal which Putin wholly endorsed — neo-Nazi troops stormed the Kiev government buildings, establishing a coup government which the US immediately recognized — thereby rendering moot the Yanukovich/EU deal that would have prevented civil war. After the coup government quickly dropped official recognition of the Russian language, and neo-Nazi gangs burned to death dozens of Russophiles in Odessa, eastern Ukraine rose up in revolt. (What do you think would happen in fly-over America if a coup in Washington DC installed Hillary as President?) Russia helped to make sure their Russian-speaking compatriots in east Ukraine had enough arms to defend themselves from the battalions sent to crush them.
In Crimea, which had been part of the Russian empire for nearly 200 years and where nearly everyone grows up speaking Russian, the duly elected Crimean parliament held a referendum in which the people overwhelmingly endorsed rejoining Russia. The Crimean parliament then petitioned Russia for reunification, which the Russian government gladly assented to. (However, they did not agree to annex any of eastern Ukraine proper). Russia never invaded Crimea, because tens of thousands of Russian troops were already stationed there under a longstanding agreement with Ukraine; Crimea hosts Sevastopol, Russia’s only southern port. Most Americans don’t know, because MSM has never told them, that Khrushchev inexplicably gave Crimea to the Ukrainian SSR in the 1950s without asking the permission of the Crimean people. Most Crimeans consider themselves Russians, a minority are native Tatars (whom Stalin oppressed and exiled) — almost none consider themselves Ukrainian. And the Crimeans appreciate that Russia has a relatively stable economy, whereas Ukraine is now a basket case.
And with respect to Syria, the Russians are acting legally in response to a legitimate request from the Syrian government; they are trying to prevent Syria from being overrun by the psychotic jihadi hordes who have infiltrated Syria and are armed and funded by the CIA, the Saudis, and other bad actors. Only a very small percentage of the so-called “rebels” are actually Syrian. Our MSM have brainwashed the American people on this issue as well as on so much else.
In fact, it is WE who have antagonized Russia. We have completely welshed on the promise we gave Gorbachev that, in return for East Germany being allowed to unite with West Germany and join NATO, we wouldn’t move NATO “a single inch” to the east. Instead, since Bill Clinton’s administration we have expanded NATO steadily to the east, until it is on Russia’s doorstep. The desire of the neocons to now incorporate Ukraine into NATO is a bridge too far for Russia — they will only accept so much humiliation. And Russia sees our ringing of their country with ABMs — under the transparently phony pretext of protecting Europe from nonexistent Iranian nuclear missiles — as an effort to establish first strike capacity. This terrifies the Russians — and should terrify us too, because who knows what the Strangeloves in our Deep State are capable of.
And we in recent years are largely responsible for a string of catastrophic, illegal wars, motivated by capitalist venality and justified with lies, that have devastated much of the Middle East and North Africa. Russia as well as other nations have decried these wars as illegal, but their concerns have fallen on deaf ears.
So tell me what is so terrible about Russia, another capitalist nation that would like to do good business with us, and which reached out to help us after 9/11? Okay, so they have some growing up to do when it comes to gay rights, but 50 years ago we were very backward on that issue too. We should respond by showing them a good example. If their political system is still somewhat authoritarian — that’s their problem to cope with, not ours; it’s not as though our effective plutocracy is ideal. And we are in official alliance with some countries that are grossly authoritarian and horrific on human rights.
And perhaps we should remember and appreciate the fact that it was the incredible heroism and sacrifice of the Russian people that was primarily responsible for the allied victory over Hitler in WWII.
Consider also the treasures of music and literature with which Russia has gifted world civilization.
As to the Russian people themselves, check out these flash mob videos:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oacelnX3VSQ
N.B.: Irving Berlin was a Russian émigré.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwsAEK7xQDY
These are the people we’re supposed to fear?!
The reason the Deep State needs us to hate Russia is so that we will continue to plow tons of money into the massive boondoggle of NATO — which should have dissolved after the Warsaw pact was dissolved. And hatred and fear is absolutely great for arms sales. Plus Israel wants us to hate Russia because Russia is allied with nations that oppose the land grab of Greater Israel. None of this has anything to do with the real needs of the American people — except for those engaged in weapons production.
The real danger of a new Cold War is not only the massive diversionary expense, but the fact that it greatly increases the risk for a catastrophic nuclear exchange to be triggered accidentally — an exchange that potentially could wipe out not only human civilization, but much of life on earth, owing to nuclear winter. Such accidents nearly occurred several times during the previous Cold War. As long as both we and the Russians have massive nuclear arsenals, it’s very smart indeed for us to get along well with them. Caitlin Johnstone has discoursed eloquently on this point.
