‘All the Evidence’ Suggests Guccifer 2.0 is Linked to CIA, Not Russia, NSA Whistleblower Says
© Photo : Bill Binney
Sputnik | August 13, 2020
The internet is not capable of accommodating the download speeds necessary to validate the claims by Guccifer 2.0, that they hacked documents from across the Atlantic, according to a former technical director at the National Security Agency.
Guccifer 2.0, the cyber personality which claimed to have hacked documents belonging to members of the Democratic National Committee in 2016, is likely to be a front for the CIA, according to analysis conducted by members of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS).
Bill Binney, a cryptogropher and former technical director at the US National Security Agency (NSA), blew the whistle on the agency’s mass surveillance programmes after serving with them for 30 years. Mr Binney explains to Sputnik that despite Guccifer 2.0 claiming to have hacked documents which the cyber criminal later published, the download speeds necessary to have obtained the documents simply are not available across the World Wide Web.
Sputnik: What were the conclusions that you came to regarding a cyber personality known as Guccifer 2.0 and his claims that he had hacked a trove of documents?
Bill Binney: Guccifer 2.0, posted files from the 5th of July [2016], the 1st of September [2016] in batch mode. He also put files out in the 15th of June that had Russian fingerprints. So to go straight at those, we had some collaborating analysts looking in the UK, looking at the data also. And they came up with a match of five files out of the Guccifer 2.0 batch on the 15th of June, they found five of those files also posted by Wikileaks in the Podesta emails, the same files. Now, the difference is the Guccifer 2.0 posts had Russian fingerprints. You know, Cyrillic characters and things like that implanted in the file. The WikiLeaks files posted, of those same five emails, did not have Russian signature prints in it. So that told us that Guccifer 2.0 was inserting these Russian fingerprints. And we had some other fingerprint evidence of them using that.
Then, when we looked at the 5th of July 2016 and the September 2016 data that was posted by Guccifer 2.0, he would give a bio, we had extracted file names, number of characters and the timestamp at the end of the file. And he did the batch. So there was one file after the other. It was timestamped at the end of each file. So all we had to do was [assess the] difference in time between the files and see how many characters were passed and we calculate the transfer rate. And when we did that we got rates between 14 and 49.1 megabytes per second. That’s between 19 and 49.1 million characters per second. And we knew that the international web across the Atlantic to Europe, somewhere in Eastern Europe could not handle that kind of rate transfer.
Some people here thought we could. So we said, okay, we’ll try it. And we tried it from Albania, Serbia, Netherlands and the UK. The fastest we got with between two data centres, one in New Jersey and one in the United Kingdom in London. And that was 12 megabytes per second, which is slightly less than one fourth necessary capacity to transfer just the data, not counting overhead that goes with it and all of that… So all of that said to us, it was not there.
Sputnik: Was there anything else?
Bill Binney: There was another factor. We looked at the files again and if you ignored the date and the hour, the two [batches] shuffled together like a deck of cards. That is the times, [if you] looked only at a minutes, seconds and milliseconds, the data from the 1st of September merged into the time holes of the 5 July data. Which meant it was shuffling like one of cards. You have one file, he separated in two, then they had a range change on the date and the hour. You can’t do it on minutes and seconds because they keep changing. I mean, you’d have to go up there every minute and every second you got to know it’s not possible to do that, without extreme effort I’d say. What that said to us was this guy is fabricating the data, he’s playing with the data, he’s playing with us…
Vault 7
Then we went back and looked at the Vault 7 material (descriptions of CIA hacking tools published by WikiLeaks), which said that there’s a programme called Marble Framework, which [the CIA can use to] modify an attack and make it look like someone else did the attack, and the countries they had the capability to do that [to] were Russia, China, North Korea, Iran and Arab countries. Also [Vault 7] said that the Marble Framework programme was [used] one time in 2016. Well, we think we found that one time. That one time came up and that fit very well with what was going on which we were finding out with the Guccifer 2.0 material. He was fabricating it. So that suggested us all the evidence was pointing back to CIA as the originator Guccifer 2.0. And that Guccifer 2.0 was inside CIA.
Sputnik: Just to clarify, the documents Guccifer 2.0 was publishing weren’t what is known as the DNC leaks or DNC hacks that WikiLeaks published in three batches?
Bill Binney: [Yes]. [Gucifer 2.0] claimed to have hacked [the documents he published].
The Hammer
There’s another whistleblower that we’re working with also and they’ve talked to us about a programme called The Hammer. This programme was set up inside CIA by, according to the whistleblower, by [former Director of National Intelligence James] Clapper and [former CIA chief John] Brennan. And it was done so that they could spy on anybody they wanted to, without anybody in the intelligence community or the US government or any other government knowing they were doing it. The programme actually goes… back to 2003, I believe, with you when they first set it up. But [the whistleblower] also said that after that they had a secret operation inside CIA, by this group of people inside CIA looking at the Trump campaign and anybody else they wanted to sign on.
And it was done in that way, because, see, if you go into the NSA data and which the Five Eyes can do that as well, if you do that, anybody going in there, you’re tracked and recorded [when you use the surveillance system]. It’s wherever you go and what you do. And that’s based on the network logs. And also if you do an unmasking, you have to make a request and that’s recorded, who did it, what time, what the subject was and what the justification was and what person they were after. So, you know, all that stuff is recorded to go there. But if you set up your own separate one, nobody knows what you’re doing. And that’s exactly what this [whistleblower] is claiming. I’m pointing to that group as the group that was probably the originator of Guccifer 2.0 and also this fabrication of the entire story of Russiagate.
