Amesbury poisoning incident fuels another wave of anti-Russian hysteria
RT | July 5, 2018
A new poisoning incident on UK soil has given British politicians a perfect reason for launching another McCarthian witch hunt on dissent. One MP already targeted RT and was called out for limiting free speech.
“Could … members of this house on all sides not appear on Putin’s propaganda television channel?” Mike Gapes, a Labor MP for Ilford South, said during his speech in the House of Commons in an apparent attempt to discourage his fellow parliamentarians from providing any commentaries to RT.
He also accused RT, as well as some perceived “St. Petersburg troll factories,” of “gearing up to spread misinformation.” He spoke just a day after the reports about a Wiltshire couple being poisoned with what was later described as the same strand of ‘Novichok’ nerve agent that was used against the former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter in March.
It goes without saying that Gapes did not bother to provide a single piece of evidence to support his claims. Nevertheless, his words apparently resonated with the British Interior Minister Sajid Javid, who praised the MP for raising the issue and then complained that “there have been far too many incidents where members of the [House of Commons] have sadly supported the Russian propaganda machine” by apparently appearing on RT.
Javid then took the liberty to speak for all the British people in what appeared to be another blatant attempt to exert pressure on lawmakers. The minister said that “the British public will not support any” of those MPs that “support” Russian President Vladimir Putin. The implication here is that anyone who appears on RT automatically supports Putin.
This alleged fight against “insidious Russian propaganda” perfectly plays into London’s broader political narrative, in which Russophobia has become one of the leading trends. The UK has so far failed to provide any solid evidence to prove that Russia had anything to do with the Skripals’ poisoning, as the official investigation has not yet provided any clear results. However, London has already presumed that Moscow might be implicated in another poisoning incident at a time when the investigation of the new case has only just started.
It is far from the first time that British officials have involved RT in their political games, as they apparently desperately seek to silence the channel that is not perfectly in line with their narrative. In March, when the Skripals case hit the news and the British government was falling all over itself to convince the world that Moscow was behind the attack on the ex-spy and his daughter, some British MPs already took advantage of the situation and called for RT UK to have its license revoked on some contrived pretext that it was allegedly “broadcasting propaganda.”
In their overzealous attempts to “protect the freedom of speech” by trying to shut down an alternative opinion, the MPs fell out of touch with their own constituents, who turned to social media to enlighten the people’s chosen ones that their suggestions actually amount to censorship.
Gapes already admitted that he had been confronted by angry people on social media over his remarks in parliament. Unsurprisingly, he just discarded all those who disagreed with his stance on the issue as “squawking Putin apologists.”
Even though it has not yet come to calls for banning RT altogether, one cannot rule out such possibility, taking into account the British politicians’ previous attempts to deal with the channel. The calls for the MPs to stay away from RT might well indicate that London would very much like to see public figures confined to appearing only in the media that so conveniently peddles the government narrative.
After all, apart from ostracizing RT, such moves show a much more worrying trend that some British officials are quite willing to limit the freedom of speech of their own fellow citizens by telling them who they may or may not speak to.
UK Recklessly Linking Moscow to Amesbury Without Proof – Ex-Intelligence Agents
Sputnik – July 5, 2018
Former UK intelligence officers told Sputnik that it was reckless for UK authorities to point at Russia as a link between the Amesbury poisoning incident and the nerve agent attack on Russia’s ex-spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter in Salisbury in March, without any concrete proof of Russian involvement.
Late on July 4, the UK authorities said that the two victims of the Amesbury incident — who were hospitalized over the weekend — had been exposed to the same nerve agent as the Skripals.
UK Minister of State for Security Ben Wallace suggested that Russia “fill in the gaps” of what happened in the incident to allow the UK authorities to pursue their investigation and keep people safe. Wallace added that it was not a targeted attack but “a contamination by a Novichok.”
At a parliament session later on June 5, UK Home Secretary Sajid Javid said that the United Kingdom would take “further action” should Russia’s involvement in the incident confirmed. He noted, however, that “we don’t want to jump to conclusions.”
“Again [Wallace is] making connections when even in the Skripal case there had been no official connection made, only assertions of high probability that Russia was behind the Skripal attack. So to conflate that with the Amesbury attack I think is highly reckless for a public official,” Annie Machon, a former MI5 intelligence officer, said.
Former MI6 intelligence officer Nicholas Anderson added that Wallace was unqualified to make any statements about the case.
“Please understand that many in the armed forces and intelligence services believe that Ben Wallace, even though he is a former officer in the British Army’s Scots Guards, is not sufficiently experienced nor qualified to make official statements at this level. He has only been in place a few months and is a long-term ally of Boris Johnson, and toes the officially-set agenda,” Anderson said.
Deteriorating Relations
Russia has repeatedly denied its involvement in the Skripal case and offered to assist the United Kingdom in its investigation.
Machon stated that it was misleading for Wallace to now ask for Russia’s help with the Amesbury nerve agent attack when the United Kingdom had previously turned down Russia’s assistance.
“Certainly we also have a case where Sergey Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, of course, has repeatedly asked to be shown the evidence around the Skripal case so Russia could contribute to the investigation at that time and they have been repeatedly rebuffed. So for [Wallace] now to say that Russia could now help in securing the safety of British people is disingenuous,” Machon said.