What is especially galling about Russiagate to me is that fact that it is the Democrats that are driving this hysteria. Traditionally, during the Cold War, it was the Democrats who were less hawkish — now the situation is flipped on its head, thanks to the fact that Trump’s common sense tells him that getting along with Russia is smart. (God knows I’m no fan of the unqualified buffoon Trump, but his instincts on Russia are on target. Whether the neo-cons whom he inexplicably has appointed to his administration allow him to make any progress on this score remains to be seen.)
Here’s an idea — how about we take to heart Rodney King’s admonition — “Why can’t we all get along?” Step back and realize that, in many ways we really do have a wonderful world. We can enjoy Thai cuisine, Russian and German symphonies, fine French wines, fuel-efficient Japanese cars, American jazz and popular music, world soccer, Italian opera, the range of American sports, English drama, Chinese art, Jamaican reggae — the fusion of all the world’s great cultures can give us a very rich life. With a few notable but rather paltry exceptions like the jihadi psychotics of ISIS, the peoples of the world are eager to get along with each other and collaborate in making the world better for all of us. They are eager to cooperate in minimizing the damage done by global warming, to establish trade deals that protect the interests not only of plutocrats, but of workers, consumers, and the environment, to enjoy the cultural riches which each society can bring to the table. We need to minimize the scourge of war by returning to the principles of international law — which our own great Eleanor Roosevelt helped to establish. The baseless hysteria of Russiagate has no place in such a world — nor does the neo-con-fueled obsession of the US to dominate all other nations by force of arms. Let’s get our act together America, and join the rest of the world in mutual respect and appreciation. Let’s fight our wars on soccer fields, basketball courts, and in Olympic stadia. Let’s just be cool.
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —
*With respect to the Guccifer 2.0 data transfer event discussed here, Scott Ritter has pointed out that forensic analysis cannot prove that the computer from which these data were transferred was a DNC computer; in other words it is theoretically possible that the data involved had been transferred from the DNC earlier, and that the transfer analyzed reflected subsequent transfer of these data from one storage device to another. If this rather dubious (but possible) scenario were true, it would evidently negate the importance of the data transfer speed. However, the conclusion stands that this transfer occurred on the East Coast of the US, and hence did not involve Russian hackers. If we assume that Russian hackers had accessed this data at an earlier date, why would this data subsequently be transferred between two devices on the US East Coast, prior to its ultimate publication? And the counterargument that Guccifer 2.0 might have altered time zone settings on his computer to mask Russian involvement, is impossible to square with the fact that, in June, he was falsifying clues to point to Russia.
The intelligence agencies’ claim that Guccifer 2.0 is a Russian hacker lacks any credibility whatever.
**On the heels of Robert Mueller’s indictment of 13 Russians for “election meddling” — which occasioned a barrage of outraged bloviating from our MSM, likening the Russian action to “an act of war” — the highly astute German political analyst who goes by the nom de plume “Moon of Alabama” has decisively clarified our understanding of the Russian trolls:
The trolls affiliated with Internet Research Agency created dozens of web pages catering to specific points of view or interests, often associated with certain assumed personas; they drove viewers to these pages with provocative ads or social postings; and they made money by selling ad space on the pages. This perfectly explains why the content posted by the trolls was so chaotic in focus: they were trying to harvest eyes from as many market segments as possible, to meet the needs of every potential client. This diversity of focus has been interpreted as “sowing chaos” — as opposed to “stimulating interest in public affairs” — in line with the dictates of Deep State Russophobia.
There is no evidence — or claim in the Mueller indictment — that the activities of the Internet Research Agency were directed or funded by the Russian government.
The indictment pinpoints 13 Facebook ads placed by the trolls — out of some 3,000 total — which bashed Hillary or supported Trump; the placement of these ads did indeed break the law because it is not legal for foreigners to buy ads advocating for or against candidates during an election. If these ads were purchased for the average price the trolls paid for Facebook ads, they would have cost about $500. The other ad purchases (leaving out of consideration ads boosting Hillary or denigrating Trump which the indictment may purposely have failed to mention, so as to sustain its phony narrative) were legal, as were the trolls’ other social media posts. So the MSM currently expects us to believe that about $500 in online ads placed by Russians not affiliated with the Russian government are, in the words of some pundits, a second Pearl Harbor.