This interview has been edited for clarity and concision.
Trust the experts and take your pills, citizen! Meet the nerd who wants to force-feed you ‘morality pills’ to beat Covid
By Graham Dockery | RT | August 13, 2020
Swallowing mind-bending pills until you love your government and obey its orders might sound like science fiction. But there are scientists out there who want you to shut up and take your morality pills – by force if necessary.
People, or at least those with a spark of vitality and life in them, don’t like following orders. Months into the coronavirus pandemic, leaders have tried to enforce mandatory social distancing and mask wearing through a mixture of fines, snitching and public shaming. Still, some people refuse to toe the line, from lockdown protesters in the US to cheeky Brits sneaking off for an unlicensed picnic.
The scientific experts, however, have a solution for that. Take Parker Crutchfield, a professor of medical ethics. According to a recent op-ed, he thinks that the ‘ethical’ solution to this rule breaking is to drug the population into compliance, using psychoactive drugs to “induce those who are noncooperative to get on board with doing what’s best for the public good.”
That’s right. A top-of-his-field ethicist at Western Michigan University wants to drug you into cooperation. Should you refuse, he thinks the government should force this “morality booster” on everyone, either by military power, or by administering it in secret, “perhaps via the water supply.”
Crutchfield’s article was retweeted – and later deleted – by the prestigious Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics. However, he isn’t the only labcoat who dreams of drugging the proletariat. Late last month, a group of Cambridge academics suggested adding lithium to drinking water to lower suicide rates and mood disorders. Just like Crutchfield, they see this tyranny as serving the greater good.
Strongmen and dictators are reliable bogeymen in the West. After all, the entire origin story of Western liberalism centers around the struggle of the free world against the fascist axis. However, the tyranny of the nerd more often than not goes unnoticed. In some ways, it’s more terrifying than the tyranny of the dictator. When the despot forces you to obey his diktats at gunpoint, the power dynamic is clear. He’s in control. When the bespectacled professor slips morality pills into your water, you won’t even know you’re being dominated.
Throughout the coronavirus pandemic, we’ve repeatedly heard the same refrains from our leaders. “Trust the experts,” they say. “Believe the science.” But scientists – who worship amoral empiricism above all else – see you as little more than a laboratory mouse, an imperfect specimen to be tweaked and molded until the desired result is achieved.
Perhaps that’s why these “experts” are so beloved by liberals. Jean- Jacques Rousseau considered man a “perfectible” creature, a view that would be refined in the 20th century by GWF Hegel, Karl Marx and Leo Strauss, and now underpins most left-wing thought. While religion saw man as trapped in a state of original sin, these leftists saw him as having boundless potential – if only the right scientific tools were used to shape him.
Changing behavior through science is the perfect method for modern liberalism to crush dissent. Doing so by force would invalidate its core tenet: it’s supposed respect for your human rights. Instead, its scientists dream up ways to silence malcontents quietly and peacefully.
Every now and then, an article like Crutchfield’s gives us a glimpse behind the mask.
Chemically rewiring the brains of the population seems far-fetched, but it’s a logical next step when one considers the social engineering projects foisted on the masses at present. From the endless tirades against masculinity, Christianity and the nuclear family one reads in liberal newspapers, to the bizarre push to convert the Western world to an insect-based diet, academics and their enablers in the media and government want to change your life – usually for the worse.
The latest racial conflagration tearing apart the USA has only served to give them a new angle of attack, with corporate bosses now subjecting white employees to mandatory brainwashing sessions in the name of stamping out their “whiteness.”
As easy as the transition to mass drugging would be, Crutchfield’s dream is unlikely to come true any time soon. The managers and bureaucrats who hold the levers of power lack the skill to pull off such a coup. However, remember that behind their university credentials and scientific clout lurk experts salivating at the prospect of turning you into a lab rat, and that the prototypical nerd can harbor a lust for power to rival even the most demented dictator.
Graham Dockery is an Irish journalist, commentator, and writer at RT. Previously based in Amsterdam, he wrote for DutchNews and a scatter of local and national newspapers.
Beijing Blasts ‘Double Standards’ as Twitter Labels Only Russian, Chinese Media ‘State-Affiliated’
By Tim Korso – Sputnik – 13.08.2020
Twitter’s decision to target Russian and Chinese media by limiting their ability to deliver content to the platform’s users comes as part of an apparent broader effort by Western social media to censor points of views that are different from the mainstream agenda.
Media outlets should be treated in an equal manner and not on a case-by-case basis if they comply with the laws and regulations of the countries they operate in, a spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Russia said regarding the recent actions of Twitter. On 6 August, the social media platform flagged numerous Russian and Chinese media outlets, including Sputnik, as “state-affiliated”, limiting their ability to promote and amplify tweets.
The Chinese Embassy stressed the importance of the media as a crucial link uniting countries around the world and condemned the actions preventing them from properly functioning. It pointed out that Twitter had pledged to mark all media outlets in one way or another controlled by the governments of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, but has in fact so far only targeted those based in Russia and China.
“We hope that the said social networks [sic] will abandon prejudices and ‘double standards’, and will, in a spirit of transparency and tolerance, consider the role of media from various countries in boosting international exchanges and cooperation; [that they] will not selectively create obstacles, and politicize issues”, the embassy said.
Double Standards in Twitter’s ‘Affiliation’ Marks
Twitter claims to have introduced the “state-affiliated” label for the sake of “transparency and practicality”, but has shown little transparency itself in explaining why media outlets from only two of the aforementioned five countries have been slapped with the new status, hindering these outlets’ capabilities compared to others and essentially censoring them.