Machon stated that since the Skripal case emerged in March, relations between Russia and the United Kingdom had been in a deep freeze, but the recent handling of the Amesbury case by UK authorities was likely only to worsen bilateral ties.
On June 4, the head of the UK Metropolitan Police’s anti-terrorism unit said the priority for the investigative team was to establish how contact with the nerve agent had been made, and that any baseless assumptions should be avoided.
Anderson stated that the UK authorities, by providing a lack of clarity about the attack, were only arousing suspicion among the population.
“It’s early days yet as so much is unexplained as to what has happened in Amesbury. Many of this country’s citizens before and now again are suspicious of our own government’s motives. Events that occurred before were not properly explained to the public,” Anderson said.
Anderson added that relations between Russia and the United Kingdom continued to be poor “at the choosing of the British government.”
Drawing Parallels to Skripal Case
Wallace stated Thursday that although those affected by a nerve agent in Amesbury were not linked to the Skripals, the cause of the incident in Amesbury was nerve agent contamination.
Machon stressed that it would be wrong to draw such conclusions when at the time of the Skripal attack, experts held the belief that the A234 nerve agent could not remain effective in the open for a long time.
“But I think it was initially said that it would take months to investigate all these possible leads, all these possible theories and still not know what the outcome of what it was then. So for British ministers to be drawing analogies to the recent attack in the Skripal case, I think is dangerous,” Machon said.
Commenting on the possibility that the United Kingdom was unduly passing the blame onto a state actor, Anderson stated that London should focus on foreign criminal elements instead, that had long established profitable operation in the country and the existence of which continues to be officially denied by the country’s government.
Skripal and his daughter Yulia were found unconscious on March 4 in Salisbury, located several miles away from Amesbury. The United Kingdom promptly accused Russia of orchestrating the attack with what UK experts claimed was the Novichok nerve agent.
Moscow has repeatedly refuted all the allegations and offered its assistance in the investigation. The incident led to a diplomatic standoff between London and Moscow. Both Skripals have since been discharged from the hospital.
READ MORE:
2 Hospitalized After Exposure to ‘Unknown Substance’ in UK’s Amesbury — Police
UK Health Secretary: Amesbury Looks Like ‘After-Effect’ of Salisbury Case
UK Counter-Terrorism Chief: 2 People in Amesbury Exposed to Novichok
Salisbury to Host 2019 UK Army Day as Tribute to Skripal Poisoning Response – May
The Amesbury Mystery
By Craig Murray | July 4, 2018
We are continually presented with experts by the mainstream media who will validate whatever miraculous property of “novichok” is needed to fit in with the government’s latest wild anti-Russian story. Tonight Newsnight wheeled out a chemical weapons expert to tell us that “novichok” is “extremely persistent” and therefore that used to attack the Skripals could still be lurking potent on a bush in a park.
Yet only three months ago we had this example of scores from the MSM giving the same message which was the government line at that time:
“Professor Robert Stockman, of the University of Nottingham, said traces of nerve agents did not linger. He added: ‘These agents react with water to degrade, including moisture in the air, and so in the UK they would have a very limited lifetime. This is presumably why the street in Salisbury was being hosed down as a precaution – it would effectively destroy the agent.’”
In fact, rain affecting the “novichok” on the door handle was given as the reason that the Skripals were not killed. But now the properties of the agent have to fit a new narrative, so they transmute again.
It keeps happening. Do you remember when Novichok was the most deadly of substances, many times more powerful than VX or Sarin, and causing death in seconds? But then, when that needed to be altered to fit the government’s Skripal story, they found scientists to explain that actually no, it was pretty slow acting, absorbed gradually through the skin, and not all that deadly.
Scientists are an interesting bunch. More than willing to ascribe whatever properties fit the government’s ever more implausible stories, in exchange for an MSM appearance fee, 5 minutes of fame and the fond hope of a research grant.
According to the Daily Telegraph today, the unfortunate Charlie Rowley is a registered heroin addict, and if true Occam’s Razor would indicate that is a rather more likely reason for his present state than an inexplicably persistent weaponised nerve agent.
If it is however true that two separate attacks have been carried out with “novichok” a few miles either side of Porton Down, where “novichok” is synthesised and stored for “testing purposes”, what does Occam’s razor suggest is the source of the nerve agent? A question not one MSM journalist seems to have asked themselves tonight.
I am slightly puzzled by the picture the media are trying to paint of Charlie Rowley and Dawn Sturgess as homeless, unemployed addicts. The Guardian and Sky News both state that they were unemployed, yet Charlie was living in a very new house in Muggleton Road, Amesbury, which is pretty expensive. According to Zoopla homes range up to £430,000 and the cheapest ones are £270,000. They are all new build, on a new estate, which is still under construction.
Both Charlie Rowley and Dawn Sturgess still have active facebook pages and one of Charlie’s handful of “Likes” is a mortgage broker, which is consistent with his brand new house. They don’t give mortgages to unemployed heroin addicts, and not many of those live in smart new “executive housing” estates. Both Charlie and Dawn appear from their facebook pages to be very well socialised, with Dawn having many friends in the teaching profession. Even if she has been homeless for a period as reported, she is plainly very much part of the community.
Naturally, there is no mention in all the reports today of MI6’s Pablo Miller, who remains the subject of a D notice. I wonder if he knows Rowley and Sturgess, living in the same community? It should be recalled that Salisbury may be a city, but its population is only 45,000.