And it is important to note that these 13 electioneering ads represented a miniscule fraction of the trolls’ online postings. There is zero reason to believe that swinging the election to Trump was a key goal of the trolls, as the VP for advertising at Facebook admits:
https://twitter.com/robjective/status/964680122950234112
So Mueller has hilariously misconstrued a profit-seeking troll farm as a felonious foreign influence campaign. (Or at least that is what he affects to believe.)
So at this point, 7 month after the first draft of this essay, with the Russian troll issue at last put to rest, it seems clear that there never was any there there — that Russiagate is a hoax and paranoid fantasy from first to last. No, Russia did not provide Assange with the DNC/Podesta emails — it was a leak, not a hack. No, the Russian government did not try to hack into US voter rolls — cybercriminals were seeking saleable personal info. No, the Russian government did not employ an army of internet trolls to sway the election — a profit-seeking private Russian troll farm was creating a chaotic range of web personas to sell online advertising. These interpretations are by far the most rational based on the information at hand. The reason why Trump is convinced that Putin is convinced that Russia did not interfere is that — Russia did not interfere.
A straightforward corollary is that suspicions that the Trump campaign assisted or promised to reward the Russian government for its non-existent interference, are farcical. The now-20-month-long investigation of the Trump campaign for its non-collusion was necessarily motivated and driven by lies and paranoid fantasies, and entailed gross violations of the 4th Amendment right to privacy. The fomenters of this witch hunt must be criminally scanctioned, as a warning to those in our Deep State who might be tempted to victimize others in this way.
Those that knowingly hoaxed the public to create the interference narrative, and those in the Deep State and MSM who propagated the narrative publicly out of careerism, with a total lack of intellectual integrity, making no effort at rational analysis of the facts at hand, I view as war criminals.
Note: Published originally on the Way of the Bern subreddit.
Mark McCarty is a biomedical theoretician/applied nutritionist who occasionally dabbles in political writing when he becomes sufficiently appalled and terrified.
The 10 Main Holes in the Official Narrative on the Salisbury Poisonings: #1 – The Motive
By Rob Slane | The Blog Mire | August 18, 2018
When I began writing about the Skripal case, I was moved to do so by three main considerations.
Firstly, I really am passionate for the truth, and whatever the truth happens to be in this case, I strongly desire it to be made manifest. It was clear to me fairly early on that this was not happening.
Secondly, I am also very passionate about concepts such as the rule of law, innocent until proven guilty, and the apparently quaint notion that investigations should precede verdicts, rather than the other way around. And so when I saw accusations being made before the investigation had hardly begun, verdicts being reached before the facts were established, I was appalled — appalled that this was happening in what we British pride ourselves is the Mother of Parliaments, and equally appalled that this meant the investigation was inevitably prejudiced and – pardon the expression – poisoned from the off.
Thirdly, the incident happened to have taken place pretty much on my doorstep, which made it of even more interest to me.
Nothing I have seen in the intervening time has persuaded me that my initial impressions were wrong. In fact, the whiff of rodent I first detected has only become stronger as time has gone on and the case has become — frankly — farcical. Not only that, but the reaction to the case has been simply incredible. For instance, the United States expelled 60 diplomats back in March, and more recently they have effectively declared economic war on the Russian Federation – all in response to unproven and inconsistent assertions of a botched assassination attempt against an old spy in a quiet Wiltshire City. Such a response ought to raise the suspicions of any sentient being that all is not what it appears.
I still do not have any clear idea of what happened on that day, but what I am certain of is that the official narrative is not only untrue, but it is manifestly inconceivable that it could be true. There are simply too many inconsistencies, too many holes and far too many unexplained events for it to be true. And whilst part of me would dearly love to leave this wretched case behind for a while, whilst it is still ongoing, and especially as it is now being used to push us even closer to the brink of war (economic warfare is often a prelude to military warfare), I find that hard to do.
What I would therefore like to do in a series of 10 short pieces over the next couple of weeks or so, is attempt to expose some of the very many holes in the official narrative. At the end of it, I may well put it all together into one PDF, so that it can be sent somewhere, where it can be completely ignored by those that matter. Enjoy!
Number 1: The Motive
In her speech to the House of Commons on 26th March, the Prime Minister, Theresa May, said this:
“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.”
For the purposes of this piece, I am not interested in her comments on capability or intent, but simply what she describes as “the motive”.