The social media platform said that some media outlets, such as the UK’s BBC or the US’ National Public Radio (NPR), would be exempt from the rule despite being funded and sometimes even established by these countries’ respective governments. Twitter claimed that only outlets whose agendas are not influenced by their governments would be eligible for the waiver, but somehow all major Western mainstream media were spared from the platform’s censorship, despite often falling in line with their governments’ political stances. The social media platform failed to respond to Sputnik’s inquiry into why only media outlets from two countries have been affected by the feature.
Israel, UAE reach US-brokered agreement to establish full diplomatic ties
Press TV – August 13, 2020
Israel and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have reached a deal that will lead to a full normalization of diplomatic relations between the two sides, in an agreement that US President Donald Trump apparently helped broker.
Under the agreement announced on Thursday, Israel has allegedly agreed to suspend applying its own rule to further areas in the occupied West Bank and the strategic Jordan Valley that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had pledged to annex, senior White House officials told Reuters.
Trump, in a tweet, called the agreement a “HUGE breakthrough,” describing it as a “historic peace agreement between our two GREAT friends.”
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who spoke to reporters accompanying him on a trip to central European countries, said for his part that the agreement was an “enormous” step forward on the “right path.”
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also tweeted that the deal marked “a historic day.”
Abu Dhabi’s Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed said on Twitter on Thursday that an agreement had been reached on normalising relations between the two countries.
The deal, however, has elicited sharp negative reactions from various Palestinian groups as well as their supporters from across the world.
The Palestinian Islamic Jihad Movement reacted rapidly by condemning the deal between the UAE and Israel.
The movement noted that normalization of ties between Tel Aviv and Abu Dhabi was a sign of submission on the latter’s part without having any effect on reducing conflicts in the occupied Palestinian territories.
Islamic Jihad movement also noted that the deal will, on the other hand, further embolden the Israeli occupiers.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has issued a statement, calling for an urgent meeting of Palestinian leadership to be held on the Israel-UAE deal to discuss its consequences.
Meanwhile, senior Palestinian official Hanan Ashrawi accused the United Arab Emirates of “normalization” with Israel after Thursday’s announcement of the so-called peace deal.
Ashrawi, who is a member of the executive committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), said on Twitter, “The UAE has come out in the open on its secret dealings/normalization with Israel. Please don’t do us a favor. We are nobody’s fig leaf!”
Ashrawi also responded to Abu Dhabi’s crown prince’s tweet in a counter-tweet in which she reminded him of the sufferings of the Palestinian people at the hands of the Israeli occupiers.
May you never experience the agony of having your country stolen; may you never feel the pain of living in captivity under occupation; may you never witness the demolition of your home or murder of your loved ones. May you never be sold out by your “friends.” https://t.co/CBaNl1QQqx
— Hanan Ashrawi (@DrHananAshrawi) August 13, 2020
The spokesman for the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas, Fauzi Barhum said the normalization of ties between the UAE and Israel is a reward for occupiers in return for their crimes and violations of Palestinian’s rights.
Sarah Leah Whitson, a pro-Palestinian activist, also took to Twitter to condemn the deal, saying it would not lead to any recognition of Palestinians’ rights.
“Israel won’t formally annex and exercise sovereignty over the land it has for all intents and purposes already annexed and exercises sovereignty over… ZERO for the rights of Palestinians,” she wrote.
The information minister of the Yemeni government in Sana’a also reacted by saying that the deal between the Israeli regime and the UAE was a show of defiance shown by the enemies of Islam to all Muslims.
Popular Resistance Committees, which is a coalition of a number of Palestinian groups, also reacted to the UAE-Israel deal by noting that the agreement reveals the high volume of conspiracies against the Palestinian people and their sanctities.
“This is like a poisonous dagger in the back of the Islamic Ummah,” the committees added.
Yemen’s Ansarullah movement has also vehemently slammed the deal as a provocative move.
Ansarullah’s spokesman Mohammed Abdul-Salam said the agreement brought to light what had been kept secret and proved that Zionist and American enemies will continue to destroy the region.
He added that this is not an anti-Iran deal alone, but is against the interests of the entire Arab and Islamic Ummah.
Meanwhile, deputy secretary general of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Abu Ahmad Fuad, was quoted by al-Mayadeen news agency as saying that the UAE-Israel deal is a crime against the Palestinian people and their martyrs and will have no effect on the resistance front.
He added that the Palestinian people will continue to confront Israel’s daily attempts to annex more Palestinian territories.
“It is the Palestinian people who prevent further annexation of their lands by Israel, not the UAE and its leaders,” he said.
Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, however, welcomed the agreement, saying, “I followed with interest and appreciation the joint statement between the United States, United Arab Emirates and Israel … I value the efforts of those in charge of the deal to achieve prosperity and stability for our region.”
Prince Peter Kropotkin and the Murder of the Liberator Tsar
By Martin Sieff | Strategic Culture Foundation | August 11, 2020
Why did London host a convention of anarchists in July 1881 less than three months after they had murdered the Liberator Tsar of Russia?
The International Anarchist Congress of London, from July 14 to July 20, 1881 was highly unusual in many ways, though it has almost totally been forgotten by history, save as a curiosity.
It was the last such gathering to be held for more than a quarter of a century until the International Anarchist Congress of Amsterdam in August 1907. During that time, there were four other unsuccessful attempts to call international congresses, in Geneva in 1882, in Paris in 1889, in Chicago in 1890 and once again in Paris in 1900.
Those interested in the procedural minutiae of the congress can easily enough find obscure academic articles discussing theoretical intellectual positions held and debated at the Congress.