The most important thing is of course that Charlie and Dawn recover. But tonight, even at this early stage, as with the entire Skripal saga, the message the security services are seeking to give out does not add up. Mark Urban’s piece for Newsnight tonight was simply disgusting; it did not even pretend to be more than a propaganda piece on behalf of the security services, who had told Urban (as he said) that Yulia Skripal’s phone “could have been” tapped by the Russians and they “might even” have listened to her conversations through the microphone in her telephone. That was the “new evidence” that the Russians were behind everything.
As a former British Ambassador I can tell you with certainty that indeed the Russians might have tapped Yulia, but GCHQ most definitely would have. It is, after all, their job, and billions of our taxes go into it. If tapping of phones is seriously presented as evidence of intent to murder, the British government must be very murderous indeed.
Mexican President-Elect’s Campaign Already Target of Russia Fearmongering
21st Century Wire | July 3, 2018
Mexico’s newly elected president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador (“AMLO”), just won a sweeping victory by all accounts, but that hasn’t stopped the Russia fearmongering express from rolling on in the mainstream press.
Andrés Manuel López Obrador speaks to his campaign volunteers and supporters after his election victory. (lopezobrador.org.mx)
It’s truly something diabolical to witness – everything from the prospects of peace to just about anything happening on the planet – Russia could be to blame.
You’ll never guess who is behind AMLO’s victory in Mexico. See if you can find a whiff of evidence for this claim (not that it’s needed to just say it anyway): https://t.co/Dz4Eev2rqv
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) July 2, 2018
As it turns out, back in January, Rueters ran a story quoting H.R. McMaster, then U.S. National Security Adviser. McMaster said he’d already seen the “initial signs” of Russia ‘meddling’ in Mexico’s upcoming election. The story added that AMLO is also “the Kremlin’s favorite” because his campaign was covered on RT and Sputnik broadcasts.
This sounds a lot like north of the border Russiagate. In the case of Mexico, we’re again supposed to take an official’s word for it. No hard evidence needed.
H.R. McMaster, sacked from the White House in April, now works to combat ‘Russia and China threats’ at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution think tank.
The McMaster speculation, as we’ll call it, has been used for months to traffic in more Russia fearmongering news stories leading up to Mexico’s 2018 election.
This is all it takes to give a little canard its wings.
The Guardian soon jumped in with “Mexico’s leftwing frontrunner laughs off Russia jibes and says: I’m no Moscow stooge.” AMLO the candidate responded to the ridiculous allegations of ‘Russian support’ by jokingly referring to himself as “Andrés Manuelovich” and said he was expecting a submarine to arrive from Moscow bringing him gold.
A clever and humorous response, no doubt, but really just more fodder for Russiagate…
The Atlantic (“Are Mexico’s Elections Russia’s Next Target?”) and The New York Times (“Bots and Trolls Elbow Into Mexico’s Crowded Electoral Field”) joined in with their own version of this fake news story.
True to form, The Washington Post couldn’t resist with “The prospect of Russian meddling in Mexico’s election is no joke.”
As Mexico’s election results poured in on Monday, signaling a landslide victory for AMLO, Russophobia ensued on Twitter:
Lots of coverage today of Amlo (Andres Manual Lopez Obrador) victory in Mexico — populist platform, explicitly anti-Trump. Worth remembering that he likely received media/info ops support from Russia + Russian $$ coming through several means. /1https://t.co/wwDxd3md4r
— Molly McKew (@MollyMcKew) July 2, 2018
But the “Gran Premio” (Grand Prize) for this fake news story on Russia meddling in Mexico’s election goes to The Daily Express :
As you can see in the screen grab above from Monday’s edition of their website, the UK tabloid newspaper ran with the headline:
“Mexico Election 2018: Russia INTERFERENCE in López Obrador President campaign feared by US”
And in the subhead and top image, there’s the recycled McMaster claim along with reference to none other than Russia’s President Vladimir Putin.
This is the paint-by-numbers kit for how the mainstream press pushes Russia fearmongering inside their fake news echo chamber. With more elections to come this year, expect to see it again.
It’s official. Russiagate goes to Mexico. Where will it go next?
Wheel Out the Skripal Story Again
By Craig Murray | July 4, 2018
Just as the World Cup had forced the British media to grudgingly acknowledge the obvious truth that Russia is an extremely interesting country inhabited, like everywhere else, by mostly pleasant and attractive people, we have a screaming reprise of the “Salisbury incident” dominating the British media. Two people have been taken ill in Amesbury from an unknown substance, which might yet be a contaminated recreational drug, but could conceivably be from contact with the substance allegedly used on the Skripals, presumably some of which was somewhere indoors all this time as we were told it could be washed away and neutralised by water.
Amesbury is not Salisbury – it is 10 miles away. Interestingly enough Porton Down is between Amesbury and Salisbury. Just three miles away from Muggleton Road, Amesbury. The news reports are not mentioning that much.
“I am all out of ideas Inspector. What can possibly be the source of these mysterious poisonings?”
Neither Porton Down nor the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons has any idea where the substance to which the Skripals were allegedly exposed was made. Boris Johnson’s great “coup” of obtaining a majority vote at the OPCW to expand its powers to place blame for chemical attacks, has proven rather otiose as the OPCW has no evidence on which to base any blame for Salisbury. In fact, four months on, May and Johnson’s shrill blaming of Russia remains entirely, 100% evidence free.