The first question to be asked is this: What exactly does she mean by “the motive”? By including that definite article before the word “motive”, she implies that there is only one “motive” – the motive – and that only one party – the Russian Federation – possessed this. Which is of course manifest nonsense. She might at that stage have said that they possessed “a motive”, but without looking into what Mr Skripal was up to, and the contacts he had, she was in no position to state that they had “the motive”.
Imagine the following scenario: A farmer called Boggis is found shot dead in his barn. It is known that a week earlier, he had a very public quarrel with another landowner, Bunce, about the boundaries between their lands, and that the two of them had to be separated before they came to blows. Could it be said of Bunce that he had “the motive”? Well, it would be reasonable to suggest that he had “a motive”, but without looking into other circumstances and other characters connected with Boggis, it would be disingenuous to claim that he had “the motive” as if only he might have had one.
As it happens, Boggis had been committing adultery with the wife of another neighbouring farmer called Bean, and Bean had found out about this two days before Boggis was found dead. What now? Does Bean have a motive? Very possibly. So too might Boggis’ wife. Perhaps even Bunce’s wife. Who knows without examining the facts more closely?
And so herein lies the first whiff of rodent. Mrs May asserted that the Russian Federation possessed “the motive”, implying that there was only one possibility, which is something that could only be ascertained by proper investigation of Mr Skripal, his circumstances and what he was up to. She therefore committed what is a most basic fallacy in the investigative process.
The second question to ask is this: she says she set out “the motive” in her speech, but what actually was that? Here is what she presented as the motive in her speech:
“We know that Russia has a record of conducting state-sponsored assassinations – and that it views some former intelligence officers as legitimate targets for these assassinations.”
This won’t do. Firstly, many countries have records of conducting state-sponsored assassinations, and not always against their own nationals. But secondly, the claim that the Russian Federation “views some former intelligence officers as legitimate targets for these assassinations” is not a motive. At best it is a claim, but it is not a motive. A motive for an attempted murder, such as this, would need to give a reason for carrying it out on that particular person at that particular time. Simply saying that they view some former intelligence officers as legitimate targets for these assassinations does not explain why they are supposed to have decided to assassinate this particular man, at this particular time, especially since they released and pardoned him in 2010. It also does not explain why they apparently decided to wreck all possible future spy swaps, since Mr Skripal had been part of such a deal, and assassinating him would put an end to such deals.
But the most important question to ask is this: are there any other parties with a possible motive for this crime? Even without a particularly careful investigation of the details of Mr Skripal’s life, contacts and circumstances, I can say assuredly that there were. For instance, it is known — although woefully unreported because of a media ban — that Mr Skripal was connected to the man behind the so-called Trump Dossier, Christopher Steele. Personally, I am reasonably convinced that Mr Skripal had a hand in putting this dossier together, given his connections to Steele, and since it was almost certainly authored by a Russian “trained in the KGB tradition”. Might this give a motive to some very powerful groups who are nervous about the origins and details of this dossier coming to light? Yes, of course. Then why is it not a line of possible enquiry? Answers on a postcard to the Department of the Blindingly Obvious.
In summary:
- Mrs May had no right to state that the Russian Federation had “the motive”. The best she could have said at that stage, without taking other possibilities into account, was that they had “a motive”.
- The motive she does present is particularly feeble and does not explain why the Russian Federation would have wanted Mr Skripal in particular dead, and at that particular time.
- Mr Skripal’s recent activities indicate that there were others with possible motives to assassinate or incapacitate him.
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: #6 – The Meal and The Drink
False Western Narratives have Deepened Russia-West Estrangement
Literally No Evidence is Behind the Skripal Poisoning.
By Tony Kevin | 21st Century Wire | August 17, 2018
We have a situation now in which two major world governments, UK and Russia, both nuclear powers and permanent members of the UNSC, are upholding entirely opposed and contradictory narratives on two issues – the alleged Salisbury/Amesbury Novichuk poisonings, and the alleged nerve gas attacks by Assad Government forces on 7 April in Douma, Syria (on basis of false White Helmets-staged evidence). The latter allegation led to a US/UK bombing attack on Syrian Air Force bases.
On both issues, the US and French governments – also UNSC members and nuclear powers – have in solidarity supported UK government- sourced narratives , though in the former case there has been no UK judicial process, and in the latter case OPCW inspectors have found no physical evidence of use of nerve agents in Douma, and nor do local people’s accounts support the allegations.