But as far as I have been able to find, no historians have given any serious study to the possibility that the Congress may have been used to coordinate or plan any program of “Propaganda of the Deed” – the assassination of important political leaders across Europe and the Americas, which was central to the achievement of the anarcho-syndicalist movement’s goals.
Nor is there any discussion anywhere – save in terms of abstruse and apparently harmless political theory – of the role that former Prince Peter Kropotkin, the most consistently high-profile and charismatic leader of the anarchist movement played in the convention.
Most striking of all, there appears never to have been any serious investigation conducted as to why the British government permitted its capital London, to be the host of the conference that on the surface stood for the destruction of everything that the British Empire, its traditions and institutions held dear.
The decision to permit the 1881 congress to gather in London was particularly striking – and from the Russian government’s point of view outrageous – because it opened only four months almost to the day after Tsar Alexander II, the Great Liberator who freed 24 million serfs from slavery and supported Abraham Lincoln and the Union through the U.S. Civil War, was assassinated by a specially designed shrapnel grenade thrown by Ignacy Hryniewiecki on Sunday, March 13, 1881.
That hideous crime was planned and committed by the Narodnaya Volya, “The People’s Will” itself a strange, tiny, conspiratorial group shrouded in mystery and unanswered questions to this day.
The name of the group suggests – as it was meant to – a mass popular movement, But the Narodnaya Volya was no such thing. The best estimates of Russian and Western historians alike put it at no more than 200 members. Almost none of these were from peasant backgrounds. They were almost all from favored, prosperous, professional middle class families and in some cases even from aristocratic backgrounds.
Interestingly, the followers of the late Osama Bin Laden in the first generation of al-Qaeda that carried out the destruction of the World Trade Towers in New York City on September 11, 2001 exhibit an almost identical set of profiles, as former Saudi intelligence chief Prince Turki bin Feisal bin Abdelaziz ibn Saud has pointed out.
The Narodnaya Volya was only founded in 1879. But it was totally crushed by 1884. Yet in the first two years of its existence, it operated with apparent impunity carrying out no less than eight attempts on the life of Tsar Alexander. No other tsar in Russian history including Alexander’s son and grandson after him was ever hunted so mercilessly and relentlessly by assassins.
The Narodnaya Volya never lacked for any of the financing it needed for its murderous schemes. The Russian internal security services, who proved extremely efficient and energetic in smashing the group after it carried out its bloody deed, seemed utterly helpless and inept against it until that point. This may in large part have been because the group was so tiny and so novel in its operational techniques.
Who led the Narodnaya Volya? Its documented leaders were Andrey Zhelyabov and Sofya Perovskaya. Perovskaya came from an aristocratic background but showed little capability beyond her own murderously intense fanaticism and strange obsession with murdering the tsar. Other members of the group when arrested openly commented on her merciless hatred for the ruler who had liberated the serfs.
But Perovskaya from 1872 was personally very closely associated with the then handsome, dashing and charismatic anarchist leader Prince Peter Kropotkin. It is likely they were lovers.
The carefully (British) constructed image of Kropotkin that endures to this day is a tubby, kindly, smiling old, bearded Father Christmas. In his youth, however, he was darkly satanically handsome and was obsessed with Goethe’s devil figure Mephistopheles in “Faust.”
For Perovskaya, Kropotkin would have been the dashing, aristocratic brilliant love of her life. For Kropotkin, the rather plain Perovskaya would have been a means to an end: The hunting and murder of the tsar.
Kropotkin came from one of the most aristocratic eminent families in Russia. He claimed descent from the House of Rurik, the original ruling family of Russia. He had actually been a personal page of Tsar Alexander II in his early years in power. He had been brutally bullied (or so he later claimed) when entering the Imperial corps of pages. For ever after, he maintained an intense personal hatred of the tsar, intensified by the years he spent as a prisoner for his subversive activities in the Peter and Paul Fortress in St. Petersburg starting in 1872. His escape was engineered by friends in 1876.
Kropotkin’s relationship with Perovskaya starting in 1872 in the Tchaikovsky (not the great musical composer) Circle is the key documented fact that links Kropotkin directly to the murder of the great tsar he so intensely personally hated. The group’s leader Nikolai Tchaikovsky, like Kropotkin found protection in Britain for most of his later life.
Kropotkin was a noted scientist in his day who contested Darwin and argued a version of evolution based on natural cooperation rather than natural selection. In fact it was superficial and crackpot but interestingly has recently been revived, along with his scientific reputation in British academic circles.
During the remainder of his own long life (he died in 1921 at the age of 79), Kropotkin was allowed to live in complete peace and security in Britain. Not coincidentally, Britain was the only major country in Europe not to suffer from the mysterious outbreak of assassinations that swept the continent and even the United States in the last quarter of the 19th century.
As Matthew Ehret has noted, the anarchist assassinations seemed to disproportionately target major leaders who rejected free trade and a global economic order dictated by British financial interests from the City of London. Its victims included U.S. presidents James Garfield (1881) and William McKinley (1901), French President Sadi Carnot (1894), Spanish Prime Minister Antonio Canovas (1897) and King Umberto I of Italy (1900).
In addition, in 1878 alone, anarchists attempted to kill Emperor Wilhelm I of Germany twice as well as the Kings of Spain and Italy. Kropotkin hailed all these efforts at “the Propaganda of the Deed.” Not coincidentally, all of these leaders, especially the old Kaiser, Bismarck’s patron and protector stood like Tsar Alexander II squarely opposed to British efforts at global financial domination.