I do however wish to congratulate the neo-con warmongers of the Guardian newspaper for verbal dexterity. They have come up with a new formulation to replace the hackneyed “Of a type developed by Russia”, to point the finger for a substance that could have been made by dozens of state or non state parties. The Guardian today came up with “Russian-created novichok”. This cleverly employs a word that can encompass “developed” while also appearing to say “made”. It also again makes out that novichok is a specific substance rather than a very broad class of substances. The Guardian’s Steven Morris, by this brilliant attempt deliberately to mislead his readers, runs away with this week’s award for lying neo-con media whore of the week. His achievement is particularly good as the rest of his report is largely a simple copy and paste from the Press Association.
I most certainly hope that the couple in Salisbury hospital recover from whatever is afflicting them. The media is, by making this the lead story on all broadcast news after last night’s football, inviting us to make the connection to the Skripals. In which case I assume the couple were perfectly well for five hours after contact, able to be very active and even to eat and drink heavily, before being mysteriously instantly disabled at the same time despite different ages, sexes, weights, and metabolisms and random uncontrolled dosages.
Replicating that would be quite a feat.
The Official Fake News
By Serge Halimi | CounterPunch | July 3, 2018
Emmanuel Macron, who was comfortably elected to the presidency with the support of almost the entire French media, has demanded that his parliamentary majority provide him with a law against ‘fake news’ during election campaigns. Perhaps he’s preparing for the next one.
The draft legislation reveals both the blindness of those who govern when challenged and their inclination to invent new coercive countermeasures. You would have to be myopic indeed to believe that the victory of ‘anti-establishment’ candidates, parties and causes (Donald Trump, Brexit, the Catalan referendum, Italy’s Five Star Movement) could, even marginally, be the consequence of authoritarian regimes spreading fake news. The US press has been trying to demonstrate for a year, as yet without conclusive evidence, that Trump owes his election to fake news manufactured by Vladimir Putin.
Macron has a similar obsession, to the point of hoping to make fake news vanish with a law that is both useless and dangerous. Useless because France’s Council of State pointed out on 19 April that ‘French law already contains several measures intended to combat the dissemination of false information’: in particular the law of 29 July 1881 on the freedom of the press, which permits curbs on the dissemination of false information and the expression of views that are defamatory or abusive or incite hatred.
And dangerous because the bill about to go before parliament would require a judge to act within 48 hours to ‘stop the artificial and large-scale dissemination of news constituting false information.’ But, the Council of State’s response continued, ‘these are hard to determine legally, especially when the judge must give a judgement within a very short time.’ Macron’s law would also strengthen Internet service providers’ and hosts’ duty of cooperation with the authorities, since it extends to all false information restraints that were initially aimed at preventing ‘apologism for crimes against humanity, incitement to hatred and child pornography.’
Media ownership by the president’s billionaire friends, toxic advertising claims, and suppressing public television channels’ funding are not the subject of any draft law. And why limit this judicial apparatus to the campaign season? In the past few decades, in almost every war — in the Gulf, Kosovo, Iraq and Libya — there has been a proliferation of lies and news manipulation. Not by Russia, Facebook or social media, but by our beacons of democracy and journalism: the major western daily newspapers, with the New York Times in the vanguard, the White House and European capitals. Not to mention the Ukrainian government, which deliberately announced the false death of a journalist last month. If a judge needs to order the arrest of the people responsible for spreading this fake news, at least they’ll be easy to find…
Serge Halimi is president of Le Monde diplomatique
Former US Envoy to Moscow Calls Intelligence Report on Alleged Russian Interference ‘Politically Motivated’
By Jack F. Matlock | Consortium News | July 3, 2018
Did the U.S. “Intelligence Community” judge that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election?
Most commentators seem to think so. Every news report I have read of the planned meeting of Presidents Trump and Putin in July refers to “Russian interference” as a fact and asks whether the matter will be discussed. Reports that President Putin denied involvement in the election are scoffed at, usually with a claim that the U.S. “intelligence community” proved Russian interference. In fact, the U.S. “intelligence community” has not done so. The intelligence community as a whole has not been tasked to make a judgment and some key members of that community did not participate in the report that is routinely cited as “proof” of “Russian interference.”
I spent the 35 years of my government service with a “top secret” clearance. When I reached the rank of ambassador and also worked as Special Assistant to the President for National Security, I also had clearances for “codeword” material. At that time, intelligence reports to the president relating to Soviet and European affairs were routed through me for comment. I developed at that time a “feel” for the strengths and weaknesses of the various American intelligence agencies. It is with that background that I read the January 6. 2017 report of three intelligence agencies: the CIA, FBI, and NSA.
This report is labeled “Intelligence Community Assessment,” but in fact it is not that. A report of the intelligence community in my day would include the input of all the relevant intelligence agencies and would reveal whether all agreed with the conclusions. Individual agencies did not hesitate to “take a footnote” or explain their position if they disagreed with a particular assessment. A report would not claim to be that of the “intelligence community” if any relevant agency was omitted.