In the Salisbury case, OPCW technical reports made public in Moscow on 14 April by Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov, detailing results of the Skripal samples analysis by the OPCW Spiez Laboratory in Switzerland, support a finding that the Skripals were probably poisoned temporarily with non- lethal BZ toxin , found in the Skripal samples, and that quantities of Novichok ( A- 234) lethal toxin had twice been added to the samples before they passed from British Govt to OPCW custody, in two clumsy attempts some weeks apart to create a false Novichok chemical trail. Lavrov commented, in strong language for him, that the fact Spiez Lab found these two doses of A-234 in the samples “appears to be utterly suspicious.”
Nevertheless, two days later on 16 April, the OPCW Executive Council , under Western pressure, decided unprecedentedly not to release the full reports of the samples testing by the four OPCW laboratories in Switzerland, thereby casting serious doubt on the professional reputation of OPCW. See here and here.
The second document contained a manifestly untrue statement by Mr Marc-Michael Blum, the Head of the OPCW Laboratory and leader of the technical assistance team that was deployed to the United Kingdom, that:
“The Labs were able to confirm the identity of the chemical (Novichok, or A -234) by applying existing, well-established procedures. *** There was no other chemical that was identified by the Labs ***. The precursor of BZ that is referred to in the public statements, commonly known as 3Q, was contained in the control sample prepared by the OPCW Lab in accordance with the existing quality control procedures. Otherwise it has nothing to do with the samples collected by the OPCW Team in Salisbury. This chemical was reported back to the OPCW by the two designated labs and the findings are duly reflected in the report.”
This is simply laughable. The OPCW defence was that Britain had requested a very restricted test looking only for Novichok, and that it was therefore correct procedure for OPCW to withhold publication of the full laboratory results. So there is no official confirmation or denial of Lavrov’s statement that the Spiez Lab had found that A-234 had twice been improperly added to the Skripal samples. And a blatant lie was told on BZ.
Lavrov on 14 April had stood just short of accusing the UK government of concealing evidence and tampering with samples. But his imputation was very clear. Clearly he was appealing to Britain and the OPCW to do the right thing on 16 April. They did not do so. His words, recorded on the Russian MFA website, went unreported in the West. They are the essential basis of the Russian counter-narrative.
On the alleged use of CW in Douma, an alleged child victim Hassan Diab testified in The Hague three weeks later on 27 April that he had never been gassed, but he had been cruelly used in a White Helmets staged propaganda film.
Then, much later, the OPCW reported on 6 July their inspectors’ findings that they had not found any organophosphorous nerve agents or their degradation products in Douma.
These are facts. But it appears that facts no longer matter. In the UNSC, the weight of numbers is with the three Western permanent members and their allies. China has been circumspect on the issue, saying almost nothing except calling for proper procedures to be followed in OPCW.
Russia and China continue to have rights of veto on any future UNSC resolution that might try to condemn Russia for allegedly behaving as an international outlaw in these two contested matters.
Is there any legal way Russia could be expelled from the UNSC over either or both of these sets of allegations? America and Britain seem hell-bent now on portraying Russia as an international criminal, but surely this should carry no credibility now with the majority of the UNGA membership outside the compliant NATO/EU/Australia grouping.
There seems no way in which the facts of Salisbury/Amesbury can be publicly established, as long as the UK Government continues to suppress and tamper with evidence, and as long as its Western allies and the OPCW Executive continue to give to the UK Government cover and support. Only the election of a Corbyn Labour Government might offer prospect of change, because Corbyn is a decent man who would refuse to sustain a UK government lie.
Russia will continue to press for consular access to their citizens the Skripals. They cannot let the issue be forgotten. So it will go on being a cause of major Russia-UK tension and bad blood, as the histories of the two series of events recede into mythology and contested narratives, and as distracting myths and legends accumulate around Salisbury-Amesbury.
Now, the US government is resorting with increasing recklessness to unilateral sanctions outside the UN system, announcing two tranches of increasingly severe sanctions against Russia, in August and November, unless Russia admits its crimes and promises not to repeat them. Russia has of course rejected these demands out of hand, as internationally illegal and without any justification.
If the US pursues this course it will lead to further distancing between the US and Russian economies. As Lavrov points out, many other countries will draw their own conclusions about the US’s reliability as an economic partner and reserve currency.
The most likely medium-term scenario is continued simmering anger and resentment on both sides, encouraging further polarisation of a ‘3 versus 2’ situation in UNSC. But I don’t see how Russia could be expelled or suspended from the UNSC.