Yet despite all these outrages – or more likely because of them – Kropotkin, the guiding figure of anarcho-syndicalism and the great champion of the murder of national leaders continued to enjoy a charmed life protected by the British Empire.
To this day, British historians and other writers have unanimously continued to swallow the approved line that Kropotkin was a kindly, brilliant, pacifist saint – belonging to the company of Mohandas Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King rather than that of Sergei Nechayev and Dostoyevsky’s “Devils.”
The hyper-energetic, much loved and woefully idiotic American popular historian Barbara Tuchman spread this Disneyworld fairy tale image of Kropotkin in her enormously popular and influential history of the pre-World War I world “The Proud Tower” in 1966. Typically, she won the Pulitzer Prize twice for writing other histories that got their central facts and theses wrong.
A serious study of the role of Kropotkin and his “Anarchist International” in the assassinations of the late 19th century is well over 100 years overdue.
But even in that age of carefully selected and discriminating terror, the hunting and murder of the great liberator Tsar Alexander stands out for its relentless nature and obsessive cruelty.
That age of assassinations and the Anarchists Congress that the British so incongruously hosted in July 1881 is not just a matter of abstract curiosity about a long forgotten and irrelevant past. It offers disquieting parallels to the use of targeted assassinations and the methodical destabilization of great nations in the name of free trade, democracy and human rights that continues at a feverish pace in our own time.
As the great American novelist William Faulkner rightly wrote in “Requiem for a Nun,” “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”
Russia wants neither ‘rethink’ nor ‘reset’ if it means restoring American supremacy & returning to Cold War diplomacy
By Scott Ritter | RT | August 12, 2020
Some 136 American “experts” on US-Russian relations recently debated the merits of “rethinking” US policy on Russia. What these specialists failed to consider is that Moscow may not be interested in their plans.
In the span of a week, Politico, a non-partisan global news and information company whose stated mission is “providing accurate, nonpartisan impactful information to the right people at the right time,” published two pieces that addressed the topic of US-Russian relations.
The first, which appeared on August 5, was an “open letter” written by Russia policy heavyweights Rose Gottemoeller, Thomas Graham, Fiona Hill, Jon Huntsman Jr., Robert Legvold and Thomas Pickering, and signed on by 97 other prominent policy makers and academics, including George Shultz, William Perry and Sam Nunn. Entitled “It’s Time to Rethink Our Russia Policy”, the letter opined that the current mix of sanctions and diplomacy put forward as policy by the US wasn’t working, and that it was time for Washington to take a new approach toward the “problem” of Vladimir Putin’s Russia.
Six days later, Politico published a response written by 33 other Russian policy specialists, academics and journalists who took umbrage at the letter’s notion. Entitled “No, Now Is Not the Time for Another Russia Reset”, the article instead postulated that a Putin-led Russia represented a threat to American “interests and values” that required “strong pushback” rather than renewed diplomacy. While the authors of this piece acknowledge that “America’s ability to bring about change in Russia might be very limited”, any failure on the part of the US to aggressively push back against “Russia’s repression, kleptocracy and aggression” would fail to incentivize President Putin to the kind of “change” needed before any betterment of relations could occur.
On the surface, the 136 “experts” on US-Russian affairs who either wrote or endorsed these competing opinion pieces appear to have the issue of a US-Russian policy “rethink” covered from all angles. The one thing the authors of both articles have in common, however, is a tendency to view the issue from a US-centric point of view, with little or no regard as to how Russia feels about the concept of any “rethinking”—especially along the lines suggested.
What the supporters of a US-Russian “rethink” and those who oppose it insist on is the idea that Russia would either willingly assume the kind of supine posture any such “rethink” would be predicated on, or that the policy tools used to compel change, built around enhanced economic sanctions, diplomatic isolation and regional push back, would be sufficient to complete the task.
What these so-called “experts” fail to recognize is that the days of an “inferior” Russia aspiring to join the ranks of the “superior” West are gone forever. The image of the “shining city on a hill” that American exceptionalism is built upon no longer inspires as it once did. America’s reputation around the world is on a downward trajectory—in 2016, some 64 percent of the populations of 33 countries surveyed by the Pew Research Center had a favorable impression of the US, in 2020, this had fallen to 53 percent (note: the Pew survey did not include many nations, such as those in the Middle East, where the perception of the US is much lower, and as such represents a upwardly skewed result). The idea that America is the most powerful, influential nation on earth is no longer universally held. Moreover, in Russia only 20 percent have a positive impression of the US—not exactly a vote of confidence.
The American-led “liberal world order” that has dominated the globe since the end of the Second World War is, from the Russian perspective, “obsolete”, and membership of the same is no longer viewed as attractive. Indeed, Russia has eschewed the notion of rejoining the G-8, noting that the G-7 is irrelevant without the presence of global economic powers such as Brazil, China, India and Turkey, and that the G-20 forum—which includes these nations, and more—is a far more suitable one for Russia.
It is not just the world that is rejecting American leadership—its own population has lost faith. A scant 52 percent of Americans embraced the vision of a “shining city on a hill” when President Ronald Reagan gave voice to it in his farewell address in 1989; today some 62 percent believe America no longer serves as an object of emulation for the other nations of the world. The Covid-19 pandemic has exacerbated a brewing socio-economic-political crisis of identity in the US, exposing a fundamentally flawed healthcare system, a labor market operating void of a safety net and race relations that appear to be getting worse, rather than better.
The fixation on the 2016 US Presidential election, and the notion that Russia somehow put its thumb on the electoral scale to enable an otherwise improbable President Donald Trump victory, represents the manifestation of this lack of confidence, as Americans desperately search for someone other than themselves to blame for the failures of its democratic institutions.