The report states that it represents the findings of three intelligence agencies: CIA, FBI, and NSA, but even that is misleading in that it implies that there was a consensus of relevant analysts in these three agencies. In fact, the report was prepared by a group of analysts from the three agencies pre-selected by their directors, with the selection process generally overseen by James Clapper, then Director of National Intelligence (DNI). Clapper told the Senate in testimony May 8, 2017, that it was prepared by “two dozen or so analysts—hand-picked, seasoned experts from each of the contributing agencies.” If you can hand-pick the analysts, you can hand-pick the conclusions. The analysts selected would have understood what Director Clapper wanted since he made no secret of his views. Why would they endanger their careers by not delivering?
What should have struck any congressperson or reporter was that the procedure Clapper followed was the same as that used in 2003 to produce the report falsely claiming that Saddam Hussein had retained stocks of weapons of mass destruction. That should be worrisome enough to inspire questions, but that is not the only anomaly.
The DNI has under his aegis a National Intelligence Council whose officers can call any intelligence agency with relevant expertise to draft community assessments. It was created by Congress after 9/11 specifically to correct some of the flaws in intelligence collection revealed by 9/11. Director Clapper chose not to call on the NIC, which is curious since its duty is “to act as a bridge between the intelligence and policy communities.”
During my time in government, a judgment regarding national security would include reports from, as a minimum, the CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), and the Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) of the State Department. The FBI was rarely, if ever, included unless the principal question concerned law enforcement within the United States. NSA might have provided some of the intelligence used by the other agencies but normally did not express an opinion regarding the substance of reports.
What did I notice when I read the January report? There was no mention of INR or DIA! The exclusion of DIA might be understandable since its mandate deals primarily with military forces, except that the report attributes some of the Russian activity to the GRU, Russian military intelligence. DIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency, is the U.S. intelligence organ most expert on the GRU. Did it concur with this attribution? The report doesn’t say.
The omission of INR is more glaring since a report on foreign political activity could not have been that of the U.S. intelligence community without its participation. After all, when it comes to assessments of foreign intentions and foreign political activity, the State Department’s intelligence service is by far the most knowledgeable and competent. In my day, it reported accurately on Gorbachev’s reforms when the CIA leaders were advising that Gorbachev had the same aims as his predecessors.
This is where due diligence comes in. The first question responsible journalists and politicians should have asked is “Why is INR not represented? Does it have a different opinion? If so, what is that opinion? Most likely the official answer would have been that this is “classified information.” But why should it be classified? If some agency heads come to a conclusion and choose (or are directed) to announce it publicly, doesn’t the public deserve to know that one of the key agencies has a different opinion?
The second question should have been directed at the CIA, NSA, and FBI: did all their analysts agree with these conclusions or were they divided in their conclusions? What was the reason behind hand-picking analysts and departing from the customary practice of enlisting analysts already in place and already responsible for following the issues involved?
As I was recently informed by a senior official, the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence Research did, in fact, have a different opinion but was not allowed to express it. So the January report was not one of the “intelligence community,” but rather of three intelligence agencies, two of which have no responsibility or necessarily any competence to judge foreign intentions. The job of the FBI is to enforce federal law. The job of NSA is to intercept the communications of others and to protect ours. It is not staffed to assess the content of what is intercepted; that task is assumed by others, particularly the CIA, the DIA (if it is military) or the State Department’s INR (if it is political).
The second thing to remember is that reports of the intelligence agencies reflect the views of the heads of the agencies and are not necessarily a consensus of their analysts’ views. The heads of both the CIA and FBI are political appointments, while the NSA chief is a military officer; his agency is a collector of intelligence rather than an analyst of its import, except in the fields of cryptography and communications security.
One striking thing about the press coverage and Congressional discussion of the January report, and of subsequent statements by CIA, FBI, and NSA heads is that questions were never posed regarding the position of the State Department’s INR, or whether the analysts in the agencies cited were in total agreement with the conclusions.
Let’s put these questions aside for the moment and look at the report itself. On the first page of text, the following statement leapt to my attention:
We did not make an assessment of the impact that Russian activities had on the outcome of the 2016 election. The US Intelligence Community is charged with monitoring and assessing the intentions, capabilities, and actions of foreign actors; it does not analyze US political processes or US public opinion.
Now, how can one judge whether activity “interfered” with an election without assessing its impact? After all, if the activity had no impact on the outcome of the election, it could not be properly termed interference. This disclaimer, however, has not prevented journalists and politicians from citing the report as proof that “Russia interfered” in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
As for particulars, the report is full of assertion, innuendo, and description of “capabilities” but largely devoid of any evidence to substantiate its assertions. This is “explained” by claiming that much of the evidence is classified and cannot be disclosed without revealing sources and methods. The assertions are made with “high confidence” or occasionally, “moderate confidence.” Having read many intelligence reports I can tell you that if there is irrefutable evidence of something it will be stated as a fact. The use of the term “high confidence” is what most normal people would call “our best guess.” “Moderate confidence” means “some of our analysts think this might be true.”
Among the assertions are that a persona calling itself “Guccifer 2.0” is an instrument of the GRU, and that it hacked the emails on the Democratic National Committee’s computer and conveyed them to Wikileaks. What the report does not explain is that it is easy for a hacker or foreign intelligence service to leave a false trail. In fact, a program developed by CIA with NSA assistance to do just that has been leaked and published.