The current situation suits Western Russia-hating elites. It is in their interest to delay and impede any moves to Russia-West detente, keeping tensions high but at a level just short of war, and keeping Trump on a tight leash for as long as he remains US President. So far, sadly, it is all working out according to this plan.
***
Feature image taken from John Laurit’s blog.
Tony Kevin, former Australian diplomat and author of ‘Return to Moscow’ (2017, UWA Publishing)
Totally Irrusianal
By Paul Edwards | CounterPunch | August 17, 2018
Enough with accusations. Let’s assume the worst. Or maybe you think of it as the best. Let’s stipulate that Trump, never mind how, is the helpless tool of evil Putin. Putin posted social media attack rants to sow confusion and doubt in American minds about their country, and ordered the DNC hacking to expose and discredit Hillary on Wikileaks and get his puppet elected. What follows? What was his grand purpose, the endgame?
So, as President, Trump was Putin’s abject slave. What did Putin want? Diplomatic relations. Trump expelled a hundred Russian diplomats. He demanded sanctions against Russia be dropped. Trump added more. He ordered Trump to stay in the Iran deal. Trump dumped it. He directed Trump to de-fund Kiev’s neo-Nazi regime and drop demands to give up Crimea. Trump said no. He told Trump to cut the military budget. Trump increased it. He insisted Trump get out of Syria. Trump refused and had to be forced out. At Helsinki, he may even have asked Trump for–gasp!–a nuclear arms control deal. Trump demurred. No go, Vlad, said the slave.
One would have to say that, to date, Putin’s having Trump by the plums has produced no great triumphs. How can that be? What slavery is this? Either you have leverage or you don’t; you can exert pressure or you can’t.
Ah, but one bonehead military braintruster has revealed that it’s all about undermining America’s “moral authority” in the world. That, you see, is Putin’s truly diabolical desire. Never mind all the oppositional policies and antagonistic acts by Trump; they are but clever cover for a far more sinister plot by the fiend Putin to diminish our cherished respect in the world mind.
One might have thought our grotesquely vicious blood-and-horror shows in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria would have sufficed to render our “moral authority” moot for Putin since we no longer have any, but not so.
There is evidently no limit to his malevolent passion to see America become the most hated nation on earth, and he wants it done–the gods know how!–faster than we’re doing it ourselves. That being so, one might suspect his evil meddling reaches far back to Clinton, the Bushes, and Obama, but that’ s not how the story goes. What Putin wants Trump to do is to eliminate non-existent admiration and respect, a tough order indeed.
For the sake of rigorous inquiry, let’s set aside the poor performance Putin is getting despite his deathgrip on his victim, and speculate about what
Vlad Teufelsdreck might ideally hope for with a slave who honored his obligations better. If you’ve followed me so far, his goal seems clear.
He wants to recreate a Russian Empire and rule the world. This may not be obvious from his actual behavior but we need not be fooled by mere evidence. After subverting, disarming and occupying the U.S.–having asked Xi and China to hang tight while he conquers his moral authority-impaired foes–he will then turn on China, just as Hitler did on…
Can you go on with this line of bullshit? Can anyone? Taking an honest look at the wild goat’s nest of irrationality and deceit behind the claim that Putin has any hold of any kind whatever on Trump, and then parsing the implications of that idea, the infantile fatuity, the mind-numbing idiocy of the whole sham has to slam one like a hi-balling train.
An assertion of fact is, in logic, a premise, which is a proposition supporting a conclusion. The assertion that Trump is Putin’s puppet supports the conclusion that Trump must obey his will, which, QED, is howlingly absurd.
Clintonista Corporate Democrats, obdurate in hara-kiri mode, have gone all in to attack Trump with this baseless fantasy rather than blister him for the glaring evils he has actually perpetrated. That would be damned awkward for them as many of their big donors are just fine with the looney fiats of the Imperial Pagliacco. And, their ploy has failed. Trump’s riding them out.
They’ve embraced the Goldwater mantra, “Better Dead Than Red”, and are stoking the fires of the gullible for a face-off with Russia. Gearing up for that Big One would be a jackpot for the War Machine. It could gouge out a far fatter hunk of budget than they’ve gotten beating up defenseless little nations and it’d be fat city right up to the point where Russia, generations ahead of Aunt Sam in weaponry, tore The Empire a great big new one.
If this desperate madness persists, we may yet have both Trump and war. It may be as Kafka reflected: “There is infinite hope… but not for us.”
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Israel’s recurring use of terror on civilians
By Bob Finch | January 26, 2009
Insanely disproportionate use of violence against unarmed civilians… continue
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