Robert Mueller, the Special Prosecutor responsible for the eponymously named report on Russian interference in the aforementioned election, alleged that Russian internet “troll farms” had, at their peak, a monthly budget of $1.25 million for targeted advertising on US social media. This figure was pure allegation, with Facebook stating it found that Russian-affiliated accounts spent a mere $100,000 on advertisements.
In any event, whatever the amount was, the notion that any amount of Russian-derived digital advertising helped sway an election where the major candidates spent in excess of $1 billion dollars on social media-based advertisements is laughable. By way of comparison, Mike Bloomberg spent over $500 million running the most sophisticated advertising campaign in the history of US electoral politics in a losing bid for the 2020 Democratic nomination. That the psyche of the average American voter can be swayed by what he or she reads online is insultingly simplistic; most voters are well informed on the issues of concern to them, know who they want to vote for and why. The last thing they need is online click-bait to tell them what to do.
This reality appears to be lost on those involved in the Russian “reset” debate, where both sides appear to be particularly sensitive to the fragility of American democracy, and desperate to allocate blame for this disturbing truth on a manufactured Russian threat rather than focus on a failing American society.
The foundation of the Russia “reset” debate, whether pro or con, is centered on the restoration of American supremacy, and has little to do with the actual improvement of diplomatic relations. Those who oppose the reset lay out a litany of issues where the US and Russia disagree. In every instance, the issues involved are not discussed on their merits, but rather a zero-sum analysis built around the concept that if it is good for Russia, it is bad for the US. Even the reset proponents seek to restore a Cold War approach toward diplomacy and détente, because this is safe ground built on the premise that the US will once again prevail.
The need to be seen as victorious is, of course, driven by the defensive stance taken by one-time policy professionals whose entire careers were predicated on either the defeat of the Soviet Union or, following its collapse in 1991, the containment of a much-diminished Russia. The notion of an ascendant Russia at a time when the US is on the decline both at home and abroad is simply unacceptable.
For the supporters of a Russian “rethink”, this situation is best accomplished by an engagement that resets US-Russian relations according to a Cold War-era road map. For the anti-reset crowd, the present reality must be avoided at all costs by seeking to compel Russian behavior through the application of Cold War-like pressure built around sanctions and a combination of military and diplomatic pressure.
Even if the American “experts” were able to come to an agreement on how best to proceed vis-à-vis Russia, there is virtually no chance Russia would play along. The main reason for this is that Russia has seen this game played before and is fully cognizant of the cost of doing business with the US in a post-Cold War reality. The debasement of Boris Yeltsin—and by extension, Russia—at the hands of Bill Clinton is a matter of public record, as is the role played by the US in writing Russia’s post-Soviet Constitution and securing Yeltsin’s reelection in 1996.
Russia knows that when the US uses terms like “reset” or “rethink” regarding Russia, it is with a mind to return US-Russian relations to such a status, where Russia lay prostrate at the feet of the US, and Putin did not hold the reins of power.
The former US Ambassador to Russia, Michael McFaul, embraced a vision of the “reset” undertaken by President Obama that was predicated on similar conditions, which is why it failed (McFaul did not sign either letter published by Politico). While the US can engage in an intramural debate about US-Russian policy, Russia will continue to do what it has for the past six years—proceed unencumbered by the baggage of American demands, and increasingly impervious to the threat—and reality—of US sanctions and diplomatic containment.
Scott Ritter is a former US Marine Corps intelligence officer and author of ‘SCORPION KING: America’s Suicidal Embrace of Nuclear Weapons from FDR to Trump.’ He served in the Soviet Union as an inspector implementing the INF Treaty, in General Schwarzkopf’s staff during the Gulf War, and from 1991-1998 as a UN weapons inspector. Follow him on Twitter @RealScottRitter
‘We Have Absolute Proof’ DNC Leaks Were Not Hacked, NSA Whistleblower Says
Sputnik – 12.08.2020
Because the National Security Agency is tapped into data transfer points throughout the United States, via its mass surveillance programmes, if there was any evidence that the DNC servers were hacked then they would have the evidence to prove it, a former technical director at the agency explains.
Documents published by WikiLeaks that belonged to the Democratic National Committee (DNC) could not have been hacked via the internet and must have been initially downloaded from within the US, according to an investigation by members of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS).
Bill Binney, a cryptogropher and former technical director at the US National Security Agency (NSA), blew the whistle on the agency’s mass surveillance programmes after serving with them for 30 years. Mr Binney detailed for Sputnik why the forensic evidence proves that key claims of Russiagate (regarding Russian officials hacking the DNC servers) are a “farce”.
© Photo : Bill Binney
Sputnik: A recent investigation by you and some of your colleagues at Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity determined that the Democratic National Committee documents published by WikiLeaks in 2016 could not have been hacked by actors outside the US and instead had to have been downloaded onto a USB or CD-ROM.
Bill Binney: Yes, that’s right. And we have forensic evidence to prove it.
Sputnik: Could you please break down, for the average layperson, exactly how you came to this conclusion?
Bill Binney: Well, we did it by looking at the published DNC emails by WikiLeaks. In other words, the original assertion was that the DNC data was hacked externally, from Russia or by the Russians in Europe or something, and then transferred to WikiLeaks to publish so they could influence the election.