Retired senior NSA technical experts have examined the “Guccifer 2.0” data on the web and have concluded that “Guccifer 2.0’s” data did not involve a hack across the web but was locally downloaded. Further, the data had been tampered with and manipulated, leading to the conclusion that “Guccifer 2.0” is a total fabrication.
The report’s assertions regarding the supply of the DNC emails to Wikileaks are dubious, but its final statement in this regard is important: “Disclosures through WikiLeaks did not contain any evident forgeries.” In other words, what was disclosed was the truth! So, Russians are accused of “degrading our democracy” by revealing that the DNC was trying to fix the nomination of a particular candidate rather than allowing the primaries and state caucuses to run their course. I had always thought that transparency is consistent with democratic values. Apparently those who think that the truth can degrade democracy have a rather bizarre—to put it mildly–concept of democracy.
Most people, hearing that it is a “fact” that “Russia” interfered in our election must think that Russian government agents hacked into vote counting machines and switched votes to favor a particular candidate. This, indeed, would be scary, and would justify the most painful sanctions. But this is the one thing that the “intelligence” report of January 6, 2017, states did not happen. Here is what it said: “DHS [the Department of Homeland Security] assesses that the types of systems Russian actors targeted or compromised were not involved in vote tallying.”
This is an important statement by an agency that is empowered to assess the impact of foreign activity on the United States. Why was it not consulted regarding other aspects of the study? Or—was it in fact consulted and refused to endorse the findings? Another obvious question any responsible journalist or competent politician should have asked.
Prominent American journalists and politicians seized upon this shabby, politically motivated, report as proof of “Russian interference” in the U.S. election without even the pretense of due diligence. They have objectively acted as co-conspirators in an effort to block any improvement in relations with Russia, even though cooperation with Russia to deal with common dangers is vital to both countries.
This is only part of the story of how, without good reason, U.S.-Russian relations have become dangerously confrontational. God willin and the crick don’t rise, I’ll be musing about other aspects soon.
Thanks to Ray McGovern and Bill Binney for their research assistance.
CIA Teams Up With Defense Industry To Undermine Korea Negotiations
By William Craddick | Disobedient Media | June 30, 2018
In a new development that will shock no one, factions within the CIA attempted for the second time in just over a month to undermine President Donald Trump’s peace overtures towards North Korea by leaking information calculated to decrease confidence in Kim Jong Un’s willingness to earnestly negotiate.
On June 29, 2018, NBC News released a report quoting anonymous CIA officials who claimed that North Korea was increasing nuclear production at “secret sites” without providing any actual evidence for such claims. The report’s credibility is further weakened by the fact that it also cited reports from a think tank which has strong connections to the defense industry and other private special interests.
In disseminating their report, the CIA used NBC reporter Ken Dilanian as an outlet for leaks. As Disobedient Media previously reported, Dilanian was outed by the Intercept in 2014 as a CIA asset. In the aftermath of the disclosure, Dilanian’s previous employers at the Tribune Washington and Los Angeles Times disavowed the disgraced journalist. In at least one instance, the CIA’s instructions to Dilanian appears to have led to significant changes in a story that was eventually published in the Los Angeles Times.
Since that time, Dilanian has persisted in pushing articles written by former CIA officials who continue to perpetuate the “Trump-Russia” collusion narrative without any regard to facts, such as Steven Hall’s Washington Post article titled: “I was in the CIA. We wouldn’t trust a country whose leader did what Trump did.”
Perspective | I was in the CIA. We wouldn’t trust a country whose leader did what Trump did. https://t.co/4XG8TmhwKq
— Ken Dilanian (@KenDilanianNBC) May 18, 2017
In the absence of hard evidence from the CIA to back their claims about North Korea, Dilanian cited the opinion of Clinton administration official Joel Wit and reports from 38north.org. 38north is a project run by the Henry L. Stimson Center. The Stimson Center’s Board of Directors includes individuals associated with organizations such as Northrop Grumman, the Boeing Company, Warburg Pincus, the Carnegie Endowment, Mercy Corps, The Council on Foreign Relations, the Department of Defense, the CIA and US Department of the Treasury. Their Partners include the George C. Marshall Foundation, Saudi Arabia’s Gulf Research Center and the Jinnah Institute.
Satellite images circulated by 38north claiming to show improvements to North Korea’s Yongbyon Nuclear Scientific Research Center appear to have been obtained from Airbus Defense and Space SAS, a subsidiary of European multinational conglomerate Airbus Group SE. Airbus was the brainchild of Germany’s DaimlerChrysler Aerospace and British Aerospace. The association of a German connected transnational group in efforts to undermine Korean peace negotiations is interesting given the strong connections they held with the now scandalized South Korean government of Park Geun-hye.
The involvement of a think tank in a website that is centered around undermining US confidence in North Korea is hardly a surprise given their connections to the military-industrial complex and internationalist special interest groups. Both Northrop Grumman and Boeing have seen their stock’s value drop in the aftermath of Trump’s Singapore meeting with Kim Jong Un in what analysts saw as a temporary setback to defense stocks. Seeing such corporations use their ties to institutions such as the Stimson Center to collaborate with the CIA in an effort to scuttle commitments to North Korean denuclearization and a peace accord between the Koreas and United States represents a new low.