We looked at the DNC emails that were documented by WikiLeaks on the web. And that came down in three groups. One came down on 23rd of May 2016 and the other 25th of May 2016 and then one on the 26th of August of 2016. All of those three batches of emails had last modified times ending in an even number and even second, rounding up to the second, not including milliseconds. So, that meant to us that that was the property of the FAT (file allocation table) format. It’s a programme that when you read data to a thumb drive or CD ROM, and the programme indexes stuff on the [CD] and the thumb drive, for example, it then also rounds off the last modified time to an even number. That tells us very simply that there is 35,813 emails, all with the same property FAT file formatting saying that hey this was read [ie downloaded] to a thumb drive or a CD ROM before WikiLeaks got it to publish. Which meant it was physically transported to WikiLeaks. So, for us, that meant it was not a hack. Period.
We also had [CEO of cyber security firm Crowdstrike] Shawn Henry give testimony, I think it was the 7th of January of 2017, the secret testimony that just came out, where he said ‘we had indications that the data was exfiltrated, but we didn’t see the data exfiltrated’. Well, the indications that it was [exfiltrated], is this a FAT file format, to my mind. I mean, Shawn Henry never said specifically why his people were saying that. So for us, the only thing he could be [basing] it on what was last modified time.
Sputnik: So, just to be clear, when information is downloaded onto a CD roam or thumb drive, you’re saying that there’s a particular process, which means that, the last modified time will be recorded in such a way onto those files that is different than if those files were hacked and taken from a server across international boundaries or across a very long distance.
Bill Binney: Right. And we had provided all this data to the courts. Also we’ve included the Podesta emails, which show how a hack could occur and what the last modified times looked like. And that’s a, that’s also published by WikiLeaks, I think on the 21st of September [2016], that’s the date for that, that they put it out there. And the modified times of those files… close to 10,000 of them I think, run through even and odd numbers and various times, including milliseconds, things of that nature. So all that stuff, all that data, we provided to several courts, and several sets of lawyers to introduce as evidence in court and we were prepared to testify to that in court.
Sputnik: And is it not possible for the last modified time to be changed somehow or modified itself?
Bill Binney: Sure, but I don’t know of a programme that does, other than FAT, I mean, keeping in mind, you’re talking about 35,813 files. If you want to change them, you can go in and do them individually one at a time. I don’t know of any other programme that does it automatically, which is what what’s happened here, because it’s just a straightforward consistency. Humans make errors. If they go in and do something like that, they’ll make errors somewhere in the files. We didn’t see any errors at all. So that’s a program doing [it].
Sputnik: How many people from VIPs would you say were involved in this investigation that you conducted?
Bill Binney: Probably about six and a couple of auxiliaries, as we call them, in the UK cooperating with us. And we had a couple other people from outside VIPS helping us because they were also interested in getting to it too. Also, people who retired from commercial companies, running fiber lines and things like that.
Sputnik: If you were still working at the NSA and you were tasked to investigate an alleged hack would you have additional technical resources if you worked for the government, then if you’re doing it independently?
Bill Binney: Yeah, absolutely. This is one of the reasons why I started in August of 2016 saying that this entire Russiagate story was a farce. And that basically came out by knowing the capacity of NSA. The capabilities of them being able to capture stuff on the web. I mean, [the NSA] have over almost a hundred tap points inside the United States, all loaded up with fiber optic lines… You know, it can take everything off those lines and capture it. [A]nd that was true across the US as well as all the external points exiting and entering where you exit and enter the US.
And you’ll notice that NSA never said they saw any of the data transferring anywhere on any line. And that’s because it didn’t, it went on a thumb drive, you know, that’s the difference. That was one of the main reasons I said that this was not a hack. Because if it was NSA would have it. Like they did when the Chinese hacked one of the places over here in the US about six years ago. The government said, the hack came from this building in Shanghai.
Sputnik: And is there any kind of a practical or legal consideration as to why the NSA can’t publish its findings regarding the DNC servers?
Bill Binney: Actually, there isn’t, if the president approves, I mean, he can declassify anything he wants.
Sputnik: So where do you go from here? Is there more to investigate in relation to this subject or is this the end of the matter for you?
Bill Binney: As far as I’m concerned, we have absolute proof that this whole thing […] Russiagate, is a fabrication. It was a fabrication of the FBI, CIA and the DOJ primarily, but also included the State Department and [Department for Homeland Security] and a number of other departments.
Sputnik: There are those that argue Julian Assange will have a fair trial in the US should he be extradited. What can you tell us about the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, where Mr Assange would be tried?
Bill Binney: That’s a court that’s pro CIA because it’s in that jurisdiction of CIA. This is why they picked that court because it’s pro CIA and whatever national security issues come up, they will always go with that national security. So, you have a prejudiced judge in a court to begin with.
Sputnik: Would there be a jury with 12 men and women?
Bill Binney: Pulled from the area and most of them work for the government. So, you know, you just look at it. I mean, that should be a disqualifier as a jury from my point of view. But also think of it this way: Julian Assange published data he was given. So has the New York Times, The Guardian, all the major publications, the Washington Post, they’ve all done that. So why aren’t they being charged also?
Sputnik: Well, the US government is claiming that the first amendment does not apply to foreign journalists.
Bill Binney: Well then why don’t they go after The Guardian ?
Sputnik: Maybe they’re next?
Bill Binney: [I]f you accept their premise – of the US government – that means that any journalist anywhere in the world, publishing any article that exposes crimes by the US government, the US government can charge them with conspiracy to violate national security. So, every reporter in the world is now liable based on that [premise].
This interview has been edited for concision and clarity
US concerned about Serbia’s intention to buy Chinese weapons
By Paul Antonopoulos | August 12, 2020
Belgrade’s announcement that it may purchase the Chinese FK-3 anti-aircraft missile system was enough for the U.S. to express concern about Serbia’s future, not only with Europe, but with the entire world.