Despite the best efforts of the CIA, President Trump has stated that there is no current nuclear threat from North Korea, and that the Singapore Summit represented a positive interaction with the leader of the so-called “hermit kingdom.” Trump has repeatedly highlighted the opportunity for Chairman Kim to engage with the world and begin a new era of “security and prosperity” for North Korea. North Korea destroyed portions of their test site at Punggye-ri before a group of foreign journalist observers in the lead up to the US-North Korea summit on June 12.
There is no limit to what NoKo can achieve when it gives up its nuclear weapons and embraces commerce & engagement w/ the world. Chairman Kim has before him the opportunity to be remembered as the leader who ushered in a glorious new era of security & prosperity for his citizens! pic.twitter.com/Xbup4Zyz33
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 13, 2018
Who’s Afraid of the Trump/Putin Summit?
By Ron Paul | July 2, 2018
President Trump’s National Security Advisor John Bolton was in Moscow last week organizing what promises to be an historic summit meeting between his boss and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Bolton, who has for years demanded that the US inflict “pain” on Russia and on Putin specifically, was tasked by Trump to change his tune. He was forced to shed some of his neoconservative skin and get involved in peacemaking. Trump surely deserves some credit for that!
As could be expected given the current political climate in the US, the neoconservatives have joined up with the anti-Trump forces on the Left — and US client states overseas — to vigorously oppose any movement toward peace with Russia. The mainstream media is, as also to be expected, amplifying every objection to any step away from a confrontation with Russia.
Bolton had hardly left Moscow when the media began its attacks. US allies are “nervous” over the planned summit, reported Reuters. They did not quote any US ally claiming to be nervous, but they did speculate that both the UK and Ukraine would not be happy were the US and Russia to improve relations. But why is that? The current Ukrainian government is only in power because the Obama Administration launched a coup against its democratically-elected president to put US puppets in charge. They’re right to be nervous. And the British government is also right to be worried. They swore that Russia was behind the “poisoning” of the Skripals without providing any evidence to back up their claims. Hundreds of Russian diplomats were expelled from Western countries on their word alone. And over the past couple of months, each of their claims has fallen short.
At the extreme of the reaction to Bolton’s Russia trip was the US-funded think tank, the Atlantic Council, which is stuck in a 1950s time warp. Its resident Russia “expert,” Anders Åslund, Tweeted that long-time Russia hawk Bolton had been “captured by the Kremlin” and must now be considered a Russian agent for having helped set up a meeting between Trump and Putin. Do they really prefer nuclear war?
The “experts” are usually wrong when it comes to peacemaking. They rely on having “official enemies” for their very livelihood. In 1985, national security “expert” Zbigniew Brzezinski attacked the idea of a summit between President Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. It was “demeaning” and “tactically unwise,” he said as reported at the time by the Washington Times. Such a meeting would only “elevate” Gorbachev and make him “first among equals,” he said. Thankfully, Reagan did engage Gorbachev in several summits and the rest is history. Brzezinski was wrong and peacemakers were right.
President Trump should understand that any move toward better relations with Russia has been already pre-approved by the American people. His position on Russia was well known. He campaigned very clearly on the idea that the US should end the hostility toward Russia that characterized the Obama Administration and find a way to work together. Voters knew his position and they chose him over Hillary Clinton, who was also very clear on Russia: more confrontation and more aggression.
President Trump would be wise to ignore the neocon talking heads and think tank “experts” paid by defense contractors. He should ignore the “never Trumpers” who have yet to make a coherent policy argument opposing the president. The extent of their opposition to Trump seems to be “he’s mean and rude.” Let us hope that a Trump/Putin meeting begins a move toward real reconciliation and away from the threat of nuclear war.
The New York Times Squares off with the Truth, Again
By Michael Howard | American Herald Tribune | July 1, 2018
Whenever I’m having a rough day and need a pick-me-up, I turn to The New York Times’ editorial page. It’s always a gas to see how far the empire’s leading propaganda outfit is prepared to go in its mission to pull the wool over we the people’s gullible little eyes. The good editors have come through for me again with their latest entry, “Trump and Putin’s Too-Friendly Summit.” (Original title: “Trump and Putin: Best Frenemies for Life”). No doubt the original headline was deemed rather too impish for such a serious newspaper—it might, for instance, have alerted readers to the fact that the editorial’s content is not to be taken very seriously—and so was understandably jettisoned.
“One would think,” the editors write, “that the president of the United States would let Mr. Putin know that he faces a united front of Mr. Trump and his fellow NATO leaders, with whom he would have met days before the [Putin] summit in Helsinki.” Alas, during said meeting Trump reportedly remarked that “NATO is as bad as NAFTA”—the “free trade” agreement that has succeeded in decimating most of the manufacturing jobs spared by the automation wrecking ball. In other words, Trump does not necessarily think it’s a good idea to encircle Russia with a hostile military alliance whose existence, according to geopolitical expert Richard Sakwa, is “justified by the need to manage the security threats provoked by its enlargement.” (If you haven’t read Professor Sakwa’s comprehensive study of the Ukrainian crisis, Frontline Ukraine, put it at the top of your summer reading list.)
One notes the Turgidsonian delight with which the Times reminds us that, should push come to shove, we’ve got those Russki bastards outgunned. Of course, gullibles like you and I are to pay no mind to the fact that such a confrontation (a military one, for the Times brought up NATO) would almost certainly involve a nuclear exchange, rendering the disparity in manpower that so excites the Times totally meaningless. No, what’s important is that NATO has twenty-nine member states and counting, while the Warsaw Pact was dissolved twenty-seven years ago: ergo, unless he wants the old mailed fist, Putin had better ask “how high?” when we tell him to jump. One would be hard-pressed to come up with a more delusional assessment of where things stand.