The U.S. Embassy in Belgrade said that “procuring military and defense equipment is a sovereign decision. However, governments should understand the short- and long-term risks and costs involved in doing business with Chinese companies. Procurement choices should reflect Serbia’s stated policy goal of greater European integration. Alternative vendors which are not beholden to authoritarian regimes offer equipment that is both capable of meeting Serbia’s defense need and comparable in quality and cost.”
Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić hit back, saying “Whenever we decide to buy something, somebody has something against it,” and emphasized that the FK-3 system was not on the U.S. sanctions list against China.
The U.S. Embassy’s statement gives the impression that Washington has a deep concern about Serbia’s future strategic interests and alliances, so much so that it warned Belgrade on its path towards the European Union even though the U.S. has no influence over Brussels in this regard. Of course Washington has no concern for Serbia’s interests after it sustained crippling sanctions on the Balkan country, recognizes Kosovo as an independent state, ensured that the Republika Srpska is attached to Bosnia and Herzegovina without option to reunite with Serbia, and led a deadly bombing campaign that destroyed Serbian infrastructure and killed thousands of civilians in 1999.
Washington is afraid of cheaper and better-quality weapons that Serbia can procure from both China and Russia. The Americans are also frustrated that Serbia has not become a state dependent on U.S. patronage despite decades of aggression and pressure. Effectively, Washington is continuing a campaign to limit Serbia’s independent and strategic interests. It is recalled that Washington threatened Belgrade with sanctions and indirect threats when Serbia purchased the Russian Pantsir missile system and trained with the S-400 missile defense system.
A NATO official who spoke on condition of anonymity, according to Defense News, said that “defense procurement is a national decision. Serbia has the right to freely choose its political and security arrangements. NATO and Serbia are close partners and we are committed to strengthening our partnership with Serbia, while fully respecting its policy of neutrality.”
Although both NATO and the U.S. Embassy in Belgrade emphasized that they respect Serbia’s sovereign decision, Washington does not truly respect Serbia’s policy of neutrality, which is why it makes continuous threats of sanctions and indirect warnings that Belgrade is becoming too close to Moscow and Beijing. Serbian political scientist Aleksandar Pavić argues that Washington expects Serbia to buy weapons from countries that have recognized Kosovo’s independence, and that this is Belgrade’s fault as they have purchased weapons from France, and even expressed the possibility of buying some American bombers, despite both countries recognizing Kosovo’s independence.
Although Serbia is attempting to maintain a policy of neutrality, so much so that it even considers buying weapons from the U.S., the reality is that such a policy is impossible. The best Belgrade can hope for is to enact a policy of balancing the Great Powers by strengthening relations with those who support Serbia’s sovereignty and independence, and maintaining friendly posture but distance with those who still support an independent Kosovo. By Serbia buying French military equipment, despite its recognition of an independent Kosovo, and entertaining the idea of buying American bombers, Belgrade is sending mixed messages to its international partners that it can overlook the Kosovo issue. By maintaining such a policy, Belgrade is giving Washington enough leeway to comment and attempt to push Serbia away from China and Russia. Having a stronger policy against those who recognize Kosovo’s independence will give Belgrade a much clearer foreign policy and will force Washington to approach Serbia differently.
None-the-less, by discouraging Belgrade from the idea of buying Chinese weapons, Serbia will likely continue to buy Chinese weapons, and with even stronger intensity. Although Serbia will always prioritize its relations with China and Russia over those who weakened it and recognized Kosovo’s independence, Belgrade should now show this more strongly by ending its policy of neutrality as the West is not neutral towards Serbia.
As the Balkans is heating up again as a place of conflict, Serbia cannot be neutral as much as it attempts to do so. This does not mean that it should have openly hostile relations with the U.S. and other Western States, but because Serbia refuses to sever its deep relations with China and Russia, Serbian interests will always be sidelined when it comes to Western ambitions in the Balkans. Under these conditions, Belgrade should take a stronger position and be unafraid to highlight that their interests do not align with those that the West has for the Balkans.
Paul Antonopoulos is an independent geopolitical analyst.
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From the Archives
The Great Recycling Scam
By Dr. Vernon Coleman – 21st Century Wire – September 2, 2022
Recycling was introduced, worldwide, as a tool to teach citizens to become compliant.
Forcing citizens to sort their rubbish into up to nine separate bags or boxes every week had absolutely nothing to do with ‘saving the planet’ and everything to do with teaching citizens (through a mixture of fines and shame) to behave ‘responsibly’ i.e. to do as they were told without looking too closely at the rationale of what they were being told to do.
The recycling never had anything to do with protecting the planet, of course. Most of the rubbish sorted, washed and collected in the UK was taken abroad, by lorry or ship or train, and burnt or dumped. It was, quite simply, impractical and not cost effective to recycle the material that had been collected. And, of course, collecting the sorted rubbish involved massive costs in terms of cash and pollution.
Today, the recycling business has reached an apogee of lunacy. Councils introduce ever more complex rules and fees. They refuse to take away much of the waste that is collected. And those wanting to take their rubbish to a ‘recycling’ centre will probably have to make an appointment and answer a host of questions.
It is no surprise that fly-tipping has become a major problem. The biggest causes of plastic in the sea are dumped fishing gear and plastic waste (much of it officially designated as recycled) which has been dumped by ships.
The good news, however, is that in Britain, recycling rates are falling. More and more people have become aware that the whole recycling movement was just another piece of manipulative trickery.
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