In case any of its readers have been living under rocks (not so bad an idea in this day and age), the Times made sure to stress just how sinister “the Russian autocrat” is. To that end they touch upon, with signature glibness, “Mr. Putin’s seizure of Crimea and attack on Ukraine.” Later, the “attack on Ukraine” is upgraded to “the Ukraine invasion”—a charge dealt with most eloquently here. Omitted as a matter of course is Crimea’s complicated history, the issue of the Sevastopol naval bases, as well as numerous uncontroversial polls showing that the overwhelming majority of Crimeans (of whom an overwhelming majority are ethnic Russians) support “Mr. Putin’s seizure.”
According to Forbes, a February 2015 survey by German polling firm GfK asked of the Crimean population: “Do you endorse Russia’s annexation of Crimea?” Eighty-two percent responded: “yes, definitely.” On the other hand, a whopping two percent responded: “no.” Seems plain enough. But hold the phone, says the New Cold Warrior, we can’t rule out the possibility that GfK is actually an arm of Putin’s Federal Security Service. Can you prove it isn’t? Didn’t think so.
Failing that, I think I recall reading something somewhere about an international principle called … what was it again? … “self-determination.” That’s it. Something to do with the bloody dismemberment of a certain former country in the Balkans in the nineties, spearheaded by our very own Uncle Sam. It’ll come back to me.
Deployed next by our great pandering Paper of Record are the increasingly monotonous claims that Moscow “interfered in the 2016 election to put [Trump] in office and is continuing to undermine American democracy.” If only we had a democracy to undermine, then this never-ending soap opera might have a little more going for it. Having, wisely, I think, adopted a wake-me-up-when-it’s-over attitude to “Russia-gate,” I’m simply not up to speed on the latest pseudo-bombshell reports that, on account of their utter want of journalistic merit, wind up being heavily redacted or retracted altogether. The whole scene has become too farcical for my taste. That said, I encourage still-interested parties to read the various counter narratives that fail to penetrate the mass media’s filters. This, for example.
But the board’s main concern in all this is that, according to them, Trump is “intent on eroding institutions that undergird democracy and peace.” To clarify, they’re referring to NATO again, or what they call “allied security.” It’s an obsession with these people. So let’s look at it a moment. I’ll give you a few well-known (but poorly understood) examples of NATO’s philanthropic work over the decades, since the Times forgot to include them in its editorial: namely, the illegal bombing of Yugoslavia, the illegal invasion and occupation of Afghanistan, and the illegal “humanitarian” intervention in Libya. After I’m finished writing this, I must write the Times to notify them that they printed a typo: they obviously meant to write “undermine,” not “undergird.”
It boils down to this: NATO is good because it’s us. Trump is bad because he’s ambivalent about NATO. If Trump succeeds in “eroding” NATO, the beneficiary is Putin, “whose goal is to fracture the West and assert Russian influence in places where Americans and Europeans have played big roles, like the Middle East …” Given the outcomes of those “big roles” (9/11, the destruction of whole countries, ISIS, a flourishing slave trade, a migrant crisis of biblical proportions, mass famine, the tragedy of Gaza, the death of the two-state solution, the list goes on), it’s hard to imagine Putin, or anyone else, for that matter, doing any worse. So here’s a modest proposal: Washington sells its empire to Moscow and gets out of the world domination business for good. God knows we need the money. Unfortunately, Putin is no more interested in ruling over a global empire than we are in relinquishing one. (Fun fact: on defense, the US outspends Russia by about $540 billion.)
As Sakwa explains, “Putin’s challenge is not to the system of international politics but only to what he considers its skewed and selective operation in favor of the Atlantic system.”
“The Russian autocrat” has been, for a long time, crystal clear on this point. Far from harboring Washington-style fantasies of imperial glory, his is a vision of a multipolar world order in which the leading powers engage in serious diplomacy and coordinate their efforts to address the major economic, security and environmental issues confronting us all. Then there’s Trump: “But our destiny, beyond the Earth, is not only a matter of national identity, but a matter of national security. It is not enough to merely have an American presence in space. We must have American dominance in space.” (Emphasis mine.) Between insane rhetoric like that and NATO’s incessant (and equally insane) provocations along Russia’s western front, I think it’s fair to say Putin has shown an admirable degree of composure.
In their final flurry, the Times editors make some big-sounding statements about the need to prevent another nuclear arms race, duly omitting that the US is on track to spend more than $1 trillion over the next three decades modernizing and diversifying its nuclear arsenal (and no, we can’t pin this one on Trump). Then, flailing now, punching wide, they managed to project responsibility for the breakdown of the flawed Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty squarely onto Russia, duly omitting that the US, by continuing to install provocative missile defense systems across Eastern Europe, is in constant violation of the treaty. Inconvenient truths, I regret to say, are still truths; and lies by omission are still lies.
But let us not stray from the bottom line: Russia is the threat. Russia is the threat. Russia is the threat. If you say it enough times you might start to believe it—and then, and only then, can you count yourself among the good upright citizens of this great indispensable nation.
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Insanely disproportionate use of violence against unarmed civilians… continue
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